A Beacon in the Night

Book 2: Secret Churchill Files

by David Lewis

Genres: World War II; Historical Thrillers

Synopsis

Like a female James Bond but with better one-liners, an unflappable British spy works alongside her aristocratic partner to root out homegrown Nazi collaborators in this riveting, action-packed WWII caper for fans of Jacqueline Winspear, Susan Elia Macneal, and Charles Todd.

London, 1941. Britain has endured the relentless bombing campaign of the Blitz and emerged, scarred but unbroken. Caitrin, too, strives to weather each challenge that comes her way, though her ever-ready banter belies deep heartbreak and loss.

But now the war has entered another phase. Instead of indiscriminate bombing, the Luftwaffe is pinpointing historic targets, including cathedrals and ancestral homes, with the help of homing beacons placed by the enemy. It’s as if Germany plans to erase Britain’s very essence and culture, destroying morale as it does so. 

Caitrin is no fan of the landed gentry, even if her fellow operative and friend, Lord Hector Neville-Percy, is one of them. But soon it is not just historical targets under attack, but hospitals and nursing homes too. Tasked with rooting out the saboteurs placing the beacons, she finds that all roads lead to Daniel “Teddy” Baer, a charismatic Whitechapel crook with high aspirations and zero scruples. He will crush anyone who interferes with his dreams—Caitrin included.

As a member of the female-driven 512 counterespionage unit, Caitrin understands how often women are underestimated and overlooked—and how to use it to her advantage. But she is not the only one who knows how to hide in plain sight, how to outwit and effortlessly manipulate. And sometimes, as with a beacon hidden deep within a building, danger only becomes apparent when it flares to life, right before the moment of impact . . .

Release date: June 24, 2025

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

Caitrin Colline stepped out of her taxi into a ruined city. There were no streetlights, and the buildings were blackened shells. This part of London, Whitechapel, was damp and burnt and smelled of dead, half-buried things. She shivered, pulled up her coat collar and asked, “Is this it?”

“No, luv, but I can’t drive any farther,” the cab driver said, pointing through the windscreen.

The taxi had a single, shuttered headlamp that cast a feeble beam, barely enough for Caitrin to see a bomb crater gouged into the road. Next to it a milk float lay on its side with broken bottles scattered in a congealing gray-white puddle.

“The Blind Stag pub is on the other side of the bomb crater,” he said.

“Thank you. I see it.”

“You’re still thinking of going there? Alone.”

“I promised I would.”

“All right, miss, have it your own way. Happy new year to you.”

“You too. Better than this one, for both of us.” Caitrin walked into the darkness as the cab turned and left. She did not want to be in Whitechapel on New Year’s Eve, but Florence’s invitation was insistent. They were once policewomen sharing an East End beat, until Florence resigned, saying she was not meant to be a copper. Neither was Caitrin; authority and regulations bothered her, and she left the force a few months later.

Bombing had been especially heavy the last few nights, and there were no pedestrians or traffic, only silence broken by Caitrin’s shoes on glass shards. If the air in all of London smelled burnt, the ubiquitous sound was of broken glass crunching underfoot. She stopped. Across the road was the Blind Stag pub. It was the only building standing in the street and looked derelict: a blackened fang jutting out of a blasted landscape. The windows were boarded up, and there was no light or sound. A light rain fell. She hesitated and crossed the street. A figure broke from the shadows to block her as she approached the door.

“And now where do you think you’re going, sweetheart?” a broad-shouldered man said with a bad Humphrey Bogart accent.

“I was invited to a party at the Blind Stag, but it’s—”

“Who invited you?”

“Florence Simmonds.”

The man rapped on the door; it opened, and he called out, “Another one of Florence’s popsies.”

She stifled a cutting reply and entered, pushing through a blackout curtain.

And encountered a different world.

The pub was crowded, but sound struck her first: dozens of voices, loud, laughing; the chime of glasses and a piano somewhere in the smoky distance playing American swing. Oil lamps hanging over the crowded bar and candles burning on every table made the pub a coppered tableau, with the tawny edges and deep shadows of an oil painting by some old master.

“Cat!” Florence called out as she shouldered her way through the throng toward her. “What a sight for sore eyes. You’re my only bit of moral support, because I don’t know anybody here. I’m so glad you came.”

