‘Did you know this, Florence? That they were there. The two Germans. Not a figment of my imagination or a dream, as you told me in Monico’s.’ Her grip on my knees tightens. ‘Have you known this all along?’
I open my mouth to lie, but she will see the lie for what it is. So I sidestep her question with one of my own.
‘What makes you think they were there?’
‘Samir told me about Horst. He saw him there.’
‘Samir?’ My heart thumps. ‘What did he see?’
‘Not much.’
‘And Müller?’
‘I spoke with him this morning. I told him I remembered him in the room and he didn’t deny it.’
The world splinters around me. I leap to my feet, dragging Romaine with me. ‘You did what?’ I scream in her face. Yet I clamp a hand over her mouth to prevent her replying with the words I refuse to hear. ‘You told Müller that you remembered?’
She nods. Eyes dark with anger. I know it is for me.
I release her and drop my face in my hands with a moan that I drag up from hell. ‘Romaine, you have signed your own death warrant.’
We sit in the Ritz hotel bath together. I know it is odd. I know it is not what we are supposed to do, but it is strangely soothing. The shaking of our limbs stops and our heartbeats climb down enough for us to talk quietly, facing each other from opposite ends, wrapped in warm water, the way we began our life. On the side of the bath sit our drinks, untouched.
‘You remembered right,’ I say. ‘You were asleep in Papa’s reading chair. Müller and Horst had come to the house for a secret meeting and Papa summoned me from the garden to join them. He knew I supported their political aims, but also because he wanted me to marry Horst. Papa wanted a political alliance with Germany through blood ties. He was certain that Adolf Hitler would one day rule France as well as Germany.’
‘Did you want to marry Horst?’
‘I was interested, yes. But not after Papa’s death.’
‘Was he the man Chloé calls Herr Dummkopf?’
I smile. ‘Yes. But nothing ever happened between us.’
Romaine sits there looking at me as expectantly as Chloé, her cropped hair twisting into tight curls in the hot steam.
I keep my account of that day short.
‘You woke and heard them all discussing plans to assassinate Théodore Steeg.’
‘What? Merde! The leader of the Radical Socialist Party?’
‘The same. He was a pro-Communist traitor to our country and as Governor General of Algeria had removed power from the traditional elite. There was talk of him being made President of the Council of France and it had to be stopped. Papa was the one to stop it.’
Romaine looks at me as if I have two heads, but I hurry on. I want to get it over with.
‘You made your presence known by shouting at Papa. By swearing to go to the police. If you did, Papa, Müller and Horst would have been arrested, tried and executed, so . . .’ I splash some water at her as if I can splash away the images in my head. ‘They were not so keen on the idea. You can’t blame them.’
‘I do blame them. And I blame you.’
I leave Romaine’s words to float in the water.
‘Anyway, Müller threatened you with a gun, but Papa said he would make sure you held your tongue. But Müller did not trust you. He came at you with the gun. To shoot you in the head.’
My throat closes. I see the study clearly. Romaine’s young eyes enraged and fixed on our father. Her cry of ‘Papa’. Her fear draining colour from her face.
I swallow a handful of the bathwater to wash out my mouth. ‘You snatched the paperknife from the desk to defend yourself against Müller, but Papa stepped between you. He tried to defend you with the paperweight. There was a struggle between all three of you. Papa went down. Müller hit you with the paperweight.’
My words run out.
Romaine leans forward, takes my wet face between her hands and kisses my forehead. It feels like forgiveness.
‘Why,’ she whispers, ‘have you never told me the truth before?’
‘Oh my sister, to keep you safe. Müller trusted me, but if he ever thought you knew the truth and might confess all to the police, he would have been the first to pull the trigger on you. Roland was not there. He was in the garden. He has always hated you because I made him lie in court for you.’
Our eyes hold on to each other. I slam both hands down on the surface of the water, creating a tidal wave of grief that engulfs us both. ‘It was an accident, Romaine, it wasn’t your fault.’
There. I have given her release. She can put down her burden of guilt.
And then I say again. ‘Romaine, you have signed your own death warrant.’
Romaine won’t let me take her home to my apartment. Now she knows about the immediate danger from Müller, she does not trust Roland. She says he will hand her over to the German before she even has her shoes off and when I tell her she is mistaken, she laughs and pats my cheek, the way she does to Chloé. I want to cry.
So I hand her over to her big bear of a companion with the large hands and an arm in a sling. He sweeps his good arm around her waist to show she belongs to him, not to me, and he whisks her off down Place Vendôme, driven through the darkness by an unpleasant-looking man with eyes that drill holes in me.
When I walk into the Avenue Kléber apartment, Roland is already there in the salon, whisky in hand.
‘Where is she?’ he asks at once. No greeting for me.
‘I don’t know. Who are the two men standing in the hall?’
‘They want to talk to Romaine. Müller sent them over.’
I suppress the shudder that shoots up my spine. I walk over, kiss his mouth and sip his whisky. I am ice-cold inside.
‘Where is she?’ he asks again. ‘I thought you’d bring her here.’
‘So did I. She wouldn’t come.’
‘Where do you think she has gone?’
