Intelligence which mightn’t be of much practical use, she guessed – Essen being the home of the arms manufacturers Krupps and no doubt being bombed regularly in any case.
* * *
They were at Vareilles at about the time their cigarettes were finished. It was a hot afternoon and there was no one on the street. Jacques pointed: ‘We go straight through – but what we were talking about before, if the bridge at St Valéry was blown and they used this back way out for the trucks – see how sharp that corner is? Most likely wouldn’t make it. Even longer detour, then.’
‘Trucks must be coming, mustn’t they. The fact Marchéval’s still producing at all – must be expecting to get them away.’ She stubbed out the last centimetre of her Gauloise, flicked it through the window. ‘By the end of the week they’ll have eighteen, Monsieur Henri said. No early shut-down in his thinking, therefore. What I’m getting at is, if Guichard isn’t prepared to do it, and London’s ready to bomb—’
‘Tell Guichard that. It might help him to make his mind up. Although – between us, Justine – his plan for when the time comes is to take over St Valéry and hold it as a Maquis base – cut the road and the railway and hang on until the Yanks arrive, maybe spread into villages along the road as well – depending on how it goes. Consequently he might not be willing to stir things up now. If they put troops in, for instance – might, if they foresaw a danger to the road – their line of retreat?’
‘Then we’re back to bombing.’
‘Which Guichard wouldn’t want either – wouldn’t want to bring it on us. So it’s a toss-up.’ He changed the subject: ‘Sounds like Monsieur Henri was talking freely, this morning.’
‘Jittery, I’d say. Unless he’s always like that. Colette said not a resolute man. Scared of what he’s doing – then me, out of the blue – and the news about his daughter…’
They were out of the village, heading about southeast, forest thickening ahead. Rosie thinking about André Marchéval again; that it might be best to play it straight. Have maybe only a vague recollection of Morlaix, but be clear about the other one. You’d be knocked sideways at first – having come solely on rocket-casing business, the name Marchéval not ringing any bells. Although he had told her his name at some point. In Morlaix, she thought. All right, so a bell should have rung, just hadn’t. He might say something like ‘I’m supposed to believe it’s coincidence you’re here?’ and the answer would be ‘What d’you think – that I’ve joined the André Marchéval fan club, following you around? You’re the bloody coincidence! Anyway, shouldn’t you have got in touch with Baker Street?’
Plug that. Be forthright. He’d recognize trickery – and he’d be looking for it. Might well want her dead, but his priority would be for the bombing to be called off in favour of his own scheme, and she was the only one who could call it off.
* * *
Thinking – three or four kilometres nearer le Vallées – of one phrase in the message she’d coded up for Baker Street: ‘S’ phone guidance if required would be from vicinity of factory. Asking herself where, in the vicinity of the factory? The best she could think of was to put herself at the edge of the trees almost directly opposite the auberge. Due west across the school playing-field from the factory – maybe two hundred metres from it. Moving say fifty metres out from the trees just before zero hour to guide them in, and lying flat as the planes passed over.
As long as the attack came in reasonably early – around midnight, say – one could risk moving out into the open because the moon wouldn’t be up by then.
Might pace the distances out, along the road. This evening, maybe.
‘You sleeping?’
Jacques nudged her with his elbow. She’d had her head back, eyes half shut, envisaging that scene, the release of bombs just about as they passed over the vertically aimed ‘S’ phone beam, herself by then prone… She asked Jacques, ‘Moon isn’t rising until well after midnight now, am I right?’
‘About one, one thirty. Why?’
‘Just thinking. I wasn’t asleep. How are we doing?’
‘Turn-off’s just along here. It’s a track into the woods – a charcoal-burner I’ll be visiting. Probably leave you to wait there a while.’
‘How do charcoal-burners live?’
‘This one has a hut, close to his kiln. Also has a wife in les Vallées – and a bicycle. All he needs, eh?’
‘I suppose.’
‘He’s pretty old.’
‘I’ll be safe, then.’
‘Oh, I’d say so.’ His smile faded as she took the Llama out of her pocket, jerked the top round into the chamber, thumbed the safety on and slid it back into the pocket. Nodding: ‘I think I will be.’
