‘Gentlemen!’ His voice was scornful.
‘You think me bourgeois? Well, you’re quite right, I expect. I fear I have stumbled into something that is quite beyond me, Albert.’
‘Not beyond your capacity. My colleague lost track of you the other day. You’re clever, Miss Bevan, I’ll give you that.’
‘Dodging someone at a railway station isn’t cleverness. It’s training. And my training came from a time when your masters and mine were allies. It has been quite a while.’
‘You knew who he was?’
‘At first I thought American.’
Albert looked unamused. ‘And then you realised?’
‘The teeth.’ Mirabelle opened her lips. ‘Americans, you see, have perfect smiles. Alas, your friend does not.’
He laughed. ‘I begin to like you, Miss Bevan. But the idea you’re not working for the British doesn’t hold water, I’m afraid.’ He drew Mirabelle’s lock picks from his pocket, and dangled them in front of her. ‘Standard issue.’
‘A memento of times past,’ she admitted. ‘But I’m not who you’re looking for. I don’t know anything.’
Albert paused just long enough for it to become clear that he didn’t believe her. Mirabelle let his silence hang in the air. When convincing someone, you must let them make up their own mind. Albert changed tack.
‘You went back to see Mademoiselle Moreau today. And that has made me curious. Tell me, what did you talk about? You two ladies? Tea and cucumber sandwiches, no doubt. Is that what you’re going to have me believe?’
‘The war. We talked about the war. I was in London and she was in Paris. Where were you, Albert?’
He ignored the question. ‘And the house you called at on the rue de Siam on the way to the cemetery?’
‘I went to visit an old friend.’
‘A friendship from wartime as well?’
Mirabelle nodded. ‘Yes. They weren’t at home.’
Albert backed away, leaning against the wall opposite the coom that cut a slice out of the room. He put the lock picks in his pocket. ‘No, I don’t think so. You’re going to have to come up with something better than that.’
‘There is no more. It’s the truth – a lousy cover, I agree. But that’s the nature of it. I don’t even know why you’re here – or why you’re interested in Christine Moreau, come to that.’
‘Do you believe in coincidences, Miss Bevan?’
Mirabelle answered honestly. ‘No. Not more than one at a time.’
‘Neither do I.’ Albert stubbed out the cigarette, crushing it against the bare wood with the sole of his shoe. ‘You English like a puzzle, don’t you? It is part of your national character. Crosswords. Guessing games. Well, I shall pose you a riddle. This woman almost never leaves her studio. And yet she is receiving secret information and passing it on.’
‘Information about what exactly?’
‘Classified information.’
‘From whom?’
Albert shifted on his feet. ‘I don’t know. But I know where it’s coming from. It’s coming from behind our borders.’
‘And what do you believe she is doing with it?’
‘Selling it, of course.’
‘To whom?’
‘Anyone who will pay her. You British perhaps.’
‘I see you have not ascertained Miss Moreau’s feelings towards her erstwhile compatriots. Yesterday she chased me out of her studio brandishing a pair of scissors because I even mentioned the British.’
‘The Americans, then? The French? Anyone who has money.’
Mirabelle’s eyes narrowed. ‘Yes. I understand why you’re watching her. There she is, in that tiny studio, working her fingers to the bone, reduced to piecework. I can see why you think she’s making a fortune as the hub of an international network. Perhaps you ought to have kidnapped her instead of me. I certainly don’t have the information you’re looking for, Albert. Perhaps you ought to search her studio if you’re convinced she’s a spy.’
He cast her a withering look. ‘It’s all standard. She buys the cloth from a factory in Poland. The invoices. The remittance. The sales. The orders. There is no radio. No telephone. Nothing. A bale goes in, two hundred scarves come out. An exporter in Calais deals with the shipment. But the trail of information leads to her – she is the axis of it.’
‘Well, stop her supply. Stop everything going in and coming out. You can do that, can’t you?’
Albert smirked. ‘And then we will never find out how she is doing it. It would be like taking apart an engine and not being able to put it together again.’
