‘We go left here.’
Woods thickening around them. Leaving St Valéry Jacques had proposed, ‘Thought we might go by way of Chigy, to woods on high ground between les Clérimois and Fontaine-la-Gaillarde. Unless you’ve any better idea?’
‘None at all. But how far’d that be?’
‘Only seven or eight kilometres. Near a guy I collect stuff from, though: and if you were based in Sens, even, you might choose that area. No reason the detectors should think of St Valéry or Marchéval’s.’
‘Sounds good, then.’
Chigy was only a few minutes from St Valéry, and still on that side of the Vanne. A small bridge, narrower and planked, not paved, carried the road across the river; Jacques slowing again then to bump over the railway line, which must have crossed the main road between the St Valéry turn-off and this one. Rosie saw what looked like a station building – a halt, at least – half hidden in trees to their left.
‘Could the tubes not be sent east by rail?’
‘Marchéval’s did use the railway, before. But as you’ll have noticed it’s single-track – and they’re short of rolling-stock, the line’s been bombed or blown up several times – not here, but on the Paris side of Sens – and near Troyes, come to think of it… Each time, no trains then for days… And you see, on a line like that – well, a truck can get off the road, but a train can’t get off its tracks – huh?’
‘In any case that bridge isn’t up to much, is it?’
‘Ours at St Valéry is the only one that is. Even at that they were talking about replacing it. As I told you. The only alternative’s hardly practical – a long way round with some very tight bends in narrow roads – especially right in the villages.’
‘So if the St Valéry bridge was blown up—’
‘Don’t suggest it, please!’
A sideways glance, showing the whites of his eyes. There was a heavy growth of stubble on his cheeks by this time. Eyes front again: they were on the so-called ‘main’ road now but he was slowing again, preparing to turn off to the left. Adding, ‘In any case they’d soon put another one across – the steel thing they had in mind before. You wouldn’t isolate Marchéval’s for long.’
‘For a while, though. If one needed to. To hold the trucks up for a day, even – if an air attack was coming in?’
‘I thought bombing was what you were talking about – smashing the bridge as well as…’ Turning: and the side road looping back immediately in a sharp left-hand bend, to cross yet another small bridge. Not the Vanne, though – unless it had split into two streams, one each side of the road… Jacques finished: ‘– the bridge as well as the factory.’
‘I was thinking of PE. Plastic explosive. Which the Maquis must have – by way of the parachutages you’ve helped with?’
‘Have, I’m sure. When the whistle blows they’ll be using it. Railway lines, primarily.’ Another glance at her: ‘You handy with explosives?’
‘Oh, yes. Comes into our training.’
A grunt. ‘Just don’t practise on our bridge, eh?’
‘You have strong feelings for that bridge.’
‘I’m a fisherman. You’ll be getting fish for your supper this evening that came from the Vanne. One of the best pools is close by there – where the river divides around a small island.’
‘I saw it. Guillaume said he thought there’d be trout.’
‘Guillaume?’
‘The man who brought me here. He’s a fisherman.’
‘And a chef de réseau, he said. Had eyes for you, huh?’
‘Oh, nonsense…’
‘It was plain enough to me – and to Colette. Reminded me of the way André Marchéval used to watch her all the time.’
‘Colette?’
‘Despite her being ten years older than he is. Or was. But that’s André for you. Joseph Lambert really had it in for him, I can tell you. Well, Joe’s wife’s a stunner – or she was. Huguette. He told me she was spending more time than was justified in Paris and he was certain it was André she was seeing. Her parents live there and her father had had a stroke, it gave her good reason to visit them. Supposedly visit them. Joe felt sort of helpless – he was still crazy about her.’
‘Did Colette know?’
‘Uh-huh. Reckons young André’s the bee’s knees. Not that she’d have—’
‘I’m sure—’
‘I know it. Shouldn’t be gabbing like this, should I. Don’t mention it to her – please? Joe spoke to me in confidence – desperation, you might say. Oh, he was explaining why he’d brought her with him that time. Yes, that was it.’ Nodding… ‘Shouldn’t talk about it. For all we know they could both be dead, poor sods – she wasn’t exactly isolated from Joe’s work, they’d have hauled ’em both in, wouldn’t they. Bloody tragic… Got a cigarette, have you?’
‘Of course…’
‘Another kilometre or so, we’ll be in les Clérimois. Turn left there. What are you telling them in London – if I’m allowed to know?’
‘Telling them that in my judgement the Marchéval products are V2 rocket-casings, and giving them your figure of a hundred and seventy centimetres diameter.’
