Mirabelle sat on a high-backed velvet sofa and it occurred to her that Catherine the seamstress had been right – the house seemed too normal. Surely von der Grün didn’t deserve this beautiful, ordered domestic arrangement. Did the war count for nothing? A long window overlooked the street and she gazed at the glassy pavement trying to piece everything together. Then she noticed the woman. She was advancing along the rue de Siam, dressed in a well-cut dark woollen coat and a stovepipe hat (the height of fashion). She was carrying a capacious handbag slung over her left arm. There was something familiar in the way she moved. Mirabelle got up and stood to one side of the window so that she couldn’t be seen. Yes, she thought, recognising the figure as it advanced, there was no doubt that it was Christine Moreau. A few feet below the window Christine looked around to check she wasn’t being followed. From her vantage point Mirabelle cast an eye along the length of the pavement, but there was no sign of a man in a Mackintosh and a homburg. Then Christine reached into her handbag and extracted a long, thin box, and slid it through the letterbox of number 25.
The sound of it landing with a slap on the black-and-white tiles of the hallway echoed vaguely. Mirabelle stayed at the window, watching as Christine Moreau stalked back down the rue de Siam, before she descended the stairs. The box was wrapped in brown paper and string. Mirabelle unpicked it meticulously – many an amateur had been caught out by rushing. Inside, carefully ironed and folded, was a red rayon square made from the patterned material that Mirabelle had seen delivered the day before to Christine Moreau’s workshop on the rue du Jour. The scarf was edged in minute handstitching. A Made in Paris chit was sewn along one corner. Nothing was secreted inside the woven satin or the stitching. Mirabelle checked the box but there was nothing else – no note, not even an invoice. Carefully she returned the scarf to its packet, tied the string with the same knot it had arrived with and laid the parcel haphazardly on the floor at an angle as if it had just dropped through the letterbox. Her eyes narrowed. ‘My goodness,’ she muttered under her breath. ‘What on earth is going on?’
Chapter 19
Never give in.
The next morning, after a night of fitful sleep in the Hôtel Rambeau, Mirabelle walked in the direction of the Marais with church bells ringing across the city on the clear February air. Sunday or not, long deliberation had brought her to the conclusion that there was only one way to proceed and she wasn’t looking forward to it. She recalled Bill talking about just getting on with the job, but her heart sank at what might lie ahead as she set out.
At Saint-Eustache the pavement was crowded with Sunday worshippers – women in fancy hats and long gloves making their way inside escorted by less showily dressed gentlemen. A blind man squatted on the corner, begging in front of the door. Around him a scatter of children in matching navy coats with velvet collars played tag before they were rounded up by their mother and marched inside.
Checking her slim gold watch, Mirabelle noted the time as she turned onto the rue du Jour. From the top of the road she could not discern any activity in Christine Moreau’s studio. Peering, she caught only a glimpse of the man in the Mackintosh and the homburg sitting in the café over the road. His partner was gone. She smiled – she hadn’t been sure if the place would be open. The Russian had removed his hat. At the table he hovered over coffee and a half-eaten croissant, his copy of Le Monde held at a distance so he could read with one eye and keep the other on his mark. Mirabelle lingered discreetly out of sight in a doorway on the other side of the road. When the waiter brought him a fresh cup, the man relinquished the newspaper and focused his attention on adding sugar. Mirabelle took her chance and knocked briskly on the door to one side of number 17 – the stairwell that led to the apartment above the haberdashery. A few moments later the girl from the day before appeared, a thick cardigan wrapped around her for warmth and a pair of men’s boots on her feet, which she must have pulled on quickly to answer the unexpected caller.
‘Bonjour, madame.’ She showed no sign of recognition.
‘I visited your shop yesterday. I found my friend,’ Mirabelle ventured. ‘Christine Moreau? She has a studio further down the street.’
The assistant’s face opened into a grin. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘We aren’t open, you know. It’s Sunday.’