“Me too, Florence,” Caitrin lied. She had not seen or spoken to Florence for almost two years and noticed she was thinner, and the spots of rouge on her cheeks had been unartfully applied. “What the dickens are you doing in Whitechapel?”

“Me?” Florence appeared to be startled by the question, a little girl caught being naughty. She recovered. “Didn’t mean to be, but I fell in love.”

“And who is the lucky man?”

“It’ll be a surprise. Do you want to meet him?”

“Of course I do.”

Florence’s face tightened, and she whispered, “He doesn’t know that you and I used to be in the police force, so don’t say anything, all right? He doesn’t like coppers.”

“I understand, and mum’s the word.”

“I’ll go get him,” she said and hurried away.

A strange night became stranger when Florence returned with the man she loved. Caitrin recognized him, or at least remembered reading his police record: Daniel “Teddy” Baer.

“Cat, this is my fiancé, Teddy. Teddy, this is my best friend Caitrin,” Florence said as she slipped her arm through his.

Caitrin ignored the best friend lie and shook hands with Teddy Baer. She remembered parts of his record. Teddy was the son of immigrant Polish Jews who lived on the west side of Myrdle Street in Whitechapel, facing the immigrant Irish on the east. Naturally, he joined one of the gangs that fought each other, but after the first arrest, he was rarely detained again. Teddy was a smart one, with hair blond enough to make an Aryan envious, and there was a tensile strength to him, as though a much larger man had been compressed to fit in his frame. And no matter how hard Florence clung to his arm and stared lovingly at him, his expression made it clear he was not her fiancé.

“Hello, Caitrin. You’re not one of those fur coat and no knickers girls, are you?” he said.

“Why, is that all you’re used to?” Caitrin replied as she made an instant mental shift. Teddy was probing, finding her outline so he could fit her into his world. Friend or foe, strong or weak, smart or stupid. He kept his head angled to one side, and she knew why. He was shrewd, charming, and handsome in a way, except for the long red cicatrice of a razor scar down his left cheek. There was a rumor Teddy got striped when he crossed the five Messina brothers, but they ran prostitutes in Soho and Bond Street, and that wasn’t his line of work. Those who knew the streets said it was probably Billy Hill from the Camden mob trying to expand his turf. Billy had a reputation for being adroit with a blade, but Caitrin guessed it wasn’t him because he was still alive. Teddy was a man who followed his own path. And of all the men in London, what the hell was Florence doing with him?

Teddy took a half step back and inventoried her. Mid-twenties, slim, but by no means thin, a wild mass of red curls, and a confident expression. He pointed to her slacks. “Nice pair of bow-wowsers. Not a lavender lass, I hope? Not going to be competition, are we?”

“Only if you’re not man enough to make a woman happy, Teddy.”

“We’ve a right tiger here.” He laughed and nudged Florence. “Get your friend a drink. What’ll you have?”

“Whisky, please.”

“Irish, American, or Scotch?”

“The Irish and Yanks don’t make whisky. A dash of water too.”

He laughed again, and this time it was genuine. She could not help but like him. Most gangsters were dim bulbs with no idea of a future or horizon past the end of their noses. They lived on impulse and violence, and most died young the same way. Not Teddy Baer.

“You a copper like Florence used to be?”

So much for him not knowing Florence’s background. “No, not anymore.”

“Gave it all up to fight for king and country, did you? The honor and the glory?”

“No, because pounding the beat was killing my feet.” She knew you could serve Teddy honor and glory on a gold platter and he’d sweep them aside—and make off with the gold platter before they hit the ground.

“What do you do, then?”

“A bit of this and that.”

“Sounds like we’re in the same line of work.”

Florence returned with Caitrin’s whisky. To Teddy’s admiration, she downed it in one swallow. “Attagirl. Get her another one.”

Obedient, Florence went back to the bar.

“I have to take care of a bit of this and that in the back room. You’ll understand. We can talk more later.” He left her standing alone.

Florence returned and gave her the whisky. “It’s going to be a good year, isn’t it?”

“Couldn’t be worse than the last one.” She moved closer to Florence. “What are you doing here, and with him of all people, Florence? You know what he is.”

“He’s kind to me, Cat, Teddy’s not what everyone says. We’ve got a flat on Cromwell Street done up just the way I like. He doesn’t want me to work, maybe a spot of volunteering now and then, as long as I’m always there when he gets home.”

