by Kate Quinn
They hadn’t been kind to him either; deep lines graven about his mouth, broken veins at his forehead, streaks of gray at his temples. I used to love you, Eve thought, but it was a blank thought, almost meaningless. She used to feel a lot of things before Lili died. Now what she mainly felt was grief and rage and guilt, devouring each other like tail-eating serpents. And the never-ending whisper of her blood, saying, Betrayer.
“I thought there would be some three-ring c-c-circus,” Eve said at last, nodding at the empty pier. She had been almost the only person to disembark—Folkestone, now that the war was over, had reverted to a much sleepier place—and there were no aides or military attachés anywhere in sight. “Major Allenton was in touch, k-kept going on about a welcome ceremony.”
Apparently, Evelyn Gardiner was now a heroine. So were many of the other female prisoners—Violette, Eve heard, was feted all over Roubaix when she returned home. Eve would be feted too, if she’d allow it. Which she wouldn’t.
“I talked Allenton out of the public welcome,” Cameron said. “He wanted a few generals to greet you, some newspapermen and so on. A brass band.”
“Fortunate you discouraged him. Though I’d have enjoyed hammering a bloody tuba over his ears.” Eve hitched her satchel over her shoulder, and set off down the pier.
“I thought I’d see you in France.” Cameron fell in beside her. “At Louise de Bettignies’s funeral.”
“I meant to go.” Eve had got as far as Cologne, where Lili’s original grave was to be opened so her body could be repatriated back to her homeland, but never made it out of the hotel room. She’d ended up getting drunk instead, and nearly shooting the maid who came with her supper—the girl was squat, square faced, and for a horrific moment Eve had thought she was the Frog, that horrible woman in Lille who had strip-searched Eve and Lili. The memory dizzied Eve now, momentarily, and she gulped a deep breath of sea air.
Cameron’s voice was low. “Why didn’t you come?”
“C-C-Couldn’t face it.” She’d said her good-bye to Lili in a corridor that stank of typhus and blood. She didn’t need a graveside with droning plaudits and French generals. But she didn’t say that to Cameron, just quickened her steps, suddenly needing to be away from him.
Cameron’s long legs kept up. “Do you have anyone to meet you? A place to stay?”
“I’ll find something.”
His hand caught her elbow. “Eve. Stop. Let me help you, for God’s sake.”
She wrenched free. He didn’t mean any harm, but she couldn’t bear to be touched. There were a lot of things she was finding she couldn’t bear, now that she was out of prison. Open windows. Crowds. Wide spaces without corners to set her back against. Sleep . . .
“Keep it Miss Gardiner, Cameron. Far better that way.” She looked out at the ocean rather than meet his gaze. His soft eyes might swallow her whole, and Eve couldn’t be soft. Not now. “Tell me,” she said instead. “We d-d-didn’t get much news about the war, inside p-prison, and now no one wants to go over old battles. Lili’s last message, the one about the Verdun assault.” Over and over, Eve had wondered how that assault went. What they changed by getting that message through. “How did things go down?”
“The French commander received your information.” Cameron looked as if he wanted to stop there, but Eve’s gaze pierced him, and he continued reluctantly. “The report about the coming assault was given, but it wasn’t believed. Losses were—well. Very bad.”
Eve squeezed her eyes shut, feeling something rise in her throat. It was either a laugh or a scream. “So it was all worth nothing.” Lili giving up her freedom so that report could get through. Eve leaving Cameron’s sleeping arms and walking back into mortal danger because such reports were worth risking her life for. All of it rendered useless. Nothing Eve or Lili or Violette had done had avoided the bloodbath. “Nothing I did in France ever amounted to anything.”
His voice was fierce. “No. Do not think that.” He would have seized her shoulders but he sensed her recoil. “The Alice Network saved hundreds, Eve. Perhaps thousands. You were the best network in the war. None of the others in France or Belgium ever equaled it.”
Eve smiled, mirthless. Who cared about praise when the failures were so much bigger than the victories? That miracle chance in ’15 to kill the kaiser—failed. Stopping the assault on Verdun—failed. Keeping the network together after Lili’s arrest—failed.
