British Bulldog (18 page)

As she tried to calm her breathing she surveyed the scene. As she had hoped, the flat area ran the length of the terrace, all the way to the end of the street. Unfortunately, she could see no easy way to the ground. There was no hoped-for fire escape. Thick soil pipes punctuated the sheer drop at the back, plummeting to the black gardens below, but they were mounted tightly against the masonry and without a rope it would be all but impossible to use them to make a safe descent. At the front, however, there were slim ornate iron balconies running across the top three floors. Mirabelle lay flat, pulling herself over the edge to try to make out which windows had lights on and which lay dark and were therefore presumably vacant. She chose the unlit window second from the end – the one that was furthest from her captors. Carefully she took up a position over it, made sure her handbag was secure and allowed herself to slip back towards the gutter. Gingerly she tested it with her foot. The iron was riveted into place, completely secure.
Mirabelle paused. She tried not to think about what would happen if she missed her mark. They’d call it suicide – a woman tumbling from this height onto the pavement. How long might it take them to identify her body, she wondered fleetingly, and then pushed the thought out of her mind. Taking a deep breath, she folded her fingers over the ledge and lowered herself into the night air, suspended directly over the balcony on the top floor. There was a moment of relaxation, strangely, when she simply dangled, and then, closing her eyes and realising she was unable to breathe, she let go and dropped onto the iron fretwork. Her hands were trembling and her ankles had taken the strain but she realised with some surprise that she had made it. The room within was dark and she couldn’t make out the interior. Stumbling to stand straight, she tried the window but the catch was locked, so using her handbag to shield her from cuts she broke the glass with her elbow and reached through.

The room was warm. She pulled herself inside onto a thin strip of carpet and only just managed to quash the feeling that she ought to fall to her knees and give thanks. How foolish, she chastised herself, deliberately turning her attention to her surroundings. A quick inspection of the stove in the corner revealed embers that had burned low. Mirabelle warmed herself in front of them. Her feet felt as if they had been immersed in ice. Looking around, she found a pair of men’s socks beside the bed and pulled them on, rubbing her soles to get her circulation going. When she could feel her toes again, she rooted further. A pair of tan leather riding boots three sizes too large were stowed in the lower part of a cherrywood dresser. She pulled them on and took an experimental step or two. It was better than going barefoot, she told herself as she laid a banknote on the bed. She wasn’t a thief and the man who lived here would have to repair the window and replace his socks and boots. A summary inspection of the room
betrayed the fact the poor fellow, whoever he was, was short of funds.

She tried the door. It was locked and she could find no key. Carefully she removed a pin from her hair, thankful that Albert had left her hat in place. She decided not to look in the small mirror that was mounted beside the bed and tried not to dwell on how ridiculous she must appear in her woollen day dress, tweed jacket, men’s boots and little hat. The red nail varnish applied so meticulously by Vesta at the beginning of the week had chipped in places. It was as if her outfit had been made up of random jigsaw pieces. She sighed. Then she knelt at the door to pick the lock. It wasn’t a difficult job. She’d done this kind of thing before.

Chapter 22

Remember that you have a friend
.

D
etective Superintendent Alan McGregor had never visited France. For that matter, he’d never been outside Great Britain. Once he’d cleared customs at Dunkirk, he’d spent some time admiring the stamp on his passport and reading the declaration on the inside cover. He wondered if anyone would ask to inspect the stamp now he was in Paris and was faintly surprised as he strode unobstructed out of the Gare du Nord and looked around. It seemed somehow too easy to have boarded a train and then a boat and now to be here, in the French capital. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but the network of roads around the station and the tall Parisian tenements did not look as foreign as he had feared. The damp February air felt the same in Paris as it had in Brighton and emerging onto the street he had attracted no particular attention, which meant he did not look outlandishly different.

He pulled a guidebook from his pocket.
On Foot in Paris
had been the only publication available at short notice. He’d considered himself lucky that the stand in Victoria was open on a Sunday. He had spent the journey perusing the book’s pages but now he had actually set foot on French soil – or at least pavement – he realised that he had not memorised the map upon which he had marked the location of the Hôtel Rambeau. This wasn’t how McGregor had hoped to spend the weekend. He’d envisaged a game of golf and perhaps taking Mirabelle for dinner somewhere nice down the coast and
indulging in another kiss. When he dropped into McGuigan & McGuigan Debt Recovery on Friday afternoon he’d been flabbergasted when Vesta told him where Mirabelle had gone.

‘What the devil did she want to go to Paris for?’ he’d demanded.

Vesta grinned. ‘A missing airman. RAF. He was a flying ace during the war.’

McGregor looked offended as Vesta stirred the tea in the pot and cast around for biscuits. ‘Well, he’s been missing a long time,’ he managed to get out. ‘Why did she have to go now?’

‘That’s just what I said,’ Vesta agreed heartily as she poured. ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of her, actually. I phoned her hotel but I think she was out.’

‘What do you mean? She was either out or she wasn’t.’

‘The fellow who answered was French. I’ve no idea what he said. I couldn’t even leave a message.’

