Except for pictures in the mind – like that of freshly turned earth in the inner garden of number 93: and Brançion smirking to himself at having got rid of them so easily.
Clausen had spoken only a few words this time, and then hung up. Did not promise well. When she joined them – not quite dry but wrapped in a yellow towelling gown with her hair combed back, still damp – he pointed at a squat, dark bottle: ‘It’s marc – quite a good one. You’ll need it.’
‘Bad news, then.’
She’d known it was going to be, and could see it in his eyes, hear it in his tone. Jacqui was looking despondent too, despite the promise of refuge in England – which was tied up with the prospect of losing her lover, of course, she’d hardly be dancing with joy in front of him.
Rosie nodded to Clausen: ‘I’d love a marc. Would have even if it had been good news.’
‘I may as well tell you’ – Clausen leaned over with the bottle – ‘I had prepared the ground quite well so far as my own position is concerned. Telling them, incidentally, nothing much more than the truth. That Lafont had a prisoner, female, believed to be an agent of SOE and having information that might be of considerable military value. She should have been sent to me in the first place – as instructed by Carl Boemelbourg – but was transferred to Bonny-Lafont on the closure of Avenue Foch – in my absence – with a request that she be brought to a state of compliance. Now Lafont’s made a run for it and it seems taken her with him, and even if he knew the questions he should be asking—’
‘So your extended absence would have been justified. Your obvious duty in fact to go after him – her.’
‘Exactly.’ He’d poured himself another tot. ‘If they’d been able to give me the location of this farm. But I mention it, Jeanne-Marie, to have you know I would have kept my side of the bargain. That call, as you’ll have guessed, was to say no one knows anything about this farm.’
‘There’s no land registry now, I suppose?’
‘If there is, Lafont wouldn’t have bothered with it.’
‘No.’ She shrugged. ‘I suppose not.’
They’d have killed her by now, she thought. Or would be continuing some process of killing her.
She asked Jacqui, ‘Will you come to England with me?’
A nod. ‘I can’t tell you how grateful or how – frankly – astonished—’
‘Goes for both of us.’ Clausen nodding, reaching to take Jacqui’s hand. ‘You save two lives, Jeanne-Marie, not just one.’
‘But listen.’ Jacqui gently took her hand back from him, put her head back, closed her eyes. ‘Gerhardt, chéri, I’m going to shock you now. I know exactly where the farm is.’
Chapter 22
‘Not sail tonight, Commander.’
A shake of the grey head. Einar Loen, Anna’s father: a lean, fit-looking man in his middle fifties. He’d got back last night with the two escapers, a Petty Officer Olsen and Leading Telegraphist MacEvoy, who were now ensconced in the Ekhorn. Ben had come up to the house for a late breakfast – he’d been having all his meals up here; and from the living-room there was a fine view of the fjords – the main one and this smaller, banana-shaped one that ran off it southward and south-westward – and of the search activity that was in progress. There was certainly more of it than there had been in recent days, and Loen was guessing that maybe some tongue had been wagging, on the subject either of escapers or the agents who’d gone in MGB 600, or indeed of the Ekhorn if someone had seen her on her way up-fjord on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.
They definitely would not have heard her. It had been Anna’s idea – to use the boat hitherto referred to as Vidlin’s, with two strong Norwegians at the oars, towing Ekhorn. Anna as pilot had cox’d the boat; they’d left their former berth after 600 had sailed – at about 11.30 – tied up in the creek here just after 3 am and spent most of the day shifting the cargo of weaponry up to a timber outhouse and dumping other gear – nets, lobster-pots, cordage and the remains of an old pram dinghy – on top of it. The weaponry was for a resistance group based in Alesund, who’d be making arrangements to pick it up – but obviously not while all this searching and/or patrolling was going on. Seaplanes were coming over every hour or so, and that same armed trawler which had been fussing around yesterday was today at anchor on the far side of the main fjord, opposite its junction with this one.