Cameron had gone on. “I don’t know if you’ve read Major Allenton’s communications. He says you never responded. But you’ve been awarded these. He meant to award them to you at Louise’s funeral. She received the same, posthumously.”
Eve refused to take the case, so after an awkward pause, Cameron opened it for her. Four medals glittered in Eve’s blurring vision.
“The Medaille de Guerre. The Croix de Guerre, with palm. The Croix de la Legion d’Honneur. And the Order of the British Empire. Awarded in honor of your war efforts.”
Tin toys. Eve took a hand from her pocket at last and knocked them to the ground, trembling. “I don’t want any medals.”
“Then Major Allenton will hold them for you—”
“Cram them up his arse!”
Cameron gathered up Eve’s medals and dropped them back into the case. “I didn’t want mine either, believe me.”
“But you had to take them, because you’re still in the army.” Eve gave a one-note bark of a laugh. “The army doesn’t want me anymore. I did my part and the war’s over, so now they’ll pin some b-bits of tin on me and tell me to bugger off back to the file room. Well, they can keep their damned tin scraps.”
Cameron flinched this time at her language. His eyes dropped, and Eve realized she hadn’t put her hand back in her pocket. His eyes went from her fingers to her face and back, as though he were seeing the demure quiet-voiced girl he’d sent away to France with her carpetbag and her soft hands and her innocence. War and torture and prison and René Bordelon had happened, and now she was nothing like that girl. She was a damaged wreck of a woman with a foul mouth and destroyed hands and no innocence at all. Not your fault, Eve wanted to say to the guilty sorrow in his eyes, but he wouldn’t believe her. She sighed, flexing her ruined fingers.
“You had to kn-kn-kn—to know about these,” she said. “There was a report.”
“Knowing’s not the same as seeing.” He reached out for the crippled hand, but stopped himself. She was glad. She didn’t want to keep shoving him away; he hadn’t earned that. He gave a sigh of his own instead. “Let’s get a drink.”
It was a horrible pub on the docks, the kind of place where gravel-voiced women slopped gin into grimy glasses for men who were already drunk at ten in the morning, but it was just what Eve needed: anonymous, cheap, windowless so she didn’t worry about people sneaking up behind her. Two shots of gin followed by a pint of bitter steadied her jumping pulse. She used to be proud of that slow pulse that got her through danger, but it had been a long time since she’d held up that coolly under pressure. Maybe the last time was in René Bordelon’s green-walled study.
René. She took another draught of beer, tasting hatred along with it. In Siegburg her hate had tasted bitter; now it was a sweet thing. Because now, she could do something about it. The satchel at her feet held a Luger. Not her old Luger with the scratch on the barrel, the one René had taken from her—but it would do.
Cameron, for all his gentlemanly air, knocked the gin back as fast as Eve, giving a murmured toast of “Gabrielle.” When Eve raised her eyebrows, he explained, “Another of my recruits. Shot in April of ’16. I rotate them, the ones I lost.” He raised his beer and said “Léon” before downing a swallow.
“Was I in your rotation?”
“No, only those confirmed dead.” Cameron’s eyes had that terrible drowning softness again. “Every week following your trial, I expected to get the news you’d died in Siegburg.”
“After Lili, I almost did.”
They looked at each other a long time, and t
hen they ordered another round of gin. “Lili.”
They were both silent, until Cameron abruptly started saying something about a pension for Eve. “You’ll find it more useful than the medals. I knew you didn’t have any family, so I pushed a pension for you through the War Office. It’s not much, but it’ll keep you afloat. Maybe help you buy a house somewhere in London.”
“Thank you.” Eve didn’t want the medals, but she’d take the pension. It wasn’t like she’d be going back to typewriting with hands like hers; she needed something to live on.
Cameron studied her. “Your stammer’s better.”
“Go to prison, and you find there are worse things than a halting tongue.” She took another draught of beer. “And this helps.”
He set down his glass. “Eve, if I can—”
“So, what are you going to do now?” She cut him off fast, before he could say anything he’d regret.
