Grey Wolves (21 page)

Edith thought about Mamba Noir’s eccentric status. Every other bar and club in town was either for French people and had been ordered to close, or for Germans and was allowed to stay open. Mamba Noir was uniquely open to both.

‘I’d bet they’ll let you open but just allow Germans in.’

‘You could be right,’ Henderson said. ‘But I’m the bar manager and I’m not making waves. We’re staying shut until I get clear instructions from the Krauts.’

‘Have you heard anything about Marc?’

‘A friend of Madame Mercier’s has been up to Gestapo headquarters,’ Henderson said. ‘They didn’t let her in, but they’ve pinned a list of prisoners on the gate. Marc’s name was there, so at least I’m certain where he is.’

As Edith headed inside to grab a quick lunch, Henderson jogged down the street and upstairs to his apartment. PT had some of his colour back, but still looked weak as he lay on Marc’s bed.

‘How’s it going, champ?’

‘Hurts like hell,’ PT said. ‘I get really woozy if I try going more than a few paces.’

‘That’s the blood loss. Is it still oozing?’

‘A bit,’ PT said, as Henderson walked into his bedroom. ‘At least the stitches you put in are holding up OK.’

Henderson re-emerged with a shirt, two vests and a necktie. He folded one vest into a square pad and told PT to knot it over his wound using the tie. He then gave him the other vest to pull over the top, before helping with the buttons.

‘That should be enough layers to stop the blood soaking to the outside,’ Henderson said. ‘We’ve got a few minutes while Edith eats her lunch. Put your arms around my neck. I’ll try a piggyback.’

Henderson crouched down. He wasn’t a huge man, but he was strong and carried PT without straining.

‘Duck,’ Henderson said, as he went through the doorway and on to the landing.

PT’s gut tore painfully on every step, but he took the pain and tilted his head sideways so that he didn’t scrape the ceiling as they went down. Four steps from the bottom there was a knock at the door.

‘Coming,’ Henderson shouted, thinking it was Edith and taking his time.

But the blur through the frosted panes in the front door was too big for Edith. A Germanic shout sent Henderson into a panic. He dumped PT against the wall of the downstairs hallway and ran for the door.

‘Mr Hortefeux?’ the German shouted, as he pounded again.

Henderson opened up to a bulky, black-uniformed Gestapo officer.

‘Good afternoon,’ Henderson said, uncomfortably aware that he’d have a lot of explaining to do if the officer wanted to come inside and found PT propped against the wall.

‘I am Oberst Bauer,’ the German said importantly. ‘I’ve been informed that you have the keys to Madame Mercier’s safe?’

‘I do,’ Henderson said. ‘But I don’t have access to her office, I’m afraid.’

‘Not a problem,’ Bauer said. ‘Come at once.’

Bauer led Henderson on the short walk to Mamba Noir and upstairs to Madame Mercier’s first-floor office. The office door had been broken down with a fire axe. Two junior Gestapo officers stood inside turning out desk drawers and throwing about the contents of her filing cabinet. There was no method to their search, it was all about intimidation.

‘If there’s something you’re looking for, I’m sure …’

Bauer shook his head as he snatched the safe key. He looked disappointed as the door swung open revealing several thousand francs and four cash register drawers filled with loose change.

‘Step into the corridor with me,’ Bauer said to Henderson in a friendly tone. ‘The name
Hortefeux
. I questioned a boy with that name last night.’

‘My son,’ Henderson said. ‘Unfortunately he was picked up when he came back here to fetch something. He’s a good boy. Can I assume he’ll be released soon?’

Bauer shrugged.

‘I see
very
many signs of black market activity in this club,’ Bauer said. ‘Madame Mercier must have many connections to get away with these flagrant breaches of regulations, don’t you agree?’

‘I work behind the bar, sir,’ Henderson said. ‘I don’t involve myself in Madame Mercier’s business, and I don’t think I’d be working here for much longer if I did.’

‘But a man in your position must see and hear interesting things,’ Bauer said, as a filing cabinet was toppled inside the office. ‘People who’ve had too much to drink and say things they don’t mean to? These things could be of interest to the Gestapo.’

‘Discretion comes with the job in a place like this,’ Henderson said. ‘And you’re always on the move. It’s not like you get to stand still for half an hour listening to a conversation.’

‘How do you feel about us Germans occupying your country?’ Bauer asked.