‘Just less than—’
‘Yes. And that we could evacuate the village before an attack. And – finished casings, a dozen or more, awaiting transport. Also – although they may know it already – about Dufay being arrested.’ She paused: match flaring. ‘Here.’
One ready-lit Gauloise… Jacques took it delicately in blunt, calloused fingers. ‘Thanks.’ Placing it between his lips: eyes on the road, both hands back like clamps on the juddering wheel. It wasn’t a good surface – dirt and gravel, pot-holed and ridged. Rosie with her head back, inhaling the pungent smoke and remembering Bob Hallowell telling her in the SOE flat in Portman Square, back in April, Happen to know the motive’s nothing more than sexual jealousy. A Frenchman ‘Hector’ himself recruited and whose girlfriend recently transferred her affections – to ‘Hector’, d’you see…
For ‘girlfriend’ read ‘wife’? Otherwise like all professional liars sticking as near as possible to the truth?
She asked Jacques, ‘Do you know, was Lambert recruited by André Marchéval?’
Whites of eyes again… ‘I wouldn’t know.’
Could have been some other agent, some other girl. Jacques’ reminiscence had rung that bell, but it didn’t have to dovetail so neatly. Hallowell again: Always did have a bit of a roving eye. Doesn’t make him a traitor, does it?
Made him a shit as well as a traitor, Rosie thought. Visualizing him as she’d seen him first in Morlaix and then in Paris: average height – five-ten or eleven, maybe – slim, dark, she’d guessed between twenty-five and thirty. Swarthy complexion, smarmy smile, a way of crinkling his eyes. And a voice that had sounded artificially deep – as if he worked at it, the way he liked to sound: that was the impression she’d had.
Lambert reporting on ‘Hector’ to Baker Street, maybe, ‘Hector’ then shopping Lambert to his Boche friends? Which might have involved shopping the pretty wife as well?
‘This les Clérimois we’re coming to?’
A nod. Wet-looking Gauloise clinging to his lower lip. ‘We go left – on a smaller road, believe it or not. Listen – if we should be stopped – unlikely, but could happen – well, everyone for miles around knows who I am and what I do – you’re just along for the ride – OK?’
She shrugged, glancing away. ‘Heard that before…’
A kilometre or two westward from les Clérimois there was a wide area where loggers had been at work, thousands of tree-stumps and the litter which accompanies tree-felling giving an impression of general devastation. Jacques said, ‘They moved from here a month ago. Started on the other side now. Give it a few years – well, twenty or thirty, say – Christ knows what this place’ll look like.’
‘Beautiful rolling farmland, maybe.’
‘Whether the idea’s to re-plant, or to grub out the stumps… Could make farmland eventually, I dare say.’ Nodding ahead, pointing: ‘I’ll be turning up the far side of this lot, OK?’
‘Anywhere you say.’
‘Sort of place a couple with necking in mind might pick on, eh?’
‘Or with charcoal-collecting in mind.’
‘That track you can see now… Yes, sure – charcoal-collection as cover to our real purpose, is the idea they should get if we ran into a patrol, I’m saying.’ Shake of the dark head: ‘Not likely we’d run into any, mind you. Week by week lately they’ve been fewer and further between. I’d guess they’re scraping the barrel for men they can put in the firing-line. Here we go. Up there, I’ll turn into the trees.’
It wasn’t a steep slope, more like one of a succession of wooded undulations. Just as well, considering the smoothness of the pick-up’s tyres, which she’d noticed in the yard at the auberge. Battered old wagon, by the look of it converted to pick-up from an ordinary saloon, also converted to gazogène, with its burner and chimney right behind the cab. Lurching and crashing over ruts as he swung off into a thinnish copse of beechwood.
‘Mind opening the bonnet so I can clip my transceiver lead to your battery?’
‘Sure.’
The transceiver in its fitted suitcase was under her seat. This would be an emergency procedure transmission, i.e. calling the Sevenoaks station and getting a go-ahead from them before passing her message – which she’d coded up in her bedroom earlier in the afternoon. Also at that time she’d found a good hiding-place for the one-time pad and other items including the Beretta. The Llama and its spare clips were with the ‘S’ phone, in that carton, but this indoors cache was in the boxroom, an old trunk containing amongst other things a wedding-dress that reeked of camphor, and a lace-up corset; the coding materials, cash and the pistol had gone under those, nestling among God knew what – bloomers, maybe. Now she’d got the transceiver out of the car, and by that time Jacques had opened the bonnet; she gave him the business-end of the power lead, spring-clips for attachment to battery terminals, put the case on the ground on the blind side of the gazo from the road – or rather track – and then walked away into the trees paying-out the aerial wire in a more or less straight line. Twenty metres of the very fine, dark-coloured wire: over lower branches where there were any, looping it around trunks when there were not.
