In at the Kill Page 11

  Walking up the gravelled path towards the church’s carved oak doors. Sun like a furnace blazing down. ‘So Mama’s in Metz, now.’

  ‘Yes. In hospital. Whoever comes for you—’

  ‘Luc, or—’

  ‘Some parishioner of mine, helping out. It’s been arranged for you, that’s all, you can be a little – well, disorientated.’

  ‘Brain-damaged.’

  ‘If you like.’ He stopped, just short of the doors. ‘I’ll see you into your pew now, but first –’ putting the basket down, and taking her hands in his – ‘Rosalie – God bless you, and keep you safe.’

  ‘And you. Bless you, for all you’ve done.’

  Half that parcel of wine was for Luc, she remembered. But she didn’t want the weight of it in her basket, so didn’t remind him. He took her arm: ‘Seventh pew from the back, on the right. Come on.’

  * * *

  A priest passed through, once, burly in his soutane, pausing halfway up the aisle to look back at her before continuing and vanishing through a door leading, she supposed, into the sacristy. Her knees ached. Having no watch she had no clear idea of how long she’d been here, but it couldn’t have been less than an hour.

  Tempting to push herself up, and sit: but safer to endure the ache. Why would a scruffily dressed, battered-looking female spend hours in a church just sitting?

  Enjoying the cool, perhaps…

  And allowing the mind to wander.

  See you quite soon, Ben darling…

  Forget about ‘Hector’? Signal them only that you’re here, more or less mended, would be glad of a Lysander pickup?

  No – not Lysander. A Lysander didn’t have the range. Hudson, probably.

  But ask, Did Lise make it?

  Knowing damn well she wouldn’t have. It had to be at least ten to one against her having survived at all, maybe a hundred to one against her having got right away. Therefore, in whatever signal one sent, tell ‘F’ section about ‘Hector’ – confirmation that he was a traitor, working for the Gestapo. If Lise had got through, they’d know it already; but she wouldn’t have, she’d have gone as surely as Alain Noally had gone – devastating the last weeks of her life. During that time the harsh fact of his death would have been a lot harder to bear than anything the bastards had done to her.

  Even the business of the fingernails. One hand entirely nail-less.

  ‘Hector’ certainly deserved to hang. Die anyway: but preferably on a rope.

  Christian thoughts, these, from the seventh pew from the back of this very old, very beautiful small church. Thoughts – or a fixation, aberration? What Father Gervais had sensed, perhaps? But what about an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth? Not that one was contemplating striking bargains or fair exchanges: she whispered in her mind, I confess it, God. Mary Mother of Jesus, I’ll tell you too, I want the bastard dead. Her face in her hands, head bowed, knees aching – partly because in Rouen a year ago a sod of a Gestapo interrogator had made her kneel on the edge of a shovel’s blade, the blade then being angled upward by the weight of another thug, a heavyweight, standing on the shovel’s handle. That had been just one of the preliminaries, a warm-up to the main event – courtesy of the people ‘Hector’ worked for. Her eyes moving while she thought about it – peering out between her fingers, appreciating the church’s cool, shadowed depths and remembering how when Ben had first seen those scars he’d hugged her knees and kissed them, tears glistening in his eyes.

  Smiling to herself; thinking, Some tough old salt, my Bim-Bam…

  ‘Rosalie?’

  She’d jumped…

  ‘Sorry. Woke you, uh?’

  A long, angular figure in a workman’s overalls slid into the pew beside her – into a forward-leaning position with his behind pushed right back on the bench and elbows on his knees, having then to twist half sideways to allow for his length of leg. ‘Congratulations – such a quick recovery.’ Glancing round, light-eyed in the gloom: he’d brought with him an aroma of machine oil. Attention back on her then: gleam of teeth as well as eyes. She’d replaced the padding that fattened her face, having had a rest from it for a while.

  ‘Sorry if I’ve kept you waiting.’

  ‘Great to see you, Luc.’

  ‘Same here.’ His grin might have been described as wolfish, but it was also shy. All right, a shy wolf… ‘I’m taking you to our dump in Metz – OK?’

