The Milliner's Secret

by Natalie Meg Evans

  ‘You do the talking, I get to look dumb. Nothing changes, Coralie.’

  ‘At least you’re getting my name right.’

  In the flat on impasse de Cordoba, she opened the window to air the place. Nobody had been inside since she’d last left it, and the smell of damp was unwelcoming. She made black coffee for them all. ‘I’ll go foraging in a moment, and contact a member of my circuit. You’ll both need money, and Donal needs false papers and a safe sanctuary beyond Paris.’

  ‘You trust your contact?’ Ramon demanded.

  ‘Sure I do – he wears Nazi uniform and shouts, “Sieg Heil!” every time we meet.’

  ‘Sarcasm is not only wasted, it is uncharitable to a man in my state.’

  ‘Then don’t ask daft questions.’ She make a strong salt solution with water from the kettle and held Ramon’s hand in it until the blood-caked bandage fell away from his finger. When he complained of shooting pains up his arm, she laid a hand to his brow. The bullet had got the middle joint of his wedding finger which was grotesquely inflamed, naked bone under a collar of ragged flesh. More ominously, black streaks radiated from the site. Damn right they needed a doctor.

  Donal, meanwhile, was looking around the flat, a two-minute job. He flicked back the window curtain. ‘Reminds me of Barnham Street. Grey roofs and mean-eyed windows. I thought Paris was different.’

  ‘Most of it is.’

  He turned, unsmiling. ‘Still, no worse than I’m used to in barracks. Cheers.’ He drank his coffee without making a face, so she guessed what they got at home was no better. Seeing Ramon slumped on the sofa, Donal said quietly, ‘What were the chances of running into him? I nearly fell down when I discovered he was your husband.’

  ‘He has the same effect on me.’ She took their cups away to wash. Something about Donal was making her nervous. It wasn’t just the physical changes in him she found hard to adjust to, it was his tone, his demeanour. The shy boy had always been easy to brush off and tease. This man was essentially a stranger and he looked at her the same way – as if she were a stranger he intended to know more about.

  ‘Did you mean to come to Paris?’ she asked, as she belted on the cheap cotton coat she kept in the flat. ‘Wouldn’t you have been better heading straight west, making for Spain?’

  ‘I wanted to find you.’ Still no smile. ‘Ramon was nervous about coming to you – worried the Gestapo might have you under surveillance, but we didn’t dare hang about south of the river. Not after I jumped from the train and got chased half a mile.’

  ‘Ramon’s a wanted man, you know that?’

  He answered instead, ‘That time we met at the club, the Rose Noire? You were belting out “The Lambeth Walk”. When you told me you were married – ’ his voice caught ‘– I hadn’t known until then how much I’d always thought of you as my girl.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No. And you’re not his, either.’ He meant Ramon. ‘There’s a German, right?’ Donal had inadvertently smeared his painted black eye across his face and he looked like a chimney sweep. A sweep with hard blue eyes, searching her face for clues. It wasn’t just Donal questioning either, it was everything he represented. Homeland, King, comrades.

  ‘There are no Germans in my life,’ she told him. Why complicate matters? ‘I’d better go. Don’t go outside, stay away from the window and wash your face.’ She was out of the door before he could ask her anything else.

  The shops were closed, of course, but the patron of her regular café sold her a tin of ham, green beans and a knobbly swede. He also filled the bottle she carried permanently in her bicycle basket with red wine.

  Moineau had told her that in an emergency she could go to the Café de Finisterre opposite the entrance to Gare Saint-Lazare. He went there most days for lunch, he said, and always on a Sunday. If she missed him, the proprietor would summon him by telephone if she gave the code phrase ‘Cousin Charles’.

  Lunch service was tailing off when she arrived at the café at a few minutes after two. No sign of Moineau – she’d probably missed him. Parking her bicycle where she could see it, she squeezed into a chair at a one-person table outside, allowing herself a moment to soak up the May sunshine. She’d have to order something, but it felt mean to eat a proper meal with Donal and Ramon waiting unfed. So she asked for an apple and a piece of cheese and tried to ignore the smell of baked fish and garlic. She paid with some of Donal’s emergency currency, and when the girl stared at the brand new note, explained she’d been to the bank the day before. ‘Fresh in from the treasury.’

