Sandrine pushed back the nettles and crawled inside backwards, feeling the sharp sting on her skin. Once inside, she forced herself to rearrange the weeds that had grown high around the opening, so it didn’t look like they’d been disturbed. Her hands roared in complaint.
The hollow stank of urine and rubbish, blown in by the prevailing wind. The space was barely big enough for her to sit down, but it gave her a good view of the Pont Vieux. Two soldiers were still standing on the bridge. And she could see an officer pointing and shouting. In the street above the riverbank, already she could hear the hammering on doors and the demands to be let in.
Had Lucie been caught?
Sandrine closed her eyes, regretting that she had brought trouble down on other people’s heads. She waited and watched, her heart thumping. Sweat pooled between her breasts and at the back of her knees and the hollow of her throat, and she understood, in a single moment, how Marianne could have reached the end of her strength.
Sandrine wasn’t sure how much longer she would be able to carry on either. If she got out of this, did she have what was required to go on fighting?
Chapter 126
‘What do you mean?’ Lucie said, holding her son tightly to her.
Jean-Jacques’ eyes were wide because of the urgent whispered conversation of the two women, but he sat quietly in his mother’s arms.
Lucie had quickly made her way back to Madame Peyre’s house from the Cité. At first she’d felt exhilarated that they’d pulled it off. She understood why Sandrine and the others had been prepared to take such risks. But the closer she got to home, the more her nerves started to play up. Her stomach was now in knots. What if she’d been seen? What if Milice were on their way here now? What if Sandrine had been caught?
Then she’d found Jeanne waiting for her on the doorstep.
‘What do you mean?’ Lucie repeated.
‘He was arrested early this afternoon.’
‘Your husband?’ Lucie said, still muddled by what Jeanne was trying to tell her.
‘No, not Jean-Marc. My father-in-law. A neighbour was in boulevard Barbès and saw it happen. Came to tell me.’
‘Monsieur Giraud? But why would they arrest him?’
‘I don’t know. He was keeping an eye on the clinic. My husband had to cancel all his operations to go . . .’ she hesitated, ‘out of town.’ She shook her head, trying to get her fears under control. ‘It might be that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Either way, I’ve got to see if I can find him. His heart’s not strong, he’s . . .’
Lucie put her hand on Jeanne’s arm. ‘I’m sure they won’t mistreat him. He’s an old man.’
‘That means nothing now,’ Jeanne said bitterly. She ruffled Jean-Jacques’ hair. ‘He’s been very good. His throat doesn’t seem to be hurting too much, but . . .’ She met Lucie’s eye. ‘I don’t think my husband will be able to do the operation at the moment. Not now.’
Lucie met her gaze. ‘I understand. Thank you for bringing him all the way across town.’
Jeanne turned to go, then stopped. ‘We don’t know each other very well. To tell you the truth, I was surprised that you . . . ’ She broke off. ‘I don’t know what you were doing today, but you’re a friend of Sandrine and Marianne’s, so I can imagine. Something’s happening today in Carcassonne. My father-in-law’s arrest is just part of it. If I were you, I’d get out while you still can. Take Jean-Jacques and go as far away as possible.’
Lucie stared at the young woman, her face taut with fear and distress, and she nodded.
‘I intend to, don’t worry.’
‘Good. And good luck.’
‘To you too. Thank you again, Jeanne. I’m sure your father-in-law will be all right. Jean-Marc too.’
Jeanne didn’t answer, just turned and left. For a moment Lucie stood, her son in her arms, watching her go. She allowed her thoughts to go to Max. There were rumours circulating in the town that the very last prisoners were being transported from Le Vernet. She couldn’t bear to think of it being true. That Max might have survived all this time, only to be deported now. She felt the familiar tightening of her throat. When she got to Coustaussa, at least she could see if Eloise or Geneviève had heard anything.
Lucie gave an impatient shake of her head, knowing she couldn’t afford to waste any time thinking. Sandrine and Raoul had wanted her to go with them to Coustaussa. She had been in two minds, but today she’d realised she wanted to be with the others. And although she felt bad about leaving Madame Peyre, the thought of seeing Marieta and Liesl again made her smile. J-J’s other adopted gran’mere and his aunt. It would be lovely for him.