Poor Florence, always trying to run away from herself. “Does he hit you?”

“No.” The answer was too swift to be honest.

“Florence, go home to your mum.”

“I can’t because she’s dead,” Florence said. “A bomb dropped on her house. Months ago.”

“Then—”

“Teddy needs me. I’ve got to go, sorry.” Florence hurried away, Caitrin swallowed the second whisky, and went to the bar for another. Enough of this year. Bring on 1941.

Caitrin made up her mind and put down her drink. She had fulfilled her obligation as a friend to Florence, and now it was time to leave. The Blind Stag was growing noisier and smokier, the celebrants drunker, and the thought of being dismissed as one of Florence’s popsies was irritating. Had she been invited just to fill out the ranks of friendly females? No matter, it was time for this popsy to go home.

“Are you dancing?” a man said from close behind her.

She turned to face a boy in an RAF uniform. “No, I’m just standing funny.”

His mouth opened, but he said nothing. He wasn’t a boy, but a young man about her age. He had RAF pilot wings on his left breast, but he wasn’t British. The eagle badge on his shoulder showed he was American.

“I have a question. Why do Americans, when they’re out and about in London, all have that same bemused expression? As though they had wandered into a zoo by mistake to find strange, unknown creatures.”

“I haven’t seen anyone like you in a zoo.”

“Because I don’t like being caged, that’s why.” The whisky was making her bold. “How the hell did you end up here?”

“We’re a neutral country, and I’m not allowed to enlist directly in a foreign military, so I slipped over the border into Canada—”

“Not that bit. I meant how did you end up in the Blind Stag with all the Whitechapel spivs and their painted popsies?”

“My pals got an invitation, and I came along for the ride,” he said and gestured to two other Americans behind him being cornered by a trio of giggling girls. Lambs to the slaughter.

“Goldilocks Yanks,” she said and pointed to his friends. “That one’s too tall, that one’s too broad, and—”

“I’m just right.”

“Or you could be one of the three bears.”

“Let me buy you a drink.”

“I’ll get it. What are you having?”

“Same as you.”

“There’s no ice. Ever since the Titanic went down, the British view ice with justifiable suspicion.” She tapped her glass, held up two fingers to the barman and decided not to tease anymore. After all, this handsome man had come a very long way to save the British Empire. “Caitrin.”

“What?”

“Caitrin’s my name. What’s yours?”

“Maxwell.”

“From an august American family, no doubt. Maxwell Dupont or Rockefeller?”

“I was named after coffee,” he said with an impish grin, and her heart quickened. He could keep up with her. The evening was not over. Maybe it was just starting.

“Please carry on.”

“In 1862, Colonel John Overton opened a—”

“Is this a tall tale? ‘There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.’ ”

“ ‘I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary.’ Huckleberry Finn.”

“Well done.”

“Well done you. Can I finish my tale?”

She put a finger to her lips. “Not another word.”

“Colonel Overton opened a hotel in Nashville and called it Maxwell House after his wife.”

“His wife was named house? Sorry, I really will shut up.”

“Teddy Roosevelt stayed there once and tried their coffee. He said it was good to the last drop, so they called it Maxwell House coffee. Mom liked the coffee, and the name, so I’m Maxwell.”

“Thank God for you she didn’t like Spam.”

“Enough of the foodstuffs.” He took her hand before she could reply and led her toward the dance floor, a space made by clearing away a few tables near the piano. He wasn’t a good dancer, but it didn’t matter because pressed in with the other couples there was little room to move, let alone dance. It felt good to be held by a man, the close heat, her hand in his, and she liked that he wasn’t shy about eye contact.

“I never finish a dance with a man unless I know his full name.”

“Evarts,” he said.

“What kind of name is that?”

“Welsh.”

“No, it’s not.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’m Welsh, and Evarts isn’t.”

“My grandfather came from Dolgellau.”

“Full marks, you pronounced it properly.”

“He taught me. At Ellis Island he was one of thousands. They asked for his name and he said Evans, but with all the noise, the immigration officer didn’t understand his accent and wrote down Evarts.”

“Doomed to be forever an Evarts, Maxwell.”

“Max, please.”

She stopped dancing and glanced at her watch. An hour and a half left to 1940 that she decided would not be wasted in the Blind Stag. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“The Elephant and Castle.”