  Chapter 6

  He’d parked his gazo on the other side of the road, further along, where there was a gate into the slope of field above that river view. An observer wouldn’t have reckoned on its driver being in the church: truck with open-topped load-space containing a set of tractor tyres, some fence-posts and coils of wire, and the inscription on its tail-gate reading DP AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERS, and in smaller print below RAOUL DE PLESSE, METZ.

  So Michel’s ‘associate’ had a name, now.

  Luc took her basket from her, gave her a hand up into the passenger seat then pushed it in beside her feet. Wordless, pushing the door shut then: Rosie with the impression that he was still thinking of her as an invalid. Watching him go round the front to his own side: he had a strangely dipping, long-strided walk – a lope, that went well with the working clothes, his disguise as a mechanic, but you’d never have taken him for a captain or lieutenant – whichever he was. The light-coloured eyes, she remembered, and the voice, but nothing else, not for instance the narrowish, fine-boned face. He’d been in the sun a bit: made his eyes look even lighter.

  He’d climbed in, pulled that door shut. ‘On our way, then.’

  ‘How far, roughly?’

  ‘The slow way, maybe seventy-five kilometres. Slow way because your papers aren’t all they might be, uh?’

  ‘Getting papers at all, at such short notice—’

  ‘Thanks to the bishop…’ He had the truck moving. ‘Listen – cover-story is I’m taking you to the hospital – in Metz, being on my way back there anyway, the Father asked would I drop you off? Sick mother there – right?’

  ‘Which hospital?’

  ‘Let’s be vague. I’d need to ask where it was, anyway. But – Thérèse was arrested, is that right?’

  She told him about it, while he circled back towards the centre of the village and then turned off to the left, on to a country road leading out northwestward.

  ‘No word since, eh?’

  ‘Nothing. Marie Destinier – well, if she hears anything I imagine she’d let you know.’

  ‘We’re not likely to be down that way again. At least, I’m not, and Michel won’t be around anyway… Invasion forces on the move at last – you hear about it?’

  ‘Yes – now and then—’

  ‘Once it gets going, it’ll be an avalanche. A few weeks, no more, we’ll be back to real soldiering. Please God…’

  ‘Don’t like what you’re doing now?’

  ‘This undercover stuff… No, not so much. We’re not one of what they’re calling the Jedburgh groups, you understand.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Inter-allied groups, dropped to work with Maquis forces. They’re in uniform. All over France now. At this end – well, when the fighting comes closer we can put on uniform, stop pussy-footing around… Meanwhile I can tell you we’ve been busy enough – so have the Maquis.’

  ‘I believe you. We heard – at Thérèse’s – that a lot of bridges had been blown?’

  ‘Delaying the transfer of a Boche armoured division from Strasbourg to the Normandy front by more than three weeks.’

  ‘That’s something!’

  Nodding, hunched over the wheel: ‘It’s not all, either.’

  ‘You say Michel won’t be around?’

  ‘He’ll tell you himself. You’ll see him quite soon, don’t worry; but – it’s not strictly my business, what he’s up to. Only to the extent that I’m taking over his job here. Well, he’s set it all up now, to that extent it’s done – only a matter of – you know, keeping tabs, and waiting for the serious stuff
to start – eh?’

  ‘So he’s – what, going back to your regiment?’

  ‘No. New assignment. Nothing I can talk about – well, obviously…’

  ‘How did you come to be in this sort of undercover work, Luc?’

  ‘Michel, is how.’ Tight corner: dragging the wheel over… ‘He was a natural for it because of his missing arm – who’d imagine he’d have dropped in? Or be any threat to them? Well, that’s a laugh, believe me. But mostly they’re surprised he can manage a few nuts and bolts… Anyway, he was allowed to pick his own team, I’d been one of his platoon commanders, and – there you are.’

  ‘Or rather, here you are. Is he in Metz now?’

  ‘Couple of days, he will be. He knows you will be, he told me to get you there… Did you get on with the Bish all right?’

  ‘Father Gervais? Yes, of course… Why call him that?’

  ‘If they don’t make him a bishop one day, there’s no justice. All right, who says there is… Michel was finding stuff out for you, wasn’t he?’

