Into the Fire

by Into the Fire (retail) (epub)

  He was looking straight at her. She shrugged: a gesture of helplessness. Then he’d started back.

  ‘Monsieur—’ She’d stopped him… ‘Am I right that the next stop will be Landivisiau?’

  ‘Indeed.’ He didn’t look like a pimp, she thought. More like an ex-officer, a man of some distinction. A cold look, though: thin lips and eyes like brown flints… He’d nodded. ‘Landivisiau, then Landerneau. One other small halt shortly before Brest… Oh, Le Relecq-Kerhoun, is it?’

  The knife was like a splinter in her mind. It had been there with a question mark beside it since the moment she’d realized it was hers. To start with, thoughts as vague as not looking a gift horse in its mouth: but fooling herself, surely, as much as clutching at a straw: there was at least the possibility – frightening as it was – of actually making use of it.

  To put the lid on it now, Jean-Paul’s cold stare: asking her wordlessly, What for Christ’s sake are you going to do about it?

  The obvious thing was to work it into the sleeve of her dress – the left one. One had done things with knives – as well as pistols – at Arisaig, the first stage of the S.O.E. agents’ training course. Glancing up at Jean-Paul again: ‘I think we’re approaching Landivisiau, monsieur. Shouldn’t you return to your seat?’

  Because he had only one arm, and the train sometimes stopped in a series of powerful jerks. He was still staring down at her as she spoke, and she let him see the knife. Then when he’d moved on – with a surprisingly decisive nod – she craned round for a look at César, found him watching her over the seat-backs, looking anxious. She half-smiled, nodded reassurance to him before settling down again.

  Bastard…

  There were miliciens on the Landivisiau platform, one civilian policeman, a woman with several crates of hens. Nobody either boarded or disembarked. The guard’s whistle shrilled, the train jolted and began to roll.

  Diddle-de-dum, diddle-de-dum, diddle-de-dum… Beautiful countryside, clear sky, enough breeze to move the upper branches of the trees. Sun well past its zenith, shadows growing from trees and telegraph-posts, cattle grazing in low-lying pasture where a river curled. The train pounded over a bridge.

  Better not cut it too fine. Or wait so long that one’s faltering reserves of courage ebbed away.

  Twenty minutes to go, say. Even twenty-five. Wait another ten?

  Think of the pliers…

  He watched her coming. She nodded to him as she approached, gestured to him to get up and come with her. The pliers could as well have been in his hand as Prinz’s: it was effectively the same hand. But in any case – no option, this whole thing now devolved on her. César still rooted – in surprise, uncertainty: she stopped, leant down to mutter ‘Must have a word.’

  Assuming he’d follow… The other passengers either gazing out of windows or slumbering. Even with all the windows open it was very warm, but that wasn’t the reason she was wringing wet. He was following – thank God… She got the end door open, and held it for him to take – her right arm out behind her, the left one doubled against her with the knife in that sleeve.

  Jean-Paul was coming behind César. She’d have been twice as scared if he hadn’t. And the sign on the door of the toilette mercifully read Libre. She’d let César catch the compartment door as she let go of it, and pushed the toilette’s open, side-stepped into it. Gesturing to him to follow…

  ‘So, what’s—’

  He was stooping in the small doorway, confined by it. Rosie, inside, with more room to manoeuvre, and Jean-Paul outside, behind him: ‘Shut up and don’t move!’ César jerked near-upright, banged his head, was attempting to twist around, Rosie stopping that movement with an answer to his question – ‘This is what…’ The knife at his throat – letting him feel it: Jean-Paul’s hand clamped over his mouth. The slits of his eyes above the Frenchman’s dark, crooked hand were wider open than she’d ever seen them. She brought the knife down swiftly, slashing a hand as it grabbed at her – Jean-Paul’s hand shifting too, his forearm locking across César’s throat, wrenching his head back and crushing the windpipe, jerking the shocked eyes from Rosie’s in precisely the moment that she drove the knife in – two handed, under his lowest rib on the left side and upwards into his heart. One of the moves they’d taught at Arisaig. Jean-Paul had the dead man’s full weight on his one arm then: Rosie leaning back as far as she could, away from the flow of blood. He told her, ‘You’d better clear out. Come round this side. No, wait – the knife – leave it in the basin.’

