Almost at the Seine, Mirabelle passed through the grand colonnade and hovered at the gallery’s heavy iron gates. This building had been a palace once, she thought as she waited. But then, at one time, she had believed herself a princess. It had seemed that way before the world turned and turned again. She peered at the familiar courtyard. The French allowed space between their grand buildings while London piled hers up against each other in an unruly crush.
When the gates opened she was first inside, crossing the courtyard and entering the building ahead of a cluster of tourists. Passing the sculptures in the main hallway, she turned into the first gallery of Old Masters. Mirabelle sank onto one of the benches and stared at a gloomy portrait of an old man. None of the men who concerned her had had the privilege of growing old. Her friend Sandor had been the oldest. He had been the confessor of several senior Nazis stationed here in Paris and had smuggled out information through the Church’s own channels. Some of it had even made its way to Jack. No man was all right or all wrong, she thought. The grave eyes of the fellow in the painting confirmed it.
A female tourist came into the room, looked around and asked the attendant where the Mona Lisa was hung. The man gave the merest flicker of a glance to confirm that he had been asked this question incessantly for years on end. Then he gave succinct directions to the Salon Carré. Mirabelle wondered what Sandor might have done had he found himself in Paris faced with the conundrum she was trying to unravel. He had talked once about how putting yourself in danger was sometimes the only way. Espionage was a maze. You could never see what lay ahead, you just had to keep trying.
Outside the gallery, she crossed the rue de Rivoli once more and headed for the market at Les Halles. As she got closer she could see the pavement was littered with cabbage leaves and eggshell. Everyone seemed to be carrying boxes or bags of butchered chickens, root vegetables and bottles of creamy milk. The market opened early and produce was delivered from the country well before dawn, but the traffic was slow in this part of town until midday. A gendarme wearing a cape over his uniform attempted to take charge at the crossroads. His white gloves seemed to glow in the low winter light.
Mirabelle turned away, crossed the main road and disappeared into the cluster of streets that made up the Marais. The last time she had been here many of the shop signs had been written in Hebrew. Today the signs were in French. She passed the Turkish Baths, trying to remember the way she had come on that previous visit, many years ago. In those days she had navigated Paris with her eyes at street level, calculating her route from shop to shop. Now she was drawn to look up to where the ramshackle roofscape met the ever-changing sky. Crossing the rue Rambuteau and turning onto the rue du Temple she hovered, seeking familiarity in the way the street curled to the left, reaching for a long distant memory. A minute or two along she recognised a door. It was painted thickly in black paint that was badly chipped but the old entranceway was still the same, unforgettable as it turned out. You never could tell what would stick. Mirabelle paused before ringing the bell. An old man, rather than the old woman she expected, peered out as the door opened. Mirabelle smiled at him.
‘Is there a dressmaker here? A woman who works from her apartment?’
‘Yes.’ He motioned her to step over the footplate and into the courtyard. ‘Her name is Catherine.’ He pointed to the stairwell. ‘On the second floor. Please, go up.’
Then, with a gruff nod, he retreated into his small office and closed the door. Mirabelle watched through the window as he lifted a coffee bowl to his lips and took a slurp, sitting down at a rickety table and drawing a copy of Le Monde so close to his face that she realised he must be terribly short-sighted. It was still early enough for breakfast. She had risen too soon, perhaps. Beyond the shady entrance, the courtyard was pretty. Colourful geraniums were laid in a row. The plants were flowerless, but it wouldn’t be long until spring. Mirabelle entered the stairwell and climbed upwards. The hallway was familiar but she had thought the little studio was higher than the second floor. Nevertheless, she knocked at the door on the second landing. A smell of toasted baguette pervaded the hallway. When the door swung open a thin girl with huge eyes appeared. She could be no more than twenty-five years of age. A small brown terrier tried to push past her leg and she bent down to scold him so that a long curl of her dark hair flopped over her face.
‘I’m looking for a dressmaker who made me an outfit some years ago,’ Mirabelle said. ‘I think she worked on the floor at the top.’
‘I’m a dressmaker.’ The girl smiled, reaching down to grasp the dog’s collar and causing further disarray to her hair.
