British Bulldog (16 page)

‘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.

Oblivious, Christine continued. ‘I will not say Jack Duggan didn’t betray me. I’ll not say he couldn’t have helped me when the Germans left Paris. Suddenly, when they didn’t need us any more, the British vanished.’ She gestured as if the entire British nation was a wisp of smoke that had blown out of reach. ‘Your lover came to see me when I was in hospital at the end of the war. They had admitted I was a resister but people didn’t believe it. It wasn’t enough. There had been reprisals because of what I had done. My lover was German. Jack offered me money to leave. “Why not go to one of the Spanish islands? Majorca? Just for a while,”’ she mimicked, then her tone hardened. ‘I risked my life for my country. All of France was dancing in the streets and I was supposed to skulk off as if I was ashamed. But I was proud. I wanted to tell them what I’d done even if they didn’t listen. And he wanted me to pack a bathing costume and sit on a Spanish beach? I would rather …’ She
reached for the words but finding none adequate she pulled off one of her leather cuffs and rolled up her sleeve. All down the length of her arm Christine Moreau’s skin was pockmarked – the injuries Mirabelle had seen in the raw in the Red Cross files at the American Hospital.

‘They burned me. They branded me,’ she said. ‘And they shaved my head. My hair grew back, of course, but …’

Mirabelle made herself take it in. The skin had healed but the surface looked more like tree bark made of flesh than the arm of what must have been a very beautiful woman.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered.

‘You’re quite right. The scars are on the inside too. We cannot help who we love. You know that as well as anyone.’ Christine shrugged. ‘And I loved von der Grün. I couldn’t stop myself. But I didn’t agree with his politics. I worked against the Nazis and I hoped I could have it all. If you stake a lot and you fail, you lose everything. That’s the truth.’ She pulled her sleeve back into place.

‘And Philip Caine?’ Mirabelle ventured. ‘He was in the same hospital as you, wasn’t he?’

Christine nodded. ‘I met him long before that,’ she admitted. ‘Of course, Jack Duggan and Matthew Bradley enraged him too. He took a long time to even take it in properly. For the men who’d been away it was difficult to find their homes changed and their people gone.’

‘You mean Caine’s fiancée? Is that what they fell out about?’

Christine’s eyes darkened. ‘No. Not that. He wished the girl well. No. He couldn’t believe that they hadn’t told him about his mother. While he’d been in France his brother had died in action and as far as everyone back in England was concerned, Philip was missing presumed dead. The old woman lost heart. She died. There was a suggestion that she had taken her own life. They couldn’t have told her what Caine was doing. He knew that in his rational mind. The story had to be that he was
simply missing. But still … his whole family was gone, you see. His brother, his father, his mother – everyone. Bradley had promised to look after his people. His fiancée and his mother. He knew he’d never be able to own his daughter. The old woman was all he had left. Bradley let him down.’

‘And that’s why he attacked them at the hospital.’

‘Duggan and Bradley came to take him home, but there was no home to go to.’

‘He lived here, didn’t he? On the rue du Jour?’

‘During the occupation. On and off.’

‘And he was a Resistance fighter?’

Christine stared into the middle distance. ‘A spy. Caine was more of a spy – you know, an agent,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

Mirabelle took a breath and would have pushed the other woman to say more, but she knew she wouldn’t talk about her war either. Not about some of the things she’d done. Christine was being very generous in letting her in this far.

‘Have you been spying too? Is that what you were up to last night?’

Christine’s lip pursed only slightly. ‘The Russians are watching me,’ she said in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘That is the last time I will ever make such a trip. Now it is my job to keep them watching me for as long as I can.’

‘You’re going to keep them busy?’

‘I will walk in the park and make conversation with strangers. It might take them a month to realise that there is nothing going on now. It might take them three months. If they are watching me it’s two less Russians who are available to watch somebody else.’

‘And von der Grün?’