  ‘Can you manage on your own?’

  ‘Of course I can—’

  ‘What about his luggage – could be papers in it, incidentally – yours too, though—’

  ‘Leave it. I know what I’m doing.’

  * * *

  Something more than a pimp, she thought.

  And what about me, Christ’s sake?

  She had blood down the front of her dress and on her cardboard shoes. Back in her seat – hands shaking, body cold with sweat, pulse-rate about two hundred to the minute – for the moment, limp, played out… Forcing herself back into motion then, she pulled an unlaundered blouse out of her grip and used it to try and clean up with. Without much success: it turned red itself but a lot had soaked into the wool. Brownish stains anyway, on the neutral-coloured material: she didn’t think anyone would know at a glance that it was blood. Might wear the old coat, though. Look like some village idiot, on a day like this, but – not exactly the Queen of Sheba anyway… Resting again – head back, eyes closed, trying to control her breathing, slow the pulse-rate… Wondering how Jean-Paul would be coping. Extraordinarily confident, purposeful – professional, in contrast to the frightened, fumbling amateur that she was.

  César’s face – a brain-imprint of it, nightmarish – above that larynx-crushing forearm, the bulge of blue eyes forcing the slits open… Would he have understood – guessed why?

  Pulse down to maybe one-twenty now. A mere two beats to the second.

  The train too – that rhythm slowing…

  Opening her eyes: Landerneau, already?

  She’d only got as far as spreading the coat like a rug over her knees, was still clutching the bloodstained blouse in one hand. Looking at it now, wondering what to do with it: you couldn’t hide anything under these slatted seats… Then: Shove it back in the bag, stupid… Slower-witted than usual, even in a state of shock, perhaps. Blind panic only just round the corner: it had happened so fast, she’d been so unprepared…

  So who’d done it? Other than little Rosie Ewing – aided by an assassin masquerading as a pimp…

  Coat… Checking where the worst of the staining was on her dress, and how she might cover it by keeping her left hand in that pocket and holding it across her, letting the right side flap open. She pulled it on, then groped under the seat for her one piece of luggage. Thinking, Call these oil-stains…

  From where she’d fallen in the Metro – and any that actually looked like blood, same thing, from the cut on her head… Be vague, no need to be sure whether its blood or oil, you can be wrong, won’t matter…

  No-one else in this carriage seemed to be disembarking here. Maybe they could get out at Brest, from this end of the train… She was on her feet at the window, seeing the front part of it curving round. Beyond the signal-box, was where the platform would start. On the straight, now, thumping along very slowly. Signal-box coming up – now…

  There were German soldiers on the platform – at this end of it – facing this way, about a dozen of them, watching the train puff in… They were waiting to board it, she saw then. Kitbags, etcetera… Beyond them, a group of railway staff and – yes, milice. Unfortunately… So she’d be asked for her papers. Bound to be: with very few disembarking here. She might even be the only one.

  She sat down for a moment – irresolute, conscious again of her racing heart, not sure she had the strength… With no papers, and spattered with fresh blood – probably reeking of it—

  It looked like
a funeral party, beyond that group of uniformed officials. Men and women in dark clothes – twenty or more, most of them elderly – women in hats and veils, and—

  Vidor?

  Tall and well made, in a dark suit. It was him. Beside him, a girl, reddish hair visible under a floppy dark hat. And on her other side – that was Vidor’s wife, the rather chubby, jolly person who’d cooked breakfast. In black, like all the others. Either a funeral or – she guessed it – a mock-funeral, for her own reception? Vidor had spotted her, now – he’d pointed, calling back to the others, was moving along this way as the train began jolting to a halt: she reached down, got the door open as he came trotting up, reaching to take the bag from her, all the rest of them crowding up too. The redheaded girl called to her ‘Lucinde! Magnificent that you could come!’

  Vidor’s wife was calling out that name too. Vidor helping her down, meanwhile – into the middle of the crush. ‘Remember me – Vidor?’

