by Kate Mosse
‘Never the same after my brother died,’ he continued, knowing he was repeating things he’d already said. ‘She never got over it.’
Bonnet got up and went back to the bar, returning with another couple of glasses of what passed for beer.
‘What are we doing, Bonnet?’ Raoul gestured at the empty bar. ‘Look at us, cowering underground. Everything we do, all of this? Does it even make any difference?’
‘You know it does.’
Raoul suddenly stopped. He shouldn’t drink any more, he knew that, but he was caught between grief and fear. And guilt. His mother dead in the apartment. Sandrine somewhere in the Bastide. Making her way towards the Cité. Perhaps she was inside already?
Caught?
He rubbed his eyes. The not knowing was the worst of it. Sitting on his hands, unable to do anything. He had a flash of insight into what it must have been like for Sandrine over these past months when he’d been in the mountains. Never knowing if he was alive or dead.
‘I let her down.’
Robert lit a cigarette, handed it to Raoul, then took one for himself. ‘No sense thinking like that,’ he said.
He shook his head. ‘If you’d seen the mess, Bonnet. Water everywhere. Paper everywhere . . . Awful.’
Raoul slumped forward, elbows on the table, going over in his mind the arguments Sandrine had put forward about why it should be her who went back to the Tour du Grand Burlas, not him. Her reasons had made sense at the time, but not any more.
What kind of man was he that he’d let her go?
‘I should have stopped her,’ he muttered.
‘I’m telling you, Pelletier, there was nothing you could have done. Your mother knew what she was doing.’
Raoul shook his head. ‘Not my mother,’ he said. ‘Sandrine.’
For a moment, Robert sat very still, then he dropped his voice. ‘She’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘She’s special, that girl of yours. She knows what she’s doing.’
Raoul looked at him, remembering a similar conversation he’d had with a young boy in the hills outside Belcaire. Fiercely in love, carrying a photograph of his girl, Coralie Saint-Loup. They were still out there, so far as he knew, doing their best. Trying to live normal lives in the middle of all the madness.
‘When all this is over, you should make an honest woman of her,’ Bonnet continued.
Raoul nodded. ‘Will you stand as my best man, Bonnet?’
‘It’d be an honour.’ He drained his glass and stood up. ‘But you’re no use to her like this, Pelletier. Let’s get you sobered up. Sandrine will be back soon. You need to be ready. Yes?’
Raoul met his gaze. He knew Bonnet was right. His mother was beyond his help. Yesterday, he had held Sandrine in his arms and comforted her. He had looked after her. He needed to be ready to look after her again, if she’d let him. Pushing his three-quarter-full glass away, he stood up.
‘Thanks, Bonnet,’ he said quietly.
‘You’d do the same for me.’
‘I would.’
Raoul felt his heart return to its regular beat, his resolve strengthen. The knot of fear in his chest loosened just a little. Life went on. Maybe it shouldn’t, but it did, all the same. They had to hold their nerve a little longer. Then it would be over. Everyone said it would be over soon.
‘Ready?’
Raoul nodded. Bonnet raised his hand to the barman, then the two men walked to the narrow stairs that led up to the pavement.
‘I’ll stand for you, Pelletier, and you can do the same for me and Yvette,’ Bonnet said. ‘What about that?’
‘Have you asked her?’
Bonnet patted his pocket. ‘Not yet. Waiting for the right time.’
As he waited for the door to be unbolted, Raoul tried the name out in his head. Madame Raoul Pelletier. He smiled. No, Madame Sandrine Pelletier. He thought it suited her. A strong name.
The doorman shot the bolt. Raoul took a deep breath. ‘I’ll go first,’ he said. ‘And thanks again.’
The doorman checked the street was empty. He gave a brief nod, and without a backward glance, Raoul stepped out into the sunshine and headed back towards the Aire de la Pépinière to wait out the afternoon.
‘The library was evacuated to Ulm,’ the Nazi said. ‘For a year now since the Allied bombing of Hamburg.’
‘That’s where you want me to deliver the Codex?’ Laval asked.
