by Kate Mosse
There was no corner of the ancient city, north or south, west or east, left untouched by the war. Mostly, the Gestapo and the Wehrmacht had requisitioned the grandest of the buildings. This nondescript villa was the exception, a provincial house rather than a military installation, despite the fact that Chef Eckfelner, Sous-chef Schiffner and Inspectors Janeke and Zimmerman were key Resistance targets. Several attempts had been made on the building and had failed.
Armed guards patrolled the perimeter, cradling standard-issue sub-machine guns and with pistols at their belts. Raoul scanned the roof and windows on the first floor, seeing no signs of snipers or additional guards. Square, heavy floodlights were trained on the yard and, over the walls, out into the street.
Raoul glanced at his watch. From what Yvette had overheard, they would transfer her this morning. Always assuming it was Sandrine. That she was still alive. He shook his head, telling himself he could not allow himself to doubt. He wanted a cigarette, but knew the smoke would give him away.
Fixing his eyes on the metal grille, he emptied his mind and listened for the mechanism of the gate getting ready to open. Ten minutes passed before, as Robert had explained, a red warning light began to flash by the vehicle exit. There was a clunk of heavy machinery, then the gate itself began to slide open. Moments later, a green police car shot out of the compound into the small street and rounded the corner, heading towards the main road. It had been so quick, he wasn’t sure of what he’d seen, but it looked like a driver and a guard in the front, then two people in the back. A glimpse of black hair.
Raoul broke cover, along the track that led beside the railway sidings, to the corner of the boulevard. Robert’s brother Gaston was waiting with a Luger ·38 special tucked into the waistband of his trousers, half shielded beneath his jacket.
Raoul held up three fingers, to confirm what he’d seen. Gaston nodded and set off quickly through the Jardin des Plantes, watching out for the green Citroën.
Raoul stayed on the far side of the road, drawing his pistol but holding it pointed down to the ground by his side. Keeping Gaston in his sights, his attention was caught by the flapping of the Nazi flag on the building opposite. Most public buildings now carried the hated Croix Gammée, the swastika, in place of the Tricolore of the French Republic.
He located the brown Peugeot and darted across the boulevard. Robert was waiting at the top of the rue du Port. There was no other traffic of any kind.
‘A driver and guard in the front, two people in the back,’ he said.
‘Was it her?’
Raoul hesitated. ‘I think so.’
Bonnet nodded and pushed the starter. The engine spluttered into life. Raoul looked back up the road, seeing the green Citroën turn the corner and drive towards them.
‘Here they come.’
He stepped away from the car, looking for Gaston in the shade of the trees. Located him, raised his hand.
Then everything happened at once. Robert stamped down on the accelerator pedal. The Peugeot shot forward, forcing the police car to swerve. He put the car immediately into reverse, slamming into the side of the panier à salade, driving it back into the kerb. The police car juddered, jerked, its back wheels skidding, steam billowing from the buckled bonnet.
Robert kept his engine running.
Gaston came alongside the nearside window, raised his pistol and emptied the clip. Glass shattered everywhere. The driver was thrown back, then slumped forward on the dashboard, the guard collapsed sideways on top of him. Blood, glass, scattered, shimmering on the road.
Raoul ran to the car. He could see Sandrine and a man in plain clothes lying across the back seat. He pulled at the handle, but it was jammed. He hesitated, then smashed the window with his pistol, trying not to send too much glass in. He reached in and released the lock, and dragged the door open. The street was filling up, customers from the Café Continental and Café Edouard coming out to see what was happening. German soldiers rushing out of the Hôtel Terminus, weapons raised.
‘Unconscious in the back,’ he said to Gaston. ‘Cover me.’
Raoul put his arms beneath Sandrine. She cried out in pain. It was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard, though a violent torrent of rage and desire for revenge swept through him at the sight of her. Her eyes were swollen shut, her clothes torn. Blood was dried on her face, her arms, her legs. On her shoulder, an open weeping burn. Desperate not to inflict any more pain on her battered body, he placed her on the back seat of the Peugeot and got in beside her. As he shut the door, Robert was already accelerating, leaving Gaston to make his getaway through the shaded, overgrown alleyways of the botanical gardens.
