The Tiger Claw (51 page)

“Rent’s paid for four months. Here’s the key.”

He passed it to her under cover of the tablecloth. Noor slipped it into her handbag.

“You need more francs and ration tickets,” said the Major. “Make them last awhile.”

Beneath the table, a fat envelope nudged into her lap. A weight she hadn’t realized was bearing down inside her lifted; she wouldn’t have to ask anyone for money.

“Not as much as I give our young gentlemen, but then, you aren’t paying for two at meals, are you?” He smiled away.

She’d sound rude and ungrateful if she pointed out his illogic. It didn’t matter. Now she could reimburse Madame Aigrain. And she’d be most frugal after that.

“And this time they’re real francs, so do be prudent. Oh, and I left some messages in an envelope with the concierge. Do send them on as soon as your transmitter is operating.”

The maître d’ passed, conducting a couple through the conversational hubbub to a table in the opposite corner.

Noor raised her voice a little for their benefit. “How is your family?”

The couple looked threadbare and gaunt. The woman held the man’s hand tight.

“Well as can be expected.” He lowered his voice. “Keeping Mr. Hitler on his toes.” Major Boddington sounded like a news-wire
telegram. “
Je Suis Partout and Paris Soir
aren’t giving the facts here. In a snit about the Paris air raid—typically self-centred. Not a single mention of our bombers raiding Cologne again.”

“Any news of my family, sir?”

“All’s well. Miss Atkins said to tell you some amazing news: your brother’s got himself promoted to flight lieutenant. My, that means he’s captain of his ship, you know.”

Amazing only because the Major never expected it. Kabir’s record would have brought him a promotion months ago but for his Indian blood.

“I’m so very sorry about the Lizzie, sir. Did anyone survive?”

“Survive what?” Major Boddington gave her an inquiring glance.

“The crash, I mean.”

A momentary silence, and then the Major said, “Oh, they didn’t crash, no, no. Good man, that pilot. Cut his engines, dived like a Spitfire. Evaded two Messerschmitts. Got home safe, and the two Dutchmen are, I’m sure, properly grateful.”

“I’m much relieved to hear that, sir.” She was relieved the Lysander had escaped the predators, but delighted to find Gilbert’s plan had failed.

The Major’s eyes narrowed behind his spectacles. “Now. You seem to have been up to a little mischief, my girl? Heard you balked at the fence, came right up to the Lizzie, refused to go home? Fall for a handsome young frog, then?”

Major Boddington assigned a narrow range of talents to Noor; reasoning was not one of them.

“No, sir,” said Noor carefully. She would pass over explanations of motives and state what she required at once. “I need to be with people I can trust. I will no longer work with Gilbert. I mean, I do not wish to work with Gilbert.”

“You
are
exhausted, old girl.”

She wanted to shout, “Don’t ever call me ‘old girl’”—it sadly reminded her of Prosper. But the Major was her superior officer, so she kept quiet.

“You’ve been awfully brave.” The Major was all tender commiseration. “And quite alone. We kept you in play far too long. And then your refusal to return, becoming hysterical—I must say, I was surprised.”

He was waiting. He hadn’t addressed what she’d said about Gilbert, but had adroitly turned the conversation. Clearly, an explanation was required.

“You might have refused to take any aeroplane arranged by Gilbert too, sir, if you found out he had read your letters. While we were waiting for the Lizzie, he began alluding to the contents. And he didn’t accidentally read them, he deliberately opened them!”

“You don’t say!” Major Boddington clasped the edge of the table and leaned forward. “So that’s what caused this little rumpus. Dear girl, you’re quite right to be upset—caddish thing to do. Reading a lady’s mail. Quite unforgivable.”

“A serious infraction, sir,” said Noor. “Against the rules.”

“Ah yes, the rules. Come, come, love, Gilbert isn’t the only one not playing strictly by the Marquis of Queensbury. If you want to stay within the rules, I dare say you should be fighting in uniform rather than—uh—what we’re up to.”

“Why did he read my letters?” Noor kept her voice low.

