Up Avenue Montaigne now anyway, into the Champs Elysees for a while, then across Place de la Concorde into Rue Royale. La Madeleine then and l’Opéra, by which time traffic conditions had become noticeably bad. She was attributing it to the inoperative Metro having driven everyone above ground, until a fellow cyclist waving his fists in the air began screaming abuse of the absent gendarmes, then expressed astonishment that she hadn’t known they were on strike. Striking against what or in favour of what; and what might be happening to the prisoners in French police cells, most of them only minor law-breakers but on whom the Boches drew to fill their quotas of hostages, many of whom ended up being shot. She’d not had time to put any such questions though before the traffic began to move again and she and her informant were separated; she keeping an eye on Sacré Coeur as a seaman might on a lighthouse. From Boulevard de Clichy, once she got that far, visual memory of the map would come into play again: Boulevard Rochechouart and then Rue de Clignancourt – more or less circling the base of the Montmartre hill.
Another halt. Any vehicle with a swastika on it was given priority, of course, and on the major crossings there were a lot of them – halts seemingly interminable and the Feldgendarmes no help at all. Boches already pulling out? It was better after that, anyway – having crossed the main stream of it, she guessed. This was Rue de Clichy. Rue, not boulevard. Must have gone slightly wrong, back there, but still pointing in more or less the right direction. Turning right somewhere up ahead here ought to put one back on track.
She hoped to God she’d be able to waylay Georges Dénault this evening. Might be a lot to ask, since according to Hyatt he was a figure of some prominence in the Resistance underworld and in present circumstances would surely have his hands full. A police strike wouldn’t be some isolated factor, must be a symptom of political upheaval. How would the Boches allow the forces of law and order to go on strike? Unless they themselves were on the run? In which case, what might Clausen do with Rouquet and Léonie – if they were still alive? It was distinctly possible that they might not be. But also what might happen to Jacqui, when the lid blew off? Jacqui being all one had, so to speak – therefore precious, despite that unpromising ‘Won’t do the dirty on Gerhardt’ line.
A programme of sorts was clarifying now: (a) locate those two; (b) either through Georges Dénault and his Resistance colleagues, or through Jacqui and some kind of bargain with Clausen – for Jacqui’s deliverance from the Resistance – get them out and into hiding.
To the right here now. Boulevard heaven-knew-what. Didn’t matter: Sacré Coeur was up there where it belonged, resplendent with the lowering sun gilding its white stone, glittering like fire on its dome. Rosie asking herself – in reference to that ‘programme’ – bargain, with the SD?
* * *
Au Chien Bleu faced on to a winding cobbled alleyway behind the Rue de Clignancourt. The blue dog itself, sitting up in a begging attitude, was a wrought-iron blue-painted sign at first-floor level; the railing for bicycles to be chained to was also painted blue. She took her suitcase off the carrier and brought it in with her.
Silence, after the door had thumped shut behind her. They’d have been talking amongst themselves, obviously; were now silent, staring, one of them actually openmouthed. Unused to strangers – especially perhaps female ones. She was glad of her old raincoat suddenly. Camouflage: armour, even. Surveying the faces at that table, she was hoping that none of these would turn out to be Georges Dénault. The stove – cooking-stove – was right here beside her, against the front wall; and a woman in an apron, bare arms as thick as a wrestler’s only shorter, was coming this way from the back. There was a bar in the far right corner, a long table along each side-wall and a shorter one in the rear. There was an oil-lamp on the bar – and a man behind it wearing a cap like a jockey’s – the staring male customers were around the table on the left, and there were oil-lamps on both tables but only that one was lit. Doubtless what the woman had been doing – she was dropping a smoking screw of paper into her iron stove now. She had a face like an outsize walnut, grey hair in a bun, a cigarette stuck to her lower lip waggling as she demanded, ‘What can I do for you, Miss?’ The man at the bar remarking with a wink at others, ‘Moving in with us, by the looks of it.’