The car swung round as Robert doubled back to avoid a roadblock. Outside the Terminus, soldiers raised their machine guns and opened fire. Bullets ricocheted off the bumper and Raoul felt one tyre blow, but Robert kept control of the car. Cradling Sandrine in his arms, Raoul looked back at the scene of devastation behind him. A man staggered out of the back of the panier à salade, then straightened up with his hand on the roof of the car. Soldiers and police rushed to help him. Raoul felt his chest tighten another notch. He had barely looked at the man in the car. His only aim was to get Sandrine out and away. But now he could see it was Leo Authié.
He had had him there, and hadn’t realised. He should have killed him. Shot him while he was unconscious. He’d had another chance at him, but had let it slip through his fingers.
Robert turned the corner, driving dangerously fast, then up towards the cimetière Saint-Vincent. The motion of the car disturbed Sandrine.
‘I don’t know anything . . .’ she murmured.
Raoul felt her shift in his arms and cry out again in pain, and he forgot everything.
‘I’ve got you, I’m here,’ he whispered. ‘You’re safe now.’
He thought he saw a smile flicker across her bruised lips.
‘I didn’t tell them anything . . .’
‘Ma belle,’ he muttered, trying to keep the distress from his voice. ‘I’m here. It’s going to be all right. Everything’s going to be all right.’
But as he looked down at her bruised and battered body lying beside him, the blistered skin and the blood on her legs and skirt, he didn’t know how it could ever be all right. The car screeched around another corner, then started to struggle up the hill.
‘Hurry.’
Robert glanced at him in the rear mirror, then slammed his foot hard on the accelerator. The old engine stuttered and whined, but the car leapt forward again as they climbed into the hills around Cavayère.
‘Hurry,’ Raoul said again.
Chapter 132
COUSTAUSSA
‘Thank you,’ said Lucie, getting out of the back of the van. One of the men handed Jean-Jacques down to her.
‘You’ll be all right with the little one?’
She nodded. ‘There’s bound to be someone who can give me a ride to Coustaussa.’ The man looked doubtful. She wondered if she was wrong. She’d been gone for eighteen months. She had no idea how much Couiza might have changed.
When the van had driven off, Lucie walked through the woods and down to the river’s edge, her son’s chubby little hand in hers. It was such a pleasure to be away from the watchful streets of the Bastide that she felt in no hurry. The dappled sun through the canopy of leaves, the sweet sound of the Aude flowing over the rocky riverbed.
‘Careful now, J-J,’ she said. ‘Watch where you’re going.’
The little boy put his arms up. ‘Mama, carry. Carry, carry, carry.’
‘Come on, my little man, you can do it on your own. Just a few more steps.’
Jean-Jacques started to frown, then changed his mind and stumbled the last few paces to the water’s edge on his own. Lucie knelt forward and splashed water on her cheeks, then used her handkerchief to wipe her son’s face.
‘Swim?’ he sang hopefully. ‘Swim, swim, swim.’
Lucie laughed. ‘Not now,’ she said, scooping him up. ‘Too early to
go swimming. We need to find everyone and have breakfast, then we’ll see.’
Jean-Jacques frowned.
‘We’re going to see Marieta and Tante Liesl.’
The little boy smiled. ‘Liesl.’
‘Good boy.’
Lucie began to walk along the river towards the town. Now he was away from the city, Jean-Jacques no longer had a sore throat. He was playing with the buttons on the collar of her shirt. He couldn’t have any memory of either Marieta or Liesl, but she hadn’t wanted them to be disappointed, so she had talked to him about them all the time.
‘And Tante Marianne and Tante Suzanne will be there too,’ she added.
The little boy’s eyes brightened. ‘Suzu,’ he said. ‘Plane.’
Lucie smiled. His favourite toy was a cardboard aeroplane Suzanne had made him and repaired a hundred times.
‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘Plane. If you’re a very good boy, perhaps Suzu will make you a new plane? What about that?’
‘Plane, plane, plane . . .’
