Fear gripped her. Not of death itself – she knew for certain that it was heading her way in the next few seconds – but of leaving her life. Unfinished. Undefined. And in such a wretched mess. Rain sheeted down into the open cockpit, soaking her, flooding her goggles, blinding her. Battering the fragile plane as ferocious winds wrenched it out of her control. Every muscle in her body was rigid, taut with effort as she fought back, hauling on the control stick. Aware that the unseen ground below was hurtling towards her.
Fear does strange things to you. It strips you. To bare bones. Everything bleeds away from you. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t see. Yet her hands were strong and knew exactly what they were doing, even while she could feel the plane trying to tear itself apart as it dived, shaking and shuddering. Within the semi-darkness of the storm cloud, the luminous instruments glowed an eerie green from the dashboard and she struggled to read the altimeter. It was hidden within the blur of water.
How high? Five hundred metres?
One hundred?
Less?
She braced herself against the safety harness. Muscles twitching. Bones ready for impact. But still her hands would not give up. They were as stubborn as her mind and pulled relentlessly on the stick, praying that the control rods to the elevators would not snap. And just when she could almost smell the summer grass growing beneath her, she felt movement. A change of angle. Faint at first, but growing. Centimetre by centimetre the nose of the Gipsy Moth clawed its way up into the air. The de Havilland engine roared in triumph and Romy let rip with a roar of her own.
She breathed again. Felt her grip on life tighten once more. Heart pounding, skin sweating, mind soaring, she gave the engine full throttle, circled to gain height and pushed on through the rain northwards up the Rhône valley. To Paris.
The lights of Paris gleamed through a grey veil that obscured the features of the late afternoon. The rain came down on the wings of Romy’s biplane like a million silver bullets, the visibility so bad that even in the cockpit the wing tips were shrouded from view. To her, it felt like having her fingertips cut off. The city spread itself beneath her, the pulsing heart of France that never missed a beat or a wild dance step, however severe the summer storms that raged overhead.
It was with a rush of relief that Romy spotted the string of landing lights as she dropped altitude and held the biplane steady in the teeth of the buffeting north-westerly. Easy now, don’t panic. The small private DeFosse airfield was tucked away on the eastern edge of Paris and emerged reluctantly through the gloom. From above she caught a glimpse of the windsock and of two figures running towards the centre of the landing area, hunched over against the rain. They stood there in yellow oilskins, waiting to catch hold of the wing tips of the aircraft the moment she landed.
‘Martel,’ Romy muttered through chilled lips, ‘one of these days I’ll take your bloody head off if you’re not careful.’
She eased back on the throttle, reducing her approach speed to fifty-eight knots and fighting the wind all the way. She felt the wheels touch down and strong arms seize the wings to hold the plane firmly on the ground, defying the wind’s attempts to flip it over. The men ran alongside and, as she taxied over the grass to the hangar, muddy sprays of water rose like a bow wave on each side of her.
Landing a plane did something bad to her. It was always the same, in rain or in sunshine. Each time she felt the wheels clutch at the grass strip, she experienced a profound sense of failure, a fierce twist in her gut. She wasn’t meant to be down here. She belonged up there, high above the clouds, all alone. Yes, of course she faced dangers when flying. Yes, sometimes she teetered on the edge, chest tight with fear. But it was always her hand on the control stick, no one else’s. Down here, caged within the mean streets of Paris, she felt battered by storms far worse than those in the sky.
She throttled back to 900 rpm, keeping the throttle fully open until the airscrew ceased its rotating. She checked that the ignition, electrics and fuel cock were all turned off, then with reluctance climbed stiffly out of the cockpit on to the wing, flexing her knees, and jumped down to the concrete floor inside the hangar. Immediately, the larger of the two oilskins hurried towards her and the weight of a heavy hand landed on the sodden shoulder of her leather flying jacket.
‘What the devil do you think you’re doing, you bloody fool? Flying in a storm like this.’
Romy shook her shoulder free. She tried to undo the strap of her leather helmet, but even inside fur-lined gloves her hands were numb with cold.
