Neither of us mentions that our troops rely mainly on horses for transport instead of mechanised vehicles. What antiquated idiocy. I am tempted to reveal to Horst that in one document I viewed in my husband’s desk, it stated that the amount spent on petroleum in the French Army was less than one quarter of the amount spent on horse fodder.
How can that be true? It makes me laugh out loud it is so incroyable.
But now that La Chambre has replaced the treacherous Pierre Cot as Air Force Minister, and the Anschluss has given our politicians the kick up the arse they needed, France is about to commission five thousand new military aircraft. But Horst already knows this. Because my husband told him.
We order wine. I wait until the bottle is nearly empty and then I lean across the table and place my hand on top of his. My touch is light. But it pins him there. I feel a ripple of surprise shoot through him.
‘Horst, tell me, mein Freund, what is your interest in my sister?’
To my astonishment, he blushes like a schoolboy.
‘I like her,’ he says. ‘I like her very much.’ His German accent grows stronger with his embarrassment. ‘She is a very interesting young woman.’
‘I don’t deny that.’
‘You don’t object?’
‘Of course not.’
But I do. I object. I object like hell. He doesn’t deserve her.
He removes his hand from under mine and raises his glass. ‘To twins,’ he smiles.
‘To twins,’ I echo and down half my glass. ‘As long as you have no other reason for being interested in Romaine.’
‘What other reason?’
‘Don’t hurt her, Horst.’ I look away towards the piano, so that he will not see what is in my eyes. ‘Or I will make you regret it.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Gare de Saint-Charles is a railway station perched high on a hill to the east of Marseille city centre. Romy loitered in her new dress just outside the main building while Martel went inside to purchase train tickets.
It allowed her respite, as she looked out across the haphazard roofs of Marseille whose ridges were slick with gold from the evening sun. In the distance the church of Notre Dame de la Garde rose like a watchtower, but close at hand a magnificent flight of one hundred and four wide stone steps swept up to the station, dotted with evening travellers intent on their own business. A few men shot her a glance as they passed, but with nothing more than lust in their eyes. Lust she could live with. Suspicion she couldn’t.
The wind off the harbour ruffled her skirt around her shins. The best that could be said for the garment was that it was dull. Not exactly a sack, but almost. It was Martel’s choice – black, straight up and down, an old woman’s dress he’d found in a street market. He claimed she would blend in on the train more effectively than in her flying dungarees. It seemed to her that the only thing she’d blend in with on the train would be the coal wagon, but she wasn’t going to argue. He wanted her to be unnoticeable. They had got this far. Now there was just the night train to Paris.
Martel was suddenly at her side, brisk and businesslike.
‘Here’s your ticket.’ He handed it to her.
‘It’s for a first-class couchette.’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you have one too?’
‘No. Yours was the last of the couchettes. All the rest are taken. Don’t look like that, Romaine. I am in the next carriage, in second class. Anyway, it’s safer for us to travel apart.’ His gaze scanned the one hundred and four steps and the Boulevard d’Athènes beyond. ‘They will be looking for a man and woman travelling together.’
They? Who are they?
She leaned closer to him, her head near his, and seized the front of his shirt, a big fistful of the grubby black material twisted in her hand.
‘Do you have a gun for me in that bag of yours?’ she said in a low whisper.
The bag in question lay at his feet, khaki canvas with a fat brass lock on the front. She prodded it with her foot. It felt weighty. The silence that followed her words lasted so long, Romy thought he may not have heard above the noises of the city. She felt the heat of his chest under his shirt.
‘No,’ he said at last. Curt and crisp. ‘I don’t.’ He picked up the bag as if it weighed nothing and started towards the station quai, his broad back blanking any further questions. ‘Come on, Romaine, the train is . . .’
‘Liar,’ she hissed after him. ‘Liar.’
‘Lock the door. As soon as I leave, lock the door and don’t open it for anyone. Understand?’