This was a tricky question. If Henderson fawned, Bauer might feel that he was saying what he wanted to hear, but saying he wanted the Germans booted out would hardly go down well either.

‘Well …’ Henderson began, before a pause to think. ‘I’m a patriotic Frenchman, but I don’t see things ever going back the way they were. We’ve got to move forwards and learn to get along.’

Bauer laughed. ‘That’s a very diplomatic answer, Mr Hortefeux. I take it you’d like to see your son released soon?’

‘Naturally,’ Henderson said, deeply uneasy as he sensed that Marc had become a pawn.

‘If I see to it that your son is looked after, can I have your assurance that I’ll be the first to hear of anything untoward involving Madame Mercier, or anything else you might hear that is of interest to the Gestapo?’

Henderson pretended to be shocked. ‘Sir, my son hasn’t done anything wrong except be in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t be sure,’ Bauer said teasingly. ‘I believe he may have been involved in trafficking black market foodstuffs around town and offering items to German soldiers to get through checkpoints. I wonder how well your son would withstand a lengthy and
uncomfortable
interrogation.’

‘I see what you’re getting at,’ Henderson nodded, fighting to keep nerves out of his voice as he fished for information. ‘I’m sure we can come to some arrangement. Is there anything in particular that you’d like me to look out for?’

‘You seem like a smart man, Mr Hortefeux,’ Bauer said, as he smiled conceitedly. ‘I’m sure you can work out what I’m likely to find interesting.’

With that, Bauer leaned into Madame Mercier’s ravaged office and shouted to his two goons in German. ‘Come on, let’s go to the old bag’s house. We can strangle her cat and break a few ornaments.’

*

When Edith saw the Gestapo officer leading Henderson upstairs she put down her lunch, ran up the street to Henderson’s house and shouted through the letterbox.

‘Are you PT?’

PT couldn’t bend forwards because of his stomach wound, so he shuffled along the wall and opened the front door.

‘You must be Edith. What’s going on with Henderson?’

‘They’re upstairs searching, so they’ll be a few minutes. If I bring the cart along, can you climb up on your own?’

‘I’ll manage,’ PT said.

So Edith brought the cart up, and gave PT as much support as her skinny frame allowed as he stepped on to the cart. After closing Henderson’s front door she looked behind for any sign of Gestapo before setting off.

First stop was the stables, where she swapped strong-but-stubborn Dot for a younger horse and made sure that her stand-in was feeding the animals properly.

There were back streets with fewer checkpoints, but Germans tended to treat you with extreme suspicion if they did stop you there, so Edith took the main road through the shopping district. They faced a twenty-minute wait at a snap checkpoint, during which PT clutched the side of the cart and looked ominously like he was going to pass out. Edith jumped down and fetched a mug of cold water from a friendly greengrocer.

‘OT,’ the German at the checkpoint said, when he saw PT’s zone pass. ‘Shouldn’t you be working?’

PT faked a cough and gave an answer straight out of spy school. ‘They sent me into town for a chest X-ray.’

PT’s sickly pallor helped convince the guard that he might have a case of highly contagious tuberculosis. The guard flung back the documents and waved them on without even asking Edith for her ID card.

‘Nice move,’ Edith said when they were a few hundred metres past the checkpoint, ‘I’ll have to remember that one. How are you feeling?’

‘Mind’s a blur,’ PT said. ‘Keep talking to me. It really helps.’

‘Hopefully the checkpoint out of town won’t be as slow as that one. Once we’re through, maybe you can lie down in the back.’

The cart now turned into the courtyard outside Lorient station.

‘Oh
Jesus
,’ Edith said, as she looked into the middle of the square.

A dilapidated Citroën truck had been parked by the station’s main entrance. A wooden frame was mounted on the cargo platform and two bodies dangled from it. Each man had been choked to death using piano wire, which was fine enough to cut deep into their necks.

Their shirts were blood-soaked and they had painted signs hung around their necks. The first man was a giant, with
MURDERER
written on his board. He wasn’t a pretty sight, but PT drew a certain amount of pleasure from seeing the man who’d tried to kill him.

The other man was smaller and wore a dark-blue overall. His board read
INCOMPETENT
and Edith felt a lump in her throat as she recognised him as the guard from the train depot.

PT was pretty out of it, but he reacted instinctively to the tear that streaked down Edith’s face.