The Nazi narrowed his eyes. ‘If it should take longer than you anticipate – and I am therefore unable to take the document with me personally – then you will make arrangements.’
‘But you are based in Swabia?’ Laval persisted.
‘I am not. Whilst the library was taken to Ulm, the Ahnenerbe staff were located to Waischenfeld in Bavaria. It is a small village, but at the centre of operations all the same.’
Bavaria was the heartland of Nazi support, even now as the tide was turning against the Axis forces.
‘You’ll provide appropriate papers?’ Laval asked. ‘A guarantee of safe passage?’
‘If you deliver what you promise, Herr Laval, you will be coming to Germany as our guest. There will be no difficulties.’
Laval nodded. ‘How long do you intend to remain in Carcassonne, Unterscharführer Heinkel?’
‘A day or two at most.’
Laval held out his hand. ‘Then we shall see what might be achieved in the next forty-eight hours.’
The two men shook hands. Laval showed him out. Madame Fournier was lurking behind the half-open kitchen door. He affected not to see her. She wouldn’t say anything that would lead Authié – anyone – to think that the meeting was out of the ordinary. However, it was important neither of the miliciens said anything out of turn. Laval didn’t think they’d identified Heinkel’s SS rank or realised he was not from the unit involved in the surveillance operation, but he needed to be sure.
He shouted for the pair and they came running, one from the back of the house and one down from the first floor.
‘According to the liaison officer, everything is as planned,’ Laval said sharply. ‘All personnel are in position in the Cité. I have reported that there has been no activity around the Tour de la Justice this morning, but I have given assurances that you will both remain at your posts here and radio immediately should anything change.’ He looked at the two men in turn, fixing them each with a cold, appraising eye. ‘Clear?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Sir.’
Laval nodded. He looked at the clock. The meeting with Heinkel had lasted longer than he’d expected, which didn’t give him much time before he was due to report to Authié at two and then to go to the Cité himself. He needed something to demonstrate he had been active during the morning. Information on the French scholar that de l’Oradore had asked Authié to obtain. He would return to the police archives and see what – if any – information they were holding on Audric Baillard.
‘I will return at five,’ he said. ‘When does your shift finish?’
‘At six, sir.’
‘Good.’ Laval nodded. ‘In the meantime, if anyone goes in or out, inform headquarters.’
Chapter 123
Sandrine and Lucie sat on a bench in Square Gambetta. Both wore headscarves, plain summer dresses and flat lace-up shoes. They looked like any other Carcassonnais women ground down by the daily struggle of trying to get by.
Sandrine hadn’t wanted to risk staying in the house, so she and Lucie had spent the time moving from place to place in the Bastide. They avoided their usual haunts, in case they were being followed, staying instead in public places where there were more people coming and going.
Her plan was that they should change their clothes once they were on the Cité side of the river. Although security was always tight – and it would be tighter than ever today – there were usually girls in the garrison, collabos horizontales. The soldiers turned a blind eye.
The heat had driven most people indoors, but four little girls were playing un, deux, trois l
oup on the steps of the bandstand. A podgy child with pigtails and a checked dress spun around and roared, and her friends scattered squealing.
‘You notice the wolf always wins,’ Lucie said.
Sandrine smiled. ‘The odds are stacked in her favour.’
She looked over at the statue. For a split second, with the shimmering heat haze and the deep contrast between the light and the shade, she could have sworn she saw the angel’s stone wings move. Her hands grasp the sword tighter in her white hands. She frowned and blinked, then looked again. This time the folds of wing and feather were lifeless and fixed firmly in place.
Sandrine caught her breath.
‘Are you all right?’ Lucie asked.
‘Yes.’ She gave a sharp shake of her head, bringing herself back to the present. ‘What about you? Not worrying too much about Jean-Jacques?’
Lucie shrugged. ‘You can’t help yourself, you worry all the time anyway.’ She glanced at Sandrine, then back to the still waters of the lake in the centre of the gardens. ‘You’ll have a son of your own one day, then you’ll know.’
