The Prisoner

by Robert Muchamore

  ‘I told you my wooden friend doesn’t like liars,’ the bat man roared. ‘Since when do orphan boys from Beauvais stake out suspects, watch dead drops and know how to pick locks?’

  ‘Who knew the Gestapo trained ’em this young?’ Halette said. ‘But it makes sense. Who’d suspect his little blond head?’

  Chalice started to sob. ‘Oh Christ, I’m going to have to move. And my great-uncle? What if they’ve done something to the little kids?’

  Marc realised the innocent orphan act wasn’t going to wash. But the truth that he was an underage spy trained by the British didn’t strike him as a tale that would make the bat-wielding manic happy either.

  ‘I say we kill him now,’ the batless thug said. ‘We’ve had eyes on him since he first went into Chalice’s back window. He’s not been in touch with the Gestapo all day. All we can do is dispose of him.’

  ‘Maybe we should check with Ghost first,’ Halette suggested. ‘If the Gestapo are training kids as spies, he may know things. Ghost may want him professionally interrogated.’

  ‘Listen,’ Marc gasped desperately. ‘I have learned a bit about espionage. I know how to pick locks. I know how to follow people, speak German, send Morse, work a code book. But I didn’t learn it from any Gestapo.’

  Chalice wagged her inky pointing finger in Marc’s face. ‘Whatever they’ve done to my great-uncle, we’ll do to you. Multiplied by ten.’

  ‘Please,’ Marc shouted. ‘I’m begging you to listen to what I’m saying. You must have a radio operator in your circuit. Transmit my name. Tell them I worked with Espionage Research Unit B and got captured in Lorient last July. I don’t know your transmission sked, but it shouldn’t take more than a day to get your answer. If I’m lying, you can put a bullet through my head.’

  ‘I’m not listening to this shit,’ bat man roared. ‘Kill him, cut him up. I’ll put the bits through the sausage grinder.’

  ‘No,’ Halette said firmly. ‘If the Gestapo are training kids to spy on us, he needs proper interrogation. This has to go through Ghost.’

  ‘Bloody Ghost,’ the bat man shouted, as he grabbed a handful of Marc’s hair and banged his head on the table. ‘What is it you want to know? I’ll interrogate this pale-arsed collaborator right now.’

  ‘You’re not a trained interrogator,’ Halette said. ‘Chalice, you’ll have to stay away from your apartment. Don’t go to work tomorrow. We might have to get you new documents, but for now the important thing is to stay calm.’

  ‘What about my uncle?’ Chalice sobbed.

  ‘Your uncle’s fine,’ Marc said. ‘Your uncle’s still in his house in Amiens. There are two Canadians from the Dieppe raid at my orphanage and if you contact London, they’ll confirm my identity. I swear on my life I’m telling the truth.’

  The thug put down the bat and grabbed a piece of rope. ‘How can you swear on a life that isn’t worth shit?’ he shouted. ‘All that’s left of it, you’re going to spend in pain.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The two thugs put the gag back in, and this time they tied it in place with a hair ribbon. The guy who’d held the bat put himself in charge of all the knots. He flipped Marc on to his chest and bound him tight, right wrist to left ankle, left wrist to right ankle.

  Marc didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of showing his pain, but he couldn’t help moaning as the big men carried him up six flights and dumped him face first on the floor of a tiny loft room.

  ‘I’m gonna be right below you,’ the man warned. ‘If I hear so much as a fly fart …’

  Marc understood that his own side was suspicious. The fact that he’d been spotted as soon as he’d arrived showed that the resistance circuit he’d unearthed had decent security in place. But that didn’t make it any nicer being tied up in a painful position and shoved in a dark loft amidst dead spiders and mouse turds.

  The heat made it a constant struggle to breathe and as the night went by he had no option but to piss himself when he couldn’t hold on any longer. This treatment seemed unnecessarily cruel and it depressed him to think that not all the bad guys were walking around wearing swastikas.

  It was easy to fall into the trap of thinking that everything would be great if you kicked the Nazis out, but there’d still be plenty of cruel bastards left whichever side won the war.

