The Pursuit of Pearls Read Online Free Page A

link in the shadowy chain that stretched across Europe, passing news of the Nazis to her contacts in Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, learning from Leo the tradecraft and secrets of a spy’s life.
    And in the process she had fallen in love with him.
    At the thought of Leo, sadness swelled and images of their last two weeks together flared in her brain. They had spent the time enveloped in each other, driving a borrowed car out to the lakes and plunging into the chill water, slippery fronds beneath their feet. Making love in a bedroom, the morning light spangled across his face. Walking in the forest, beneath the shifting leaves. Talking about the future, and Leo’s longing that she should leave Berlin for the safety of England. She thought of his fingertips tracing her face as though committing it to memory. Holding her so tightly she could feel the blood pulse through him, his mouth on hers and his arms encircling her as though he would never let her go.
    And yet he had let her go. Without a second’s hesitation.
    It happened quite abruptly one morning. He had received a message the previous night, requesting that he return to work in London without delay. Clara didn’t even know what Leo’s job entailed—only that it was something to do with encrypted communications and that he was based in a London office block somewhere near Oxford Street but also made frequent trips abroad. Yet as soon as he had told her, he was knotting his tie and glancing at his watch. Then he pulled on his jacket, gave one last look back, and headed out of the door.
    That was six long months ago, and she had not heard a word from him since. Not so much as a postcard.
    Where are you, Leo?
    The questions ran through her head like beads on a rosary
.
    Most evenings after she had finished at the studio, she would have a solitary supper and bury herself in the latest novel her sister had sent from Hatchards bookshop in London
.
Occasionally she would be dragged out by friends, and other times she took Erich to the cinema or a meal. At night she might stretch out a hand across the satin counterpane to where Leo had been, but more often she fell asleep the moment she climbed into bed, exhausted by the constant busyness she had adopted to keep thoughts of him at bay.
    Yet increasingly a mutinous anxiety arose in her, one that she tried and failed to suppress. Why had Leo not been in touch? For someone whose work involved communication, it seemed ironic that he had failed entirely to communicate with her. Agents learned to compress their words into codes, but what code did silence contain?
    On one side of the room a gigantic rococo mirror was angled to reflect a photograph of Ursula on the opposite wall, an icy peroxide fantasy swathed in fur. Gazing into the mirror, Clara tried to see what Leo saw.
    He had always said she had a face that was easily able to conceal her feelings, or to project other emotions entirely. The glossy, dark hair with its russet streaks had been cut short for her current film role, and the effect was to frame her face more closely, emphasizing the widely spaced blue eyes with the brows high and thinly plucked, in the current fashion. Her sleek dress, flatteringly nipped in at the waist, gave her an air of self-assurance, even if it was worn in patches and the cuff was starting to fray.
    Yet that self-assurance, like her identity itself, was a lie. The document she carried in her bag at all times, certifying that Clara Helene Vine was a full member of the Aryan race, disguised the fact that she was, in Nazi terms, a
Mischling,
with a Jewish mother and grandmother, who under the strict race laws now in place could not marry a gentile, work for one, or even sleep with one without the threat of imprisonment.
    At the thought of it, she pulled out her Max Factor compact, dabbed a little powder on, ran a layer of Elizabeth Arden’s Velvet Red round her lips, and gave a defiant smile. If she was going to present a false face to