Chasing Ghosts

by Madalyn Morgan

  ‘How do you know?’ Claire asked.

  ‘We had intelligence confirming she was in Périgueux prison.’

  ‘So was Alain at first, then they moved him. They could have moved her as well.’

  ‘They didn’t.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’ Antoinette asked.

  ‘Because she never came out of Périgueux.’ Thomas looked across the table at Claire. ‘The Germans kept it quiet to save face, but she died in Périgueux. An accident, they said.’

  ‘An accident?’

  Thomas shrugged. ‘The official line was she fell down a flight of concrete steps and broke her neck.’

  The four friends sat in shock. Then Antoinette put her hand on Claire’s arm. ‘It is obvious,’ she said, ‘Professor Puel has made a mistake.’

  A huge mistake. One that will cost Mitch his job with the military, and probably his life, Claire thought. ‘So who is this Simone that he knew when he was in the prison at Saint-Gaudens?’

  ‘Maybe she wasn’t in the prison. She could be someone Alain met after he had escaped, after he’d been shot. She might have helped to nurse him, or she could have been one of the drivers who brought him to Paris.’

  Thomas picked up his napkin, dabbed at the corners of his mouth and laid it on the table. ‘Thank you for the meal,’ he said to Antoinette and Auguste. He then looked at Claire. ‘I have a friend who was in the Paris Maquis with me. He now lives in the north. I will arrange for him to take you to the prison. From there it will be easier to trace Alain’s steps and hopefully find the woman called Simone.’

  And find Alain with her, Claire thought. Her heart plummeted.

  ‘Claire?’

  ‘Yes? I’m sorry. I--’

  ‘Begin with the doctor who saved his leg, and then talk to the Resistance guys who brought him to Paris. Someone must know who this woman is.’

  ‘Thank you, Thomas.’

  ‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said, getting up. ‘It might take a day or two to organise things, so use the time to relax. Go and see the sights.’ Claire nodded, though sight-seeing was the last thing she wanted to do.

  Claire and Antoinette walked Thomas to the front door. With Antoinette’s arm around her shoulders, Claire watched the muscular Maquis leader open the driver’s door of his car and, holding onto the doorframe, swing himself onto the seat. It was snowing heavily but after a slippery start, the sporty Citroën was soon down the road and out of sight.

  Claire and Antoinette quickly stepped inside out of the wind. Antoinette closed and locked the door and arm in arm the two friends returned to the dining room. ‘Let’s take a brandy through to the sitting room. Sit by the fire for ten minutes before we clear the table.’

  Auguste took the decanter and a glass from the sideboard, indicating with a nod to Gabrielle that she should take the rest of the glasses and join them.

  ‘I had better not drink brandy,’ the young woman said, ‘I have a paper to write.’ She picked up two bell-shaped brandy glasses. ‘I’ll take these through, then clear the table and wash the dishes before I go up to study.’

  ‘No, you will not!’ Antoinette said, taking the glasses out of Gabrielle’s hands. ‘Take a glass of brandy upstairs, for when you’ve finished your paper, with pleasure,’ Gabrielle wrinkled her nose. ‘Then make yourself a mug of hot chocolate but go up and do your work. I am grateful for the help you give around the house, but you are here to study not to skivvy!’

  ‘Thank you,’ Gabrielle said, and poking her head around the sitting room door, called goodnight to Auguste.

  A log fire blazed in the hearth warming Claire on the outside while the brandy warmed her on the inside. The three friends talked and laughed, discussed the changes that had taken place in both their countries since the autumn of 1945 when what the government and the newspapers were calling the Second World War ended. Claire didn’t like the phrase, it implied there might be a third, or even fourth, war. She hoped there wouldn’t be and shuddered.

  ‘Are you cold, Claire?’ Auguste asked.

  ‘No, not at all. I was thinking about the war, and the future.’

  Paris was as exciting as Claire remembered - but much safer. There seemed to be little austerity, even though some things were still rationed. Shop windows advertised fashionable coats and shoes, couture gowns were displayed on slender-waisted mannequins and there were chic hats of every style and colour.