  *

  There was enough light leaking between the rafters for Marc to know it was daybreak, but it was at least mid-morning when Halette from the bookshop climbed up into the loft.

  ‘Don’t bite me,’ she said firmly, as she squatted amidst the dusty rafters and pulled out the ball. ‘Show me your teeth.’

  Marc scowled as the woman inspected his mouth. At first she didn’t look happy, but then she tapped all his front teeth and disappeared back through the loft hatch without putting the gag back in.

  ‘Don’t start yelling,’ she said firmly. ‘Or I’ll send the men up to sort you out again.’

  ‘Can I get some water, at least?’ Marc begged.

  Halette didn’t answer, but an hour later she came back with a knife and started untying the knots. Marc was bruised and filthy. He had awful cramp in his knees, and rope burns around wrists and ankles from being tied up.

  ‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’ Marc demanded, then gasped with relief as he drained an enamel mug filled with cold water.

  ‘According to our contact with Ghost, Marc Kilgour is a registered British intelligence source who had a tooth pulled by a Gestapo officer two summers back. That’s why I was sent up to check your mouth.’

  This really intrigued Marc. Unless things had changed in the year he’d been in prison, resistance circuits only transmitted coded radio signals once a day, so if you asked a question you’d always wait at least one full day to get a reply. The fact that Ghost knew about his missing tooth, meant that Ghost or someone close to him had met Marc before.

  Getting down the loft ladder was excruciating, as his knees had been tied behind his back. After allowing him to wash and use the toilet, Halette led Marc down another floor, where he found himself in a dark butcher’s shop.

  The two men who’d terrified and beaten him the night before wore striped aprons and were dealing with a queue of women eager to buy either a revolting mound of sausage meat, or one of the rabbits hooked up behind. As it was a Sunday and the shop’s shutters were closed, it was clearly black-market trading.

  Marc had been disorientated by the rooftops and alleyways the previous night, but the butcher’s shop was only a few doors away from the bookshop.

  ‘So what happens now?’ Marc asked Halette, as they crossed the quiet street.

  ‘You’ll have some breakfast with my sisters in the back of the shop,’ Halette explained. ‘After that, Ghost wants to meet you personally.’

  The bookseller made this sound like something extremely special, which only intrigued Marc further.

  ‘So who is Ghost?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ Halette explained. ‘We use dead drops, false names and keep contact between resistance cells to an absolute minimum. The less we know, the less we can give away if the Germans catch us and torture us. Ghost leads the resistance in Paris. He’s something of a legend. Some people say Ghost is not real, or that it’s a leadership council rather than a single person.’

  Marc was taken into the room behind the counter, where the three sisters had put together a late breakfast, with some almost edible bread, a large piece of cheese and some jars of home-made jam. In the country, most people could lay their hands on extra food, but Marc realised this was a good spread for Parisians and that it had been put on in an effort to apologise.

  ‘We’re sorry about last night,’ Evaline, the oldest sister said. ‘The butchers enjoy violence a little too much for our taste, but we’ve known them all our lives. We trust them absolutely and sometimes muscle is required at short notice.’

  ‘Trust is everything in our line of work,’ Marc said diplomatically. ‘My sniffing around
must have alarmed you.’

  He wondered exactly what kinds of resistance activity the sisters were involved with as he spread a thick layer of butter over his bread. But he knew better than to ask, and if he had the sisters shouldn’t have told him.

  ‘I really hope you can forgive us,’ Halette said.

  But Marc had been badly knocked about and spent ten hours in pain. While he understood the reasons behind what he’d been through, he still hurt in too many places to feel like offering complete forgiveness.

  ‘My trousers stink of piss,’ he said trying to sound matter of fact, but unable to hide his bitterness. ‘And explaining rope burns on my wrists will be interesting if I’m stopped at a Nazi checkpoint.’

  The youngest sister Julie placed a neatly-tied bundle of books in the centre on the table. It was five of the volumes that Marc had discussed with Halette the afternoon before. They were all good-quality second-hand editions that would probably cost more than Farmer Morel paid Marc for a fifty-hour week.

