In at the Kill

by Alexander Fullerton

  She’d heard of him since then, too. He was one of the Stars. Looking older than she remembered him. Light-brown eyes intent on hers, as if trying to read her mind. On his feet, bony hand now enfolding hers. Narrow face with high cheekbones, brown hair. She’d remembered now: first name was Derek. Could have been all they’d been told, in fact. Murmuring. ‘Enchanté, Mam’selle.’ Slight frown: ‘I’m trying to recall who it was that telephoned. Only yesterday, but – alas, my rotten memory…’

  ‘Raoul de Plesse?’

  ‘Of course. Of course… And he said he thought perhaps cat flu, but – rather unusual symptoms. One couldn’t altogether rule out rabies – as I warned him. Please – sit down.’ To the receptionist then, who must still have been in the doorway behind her, ‘Transfer the animal to a cage, Béa. I’ll take a look at it in a minute. See what you think meanwhile – but be careful, wear your gauntlets.’ He was returning to his side of the desk: ‘Of course, if it should be rabies, Mam’selle, you realize – only one thing for it.’ A shrug: ‘But let’s hope that is not the case.’ The door clicked shut behind Béa, and his eyes came back to Rosie. ‘Have we met before?’

  ‘Yes. As it happens.’

  ‘I had that impression – that perhaps I should know you. But – I’m sorry—’

  She told him in English, ‘The boot-polish probably wouldn’t help. Yellow hair-dye wouldn’t either.’ Touching her cheek: ‘Boot-polish mixed into cold cream. There’s some scarring on my forehead and it hides it. Your first name’s Derek – or it was, about three years ago. I was one of a group of trainees you gave some lectures to at Beaulieu. You couldn’t possibly have remembered.’

  ‘And would Baker Street recognize the name Justine Quérier?’

  ‘No, they wouldn’t. You know of Michel Jacquard, though?’

  ‘I do?’

  ‘Yes, you do. He got the papers for me – ones I have now. My cover-name was Suzanne Tanguy, code-name Zoé. I was in Brittany, and – things went wrong, we were making a dash for the Finistère north coast, but – well, the car crashed, I woke up in hospital in Morlaix with Gestapo standing around the bed. Also an SOE traitor code-name “Hector”, real name André Marchéval – our former air movements officer?’

  Staring at her. As motionless as if paralysed.

  ‘Zoé. Field name Suzanne… Am I right in thinking you’re – a bit famous around here?’

  ‘You mean the posters.’

  ‘But how – how on earth…’ A long-fingered hand to his forehead… ‘Where does Michel Jacquard come into this?’

  ‘He found me – saved my life. I’d been shot. I was on a train – a group of us en route we thought to Ravensbrück. The train was stopped – because of another on the line ahead which Michel’s people had sabotaged – this was in open country somewhere near Baccarat, but where the line runs close to the river – the Meurthe – and – I made a run for it, to divert the guards’ attention—’

  ‘So the other girl on those posters could get away.’

  ‘Exact—’ She’d cut the word off short. Then: ‘You heard of this from Michel, I suppose.’

  Shake of the narrow head: ‘Haven’t spoken to him in weeks. Only to de Plesse. But allow me to surprise you now. That other girl – fellow agent of yours, you’d known each other before and then met in Fresnes prison – her code-name was Giselle, real name Elise or Lise?’

  ‘Yes, but –’ leaning forward, hands white-knuckled grasping the desk’s edge: ‘But what—’

  ‘She was sitting in that chair –’ pointing at it with a nod – ‘well, August 2nd today, must have been three, four weeks ago. A Monday.’ Exercising memory: ‘July the tenth. I arranged a pick-up for her. Hudson, from Tempsford. Which is what you’ll want, I imagine?’

  Looking for her affirmative, but not getting it: she was still staring at him, hardly daring to believe it. Thought en passant, Hudson because you’d be out of Lysander range here, for the return trip. Asking him – almost incredulously – ‘And she went – was picked up?’

  ‘Certainly. Later that same week, what’s more!’

  Lise not only alive, but in England – for three weeks now. A derivative of which was that Baker Street must already have the low-down on ‘Hector’, one wouldn’t need to explain anything like as much as one had envisaged. And they’d have taken action to warn any agents in the field who’d still been in the clear but might have had contact with him at some stage.

