The Girl in the Baker's Van

by Richard Savin

  *

  Early in the afternoon a dark maroon Renault car with Paris plates arrived at the town of Céret and there came to a halt in the main town square. Three men and a woman got out and strolled over to one side of the plaza to where there was a café; they ordered coffee and waited. A young waiter wearing a black waistcoat brought the drinks and told them that the patron had found a man to guide them over the pass at Col de la Brousse and they would have to wait a short while until he arrived.

  ‘My God,’ the waiter said to the barman when he came back from the table, ‘I wouldn’t want to meet her on a dark night.’ He nodded in the direction of the group, who were now deep in discussion over the coffee.

  ‘I have never seen a woman so big and so ugly.’

  The barman sniggered. ‘Are you certain it’s a woman? From here it looks like a gorilla in a suit.’

  The man who was clearly in command of the group had a thin, mean face, slicked down hair and a pencil-thin moustache. ‘So, Edith,’ he grinned, ‘now is your chance for revenge.’

  The woman guffawed a deep chesty laugh. ‘I thank you, Inspector Bonny,’ she replied, but her nose was so badly malformed it sounded more like the grunting of a hippopotamus.

  CHAPTER 22

  Cold pursuit

  It was nearly an hour of jolting and jarring along an unmade country road, a plume of white dust charting their progress, until they arrived at Les Hauts. The hamlet was nothing more than a collection of rubble-stone houses and run-down barns, their bulging walls crowding the length of a street so narrow the car could barely pass along it. At the end of it they emerged into a small square with a stone water fountain in the middle. McAndrew stopped and turned off the engine.

  Immediately a dog barked. A door to one of the houses opened and an old woman dressed in the clothes of a previous era looked out to see what was happening. A man in a battered jacket and a waistcoat of black cloth, adorned with a watch chain looped across its front, appeared on the opposite side of the street. A moment later he was joined by two inquisitive boys in cloth caps and baggy trousers who stood idly watching, their faces smudged and snotty, waiting to see what might happen. A small girl then attached herself to them and stood half hiding behind one of the boys, holding onto the back of his coat, peeking out in curiosity at the sight of the car and the strangers. On the far side of the square a rough stony track led off in the direction of the mountains which topped the close horizon; mountains that were thickly iced with the last of the winter snows.

  ‘This is as far as I go,’ McAndrew announced. Casting a glance around at the small assembly that was forming he added, ‘Looks like we’re the main attraction in town.’

  They waited for the car to disappear, then the three of them – José, Grainger and Evangeline – set off along the track. Evangeline, who had changed into the hiking clothes she had bought when she first arrived in Lyon, was better equipped for the journey than Grainger. Her strong boots dealt easily with the uneven terrain of ruts, scoured out by winter rains, loose rocks and shifting scree. The smooth leather soles of his town shoes had Grainger slipping and slithering across patches of loose shale and struggling with his footing on the larger flatter rocks. After some time they reached the end of the tree line where the garrigue gave way to coarse grass. The snow was already melting under the early spring suns but once it was dark it would freeze. ‘There is a bergerie,’ José called over his shoulder as they climbed out of a gulley, ‘just over the next rise. We should stop there for the night.’

  The bergerie was nothing more than a single rough stone room. José lifted a crude wooden latch and pushed open the door, which had been left unsecured. The air inside was damp and smelled of sheep droppings. The floor was mud and shingle, pounded flat, but there were some wooden cots. It was rough but it would shelter them from the wind that was now getting up, and there was a hearth at one end. Next to the hearth someone had thoughtfully stacked a pile of logs and smaller sticks of wood.

  ‘Who uses this?’ Grainger asked.

  ‘Shepherds. They bring the sheep and goats up here in the spring for the fresh pasture.’

  Evangeline knelt down by the hearth. ‘We should make a fire. Richard, can you see if you can find some dry grass outside.’