Mirabelle smiled apologetically. ‘The thing is, there’s a man sitting in the café over there. I don’t want him to see me visiting Mademoiselle Moreau. I wondered if you’d be kind enough to let me go the back way?’ Mirabelle gestured towards the shop. ‘I’d be terribly grateful. Is it possible to get through to the rear?’
The girl looked in the direction of the café. ‘Men? They’re nothing but trouble, though the trouble can be …’ She searched for the word. ‘Glorious.’ She settled with a smile.
She let Mirabelle inside. The shop was dark. At the counter the girl had evidently finished the pink cardigan and was engaged in trimming a sea-green felt cloche hat with a matching ostrich feather. It was propped carefully on the edge so the feather tumbled over. Mirabelle couldn’t help thinking it looked rather smart.
‘You have talent.’
The compliment was waved off as the girl led the way into a tiny back room that opened onto the rear of the terrace.
‘There,’ she said, producing a key. ‘He won’t see you going this way.’
‘Thank you.’
Outside, the back of the terrace was quite different from the well-kept gardens to the rear of the rue de Siam. As the girl opened the door Mirabelle reeled at the stale whiff that emanated from a rotting outdoor toilet, the walls of which were almost overgrown with thick ivy. The buildings on all sides, which were presentable enough from the pavement, looked as if they were crumbling privately back here where no one could see them. Window frames were split and stains sullied the stonework where the long iron pipes had occasionally burst. Mirabelle could hear hens clucking in a yard further along. In its favour, each yard was separated from its neighbour by ramshackle fencing, much of which had fallen into such disrepair that Mirabelle could step over it. It would be easy to find a way through.
‘I’ll leave the door open,’ the girl offered. Mirabelle thanked her and set off.
There was something dispiriting about this flipside of the rue du Jour. At Christine Moreau’s building cobwebs trailed from the sills, quivering in the breeze. The paint on the back door was peeling and the yard was completely overgrown, apart from a track that had been worn from the back door to the pissoir. A bucket with a huge hole in its base lay uselessly among the weeds. Mirabelle knocked and waited. There was no reply, but then it was quite possible she hadn’t been heard. She scrabbled among the wood sorrel and dandelions to find some gravel, and stepping back threw it at the rear window of Christine Moreau’s apartment. It hit with a raucous scatter. A few seconds later a shadow appeared in the grimy window above. Mirabelle raised her gloved hand but Christine Moreau snapped shut the thin curtain and withdrew. Mirabelle threw another handful of tiny stones against the glass but nothing stirred. This was going to be difficult. It wasn’t surprising Christine didn’t want to see her, but Mirabelle wanted answers.
She removed her SOE picks from her handbag and got to work. Not for the first time she thought the picks were the best present anyone had ever given her – she should have thanked Eddie properly when she’d seen him, if only she’d remembered. The lock was heavy but not difficult to manoeuvre, and in a few seconds she slid it aside and slipped through a small back room, which appeared to be all but derelict, and into the narrow hallway. Taking the stairs she rapped on the door to Christine’s rooms on the first floor. There was no keyhole to tinker with, so there must be a bolt on the interior, but that afforded no easy way inside. What on earth did Christine do to lock the place when she left? Perhaps she had a padlock. Well, Mirabelle decided, there’s nothing for it. I’ll have to talk my way in. She put her hand on the wall and gathered her thoughts.
‘Christine,’ she called. ‘Please.’
Silence.
‘Christine. I need to speak to you. The men outside don’t know I’m here. That’s why I came from the back. Please. Let me in.’
This was going to be tricky. She’d need to tempt the woman somehow. Mirabelle moved her weight against the door jamb and took a deep breath. Her fingers tingled. She knew the only weapon in her arsenal was to be completely honest, but she’d never voiced these things before. Not to a soul.