Back to the gazo then. Jacques was leaning against it, stuffing a pipe and keeping an eye on the road and surroundings generally. Rosie sat on the ground and pulled the set on to her lap. Switch on: a glimmer of red light and a quiver of the needle in the ammeter. When she began to transmit she’d adjust the output to forty or forty-five milliamperes. She’d inserted the appropriate quartz crystal – the ‘emergency procedure’ one – before starting out: that crystal pre-set the wavelength, made it distinctively hers – ‘Masha’’s – which would be picked up and trigger immediate response from ‘her’ operator in North Kent – touch wood. Key, now: she plugged it in: and the headset. The key itself, capped with black plastic, had a pleasantly familiar feel between two fingertips and the thumb. Now the message in its five-letter groups – from an inside pocket in Thérèse’s jacket, smoothing it out left-handed on her knee. OK. Switch to ‘Send’: headphones over her ears… Starting then, tapping out ‘QTC 1’ – meaning, I have a message for you. Then ‘QRK, interrogative’ – Is this reaching you intelligibly? And ‘K’ – Over.
Switch to ‘Receive’, and wait…
Two seconds: three… A thin squeaking in her ears then: she was turning it up, Sevenoaks stuttering ‘QRK… QRV…’ Intelligible… Ready to receive. Over.’
Magnifique… Except they’d be alert in the Boche radio-detection centre in Paris too: lights glowing, tapes running, direction-finders seeking jerkily this way, that way… With the switch at ‘Send’ she opened with Marilyn’s stipulated self-identification Masha on line, followed by a group indicating that no reply was expected: otherwise with emergency procedure there’d be the seventy-minute deadline, Baker Street frenetic. Whereas in quite a bit less than seventy minutes she and Jacques would be back in the auberge – she hoped. Eyes on the message, the rows of capitals with Masha’s personal security check included in the form of a corrupt (misspelt) seventh word. There was a ‘bluff’ check too, which didn’t add up to much and could legitimately be revealed under torture.
Last group dot-and-dashing out. A pause, then ‘AR’ – end of message. And immediately from Sevenoaks ‘QSL’ – I acknowledge receipt – and ‘K’ – Out. Rosie switched off, disconnected the key and the headset, extracted the crystal: it went into a little bag, in her pocket, could be ditched in an emergency. She called, ‘Finished, Jacques. Unclip, roll the lead up?’ Neither wasting time nor taking risks you didn’t have to take: it was done, the thing now was to clear out, quick. Quickly through the trees unstringing the aerial wire, whipping it around a card on her way back to the gazo. Slotting it and the power-lead into the case: then the case back under her seat. Jacques was already on board, with his pipe between his teeth and a hand on the gear lever, waiting for her to shut the door.
She did so. ‘Thanks. Great help, Jacques.’
‘Easy as that, eh?’
She smiled: ‘Nothing to it.’
‘When you know how, I suppose…’
‘Think what you’ve told them will result in bombing?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Ball’s in their court, we wait and see.’
‘How long, wait?’
‘I’ll be listening out for a message tonight and every night this week. Normally, I’d keep to a schedule of three nights a week.’
‘Going out at night to do this?’
She reassured him: ‘From my room in your auberge. Won’t be transmitting, don’t worry-just listening, between midnight and one a.m. The transceiver’s in two parts, one for transmitting and one receiving, and I’ll take just the receiver bit in with me.’
‘And the person sending it from England knows you’ll be getting it?’
‘Yes. They know I’ll be listening on that wavelength.’
‘So you might hear tonight?’
‘Might. More likely tomorrow, I’d guess.’
She was lighting a cigarette. They were back on the road now, heading for les Clérimois. She explained, ‘It won’t be solely an SOE decision. Much higher level. SOE present the facts and the proposal, top brass say yea or nay.’
‘But you’ve recommended bombing.’
‘What I told you, that’s all. What you and Colette have told me.’
Sucking hard on his pipe: then turning his head to spit out of the window. Pipe bubbling audibly… He glanced at her, licking his lips. ‘Listen. Another thing Colette and I were asking ourselves. If the bombers come – factory’s smashed, also some houses, although please God not many casualties… Well – if it’s a few weeks before the Boches are driven out – or even if it’s less – it’s not unlikely there’ll be reprisals—’
‘Not necessarily. An air raid, after all—’
‘– and certainly investigations. You say “not necessarily”, but won’t they guess someone here called for the bombers – sent out word what was being produced here?’