‘What are you grumbling about, Martel?’ She had to shout over the drumming of the rain on the corrugated roof. ‘You’ve got what you wanted.’ She shifted the package that was tucked under her arm and dumped it into the big man’s hands. ‘Here, take it.’
But she could feel his anger still there in the damp air that she breathed, clinging to her skin, dragging her back into this grimy world on the ground. His voice buzzed in her ears, like a wireless not quite correctly tuned. She always had to reaccustom herself to the sound of people instead of the warm steady throb of a four-cylinder de Havilland engine.
‘Any message from Mendez?’ he asked.
‘Yes. He said to tell you the package is complete.’
‘Good.’
Something resembling a nod of satisfaction escaped him. He pushed the square brown-paper package under his dripping oilskin without a thank you.
‘You could have got yourself killed. Merde! Will you never learn?’
But she wasn’t fooled. ‘You’re only worried about who would fly your precious planes if I weren’t around,’ she responded.
The lights of the hangar flickered on and off in the storm, sending strange-shaped shadows crawling up and down the walls. Beneath her flying boots the concrete grew dark as water ran off every part of her, while at the far end of the hangar a mechanic broke off from working on the sleek blue Caudron C.460 racing plane that she coveted. He raised his head from the cowling and watched them with interest. Only then did Romy realise how loudly she was shouting.
Léo Martel was not a man to waste words. He uttered a long sigh as though a pocket of air had stuck in his windpipe. ‘Don’t kid yourself, Romaine. There are plenty of other tadpoles in the river. Eager pilots out there, queuing up to get your flying job or any other job around here that means messing around with planes.’ He started to turn away but stopped himself and gave her a hard, exasperated stare. Raindrops still glistened like diamonds in his thick black eyebrows, ruining the effect of his stare. ‘And they are men,’ he added. ‘Who have more sense than to risk destroying my plane.’
She gave him a tight smile. ‘But they are nowhere near as good as I am and you damn well know it.’
She stepped aside to fetch the chocks to tuck under the Moth’s wheels, but when she turned, Martel was already hurrying off without a backward glance, broad shoulders hunched against the summer storm.
‘You bastard,’ she called after him.
‘Don’t mind him.’
It was Jules Roget, the other yellow oilskin. A tiny wisp of a man who barely came up to her chin. In his early fifties, he had a permanent grey stubble on his chin and possessed clever hands that were far too big for him. A mechanic’s hands. They had the patience of Job and could cajole and beguile the most stubborn of engines to succumb to their persuasive touch. Romy smiled at him.
‘Merci, Jules. Thanks for coming out in the rain.’
‘How was the flight?’
‘Bumpy. Cold. Wet.’
‘So you had a good time then.’
She laughed. ‘Yes, you’re right. I had a good time. The Gipsy ran sweet as a bird.’
She took down a chamois cloth from a hook on the hangar wall and started to wipe down the sleek blue fabric flanks of the plane with long sweeping strokes that caressed its skin. She wasn’t ready to abandon her Moth. Not yet.
‘He worries,’ Jules said to the back of her flying helmet.
‘Of course
he does. He worries about his plane and his package.’
Jules’ voice, when it came again, was sharper. ‘No, ma chérie, he worries about his pilot.’
The DeFosse airfield was small and cramped, with a bad habit of throwing up clumps of turf under your wheels on takeoff. But its bar was long and inviting and abundantly stocked with an array of the finest wines that could rinse the grit off your tongue and the aches from your bones. The place was a favourite with the pilots and Romy was sorely tempted when she heard the contented hum within it now, but with reluctance she turned her back on the bar and headed down the corridor. To a green door with a plaque that declared Martel Enterprises.
Romy entered without bothering to knock. She steered clear of the hard chair in front of the desk and slumped on to the sofa against the wall, despite its horsehair innards oozing out like a disease. She threw her satchel on the floor, stretched the cramps out of her back muscles and pulled off her wet flying helmet. She mussed a hand through her short dirty-blonde curls, but immediately she regretted losing the firm grip of the leather on her head. In an odd way it stopped her thoughts from spilling out.