  ‘Of course, but—’

  ‘Your name’s Lucinde. This kid here is your sister Solange Brodard. Your father – Josef Brodard – died two weeks ago, you couldn’t make the funeral, it’s a Memorial service you’ve come for. Nobody’s going to question who you are, see—’

  The redhead kissed her – screeching, ‘Lucinde dearest, wonderful of you to have come!’

  ‘My dear – this is for you.’ Vidor’s wife presented her with an awful hat with a veil on it… Vidor explaining while other women embraced her, ‘There was a family row, you and your father weren’t on speaking-terms, that’s why we’re all so happy you’ve turned up. Angel – I’d put the hat on if I were you – is the other business taken care of?’

  ‘Yes. It has been.’ Glancing back, murmuring ‘I can’t believe this…’ Thinking again of Jean-Paul – wondering how he’d been handling it… There were passengers at just about all the train’s windows by this time… She’d heard Vidor say, ‘There’s something else you truly won’t believe!’

  ‘Ma chère Lucinde.’ A priest – ruddy complexion, curly greying hair, kind eyes – cut in on him: ‘Bless you, my dear – ’ his voice was resonant, would certainly be audible to the milice, twenty or thirty feet away – ‘that your father’s soul may now truly rest in peace. We are all thankful that you should have found it in your heart—’

  ‘Father – excuse me—’

  ‘What? Yes, of course – we should move on…’

  ‘Angel.’ Vidor had taken one of her arms, the redhead was clinging to the other, the crowd still surrounding her as they left the platform. ‘The thing you won’t believe—’

  ‘Ben sends his love.’ The redhead, interrupting him. Very young, and pretty – lovely eyes…

  ‘You said – Ben—’

  She nodded, and told Vidor, ‘Her name’s Rosie, anyway, not Angel.’

  ‘Rosie, then. But it’s true, he’s here. He was stuck here three weeks ago – the visit after they landed you. He wanted to come with us, to meet you, but that would have been insane. Same at the church, this service – we have to go through with it, you see, but afterwards—’

  ‘Not sure I’m not insane.’ She’d stopped, grasping his arm with both hands as if it was all that was holding her up. ‘Vidor – if it’s possible – please – I need a drink. Now, not afterwards…’

  20

  Subject to the usual confirmation – broadcasts from London later in the day – a motor gunboat would be collecting them from Guenioc island tonight. Friday. She remembered as she woke up – in a strange bed which turned out to be Solange’s – that Vidor had told her this. In some gazo… She got it, then: it had been on the way from Landerneau station to his and Marie-Claude’s house. Yesterday afternoon – Thursday. It still called for a conscious effort to get the days right – having lost that one during her time in the Palais de Justice. Clock gone haywire through nervous strain, she thought: on top of which one had packed in a fair amount of action, in the past two days. Drifting back to sleep – half in, half out, thoughts and dreams intermingling. There was a touch of hangover in it too, but that would be only a by-blow, the basic cause was – whatever she’d thought just now… Nervous exhaustion. By holding out, of course, one actually racked up the strain oneself: plus the strain of worrying oneself half to death with the absolute dread of not being able to hold out. The Hungarian, as an example – Erdos – in retrospect he seemed to her to have been a lot more relaxed than she’d been, and this might tally with Pierre Cazalet’s guess that he’d sold out. To that bastard Prinz – about whom quite a separate question in her half-sleep was whether out of office hours so to speak he might be a kind, devoted family man – or might become one, or adopt that guise, if in the long run justice failed… What did you do in the war, Daddy? Oh, I pulled girls’ nipples off with pliers… The mind jumped, rather: Erdos to Prinz, Prinz then to Jean-Paul – what he might have done after she’d left him – left them… Locked or jammed the door from the outside, somehow – got out at the other station he’d mentioned? The train would be in Brest perhaps for some while before railway staff forced the door: Jean-Paul would have taken off with his own and César’s luggage – and surely a lot more blood on him than she had? He’d have made sure the corpse wouldn’t have had anything in its pockets to make it easily or quickly identifiable as German.

