Charlotte Gray (22 page)

"Jolly good." He straightened his face and coughed.

"Now, once you've delivered Yves to Uzerche, you're to leave him there and make no attempt to contact him. Understood? He'll be with friends there and he won't need you. Then you take the crystals to this address, go into the hairdresser's and repeat the lines written here." He pushed a piece of paper across the desk. The hairdresser's was in a town called Ussel. Charlotte read and memorised the contents.

"Got that?

Good." Jackson took the paper back and tore it up.

"We're pretty much ready for the off now. Sometimes we have to keep people hanging around for ages, either here or in one of our houses in East Anglia. But the weather forecast's first class. Bright as a button all the way to Limoges. As far as your return journey's concerned, you're to do as instructed by the local Frenchman. It's just possible you'll' hear from our man there who's running Violinist. He's called Mirabel, but he's very busy and I expect the Frenchman can handle it. I don't have a name for him, but he'll tell you at the drop. There'll be a plane to bring you home in a week or ten days. The local chap'll have the gen from his wireless operator. All clear?"

Charlotte nodded.

Jackson sucked in his breath.

"This is all terribly straightforward, but of course if it all goes well, and I'm sure it will, we might find you something more exciting another time. Do you follow?"

"Of course." Charlotte nodded.

"Now there's just one more thing I must tell you about." Jackson settled himself on the edge of the desk.

"Sometimes people get very lonely over there. You can tell no one about yourself, you have very little human contact with anyone at all. You're only going to be there for a week, so I'm sure you'll be fine, but even a week can seem a long time. Be prepared for it and don't let it affect you. Are you subject to feelings of loneliness?"

Not exactly loneliness, thought Charlotte: bereavement, desolation, despair.

"Not particularly," she said.

"Not really."

"Good. You'll receive your final briefing from one of my staff at the aerodrome. He'll also give you a small package with the crystals in it. I normally like to come myself, but as you've probably noticed we've got a rather busy day. Quite shortly I'm going to introduce you to a young woman who's going to be with you from now until you get on the plane - a sort of a chaperone, really. You can call her Alice.

All the girls who do this job are called Alice. She's just there to keep an eye on you, make sure you don't absent-mindedly slip a packet of Craven A into your pocket and so forth. She'll even have to accompany you to the you-know-what. It's all perfectly usual, but before we say goodbye I want to wish you luck. It's an awfully simple little job, but the first time's always a bit tense. I'd like you to have this."

He held out a small box, tied with an orange bow. Inside was a silver powder compact.

"Thank you," said Charlotte.

"It's lovely. It's not too expensive for a girl like Daniele?"

"Dear me, no. It's French, too. Look at the maker's name." Julien Levade's office was on the first floor of one of the larger streets of Lavaurette. A double outer door opened from the street on to a courtyard on the far side of which the main entrance led into a gloomy reception area that smelled of floor polish and caporal tobacco. The receptionist, a plump woman in her thirties called Pauline Bobotte, directed visitors to any of the half-dozen enterprises in the building, and worked the small telephone exchange, parroting the number in her uncompromising accent and prodding in the little plugs with their frayed cords. It was a matter of unquestioned routine for her to listen in on any conversation she chose, and no visitor, however long he had waited in the hall, however urgent his appointment, was allowed to interrupt her deft manoeuvres.

"Mademoiselle Bobotte?"

"Yes?"

"It's Monsieur Levade. I wondered if you had one second ... not if you're busy, of course."

"It's not time for coffee already, is it?"

"Very nearly."

"I'll see what I can do."

Ten minutes later, Pauline Bobotte entered Julien's office with a small white china cup, slightly out of breath from the slippery climb. Julien thought it better not to ask where she procured the coffee she was a resourceful woman with good connections among the local shopkeepers as well as a reliable intimacy with a businessman from Toulouse, who frequently stayed in Lavaurette on his way north. Pauline Bobotte was capable of discretion in her turn. For instance, she never asked why various callers referred to Monsieur Levade as "Octave', nor why it was always these people who seemed to be making urgent assignations.

