The French Affair, page 10
Iris picked up her pace, following him along the alley to the turning, but she was too late. Already, he’d vanished into an adjoining street, or slipped into another garden, his feet silent in soft-soled shoes. She stopped to catch her breath, not considering what could have happened if she’d caught him, that he might have used the spade as a weapon.
If he was keeping out of sight in a nearby garden, he’d eventually have to show himself, and so she continued searching around the back of the houses and in the surrounding streets, peering over high walls and fences, listening for the sound of his ragged breath, the disturbance of leaves as he took cover in a shrub, but there was nothing, only the echo of an owl’s hoot, and the soft swoop of the starlings passing overhead as they put themselves to bed.
Conscious of the risk she was taking by breaking the curfew, Iris eventually returned to the house. She checked behind every door, peering into the cupboards and under each piece of furniture, in case whoever it was had stolen inside while her back was turned. Adrenalin had made her brave during the chase, but now she’d had time to consider it, she realised how reckless she’d been. She couldn’t allow herself to forget that Eva had been murdered in the garden. Yet, she’d swear to it that the intruder wasn’t a German soldier.
Still unable to settle, and against her better judgement, she returned to the garden, continuing her search for clues in the dark, all the while rationalising her fear, telling herself she’d seen off the intruder, that there was no one there. But what had he been doing, and was he planning on coming back?
After checking the shed, she took the long way back to the house, skirting the perimeter of the garden. The intruder had taken his spade, but he might have left something else behind in his hurry to leave. It was then the thought struck her; why would he have a spade unless he was digging something up?
What was he searching for? She hadn’t seen any disturbance to the soil the last time she’d caught him, but that was because she hadn’t known to look for it.
The bats flipped and swooped in tangential shapes above her head, encouraging her on, until she found a patch of disturbed soil directly beneath one of the old ash trees, the ground sliced away by the sharp edge of a spade. Iris’s assumption had been correct. The intruder had been visiting for a purpose. What would he be prepared to do if she continued to get in his way?
Iris pushed the thoughts from her mind as she filled in the hole, nudging the soil back in place with the side of her foot before double-checking she’d closed the gate, cursing herself for not having fitted a stronger bolt. She couldn’t afford to be careless when her life might be at stake.
Chapter 16
It would have been Nathalie’s thirty-fifth birthday, if she hadn’t been gunned down by an enemy plane as she fled Paris after the fall of France. Iris went to see Paul to ask if there was somewhere he’d like to lay flowers in her memory. She wanted him to know she hadn’t forgotten how much the three of them had meant to one another when they were younger, how those bonds still held, no matter how much time had passed.
The things he’d said while they were sitting on the bench after Eva’s funeral had disturbed her. She needed to reassure herself that the old Paul was still there, that the war hadn’t destroyed him. She also wanted him to know she was supporting him as he mourned his sister. She couldn’t bear to lose anyone else.
He was standing by the gate when she arrived at the vineyard, looking up at the sky as if he expected an attack from the air at any moment, preparing to be subjected to the same death as Nathalie.
‘Paul.’
She called his name three times before he responded. The crevices around his eyes grew deeper when he finally looked at her. ‘How was the rabbit?’ There was a cruel slant to his mouth as he asked the question.
‘It was good, thank you.’ She hesitated, not knowing how to raise the subject of Mason. ‘The German officer who was at the house when you arrived. It wasn’t what it looked like, he …’
‘What did it look like, Iris? You tell me.’
‘He’s just someone I knew … from before.’
‘A friend of Jack’s too, is he?’
He used to tease her about any male attention she attracted, as a brother would. Now, there was a cocky edge to his voice that reeked of contempt. She needed to know he wouldn’t spread rumours about her fraternising with the enemy while she attempted to assassinate Mason.
She showed him the bunch of Michaelmas daisies she’d cut from Eva’s garden. ‘I thought we could lay these flowers somewhere in memory of Nathalie.’
Nathalie’s body had never been recovered and so there was no grave, no place to mark the spot where she lay, only a hollow in everyone’s heart where she used to be.
The suggestion seemed to calm him. ‘We’ll go to the top of the ravine. She loved it there.’
It had been their favourite haunt as children, a place where they’d picnicked and climbed trees or simply daydreamed, hiding from real life, planning trips to the moon and under the sea, because at that age, nothing seemed impossible, and so far above the town, it made them feel as though they were standing on the top of the world.
She waited while he picked a dozen of Nathalie’s favourite roses, struggling to negotiate the thorny stems as he tied them with a length of twine, his lack of coordination indicating he hadn’t slept. After years of hard labour in the German prison camp, he didn’t appear to have enough strength to cope with the ordeal he was about to put himself through.
She squeezed his hand, letting go more quickly than she’d intended. His bones felt so brittle, she thought she might crush them.
‘Are you sure you want to do this, Paul? We could just sit quietly and remember her. We don’t have to climb all the way to the top of the ravine.’
It seemed a challenge too far, and not so much a tribute to Nathalie, who wouldn’t have expected it, but self-punishment for being the one who’d survived.