  To start with the fire smoked badly as the grass and small sticks slowly caught the flames but eventually, with the heavier logs solidly blazing, the room became more comfortable. José produced a dry sausage and some hard mountain cheese that smelled strongly of goats, but they were hungry and it did the job.

  The following morning dawned grey and threatened snow. A lead-lined sky hung in a low curtain over the mountain they would have to climb, shrouding its peak in a thick cloud pulled over it by a freshening wind. ‘Not good, ’José remarked without enthusiasm, ‘I am sure it will snow higher up.’

  The first snow flurry met them full in the face as they scrambled hand over hand into the cloud. Just before the summit at around three thousand feet José led them into a rock cave that gave them shelter from the elements. They stamped their feet and smacked their clothes, shedding the thick layer of near frozen snow that coated them. There was nothing with which to light a fire, though getting out of the wind instantly made them feel warmer. Grainger went to the cave entrance and looked out into the swirling cloud of white; it did not look promising. ‘How much further before we start to go down this mountain?’

  José hesitated a little as if the question was not really of importance. He pursed his lips and sniffed at the cold air. ‘Maybe half an hour; maybe less if the wind drops when we go over the Col.’

  They waited for another hour, but there was no improvement. Now they were getting as cold from inactivity as they had from battling the wind-driven snow. ‘We should push on,’ Grainger announced. He looked at Evangeline bundled up in her coat and thick rambler’s trousers. ‘Do you think you can go on?’

  ‘If you can, I can.’

  After an hour they reached the peak and crossed the neck of the pass at the top; then they started the climb down. The descent was treacherous and much slower than the climb up, the fresh snow causing them to slide uncontrollably over short distances before they could regain a footing. The wind had not abated and the snow did not let up. Grainger was beginning to lose sensation in his toes and fingers; he was the most poorly dressed for the trek and it was showing.

  ‘Good.’ José stopped and peered into the flurry. ‘See, the cloud is lifting; we shall be out of it soon.’ A few feet further down the air suddenly cleared and the snow stopped. Looking down on the land, spread out like a map in front of them, they could see the route that Kasha would take.

  ‘Are we ahead of them?’

  José nodded. ‘Of course, by at least a day. Our route is now easy. They will cross the border near to Las Illas; we shall be there long before them. There is a farmhouse we can use. It’s no longer inhabited but it is sound. It belongs to a good family but they have gone to America – they just locked it up and left.’

  The wind dropped as they came down into the valley and when they re-joined the track it was under a warming sun; slowly their bodies came back to life. By the late afternoon they reached the hamlet of Las Illas and in the garrigue above it they found the farmhouse. Grainger clambered up the front steps onto a veranda and slapped on the stonework walls with the palm of his hand. ‘It looks solid enough. How do we get in?’

  ‘There is a key. It is hidden on top of the front roof beam of the veranda.’

  Grainger reached up and felt along the rough-hewn timber until his fingers settled on something cold and metal. ‘Got it.’ He unlocked the door and stepped into a broad, open room with an ornate Spanish-tiled floor. Evangeline followed him. She immediately went over to the windows and, opening the shutters, let the sunlight flood in.

  ‘How long before they get here, José?’ Evangeline shouted out to where he stood on the veranda, smoking a cigarette.

  ‘At a least one full day, mademoiselle,’ he calle
d back, ‘probably two because they will be slowed by the same snow as they cross the Col de la Brousse. Their guide will know of this farmhouse. Maybe they will try to come here if it is late in the day; this farmhouse is quite close to the border.’

  ‘There’s no electricity,’ Evangeline stood in the doorway to the kitchen with two hurricane lamps, ‘but there are these and there are more of them hanging up in the kitchen.’

  ‘Is there any paraffin?’

  José came in from the veranda. ‘There is, I can show you.’

  ‘There’s a stove with a boiler,’ Evangeline almost squeaked with delight. ‘If we light the fire we can have hot water. There’s a china bath too!’

