Chasing Ghosts

by Madalyn Morgan

  The waiter brought the olives, cheese and bread, placed them on the table and said, ‘Bon appétit, Madame.’

  When the waiter left, Claire took enough money from her purse to cover the cost of the food and drink. Then, finishing the martini but leaving the food, she got up quietly and went to the toilet. Instead of using the facility she strolled past it. And, as she had done many times during the war, she opened the back door and walked out into the night.

  The wind howled down the narrow passageway opposite the restaurant, where Claire stood in the shadows. She stamped her feet, tightened the belt of her coat and pulled up the collar. It was freezing, but she was determined to wait until Mitch and his mistress left the restaurant. A light came on in the restaurant’s narrow porch and several more under the striped awning above the restaurant’s windows, making it difficult for Claire to see Mitch and Simone.

  The door opened and a man and woman came out. Claire held her breath. The man walked out of the light, while the woman stood under it and put on her gloves. Claire knew by the way the man carried himself that he was not Mitch. She watched the couple walk under the awning and stroll off down the street arm in arm.

  Shivering, Claire pushed up the sleeve of her coat and squinted at her wristwatch. It was too dark to see the time. She rubbed her gloved hands together, but it made no difference, they were numb with cold. It must have been two hours since she had left the restaurant - and she might have to wait another two hours - a prospect that didn’t please her. She leant against the wall and closed her eyes. What could she learn about this woman that she didn’t already know, by watching Mitch leave with her? Nothing. Her hands began to throb. She couldn’t afford a night in freezing conditions. She had been a civilian for too long, she was soft now, her body wouldn’t take it. She pushed herself off the wall and was about to leave the alley when the restaurant door opened. Mitch stood in the doorway. Claire held her breath expecting to see Simone join him, but he was alone.

  As he walked into the light above the awning, Claire watched her husband turn towards the restaurant’s window. He lifted his arm in a half salute, half wave, before walking briskly on. So, Simone hadn’t left with him. She had probably arranged with the taxi driver who took her to the restaurant to pick her up after she’d dined and take her home. Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter, Claire had already lost her husband to a beautiful Parisian woman whose name was not Simone but Eleanor Cheval.

  Keeping her distance, Claire followed Mitch back to the hotel. There were only two hotels in the town with vacancies. Even so, it was an extraordinary coincidence that she and Mitch were staying in the same one. She hung back in the shadows outside the door and waited until she saw him cross from reception to the lift. The doors opened and he disappeared inside. When the doors closed, and Claire could see the lift going up, she went into the hotel.

  The night manager smiled as she approached the reception desk. ‘Good evening, Madame.’ He took the key to her room from a pigeonhole on the back wall.

  ‘Good evening.’ Claire didn’t move.

  ‘Is there something I can do for you, Madame?’

  ‘No. Thank you.’ She began to walk across reception to the stairs, then turned back. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’d like to…’ She wanted to say leave, go home to my daughter... If she left now, or even first thing in the morning, she could be with Aimée in less than twenty-four hours. But she had promised Dr Puel that she would take his grandson’s papers and the other documents he had entrusted her with to Guillaume Cheval of the Jewish Council in order to arrest and put on trial the professor of psychiatry Lucien Puel - real name, Heinrich Beckman - for his crimes.

  If she left now she couldn’t keep her promise. She felt suddenly nauseous. The room began to spin. She lost focus and grabbed the reception desk. ‘Are you all right, Madame?’ the night manager asked. ‘You look quite unwell.’ He came from behind the desk and took hold of Claire’s arm. ‘Perhaps you should sit down for a moment? I will get you a glass of water.’

  Claire’s heart was pounding. Her legs felt like jelly. Holding onto the desk and then the doorframe she let the young man guide her into a small office. It was sparsely furnished with only a filing cabinet, desk and chair - and a telephone fixed to the wall.

  The night manager helped her across the room to the chair, then left her to fetch water. When he returned, Claire asked if she could make an important telephone call to Paris. ‘I’m not supposed to… I would be dismissed if--’ He tutted and exhaled loudly. ‘Oh, all right,’ he said, looking up to the heavens. ‘As you are not well, we will call it an emergency. But please be quick, Madame.’ The young man went to the door and stood guard.