‘You don’t have to come if you don’t want to, but I’m going.’
She struggled to keep up as he marched through the town, trying to show he was stronger than he looked, that the enemy hadn’t destroyed him, despite their best attempt. It wasn’t determination that fuelled him, but fury. She could see it in his eyes, in the way he clutched the roses, no matter how deeply the thorns dug into his flesh.
He didn’t slow down until they reached the outskirts of the town. The air was keener without the shelter of the buildings and a shudder ran through her as she paused for breath. The cold wind, tumbling from the higher ground, was surely meant as a warning to keep them in check.
From this point, it was a steep walk up through the wooded hills to the place their childhood hearts had claimed as theirs.
The three of them had been inseparable during those magical summers. It all started when Paul saw Iris playing alone in the square outside Eva’s house one day and invited her to visit their camp in the woods. He said no little girl should be made to play alone, because it wasn’t any fun that way. At the time, seven-year-old Iris couldn’t have known that an innocent invitation to play would lead to a decade of summers of joy and adventure.
Paul placed the roses in a circle around the ancient beech tree at the edge of the ravine they’d adopted as their favourite all that time ago. Year after year, it had been their protector, sheltering them from the midday sun and the sudden rain, from thunderstorms and chilling winds.
‘I came here as soon as I was released from the labour camp. I had to explain to the tree why none of us had visited for so long, why Nathalie wouldn’t be coming back.’
He rubbed his hand across his face, banishing his tears. His grief had grown over him like a hard shell, as impenetrable as the bark of the ancient tree. Iris placed the Michaelmas daisies under the dense canopy of leaves, propping them against the roots knuckling though the parched ground. Already the petals had begun to wilt, their delicate white tips nodding gracefully in sorrow.
They’d only been standing there a minute when a sudden breeze swept through the trees, rustling the leaves and sending another shiver through her. Alert to the danger, she stepped back from the ravine. Until that moment, she hadn’t realised how close she was to the edge. The thought of the sheer drop made her stomach turn over. She’d heard the local stories of the tragedies that had happened in this place, of people falling to their deaths, of the sightings of their lost spirits hiding in the trees. In safer times, the human heart demanded to be pricked by horror stories and as a child, she’d revelled in the second-hand fables. Now, making the spot a shrine to Nathalie would only add to the mysticism of the place.
With the flowers laid, they started to make their way back, taking a detour through the densest part of the woodland, so the overhanging canopy of trees would shelter them from the afternoon sun. Iris was regretting taking such an unreasonably long route when a young man dashed across their path, swift and flighty as a stag, a Sten gun strapped to his back. He was gone before she could take in his face, to work out if she knew him, only the distant crack of twigs underfoot giving him away as he ran towards a cluster of trees.
Paul gripped her arm and dragged her in another direction. ‘Let’s go back to the main path. It’s not safe here.’
Iris shook him off, refusing to be herded. ‘Do you know who that was?’
‘One of the local resistance fighters. They’re living rough in the hills and the woods around here. Who do you think has been sabotaging the roads and the railway lines, disrupting the German supplies between Paris and Lyon?’
It must be the people Jack was hiding out with. Most were young men, on the run from the forced labour camps. Their aim was to sabotage German movements using guerrilla warfare, aided by the British government, who supplied them with arms and money through their network of agents.
Paul’s reaction suggested he was uncomfortable with their presence. She wouldn’t judge him for not joining them. Nor would she criticise him for still working the vineyard, even though it was largely for the benefit of the enemy. War had forced difficult choices on all of them and there was no right way to survive.
By the time they’d reached the town, Iris was ready to go home. Her head ached from the heat and she was unused to the physical demands of the climb. She was about to say goodbye to Paul when a blast of gunshots shattered the afternoon silence. She ran through the streets, following the direction of the sound, ignoring Paul as he ordered her to come back.
A lone German soldier was standing outside the café when she reached the square, his pistol aimed at the sky. The shattered corpse of a pigeon lay on the ground, a mass of blood and feathers. All around, women, children and old men had stopped what they were doing, not daring to move in case they became the next target.
The soldier waved his pistol manically in all directions, spinning on his heels and pointing it at everyone before pushing it into the holster on his belt.
‘Next time you refuse to serve me coffee, it won’t be a bird I shoot. It will be every one of you miserable creatures.’
He turned to Adele, standing beside one of the tables outside the café, gripping Georges to her chest.
‘That brat of yours will be the first to die.’
‘You’ll have to kill me first, and every other woman in the town who’ll stand beside me. What would your Führer think of that?’
Adele’s words were loaded with enough venom to kill. The soldier bunched his fists, but it was a feeble attempt to intimidate. Georges must have sensed the danger, because he let out a fierce cry. Adele lowered her eyes from the soldier’s glare to comfort him and the tension was broken without anyone having to back down. The soldier clicked his heels, his eyes shifting from Adele’s face to Georges’s and back again, before spitting through his teeth.
‘Whore.’