  ‘Long time since I’ve seen anything so clean,’ the girl said – not the greatest advertisement for her café. She took a long time bringing a small plate with a wizened apple and a chunk of Camembert. Coralie was picking the last crumbs when she saw a familiar figure in a Dutch-boy cap parking his bicycle. Moineau called out a familiar greeting to the waitress. ‘Bring me whatever you’ve got, Annette.’

  Coralie waited till the girl had gone before hissing, ‘Cousin Charles!’

  Moineau gave a double-take, then looked around nervously. His corduroy trousers were tied at the ankle with string, the inside leg worn to a shine. He must cycle a great deal, she thought.

  ‘What’s up?’ He came and sat at her table.

  She explained the situation, adding, ‘And we need a doctor, urgently.’

  ‘An English evader and a Resistance fighter? They didn’t come through us.’

  ‘They made their own way. You might as well know, the injured man is my husband, Ramon Cazaubon.’

  Moineau gave her a long look. ‘Right. Where are they? At rue de Seine?’

  ‘Impasse de Cordoba. Yes, I know, it’s a dead-end passage and might be compromised, but I’m out of bolt-holes.’

  ‘So you need to move them on sharpish. Who do you normally link with?’

  ‘Francine, at quai d’Anjou, but you said she’d been arrested.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll make some calls.’

  ‘Is there a doctor you trust?’

  ‘Yes, and I’ll telephone him from here. Go back to Cordoba and wait. We’ll come when it’s dark. And, Cosette, take your airman’s gun away.’

  ‘How d’you know he’s got one?’

  ‘Some carry them. If he’s caught and he pulls a weapon, they won’t treat him as a prisoner of war, you know that.’

  She nodded. ‘I’ll warn him.’

  ‘No, take the gun from him.’

  The waitress brought her wine to drink, even though she hadn’t ordered it, and while Moineau went inside to make his telephone call, she allowed herself half a glass. Seeing the waitress serving a nearby table with plates of fish and green lentils, she decided to beg a clove of garlic and a knob of butter from the kitchen. She’d throw it in with the mashed swede, make it more palatable.

  She walked through the café and into the lobby where the telephone was housed. Raising her hand to knock at the kitchen door, she heard the click of tokens going into the machine, followed by, ‘Hier ist Spatz.’

  She lowered her fist. ‘Spatz’ was ‘sparrow’ in German. ‘Moineau’ meant sparrow too. Slowly, slowly, she turned.

  He was hunched in the alcove, the telephone receiver shoving his cap to one side, corduroy trousers still tied at the ankle. She heard him say, ‘Reiniger,’ and in German, ‘Get me Major Reiniger, quickly.’

  Coralie backed away, only to collide with the returning waitress, who dropped the tray she was carrying. Moineau looked out from his alcove, saw Coralie and rushed towards her, grabbing her satin choker which went taut, then broke.

  It was that, rather than the incomprehensible betrayal, that made her rage spew over. ‘You were calling the Gestapo! You pig!’

  ‘Annette!’ Moineau shouted at the gawping waitress. ‘Get the patron. We need to put this girl in the cellar. Get him!’ Then, to Coralie as if wanting to appease her, ‘Look, we’re on the same side, aren’t w— Bitch!’

  She’d kneed him in the groin, a half-baked j
ab because her coat skirts were hampering her. Moineau caught her right wrist in a powerful grip, bending her arm behind her back. ‘You sleep with Germans and I take their— ’ The word ‘money’ disappeared in a shout of pain as Coralie’s left-handed punch knocked his head sideways. Thanking Donal, who’d taught her that move, she followed up with a second blow that knocked Moineau’s cap off. Then she ran.

  Both men were asleep, Donal sprawled in an armchair, Ramon face down on the sofa. ‘Wake up!’ Gasping for breath because she had cycled away like a schoolboy caught stealing apples, she shook Donal. She got a mumble back, so she put her hands inside his shirt, feeling for the cold outline of his gun. Plucking it free, she put it into her coat pocket. Then she pinched him.

  Donal woke.

  He reached up, drew her face down and kissed her. His chin and upper lip were rough but his lips were soft. ‘Cora,’ he said, between kisses, ‘I have to tell you what they found buried in your father’s workshop.’

  Not that, not now. ‘Shut up and get up. We have seconds to get out.’