Not exactly a comfortable situation. The Ekhorn’s berth was reasonably secure, though – as Anna had said it would be. Well inside the creek, which was overhung by spruce that ran thickly from a high crest right down to the water’s edge, and with Leon’s boat, a 50-foot Möre cutter – two-masted, big wheelhouse amidships – moored outside her, shutting off any view of her from the fjord.
Ben said, over breakfast, ‘To be honest, I wouldn’t mind how long we stuck around.’ Looking at Anna as he said it. No sign of a maidenly blush, as convention might have demanded – her skin was too well tanned to show much of one in any case – but she got the message and it seemed not to displease her. She had lovely eyes. He added, ‘Except we’re a danger to you. From that point of view, sooner we’re on the move the better.’
‘I wouldn’t worry. You’re well hidden, down there.’ She was pouring second mugs of tea. ‘For you, Ben?’
‘Yeah, please.’
‘Much better wait until it’s been quiet for two or three days. My father’s right, tongues do wag a lot more than they should – sometimes about absolutely nothing, but the Germans seem to react to it all the same. Seems people just get a feeling something’s going on, and – best thing is to lie low, let it pass. We have our quislings too, you know – our traitors, eh?’ Switch of subject: ‘Ben is Australian, Papa, did he mention it?’
‘Australian, eh.’ Putting down his mug. ‘Will you go back there after the war, d’you think?’
‘I don’t know. Did have a sort of a plan. Government scheme for ex-Servicemen – in a nutshell, you clear about fifty thousand acres of bush within a certain period of time, and it’s all yours. That began to look a bit doubtful when I got a German bullet in this knee, and now – well, a thing that happened recently’s sort of—’
Roar of an aircraft’s engines. Yet another seaplane, he supposed. You’d have had to be at the window to see it, but it had sounded closer than all the others, could even have been right over the top. Loen said as the racket lessened, ‘Your boat’s invisible to them down there, don’t worry. You were saying – something happened recently?’
He nodded. ‘A girl I would have married – she got killed. She was in SOE in France. They’re giving her a medal – posthumously, but—’
‘What’s that – excuse me?’
Anna interpreted the word ‘posthumously’. Shook her honey-coloured head then: ‘Medals…’
‘Yeah. Exactly.’
‘I’m more sorry than I can say, Ben.’
‘When you told us about your husband, I thought – snap.’ He shrugged. ‘Not meaning it flippantly at all, you know, only—’
‘I know. Yes.’
‘Well, listen to me now.’ Loen sat back in his chair. ‘I am not – please understand this – not match-making. Snap or no snap. That would be stupid, also perhaps offensive to you both, and I’m not a stupid man, at least I don’t think I am. On the other hand I don’t beat about the bush either. Commander – would you please, when you sail from here, take Anna with you?’
‘Papa—’
‘Straight answer, sir – yes. If you and she both—’
‘No. Thank you, Ben, but no. Papa, I don’t have the slightest inclination or intention—’
‘Listen.’ Her father pointed at the window. ‘All this that’s going on. All right, they’re searching for the two you’ve got now in your boat, maybe. Or for boats that shouldn’t be here. Doesn’t matter what for, one of these days they find Anna, then they discover she was the wife of Leif Berge who was prominent in the resistance in Oslo—’
They don’t have any way to find that out. At least, not—’
‘Don’t enough people around here know you married Leif Berge?’
‘Some do, sure, but not that he—’
‘Anna.’ Ben nodded towards her hand. ‘You wear a wedding ring, and you use your married name – Berge, you gave us that name when you came on board. If you were questioned—’
‘It’s not an unusual name, you see.’
‘But if you were questioned—’
‘I’d tell them mind their own damn business!’
He smiled at her. ‘I like that, but believe me the Gestapo—’
‘You know much about the Gestapo?’
‘My girl did. She was tortured by them – she escaped that time, but—’
‘Got caught a second time?’
He nodded. Crazy about her eyes. ‘She went back in. Third time, that was.’
‘As brave as you can get… What was her name?’
‘Rosie. Actually Rosalie. Her father was French.’