  She’d nodded. ‘He was going to try to.’

  ‘He has. I think. In fact I know… Smoke?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve got some—’

  ‘Here.’

  Gauloises. She took the packet, lit two – Father Gervais had left her his box of matches – and passed one back. Also the packet. ‘Thanks. D’you happen to know what he’s found out?’

  ‘No, sorry… You’ve made a great recovery, Rosalie.’

  ‘I think the powder Michel gave us made all the difference. He said it worked miracles, and he was right.’

  ‘Sulphanilamide. Yeah. In the field, it’s a blessing.’ Frowning at her: ‘Your hair wasn’t that colour, was it?’

  ‘Certainly was not. Thérèse dyed it for me – because they might be looking for me still.’

  ‘Well – they are.’

  ‘What?’

  Taking a long drag at his cigarette: smoke curling from nostrils then. ‘Don’t want to alarm you—’

  ‘Come on, what—’

  ‘Posters. You and another girl – Michel said she might be one you’d mentioned to him, got away when you were shot?’

  Silent: staring at his profile. He glanced at her quickly, shook his head: ‘Doesn’t necessarily mean they’re actively searching now. A month ago, after all – posters do sometimes just get left up.’

  ‘But I’m—’

  Speechless – for the moment. Stunned…

  It meant she’d got away. Or – at least – thinking fast, and hardly believing it – seeing the river, and the chains on her – they didn’t get her. Not there and then, anyway. And if they had since, or if her body’d been found—

  Posters wouldn’t be up now. Not the way they did things.

  ‘Luc – are they separate, or posters of the two of us on one sheet?’

  ‘Two of you together.’ Easing over, giving room to a herd of goats in the charge of a little girl with a stick, who waved to them. Rosie waved back. Luc nodding: ‘Posters all over Metz, and also in Nancy, we’ve heard. Anyway -’ looking at her again – I dare say dyeing your hair may help. Although – must say, it looks a bit – peculiar.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘No, heavens, I don’t mean—’

  ‘It’s all right. The scarf’s supposed to be covering my hair anyway. Snag is, these papers say I’m nearly twenty-seven – which would be OK except for the grey hair. So to any quick-witted Boche – at a road-block, say, or—’

  ‘Not so good. Will you dye it back?’

  ‘And look like the bloody posters?’

  ‘No. Well – a different colour, maybe. Red – or blonde—’

  ‘Ugh!’

  ‘Anyway, get new papers. Talk to Raoul about it. Raoul de Plesse, guy we’re supposed to be working for. He’ll solve it for you. Yeah, don’t worry. But hang on…’ Cigarette-stub between his lips, right hand up twisting the rear-view mirror so that she could see herself, to adjust the scarf. ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Fine. Thanks… God, what a sight…’

  That amazing thought again, though: that Lise must have got away. At least, might still be alive…

  * * *

  ‘Morehange, this place is called. We cross a larger road just here.’

  Slowing for it. Poplars between them and the sun giving a signal-lamp effect as the rays stabbed through. Rosie asked him, shielding her eyes from it, ‘If we were stopped – OK, destination Metz and you’re giving me a lift to the hospital, but why taking a long way round?’

  ‘Because from here the next village is – Faulquemont. Some distance yet. I’m delivering these tyres to a farmer there. And if they stopped us beyond Faulquemont I’ll have picked the tyres up from him, he’s trading ’em in for better ones.’

  ‘Very clever.’

  ‘Well – wouldn’t want to boast…’

  ‘Are you naturally a good liar?’

  ‘It’s one of the acquired skills, isn’t it?’

  ‘Isn’t it, just. Mind another question?’

  ‘Many as you like.’ Braking, at the main road they had to cross. Glancing at her: ‘Question for question – all right? You ask one, I’ll ask one. Whichever catches the other out in a lie’s the winner, smokes the loser’s fags all the way to Metz. OK, you shoot first.’

  ‘Michel’s camouflage is his missing arm. What’s yours? Why shouldn’t you be recruited into some labour battalion, or the Milice or LVF?’

