* * *
‘Monsieur Pigot?’
She’d found big double doors that had once been painted green but showed only small traces of it now. Remnants of posters, too, stuck there and since torn off, and the timber’s lower edges rotted away. One door was open: peering into semi-darkness she could see several vehicles crammed in close to each other and – close-to – a man in overalls working on a lorry’s engine. The light from a caged bulb on a wandering lead was causing him to narrow his eyes, squinting at her as if he had only partial vision. Which would hardly be surprising, for anyone who worked for long in that half-light.
Quite an old man. Thin white hair, face narrow and pointed, like a whippet’s.
‘Help you?’
It was pleasantly cool, inside.
‘I was told I might be able to hire a bicycle – or buy a second-hand one. Monsieur Pigot?’
‘In his office.’ A jerk of the head. ‘There.’
At the back – a lit window, yellowish and cobwebbed. She murmured thanks as she edged round the old man, getting a strong whiff of horse manure as she did so – from the body of the truck, not from him as she’d first imagined. He was straightening, one hand massaging the small of his back: he’d put the light in its cage on the roof of the cab, and in turn was getting a good look at her as she squeezed by. It occurred to her that this might be stupid, risking herself in here: if he’d gone to that heavy-looking door now and shut it, she’d have been trapped.
Paranoia, she told herself. Occupational disease. It could on occasion save your life, admittedly, but still had to be kept under some degree of control.
The profile of the man in the office wasn’t exactly reassuring, either. A long, pointed nose, deepset eyes, two or three days’ growth of beard and a grim set to the mouth. She’d pushed the door open, rapping on it as she entered, and he was staring back at her from the other side of a littered desk. The light came from a lamp on top of a wooden filing cabinet – it also had a kettle on it – and there were some shelves, a telephone on the wall, and a pin-up of a provocatively posed, half-naked black girl on a door behind him. Cupboard door, probably. No window or skylight: just that lamp.
Faint but definite smell of urine. Perhaps that wasn’t a cupboard after all.
‘Yeah?’
He was less appetizing full-face, she thought, than he’d been in profile. Deathly pale, under the patchy stubble, and looking at her as if he hated her.
‘Monsieur Pigot?’
‘What if I am?’
‘I was told you have bicycles for hire. I need a good strong one – could buy one, if it wasn’t—’
‘Who told you?’
The eyes in their pits lingered on her sample-case. ‘Someone called Hardy. His first name’s Martin, I think. Do you have bikes for hire?’
‘Might have. I don’t sell ’em.’ He pointed with his head: ‘Take a seat.’ A wooden chair: she sat down, glad to rest her feet, and put the case down beside her. The chair wobbled, if you let it. Pigot was poking around among the junk on his desk, and eventually found a notebook.
Thumbing through it, to an empty page… ‘Your name?’
‘Lefèvre. Madame Jeanne-Marie Lefèvre.’
He wrote it down, very slowly.
‘Address?’
‘I haven’t one yet, I’ve only just arrived in Rouen. But I’ll be in touch with your friend – Hardy – if for the time being you’d take that as an address?’
‘Where’s he hang out?’
‘Don’t you know?’
‘Barely know the man. But you must, surely?’
‘As it happens, I don’t.’
‘Then how’ll you be in touch with him?’
She shook her head. She had the feeling she was being interrogated and that he wasn’t telling the truth. If he was, then Romeo had lied about keeping a gazogène here. In which case it was conceivable that she had walked into a trap. She glanced round – as if out of curiosity at her surroundings – and was relieved to see a rectangle of daylight out there – the door still open – and a nearer glow where the elderly mechanic was still at work.
‘Listen – I’ll give you an address when I have one, but I’m going to be out of town this weekend. That’s why I need a bicycle. How I’d contact Hardy – the simple answer is I’m bound to run into him.’
‘Don’t you even have a telephone number?’
‘If I had, there’d be no problem, obviously.’
‘Perhaps not… Would you be taking the bike far?’
‘Quite a distance. I certainly don’t want one that’s going to fall to pieces.’
‘Would you want a panier on it?’