‘Listen.’ Loen again. ‘In Shetland, living there now, is a man by name Per Dalen, and his wife Sissel. He’s a skipper with the Shetland Bus crowd – uh? Well, she is related to us, and they’d look after you, Anna, they’d take you in and—’
‘But I don’t want—’
‘Hush.’ He’d gestured, a ‘calm down’ signal. ‘What I don’t want is to have my daughter taken by the bloody Germans. I very much don’t want this. Much, much sooner cook my own meals ashore and afloat. And speaking to you very seriously, as your father—’
‘I’m over twenty-one, Papa, and I’ve already been away from home, a married woman—’
‘Excuse me.’ Ben put his oar in. ‘If you decide you would like to come to Shetland – or England, for that matter – I’d be very happy to take you with us and – see you were taken care of. I understand your father’s anxiety for you too. Not that it’d be exactly dead safe coming with us – as you know. But you’ve got today and tomorrow to think it over. On the whole I’d like to push off tomorrow night – tonight even, if it wasn’t for—’
‘My advice would be hang on a while.’ Loen got up and went to the window. ‘Suppose tomorrow it’s all quiet.’ Nodding towards the anchored trawler. ‘That one gone and no airplanes, you’d think maybe they’re searching some other fjord, but it could be what they do all this for – so someone will make a move, and anyone who does – see, that’s who they’re looking for, eh? Bastards just waiting, watching.’ He shook his head. ‘I’d say wait three, four days after it’s gone quiet. A week, perhaps. Whether or not she comes to her senses and goes with you—’
‘Whether or not.’ Ben nodded – glancing at her, and telling her father, ‘I’m sure you’re right. But the lads down there are all keen to make a run for it – and they’re civilians; in any case I’m not the Ekhorn’s skipper. As I said, while we’re here we are a danger to you. Isn’t there a notice they hand out to you saying the penalty for having any contact with the enemy is death?’
Vidlin had told him this. Loen nodding – his back to the window now, fists on his hips: ‘What d’you think is the penalty for making a run for it when the bastards are sitting there waiting for you? Ask your boys that!’
Chapter 23
Jacqui with her head back and eyes shut, as if to distance herself from her own statement: ‘I know exactly where the farm is.’
Silence: despite the distant rumble of artillery and closer firework-like popping and crackling of small-arms fire. Rosie on the point of saying something like, ‘You’re joking’, but thinking better of it, asking instead, ‘Where, Jacqui?’ although the question hanging most heavily in the air was of course how? Expressed by a frozen-faced, cold-voiced Clausen now as, ‘Under what circumstances did you come by such knowledge?’
Which was what Jacqui had been expecting, of course. Looking at him tiredly, as if – Rosie’s interpretation of it, this – wishing he didn’t have to be quite so bloody German. She told him, ‘Not in the way that you are choosing to assume, chéri.’
‘May I have a more positive answer to the question?’
Rosie chipped in with: ‘Jacqui – where is the farm?’
‘Near a small place called Bazoches, about seventy kilometres east from here. I have it marked on a road map.’ She started to get up. ‘I’ll show you.’
‘Perhaps I might re-formulate my question.’ Clausen put a hand out as if to detain her: she stayed put anyway, waiting for it. ‘Who marked the map?’
‘He did, of course. He wanted me to go down there with him. The time you were in Lyon – the very day you left, in fact, he shot round here!’
‘You never thought of mentioning it to me?’
‘Thought – yes, of course I have. Several times. Often, in fact. It seemed best simply to hold him off. He was pressuring me for quite a long time, you know. If I’d told you, you’d have felt it was obligatory to – I don’t know, but you’d have gone after him in some way, and – what sort of a fuss, scandal, repercussions—’
‘Did you go to his farm?’
‘No, I did not.’
‘Or anywhere else?’
‘I went – as you know – to Rouen, to see to the business. Since you were going to be away—’
‘Did you go alone?’
‘You know damn well I did!’
‘I thought I knew. But you’ve kept this to yourself – what, a month? No – three weeks. Even in the last half-hour said nothing, despite my having explained—’
‘I knew how you’d react. And I hadn’t thought about this young girl’s predicament – not really. Then seeing Jeanne-Marie’s distress – while accepting her kindness… so you’ve had a half-hour delay; now you’ve got it, so get on with it, uh? Before this present situation arose though – you know the sort of influence Lafont wields, if you’d had a real bust-up with him don’t you think you might soon afterwards have found yourself recalled to Berlin? Incidentally leaving me extremely vulnerable?’