  ‘We don’t have any men’s trousers. But that’s a small token of our apologies.’

  *

  Marc’s instructions were to walk to Porte de Clignancourt Metro station, making sure that he took the first train leaving towards central Paris after 12:17 p.m. He was to travel in the last carriage but one and leave the train at Odéon, where someone would meet him and take him on to meet Ghost.

  But the request to board a specific train and sit in a specific carriage made Marc suspect that he’d actually be met on the train. With Metro carriages unlit in the tunnels, Marc felt suspenseful every time the train rolled out of a station into darkness, but the voice that came at him as they left Gare Du Nord brought a lump to his throat.

  ‘So it’s really you,’ Maxine Clere said quietly.

  Marc gulped and pushed a tear from the corner of his eye. He was fond of Maxine and overwhelmed by the fact that he’d finally reconnected with his secret life.

  Marc had first met Maxine when she worked at the British Consulate in Bordeaux, two years earlier. Maxine had devoted months to running an orphanage, helping reunite kids who’d been separated from their parents during the German invasion.

  After returning to Britain, Maxine had trained as an espionage agent. Marc knew she’d been one of the first activists with the anti-Nazi resistance in Paris, but had no clue that she was Ghost, one of its most important leaders.

  ‘I knew you were taken to Frankfurt,’ Maxine explained. ‘There was a possibility your espionage role had been unearthed and a double sent in your place, so I had to meet you in the flesh. We get off here.’

  They left the Metro at Gare de l’Est, saying nothing more until they were above ground. Maxine led the way through the staff entrance of a restaurant directly opposite the station and up a narrow staircase to a small office. Marc felt stunned and slightly off-kilter, as if he expected to wake up and find he’d been dreaming.

  ‘So you’re the big boss now!’ Marc said, as Maxine engulfed him in a hug.

  ‘Until they catch me,’ Maxine said.

  There was a sadness in the way Maxine said this, and Marc noted that she had grey hairs, and shabbier clothes than the sexy creature who’d been seduced by Charles Henderson two summers earlier.

  ‘You’ve grown up, you look healthy,’ Maxine said.

  ‘I looked like a stick when I got back from Germany,’ Marc said. ‘I’ve put on twelve kilos since the nuns started fattening me up.’

  ‘My identity as Ghost is absolutely secret,’ Maxine said. ‘You must have no further contact with the women in the bookshop, or anyone else you saw yesterday.’

  ‘Of course,’ Marc said.

  ‘We’ll need full names, service numbers and all the information you have on the Canadians, which we’ll transmit back to Britain. Once we’ve verified that they’re not Gestapo spies, I’ll set things in motion for return journeys.’

  ‘Sounds good.’

  ‘Full verification and document preparation takes time. Can the Canadians be looked after?’

  ‘For a few weeks I expect,’ Marc said. ‘The nuns mentioned that they helped someone before. If you don’t mind my asking, what route will you use?’

  ‘The usual escape routes are over the Pyrénées into Spain; we have reliable escape lines and mountain guides taking out several dozen airmen every month. But our routes are currently overrun after the Dieppe cock-up, so things may take longer than usual.’

  ‘What about Madeline II?’ Marc asked.

  ‘Sea crossings have become more difficult; the Germans are building up their costal defences. Lorient has become too dangerous, but Madeline II still makes occasional runs to the Brittany coast. And of course, I’ll let Henderson and everyone else know you’re safe and well.’

  ‘Are any of them still in Lorient?’

  ‘I don’t know who’s working in Lorient now,’ Maxine said. ‘And I don’t ask, obviously. But I know that Henderson returned to Britain. Safe and well, as far as I’m aware.’

  ‘Feels good to be back in touch with everyone,’ Marc said.

  ‘I’m glad you’re happy,’ Maxine said, as she gave Marc a kiss on the cheek. ‘Now I’m sorry to be curt, but I have another important meeting in less than an hour. I’ll arrange for someone to visit the orphanage in the next few days to take photographs for false identity documents. He’ll also provide you with details of a safe house you can use if things go wrong.’

