‘Look.’ Édith pointed to a large round stone under the bridge. ‘Move her so her head is lying on it like a pillow.’
They positioned Monique’s thin body to look as if she had fallen from the narrow bridge. ‘An accident!’ Édith shook her head. ‘A tragic accident! Now you are safe, and you are decent,’ she said, pulling on Monique’s bloodstained skirt. ‘Goodnight, child. Tomorrow Frédéric will find you and bring you home.’
They cycled back in silence. It wasn’t a long journey but Claire felt more tired with every bend in the road. In the small enclosed back yard Claire returned Thérèse’s bicycle to the shed, and after bolting the door to the yard, Édith propped her bicycle against the wall. Claire stood at the side of the kitchen door, waiting for Édith to enter first. As she passed, Édith took Claire’s hand. ‘Thank you, my dear. We will talk later, but for the time being we will say nothing. We must be brave for Frédéric’s sake, yes?’
Claire nodded and gave Édith’s hand a reassuring squeeze. She took a deep breath and heard Édith do the same.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Édith Belland opened the back door and entered the kitchen to two pairs of questioning eyes. Claire followed her in. ‘Mother? We’ve been out of our minds with worry. Where the hell have you been?’ André demanded.
‘Trying to find out why the Gestapo took Alain, where do you think?’
‘And did you find out?’ he asked.
‘No. Claire will go into the town tomorrow and speak to Jacques. He may know something.’ She went to the stove. ‘Being out of your mind with worry didn’t affect your appetite, I see.’ She steadied herself against the range and looked into a large saucepan. ‘I am sorry, son. Thank you for making supper and for leaving some for Claire and me.’ Édith took two dishes from the shelf and spooned a helping of vegetables into each. ‘Frédéric, put a log on the fire in the sitting room. Claire and I will join you when we have eaten.’ When her sons had left the kitchen, Édith put the two dishes of food on the table. Claire heaved as the bitter taste of bile rose from her stomach to her throat. She closed her eyes. To eat after what she had just seen and done wouldn’t be easy, but she felt dizzy from lack of sustenance and her head was pounding with dehydration. Calling on every ounce of willpower she possessed, Claire did what she had been trained to do, put what had happened during the day to the back of her mind and turned to her meal. The two women ate without speaking. When they had finished they joined André and Frédéric in the sitting room.
Sitting by the fire, they drank red wine and listened to the wireless. The atmosphere was subdued. André left after half an hour saying he would be back in the morning to discuss how they were going to get Alain out of German headquarters, after he had organised the distribution of the drop. Shortly after his brother had gone, Frédéric left saying he was going to his room to write a letter to Monique at her grandmother’s house.
In a strained voice, Édith called goodnight to her son, but Claire, in fear of breaking down, dropped to her knees and attended to the fire. Looking into the flames, she heard Frédéric’s step on the stairs. He was humming a tune. As he reached his bedroom door she heard it click open – and a second later it clicked shut. ‘Édith, you can’t let Frédéric find Monique tomorrow,’ she said, leaping up and sitting beside her friend. ‘Losing his fiancée will break his heart, but finding her dead in the river will destroy him. If you tell him she fell from the bridge, he is sure to think she was on her way to see him, and will blame himself for her death.’
Édith Belland thought for some minutes before draining her glass. ‘You are right. Finding Monique – seeing her as she looks now – will be too much for the boy. At dawn tomorrow I will go to see Father Albert and ask him to take me to Monique in his car. We will bring her back to the church. I shall take off her soiled dress and put her in one of mine.’
‘We have money, Édith. Could we not buy a new dress?’
Édith smiled. ‘The dress I am thinking of is cream and made of silk. It was part of my trousseau. It is beautiful, as Monique is beautiful. And I shall brush her hair. Did you find her handbag?’ Claire shook her head. ‘Then I shall take my powder and lipstick – and rouge for her cheeks. I shall make her look lovely again. Then Father Albert and I will lay her in the chapel.’
Suddenly remembering the hair slide, Claire said, ‘I won’t be a moment.’ She ran to the kitchen and took the silver slide from her coat pocket. ‘I found this,’ she said, on her return.