Her suitcase, he – they, now, were looking at. She explained to the woman, ‘Didn’t want to leave it on the bike. What I’d like is something to eat and drink. Whatever you’ve got.’
‘Isn’t much. Soup, if you like. Bread’s stale, but—’
‘Is there a sink or something I could wash in?’
‘Toilette through there.’ Indicating a door in the corner across from the bar. ‘Come far, have you?’
All still listening, all staring. The three at the table looked like labourers: railwaymen, they might be. Dénault, Hyatt had said, worked at the Gare de l’Est, which wasn’t far away. Gare du Nord was even closer. She didn’t think any of those could be Dénault, but it seemed likely they’d know him. Frequenting this place, surely. She answered the woman’s question: ‘Long way, yes. I’m looking for my child – little girl – and her grandmother. I missed them first at Nantes and then at Dijon – far enough, uh? Haven’t seen an old woman and a little girl around, I suppose?’
‘Not lately – that I’ve noticed.’ Glancing round, getting no response. None of them was saying a word or even changing expression.
Rosie shrugged: ‘Have to go on looking, then.’
‘In Montmartre especially?’
She put the case down on the bench on this side of the unoccupied table. OK, so her voice wasn’t the kind they were used to, but at least she looked poor. Telling the woman, ‘The old girl – my late husband’s mother – used to speak of it. I guessed she might have come here. She had a relation – cousin, nephew, I don’t remember – by name Georges Dénault. Wouldn’t have heard of him, would you?’
Two other men came in, edged past her to the bar, nodding to the others. She heard the barman tell them, ‘She’s looking for Georges Dénault.’
‘You don’t say.’
‘Whatever did become of Georges, I wonder?’
Lower-voiced then, talking amongst themselves…
‘Want to take your coat off, dear?’
‘Uh-huh. Thanks all the same.’
‘Don’t find it hot in here? Especially coming from outside? My old stove, see – and no through flow of air. In winter there’s nothing like it, they pack in here like sardines, but—’
‘Am I right in guessing some of you do know this Dénault?’
‘Might. Might.’ She’d taken the lid off the pot – casserole, whatever – that was on the stove, was stirring it with a ladle. ‘Might be in later, come to that. What’s truly your business with him?’
‘Don’t you believe what I said?’
Sideways glance, sly expression and no comment. Rosie asked her, ‘Would you like a chicken?’
‘Live or dead?’
‘It’s in the basket on my bike – all day in the hot sun, and to be honest I’m not sure how fresh it was when I got it. Ought to be cooked right away, if it’s ever going to be.’
‘Might have a look at it, then.’ She called to the barman. ‘Patrice – bike outside, in the basket!’
‘There’s half a cabbage with it.’
‘All this just to encounter Georges Dénault?’
‘There’s no connection. But I would like to see him, certainly.’
In some general movement – the barman going outside and the newly arrived customers joining their friends at the table – the woman murmured, ‘Political, is it?’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘Old woman and a child. Yeah. Hang around this sort of place, wouldn’t they? Then it’s Georges Dénault – and seeing how things are in Paris just at this moment—’
‘Police on strike, I gather.’
‘Have been since Tuesday.’
‘Striking for or against anything in particular?’
�
�Sucking up to us. Tell us they’re their own masters, not the Boches’ poodles.’
‘So who’s guarding all their prisoners?’
‘No one. They let ’em out.’
‘All of them?’
‘On bloody strike, what else’d they do? That your interest, is it?’
‘Having only just arrived, I’m interested in all of it.’
‘Hey – you took your time.’ Addressing the barman as he came back with the chicken and the cabbage. ‘Let me see.’
‘It’s all right. Bit gamey…’
* * *
She woke – hours later – to the sound of a bottle clinking on the rim of a glass, a deep male voice and the woman’s soft murmur in occasional response. Her name was Adrienne, she’d told Rosie, but they all called her Adée in a way which in the French pronunciation might have been written as AD. That clink again, his rumble and her quiet, ‘Not for me, not this time of night.’ Then his long sigh and, ‘Ah. Superb… Listen, they told me she brought you a chicken. I can smell it, too. Can’t be all bad, eh?’