  ‘Is there anything I can do while I’m waiting?’ Marc asked.

  ‘A lot of these soldier types think they know better than the civilians who are looking after them,’ Maxine said. ‘So try making sure your Canadians don’t get bored and try anything stupid. We had a couple of idiot British pilots who started walking around a village in broad daylight. They thought escaping was a big joke. In the end I gave the order to have both of them strangled.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’

  Maxine shook her head. ‘Escape lines require networks of couriers and safe-house owners to help men move south and across to Spain. We’d rather strangle two idiots who can’t follow simple instructions than risk the Gestapo arresting, torturing and executing everyone they’d encountered during their escape.’

  ‘I’ll tell my Canadians that story if they get out of line,’ Marc said, managing a slight smile.

  Maxine glanced at her watch. ‘Now I really have to go.’

  ‘Don’t you want the details of the Canadians?’

  ‘Right, right,’ Maxine said absent-mindedly. ‘I’ll send a waiter called John-Paul up. Give everything to him. And they’ll serve you a good meal downstairs, no ration tickets or money required. There’s too many checkpoints and searches in Paris for my liking, so once you’ve eaten get the first train back to Beauvais and keep your head down.’

  Maxine had the office door open and Marc had to yell after her down the stairs.

  ‘You keep safe,’ he said, but she was in a mad hurry, and Marc doubted she’d even heard him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Eight days later

  The nuns found space for the Canadians in a disused room at the back of the convent. If there was a Nazi raid, the pair could drop from a first-floor window and run to a hiding spot in the woods. They ventilated their room so there would be no tell-tale smell, and kept belongings in kitbags so they could exit fast, leaving no trace behind.

  Marc would have suggested these precautions, but hadn’t needed to. It was clear Noah and Joseph were intelligent and resourceful from the way they’d managed to escape, but Marc had also noted their dark uniforms and the explosive detonators slotted into their ammunition belts when they’d first arrived.

  They were more than regular soldiers, but it was never good to know more than you needed to, so Marc hadn’t asked what the Canadian’s mission had been, and the Canadians hadn’t told him.

  Marc gave a coded triple-knock before entering the Canadians’ room. Noah was reading one of the books Marc had been given in Paris, while Joseph fan
cied himself as a handyman. The nuns found a regular supply of items that needed fixing and he was currently using wooden batons to reinforce the badly cracked frame of a cot.

  ‘What’s this, a half-day?’ Noah asked cheerfully, as he eyed Marc’s sweaty hair and grubby farm clothes.

  ‘Lunchtime,’ Marc said.

  ‘Isn’t that usually spent canoodling with the farmer’s daughter?’ Joseph asked.

  ‘She must find your sweat and cow-manure perfume irresistible,’ Noah added.

  ‘Jae works on the farm too, so we smell about the same,’ Marc said. ‘And how come you’re so knowledgeable about my love life? You’re not even supposed to leave this room.’

  ‘Young Sister Peter is a proper gossip,’ Noah explained. ‘Tells us all kinds of things. Not to mention she’s got the sexiest little bum.’

  Marc burst out laughing. ‘You can’t fancy nuns. They’re brides of Christ.’

  Noah looked confused. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It means, she’s married to God,’ Joseph explained. ‘So according to Catholic doctrine, if you start carrying on with a nun, when you reach heaven you’ve got to explain to God why you’ve been screwing one of his wives.’

  Marc liked both the Canadians, but they couldn’t go out in case they were seen by one of the little orphans. They were usually bored out of their heads and came out with all kinds of random stuff. But before this conversation got too crazy, Marc lobbed a brown envelope into Noah’s lap.

  ‘I gave up my lunchtime song to bring you that,’ he said.

  Noah’s face lit when he pulled two sets of identity documents out of the envelope.

  ‘Beauties,’ he said, as he threw the other set at Joseph. ‘I think those photos Sister Peter took have captured my essential devastating beauty.’

  ‘They look real,’ Joseph said as he held his new French identity card up to the window and studied the watermarked paper.