The Eden Inheritance (15 page)

This time had been different. Georges and Yves, like so many others all over France, were anxious to resist but they needed outside help – arms and supplies from London, trained radio operators to keep the lines of contact open and the leadership of men like himself to organise their resistance, and they had welcomed him with open arms. The dual tasks of setting up a circuit and an escape route for Allied airmen shot down over France were daunting ones and he needed as many cards as possible in his hand. Kathryn de Savigny was just one of them. If she could help him, then this long and uncomfortable bus ride would have been well worth the effort.

The bus chugged temperamentally up the steep hill and into the town. Paul checked his watch again – French-made, like every one of the items of clothing he wore, from his underpants to the ancient serge jacket. Yes, he was in good time. He looked out of the windows, taking his bearings from the ornately façaded cathedral that dominated the town and mentally checking off the names of the roads against the street map Georges had given him and which he had memorised by the light of the guttering oil lamp in his room the previous evening. When the bus came to a stop he disembarked along with the other passengers into the cold grey of the early afternoon and began to make his way through the network of streets in what he judged to be the direction of the Café d'Or, using shop windows as mirrors every once in a while to ensure he was not being followed.

The café was situated on the corner of a small square, just as Georges had described. Paul went inside and sat down at a table close to the window which overlooked the square and the street down which he had just come. He ordered coffee – not real coffee, but the vile-tasting mixture of acorns and chicory that had replaced it in occupied France – and drank it, keeping an eye on the street for any approaching Germans or for Kathryn de Savigny in case she should leave through a side entrance rather than through the café. The town seemed quiet for a market day, he thought, and what people there were scurried along, heads held low, with the nervous demeanour of hunted animals. Which was, Paul mused, exactly what they were – cold, hungry, deprived of liberty, stripped of pride and afraid almost all the time of putting a foot wrong and having to take the consequences. Pressure like this affected people in one of two ways – they either became cowed and beaten or they fought back, defying the dangers. Some would betray even their own relatives and friends in order to save their skins, some would dig deep into resources of courage they had not known they possessed. What would he have done had he found himself in their situation? He liked to think he would have been one of the resisters, plotting and planning and hiding British agents just as Georges was hiding him, but in all honesty he could not be sure. All very well to do what he was doing now, driven by hatred of the Nazis and an overwhelming desire for revenge. But what if he and Gerie and little Beatrice had been an ordinary French family living under the occupation – what then? Would he have placed them at risk in order to salvage his own pride? He didn't know and the uncertainty was humbling.

Paul finished his coffee. It left a bitter taste in his mouth but he had little choice but to buy another cup. He signalled, to the waitress, a young girl with straggling hair tied back at the nape of her neck, wearing a slightly grubby white apron over her black uniform skirt, and at that precise moment Kathryn de Savigny appeared from the rear of the café.

He knew it was her instantly, would have known even if Major Fawcett had not shown him a photograph of her before he left London. This was not a café that would normally be frequented by a woman wearing a Paris-designed coat, undeniably pre-war but still stylish, and he knew instinctively that she was English though he could not for the life of him have explained why. She was slim, of medium height, with thick brown hair falling loose over the collar of her coat, and she was carrying an expensive-looking crocodile-skin clutch bag. Unexpectedly he felt his throat constrict. This was it then – time for action.

‘It's all right. I was just leaving,' he said to the waitress, and followed Kathryn de Savigny into the street.

She turned in the direction of the market and he followed at a discreet distance. It was about a five-minute walk, he estimated – plenty of time to get well away from the café and anyone who might have noticed his hasty exit before he approached her. She walked quite fast but with his long strides he could keep up with her almost too easily; he stopped a couple of times, once to light a cigarette, once to look into the window of a bookshop, then quickened his pace to catch up with her again.

When he judged they had covered a safe distance he pulled from his pocket a handkerchief that Georges had lent him especially for the purpose; a small square of white cotton belonging to his sister, Yves' wife. He drew alongside Kathryn.