  LVF stood for Légion des Volontaires Français. French fascists in German uniform. Luc pointed out, ‘You didn’t mention the Waffen SS. They’ve been recruiting Frenchmen into that too, you know.’

  ‘Recruiting Alsaciens – Thérèse told me that – but others can volunteer, can’t they. Anyway what’s your let-out?’

  ‘Problem with my lungs.’ Flicking ash away. ‘I could seize up and drop dead any minute. Don’t worry, I won’t, but I’ve medical papers to prove it, and meanwhile I’m pursuing a useful occupation. Papers to prove that too.’

  ‘You look healthy enough to me.’

  ‘Open-air life does that.’ Looking right and left: but the road wasn’t all that busy. Into gear, driving on over and into the continuation of their route to Faulquemont. Nothing on the road ahead except two horse-drawn carts. ‘My turn for a question now, though: you married, or engaged?’

  ‘As good as engaged. Not formally, but once all this is over –’ she held up a hand with fingers crossed – ‘all things being equal—’

  ‘What’s his racket?’

  ‘Officer in the Royal Navy – in motor gunboats in the Channel. Well – he’s on shore at the moment, as it happens, and I hope they keep him there. He’s been wounded twice.’

  ‘Deserves his luck, then.’ A shrug. ‘Well, well…’

  ‘And you, Luc? Fiancée pining her heart out somewhere?’

  ‘Yeah. Likely.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Oh. Was a girl – in London. Polish, as it happens. But –’ a gesture – ‘nothing special. At least, not to her, I don’t believe.’

  ‘How about Michel – is he married?’

  ‘Michel – married?’

  Tone and glance of surprise: beginnings of a laugh…

  ‘You mean he’s not.’ She shrugged. ‘Were you stationed near London?’

  ‘No. Only there on leave, couple of times. No, we were in Ayrshire, Scotland. Two French para battalions, as part of—’

  He’d checked. Glancing at her. ‘You could be Mata Hari.’

  ‘So I could. With a bit more flesh on me than I have as yet.’

  Silence reigning again, then. Smoking another Gauloise and thinking about Lise, and the ‘Wanted’ posters. Not good at all, about the posters, but fantastic about Lise. If one could believe it…

  * * *

  They came into Metz from the east, on the main road from the direction of Saarbrücken, coming in towards the centre by way of what Luc told her was called the Porte des Allemands and a bridge across t
he Seille, then turning right, on a wide anticlockwise curve with the town centre and the cathedral as it were at the hub, off to their left. Over two divided streams of the Moselle then, two bridges, and on into an urban and industrial conglomeration – signs of bomb-damage here and there, rubble-littered open spaces and some burnt-out buildings. A district or suburb somewhere ahead of them had the peculiar name of Woippy – at any rate for a while it was part of the name of the road they were on. Luc didn’t know Metz all that well, though, was having to concentrate on making the right turns – overshooting at one of them, having to turn and come back a kilometre or two; explaining that he and Michel weren’t here all that often. It was their base, that was all, their work was all in the field. Well, obviously…

  ‘But we’re getting there. Getting there, Justine, don’t worry.’

  Turning left: then right. Warehouses, or factories: and another flattened area. A gleam of water between buildings like aircraft hangars. Couldn’t be river there, must be a canal, she guessed, probably barge traffic on it. But now left again…

  ‘Oy, oy…’

  Slowing. Military vehicle ahead. A half-track, going their way, filling more than half the road’s width. Luc reducing speed still further: he wasn’t going to try to overtake it.

  Then: ‘Oh. Jesu!’

  ‘Uh?’

  ‘Don’t look now. We’re being followed.’

  By a Wehrmacht truck. Small one, half-tonner or whatever, with yellow-and-black military insignia painted on its front mudguards. Behind it then – rounding the corner into this straight thoroughfare – it wasn’t the Avenue or Rue de Woippy, whatever he’d said it was called, she knew they’d left that one some time ago – a heavy lorry in the same camouflage paint, splash of the same colours on the outer front mudguard: then yet another, identical, rounding the same corner – and a third, for God’s sake, on that one’s tail.