by D A Kent
‘Whatsoever.’ That was pretty categorical for those stuffed shirts at Simpsons, beyond their usual facade of utter discretion. He turned on his heel and returned to the restaurant and, having unbuckled another note, came away with the impression that Simpsons were, for reasons they could not identify, very concerned about a valued customer. Gunn paused and cadged a light from a passing Marine. Something was amiss. He had the sense that a trip to France might be a necessity, not a luxury on Edward’s tab. He hoped Sylvia would be able to work her magic on Cumberlands.
Fortified by one of Joan’s special cups of tea, Sylvia was already ensconced in the meeting room at Cumberlands. Louis was in Court at an emergency hearing before one of the High Court Masters; an issue had arisen over the lease of one of his tailors in the Piccadilly Arcade that simply couldn’t wait. It would be difficult to discern which of them would be more ill-tempered, Edward joked, as he took a seat opposite her. ‘Oh, to be a fly on the wall!’
‘Anyway.’ He cast an appreciative and slightly wistful eye over Sylvia, thinking how much her green dress suited her colouring. ‘How have you been getting on?’
Sylvia gave him a carefully adulterated version, which included the odd specimen who had flitted across the bombsite opposite her house and Lilychops, but not what Gunn had done to him. Edward had a peculiar fascination with the life of an enquiry agent, or at least his perception of it, but he could be terribly prissy at times, for somebody who had been in the air force. Sylvia loved to tease him, assuring him that it wasn’t a dark art.
The upshot was, Mr. Jones had not made it to England. Many people seemed to be concerned about it. Some appeared less than savoury. If Cumberlands were adamant about not involving the police or consular officials in their inquiry, presumably they would now require Clements Investigations to take things further and would be prepared to come up with the ‘necessary.’ She outlined the preparations that would have to be made and the steps they would need to take in France, and took some more careful notes. Edward confirmed that Mr Jones had a very distant cousin on the Weston side in Dorset, several times removed and he had already been in touch. ‘Sounded as if he was at death’s door,’ Edward commented. Anyway, he had heard nothing since before the war, although that was not unexpected; they were not that close.
‘You drive a hard bargain, Miss Fordred.’ Edward sighed as he took out his fountain pen and wrote out another, even larger cheque to cover up-front expenses. Sylvia eyed him thoughtfully. He usually had to get his father’s authority before he so much as bought a box of matches. First yesterday’s sizeable cheque, now this one; whatever were they getting themselves into?
‘But seriously, please don’t hesitate to ask if there is anything – anything at all that you need. Here’s Quentin’s card, by the way.’ Edward had told Sylvia that Cumberlands’ correspondents in Paris, Cabinet Meunier, would be at their disposition in case of emergencies. He had already briefed Maître Meunier by letter.
Edward frowned fleetingly, as if it were an afterthought.
‘Seriously, though, Sylvia, I wouldn’t like to think of you going over there on your own but ...this Gunn character....seems a bit rough around the edges, can’t put my finger on it...I mean, would you trust him?’
‘With my life’ came the emphatic reply, as Sylvia took her leave.
Edward raised an eyebrow the merest fraction of an inch. Deep in thought, he made his way back up to his office, not stopping for his usual chat with Cathy and Joan. He did not know what to make of Gunn. He didn’t like the cut of his jib. In his time in the RAF, Edward had fought alongside men from outside his social world. He valued them and held them in the highest esteem and would always stand a drink for them. But Gunn, well, he was a different kettle of fish. He disturbed Edward’s carefully crafted world view and style. Gunn was neither an Englishman nor a Frenchman; at least being the latter could have excused him. He was between two worlds and thus worthy of suspicion. Even his war service had been irregular for the most part, serving with Stirling and then the SOE. Not quite the right team.
Anyway, if that clown let the slightest harm come to Sylvia, he would cheerfully throttle him with his bare hands. He and Sylvia went back a long way; their families had been friends, although this had come to an abrupt end. He never knew why, but he and Sylvia had continued to exchange letters when they were away at school. He had been off somewhere with the RAF when the news had come through about her father, but his parents had remained tight-lipped, still nursing some kind of grudge. Now they were steering him inexorably towards Caroline, the bovine daughter of friends from his parents at the tennis club.