He’d changed down. ‘Without that, you would be.’
‘Precautionary, that’s all. There are forest patrols still, aren’t there?’
‘But I have good reason to be there, and you’re with me—’
‘Might be with Maquisards by then too.’ She patted his arm. ‘Don’t worry. It’s only for – emergency use.’
Or self-defence. Possibly, self-defence.
He was turning left on to a forest track with trees thick on both sides and a rutted surface of hard-baked earth, drifts of forest litter. Rosie thinking that another location with the ‘S’ phone might be the stream at the bottom of the Rue de l’Ecole, near that bridge. There was less than a metre of water in it at the moment but its bed was deep, with high vertical banks; standing knee-deep in it, her head would be about level with the top.
Slightly off the flight-path, of course. But that could be allowed for by the navigators or bomb-aimers, whatever. Jacques was taking a right fork: still in first gear, rounding a bend that would already have put them out of sight of the road. Then much sooner than she’d expected trundling into an irregularly shaped hectare or so where trees had been felled: Jacques muttering as he pulled the brake on and switched off, ‘Old fellow’s name’s Guy Trainel. Sit tight while I have a word? There – speak of the devil…’
Emerging from what might have been a chicken-shed – a slow-moving, scrawny figure with white hair and beard; he’d propped an axe against the shed’s door. On the far side of the clearing the charcoal kiln looked as if it was steaming, more than smoking. The first she’d ever seen: circular, and built of – large stones, it looked like. The old man had started over to meet Jacques, and they were shaking hands: an arm waving towards the far side then, up-slope. Jacques coming back now.
‘Best if you’d wait here, Justine. He’s a decent old cove, don’t shoot him. I’ll be back as quick as I can. Guichard is around, he says. Look – any problem, a patrol for instance – keep that thing out of sight?’ The pistol, he meant. ‘You just came along to see the countryside – I’m conducting my normal business. It’s a fact, I am.’
‘Where will you have gone?’
‘Play shy, you don’t like to mention it. Why would a man go into the trees alone?’
‘You’ll be only a few minutes, then?’
‘Ten – twenty?’
* * *
When he’d gone – and the old man had retreated into his hut – she went into the trees herself. Woodsmoke hung like fog. It was oven-hot, with no breeze at all. Sunlight glittered through the branches overhead – the trees were beeches. She came back, climbed into the pick-up and lit a cigarette, but hadn’t had more than a few draws at it before seeing movement up-slope, on the clearing’s far side. More than one man coming… She stubbed out the cigarette: reached down to push the transceiver further back under her seat. Pistol – where it was. But that was Jacques, all right: and a taller, bearded man in some kind of smock, old army uniform trousers and a Sten-gun under his arm, slung from the shoulder. The third man had been a few paces behind them, so that she only saw him as the group came into the open, close to the smoking kiln. He was bearded, too. From this distance anyway she wouldn’t have thought she’d ever set eyes on him before: but – he was about Jacques’ height, and da
rk, it could be… They’d paused, looking around the clearing, now were coming on again – Jacques calling to the old man in the hut: ‘Hey – Guy?’ Rosie pushed the gazo door open and got out. At the same time Trainel came out, and Jacques and the tall man were talking to him. Laughing… The other one – who might or might not be ‘Hector’, for God’s sake – on his own and staring this way.
Coming this way. Wearing dungarees over a khaki-green shirt. Rosie started towards Jacques – the one she knew, would head for. To be natural was the thing: despite a sudden tightness in the gut… When the time came, show surprise, not shock. With that beard one wouldn’t recognize him. Mightn’t be him anyway… Jacques had looked round and seen her, raised a hand; she responded similarly. The tall one with the Sten was obviously Guichard. She’d take Jacques’ word for it that he was only about thirty-five; would have guessed he was older. The beard would put a few years on him, no doubt: it was brown, untrimmed, patriarchal. Whereas André’s – if that was him, what she’d seen this far didn’t match the image she’d been carrying in her memory – his beard was jet-black and trimmed short around the jawline.