“My dear girl”—Major Boddington gave her a head-to-waist glance—“have a look in a mirror. You just don’t realize, do you? Believe me, it’s more than curiosity about your
je ne sais quoi
, your enigmatic Indian eyes. It’s the exotic element, that’s it. Gilbert’s a good sort, but you know the French—Gallic urges. Introduced him around at my club and the rascal was winking at the barmaids the next minute.”

“Sir, what you’re saying is, boys will be boys?”

Major Boddington looked mystified by Noor’s indignation. “Well, yes, as a matter of fact—what other explanation can there be?”

“If he read my letters, he must have read the letters of hundreds of agents,” Noor whispered furiously. “And agent after agent has been arrested, and you don’t believe Gilbert has something
to do with it? Who led the Gestapo to Prosper’s new apartment? And to Archambault? How did they find out where Renée Garry’s safe house was? How did they find out about Grignon? And since then—” She pulled Émile’s list from her pocket and smoothed it, keeping it below the tablecloth. “Phono gave me this list of agents on July 3. These are just the ones he has confirmed, but hundreds have been arrested. I don’t know how many more of us have been taken away to the avenue Foch since he wrote the last name.”

She glanced around, then down before slipping the paper into the major’s hand.

Oh, merde! Edmond. The last code name Phono wrote on the list is Edmond. Merde!

Major Boddington scanned the names. His jaw tightened for a moment. Then he put it away and looked up. “My dear, it’s unfortunate. Quite awful. You’re not under the mistaken impression that we’re unaware of the tragedy? Miss Atkins and I have been up night after night writing to the family of each captured agent, letting them know how concerned we are. Indeed, we’re all praying for their safe return.”

“I’m sure you are, sir. But today my name should be on a list of lost agents. Gilbert expected the Lysander to be shot down by the Germans—we’re just very lucky it got home.”

“Very lucky, indeed. The pilot was cool as a cucumber. You say Gilbert
expected
it to be shot down?”

“I believe so, sir.”

“How do you know?”

“He showed no alarm, surprise, or fear when German night fighters suddenly appeared.”

“He was on the ground, they were in the air—what did you want him to do? Turn into Superman? Your kind might wail and dance over calamity in India, Madeleine, but it’s just not done here.”

A waiter, Chaplinesque in a too-large suit and bulbous shoes, hovered and recommended. Major Boddington ordered
Poulet à la King
for two in passable but accented French.

“You could be mistaken for an
RAF
crew member, sir. Perhaps I should have ordered.”

“Allow a lady to order? Nonsense. He understood me perfectly. Now, where was I? Yes—my, my, what a lot of questions! One gets quite feverish from thinking sometimes, and it can make one think one has all the answers, and worse, that all questions have the same answer.” Major Boddington loosened his collar a little. “Each could have different answers,” he continued in a fatherly tone. “And a single outcome can have multiple causes.”

This seemed enlightened; she was willing to listen.

He set his glass down, looked directly into her eyes. “First, Prosper. Quite possibly the Nazis didn’t know he had anything to do with us. I warned him to stay away from Communists, but he took a flat in a Communist neighbourhood. The Germans are executing Communists in droves—by the thousands. And when they got him, it must have been obvious, after a while, that he’s one of us. Slight Cornwall accent, I do believe.”

“But how did the Germans know when he would return from Trie-Château?”

“Have you been to Trie-Château recently? No, I thought not. There is only one train left, one train a day. Not too difficult.”

“How did they know he was going there?”

“By following him, naturally. Thinking he was a Communist, you see.”

“And Archambault?”

“We’re convinced Prosper held out for at least twenty-four hours, then talked. No one can predict how an agent will react to torture.”

Prosper tortured—please no, Allah!

But it did seem plausible.

“As for how they learned where Renée Garry’s safe house was? I took an evening amble down the rue Erlanger and, I must say, that’s an old cottage, an eyesore stuck between those lovely new buildings. Any neighbour looking down from the apartment buildings on either side might have taken note of the unusual number
of strangers entering and leaving. The Gestapo could have received a denunciation from any opportunist.”

This too seemed plausible. Monique had remarked on the hundreds of denunciations received at the Hôtel de Ville each day.

“And the Grignon roundup?”

