She’d had supper in the Dog, as the locals called it, hoping Dénault might turn up early – which he did not – and Adée had taken her to the house to wait, put her feet up and sleep. ‘You look played-out, girl.’
‘If he comes, though—’
‘I’ll come or I’ll send Patrice.’ The barman, who when she’d sat down to her supper had asked her, ‘Heard what’s flying on the Préfecture?’
‘Better than that, I saw it hoisted, joined in the singing.’
Adée put in, ‘She cried, she was telling me.’
‘Adée, that was in confidence!’
‘Shows your heart’s in the right place, that’s all.’ Nodding towards Patrice: ‘For him to know it. The cretin had doubts of you. He’s—’
‘Only as one should have. A time like this, stranger walking in.’ He’d bowed, sweeping off the jockey-cap – revealing an advanced state of baldness. ‘My apologies. You identified yourself to the satisfaction of Georges, one knows.’ Replacing the cap, which was half blue, half orange. ‘Didn’t find your little girl yet?’
‘No.’ Thinking not of the fictional Juliette but of Léonie; and of Léonie, she’d come to realise, more than of Rouquet. Through naturally identifying with her, she supposed – having been there, or somewhere like it, knowing how it would be – had been – for a female almost the same age. Whereas Rouquet – Derek – was older, and male, and a very experienced agent who’d been chief of other SOE groups before this last one, had had years in which to condition himself mentally and physically for – the ultimate.
Plausible anyway, that he would have. Although how anyone could condition themselves to it… No, it didn’t wash. What did was simply that Léonie was so very young: self-possessed admittedly, but – little, vulnerable.
But that again was only how one saw her, thought of her, it didn’t necessarily tell you how she’d stand up to it or for how long. Nobody could be expected to hold out indefinitely. The only mercy was that after a certain length of time you’d end up dead, not only be finished with it but have triumphed.
How it seemed to others, anyway. In citations and so forth.
Adée had brought her along to the house; explaining that the old cousin although amiable enough was slightly gaga and might have refused to let her in. And that Patrice was related to them both, being a cousin of Adée’s late husband. She’d added, ‘He works with Georges.’
‘Going by last night, so must a whole crowd of them.’
‘Yes. There are some he values more than others, naturally.’
‘One thing, Adée – I’ve given your telephone number to the person I lunched with today. I had to, really – for emergencies – but I made it a condition that it was for herself alone. If she did call to leave a message for me, she’d give you her name as Jacqui.’
‘Does Georges know of her?’
‘Only what I told him and you last night.’
‘The one who lives with some specimen of SD?’
‘Not quite as bad as that sounds though. She doesn’t know anything about his work, doesn’t discuss anything of that kind – this kind – with him. All you’d need do is take the message. I’m just a lodger, you wouldn’t know my business. Except – if you like – that I’m looking for my child. I mean if you were asked by anyone at all…’
After Rosie had paid the restaurant bill, Jacqui had made the point that if Clausen should happen to be working tomorrow, not coming back to lunch, it would be pointless for Rosie to come either. Better to postpone it to the evening, or some other time.
She’d hesitated: sickened by the thought of postponement, further delay, inaction; also in regard to the ’phone number, concerned that anyone could see it wasn’t a Vincennes number. The answer was simple, though – to be ready to give up that fiction. She’d have moved, that was all. There had to be hundreds of rooming houses in this 18th Arrondissement. She’d told Jacqui it was a telephone in a café-bar not far from her lodgings, that the proprietress and the barman knew her as Jeanne-Marie Lefèvre and would pass on any message. She’d torn off a corner of the lunchtime bill, copied the number on to it and asked Jacqui to keep it to herself.
Adée had said she could use her bed, get an hour or two’s real rest, but the old cousin had already turned in, the front room consequently wasn’t in use and she thought it better to be down there, handy to the door and the street when they came for her. She’d spread the pallet again therefore, slept on it fully dressed without even a sheet over her. It was a warm little house and they didn’t open the windows much – which was why it was also stuffy and smelt of old women and old clothes.
She’d dreamt of Ben, and been woken out of it by Patrice’s insistent knocking; with Ben still in her mind but no recollection of what he and she had been doing, or where. The day would come, though – bloody would – when the two of them would be shot of everything except each other and however they mutually decided to spend the rest of their lives.