Actually, he should have been setting up exchange of contracts right now, on a house in Hampstead belonging to yet another of his father’s Cambridge contemporaries. It could bloody well wait. Scowling, Edward screwed up the piece of paper with the details on it and threw it against the wall. Ringing down to reception, and telling Cathy in no uncertain terms that he was not to be disturbed for at least an hour, irrespective of who it was, he unlocked the top drawer of a large cabinet belonging to his father. The secretaries had gone home early. Now was his chance. Fortified by a large slug of brandy from the meeting room, he took out a large file on Jones, marked ‘Confidential.’
Back at the bunker, and in equal need of a drink, Sylvia poured a measure of whisky for herself and a more substantial one for Gunn. Grinning his thanks, he observed ‘here’s mud in your eye’ and threw a good portion of the ‘life giver’ down his throat. He set his glass on the desk and watched as the tawny spirit settled down. He looked over at his colleague.
‘Well, this is a rum do. Money thrown at us, everyone we meet as twitchy as hell, and we can hardly move without stumbling over some cove in the shadows like some character from some ghastly provincial two-hander at Retford Rep.’
‘I can’t understand it,’ Sylvia agreed. ‘The whole thing doesn’t really ring true.’
‘Not for a minute. I wonder if old Louis knows more than he lets on. He was pretty quiet the other day, apart from warning you off about the police. And I don’t think you could put it all down to him being worn out after tearing that girl from the bank off a strip, either.’
‘I think we had better put Chartrettes at the top of the agenda.’ Sylvia reached for the battered school atlas from the shelf, and her father’s copy of Baedeker. ‘South of Paris, isn’t it?’
‘Indeed. Other side of the river from Fontainebleau.’
‘So you know it?’
Gunn narrowed his eyes. ‘Not really. My parents took me to some friends at the Chateau de Sermaise when I was a boy. Beyond that, I have little memory of the area. Now Paris I do know.’
‘I can imagine.’ Sylvia pursed her lips in mock disapproval. ‘Some stories to tell?’
‘In the right company.’
Gunn closed the subject. ‘Shall I get tickets for the boat train for the day after tomorrow? Should be fairly easy; every bugger is coming in rather than leaving.’
‘Fine by me’ said Sylvia. ‘Now, about money and exchange controls...’ She was about to tell him about Cabinet Meunier.
‘Not a problem. We’ll use the old Stavisky method. Just unbelt some money that a friend of mine in Hatton Garden can turn into gold. Works like a dream. Trust me. Voice of experience and all that.’
Privately, Sylvia felt rather relieved to have Cabinet Meunier’s business card. She wasn’t sure she liked the sound of this Stavisky method, even with the voice of experience in charge of it. Life with Gunn had always been entertaining. Now, she felt as if she were in a novel written by a madman, with no familiar landmarks.
Chapter 4
On the top deck of the SS Isle of Thanet, Sylvia and Gunn were enjoying some afternoon sunshine. It had been an incredible couple of days. Sylvia was not at all sorry to see the back of Tufnell Park for a while. One of the doctors had shot suspiciously into the hall as she set out, canvas holdall slung over her shoulder. Goodness knows what he thought she had
in there. She had given him a cheerful wave in farewell.
Gunn had faced down another interrogation from Mrs. O, his landlady. She never missed a trick. Giving her a couple of months’ rent had shut her up. Gloria, the old China hand, had given him an unladylike conspiratorial wink as she stirred some disgusting-looking porridge. ‘The stories she could tell would fill a book,’ Gunn thought, as he headed for the underground.
Idly watching a seagull trying to keep pace with the ferry, Sylvia chuckled as she recalled Gunn’s face when he had appeared, tickets in hand, to discover Joan ensconced tightly behind a desk.
‘Christ,’ he had grumbled sotto voce. ‘We’ll need a bloody extension at this rate. How will she manage the stairs?’
‘Well, a few more cases like this and we can take the whole building over’ Sylvia replied, happily.
‘Don’t you worry, Mr Gunn’ Joan had said, watching Gunn and Sylvia scurrying back and forth like a pair of ants, in and out of the props cupboard, carrying out final ‘pre-op’ checks (old habits died hard). She was amused to watch Gunn taking things out of the bags and Sylvia putting them back in. ‘I’ll look after the place for you. Keep it ticking over. Fancied a change from those stuck up gits at Cumberlands anyway and this is right on my bus route. You concentrate on finding Mr Jones. Real gent, that one.’
