The Girl in the Baker's Van

by Richard Savin

  ‘I have heard nothing, Kriminalinspector. What makes you think this is so?’

  ‘That criminal oaf Bonny blundered into the house in Avignon. It wasn’t on my orders. I had to arrange a tip-off to get them out before that clumsy idiot ruined our plans.’

  ‘Do you have any ideas who?’

  ‘None whatsoever. See what you can find out?’

  *

  Through a small round porthole where she lay in the top bunk Evangeline could see the mottled bark of the plane trees that studded the bank. Above, through their leafless branches she glimpsed the ice-blue sky as another fine day began to dawn. She heard the clunk of the wheelhouse door as it was opened and came up against the stop. There was the muted sound of the dog, its claws clicking against the wooden passerelle as it bolted for the embankment and a good sniff about. She had slept well despite the circumstances and she prided herself that she would let nothing interfere with her sleep. A good night, she was convinced, was the key to good health. She heard Grainger stir then start to very gently snore, though it was more like a heavy sighing than the noise she knew her father made; it was a comforting sound of someone still immersed in the oblivion of sleep. She decided she didn’t mind it because it told her she was not alone. When they grow older men snore like hogs, her mother had told her; then you have to block your ears or give them a prod – even move to another room.

  She lay listening to the sound and found herself wondering what it might be like to share a bed with him. He was unusually considerate for a man in her experience and that was attractive, but whether he would be strong enough to survive this war she wasn’t sure. Anyway, she thought, it’s pointless; I shall be gone in another few days, over the mountains and into a new life. He will disappear into the shadows of his underworld, just another transient in a parade of casualties.

  As she turned over and got comfortable she heard the wheelhouse door slam shut, the panting of the dog and then, shortly afterwards, the groaning starter motor and the clattery thump of the big diesel staggering into life. Down below she heard Grainger moving. Leaning over the side of her bunk, she watched as he stood up and stretched, then went over to the stove. Pulling open its glazed door he threw in a handful of kindling onto the residual ashes of the night before, then bending down he put his face close to the ashes and blew gently onto the few glowing embers that still smouldered there. He blew two or three times until there was a crackling sound and a cloud of sparks swirled above the twigs, then he stood back and watched with satisfaction as the flames took hold. There was something primordially gratifying about creating fire; it was more than a sense of satisfaction – it imparted a primitive feeling of security.

  They entered the chamber of the first lock and commenced the climb up the ladder. As each chamber was filled the barge was lifted in its bath of water then decanted into the next chamber. Each change of level took around forty minutes – plenty of time for Groucho to make the morning coffee. At the head of the ladder there was a shop where, after a stiff climb up the rising towpath, Groucho had sent Grainger to get some bread for breakfast.

  ‘There’s a café,’ he told Evangeline on his return. ‘They’re offering a plat de jour of chicken and vegetables; it smells delicious. We could go up there and get lunch and be finished by the time Groucho gets this tub out the other end. What do you think?’

  ‘Oh, Richard, how typical,’ she said jokingly, and laughed. ‘We’re on the run, in danger of capture or worse, being killed, and you want to arrange an intimate little lunch. How romantic.’

  Grainger flinched. ‘Steady on, it’s not going to be a proposal of marriage – just the plat du jour.’

  ‘All right,’ she said, ‘I accept – the plat du jour that is.’

  As they set out to climb the steep towpath which led to the café at the top of the ladder, a car travelling along the road that followed the edge of the canal pulled onto the grass verge, just short of the foot of the ladder – and stopped. After a brief lull the driver got out; he was a man in his early 30s, a man of medium height and build wearing a brown gabardine raincoat and a trilby-style hat. He stood and watched as the two figures of Evangeline and Grainger climbed towards the top. Satisfied with whatever it was he wanted to see, the man got back into the car, started the engine and drove off in the direction of Narbonne.