“I was sent to Russia for a while, during their bit of upheaval. Siberia. The things I saw . . .” He sat blank-faced for a moment, and Eve wondered what he was seeing through the curtain of remembered Russian snows. She didn’t ask. “It’s Ireland next for me,” he resumed. “To run a training school.”
“School for what?”
“People like you.”
“Who n-needs people like me anymore? The war’s over.”
He laughed bitterly. “There’s always another war, Eve.”
Eve didn’t even want to think about the next war, or a generation of new, fresh-faced spies who would be fed into its gaping mouth. At least they’d have a good teacher. “When do you leave?”
“Soon.”
“Is your wife going?”
“Yes. And our child.”
“I’m glad you had—that is, I know your wife wanted a ch-child.” How wearying these courtesies were; Eve felt like she was struggling under a boulder. “What did you decide to name—”
He spoke softly. “Evelyn.”
Eve stared down at the sticky tabletop. “Why not Lili?” she heard herself ask. “Why not Gabrielle, or any of your others? Why was it me, Cameron?”
“If you could see yourself, you wouldn’t ask.”
“I can see myself. I’m a w-wreck.”
“Nothing could wreck you, Eve. You’ve got a core of steel.”
Eve took a shaky breath. “I’m sorry I d-deceived you. Ran out when you were sleeping and went back to Lille when you didn’t want me to return.” Her voice was thick. “I’m so sorry.”
“I know.”
Eve looked down at the table where his hand lay next to her maimed one. His shifted a little so that his thumb grazed the tip of her nearest finger.
“I wish—” Eve began, and stopped. Wished what? That he wasn’t married? Eve was too much of a mess to step into the place at his side even if that place was empty. That they could find a bed and curl up together anyway? Eve couldn’t bear to share a room with anyone; the nightmares were too bad. That they could go back a few years, to before? Before what, Siegburg? Lili? The war? “I wish you were happy,” she said at last.
Cameron didn’t lift her hand to his lips in the old gesture. He lowered his head to the tabletop instead, and pressed his worn mouth to her abused knuckles. “I’m a broken-down army officer with a lot of dead recruits on my hands, Eve. I don’t have it in me to be happy.”
“You could resign from the army.”
“I can’t, really. Because as many dead as I’ve got behind me, there are more in front, waiting in Ireland to be trained . . . And I know I’ll do better by them than asses like Allenton.”
He was more than halfway drunk, Eve realized. He’d never insulted a superior aloud before.
“I’m still useful,” Cameron said, pronouncing his words carefully. “I can go to Ireland and train up the next generation of cannon fodder, so that’s what I’ll do. I’ll go on working until I can’t anymore. Then I suppose I’ll die.”
“Or retire.”
“Retirement kills people like us, Eve. It’s how we die if the bullets don’t get there first.” He smiled bitterly. “Bullets, boredom, or brandy—that’s how people like us go, because God knows we aren’t made for peace.”
“No. We aren’t.” Eve leaned down and pressed her own lips against his hand. And then they drank until it was time for Cameron’s train. He held his liquor like an Englishman, glassy-eyed but still ramrod straight as they headed up the pier.
“I go to Ireland in a week.” His voice was as bleak as if he were going to hell. “Where are you going?”
“Back to France. As soon as possible.”
“What’s in France?”
“An enemy.” Eve looked up, brushing the dry wisps of hair out of her eyes, feeling the weight of the pistol in her satchel. “René Bordelon, Cameron. I am going to kill him if it’s the last thing I do in this life.”
That was Eve’s use, now that the war was done.
Cameron’s eyes puzzled her, a study in agony and indecision. Later, Eve would go over that look very carefully and realize just how well he’d pulled the wool over her eyes. “Eve,” he said at last. “Didn’t you know? René Bordelon is dead.”
CHAPTER 37
CHARLIE
June 1947
I braced myself the next day for Eve’s sarcasm, because absolutely no one could have looked at Finn and me and not known exactly what had happened. Both of us were heavy-eyed from lack of sleep, I couldn’t keep a smile off my face, and Finn cast so many sideways glances at me, I was surprised he didn’t tip the car in a ditch before we even got out of Grenoble.