Quickly, Lucie unlocked the door and went inside.
‘You play with this, J-J,’ she said, putting the little boy in the playpen in the centre of the room and handing him a wooden truck. ‘Be good for Mama.’
Lucie rushed into the bedroom and changed her clothes, rolling the dress she’d worn to go to and from rue Longue into a ball and pushing it to the back of the wardrobe. She dressed in a plain shirt and skirt, comfortable shoes, then packed a change of clothes for her son. She couldn’t look as if she was going away. The only thing she took of her own was the brooch Max had given her the first time they went dancing at the Terminus. For a moment she allowed herself to remember, the look on his face as he produced the paper-and-ribbon package, his smile as he pinned the brooch to her coat. She went back to the wardrobe. The blue twill was far too heavy for the season, but suddenly she couldn’t bring herself to leave it behind. She fastened the brooch on the left lapel, shrugged her arms into the sleeves, then went back into the main room.
She wished she could leave a note for Madame Peyre, telling her what she was doing, but she knew it would be safer for them both not to give any indication of where she’d gone. Even that they had gone.
‘Not for long,’ she murmured, wondering if that was true.
The pram was in the hallway. Lucie deliberated for a moment. It would be easier not to carry Jean-Jacques all the way through the Bastide to the Jardin du Calvaire, but it would be a nuisance after that. And a pram left abandoned in the street would be sure to attract attention.
‘Come on, my little man, up we come,’ Lucie said, picking up her son. ‘Shall we go on an adventure?’
Sandrine heard the bells of Saint-Gimer strike six, followed moments later by the bells of the Minimes convent in rue Trivalle. The beating of her heart marked the passing time, the stillness punctured by the occasional splash of a fish in the shallows, a rare survivor in the plundered river, a distant Wehrmacht truck or the engine of a Milice vehicle prowling through the streets of the Bastide.
She couldn’t hear the soldiers any more, though she knew they wouldn’t give up. She had a restricted view of the bridge, but none of them seemed to have come back.
Sandrine tried to imagine where Raoul might be now. Because she had dismantled the device earlier than they’d agreed, he wouldn’t be worried yet. He wouldn’t expect her until after it was dark. He’d be holed up somewhere, waiting for dusk. Safe.
But she wished she knew if Lucie had made it back all right. That was often the worst part of it, not fear for oneself but for those one loved. In the early days, Sandrine had thought she’d always know if something bad had happened. That she would feel if any one of them – Marianne, Suzanne or Lucie, Liesl, Geneviève or Eloise – was in trouble. She’d learnt from experience that it wasn’t the case. Sometimes she assumed the worst, felt the violent tug in the gut, the twist in the chest. Sometimes it was justified, sometimes it was not. In the case of Monsieur Baillard, for example, she could not accept he was gone. After two years with no news, Sandrine knew it was stupid to cling to the slim hope that he was alive. And yet she felt his presence. Faint, but there all the same.
She tried to change position, to stretch out the stiffness in her cramped arms and legs, as the minutes ticked slowly on. The light of the end of the afternoon gradually gave way to the white of early even
ing. Just after the bells had struck seven, she heard – then saw – a convoy of military vehicles drive on to the bridge. Orders were shouted in German first, then repeated in French, as three trucks of Gestapo and Milice travelled from the Bastide to the Cité. A little later, just after the quarter-hour had struck, a black armoured Waffen-SS staff car went by with its hood closed.
Was Authié in it? Was the dinner genuine after all? Perhaps it wasn’t a trap and they’d made a dreadful mistake in not going through with the attack tonight. Missed the best opportunity they would have.
The vehicles cleared the bridge and the barriers came down again. Silence returned to the river. Sandrine stayed hidden, watching the guard patrol the section between the two checkpoints.
The light turned from white to the purple of dusk then, gradually, to black. The bells of Saint-Gimer were striking nine now. Sandrine’s sharp ears picked up another sound. This time, the sweet sound of a woman’s voice, singing an old Occitan lullaby.
