contemptuous smile never faded even as she watched her satchel ransacked.
Don’t find anything, Eve prayed, but the cries went up as the rifled satchel delivered Lili’s identification cards, five or six of them, held in preparation for swift crossings. The Frog waved the cards in Lili’s face, shrieking, but Lili just stared back, impassive.
Eventually they allowed Lili to dress, and as she did up the final buttons at her throat, a man entered with a cup in hand. Eve had angled herself so she could watch through the curtain of her loose hair even as she huddled weeping, and she recognized the newcomer: Herr Rotselaer, chief of police in nearby Tournai. Eve had seen him only at a distance in Lille, but she had compiled a report on him from comments dropped by other officers. A small dark man, dressed with care in a well-cut jacket. His eyes were piercing, and they devoured Lili. “Mademoiselle,” he said in French. “Are you thirsty?”
He proffered the cup in his hand. Even through the glass, Eve saw it had a curdled yellow tint. Something to make Lili vomit up that message she’d swallowed.
“Thank you, monsieur,” Lili said politely. “I am not thirsty, at least not for milk. Have you any brandy? It’s been an absolute pisser of a day.” Just as she had said when she first met Eve in Le Havre. Eve could see the two of them in that stuffy café, the rain pouring down outside, Lili in her outrageous cartwheel of a hat. The memory stabbed like a knife. Welcome to the Alice Network.
“Come, no fuss!” Herr Rotselaer tried to sound jocular, pushing the cup out. “Swallow, or say why!”
The Frog shook Lili by the elbow, but Lili just smiled and shook her head.
Herr Rotselaer sprang at her, trying to force the cup between her lips as the Frog yanked her head back, but Lili knocked the cup flying. Yellowed milk splatted across the floor. The Frog slapped Lili, but Herr Rotselaer held up a hand. “We’ll take her for questioning,” he said, and Eve’s heart gave a great lurch. “Her and the other one.”
“Her?” Lili snorted. “She’s a stupid little shopgirl, not a spy. I chatted her up because she was the only one in line who looked half-witted enough to share her safe-conduct pass!”
Herr Rotselaer glanced through the glass where Eve huddled, crying. “Bring her here.” The Frog burst through the adjoining door, seizing Eve by the elbow and bundling her into Lili’s cell. Eve went to her knees before the chief of police, pushing her hiccuping sobs up to outright wails. She found hysteria surprisingly easy to muster. Inside she was ice bound, watching the blubbering mess on the outside. Through her puffy eyes she could see Lili’s small bare foot not six inches away.
“Mademoiselle—” Herr Rotselaer tried to catch Eve’s eyes, but she just cringed. “Mademoiselle Le François, if that is your true name—”
“I recognize her, sir,” another German voice volunteered. The young captain had entered, the one who’d seized them in the first place. Was that why he crossed for a closer look at their papers, because he recognized Eve? My fault, my fault— “She lives on the Rue Saint-Cloux; I remember her from inspections. A respectable girl.”
“Marguerite Le François.” Herr Rotselaer fingered Eve’s identity cards, jerking his chin at Lili. “Do you know this woman?”
“N—n—” It felt like betrayal, the word forming on Eve’s lips. “N—” It felt like a kiss of betrayal to Lili’s cheek, like thirty pieces of silver weighing her tongue down, sour and metallic. “No,” Eve whispered.
“Of course she doesn’t know me.” Lili sounded brusque, bored. “I never saw her before today. You think I’d try to cross a checkpoint with a stuttering idiot?”
Herr Rotselaer looked at Eve: hair sticking to her wet cheeks, hands trembling so hard she looked like she was being run through with electrical current. “Where were you going, girl?”
“T—t—t—”
“For God’s sake, can you not speak straight? Where were you going?”
“T—t—t—” It was no act; Eve’s tongue had never hitched so badly in her life. “M—m—my niece’s c—c—c—my niece’s c—communion. Tour—tour—”
“Tournai?”
“Yes, H—H—H—yes, Herr R—R—”
“You have family there?”
It took Eve whole minutes to answer. Herr Rotselaer shifted from foot to foot. Lili looked impassive, but Eve could sense the tension humming through her taut as a wire. She stood an agonizing arm’s length away, but her thoughts were clear as glass.
Keep blubbering, little daisy. Just keep blubbering.
Herr Rotselaer tried to ask more questions, but Eve collapsed into