‘You were right yesterday.’ She spoke loudly so the words would sound clear through the door. ‘I was Jack Duggan’s lover all through the war. And after it too. He promised the world – that’s what you said, isn’t it? Well, you were right: he promised it to me. The whole shebang.’ Mirabelle was alarmed to find her throat becoming tight. She struggled against the feeling that she might cry. ‘The thing is, he lied, Christine, and I’m only just realising that. I’d never have lied to him. I couldn’t have. But now I’m here, the more I find out the less I know. Really, it’s been a terrible trip. Jack meant everything in the world to me and now I’m finding out he wasn’t honest.’ The admission left her scrambling in her handbag for a handkerchief, furious with herself as the tears seeped out. ‘I loved him, you see, and the thing is he’s been dead for years and I can’t let him go. It’s as if I’m waiting for him. It’s as if he’s going to come back any minute. I can’t believe he came to Paris and I didn’t know. But you knew. That’s why I’ve come. I need you to tell me about it. Please. I want to understand.’
She felt she couldn’t breathe as the words tumbled from her lips – a hideous admission of her failure. She’d been so naïve. Jack hadn’t loved her enough. Her shoulders dropped, and tears streamed down her cheeks, but no sound emanated from the studio. Now she’d started, though, Mirabelle found it difficult to stop. ‘I want to know what he was doing here.’ She kicked the skirting board behind her in frustration. ‘Because now I don’t even know if he ever really loved me. I don’t even have that any more.’ She gulped. The silence felt heavy on the air. She waited, but there was no response. Christine Moreau simply didn’t care. Why should she?
Slowly, Mirabelle regained control of her breathing. Her gloves were wet where the handkerchief had proved insufficient. Leaning against the wall, she blew her nose and pulled herself together. There was still no sign of life inside. She sniffed, her cheeks burning with humiliation as she turned towards the head of the stairs. ‘The war may have left you scarred but I’m scarred too. I hadn’t realised how badly.’ She was about to leave when the sound of a bolt being drawn stopped her. Christine Moreau opened the door. She didn’t meet Mirabelle’s eye.
‘That’s Jack Duggan for you,’ she said. ‘That’s British SOE all over. You’d better come in.’
The studio looked much as it had the day before. Mirabelle hovered awkwardly inside the doorway. She had only indulged herself in this kind of passionate outburst once before, when she was nine years of age and had told her mother she wanted to read a book that had been deemed unsuitable. In her mind it had been vital at the time to know the story – the ensuing temper tantrum had been an outcry against a child’s lack of autonomy. She couldn’t even remember the name of the book now. Only the cover – a hand-drawn flyleaf in black and white. Thinking back, it must have been a ghost story. Edgar Allan Poe. Her mother had been right. On that occasion Mirabelle hadn’t felt exhausted once she finished shouting but now she found she could scarcely drag herself into Christine Moreau’s room. Such outbursts were for children, and then only for badly behaved ones. Her limbs felt heavy, as if they were trying to discourage her from continuing on this quest. Christine went to the dresser and pulled out one of the bottles of gin. She poured two glasses and added water from a jug.
‘Here,’ she said.
Mirabelle was about to object that it was too early, but what was the point? Gin was better than bourbon, at least. Better than vodka, for sure. She took the glass and downed it. Christine beamed and followed suit.
‘There,’ she said, and gestured that Mirabelle should sit at the table. ‘We give them everything, don’t we, and then they just disappear. Poof! They ignore us, yes? They want to pay us off? Money? Pah! Money is nothing.’
Mirabelle sank onto a chair. She was intrigued. ‘What happened?’ she asked.
Christine’s eyes blazed. ‘The history of the Resistance is written in men’s names,’ she spat. ‘Our noble Frenchmen saved the country – that’s what they say. Our noble Frenchmen were in German prison camps for most of it. Our noble Frenchmen saved their backs. They ignore us women now. So many women. And we were brave, you know. Us and the Jews. The ones who had fled from Germany. Between us we were the meat and bones of the French Resistance. Many of us died. They were my friends. But now when they write the history, they lie, Miss Bevan. They talk about the glorious Frenchmen because Frenchmen want to believe they saved the country from the Nazis, and so we are sidelined. We will be forgotten, you’ll see. They are creating a legend and legends endure. Vive la France.’
