Belle wished she was back there, reading bits out of the paper to Mog, or just telling her gossip she’d picked up while out running errands. She missed home so much. Life had been so simple back before Millie was killed; maybe it was a bit dull, but she had felt safe, aware what was expected of her, and knowing too how Mog and Annie felt about her.
She thought back to the day she’d met Jimmy and how good it had been to make a real friend. He’d made London seem such a wonderful place, and she’d had such high hopes of exploring more of it with him.
Would she be walking out with him now if she hadn’t been taken away? What would it have been like if he’d been the first to give her an adult kiss?
She sighed deeply, not just because she was sure Jimmy must have forgotten all about her by now, but because she doubted she could ever fit back into that life she’d left behind in England.
What was she to do? She couldn’t afford to leave Faldo, not when she hadn’t got a paying job or anywhere else to live. And her savings weren’t enough to get her home.
Tears ran down her cheeks unchecked. She was trapped.
Chapter Twenty-three
‘Bonsoir, Cosette,’ Noah said to the small, mousy-haired girl. He had thought her the plainest girl in Madame Sondheim’s last time, and that hadn’t changed; she was like a little brown moth trapped in the parlour with five flamboyant and vivacious butterflies. ‘Repellez moi?’
He wasn’t sure if that was the right word for ‘remember’, but she smiled as if she knew what he meant. ‘Yes, I remember you, Englishman,’ she replied in English. ‘No friend thees time?’
Noah said he’d come alone to see Cosette, and accepted a glass of red wine. Two of the other girls were making eyes at him from across the room, but he turned to face Cosette and smiled at her in what he’d been told was his most beguiling way.
She took his hand as they went up the stairs later, and she seemed more animated and light-hearted than the time before. She was clearly flattered that he’d come back and picked her out, and he hoped that would make her amenable for telling him what he wanted to know.
‘Your wife make you angry?’ she said as he handed over the money. He remembered then that his excuse for not having sex with her last time was because he was happily married. He felt this time he must be more straightforward, so when she’d passed the money to the maid outside the door, he held out twenty-five francs to her.
‘I asked you last time about young girls brought here. This time you must tell me more, the girl I ask about, her mother has broken heart and very sick.’ Noah said putting his hands on his heart to make it clearer. ‘You said they take girls to couvent, but I checked every convent in Paris. No girls there. Please, please, Cosette. Tell me what you know. I will not betray you.’
She was frightened, looking towards the door as if imagining someone was behind it listening.
‘I will never say you told me,’ he assured her, taking her into his arms and cuddling her. ‘This is a good thing for you to do. Belle’s mother may die if she doesn’t know where her daughter is. You know these are bad people!’
‘I have no work but thees,’ she said, tears filling her eyes. ‘My mother is sick too, I can send money home to her now, but if I lose this work, she may die.’
Noah realized that he had to offer her more money. He opened his wallet and brought out fifty francs more. ‘Take this for her. But tell me, Cosette, what I need to know! I promise I will not tell anyone you helped me.’
She was looking at the money, not him, and Noah thought she might be thinking it was enough for her to leave Paris and go back to her village for good.
‘Change your life,’ he urged her. ‘Leave this work for good. God will smile on you if Belle can be saved.’
Her conflicting emotions showed in her face. She wanted the money, perhaps even wanted to do the right thing for other young girls, but she was very afraid.
‘There is nothing to fear. No one will know you gave me any information. Be brave and bold, Cosette, for little Belle and others like her.’
She sighed deeply, then looked into his eyes. ‘La Celle St-Cloud,’ she said. ‘There is a big house at far end of village, it has a big stone bird by gate. Ask for Lisette, she is a good woman, she is a nurse. She will be cautious in telling you anything too for she has a little boy. You promise you will not say my name?’
‘I promise, Cosette,’ he said, and pressed the money into her hand and kissed her lips. ‘Get out of this work now,’ he urged her. ‘Go home and nurse your mother, marry a farmer and have many children. Find happiness!’