She nodded. ‘And a carrier behind the saddle.’
He wrote that down: taking an age, with his tongue showing between discoloured teeth. She thought he might be simple: she’d already been here about ten minutes. He was sitting back now, studying what he’d written as if the accomplishment impressed him. Eyes on her, then: and a movement of the narrow head, towards the sample-case. ‘Selling something?’
She frowned, holding his stare.
‘My occupation, monsieur, is hardly your concern.’
‘Oh, isn’t it? When you want me to let you take a valuable machine away with no security, no address, no damn-all?’
‘I could pay a deposit. Would that satisfy you?’
He seemed to be thinking it out. As if it might be some new idea. Shrugging, then: ‘With no address, it’d have to be the full value of the bike.’
‘All right. If it has to be.’
‘But why the secrecy? If you’re selling something you have to tell people what it is – eh?’
‘I don’t like being interrogated, that’s all.’ She shrugged. ‘All right – I’m a parfumeuse. I represent Maison Cazalet, of Paris. Monsieur Cazalet happens to be my cousin. If you or anyone else cares to check with him, go ahead. Meanwhile, can we get this settled?’
‘Think you’ll make any money, flogging scent?’
‘I intend to, monsieur.’
‘Do, do you?’ The faint smile improved his looks considerably. ‘D’you know what they use for perfume in the countryside around here?’
‘I can guess. In fact I can smell it from where I’m sitting. But there’s Beauvais, isn’t there – and Amiens – Neufchatel, even.’
‘That far, by bicycle? Why not use the train? Heaven’s sake – in one weekend? Where d’you think you’ll be selling your perfume on a Sunday, anyway?’
She reached down for the sample-case. ‘I hadn’t expected either to cover the whole area in a weekend – I didn’t say this was a selling trip, did I? – or that just to rent a bicycle I’d have to put up with this – grilling.’ She shifted the chair round, on the point of standing up.
‘So now you don’t want a bike?’
He was probably a bit crazy, she thought. Shaking her head: ‘Not if it means sitting here much longer. On the other hand, if we’ve finished with the questions now—’
‘You’ll pay the full deposit?’
He’d glanced to his right, into the garage. She agreed – not in the least keen to have to start trudging around the town again – ‘Yes. If I have to.’
‘I have to be sure of you, you see. My questions weren’t intended to be personal. Bikes have been known to vanish, you know.’
‘May I see one – what choice there is – before we settle on it?’
Looking that way again. ‘I suppose…’ Hesitating again. ‘You see, not knowing anything about you – well, all right, you’ve given me that reference now, but—’
‘For God’s sake,’ – her voice had risen – ‘If you have the full value of the thing—’
The door opened behind her, startling her for a moment. The mechanic, she supposed – then saw in a glance over her shoulder that it wasn’t.
‘Bravo, Marc. Took me longer than I—’
‘Madame Lefèvre.’ Pigot, performing introductions: at this point she’d barely seen the
newcomer – but she’d guessed, suddenly… Pigot confirmed it: ‘Martin Hardy.’ Smiling like some dogs can smile, showing the stained teeth. ‘My apologies, madame. I’d promised if you came before he got back—’
‘Romeo?’
He chuckled, offering his hand: ‘Your very own, my angel.’
She felt stupid – and annoyed – not to have foreseen this… She was looking at a man of about fifty: dark eyes, a seamed, tough face and a lot of greying, unkempt hair. Short of breath, telling her jerkily, ‘I was here a couple of hours waiting for you, had to see a guy then in the port. Anyway -you’re still here, all’s well.’ He pushed some of the rubbish aside on that end of Pigot’s desk, and perched himself there. ‘I’m sorry about this. But you were a bit standoffish earlier on, weren’t you?’
He had a smile that started in his eyes then spread through all the creases in the face. He’d know all about it, would have seen its effects often enough before, she thought. Johnny had had that sort of smile – not the same, by any means, but one he’d been able to switch on when he’d thought it would serve some purpose. She’d shrugged. ‘Didn’t suit me to meet you yet, that’s why.’
