The Milliner's Secret (40 page)

True, and even Ramon would not have stolen a friend’s girl. Or his child’s former nanny .
. .
She’d stooped to questioning Noëlle. ‘Was Papa’s lady-friend nice when you stayed with him that time?’

‘No lady, just Papa.’

So, he’d got rid of ‘Julie’ for the day, had he? Keep away from rue Valdonne, good sense told Coralie. Some things it’s better not to know.

Madame Thomas closed her ledger. ‘Lunchtime – and look at that rain.’ A slanting downpour, the boulevard dark with umbrellas. But, then, it was November tomorrow, the threshold of winter. What would this one would bring? Shivering under blankets, chapped hands and chilblains. Frozen bodies brought out of unheated apartments?

‘Shall I tell Paulette and Didi to take their lunch now?’ Madame Thomas asked.

‘Of course. Violaine will be a while and I’ll have mine when you come back.’ Coralie stayed at the table, running her eye down Madame Thomas’s figures, but when the door shuddered open, she looked up in alarm, fearing another brick. A lone man stood in the doorway. Even worse than youthful bullyboys, it was Serge Martel.

Martel, standing in her light, his hat and the wide shoulders of his jacket dark with moisture. Coralie rose, and forced a smile. This man had power, and she had a little girl to protect. ‘All this way in the rain, Monsieur Martel? Not running your car, these days?’

‘I like to walk sometimes, to stroll in the park.’

‘Really?’ She doubted it, somehow. That pale hair and the paint-water eyes belonged in basements, or in a prison cell. She tried to think of something to say that didn’t involve the Rose Noire or Ottilia, whose wraith shivered between them. In the end, she said, ‘Vichy loved the Vagabonds, Arkady told me. The management of that club they played in keeps trying to rebook them. Will you let them go?’

‘Maybe they can have them. I can have my pick of the best jazz quartets now.’

‘Being nice’ snapped. ‘No, you can’t. Not since the round-up of black musicians.’ Dezi Rice had gone and she’d wept for him. He’d been walking away from a cabaret in Montmartre when a windowless van had stopped beside him. Raised voices, the slam of doors. People called those vans Salad Wagons – maybe because victims were tossed inside them. ‘The best jazz quartets are at Drancy now, awaiting deportation to nobody knows where.’ Only the luckiest had got on America-bound ships before the round-ups started. ‘Stick with Arkady. Loyalty means that when you need friends you have some.’

‘Recognise this?’ Serge Martel dropped Ottilia’s British aliens’ card on Madame Thomas’s ledger. Its fibre-board was swollen from its drowning in a lavatory cistern, but the information inside was clear, the photograph sharp. ‘You hid a wanted woman instead of delivering her to the authorities.’

‘Who found this?’

‘Julie.’

‘You mean my Julie?’

‘
My
Julie. She knows how to keep me sweet.’ Martel pinched Coralie’s ear, which hurt because he had found the part where the nerves were close to the surface. He continued, ‘We can help each other. You give me information about a certain man’s activities. I, in return, tell those in authority that you are an innocent dupe.’

So, Ramon was his target. She’d better get a message to him, fast. ‘I’m not an informant. You’ve picked the wrong woman.’

‘I get a pat on the back from Major Reiniger, you get to live.’

‘As I said, I’m not an informant.’

‘Your little girl has Maman to kiss her goodnight, not a hard-fisted bitch in a state institution. If you’re arrested, your kid will go to an orphanage. Did you know that the matrons in those places sometimes sell little girls to supplement their wages. Sell them to men who pass them around until they end up dead.’

‘You are obscene.’

‘Mm. So there it is. Give me information, and I’ll keep a nice table for you at my club. “The best champagne for Mademoiselle de Lirac, Félix. Hurry up, you arthritic old slob.” Deal?’

‘I’ll hand over my husband when Hell freezes.’

Pale eyes blinked. ‘Cazaubon? You think I want your wind-up Bolshevist?’ Martel spat.

Violaine turned and said, ‘What is happening? Mademoiselle de Lirac?’

‘Nothing. We’re having a chat.’

Martel leaned so close that Coralie smelt acetic acid on his breath. Félix Peyron had confided once that his boss ate only red meat. ‘I don’t want your husband. I want Dietrich, Graf von Elbing. And if you don’t give him to me . . .’ He sang the opening bars of a familiar song. ” Tell me its name,
Miss
de Lirac.’

