Chapter 27

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

Up at the corner, the driver had gone. His loyalty to the Durand family must have overwhelmed him. He was probably at their residence now, telling an outlandish tale about the backstreet bar and the untidy couple who thought Mademoiselle Evangeline had been taken to number 8 rue de Courcelles.

‘It would have been a long time for him to wait,’ said McGregor. ‘The French police will want these fellows, you know. And you’re a witness, Mirabelle. By rights we should go straight to the station and offer our evidence.’

‘I can’t do that,’ Mirabelle replied under her breath. McGregor hadn’t asked for his knife back and she hadn’t told him what she’d done with it. All she’d said was that Evangeline was dead. ‘There’s no more we can do for the poor girl now. There’s too much at stake to stay here. We have to press on.’

It had started to drizzle. McGregor stared at Mirabelle in the lamplight. She was always so perfect in Brighton, but tonight she had been through an immense ordeal and seeing her in disarray was somehow stirring. He wondered if this was how she must look in the morning – her hair dishevelled and her make-up worn away. The man in the studio had lent her a pair of velvet slippers that she deemed more comfortable than the riding boots and she had done away with the torn stockings. When she slid off the roof and into his arms he had wanted to kiss her. Or at least he had felt that way until he noticed that she was fighting back tears.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We’ll be lucky to find a taxi round here at this time. We’ll have to walk at least as far as the Arc de Triomphe.’

‘Where are we going?’

Mirabelle was finding it difficult to look McGregor in the eye. She wasn’t sure how he would react when he discovered she was a murderer. Mirabelle had killed someone before, but only in self-defence. Afterwards a tribunal had cleared her. She tried not to think about the difference between that occasion and what had happened tonight. She’d been trying to save Evangeline Durand, but she’d failed. She couldn’t tell McGregor about it – not yet, anyway.

‘We need to find the woman who handed Evangeline the scarf in the first place. My guess is she’s von der Grün’s wife. At the very least von der Grün must know her. The scarf started out in his house.’

McGregor didn’t like to ask. He told himself Mirabelle’s judgement had always been sound in the past as he fell into step alongside her. Almost at the Arc de Triomphe they found, not a cab, but a rag and bone man driving a little wagon. Mirabelle flagged him down and agreed a fee in excess of what he would expect to make for a whole night’s work, McGregor assumed, given the look on the man’s face. At least they would get to their destination more quickly, he thought, as he sat on the edge of the cart and gawped down the Champs-Élysées like some kind of gypsy. This wasn’t how he’d envisioned spending a few days in Paris with Mirabelle – soggy and on the run. The rain eased as the horse pulled up at the rue de Siam and they stepped down to the pavement. The driver gave a little salute and cracked the reins.

It was close to midnight. They could hear the hooves retreating down the street as the rag and bone man went back to his rounds. Mirabelle took a moment to compose herself on the doorstep of number 25 before ringing the bell. The fanlight was bright but no one came to answer the door. Perhaps the von der Grüns had gone somewhere after the opera. Paris was a city that partied all night, even on a Sunday. After a weekend in the country maybe they had decided to kick up their heels. She tried the bell once more.

McGregor checked his watch. ‘It’s getting late.’

Mirabelle was on the point of deciding to take a room in the Hôtel Siam, although she feared that in her current attire the staff might treat her with less respect than they had shown the other night. It flitted across her mind that McGregor and she could check in as Mr and Mrs Horton. She shocked herself with the blasphemy of even considering it, and made up for the thought with the silent vow that if they did so McGregor would be sleeping on the floor. From there they would be able to keep an eye on the rear of number 25 in shifts, and if the lights came on they could move quickly. She was about to make the suggestion when the door swung open. Inside, the younger man who had attended the opera stood in his evening dress. The staff must have been dismissed for the night.

‘Oui?’ he enquired curtly.

Mirabelle wasn’t sure where to start. The words came in a babble. She found herself gesticulating as she spoke – all in French. McGregor stared, only able to guess what she might be saying.

‘I’m a friend of Evangeline Durand,’ she started. ‘It’s been the most dreadful evening. I’m sorry but I need to speak to the woman in the purple dress, if she’s here.’

‘La comtesse?’

‘I suppose so.’ Mirabelle shrugged. ‘I have bad news, I’m afraid. The worst. I know it’s late but I must speak to her at once.’

The man paused for a second, but ultimately stood back from the threshold to let them in. He ushered his eccentric-looking visitors into the study, where a fire was burning in the grate and a half-drunk bottle of champagne stood on a side table. The woman in the purple dress stood up with her glass in her hand. Mirabelle fumbled in her pocket and pulled out the scarf. The woman looked uneasy, her eyes lighting on the man who had opened the door as if to see if he understood the implication of the scarf’s turning up in their house again.

‘Evangeline Durand is dead,’ Mirabelle said, in her brisk Parisian accent. ‘I’m so sorry. She was followed. She was taken. I tried to rescue her but she was ill. She couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t save her.’

The man who had answered the door stepped forward. Unexpectedly, he had a cut-glass accent that wouldn’t have been out of place in St James’s. He probably thought speaking English made the conversation more private. Neither McGregor nor Mirabelle corrected him.

‘Good God, Elizabeth, what is this woman talking about? What the hell have you been up to?’

Elizabeth took the scarf from Mirabelle’s hand. ‘We need to run this over to the American Embassy,’ she said. ‘Now.’