Édith took the slide and clutched it to her breast. Large pear-shaped tears fell from her eyes and she wiped them away with the flat of her hand. ‘It is one of a pair. They belonged to my mother. She wore them on her wedding day, and I wore them on mine. I gave one to Thérèse when she and André got engaged and this one I gave to Monique when she and Frédéric announced… Thank you. I shall put it in the child’s hair tomorrow.’
‘And you won’t tell Frédéric that Monique died at the farm?’
‘No. And I won’t tell him that you and Alain found her.’ Claire was relieved. Frédéric would want to know where and how; details that Claire didn’t want him to know. ‘I shall suggest to Father Albert, strongly, that he tells Frédéric that Monique was found by the railway station. So he will not blame himself for her death. It is sometimes necessary, to save those we love from heartache, not to tell them the truth.’ Édith Belland looked at Claire through tired eyes. ‘I am not sure how happy Father Albert will be about lying, but I do the cleaning at the church, and wash and iron the altar linen as well as his robes. I don’t think he’ll want to lose my services, do you?’ The question was rhetorical. ‘If he wants to debate the moral rights and wrongs of what I ask of him, I shall tell him firmly that Monique and Frédéric are innocent victims. It is German soldiers who are guilty.’ She put her hands up to her mouth and took a sharp breath.
‘What is it, Édith?’
‘Frédéric must never know that Monique’s death was anything to do with the Germans.’
‘But surely he’ll find out eventually. Won’t the authorities want to talk to him--?’
‘Why should they? If we don’t tell them they won’t need to talk to him. No! We will not tell anyone. What happened to Monique will stay between you, Alain, and me.’
‘That means the soldiers who killed her will get away with murder.’
‘People are killed all the time, in many different ways, in war.’
‘Killing Monique, having their way with her before they killed her, wasn’t war. It was rape and murder, Édith. They should be punished,’ Claire said.
‘Of course they should, but it will not bring Monique back and it will devastate Frédéric.’ Claire saw fear in Édith’s eyes. ‘He would blame himself, because his fiancée went to the farm and he wasn’t there, and then he would go looking for the German soldiers and… Either way it would destroy him. He is passionate, some would say hot-headed. He acts before he thinks. If he even suspected there had been foul play, he would go after the German soldiers who go to the farm with girls – and he would get himself killed.’ Édith made two fists and crossed her arms over her chest. ‘I beg you, my dear, do not tell him.’
‘Shush…’ Claire put her arms round her friend. ‘If you don’t want me to tell him I won’t.’
‘Promise me that it will be our secret, that you will never tell Frédéric, or anyone.’
‘I promise. Now,’ Claire said, ‘I’ll clear up down here, and you go up to bed. You look exhausted.’ She took Édith’s glass and put it on the shelf above the fire.
‘Tomorrow,’ Édith said, flicking the air as if irritated her. ‘We will wash up tomorrow.’ On the landing outside her bedroom Édith hugged Claire. ‘I shall never forget what you did for Monique and Frédéric,’ she whispered.
Claire kissed her friend goodnight and went into her room. Too tired to wash, she kicked off her shoes and fell onto the bed.
Claire woke to what sounded like a howling animal caught in a trap. She t
ook her wristwatch from the side of the bed. It was almost twelve o’clock. She had overslept. She pulled on a skirt and jumper and ran downstairs to the kitchen. Father Albert was standing in the doorway. Édith was on her knees with her arms around her distraught son, who was on the floor. ‘Frédéric has had some tragic news, Claire,’ Édith said, looking up at Claire, her voice hoarse with pain for her son. ‘His fiancée Monique has had an accident. Father Albert found her this morning.’
‘She is dead!’ Frédéric sobbed. ‘My beautiful Monique is dead!’ Suddenly he lifted his head from his mother’s arms and turned to the priest. ‘Perhaps you have made a mistake, Father. Yes, that is it, Mama. Father Albert has made a mistake.’ Frédéric scrambled to his knees and, gripping the table, pulled himself to his feet. ‘Monique is at her grandmother’s house. I write to her every day,’ he cried. ‘Tell him, Mama. Tell Father Albert he has made a mistake.’