  Claire dialled Thomas’s number in Paris. It rang out for several minutes but there was no answer. Thomas probably hadn’t arrived home. She thanked the night manager, told him if anyone telephoned for her, no matter what time of the night, even if it was in the early hours of the morning, he was to put the call straight through. The night manager looked bewildered, ‘Very well, Madame!’

  Thanking the young man, Claire walked towards the lift. Halfway she stopped and returned to reception.

  ‘Madame?’

  ‘I will be leaving in the morning.’

  The night manager looked shocked. ‘I hope everything at Le Petit Château has been to your satisfaction, Madame?’

  ‘The hotel is fine, but I cannot stay here,’ Claire said, near to tears. ‘Please prepare my bill. Would you also arrange for a taxi to take me to the station in time to catch the nine o’clock train to Paris?’

  ‘Certainly, Madame. I shall do it now. And your bill will be waiting for you when you have had breakfast.’

  ‘I’d like something light in my room, if that’s possible?’

  ‘Of course. Croissants and coffee at 7.45?’ Claire nodded. ‘I will send the porter for your luggage and arrange for a taxi to pick you up at 8.20. That will give you plenty of time to get to the station for nine.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Claire put two francs on the reception desk to cover the cost of the telephone calls the night manager would have to make. ‘Good night.’

  ‘Good night, Madame Belland.’

  Claire undressed and got ready for bed. The few clothes she had taken out of her suitcase and hung up in the wardrobe when she arrived at the hotel she took down, folded, and put back in the case. Then she washed and dried her face, sat on the stool in front of the dressing table mirror and dabbed Nivea cream on her cheeks, neck and forehead. She rubbed the face cream in with the tips of her fingers, washed her hands and brushed her hair.

  She looked around the room. With nothing left to do until morning, she sat on the bed and set the small travelling alarm clock for seven. She slumped back against the bed’s headboard and closed her eyes but couldn’t sleep. She sat up and stared at the telephone. Like a watched kettle, the phone didn’t ring.

  With frustration more than anything, she laid down and curled up in a ball. Her eyes were tired and she closed them. A minute later, or so it seemed, she was woken by the ring of the telephone echoing around the room. She leapt out of bed, stumbled across the room to the dressing table and picked up the receiver. ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hello, Claire? It’s Thomas.’

  ‘I thought you’d forgotten to ring.’

  ‘I’m sorry it’s late, but I’ve only just got home. There was an accident on the road into Paris. Then, because it was late, Antoinette and Auguste insisted I stayed and had something to eat. By the time I got to my colleague’s apartment it had gone midnight. How was your evening?’ Claire daren’t speak. She didn’t want Thomas to know she was upset. She fought back her tears and took a calming breath. ‘Claire, are you still there?’

  ‘Yes, I’m here,’ she whispered, ‘but I am leaving first thing tomorrow. I cannot stay here. I’m going to get the nine o’clock train to Paris. From there I shall go to the airport at Orléans and catch a flight home. I shall ask your friend, the manager, to put the docum
ents Doctor Puel gave me in the hotel safe. You said you were only an hour away, and you would come back at the weekend if I needed you, well, I do. I need you to take the documents to Guillaume Cheval.’

  ‘I will do as you ask, of course, but why are you leaving so suddenly? Is it Alain? Was he with Eleanor Cheval?’

  ‘Yes, very much with her. The way he looked at her tonight in the restaurant was how he used to look at me. He loves her, Thomas. I know he does. It’s over between us. I shall return to England, tell Alain’s commander what Dr Puel told me, and that will be the end of it as far as I am concerned. Then I shall go to Foxden, to my daughter.’

  ‘Won’t you put off leaving until after the weekend? We can take the documents to Guillaume Cheval together. Afterwards, we can talk.’

  ‘No. I couldn’t bear to see Alain with her. And, Thomas--?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  ‘Come in,’ Claire called. She glanced at her watch, it was 7.30. She dragged her suitcase into the middle of the room and turned to take her coat from the wardrobe.

