Scorched Earth - Robert Muchamore Page 0,62
get to Bistro le Baron until lunchtime yesterday,’ Luc said. ‘If he’s a creature of habit, we’ve got bags of time.’
The checkpoint on the bridge was unmanned. Once they reached the Seine’s east bank, Luc walked ahead and Marc dropped back. The Germans were less likely to stop one young man than a group of three, and if one of them got hassled by a patrol there was a chance that the other two could rescue him.
They kept to back streets as much as possible. There was more traffic noise than usual, but they were almost halfway to Bistro le Baron before they had to cross a major road.
Luc stopped at the kerb as three Kübelwagens sped past. This was notable, because German vehicles usually travelled alone and took unpredictable routes to avoid resistance attacks. All three cars were so heavily laden that their rear bumpers almost scraped the road. One had suitcases lashed together and poking out of an open trunk. Another had crates of wine and a large, landscape painting on the back seat.
The streets had been quiet for so long that Luc felt strange having to look both ways for traffic. He crossed behind a truck crammed with OT officers and their luggage. As he reached the opposite kerb a convoy of two dozen German vehicles, ranging from motorbikes to trucks, rumbled into the street.
PT and Marc wouldn’t be able to cross until this line of vehicles passed through, so Luc turned into a side street and waited by a beautifully-kept flower garden in front of a community meeting hall.
A frail voice surprised him. ‘Why dig up my flowers?’ the man said, as if he was asking himself. ‘If I plant vegetables, they’ll get stolen.’
Luc turned and studied an old man, holding a rake and chuckling. He wore glasses with one lens cracked and had his shirt done up in the wrong button holes.
‘How long have they been driving past like this?’ Luc asked.
‘Oh!’ the old man said dramatically. ‘I’ve seen hundreds. All packed up to leave town. I’m told there’s been trouble.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Smashing windows, stealing things they want to take back to Germany.’
‘Good riddance,’ Luc said firmly. ‘Though you can bet it’s administrators and bureaucrats clearing out, not soldiers.’
The old man gave a wry smile. ‘They’re getting out before the city turns into hell,’ he said.
The convoy had now passed and Luc looked behind and saw Marc and PT. The pair dashed across the road, almost in step but acting like they didn’t know each other.
Ten minutes further on, a police checkpoint asked all three for their papers, but didn’t search any bags and the three boys reached their destination at noon. After the previous day’s chase, PT couldn’t show his face anywhere near Bistro le Baron. He found a hiding spot amidst the rubble of a bomb-damaged building, while Luc headed towards the place where PT ate soup the day before.
There was a thirty-strong queue waiting for the café to open. Luc joined the end and kept a discreet eye on Bistro le Baron. Robert’s mother-in-law had told PT that he’d always turn up at the Baron if you waited long enough, but that was no guarantee. Did he come every day? Was it always at the same time? Robert might already be upstairs out of sight, away on Milice business or even have gone into hiding after PT threatened his family.
Luc took time over his soup and watched comings and goings, exactly as PT had done the day before. He left when the waitress was about to make him and as Luc walked back to the bomb site, Marc joined the queue outside the café and took over the surveillance.
Marc maxed out his stay with a second bowl of soup. After leaving the café he crossed the street and looked in at four men at a table inside Bistro le Baron, including a man with a ginger beard who fitted PT’s description of the person who’d stopped him coming down the stairs.
‘Nice soup; no Robert,’ Marc reported, when he met up with Luc and PT on the bomb site a few minutes’ walk away.
Luc looked at his watch. ‘I’ll give it half an hour, take a stroll past and see if there’s any sign. Then I can stroll back in the other direction half an hour later. If Robert’s still not turned up, Marc can do the same thing.’
‘I’m worried that the depot might soon close for the day,’ PT said. ‘I