The priest crossed the room to Édith; she closed her eyes. He put his hand on Frédéric’s shoulder. ‘Frédéric, perhaps I did make a mistake.’ Édith shot the priest a look of apprehension. ‘So,’ he said pointedly, ‘when you are ready, we will go to the church together and you can tell me if the young lady who lies in the chapel is Monique, or another unfortunate young woman.’ Claire saw Édith’s shoulders drop.
‘Now!’ Frédéric said. ‘We must go now!’ Édith stood up and began to take off her pinafore. ‘No, Mama, I will go alone with Father Albert,’ he said. Édith looked pleadingly at the priest.
‘He will be fine with me, Madame,’ the priest said, opening the door to allow the broken-hearted Frédéric to leave first. Before closing the door the priest said, ‘Do not worry, Madame, I will take good care of him.’
‘Thank you, Father,’ Édith whispered. She turned to Claire. ‘I have always tried to shield Frédéric, but this is out of my hands. I feel so… useless.’
‘Not useless, Édith. You’ve saved him much pain by moving Monique to the river. Did you tell Father Albert where she was killed and that it was Alain and I who found her?’
‘No! He is a priest. I could not expect him to know that, and then tell an outright lie. He found it difficult enough to say it was him who found her. He only told Frédéric that she was on her way to the station because I told him she was. I begged him not to say she was found near the farm. He agreed that there was no reason to tell Frédéric more than he needed to know. That way he did not have to lie. No.’ Édith Belland sighed and shook her head. ‘Let the sin of lying be mine.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Wandering along in the warm May sunshine as if she didn’t have a care in the world, Claire spotted a vacant bench and sat down. Casually she took in her surroundings. The statue of Napoleon that had dwarfed the main square in Gisoir had gone. From the look of the jagged stone around the top of the plinth the statue had been knocked down, not taken down. That noted, she lifted her face to the sun and closed her eyes. No sooner had she settled than she was surrounded by pigeons pecking the ground at her feet. ‘Sorry,’ she said, standing up, ‘but I don’t have any food.’ Clicking her tongue, she zigzagged her way through the birds, talking to them as she went. She strolled along with no obvious purpose to anyone watching other than to take the air. The last thing she wanted, with Jacques’ money in her shoes, was to attract attention.
Claire had never met Jacques. She wished now that she had, but it was always Alain who delivered wireless parts, or sent messages to London. Was it a coincidence that Alain had been to see Jacques less than an hour before the Gestapo took him for questioning? Could it have been the wireless operator who betrayed Alain yesterday? If so, might he betray her today? Édith Belland was sure it was not. She said Jacques was one of the most dedicated of the Resistance and would give his life for France. Even so, she hadn’t told him where she and her sons were living. Claire decided that, if Jacques asked her, she wouldn’t tell him either. She brushed thoughts of betrayal from her mind and concentrated on the job she was there to do – a small part in the scheme of the war, but necessary if the Resistance was to carry out its work against the Germans in Gisoir and the surrounding area. She also needed to offload the money she was carrying. She hadn’t brought her travel permit, so if she was stopped with twenty thousand francs on her, she would have some explaining to do. More importantly, she had to get a message to London to let the colonel know the Gestapo had taken Alain.
The owner of Café La Ronde, setting up tables and chairs on the pavement beneath the café’s striped awning, shouted hello. Claire waved. ‘Will you be joining us for coffee today?’ he called.
‘Yes. When I’ve been to the market.’
‘I look forward to it, Miss.’
Claire walked on to the covered market. She bought cheese, beans and onions, and left by the stall-holders’ entrance. Looking around her, Claire realised she had lost her bearings. Then, just when she thought she would have to go back to the public entrance at the front of the market and risk being seen, she spotted Avenue Gambon to her right. She walked along the avenue until she came to a three-storey brick villa with white shutters opposite the third streetlight. Jacques’ house was exactly as Édith had described it, right down to the terracotta tiled steps and blue planter of red geraniums by the front door. She crossed the road and ran up the steps.