‘Justine.’ Jacques jerked a thumb. ‘Emile Guichard – the man I was telling you about?’
‘Justine Quérier.’ She shook his hand: it felt more like a lumberjack’s than a lawyer’s. ‘Has Jacques told you what I’m here for?’
‘He has, Mam’selle.’ He looked younger, when he smiled. Grey eyes wide apart, very light-coloured in contrast to darkly tanned skin. Reminiscent of Michel’s friend Luc… Hair receding: a lot of sunburnt forehead anyway. He’d nodded towards the other one. ‘André Marchéval.’
‘Oh.’ Turning to him. ‘I met your father this morning.’
Staring: and coming closer…
‘It’s not possible…’
The voice, all right. And the swarthy look. He’d stopped at a range of about two metres: hands on his hips, leaning slightly forward, dark eyes narrowed in concentration. So much for padded cheeks… Shaking his head: ‘God almighty, I don’t believe this!’
‘What’s up?’
From Jacques, that. Guichard watching and looking puzzled. Rosie had glanced round at them – in surprise, as if inviting help or explanation – before looking back at this – André… ‘Have we met before, or—’
‘Not so long ago, either.’ He touched his beard. ‘I didn’t have this – but—’
‘Your father told me you were in SOE – as Jacques will have told you I am—’
‘Code-name Zoé?’
That stopped her. Staring at him… Admitting then, ‘It was, at one stage. But I still don’t—’ Eyes widening: ‘Oh, Christ…’
‘We were both prisoners of the Gestapo. First time we met was in a hospital in Brittany. You’d been in a car smash, they told me.’
‘I remember someone at Morlaix…’
Jacques shifting, glancing round as Trainel shuffled off towards his kiln, muttering to himself. André was saying – to her, but with an eye on the others too – ‘You were claiming to have no memory. Made no odds, they identified you from a photograph. You had a record of the kind those people least appreciate – you’d killed one of them?’
‘Not one of them. He was SS – or SD.’
Guichard clapping: ‘Bravo, in either case!’
Rosie pointing at André: ‘What I do remember – if that was you—’
‘Well – I just told you—’
‘I’m amazed you should have. If you hadn’t I wouldn’t have known you – the beard I suppose – but—’
She’d checked herself: glancing round at the others as if she’d been about to say something, but had second thoughts on their account. The Llama’s steel was warm in her damp palm: she’d hardly realized she’d been clutching it. Withdrawing that hand from her pocket – aware of Jacques’ close observation… ‘As I said, your father told me you were in SOE – but the name meant nothing.’
‘I did introduce myself – at Morlaix.’
‘Did you? I’ve no such recollection. When I was briefed to come here, even, the name Marchéval rang no bells… I’d have known you by your code-name, anyway. Air Movements Officer, your father said. Would it have been “Hector”?’
‘Right!’
‘But in Morlaix I’d no idea… And not even the second time, in Paris – in Rue des Saussaies?’
‘You were in a bad way, weren’t you?’
‘They whipped me, you know – shortly after you were sent out of the room. Yes – you must have known.’
‘Known, but—’
‘Did they tell you that after that – and a few more jolly days in the Fresnes gaol – I was consigned to Ravensbrück?’
Shock in his face – quite well acted, she thought – and a growl of surprise from Guichard. She looked round at him: ‘I’m sorry – not what we’re here for, is it. But meeting this – person – the coincidence—’
‘Ravensbrück. How—’
‘The train was stopped – the line had been blown up ahead of it – and I escaped. Didn’t they tell you?’
‘Tell me?’
She shrugged. ‘They might have. Anyway – Monsieur Guichard—’
‘Emile, please.’
‘Emile. Wasting time, aren’t we? Should get on with it?’
‘Yes, we should. If you don’t mind… But let’s also sit. I’m going to anyway. We call you Justine, that right?’
‘Yes, absolutely.’ She sat down too. André squatting on her left, the other two en face.
Guichard accepted one of her cigarettes: ‘Very kind. We’re all scroungers here, we have to be.’ Jacques was filling his pipe; Rosie offered André a Gauloise too, but he declined it.