She put her hands on his shoulders and stood on tiptoe to kiss him on both cheeks.
‘I will pray you find Belle, and that she too can learn to be happy again. For most of us there is no way back.’ Her eyes filled with tears and spilled over. Noah was reminded of Millie and a lump came up in his throat. Millie had said something similar once; he hadn’t understood what she meant at the time, but he did now.
Early the next morning Noah set off to the south-west of Paris, to La Celle St-Cloud. From what he could gather it was around fourteen miles out of the city, not far from Versailles, and fortunately he could reach it by train. He had looked up the area in a guidebook, just to get a bit of background information, but apart from farming its only other claim to fame appeared to be the Château de Beauregard, a huge old mansion.
There was a brisk wind and a decidedly autumnal nip in the air, and Noah wished he’d thought to bring an overcoat with him. As he waited for the train, being jostled and shoved on the crowded platform, he shivered and thought that it was twenty months now since Belle had disappeared. ‘If you don’t learn anything new today, you must give up on her,’ he said to himself. ‘You cannot keep up this crusade.’
Noah walked all around La Celle St-Cloud, and was charmed by its attractive central square where old men sat smoking pipes and women bustled about buying their bread, meat and vegetables. After the frantic pace of Paris it was good to be somewhere quiet and calm.
He finally discovered the house Cosette meant after following two different roads to the edge of the village and finding only small houses. But on the third road he saw a big house ahead of him, and sensed it was the one he was looking for, just by the way it stood alone, the last house in the village.
There was a stone eagle on one gate post, and just a piece of broken stone on the other to show there had once been a matching pair. The house was at least a hundred yards from its nearest neighbour and surrounded by open countryside. A man was ploughing in the distance, a few birds were circling above him, and although it was a lovely view, it struck Noah that to anyone held in the house it might look frighteningly remote.
He looked up at the house appraisingly. It was big. There were four floors with eight windows just on the front, and a rather grand, albeit crumbling, portico around the front door. But then, the whole house and what he could see of the garden from the gate was somewhat neglected.
As he stood there, considering what reason he could offer for knocking at the front door, a young woman suddenly appeared round the side of the house. She was slender, with dark hair, and he guessed she was in her early thirties. She was wearing a grey shawl over her head and a dark blue dress, and held a shopping basket on her arm.
He took a deep breath, and as she reached the gate, he swept off his hat, flashed what he hoped was his most beguiling smile, and asked if she was Lisette.
She lifted her head and smiled, and to his surprise he saw she was a very pretty woman, with soft, dark eyes, creamy skin and a wide, full mouth. ‘I am, sir,’ she replied in English. ‘And why is an Englishman asking for me?’
Noah thought she had the sexiest of French accents; she was making him grin like a schoolboy too. ‘I want to talk to you,’ he said.
She tossed her head almost dismissively. ‘I have shopping to do,’ she said.
‘Then I’ll come with you and carry your basket,’ he said. ‘Maybe I can persuad
e you to have some coffee with me too?’
She looked at him appraisingly for a second, then laughed lightly. ‘If Monsieur Deverall has sent you, then you will be wasting your time. The answer is no.’
She began to walk towards the village and he fell in beside her. ‘I haven’t been sent by anyone,’ he said. ‘I’ve come to ask you about a young girl called Belle.’
The way she stopped dead in her tracks and her face blanched was all Noah needed. He put his hand on her elbow. ‘Keep walking,’ he said softly. ‘Don’t be alarmed, you have nothing to fear from me. I just want to ask you a few questions.’
She said something in French, a hurried volley.
‘I only know a few French words,’ he said. ‘You must speak English to me.’
‘I cannot talk to you.’ She sounded scared now. ‘I don’t know anything.’