  Grainger set to and fired up the boiler in the kitchen. In the salon there was another fireplace; it was framed by a thick red-and-white marble mantle with a gilded ormolu eight-day clock resting on top of it. As he lit the fire under it he wondered what had made the owners just take off and leave everything – right down to linen in the cupboards.

  ‘Why did they leave, José?’

  ‘They were Jews. They no longer felt welcome – or safe.’

  There was no food in the house and what little José had brought with him for the journey was finished. ‘There is still some wine, hidden away in the cellar where thieves cannot find it,’ he told them, ‘but I must go to Las Illas and see what can be found to eat. There is a farm on the edge of the village – maybe I can get some eggs. He keeps goats so there will be cheese.’

  After he had gone and the light was beginning to fade, Evangeline came into the main salon where Grainger was standing with his back to the blazing logs, sipping a glass of deep red wine that José had liberated from the cellar. ‘Richard,’ she said quietly, ‘come upstairs. I want to show you something.’

  He left the wine glass on the mantle above the fire and followed her out of the room. She led the way up a broad oak staircase to where the bedrooms were laid out around a square landing – four of them, two each side. The doors to the rooms were plain but the polished wood had a cared for air about it, as did the ornate brass handles and finger plates. She pulled down the handle on one of the doors and pushed it open. On a wide dressing table she had set out and lit two ornate oil lamps with tall glass shades, which threw dancing shadows up onto the ceiling. The bed was covered with an extravagantly worked spread of silk appliqué over the top of a quilted eiderdown.

  ‘They had silk sheets,’ she whispered incredulously and pulled back the top covers to display them. ‘They must have been very rich, these Jews. How sad for them to have to leave this.’

  ‘I bet the mattress is damp,’ was all he said. He laid his cheek against it. ‘As I suspected.’

  ‘Yes,’ she smiled, ‘but I have found this,’ and she pulled out a stone water bottle with a ceramic screw stopper that had been resting in the centre of the bed.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A stoneware bed warmer. I filled it with boiling water and put it in earlier. Put your hand in; the damp has gone from the middle.’

  ‘Clever girl,’ he said, with a hint of admiration in his voice. ‘That’s one way of solving the problem.’

  She looked at him coyly. ‘There is another way.’

  ‘And that is?’

  ‘If there were two people in it, they would keep each other warm.’

  There was the sound of the front door opening, then banging shut; José was back. Evangeline held up her hands in resignation and they trooped down the stairs and went into the kitchen. José had placed a woven straw pannier in the middle of the kitchen table. He pointed to the contents. ‘I persuaded the goat farmer near the village to sell something from his own larder. He is a good man. He has helped me before when I have had to come this way with others.’

  Evangeline looked over the contents of the pannier. There were a few potatoes and onions, a piece of smoked ham, cheese, eggs, coffee, and there was a tin canister containing goat’s milk. ‘I will prepare something for us to eat,’ she said, ‘but can one of you get some more wood for the stove?’

  As the night closed in José announced he would sleep on the floor in front of the fire where he would wake if anyone tried to enter the house in the night. He secured the bolts across the front door then, after carefully moving the ormolu clock to one side, placed his hunting rifle on top of the mantle. He took a cushion from one of the chairs for his head and lay down on the hearth rug, covering himself with a sheepskin blanket he had found in a cupboard. That, he said, was what he did every time he had occasion to use the house; the beds were too soft, he told them, and he would be comfortable enough on the floor. With that he bid them good night.

  On the landing, as they reached her bedroom door, Evangeline paused to say goodnight. Grainger kissed her on the cheek, but she wasn’t letting it go at that. She had planned the moment. Putting her arms around his neck, she pulled his face to hers and pressed her lips on his. For a split second she thought he was going to resist, but he put his arms around her waist and pulled her to him. His right hand slid over her hip and caressed the curve of her thigh. They clung together, arms entwined, their lips parting and closing; she put her tongue deep into his mouth where she could taste the sweetness of his breath. ‘Come on,’ she said when she finally came up for air, ‘time for bed.’ He looked at her, a gently flustered smile of disbelief painted across his face.

