The Girl in the Baker's Van

by Richard Savin

  ‘The gendarmerie did provide one useful piece of information. The black Citroen, the one with Paris plates I asked you to look for – that was the car the woman was taken away in. So there are more players in this than we first thought. The question is where are they going – I imagine they are heading south.’

  Duval nodded. ‘It makes sense. She was arrested trying to board a train for Montpellier but the ticket she bought was for Narbonne. I think she may try to link up with your Polish spy and then they will go to Spain. He is no longer in the city.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘There is an informer.’

  ‘Is that how you found the woman?’

  ‘No, that was just a diligent bank clerk who got suspicious. I’ve issued a Directive for the regional police and the gendarmerie to look out for the car and arrest it.’

  Schreiber ran his fingers through his hair then rubbed his chin. ‘No, don’t do that.’ He raised his index finger and moved it slightly from side to side like the pointer on a metronome – an indication of the thought that was forming in his mind. ‘Tell your men to watch for the car and when they see it report the sighting and its direction of travel. Don’t try to arrest them. They will lead us to more important things; I am sure of that.’

  When he arrived back at the hotel there was a message waiting for him – another call from Berlin. The receptionist handed him the note; it was Becker. He should call him.

  ‘I have a report on Kandler’s mother. You asked the SD to follow her.’

  ‘Yes, yes – go on.

  ‘She has had an operation on her eyes at a private clinic in Bern.’

  ‘And …?’

  ‘It cost five thousand francs. They say they were paid a month ago, by her son, in cash – Swiss francs. But here’s the interesting thing. They say they were supposed to receive another five thousand to complete the treatment, but the son never turned up.’

  ‘So, was he expecting a payment from Kasha and instead ended up under a train at Potsdamer Platz?’

  The girl had money with her when she was arrested: 4,900 Swiss francs. Kandler had a 100 franc note in an envelope in his pocket. Put that together and that was Kandler’s five thousand. Except he didn’t get it; instead he got a wad of newspaper with a 100 francs folded round it and a suicide note. That tied Kandler to the Pole, and now the Abwehr had tied the Pole to Kraus. Fine, but who pushed Kandler if it wasn’t Kasha – and why? Maybe it was just for the money or maybe Kandler knew too much? He was still no nearer to finding out.

  *

  Grainger looked sideways at Evangeline. Her face was wet with the tears that are peculiar to moments of great sorrow or great relief. ‘Right,’ he said, taking off the wide-brimmed hat and removing the glasses. ‘We’d better get a move on, driver. There’s going to be some shit flying around when the real Gestapo turns up.’

  ‘Oui, monsieur,’ Mathieu grinned as he pointed the black Citroen out towards the southern suburbs. His anguish from the day before was settling down; he was coming to terms with the death of his brother and, although this girl had been an instrument in his ill-fated visit to the church, nevertheless it helped to be doing something positive. Her liberation had hit the enemies of his country, especially les collaborateurs, and it felt good.

  CHAPTER 17

  Avignon

  They left the southern suburbs of Lyon behind them and followed the shoreline along the Rhône, all the time watching the horizon ahead for anything that might look like a roadblock. In the back of the Citroen Evangeline had turned herself sideways in the seat and was peering through the small rear window out into the distance behind them, expecting at any moment to see pursuers. By the time they reached Vienne the mood in the car was beginning to relax and the idea sank in that they might now have made it clear of any interception. The main route south carved its way straight through the centre of the town, hemmed in by the river on one side and the steep vine-covered hills of the Côtes du Rhône on the other.

  Vienne was a large town crammed into a long narrow space and there was no way around it; they knew there would be gendarmes on point duty at every main junction and crossroad, but they would have to run the gauntlet. There was more traffic on the roads in Vichy than there had been in the Occupied Zone; fuel was more readily available, though it was still rationed – but at least it could be bought and there was always the black market to keep things moving. The presence of other vehicles, though they were mostly army trucks and buses with occasional civilian officials’ cars, made them feel less exposed. They could hide their presence in the crowd; they were less conspicuous. Nevertheless, the town represented a danger and they knew they had to remain vigilante.

  ‘Keep your eyes peeled,’ Grainger said quietly. ‘Every time we go through one of these towns we’re sticking our necks out.’

  Mathieu lifted his shoulders slightly, then let them drop in a barely perceptible shrug. ‘Can’t help it,’ he said almost to himself; he was already resigned to the risk and knew if they were stopped it would be dangerous. ‘It gets better after Valence; the valley is wider.’

  As they reached the centre of the town Mathieu held up a hand. ‘Un Flic’, he muttered. A gendarme was standing close to the point where they would have to stop at a junction; they would be perched there right under his nose. ‘Don’t like this,’ he said as they drew up to the halt sign and stopped at the line.

  The gendarme was standing close to the car, so close all they could see from where they were sitting low down were his legs and his feet. They waited. The traffic coming from the right was moving tortuously across the junction, but it had priority and there was nothing to do but wait as a slow procession of cars, trucks and bicycles crawled across their path. It seemed like the flow would never end and Mathieu cursed quietly at the gendarme who, he thought, should have stopped the crossflow and allowed his queue to move.

