by Mara Timon
‘Why not?’
*
Julian’s car was a two-seater with an engine that roared like a Lancaster. The Portuguese valet dropped the set of keys into the Irishman’s hands and stood back. His gaze ping-ponged between Claudine and me, and I hoped he was more curious about the logistics of the drive home than what he thought would come later. Claudine had one hand on the dashboard and the other on the gearstick as she shimmied into the car. Huddled close to Julian to make way for me as the valet closed the door.
‘Hold on tight, madame,’ Claudine murmured as Julian revved the engine.
He slid the car into gear and rocketed from the car park. I gritted my teeth as we made a sharp left turn away from the casino. Behind us, moonlight danced on black water, beauty over deep currents that could suck a soul under.
‘Tell me where!’ Julian screamed over the engine as we climbed the hill.
I pried one hand from its death grip on the door to point at my villa. Julian waited for me to pass through the gate before driving off, one arm across the back of Claudine’s seat.
Chapter Twelve
A
n insistent knocking catapulted me from sleep into panic. Only the Gestapo came calling at night; only they made that sort of racket. Damn it, I was careful! I grabbed a dress from the wardrobe at random, and slid my feet into a pair of shoes. I was halfway out of the balcony door, with my gun in hand, when I realised that it was mid-morning and here in Portugal, the Gestapo held no more sway than any other gang of street thugs.
Peering over the gate I caught a glimpse of the red highlights gleaming in my neighbour’s chestnut hair.
‘Inconsiderate cow.’
I returned to my bedroom and ran a comb through my hair. The sgian dubh on my thigh was more out of habit than caution, but there was no need for the PPK. I slipped it into my handbag and went to meet Claudine.
‘Good morning,’ I tried not to snarl.
‘Bonjour, madame.’ Her smile was too bright for the early hour. ‘Have I woken you up?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ah, well, now that you’re awake, I have decided to introduce you to Estoril.’
My compliance assumed, Claudine ducked under my arm and led the way into my house, chattering as she walked. Taken individually, her features were unspectacular, but the energy she emitted was engaging.
‘Frankly speaking, my dear, you have stirred up an awful lot of gossip this morning,’ she said.
‘Me?’
‘Oh, everyone’s used to seeing Christophe being difficult. But you’re new.’ She laughed in a very self-satisfied way. ‘Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m delighted the old dears have found someone else to gossip about.’
‘Dare I ask what they’re saying?’
‘Fiction.’ She waved her hand airily. ‘Like everything else here. My favourite story is that you’re an actress, on the run after being caught in flagrante with Pétain!’
‘You cannot be serious!’ I laughed. ‘The Maréchal is old enough to be my grandfather!’
‘Does that matter?’ She rummaged through my cabinets, finally putting two cups on the table. ‘Where do you keep your coffee?’
The small bag of beans hid in the back of the second cabinet. I poured a handful into the grinder and cranked the handle. It didn’t look like very much and added a few more. There was something calming about this process of making coffee.
‘I’m nowhere near as interesting as that.’
‘Perhaps. Perhaps not. But you are kind to small animals and mutilated Germans.’ She rested her elbows on my table and dropped her chin on to her crossed hands. ‘I’m assuming the bit about small animals.’
‘Of course.’
It was hard to keep up with her. The smell of coffee began to infuse the room and I felt a little more alert.
‘So what is your story?’ she asked.
‘Story?’ I paused halfway to the cupboard for the sugar bowl. Claudine was a gossip, which could be as dangerous as it could – occasionally – be convenient. I fixed a bland smile on to my face. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, you know. Where do you come from? How did you get here? Why on earth did you choose this place? And what made you want to defend Quasimodo?’
‘Is he that bad?’
She looked confused. ‘No, I don’t suppose so.’
‘And does he kick small dogs?’
‘If he does, I’ve not heard of it.’ She relaxed, seeing where the conversation was leading. ‘But I suppose you’re right. I sound like Laura, don’t I? I confess, I’ve never spoken to him, but it was a tragedy, what happened.’