  CHAPTER 38

  They supported Ramon between them like a drunk. His face gleamed with sweat. They were lumbering across rue de Leningrad when they heard the grind of car engines, getting louder. The blasting of horns suggested drivers ploughing across place de l’Europe.

  ‘Moscow,’ she panted. ‘Run!’ They dragged Ramon round the corner into rue de Moscow seconds before tyres screeched to a halt at impasse de Cordoba. They heard the slam of doors, then the crash of a metal bar against wood.

  ‘It won’t take them long to see the place is empty,’ Donal said. ‘Where now?’

  Yes – where? Coralie couldn’t think of a single safe haven. ‘Let’s just go. We need to lose ourselves.’

  They took the Métro at rue de Liège and spent maybe two hours just riding the lines. She could not take them home, or to La Passerinette. Or to Teddy’s, because Dietrich might look for her there, and Dietrich would turn Ramon in. What about Bonnet, at rue Valdonne? Ramon vetoed it, groggy with fever. ‘He drinks – never trust a drunk.’

  ‘What about one of your many women?’ she asked, quite seriously.

  ‘Never trust a woman.’

  She gritted her teeth. Félix Peyron? Only she didn’t know where he lodged. Solange Antonin, who lived in luxury on rue Cambon? Maybe, but what if Solange was entertaining one of her beaux? Una’s friends at the American Hospital had all been interned. The butcher on Mouffetard . . . her contact at avenue Foch . . . too dangerous. They might be under surveillance. Why didn’t I make more friends?

  And then she thought, I know exactly who to go to.

  They alighted at Odéon, south of the river and a stone’s throw north of rue de Vaugirard. Leaving Donal supporting Ramon, she went into a bar, paying double-price for the owner’s leftover bread. Donal had shared his emergency provisions with Ramon on the train, and that was all they’d eaten today.

  Fortunately, she’d had the presence of mind to shove the tin of ham she’d bought earlier into her pocket. Everything else was with her bicycle, thrown down in impasse de Cordoba. Probably by now being shared among the Gestapo.

  Unbuttoning her coat because she was hot, and because the tin of ham made her look as though she had some kind of growth on her hip, she led the way down rue de l’Odéon, passing the bookshop where Dietrich had bought her A Farewell to Arms. A brief glance showed her a window full of Nazi propaganda.

  ‘Whose flat are we’re going to?’ Donal asked.

  ‘The owner taught me French and German some years ago.’

  ‘You do speak German, then?’

  ‘Yes, and so does the King of England.’

  Clutching bread to her chest, Coralie rang Louise Deveau’s bell, willing her to come down quickly. They made an odd trio. Donal, taller than an average Frenchman, wearing peculiar boots and mismatched clothes. Ramon, weak as a stick of boiled rhubarb. She heard footsteps and bolts being drawn back. Marshalling her apologies for calling on Mademoiselle Deveau in contravention of rules, she stepped inside. Donal followed with Ramon.

  The door slammed shut. It was not Mademoiselle Deveau, irritated and reserved. It was a man who put a pistol to the side of her head, saying, ‘One terrorist, one evader, one résistante. Up the stairs, please, the men first.’

  He had turned off the stairwell light, wanting the advantage of darkness. ‘Walk slowly, raise your hands. I have seven shots.’ He didn’t want to fire his Walther PP until he was looking Ramon Cazaubon in the eye.

  Inevitably, it was Coralie who objected. ‘I don’t know how you found me, Dietrich, but I’m not raising my hands because I’m not dropping this bread. I paid a fortune for it. Donal doesn’t speak French, by the way, and he can’t raise his hands, else Ramon will fall down.’

  ‘Donal,’ Dietrich continued in English, ‘take Cazaubon through the open door at the top of the stairs. If you try anything, I will shoot Mademoiselle de Lirac.’

  ‘No, he won’t.’ Coralie sounded perfectly confident. But she gave a start when he moved the muzzle of the pistol to the hollow where her skull met her spine.

  ‘Believe me, I will. Now walk ahead of me.’

  The concierge had let Dietrich into the apartment earlier, explaining in the loud voice of the very deaf, ‘Mademoiselle Deveau went away suddenly, after New Year. I keep the place clean, but . . . ’ Unlived-in places always had a particular smell, and five months’ unopened post added a twist of ambiguity. Was Louise Deveau dead or alive?

