The Lavender Keeper (22 page)

There were times when all he wanted to do was get back to the Front, although the Russian campaign was going so badly that every German military strategist could surely see the end result. The Battle of Stalingrad, sprawling over five months, was catastrophic, with nearly 100,000 German soldiers in custody. They were all that was left of upwards of 330,000 men.

Kilian’s secretary returned after a lengthy departure, full of apologies. She dragged him from his bleak thoughts, nervously handing him some papers. Sandrine was French, but too uncertain working at this level, and her German was halting at best. Someone at dinner the previous night had heard Kilian bemoaning his help and had quipped that the girls were probably all too in love with him to take the job seriously.

He’d had to grit his teeth. Didn’t these people take war seriously? He was not looking for romance in Paris. How could his colleagues be so flippant when whole platoons of fine young men were being destroyed? Frankly, he wished he’d perished in the frozen wasteland rather than dying of guilt here in this office, a gracious chamber of the Palais Bourbon, where hot chocolate was served in exquisitely painted Limoges porcelain jugs and men smoked cigars and drank cognac.

‘Leave them there, Sandrine,’ Kilian said in French. ‘I’ll sign them later, thank you. You know, it’s a nice spring day out there despite the cold. Why don’t you take the afternoon off?’

The young woman stared at him. ‘But …’

‘Go on. Take the afternoon off,’ he said and stood.

‘Are you sacking me, Colonel Kilian?’ She looked terrified.

‘No. But I think this position makes you unhappy; you are constantly nervous and perhaps a bit lonely working here with me. I know you were drafted from the secretarial pool. Would you like to return to it? Would that make it easier for you?’

‘Well …’ she hesitated.

‘Let me arrange it. No change in wage. Will that be satisfactory for you?’

She glowed. ‘Oh, yes, thank you, sir.’

He nodded and smiled. Now he was without any support, but he didn’t care. He would have to find someone new with flawless German and French. Anything to make his department more efficient and his efforts noticeable. If he could not return to the Front, he needed to manoeuvre into a position to aid those men fighting on the lines.

He spent the next few hours working diligently, immersed in all the nonsense paperwork that seemed to flow in a relentless torrent across his desk. Berlin was pedantic about copies of all letters, and the records it kept of every decision by every small bureaucrat seemed beyond paranoia, but he followed the routine, clenching his jaw.

When he next looked up to glance out of the picture windows it was past four-thirty and already dark. He could suddenly feel the chill from outside biting through the vague warmth of his large office. He smirked at himself for noticing; in Russia his men were freezing to death, literally. Many a soldier had been found frozen solid at his post.

He consulted his diary, hoping the appointment that he knew was there might have miraculously disappeared over the last few hours. Instead it stared back at him in bold black ink: a social meeting with one of the German bankers of Paris at seven p.m. Could he get out of it? Absolutely not. The man had solid connections with Berlin. It was only a drink, after all. The man could prove a handy contact.

So while a hot bath and an early night sounded inviting on this cool spring evening, he would not dash back to the Hotel Raphaël. Instead, he would freshen up at the office and set out on foot towards stylish St Germain to Les Deux Magots. He checked the time again; yes, he could probably
even give himself the pleasure of a skirt around the Jardin du Luxembourg before cutting past Saint Sulpice up towards the café. The evening sounded instantly more bearable: perhaps he could even hear the Saint Sulpice choir or the church’s grand organ.

Markus Kilian stood. He needed some sustenance, hot food – and he might even sip a warming cognac tonight as he charmed his new acquaintance in the hope of good words fed back down the line to Berlin.

Lisette could barely believe it had been seven months since she had arrived in Paris. She’d successfully met up with the local resistance circuit and found herself a top-floor flat in a quiet back street on the Right Bank. The eighteenth arrondissement was well known for its famous cabarets and nightlife and was often crawling with German soldiers. Lisette knew she probably should have moved, but didn’t wish to chance her luck more than she already was.

Many of the German servicemen liked to holiday in Paris, and they flocked to the Pigalle district for their entertainment. Theatres such as the Grand Guignol were never empty. The Moulin Rouge thrived, as did a great many brasseries and brothels. By night the area was a hotbed of restless eroticism and by day it seemed to sleep within its own hangover. It was to the bohemian, arty Montmartre that Lisette was drawn. The hilly, sleepy streets nestling beneath the Sacré Coeur, where she now lived, had nourished artists such as Monet,
Lautrec and Van Gogh. The basilica was set on the highest point in Paris, and several times a week Lisette would climb its travertine stairs to sit in the forecourt of the bright white church and look out over Paris. After the French Revolution many nuns had been guillotined at this spot, and Lisette shared a curious sense of sisterhood with the forgotten women.

Unlike most of SOE’s operatives, Lisette didn’t have to report back to London regularly. As a result she was safer than many of her colleagues operating in France. She was free to live the life of a Parisian – in fact she’d been encouraged to immerse herself in the city’s routines – without the stresses of having to hide a wireless and move flat constantly. When the time was right she would get in touch with a young man from London living in Paris, codenamed Playboy, who had audaciously set up a number of wireless sets in safe houses. He was posing as a student, studying hard but all the while tapping out messages to London.