She thought, If someone had lit a bonfire…
Jacques added challengingly, ‘How would families have been warned to leave their houses, otherwise?’
‘By Maquisards, surely.’ Maquisards would have lit the bonfire too: they were the answer to all of this. She asked him, ‘Wouldn’t it be? Colette and I were talking about it, she said so. Maquisards knocking on all the doors. In fact she was thinking others might help as well – saying they’d been ordered to – but I’d guess it might be better if no villagers knew anything at all until it happened. Not even your doctor or the priest. All right, the Boches may stage some sort of offensive against the Maquis afterwards—’
‘My belief is they’ll be nosing around us too, Justine. And what I set out to ask you is this: after the bombing, what do you do? Vanish? Have an airplane pick you up?’
‘Frankly, I hadn’t thought.’
‘So think now. This young woman shows up just before the bombing – total stranger, allegedly a relation of Colette’s – so the Craillots say. Then we have the bombing and – pouf, she’s gone again. How do they look at these damn Craillots then?’
‘It’s a good point.’ She nodded. ‘The answer is that Justine Quérier’s come to live with her cousins – needing a roof over her head, all that – and she’ll stay as long as they’ll have her. Bombing or no bombing. Speaking of airplane pick-ups though – when you were helping Lambert, was there a particular field around here you used?’
‘Little way south – near a place called Villechétive. He called it “Parnasse”. They dropped some weapons instructors off there for Guichard, the last time.’
They were back in the auberge well before six. Colette was in the kitchen, Madame Brissac had gone home. There were no customers in the place at that stage, but some were to be expected, apparently. Colette asked Rosie if she’d like to have supper rather early, before things got busy; supper would be fried trout with boiled potatoes and haricots verts. Rosie said she’d eat a supper like that at any time. Six thirty, then: Colette would have it with her, in the kitchen. She’d already set tables in the dining-room, there was nothing Rosie could help with. All of which was fine, she’d have time after the meal to do her sewing and get a few hours’ sleep before midnight, when she had to set radio listening-watch. She took the receiver upstairs and put it for the time being in the trunk that had the wedding-dress in it, and on the spur of the moment she took the Beretta, with a dip in it but not cocked, and pushed it under her mattress – for no reason other than the thought that it was pointless to have a pistol at all if you couldn’t get at it quickly. Then she had a wash and went down to keep Colette company until supper was ready. There were some men in the bar by this time; Jacques of course was barman. Rosie asked Colette if there was an alarm-clock she could borrow: she explained what for, Colette having assumed that she was concerned about waking up in time for their early appointment at the manor with Monsieur Henri. Whom she’d seen passing on his bike, she said, but he hadn’t stopped as he’d half said he might.
‘Got your message away, eh?’
‘Yes. And learnt a certain amount from Jacques, along the way. About the village and so forth.’
‘He likes to gabble away, my husband.’
‘Well, I was glad of it. I’m getting a feel of the place – beginning to. Not least, Colette, from my guided tour this morning. I must say, the manor’s situation’s lovely.’
‘It’s a fine house, too. The old patron didn’t stint himself, I’ll say that. As you’ll see for yourself… Look, you’ll find an alarm-clock in Yvette’s room. Even with it, that girl’s bad enough at waking for school. Solange manages to drag herself out all right, but Yvette – my God… Hers is the first room on the left – nearest to the stairs.’
‘Thanks. This trout’s delicious…’
‘What we still have to do is check you in at the gendarmerie.’
‘I know. I will.’
‘Do you expect to have a decision on the bombing over your radio tonight?’
‘Doubt it. More likely tomorrow, or the night after that. By the way – Jacques mentioned that you were worried I might just vanish somehow, after a bombing attack if there is one, so then you’d be under suspicion for having harboured me. But I won’t, I promise. As long as you can put up with me, I’ll stay. All right?’
She didn’t answer immediately. Picking a fish-bone off her tongue… Nodding then: ‘Perfectly all right.’
No great enthusiasm: Rosie had expected at least some, if that really had been worrying them.
Not a good idea to go into the woods with Jacques?
See about a bike, for future trips. Ask Colette tomorrow. Weight off her mind, maybe. Although it might be only her continuing anxiety over the bombing threat. Which was entirely understandable: a credit to her in fact that she was steeling herself to go along with it at all.