  Lise alive…

  He was offering her a Gauloise. ‘You’re supposed to be dead, you realize. Baker Street will shortly resound to the popping of champagne corks.’

  ‘Or they’ll be reaching for the smelling-salts. Thanks…’

  He’d smiled. ‘Lise was certain you were dead.’

  ‘I thought she was.’ Leaning to the match. ‘How did she get to you?’

  ‘She’d holed up with some people – middle-aged artisan couple – down where you mentioned, roughly – offered them a lot of money, the man’s wife talked to a friend who knew someone who was an active résistant, and a colleague of his had had dealings with my courier. Who checked, very cautiously, and – there we were. Didn’t take long at all… Extraordinarily enough – this really does take a bit of getting used to – it’s only the Boches who’ve had some reason to believe you’d survived – that poster, a million francs—’

  ‘No body, near the train – and there should have been, they knew they’d shot me. But Michel had carted me off. And Lise having vanished too – which they couldn’t have discovered until later, I imagine—’

  ‘She was back in England before the posters went up. She’d told me all about you, of course. She was quite positive – that you’d been shot – and I might add deeply distressed.’ Shaking his head – in his own lingering disbelief – staring at her across the desk… ‘Zoé – field-name Suzanne. Mind telling me your real first name?’

  ‘Rosie. Christened Rosalie.’

  ‘Yes. Lise said that. Tell me one other thing – when and where did she get to know it?’

  ‘In the train.’ She nodded. ‘By which time that sort of security detail didn’t seem to matter any more. You’re thinking I might be an impostor.’

  ‘Not seriously. Considering it – as an outside possibility.’ He spread his hands. ‘In fact, it’s highly improbable and not all that obvious what purpose might be served – by what would have been a fairly tricky ploy – although it would of course explain the heavy make-up.’

  ‘So do the posters. But – the purpose – your head on the block, to start with?’

  ‘They’d have had to have known, to send you to me in the first place.’

  ‘Uh-huh. De Plesse knows all about you, obviously. I could have fooled him. So his head and yours, and of course any others of your réseau to whom I might be introduced. Plus maybe a Hudson and its crew shot up as it lands, and the reception team bagged or killed.’

  Such things did happen, had been known. His slight shrug acknowledged it. Rosie added, ‘I wouldn’t trust de Plesse further than I could spit anyway. I mean if they put the screws on him.’

  ‘You could be right’

  ‘I can put your mind at rest about me, anyway.’ She leant towards him across the desk – head tilted sideways, cigarette into left hand, pushing the white scarf up above her ear with the other. ‘See the groove? Hair’s covering it quite well now, thank God. This one knocked me out, I think. See it?’

  ‘Crikey.’ His fingers replaced hers: the tip of one forefinger gently traced the line of the indented scar. ‘A couple of centimetres to the left, you and I would not—’

  ‘No, we wouldn’t. But the most damaging one was in the back of this shoulder.’ She sat back in the chair. ‘Came out here. Sheets of blood. Probably what fooled them into thinking I was dead. A sage-femme fixed me up, in the safe-house Michel took me to. Where I spent a month, in fact. He left us some sulphur powder too. Sulphanilamide, some such name?’

  ‘I’ve heard of it.’

&nb
sp; ‘I’ll tell you the rest, just briefly. Michel was in the vicinity because he’d blown a train ahead of the one we were on – why ours stopped, how Lise and I escaped the crematorium. He and Luc – his number two, another para – heard there’d been some shooting, came looking, and took me off to – well, other side of the Vosges mountains. Close to the Natzweiler camp, as it happens.’

  ‘And eventually transferred you to Raoul de Plesse.’

  ‘There was a stop in between, but – yes. What do you think of de Plesse?’

  Slight grimace… ‘Awkward to deal with. Great opinion of himself. Wields influence in Resistance circles, therefore has his uses. But you’re right, I’d say he values his own hide above all else. Absolute phobia about using the telephone, for instance. Fair enough as a matter of general principle, but—’

  ‘Michel called him to heel over his attitude to us. To SOE generally, was Michel’s analysis, but it seemed to me at the time it was directed at me personally. He read him the riot act anyway – don’t know what he said, I wasn’t present.’