There was a time to keep silent and listen.

The price Julien paid for the coffee was a brief, slightly flirtatious conversation with Mile Bobotte, in which she asked him about his work, and he questioned her about her home life, implying that she concealed from him the large number of suitors who kept her busy.

Pauline Bobotte went to look at the plans on Julien's drawing board.

"You haven't made much progress, have you?" she said.

"I'm at the stage of creative thinking. Beautiful shapes are forming in my head. Marble staircases are rising up out of nowhere. Fountains are shimmering. I'm wondering whether there should be peacocks on the lawns."

"Well, I hope you're going to put some bedrooms in this hotel."

"Really, Mademoiselle, bedrooms, bedrooms, is that all you think about?"

"You Parisians are all the same," said Pauline Bobotte sternly to hide the beginnings of a blush.

"Quite impractical. If a traveller stops off" for the night he wants a good comfy bed, that's all. He doesn't want peacocks and fountains."

"I thought we'd keep the cloisters, perhaps put some tubs of flowers along here, geraniums, pansies. What do you think?"

"I think it's a shame to wreck a lovely old building. Why can't it carry on as a monastery?"

"There hasn't been a monk there for years. Everything passes, everything changes."

"Well, I'm surprised people have got enough money to do things like this nowadays. It's all we can do to keep body and soul together."

"On the contrary, the Occupation has provided ideal circumstances for the shrewd businessman. Life will resume. There will be full hotels and rich clients. Whether they'll be French or German, of course, I really can't say. But my employers are prepared for all eventualities and they have no doubt taken care to offend no one. Listen. I think I can hear the telephone." Pauline took the empty cup, reluctantly, and made her way downstairs. A few seconds later, Julien's telephone rang.

"I'm just putting you through," he heard Pauline's voice say.

"Octave?" said a man's voice.

"Yes," said Julien.

"Auguste. It's on. Ten thirty. Understood?"

"Yes."

The line, to Pauline Bobotte's irritation, went dead.

Charlotte waited an hour and twenty minutes, dressed as Dominique Guilbert, sitting on the edge of the bed in yet another room in the flat. There was a short knock at the door and an expensively dressed woman, a little older than Charlotte, came in and introduced herself.

"Daniele? I'm Alice. I'm going to look after you now." Charlotte took in the woman's tailored suit, her crocodile handbag, and felt the dowdiness of her own mousey hair, her clothes, the cumbersome shoes.

"The car's waiting downstairs. It's about an hour's drive. Do you need the loo?"

"Alice' had what Charlotte recognised to be a smart perhaps affectedly so English accent. Although she was not in uniform, she reminded Charlotte of what Cannerley had said about the fanys being as posh as Queen Charlotte's Ball.

"No, I'm all right thanks. I went when I took my make-up off."

"Super. If you're quite ready then, I think we'll make our move." Alice opened the door a few inches and received an affirmative nod from the butler at the end of the corridor.

"All right, my dear. Here we go."

Charlotte followed Alice to the front door of the flat, a brief' Good luck, Miss." from the butler following her out on to the landing.

A black Riley was waiting at the foot of the steps outside, a uniformed fany standing chauffeur-like beside the open rear door. She took Charlotte's roughened brown suitcase and stowed it in the boot, while Charlotte sank down on to the red leather seat. It was early evening and a newspaper seller was barking some incomprehensible sound. The driver moved a switch in the walnut dashboard and Charlotte heard the indicating finger slide out from the side of the car as the three women pulled out into the traffic and headed north towards St. John's Wood. Julien finished the dinner the housekeeper had made earlier and left on top of the cooker. He wiped a piece of bread round the edge of the plate to soak up the remains of the gravy generated by the concoction of meat and vegetable. He never asked what the ingredients were in case it put him off, but tonight's effort had been almost palatable, helped by the half-glass of red wine he had thrown in while reheating it.

