Into the Fire

by Into the Fire (retail) (epub)

  He’d been very keen to know where she was going.

  But then again, wouldn’t anyone, in his position? Especially as this had been solely his territory for quite a while?

  No-one had followed her, anyway. No gazogène starting and stopping, a man with a mop of grey hair behind its wheel, keeping her in distant sight. There’d been no roadside checks either: rounding each corner she’d been ready for it, but – her lucky day, it seemed.

  Romeo, though… Having all that time on the road, alone and with time to think it all over, she’d admitted to herself that she found him attractive. Recalling the tentative advance he’d made – not just the compliment, but the tone and his expression at that moment – and that she’d been surprised, slightly indignant even, to have such an approach from a man she’d met only an hour before and who was old enough to be her father. But – with hindsight – that might be most of the attraction, she reflected. Being completely alone, scared stiff inside her shell: then suddenly here’s a friend, someone to lean on – in César’s absence – and one with a certain charm, at that…

  As well to recognize it, she thought. Ensure it didn’t affect one’s judgement.

  If it hadn’t already?

  * * *

  Baker Street would know by this time that he was willing to take a vacation. She’d diverted from her route shortly after passing Epinay, pedalling up a track through sparse woodland, then hidden her bike in the ditch, fought her way through brambles and nettles and strung the Mark III’s seventy feet of cotton-thin aerial wire over gooseberry bushes, coded the message, put on her headphones and – after getting a ‘go ahead’ from Sevenoaks – tapped it out. By this time it would have reached Baker Street by dispatch rider.

  In contact Romeo but César was not at R/V 15th. Louis reports Pension d’Alsace in Lyon has become mousetrap. Romeo accepts invitation to home leave, please send pickup details soonest.

  Finishing the transmission, she’d asked the Sevenoaks operator whether there was any message for her, but there hadn’t been, and she’d signed off.

  * * *

  The gooseberries were delicious.

  It had been a very hot day, as well as a long, hard one. She knew she’d be as stiff as a plank when she woke up in the morning. Where she’d be waking – in a bed or a ditch, for instance – time would tell. A bed was always preferable not only from the point of view of comfort but because when you’d slept in a ditch you usually looked as if you had. Beds tended to be closer to sources of sustenance, as well. If the man she’d come to see proved inhospitable she might well come back to this pub.

  ‘Here you are,’ – the plump boy’s eyes flickered towards her wedding ring – ‘Madame.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Come far?’

  She nodded: glancing round, and seeing that the two old peasants were listening. ‘Far enough… Does your father own this place?’

  He shook his head as if regretfully. ‘Uncle.’

  ‘You’re local, anyway. Perhaps you can help me. To start off with, I need to find the school. Is it right in the village?’

  He’d glanced at the old men, then back at her. ‘Where you turn up from the main road. Other side of it – grey stone building, and you’ll see the yard… Teacher, eh?’

  ‘No. I’m not a teacher.’

  ‘Sorry. Just that we don’t get many strangers here, these days.’

  ‘I have a small daughter. She’ll need to go to school – not yet, but soon enough – and the professeur might know of some possible foster-home locally. I don’t want her in Rouen when the bombing starts again. I suppose you don’t know of anyone?’

  He didn’t. She finished her lemonade, went out and got back on her bicycle. She’d been looking for the right-turn up to the village, not to her left, where he’d told her the school was. Not that it mattered – a couple of hundred yards, and downhill at that.

  ‘Madame Lebrun?’

  A nod. Skinny little woman, between thirty and forty: she had an alert, youngish face but there were streaks of grey in her dark hair, which was drawn back tightly into a bun. Rosie told her, ‘I’m Jeanne-Marie Lefèvre. I’ve cycled here from Rouen –’ she pointed at her bicycle, which she’d leant against the playground wall – ‘actually to see your husband, about my daughter Juliette.’

  ‘Do we know of her?’

  ‘Oh, no. She’s with her grandmother at the moment – in Brittany, as it happens. I’m starting a job based in Rouen but with a great deal of travelling involved, and if I could find somewhere – a foster-home, perhaps a family with other children – I could come out and see her at weekends. I really must have her closer to me, but not in Rouen, because—’

  ‘You’d better come in.’ She called, ‘Georges! A Madame Lefèvre here to see you.’