Martel’s office was ramshackle. Heaps of files sprawled on every surface. He was seated behind his desk with the brown-paper package open in front of him and was reading intently from a sheet of paper that looked like a list of some sort, though Romy couldn’t read it from where she was sitting.
He was a big man, wide-shouldered and too muscular for a suit. Like a lot of big men, he looked older than he was. Romy guessed he must be somewhere around thirty-five but he could easily pass for more. There was something about his grey eyes. A sense of too many things seen and done, and much of the time his eyelids hovered at half-mast, as though he was only half engaged with the world around him. It was not the case, but some were fooled into the mistake of believing it was. He flicked a glance in Romy’s direction.
‘Is everything there?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘Yes. It’s all here.’ He placed the sheet of paper face down on the desk. ‘Any problems your end?’
She could have told him about the hailstones that tried to punch holes in the fabric of her wings just north of Limoges, or about the mist over the Pyrenees mountains, so dense it was like flying through milk. Always expecting a jagged chunk of Spanish cliff to smack her in the face. Or she could have mentioned the welcoming committee of three Fiat CR.32 fighters belonging to the Spanish Nationalist Air Force that meant she had to drop like a stone into a deep valley where the shadows hid her Moth from sight.
But she said none of these things. She shrugged and said, ‘No problems.’
‘Did Colonel Garcia Mendez take delivery of the crate himself?’
‘He did. He and his Republican troops were waiting on the airstrip and unloaded it fast from the Moth to a truck. He gave me that package for you.’
‘Nothing else?’
‘No.’
She lied well. She knew she did. So why did he blink like that, damn him? As if he could smell the lie. He rose from his chair, poured a shot of his favourite pastis into two glasses and walked over to her. He handed her one glass without comment. She drank it down in one slug, faster than she meant to. She didn’t want him to think she was desperate for it. But he took no notice and did the same with his own, then squatted down on his heels in front of her. Still big, even when making himself small.
‘Alors, Romaine. What happened?’
She could lie again. He needn’t know. Sure as hell Garcia Mendez wouldn’t tell him. The Spanish colonel knew exactly what Martel thought about stepping over the line.
‘Cigarette?’ she asked. Buying time.
Impatiently he pulled out one of his black Turkish smokes, handed it over and lit it for her. His eyes watched her like a hawk.
‘There was a man,’ she said. ‘He needed a ride. The front cockpit was empty.’
‘Merde!’
Romy inhaled hard on her cigarette, silencing herself.
‘His name?’ he demanded.
‘I didn’t ask.’
‘Where did you drop him?’
‘Outside Béziers.’
Martel’s breath came at her, a blast in her face. ‘Romaine, for Christ’s sake, you know my orders. You fly to Spain to do the job I ask and fly back here. Nothing more. The risks are high enough as it is.’
‘The man was wounded, Martel, and Franco’s troops were after him. He had to get out of Spain. He needed help. That’s what we’re committed to doing, isn’t it? Helping the Republicans to win the civil war in Spain and defeat Fascism, that’s what we’re working for, you know that.’ She turned her face from him. ‘I couldn’t leave the poor bastard there to die.’
‘Yes, you could. And yes, you should.’ Martel rose to his feet, towering over her. ‘One man, Romaine. Is one man worth putting our whole network at risk for? Use your brains, girl.’
Romy was wet. Cold. Hungry. She stood up.
‘Go to hell,’ she muttered and edged around his bulk, heading for the door. The heat of the alcohol in her empty stomach made her crave more.
He let her get as far as one hand on the door handle before he spoke.
‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’
She glanced back. He was standing in front of his desk holding her satchel in one hand and a Manila envelope in the other. His gaze was skimming over her from head to toe, the way he would assess an aircraft to see if it was sound. Romy cursed under her breath and retraced her steps. As she took the envelope from him she slipped him a smile of sorts.
‘I don’t mean to get you riled up, boss.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s just a natural talent I have.’
His face didn’t change expression but his broad chest in its faded denim shirt heaved for a moment, as though suppressing a ripple of laughter. She reached quickly for the satchel. He held on to it.