He poured the last of the litre of Cotes du Rhone into his glass and lit a cigarette. It was nine thirty. He could not conceal from himself the fact that he was enjoying this very much indeed: he was in perfect time, he was just drunk enough and it was a beautiful, star-packed night. He carried the dishes through to the kitchen and left them by the sink; then he went round the apartment closing the shutters. The high ceilings and the bare floors made it noisy; he left his shoes by the door so as not to disturb the family who lived on the ground floor. He filled a small flask with brandy and slipped it into the pocket of the old leather jacket he took from the row of pegs in the hall. He could not remember when these excursions had taken on such an alcoholic character, but it now seemed indispensable. He checked that the bedroom window was open and noted with pleasure how well the housekeeper had tidied the room: the great wooden-ended bed and its antique canopy looked positively seigneurial, he thought. No one else had wanted this ancient, draughty apartment; only an architect would have been foolish enough to rent it. He put on some heavy boots, patted his pockets to make sure he had cigarettes and took a small rucksack from beside the front door.

Inside were four electric torches and some spare batteries.

Julien clattered down the stairs, forgetting as always, until it was too late, that his footsteps would cause a scuffling from behind the concierge's door. He strode across the hall but was not quite fast enough.

"Out again tonight. Monsieur Levade?"

"Absolutely. I'm meeting my fiancee at the station. She's just arrived from Lyon."

"I thought she was from Paris."

"Oh, that's a different one," said Julien, as he supped through the front door.

"Good night."

He went round to the side of the building where he kept his bicycle. He connected the dynamo to the wheel and pedalled off, the thin beam of his front lamp expanding to a handsome glow as he accelerated into the village. On the main road out of Lavaurette, just before the school, was a solid, spacious house that belonged to Mlle Cariteau, the post-mistress. Julien left his bicycle propped against the railings at the side and went cautiously to the back door, where he knocked on the glass.

"Who is it?" A manly figure with a woman's voice moved in silhouette across the lit blind on the door.

Julien smiled.

"It's me. Julien."

A bolt was slid, the door opened on to a large, untidy kitchen, and Sylvie Cariteau offered one cheek, then the other, in greeting.

"Good evening, Madame." Julien went to shake hands with Mlle Cariteau's mother, who sat in an easy chair by the vast, blackened fireplace.

"Sit down." Mlle Cariteau pulled back a chair at the table, which still bore the remnants of the two women's exiguous dinner. She poured Julien a glass of wine and pushed it towards him over the pitted oak surface.

Julien looked at Mlle Cariteau. He needed to do no more than raise an eyebrow.

"All right?"

She nodded.

"All right. They're asleep. My mother looked after them today." Mlle Cariteau opened her hands and glanced towards the rafters. Julien followed her gaze. He had never been upstairs, but it was easy enough to imagine from the outside of the house that it had ample unused spaces.

"We have twelve bedrooms," said Mlle Cariteau.

"How are the children, Madame?"

He always had some difficulty, as a Parisian, understanding exactly what Madame Cariteau said. Although she was probably no more than seventy, a lack of teeth added to the puzzle of her accent.

"They were frightened. The little one, Jacob, wept all morning, then suddenly he seemed to cheer up. I gave them some paper and pencils and they did some drawing. I heard them laughing together in the afternoon.

The older one kept asking me when his parents were coming back." The old woman drew her lower lip up over both gums and shrugged.

"I don't like to let them downstairs, that's the nuisance of it." Julien sighed.

"We'll have to try to work something out."

"Leave them for the time being," said Mlle Cariteau.

"We can manage."

Julien looked interrogatively towards the mother, who gave a sour little nod of agreement.

The Whitley smelled of raw machinery: oil, tin, rivet. Charlotte felt a pair of hands pushing on her backside, then a shoulder being added to the shove. She sprawled inside, almost unable to move for the bulk of the parachute, and lay down as instructed by an R.A.F sergeant across the bomb bay with her head and shoulders propped against the side of the fuselage. Somehow, despite the training, she had been expecting seats.