The Girl in the Baker's Van

by Richard Savin

  She had just done this when she heard the sound of voices followed by a key going into the lock. Like a startled rabbit she bolted up the stairs to the sanctuary of the chapel where, once inside, she unslung the knapsack from her shoulders, then took off her coat and her heavy shoes. At any moment she expected the priest to push open the door to make sure she was still there. She could hear sounds coming up from the apse below, but there was no visit. The tension of the uncertainty was beginning to get to her, and then the strains of voices singing came up the stairs. Ignoring caution, she opened the door and listened; it was definitely singing. She went down to the bottom of the stairs and there saw the brightly polished faces of choirboys, all dressed in black cassocks, white surplices and ruff collars. There was no sign of the priest; instead there was a choirmaster, his back to her facing his novices and conducting their voices with gusto. He was much shorter than Father Guillaume and older, a stout man with a pronounced bald patch at the back of his head.

  She hovered there for a moment; then, making up her mind, marched resolutely back up to the chapel, pulled on her coat and her boots, shouldered the knapsack and descended again. Standing in the sacristy by the door leading to the apse she could see the choirmaster. He stood facing the choir with his back to her – all she needed to do was get past him unseen and to the sacristy door; she was sure they would have left it unlocked. The choir began a chant; she waited for the incantation to reach its crescendo then walked swiftly across the sacristy, staying close to the wall until she reached the door. She was wrong, the door was still locked. The choir had stopped singing. She turned and then froze; the choirmaster was standing in the doorway to the apse looking at her.

  ‘Do you have a key to this door monsieur?’ was all she could think to say. ‘I need to go out.’

  The words rang hollow and the man looked suspicious. ‘What are you doing here, mademoiselle?’ he said.

  ‘I’ve been in the private chapel upstairs. I have been praying – my family have suffered most distressingly. I have been making my supplications to the Virgin but I seem to have stayed too long.’ The words flowed out of her mouth as ungarnished as they had come into her head, but they seemed to have convinced him.

  ‘Of course,’ he said politely. ‘I am most sorry for your family. Wait here for a moment.’

  He left the room. Instinctively she moved over to the door and watched him through the crack where he had left it ajar. It didn’t look right. He was talking rapidly to a younger man and at the same time looking furtively in the direction of the sacristy. Next to her was the cupboard where the priest’s coat hung with the automatic pistol in the pocket. As she watched them move towards her she quickly retrieved it. She may not need it but she would take no chances. She quietly cursed herself for taking the ammunition out of the clip – but they would not know that. The choirmaster and his assistant came in through the door; they were both smiling.

  ‘Do you have the key?’ she asked politely.

  ‘I do, mademoiselle.’ He grinned and flourished it at her. ‘But before we open the door we have a few questions we would like you to answer.’

  The choirmaster was shaking his head slowly and there was a half-smile hovering around raised eyebrows. His companion too had a mocking look on his face and his demeanour had become aggressive. ‘Because,’ the choirmaster continued, his voice now openly derisive, ‘if you do not then I shall be unable to open the door for you.’

  ‘That’s a pity,’ she said, trying to sound confident. She took a step back and, pulling the gun from her coat pocket, levelled it at his head, ‘Because it means I shall have to blow your fucking head off.’ She looked at the other man. ‘And you’ll be next, bozo – so just do it and go home happy.’

  The choirmaster had gone ashen; the self-assured smile had deserted him; his eyes were almost bursting out of his head. He made a whimpering noise and went over to the door; the key shook uncontrollably in his hand. The younger man made a start to move but Evangeline quickly turned the gun on him. He thought better of it and threw his hands rapidly into the air. ‘I’ll do it,’ he said, anxiously nodding towards the fumbling choirmaster. He took the key and finally got the door open.