Christine shook her head. ‘I think you ought to go now, Miss Bevan. You should leave by the rear.’

The window that opened onto the back of the building still
had its thin curtain drawn. Mirabelle slung her handbag over her arm and rose. Christine had said that Jack loved her, and yet that wasn’t enough to fill the void left by his death. She wanted to know what he had been doing here. She wanted to know what had happened to Caine.

‘You must go.’ Christine shooed her off.

‘Thank you for the gin. For everything.’

‘OK. Sure thing.’ Christine smiled, betraying a glimpse of the fact she had drunk two double gins only shortly after breakfast, if indeed she had eaten at all.

‘OK,’ Mirabelle repeated as she made for the door.

Now, that was interesting.

Chapter 20

One cannot answer for his courage when he has never been in danger
.

O
n the main road, Mirabelle caught the Métro to Passy from Les Halles. The market was abandoned today, a gendarme walking his beat past the empty stalls. The street behind him was strangely deserted – after only a few days in Paris the Sunday silence already felt strange to Mirabelle as she descended into the station. The Métro seemed more complicated than the tube in London, but perhaps Mirabelle was simply more familiar with the ins and outs of the Northern and Piccadilly lines. She slowly read the map and boarded the right train. The journey allowed her time to think, and when she emerged from the station at the other end she turned away from the Eiffel Tower in the direction of the Bois de Boulogne. Jack always said if you let someone talk for long enough they’d tell you far more than they meant to. Christine had said a great deal this morning and Mirabelle dwelt on that. For a start, it seemed Christine’s love affair with von der Grün was over. She had talked about him in the past tense. He must have gone back to his wife. Mirabelle wondered if without the war and its immediate aftermath, Jack and she might have gone their separate ways. It hadn’t felt that way. If anything they had become closer as the affair progressed. She wondered if von der Grün stood trial for his crimes. Not every Nazi had merited Nuremberg, but courts had been set up across Europe. She must check.

Last night the darkness had cloaked some of the grandeur of the great tree-lined boulevards of the 16th arrondissement. Now in the cold winter sunshine Mirabelle smiled at the elderly women walking their lapdogs. An enticing whiff of coffee emanated from the open door of a bar and she decided to stop and allay the effects of the gin. She sipped a café crème at the bar, Italian style, and continued on her way. The key to it all was here somewhere among these streets, she thought. Paris knew.

At the rue de Siam it appeared that number 25 was occupied again. Smoke streamed from the chimney and the lights were on in the hall. When Mirabelle rang the doorbell, a maid appeared and bobbed a prompt curtsey.

‘Is your master in?’

The girl looked over her shoulder. No doubt the butler should be the one to answer the bell.

‘Are you alone?’

The maid nodded.

‘When will they return?’

‘Ce soir,’
she said. This evening.

Mirabelle thanked her and headed up the street. She’d come back later. It was something to look forward to. It would be interesting to meet the man Christine Moreau had loved. Perhaps the delivery of the little packet the night before betokened the fact they still had a connection. She hoped von der Grün would betray himself – that she’d be able to read him.

On the main road Sunday service was over and the congregation was in the process of leaving church. Most people set out to walk home but one or two had brought cars and chauffeurs. Neighbours stopped to greet one another and a bottleneck formed around the priest, who was shaking hands with his congregation at the church door. Mirabelle followed the movement of the crowd, blending in so perfectly that an elderly gentleman wished her well this fine Sunday. She shook
his hand and passed on. Several people walked in the same direction, and it wasn’t until they arrived at their destination that she realised they were making for the cemetery.