It was a lonely life. She never fully relaxed – every time she left her bedsit she rehearsed her cover in case she was questioned. She slept lightly, sometimes fretfully, in the small room she’d rented, but it had lofty ceilings and tall windows that let in a great deal of light and air, which she found calming. The tiny, rickety cherrywood table was left by the previous occupant and sat over mismatched chairs. Along with her bed, the sink and a very small wood stove, it was the only piece of furniture.

Lisette warmed herself as best she could from a flowerpot brazier she had constructed using paper waste from the bank. It would burn long enough to thaw frozen fingers before she hugged herself into bed from the early evening. She was planning to grow some food in pots on the balcony in summer, and she even entertained the hollow daydream of a parachute
drop that might contain some soap or shampoo. Nevertheless, despite the mean facilities, the solitude and the constant sense of danger, she was curiously content.

She was fortunate in many ways: not only did she have regular work at the bank but the folk of the neighbourhood had taken her under their wing. She found herself giving salutations and stopping in the street to chat about the ridiculous price of potatoes or offering to run errands on her way into work. The greatest danger was complacency; this was a luxury she could ill afford. Lisette had to treat every day as though it were the day she would be discovered. Never let down the guard! This had been drummed into her during training, even though that felt like a lifetime ago. So much had happened since the day she’d met Captain Jepson.

Not least Lukas Ravensburg. If she considered everything from the past year of her life, it was Luc who burned in her memory, and the evening he had wept in her arms. She knew it should be the execution of Laurent and the man known as Fougasse that kept her awake at night; or perhaps the knowledge that Luc had killed the
milicien
. But no – it was the man she barely knew who seemed to stalk her in her quiet moments. Watching him crumble, witnessing those tightly held defences crash down was more heartbreaking than anything she’d ever experienced. And his tender kiss had made him impossible to forget. He was like no other man she’d met. Luc was such an enigma, and like herself, a person full of private pain. She held the fanciful hope that they were two halves who could make a whole, if given a chance. A day hadn’t gone by since that terrible evening in Provence that she didn’t think about Luc and didn’t yearn for his kiss, to share his pain and soothe his hurts.

Where was he? Was he safe? He had left her in Lyon. She
desperately wanted to ask the network for information, but she knew making contact with him would risk her own cover and might compromise his.

‘Just knowing other Resistance members might get you thrown in prison or executed,’ Playboy had told her. She knew he was right. Prosper, who was to have been her original contact in Paris, had been arrested the year before. His cover had been blown – something to do with his ID papers and the wrong rivets used. London’s forging error was disastrous. Around five hundred
résistants
had been arrested, most packed off to Germany for interrogation, imprisonment, and probably execution. Playboy had assured her the best and only defence was to remain independent.

Her first task had been to establish a place where she and Playboy could exchange messages without having to meet. It was known as the ‘dead drop’ – all agents had one.

A café on the Rue Pergolese was chosen, ironically in the heart of the German business district, just off the Champs Elysées. Playboy had explained that using an establishment favoured by Gestapo added a curious sense of safety. The best hiding place was in plain sight.

The café owner was a cunning black marketeer and a passive resister who despised the Germans. He would place a green tea towel over his shoulder to signal to Lisette if Playboy had a message for her. If she sent one to Playboy, she would write it on cigarette papers at home and stick the tiny note with its handy glue strip to the inside page of a newspaper that she would leave behind the counter for Playboy. They’d take turns calling into the café every other day to check for messages. So far she had sent only one message to SOE, months before:
Accommodated and employed in Paris. Lark.

All in all, it had been a dream immersion into her new Parisian world. In fact, Lisette would almost consider herself happy if she only knew of Luc’s whereabouts. She was cross with herself for caring so much.

Luc had refused to explain what had occurred between him and von Schleigel that night, or what had happened to the old man who had caught Luc’s attention. He’d all but dragged her onto the platform at Lyon, bundled her on the carriage and closed the door. When she’d opened the window to say farewell he had simply shaken his head.

‘Say nothing more, please. Be safe, Lisette. Forgive me the dangers I put you through.’

There had been so much she wanted to say, but his expression and the way he took both of her hands and kissed them had choked her. His eyes could not hide the truth of pain. Something truly terrible had happened with von Schleigel.

As the train lurched forward he’d let go of her hands – let go of her – and Lisette had felt as though something was tearing inside her. Even leaving France all those years before to board in England had been easier than this. Looking at Luc as the train pulled away, Lisette suddenly couldn’t bear to be parted from him. Would she be safe again without him? He regarded her sadly as he raised a hand in farewell. She’d clutched at the rim of the open window, and had uncharacteristically begun to cry as she watched him standing there forlorn, his gaze riveted on her.

Lisette had felt instantly empty when she could no longer see him. She’d got used to the lilt of his voice, the way he spoke in French low and quietly, like he was telling secrets, and in German like a poet. She’d become familiar with his repressed energy and the bristling anger.

Their link was severed on that platform in Lyon, but the memory of him travelled with her. He would likely take a German bullet fleeing from some place of sabotage. But she had made a promise to him, and if she survived this war, she would find Lukas Ravensburg again.