‘Poor Christine,’ Mirabelle sighed, thinking quite the opposite. It would be fun to drive Albert round the twist – she had a vision of Christine picking particularly eccentric people to talk to on her outings to the park. ‘You’ve got her all wrong, you know.’
‘She is bourgeois – just like you.’
‘There is no crime in that. Not here, anyway. Christine Moreau was a Resistance fighter. She is a patriot.’
‘She took a Nazi lover.’
‘She fell in love. Ill advisedly, I’ll grant you. But she is a brave woman. She fought for her country despite her involvement with an SS officer, and that takes guts.’
Albert lit another cigarette and blew out the smoke energetically as if he was obliterating Christine Moreau’s past.
‘And then you turn up. The first person in months to visit the studio. And you visit her twice in short order. Do you see why you came to my attention?’
‘I’m afraid there is no mystery. On my first visit we ascertained that Miss Moreau knew a friend of mine, someone who is sadly now dead. I visited her a second time to talk more about him.’
Albert appeared to lose patience. He moved across the room as if the story had offended him. Then he grabbed Mirabelle’s arm and forced it against the chair as he retied the knot, this time twisting the rag around both wrists. His jaw was set, as if he wanted the fabric to cut into Mirabelle’s skin. Mirabelle wondered if he was really angry or only trying to intimidate her.
‘I’ll be back later,’ he said.
‘You can’t …’ she spluttered.
‘I’ll bring food.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘You will talk.’
‘We have been talking.’
‘I’ll make you talk.’
Behind her, the door slammed and the key turned in the lock. Mirabelle listened. There was no carpet outside – only a set of wooden stairs by the sound of it. She wondered how long he might be. In his place she’d leave the subject at least an hour before coming back, if not several hours. Often waking someone in the dead of night confused them and they said more than they meant to. In any case, when Albert returned she’d have some warning. The stairs made a dreadful racket.
She struggled against the knot, working her hand backwards and forwards. Then she tried using her teeth to loosen it. He should have tied her with rope; the piece of old linen had far too much give to be effective for long. She remembered reading an interview with Bulldog Bradley during the course of which he said you had a better chance of getting away if you escaped early. The sooner the better, he’d advised, giving examples of men who had got away while the Nazis were waiting for transport to take them to the Stalag. She smiled as the knot began to loosen. She pulled one hand free and then the other. She took a deep breath and stood up, only realising when she got to her feet that Albert had removed her shoes. If he thought that was going to deter her, he had another think coming. Her stockings had ripped at the ankle. Annoyed, she grabbed her handbag and checked inside. The sheaf of banknotes was still hidden in the inside pocket. Her notebook was missing, but she hadn’t used it while she’d been here. From memory, the last list had been for shopping – meat paste for sandwiches, milk to make tea and a bottle of bleach with which she intended to clean the bathroom. Albert would ascertain little from that. She sighed, remembering he’d taken the lock picks.
Her eye
s flew to the door, and, legs shaking, she limped over. Getting to her knees, she looked through the keyhole. The key was in the other side but the bottom of the door was too well fitted to allow the old trick of pushing the key out onto a piece of paper that could then slide back through the gap. Then Mirabelle heard a movement on the other side. It sounded as if someone was turning the page of a newspaper. She stood up carefully and stepped back. Albert had taken the stairs but someone was still out there on guard. It was lucky they’d taken her shoes – she’d moved all but silently as she investigated the room. Then, as she looked up, she realised there was another way out.
The skylight was rusty. Mirabelle stood on the chair and pushed hard, and the old window opened with a crack. The freezing night air hit her in a wave. She waited, ready to jump back down if the man guarding the room came to investigate the noise. Nothing. Above, the sky was dark and the view from the top of the building afforded a spectacular view of Paris at night. Albert had told the truth – he hadn’t brought her far. From here she had a clear sightline to the Eiffel Tower. Stretching in all directions, Paris’s streets were well lit. The lead roofing was wet. Here and there it reflected a dim glow from the lights on the other side of the street. Sticking her head out as far as she could, Mirabelle surveyed the roofscape. The building was at least five storeys high. There was a flat area running along the top of the roof above the skylight, which was set upright into the eaves; if she could climb the slanted part that led to it she’d be able to survey the whole terrace and, she hoped, find a way down. She looked back into the room and took Bulldog Bradley at his word. This was the first opportunity she’d had to get away and she wasn’t going to let it pass.
