‘What is it, what’s wrong?’ Noor asked, her heart thudding against her ribs.
The Professor could hardly get the words out. ‘My wife – received a telephone call – the head of Prosper and seventeen other agents – arrested – ’
‘No!’ she gasped, sagging on to the bench. ‘And – and what about Norman?’ She could hardly bear to ask.
The Prof shook his head.
‘No, not Norman. But – we don’t know – where he is.’
‘When did this happen?’
‘Two nights ago.’
Agents were told not to say anything during the first forty-eight hours after they were captured. That would give the others in their circuit time to hide themselves and anything incriminating. After that, if the torture became impossible to bear, they could say what they liked.
Noor leapt to her feet. The first forty-eight hours had almost passed. ‘We must hide Norman’s set. Right now! And his codes. He keeps them with it.’
His hands trembling, the Professor unlocked the greenhouse. Noor ran inside, the Prof following. Noor dragged the suitcase containing the radio set out from its hiding place.
‘We’ll bury it,’ she said, running out towards the vegetable garden behind the greenhouse. ‘Here!’ She pointed to a bed of lettuces.
Noor grabbed a couple of Maillard’s spades from a wheelbarrow, and together she and the Prof dug up the bed. They buried the suitcase and put the lettuces back. Noor disturbed the earth on the rest of the bed to make it look less conspicuous.
The Prof took Noor’s arm, his hand still shaking, his eyes clouded with worry. ‘You must leave. Now. Tell Garry what has happened. Warn the others. Be on your guard all the time.’
Noor left Grignon straight away. Where was Norman? Had the Germans got him too? A chasm was opening up in her stomach.
‘Mon Dieu!’ Garry exclaimed when he opened the door to Noor’s frantic banging. ‘What is the problem?’
As soon as he heard the news, he grabbed his keys and left with Noor to find Antelme. He’d gone away for the day so they waited for him outside his apartment, sitting with their backs against his door as the light drained outside.
Noor kept churning the news in her mind. How could it have happened? Eighteen arrested at once. Norman had said that the circuit had become too large. Why hadn’t they listened? And the head of Prosper hadn’t been happy that so many members of the circuit were in one place at the same time on Sunday. Someone must have been careless. Remembering her own thoughtlessness with her security codes brought a blush to her cheeks.
There was another possibility. Perhaps they had been double-crossed. The thought turned Noor cold.
Garry, too, was disturbed. His mouth was set in a tight line, and he hardly spoke. Every so often, he stood up and paced in front of the window.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs. Noor stiffened. Garry’s hands fisted.
It was Antelme, the familiar purple beret on his head. His smile faded as he saw the anxiety on their faces.
He unlocked his apartment, ushering them into the tiny dining- and sitting room. Garry told him what had happened. The pallor caused by shock, together with the stark light cast by the bulb hanging from the ceiling, made Antelme look ghostly.
‘Right,’ he said, drumming his long fingers on the table as he thought. ‘We need to move. But first I need to speak to a few people.’ He picked up the telephone and put a couple of calls through. His voice was low and urgent. After hanging up, he pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.
‘OK. Garry, you will go into hiding. Madeleine, you will move to a new safe house. My friend Raymond has a studio flat for you. I’ll move to the same address, stay with another friend – Germaine – in her apartment. ‘
Garry set off straight away. Noor waited with Antelme while he grabbed some clothes and documents and threw them into a bag.
Antelme’s legs covered a lot of ground very quickly, and Noor had to trot to keep up with him. They needed to get off the streets before the curfew.
‘Did you find out about my radio set?’ she asked, as they made their way through the dark streets.
Antelme sighed. ‘That’s the only positive thing at the moment – your equipment is safe. It’s being kept at Le Mans. You’ll get it soon, but for the moment you need to lie low.’
‘But there must be something I can do in the meantime,’ she said.
They’d reached the apartment block where they’d both be staying. Antelme buzzed to be let in. He looked down at Noor, a tired smile flickering across his face.
‘Yes, there is. I need to know what went wrong. Find out anything you can.’
‘I’ll go over to Grignon tomorrow,’ Noor said.