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  “Not at all,” Henri replied with a bow. “Do take a seat, gentlemen. How may I be of assistance to you today?”

  Böhm ignored his offer of a seat and wandered over to the window, admiring the same view Henri had just been drinking in.

  “No need, Monsieur Fiocca. And I shouldn’t bother sitting down yourself. We have few questions for you. Get your coat. We’d like you to be our guest in Rue Paradis for a little while.”

  Henri straightened his back. “Ask any question you have. Talk to my secretary, my bookkeeper, but I am afraid I am too busy to waste my afternoon with you.”

  Böhm was still studying the view. “We shall, of course, be talking to both of them. But I’m afraid I must insist you come with me now, Monsieur Fiocca.”

  So quickly. How strange when something you’ve been expecting for months happens, and it still feels sudden. But surely his reputation, the reputation of his family still counted for something in Marseille? Henri stood his ground.

  “Why come here yourself if you mean to question me at your headquarters? My understanding is that the Gestapo normally send a nameless group of thugs with a warrant card when they want to talk to someone. And normally at night.”

  A pointless little flare of defiance. Henri breathed slowly. He would use the law, he would use his money and influence and if it came to it he would use his body to shield his people, and shield Nancy from these men. Major Böhm did not seem to take offense at his question. He finally turned from the window and approached the desk, glancing at the papers before replying with a polite nod.

  “Like you, Monsieur Fiocca, I have been at my desk for some time. I needed to stretch my legs.” He was reading one of the letters that Henri had written that morning upside down on the table. “Have you ever studied psychology, Monsieur Fiocca? I did. In Cambridge before the war. I have often thought the skills I learned there, understanding men, their behavior and motivations, could have been of great use in business. I suppose you must have learned those skills too, to enjoy the success you have done even in these trying times. Yes, I think we shall have a great deal to talk about.”

  Their eyes met and Henri felt something cold in his blood. He knew in that moment that the law, his money, his influence would not be shield enough.

  9

  Nancy marched up the steps of the handsome villa on Rue Paradis, her heels striking the curving marble steps. She was giving herself a run up, letting her fury build and blossom. One thing she had learned since she started working for the Resistance was that even Gestapo officers thought twice when confronted with a French housewife in a virtuous rage.

  What do they know? What do they know? Perhaps they’d just heard rumors about the money pouring out from Henri’s bank accounts and, seeing the Resistance well funded, had put two and two together. Mademoiselle Boyer, who had phoned her with news of the arrest, had heard that a drunk, sacked a few weeks ago, had been spreading rumors and swearing revenge. Miss Boyer had also assured her that the company books “were correct, Madame,” with nervous pride but a slight tremor in her voice. If Henri Fiocca, one of the most respected and respectable businessmen in the city, was being held solely on the basis of the word of a vengeful drunk, there was a chance she could shame the evil bastards into releasing him. But what if they knew more? Worst case—they had been told Nancy was the White Mouse and were using Henri as cheese to bait the trap. Fine. She’d deliver herself to them with a fucking bow around her waist if that got him out. But until she knew for sure, she was playing outraged Society Lady.

  She threw open the doors and strode across the marble flooring, looking neither right nor left. She had a vague impression of men and women waiting on the benches set round the edge of the room, all looking shit-scared or sick with worry, and a couple of uniformed Germans by the door. The rich, arrogant, innocent French wife of a powerful man would have ignored them all, so that’s what Nancy did. By the time she reached the desk, which looked like the reception to a better class of hotel, she was convinced that was exactly who she was.

  She bore down on the blond, slick-looking clerk. He was sneering at a nervous-looking older man, a square-bodied fellow in his sixties wearing the overalls of a manual worker. He held the photograph of a young man delicately in his massive hands. The care he was taking of the snapshot almost stopped her in her tracks. Was the boy missing? Shipped off to work in Germany, in prison, a hostage? The poor kid had probably been caught with an anti-fascist leaflet in his pocket and been disappeared.