Does he think I will betray my sister a second time?
‘To a filthy bar somewhere, I expect.’
He regards me over the rim of his glass, his eyes dark with suspicion. He can read me too easily.
‘More likely to that airfield she works out of,’ he comments. ‘What’s it called?’
He is testing me. We both know what it’s called.
‘DeFosse Airfield,’ I say.
He downs the last of his whisky and shrugs. ‘For her sake I hope that’s not where she has gone tonight.’
‘Why not?’
‘Müller has arranged a raid on it.’
‘Mon dieu!’
My husband smiles. He thinks he is finally rid of my sister.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
The evening air was humid and claustrophobic. It gathered in the car and tasted sour on the tongue. Her mind questioned over and over how much of what Florence had told her was true? Or was she lying to her again?
Romy was seated beside Martel on the rear seat and her hand rested on his chest, feeling the rise and fall of it as they sped through the dark streets of Paris. She worried about his shoulder wound. He should be resting it, but he dismissed any suggestion of doing so. His only concession was to wear the sling, but she knew he hated having his wings clipped. The steady rhythm of his breathing, the force within the broad expanse of his ribs, the gentleness of his hand on the thigh of her dress, calmed her.
She was on the run. In a borrowed dress and with no idea of where to flee. Müller’s tentacles stretched far across France. He’d had her watched on The Blue Train and bundled off it when the mood took him. He must have a whole galaxy of corrupt French officials in his pocket, which meant she could trust no one. Maybe even now their car was being followed. She twisted round and studied the traffic behind them, watching for a pair of headlamps that hung around too long. But it was impossible. Any one of them could mean trouble.
Trouble that would take her away from Martel. That thought sent her emotions crashing into each other and she brace
d herself for the answer to the question she must ask.
‘Where are we going?’
What she meant was where are you taking me? At what street corner are you going to drop me? He knew what she meant and he leaned forward to tap Noam on the shoulder.
‘Pull over,’ he ordered.
The car pulled over. Silence fell in its stuffy interior, except for the ticking of the engine, and Romy knew this was the beginning of the end. She had to leave Paris or Müller would find her. Léo couldn’t leave Paris because his business was here and he was not a man who could exist except around aircraft. She knew this. She’d known she would always have to share him with his aircraft and never force him to choose. But now it had come. The path divided. Martel opened the car door.
Everything was gone. Her sister. Chloé. Her home and mother. Her job. Her flying. Her love. Müller had robbed her of them all. Even of her father. The German had been there in the study and had been the cause of the struggle that killed him. Rage choked her.
Or was she the one who had robbed herself of them all?
‘Romy?’
She would not make it hard for him.
She lifted her head and found Noam was on the pavement, holding the car door open for her.
‘Do you drive?’ Noam asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Good. So climb into the driver’s seat. I have other things to do.’
He vanished into the night, leaving the door hanging open.
‘Well,’ Martel said, ‘what are you waiting for? Head for the airfield.’
The road abandoned the pavements of the city and plunged into the darker world that lay beyond the street lamps of Paris. Out here a car was more conspicuous. Its headlights carved a path through the night for all to see, but out here Romy felt freer, the air fresher in her lungs, her mind clearer. She kept a sharp eye on any headlights behind her but none seemed to linger too long or nudge up too close.
How long did she have?
Beside her in the passenger seat Martel was silent, wreathed in night thoughts, sitting very upright to ease his shoulder. Every now and again he would turn his head and stare at her wordlessly, as if imprinting her into his mind. As if saying goodbye.
When they were near the airfield, he said, ‘Douse the lights.’
She flicked a switch and abruptly the darkness swallowed them. For a moment they could see nothing and no one. But that meant nothing and no one could see them.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
FLORENCE
When the front doorbell chimes through the apartment, I pay it little heed. I am expecting no one. I have retreated to my bedroom because I must lie down. Everything hurts. Inside and out.
Roland is still in the salon with his whisky bottle and, last I saw, the two men sent over by Müller are still loitering in our hall with nothing to do except outstare the portraits of my ancestors. If I were a betting person like Romaine – which I am not – my money would be on the ancestors.
With my eyes closed I see Romaine’s face in the bath as I tell her the story of the struggle in the study for the gun and paperknife. Her face is alight. With pain. And with joy. The two combined like whisky and soda. Inseparable. I am thinking of that face, crippled with a desire for more, when I hear a noise. It’s from the hall. And I know that noise as precisely as I know Chloé’s laugh. The sound is short, sharp, like a puffed-up paper bag popping. The air snapping out of it.
It is the sound of a silencer.
I am off the bed and sweeping my hand under the mattress before another heartbeat finishes. It comes up with a Walther PPK, silencer already attached, nestled comfortably in my grip and my heart rate slows to a controlled level as I stand behind the door. Listening. Visualising.
The person I visualise is Chloé.
I open the bedroom door. A crack. The corridor is empty. The light is on. I step into it in stocking feet. I move smoothly and silently. Against the wall. Barely disturbing the air. I am good at this. This is what I do.