‘Hey, what’s the matter?’ he asked.

‘You feel so proud to be part of something,’ Edith said, wiping her grubby face with her even grubbier hand. ‘And then …’

Her thought hung in the air as the cart trundled out of the square.

*

The Gestapo’s wine cellar cleared out as the day wore on. The drunks were the first to get kicked out, then all of the women apart from Madame Mercier and another lady who owned a restaurant. Marc’s name was called in a list of all the remaining men, again except for those who owned bars, clubs and restaurants. Most of the owners had rips in their well-made clothes and minor injuries, similar to Madame Mercier’s.

‘You’ll be OK,’ Marc told her, as he headed for the door. ‘I expect I’ll see you at work this evening.’

‘You’re a sweetheart,’ Madame Mercier said. ‘I’ll see you get a few extra francs in your wages this week.’

‘I didn’t do it for that,’ Marc said.

He wound up at the back of a long queue in the courtyard, as men were given back their documents, rings and watches. An argument over a missing cane held things up but there was only one man in front when a stocky young officer tapped Marc on the arm.

‘Hortefeux?’ he asked. ‘Back to the cellar.’

Marc assumed it was a mistake and his tone was sarcastic. ‘Do I look like I own a nightclub to you, boss?’

The officer’s hand swung across, making a sharp crack as it hit Marc’s face. His chunky ring left a small cut as the boy stumbled backwards.

‘Insolent dog,’ the officer shouted, as he grabbed Marc by the back of his neck. Marc eyed up a backwards kick in the balls, but doubted he’d come off best if he started a fight in the Gestapo’s back yard.

The officer sitting at the desk seemed surprised and stood up to ask what was going on.

‘What’s with the boy?’

‘Oberst Bauer telephoned. Thinks he might be useful for some reason.’

Paul met the cart when it reached the dairy outside of town. Edith helped PT swing his legs around and slide into the back of the cart where he could lie down. It was a bumpy ride, but his heart had an easier time when it didn’t have to pump his limited blood supply up to his head.

Edith rarely ventured this far out of Lorient and there was a strange feeling of isolation as the horse trotted along dirt roads, past overgrown fields and empty farmhouses. Paul had only met Edith a couple of times, but saw that she was troubled and tried to console her.

‘Before he died, my dad said that the only thing worse than fighting the Germans is not fighting the Germans,’ Paul said.

Edith nodded. She understood the reality of war, but it didn’t make thinking about the railway guard any easier. She didn’t know him, but she’d imagined a wife, kids, a house. How were they all feeling with their dearly beloved attracting bluebottles in the centre of town?

‘I’d like to live up in a mountain or something,’ Edith said, as she looked up at the sky. ‘Hours away from everyone else. I get so sick of
everything
.’

‘I know what you mean,’ Paul said. ‘The war’s like a trap with no way out.’

The last stretch of the journey was a steep hill dotted with the odd sheep. The height meant Boo and Rosie could get a good radio signal, along with a view of anyone approaching from the road below. Their home was a single-storey cottage, which had started small then sprouted two badly matched extensions and stable block converted into a garage.

Boo and Rosie helped PT down off the cart and laid him out in the living room. Edith and Paul fetched a bucket of water and pulled up a few handfuls of long grass for the horse. Rosie found herself alone with PT and he reached out to touch her skirt.

‘I’m really sorry about the other day,’ PT said.

He looked pale and weak, but Rosie felt no warmth towards him as she undid his shirt buttons and the necktie holding the makeshift dressing in place. She unfurled the vest and held it up to the light.

‘You’re not bleeding much, but it’s better to get some air to the wound. You’re sweating, would you like a flannel to wipe down with?’

PT lifted his head, ‘Rosie,’ he began softly. ‘I’m—’

She cut him dead. ‘PT, it’s not a nice time to have to say this, but I can’t leave it hanging. What you did the other day and the way you spoke to me afterwards were unacceptable.’

‘I’m
really
sorry,’ PT said. ‘I acted stupid. I should have shown you more respect.’

‘Apology accepted,’ Rosie said. ‘But it’s over between us. I’ll look after you while you’re sick, I’ll work with you on the missions but I don’t feel I can trust you.’

PT made a long sigh. ‘How can you be so cold? There’s something special between us. You can’t flick it off like a switch and pretend it’s not there.’