Bona nuèit, bona nuèit . . .
Braves amics, pica mièja-nuèit
Cal finir velhada . . .
It was a song Marieta used to sing to her when she was a baby, always restless, always hard to get off to sleep. Sandrine felt tears prick in her eyes. She didn’t brush them away, but mouthed along with the words, the familiar words of childhood, as the lilting melody floated out over the river.
Cantem pas mai . . .
Anem tots al leìt
An old song, a song of the mountains to give comfort to all those who could not sleep, for those who were weary and wakeful.
Raoul stared at Lucie.
‘It’s been six hours since you came down from the Cité. Something’s gone wrong. Something must have happened.’
Night had fallen over the Jardin du Calvaire. The stone apostles were sleeping in the Garden of Gethsemane, their shapes providing cover for Raoul, Lucie and Robert Bonnet. Lucie was rocking Jean-Jacques in her arms to keep him from waking.
‘Something must have gone wrong,’ he said.
‘Nothing went wrong,’ Lucie repeated. ‘I saw her. She came out of the tower. There was no alarm sounded. Just a drunk. Sandrine waved at me to go, so I did.’
‘We don’t even know if she made it back to rue Longue,’ Raoul said, running his hands through his hair.
‘No, we don’t,’ Lucie said patiently. ‘But there’s no reason to assume she didn’t.’
‘Then why’s she not here?’
‘She’ll be here,’ Lucie said, though the strain was starting to show in her voice too.
‘We can’t wait very much longer,’ Bonnet said. ‘We’ll be stopped.’
‘I’m not leaving without her,’ Raoul said.
Bonnet shook his head. ‘You know the system, Pelletier.’
The ‘Citadel’ network followed the same rules as every other group. If someone was more than half an hour late, the assumption was either the location had been discovered or it wasn’t safe enough to keep the rendezvous, or that the contact had been arrested. At that point, their responsibility became to save themselves and to warn the others.
‘This is different,’ Raoul said.
‘Sandrine won’t expect us to wait,’ Bonnet insisted. ‘She’ll rely on us to do the right thing. Expect you to have faith enough in her to know she’s capable of looking after herself.’
‘What if Authié found her?’
‘Everything went well, Raoul,’ Lucie repeated. ‘There was no sign of Major Authié at all.’
‘I’m not leaving Carcassonne without her. Bonnet, will you take Lucie to the handover instead of us, then come back in the morning? I know it’s a lot to ask, but you must see I can’t go. I can’t leave her.’
‘I don’t know,’ Bonnet said, shaking his head again.
They both knew the odds on them being caught were much higher if Bonnet left and then came back to the same rendezvous.
‘Please,’ Raoul pleaded. ‘This is no place for Jean-Jacques, but I can’t go. It’s only right. After all she’s done.’
Robert held his gaze for a moment longer, then he nodded. ‘All right. But stay here. If you’re not here when I come back, I’ll not be able to do anything.’
Raoul’s shoulders slumped with relief. ‘Thanks, Bonnet.’
Lucie put her hand on his arm. ‘We’ll see you in Coustaussa. Don’t be too long, do you hear?’
Time had changed its shape. The past and the future both seemed to coexist with the strange and fragile present. Sandrine felt the presence of spirits all around her now, friendly ghosts who held out their hands and whispered of their lives, and shared their secrets. They connected her to all those who had walked the streets of Carcassonne before and all those who would come after her.
Sandrine could see a cloud of midges hovering over the surface of the water. Trapped in the confined space, with nothing to drink or eat, she had lost track of how long she had been hiding. She had stopped counting the tolling of the bells.
The great sweeping spotlights from the Cité sent their beams shining out of the quartier Trivalle and the quartier Barbacane, but all was quiet. The occasional slamming of a car door, or an engine, but nothing more. Sandrine prayed Raoul would have gone. That he would do the right thing and leave without her, though the thought choked her.