As Lucie came into town, she immediately knew the place had changed. Raoul had warned her, but she hadn’t expected it to be so obvious. There was a major Wehrmacht arms depot and food store on the hill at Montazels, which meant there were military vehicles on the roads a lot of the time. He’d also told her there was a small Maquis unit hiding out in the garrigue between Alet-les-Bains and Coustaussa, on the opposite side of the valley. The Milice had made several attempts to destroy the group, but had so far only succeeded in driving them higher into the hills.
Lucie hugged Jean-Jacques closer to her. She walked towards the Grand Café Guilhem. There were a few women sitting at the tables on the terrace. She didn’t recognise any of them. No men at all.
‘Faim, faim,’ Jean-Jacques suddenly said, trying to wriggle down from her arms.
‘You’re hungry, little man?’
Jean-Jacques pointed at the bread one of the women was dipping in a cup of black barley and chicory coffee.
‘Tartine.’
‘No, we’re going to the boulangerie to choose something nice. Shall we do that? J-J help me choose?’
To her relief, Jean-Jacques vigorously nodded his head. ‘Choose. J-J choose.’
Lucie walked briskly across the square, her bag swinging from her arm, heading for the patisserie, run by the station master’s wife, Mathilde. She stepped through the fly curtain in the doorway, grabbing at J-J’s hand to stop him pulling the beads, then into the cool interior.
Mathilde looked up with a neutral expression. She frowned, faltered, then recognised Lucie and a smile broke out on her face.
‘Madomaisèla!’ she said. She leant across the counter and pinched Jean-Jacques’ cheek. ‘And look at your little chap, hasn’t he grown? I hardly recognised either of you. Where’s all that lovely blonde hair of yours gone?’
‘Couldn’t get the peroxide,’ Lucie replied. ‘Aren’t I a sight? But what can a girl do but go natural?’ She smiled. ‘You don’t look any different at all, Mathilde. How’s Ernest?’
Mathilde’s face clouded over. ‘He’s no longer with us,’ she said.
‘Oh no.’
‘Got caught up in the Gestapo attack on Villerouge-Termenès,’ she said. ‘He killed three of them before they got him. His bravery allowed his comrades to get away, so they told me.’
‘I’m so sorry, Mathilde,’ Lucie said quietly.
‘It’s how he would have wanted to go,’ the older woman said simply. She gave a brief nod, to indicate the conversation was over, then put her broad hands on the counter. ‘So. What can I do for you, madomaisèla?’
Lucie looked at the empty shelves. There were no baguettes, just two loaves of black bread wrapped in a twist of paper with a name written on it. It was clear that everyone else had come in much earlier in the morning.
‘A little something for J-J to keep him going until I get to the house,’ she said, fishing in her bag and producing a strip of coupons.
Mathilde waved them away. ‘No need to worry about that,’ she said. ‘Let’s see if I can find something special.’
She vanished into the back, reappearing a moment later with a madeleine sponge cake. ‘My own recipe,’ she said. ‘I have to make do with powdered egg and saccharine, but they seem to go down quite well all the same.’
‘That’s very kind,’ Lucie said warmly.
‘Here you are, little chap.’ Mathilde handed it to Jean-Jacques. ‘A special cake for a special boy.’
He reached out and took it.
‘What do you say, J-J?’ Lucie said sharply.
He paused. ‘Très bon.’
The women both laughed.
‘I don’t suppose the Saturday market bus still runs?’ Lucie asked.
‘No, but someone’s sure to be going that way. If you give me a minute, I’ll arrange something.’ She reached under the counter and produced a package wrapped in newspaper. ‘And if you could take this for Marieta, that would save the boy a journey later.’
‘How are things in Couiza generally?’ Lucie said, dropping her voice.
‘As well as can be expected,’ Mathilde said, putting the bread in Lucie’s bag. ‘A few work for the other side. And there’s plenty of miliciens about because of the Wehrmacht depot. One or two parachute drops have missed their targets recently. Brings the Gestapo into the town.’ She shook her head. ‘Nothing to do with me,’ she said firmly, meeting Lucie’s eye.
‘No. Of course not.’
‘Are you back for good?’ Mathilde asked. ‘You and Jean-Jacques?’