‘Answer me! What have you got yourself involved in? You’ve been working, haven’t you?’ He sounded furious. ‘After everything we said. What about the children? We can’t do this kind of thing any more. The war is over, damn it. Dead and buried.’

‘We can discuss it later.’ The woman’s voice remained even. She rang the service bell to the right of the fireplace ‘I’ll raise Javier and have him bring round the car. Please, Philip, calm down.’

Mirabelle turned towards the man in evening dress. ‘Philip?’ she repeated, staring at him as the name fell into place. ‘Are you Philip? Philip Caine?’

He turned on her. ‘And who the hell are you?’

Mirabelle cocked her head to one side. He was the right age. He was clearly English. ‘What are you doing here?’ she exclaimed. ‘I’ve been looking for you. I thought you were dead.’

‘Well, you’ve found me.’ He gave a shallow bow. ‘Philip, Comte de Vert.’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Von der Grün was your cousin. But does that mean … excuse me, but did von der Grün die?’

Caine flipped open a cigarette box on a side table. He offered it round, lighting a Gitane and sucking hard as if he was taking out his anger on it.

‘Yes. Wilhelm died. Kurt died. Everyone bloody died and I inherited in the end. I’m the survivor. I didn’t catch your name.’

‘Mirabelle Bevan.’ She held out her hand. Stiffly, Caine shook it. ‘I hope you don’t mind my asking but when did von der Grün die? What happened?’

Caine hesitated before deciding that it was all right to continue. ‘It was February 1944, if you must know. What is it that you want, Miss Bevan?’

It suddenly occurred to her that this meant Christine Moreau had lost her lover only a few months before the liberation of the city and had then had to endure being punished for the affair. Mirabelle tried to remember what had been happening in February 1944. She could not think of any obvious action in which Wilhelm von der Grün might have perished. The Resistance had struck out as it became obvious the Germans would have to quit the city. Perhaps von der Grün had fallen foul of that, though it was earlier in the year than she’d place the majority of the civil disobedience.

‘He’s buried in Passy cemetery, I imagine,’ she said.

Caine nodded. ‘A small gravestone, given the circumstances. No “Soldier and Great Man.” No marble angels.’

‘How did he die?’

‘I don’t see it’s any of your business.’

‘Tonight I watched Evangeline Durand die. She was very brave. I killed a man while I was trying to save her. I came to Paris to find you, Flight Lieutenant. Matthew Bradley asked me to. And I’ve ended up a murderer. So when I ask you how Wilhelm von der Grün died, I consider it very much my business.’

‘You’ve been taken for a ride, Miss Bevan. Matthew knows exactly where I am if he wants to find me.’

Mirabelle sank onto the edge of the sofa. ‘He knows? You’re sure?’

‘It’s not common knowledge. I couldn’t go back. I don’t want to. But Matthew knows. He knows everything. What does he want, anyway?’

‘He wrote asking me to find out what happened to you.’

‘Well, I don’t understand that.’

‘It was in his will. He died about a week ago, you see. I’m sorry.’ Had it only been a week?

Caine stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I hope Caroline is all right. She and the girl.’

‘They’re fine,’ Mirabelle replied.

The door opened and a butler entered the room. ‘Duchamp,’ the countess said. ‘Could you have the car brought round? I know it’s rather late. And raise Javier to drive it for us.’

The man bowed and retreated. Mirabelle found herself unable to take her eyes off Philip Caine, wondering if he’d succeeded in turning his cousin for the Allies and how much sensitive material he had managed to pass to Jack in the two years he’d spent undercover in Paris. Had it all been worth it?

The countess scooped up a fur wrap that was slung over a chair. ‘May I have that?’ She put out her hand, and Mirabelle handed over the scarf in a daze. Philip Caine glared at his wife.

‘Elizabeth, I wish you wouldn’t.’

‘It’s too late now. I have to. Poor Evangeline Durand gave her life. Do you expect me just to burn it? To ignore it? They need this, Philip. It will be the last. I promise.’

‘You shouldn’t go alone.’ Mirabelle got to her feet. ‘It isn’t safe.’

‘Let me,’ McGregor insisted. ‘You look done in, Mirabelle. Do you mind, monsieur? It’s been a hell of a night.’

Philip Caine nodded curtly. ‘I’ll keep her here till you get back,’ he said. ‘Miss Bevan, may I offer you some champagne?’

Mirabelle couldn’t help thinking that what she’d really like was a cup of tea but she nodded, accepting the glass that Caine put into her hand. When she sipped it was certainly reviving.

‘Well, that’s settled.’ The countess swished past in a cloud of Dior.

McGregor followed her, and Mirabelle’s gaze fell to her feet and the damp velvet slippers as the door clicked closed. On the hem of her dress was a dark splatter that had sunk into the brown wool. Only now did she realise it must be blood.

‘You can rest here,’ Caine said, scrambling in his desk and pulling out a box of cigars. ‘I wouldn’t smoke one of these in front of a lady. I’ll go up to the drawing room.’

Mirabelle stood up. He wasn’t getting away that easily. In the hallway she heard the front door closing behind McGregor and the countess. The car would be along directly.

‘I love the smell of cigar smoke,’ she said. ‘I don’t like cigarettes, but I enjoy a Cuban now and then. Please let me join you.’