A son, Sandrine thought. A son or a daughter. Actually, she’d prefer a daughter first. Maybe two girls, like her and Marianne. For a moment, she allowed her thoughts to float free, thinking of ribbons and smocked dresses and Marieta drawing a bath with soap bubbles on a Sunday evening in readiness for school the next day.
Then the sound of the bells of Saint-Michel floated across the Bastide in the hot afternoon air and the smile faded from Sandrine’s face. She felt Lucie turn to look at her.
‘Time to move on again?’ she asked.
Sandrine nodded and got up. ‘We’re going to cross the river now.’
‘Whatever you say, kid.’
They crossed Square Gambetta and went past the hospital, then joined the queue of people waiting to be allowed across the Pont Vieux. Sandrine was nervous and her heart was beating nineteen to the dozen. From Lucie’s quick, small steps, Sandrine knew she was on pins too.
‘Ausweis,’ the guard said.
In silence, Sandrine handed over the false identity card. The soldier scanned it and thrust it back at her without a word. Then he took Lucie’s, looked at it closely and glanced up at her face. Sandrine held her breath, but Lucie kept her nerve. She didn’t look nervous or smile or do anything to suggest she was worried. After a few tense seconds, the soldier gave it back and waved them both past the checkpoint and on to the bridge.
‘Danke schön,’ Sandrine said.
They went through the same procedure with the Wehrmacht soldiers manning the concrete fortifications on the far side of the bridge. Again, the time dragged as their cards were checked, but then they were through and walking into rue Trivalle.
Sandrine forced herself not to hurry, not to give them away by rushing or looking wary. During the course of the day, she’d revised the plan. Rather than go in through the Porte Narbonnaise, putting the false cards to the test, she’d decided it might be better to see if the route into the Cité she and Raoul had used last night was still a possibility. Unless a local had pointed it out, the soldiers might not be aware of the secondary gate – it wasn’t visible from the inner fortifications. And even if the Wehrmacht or Gestapo had brought in Milice to sweep the area, in the south-west quadrant of the Cité, too, there was still cover from trees and bushes.
If they had found the gate, or if there were soldiers outside the walls, not only posted in the lices, then Sandrine intended to continue round to the Porte Narbonnaise and revert to her original plan.
‘This way,’ she said.
She guided Lucie to the right and along rue de la Barbacane. To her credit, Lucie didn’t miss a step, just followed Sandrine. They walked past the rue de la Gaffe, where the Giraud family lived, then crossed in front of the église Saint-Gimer, left into rue Petite Côte de la Cité and right into rue Longue. She stopped at the fourth house along, knocked three times on the wooden shutter. She paused, then knocked again.
The door was opened, though Sandrine saw no one. They found themselves in a dark hallway, with a door standing open to the right. Without a word, Sandrine and Lucie removed their scarves, sensible shoes and dresses, and put on the cheap, gaudy dresses laid out on the chairs. Lucie clipped on white plastic earrings and a matching necklace. Sandrine tightened a wide patent belt with a gold buckle around the waist of her shiny green dress and slipped her feet into the high heels set beside the hearth.
Lucie produced a tube of red lipstick. She leant forward, looking at her reflection in the mirror above the mantelpiece, then handed it to Sandrine.
‘Powder?’ she offered.
Sandrine shook her head. ‘This’ll do,’ she said. ‘And you’re quite sure you want to go through with this? It’s not too late to back out.’
‘I’m sure, kid.’
Leaving their old clothes in the room, together with a bottle of rosé as payment, the girls let themselves out. Moving more slowly now, in their heels, they walked to the end of rue Longue, through a switchback of alleyways, then on to the rue des Anglais. All the time, Sandrine was watching for patrols, for soldiers, for police. They got almost all the way to the top of the road before their luck ran out.
A jeep carrying four Wehrmacht soldiers was coming towards them. Sandrine hoped they would be too busy to stop, but since they were on the edge of a restricted area, she knew the odds were against them.
One of the soldiers gave a wolf whistle, but was immediately silenced by a look from the commanding officer, who jumped down, his lieutenant beside him, and walked over.