Lucie hesitated, then she smiled. ‘I hope so.’
It took no time for Mathilde to organise a ride to Coustaussa on the back of Ernestine Cassou’s dog trap. An hour later, Lucie was sitting in the kitchen at CITADELLE with Marieta and Liesl, Marianne and Suzanne and Geneviève. There had been tears and embraces, a rapid-fire exchange of day-to-day news – nothing serious – as she was brought up to date with everything Marianne and Suzanne had already been told. She felt as if she had never been away.
She exchanged a look with Liesl, who smiled. Lucie had expected Liesl to have changed a great deal. She was tall and beautiful, a woman, not the nervous child Lucie remembered. Sandrine and Raoul spoke of her as very resourceful and brave. Lucie found she was a little intimidated by her.
They had gone outside on their own to show J-J the garden and talked for a few minutes about Max. They had cried a little, then discussed the rumours that the camp was being evacuated. There had been no news from their friend in the Café de la Paix for more than a week, so Liesl was intending to try to go to the village herself, if at all possible, to find out the truth. As Lucie looked at her now, so self-contained and still, she hoped that she and Liesl would have a chance to get to know one another again. Also that the sense of feeling a little at a disadvantage in the younger woman’s company would pass.
‘Ernestine Cassou wasn’t as awful as I remembered,’ Lucie said. ‘She didn’t say much, but she seemed happy enough to bring me here.’
‘She and her father aren’t unusual,’ Geneviève said. ‘They went along with Pétain to start with. They turned a blind eye because they thought it was for the best. Then they realised what collaboration actually meant – no food, forced labour, being second-class citizens in their own country. They don’t know what to do.’
‘But they’re not doing anything to help bring the occupation to an end,’ Suzanne said.
‘No,’ Geneviève admitted.
Marianne nodded. ‘You didn’t say anything in front of her?’
‘Lord, no.’
After only two days in Coustaussa, Marianne was already looking less haggard and gaunt, though there was still that underlying nervousness. Lucie smiled at her son, hoping the country air would do him good too.
‘Mathilde told me about Ernest,’ she said.
‘Dreadful,’ Marieta said, without looking up. ‘A dreadful loss.’
‘But to know Monsieur Baillard is all r
ight,’ Lucie continued, ‘that’s the most wonderful news.’
Marieta stopped what she was doing, a smile breaking across her tired, worn face.
‘I never doubted it,’ she said.
‘Have you seen him yet, Marieta?’ Lucie asked. ‘How is he?’
‘Not yet. He’s in Tarascon with Monsieur l’Inspecteur,’ she said. ‘He has business there. He will come when he can. For now, it’s enough to know he is well.’
‘Eloise and Guillaume are helping him,’ Geneviève said, ‘although . . .’ She paused, casting her mind back to the conversation they’d had on the day of Pierre Déjean’s funeral. ‘Though I get the feeling that it’s Sandrine he’s really waiting for. Eloise says he is planning to go into the mountains to search for the Codex, even though the entire area is now off limits. There are SS patrols everywhere. Anyone caught in a prohibited zone is arrested.’
‘Or shot,’ Liesl said.
Straight away, Lucie’s contented frame of mind vanished. She knew Suzanne had told the others about Authié’s return to Carcassonne, so at least she didn’t have to be the bearer of bad news. But as she looked at Marianne, she saw her thoughts had returned to her sister.
‘I’m sure Sandrine’s all right,’ Lucie said. ‘Raoul stayed behind so they could travel together. Sandrine will be all right. She always is.’
Chapter 133
CARCASSONNE
Raoul cradled Sandrine’s head in his lap, doing his best to insulate her from the jolts and potholes on the track. Her breathing had grown shallow and her skin was drained of colour.
‘How much further, Bonnet?’ Raoul said. ‘I’m not sure she can last any longer.’
They had pulled off the road some time back and were slowly making their way along a forestry path between the pine trees in the woods around Cavayère, the chassis of the car bumping over the uneven surface of the draille.
‘We’re nearly there.’
He made one final switchback turn, following a winding path that led steeply up, then parked beneath the branches of a pin parasol.