  On the left bank of the Seine street artists attracted crowds as they painted buildings on the far side of the river or boats sailing on it. The two friends walked down to the Latin Quarter in the fifth arrondissement where they met Auguste for lunch.

  The airy modern restaurant overlooked a cobbled square where every few yards there was a bench beneath an elm tree. A smart but casually dressed waiter in a white open neck shirt and grey slacks, instead of the traditional buttoned to the neck white shirt, black tie and black trousers - showed the trio to a table that was near enough to the window for Claire to watch the students in the square. Some were laughing, some were serious, some were simply eating their lunch, but they all had one thing in common - they were free.

  ‘How different life is today,’ Claire mused, watching dozens of young people from Paris’s universities larking about.

  Auguste laughed. ‘Now they can speak without fear of being arrested, most of them don’t know when to stop. It seems everyone has an opinion,’ he said, shaking his head and laughing again.

  ‘A good thing too,’ Antoinette gently chided, ‘they were denied a voice for far too long.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Instead of carrying food around all day, Claire and Antoinette left the tram a couple of stops before Avenue St. Julien to buy bread and meat. Like England, some food was still rationed - and again like England, it was mostly food that was imported from abroad.

  Arm in arm, Claire and Antoinette walked along Boulevard Victor Hugo. They passed the statue of the Duke of Orléans on his horse, a familiar landmark from the time Claire had spent with Antoinette and her parents in the war. Claire had many bittersweet memories from those days, but now was not the time to remember them.

  She was surprised to see that the large apartment block en route to Antoinette’s house, which had been damaged by both enemy and allied bombs, had been pulled down. As she walked on she saw to her delight that the dwellings being built in its place were houses.

  ‘I met up with some of my comrades who fought with me in the Maquis,’ Thomas said that evening. ‘I asked them if they had heard of a woman in any of the other resistance cells called Simone who was captured by the Gestapo and imprisoned at Saint-Gaudens. One of the guys said he knew of a Resistance woman called Simone, but he didn’t know how we would find her because Simone was her code name, not her real name. He didn’t know the surname she used, so we’ll have to go the long route,’ he said, ‘via Mauzac.’

  ‘We?’ Claire said.

  ‘Yes. The guy who brought Alain to Paris in forty-four was going to take you to Saint-Gaudens, but he is about to become a father, again, and his wife threatened to leave him if he didn’t stay at home and look after their other children.’

  ‘I don’t blame her,’ Claire said. ‘But what about your work, Thomas? Isn’t the university term about to start? Won’t it be difficult to get time off?’

  ‘Yes, the new term begins next week. But I don’t have any one-to-one tutorials for a while and my lectures are being covered by my assistant. He’s younger and better looking than me, so the female students will be happy.’ Claire looked at Thomas in the soft light of the Marron’s sitting room and thought his assistant must be very special to look at if he was better looking than Thomas Durand. ‘So, the sooner we go the sooner we’ll be back. We’ll set off early tomorrow morning. Claire?’

  ‘Sorry?’ She felt her cheeks colour. She had been thinking about silly things instead of listening.

  ‘Tomorrow. Saint-Gaudens is near Mauzac, we’ll leave tomorrow.’

  When th
ey had finished eating and the dishes had been cleared, Thomas and Auguste spread a map of France across the table. ‘Saint-Gaudens, where the Gestapo prison was, looks big enough to have at least one hotel where we can stay,’ Thomas said.

  Auguste leaned over the table and studied the map. ‘The other places around are no more than hamlets.’ He gave a short sharp whistle. ‘It is a nine-hour drive to Mauzac, maybe longer, and then another half an hour along country roads to Saint-Gaudens.’

  ‘It’s a heck of a drive. Are you sure it wouldn’t be better if we went by train?’ Claire asked, when she and Antoinette brought in the coffee. She put the tray down on a side table and looked over Thomas’s shoulder. ‘Look! Périgueux,’ she said, scrutinising the map, ‘that’s where Mitch was taken first. Would it be possible to go to Périgueux and then to Mauzac by train?’