Both fell silent as the coast of France drew nearer, lost in thoughts and memories of their own. Each had a complex relationship with France, rooted both in childhood and in the fall of France in 1940. Sylvia’s father had been a wine importer and her earliest and sunniest memories were of trips to Epernay and Bordeaux, in an overloaded Citroen supplied by her father’s company. The last time she had seen her father was when he had put her on the train at the Gare du Nord for her journey back to boarding school in England. He had written regularly but then darkness had fallen; the end of her childhood. She often told herself, when she felt very alone, that this was an experience shared by many. It didn’t make it easier.
Sylvia instantly knew she was ‘home,’ as she still thought of it, as they negotiated customs and immigration, by the evocative smell of gitanes. A hot, dusty ride to Amiens and finally they were on the Paris train. Gunn’s mind was racing as the city he loved so much drew closer. As they chugged through the suburbs, he realised Sylvia had fallen asleep with her head on his shoulder. He was reluctant to move her, although his arm had gone to sleep. He stayed stock still, deep in thought, for the rest of the journey.
‘Sylv’ he said ‘Wake up, sweetheart. We’re here!’
Normally, he would have known better than to call her ‘Sylv’ or ‘sweetheart.’ However, Sylvia scarcely seemed to notice and to be almost in a world of her own as she stood on the platform and he passed the bags down to her, including far too much of the props cupboard. ‘Thought we were meant to be travelling light, not going on a sodding Thomas Cook’s tour,’ he grumbled. Most of this would end up in the consigne, if he had his way. It struck him then how little he knew about Sylvia; she never mentioned her family. He only knew she had been married in 1943, and widowed almost immediately. She rarely let her guard slip. Watching her, lost in thought beside the train, he sensed the vulnerability under that prickly exterior.
‘Gare de Lyon next,’ said Gunn, as he joined her on the platform. ‘There’s a bus right outside. Then, I don’t know about you, but I am going to need a large snifter.’
The familiar sight of the squat clock tower on the Boulevard Diderot caught Gunn’s eye as the bus pulled in to the Gare de Lyon. He grinned at a memory or two, despite the press of cinq à sept humanity on the bus. Sylvia looked at him inquiringly. Gunn considered for a moment and then offered:
‘Oh, I got stuck up behind the clock face in ’43. Some damn fool op coming into Paris, got rumbled by the Germans and the French police. Had to stick a knife in my contact, who was working for the police. They chased me into the station and they spent hours, combing every damn train in and out. Meanwhile, I found a door, prised it open and ended up observing their scuttlings from behind the hour hand. Most unedifying it was, too. Right, let’s find our train.’
Sylvia never knew quite what to make of Gunn’s stories. She followed him obediently off the bus and along to the huge ticket hall. It seemed unusually thronged with humanity, even allowing for rush hour. They soon established that there had been some flooding further south and there would be no more trains to Chartrettes, or indeed anywhere near it, that evening.
‘Well, let’s use some of Edward’s money,’ suggested Gunn. ‘I know a little place in Le Marais.’
‘Le Marais, isn’t that the Jewish area?’ Sylvia didn’t know Paris terribly well; it had been a while since she last passed through. Right now, anywhere with a clean bed and somewhere she could have a wash and brush-up after that bus journey sounded good. Gunn always had a certain style and, despite the waves of exhaustion lapping over her, she was rather curious to see some of these old haunts and to see Paris through his eyes. That snifter sounded tempting, and she realised they had scarcely had a bite to eat all day.
‘Yes, it is.’ Gunn shouldered their bags and led Sylvia firmly out to the taxi rank. Poor girl was dead on her feet. ‘No more buggering buses. Hate them. Rather take a cab.’ The pair waited, content in the hum of noise about them and a cigarette each from the packet that Gunn had gleefully bought at the tabac at the station entrance.
A cab drew up and Gunn threw their bags into the boot, held the door open for Sylvia, and followed her in, folding his frame in after her. He leant over to the taxi driver. ‘Hotel Le Vau. Rue du Plâtre.’ He leant back and looked at Sylvia. ‘Little place I found in 46. It will do. Now, hang on tight, taxi drivers around here are a little enthused at the best of times.’