‘I know. And I’m sorry. My excuse is I’ve been waiting a damned age, for one thing, for another if anything unpleasant happened to either of us before we’d met – well, there are enough loose ends already, don’t you agree?’
‘I suppose you have a point there.’
‘Didn’t you suspect I might be here?’
‘No, it didn’t occur to me.’
What had occurred to her, she was remembering, had been to find the Bistro Suisse and get a preliminary look at him without his knowing it. So – sauce for the goose, Rosie… She added: ‘Perhaps because we’re supposed to be on the same side, it didn’t.’
‘Well.’ Hands opening defensively. ‘I have apologized.’
‘You said you’re a salesman?’
‘Agricultural machinery. Sell it, also maintain it, fix it – on site, usually on the farms. Second-or third-hand, all of it – all we can get. Not a bad racket though – gets me around, eh?’
Her first impression had been that he was wearing an ill-fitting suit, but in fact the jacket didn’t match the trousers, and neither fitted him.
‘You’re Mauritian, they told me.’
‘Am indeed.’ That smile again, briefly. ‘Both parents Mauritian, but my paternal grandfather was a Scot. So I read engineering at Edinburgh.’
‘Well, naturally…’
‘I like you, Angel. So glad. One doesn’t always, does one? Tell me, what is the position with our leader?’
‘César.’ She shrugged. ‘Wish I knew.’
‘You must have some means of contacting him?’
‘Oh, yes.’
She glanced away, into the dark cavern of the garage. Pigot had gone ‘to give old Roger a hand’, but more likely to leave them on their own, having first wheeled out a bicycle and given her a receipt for a week’s hire which she’d pay later. She’d demurred at having this conversation with Romeo here in the garage, suggesting instead that they might go for a walk together; he’d commented, ‘You don’t trust me at all, do you? Think there might be a microphone planted here? Well, you’re right to be careful. I don’t know if you’ve worked in the field before—’
‘Yes, I have.’
‘Good. But the thing is, we’re safer here. There are excellent reasons that we shouldn’t be seen together – if we can help it…’
Thinking of the Abwehr men in the Mercedes, and remembering that the Germans might be on the lookout for a female agent arriving in Rouen, she’d agreed with him. It had been no sacrifice to give up the idea of walking any further than she had to, either.
(Buy a pair of the wooden-soled shoes, she promised herself. The cardboard ones she had weren’t going to last much longer anyway. She’d seen the wooden ones in Paris: they weren’t clogs, the soles were sort of hinged, articulated.)
She’d said ‘Yes’, and no more than that, to his question about making contact with César…
‘All right. You have a way of contacting him, but you aren’t letting on. And he isn’t here yet – you know he isn’t, so you must have tried to communicate with him. Only thing is, how would I get in touch with him if you got yourself arrested meanwhile?’
‘You wouldn’t have to. He’ll have the same contact number for you that I had.’
‘Ah. That’s all right, then. Or will be, if he gets to use it.’ If César hadn’t been arrested, that had meant. Romeo added, ‘I suppose I’m not allowed to know what you’ll be up to this weekend?’
‘Sorry, no. If it’s any comfort, I won’t be telling César about it either. Wouldn’t be telling him now if he was here, I mean. Smoke?’
He took one. ‘So you’ve some independent brief with which you don’t need help… Angel – in the general run of things, I accept that your caution is entirely proper. But in this instance – present circumstances – isn’t it all the more so because I’m on Baker Street’s suspect list?’
‘Are you?’
‘Stands to reason that I would be – and that you’d know it. They’d have warned you. And obviously you wouldn’t tell me any more than you had to. The fact is, things fell to pieces here – quite suddenly. Drops were met by Boches, and the others of my réseau were –’ he’d lit her cigarette, now his own – ‘were rounded up. Some may be dead by now. And yours truly being the only one not taken out of circulation would suggest to Baker Street that I’d betrayed them all. Correct?’
It wasn’t easy, this. She nodded. ‘Probably why I was told to invite you home for debriefing.’
‘Debriefing, my foot. Third degree, more like. But – I welcome it. Please. Whenever they like, and the sooner the better.’
‘I’ll see about setting it up, then.’
