The Girl in the Baker's Van

by Richard Savin

  The screams of pain from the car reached the other man who came running, his trouser fly unbuttoned, pulling the breach slide on his machine pistol as he ran. He was at the window, wrenching the door handle but what had been locked to keep Kasha in now kept him out. The man gave up tugging on the door handle and raised his gun; there was a short burst of fire. Kasha sat there in the silence, the submachine gun in his hands, a small curl of grey smoke drifting from its barrel. He had grabbed the weapon off the floor and in those fatal few seconds got his rounds off first. His assailant had been felled to the ground, flat on his back he lay dead, his arms stretched out sideways, the gun still grasped in his hand – and his penis exposed, hanging out of the open fly where in his haste he had failed to put it away.

  Kasha got out of the car, still chained by ankles and wrists. He shuffled round to the front, opened the driver’s door and slid in behind the wheel. The woman from hell had left the keys in the ignition. He smiled; his luck had turned. He looked around him to where the woman had disappeared but there was no sign of her. He was about to start the car when he heard the man in the back seat groaning. He hesitated. He needed to get rid of him; if he regained consciousness he would be a problem; he had to get him out – dump him.

  He moved cautiously round to the back, keeping a watchful eye for the woman; he knew she must be out there somewhere but he didn’t think she was armed. There was no sign of her. He dragged the half-conscious man out of the seat. His one undamaged eye was flickering and he was trying to speak. Kasha banged the man’s already battered head twice, hard, on the side of the car. All signs of life ceased. He dragged him as far as the bushes, then pushed him into the undergrowth. He looked back to where the other one was lying spread-eagled and thought to hide that body too.

  As he turned he momentarily caught the sight of a movement in the bush next to him, then something very hard hit him and he dropped to the ground. He came round almost immediately but something was not right. The ground was moving, it was passing about a metre under his face. His mind oriented itself and he looked up. He was being carried by Edith; she had her hand though his belt and was carrying him along as easily as if he were a shopping bag. When they got to the car she lifted him up and flung him on to the roof. Casually she turned her back on him, a sign of her contempt for his ability to do her any damage. She collected up the body of her dead companion and laid him on the back seat. She watched as Kasha struggled to get down off the car roof and regain control of his still dazed senses. She continued to ignore him and went back for the other body, which she retrieved from the undergrowth and laid gently alongside the first one on the back seat. Having arranged them in a sitting position propped into each corner, she turned her attention to Kasha. He was now on his feet, but struggling with the pain from where she had struck him high up on the shoulder in the crook of his neck, temporarily closing off his carotid artery.

  ‘My instructions are to deliver you unharmed,’ she said maliciously, grabbing at one of his chained wrists. The grip was like steel. She hauled him along like a stubborn dog that won’t be pulled away from its favourite lamp post. In his now cleared brain he could see his last chance slipping away from him. She had got him pinned with the weight of her body against the side of the Citroen. With one hand she held him by the throat while she opened the car door. He could barely breath; she released her grip and he felt the pressure go from his windpipe. She moved the hand that had been round his throat down to his crotch and, pushing it inside his trousers, took hold of his testicles. He felt her hand gently caress them and wondered what the hell she was up to. He didn’t have to wait long; she gave the organs a quick squeeze, sending a wave of pain and nausea through his whole body. She withdrew her hand and, standing slightly away from him so that he was no longer pinned to the car, looked him over.

  ‘There,’ she said, enjoying the moment, ‘that is a taste of what you have to look forward to. When they have finished with you it will be my turn, and you will pray to your god for a swift deliverance – but it won’t be swift. I promise you it won’t be swift.’

  She leered at him and his impotence, and brought her face up close to his to taunt him. He could smell the sweat on her as she pressed hard against him. She drew her face back and then, in a totally unexpected move, stuck out her tongue and brushed it across the tip of his nose, like a snake sensing its prey. She pulled back her head a little way to taunt him once more. He flinched but at the same time he jerked his head forward, bringing his bony brow down hard on the bridge of her nose. He did it twice in quick succession and at the same time he tried to prise her off him by lifting one knee, but the chain on his ankle blocked him. Her broken nose gushed blood but she hung on to him with an iron grip. He tried to head-butt her again but she pulled her face back and it missed.