‘Yes, Martel. I understand.’
‘Promise me you’ll do it.’
‘Don’t worry so much.’
‘Promise me.’
‘I promise.’
She didn’t want him to leave. Didn’t want him to go where she couldn’t see him in second class. Where she couldn’t watch his back.
‘You could stay,’ she said. ‘Here.’
‘Overnight? In your couchette?’
A smile softened his features and his gaze flicked to the bench seat that would soon be made up into a narrow bed for her. Martel was too big for this small confined space, like squashing a bull into a matchbox.
He shook his head.
‘In the chair, I meant.’ She gestured to the plush seat by the window. ‘Why not? Are you frightened I might jump on you in the middle of the night?’
The moment she said the words she regretted them.
But he uttered a rich deep chuckle. ‘No, I think I’d just about manage to fight you off. But if I spend the night in your couchette, the conductor will know about it and that means that very soon the whole carriage will know about it. So what happens then to our intention of travelling unnoticed?’
But he was still laughing, little puffs of amusement escaping from him, and Romy could not stop her mind imagining what it would be like to jump on him in the middle of the night.
Don’t, she told herself. Don’t, Romaine, dammit. He is not a man who would want to touch soiled goods. She felt awkward and would have moved away but there was nowhere to go in the tiny compartment. He patted her cheek soothingly, as though she were a troublesome dog.
‘Lock the door and you’ll be safe,’ he said and abruptly left.
The spinning of the train wheels became Romy’s thoughts. Turning over and over relentlessly in her head, trapped on a track that did not let them go, would not let them escape. She sat on the bench in her tiny couchette, staring out at the black hole of night beyond the window, the lights of villages flashing past like reminders that there were other lives out there. Other chances.
You cannot go back. Only forward.
The Blue Train was the province of the rich. It smelled of money. And expensive perfume. The scents seeped from the lavishly wood-panelled and luxuriously appointed carriages. It was Martel’s decision to take the night express train – called the Blue Train because of its blue-painted carriages – from Marseille to Paris Gare de Lyon, where it would arrive tomorrow morning. She had heard that famous people like Charlie Chaplin, Winston Churchill and even England’s handsome Prince of Wales regularly bumped into each other in its glossy corridors or over a glass of fine claret in the dining car, cigar smoke drifting in their wake.
But who else was out there? Behind closed doors.
She worried about Martel. She wished more than ever that he had stayed here and cared less about attracting talk among fellow travellers. There was the noise of passengers coming and going in the corridor and at one point a high-pitched yelp that disconcerted her, but then silence.
A polite knock sounded on the couchette door. Romy made no sound but slid over and put her ear to it.
‘Who is it?’
‘The carriage attendant, mademoiselle. To set up the bed.’
It could be the attendant. Or it could be someone with a gun aimed at her head.
There were ten couchettes in each carriage. Romy counted the doors. She was standing in the corridor,
swaying with the movement of the train, the lamps dim and all the doors tightly shut while she waited for the attendant to finish his job of converting her seat to a fully made-up bed. It looked comfortable enough, but his effort was a waste of time because she planned to sit in the chair in the dark facing the door. If anyone came for her he would be silhouetted against the corridor light, so she would see him before he saw her.
That was it. Not much of a plan, she was willing to admit, but the best she could come up with. And a spanner. She had taken it from the lorry’s toolkit and secreted it in her shoulder bag. So yes, there would be a spanner in her hand.
‘Haven’t you finished yet, monsieur?’ The voice came from a young woman standing in the open doorway next to Romy’s. She was draped against the doorpost with a scarlet leather suitcase behind her. ‘I’m dead on my feet with exhaustion.’ She mopped her brow in a dramatic fashion. ‘God only knows how much I need my bed.’