He wasn’t joking, thought Sylvia, feeling slightly dizzy as she followed Gunn into a tall building which had seen better days. She was only half-listening to him rattling on to Madame at the front desk, who had greeted him like an old friend, about the unprecedented shortage of hotel rooms, probably due to the problems on the trains. They followed Madame up the stairs, pressing the light switch at every stairwell, to a room at the top.
‘Voilà, Monsieur et Madame Gunn’ She rattled an impressive bunch of keys and opened the door with a magnificent flourish, as if ushering them into the best suite at the Ritz. ‘Bienvenue à Paris!’ Giving them a lascivious wink, she added ‘Félicitations!’ and commenced the steep descent back to her desk.
The view out of the window was stunning; the rest of the facilities not so impressive. The bed, which was huge and sagged in the middle, had an old red counterpane draped over it. It looked as if it dated back to the Revolution. Clouds of dust billowed out if you so much as touched anything. The walls were a brown colour; that was probably all the nicotine over the years.
‘That bed has seen some action.’ quipped Gunn.
‘I suppose you would know all about that!’ retorted Sylvia.
A quick wash and brush up later, using the rather grubby facilities at the end of the corridor (Sylvia shuddered to think who else was using them; certainly someone with most unpleasant habits) they sallied forth into the street.
‘So, a snifter and then dinner, Mrs Gunn?’ came the suggestion. Sylvia could sense he was pleased to be back in Paris, possibly a little too pleased with himself, but she nodded in agreement. ‘We could have a stroll and see what we come across.’
‘Why not?’ Sylvia was tired, but felt the need to stretch after having been cooped up for so long on the train. ‘Any particular direction in mind?’
‘Hmm, left on the Rue des Archives, coming up in a minute, then a right past the Theatre des Blancs Manteaux, then a right and a left down the Rue des Rosiers. Slap bang in the middle of the Jewish district. There’s a damn decent restaurant down there.’
‘He clearly knows his Paris,’ thought Sylvia.
Another hundred yards and they were there; through the noisy Jewish deli and down the rough steps into the restaurant, spit and sawdu
st and Jewish food from back east. Gunn visibly relaxed as they followed the waitress down the steps into the bustle and hum and the music. The waitress, whose hair was cut straight across her cheek bone and as sleek as a crow’s feather, insisted that a party at a long table squeeze up to make some room. Her tone brooked no resistance.
Gunn and Sylvia sat down and he ordered them vodka –Polish and ice cold, as a palate cleanser. He smiled at Sylvia, who was looking about her with some curiosity.
‘First came here in 45, just after the Germans were cleared out.’ Gunn pointed back to the stairs. ‘The deli was a little empty, but they were getting back in the saddle. ‘I had meatloaf and carp, not on the same plate mind, too much vodka and then fell out onto the street at around breakfast time, which led me to Les Halles, strong coffee, bread and apricot jam.’
‘You’d better order.’ Sylvia was dazed. ‘It looks amazing. I wouldn’t know where to start.’
Over dinner, and more vodka, they talked about Chartrettes. It was difficult to make many plans before they got to the house. Presumably Mr. Jones had neighbours. Maybe the local shop or auberge could shed some light.
‘It’s good to be in France again.’ Sylvia sat back contentedly, letting the alcohol course through her veins. She told Gunn about her father, and how he had died in the summer of 1940, when France fell. Her mother had walked out on them many years previously. As a result, Sylvia had become the ward of her aunt Hortense although she was at boarding school in Folkestone. After her father’s death, she became rebellious and disaffected, spending most of her time working out how to escape from school. The final incident had involved the local boys’ school. She hastened to add that nothing untoward had gone on.
‘That’s where the resourcefulness comes from. I knew it. Good thing I wasn’t in the vicinity,’ commented Gunn.
Eventually, she was expelled. The headmistress told her never to darken the doors of the school again. Aunt Hortense died not long afterwards. The old bat’s friends spitefully told her at the funeral that this was due to her disgraceful behaviour. The family doctor later assured her that this was unlikely to have been the case. Yet Aunt Hortense had changed her will and left her house and seven mangy cats to the local Cats’ Home, with just a small allowance for Sylvia to eke out an existence in London. Her father’s estate had been held in trust for her and she would come in to it in a few years.