  Enough, Nancy. Outraged Society Wife does not care about the fate of some worker’s boy. Focus.

  She slammed her very expensive little handbag onto the counter top and the worker withdrew meekly to one side.

  “How dare you arrest my husband?” she said in her most carrying voice. “Are you completely mad? Good God, he is a close friend of the mayor! I demand you release him at once and I want an immediate, written apology.”

  The clerk flicked his eyes toward her, then back down to the form he was filling in. “Take a number from the clerk at the door, Madame,” he said in passable but heavily accented French.

  The clerk at the door had followed Nancy meekly across the foyer, and tried to hand her a cloakroom ticket with an obsequious smile. Nancy looked at him as if he were offering her his used handkerchief.

  “I most certainly will not! Do you have any idea who I am?”

  She leaned across the polished counter top, her palms flat on the polished rosewood.

  “Take a number, and I shall find out in due course,” the clerk replied, continuing to write.

  Nancy reached over, plucked the pen from his hand and threw it over her shoulder. It skittered and spun across the tiles.

  “Look at me when I speak to you, young man!” He did. “I am Mrs. Henri Fiocca and I demand to see my husband at once. Do not—do not make me ask a third time.”

  He was obviously older than her, truth be told, but it felt right.

  “That is impossible, your husband is being questioned…”

  “Questioned? How dare you question him!” Nancy shouted.

  “Madame!”

  “Henri!” She yelled his name loud enough to make the windows rattle.

  The clerk looked over her shoulder and she heard the sound of the polished boots of the guards approaching. Had she overplayed it? Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. If they dragged her out and threw her down the steps she could charge around the city showing off her laddered stockings and outraged virtue to every official in town. It would be a nightmare for the Gestapo and they’d have to release Henri and send him home. Perfect. She sucked in her breath ready to really make a show of it.

  A door to the right of the desk opened and an officer walked slowly out into the foyer. Nancy could never follow these ranks, but he was obviously someone important. The approaching footsteps behind her came to a sudden halt and the slick fellow behind the desk shot to his feet. The officer waved away the guards, then nodded to the clerk who sat down and selected a new pen from one of the little drawers in front of him.

  “No need for hysterics, Madame Fiocca,” the officer said, again in French. “Major Böhm, at your service.”

  Nancy blinked at him. He was in his early forties perhaps, slim in build. If he weren’t wearing that disgusting uniform, he’d be handsome. And he’d just taken the wind out of her sails, the bastard.

  “My husband?” Nancy said, looking down her nose at him.

  He bowed. “I shall take you to him at once. Follow me.”

  He turned back through the door and held it open for her. Nancy picked up her bag, straightened her shoulders and followed him. She’d lost her audience now. Damn. Böhm led her down the corridor away from the foyer with long smooth strides. Nancy’s skirt was fashionably tight, and between it and her heels she could only take little steps. She had to trot along behind him like a toy dog. Time to regain the initiative.

  “Major Böhm, this is utterly disgraceful, how dare you cart Henri of
f like some common criminal? I can only imagine what the mayor will say.”

  Böhm didn’t reply, just came to a halt outside an ordinary-looking door and opened it, inviting her in.

  She stepped inside. A clean, orderly little room. Probably the office of one of the senior household staff before the Nazis had taken over the building. The window was shuttered, but the afternoon light still filtered into the room. The walls were painted a pale green and hung with engravings of the coastline in simple black frames. The old furniture had been removed though, and in the center of the small space was a rough wooden table and a pair of rickety-looking metal fold-up chairs. On one of them, his back to the window, sat Henri.

  He lifted his head and smiled at her gently, sadly. He looked, for the first time since Nancy had met him, old. Her heart felt as if it had been squeezed suddenly dry. She was aware of Major Böhm in the doorway behind her. Play the role, Nancy.

  “Henri, what on earth is this nonsense? Mademoiselle Boyer called me from the factory sounding as if she was about to drop in a dead faint, saying these monsters had marched you out of your own office. It’s an absolute scandal.”