‘Excuse me, Madame, I think you dropped this,' he said in French.

She turned quickly and he saw the surprise in her eyes – brown, with golden flecks around the iris.

‘I don't think so.' He knew what she was going to say and interrupted her in a low voice, though he was as confident as he could be that there was no one within hearing distance.

‘
Je suis anglais
. Your brother Edwin sent me. I must speak to you.'

He saw the blank look of shock on her face and was afraid that she might do or say something that would draw attention to the fact that he was not what he seemed. Then, to his relief, she took the handkerchief from him.

‘Thank you – how kind. I didn't realise …'

‘I can't talk now.' He kept his voice low. ‘You often go out alone for walks, don't you? I'll see you tomorrow at the crossroads on the hill just outside Savigny. Three o'clock. And for God's sake don't tell anyone. Not your husband, not anyone. All right?'

She hesitated for just a moment. Then: ‘All right,' she said. ‘But what if it's pouring with rain?'

‘The first fine day then.'

‘All right. I'll be there.'

‘Good.' He glanced around; no one was within earshot, no one was miring the slightest notice of them, but all the same he touched his forehead in a gesture of subservience. Then he quickened his pace and walked along the street.

Next morning the wind had blown the rain clouds away. When she drew the curtains and saw the sky, higher and brighter than it had been for days, Kathryn felt her heart sink and she realised that she had actually been hoping it would be raining and she would not have to make a decision about whether or not to take the walk and keep her appointment with the Englishman who had contrived to speak to her in Angoulême.

That he was English she had no doubt – in spite of all appearances to the contrary. But she couldn't understand who he was or what he wanted with her, and she couldn't think what he could have to do with Edwin. She had not seen her brother since the beginning of the war and had heard nothing either. Was it possible that he was in France and wanted to see her? But if so, why hadn't he contacted her himself? Why send a messenge by way of a British national dressed up as a French peasant? Try as she might to find another explanation Kathryn couldn't help thinking that only one fitted the bill. Edwin was mixed up with the Resistance and the man who had way laid her was too.

When he had left her so abruptly she had been tempted to wonder if she had dreamed the whole thing, but the square of coarse white cotton, so different from her own lace-edged lawn handkerchiefs, was all the proof she needed that she had not. Riding home in Maurice Angelot's creaking van she had been grateful for once for the farmer's relentless chatter. He always regaled her with tales of his day in the market, what he had sold and to whom he had sold it, all gritted out around the home-rolled cigarette that dangled between his weather-dried lips. Luckily for her he did not expect any reply – he thought her typically standoffish English, never realising that he drove her mad with his repetitive anecdotes – and the habit, formed over weeks and months, had given her the chance to try to organise her whirling thoughts. But it had made no difference.

What did he want with her? she asked herself for the hundredth time, and again the inescapable answer which whispered inside her head sent a chill of fear through her tense body. If he was an agent – and she was certain he must be – then he was going to ask her to help him in some way. And Kathryn was not at all sure she was brave enough – or foolhardy enough – to do it.

You are wrong! she told herself. He wouldn't be foolish enough to seek assistance from the wife and daughter-in-law of known collaborators! But the assurance could not satisfy her for long.

Supposing he did ask for her help? What the hell would she do? Resisting in any way was a terribly dangerous business – assisting a British agent even more so. And she had Guy to think about. She couldn't do anything to place him in danger … no, be honest, it wasn't just the thought of the risk to Guy that was making her stomach churn with fear, but the terrible prospect of what would happen to her if she were found out. The Nazis were no respecters of women. They had special ways of dealing with them, she had heard … She trembled, stricken with dread, yet at the same time despising herself for hesitating for even for a moment at the chance of doing something to undermine the hated Boche.

You are a hypocrite, Kathryn de Savigny, she told herself, looking at the sky and willing the storm clouds to gather so that the decision as to whether or not to keep the appointment would be taken from her. All this time you have been blaming Charles and his family for collaborating, accusing them of cowardice, and in reality you are every bit as bad!