‘The girl, you mean. By no means. The bird was on its way, though. I gave it a wipe with vinegar before it went in the pan. She had some, while she could keep her eyes open. Worn out, poor kid, hungry as a wolf.’
She’d slept – after they’d all gone – on this bench between the table and the wall, where earlier some of the other men had been sitting. Much earlier: the green glow from her watch – which had once been Marilyn’s – told her it was 2.20 am. Saturday now, the 19th. Odour of beer, cigarettes, and… cabbage. When they’d all left – a whole crowd of them by then, but slipping out in twos and threes to sneak off to wherever they were having some meeting – it hadn’t been much before 10 o’clock. Dénault had been supposed to meet them here, she’d gathered, for a private conference in advance of the meeting itself, and some of them had been getting a bit edgy at his non-arrival. There’d been mentions of the curfew, which of course had been in force by then, all of them thus making themselves liable to arrest as soon as they stepped outside – if there’d been anyone on the streets to do it, seeing as the police would not be. But the Milice, of course… Finally one of them, a thin, bald man in a striped shirt and black waistcoat, had said, ‘Better start, lads. Like as not he’ll join us there,’ and they’d begun to drift away, a few at a time. Rosie had been conscious of a certain level of anxiety which had affected her as well, had also made her realise that Dénault was important to all these others, probably would be worth having on one’s side. After the last of them had gone – that had been the barman, Patrice – Adée had told her as she locked the door, ‘Up to you whether you want to wait, but he may come later. That is, if he decides it’s worth the risk.’
‘Risk?’
‘Coming by a roundabout way to meet you, child. They’ll have told him you were here. If it’s only that he was delayed – when it’s over he might come by.’ She’d shrugged. ‘In case you’re more important than you look.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Pray he’s all right, that’s all.’ She had a bowl of water behind the bar, in which she’d begun washing glasses. Shrugging again: a facial shrug, screwing-up of the facial creases. ‘Not an easy time, this.’
‘What sort of risk though – curfew?’
‘Few days back, they took a shot at him. So tonight, see, knowing the route he’d take, coming here or to the meeting—’
‘They took a shot?’
‘Communists. There’ve been a lot of killings. Easy as pie, blame it on the Boches or Milice, or Rue Lauriston. They’ve murdered several who were of value to us. All right, they haven’t got off scot-free entirely—’
‘They want leading Gaullists out of the way so they can take over before the Allies arrive – is that it?’
According to Hyatt and Willoughby, that was it. Adée confirmed it. ‘They’d have us all in the streets on barricades now, if they had their way. Then de Gaulle doesn’t get a look in; by the time he gets here Paris is their city. Then – who knows…’ She was putting the last of the glasses in a wooden rack to drip-dry. Drying her hands then on her apron. ‘What I was saying, in any case you could stay here – sleep, spend the night – or as much of it as may be necessary—’
‘That good a chance he’ll come, you think?’
Adée nodded. ‘I’d say so. And I’ll stay with you. The house is only three doors away, but he wouldn’t go there, he’d try here and if it was all locked up—’
‘You’re very kind.’
‘If you’re here for something that does matter—’
‘I am. It does.’
It was 2.40 am now; with all that in the back of her mind as she woke, realising that what had seemed like a long shot had come off. Conscious too that she was in a fair degree of agony – from two days’ pedalling and several hours flat on this hard bench. It helped to convince her she wasn’t dreaming: only just awake though, up on one elbow, other hand on the pistol inside Léonie’s bag. Blinking at the faint emanation of light as well as those smells – an amalgam, including that from an oil-lamp that was on the floor behind the bar – and studying the bulky shadow this side of it. Big man. Wide, anyway, maybe not especially tall. If he was to match Hyatt’s description he’d need to have red hair and a limp; without either light or movement of that kind she could only allow him the benefit of the doubt on either count.