  She pulled him towards the room she had prepared and when they were inside she drew back the bed covers and carefully took out the stone warmer, placing it on the floor. She undressed there in front of him and when she was completely naked she stood, her hands above her head, running her fingers through her fair hair until she was satisfied it sat properly about her face; then she slid in between the silk sheets. She laid half-propped up on the pillows and watched as he took off his clothes. His body was just as she had remembered it from that brief moment on the barge when he had stripped off to wash. He was lean and athletic, with muscles faintly defined under a smooth skin like a renaissance marble statue. Standing there in the half light of the room he looked barely more than a boy.

  They made love by the flickering light of the oil lamps; when it was done and he had got out of bed to extinguish them she knew she had found what she had been looking for. As he came back to the bed she rolled onto her side and snuggled her bottom up to his belly, letting go a little satisfied sigh. He folded an arm over her and gently stroked her breasts until she fell asleep then, lying on his back in the dark, he thought about what had just passed between them. He had never been so close and so intimate with a woman before; she had been a revelation and just to be with her, lying there soft and warm, the smell of her filling his nostrils, left him feeling exuberant and elated.

  Minutes later a thought crossed his mind like a dark shadow cast across the sun: this was a fool’s paradise he was building. Tomorrow, or the day after, Kasha would be here and they would all go over the mountains together. Then she would be gone, lost to him in some remote Spanish village while he would have to return to England and some other hare-brained project dreamed up by Charlie Armitage. He thought about the secretary in the SOE office at Baker Street – Gillian. She had been right; his life was a nightmare. He’d be lucky to make it through the war; it could only be a matter of time before his nine lives ran out. What kind of dream could you build out of that?

  She woke to the sound of him breathing, a slow steady rhythm, unhurried and calm. At first she just looked at his face, but in the end she could not resist the urge to lay her head on his chest and slip her hand down between his thighs. The action jerked him awake and for a moment he had some absurd idea he was being attacked. It was a fleeting twitch and when it passed he took a great armful of her and pulled her on top of him. She arched her back and gently pushed him inside her, rocking back and forth until, with a whimpering sound like a contented puppy, she finally laid out flat across him. She pulled the eiderdown up over her back, covering both of them and with her face nuzzled into his neck
they drifted back into the reverie of sleep.

  It was early in the afternoon with a light breeze, a warming sun and a clear blue sky when she heard it. Evangeline was sitting on the veranda, thinking how nice it would be to have a place such as this and be there to raise a family. The land around the house was large but it showed no signs of being used for anything practical. They were low down in a valley where things would grow but there were no almond trees or olives, only a solitary fig which had long ago gone wild. The noise she heard sounded like somebody had knocked on a piece of wood with a hammer, a dense, resonant bang. It must be a hunter, she concluded; there were plenty of wild pigs in the garrigue. Seconds later she heard it again. Grainger came out onto the veranda and stood looking silently out over the fields, a hand up to his forehead shading his eyes against the lowering sun. There it was again. Now José came out; he had his long sheepskin coat on and his rifle was slung across his shoulder.

  ‘What do you think?’ Grainger asked him, still scanning the horizon. ‘Hunters?’

  José shook his head. ‘It is hard to say. I will go down the valley and see. You had better stay here with the mademoiselle.’

  Minutes after he had gone there was a different sound. It was a rapid knocking, again distant, but this time it sounded like a woodpecker persistently drumming on a tree. It came again, this time a shorter burst of sound – then another. Grainger put a hand on Evangeline’s shoulder. ‘We should go inside,’ he said calmly. She rubbed the back of his hand where it rested on her and gave it a little squeeze.

  ‘What is it?

  His face darkened. ‘Some kind of automatic weapon; a submachine gun, I think. Come on, let’s get inside. It must be Kasha; maybe the Gestapo have caught up with him.’