  In her anger she forgot about the pledge not to beat up her prisoner. Overriding her pain, she pulled back an arm to punch him, but at the last minute slapped him instead. The stinging pain turned his face numb. She drew back her hand to hit him again. Her nose was blocking; swollen from the impact and gorged with blood she started breathing through her mouth, spitting out more blood and fluid from where her front teeth had been dislodged. In her rage she had already decided she was going to kill him and to hell with the consequences – but, because of her nature, it had to be slow. While she thought on this some blood and spittle caught in her throat and she coughed. It sent a surge of stinging pain up through the back of her throat and convulsed the damaged membrane in her nose. She let go of him for a second and in that gap he punched her face and the damaged nose. She howled but showed no sign of letting up. She landed another powerful open-handed slap to the side of his head – it was like being hit with an iron shovel. He lurched sideways, throwing up his arms in the air. As she closed on him he brought the chain on his wrist manacles down behind her head, then crossing his arms pulled them together with the last reserves of his strength. He knew if she got out of this she would kill him – he had nothing left. At first she smiled with contempt at this puny effort. She got her fingers in under the chain and started to prise it away from his grasp. He could hold out no longer and in one final tug she ripped it away from him. The release was so violent that the back of her hand flew up and delivered a thumping hammer blow to her damaged nose. She staggered back under the pain of her self-inflicted assault. The angry inferno of rage on her face seemed to pale as he waited for what he thought would be her killer blow. She stopped for a few seconds as if considering her next move; she looked as if she was struggling with the thought, trying to make up her mind. Something halfway between a groan and a sigh came out of her mouth; she swayed a little, then pitched forward onto her face.

  He stood there momentarily confused by what had happened. Carefully he approached her. He put out a foot and nudged her but her flesh had the solidity of death about it. He bent down and felt her neck for a pulse, all the time on edge that she would suddenly spring back to life again. She did not – the woman who had brought agony and death to so many others was now herself dead. He would never know it for certain but he guessed the small bone in her nose had been shoved upwards and penetrated her brain. She had killed herself.

  He dragged himself back behind the wheel and started the engine. Looking up the road he saw a car start to move towards him; the same car that had distracted the man in the back seat who had sat guarding him while the other two attended the call of nature. It had stopped some way off while the conflict had ensued. Now it drove slowly up to him and parked across his exit. The man who got out was unmistakably Gestapo. He looked around him for the machine pistol. It was lying in the passenger footwell, beyond his reach.

  CHAPTER 11

  Dangerous refuge

  In the tower above her the bell tolled the half hour – 7.30. It would soon be light and she had not slept well. The cold and the bells had broken her night into fragments of half-waking moments and random dreams; little bits of imagination that had distorted reality and
the memories of the past few days, turning them into a confused liaison of fact and fantasy. Evangeline felt ragged. All she wanted was to go home, but she knew she couldn’t.

  She made her way uncertainly down the hewn stone steps to the sacristy. The priest had left a bowl and a jug of water, anticipating her need. She dipped her hand into the jug. The water was hot; the priest must be up already and somewhere nearby. She had lifted the jug and was pouring out the water, but the sound of voices caused her to stop. She caught the single word ‘Cigale,’ spoken more loudly than the rest of the conversation and she moved closer to the door, trying to hear what was being said. Through the partially open door she could just see the points of the priest’s black biretta over the top of a fretted screen. Behind the screen he was talking to some other.

  ‘She’s gone, but I don’t see how she can help. Paris isn’t Lyon.’ The deep baritone voice carried the priest’s words clearly to her.

  ‘What about this girl? How much does she know?’ the other one said, a faint touch of conspiracy resonating in the way he said it. What she heard disturbed her, exposing a sense that they were accomplices in something.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ the priest replied.

  ‘Does she have the package, do you think?’

  ‘Not with her – I’ve searched her room. She may have hidden it somewhere in the city before we got to her. She’s a cunning little bitch though. We need to keep an eye on that one.’

  ‘Well, it’ll all have been for bloody nothing if she hasn’t got it. What about the Carlingue? Could they have it?’

  ‘No,’ the priest said confidently. ‘Our contact in Berlin says no – he would have heard. I’m sure the girl has it hidden somewhere. We just need to give her a little time. Watch her; I don’t think she’ll leave the city without it. She’ll lead us to it, and when she does …’ The priest paused.

  ‘You’ll put her out of the way?’ his accomplice sounded hesitant, as he waited for the answer to his half-suggested question.

  ‘We don’t need her once we have it. She poses a threat while she’s here; she would squeal like a stuck pig if they ever caught her.’ They were talking about her, that much was certain. A creeping fear began to grip her. If she had heard right she was as good as dead once they had the package.

  She retreated quietly back up the staircase until she reached the door to the chapel where she deliberately and noisily operated the latch. Hopefully they would hear it downstairs and think she was just rising; she banged the door closed for good measure. As she entered the sacristy she coughed noisily. The sound effects had worked and the priest came in from where he had been talking with the other unseen man and cheerfully wished her, ‘Bonjour.’

  ‘I have some hot water here for you,’ he said, but as he said it she saw his eye fall on the bowl, still with the water she’d poured into it earlier. He said nothing but now she suspected he had worked out what had happened. She couldn’t be sure, but it seemed safe to assume. She washed and went back up the stairs. A little later Mathieu came up to the chapel with a buttered tartine and some real coffee; the smell almost overwhelmed her. He sat with her, silently watching while she ate the bread and drank the coffee.

  ‘What’s it like in Alsace now the Germans are back?’

  She didn’t answer; instead she posed her own question. ‘Are you a résistante?’ He indicated he was. ‘Do you know of the Pur Sang?’ He nodded. ‘Then you should know how it is in Alsace, shouldn’t you?’