  Eventually he saw a gap and decided to go for it but, as he did, a man on a bicycle appeared from nowhere and swerved across their path, making him stamp hard on the brakes to avoid hitting him. At the same moment he heard the shrill of the gendarme’s whistle. He stopped with the front wheels of the car now well across the white halt line painted on the road. The gendarme’s legs came back into view as he walked up to the car, which had now moved a few feet beyond him. He came round to the front of the Citroen and stood in its path. Clearly he had not liked the manoeuvre and now he stared in through the front screen with one hand held up, palm forward, on an outstretched arm arresting their progress. ‘Merde,’ Mathieu hissed under his breath as Grainger simultaneously shouted, ‘Shit!’

  The gendarme waved and pointed to where there was a bus layby. ‘Bugger. He’s pulling us over.’ Grainger instinctively put his hand into his pocket and felt for the butt of the gun. ‘Don’t like it, Mathieu.’

  They sat and waited. The gendarme walked slowly and methodically around the car, finally stopping at the driver’s window which Mathieu had wound down in anticipation. The gendarme bent forward and looked at the three occupants.

  ‘Your papers please, monsieur,’ he said politely to Mathieu, but there was a hint of suspicion in the way he said it as if he already thought something was not quite right. Mathieu handed over his driver’s permit and then his ration card. The gendarme looked at them then handed them back. ‘Where is the carte grise for the car?’ Mathieu reluctantly took the car’s registration document from the glove pocket and handed it over. If he ordered them to go with him to the gendarmerie while he verified the document they all knew it would be difficult.

  ‘Get ready to make a break for it if I say so,’ Grainger whispered. Mathieu nodded. The gendarme stood back and looked at the licence plate, then looked again at the document. ‘He doesn’t like it.’ Grainger almost sang the words with his voice rising an octave or two as the sentence tailed off.

  The gendarme came back to the driver’s window. In the back Evangeline began to wind down her window. ‘Officer,’ she called out, addre
ssing the gendarme stiffly. ‘Our passenger here is an important guest of Vichy and a representative of the German security services.’ She leaned forward to Grainger. ‘Show the gendarme your Reich papers, please.’ Grainger handed them to her and she held them out of the window to the gendarme, shaking them at him imperiously and insisting he look at them, adding, ‘He has an important rendezvous and we are already late.’ The gendarme looked uncomfortable. He hesitated for a moment, looked at the document and its photo, then at Grainger who tried to look disgruntled.

  ‘Hurry up, man,’ he barked at the gendarme in his mangled Franco-German accent, taking Evangeline’s lead and reinforcing the note of her insistence and irritation. The gendarme still hesitated, but he was beginning to waver under the pressure of the two sets of eyes drilling into him. He looked at Mathieu, who simply shrugged. ‘Malchance, pas de promotion – tant pis,’ was all he said, but it was enough. The gendarme now looked very uneasy. He handed back the documents, apologised, saluted and, stepping out into the road, held up the rest of the traffic and waved them on their way. Nobody said anything. They just sat holding their collective breath until the car cleared the town. In the end it was Mathieu who broke the silence. He started to giggle, then burst out into uncontrollable laughter; the other two followed suit, though Grainger was more constrained. He turned in his seat and looked over at Evangeline. ‘Thanks,’ he said as the laughter subsided, ‘that was a terrific bloody performance. I didn’t think you had it in you.’

  She tilted her head slightly sideways, ‘You’re not the only one who can do what you British call bullshit, you know. We French can do it too.’

  ‘I owe you one for this,’ he said with a hint of contrition in his voice. ‘I really thought we were done for then.’

  ‘It’s equal,’ she smiled. ‘You saved me from the Gestapo, and anyway you need to thank Mathieu too – he played his part.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’

  Mathieu began to laugh again. ‘I said it was bad luck for his promotion but not to mind.’

  ‘Ha, well done.’

  ‘We shouldn’t laugh too much.’ Evangeline looked thoughtful. ‘He took the registration number, I saw him write it down. If he checks when he gets back to the gendarmerie it could mean trouble. We should change this car.’

  Grainger nodded. ‘I won’t be sorry to get off the roads. I’ve lost count of the number of security checks I’ve run into since I got here. I must have used up most of my nine lives.’

  Evangeline looked puzzled. ‘I don’t understand. Nine lives, what is that?’

  ‘British humour – cat joke. We say a cat has nine lives. Don’t know why – it sort of means you have nine chances to cheat death.’

  ‘And what happens after that – after nine lives?’

  Grainger gave her a quaint look. ‘You’re dead I guess. You’re right, of course, we have to dump the car. We need to find some place where it can be hidden, where it won’t be found for a while – preferably not till we’re clear of the area.’

  ‘My father will be able to help,’ Mathieu volunteered. ‘We can hide it in Avignon and find another way to pass you on.’

  *

  The house in Avignon was a double-fronted maison de maître set back in a secluded garden behind a high stone wall. It had green shutters with horizontal slats that let in the light but shaded the rooms behind from the fierceness of the sun in summer; but for now they were pinned back to form a frame for the windows.