‘“The Lambeth Walk . . .”’ She pronounced ‘Lambeth’ as a Frenchwoman would and he gave a bow, acknowledging her bravado.

‘An Englishwoman who aids Jews, your life will be finished. Think about it.’ On his way to the door, he cut behind Violaine, staring into the mirror at the face reflected there. ‘Good God, Solange Antonin, back in town and in good company.’ Oblivious of the shocked response his greeting provoked, or perhaps enjoying it, Martel stared into the mirror. He departed, leaving the door for somebody else to close.

I have to find Dietrich, Coralie thought.

CHAPTER 24

How to get away when Mademoiselle Antonin had flown into a frenzy and her escort was waving his pistol at anybody passing the door? Violaine fetched smelling salts and calmed down her client. Coralie was about to slip out of the door when it opened to admit a tall, thin man, in a yellow-brown suit, who shook his umbrella over the step.

‘Teddy, you’re back!’ Made stupid by shock, Coralie blurted out, ‘That suit is a horrible colour.’

Thierry-Edgar Clisson looked a little taken aback. ‘Caramel. Made in Algiers and it brings back memories of sunshine. Good day to you too.’

‘Your hair’s grown.’

‘One does not trust those country barbers. I returned from my place at Dreux only yesterday. As we’re being personal, what a singular hat.’ Teddy raised imaginary opera glasses to Coralie’s head. ‘A bonbon dish adorned by a pink water-lily . . . Are crowns and brims out of fashion? And who do we have here?’

Teddy turned an appreciative glance at Rudi, who had holstered his pistol but remained defensive. ‘Waffen SS? Such fetching uniforms you boys wear. Of course, one can never go wrong with black in town.’ Turning back to Coralie, who was mouthing,
Don’t!
he said, ‘Are you free, dearest? I have a perfect surprise for you.’

She began, ‘I can’t—’ but a little whirlwind burst in shouting, ‘Maman! Oncle Teddy is taking us for lunch!’

Coralie’s new nanny, Micheline, followed, her raincoat splashed as high as the pockets. She was a dark young woman with country-fed prettiness but Nature had not formed her for running. As she spoke, she hauled up the brassière straps that had given way under stress. ‘Madame, may we?’

Everything fled from Coralie’s mind but Serge Martel’s vile threats. ‘You let Noëlle run alone in the street? Anybody could have taken her!’ They could have passed that monster just moments before. ‘I entrust her to you, Micheline.
Trust
—’

Teddy squeezed her arm, rather hard. ‘Noëlle was never out of our sight and, my dear, you’re upsetting your child far more than I or Micheline ever could.’

So she was. She held out her arms and Noëlle rocketed into them. ‘I’m sorry, so sorry. You too, Micheline. I overreacted.’

‘Not at all, Madame.’ The girl looked stricken. ‘You are right, we forget from time to time, but things are different now.’

‘Can I have ice-cream for pudding, Maman? You always buy me ice-cream when you’re cross.’

Solange Antonin emerged from her mute state to say, ‘If that were my little girl, I would take lunch with her every day and buy her four ice-creams.’

‘Four? Yes, please!’ Noëlle shrieked.

Coralie heard herself agreeing that lunch would indeed be perfect. ‘If you can find any ice-creams in Paris, precious, I
will
buy you four. Let me just put my coat on.’

‘And change your hat,’ Teddy called after Coralie. ‘Unless, like a real water-lily, it closes up in the wet.’

In the workroom, she put on a trench coat and exchanged her doll-hat for a brown felt fedora, tying a waxed silk head-square over it to protect it from the rain. The telephone she’d inherited from Lorienne Royer sat, shiny black and mahogany, in a corner and she wished she knew Dietrich’s number. She ought to send a note to Ramon too. Martel had not implicitly threatened her husband, but even so . . .
my Julie
, her Julie, Ramon’s Julie, everybody’s blessed Julie. If Ramon and Martel were involved with the same Julie, there would be trouble.

Hearing Paulette and Didi returning from lunch, she ripped a sheet from an old invoice book. One of them could take a note to rue Valdonne. What to put, though? Nothing too overt in case the girl was stopped. Coralie chewed her pencil, then wrote: ‘Ramon, some gardening advice . . . ’

‘Unless you have somewhere particular in mind, can we go south of the river?’