  ‘The root of the trouble is that he has political ambitions. De Plesse, I mean. That’s enough to make him anti-foreigner. Playing to the gallery – you know? But he wouldn’t want to fall out with Forces Françaises de L’Intérieur or the Free French army or de Gaulle – especially not at this juncture – so I suppose Michel could crack the whip. Michel’s FFI title incidentally is Commandant, First Maquis Liaison Group – if one needed to refer to him in any communication with Baker Street, for instance. But what are we going to say to them… Something like Agent code-name Zoé previously believed dead has recovered from wounds and is in the care of this réseau. Request pick up soonest – and I’ll specify the landing-field. Anything more than that?’

  ‘Yes. A lot more. A lot to explain—’

  His telephone had rung. ‘Damn it.’ Snatching it off its hook: eyes on her, frowning… ‘Yes?’ Listening, he’d sighed. ‘All right, put him through…’ Hand over the mouthpiece: ‘Won’t take long – I hope… Yes, Guillaume Rouquet speaking…’

  * * *

  He’d had to rush off, and Béa had produced coffee. The cat was in good health, she said – temperature at forty degrees a little high, attributable to stress, but it had been released into a spacious cage, given milk and a fish-carcase. If any enquiry should be made, it was being kept here for a day or two for observation. Bea was an insider, obviously, but it was better to leave it at that, not ask questions. Meanwhile there were comings and goings – white coats here in the building, rough working clothes on others arriving or departing, all seemingly in a rush. Virtually all the work was with horses, cattle, sheep and pigs, Béa told her, very little these days with domestic pets. Guillaume was absent for about an hour, then rejoined her: his ‘coffee’ was stone-cold, and Béa brought more for both of them.

  ‘So – let’s hear it – finally?’

  ‘Yes.’ First drag at a new cigarette… ‘First – to put it all in perspective – how I’ve come to know all this – there’s a lot to explain, I’m afraid—’

  ‘Take your time. We won’t be interrupted again, officially I’m out of town.’

  ‘Right. To start with – the traitor – “Hector”, real name André Marchéval – was with the Gestapo in Morlaix when they visited me in hospital, and then in Rue des Saussaies—’

  ‘You must have told Lise all this.’

  ‘She told you. Good… But when you think – the knowledge he must have had – has – details of réseaux, individual agents, landing fields, dropping-zones – escape lines too, probably – when you think—’

  ‘It’s staggering. Fortunately London will now be cognizant of it, through Lise.’

  ‘Which helps a lot, yes. But it’s what I’ve learnt since – I’ll come to it… She may have mentioned that “Hector”, at a stage or two removed, was almost certainly responsible for the death of her Organizer in Rennes – then her own arrest?’ Guillaume had nodded: she explained, ‘The relevance of it is that from her point of view as well as mine it’s – quite personal, this “Hector” thing.’

  ‘But we’d all agree – the sooner we have him behind bars—’

  ‘On a rope, would be my preference.’

  ‘All right. Or in front of a firing-squad. But he should be able to tell us plenty first. In particular what’s happened to a lot of agents who’ve disappeared without trace. Then – by all means, due process of military law.’ An eyebrow cocked: ‘Where is this leading us, Rosie?’

  ‘There’s a lot of it. I did warn you. I can’t give it to you in a dozen words.’

  ‘All right…’

  ‘At the safe-house in Alsace I told Michel about “Hector” – André Marchéval – including the fact that his father has some sort of engineering works somewhere south of Paris. Which I was told in London – by Bob Hallowell, incidentally. Michel’s reaction was instantaneous – “Hector” should be knocked off, immediately, if not sooner, and he’d try to find out exactly where the factory is. Idea being that when the Boches pull out that’s where he’ll turn up – chez Papa. Papa’s name is Henri, by the way.’

  ‘Has Michel located the factory?’

  ‘Has indeed. West of Troyes, village called St Valéry-sur-Vanne. And he visited – intro by courtesy of de Plesse – a résistant in Troyes by name of Victor Dufay who runs yet another agricultural engineering business, and – well, the background is, Marchéval’s is under Henri M’s management but Boche control, they’ve been turning out pipes and cylinders to Boche requirements right from the start, couldn’t be bombed without killing workers’ families because the works are integral with the village itself, and the workers wouldn’t want to go in for sabotage either, for fear of reprisals. Boches are on the spot, apparently, occupying most of Marchéval senior’s house, a manor-house outside the village.’