‘How do I know you “held him off”?’
‘What sort of woman d’you think I am, Gerhardt?’
‘An exceptionally beautiful one – and Lafont is well known as an inveterate pursuer—’
‘Gerhardt.’ Rosie had been exercising patience. ‘Jacqui told me – here, last Friday – that Lafont had been chasing her, she couldn’t stand him, hadn’t told you about it because she didn’t want a lot of trouble. In other words, she could handle it – as she’s just told you. Jacqui, he told me – Monday night, when he’d arrested me – that he knew Lafont had been chasing you and didn’t care because he trusted you. Doesn’t sound like it now, I admit – but that is what you told me, Gerhardt, isn’t it? So neither of you had any surprises coming, what’s the fuss about?’
‘Answer me one question then. Jeanne-Marie – your view please, since for some reason you’re making it your business. Would you mark a map for someone if you didn’t have reason to believe they’d want to get there?’
‘He might have. Trying to force the issue. Force her. Anyway, the fact is that he did. May I see it, please?’ Rosie on her feet – in Jacqui’s beaded-satin slippers and yellow towelling dressing-gown. ‘Because the sooner we can get this moving—’
‘Yes.’ Jacqui went over to the bookshelves. Rosie asked Clausen, ‘You’ll still keep your word now, will you?’
Gazing at her as if having difficulty in focusing, or in shifting his line of thought – from Lafont and Jacqui, she supposed. That was the doubt suddenly: that he might decide oh, the hell with her, let her stew here in Paris – so then no deal over Léonie. In which case – do without him. Now, maybe one could. Maybe… He was frowning, having caught on to what she’d asked him; surprised by it: ‘Why should this make any difference?’
‘Well – lovers’ tiffs, you know… Anyway I’ll use your ’phone – when I’ve seen the map. What we spoke of – gendarmes working with the Resistance – so happens I do have a contact. If they’ll come in on it, you’ll co-operate?’
‘Since I gave you my word, and—’
‘Here it is.’ Jacqui came back unfolding a well-used road map; she spread it on the table while Rosie moved other things aside, and after a bit of searching put the tip of a fingernail to a small pencilled cross.
‘There you are. See – Bazoches.’
‘Lafont’s mark, uh?’
‘I told you.’
‘I still don’t understand why he should have, unless—’
‘Hang on.’ Rosie, checking the map’s scale, and the distance. ‘You said seventy kilometres…’
‘It’s what he said – I think—’
‘I’ve got to ring these people, need to be sure I have it right.’ Behind her as she went to the telephone Jacqui was telling Clausen, ‘I suppose because he’s the great Henri Lafont and is used to sweeping all before him, doesn’t believe the word “no” when he hears it – and that’s the only word he ever got from me. But for God’s sake, if you knew he was pestering me—’
Dialling. But then getting no reply to either of the numbers Leblanc had given her. After this length of time and the effect of solitary confinement, might have got them wrong… Thinking now please, Adée, please… And hearing Jacqui’s, ‘Any case, how did you know?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Adée, hurrah!’
‘Jeanne-Marie! Been hearing about you – got Nico here!’
‘So he’s told you I’m OK. You know it all. Fine. All well with you?’
‘I made him eat and sleep, then he’ll take your things to you. Oh, he’s awake, this thing ringing—’
‘My apologies to him. Adée, is it possible to get in touch with Martin Leblanc?’
‘Not here. Since they bust in and grabbed you. How did they know to find you here?’
‘Through the telephone number. Remember I told you I’d had to give it to someone? Adée, if I give you a message for Martin, could you get it to him?’
‘Sure. I’ll send Nico. Listen, we were so pleased, girl—’
‘Put Nico on, let me tell it to him?’
‘OK. We going to see you some time?’
‘Damn sure you are. Without fail. Few days, maybe. Look after yourself, Adée. Listen, let Nico start out right away, will you?’
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