She did her sewing, making a cyanide-pill slot in one corner of each of two handkerchiefs, and, putting a few stitches in the hems of the two blouses, including the one she’d worn today. Replacing the capsule then in the clean blouse. Do some laundering tomorrow, probably. The second capsule was still in the silver lipstick holder, in Léonie’s bag: she unscrewed the cap and tipped it out, fitted it into the slot in one of the handkerchiefs. It would be secure enough, she thought; the capsules were made of hardened gelatine, not glass, wouldn’t break without being bitten quite hard. She got into her pyjamas – old blue ones Marilyn had brought – then went along to clean her teeth and brought the radio from the boxroom, put it under the foot of the bed. She’d already set Yvette’s alarm for a few minutes to twelve. She switched off the light, opened the curtains and pushed the window up. Draw the curtains again at transmission time; she’d need a light for it. It was a clear night, very still, starry sky, moon not risen yet. Much warmer than last night. Despite which she put Thérèse’s all-purpose jacket handy on the foot of the bed. It was about nine now, would be cooler by midnight and she’d need the window still at least a crack open, with the aerial-wire hanging out – in a loop, otherwise it wouldn’t clear the ground.
Clock under the bedclothes, so as not to wake the Craillots. She slid into bed. Escape, now – concentrate on Ben. Who at this moment might be thinking about her? Lovingly, please God, happy in the knowledge she was alive. Lightly fingering the scar above her left breast, that bullet’s exit wound: acknowledging to herself that how he reacted to his first sight of it was going to be fairly crucial. She didn’t think the other scars would matter much, any more than the ones on her knees had, but this one might.
Please God though, wouldn’t. Ben still being Ben?
Over ‘coffee’ in the kitchen just after six-thirty she told Colette no, nothing had come in from London. She hadn’t expected anything, had only listened out because her instructions via Marilyn had stipulated that she should. Although Marilyn had said there was intense concern at high levels over the V2 threat, there’d be other considerations too – the progress of the Allied armies, for one thing. If American spearhead units might be probing into this area within days rather than weeks, for instance; and if there was such close liaison with the Free French now, maybe they’d have a say in what was or was not bombed. Talking with Colette – who looked as if she hadn’t slept much – Rosie speculated that if there was such chaos on the roads – hundreds of heavy trucks being abandoned, et cetera – straffing from the air might stop anything much getting through to Germany: they might settle for that, leave this place alone… She’d checked the time: ‘Ought we to be starting?’
‘Oh, no rush. It’s ten minutes’ walk at most.’ Colette covered a yawn. ‘Although you’re right, he won’t want us to be late.’
‘Reminds me.’ Rosie put her mug down: the stuff was too hot to gulp yet. ‘Talking about walking – I was going to ask you whether there’s a bike I could borrow – I don’t mean now, but next time I have to go somewhere to transmit. Rather than be a burden on Jacques, is there one I could use?’
‘Mine, if you want. Or Yvette’s, while she’s away. But what about the radio?’
‘I’ve had that and a suitcase on bikes – dozens of times, with a carrier on the back and a basket in front. The transceiver’s in what looks like a small suitcase – I’ve passed through road-blocks often, never had to open it.’
‘If you had, you wouldn’t be here now?’
She admitted, ‘Probably not.’
‘Better let Jacques take you. Quicker – safer.’
‘If he really doesn’t mind – and if you aren’t left with too much on your hands here—’
‘If either of us minded, we’d tell you… Listen, you could use Yvette’s bike now, we’d save some time.’
She’d wobbled a bit, starting off, but then was back in the way of it, no problem. Following Colette – past the butcher and boulangerie, which were on the same side of the road as the auberge, and with the manor’s wooded grounds behind a high wall on their left. Then the imposing gateway: stone pillars, iron gates standing open and the wall continuing westward. Colette dropped back, was beside her for a moment: ‘I’ll do the talking. There’ll be a sentry inside but they all know me.’
Nothing coming: no traffic at all, nothing audible except the rattling of the bikes, tyres scrunching on the dirt edging to the road and then on gravel as Colette swung across and turned in, Rosie following. An elaborate ‘M’ for Marchéval was carved into each pillar, she noticed: seeing the guard-hut then, a black-painted shed with a helmeted Boche soldier in its open doorway. Colette shrieked, ‘Visiting Monsieur Marchéval, he’s expecting us!’
