‘Sounds tempting,’ Mitch said.
‘No!’ Claire playfully punched Mitch’s arm. ‘Thank you, Chief, but our home is in England with our daughter.’
‘Well, if you ever change your mind-- I’ll get a car to take you to your hotel.’
‘Thank you, but we’re going to get some fresh air. We’ll pick up a cab on the way.’ Mitch took Claire’s hand. ‘We’ll leave by the back door, if that’s okay with you, Chief?’
Chief Jacobs shrugged. ‘Would it make any difference if I said it wasn’t okay?’
Claire and Mitch laughed. ‘If you give us a five-minute start before you go out?’ Mitch said, saluting Montréal’s Chief of Police. Claire kissed him on the cheek and thanked him.
Leaving the chief at the front door, Mitch and Claire walked down the passage to the kitchen and left the house by the back door. Claire bent down and took the lockpicks from behind the airbrick, waved them at Mitch, and together they fled across the garden.
Once they were through the back gate, they walked swiftly down the service lane to the road. ‘Well?’ Mitch said.
‘Well?’ Claire said, linking her arm through his and strolling along at his side.
‘Good shooting, China.’
‘Thank you. You weren’t so bad yourself,’ Claire replied, laughing.
Mitch took a deep breath and sighed. ‘You know, honey, you were the only person who believed me incapable of treason.’
‘Esther didn’t believe you were a traitor. Nor did any of my family. Édith, André and Therese laughed at the suggestion, so did the guys who were in the Resistance with you. No darling,’ Claire said, leaning her head on her husband’s shoulder, ‘it was only Commander Landry who doubted you after reading Beckman’s letter.’
‘Huh!’
‘What?’
‘Commander Landry doubted me. My own commander thought I could be turned by a German spy. Me, a German sympathiser, an agent? How long has he known me?’ He cuffed a tear. Without speaking they walked on through the suburbs. Then Mitch said, ‘There might be something in what Chief Jacobs said. Maybe I’ll leave the Air Force and become a cop.’
Laughing, Claire looked up at her husband. He wasn’t laughing. ‘Are you serious?’
‘About being a cop? No. About leaving the Air Force? Yes. Once the legal stuff is over and my name has been cleared - and after Beckman’s trial - I shall resign my commission.’
Claire put her head on her husband’s shoulder. ‘Whatever you decide to do, Aimée and I will back you all the way.’
‘Mmmm… Aimée,’ Mitch said.
‘She’ll be pleased I kept my promise.’
‘What promise?’
Claire looked up into Mitch’s face. ‘I promised her I would find her daddy and bring him home to her.’
Mitch pulled Claire close. ‘She’ll be pleased? I’m pleased you found me.’ Leaning forward he kissed Claire hungrily. ‘I’ve missed you, China.’
‘I’ve missed you too, darling. Shall we hail a cab?’
‘Good idea.’ Mitch put up his hand and the first cab that approached stopped. ‘We’ll telephone Aimée from the hotel’s lobby. It will be quieter. He gave the driver the name of the hotel and jumped into the back of the cab with Claire. ‘We could ring Dad and Marie from the lobby too; tell them it’s over and we’re on our way back. We could say we’re walking some of the way. Then…’
‘Then?’
‘We could book a room for a couple of hours. What do you say?’
Claire looked into Mitch’s eyes. Her heart was pounding and the butterflies he always woke in her began to stir in the pit of her stomach. ‘We’ll telephone Aimée first,’ she said.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Madalyn Morgan has been an actress for more than thirty years working in Repertory theatre, the West End, film and television. She is a radio presenter and journalist, writing articles for newspapers and magazines.
Madalyn was brought up in Lutterworth, at the Fox Inn. The pub was a great place for an aspiring actress and writer to live, as there were so many different characters to study and accents to learn. At twenty-four Madalyn gave up a successful hairdressing salon and wig-hire business for a place at E15 Drama College, and a career as an actress.
In 2000, with fewer parts available for older actresses, Madalyn taught herself to touch type, completed a two-year correspondence course with The Writer’s Bureau, and started writing. After living in London for thirty-six years, she has returned to her home town of Lutterworth, swapping two window boxes and a mortgage, for a garden and the freedom to write.