  As he did so she felt the rush of cold as it filled the room and she knew she was free. She took the key out of the lock and, waving the gun in the direction of the choir, calmly said, ‘Get back to your singing.’ As they moved away she pulled the door shut and locked it. Then she threw the key as hard as she could down the street, listening to it bounce and jingle as it came to rest somewhere in the gutter. Midway across one of the many footbridges that crossed the river, as she headed for Perrache station, she slipped the gun out of her coat pocket and let it drop over the edge. It hit the water with a muted splash, then sank into the depths of the river Rhône below. She still had the bullets and she wondered if she would regret throwing away the gun; the sense of power it had given her had been exhilarating even though it had not been loaded.

  She stepped down the short iron staircase of the footbridge onto the pavement, looking round briefly to see if she was being followed. Nothing. She hurried through the streets to Perrache station, all the time punctuating her progress with random stops, looking in shop windows or up at the buildings as if she were lost; and at each unscheduled stop she cast around furtively looking for anyone suspicious. At Perrache she walked straight past the station, carrying on for another hundred metres or so. Once more she stopped and looked around her. Certain as she could be that the coast was clear, she retraced her steps – this time rapidly. She virtually ran up the steps to the main concourse.

  In the bureau for deposited baggage she handed in the ticket to a concierge, who smiled and handed over the oilcloth package. She opened it and took out the Swiss money, then retied the tape around it, handed it back, thanked the concierge and hurried away, going back down the steps and along the street heading for the district of Bellecour and away from the church. When she had got as far as Place Bellecour she loitered by a stationary tram carrying a sign that announce it was bound for Perrache. She waited until it was about to leave and then at the last moment boarded. Sure she was the last passenger to board, she took a seat at the back and watched nervously to see who got on at each stop.

  She got off the tram back at Perrache station. Now she needed to find a train going south to Montpellier and Narbonne. If she could get to Narbonne she felt sure she would be able to find someone to take her across the Pyrenees and to safety in Spain. She had heard from Alain, her brother, that there were plenty of résistants in the city running escape routes, and with only the gendarmes patrolling the rugged and intractable garrigue it should not be too hard to get across the border.

  Getting down from the tram she went to a café close to the station where she ordered coffee. She had not eaten since the morning but when she asked the waiter what they could offer he shook his head. ‘It’s too late for lunch and too early for dinner,’ he told her with a shrug. Nevertheless he found her a croissant left over from breakfast and she was grateful. She began to relax; the coffee was real and the croissant not too stale. She got the money out of her knapsack, settled it on her lap under cover of the table and cautiously counted the Swiss franc notes. She put them in an inside pocket of her coat together with the luggage ticket. The afternoon was wearing on as she made her way in through the grand stone entrance towards the quai where her train was waiting to leave. The monumental clock that sat atop the building announced it was exactly 15.30. She was ready to go. The money gave her a renewed sense of security – with money you can buy your way out of most problems, she told herself. She was feeling confident but, as she passed under the clock, that confidence was abruptly shattered; she came face to face with someone she recognised.

  ‘Mathieu!’

  He looked at her as if he were almost embarrassed to be there. Evangeline felt her stomach churn and she quickly looked around to see if there were others with him.

  ‘What are you doing
here? How did you find me?’

  He made a little hand gesture. ‘I guessed,’ he said apologetically. ‘When I heard you had gone I thought you might come here. Father Guillaume is furious that you locked poor Eric inside and threatened him with the gun. Do you still have it?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I threw it in the river.’

  ‘Oh.’ He was, she thought, looking very uncomfortable.

  ‘What are you going to do – now you’ve found me, that is?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said plaintively.

  ‘Why don’t we go into the station restaurant and have a drink?’

  Mathieu nodded approval. ‘Not here though. I’m sure the others will come to the same conclusion as I did. Sooner or later they’ll turn up. There’s a brasserie not far from here, they won’t think to go there – it’s safe.’

  ‘Do you still have the package?’ he asked as they came out of the station.

  ‘Uh, huh,’ she said, nodding and smiling. She was feeling better; she was sure he would help her.