  CHAPTER 20

  Catch-as-catch-can

  With the gathering dusk of evening closing around them and the light beginning to fade Groucho pointed upstream to where they were approaching the lock chamber at Sallèles-d’Aude. They needed to get below and stay out of sight. Sitting in the lock they were at their most exposed and any bystander might spot them as out of place and report it to the local police. The bow bumped gently against the wet stone of the wall and while it hovered there Groucho stepped deftly out of the wheelhouse. Picking up a thick rope line, he tossed it to the lockkeeper who threw a loop over a stone bollard, tying it off with a couple of lazy half hitches. Walking to the stern they repeated the process and when it was complete the lockkeeper reached out with a small bag on the end of a long bamboo cane; into it Groucho threw a few sous. The sluices were wound open to the sound of rushing water as it escaped out from the chamber, foaming and dancing into the canal below. Gradually the barge descended into the depths of the lock until finally, with the weight of the water no longer restraining them, the heavy wooden gates to the exit were laboriously wound open. The barge edged its way out and, once clear, Groucho guided it to a mooring a few metres downstream. The plane trees had given way to towering umbrella pines which now lined the banks; their orangey brown bark, sculpted in rugged chunks like scales on some huge reptile, oozed gum and filled the air with its gentle perfume.

  They would stop for the night in Sallèles, Groucho explained in his animated Catalan – dashed with badly formed words of French – then tomorrow they would arrive at their destination. With the barge tied off securely on its mooring, Groucho went in search of the evening baguette, his dog trotting along obediently at his heel. When he returned half an hour later he had a worried expression on his face. He came down into the saloon and stood for a moment in silence, then went back up into the wheelhouse where he immediately went on deck, taking the dog with him. He left the dog on guard, came back down again and in a low voice started to speak to Evangeline, paying no attention to Grainger and treating him as if he were not there. The conversation ground tortuously between his native tongue and his fractured command of French. Grainger looked from one to the other, but they ignored him.

  After several minutes the conversation broke off and Groucho now stood looking at them as he waited for Evangeline to explain. ‘Someone has been asking questions about the barge,’ Evangeline said almost under her breath.

  ‘Questions? What kind of questions?’

  ‘Who is the owner? Does the barge normally carry passengers? That sort of thing.’

  ‘Does he say who? Are they known?’

  ‘No, it’s a stranger – possibly foreign.’

  ‘Any description?’

  She nodded, ‘Fits the man we saw yesterday.’

  ‘Damn!’ Grainger thought for a moment. ‘We can’t stay here,’ he said after a few seconds, ‘we need to leave.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Ask him if he can find us a couple of bicycles.’ He nodded in the direction of Groucho. ‘He’s got one in the wheelhouse; that’ll do for a start.’

  *

  At the Gare de Narbonne the train from Montpellier arrived late. As Schreiber got down from the carriage in which he had been travelling and made his way to the exit he sensed he was near to his quarry.

  ‘The Hotel Wills is no more than two minutes from the station,’ Becker told him.

  ‘Is it a modest hotel?’

  ‘There are no extravagant hotels in Narbonne,’ Becker assured him. ‘They are all modest.’

  That evening Schreiber went for a stroll, heading in the direction of the old city centre. In the square in fr
ont of the medieval Hôtel de Ville he found a tolerable café where he ordered a beer. Somewhere in the city Kasha and his girl were hiding; outside the city, on board the barge Pythias, the British agent and the Pfeiffer woman were slowly coming to him, drawn in on the waters of the canal. All he had to do was wait in this provincial city for them all to come together and then – snap – he would close the trap; he would pull in the net and then he would get the answers he was looking for. He sat for nearly half an hour sipping at the beer and going over the notes in his book; there was still not a lot to go on.

  After he had finished and paid for the drink he decided to walk the short distance to the town quay where the Pythias would dock to unload part of its cargo before continuing on to Carcassonne. He stood for a while under the glow of the street lights, contemplating his quarry. He calculated they would disembark and go to a friendly house somewhere in the area. There was no shortage of refuges, of safe places to shelter; the whole of this part of the south was a hotbed of resistance, not only to the German occupation of the north but equally as much to the Pétain government. He would need assistance to make the arrest, but not immediately. First he would watch them and plot their movements until they led him to the ultimate prize: Kasha.