Mirabelle nodded. After her speech at the door she found herself tongue-tied for a moment. Her eyes fell to the scissors with which Christine Moreau had pursued her onto the street the day before.
‘And I turned up and quoted the worst of them.’
A smiled played around Christine’s lips. ‘The very worst,’ she said stoutly. ‘We didn’t do it so they would raise a monument in our memory. We did it for our country. For our children. But now it’s over there will be no monuments to our achievements. That is clear. And they will only tell the stories of the men. Jack Duggan and Matthew Bradley were happy for that to be the case. They could have stood up and told the truth, but they didn’t. They could have saved me, and instead of roaring like lions they squeaked like cowardly mice. The British!’
Mirabelle drew her attention back to the point. ‘But you still work for us, don’t you? The British, I mean.’
Christine looked nonplussed. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘I saw you. Last night. In Passy.’
Christine’s expression betrayed no information. ‘And that, I imagine, was not a coincidence,’ she said smoothly. ‘What were you doing in the 16th? I don’t believe this is all about Jack. Who travels so far in search of a dead man? Who are you working for, Miss Bevan?’
‘I’m not working for anyone. I haven’t lied to you. Bulldog Bradley left me a letter when he died. He wanted me to find out what happened to Philip Caine. That’s what I’m doing here. But it’s cast up so much about Jack …’
Christine was a woman of long experience. She waited to see if Mirabelle would cry again. There was never any point in talking to someone who was crying. Mirabelle bit her lip and tried to focus. Christine Moreau controlled her body language minutely, she noticed. It was impossible to tell if Matthew Bradley and Philip Caine meant anything to her, just as it was impossible to guess what she had been doing on the rue de Siam last night.
‘Would you like another drink?’ Christine offered, crossing to the cabinet.
Mirabelle shook her head as Christine poured another measure of spirits and watched Mirabelle’s eyes playing on the bottle. Slowly she added water.
‘This is the only British thing I enjoy. They used to send it over during the war. At first I thought it wasn’t as good as brandy. There was no good French brandy for months at a time. No brandy. No coffee. Pah! But once I started on gin I got used to it. It is originally a Dutch drink, of course.’
‘Not that one,’ Mirabelle said pleasantly.
‘Well, anyone can make it.’ Christine dismissed the implication. She took a small sip and sat down again. ‘You don’t have to worry about Jack Duggan. He told me about you once. Not by name, of course, but it must have been you.’
Mirabelle’s heart stopped. ‘Jack? What did he say?’
‘He said he had found someone who made sense of the difficult things. The things he had to do. Someone worth fighting for. It must have been you, mustn’t it? Men don’t talk about their w
ives that way.’
‘When? When was he here?’
Christine thought. ‘It was when Bradley got out.’
‘1942?’
‘Yes. In the summer. We managed to run him through Bilbao. At that time it was the quickest way. Jack went with him.’
‘Did Jack come often?’
‘I don’t know. I saw him perhaps half a dozen times. Maybe not even that. It was dangerous.’
Mirabelle nodded. ‘I wasn’t aware he had come to Paris at all.’
‘We were up all night, waiting,’ Christine said. ‘They left in a rubbish cart. That was how we did it.’
‘And that’s what he said?’
Christine nodded. ‘The men often talked about home. About what made it worth the risk.’
Mirabelle looked out of the window but she could scarcely see through the glass. By 1942 Jack hadn’t yet told her that he loved her. That came later. A dim picture show played in her mind’s eye of Jack laughing in the punt that day on the Thames in 1944. Of her promising to marry him as soon as he was free. Of him years later, one sunny day, giving her the key to her flat on the Lawns and carrying her over the doorstep into the empty high-ceilinged apartment. The room had been full of light. He had promised that one day they’d live there together.
British Bulldog Page 16