Dénault had brought with him the slightly older man who last night had taken the decision not to wait any longer for him. They were both drinking beer and were in much the same clothes they’d worn the night before: this one for instance, whom Dénault introduced as Martin Leblanc – a schoolmaster, apparently – in a blue-and-white striped shirt, dark blue tie, and the same black waistcoat. Blue-black jaw – hadn’t shaved today. There were two other men whom she recognised but they were on the point of leaving, perhaps on account of her arrival; they greeted her with handshakes, the older of them then murmuring to Dénault, ‘Until shortly, Georges.’
‘One hour. You’ll collect Bernard on your way by?’
‘Yes.’ To Leblanc then: ‘But you’re not coming?’
Rosie thinking, One hour, then he’s off. She had the feeling he wasn’t giving much attention to her business. If for instance she’d found out from Jacqui where they were being held, she’d have been counting on action now, tonight: and he, presumably, would have pleaded this prior engagement.
She had not obtained that information, though, so what the hell? Obviously he hadn’t got anything for her, either. Unless it was what they were off to now?
Fat chance. He’d have been bursting to tell her, wouldn’t he?
‘Jeanne-Marie…’
Adée, giving her a mug of ‘coffee’. Patrice was collecting empty mugs from around the room, and Dénault coming back from shutting the door behind those others.
‘Well, Jeanne-Marie.’ A large hand on her shoulder, and a smile which to her seemed patronising, big cheese sparing a moment from important matters. ‘What’s new?’
‘I was hoping you’d tell me.’
‘Well, unfortunately—’
‘Sit down, girl’: Adée.
Rosie sat – slopping her drink slightly. ‘Damn…’
‘You neither, eh? Your meeting with the woman who—’
‘I had a wild hope ten seconds ago that whatever you’re doing tonight might be connected with it.’
‘I’m sorry. But Martin here will be on his way presently to meet someone who might have information…’
Rumbling on, about the someone who might. Or, she thought, might not. Might well not. While those two might well be dead, or on the point of dying, or alive but had been tortured into spilling all the beans; while she, Rosie, would be lunching tomorrow with the man who’d done it to them, heard their screams and watched their writhings – prompting from time to time, as her Gestapo man Prinz had: ‘All right, the names and locations first. Go ahead. Then we’ll have a nice cup of tea together, isn’t that what you’d like?’ She could hear him, as she must have done about a million times in the past twelve months, those echoes in her skull: but hearing Dénault telling Leblanc now, ‘So just in case, Martin – Jeanne-Marie, correct me if I have any of this wrong – the man’s name is Rouquet, Guillaume Rouquet, middling tall, brown-haired—’
‘And a narrow, bony face. English, but his French is as fluent as your own. Léonie is French – petite, dark-haired, very pale skin, age about twenty-three. He’s forty, forty-five maybe.’ Looking meanly at Dénault: ‘Starting from scratch, are we, but leaving it to him because you’ve more pressing things to do?’
‘Not exactly – not from scratch, and I have initiated some enquiries – regrettably without result as yet – and I’m not leaving it to Martin, no, only ensuring that when he meets this individual tonight he’ll ask the right questions.’ He paused, lighting a cigarette. ‘Also because the professor knows all our business, you see, he’d step into my shoes if necessary – and do a better job than I do.’ Addressing him, then: ‘First thing, Martin, is to find where they’re being held and by whom, the second to decide how best to get them out. Most likely places of detention being of course Rue des Saussaies, and not Avenue Foch, that’s empty now, but conceivably Rue Lauriston or Rue de la Pompe.’
These people were immersed in preparations for an insurrection, Rosie thought, probably didn’t give what Ben would call a tinker’s fart for whatever might be happening to any British agents. Any moment now Dénault would admit to Leblanc that for all anyone knew, those two were already dead or on their way east; there was barely a chance they were still in Paris and alive. Which of course might be true; but if he said it, it would amount to telling him not to waste too much time on this… She put her mug down, said to Dénault, ‘As you say, Rue Lauriston. Lafont. Last night you didn’t have time to discuss it, but the point is I met Lafont – by pure chance – yesterday afternoon.’ She told Leblanc, ‘I’ll explain. You haven’t heard this, and it could be relevant.’
‘Unfortunately,’ – Dénault – ‘we don’t have all that much time even now. But—’
‘You and Martin are not going in the same direction now, you said, perhaps he has time?’