With her handbag pushed up over her shoulder, she took her weight on her arms and pulled herself out until her bare feet were balanced on the freezing iron gutter. She turned slowly and closed the window. Then, telling herself not to look down – or at least as little as she could – she focused on the surface beneath her feet. Thank heavens it wasn’t raining. Climbing in bare feet would be far more dangerous if the surface was being sluiced as she moved. She held on to the frame of the skylight as she carefully manoeuvred herself upwards. Her bare soles allowed a little purchase, though the cold nipped and her toes soon began to ache. At last she laid her hands on the edge of the flat area and hauled herself up.
As she tried to calm her breathing she surveyed the scene. As she had hoped, the flat area ran the length of the terrace, all the way to the end of the street. Unfortunately, she could see no easy way to the ground. There was no hoped-for fire escape. Thick soil pipes punctuated the sheer drop at the back, plummeting to the black gardens below, but they were mounted tightly against the masonry and without a rope it would be all but impossible to use them to make a safe descent. At the front, however, there were slim ornate iron balconies running across the top three floors. Mirabelle lay flat, pulling herself over the edge to try to make out which windows had lights on and which lay dark and were therefore presumably vacant. She chose the unlit window second from the end – the one that was furthest from her captors. Carefully she took up a position over it, made sure her handbag was secure and allowed herself to slip back towards the gutter. Gingerly she tested it with her foot. The iron was riveted into place, completely secure. Mirabelle paused. She tried not to think about what would happen if she missed her mark. They’d call it suicide – a woman tumbling from this height onto the pavement. How long might it take them to identify her body, she wondered fleetingly, and then pushed the thought out of her mind. Taking a deep breath, she folded her fingers over the ledge and lowered herself into the night air, suspended directly over the balcony on the top floor. There was a moment of relaxation, strangely, when she simply dangled, and then, closing her eyes and realising she was unable to breathe, she let go and dropped onto the iron fretwork. Her hands were trembling and her ankles had taken the strain but she realised with some surprise that she had made it. The room within was dark and she couldn’t make out the interior. Stumbling to stand straight, she tried the window but the catch was locked, so using her handbag to shield her from cuts she broke the glass with her elbow and reached through.
The room was warm. She pulled herself inside onto a thin strip of carpet and only just managed to quash the feeling that she ought to fall to her knees and give thanks. How foolish, she chastised herself, deliberately turning her attention to her surroundings. A quick inspection of the stove in the corner revealed embers that had burned low. Mirabelle warmed herself in front of them. Her feet felt as if they had been immersed in ice. Looking around, she found a pair of men’s socks beside the bed and pulled them on, rubbing her soles to get her circulation going. When she could feel her toes again, she rooted further. A pair of tan leather riding boots three sizes too large were stowed in the lower part of a cherrywood dresser. She pulled them on and took an experimental step or two. It was better than going barefoot, she told herself as she laid a banknote on the bed. She wasn’t a thief and the man who lived here would have to repair the window and replace his socks and boots. A summary inspection of the room betrayed the fact the poor fellow, whoever he was, was short of funds.
She tried the door. It was locked and she could find no key. Carefully she removed a pin from her hair, thankful that Albert had left her hat in place. She decided not to look in the small mirror that was mounted beside the bed and tried not to dwell on how ridiculous she must appear in her woollen day dress, tweed jacket, men’s boots and little hat. The red nail varnish applied so meticulously by Vesta at the beginning of the week had chipped in places. It was as if her outfit had been made up of random jigsaw pieces. She sighed. Then she knelt at the door to pick the lock. It wasn’t a difficult job. She’d done this kind of thing before.