  ‘Is it just the one case, Madame Belland?’

  She spun round, ‘Mitch? How…?’

  ‘Did I know you were here?’ Claire felt her cheeks flush scarlet. ‘I had a telephone call in the middle of the night from someone saying he was a friend, and if I didn’t want to lose you forever, I was to ask at reception for the room number of Madame Therese Belland.’

  ‘Thomas,’ Claire whispered. Overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of her friend, she blinked back her tears.

  ‘Not a very original cover name.’

  ‘It was the best I could come up with at short notice.’

  There was a second knock on the door. Mitch raised his eyebrows questioningly and Claire nodded for him to open it. ‘Your breakfast, Madame,’ the waiter said, looking from Mitch to Claire before crossing the room and taking croissants and coffee from the tray and putting them on the small table under the window.

  ‘Would you bring another cup?’ Mitch lifted the lid on the coffee pot and peered in, ‘and another pot of coffee - and bill room 103?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The waiter left and Mitch closed the door.

  Estranged, not knowing what to say to one another, they stood in silence. It was Mitch who spoke first. ‘Honey, why are you here?’

  Every time he called her honey, smiled at her, or looked into her eyes as he was doing now, Claire felt a sharp pain, like a knife piercing her heart. ‘I came to find you!’

  ‘And you’ve found me, so why are you leaving?’

  ‘Because I have found you. I wanted to warn you that British intelligence, Canadian military intelligence, and probably MI6 and the International Criminal Police Organisation are looking for you. Two military intelligence officers searched Esther’s house. They took some of your old books away with them. They searched our house while Aimée and I were at Foxden at Christmas. Then two bull-neck guys in civvies turned up at Édith’s house in Gisoir asking questions.

  ‘I had crossed the Channel on my old French passport, so when I got to Gisoir, André had my photograph put onto Therese’s passport. Two men, similar to the two who came to Édith’s house were in the Hotel Central last night, but we gave them the slip.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘I!’ Claire said, quickly. She didn’t have time to explain how she came to be with Thomas, nor did she want to. It was none of Mitch’s business. ‘I gave them the slip.’

  ‘That’s my girl.’ Mitch took a step towards her, but Claire turned away. She took her hat from the dressing table and put it on. ‘Documents proving you are not a traitor, but your psychiatrist in Canada is, will be delivered to Guillaume Cheval at the weekend.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Mitch said.

  Securing her hat, Claire checked her appearance in the mirror, and then turned to face Mitch. ‘I can prove to Commander Landry, and to the authorities in England, that you are not a German agent. You,’ Claire said, keeping her emotions in check, ‘can do the same. The proof is in here.’ She showed Mitch old Doctor Puel’s briefcase. I was going to leave it in the hotel safe for Thomas Durand, who I know from 1943, from the Paris Maquis. He has been helping me. He was coming back at the weekend to take the briefcase to Guillaume Cheval, but since you’re here you can take it.’

  ‘How do you know about Cheval?’

  ‘You’d be surprised what I know,’ Claire said, unable to keep cynicism out of her voice. ‘But I don’t have time to explain now. I’m catching the nine o’clock train to Paris, but first I need to telephone Thomas and tell him not to come up here because you have the documents. Then I am going back to England to tell Commander Landry what I know. So, as soon as he calls off the dogs, you’ll be free to get on with your life.’

  ‘Get on with my life? What did Commander Landry tell you?’

  Claire gave him a scathing look. ‘He didn’t tell me anything. He’d have guessed I knew something when I didn’t turn up for the meeting he ordered me to attend the following day. But, like the goons who came to Édith’s house in Gisoir, I gave him the slip too. By the time he realised I wasn’t going to show up for the meeting, I was halfway across the Channel.’

  Claire’s eyes began to smart. She swallowed to stop the tears. ‘You should have told me about the accusations Lucien Puel made against you, Mitch.’

  ‘I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to put you in danger.’

  ‘Then it’s a damn good job your grandmother told me, or the authorities would be hunting you as they will soon be hunting him.’

  Mitch put his hands on his head and exhaled a long breath. ‘She got the letter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the medical report?’