Major Boddington sighed. “I’m sure Miss Atkins told you why we needed you to take over from Archambault. We needed a fresh radio operator, fresh codes, more secure transmitters. Archambault’s had been in play for a dangerously long time. Old science—it was inevitable.”

Miss Atkins discussed this with Noor. So had Archambault.

“Why not just arrest Archambault? Why a roundup?”

“We think when the Gestapo couldn’t quite pinpoint the source of the signals, they decided to solve the matter with a roundup, a roundup that would frighten any students thinking of joining the Resistance. I have visited Mesdames Hoogstraten and Balachowsky, and the gardener showed me the greenhouse and shed. The metal roof of that greenhouse must have foiled German interceptor vans for quite some time, but time ran out.”

“And this list? Nineteen arrests
after
the roundup at Grignon.”

“We received messages from Archambault’s transmitter for several days after Archambault was arrested. It could be Archambault being forced to send or someone using his code books. So it’s quite possible those nineteen were arrested if Archambault carelessly allowed his code and message books to be found with his transmitter.”

The wrong person is being accused of carelessness
.

“Sir, you know Archambault had—all of us have—double security checks to authenticate his transmissions. There’s a bluff check and a true check. If either is missing after each line, it means the transmitter is in enemy hands. And even if both checks are missed because we’re in haste, the operators in London know our fists.”

The Major’s expression was inscrutable.

Noor plunged on. “Phono and I radioed The Firm to notify
you the day after Prosper and Archambault were captured. That should have told you transmissions from his radios could not be trusted. Two weeks ago I sent a message immediately, reporting the Grignon roundup and probable capture of his radio set and one of mine. Do you mean you have still been responding to messages from Archambault’s set?”

“The messages were nothing out of the ordinary.”

“The ordinary means requests for arms and money. We could have been responding to transmissions from the Germans asking for arms and money?” Noor was aghast.

“I suppose we may have. I brought a few canisters of explosives with me when I landed last week.”

“But why?”

“‘Yours not to question why,’ my dear,” the Major misquoted.

‘Theirs but to do and die.’
Noor couldn’t help thinking of the nineteen code names on her list.

“But we do have matters under control. The Hun doesn’t know we know they have our transmitters, which is quite all right. All I want you to understand is, we need Gilbert—we need landing fields.”

Major Boddington’s half-revelations had the ring of raving lunacy. Noor wasn’t calmed by his assurance that the
SOE
was in control of events, and of Gilbert. Wasn’t calmed at all. The Major was suspiciously cheerful. But then, he hadn’t fled Gilbert, dashed through a forest while escaping in the middle of the night, felt the terror of presenting false papers at checkpoints or gone underground for twelve days.

A bone china plate appeared before Noor. A chicken breast in a pool of sauce, like a ship run aground. Wet ashes, that’s what each bite tasted like.

She glanced around at the other diners. The couple at the table in the opposite corner sat with a single omelette between them. They raised their glasses to one another and the woman leaned forward and cut it in two. They began to share, holding hands across the table.

Prosper, Archambault, Professor Balachowsky, twenty-five students, the eighteen poor souls on her list—nineteen with Edmond: they’d all be tortured, then taken to Mont Valérien and shot.

Why was it important that the Germans not know that the English knew it was the Germans operating captured radios? It could only mean that London wanted the transmitters in place for the Germans to receive and trust information, or misinformation, when the English sent it.

The couple who had shared an omelette began to count out money and ration tickets. The woman searched through her purse a long time.

It didn’t take a genius to deduce what information Germany needed above all: information about the event that every resistant in England, France, America and Russia was so anxiously awaiting, the event for which canister upon canister of munitions and weapons was being dropped to resistants across occupied Europe, the event Germany had to avert and destroy, what Churchill had promised Stalin—the Allied invasion of the Continent. But why would the Germans be foolish enough to trust a single message received on any captured transmitter? Why did London think the Germans
would
trust messages they sent to those transmitters?

Too few tesserae to form any image of the unifying mosaic.

The couple was paying for the omelette. The woman’s eyes followed each coin as it dropped into the waiter’s pouch. They departed, and Noor continued probing.