Teddy threw Coralie a quizzical look. ‘Of course, but only if we take the Métro. I’ve always considered walking in the rain an overrated pastime, and a certain young lady,’ he meant Noëlle who was jumping in puddles, her rubber boots landing each time with a fat splash, ‘has no respect for pale shades of trouser.’

He took them to a favourite restaurant on the south side of the Jardin du Luxembourg, choosing an outside table under a waterproof awning. The menu was short – three dishes and no mention of ice-cream or any dessert.

Coralie settled down for a two-hour recess. Teddy’s lunches were always long. She chose blue-cheese omelette, her appetite rising at the prospect of eggs. But it was obvious from the first forkful that the eggs had been watered down. As for cheese, somebody had waved a grater over the top. Where once there’d have been golden sautéed potatoes and crisp lettuce, her plate was bulked out with macaroni and more of the interminable haricot beans. Watching Noëlle tuck into strips of pink-braised liver while keeping up a conversation with Teddy and Micheline, Coralie thought, She chose better than I did. I have a raised a perfect little French girl, mannerly, epicurean and chic. And if Serge Martel harms one atom of her, I will tear him to pieces.

‘. . . how delightful. I adore coincidence though what one generally calls “coincidence” is either statistical inevitability or bad luck.’ Teddy was rising from his seat, extending a hand, and Coralie fought her way back from murderous thoughts.

Somebody spoke her name. ‘You,’ she said.

‘I had wondered if Paris had swallowed you up,’ was Dietrich’s inscrutable reply. ‘Teddy, my good friend, how are you? And?’

Coralie made the introduction. ‘Mademoiselle Hascoët, my nanny.’

Dietrich was in uniform and Micheline threw Coralie a shocked look. ‘And this lady?’ Dietrich asked. ‘Is this perhaps Noëlle?’ He took off a leather glove and put out his hand. Noëlle took it in both hers, her fingers curling over his. He said, ‘You are a beautiful child. Eyes as dark as a woodland floor and as bright as an otter’s. Noëlle Una Cazaubon.’

Coralie tensed: she was back in the Lutetia, watching Dietrich note down her daughter’s name.

‘Do you speak French like a native, little Noëlle?’

Noëlle gave Dietrich an unswerving stare and replied, ‘
Hering, hering, fass wie Göring
.’

Dietrich tossed Coralie a silent question.

‘We . . . overheard it in a restaurant. Army officers – yours.’ They’d heard the phrase on Radio Londres, actually, in a satirical verse with a German chorus, comparing Hitler’s newly promoted
Reichsmarschall
to a bloated fish. From now on, the radio would stay off until Noëlle was asleep.

At Teddy’s invitation, Dietrich joined them. He had been at Luftwaffe HQ all morning, he told them, dictating letters, but had been tempted out by the view from his window. ‘There is something irresistible about a wet garden. Trees shine like polished candlesticks. Who would be shut indoors at such a moment?’

‘Me,’ said Teddy.

‘You always were more cat than dog, Clisson. Will you permit me to order coffee?’

‘If you mean that concoction of roast barley and stable-sweepings that passes for coffee, these days, no, thank you.’

‘Ice-cream!’ Noëlle shouted hopefully.

‘I will ask.’ Dietrich went inside. They couldn’t see who he spoke to, but a few minutes later, a pot of excellent coffee came to the table, along with two
crème caramels
floating in a syrup of burned sugar. ‘No ice-cream,’ he told Noëlle, ‘and they had only two
crèmes
, but they have provided three spoons.’

‘Not for me,’ Coralie said, though she’d have dived in had Teddy been the provider. Then, belatedly, ‘Thank you.’ She opened her handbag under the table, felt for a pencil and a scrap of paper and wrote, ‘We have to talk.’ She found Dietrich’s hand and pushed the paper into his palm.

When it was time to leave, Dietrich said to Coralie, ‘I will walk you home.’

Conscious of Micheline’s glances and Teddy’s snuffle of amusement, Coralie’s courage failed. ‘You don’t need to. We’ll take the Métro.’

‘Go with the dear Graf,’ Teddy urged. ‘I shall linger over the last drops of nectar.’ He meant his coffee. ‘If I stay here long enough, a friend is bound to pass by.’