“The zoo?”

“No, Max Evans Evarts. But we’ll need a taxi.”

“Not this side of the new year, you won’t,” Teddy said as he appeared behind his experienced smile. “Large Eric, the doorman, will take you. Leave now because the weather’s clearing, and that means Jerry’s going to turn up with fireworks.”

“Thanks,” Caitrin said. “Where’s Florence?”

“Too much champagne. Nice meeting you, Caitrin. Hope we can do a bit of this and that together one day.” He put out his hand. She took it, and he pressed something into her palm, a condom. “Don’t want you getting into trouble now, do we? Happy new year to you both.”

“Happy new year to you.”

“One be enough?”

She shrugged. “It’ll see the year out.”

Large Eric was waiting behind the wheel of a CHORLTON’S BAKERY, BREAD & CAKES van with ARP painted in clumsy white letters over the sign on the side. He wore a tin helmet and an ARP armband on his left sleeve and said nothing as he drove them to Mrs. Bardwell’s house on Radley Street in the Elephant and Castle. Only once they were out of the van did he speak. “You do know the Elephant and Castle’s an aiming point for the Germans to bomb the docks. They drop marker flares and incendiaries.”

“I know. That’s why all the houses around here are burnt out or flattened,” Caitrin said. “Thanks for the lift.”

He gave a half-salute and drove away.

“He sounded a bit like Humphrey Bogart,” Max said.

“My landlady, Mrs. Bardwell, is visiting her sister Elsie in Dorset. I’m on the first floor—that’s the American second.” Caitrin looked up. The sky was clear, and a distant siren moaned into life. ”Blitz soon.”

“Shouldn’t we be in a shelter?”

She stepped closer and kissed him. “We could hide down in the Tube station, no privacy and all jammed together on the platform. No toilets or water down there, so it gets rather gamey after a bit. If you like animals, the fleas and lice can be—”

“First floor,” he said and kissed her back.

“We could be dead by morning, so we have to cram a life of experiences into a moment and damn the rules.” Another siren wailed, closer. Max reacted to the sound; she didn’t, except to say, “Blitz soon.”

Inside, they kept the lights off, undressed, and slipped into bed. A droning, at first only a whisper, grew louder as the first wave of bombers approached. In complete darkness, Caitrin reached out a hand to find Max, and—

“Ow!”

—poked him in the eye. “Sorry, sorry!”

“It’s all right, I have another one.”

“Let me kiss it better.” Caitrin pulled him closer. “Come here, tell me where it hurts, and I’ll kiss it all better.”

Bombs fell near the river, and antiaircraft guns barked defiance. A fire engine hurried by, its bell clanging; incendiaries flared at the end of the street; and in the distance, a parachute land mine exploded and made the building tremble. Shell splinters rattled down the roof as a second bomber wave growled overhead.

Luftwaffe Hauptmann Karl Trautloft, in the second wave, preferred to work at night: the city streets were empty, the darkness hid most signs of life, and enemy defense systems were feeble. Witnessing the carnage his bombs had created in the low-level daylight assault on Guernica disturbed him, but Karl could be relied on to get the job done, if he flew at night. His Heinkel 111, named Lotta after his mother, always got through to the target; there were never mysterious or unexplained mechanical issues that forced it home early. Karl loved his Heinkel almost as much as he loved his mother. It was a stable machine to fly, but not without faults. The Junkers Jumo engine exhausts were close to the cockpit, and headsets did little to silence the deafening roar. The nose was made almost entirely of perspex, and there was no floor, so the crew could look directly down at the land below. Many aircrew disliked the cockpit because they felt exposed and vulnerable. But not Karl.

This would be a different attack. The X-Gerät radio navigation beams had guided the aircraft from France to London, but on the ground a new beacon, Lighthouse (Leuchturm), would pinpoint a particular target. As the main force turned right above the Elephant and Castle toward the London Docks, Karl continued straight and heard the first beacon tones in his headset. It was a faint warbling sound that grew stronger and became a single-pitched tone. Ernst, the bomb-aimer lying prone at his feet, heard the steady tone too, and, at the right moment, triggered the bomb release. The incendiaries struck the fifteenth-century Guildhall; the hammer-beam ceiling caught fire, and the blaze consumed the building. Karl banked hard for home, his work done. The Lighthouse homing beacon, placed earlier on the Guildhall roof by a brave, anonymous German saboteur, had shown the way with great accuracy, while Lotta had carried him through another successful flight.

