Tardivat hated the idea, of course. His first impulse had been to comfort her, offer sympathy, having understood what it meant to have Anne throw Henri’s death in her face. When she told him her intentions had changed, but not her destination, he stalked off, but not before telling her it was a suicidal, idiotic thing to do, a waste of resources and men.
“We will come, mon colonel,” Rodrigo said. “Me and Juan. I won’t let this go unavenged.”
“Exactly!” Denden said, hitting the table so the dirty cups rattled. Anne’s cup. “This is just revenge! Revenge for Mateo, revenge for your husband.”
“What the fuck is wrong with that?” Nancy said, opening a case of grenades and passing belts of them to the two Spaniards.
“Your mission here is supposed to be for all of us,” Denden replied. “For everyone the Nazis have killed, and for every life they intend to take. That’s what you were trained for.”
René scratched his ear. “I don’t care why she’s killing them as long as the Nazis end up dead. I’m in.”
Denden tried again. “You’re playing his game, Nancy.”
“Enough!” Nancy shot him a dark look. “Gentlemen, I appreciate your concern; you don’t have to come. But I will not, cannot let this stand.” She turned to Juan. “Be ready in an hour. You too, René.”
“Can I bring my toys?” René blinked at her.
“Sure.”
“Yes! Come on, boys. Let’s gather up some more volunteers.”
Denden watched through the window as René bounced off across the camp.
“He’s mad. You know that, Nancy?”
She shrugged. “We’re all mad now. You have the latest instructions from London, Denden.” She handed him the notes she had made the day before, in those delicate hours when she thought she could save Henri. “What’s due to the families of the fighters is in here. Coordinates for possible drops and locations of the arms caches. Usual codes. You know what to do if I don’t make it back.”
He slipped it into his back pocket and got slowly to his feet, the bruises he had taken the previous day making him move like an old man. “I know. But make it back.”
When he had gone Nancy picked up her red satin cushion and used the nail scissors to pick apart the seam at the back, then felt around in the stuffing. There were perhaps a dozen pills; they looked like pearls in the gloom of the bus. Cyanide. The plan had been to sew one into the seams of each of her shirts, an insurance policy against the Gestapo. Of course, no one at SOE had told them to kill themselves if they were taken. The pills were simply presented, very politely, as an option. Can’t stand the torture? Want the rape and the beatings to stop? Can’t live with the shame of having betrayed your people? Don’t want to risk giving them up? Take one of Doctor Buckmaster’s patent cures and worry no more.
The rumor at Beaulieu was that people didn’t take them, but somehow having the option of ending things made the horror a little easier to bear. Maybe, but she knew suicide would never be her way, never be a comfort, no matter what happened. She reached into her bag again and pulled out a half bottle of cologne. Another gift from Baker Street. She unscrewed the atomizer and tipped the pills in, then watched as the fatal tablets dissolved, turning that pretty, expensive scent poisonous.
The tide really was turning. The madam in Montluçon agreed to take Nancy to headquarters for only a thousand francs and her wedding ring. They talked in the kitchen of her quiet little house in the back streets. Nancy was surprised at how easily she handed the ring over. It was just a trinket now. She wanted Henri, not that little band of gold.
“And a paper,” the madam added.
“What paper, Madame Juliette?” Nancy had insisted on getting a dress as part of the bargain, and was trying it on now, admiring herself in the full-length mirror. It was cunningly cut, full length in dark blue cotton, but it brushed Nancy’s curves. Just the right level of suggestion without being too obvious on the street.
“You must sign this. With your real name.”
Nancy turned from the mirror to see Madame Juliette had been busy writing something.
“What is it?”
Madame Juliette held herself very upright in her chair. “I am leaving the town to stay with my sister in Clermont, now, the moment we have done what we need to do. The Germans are losing. When they lose, the people will say I collaborated. This paper says I have been a very good friend of the Resistance.”
Nancy looked at her. Sleek and well fed. No doubt her clients had been feeding her little extras from the day the Germans arrived in Montluçon. Interesting. Fournier’s men said the fighters who had arrived at their camp since D-Day smelled of mothballs and farmers who had refused them help last year now trekked for hours to offer them delicacies from their fields. Even with the reprisals, they knew in the end the Germans would be gone. Accounts would be called in.
Nancy took her pen and as she signed, against all the rules that had been drummed into them at Beaulieu, “Nancy Fiocca, née Wake,” she heard Juliette release a shuddering sigh.
“I shall take you to the gatehouse,” she said. “None of my girls are in tonight, but I am not the only whoremonger in town, Madame. Other girls might be entertaining the officers.”
“That’s their bad luck,” Nancy replied and handed back the pen. She’d let Madame Juliette run, but that didn’t mean every collaborator in town was going to be handled gently. “You have the paper. Take me there.”