‘All right, but—’
‘Listen – please. There’s a young Frenchwoman by name of Jacqueline Clermont whom a year ago I recruited as an informant. She had valuable connections in an area of great importance, and she played her part well, gave us value for – for money and support. But that’s over and she’s now in Paris, living with an officer of the SD called Gerhardt Clausen. They have the top floor of a house in Rue de Passy and Clausen, wherever he operates, has responsibility for the custody and interrogation of the people I’m looking for. That much is fact, the information was passed to London and was part of my briefing a few days ago. So I’ve been in touch with her, we lunched together today, and she’s agreed to back me up as just a friend she happened to run into – that is, when I lunch with her and him in their flat tomorrow.’
‘God Almighty …’
She looked at Dénault, ‘It’s important enough to take the risk, that’s all.’ Back to Leblanc: ‘She’ll help me to this extent, but she won’t inform on him – says she doesn’t know anything about his work in any case. All I can do is try to be accepted on that basis and maybe find out what he’s doing and where.’
‘But Lafont comes into it?’
‘He may do. On my way into Paris yesterday I located the house on Rue de Passy, and he – Lafont – was just leaving. I’d no idea who it was but I described him to Georges last night and he said immediately: Lafont. And I’ve heard of him, of course, it just hadn’t occurred to me, there and then. But today I elicited from Jacqui that he and Clausen aren’t exactly friends but that – quote – their paths cross. And he’s chasing her—’
‘Lafont, chasing Clausen’s—’
‘Exactly. In which case his business with Clausen—’
‘Holding your friends, on behalf of Gestapo or SD.’
She nodded. ‘Since the Boches are closing down here and there. Wouldn’t it make sense?’
‘For your friends’ sake one might hope not.’
‘Yes. One’s heard—’
‘They’re murderers and rapists.’ The schoolmaster added, ‘He’d have been dealt with long ago if he wasn’t always surrounded by bodyguards.’ He looked at Dénault: ‘It makes sense, what she’s guessing.’
‘So – her friends could be in 93 Rue Lauriston, or 3b Place des Etats-Unis—’
‘Didn’t we hear they’d moved out of there?’
‘—or Rue de la Pompe. If that’s still in use.’
Leblanc said he’d find out. Rosie asked Dénault, ‘Couldn’t you break into all three places?’
‘Not impossible. Depending of course on what else is happening.’
‘I’m suggesting, do that before anything else and irrespective of whatever the hell else—’
‘Could get them killed, you know.’
‘Think they’d be safer just left there?’
‘Of course not. And if you accept that risk – yes, we could smash our way in simply for what those houses are, not on the face of it expecting to find—’
‘Will you do it?’
‘We’d need a strong team, and well armed. The Lauriston gang have everything – sub-machine-guns, grenades, fast cars—’
‘Another thing I saw this morning was what might have been your people – or perhaps Reds – making off with rifles and ammunition from two Boche trucks that had crashed. There were about four dead ones.’
‘Dead what?’
‘Boches!’
‘Where? When?’
‘The carrefour Rue Langry/Boulevard St Martin. This morning about eleven-thirty.’
‘That.’ A nod to Leblanc. He was on his feet: stooping then to tell her in a stage whisper close to her ear, ‘Tonight we hope to do even better.’ Straightening, and reaching to shake hands. ‘Which is why I can’t stay now. Look, we’ll meet here in the morning… Patrice – ready?’
‘As always, chief. How many of us will-there be?’
‘Thirty, maybe forty – from the five groups. Six of us, including you and me.’ He turned back to Rosie: ‘Jeanne-Marie, I’m sorry this business of yours is taking time, and you’re naturally anxious—’
‘That’s putting it very mildly.’
‘One understands.’ All of them were looking at her as if they really did; and Patrice looking at her mouth – which she found annoying. Adée moved up beside her, put a hot, heavy arm round her shoulders. ‘Poor Jeanne-Marie!’
‘No. Poor Léonie and poor Rouquet.’
‘But we’ll meet here in the morning to decide about those addresses.’ Leblanc, nodding reassuringly to Rosie, added to Dénault, ‘Which if you make a good job of it tonight—’
‘It’ll make a difference. Then, no matter what else is going on. Start our ball rolling, you might say.’
‘What time in the morning, though? I have to be in Rue de Passy by about noon.’
‘Ten o’clock here, then?’
‘Make it nine?’
‘Nine-thirty.’ Dénault shrugged. ‘And there goes my Sunday lie-in. What we do for our beloved allies!’ Dénault winked at Adée. ‘Especially pretty ones…’
‘Four kilometres?’