  ‘So – bombing ruled out, and sabotage unlikely: and the product’s not particularly important anyway—’

  ‘Well, wait… After Michel had talked to Dufay he pushed on – some new brief he has now – to Dijon, and Dufay decided it was time he updated himself on the St Valéry situation – only reminded of the place’s existence, it seems, by Michel’s interest.’

  ‘Some distance from Troyes, is it?’

  ‘Yes – but anyway, Dufay then got in touch with Michel in what must have been a bit of a flap, to tell him the Marchéval product is now rocket-casings – allegedly, for Boche secret weapon number two.’

  ‘Christ! Whose allegation, though – Dufay’s?’

  ‘I think a man by name of Craillot, a résistant who runs an auberge there. But now bombing can’t be ruled out – right?’

  ‘Not if this is confirmable.’

  ‘They did produce some detail – overall measurements, might give some clue – and Michel seemed fairly convinced. But it’ll have to be checked, obviously – on the spot, and preferably by a pianist, who could then report to London from the spot. I gather we’ve no SOE presence in that area now?’

  ‘Regrettably, not.’

  ‘Réseau blown eight or ten weeks ago, I’m told. Maybe another “Hector” casualty. But going back a bit – what I would have proposed to Baker Street anyway was that they might leave me here long enough to stake out Marchéval’s and/or St Valéry on the off-chance of “Hector” turning up – when, or if, the Boches dispense with his services, or whatever. It was Michel’s idea originally – and he then suggested having the works or better still the manor-house bombed. Manor preferably because no villagers’d get killed and it’d be more likely to bring André running to Papa.’

  ‘If the Gestapo let him go.’

  ‘He might have more freedom of movement than you’d expect. He’s not a prisoner, he’s sold out to them. But – a chance, that’s all.’

  ‘Chance of what, precisely?’ Stubbing out his cigarette. ‘OK to call you Rosie, by the way?’

  She’d shrugged: ‘Wouldn’t you agree the sooner he’s dead the better?’

&
nbsp; ‘You mean that if he did put in an appearance, you’d kill him. You would?’

  ‘Well – if I was there on my own—’

  ‘You know what Baker Street will say?’

  ‘I can guess what you’re going to say.’

  ‘They’ll say pick-up coming, Rosie, get yourself back here double-quick!’

  ‘Although in these new circumstances—’

  ‘Obviously the rocket issue’ll be taken care of – if it’s confirmed. If it is, it’s – putting it mildly, top priority, obviously. As far as “Hector”’s concerned, though – OK, if it was thought necessary to knock him off because he was still imperilling agents in the field—’

  ‘Isn’t he? As far as we know?’

  ‘You see – if your aim was simply to track him down, make sure he doesn’t just bloody vanish or if he does we’ll know where to—’

  ‘Baker Street would support that, you think.’

  ‘When the Boches pull out there’s going to be chaos, isn’t there? Gadarene swine stuff. Thousands on the run. Odds are he will go to ground.’ Tilting his chair back, fingers drumming on the desk, eyes on the high, ornately decorated ceiling. ‘But not for ever. Not even for very long. He’d surface when the waters calm a bit – a Frenchman under French jurisdiction – right? – and foreigners by then strongly discouraged from poking their noses in. You can bet on that. Gallic bullshit’ll rise like a dense fog – out of which I can see Marchéval emerging, presenting himself as one of about forty million totally bogus heroes of the Resistance – alongside the real ones, of course – indignantly denying any charges we lay against him.’ Looking at her again: nodding. ‘I’d say there definitely is something to work on here, Rosie. Baker Street would go for it.’

  ‘Good!’

  ‘Unless of course they’ve taken steps already. They may have – Lise having got back and spilt the beans – thanks to you, and as you intended. I may say I admire what you did enormously. But whether they’d let you stay in the field for any purpose at all, after all you’ve been through… Frankly, I doubt it. They’ll want the job done, but not by you. I think if I was advising them I’d say pick her brains – whatever she’s found out – and drop in a small team, commando-style. Find him, grab him, fly him out.’