In a state of heightened tension, Claire cleared her throat. Be vigilant and keep the meeting simple, she told herself. No chit-chat – just hand over the money and give the man the message for Colonel Smith. Ask him to repeat it verbatim and if he gets it right, leave. It couldn’t be simpler. She approached the door, and stopped. Damn! Her hands were shaking. They often did when she was nervous. She took a deep breath and, feeling calmer, knocked on the door. There was no reply. She knocked again, this time louder. ‘Yes?’ a man called from inside the house.
‘Are you Jacques?’
‘Who wants to know?’
‘A friend. I am looking for a baker who bakes cakes. I’d like him to bake tonight.’ The wireless operator didn’t speak. Claire felt the drum of panic begin to beat on the top of her stomach. She looked down and, pretending to admire the geraniums, scanned the avenue. There was no one about. ‘I have something for you,’ she said, in a loud whisper, ‘but if I can’t give it to you…’ She turned and walked down the steps.
‘Miss LeBlanc?’ Claire stopped at the sound of her name. ‘Quickly,’ Jacques hissed, summoning her, while his eyes darted left and right frantically. ‘I was expecting a male friend,’ he said, ushering Claire into the house. Once inside, he closed the door and locked it. Bobbles of perspiration stood out on his brow, there were circles of damp under his arms and he reeked of sweet cologne. He took a red silk handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his chubby face, before waving it at her. ‘You are sure you are alone? As I said, I was expecting to see my male friend again today,’ he said, pulling back what looked like a velvet blackout curtain at a small window overlooking the avenue.
‘I am sorry to tell you that your friend has been taken for questioning by the Gestapo.’ Jacques spun round and fell against the door frame. He put his hand up to his mouth and gasped. ‘Another friend, Édith, suggested I bring you this.’ Claire kicked off her shoes and handed Jacques a wad of notes. His shocked expression turned into a grateful smile. Slipping her feet back into the shoes, she said, ‘Tonight, when you speak to the people who share your love of cake, you must tell them that your friend, The French Can, has been unavoidably detained, but China Blue is safe.’
‘The Can, unavoidably detained, China Blue safe,’ Jacques repeated, nodding. ‘My poor friend,’ he said, stuffing the money into the pockets of a white linen jacket that hung on the end of the stair rail. He mopped his brow again.
‘I must go,’ Claire said, bending down and buckling her shoes. Jacques looked relieved and offered his hand. It was warm and damp – and as she shook it the acrid scent of sweat, mingled with his cologne, filled her nostrils. She wondered if it was guilt or fear th
at made him perspire so profusely. She decided it was fear. ‘I shall take coffee in the Café La Ronde tomorrow morning at eleven,’ she said, opening the door and stepping out into the warm sunshine. ‘Would you meet me there? Let me know you were able to pass on the message about your friend?’
‘Unavoidably detained, Miss?’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to doubt you. Until tomorrow then?’ she said, turning and leaving. Before she reached the bottom of the steps she heard the door shut and the key turn in the lock. The bolt slid into place with a clunk.
Now Jacques’ money had been delivered Claire’s time was her own. She went into the patisserie, bought a pastry, and asked the owner if he had heard anything about the man who had been taken to German headquarters the day before. He had not, and said the Germans were always taking people in for no reason. He told her how some people had been taken to a prison in Paris. Claire’s stomach took a dive. ‘Chains around their ankles and herded onto trains like animals. Like the Jews,’ he said. Before he could elaborate further, Claire thanked him and left.
She walked briskly to German headquarters. The four-storey municipal building had once housed Gisoir’s town councillors. Now the German eagle, with Hitler’s swastika in its claws, adorned the main entrance, and flags with swastikas hung from the ornate iron balconies.
The clock above the entrance door said five o’clock. Claire looked up at the windows on the first, second and third floors. She didn’t know what she hoped to see. Yes she did, but there was no way Alain would be looking out of the window. Claire wondered if he was still there, or-- A couple of office workers hurried past her, interrupting her thoughts. They were talking about catching their train home. The baker had said Alain might be taken to Paris by train. Claire fell into step behind them. While they stood on the platform, she asked the man in the ticket office about trains to Paris.
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