  ‘Anything is possible. But I thought we were hoping to follow the route Alain took when he escaped from the prison at Saint-Gaudens. What would we do if one of the small towns, or a village at the foot of the Pyrenees, didn’t have a railway station?’

  Claire frowned. She hadn’t thought the travel arrangements through properly. ‘Mm… In that case, we’ll drive down to southwestern France. We’ll take it in turn to drive.’ Thomas raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘I drive every day in England. I’ve driven in Canada, too,’ she said, which was true. She had driven in Canada once.

  ‘It was on a busy three-lane freeway.’ She waited for Thomas to show signs of being impressed. He didn’t, so she carried on. ‘We will take regular breaks. Vierzon, or Châteauroux, and again at Limoges, Montaurban, or Cahors,’ she said, pointing to towns on the map that they would be driving through.

  ‘To get to the prison at Périgueux it will take six hours, maybe longer, then it will take another four hours at least to get to Mauzac,’ Thomas said, with doubt in his voice.

  ‘We won’t go to Périgueux, then,’ Claire said. ‘He wasn’t there long before they moved him to the prison at Saint-Gaudens. It’s who he knew while he was there and what happened after he escaped that we’re interested in.’

  While they drank their coffee they discussed the journey. Thomas and Auguste found the quickest route to Mauzac, and because Auguste and Antoinette had been to the Pyrenees on holiday they were able to recommend good cafés and restaurants where Claire and Thomas could stop and eat to break their journey. They also knew a couple of hotels where they could stay overnight if necessary.

  Thomas needed to fill up the car with petrol and left the Marron house promising to be back the following morning at six o’clock. Claire walked him to the door. Before he left she took twenty francs from her pocket. ‘For the petrol,’ she said. But Thomas refused to take her money.

  ‘Keep your money,’ Thomas said, ‘we don’t know how much this jaunt will cost altogether.’ Before Claire had time to protest Thomas was out the door and halfway down the steps. Waving him goodbye, Claire returned the money to her purse.

  ‘Thomas wouldn’t let me pay for the petrol, or even make a contribution towards it. I can’t let him spend his money on me,’ Claire confided to Antoinette.

  ‘He was being chivalrous. Give it to him when the two of you are on the road. He’ll take it then.’

  Refusing a nightcap, Claire asked her friends to excuse her. She felt tired and wanted an early night. She also wanted to pack her suitcase for the morning. She took a plate of sandwiches up to her room, put it on the bedside table, and looked through the wardrobe. The weather forecast on the wireless earlier said France should prepare for a big freeze. So, as she had no idea how long she’d be away, or how many changes of clothes she’d need, she packed everything she had brought with her from England.

  When she had finished she sat on the bed and contemplated the coming days. The nerves on the top of her stomach tightened every time she considered what might lie ahead. And when she thought about Mitch with another woman her heart hammered in her chest. She nibbled the corner of a sandwich she didn’t want and put it back on the plate.

  Taking off her clothes Claire put on her nightgown and crawled into bed. She lay on her side and closed her eyes but couldn’t sleep. She turned over and lay on her back. She stared at the ceiling, terrified of what the next days or weeks might bring.

  After being on the road for three hours, Claire and Thomas stopped for refreshments. Claire used the lavatory and tidied her hair before joining Thomas in the small restaurant. ‘I was surprised when Antoinette told me you were a lecturer at the university,’ Claire said.

  Thomas lifted his head from reading the menu and a curl of unruly hair fell onto his forehead. He pushed the offending lock back into place. ‘Why?’

  ‘I had you down to become a politician after the war.’

  Thomas sat back in his seat; a look of astonishment on his face. ‘I am far too honest to be a politician,’ he said. ‘Besides, I can do more good teaching fresh young minds that are eager to learn than I can trying to influence old men and women to change their outdated ideas. And, don’t forget, my field is history and politics. My students are fascinated with the Seventeenth Century, the history and the difference in the parliamentary set-up then, compared to today. Most of the politicians I’ve met don’t remember half of the political history they learned when they were young, and they don’t want to remember the recent stuff.’

  The conversation was interrupted by the waiter who put a dish of olives and one of bread on the table. ‘Would you like wine, Monsieur?’