  No sign of Coralie either, but she would come. After all, who else did she know in Paris?

  Dismissing the concierge, Dietrich had settled down to wait.

  Now he propelled Coralie into the middle of the living room. ‘Stay right here.’ Pistol levelled, he watched a tall, dark-haired man help a scruffy, black-haired one to the sofa. He recognised Cazaubon, though the man was rougher and thinner than on their last meeting. From the way he fell back against the cushions, he must be suffering the effects of his injury. Was that the bulge of a gun under his jacket?

  Coralie looked shocked, as well she might. The Englishman was anxious – bewildered, even. Dietrich returned his gaze. Yes, he answered silently. You are seeing a German uniform, a silver breast eagle, a Pour le Mérite. You are not hallucinating. ‘Both of you, put your hands up.’

  Lifting his hands to shoulder height, the young man asked, ‘Luftwaffe, sir?’

  ‘Not actively. This time round, I occupy a different role. You?’

  ‘Warrant Officer Flynn, Royal Air Force.’

  ‘Thank you for being honest.’ Dietrich nodded at Flynn’s boots, which looked as though they’d been pasted with bird muck. ‘A pretence of being a deaf-mute farm labourer would have been insulting to both of us.’ Coralie was still clutching her hunks of bread. ‘I said, hands up.’

  She made no move to obey. ‘What d’you think I’m going to do, Dietrich? Cartwheel over and strangle you?’

  It was the Englishman who answered. ‘You know him? This is your German? Dear God, Cora, which side are you on?’

  Cora. Dietrich hadn’t imagined that his emotions could darken deeper, but the idea of burying a bullet in that muscular young chest was suddenly tempting. ‘Get back against the wall, both of you,’ he barked. After a shared glance, Coralie and the Englishman backed away until they stood in front of one of Louise Deveau’s china cabinets. Like twins. Flynn . . . Hadn’t she mentioned the name before? A memory slid into place. Sheila Flynn. ‘You grew up in the same street.’

  ‘Spot on,’ Coralie answered. ‘We used to trespass on the railway and sneak into the cinema together. Dietrich—’

  He hushed her. Two children growing up together, he could tolerate. But the bastard Cazaubon . . . Going to the sofa, he put his pistol barrel against the man’s temple, saying in French, ‘I am going to execute you for murder, Cazaubon.’

  ‘Go to Hell.’

  Coralie dropped her bread and came towards them. Her headscarf had slipped backwards,
holding her curls in a lopsided snood. Her coat hung open and Dietrich recognised the dress beneath. Pink, cherry print, low-necked. She’d worn it the day he had interrogated her at the Lutetia. Had she guessed, in that spartan room, how he’d been fighting the desire to take her in his arms, to take off her hat and bury his fingers in her hair?

  He heard her say, ‘Ramon fights for his country. You did it. Donal does it. Even I have a go sometimes. It’s war.’

  He saw blood on her throat where her choker should have been. Tears in her eyes. He forced himself to look through them. ‘Bombing the tunnel at Auxerre was indiscriminate killing.’ From the corner of his eye, he saw the Englishman lowering his arms, slipping a hand under his clothing. The RAF issued air crew with side-arms, just as the Luftwaffe did. Not so much for hand-to-hand fighting, but so an airman could put a bullet in his own head if he was trapped in a burning fuselage. That this Englishman had hung on to his suggested an intention to challenge the odds. Dietrich fired a warning bullet into the arm of the sofa, making Cazaubon duck and Coralie shriek.

  ‘Hands on shoulders, Warrant Officer! You, too, Coralie.’

  She folded hers across her chest. ‘It’s beneath you to kill out of malice.’

  ‘Why? I am as human and flawed as the next man.’ Had she any concept of the hours he had just lived through? He had woken to find her gone and had presumed she was at La Passerinette. He’d decided to take the Métro to the Louvre and walk the rest of the way because it was such a lovely day. On rue Royale, he’d passed a huddle of pressmen holding up the traffic. Some were talking to a policeman, and one was photographing what seemed to be blood on the road. A familiar-coloured hatbox. A tag-end of conversation had made his blood run cold.

  ‘. . . hit by a bus, blonde, well-dressed and tall. No name yet.’

  He had run to La Passerinette, which was locked. Nobody had answered his flat-handed beating at the door, and the despair that had attended the death of his son had flooded back.