‘What the hell have you got in here?’ he demanded. ‘It weighs—’
‘An engine part picked up in Spain for Jules.’ She removed the strap from his grip.
‘Lying around on the airstrip, was it?’
‘Something like that.’
She slung the strap over her shoulder and strode to the door again.
‘Where are you off to in such an almighty hurry?’ he asked.
She tossed him a grin now that she was safely out of reach. ‘I’m going to a party.’
CHAPTER THREE
Romy rode the Paris Métro, taking Line 2 from Place de Clichy, and walked the rest of the way down Avenue Kléber. Named after one of Napoleon’s generals who threw his weight around in Egypt at the end of the eighteenth century, it was one of the twelve grand boulevards that spread like the points of a star from Place de l’Étoile with the imposing Arc de Triomphe at its centre. This part of the city unsettled her. Like walking on glass.
This was where her sister lived.
The rain had eased back to no more than a drizzle. It painted a silvery gloss on the elegant avenue and drew forth the whisper of the leaves on the plane trees and the scent of the earth in the millions of window boxes that adorned the City of Light. Paris had always had a special smell in the wet, a perfume all its own that Romy inhaled with relief. There had been moments during that last storm when she had not expected to enjoy the scent of Paris again. Except in a wooden box under the rich black soil of the Père Lachaise cemetery.
Avenue Kléber ran directly through the 16th arrondissement to the Place du Trocadéro and Romy approached with her usual caution. As if it might bite. The road was lined with grandiose seven-storey buildings, embassies and the palatial government offices that had once been the Hotel Majestic. They all boasted intricate stonework and sculpted classical figures. Paired columns flanked doorways. To live here you had to be rich. Or powerful. Preferably both. It was always the same, the urge that seized her to run to the house with the stone lions guarding the massive doors and hammer like a mad creature to be let in.
And yet. At the same time she had to shut down the
urge to turn. To flee. Her breath came hot and fast, scalding her throat. She hurried up the wide front steps, hitched the satchel on her shoulder and jabbed at the brass doorbell.
Don’t mess it up. Not this time. Smile, be nice, don’t rattle her. How hard can it be? Oh Christ, flowers. I should have bought flowers for her. She glanced to the end of the street where a bedraggled vendeuse under an umbrella was selling blooms from a barrow and took a hasty step in her direction. But too late. The door swung open.
Her sister’s apartment took up the whole of the sixth étage and the door to it was open by the time Romy stepped out of the lift. A maid in a black dress and white lace cap stood on the threshold, wielding a polite smile that didn’t quite hide the unease in her eyes.
‘Good afternoon, Mademoiselle Romaine. Madame was expecting you earlier. She’s busy now with—’
‘The party. Yes, I know, Yvette. I’m late.’
She entered the handsome hall that greeted her with the fragrance of roses. Six lavish arrangements of white roses adorned the semicircular reception area, overwhelming Romy with their scent. She longed to light up a cigarette to banish it. She didn’t care for roses. Not any more. Their sickly-sweet perfume carried too many tainted memories.
The maid hurried away to inform her mistress of the new arrival and Romy was left to stand under the watchful gaze of two vast portraits. They stared down at her from heavy gilt frames that, until Florence’s marriage, used to hang in her parents’ house. They were the formal paintings of her two formidable grandfathers, resplendent in full military regalia and intimidating moustaches. Romy could not bear to look at them. Instead she set off in the maid’s wake across the expanse of black and white Italian tiles to the drawing room.
It was one of those lavish fin-de-siècle Parisian salons with high ceilings, moulded cornices and silk wall hangings that cried out to be filled with music and champagne and formal dancing. But today three rows of children in party dresses were perched on chairs watching a puppet show of woodland animals. The children were wide-eyed and giggling. Behind them a line of well-groomed mothers sat with wine glasses in their hands, but at the side of the room the maid was speaking to a tall young woman in a chic silver-grey dress. It looked far too stylish for a child’s party. The woman was Florence.
The Betrayal Page 2