  Mathieu looked defensive, ‘Groups don’t talk; cells don’t talk. It’s safer that way.’

  She didn’t respond. In her thoughts she was trying to work out if she could trust this young man sitting next to her; he was hardly more than a boy really. She needed help; maybe he could give it. She needed to go south, get across the border into Spain. She thought about the Swiss francs and wished she had taken them, not left them in the package. With that kind of money she could survive for years – sit out the war until it was over, and then still longer until it was forgotten.

  ‘Have you known the priest long?’

  ‘Father Guillaume?’

  ‘Is that his name? I didn’t know, nobody told me.’

  ‘Not very well. He knows my father. He runs a safe house here at the church. Our cell brings people to him, people coming down from the north – escaped prisoners, British airmen, Jewish people, anyone on the run from the Germans. We take them south when the time is right – over the Pyrenees.’

  ‘Will you take me to Spain, Mathieu?’

  He stopped and thought for a moment, seeming unsure of his answer. He frowned. ‘Not until Father Guillaume says it is safe to go.’

  ‘Will that be soon?’

  He looked blankly at her then said, ‘I don’t know.’

  After he had left and the church was quiet she made up her mind to go. She would go alone. She would slip away after the midday Mass when everyone had left. She would go to Perrache station and collect the money but leave the package. Later she could post the left luggage receipt to the church and Father Guillaume. With her gone that would be it; they would have whatever it was those drawings and that key meant and she would be clear away to somewhere they wouldn’t be bothered to follow.

  *

  The congregation at the midday Mass sang its heart out; it was small but noisy. Afterwards, when things had quietened down and the faithful had departed the priest came up the stairs to the chapel and knocked on the door. ‘Is there anything I can get you?’ he asked politely. All semblance of distrust seemed to have gone from his face and his voice had a note of what she took to be genuine concern, but she had heard the threats and was certain they had been talking about her.

  ‘A book to read would be nice if I am going to be here much longer. Will I be here much longer?’ She looked at him expectantly.

  He hesitated slightly then said, ‘I don’t know my child. These things are in the hands of the Almighty.’

  She waited until she heard the small wicket door at the main entrance shut with a bang, then she waited further until the silence that enveloped the church told her it was empty. He had left. In the quiet of the chapel she stood for a moment in front of the gilded Madonna with its blue-and-white painted robes. Making the sign of the cross she knelt in front of it and made a small supplication for her safety, for Kasha, for Alain, and for the deliverance of France. Having finished with a brief prayer of thanks to God, she picked up the knapsack containing her few belongings, lifted the latch on the door as gently as she could and made her way down the steps, through the sacristy and into the apse.

  Walking nervously between the pews, she reached the small door that let into the nave and cautiously pulled down the iron handle; it opened with a loud creaking that made her wince, but there was no one except her to hear it. She was at the great wooden front door, solid with broad iron hinges and studded with iron bolt heads. She went to the little wicket gate that was let into the main door and gently pulled on the handle – it was locked. She felt the panic rising and tried to control it. She had to think rationally but at that moment all her thoughts were clouded. Yes, there would be another exit, a side entrance, a door in the sacristy which the priest used to come and go unseen by his flock. Her pace quickened to a run as she hurried back through the apse and into the sacristy. That door too was locked – she was a prisoner. There had to be a way out, maybe a spare key to one of the two doors.

  Methodically she started to search, opening cupboards, pulling out drawers, looking behind the curtains and wall hangings to see if there was a hook with keys hanging from it. There was nothing. She thought about breaking one of the stained glass windows but they were set high up in the walls and, besides, something inside her baulked at the idea of breaking holy glass – it felt sacrilegious just to think it. Another thought came to her – the priest’s vestments were hanging in one of the cupboards she had opened. She had found nothing when she had first looked in there but she hadn’t thought to search the pockets, and sh
e remembered a heavy overcoat in among the religious garments.

  As she patted her hands over the coat she felt something hard and heavy in one of the side pockets. She slipped her hand inside and removed the object, but it was not what she had expected. There were no keys; instead she found herself holding an automatic pistol. She was not familiar with handguns but she knew enough to remove the clip from the butt. It was loaded – a strange item to find in the pocket of a priest’s coat – but these were strange times and not much surprised her any longer. She looked long and hard at the weapon and racked her brain over what to do. She considered shooting out the lock, but it was massive and made of iron; it might take two or three shots to break it and the noise was bound to alert people, who would probably call the gendarmes. She abandoned the idea.

  It ran through her mind to take it and hide it in her pack, keep it for self-defence, but if she was stopped and searched and the gendarmes or the Gestapo found it she would be arrested. She started to put it back when the thought occurred that this might be what would be used by the priest if he was, as she suspected, planning to kill her. Maybe she should keep it and kill the priest before he did for her, but she wasn’t sure she could kill – especially a priest. That would be a mortal sin, wouldn’t it – like shooting the Almighty himself? Again, if she didn’t put it back he would be bound to miss it and know she had a hand in it. She hit on a compromise; she would leave the gun but first she would remove the ammunition from the clip.