Proud to be an Indie Author, Madalyn has successfully published six novels. Foxden Acres, Applause, China Blue and The 9:45 To Bletchley are set before and during WW2 and tell the wartime stories of Bess, Margot, Claire, and Ena Dudley. Foxden Hotel and Chasing Ghosts are both post war.
Madalyn’s books are available on Amazon - in all formats of eBook and in paperback.
FUTURE BOOKS
“While I was proof reading Chasing Ghosts, the opening of a spy thriller came me in the middle of the night. I got up and wrote down the first 800 words. The story doesn’t have a title yet, but I could see the characters clearly and became excited with what I’d written.
With the cold war around the corner, there is more to come from Ena and her husband Henry, who both work for MI5.”
OUTLINE OF EARLIER BOOKS IN THE DUDLEY SISTERS SAGA
FOXDEN ACRES: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00BCX59LE/
Foxden Acres, the first book in the saga, begins on the eve of 1939 when twenty-year-old Bess Dudley, the daughter of a Foxden groom, bumps into James Foxden the heir to Foxden Estate. Bess, a scholarship girl, lodges at Mrs McAllister’s boarding house in London while studying to be a teacher.
With offers of a teaching job in London and Foxden, Bess opts for Foxden, to be near James. However, when she is told that James is betrothed to the socially acceptable Annabel Hadleigh, Bess accepts the teaching post in London.
When war breaks out and London’s schoolchildren are evacuated, Bess returns to Foxden to organise a team of Land Girls and turn the Foxden Estate into arable land. James, having joined the RAF, is training to be a bomber pilot at nearby Bitteswell Aerodrome.
German bombs fall on London and Mrs McAllister’s house is blitzed to rubble. South Leicestershire is scarred too, when an RAF plane carrying Polish airmen crash lands in a Foxden field. Traditional social barriers come crashing down when Flying Officer James Foxden, falls in love with Bess, but is it too late? During the time Bess has been back at Foxden she has grown to like and respect Annabel Hadleigh. How can Bess be with James knowing it would break her friend’s heart? Besides, Bess has a shameful secret that she has vowed to keep from James at any cost.
APPLAUSE: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00J7Y5LCW/
Applause us the second book in the saga. In the early years of World War Two, Margot (Margaret) Dudley works her way up from usherette to leading lady in a West End show. Driven by blind ambition Margot becomes immersed in the heady world of nightclubs, drink, drugs and fascist thugs – all set against a background of the London Blitz.
To achieve her dream, Margot risks losing everything she holds dear.
CHINA BLUE: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00XD85NQW/
China Blue, the third book, is Claire Dudley’s story. At the beginning of World War II Claire joins the WAAF. She excels in languages and is recruited by the Special Operations Executive to work in Occupied France. Against SOE rules, Claire falls in love. The affair has to be kept secret. Even after her lover falls into the hands of the Gestapo, Claire cannot tell anyone they are more than comrades.
As the war reaches its climax, Claire fears she will never again see the man she loves.
THE 9:45 TO BLETCHLEY: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01GEVW3Z8/
The 9:45 To Bletchley is the fourth book in the Dudley Sisters Saga. In the midst of the Second World War, and charged with taking vital
surveillance equipment via the 9:45 train, Ena Dudley makes regular trips to Bletchley Park, until on one occasion she is robbed. When those she cares about are accused of being involved, she investigates, not knowing whom she can trust.
While trying to clear her name, Ena falls in love.
FOXDEN HOTEL: Foxden Hotel: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B071LDYD2D/
The war is over. It is time for new beginnings.
Celebrating the opening of Foxden Hotel, New Year’s Eve 1948, an enemy from the war years turns up. He threatens to expose a secret that will ruin Bess’s happiness and the new life she has worked so hard to create. Bess’s husband throws the man out. So is that the last they see of him? Or will he show up again when they least expect?
Bess had hoped fascism was a thing of the past, buried with the victims of WW2. Little does
she know the trouble that lies ahead, not only for herself, but also for her family.
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