She said, ‘The coincidence, I suppose, is simply that you should be the son of Henri Marchéval.’
‘Which is no surprise to me, of course.’ He added, ‘To me the surprise is that SOE should be taking this interest in my father’s business just at the time I come on the scene.’
‘Because SOE only just heard about the tubes. Casings.’ She looked back at Guichard. ‘Sorry, again. After all that, I’ll kick off, shall I? Although all I know of the sabotage idea is what I heard this morning from André’s father – to whom Colette Craillot introduced me. He said he’d agreed to co-operate.’ She glanced at André: ‘A matter of providing keys?’
‘Yes. It’s the only reason for bringing him into it. There are three sets of keys – his, the Boche engineer’s and the works manager’s. He – Gaspard Legrand – isn’t to be relied on, so it has to be my father’s set – getting them back to him quick so he can swear they weren’t ever out of his possession. The importance of having keys is that we shouldn’t have to break in – the essence of it should be speed and silence – uh?’
Guichard: ‘Why not borrow the keys and get a spare set made?’
‘Not possible in the time – unless they were made in the factory itself, which might not be a good idea – sharp eyes, informers, so forth.’
‘In any case that’s detail.’ Guichard looked at Rosie. ‘A more basic issue is that you’re supposed to be making arrangements for bombing by the RAF. What’s the position on that now?’
‘My position is I was sent here to check on a report that the tubes are casings for V2 rockets, confirmation of it to be followed by an air attack in sufficient strength to destroy the factory. And I have confirmed it. As a matter of interest, we’d been told that sabotage on the ground was out of the question, for reasons including the likelihood of Boche reprisals. So bombing seemed the only way, and – that’s it, it’s in London’s hands now.’
‘You mean –’ Guichard’s grey eyes on hers – ‘it could happen at any time?’
‘Should happen soon, because of the completed casings – which London knows about of course, including the fact that transport might come for them at any moment. But it won’t happen without my being told. Might hear tonight it’s laid on for tomorrow night, for instance.’
‘Soon
er than we could act.’
Guichard had shrugged, glancing at André. Jacques asked him, ‘Does that mean you would do it – if the bombing was called off, maybe?’
‘One point.’ André again… ‘As far as machinery is concerned there’s only one would need to be put out of action – the very large plate-bending machine we installed last November.’ He looked at Jacques: ‘Came in bits in separate trucks, remember?’
Rosie cut in, asking Guichard, ‘I suppose you have PE, detonators, time-fuses – or Bickford’s—’
‘All we need, yes. Thanks to your people.’
‘Specifically thanks to Joseph Lambert?’
She saw André’s reaction to that name: his eyes flickering to meet hers. She thought Lambert was almost certainly dead by now; and that he – André – must know it. She wondered again about the pretty wife… Guichard had nodded: ‘D’you know Lambert?’
‘Know of him. Or knew… But listen – couldn’t it possibly be done tomorrow night?’
‘Unfortunately not. It so happens my two explosives experts are helping out elsewhere. It would take – well, thirty-six hours to get one of them back, and then—’
‘Emile.’ André interrupted: ‘I’m fully competent with explosives.’ A gesture towards Rosie: ‘So would she be.’
She nodded. ‘He’s right – we learn it at our mothers’ knees. So if that was the only thing bothering you… Look – Emile – as things are, the air attack will be launched – tomorrow or at latest the night after, I’d guess. Everything to do with the V2 is high priority, they won’t be dawdling. All right, poor workers’ houses, all that, but those workers have been churning the things out quite happily for months now and there’ll be thousands of people in England killed by them – once it starts. We’re talking about only a tiny fraction of it here, obviously, but even the smallest reduction’s something. A few hundred lives, say? Well – I’m not asking London to delay, let alone cancel, before I know for certain you’re ready to move.’ Holding Guichard’s thoughtful gaze: she shook her head. ‘It’s not blackmail, Emile, it’s simple fact – St Valéry might be wiped out tomorrow night.’
In at the Kill Page 32