‘About that. It’s not a place I’d have picked, mind you. Given them enough trouble around there already.’ Dénault had unchained his bicycle, was waiting for Patrice to do the same. They were at the side of the Hospital Lariboisière, close to the Gare du Nord, the building shadowing them from the setting last-quarter moon. Too many bikes tethered outside a café-bar at a time like this might well attract the kind of attention you didn’t want. Visitors to places of refreshment had to get away home eventually, and when a curfew was in force – how, without infringing it? Whereas a hospital – or indeed a brothel… Dénault added, ‘Sod them, anyway. And if we get what we’ve been promised… Come on, man—’
‘Padlock’s rusted.’ Patrice got up, pocketing the lock and chain. ‘You lead?’
‘Sure. Stay well behind me, so we don’t both ride into trouble. And because I’ve gone round a corner doesn’t mean it’s safe for you to whizz round after me – take care, eh?’
‘Doubt we’d meet trouble.’
‘Famous last words. Know where it is now, do you?’
‘North of the cemetery. Rue St Fargeau… Yes, I do, but—’
‘Close to the far end of it, over the Avenue Gambetta. A working garage – repairs, gazo conversions. Fécontel’s to have one of his people looking out for us, we ride in and they shut the door again. All right, here we go.’
East – Boulevard de la Chapelle – then south-east, Dénault pausing at every blind corner, usually in shadow. Patrice keeping 30–50 metres behind him. Swinging to the right without pausing at the La Fayette/Jean Jaures junction, into Avenue Secretan: it was all wide open, that crossing, moonlit as well, no cover; if you were spotted by Milice or Schutzpolizei you’d stoop low and race, simply trust to luck.
Over it now, anyway – in Avenue Secretan. Ahead, Dénault weaving somewhat drunkenly as he turned to look back. Patrice muttering, ‘Don’t worry about me, just keep going’ – at that moment hearing a car behind him – not gazo, petrol engine. Up at the crossroads somewhere, no sight of it or shred of light, in a quick glance back; telling himself it might not be coming down this way.
Dénault had swung off to the right. Patrice put his back into it, maximum effort, pedalling like crazy to get to that turn-off before—
Streak of light from a masked headlight behind there, at the crossing. He wondered, Fall off, act plastered? On the assumption that neither Milice nor SD would take much interest in a drunken curfew-breaker. Unless they were out trawling for replacement hostages. But have to smell of drink, which despite being a barman he did not – not tonight, anyway. He’d reached the fork, was careering into it. That blackness a few hundred metres ahead had been the Buttes Chaumont, a steep wooded rise, which meant that this curl of road had to be – oh, Avenue Simon Bolivar? The car’s engine was loud behind him – shifting gear. To make the same turn? Spotted him, in pursuit now? There was no sight of Dénault in front; no cover either – not a corner, tree or parked vehicle, entrance with a wall, or—
It had passed the turning, and gone on – straight on down Avenue Secretan. Either had not seen him, or had more urgent business. Patrice braking, guessing that if he didn’t slow up he might shoot out at the bottom of the next wide bend just as the car passed at that lower junction, this end of the Buttes. Although Dénault – well ahead of him, presumably – which would mean he must have put on a hell of a spurt – might have a better chance of doing precisely that.
‘Hey! Patrice!’
Speak of the devil. Riding sedately out of this intersection – a slightly smaller road, whatever the hell it was. And the sound of the car passing the other end of it, its junction with the lower end of Secretan, at just this moment. Gone then, and the sound fading.
‘All right?’
‘Now, it’s all right!’
‘What was it, did you see?’
Dénault was so thickset that approaching head-on as he was you didn’t notice the bike, only the squarish mass of him above it. Patrice had stopped, one foot on the kerb. Telling him no, he’d no idea; some Boche general, been dipping his wick, maybe. Was this the Avenue Bolivar though?
‘Exactly. At the bottom we go over the carrefour into Rue des Pyrenées. Five hundred metres then and Saint Fargeau’s on the left, and after about another five hundred—’
‘OK.’
They’d be getting – had been promised – several hundred Schmeisser machine-pistols tonight, also a large quantity of 9-millimetre.
Dénault had stopped to wait for him on the Rue St Fargeau between Avenue Gambetta and Boulevard Mortier.
‘It’s up there.’
The approach was by way of a concrete strip with a warehouse on one side and a 10-foot brick wall on the other. At the back of the warehouse it led to a cindered parking area with some wrecked-looking gazos here and there and a single-storey garage frontage at the back. The garage. As their bicycles scrunched off concrete on to cinders, a torch flashed once, over there. It was very dark but one’s eyes had become used to that – the moon being down now, and of course no street-lighting. To keep its lights on and the Metro running Paris needed 10,000 tons of coal a day, and wasn’t getting any. Dénault dismounted, began to push his bike towards the garage, calling into the silence, ‘Georges Dénault and Patrice Macombre.’