‘You do, Lisette,’ he insisted. ‘I know you have a little boy and you are frightened for him, but believe me, you have nothing to fear from me. I am a friend of Belle’s mother – I promised her I would try to find out where Belle is, because she is grieving for her, and not knowing if she is alive or dead, or where she’s being held is slowly killing her. But anything you tell me is between ourselves. I will not tell anyone else, call the police or anyone. You are absolutely safe with me.’
‘Who sent you to me?’ she asked, her eyes as wide as saucers and full of fear.
‘Someone good and kind who believes you are too,’ he said. ‘But that is all I can say. I promised her too that she would be safe.’
‘But it isn’t safe,’ she pleaded with him. ‘You don’t know how bad these people are!’
Noah saw there were other people around them now as they came into the village. ‘Lisette, calm down, do not draw attention to us. Now, we’re going to go over to the café. If anyone asks about me later today you just say I asked you the way to the station and I bought you coffee. That is entirely believable as you are such a pretty woman.’
She gave a nervy half-smile, but Noah felt he was succeeding in making her less afraid. He could hardly believe his luck that he’d found her so easily, but he knew that luck was likely to run out if he pushed her too fast or too far. So he stopped talking about Belle and spoke about the sights he’d seen in Paris while he led her to the café.
Once they were seated outside and coffee and pastries ordered, he began again. ‘Lisette, I know Belle was brought to the place you work,’ he said. ‘And it’s my guess you are the nurse who cared for her.’
She hesitated, clearly weighing up whether to admit this or not. Then she nodded. ‘She was very sick, I fear for her at first.’
‘She’d been raped?’ Noah asked gingerly.
He sensed her distress and held his breath, fearing she would clam up. But she took a deep breath and looked him right in the eyes. ‘Yes, she had been raped. Again and again,’ she admitted, and he saw her reason for speaking out was because she felt so horrified. ‘It was terrible they would do that to such a young girl. The body will heal, but not always the mind,’ she added.
She paused then, looking at Noah as if still weighing up whether or not he could be trusted. ‘But Belle was a fighter, she have strong, how you say? Spirit?’ she said eventually. ‘She asked me to help her escape, but I couldn’t. I or my boy would be killed if I did. You understand that?’
Noah put his hand over hers comfortingly. ‘I know, I’m sure you would have helped her escape if you could. But I’m not here to blame. I just want to find her and take her home to those who love her. When she is there she can choose to speak out about the Englishmen who snatched her off the streets and took her to France. They will be punished then.’
‘She is not in France,’ Lisette interrupted him. ‘She is in America. That is all I know.’
‘America!’ Noah exclaimed, his heart sinking down to his boots. ‘Are you sure?’
Lisette nodded sadly. ‘I did not see her go. I come in morning and she has been taken away. I weesh she were in France or Belgium and I could tell you where for I grow fond of Belle. But they not tell me where in America she go.’
‘She was sold to a brothel?’ Noah spoke almost in a whisper.
‘Pretty young girls are like horses, or cows to these bad people,’ she spat out contemptuously. ‘Belle was prime steak. Young, Engleesh, so pretty. It was the same for me when I was young girl, they took me to English brothel, that is why I speak the English. But I am still trapped by them – too old for brothel, but they make me nurse the girls they hurt.’
‘They won’t let you leave?’ he asked.
‘Never,’ she said ruefully. ‘I am too valuable to them as nurse, and they know things about me which make sure I do as they say. Maybe if I had money I could take my Jean-Pierre and flee France, but that takes a great deal of money.’
‘I could get you away,’ Noah said impulsively.
She smiled sadly. ‘No, that is not a good thing for you to do.’
‘I think it is, and I will give you my address,’ Noah said. ‘If you want help anytime, just ask, and I promise I will come for you or meet you at Dover. You believe me?’
‘Yes, I think you are a kind man,’ she said.
‘Is there anything or anyone you can tell me about who might be able to say where Belle was taken to?’ Noah felt he had to try to push her just a little further.