Presumably he understood French. Staring at Rosie, now. She smiled politely, kept pedalling, glanced back and saw him still goofing – hadn’t said a word, or moved. The drive curved left, then right, then straightened, with a narrow view of the house ahead: pale stone, Colette had said it came from some local quarry. Rhododendrons and other shrubs edged the drive, trees towering behind them. Colette looked back, flapping her right arm: ‘Round that way…’ The view ahead widened: there was an oblong of grass – orchard-length, not lawn – with a flagpole set in concrete in the middle, the sand-coloured drive encircling it and extending right and left around both wings of the house. No flag on the pole. A small truck and she thought three cars were parked down there on the left, the side they were not going, and beyond the grass patch and the flagpole a soldier with a slung Schmeisser was patrolling the area in front of the main entrance – a wide flight of steps under a pillared stone canopy. There were several deep-set windows each side of that, and a couple more in each of the protruding wings. Above were towers and chimneys – a lot of chimneys, and rectangular towers, although in her view from the south yesterday she’d seen round ones with conical tops – as well as the chimneys, some of which were massive. Round towers on the south-facing frontage, square ones on this north side: and the central part of the house had a steeply ridged slate roof with dormer-type windows in it. It looked better from the south, she thought, less pretentious. But it was more château than manoir. Pedalling in Colette’s tracks, thinking what a pompous ass grandfather Marchéval must have been. That soldier had halted, was facing this way, watching them, but they weren’t going anywhere near him. Henri Marchéval’s entrance evidently being at the side, front door strictly for the Master Race; while the drive swept on around the protrusion of this west wing into a stable-yard the size of a couple of tennis courts, cobbled, the stables themselves a substantial, mostly two-storied L-shaped building bracketing it on that side and at the end. The dreaded Briards lived ‘above the stables’, she remembered Colette saying.
Colette was dismounting, gliding up close to a porch sheltering the side-door. Rosie followed suit, propping her bike there too. Colette at the door by then with a hand up on the iron-ring knocker, looking round at her: then two thuds, on the solid oak – and immediately a man’s voice calling from inside: ‘Is that you, Colette?’
‘Yes, patron!’
Sound of a bolt being pulled back: door opening inwards. It was still a few minutes short of seven, but he’d either been waiting at the door or maybe seen them from a window, hurried down to it… Framed in the opening doorway then: less old-looking than Rosie had expected. Less tall than his son, too – about five-eight, five-nine. Hair thin but still dark except around the edges, large brown eyes with dark pouches under them, sallow complexion. Eyes flickering to Rosie, back to Colette.
‘Come in. Come in. This must be—’
‘Justine Quérier, patron. Justine – Monsieur Henri Marchéval.’
‘It’s a pleasure, Mam’selle.’
‘For me too, M’sieur.’
‘You’re a cousin—’
‘Distant – by marriage. My brother—’
‘We can talk better sitting down. This way…’
If you’d had to name it you might have called it a back-staircase hall, into which the door opened. A big room with a dining-table in it, stairs slanting up the opposite wall from right to left. Two doors in the left-hand wall: Monsieur Henri was guiding them towards the further one, which stood open. Wooden-soled shoes loud on the plank flooring. There was a door near the foot of the stairs too, leading she guessed into the main part of the house – verboten area, no doubt.
‘My petit salon. Servants inhabited this wing, before. Come in. This particular room was I believe the majordome’s private den. Pokey little hole – but there you are, beggars can’t be choosers. Sit down, please.’
Colette said, ‘It’s not such a bad room, patron. And the day can’t be far off when the entire house will be yours again. Can’t happen too soon, huh?’
‘In there –’ pointing, to the room next door – ‘it’s even pokier. As Colette knows, I use it as an office.’ Rosie sat down, on a sofa; Colette did too, on the other end of it. Monsieur Henri, on the point of sitting facing them, hesitated… ‘Colette – speaking of the office – I wonder if I might have a word with you, in there?’
‘All right—’
‘Nothing to do with your interest in coming to work here, Mam’selle Quérier. Only a rather private and urgent matter I’ve been anxious to discuss with my old friend here.’
‘Perfectly all right.’
‘But in regard to that proposal – frankly, I have to admit that at this juncture it might be a little difficult. There’s a Madame Briard and her husband who both work here—’
‘Colette told me. What gave me the idea, in fact.’
‘We might do something about it later on. But – give us a few minutes, please. Excuse us…’
He shut the door behind them. Rosie looking around at the clutter of furniture – too much of it for the room’s size. Big old pieces too, some of them. Whatever he’d been so anxious to talk about in private, she’d guessed, must relate to whatever he’d sounded excited about on the telephone to Colette yesterday.
Boches pulling out – or planning to?