  He lifted his hand, palm out, shook his head. “My dear, do not distress yourself. My lawyers are on their way, and you know they are the best that money can buy. All good friends of the Vichy government.”

  “What are you charged with?” This was better. She was getting back into her stride.

  “Some misunderstanding, I’m sure. Do not worry yourself.” He was staring at her, drinking her in even though his words were light and ordinary. That scared her.

  She spun round to Böhm, who had stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. “What are the charges against my husband, Major?”

  Böhm made her wait, nodding as if she was still speaking for a moment, and when he answered his voice was calm and reasonable.

  “One of your husband’s employees alerted us to a conspiracy at Fiocca Shipping. It seems a large sum of money is missing.”

  Nancy lifted her chin. “I’m sure Henri has nothing to do with that.”

  Böhm’s expression shifted to one of polite interest. “Then I take it that you’re familiar with his finances?”

  “I do not appreciate your tone,” Nancy said, channeling Henri’s awful stuck-up sister and grateful for the first time ever that the woman existed.

  “Because we have reason to believe that this money has been funneled to the Resistance—”

  “That’s absurd,” Nancy said with a toss of her head.

  Böhm observed her, his head on one side, as if amused at being interrupted.

  “The only thing my wife knows about my money is how to spend it on herself,” Henri said with a sigh.

  Nancy turned away from Böhm and looked at him again, into his eyes.

  “Go home, my dear,” he continued. “Let the major and me sort this out between us like gentlemen.”

  If that was how he had decided to play it, she had to go along with it. He didn’t want her to be the enraged matron, but the frivolous society wife, too foolish and pretty and spendthrift to know anything of her husband’s business. She managed a slightly sulky pout.

  “You know best, Henri.”

  Major Böhm cleared his throat. “Just one more thing, Madame Fiocca. Please don’t leave Marseille—I may have questions for you too.”

  He opened the door again, ready to show her out. No. Too soon. She couldn’t just leave Henri here.

  “You think I’m the type of woman who takes a holiday while my husband’s being railroaded by the Gestapo? Henri, I’m not going anywhere without you.”

  It gave her the chance to look at him again. Her rock. Her refuge. Her husband. Her Henri. He smiled at her, warm and encouraging. “Of course not, darling.”

  OK. He knew what he was doing. She had been fretting unnecessarily. Henri had a dozen lawyers and oodles of cash to bribe his way out of anywhere, up to and including the Gestapo headquarters. She began to walk toward the door.

  “Nancy?”

  She turned back. The darling man. She would cook him dinner tonight all by herself, whether he liked it or not. And she still had some decent wine in the cellar.

  “Tell my mother not to worry.”

  No. Not that. That was what they agreed would be his code if… Not good. Very, very bad. Panic seized her. She couldn’t move. She thought about screaming, about confessing, about spitting in these bastards’ faces… oh, but she knew seeing her dragged off by these apes would kill Henri. After everything else she’d done to him, she couldn’t do that too. This was his choice. But no, no, no. This can’t happen; this isn’t happening. Her voice sounded hoarse in her throat.

  “I’ll tell her you love her.”

  For one, two, three beats of her heart they looked at each other, tried to tell each other everything that could be said, share and celebrate a lifetime, to make their promises and keep them. One, two, three.

  “Madame Fiocca?” Böhm was waiting.

  She walked past him and out into the corridor. He followed her, closing the door behind him. If he said anything to her as he led her back to the foyer, she didn’t hear him.

  10

  Nancy’s maid was waiting for her when she opened the grand front door with her latch key. She was standing in the middle of the hall, her small cardboard suitcase next to her and already wearing her good coat.

  “Madame Fiocca, I…”

  Nancy peeled off her gloves. She couldn’t look at the girl.

  “Of course you must leave, Claudette. You’ll go to your mother in Saint-Julien?” Nancy took another key from her bag and opened the drawer of a small bureau in the hall. Henri always kept a smooth leather wallet there, fat with banknotes. Nancy peeled off a couple of thousand francs and handed them to the girl.