‘How he got the scars?’
I poured the coffee and gestured for her to continue.
‘The tank he was driving took a shell. This was fairly early on, of course. The major dragged his unconscious body from the wreck.’
‘The major?’
The man with the blue cat’s eyes and smarmy grin didn’t seem the sort to save anyone other than himself. Did that overwhelming arrogance hide a selfless bravery?
‘He received the Ritterkreuz that day. The major, that is. The attack was at his command and rather a victory.’ Her voice had gone flat and I guessed that victory was against the French. ‘Despite the injuries they sustained.’
‘Really?’
I was impressed: the Knight’s Cross was the Third Reich’s medal of honour. I hadn’t seen it at the major’s throat last night, and blinked. He didn’t seem the sort to tone down his merits. If someone earned that cross, they probably wore it pinned to their pyjamas at night.
She sipped the coffee and cringed. Fumbled for the sugar bowl and stirred in a spoonful. Tasted it and then added a second.
‘Real sugar? I’m impressed. In any case, someone said that Rommel himself pinned it on the major, but you know how gossip is.’ Disdain pulled her mouth into a small moue and I struggled not to laugh at the irony.
‘So what’s your story, Madame Deschamps?’
‘Claudine,’ she corrected with a stern look. ‘I’ll have been here two years in December. I never thought it would be this long. Didn’t think the war would go on this long.’
She hadn’t answered my question, from which I could only guess that she also had a past she preferred to keep quiet.
‘Who did?’
‘Oh, there are people enough who want it to continue. Who make sure it continues.’ For a moment, her face darkened. Then she pushed the porcelain cup to the centre of the table and abruptly stood. ‘Come, Solange. Your coffee is not fit for pigs. Let me show you this place you’ve chosen to call home.’
*
‘The King of Spain lives over there.’ Claudine pointed to a little castle near the beach. ‘He’s in exile, of course. As are half the people who live here.’
‘And the other half?’
She laughed. ‘Merchants, adventurers, and of course spies.’
Of course.
‘Fancy an ice cream? Best one in the city is just ahead. Come on, you’ll love it.’
Gino’s Ice Cream Parlour was a thriving business. Not a single table under the green-and-white umbrellas was free, and a roiling file of children and adults led to a counter outside where a young man was busy scooping their gelato. Through the window, an enormous portrait of Mussolini proclaimed Gino’s politics. I held back a sigh. Whether by intent or not, Claudine was ensuring that I was seen in the right watering holes.
‘It’s always like this,’ Claudine said, grabbing my arm and moving fast to slide into a seat almost before it was fully vacated.
A middle-aged woman came to take our orders. Tendrils of hair escaped the chignon at the back of her head, falling in damp waves along her shoulders.
‘Buon giorno, Signora Deschamps.’
She piled the empty glasses onto a tray and sponged down the table.
Claudine waited for her to finish before responding. ‘Good afternoon, Carla. I’ll have a strawberry gelato, please. And for my friend
. . .’
I ordered a hazelnut gelato and watched three small children at the next table over attack their ice cream as Claudine prattled on.
‘Bless her, she really could do with a bit more help here. It was better when her daughter was here, but Gino won’t allow her to bring in anyone else. “A family concern” he calls this. Or something like that.’
‘Where’s the daughter?’
‘She ran off with a sailor last year.’ Her nostrils flared, showing her opinion on the matter.
‘It’s a common enough story.’ I couldn’t help myself. ‘There’s something about the uniforms.’
‘You didn’t!’
‘No, I was already married when my husband joined the navy.’ That part, at least, was true.
‘And Monsieur Verin?’
‘Is dead.’
The simple words didn’t lend themselves to further conversation, and after murmuring her condolences, Claudine looked away. I stared over her shoulder at two women farther down the beach. They lounged in deckchairs, their faces half hidden behind large sunglasses with tortoiseshell frames, with a bottle of Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Oil perched on a table between them.
‘Americans,’ Claudine said, following my gaze. ‘I almost envy them.’