Iris remained out of his line of sight so as not to draw attention to herself, but she needn’t have worried because he barely raised his eyes from the ground as he left the square.
Once he was gone, she ran to Adele. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine.’ Her hands were shaking, despite her brave face. ‘How did the idiot expect me to serve him real coffee when we don’t have any?’
The Grey Mouse was sitting at one of the tables, her face partly obscured by the café’s awning.
‘You must forgive him. These young soldiers don’t understand the situation here.’
‘Don’t try to justify the brutality of your men. We’ll never forgive them for what they’re doing to us.’
The words came out with more venom than Iris had intended. Adele squeezed her arm, warning her not to overstep the mark. The Grey Mouse might speak fluent French but she was still the enemy.
The Grey Mouse got up from the table and smoothed down her uniform that everybody hated, leaving a generous tip on the table as she prepared to leave. ‘There was no need to worry. He wouldn’t have shot Georges or Adele unless he’d been given orders to do so.’
The words held no reassurance for Iris. She knew what the enemy was capable of and it was always the women and children who suffered, just as it was always the men who began the wars.
‘Iris.’
Paul was loitering around the corner, out of sight. She’d forgotten he was there until he called her.
‘Don’t run away from me like that again. Come for a drink. We both need one after the day we’ve had.’
Adele had already gone back inside the café. Through the window, Iris could see her sitting at a table in the far corner, rocking Georges backwards and forwards as she cried. Where had Paul been when Adele stood face-to-face with an armed soldier?
‘Not now. I’m tired. I want to go home.’
‘I’ll walk you there.’
She pushed him away as he slid his arm around her waist. ‘The house is only across the square. I don’t need an escort.’
Irritated by her tone, Paul straightened to his full height. ‘You never used to be this unfriendly. I suppose it’s because of Jack.’
‘You seem to forget he’s my husband.’
‘Then why aren’t you in England with him? If you were mine, I’d never let you out of my sight.’
There was a difference between love and possession, but there was no point trying to explain it to Paul, because he wouldn’t understand. Control was all some men understood. It was the reason the world was at war.
‘Something happened between us. I’ve hurt him very deeply.’
Paul’s tone was softer when he spoke, as if he’d spotted the crack in her heart and was determined to infiltrate it. ‘If he loved you, he’d have forgiven you. None of us are innocent in this world. Whatever it is you’ve done, I’d never hold it against you.’
She ignored his comment and said goodbye, dashing across the square before he could detain her any longer, holding back the words she was tempted to say because she didn’t want to risk his fury. But you’re not Jack. You’re not Jack.
Chapter 17
Mason was waiting on the doorstep when Iris returned home. She looked around as she approached him, hoping no one had noticed him loitering outside the house. She wondered if he’d witnessed the incident with the pigeon. And if he had, did it make him ashamed of the uniform he was wearing?
Before she could ask what he was doing, he thrust a bottle of wine into her hand. ‘Iris, there you are. Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you?’
‘Did you see what happened in the square?’
‘Unless you want to get into trouble, you’ll turn a blind eye to such things.’
The warning sounded like a threat. His mood was darker than when he first arrived, as if he’d been brooding on the lukewarm welcome she’d given him, and was disturbed by the conclusions he’d come to over it. He’d expected to walk into her life and be welcomed without question. Now, he didn’t seem so certain she’d have him. The volatility of his moods made him dangerous. Iris had seen his temper before, and knew how it could flare up from nowhere, and without warning.
Back in London, there’d been a barman called Tom, who worked in one of the West End nightclubs where Mason used to take her dancing. He was an out-of-work actor, and couldn’t shake off the idea that he was there to entertain, and not simply to mix cocktails. Iris had seen him in a play before the war, and he was flattered that she remembered him, that she said she’d enjoyed his performance. Mason became upset when Tom came over to their table one night to continue their conversation, and there was a terrible row. She’d learned then that he didn’t like her talking to other men.
After the scene in the club, Mason had had Tom sacked for imposing on them and ruining their evening. Mason was a big spender and the owner wasn’t prepared to lose his custom over a spat with a jumped-up barman. Later, Tom waited outside the club for Mason. He was angry and drunk and threatened to blackmail him, though over what, he didn’t say.
The next time they went dancing, one of the waitresses told her Tom’s body had been found in a back alley just off the Strand. Someone had plunged a knife into his back and left him for dead. There was no proof that Mason had anything to do with his killing, but it had stayed in Iris’s mind that he wasn’t a man to be crossed.
During those critical weeks leading up to his arrest, she and Mason had spent a lot of time in clubs and restaurants, where he’d played the part of a sophisticated man about town. It was the fate of the barman that made Iris first realise what he was truly capable of. As time went on, alone with him in his London flat, as Ambrose had ordered, she’d suffered enough of his brutality to confirm her worst fears. No man who mistook violence for love could ever be trusted.
Now, the thought of what he might do if he discovered she’d crossed him truly frightened her. If she was going to carry out her assignment, she had to make sure he didn’t suspect her role in the honey trap.