Today was Lisette’s day off. Spring had arrived but it had been a cool morning – one of those crisp, sunny Parisian winter days that could almost trick you into believing life really wasn’t that bad. She was aware that daily British bombing raids over Germany were intensive, and the Wehrmacht was dying on its feet in the frozen fields of Russia. Yesterday the aero-engine factory at Limoges had been bombed. Lisette’s instincts sensed a change in the war. The previous year had been disastrous for the Allies and she hoped she wasn’t imagining that the tide might be turning. And now her tiny part in the fightback was finally becoming a reality.

She felt a little guilty about Walter Eichel. He played an unwitting role in her cover story, and if she were discovered, Walter would suffer. He had warmly welcomed her into his plush office near the Champs Elysées. His office had the sweet smell of old cigars and Armagnac, the comforting sound of leather that creaked and a mantelpiece clock ticking sombrely over a fireplace that no longer had fuel.

Her godfather lived well; she could see that from his paunch. Even so, his bearing was straight and his skin was not liver-spotted, his complexion healthy. He was not as tall as she recalled, but his genial grin was intact and his voice was thick and throaty, with that measured way of speaking that she had always liked. His hair was now fully silver but still lustrous, slicked back neatly. He was really very old-fashioned in his
ways, but she found it all deeply reminiscent of childhood, when he would visit the family home.

She had told him she was back in Paris because she couldn’t bear to be away from France, and he had accepted her story without further interrogation. He was happy to offer her a job, happy to make introductions, but she sensed that beneath the surface Walter did not entirely believe her reasons for returning to France.

‘When did you arrive?’ he’d asked.

‘Oh, I’ve been back in France for a while; I hated living in Britain,’ she lied. ‘As soon as I left school I came back to the Continent, travelling as a nanny with an English family. When war broke out they rushed back to England and I made my way to Lille. Then I took ill. I was sick for almost a year, Walter, but you may remember my family’s friends in Dunquerque?’

He frowned. ‘I don’t recall.’

She wasn’t surprised – they didn’t exist. ‘The Pernots took care of me. When I felt well enough to travel, I headed south for some warmth. I needed to get my strength back. I lived quietly and reasonably well with the family of one of my friends from school. I helped out in a local school. Last year I couldn’t face another alpine winter so I decided I’d come to Paris. That’s when I wrote to you.’

‘Well, I was very pleased to hear from you,’ he remarked. He didn’t ask anything else. He had loved her father and was determined to help her, but that was where their relationship ended. Lisette knew she could never take Walter into her trust. Nobody should have to choose between friend and country.

He did warn her that she was never to mention her time in Britain. As far as he was concerned, she had come direct from Strasbourg via Provence.

Since that meeting she’d been working at the bank, acting as an intermediary when required to bridge the gap between German and French. Walter and she had shared a couple of evening meals together, where he had regaled her with happy stories of her parents. If she were honest, she admitted that she had never enjoyed an evening in recent memory as much as she had with Walter – he was jovial company. He had insisted on paying her first few weeks’ rent until she was settled and earning, and impressed that she refused any further favours from him. He had, however, been determined to buy her some fashionable Parisian clothes.

‘I have no daughter of my own, Lisette. Let me do this for you. We can’t have you walking around looking like a peasant. It reflects badly upon me.’

And so she’d agreed to go shopping, under the eagle eye of his German personal assistant who favoured austere, dark clothes. Without a need for ration coupons, Lisette had been kitted out in a series of winter outfits suitable for the bank, including two skirts, a dark suit, three blouses, two cardigans, a plain but elegant dress for evenings, an overcoat she cherished, leather gloves, two scarves, and two pairs of shoes – one for work, heels for evenings – as well as sundry underwear and a single pair of silk stockings. When given to her, she felt as though someone had just handed her a bar of gold bullion. Silk stockings were currency on the black market. She could probably get enough real soap in exchange to last the war. Or feed a family for weeks.

Nevertheless, she needed those lovely clothes, now more than ever. From her first day in Paris, she had been trying to ingratiate herself with Colonel Markus Kilian. It had consumed her every waking thought. And this evening she hoped to finally meet him.

She’d had a striking piece of luck from the outset: on the first day she’d met Walter, she’d learnt that he was an acquaintance of Colonel Kilian’s. If Walter knew her target, surely she could contrive a reason to be introduced.

She took things slowly and patiently, stealing glances at his diary when she could. She had to find the perfect occasion before she made her play. She’d been working at the bank for several months without success but had held her nerve – and it had paid off. Two days ago she’d felt a pulse of excitement to see the entry in Walter’s diary for this Wednesday at seven p.m.:
Les Deux Magots. Markus Kilian
.

Lisette’s fingers trembled as she buttoned up her square-shouldered, oyster-coloured silk blouse, teamed with the charcoal skirt that hugged her hips and showed off her slim, neat figure.

She checked the time. It was nearing five, darkening outside, and the temperature was dropping. She would need to set off very soon if she was going to walk to St Germain. It would have been easy to take the Métro, but Lisette adored the cityscape, and there was far less likelihood of being stopped on foot.