Scorched Earth - Robert Muchamore Page 0,65

boys knew this, but gave respectful nods like they were learning something.

‘The Ghost Circuit has put significant efforts into tracking down Milice,’ Maxine said. ‘If you’d had the common sense to ask, I could have easily found out where Pierre Robert sleeps at night. And if I’d known you planned to kill him, I’d have ordered you to wait. Robert’s girlfriend is a member of a resistance group. She was using him to gather intelligence on Milice members.’

The three boys all gawped.

‘We had no idea,’ Marc said weakly.

‘How can you know if you don’t ask?’ Maxine said irritably. ‘Fortunately, Commander Robert’s involvement with the Milice had almost come to an end and the overall Milice threat is a fraction of what it was. They’ve been deserting in droves now they’ve worked out that they’ve sold their souls to the losing team.

‘But that doesn’t excuse your cavalier behaviour. Paris belongs to the Ghost Circuit. No resistance operation goes down without me, or one of my senior commanders, approving it. Even the communists wouldn’t commit murder and robbery without letting me know first and my circuit has only lasted this long because we have strict rules and severe punishments for those who break them.’

The boys looked anxious as Maxine let the threat sink in.

‘Just this once I’ll turn a blind eye,’ she said finally. ‘Especially as you’re making such a generous contribution to resistance funds.’

Maxine stood up and pulled the suitcase of stolen money off the table.

‘Paul, come here,’ Maxine said.

Paul approached warily, though he was only guilty of lying to Henderson about Marc, Luc and PT’s whereabouts. Maxine opened the suitcase and pulled out a 3-centimetre stack of twenty-franc notes.

‘Rosie was a hero of the resistance,’ Maxine said. ‘When things calm down, you can use that money to give her a proper funeral, and buy her a headstone.’

Paul had learned to cope with Rosie being dead, but he wasn’t over it and his eyes glazed as he took the money.

‘Now I have other matters to attend to,’ Maxine said, as she stood up and strained under the weight of the suitcase.

She stopped to kiss Henderson’s cheek on her way to the door. ‘See you at the cinema later, Charles.’

Marc looked back at Henderson once Maxine had left. ‘You’ll have a hard job finding a cinema that’s open.’

‘An even harder time getting one where the power stays on for the whole film,’ PT added.

Henderson grunted. ‘If there’s one lesson you boys should have learned today, it’s that Maxine is a lady who gets what she wants. And thank you so much. I trusted you lot and you’ve repaid me by making it seem like I can’t even control my own people.’

‘We didn’t mean to cause trouble,’ PT said. ‘But I’m not gonna apologise for going after a Milice scumbag who killed Rosie.’

For a moment Henderson looked as if he was about to blow up, but his voice was calm when he spoke.

‘You’ve been through a lot, but you’re still young,’ Henderson said. ‘I was doing espionage work while you lot were in nappies. I know you think you know it all, but you don’t.’

*

Two hours later, Henderson led a 9-kilometre bike ride from the eastern suburb of Saint Cloud to l’Odéon in central Paris. He was trailed by Marc, Luc, Paul and PT.

The district was known for restaurants, bars and especially cinemas. Managers had kept Parisian cinemas open through all the shortages and power cuts by switching to candles or gas lanterns, and converting projectors to run off car batteries. But as the Allies closed on Paris, city administrators became concerned that any public gathering might turn into an anti-German demonstration and had ordered all screens to close.

Despite shuttered cinemas and extortionate prices in the few cafés and bars that had something to sell, there were hundreds of people out for an evening stroll as Henderson and the four teenagers padlocked their bikes to railings around the Métro station.

They passed the major cinemas on Rue de l’Odéon and cut into a back street. Their destination was a basement news theatre. These places were much smaller than main cinemas and typically showed short programmes of news and documentaries, for customers who dropped by during lunch breaks, or after work.

The cinema lobby was padlocked, so they went down a staircase that stank of drains and entered through an emergency exit that brought them in right beside the screen. Fifty rows of seats stretched down a narrow space, lit only by paraffin lanterns hanging on