McGregor drank his tea with a quiet slurp.

‘It’s all right for Mirabelle,’ Vesta added. ‘She’s fluent.’

The superintendent’s eyebrows rose slightly.

‘Her mother was French, you see,’ the girl continued. ‘Which explains Mirabelle’s style. They say French women wear clothes terribly well. I don’t know when she’ll be back.’

Vesta was deliberately taunting the superintendent with this information, hoping it might propel him into action. Unaware that Mirabelle and McGregor had kissed earlier in the week, she found the way the couple had been circling each other ever since they met most frustrating. She proffered a biscuit.

‘Huntley and Palmer, eh? Thanks.’ The superintendent sighed. ‘So, what did you want to speak to Mirabelle about? Office business, was it?’

Vesta put down her cup and leaned forward. ‘She’d asked me to look into something, so I went to the records office and dug up some old papers. I thought she’d find them interesting, that’s all. I’m nervous to trust them to the post. I
mean, it’s abroad. And to telegraph the information would cost a fortune.’

McGregor dunked his biscuit. ‘I learned a bit of French at school,’ he admitted.

‘Go on!’ Vesta’s face lit up. ‘You never! Say something.’

McGregor put down the cup and the biscuit in preparation for a demonstration.
‘Ou est mon parapluie?
That’s “Where is my umbrella?” And
Je voudrais deux billets, s’il vous plaît
. That’s “I’d like two tickets, please.”’

Vesta’s dark eyes twinkled mischievously. ‘Well, then, you could go and help Mirabelle, couldn’t you? Speaking French and all. We didn’t do any of that at school.’

McGregor found himself staring at the teacup in front of him. The station had been quiet of late and he had leave he ought to take – weeks of it. Paris for a day or two might be nice. He imagined Mirabelle in front of the Eiffel Tower wearing a beret at a jaunty angle. He’d like to kiss her there, looking just like that, he thought, and then he blushed at his presumption.

‘I suppose I could deliver those papers of yours,’ he had said. ‘Where did you say she was staying?’

Glad to be off the stuffy train at last, McGregor crossed the main road in the direction of rue Lentonnet. He paused as a bus passed and he met a female passenger’s eyes for an instant as it speeded south towards the city. The evening air was fresh, and passing one or two bistros he realised he was hungry. The interiors glowed orange and smartly dressed waiters delivered appetising plates to the tables. There was a smell of roasting meat on the air. However, casting an eye over the menus on display, the superintendent realised he had no idea what was on offer. What was
agneau,
he wondered, and
moules?
The French language classes at Corstorphine Primary hadn’t covered those. Two men stood smoking in a doorway, their
conversation sounding like a babble. It had been a long time since Mademoiselle Keltie had put him through his paces in the schoolroom, and even then French conversation had dealt mostly with how to buy tickets and discuss the weather. The two sentences he’d hazarded in front of Vesta were the only ones he could remember with much clarity. Now that he listened to French being spoken by, well, the French, the language was faster than he recalled – a rough and complex jumble of indecipherable words.

Coming to a halt in front of the Hôtel Rambeau, McGregor wondered if Mirabelle was inside, and if she was, whether she would be pleased to see him. Through the window he could see an old man settled at the reception desk, reading a paper and smoking a pipe. He paused, surprised to find himself nervous as he turned the handle and stepped inside.

‘
Bonsoir, monsieur
.’ The man looked up.

McGregor was instantly tongue-tied.
‘Un
room,’ he managed to get out. ‘I am looking for my friend. An
amie,
Mirabelle Bevan.’

The old man squinted. He removed his glasses and said something incomprehensible.

‘Mirabelle Bevan,’ McGregor repeated.
‘Ici
?’

The man nodded and said something incomprehensible again. McGregor wondered if it was the same thing he’d said before or if it was something different. In either case, the old fellow had at least nodded, which indicated that he might be in the right place.

‘All right.’ He thought for a moment.
‘Ou est
Mirabelle Bevan?’

The man shrugged and said something that McGregor suspected was about women in general. He motioned towards the rack of room keys. McGregor checked his watch. It was six o’clock.

‘
À quelle heure
?’ he asked, getting into the swing of things.

The old man laughed. McGregor felt deflated. He pulled
out the francs he’d exchanged at Dover and pointed towards the remaining keys.

‘Pour moi
?’ he tried.

The old man took down a key, handed it over and efficiently removed a note from between McGregor’s fingers. He handed over his pen and motioned for McGregor to sign the register. Then he sounded out the strange name.

‘McGregor.’

‘
Je suis Écossais
.’

‘Ah. Glasgow.’ The old man grinned.

‘
Oui
.’ McGregor did not correct him. Instead he tried to procure a drink. ‘Whisky?’

This was an internationally recognisable term. The old fellow came out from the reception desk and led the superintendent into a room that was laid ready for breakfast. Disappearing into the back, he returned a few seconds later with a short glass of amber liquid.

‘Et voilà, monsieur,’
he said.

McGregor took a sniff. It didn’t smell too bad. He motioned into the hallway and up the stairs.