Seven minutes gone, Marilyn’s watch told her. It felt like more than that. Eight minutes. Nine…
The door opened: Monsieur Henri standing aside, for Colette to enter. Pushing it shut then behind him: he looked surprised – or alarmed – gazing past her at Rosie. Colette was beside her then, a knee on the edge of the sofa, and grasping Rosie’s hands: she looked excited about something… ‘Justine – I’ve got to tell him who you are and what you’re here for!’
Elated, even… Rosie frowned, shook her head. ‘He knows who—’
‘Listen – Jacques and I were telling you about Monsieur Henri’s son – remember all that?’
‘Of course, but – so what?’
‘He’s here.’
‘Who is?’
‘For God’s sake.’ Colette’s hands tightened on hers. ‘André! André Marchéval!’
‘My son.’ Perching himself on to a chair facing them. Peculiar-looking chair – probably antique, but ugly, she wouldn’t have given it house-room: giving it a moment’s attention now though, rather than show astonishment or shock – her mind frozen for a moment in instant flashback to Michel’s Think, girl! When it all hits the fan, isn’t his father’s place where he’s likely to show up?
Instant logic.
And, she realized, no need now to bomb the manor.
Monsieur Henri repeating, ‘My son, Mam’selle. Though why it should be necessary for you to be apprised of this I have no idea. Doubtless Colette will explain. The fact is, however, that André – who I should tell you was arrested by the Gestapo several months ago—’
‘I knew that. Colette and her husband were telling me about you and your family. But your daughter too, they said.’
He’d passed a hand over his face. ‘Colette insisted I should tell you this. I do so with reluctance… The position is that on Sunday evening, when I was in the factory, I received a message – a scrap of paper – from the hand of a young man who works for me. It was signed by André, saying he’d come here to see me – well, this last night. I was to leave the door unfastened for him – all night, he couldn’t say what time. I recognized his writing and signature but I could still hardly believe – not having had a word or any news of him – or of Claire either – in months… However – I asked the boy where, how, and he whispered – this was in my own office, he’d come in on some pretext, worksheets or some – well, never mind – he whispered, “He’s in the forest with the others”.’
‘The forest…’ It made sense, probably, from André’s point of view. ‘Did he come?’
‘Yes. Having had this message was of course why I delayed meeting you, Colette. To know first it was genuine – not a hoax or a trap of some kind.’ Back to Rosie: ‘Colette and I – and my family – the only one I could talk to…’ To Colette again: ‘If you hadn’t telephoned I’d have been contacting you, today.’
‘What did your son have to say?’
‘He escaped from the Gestapo a week ago and he’s with a Maquis group commanded by a man named – Guichard?’ A querying glance at Colette: she nodded. Sitting back now; she’d let go of Rosie’s hands. Telling Monsieur Henri, ‘Emile Guichard. His Maquis name is Tamerlan. Jacques meets him sometimes.’
‘Well. The rest of it is that they’re planning a sabotage operation against my factory.’ An expansive gesture, his arms spreading… ‘To Colette this is good news. Comprehensible, I dare say – but – perhaps you’d tell me yourself how you come into it?’
Colette said, ‘I understood you to say not that they’re planning it, but that André is trying to persuade them to.’
A shrug: movement of his rather small hands… Rosie asked him, ‘What’s your reaction to the proposal, M’sieur?’
‘Before we go further, Colette, I insist I should be told what this young lady has to do with any of it!’
‘Well – Justine—’
‘Wait.’ Rosie asked him, ‘Can I take it you’ll keep this to yourself?’
‘Mam’selle, I’m not in the habit of—’
‘You aren’t on close terms with your Boche colleagues?’
‘Are you insulting me?’
‘You work for them – have done for a long time—’
‘Not by my own choice. They’ve been holding my son – and my daughter. My poor darling Claire.’ His face crumpling… ‘Who may be – dead, Colette!’
‘What are you saying?’
‘They’d promised André she’d be unharmed as long as he – and I apparently – well, gave them no trouble?’
‘So he’s been – co-operating with them, are you saying?’
‘Pretending to. “Playing them along”, he said.’
‘Really.’ Staring at him. ’I’ve been in Gestapo custody, monsieur. It’s no game, there’s no playing – except of course on their terms.’
‘Justine.’ Colette, in a shocked whisper. ‘You’re not suggesting—’
‘You’ve told us, Monsieur, Claire was a hostage for your son’s “playing along”. What happens to her now he’s run out on them?’
‘They told him – just recently – she’s been sent east. Meaning some camp.’
‘Oh, patron…’
A hand over his face again. ‘You know, I’d almost given up hope for both of them. But this was why he broke out. He’d asked one of them what would happen now to himself and Claire – when they withdraw from Paris – in effect would he and Claire be released – but why not let them go now – so forth. That was the answer – may or may not be true, the man was angry he said, shouting at him—’
‘He broke out of where, M’sieur?’