  Claudette stared at the money, shaking her head. “I cannot, Madame. Not when I am deserting you.”

  “Yes, you bloody well can,” Nancy snapped. “Just take it.”

  Claudette shyly pulled the money from between Nancy’s fingers and murmured her thanks, tucking the notes into the inside pocket of her coat.

  “Go through the back gardens, Claudette. And keep your head down.”

  “Good luck, Madame. I have very much enjoyed working for you.”

  Nancy managed to look at her at last. No, whoever had betrayed Henri it was not this girl. She felt she should give her some advice, say something brilliant and clever Claudette would remember all her life, something which would make her into a better person, something she would tell her children and grandchildren. Something inspiring. She had nothing. She just needed a drink. Well, no one had said anything inspiring to her before she ran away from home. Blame them.

  “I am glad. Now on your way, dear.”

  Claudette picked up her suitcase. “Your friend Philippe is in the kitchen, Madame Fiocca.”

  “Thank you.”

  Claudette walked away to the back of the house, leaving Nancy standing in the hall, still wearing her camel-hair coat, her patent-leather handbag hung over the crook of her arm. Fresh flowers on the table, the wooden banister polished to a high gleam, oil paintings of Marseille and ships at sea hanging in orderly lines from the picture rail. She’d never even noticed them. Paintings were Henri’s thing. She marched into the drawing room and went to the dresser, picked up the decanter and poured a large brandy into one of the heavy crystal glasses. She tossed it back, then grabbed an extra glass and the decanter and headed for the kitchen.

  Philippe got to his feet as she came in. She set the glasses and decanter on the scrubbed wood of the table, poured the drinks, sat down, shrugged off her coat and crossed her legs. Drank off the drink. Philippe was still standing.

  “Sit down, for fuck’s sake,” she said, reaching for the decanter again. He flinched. “What? Never seen a woman drink before?”

  He sat back down, carefully, but the scrape of his chair against the slate tiles sounded like a scream.

  “I
’m so sorry, Nancy.”

  She started shaking. Was it anger or guilt? She had no idea what she was feeling, but whatever it was was making her muscles quiver and her teeth rattle on the glass. “It’s my fault. He always told me to be careful, but I kept pushing, asking for more and more money.” Guilt, then.

  Philippe cradled the glass in his hands and shook his head. “Henri made his own choices. Don’t take that away from him, Nancy.”

  “But…”

  “Now it’s time to make yours,” he said. She knew what he was about to say, and didn’t want to hear it. Shut up. Shut. Up. Her hand was trembling so hard, she could hardly get the glass to her lips. He didn’t shut up. “We have to get you out. Now.”

  “I can’t just leave him here, with them!” She slammed her glass onto the table, making the cutlery in the drawers tinkle. “I’ll set myself on fire on their steps. I’ll shove a grenade up their arses. I’ll walk in and shoot the clerk. Henri can’t make me leave!”

  Philippe set his own glass back on the table, a click like a bullet loading in the chamber.

  “I know you’re not afraid to die, Nancy. But you have to go. If not for you, then for him. They’ll force him to watch you suffer, and you will suffer. They’ll take you alive and they’ll torture you both until the whole network is blown. I know he’ll keep quiet as long as he can, but I also know he’d tell them anything to save you. So for all our sakes, get out.”

  She closed her eyes as if she could hide from the truth of it. “He has lawyers. Expensive lawyers. Maybe they’ll get him out…”

  Philippe dropped his gaze, answered quietly. “And when they do, we’ll get him out of France. Send him to join you. But you have to go now.”

  She blinked back her tears. “Do you swear?”

  “I swear I’ll do everything I can, Nancy. Is that good enough?” he replied.

  At last she nodded. It was the most he could promise, she knew that. “This was my first real home.”

  He finished his drink. “Be ready as soon as it gets dark, Nancy. They’ve put a watch on the front and back of the house already, but we’ll provide a distraction. Head out the front. Take the last bus for Toulouse. You know the address of the safe house there?”