  That evening he decided he would call Gudrun. He always missed her when he was away on these investigations; especially he missed the smell of her cooking that welcomed him back to his home in the evening after a day at the office.

  When Gudrun answered the phone he detected a sadness in her voice. ‘There is bad news, Otto. I was going to keep it till you got home, but you should know.’

  Schreiber held his breath for a moment. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Aksel has been killed – our son is dead.’ Her voice was flat and without emotion; it was as if she had been expecting this news ever since the outset of the war; harrowing over the trauma it would bring, exhausting herself rehearsing for the moment. Now here it was and she was too drained to express her grief.

  ‘When did it happen?’

  ‘They don’t say – only that he was killed fighting gallantly in performance of his duty; nothing about where or when.’

  ‘And the body?’

  ‘They don’t say.’

  He paused for a moment as he thought of the boy who had gone off to war full of self-assurance and certainty. Now it had come to this. It always came to this in the end.

  ‘I’ll make enquiries when I get back,’ was all he said.

  *

  He slept badly and woke just before three in the morning. At first he lay there half in half out of sleep. In the back of his mind something nagged; something was not as it should be. Within a few seconds his brain had come fully awake; oh yes, of course, Aksel – their boy was dead. The bell on the cathedral boomed out the strokes of the hour; dull and sonorous like a death knell. He turned over but it was no use, sleep would not return and after fidgeting for a while he got up, switched on a light and found his notebook. Turning the pages he reviewed his evidence, then he set about making his plan for the coming day: first the surveillance, then the arrests.

  On the stroke of five he got out of bed and prepared for his morning ablutions. Wrapped in a dressing gown with a towel draped over one arm and clutching soap and a loofah, he walked down the corridor to the communal bathroom. The gas water heater ‘whoomphed’ as the pilot light ignited a crown-shaped ring of flames and slowly the water coming out of the tap heated until it flowed like a steaming geyser into the enamelled tub. Gradually the water puddled in the bottom of the bath, creeping incrementally higher up the sides. When it had reached a depth that would cover his thighs he stepped in and sat down.

  The breakfast room in the hotel opened at seven and as soon as he heard the bells peal the Angelus he made his way down the corridor and into the lift. His last report of Pythias had her lying along the bank at Sallèles-d’Aude on the Canal de Jonction. If it left at first light it could be on the city quay by midday. It was time to make the arrangements he would need for assistance.

  At 11.30 Schreiber left the hotel and walked in a freshening wind to the old quarter of the city and found a café close to the quay. He took a seat at a table in the window, ordered a beer, then settled down to wait. Shortly before midday the waiter came over to his table and asked if he wanted something else, otherwise he needed the table for the lunch customers. There was no sign of the barge and outside the wind had now got up to an inhospitable speed. ‘I’ll have lunch,’ he informed the waiter.

  A bit before the cathedral bell tolled one he saw the blunt black bow of Pythias nose its way along the stone quay, then heard the grumble of the engine as it went into reverse thrust, slowing the giant barge to an elegant halt. The wind had now got up and was blowing hard, but such was the size and weight of the huge vessel and its bite on the water that it was unaffected. He watched as the wheelhouse door opened and the bargee jumped ashore, holding on to the end of a line which he looped around an iron bollard. Moments later he was followed by a small black-and-white mongrel dog. Having secured his vessel, the bargee climbed back aboard and disappeared into the wheelhouse. There was no sign of the passengers; Schreiber had no option but to wait. He took the precaution of paying his bill before he had finished his coffee; the table was his and he took his time. At three o’clock the door of the wheelhouse finally opened again but only the bargee appeared, this time dressed in a thick duffle coat, but without the dog. Dressed like that, Schreiber concluded, he was going some distance. Now he faced a dilemma: should he follow the bargee or keep watch on the vessel? His information said his fugitives were aboard; if he followed the bargee there was the risk the others could slip away.

