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opened it and brought out a large envelope. She closed the case and, rising again, handed the envelope to Griffiths. He switched on his pocket torch and scanned first the envelope and then the documents it contained: a typed letter on BBC notepaper, two khaki-coloured employment cards and a travel pass.
    â€˜Well,’ Griff said, ‘if you are a German spy they’ve done a damned good job of forging the stationery. What do you think, Danny?’
    â€˜Looks okay tae me.’
    â€˜I’m not a spy,’ the woman said. ‘I’m a British citizen. Do you wish to see my identity card too?’
    â€˜Where’s your gas mask?’
    â€˜In my case.’
    Griff brought up the letter, held it close to his nose and poked the torch beam almost into the paper.
    â€˜There’s an address where I’m to be lodged; a house in Deaconsfield, wherever that is,’ the woman said. ‘I’ll find my own way there if you’ll point me in the right direction.’
    Griff peered at the letter again and laughed. ‘We can do better than that, Miss Cottrell. We can take you there.’ He flapped the letter in Danny’s direction. ‘Guess what, old boy: she’s landed a billet with the Pells.’
    â€˜You’re kiddin’.’
    â€˜I’m not.’
    â€˜I wonder if Mrs Pell’s been informed,’ said Danny.
    â€˜If she hasn’t,’ Griff said, ‘she’s in for a big surprise.’
    The previous August, with war inevitable, Broadcasting House had been scoured of more than half its personnel. Twenty-two variety artists and an orchestra had been packed off to the Bristol studio, others sent to Manchester or Bangor or as far afield as Glasgow. But the BBC governors had failed to foresee that imminent invasion would not be so imminent after all and that the great British public, egged on by irascible newspaper columnists, would swiftly become bored with a dreary diet of news bulletins and organ recitals and demand more and better entertainment from the wireless.
    By the beginning of the year, the first full year of war, the balance of programming had been adjusted and the listening public largely appeased.
    Appeasing a government reluctant to communicate was another, less public matter and a need to disseminate information while giving nothing away had become a thorn in the flesh of the BBC’s policy-makers. High-level, closed-door arguments as to what constituted reasonable comment as opposed to flagrant propaganda came down as mere whispers to the rank and file, however, and even Basil Willets wasn’t privy to all the issues at stake.
    Mr Willets was small, sharp-featured and, though not yet fifty, almost, if not quite, bald. Appearances could be deceiving, however; he was not afraid to take the initiative when all around were dithering, an approach that served him well when it came to getting his own way.
    Mr Willets’s office was situated off the corridor that surrounded the studios on the third floor of the tower. As offices went it was fairly spacious and held not only Mr Willets’s desk but, unusually, a small, almost child-sized desk for his assistant, Susan Hooper.
    Carrying her shorthand notebooks, Susan followed Mr Willets into the room. A nervous young civil servant from an unspecified ministry trailed after them and, while Susan busied herself at her desk, exchanged a few words with the producer before he was shown the door.
    â€˜Fool!’ Mr Willets said, sighing. ‘If he supposes for one moment I’m going to take heed of anything that originates with his ministry he’d better think again.’ He looked up. ‘You didn’t hear me say that, Miss Hooper, did you?’
    â€˜Say what, sir?’ said Susan.
    Mr Willets uttered a wry little snort that was his substitute for laughter and lowered himself on to the upright chair behind his desk.
    â€˜Do you wish me to type up the minutes,