Romy smiled at her. It was impossible not to. She had the kind of face that was magnetic, the kind you couldn’t turn away from, it exerted such a pull. Huge black eyes and a wide embracing smile that could swallow you whole. Skin as dark and glossy as polished ebony, its colour emphasised by the cream sleeveless frock that clung to her slender frame. Romy didn’t blame the attendant for abandoning her own couchette and rushing to this startling young woman’s instead.
‘You okay, honey?’ the woman asked Romy, coming to stand alongside her in the corridor. She spoke French with a strong American accent. ‘You look kind of rough.’
So much for blending in.
‘Just tired, thank you. Who is this little one?’ She ruffled the ears of a honey-coloured puppy that was tucked under the woman’s arm.
‘This is Mimi, my Tibetan spaniel. Say hello, Mimi.’ The animal yapped obligingly. ‘She is supposed to travel in a horrid cage in the luggage car but, hell and damnation, would you want to spend a night in a stinking cage? I sure wouldn’t.’ She laughed, long and loud. ‘Our friend here,’ she gestured to the uniformed attendant at work in her couchette, ‘has kindly agreed to overlook it.’
Romy could imagine a lot of people overlooking things for this woman. She had recognised her at once – it was Josephine Baker, the famous American singer from the backstreets of St Louis. She had taken Paris by storm a decade ago, entrancing them with her wild uninhibited dancing in the Folies Bergère, outrageous in little more than a few bananas strung into a skimpy skirt. Yet here she was, seemingly travelling alone with her fluffy pet. The attendant departed but for several minutes they continued to stand in easy silence peering out into the blackness as the train rattled its way northward, seeing only their own blurred reflections in the glass.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a decent drink in that suitcase of yours,’ Romy muttered.
Josephine Baker slid a look at her from under thick black lashes, inspecting her drab dress and the grazes on her face, and something in her eyes.
‘Bourbon do you?’ she offered.
‘Perfect.’
‘Marlene Dietrich strutted around like a German whore.’ Josephine Baker laughed, a raucous sound as she rolled her eyes to imply antics too decadent to name. ‘With her fat cigars and painted nipples and naked midnight swims.’
Romy liked her new drinking companion. They had talked far into the night in Josephine’s compartment. Matched each other drink for drink, to the incessant rhythm of the wheels beneath them grinding away the hours. Together they eased their loneliness. Josephine loved to talk. Loved to relive moments of her life in vivid technicolour, her triumphs on stage, the time she danced naked, painted all over in gold, at a party in Neuilly, and her ever-growing list of husbands.
Romy waved her glass at Josephine, spilling some down her wrist. ‘Are you travelling alone?’
‘I am not alone,’ the singer insisted brightly. ‘My precious Mimi is with me.’ She dropped a kiss on the dog’s domed little head. ‘My wretch of a husband abandoned me for an American slut, but I have a wonderful chocolate-factory millionaire waiting for me in Paris. You won’t believe how he melts when I heat him up.’ She laughed at that. ‘What about you? All alone?’
‘No. My friend is travelling in the next carriage.’ She laughed at Josephine’s raised eyebrow. ‘No, not that kind of friend. He’s my boss.’
‘A boss who travels second class while his employee travels first class? Mon dieu, girl, tell me more about this rare animal. What kind of man is he?’
With no warning a rush of words to describe Martel poured into Romy’s head, words that made her silence her tongue with a long swig of bourbon. She picked out one of them.
‘He is loyal.’
‘Tell me more.’
‘Tall.’
‘More.’
‘Courageous.’
‘More.’
‘A pain in the arse.’
Josephine loved that. ‘He’s a man, so what do you expect?’
‘And he saved my life.’
Five words. They slipped out. She downed the rest of her drink.
He saved my life.
‘How? Don’t stop there, girl. What did he do?’
But the train started to shudder and squeal as its brakes were applied and they both turned to look out the window. Lights were pricking holes in the darkness.
‘We’re coming into Lyon,’ Romy commented.
‘Forget Lyon. What the hell did this man of yours do to save your life?’