The night’s fire-raid would become known as the second Great Fire of London. January 1, 1941, the dawn of a new year, and London was burning again.

Winston Churchill had once described Mrs. Bethany Goodman as “a small, middle-aged woman who could climb up and down Kilimanjaro in the morning, have tea with the Queen, and go back and climb the mountain again in the afternoon, with not a hair out of place.” Caitrin thought it was a fair description of the woman and wondered what Winston would say about her being a mother superior. Bethany ran 512, an all-female counterespionage unit that was unknown to most people in government circles. As Bethany explained, “Women are either ignored or invisible in our society, which makes them ideal secret operatives.” Their headquarters and training facilities at Langland Priory, a secluded country house outside London, was ostensibly a church-run home for unwed mothers. To maintain the subterfuge, staff dressed as nuns for visitors or when they left the grounds, while trainees were young women showing “pregnant” with the aid of a cushion. Caitrin was one of her first and best recruits.

Bethany and Caitrin walked through a woods behind the house. Neither spoke for a while, until Caitrin said, “Whenever I see you in that habit, I have an urge to ask for confession, or at least to light a candle and feel guilty.”

“While I constantly fight the urge to say, ‘Bless you, my child’ to the milkman. My husband, if he were alive, would be in hysterics to see me in this outfit. Tell me, how is your young American?”

“Max is fine. It’s hard to see each other sometimes.”

“Flying Hurricanes, right?”

“Yes. He spent months waiting for the RAF to work out what to do with their American volunteers. They created Eagle Squadrons, and he’s the old man at twenty-six. Why am I here?”

“Always direct. You are here because I am concerned about our survival. We exist on anonymity and a shoestring budget, which lays us open to being swallowed up by a larger, predominantly male organization. You know of Admiral Canaris.”

“He is head of the Abwehr intelligence network and, I’m told, a man who loves his dachshunds.”

“Yes, he does. I’ve heard that when he’s away, he calls home daily for a report on their welfare. Gets depressed if they’re not well. He is also probably the only man in Hitler’s circle who is not a Nazi. Canaris had hundreds of spies, some deep undercover, throughout Britain, but MI5, when they’re not tripping over their own laces, along with Scotland Yard and 512, rounded up most of them. It wasn’t very difficult. The few we did miss were so incredibly awkward they almost arrested themselves. Canaris sent one spy to Ireland; he promptly got lost, and the IRA stole all his money, so he gave himself up. In a way, we might have worked ourselves out of a job.”

“So what’s next? Merge with MI5?”

“MI5 are rather amateurish. There are rumors we might be asked to join forces with another agency, but I will not agree if it means fetching tea for the men or typing letters. We women have worked too hard to go backwards now. I received a request from Royal Navy Intelligence and would like you to go to a meeting at the Admiralty.”

“Why me?”

“Because you are never impressed with authority,” she said and grinned. “And the Royal Navy won’t know how to deal with you. Will you go?”

Caitrin flashed a wicked grin. “Yes, Holy Mother.”

“Bless you, my child,” Bethany replied, with a beatific smile.

At the Admiralty, Caitrin was led down endless echoing corridors and into a small office. The door closed behind her, and there she stood, ignored by a man sitting at a desk. He was reading a dossier and puffing at a briar pipe. Caitrin detested pipes; the smoke constricted her lungs. She silently counted to five before saying, in a loud and clear voice, “I am not a coat rack, nor am I invisible. But I am good at leaving. Watch, and enjoy my absence.”

He looked up, startled, and shot to his feet as she turned to leave. He was tall and wore a tailored Naval Commander’s uniform. “I’m awfully sorry. Your report was so engrossing I was lost to the world. Forgive me and please do sit down.”

Caitrin sat, immediately disliking him because the accent in those few words revealed his background. He was undoubtedly the scion of an old family, which made his progress inevitable in whatever profession he chose. It was a charmed and secure life from birth, complete with an education at Eton or Harrow. In school, it didn’t matter if he were less than diligent in his studies; in fact, it was better not to appear too clever, and being good at sports was much preferred. His background contrasted with hers as the d. . .