The realisation shamed her, but there was no escaping the fact that she was in no position to do anything to help. It was far too dangerous. If he asked, she would have to tell him that.

At two-thirty the sky was still ominously clear and Kathryn knew that if she was to keep the appointment she could delay no longer.

She checked that Guy was sleeping. Although he was almost four years old he still needed an afternoon nap – because of the energy he used up, she supposed. Then she changed into a tweed skirt and walking shoes and went in search of Bridget, who was, since the war had begun, one of only three servants at the château which had once employed more than twenty.

‘I am going out,' she said. ‘Listen for Guy when he wakes up, please.'

‘Wouldn't he like to go with you?' Bridget was cheeky where the older servants never were. ‘The fresh air would do him good.'

Kathryn resisted the urge to argue with her.

‘Just do as I say, Bridget, please.'

She fetched her coat and hat, her stomach churning with nervousness.

Don't let him be there! she prayed as she walked down the drive, bordered on both sides by winter-brown parkland. If he's not there that will be the end of it. But at least I'll be able to live with myself, knowing I did what was asked of me.

The chill wind cut through her coat and Kathryn shivered. Telling herself she was doing what had been asked of her was cold comfort indeed.

At two-thirty Paul Sullivan was cycling up the hill towards the crossroads outside Savigny. He had intended allowing himself a full hour to hide himself and his bicycle in one of the thickets overlooking the whole valley to make as certain as he could that there were no traps waiting to be sprung on him; he didn't yet know whether Kathryn de Savigny was to be trusted and if she had told anyone of their planned meeting there might be a patrol of German or Vichy police waiting to pounce. But it had taken him longer than he had anticipated to cycle the twenty kilometres; the road was undulating, and even in his present peak fitness he had been unable to maintain the speed he needed. There was, in any case, the danger that the Germans, if they did know about him, would time their arrival for exactly three o'clock, but it was a risk he had to take and on balance he was inclined to trust Kathryn. Her swift reaction when he had approached her the previous afternoon had impressed him and his instinct was that she would not knowingly betray him. Generally speaking Paul trusted his intuition. It rarely let him down – more often it was the reasoned judgement that did that.

Paul dismounted, pushing his bicycle up the last, and steepest, part of the hill and looking for a way to get into the thicket that breasted it. He found a track and gateway but discounted them – too soft and muddy after the recent rain. His bicycle would leave telltale tyre marks and the mud would cake on his shoes, clear evidence for anyone who cared to look that he had not remained on the roads where he should have been. A little further on was a gap in the hedge and Paul settled for that, lifting his bicycle through and then manhandling it into hiding.

From this vantage point the whole of the valley with its little winding roads was spread out beneath him and he knew he had chosen well – the safest possible place for a meeting as risky as this one. To his left, along the ridge, he could see the towers of the château rising above the trees, beneath him the fields fell away to the village – the collection of grey-stone houses and the church, its spire pointing up towards the thicker grey of the sky. Everything was quiet, everything appeared as normal as it could be – no enemy patrols, as yet at any rate. He leaned against the bole of a tree, lighting a cigarette and constantly scanning the vista for any sign of danger.

Just before three o'clock he saw her approaching along the road from the direction of the château and realised that until that moment he had not been certain whether or not she would come. She was wearing a trench coat and a soft felt hat that covered her hair, her head was bent and she was walking purposefully. He remained under cover, watching her, more alert than ever. At the crossroads she stopped, looked around uncertainly. He let her wait for a full five minutes. Once he thought he heard the sound of a car and stiffened, peering down the valley. But it was only a farm truck; it chugged away and all was quiet again. He saw her look at her watch and wondered how long she would be prepared to wait. The timing of the meeting was a gamble, as was the decision whether or not to take his bicycle with him when he broke cover. On balance he decided to leave it where it was. If a patrol did come there was no way he could outrun it on a road, bicycle or no bicycle, and at least hidden in the thicket it did not attract attention.