He was facing her now, she realised. Had turned, with his broad back to the bar. Pinpoint glow of a cigarette, whiff of cognac in its smoke.
‘Awake, are we?’
‘More or less. You Georges Dénault?’
‘If I had a notion of what interest we shared, perhaps…’
‘Of course.’ Hyatt’s introductory exchange, he wanted. She told him, ‘Je viens de la part d’Albert, m’sieur.’
‘Be damned.’ Patting himself on the forehead then: ‘Memory, memory… Oh, yes – Albert: that would be Albert the husband of—’
‘Solange, who is one of my dearest friends.’
‘Well.’ A rumble of amusement. ‘D’you know, it’s the first time I’ve found use for that rigmarole? We can consider ourselves introduced, anyway.’ He was at the table, looming with the aura of light behind him, now putting his glass down and hooking back the end of the bench with his boot. ‘Question is, are you here to help us, or wanting our help?’
‘The latter, I’m afraid.’
‘Well. Don’t have to be afraid. I’d accept it if you were offering it – have done, on occasion. I forget the guy’s name now – not that it matters. Probably wasn’t his own in any case. What name do you go by?’
‘Jeanne-Marie Lefèvre. I’m supposed to be searching for my little girl, Juliette…’ She gave him that rigmarole. ‘Provides me with reason to nose around, you see.’
‘Want a cigarette?’
‘No – thanks. Trying not to.’
‘Nose around for what or whom?’
‘This is the crux of it. For two agents of SOE. The Gestapo caught them and brought them to Paris about a week ago. I need to locate them and somehow get them out. Somehow – and where from, God knows. Rue des Saussaies would be the obvious place, but things are different now – so I’m told. One is an Englishman, age about 35, was our Chef de Réseau in Nancy, and the other’s a girl of about 23, Léonie Garnier, who was his pianist. Petite, dark-haired. He’s tallish, slim, brown hair. I happen to know them both but the main thing – London’s concern – is they’ve spent the past two years arranging paradrops to résistants and Maquis in that very large area – Nancy, Metz, Saarbrücken, Strasbourg—’
‘Tomorrow’s battlefield.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Well – Jeanne-Marie – I wouldn’t want to dwell on this, but if the Gestapo have had them a week and have that kind of incentive, they’ll have been tearing them to pieces, won’t they?’
She’d nodded. ‘Makes it very urgent.’
‘One has even to admit the possibility that they may have broken th
em already.’
‘Possibility, but—’
‘All right. We assume they are exceptional people and that they’re still here. I’d only mention that just about all Gestapo detainees have been shipped off to the camps in the past fortnight. Including a number from Rue des Saussaies. But I’d guess that’s still the most likely place. They’d only have needed to keep a couple of cells and two or three of those pigs to – do what they do. We could have a look – for regular comings and goings of individuals, that sort of thing. They have a Milice guard on the place now. Used to bring prisoners up from Fresnes, but—’
‘They wouldn’t waste that travelling time now, would they? I know the routine – they had me in Fresnes, brought me in that van thing to Rue des Saussaies for interrogation – and a whipping. But it’s, what, twenty kilometres each way?’
‘About that.’
He’d lowered his bulk to the bench opposite her by this time, and Adée had joined them, facing her through a couple of feet of almost total darkness. Dénault growling, ‘Not so many have come through that and lived.’ There was actually a hint of pre-dawn radiance from outside, she realised, might have been more if it hadn’t been for the narrowness of the street. Or maybe moonlight – same applied, if the moon was almost down. No oil-lamp was burning in here now. She told them, ‘I was lucky enough to faint, but I’m still striped from it. They put me back into storage for a while, then on to a train for Ravensbrück.’
‘You a ghost, then?’
‘The others who were with us must have got there, so they’re dead, but I and another girl managed to – leave the train. Sorry, I’m wasting time.’
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