Chapter 22
Remember that you have a friend.
Detective Superintendent Alan McGregor had never visited France. For that matter, he’d never been outside Great Britain. Once he’d cleared customs at Dunkirk, he’d spent some time admiring the stamp on his passport and reading the declaration on the inside cover. He wondered if anyone would ask to inspect the stamp now he was in Paris and was faintly surprised as he strode unobstructed out of the Gare du Nord and looked around. It seemed somehow too easy to have boarded a train and then a boat and now to be here, in the French capital. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but the network of roads around the station and the tall Parisian tenements did not look as foreign as he had feared. The damp February air felt the same in Paris as it had in Brighton and emerging onto the street he had attracted no particular attention, which meant he did not look outlandishly different.
He pulled a guidebook from his pocket. On Foot in Paris had been the only publication available at short notice. He’d considered himself lucky that the stand in Victoria was open on a Sunday. He had spent the journey perusing the book’s pages but now he had actually set foot on French soil – or at least pavement – he realised that he had not memorised the map upon which he had marked the location of the Hôtel Rambeau. This wasn’t how McGregor had hoped to spend the weekend. He’d envisaged a game of golf and perhaps taking Mirabelle for dinner somewhere nice down the coast and indulging in another kiss. When he dropped into McGuigan & McGuigan Debt Recovery on Friday afternoon he’d been flabbergasted when Vesta told him where Mirabelle had gone.
‘What the devil did she want to go to Paris for?’ he’d demanded.
Vesta grinned. ‘A missing airman. RAF. He was a flying ace during the war.’
McGregor looked offended as Vesta stirred the tea in the pot and cast around for biscuits. ‘Well, he’s been missing a long time,’ he managed to get out. ‘Why did she have to go now?’
‘That’s just what I said,’ Vesta agreed heartily as she poured. ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of her, actually. I phoned her hotel but I think she was out.’
‘What do you mean? She was either out or she wasn’t.’
‘The fellow who answered was Fr
ench. I’ve no idea what he said. I couldn’t even leave a message.’
McGregor drank his tea with a quiet slurp.
‘It’s all right for Mirabelle,’ Vesta added. ‘She’s fluent.’
The superintendent’s eyebrows rose slightly.
‘Her mother was French, you see,’ the girl continued. ‘Which explains Mirabelle’s style. They say French women wear clothes terribly well. I don’t know when she’ll be back.’
Vesta was deliberately taunting the superintendent with this information, hoping it might propel him into action. Unaware that Mirabelle and McGregor had kissed earlier in the week, she found the way the couple had been circling each other ever since they met most frustrating. She proffered a biscuit.
‘Huntley and Palmer, eh? Thanks.’ The superintendent sighed. ‘So, what did you want to speak to Mirabelle about? Office business, was it?’
Vesta put down her cup and leaned forward. ‘She’d asked me to look into something, so I went to the records office and dug up some old papers. I thought she’d find them interesting, that’s all. I’m nervous to trust them to the post. I mean, it’s abroad. And to telegraph the information would cost a fortune.’
McGregor dunked his biscuit. ‘I learned a bit of French at school,’ he admitted.
‘Go on!’ Vesta’s face lit up. ‘You never! Say something.’
McGregor put down the cup and the biscuit in preparation for a demonstration. ‘Ou est mon parapluie? That’s “Where is my umbrella?” And Je voudrais deux billets, s’il vous plaît. That’s “I’d like two tickets, please.”’
Vesta’s dark eyes twinkled mischievously. ‘Well, then, you could go and help Mirabelle, couldn’t you? Speaking French and all. We didn’t do any of that at school.’
McGregor found himself staring at the teacup in front of him. The station had been quiet of late and he had leave he ought to take – weeks of it. Paris for a day or two might be nice. He imagined Mirabelle in front of the Eiffel Tower wearing a beret at a jaunty angle. He’d like to kiss her there, looking just like that, he thought, and then he blushed at his presumption.
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