‘Captain,’ said Lucie brightly.
He didn’t smile. ‘Ausweis,’ he demanded, holding out his hand.
Both women again got out the false cards and passed them over in silence. He returned Sandrine’s card, but stared more carefully at the image on Lucie’s.
‘This is you?’ he said, holding the photograph close to Lucie. ‘Marthe Perard?’
‘It is,’ she said, putting on a blowsy voice. ‘It’s an old photograph and there’s a little less of me than there was.’ She shrugged. ‘Not so good for the looks. Ever so difficult to find what a girl needs.’
In the truck, one of the soldiers sniggered.
‘Ruhe!’ the captain shouted.
‘It’s a restricted zone,’ he said in stilted but accurate French.
‘Even for ladies with an invitation?’ Lucie said.
The captain flushed. For a long moment, Sandrine thought he might insist on accompanying them. But he returned her card.
‘Present your papers at the Porte Narbonnaise,’ he said coldly. ‘If your names are on the list, you will of course be permitted to enter.’
‘Thanks ever so,’ Lucie giggled. ‘Danke.’
The captain and lieutenant got back into the truck and continued down the chemin des Anglais. Lucie gave a little wave to the soldiers looking longingly back at her as they drove round the corner and vanished from view.
Sandrine gave a long sigh of relief. ‘Well done,’ she said. ‘That was . . .’
Lucie pulled a face. ‘You’re going to have to make a bit more effort than that, if you want to persuade them you’re a working girl.’
Sandrine blushed. ‘I’m just no good at that kind of thing.’
‘It doesn’t come naturally to me either,’ Lucie said wryly.
Sandrine shook her head. ‘I know, of course it doesn’t. But you’re very good. A born actress.’ She sighed. ‘Come on, we need to keep moving.’
The small hairs on the back of Sandrine’s neck were standing on end. She’d concentrated so much on the practicalities of getting to the Tour du Grand Burlas unobserved that she’d hardly thought about what she had to do. Suzanne was good, one of the best. Her devices rarely malfunctioned, rarely blew up before they were designed to. But it happened, Sandrine knew it could happen. One false move, one touch of the wrong wire.
‘If anything goes wrong,’ she said to Lucie, ‘save yourself. Get away as quickly
as you can.’
‘Nothing’s going to go wrong,’ Lucie said. ‘I have every faith in you.’ She smiled. ‘Always have, kid.’
Chapter 124
‘Why am I here?’ the old man said.
Giraud was in an airless interrogation room in the Commissariat. A table, two chairs, no window. He was hiding his fear as best he could, but his watery eyes skittered from the table to the door to the two blue berets keeping guard.
‘On whose orders have I been brought here?’
It was the end of the afternoon. Giraud had been arrested in boulevard Barbès. Since midday he had been sitting in the shade of the lime trees, keeping watch on the door of the Clinique du Bastion. His son had been forced to change his plans. Rather than a day of performing operations, he’d been called to help two injured maquisards, hiding at a house in Trèbes. His daughter-in-law Jeanne had spent the morning telling patients about the delay and had then taken a little boy, due to have his tonsils out, back home. Giraud had offered to sit guard outside the clinic to stop anyone Jeanne hadn’t been able to tell about the change of plan from trying to go in.
Then the Milice had come. A hand on his arm, a hand in his back, no need to draw their weapons. His only consolation was that he was not the only one, but his fears for his son and daughter-in-law were growing.
‘Why am I here?’ Giraud asked again.
Neither of the miliciens even looked at him. He stood for a moment longer, then sat down again. A few minutes went by in the same heavy silence. No one speaking, Giraud aware of his own nervous intakes of breath, fear growing all the time. If only he knew what they wanted, he could be prepared.
Finally, the door opened. The miliciens sprang to attention and a man walked in. Wearing a light grey suit, he was broader than when Giraud had last seen him, but he recognised him immediately.
‘Wait outside,’ Authié said, dismissing the police.
The miliciens left immediately, closing the door behind them. Giraud watched Authié leaf through his papers. The old man felt tired. Felt his age.