The torch came on again, licked across timber double doors – closed – and lingered on a small personnel door set in the left-hand one. This was clearly for their guidance, the torch-man calling to those inside, ‘Dénault and another. Open up!’ It was opened, and another torch shone into Dénault’s face and then Patrice’s as they wheeled their bikes in, Dénault grumbling, ‘Trying to blind me? Oh – you, Alain.’
‘No problems?’
‘None at all. Are my people here?’ Shaking hands. ‘This is Patrice Macombre. Alain Fécantel.’ The place was crowded but reasonably quiet, men standing around chatting, smoking, exercising patience: there was an aroma of oil and cigarette smoke. Dénault adding, ‘The way we came, nothing’s moving.’
‘Boches are patrolling the main through-roads. Milice don’t seem to be out at all.’
‘A lot of ’em left town Thursday night. But they’re still in and out of Rue Monceau, I heard. And the Auteuil synagogue they’re using for a barracks. What time’s this fellow due?’
‘Twelve to twelve-thirty.’
‘But that’s now!’
‘Yes. You were a little late, Georges.’
‘What sort of guy is he?’
‘Typical black-marketeer. Name of Maurard. The guns and ammo just happened to fall into his hands, he says.’
‘What about payment?’
‘He’s accepting a promissory note. Parodi’s backing it so he can’t doubt it’s good. My idea’s to stash most of the stuff here and move it out load by load Monday. Your one-fifth to Gare de l’Est – that still OK?’
‘So all we do tonight is unload the man’s transport?’
‘And divide it. Jabot and Ruard are taking theirs, they’ve gazos out there.’
‘I thought those were wrecks!’
‘It’s a risk, moving the stuff at night. But that’s what they want, so—’
‘Hey…’
A thump – a bang on the small door. In here, sudden and total silence. Then the voice from outside – not loud but carrying, in the hollow stillness: ‘A truck’s backing up now!’
You could hear it: a big petrol engine. Some of these crooks really took the biscuit – you could bet your last sou it would be a ‘borrowed’ Wehrmacht truck, would have stood virtually no risk of being stopped. Dénault had just put a cigarette in his mouth and would by now have lit it, instead was returning it to the pack. Muttering to Patrice as the other man left them, ‘Fucker’s on time, what’s more. Too good to be true, huh?’
‘Hello there, Georges!’
‘Who’s that?’
‘Paul – also Marcel and Bernard.’
‘Where’s Tallandier?’
‘He’s here somewhere. Hi, Patrice. Make mine a double, eh?’
Chuckles, handshakes, pats on shoulders, cigarette stubs being dropped and trodden on. Sound of a heavy vehicle braking out there, and the torch-man’s call of, ‘Open up, lads!’
‘Yeah. Let’s get on with it…’
They were working on the doors, which began scraping open. Still only the one torch – no, two, but both of them dim, in need of new batteries. Dénault muttering, ‘Need more light…’
They got it. Brilliant, from the open back of the truck. Guns too, the kind they’d come here for, Schmeisser machine-pistols in the hands of maybe a dozen SS men, some jumping down but others staying up there with the stubby blue-black barrels of the Schmeissers glinting in the spill of light from those blinding, shifting beams and trained on the mob inside here. A German voice then yelling in accented French, ‘Stay where you are – hands up! Move, you’re dead! You—’
A short burst: and the man who’d been outside and had backed into the garage with his torch, guiding the truck’s driver, and who must have made some move – maybe to get out past it – was down on his knees on the concrete, arms clutched around his belly; there’d been ricochets, steel-cased slugs singing away to smash out through the tin roof. The officer jumped down and finished off the torch-man with a single shot in the back of his head. Facing them again in the outspill of the lights that were intermittently blinding everyone; two other Germans had jumped down, those still up there watching keenly over the helmeted heads, machine-pistols as well as the light-beams shifting this way and that. The officer again: ‘Any of you carrying arms, drop them! Use only one hand. Now! So… One man at a time – starting there; you – forward! Any still carrying a weapon will be shot, so – drop them! All right – hands up! Higher! Und – forward! No – in file, in file!’ A few gutturals then to those up behind him on the truck, and a sack was dumped over, crashed down on the concrete – heavy, metallic, a weight of chain.