‘This woman was older. She was Jewish.’ Mirabelle realised that hadn’t come out quite right.
The girl put her head to one side and her hair fell back into place. ‘You might mean my aunt. She had a studio here a long time ago. Do you remember her name? Was it Rachel?’
Mirabelle couldn’t recall and that now seemed terribly rude. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘You must have liked the outfit she made,’ the girl commented. ‘But if it was my aunt then she’s not here. She died during the war. Would you like to come in? Is it a dress you’re looking for?’
Mirabelle crossed the threshold and the girl closed the door. The dog sniffed Mirabelle’s ankles and wagged its tail. Inside, the walls were painted ice blue and interrupted by two long windows. On some days, Mirabelle couldn’t help thinking, the sky must match the colour of the room and the windows merge into the walls. There was a pot of coffee on the table and the room looked comfortable – three or four seats were covered in cushions and a jumbled row of photographs punctuated the mantel. As she walked further in, a little stove sent a wave of warmth across her knees.
‘I do need a dress, but really I had hoped to speak to your aunt. She made clothes for my mother, you see, many years ago, and I thought she might be able to help me find out something. There is a dressmaker on the rue du Jour who’s about my age, I suppose, and I thought your aunt might know her.’
‘Do you mean Christine?’
Mirabelle nodded. She noticed a door on the back wall that opened onto another room facing the street.
‘I know who she is.’ The girl crossed her arms. ‘Everyone knows her. What’s this about?’
‘I’m trying to find out what happened to someone who went missing during the war. I have to tell you that Mademoiselle Moreau was not,’ Mirabelle paused, picking her words carefully, ‘helpful.’
The girl laughed. ‘I shouldn’t think she was. Christine Moreau was a collaborator. There’s no love lost there. She mostly takes in finishing – handkerchiefs and scarves. She won’t make you a dress, or at least that’s not the kind of work she normally does. Most people don’t want to employ her, you see.’
‘Even now? I thought France was trying to forget what happened. I heard she worked for the British.’
The girl’s eyes burned as she shook her head, sending her curls rippling. ‘Christine thought people would forget. But some betrayals are impossible to forgive. Here especially. She buttered up both sides but she had a love affair with a German. That’s the sort of woman she is.’
‘She couldn’t have been alone in that.’
‘No,’ Catherine said sadly. ‘Some women will do anything for a glass of champagne and a safe bed. Well, it turned out those beds were not so safe. Christine Moreau’s lover was SS. An officer. Von der Grün. He was an evil man. He had a nose for money. Any hiding place. We’ll never get it back, of course.’
‘We?’
‘My people, Miss Bevan. The Jews. And of course my family too. We weren’t rich but we had a few things. My uncle collected paintings – nothing priceless, but they should be ours. My aunt Rachel had some beautiful jewellery. Emerald earrings. People think you’re being greedy when you want those things back, but it’s not the money, not only that – it’s all that’s left of them, don’t you see?’
‘And you escaped?’
Catherine lo
oked as if she might burst into tears. Her blue eyes clouded but she continued. ‘Not exactly. I was lucky. I was sent away. In Germany the Jews knew what the Nazis would do. There was at least a little time to try to get out. But in Poland, in France, in Holland – none of us knew they would come so quickly. They were here before there was time … I was visiting a cousin in Scotland when Paris fell. It was summer. I never came back – not till after the war was over.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Mirabelle murmured, genuinely moved. When the girl came home almost everyone she knew must have disappeared.
Catherine stared at Mirabelle through the burgeoning tears. She wondered what had made her say so much. There was something about this older woman. ‘What did you want to ask Christine Moreau? You said you were looking for someone.’
‘Yes. A British pilot. Royal Air Force. Philip Caine.’
Catherine shrugged. ‘The English left before I came back. I don’t recognise the name.’
‘What happened to Christine Moreau’s lover?’
Catherine looked as if she might spit. ‘I don’t know and I don’t want to know. He probably went back to Germany. Von der Grün. It sounds as if he had a castle. That’s what I don’t understand – the Germans killed millions and most of them are allowed to go back to a normal life. A year or two in prison. Even ten years – what’s that? And we – all of us – our lives will never be normal again.’