At the gate a young girl stood at a flower stall, selling lilies and ivy wreaths. Without hesitation Mirabelle moved through the iron gates past a stone relief commemorating the soldiers of the Great War and she took the path to the left. While her college companions slept in all those years ago she had stayed up to make an early morning visit to Paris’s largest cemetery, Père Lachaise, to lay flowers on her grandmother’s grave. That was on the other side of town. She wondered fleetingly if anyone was tending the old woman’s plot now or if the grave had been taken over by weeds. Père Lachaise would look after it, she comforted herself. Here in Passy the gravestones were tidy. The cemetery felt like an enclave, surrounded by chestnut trees. Flowers were piled up on the stones commemorating Debussy and Manet. White lilies framed two plots occupied by members of the Romanov family – Russian royalty. Next to the Grand Duchess there was a private plot with a row of picture frames containing images of the people who were buried there – all one family with a long Russian name. A row of stones and some greenery adorned the grave of Georges Mandel, one of the male French Resistance fighters so greatly resented by Christine Moreau.

Mirabelle sat on a bench and stared in the direction of the Trocadero beyond the boundary of the cemetery walls. A couple passed on their way to the gates, discussing where to have lunch. The woman’s arm was slung casually through her husband’s.

‘Not le Châtelet,’ she said. ‘Last time the soup was terrible.’

Mirabelle smiled at such domesticity. They passed out of earshot as a man with an American accent showed his son around – a strange outing for a child, Mirabelle thought.

‘It’s the only cemetery with a heated waiting room,’ the man said, acting the tour guide.

‘OK,’ the little boy replied with gravitas, as if he was taking in this strange detail and memorising it.

Mirabelle sat a little straighter. ‘OK,’ Christine had said. ‘Sure thing.’ As if it was natural to use the phrase. So, it might be assumed that Mademoiselle Moreau was working for the Americans. A smile played around Mirabelle’s lips. Yes, it would be like the Yanks to supply Boodles Dry Gin – they were generous but in her experience they generally missed the mark.

She stood up. All things American resided not far from here, in the 8th arrondissement. There was an embassy and a grand ambassador’s residence. She cast a glance at a Napoleonic ossuary – such a strange custom, but then Paris was famous for its catacombs. As she turned to leave she was already planning a route westwards. It would divert her for the afternoon until von der Grün came back to town.

When the man touched her, it took her a moment to recognise there was a firm hand on her elbow. It was so unusual to be accosted in that way that she didn’t understand immediately what was going on. Then she turned, and let out a cry as a man in a Mackintosh closed in. With a strong grip on both her arms, he guided her along the path. Her mind swam. It was the man from the library – the one with the seat next to the reference section.

‘What are you doing? Get off me!’ she snapped, kicking him as hard as she could.

The man produced a handkerchief and thrust it in her face. ‘She always gets upset here,’ he said to a woman who had turned from the grave she was tending.

Mirabelle tried to pull away. She wanted to shout, but the fabric smelled of chemicals and whatever they were had made her woozy. Her diction suddenly slurred and she was having difficulty keeping her balance. She leaned into the man’s side
in order to stay upright and he steered her along the path. It was an odd sensation, trying to get away at the same time as toppling towards him.

‘Ma pauvre,’
the man said as if he was comforting a grieving widow.

‘You can’t … I’m a British citizen,’ Mirabelle managed to get out, but her voice was too low to be heard by anyone other than the person she was trying to escape from. ‘No,’ she said again, gasping for breath and hearing the word come out as a moan.

The man laid a firm hand on her waist as he guided her through the gate. The flower girl nodded as if she understood how upsetting it was to visit the cemetery. Mirabelle opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She felt suddenly as if she might fall asleep, and no amount of knowing that she mustn’t could overtake the feeling that was sweeping through her limbs. She was vaguely aware of a car pulling up and the man lifting her inside. The seat was upholstered in red leather and the interior smelled of half-eaten apples and crumpled newspaper. She felt her body sway as the engine drew away from the kerb. Remember how long they drive and if there are twists and turns. Listen for noises that can identify the route. She tried to remember the drill, clinging on to it as if she was a swimmer about to go under. Then an image appeared in her mind’s eye of Jack smiling. She relaxed. And after that everything went black.