I reach the hall and keep my gun high as I peer around the corner. Two bodies on the tiles. Müller’s men. Their blood is marring the perfection of my decor. This is not the only thing marring my hall. Outside the closed salon door a solitary gunman is standing on guard and he looks stiff and bored. We can both hear raised voices inside the salon, and as I try in vain to decipher words, a wail of pain slithers under the door. It is Roland. It is at that point, when all sound is camouflaged by the cry, that I ease back the trigger of my Walther PPK.
The gun is silenced, so the only sound it makes is a dull pfft that can be easily missed. The body falling to the ground will make more noise than the gun, so I run forward and catch him. He is heavy. His arms loll over me as I lower him to the floor. It is a head wound. For exactly five heartbeats – I counted them – I stand in the centre of the tiled floor and am forced to make a choice. I do not want Roland to die or to suffer the kind of pain I know they are inflicting on him. There seem to be four unfamiliar voices in our salon and if I rush in with gun blazing, the likely outcome is that we both die. I might take a couple of intruders with me, but the result will not alter. Roland and I will die.
So I choose. It sends my heart into a panic of distress. I choose Chloé. I run back up the corridor on silent feet and open the door to her room. I leave the light off. By the glow from the corridor I pick up her dressing gown from the floor and creep to the bed. I lower my face close to my daughter’s, place a hand over her mouth and whisper her name in her ear. I repeat her name three times. Only then do her eyes flick open and I see panic tumble into them. I hold my hand firm.
‘Hush. Say nothing. Some bad people have come into the apartment and we have to leave.’ I kiss her forehead. ‘Be silent.’ I kiss her again. ‘Understand?’
She nods. I remove my hand. She remains silent. She is her mother’s daughter.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
An airfield at night is a lonely place. But to Romy it felt like coming home. She had missed it. Even in the dark it held no fears. The night sky was a velvet patchwork of stars and clouds, the moon rising to cast shadows where there should be none, turning a flat grassy field into a terrain of imagined potholes and pitfalls. Romy drove the car to a spot tucked up tight behind one of the hangars and switched off the engine.
In the sudden silence Martel swivelled in his seat to face her. All she could see of him was the strong black outline of his head and a thin spill of light across the pale sling on his arm. His voice was grave.
‘Romy, we have decisions to make.’
‘I know.’ Her hand found his broad knee and stayed there. ‘I can’t go back. Not even for Chloé. It breaks my heart to leave her behind, but I know that Florence will always love and care for her above everything.’
‘My plan is that we hole up here until dawn and make our escape then. Your bag is in the back of the car with mine, so you’ll have—’
‘We?’
He paused. ‘Yes. We.’
‘You and me?’
‘Of course, but we will need to—’
‘You’re coming with me? Leaving your business?’
He laughed, that big boisterous sound that always seemed to take Romy’s world by the scruff of its neck and shake it into a whole different pattern.
‘Bien sûr. There will be no business left after this anyway. But wherever we go, we go together. Surely you know that.’
She grinned at him. ‘I do now.’
‘So the decision to be made is where we go. We could head south to—’
‘No, Léo. They’re coming, the Germans. If not this year, it will be next.’
‘You want to leave France?’
‘No. But we may have no choice, because Müller has a network of—’
A noise cracked through the night. Ricocheted off the hangar walls. They leaped from the car, Martel cursing his shoulder, and raced to the corner. They saw two trucks. They had smashed down the barrier gate into the airfield and were roaring up to the bui
ldings. Headlights charging ahead of them. Severing the night from the silence.
‘Who are they?’ Romy hissed.
A dark blue wave of men in uniform spilled out of the back of both trucks, fanning out to encircle the main buildings that stood off to the right of the hangars. The airfield filled with shouts. With torches jabbing at the darkness. Rifles at the ready.
‘Are they after us, Léo?’
Just then a tall man with silver hair emerged from the onrush of the assault force to stand at the centre, directing manoeuvres. He was in full military uniform, a German general’s uniform. It was Müller. With French police under his command. It stank of corruption to Romy.
‘Quick! We must get to Jules,’ Martel urged.
‘Jules?’ He was Martel’s right-hand man at the airfield. ‘He’s here at this hour? Why?’
They backed behind the hangar once more. Between them and the main buildings, where the officers were searching, the outlines of a row of parked aircraft were picked out by the headlights, at least twenty planes. Elegant and orderly in the chaos.
Martel was already running down the back of the hangar, out of sight in the pitch darkness of its shadow. ‘Romy!’
She raced to join him, her heart thundering in her chest. As she caught up with him, she could hear his laboured breathing and feared for the jarring to his shattered shoulder blade, but he wouldn’t stop. Not now. At a small door inset at the far end of the hangar, Martel pulled a key from his pocket, unlocked the door and they ducked inside.
Why? Trapped inside? It felt like madness.
‘Jules!’
Martel’s voice echoed in the cavernous interior. Romy couldn’t see her hand in front of her face but she heard a sound. She recognised it. It was the creak of the hinge of the door to the tiny storeroom at the back of the hangar and a thin ribbon of yellow light fluttered into the darkness.
‘Martel, over here.’ It was Jules’ voice. The wiry little engineer was usually so calm and patient, but she could hear the fear in his voice, the edge of panic.
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