‘Why did you come back to Paris?’ Mirabelle wondered out loud. ‘This place must be the most difficult city you could possibly choose if you want to move on.’
Catherine’s eyes sparked. ‘I belong here,’ she said fiercely.
Mirabelle gazed out of the window. Perhaps she might ask herself the same question about Brighton; perhaps her answer would be the same too. ‘Von der Grün,’ she whispered.
She didn’t recall the name of Christine Moreau’s lover. Not from her days in Nuremberg or earlier, when she worked in Jack’s office at the SOE. The girl was right – he sounded aristocratic. A Dutch officer had made her giggle once with his impression of an upper-class German. ‘Not Van Heek,’ he had shrieked like a maniac, playing it up for all he was worth. ‘Von Heek. One little vowel makes a big difference, Fräulein. A whole estate’s worth. The village, my dear lady, and everything within it belongs to me on account of that little o.’
The good thing about the aristocracy – German or English – was that they were easily traced, Mirabelle thought. Perhaps she would be able to track him down. If Christine Moreau wasn’t prepared to talk to her perhaps von der Grün himself would be more accommodating. Her skin prickled – it was a long time since she’d interviewed a Nazi face to face. She tried to shake off the feeling of dread that crept over her. The war was over, after all, and such a conversation would be illuminating. If von der Grün knew about Philip Caine it would mean Christine had been more on the German side than the British when she played her dangerous game. If he did not, she had been a loyal double agent. As she turned towards the door, Mirabelle found herself curious to find out which it was.
‘You’ve been very helpful,’ she said to Catherine. ‘Thank you.’
Chapter 16
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.
Mirabelle walked back along rue Rambuteau. Her first stop, she thought, should be the National Library of France. La Bibliothèque Nationale. She had almost reached Les Halles when she caught sight of him. The man in the homburg. He was coming out of the market, eating a red apple as he crossed the street – and ahead of her, he couldn’t know she was there. Her curiosity piqued, Mirabelle decided to turn the tables and fall in behind. It was only fair –he’d followed her, after all. She kept carefully out of sight as he crossed the road and headed in the direction of Saint-Eustache. The towers at either end of the church’s grand façade were clearly visible above the lower roofs of the tenements on either side. The man flung his apple core into the gutter as he passed the church. Mirabelle kept her distance. The pavement widened into a little square and the fellow slowed slightly as he lit a cigarette before cutting down the rue du Jour and disappearing inside the café where she had first seen him the day before.
So, she thought, he’s watching Christine Moreau. He must be. She checked her watch. It was still early. There was no sign of life in the dressmaker’s apartment, but then yesterday Christine had been embroidering by the light from the window. Mirabelle had no desire to visit Miss Moreau again, but she was curious about what was going on in this little backstreet. Carefully, she peered into the café from the other side of the road. The man was chatting to another fellow who was sitting at the table the first had occupied the day before. An empty brandy glass was cleared away efficiently and a coffee laid down. These men knew the place, and the waiter, it seemed, knew their order. It looked as if they had been stationed here for some time.
Mirabelle pulled back. Was the man in the Mackintosh part of a surveillance team? If there was a twenty-four-hour watch on Christine Moreau there had to be a good reason. What on earth was the woman up to? Mirabelle turned and walked on slowly, keeping her face out of the men’s field of vision, then pulled into a doorway as she heard the door of the café click open. Keeping one eye on the pavement, she fumbled in her handbag as if she was looking for a key. The second man emerged into the street, pulling his coat around him. He was taller than the first but cut from the same jib and, Mirabelle noticed, he wore an identical Mackintosh and a homburg – as if it was some kind of uniform. Often you could tell where someone came from by their clothes, but these outfits were as hard to place as the man’s accent in the church the day before. Mirabelle wondered whether they might be American. Were they FBI? Jack had always decried the Americans. Their codes were so simplistic a child could unravel them. During the war the SOE had convinced the Yanks that they should handle that side of things. In fact, they had insisted they handle it. British codemakers stumped the world. The Americans couldn’t keep up. ‘They’re famous but incompetent. FBI. That’s what it bloody stands for,’ Jack had said. But the Yanks took the criticism of their coding abilities well. Everyone had to give them that. ‘They’re so damn well balanced it makes you want to push it to see how far you’d get,’ she remembered some wag quipping at the Oxford and Cambridge Club. The man yesterday had been incompetent. She’d given him the slip as if it was a first day exercise and he a rookie. She mustn’t get cocky, she told herself. Just because she’d done it once.