  ‘Do you have a decent wine of the region?’

  ‘Yes, a very good red wine.’ The waiter beckoned to a younger version of himself who arrived with an unlabelled bottle, poured a thumb measure into a wine glass and gave it Thomas to try. He inhaled its bouquet, took a sip, and nodded his approval.

  The waiter motioned to his junior to fill both glasses. ‘Are you ready to order, Monsieur?’ the waiter asked.

  Thomas looked at Claire, ‘I’d like sausage,’ she said, looking down the list of sausage meals. ‘Boudin Blanc, please, with mashed potatoes.’

  The waiter nodded and turned to Thomas. ‘Carbonnade. And bring more bread, will you? The best part of beef stew and onions is mopping up the ale-gravy with newly baked bread.’

  Claire ate some bread and potato, but her stomach was home to an army of sleeping butterflies that woke up every time she swallowed, making her feel nauseous. Putting down her knife and fork, she watched the handsome ex-Maquis fighter with long hair mop up the beer-gravy he loved so much. When he had cleaned the plate the waiter arrived, topped up their wine glasses and cleared the dirty crockery.

  Thomas raised his glass, ‘To you,’ he said, looking into Claire’s eyes.

  Claire lifted her glass. ‘Thank you, Thomas.’ She felt her cheeks colour. It was warm in the small restaurant. She’d also had too much wine. ‘I appreciate everything you have done, are doing, for me.’

  Thomas waved the compliment away, swished the last of his wine around in the glass and drank it down. ‘We should go,’ he said, ‘we have a long journey ahead of us.’

  ‘What is the matter, Thomas?’ He didn’t answer. ‘Something is bothering you,’ Claire said, ‘please, tell me what it is?’

  ‘You will not find what you are looking for in the prison.’

  ‘I know. But I need to see the place. I need to see where Mitch, Alain, was. And if he did have… get close to Simone in there, I want to try to understand.’

  ‘And if Simone is a woman in the village who Alain had an affair with while he was laid up and unable to travel?’

  ‘I shall try to understand that too. But we won’t know until we find the doctor who took the bullets out of his leg, and the only way to find him is to go to the prison and follow the escape route.’

  ‘If we can find the prison,’ Thomas said, with sensitivity. ‘Many of the prisons the Germans commandeered were in remote areas.’ He put up his hand and beckoned the waiter who brought the bill on a small tray. Thomas replaced the b
ill with ten francs and put his hand up again to say he didn’t want change. Claire made a mental note to add half the cost of the meal to that of the petrol and the other food and drink that Thomas had already paid for.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  A fierce wind drove spikes of ice and rain into the faces of Claire and Thomas as they stood at the barbed wire fence and stared with horror at what was left of the prison. Rusting railway tracks that had transported trainloads of prisoners, some of whom would never return home, were distorted and twisted, and the look-out towers, half covered with blackened snow, lay bent and broken where they had fallen when they were pulled down. The only buildings still standing were brick-built: the hospital and a round windowless building with a chimney on the top.

  Most of the huts that had housed the prisoners - part corrugated metal and part wood - were without roofs. Claire gasped in horror. Neither the wavy metal or the flimsy wood that remained was thicker than hardboard. The walls were so thin that they wouldn’t have given any shelter. With her gloved fingers like claws, forced between the rectangular shapes of wire, Claire seized the fence and shook it as she wept at the sight before her.

  Physically and emotionally exhausted, her knees buckled and she slid to the ground, her fingers still hooked in the woven steel and her face pressed against the rusting wire. Thomas crouched down beside her. ‘It is time we left,’ he shouted, his voice drowned out by the howling wind. He pointed to the gunpowder grey sky. ‘It will soon be dark.’ He took the scarf from his neck and wrapped it around the lower part of Claire’s face before pulling her to her feet.

  Overcome by the horror of what she had seen, Claire stumbled. Thomas caught her and with his arms wrapped around her, he walked her back to the car. Before getting in, she looked back. Out of an angry and malevolent sky a curtain of sleet and hail thrashed down, pounding and battering what remained of the horrific Gestapo prison.