  ‘Here we are.’ He waved a hand as they arrived at the front of a cavernous building. ‘Brasserie Georges – it’s the biggest brasserie in Lyon. I forget how many it seats but it’s a lot. They serve choucroute, so you should feel at home.’

  They were conducted to a table by a formally dressed waiter in a stiff white-fronted shirt and a black tailcoat. Evangeline looked at Mathieu sitting opposite; he was going to get her out of France and yet he looked no more than a schoolboy to her.

  ‘How old are you?’

  He looked embarrassed. ‘Seventeen.’

  ‘You’re no more than a kid. Does your mother know you’re doing this kind of stuff?’

  He looked irritated. ‘So how old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-six.’

  ‘Wow that is old. Shouldn’t you be married by now?’ She glared at him fiercely, but a waiter was now standing by the table so she said nothing and instead ordered her food. ‘We’ll both have the choucroute. Is the sausage any good?’

  The waiter fixed her with a look of disdain, as if she had said something mildly offensive. ‘This is Lyon, Madame. In Lyon all the sausage is good.’

  When the waiter had left them she asked Mathieu if he would help her.

  ‘If I can,’ he said doubtfully. ‘I’ll ask Paul.’

  ‘Can you trust him?’

  ‘Yes, of course, he’s my brother. We left home together when we heard that old bastard Pétain was going to start sending Frenchmen to work in Germany. Our father said it would be slave labour and we should go and join the évadeurs or the resistance. That’s how we got here; we were living in Avignon– our father has work there.’

  The food arrived; the familiar smell of Alsace cooking rose from her plate redolent of home. It was comforting to have something she could enjoy eating and not just food for fuel. For a while they both said nothing as they concentrated on the dishes in front of them.

  ‘Well,’ she said, scooping up the last of the cabbage from her choucroute, ‘I need to find a place to stay. I can’t take the risk that the hotels won’t rat on me.’

  Mathieu stared at his empty plate. ‘I’ll go and speak with Paul,’ he said, ‘but I think it should be all right if you stay with us for the next couple of days – just till one of us is ready to take you down to the border.’

  *

  The house in which the brothers lived had belonged to their grandmother. It had been closed up since 1937 when their father had taken a job as a water and sewers engineer for the city of Avignon and the whole family had moved south. It was a large detached house with elegant rooms and high ceilings. The rooms were big and difficult to keep warm and the basement smelled of damp, but they found her a comfortable bed and there was hot water running in the pipes, fed by a large decorated ceramic-tiled stove in the main salon, which the boys fed with a ready supply of split logs. It was the closest thing to home Evangeline had experienced since she left Turckheim and when she fell onto the soft feather mattress that night she fell straightaway to sleep. As her mind began the process of shutting down she found herself thinking of Kasha and wondering if she would ever see him again.

  CHAPTER 12

  The road to Lyon

  ‘I discovered them at 14.16 on my way back from lunch.’ The gendarme lit a cigarette; he offered one to Schreiber who waved it away.

  ‘Two of them in the back of the car were just sitting there. At first I thought they were asleep – then I saw the blood on this one. His face has been gouged with something. Then I found the woman; my God, I wouldn’t want to meet her on a foggy night.’

  Schreiber knelt down next to the body of Edith; her mangled nose and swollen mouth made her difficult to recognise though there was no mistaking her bulk. There could not be two women like that. For a moment he thought he saw a movement in her hand – a slight quiver – but bodies do that. He’d seen it before, sometimes days after death; a corpse can twitch, moan, fart, even sit upright, driven to movement by the gases fermenting inside – a function of decomposition. He felt for a pulse and thought for a moment he felt something, but then it was gone.

  ‘Kasha,’ he said quietly to himself. He stood up. ‘There’s nothing I can do here,’ he told the Carlingue agent who had driven him there. ‘Take me back to Paris.’