  Something like that…

  Something still wrong, though. Something she, at any rate, didn’t understand…

  Waking again, she’d found Solange sitting on the bed, smiling at her. They’d shared this bed, apparently. Solange had been out attending to some of the animals, had also got porridge on the stove for breakfast, and she’d come up to see if Rosie might be ready for some.

  ‘I’ll get up.’

  ‘My, but you had some dreams!’

  ‘Oh, I spoilt your sleep…’

  ‘No. Really. But I think one was about the man on the train – the one you killed—’

  ‘Christ, you know about that?’

  ‘You told us, Rosie!’

  Lying back, remembering – last night, telling Ben about it – which she wouldn’t have done if she hadn’t been plastered – and Ben staring at her unbelievingly – as if he’d thought she was mad, or fantasizing, or still drunk… The drink element had arisen because they’d stopped – she, Vidor and his wife and Solange – at Vidor’s house, en route to the church at Broennou, and Marie-Claude had given her half a tumbler of brandy which she’d downed in one and then asked for another, and she’d passed out during the Memorial service. They’d got her out between the two of them – Vidor and Marie-Claude – supporting her as they’d have supported any other mourner overcome by grief – and put her in the priest’s charcoal-burning motorcar, in which he’d then driven them out here to the Brodard farm. She’d still been dopey, but remembered Ben loping out across the yard, the lower half of his face chalk-white where he’d just shaved off his beard, dressed as for a Flannagan and Allen show and howling, ‘Rosie, Rosie, oh Rosie, this can’t be bloody true!’

  Then in a bear-hug he’d caught a whiff of the brandy fumes, muttered, ‘My God, you’ve been at the grog again…’

  They’d forced a bowl of soup into her, apparently. That would have been when she’d told them her no-doubt garbled story. Then she’d flaked out again, and they’d carried her up here. Or Ben had.

  * * *

  Solange left them at the kitchen table after a while, went out to milk goats. Rosie said, ‘She’s a darling, isn’t she?’

  A nod. ‘Been through it, too. She really has.’

  ‘How long have you been here with her?’

  ‘Oh – ten days, thereabouts. Why?’

  ‘Just curious.’ She glanced at him: then at the window, a distant back view of the girl. ‘But don’t worry – I’m asking no questions, Benjamin.’

  For a second she thought he was going to take her up on it, burst into song – their song. Instead, a double-take, catching on late to the innuendo… ‘I’d damn well hope not!’ He added, ‘Wh
en I got here, she was in shock. It was a hell of a thing she went through!’

  ‘Yes. I didn’t mean—’

  ‘I’d say you did, but it doesn’t matter. Long as you don’t insult her with any more so-called non-questions.’ His hand covered hers, on the scarred old table. ‘You’ve been through more than any person ever should but it’s over now, Rosie. You can relax, be yourself again. You’re safe – almost. Also you’re with me, and I’m not letting go of you. By this time tomorrow – well, best not to speak too soon—’

  * * *

  There’d been some doubt whether they’d be using this pinpoint at all, apparently. The deadline yesterday had been for Vidor to make up his mind whether to give London the all-clear or warn them off. Vidor had been due to come out to the farm some time yesterday afternoon, to talk it over with Ben, but he’d arrived on his bicycle at about midday and asked, ‘Remember there was a girl you landed here that last visit – I told you, she went on the train with the man they arrested? Well, she’s on her way. Paris train, this afternoon. God knows how I’m going to get her off it, the way things are…’

  It had been Ben’s brilliant idea – Vidor had told her this, she remembered, on the way to his house – Ben who’d thought of pretending it was Solange’s sister coming and having a crowd there to welcome her. Vidor had then set it up – briefed the station-master and persuaded both Solange and the cure to take part: the cure’s condition for doing so had been that they should do it properly – a genuine Memorial for old Brodard.

  The news that she was coming had also clinched the decision about the M.G.B. Vidor would have voted for it anyway: he had eleven people here to get away – alternatively either to house and feed for another month, or to try to shift to one of the other three established pinpoints. There were four flyers left over from last time – from Ben’s fiasco with the dinghy – three more who’d arrived a few days ago, plus Ben and his two seamen, and now Rosie.