It was for this reason that she gave the second man a decent headstart before she set off in his wake. She felt safer following him than the first man – as far as she knew, this one had never seen her. He headed round the corner and Mirabelle kept her distance as she tailed him past the seafood display in the window of Au Pied de Cochon and up towards the cafés and restaurants on the main road. He stopped to buy cigarettes from a kiosk, and although she didn’t want to get close enough to hear what he said, she wasn’t too far away to see that when he smiled at the pretty girl behind the counter, his teeth were certainly not American. The Yanks loved dental work. Their smiles were almost identically perfect, but this man’s mouth betrayed a less fastidious approach.
Two blocks along, he turned into a side street and disappeared inside a boarding house. Mirabelle peered through the window as she walked past. A shabby dining room was empty of guests, and beyond it a dimly lit hallway and a staircase were similarly deserted. On the upper floors the shutters were barred. Was there a sitting room to the rear or had the man gone to his room? Mirabelle turned back, stared at the hotel’s bashed brass doorknob and decided to risk going inside.
The door was hung so that it opened and closed with a slight wobble. The hallway was silent apart from the ticking of the clock on the wall behind the reception desk. Sporting her best Parisian accent, Mirabelle called out. No one came so she peered over the high-fronted reception and squinted at the register, trying to make out the names. It only took a few seconds. Yes, there was onl
y one party of two men. She smiled. They were booked in as Les Frères Kakarov and had taken the cheapest rooms on the top floor. So the man’s accent had been Russian. Brothers, indeed. The Mackintosh and homburg were good choices, she reflected. The disguise had rendered both men practically anonymous – at least she hadn’t been able to guess where they were from. Russians were generally welcome in Paris. Long before the war broke out the city was the centre of the White Russian world as supporters of the Tsar fled the Communists and set up home elsewhere. Tea houses had opened in Passy serving borscht and caviar, and all things Russian had become fashionable for a while. More recently Russia had been an ally during the war, though the French natural sentiment, like the British, was probably to the left of Hitler rather than to the right of Stalin. Still, two Russian men spending some time in the City of Light would be made very welcome. So why were Les Frères Kakarov here? What was Christine Moreau up to?
Mirabelle was still beside the desk when the front door opened behind her and a woman stepped confidently onto the tiled floor of the hallway. She was plump and rosy-cheeked. Her coat was open and she was wearing an olive-green dress trimmed with tatty black lace, which Mirabelle couldn’t help thinking would be more suitable for the evening even if it had seen better days. The woman sniffed and smiled at once. When she spoke her accent was from another part of Paris – somewhere poorer.
‘I’m looking for the Russian. He wanted me at ten o’clock.’
‘Top floor,’ Mirabelle replied helpfully. ‘He just went up.’ She gave the woman a head start and then sneaked upstairs behind her. The stairway was uncarpeted and she tiptoed on the balls of her feet so as not to make a noise. The walls might once have been painted caramel but they had long faded to grey and were unsullied by any attempt to refresh them. The building ran to five storeys and the stairs were steep. Mirabelle’s heart pounded as she held onto the banister. Above her she could hear the girl knocking sharply and the Russian’s door creaking open and then closing. Encouraged, she picked up her pace. The top-floor landing accommodated three bedrooms; the nearest lavatory was on the floor below. The skylight was caked in old leaves and grit; cupola would have been too grand a name for it. A brick chimney stack bore down from above. Mirabelle put her ear to the first door, then she knelt down to look through the keyhole and was rewarded with a view of the lady in the olive-green dress removing her attire. The Russian had his hands curled round her frame as she wrestled with a zip. She looked as if she was propped against the bed frame, ready at any moment to fall into place. The room was furnished sparsely and the bed not wide enough to share. Unperturbed, the Russian and the woman he had hired piled on top of each other. The springs groaned. Mirabelle smiled slightly. As long as this continued she was safe from interruption.
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