  ‘Yes. She showed me both.’

  ‘And she’s still got them? Military intelligence didn’t find them?’

  ‘No. How would they know you’d sent Esther a copy?’

  ‘Because Puel’s secretary came back from lunch early and saw me copying them. She said she wouldn’t say anything, but she’d be bound to tell Puel.’

  ‘Well, she obviously didn’t.’

  ‘No.’ Mitch ran his fingers through his hair. ‘How is Grandma Esther?’

  ‘She’s fine. Commander Landry had her in for questioning while I was away. She saw the same letter that you’d sent to her on his desk and was worried, which is why she showed it to me. And now I can prove that what Puel said about you working for the Germans and being a double agent is a lie. It’s Puel, or should I say, Doctor Heinrich Beckman from the Gestapo prison at Saint-Gaudens, who is the German agent. But you worked that out when you were in Canada, didn’t you?’

  ‘I wondered, which is why I copied the documents. How the hell did Beckman end up in Canada?’

  ‘He got out of the prison before the Allies went in. He killed the grandson of the retired doctor who saved your leg, took his identity papers and his doctor’s diploma. I don’t know how he got to Canada. Most Nazis who escaped went to South American, but he travelled cross-country to Switzerland.’

  ‘Who would refuse to help a French doctor?’ Mitch said.

  ‘No one. Which meant in just a few years the murdering, mind-meddling, German doctor had become a renowned Swiss psychiatrist. But not for much longer,’ Claire said.

  Before she could say more, the conversation was interrupted by another tap on the door. Mitch opened it to find the waiter who had brought Claire’s breakfast holding a tray with coffee and croissants.

  Taking the tray from the waiter, Mitch crossed to the table and sat down. ‘Come and have some coffee, honey,’ he said, ‘I owe you an explanation.’

  ‘That’s an understatement!’ Claire spat, unable to hide the anger she felt for her husband. Mitch poured coffee and cream into both cups. Claire sat opposite him and while she drank her coffee, she listened.

  ‘We had planned our escape to coincide with a Resistance guy, a passeur who w
ould take us over the Pyrenees to Spain. It had to be that day or we’d have to wait another month, maybe longer. The night before, guards took a woman from our hut to the exercise yard. They beat her until she couldn’t stand and when they’d finished, threw her to the ground.’

  ‘And the woman? Was she alive?’

  ‘Yes, just.’ Mitch’s eyes sparkled with anger. ‘Those bastards didn’t care what happened to her. She was French, a member of the Resistance, and what made it worse for her, she was a Jew. To them, she was less important than a dog. They laughed and joked as if nothing had happened and passed around cigarettes. When they’d finished smoking they stamped out the butts and strolled off as if they were walking back from a dance, or a night out in a bar.

  ‘When they were out of sight, two of us went out and carried the woman back.’ Mitch shook his head. ‘There was a deep cut by her temple. From when she fell on the cobbles in the yard, I guess. We couldn’t stop it bleeding. One of the men said it needed stitching, so we carried her to the hospital block.’ Mitch spat out a harsh cynical laugh. ‘Hospital? It was more like a torture chamber.’ Reminded of the straps across the beds and the bars at the windows of the psychiatric ward that he had been kept in in Canada, Claire wondered if Beckman was still experimenting. A chill ran through her.

  ‘That was the first and only time I met the prison’s doctor, Heinrich Beckman.’

  ‘Who we knew in Canada as, Professor Lucien Puel.’

  Mitch looked at Claire, his eyes gleaming with anger. ‘Right!’ He took a sip of his coffee. ‘He ordered us to leave so he could patch her up. She’d been gone for hours when two orderlies half carried, half dragged her back to the hut.’ Mitch shook his head as if to shake the memory from his mind. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. ‘As they dragged her along the ground her legs trailed behind her at odd angles.’ He cleared his throat. ‘She wasn’t able to stand so they threw her unconscious onto my blanket. She came to a couple of times during the night, said a few words, I don’t remember what, now, but when we asked her what she meant, she didn’t know. She had no memory of what happened to her while she was with Beckman.’