‘I am just one link in the chain,’ Lisette said sadly. ‘They don’t trust me even with the next link. I don’t know anything more.’
Noah believed her. She might know the names of a few people above her, but he doubted she’d ever been given real names because an organization like this wouldn’t survive if that was known.
He felt in his inside pocket and brought out his list of the other girls who had disappeared. He showed it to her. ‘Just tell me if you’ve seen any of those names anywhere before,’ he said.
She looked at it carefully. ‘There was an English Amy, just for one night,’ she said with a frown. ‘I think too there was Flora, and May.’
Those three girls were the youngest out of the twenty-odd names he had, and each of them had been reported to be exceptionally pretty. ‘Were they sent to America too?’
‘No, I never knew any girl but Belle be sent there. The others went to Belgium.’
She could only say that it was Brussels, no address.
‘When I first spoke to you, you thought I came from Monsieur Deverall?’ Noah asked. ‘Who is he?’
The fear came back into her eyes. ‘I cannot tell you anything about him,’ she said hurriedly. ‘He is the man at the top. I never met him, but I know him to be cruel and ruthless. They say many gendarmes have tried to put him in prison but he is too clever, they never find proof of what he does. But he would not take your Belle to America himself, she will never have seen him. They say he binds his men to him with blackmail. He has many other businesses too. Always the kind where he use force.’
Noah assumed by this that Deverall was a man much like Kent, with fingers in many areas of vice, extortion and gambling. ‘But you thought I had come from him, so that means he does send someone to see you sometimes?’
She sighed. ‘You are as smart as his man,’ she said with just a hint of admiration. ‘He too is charming like you, the kind of man a woman wishes to trust. Deverall sends him sometimes to ask me to go with girls, but I always refuse.’
‘Why?’
‘It is bad to see how they have been hurt, but I make them well. I could not bear to take them to someone who will hurt them again.’
‘I see,’ Noah said. ‘And this man who works for Deverall accepts that?’
‘Yes, he knows how I feel, and there is always someone else who can take the girls for he pays well.’
‘Would this man know where Belle was taken?’
‘No, I don’t think so, he was not involved that time. All I know is what I overheard, that a coach was coming to take her to Brest. I think the coach took Belle to meet someone who would take her on th
e ship.’
‘Do you know who this person was who took her to America?’ Noah asked tentatively.
She closed her eyes in exasperation. ‘Have you heard nothing I’ve said?’ she exploded. ‘To tell you that is to risk my son being killed. I have helped you as much as I can. Do not ask more of me.’
‘But surely just his name wouldn’t hurt?’ Noah wheedled, putting his hand over hers.
She slapped his hand away and got to her feet. ‘I will go now before I feel I must report you to Deverall because you are asking too many questions,’ she said angrily. ‘I know you mean well but you are putting both of us in danger. Go back to England, leave this. Belle is a strong girl. I believe she will find a way back to those she loves.’
Noah quickly wrote down his address and went after her. ‘Take this,’ he said. ‘I will help you get out of France if you want me to. I am so very grateful to you for talking to me, you are a brave and good woman.’
She put one hand on his arm, her lovely eyes gazing into his. ‘You are a kind, good man too, if things were different I would wish to be your friend.’
Noah’s heart jolted. She smiled, perhaps sensing how surprised he was. ‘You are a very handsome man. And you offer me and my child safety, that is very tempting. But I should not wish you to take such risks for me.’
‘I’m willing to do whatever it takes,’ he said eagerly.
She put one finger against his lips to silence him. ‘I will do one little thing more for you,’ she said. ‘The man in Brest, I know him only by reputation, but I know he is like me, caught up in something he cannot escape. He does not come here, but I may be able to find a way of contacting him. Do not expect this, I may not be able to do this. But if I can and I find out something about Belle I will write and let you know. Now go, ask no more questions and leave Paris quickly. Deverall has his spies everywhere.’