‘A prison in the Place des Etats-Unis. What I was saying – Claire may still be alive, you know? But look here – I’m giving you answers to your questions—’
Colette said flatly, ‘She’s an agent of SOE.’
Staring at her: brown eyes even wider, dampish. A small face: small-boned, and triangular – small, sharp chin, and that width across the eyes. Like some kind of animal: she had it in her mind’s eye but couldn’t have put a name to it.
Shaping words: ‘Then you’d have known my son?’
‘One doesn’t know by any means all one’s fellow agents. Those one’s worked with, obviously – or trained with…’
‘He was in a key position. Air Movements Officer?’
’Was he? But he’d have had a code-name – even if I’d had contact with him, I wouldn’t have known his real one. Anyway – having escaped he should have contacted SOE in order to be brought back to London for de-briefing. How long was he in Gestapo hands?’
‘About – three months.’
‘London would insist on pulling him out – and he’d be well aware of it!’
‘Perhaps he had no contacts?’
‘As Air Movements Officer? He’d have had dozens!’
‘But – in a state of mounting confusion, as apparently it is now, in Paris – talk of imminent German withdrawal – and André concerned about my own situation here particularly—’
‘Justine is here about your factory too, patron.’
Gazing at her: slow blink. Rosie thinking, a lemur, maybe…
‘What exactly – about my—’
‘My brief is to investigate a report that you’re making casings for the V2 rockets – ballistic missiles.’
‘A report, you say?’
‘It was my reason for wanting to meet you. Colette didn’t know this, but she’d mentioned your problems with Madame Briard—’
‘Never mind that. The report you mentioned – what if you discovered it was correct?’
‘I’m sure it is. Your son’s proposal and your own reaction bear it out too. I’ve told London that I believe it, and if they’re convinced – by certain evidence I’ve given them – the likely upshot will be bombing.’
‘Bombing – here – would be – frightful!’
Colette broke in: ‘You see why she had to be brought into this – and why I welcome André’s plan!’
He’d barely glanced at her. Back to Rosie: repeating, ‘Frightful!’
‘But entirely warranted. The V2s are frightful weapons, Monsieur. Aimed at changing the present course of the war, through mass destruction and mass slaughter of civilians – they’d hope, forcing at least a stalemate. Which amongst other horrors would perpetuate a system in which such disgusting institutions as Belsen, Buchenwald and Ravensbrück would continue to exist. The possibility that in our efforts to ensure they don’t, your village might be knocked about – and your factory of course obliterated… Did you know from the start what they were requiring you to make?’
‘No – but then one began to suspect, and—’
‘Your son knew these were rocket-casings, did he?’
‘He knows now.’
‘So. If the Maquisards go ahead with it, will you cooperate with them?’
‘Yes. I told him so. And now more than ever!’
‘Why?’
’Why? Because – what you’ve just told me—’
‘Oh – the bombing… Co-operate how, though?’
‘They’d want a set of keys, he said – to get in silently, plant explosives I suppose—’
‘What about the night shift?’
‘No more. As from today, no night shift. They want production to continue – up to the last minute, Wachtel keeps saying. He’s the Boche engineer.’
‘But you’re running out of space. May not be enough flatbeds to shift them anyway. When do you expect what you have already to be collected?’
‘I don’t know. I doubt Wachtel does either.’
‘How many casings ready now?’
‘Sixteen. By the weekend, with no night shift, eighteen.’
‘Meaning five trucks. Do they have that many?’
‘I don’t know. That’s the kind of thing I’m not told.’
‘What about where they go in Germany?’
‘Again, I don’t know, but I’d guess Essen.’
‘Only guess, or more than that?’
‘More a conclusion than a guess.’
Colette put in, ‘Doesn’t it make sense, Justine? Sabotage rather than bombing?’
‘It would – if the Maquis go for it, and it’s viable, and if London agrees—’
‘The Maquis, you’re suggesting –’ Monsieur Henri’s tone was derisive – ‘need authority from London?’
‘Your son as an agent of SOE does. And as I said, I’ve provided our people with all the information they need to lay on an attack. The Maquis can do what they like, that is the intention, as of this moment. I’m not trying to antagonize you, Monsieur, I’d prefer sabotage to bombing – but that’s how it is.’ She nodded to Colette: ‘I’d better meet Monsieur Henri’s son. And perhaps more importantly, Guichard. Think Jacques could arrange it?’