  Mathieu’s eyes lit up as they entered the street in which it stood. ‘You’ll be safe here. I’ll open the gates. We should put the car inside where it can’t be seen.’

  With the car safely hidden inside the garage Mathieu led them through a door and up a short flight of steps that led to the kitchen. They emerged into a hallway that led to the reception rooms and as they did so they heard the sound of voices coming from the salon. Mathieu suggested they wait for a moment while he went in and announced their arrival, but as he started towards the salon he ran into another visitor who was just taking his leave.

  ‘Father Guillaume! What are you doing here?’ Mathieu pulled his cap off out of courtesy to the priest.

  ‘He came to bring us the news of your brother,’ his father said sombrely, as he also emerged into the hallway. Seeing Grainger and Evangeline he stepped forward and welcomed them. ‘I am Monsieur Varailles,’ he said with a token bow of his head, then ushered them into the salon.

  He sat and listened to their news and their plans, all the time with one arm round the shoulders of his wife, her face still damp from the tears she had shed on the news of her eldest son’s death. Father Guillaume, who was on the verge of leaving, felt he should stay while they worked out the details for their journey onward. ‘There is also the matter of finding the Polish agent,’ the priest insisted. ‘He was responsible and he must pay.’

  Monsieur Varailles nodded agreement. ‘We have discussed it. Your brother was not just a resistant he was a Maquisard and there are others who will take up his revenge. I will pass the word to the cells. He shall not cross the mountains alive.’

  In Grainger’s head alarm bells had started to ring. It was not in his plans to have his charge eliminated in some family vendetta. London would be furious and the Americans would not be pleased. He could not allow the safe handover of Kasha to be run off the rails and he would have to tell them so, though he thought the time was not right and he would wait while he got the measure of these people and the strength or weakness of his position. He was still reliant upon them and their goodwill to get across the Pyrenees, but it had to be with his charge in tow; he was not planning to deliver a corpse.

  In the afternoon Father Guillaume took his leave. He would return to the house of one of the Avignon cardinals where he was invited to dine and stay the night.

  Over dinner that evening a plan was discussed. Grainger and Evangeline would go south by train to Montpellier and then make their way to Narbonne. The safest routes were further east from Carcassonne or Toulouse, but there would be too much snow in the higher passes so they would have to take their chances crossing through the lower hills south of Perpignan. Six months earlier it would have been easy, but now the Germans had put pressure on Pétain’s government to patrol the routes. The army and the police had been issued with orders to arrest all those discovered trying to cross the mountains; even shepherds were not above suspicion.

  It was not all bad news. Many of the army were reluctant to throw in their lot with the Germans, though there was still some anti-British feeling over Mers-el-Kébir. During the previous year the Royal Navy had demanded the surrender of the French North African fleet. When the admiral in charge had refused, Churchill ordered it to be sunk to keep it out of German hands. Almost thirteen hundred French sailors had been killed and it sat badly in French minds. But when Grainger tried to raise the issue of Kasha and the importance of delivering him and his information alive there was an awkward silence.

  ‘There is no hurry for the moment,’ Mathieu’s father assured them. ‘I have connections in Montpellier. First we will find your Polish agent. If what you say is correct and he wants to get to Spain we shall hear. He will have to arrange a guide if he is going to cross the Pyrenees. It is difficult even in the summer – now in the winter he could never make it alone.’

  After dinner they sat in the salon where Mathieu’s father brought out a bottle of Armagnac and glasses, which he set down on a low table. He then excused himself, explaining that he would join his wife who needed to be comforted in her grief.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he said, addressing Grainger, ‘we can talk about the plans in more detail and I will see what is to be done to pass you on down the line. Until recently the authorities had largely ignored the presence of refugees and les évadeurs. Even escaping British soldiers and airmen were able to move relatively freely, despite their presence being known to the Hôtel de Ville; so long as they were not suspected of spying they were free to move around and travel south.
Now things are changing; they have become more difficult. We have Gestapo snooping around us. Worse still, the Carlingue; they are sending their thugs south, assassinating those suspected of resistance, kidnapping others and dragging them back to their lair in Paris. Yes, we have to be more careful now.’

  ‘I urgently need to get in touch with London, sir. Do you have access to a radio?’

  Monsieur Varailles nodded. ‘Yes, but it is not easy. I will try to arrange it for you. Goodnight.’

  ‘Are you married?’ Evangeline asked Grainger out of the blue as soon as Varailles had left them.

  ‘No,’ he replied, slightly taken aback by the directness of the question.

  ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Don’t know – just never seem to meet the right girl. Why, is it important?’ He made a small gesture with both hands, holding them out, staring at the open palms and lifting his shoulders slightly as if to say is any of this relevant. ‘Besides, I thought you people didn’t share personal information for the sake of security.’

  She got the message and left it there, but as she prepared to go to bed she said, ‘Well, at least tell me your name – and don’t say Alpha Six. After all, you know mine.’

  He smiled and politely got up from his chair, thinking that perhaps he had somehow offended her. ‘Richard,’ he said, trying to mend what he saw as a damaged fence, ‘but my friends call me Dicky.’