‘Whatever for?’
‘Ever met one?’ a blonde woman with olive skin said, kissing Claudine’s cheek and sliding into the seat beside her. She waved at the waitress as she spoke. ‘Everything about them is larger than life. They play at war, having no idea what it’s all about. What it’s like to be bombed,’ she said bitterly. ‘So here they are, with their dollars and their white smiles and their naïveté. They think they’re helping but everything they do makes this damned war last forever. But enough of politics.’ A dainty hand waved away the subject. ‘Welcome to Estoril, Madame Verin. I’m having a dinner party tomorrow. Do say you’ll come, we’re all quite curious about you.’
Claudine was right; the gossipmongers were already at work. I hadn’t introduced myself yet, but she already knew who I was. I’d hoped to get my bearings before entering the fray, but wasn’t about to miss the opportunity.
‘I’d be delighted, Madame . . . ?’
‘Ribaud. Gabrielle Ribaud.’ She pulled a cream-coloured calling card from her handbag. ‘The address is on the card, although Madame Deschamps knows where I live. By the way, darling, whoever is your husband talking to?’
Claudine went very still as she located her husband. She pushed her white-framed sunglasses farther up her nose and leant forward. Farther down the beach, he stood facing a man with fair hair and hands in his pockets. Christophe’s shoulders were hunched in what should have been a casual pose. It was impossible to see his face from this angle, but from her expression, Claudine knew who his companion was, and wasn’t pleased.
‘Claudine?’ I asked, curious.
‘I don’t know,’ she lied. For some time, her eyes didn’t leave her husband, until she threw down the spoon and stood up. ‘Please forgive me, Solange.’ She collected her things, fingers trembling. ‘I’m so sorry to do this to you, but the sun’s getting to me. I need to lie down.’
‘Let me walk you back.’
‘No, no. You stay and finish your ice cream. Gabrielle will keep you company. I’ll be fine.’
Christophe’s conversation had become animated, his hands gesticulating wildly. His companion had an unremarkable face, with both hair and chin retreating away from a prominent nose and an even more prominent Adam’s apple. It was the sort that you forget moments after meeting. Almost. The cut of his pale seersucker suit looked faintly English. From his company he kept at the casino, I’d assumed Christophe favoured the Germans, but this was the City of Spies, and I was beginning to realise, the moniker was well-earned.
Chapter Thirteen
F
or all that the Irishman, Julian Reilly, claimed Claudine loved her husband, both times I had seen them, they’d seemed at odds. And yet, they remained together. Expediency? Shared secrets? Or something deeper? I was curious, but the Deschamps weren’t my priority.
My first three days in Estoril were busy. Under the guise of exploring the coastal towns of Cascais, Oeiras and Carcavelos, I secured a safe house and a number of disguises. I didn’t have the documentation yet for a second identity, but that was something Matthew should be able to sort out.
By the time I returned home, I was exhausted. A note fell to the ground when I opened my gate, and I took a deep breath before opening it. Claudine, noting that I didn’t have a car, was offering to pick me up at eight o’clock for the soirée at Gabrielle Ribaud’s villa.
Two hours later, clad in a teal chiffon gown, I sat in the back of Christophe’s Peugeot, listening to Claudine’s monologue of the guests expected to attend the soirée, where they were from, and any little titbit of gossip associated with them. The quick glances she occasionally sent her husband weren’t returned, and Christophe might as well have been a silent chauffeur.
Determined to summon a taxi for the return trip, I smiled back at her and counted the minutes until Christophe turned off the road onto a short drive. He stopped the Peugeot in front of a small but elegant villa and helped his wife, and then me, from the vehicle. It was the closest I had been to him. From a distance, he had seemed remote; up close, there was something repellent about him. His eyes. They were flat, emotionless.
I forced a smile and followed them into a villa that seemed only slightly more boisterous than Christophe. A servant opened the door for us, pointing the way through the house to a garden at the rear, scented with roses and jasmine. Gabrielle Ribaud rose to meet us; her dress was magnificent, but her face taut.