  ‘Madame Lefèvre…’

  Shaking hands… He was a lean man, grey-headed – probably ten years older than his wife – in shirtsleeves and a waistcoat, grey bow-tie. Greyish complexion, too. He’d emerged from a room on the right, into the square, stone-paved hall. There was a strong schoolroom odour – unmistakable, a blind person would have known where she was. Lebrun ushered her into the room he’d come out of: ‘I heard you say you’d cycled all the way from Rouen. You must be exhausted?’

  ‘Well – I am, a bit…’

  She’d left her sample-case on the bicycle. But there was no-one around, out there, and it might have looked odd, bringing it into their house with her. Once they knew who she was, it would be different… She was glancing round: at hard chairs encircling a round table with a brown cover on it – one chair pulled back, a heap of papers in front of it, a pen and a pot of red ink on a blotter – and sepia-toned photographs of groups and individuals all over the walls. Above the fireplace, an oil painting of a man very much like this Lebrun except that he had mutton-chop whiskers. The schoolmaster had seen her glance at it: he murmured, ‘My dear father. Tragically struck down, alas, in the full flower of his youth.’

  ‘How very sad… Monsieur, I apologize for this intrusion—’

  ‘Not at all, madame,’ indicating a chair across the table from his own: ‘Please…’

  His wife remained standing, close at his side; he was peering at Rosie over his glasses, waiting for her to begin. He was nothing like she’d expected.

  ‘I think you may have had word in advance that I’d be calling on you. If the name Lefèvre doesn’t ring a bell – the fact is, a lot of my friends call me “Angel”.’

  ‘Oh.’ He took his glasses off. ‘Oh.’ Glancing round at his wife: ‘Check that the lock’s on the door please, Béa.’ Turning back to her; without glasses, and suddenly eager-looking, really quite different. ‘We were told to expect you. A mutual friend from – oh—’

  A frown, as if it had slipped his memory…

  ‘From Beauvais?’

  ‘Beauvais, indeed.’ Smiling at her: ‘You’re very welcome, Angel. Especially if it means we’ll at last be getting what we’ve been asking for?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry we’ve kept you waiting. Various problems – bad ones, I’m afraid.’

  ‘So one heard.’ A nod, pursed lips. ‘So one heard.’

  From Romeo, she guessed. He’d have been asking them to be patient.

  ‘But we’re back in harness now. It’s set up for next weekend. Two drops, simultaneous, one near Chênes and the other at Hêtre de Bunodières. With a diversionary bombing raid on the Boche ammunition dump at La Haye starting five minutes before the drops. The Bunodières delivery’s for the Beauvais réseau. They’ll complain it’s a long haul for them, but it’s a field we’ve used before, and the attack on La Haye will cover theirs as well as yours, so it’s clearly to their advantage. Now, the thing is – can you make arrangements for both receptions, if I leave you all the details? Alternatively, could you persuade the Beauvais chef de réseau to visit us here? Tomorrow, or Sunday?’

  * * *

  On her way back to Rouen on the Monday morning she stopped in
the forest near Sainte Honorine and sent off another message to Baker Street:

  Reception of Operations Tractor One and Tractor Two arranged.

  One job done, anyway. They could arrest her now or shoot her dead, those two drops would go ahead and the munitions would be received by those who’d been waiting for them – L’Armée des Ombres, as the Maquis was sometimes called, in whispers.

  Army of the Shadows…

  Pierre Juvier, the réseau chief from Beauvais, had come to lunch at the schoolhouse yesterday, arriving in a gazo and bringing his wife with him. Both of them large, loud-voiced, complete contrasts to their host and hostess. He was a building contractor and worked almost solely for the Germans now – which explained his having a licence for the gazogène, Rosie had supposed.

  He’d told her, ‘The simple reason is, no-one else is building anything much at this time,’ and Madame Juvier had put in, ‘Call us collaborateurs if you like – one has to live, that’s all. Why not take their money?’