‘You’ll be transmitting? Well, of course—’
She nodded. ‘Have to.’
‘Take care, Angel. I’ve been warned off – as you’ll know. The Boches might have broken my code – it would account for the drops going wrong – but I can tell you they were also homing in on me. I’d been using a bell-tower a few hundred metres from here, and – you know the routine, long-range bearings give them the position within about twenty miles, then the detector vans arrive, narrowing it to say three or four, and finally the portable sets – goons prowling around on foot with packs on their backs, trying not to look obvious. Didn’t get to that stage, because I spotted the vans – saw ’em before when I was in Orleans, trucks with canvas hoods to hide the gear – and I shifted away damn quick. Shortly after that was when London told me to shut up, and I was glad to, believe me… Incidentally, all I’ve had from Baker Street recently has been to expect you and César – that you’d contact me – no, that he would.’
‘That’s right. I was supposed to leave it to him. To that extent I’ve disobeyed orders. But since he’s not here – it was assumed he would be… D’you feel like telling me what happened – those arrests?’
‘You mean explain my non-arrest.’
‘Including that, obviously.’
‘Obviously…’ He sniffed. ‘From my point of view you might say fortunately. To put it mildly. And thanks largely to Max – our organizer, at that time. Anyway – there’s a highly clued-up S.D. man around – only a sergeant, but he seems to pull a lot of weight – name of Clausen. The rank thing might be just camouflage: if so it’d be his idea, he’s up to all the tricks. I haven’t met him – thank God – but I’ve seen him: good-looking guy, women like him and he uses that – so I’ve heard… Well – as far as I’ve been able to piece it together, he made his breakthrough with a French couple, sub-agents recruited locally, name of Sariet – René and Huguette. René worked as a courier and Huguette ran their flat as a safe house mostly for escapers in transit. Clausen got his hooks into René when a girlfriend he’d had in Dieppe informed on him. He’d been using her apartment regularly, but he’d got fed up with her, he was trying
to put an end to it, and she shopped him. Enter Clausen, who had him pulled in, and mentioned in one of their cosy chats that Huguette was going to bed with our Max, in the Sariets’ house, whenever René was on his travels. He also told him it was Max, not the girl in Dieppe, who’d informed on him. Clausen would only have had to refer to him as ‘your chef de réseau’ – I don’t think he could have had any way of identifying him until then. If he had known who he was he could have arrested him without all this shilly-shallying, obviously. But it would have been quite believable, that story – lover boy’s motive having been to put hubby out of the way for good and all, d’you see? The only doubt – if I’d been in René’s shoes it would have seemed a large one – was that surely the organizer would have anticipated René getting his revenge by turning him in. And actually it would have been right out of character for old Max, he’s not – or wasn’t – such a damn fool. But René swallowed it, apparently – sexual jealousy can blind one to much the same extent that sexual passion can – and I dare say he didn’t know Max all that well – anyway, he gave Clausen his cover-name, address, telephone number – whatever he had. Oh, and another flaw in this is that if what Clausen had said was true he could surely have picked Max up chez Huguette any old time. Perhaps he gave René some reason for not having done so. Not having the address, perhaps, until then, only knowing it happened at a safe house. Something like that. What he did – there’s no doubt of this – he had the Sariet residence staked out, leaving Max on the loose while the others walked into the trap. Escorting shot-down airmen, maybe – but he nabbed them all in such short order my guess is he might have used the first as a stool-pigeon to lure the rest on. Then Max – before he could get the news and leg it.’
‘But you weren’t lured in.
‘I never went near that safe house. Never had. No reason to. I was a courier as well as pianist but I never acted as escort to escapers. The Sariets didn’t know me, nor did the other couriers. All they could have divulged about me was that the réseau had a pianist-courier code-named ‘Toby’ – that was my tag before this all blew up. The only person who actually knew me, you see – where I lived, what I looked like, what my cover was – was Max himself. Everything went through him – thank God – and when he vanished I didn’t run for it, for the simple reason that I trusted him. Wasn’t wrong, either – God bless him.’
Into the Fire Page 14