‘I will go to my room,’ he said slowly and loudly. ‘I will wait for her.’

Mirabelle peered onto the street from the front door of the house in the 8th arrondissement. She couldn’t make out anyone suspicious along the pavement. An old woman walked a dachshund on a lead, dawdling to match her pace to the dog’s tiny legs. Occasionally a car drove past. Her heart pounding, she stepped out and walked towards the house where she’d been held. The old boots felt heavy and loose. They were well made, but it was like walking with her feet encased in boxes.

Above her head the lights were switched off on the first two floors, but further up the windows were lit. She stepped back to gaze up at the skylight she’d escaped through. It had seemed
higher from above than it did from the street. At the doorstep a row of bells was unmarked by names. Anyone visiting this house would have to know already which bell to ring. Mirabelle walked as unobtrusively as she could towards the end of the road, noting that she had been held on the rue de Courcelles. It was an address to be avoided in future.

She turned in the opposite direction to the elderly dogwalker just in case and strode past some chic boutiques. Tomorrow she’d buy new shoes, and in the meantime there was nothing to be gained by returning to Christine Moreau’s studio or seeking out anyone who might help at the American Embassy. Christine knew she was being watched, and if she was working for the Americans they must know too. Mirabelle contemplated a return to von der Grün’s house on the rue de Siam but that, surely, would be the first place her captors would put under surveillance when they realised she had gone. Reporting to the British Embassy would almost certainly result in a rap on the knuckles and being sent home on the first available train. The British would want any information she uncovered, but as soon as they had it they would certainly view her as a loose cannon, and a loose cannon was never welcome.

Mirabelle tried to think what Jack would do in this situation. She envisioned him, papers splayed across the desktop in front of him, his hands clasped together as he thought. When he was struggling with a problem a deep furrow appeared between his eyebrows. It was impossible to know how long she had been followed, she reasoned. So the first thing she must do was move and keep moving and not go back to anywhere she might already have been seen. She stopped at a phone box and dialled the number of the Hôtel Rambeau. The bell rang several times before anyone answered.

‘Hello,’ she said in rapid French. ‘It’s Mirabelle Bevan. I’ve been called home suddenly. Will you ship my case, please? I
have to leave at once. You can send it to the left luggage office at Victoria – I’ll pick it up from there.’

The old man sounded uncertain. ‘But your husband has arrived,’ he said.

Mirabelle’s heart almost stopped.
‘Mon mari
?’ she said, a vision of the man in the Mackintosh looming in her mind’s eye.

‘Yes. Monsieur McGregor.’

If the old man was suspicious of what must look like a romantic assignation, his tone didn’t betray it. Mirabelle’s eyes darted. It was a relief not to feel alone, she realised, but she was mystified as to why McGregor was here and worried that he might be in danger.

‘McGregor? You’re sure?’ she checked. ‘No other man?’

The old man stifled a laugh. ‘How many men are you expecting, madame?’

Mirabelle ignored that. ‘Put him on, would you?’

‘A moment.’

It took longer than that. Mirabelle shifted inside the phone box as she waited. The Parisian streets were glossy with rain and all but deserted. It was Sunday, after all. On the corner two teenage boys burst out of a bar and paced down the street discussing music loudly. A taxi drew up and the driver pulled out a copy of
Le Monde
to read as he waited for his fare. Mirabelle wondered how much good Christine Moreau had done over the years. That was the difficulty with covert operations – sometimes it was only years later that you realised what the operation had achieved, and often the people involved never knew. When you were a small cog in a larger machine, the outcome was beyond you. She wondered what information Christine was handling and how on earth the woman was getting it in and out. She had foxed the Russians, and that of itself was admirable.

There was a rustling sound at the other end of the line.

‘Hello?’ McGregor’s voice brought her attention to the matter in hand.

‘Superintendent,’ Mirabelle greeted him. ‘It really is you. Are you alone?’

‘Yes.’ He sounded quite proud of himself. ‘Vesta sent me with some papers she wanted you to have. She dug them up in the library or the records office or something, and wasn’t sure about posting them.’

‘What do they say?’

‘I have no idea. They’re upstairs in my case. In an envelope.’

Mirabelle allowed herself a smile. McGregor was about as far from a covert operative as one might hope to get. It clearly hadn’t occurred to him to open the envelope and see what was inside.

‘Are you hungry? Can I take you for dinner?’ he continued.

Mirabelle decided not to explain where she had been or what she’d been up to. She’d have to meet him away from the Hôtel Rambeau in any case – it might as well be at a restaurant, though not everywhere would be open on a Sunday night.

‘There’s a bistro near the Louvre,’ she said. ‘It’s along the colonnade at the Palais Royal. There’s an enclosed courtyard there. A sort of park.’

‘Right you are.’ McGregor’s voice sounded uncertain.

‘You’ll need to take a taxi,’ Mirabelle advised him. ‘Check you’re not being followed. Do you know how to do that?’

McGregor grunted in the affirmative.

‘Get the cab to drop you at the Palais Royal. We’ll meet at the Bistro Florentine. I’ll be waiting.’