  Lebrun murmured, ‘And cut their throats in one’s spare time, eh?’

  ‘Exactly!’ A shriek of laughter. ‘Best of both worlds, eh?’

  Later on, Rosie had asked him, ‘Seriously, it doesn’t worry you that some people might regard you as collaborateurs?’

  ‘Only the most ignorant. Those who sit on the sidelines – which is the reason they are ignorant.’ Juvier had added, glowering, ‘When the hour strikes, I’ll know who was with us and who wasn’t!’

  The location of the para-drop hadn’t worried him at all, although it was to be about forty kilometres from Beauvais. He’d told her, ‘We won’t be hauling the stuff that far, in any case.’ A heavy arm around her shoulders: ‘No problem, Angel!’

  Lunch had consisted of a roast chicken, apple tart and cheese, Madame Lebrun explaining that the chicken had been a gift from a grateful parent. Rosie had noticed during her two days and three nights with them that they didn’t do themselves too badly, anyway. They had their own laying hens and grew vegetables, and she guessed there was a lot of barter going on. Juvier’s contribution to the meal had been some bottles of Rhône wine which he’d told her was reserved entirely for consumption by the Occupying Power.

  ‘Don’t ask how it happens we’re consuming it!’

  Their ‘shop’ talk had been mostly after lunch, some of it in Lebrun’s study with a large-scale map spread on the desk, and then strolling in the vegetable garden, Rosie and her host both dwarfed by the hulking Juvier. Rosie had done most of the talking at first, going over the details of the drops and the confirmatory message which the BBC would put out on two consecutive days – twice on the actual day, which weather permitting would be Saturday. The broadcast phrase was to be, Ma belle-soeur est devenue malade.

  ‘Poor bitch.’ Juvier’s fat chuckle. He’d had twice as much wine as anyone else. Taking Rosie’s arm: ‘Thank God for this, my dear… As a matter of interest, though, what about Le Cocher’s crowd? The last drop was to have gone to him, wasn’t it?’

  She didn’t know – hadn’t ever heard of ‘Le Cocher’. Glancing round at Lebrun, who murmured, ‘He’s an ex-Cocher, now.’

  ‘D’you mean he’s dead?’

  A nod. Stooping to make a close examination of a cauliflower; there were a lot of the white butterflies about. Juvier asked him, ‘Literally dead?’

  ‘I don’t know about literally.’ Lebrun straightened, and winked at Rosie. ‘Physically – yes.’

  ‘I meant,’ – scowling, irked by such pedantry from the schoolmaster – ‘you could have said “dead” meaning he was out of it as far as the réseau was concerned. Who’s in his place?’

  ‘I am, for the moment. But I’ve told ’em to lie low for a while.’

  She’d noticed that Juvier hadn’t asked how this ‘Le Cocher’ person had met his death. Probably in the course of some sabotage operation. Otherwise, why would the others have needed to lie low?

  In mid-morning, having started out soon after dawn, she ran into a roadblock at the Le Mesnil-Claque crossroads – about halfway to Rouen. There was a Wehrmacht truck parked right on the intersection and police barriers across both the road she was on and the one that crossed it; two farm lorries ahead of her had pulled in and were being searched, and there was another facing this way. At first sight – the immediate shock, that tightness in the gut – she’d murmured aloud, Curses, here we go again – making a kind of terse non-joke to herself while preparing for the worst – which would start with the discovery of her radio. She’d warned herself over and over during this journey that she couldn’t expect to get away with it every time, all the time, that a cat had only nine lives, etcetera… But when she got there, dismounting, a policeman impatiently waved her through. Police were doing the searching, Boches just standing by, and they were checking lorry-drivers’ loads and papers, weren’t interested in girls on bicycles with all their worldly goods tied on with string.

  * * *

  Marc Pigot told her, ‘Sorry. It’s gone.’

  The case she’d left here, with the money in it.