  *

  ‘Merde, how did he do it? He must be strong, this Pole.’ Pierre Bonny paced up and down, banging his fist on the desk each time he passed it. ‘Edith was stronger than two fit men – I’ve seen her lift a hundred kilos with one hand. How could he have done this? There must have been others to help him.’ He shook his head and wagged a finger, ‘No, no, there must have been accomplices.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Schreiber said bluntly. ‘He has escaped and we have to find him. I’m going back to my hotel. Let me know what you plan to do when you have decided.’

  Bonny looked flustered, but before he could say anything Schreiber was on his way out through the door. ‘Heil Hitler,’ Bonny half mumbled, then sat down in his chair and stared at the desk.

  *

  Back in his room Schreiber picked up the phone and ordered a call to his office in Berlin. ‘And don’t listen in,’ he told the girl on the switchboard.

  The phone rang. ‘Yes, put me through,’ Schreiber said curtly into the mouthpiece as the girl on the other end announced she had a line to Berlin.

  ‘Becker – do you have anything more for me?’

  ‘I do, Herr Inspector. Kandler’s mother has applied for a travel permit – to go to Switzerland.’

  ‘Has she now – do we know why?’

  ‘She says it is for medical reasons – a clinic in Bern.’

  Schreiber thought for a moment. He knew the woman had sight problems; maybe it was genuine; then again maybe it was not.

  ‘Let her go – and request SD to put a tail on her. Perhaps she will lead us to something.’

  ‘There is something else.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘The apartment in Kreuzberg – the tenant – I have looked at his file again. Before the war he was a dealer in antiquities and curiosities. Herr Kraus may have been wrong about the Pole. This may just be a burglary – not espionage.’

  ‘Do you have anything more about the girl? Do we know where she is?’

  ‘Lyon. She called the baker. She said she was in Paris but it traced back to Lyon.’

  ‘Good – and Becker, keep digging.’

  So the girl was in Lyon. The phone rang again. ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s Pierre Bonny.’

  ‘You have news?’

  ‘I do. An informant in Dijon says there was a girl with the Pole. She came to the café after he was arrested. When she left she had a package with her.’

  ‘Where did she go?’

  ‘We don’t know but we think she took a train. I have a man making enquiries at the station.’

  ‘Don’t bother. She is in Lyon. We already know; we traced a call she made from there. What about
the Pole? Do you have any further information?’

  ‘No. It was a quiet spot. There were no witnesses; he has simply vanished. I have men searching the area. He has chains on his ankles and wrists. He can’t go far without someone spotting him.’

  By lunchtime Schreiber had made up his mind. The girl had the package, the girl was in Lyon, Kasha had escaped, ergo Kasha would go to Lyon. It was obvious.

  First he called Bonny to find out if he had any men in Lyon, men he could rely on to start asking questions. Afterwards he called his office. ‘I’m going to Lyon; find me a hotel room. I’ll call you when I arrive – and make it something modest, not like the painted tart’s parlour in Paris.’

  The Gare de Lyon was heaving; porters with luggage loaded onto barrows struggled and dodged through the crowds of travellers; soldiers going back to their units after a few days’ leave in the city bumped up against businessmen in striped suits and Homberg hats; fashionable women in camel hair coats with fur-trimmed collars, their heads adorned with small masculine hats stuck with gaudy pins or game bird feathers. Schreiber pushed his Gestapo identity disc towards the face of the ticket inspector on the gate to quai 7. The man nodded deferentially and pointed to the Pullman cars bearing the crest of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. Schreiber walked past them and on until he found a first class carriage – not as smart as the Pullman lounge cars but comfortable enough for his purpose. He was a man who did not care to be conspicuous.

  CHAPTER 13

  Find the lady – win the prize

  ‘You can drive,’ Cigale had told Grainger as they set out that morning; then she had installed herself in the back where she sat pressed close up to Kasha.

  ‘Mâcon coming up.’ Grainger peered through the narrow windscreen of the Citroen. The earlier frost had given over to a fine winter’s day with a pale blue sky and a warming sun that lit the mottled bark of the bare trees. Ahead he could see the beginnings of the town. ‘This takes us right through the centre. Keep your eyes peeled and your heads down.’