But Eve was silent from the moment she climbed into the Lagonda. When I looked back at her she was gazing off over the hills, and I liked that better than having her make trenchant comments about the way Finn and I covertly held hands in the front seat. “What happens when we get to Grasse?” I tried asking her.
An enigmatic smile.
I groaned. “You are so infuriating, you know that?” But I couldn’t stay cross. Finn’s fingers twined through mine were rough and warm, and I was so happy it nearly stunned me. I’d felt nothing but numbness for so long, and then felt the numbness shattered by grief and guilt and anger—those things were still there, but they were overlaid now by this rich, quiet glow. It wasn’t just the sleepless night we’d shared. It was the way Finn had gone downstairs for coffee while I sat combing my hair, and come back with not just coffee but a plate of crisp bacon charmed out of the hotel cook, all because he knew I was craving it. It was the way I’d looked at myself in the mirror and seen not the angry girl setting her chin at an angle that told the world I don’t care, but a happy young woman with a French tan and a scatter of freckles. It was the face of someone who did care, and was cared for in return.
I shook my head slightly to disrupt my own thoughts. I didn’t want to examine the happiness too closely; I was too afraid it would fall apart. I was content to let it be, never releasing Finn’s hand, but turning around in my seat again as we drew nearer Grasse and having another go at Eve. “Let’s have it. How are we going to find Bordelon?”
“I’m still turning my plan over for weak points, Yank,” she replied. “I know perfectly well I’m not entirely level on the subject of René—”
“You mean not entirely sane,” Finn muttered.
“I heard that, Scotsman.” She didn’t sound angry. “I’m not all there, and we all know it, so I’m making sure this plan hasn’t got holes. Because this could easily get cocked up, and I have no intention of letting that happen.”
“How can I help with this plan of yours?” I asked, but Finn muttered something as Eve began to answer. “What is it?”
“That oil leak.” He dropped my hand, pointing at a dial. “Need to tighten a few things . . .”
“We’re only an hour from Grasse.” I gave the convertible’s dashboard a thump. “This old bucket!”
“Watch your tone, miss. She’s an old lady, and she deserves a rest if she wants one.”
�
�This car is not actually alive, Finn.”
“Says you, lass.” Finn eased the car off onto one of the side roads as we bickered. Who knew bickering could be so enjoyable? Green hills rose in the distance on all sides, and the air had some heady fragrance I didn’t recognize. Not far south was the sea, I thought. The lazy influence of the Mediterranean was rising fast in the air.
Then I gave a breathless “Oh . . .” as the Lagonda finished the turn on the off-road and coasted to a stop. For a moment all three of us stared. The slope below was a dazzling carpet of blue-purple spires, and the smell rose into the wind, intoxicatingly sweet. Hyacinths—thousands upon thousands of hyacinths.
I leaned so far over the door I nearly fell out, inhaling deeply. “We must have driven onto one of the flower farms.” Grasse was a capital for perfume makers, I already knew that, but I’d never seen the local flower fields that supplied the trade. I scrambled out of the car, leaving the door gaping, and leaned down to bury my nose in the nearest bank of blooms. The scent dizzied me. Farther down the slope I could see swells of pink, rolling masses of roses. From even farther came the rich waft of jasmine. I looked back and saw Eve sitting very still, breathing in the scents, saw Finn smiling as he fetched his toolbox. I couldn’t resist plunging into the waves of blue, running my fingertips along the spires. It was like wading into a fragrant sapphire lake.
Finn was closing up the hood by the time I came running back. “Eve!” I called, and leaning over, I deposited an armload of hyacinths into her lap. “For you.”
Eve looked at the mass of flowers, her tortured hands moving gently through the soft petals, and I felt my eyes prickle. You testy, stubborn, goddamn old bat, I do love you, I thought.
She looked up at me, smiling a rather rusty smile, and I wondered if she was about to say something similarly affectionate. “Here’s the plan once we g-get to Grasse,” she said instead.