  He downed the dregs of his coffee and left. He had decided to follow the man, reasoning that he was probably going to arrange a safe house for his charges and that the others would stay hidden aboard until the man came back for them.

  *

  At five that morning Groucho had come down into the saloon and woken them.

  ‘It’s too dangerous for you to stay,’ he had explained to Evangeline. ‘You must leave while it is still dark.’

  There was only one bicycle and they would have to share it. ‘Stay on the towpath till you reach the village of Ventenac, he had told them ‘then take the route signposted to Villedaigne and Narbonne. It is not far.’ He pressed a scribbled note into Grainger’s hands but turned his head to Evangeline. ‘Go to this address when you reach the city. You are expected there.’

  They set out with Grainger pedalling the machine and Evangeline balanced side-saddle on the crossbar. The towpath was rough and rutted; the roots of the plane trees spread radially across the track and made riding the bicycle an uncomfortable experience so that several times they had to stop for relief from the jolting. When they reached Ventenac and went into the village they got a lucky break; they came across a bicycle that had been left propped up against a wall and took it. ‘Feel bad about it,’ Grainger confessed, ‘desperate times though. Sorry whoever it belongs to.’

  After the new acquisition the journey into Narbonne went smoothly and within an hour they were entering the outskirts.

  *

  Kasha rolled over onto his elbows and looked across the hotel room to where Cigale stood naked, staring out of the window. His eyes traced across the outline of her neat firm round buttocks and down the curve of her thighs. She sensed him looking at her and turned towards him, cupping her hands over her groin in a show of teasing modesty. Her breasts were small and barely moved as she stepped sprightly across to the bed and threw herself on him, snuggling up tight to him and running her fingers in little circles around the nipples of his broad chest. She put her hand down his thigh, then wound her fingers around the thick root of his erect penis. ‘Come on,’ she whispered in his ear, ‘make love to me.’

  It was a short-lived romp and after he had climaxed he pushed her tiny body away from him and lay there in a brooding silence. She lifted her head off the pillow, shook her short bobbed
jet-black hair, then ran her fingers through it like a comb. She pulled the bedclothes back over her naked body to hold in some of the escaping warmth. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked as he continued to lie in sullen thought. He shook his head. ‘We have to make a move.’

  He got up and, pulling on some clothes, he took a towel, went out into the corridor and made his way to the bathroom. It was a cheap hotel and none of the rooms had more than a washbasin. Sitting in the bath with a small amount of warm water, his mind wrestled with a difficult position: what to do about this woman once he had found what he had come for and then crossed over to meet the Americans. He liked her well enough; she was sexually attractive – and voracious between the sheets – but she was an encumbrance and he needed to travel light. It was a problem that he would have to resolve.

  When he came back he found she had dressed. There was a small writing table against one wall at which she was sitting and in front of her was the oilcloth package, which she had now spread out in front of her. ‘I think I know where this could be.’ She put her finger on the sketch. ‘There are several towers like this in the area but this one is slightly different. Most of them are square but this is a rectangle. When do you want to go and look?’

  ‘Is it far?’

  ‘About twenty kilometres. We shall need transport. I know someone who can help; he has a small truck.’

  ‘Before we do that we must arrange the guide, and I need to make contact with the Americans. I am not sure yet how to do that without going back to the Englishman.’

  Cigale got to her feet and, standing on the tips of her toes, reached up and put her arms around his neck; at just five feet tall she could barely clasp her hands together behind his head. He hauled her off her feet and brought her face up to meet his, then let her kiss him. ‘I’m going to look for a useful contact,’ she said softly. ‘There is a Maquisard. I know him; he has taken many évadeurs over the mountains to Spain. You should stay here; it’s safer for me to go alone.’