  Staring at him: horrified, thinking, It can’t be…

  Except it could. Thanks to her own damn stupidity. Despite having been warned, at that. Oh, Christ…

  She’d stopped at the garage on her way into town to tell him she’d pick it up later, and ask what time he’d be shutting. It was three-thirty: she had to get down to the bordello on the Rive Gauche, dump the stuff she had with her and then come all the way back again. On Friday morning she’d brought the case here with her, but only the comparatively short distance from Rue de la Cigogne, and with the other stuff she’d been carrying even that hadn’t been too easy.

  She’d found Pigot working on a gazogène van. The elderly mechanic didn’t seem to be here today.

  She’d found her voice… ‘What d’you mean, it’s gone?’

  ‘I’ll show you.’ He led her to a wheel-less wreck of an old Ford, fumbled for a key and opened its rusty boot. Standing back, to give her room. ‘Gone, see?’

  There were other things in there, but not her case. She thought – in shock – Romeo.

  ‘Martin Hardy—’

  ‘I put it in here when you brought it – remember? Friday morning, wasn’t it?’

  Gazing at her: as if more interested in her reaction than his own responsibility. It was simply too frightful: to have absolutely fouled it up, through one’s own senseless misjudgement… She muttered again. ‘Hardy…’

  ‘Yeah. There’s your culprit.’ He was sniggering, suddenly. ‘Your chum Martin, that’s who!’

  ‘I don’t understand—’

  ‘Having you on, that’s all. Jesus, you’re white as a sheet!’

  ‘So where—’

  ‘Doing you a favour, wasn’t he – dropping it off at Ursule’s.’ Pausing, the smile fading… ‘Haven’t been there yet, eh?’

  ‘It had damn well better be there!’

  ‘Well – why wouldn’t it?’

  A million and a quarter francs suggested that it might not be… But the cloud was lifting: in the last couple of minutes she’d been questioning her own sanity, in having trusted him to the extent she had…

  ‘Is he in town?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Back tomorrow,’ he said. ‘When he left – Saturday – he knew he’d be going right past Ursule’s. That’s why… Look, I better tell you how to find her place…’

  * * *

  The house was narrow and had three storeys, was actually one half of what a hundred or more years ago had been a convent. Telling Rosie this, Ursule smiled round at her over her shoulder – leading her along the top-floor passage, after all those stairs… She was in her thirties, small and rounded, her hourglass figure indicative of tight stays. Mousey-coloured hair piled up, with combs in it. She added, ‘The nuns would be screaming blue murder, poor dears.’

  ‘Monsieur Hardy did mention—’

  ‘I bet he did.’ A shrug, shake of the small head… ‘Don’t worry, you won’t be bothered.
It only happens that – well, you let one of them move in, she likes it and tells a friend, and so on.’ She stopped at the third or fourth door: the house had more depth than breadth. ‘You won’t be the only lodger who’s not a whore, my dear – you can be sure of that. I don’t allow ’em to entertain their customers on the premises, either. What they do when they aren’t here’s not my business, is it?’

  ‘Absolutely not…’

  ‘Heavens knows where they do it. I’d rather not know.’

  It wasn’t a bad room at all. Quite large, and simply but adequately furnished. She noticed this after seeing her bag on the foot of the bed, with its padlock still in place: she dumped her sample-case beside it, and Ursule put down the other one.

  ‘It’ll suit me very well, I think.’

  Except – she was at the window – there was no fire escape, for quick or surreptitious exits. A metal fire escape was good for connecting an aerial to, as well. Ursule was telling her, ‘The only meal I provide is breakfast – on the ground floor between seven and nine. I’ll need some ration coupons, of course, but there’s no hurry. If you want other meals locally, there’s a café just round the corner – Café Saint Sever. It’s not bad, not too expensive either.’

  Which was more than she could claim, Rosie thought. They’d discussed money downstairs, and the rooms weren’t cheap. One was paying, no doubt, for a certain discretion – whether you were an agent, or a tart.

  Alone, she first unlocked the bag and checked that all the money was there, feeling some shame at having suspected Romeo – except that you had to suspect everyone, until you knew them. And even then… Could have been in Romeo’s mind, too, she realized. Convincing her of his integrity: if he had bigger fish to fry?