Romy shook her head, suddenly unable to speak. She felt again the impact of Martel slamming her out of the path of the Messerschmitt’s bullets, the full weight of his body crushing her bones. She must have uttered a faint sound because Josephine’s hand reached out and held hers.
An ill-lit station platform slid into view, wreathed in ghosts of engine smoke and restless shadows. A huddle of four men stood waiting on the platform. They were wearing police uniforms.
‘Where did you embark on this train?’
‘Marseille.’
‘Where do you intend to disembark?’
‘Paris.’
The gendarme held her ticket in his hand. He knew all this. He had led her back to her own couchette to question her.
‘How long will you be staying in Paris?’
‘I live there.’
‘What was your business in Marseille?’
‘I wanted to go to Nice. To see how the rich live in their yachts, maybe even get a job on one, but I ran out of money. So I slept on the beach and now I’m heading home.’
She shrugged and let her head sink on her shoulders as though dispirited. The gendarme, with the quick eyes and the wide flared nostrils that seemed to sniff out lies, glanced at her dreary dress and appeared to believe her. Perhaps Martel had been right to choose it.
‘Yet you travel first class,’ he pointed out.
‘Yes.’
‘How do you afford the ticket?’
‘A gentleman friend bought it for me. I met him on the beach.’
He regarded her with distaste. Behind him stood a short rotund man who was not in uniform. He wore a smart black suit that belonged on an undertaker and a perpetual half-smile that frightened Romy far more than the other one’s frown. Together they breathed all the air inside the tiny couchette, leaving none for her. She felt she was suffocating. She backed off until she was jammed against the window and opened the top slat to let in the night breeze.
‘Why are you here?’ she asked. ‘What is it you want?’
‘Have you been to Spain recently?’ the gendarme asked, ignoring her questions.
‘No.’
‘Are you sure, mademoiselle?’ the smiler added. ‘We are looking for someone who has come to France from Spain.’
‘Of course I’m sure. I told you, I travelled from Nice.’
‘Indeed you did.’
‘So it’s not me. In which case, will you please leave?’
The smiler looked out of the dark window. The train was still stationary, the driver wai
ting for instructions. Romy could feel sweat gather between her shoulder blades and it took an effort not to take her spanner to the intruders.
As though reading her mind, the smiler announced, ‘We wish to search your couchette.’
Without waiting for a response he reached for her bag. It was lying on the bed and she was too late to snatch it from his fingers. He pulled it open, rummaged roughly inside and extracted the heavy spanner. It looked threatening in his hand.
‘What have we here?’ His plasticine smile widened. ‘Now why on earth would a young woman need to travel with a spanner, mademoiselle?’
She stared back at him through cold blank eyes. ‘It gets dangerous on the beach at night. You should try it some time.’
The policeman moved towards her and she knew he was about to put handcuffs on her and remove her from the train.
‘Well now, boys.’ It was Josephine Baker’s easy drawl. ‘What’s going on here?’ She beamed at them from the doorway. ‘Mademoiselle Duchamps and I have a poker date and you’re holding us up.’
She raised a pack of cards in one hand and what was left of the bourbon bottle in the other. ‘I know you brave boys have a job to do, but I’d really appreciate it if you could do it elsewhere.’
It was as simple as that. The celebrity singer seemed to reel the two men in on a string and then shooed them out into the corridor. She locked the door the moment they were gone.
‘Merci,’ Romy said quietly.
‘Come on, girl,’ Josephine grinned and started to shuffle the cards. ‘I’m going to thrash your arse at poker.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
It is a sin. To kill someone. To take a human life. It is a wicked mortal sin.
That certainty burned in Romy’s brain as she dealt the cards with Josephine Baker. Again and again the ace of spades – the death card – turned up in her hand. It stalked her that night, so that when a faint tap sounded on the door of her couchette she was convinced that she would find the gaunt figure of Death on the other side of it. But instead it was a black-garbed figure she recognised.
The Betrayal Page 14