‘I found out only a couple of hours ago. Horrible news. Martin Billiot was murdered.’ Her voice was low and, unless I misread her, shocked.
‘Murdered.’ Claudine raised a hand to her mouth. ‘How? Why?’
‘Car crash.’
‘Surely that could have been an accident?’
Could this city be so paranoid that even an accident was considered nefarious?
Gabrielle shook her head. ‘They say he was driving.’
Her words were met with a hushed silence I didn’t understand.
Finally, Claudine asked: ‘Who told Rosalie?’
‘One of the Director’s men.’
‘Who?’
Christophe’s mouth pursed under his pencil moustache. ‘Agostinho Lourenço, captain of the PVDE. They call him “the Director”. He returned his attention to Gabrielle. ‘Do you know who informed his wife?’
After a furtive glance, Gabrielle whispered: ‘Adriano de Rios Vilar.’
It didn’t feel right to capitalise on someone else’s misery, but if I was going to make Solange Verin believable, I had to start now.
‘Forgive me for interrupting, but who are the PVDE?’
Claudine glanced at her husband. ‘The political police.’
‘Why would they get involved for a simple traffic accident?’
‘Because, Madame Verin, it wasn’t a simple traffic accident. Martin Billiot had a driver. He never drove himself . . .’
Gabrielle glanced at me, her trailing voice indicating her unwillingness to postulate in my company.
I sighed, murmuring just loud enough for them to hear: ‘And I left France because with the bombings it was no longer safe.’
‘You don’t strike me as being that naïve, Madame Verin.’ It was the most I’d heard Christophe speak so far, his voice soft but derisive. ‘Nowhere is safe. Especially not Lisbon.’
*
Martin Billiot’s death rated a small column, almost hidden in the next day’s paper – a not-so-gentle warning not to get too comfortable in Lisbon.
Needing time to myself, I ventured farther afield, taking a taxi along the Estrada Marginal. The coast road, the driver explained in broken French, was only completed a few years ago, as one of Salazar’s great building projects. I tuned out his history lesson, fascinated by the
flashes of blue water and rocky coastline. I planned to gorge myself on the sights I had missed on the way in: the tower of Belém, where the Portuguese World Exhibition was held three years ago, the palatial Mosteiro dos Jerónimos behind it, and the ruined castle on the hill in Lisbon.
Sandbags and barbed wire guarded the national treasures, but not like London or Paris. I knew Spain had tried to negotiate with Germany to extend her borders to the sea, and yet the Portuguese seemed more concerned about dissent from within than invasion from any outside nation. Newspapers barely acknowledged the food shortages, one thing that I had a hard time understanding, given how well Sabela Figueiredo, my housekeeper, provisioned my villa.
Despite my instruction, the driver let me out at the Rossio, a busy area which, from the looks of it, was the meeting point for refugees from across Europe. Figuring that being seen here would fit with my cover story, I took a seat between two families with a clear view out of the window. I ordered a cup of the thick black brew they called coffee and tried to block the stories being told around me: Jews who had been hiding for years before making their escape; Frenchmen who had fallen foul of neighbours, or the Gestapo. The trials they endured while waiting for a visa and the ship – or for the rich, the Pan Am Clipper – to take them to New York.
It was an interesting place, but not likely one a German sympathiser would frequent. I had already called for the bill when I saw the man stride past the window. For a second I considered letting him pass, but then my curiosity got the better of me. Throwing down a note, I followed my godfather into the warren of little streets – the Baixa.
It was a seedy part of town. Bridges arched overhead, giving the tourists a safe path above the grime, the scent of docks and of decay. Sailors weren’t a particular lot, but worryingly, neither was my Matthew. He stopped in front of a short, round woman with a pockmarked face. She was young, with hard eyes and a straining décolletage.
I hid in the darkened doorway of a bar, horrified when Matthew followed the whore into a shabby building. In all my life, this was the one thing I never expected to see. I stumbled into a chair and, despite the early hour, ordered a brandy.