Finally, night fell. The sound of trucks coming back over the bridge, the heavy thrumming of the engine of a large car. Sandrine felt a strange peace come over her. An image slipped softly into her head, indistinct, an impression, almost a memory. A girl in a long red cape, the hem embroidered with an intricate green and blue pattern of squares and diamonds, interspersed with tiny yellow flowers. No, not flowers, but stars. Seven stars. A girl with a gentle yet forceful expression.
And between the two Carcassonnes, as it always had, lay the dark and silent river. A sea of glass.
Chapter 127
Laval stared impassively at Authié, carefully hiding his satisfaction at being proved right. He wasn’t sure how Authié would react at having made the wrong decision. Schiffner had already made his displeasure clear at the waste of resources.
‘Still no sign of her?’ Authié demanded.
‘We don’t know who it was,’ Laval said. ‘The report was only that a woman and a man were seen on the slopes above rue Petite Côte de la Cité. When the Gestapo ordered them to stop, the girl ran off.’
‘The man?’
‘Not Pelletier,’ Laval said. ‘A drunk, wandered into the restricted area accidentally – so he claims. He’s in custody, but he doesn’t know anything.’
Authié looked down at the Wehrmacht report. ‘It says here she crossed the Pont Vieux. Why the hell did they let her through?’
‘The sentries weren’t aware there was a problem at that stage, sir,’ Laval said. ‘By the time they were, she’d got away. The Wehrmacht did a house-to-house in the vicinity but didn’t find her. Nobody claimed to have seen her.’
Authié tapped the paper again. ‘It says here that two women were seen in the vicinity of the rue des Anglais at four thirty. A good hour before this other incident. Why were we not immediately told?’
‘They were working girls. It was only when the captain arrived in the Cité that he realised we were looking out for women – a woman – and decided to radio the information through.’
‘That was eight hours ago, Laval,’ Authié said.
Laval said nothing. The report had come to him and he had decided not to put it immediately in front of Authié. He didn’t share his superior’s complete conviction that either the device – or the decoy – had necessarily been set by Sandrine Vidal. But he agreed with Authié that questioning her about the Codex was the obvious place to start. By keeping the Wehrmacht report from him for a few hours, he had hoped to get a head start on his commanding officer. But by the time Laval arrived in the Cité, there was no sign of the girls matching the description given by the Wehrmacht soldiers. The dinner had gone ahead, but for the guards, the evening had be
en spent in dull inactivity: watching both the Tour de la Justice and the Tour de Grand Burlas, waiting for an attack on the hotel that neither Laval nor, increasingly, Authié believed would take place.
Laval met his gaze. ‘I think we should go to the house in the rue du Palais now,’ he said.
Authié’s face grew white. ‘Where’s Schiffner?’ he demanded, ignoring Laval’s comment.
‘He returned to headquarters. To file his report.’
Authié frowned. ‘Do you have the men you need?’
Laval nodded. ‘Yes, sir. There have been two miliciens on duty in the Fournier house for the past twenty-four hours, round the clock.’
‘Has anyone gone in or out?’
‘No.’ He paused, then decided to push Authié a little further. ‘I think it’s likely the women have already left.’
‘Do you?’ snapped Authié. ‘Based on what information?’
Laval didn’t say anything.
‘Precisely,’ Authié said. ‘We don’t know one way or the other.’ He scribbled a note, then thrust it at Laval. ‘This is what you need.’
Laval looked down at the requisition slip. ‘Five o’clock? With respect, sir, why wait?’
Authié stood up and leant forward on his desk. ‘Because if – as you have pointed out, Laval – there’s no one there, two hours won’t make any difference. Out of courtesy I need to inform Schiffner personally what I am going to do. Give him due warning.’ He pointed his finger at Laval. ‘And it gives you the time to fetch the information about Audric Baillard.’ He glanced at his deputy. ‘I assume you have it?’
Laval had not found the time to return to the Commissariat and he doubted there would be anyone in the archives now to help him get the files out, but he knew better than to admit it.
‘I’ll bring it as soon as I can, sir.’
Authié met his gaze. ‘I’ll be waiting.’
Raoul worked his way from bar to bar. The Bastide was crawling with police and soldiers. Gestapo in the centre, the Milice a little further out, guards on every corner, but he avoided being stopped.