The Escape - Robert Muchamore Page 0,77
short flight of steps down to the back door.
Henderson grabbed his suitcase as Marc pulled across two heavy bolts and opened the back door. Beyond the stairwell the ground floor comprised a single large room. They moved amongst desks and cabinets, separated from the waiting area at the opposite end by an ebony countertop and spiralled gold rails.
Marc was fascinated by the tools of bureaucracy: typewriters, rubber stamps, carbon papers and hole punches.
‘So they keep blank passports here?’ Marc asked, as he stared at the banks of wooden drawers along one wall.
‘If they haven’t run out,’ Henderson said, as he slammed his heavy case on a desktop, tilting a stack of envelopes on to the parquet floor. ‘But we can’t make a passport without a photograph.’
Henderson pulled a leather wallet out of his case. The miniature photographic kit comprised a matchbox-sized pinhole camera, tiny vials of photographic chemicals and sheets of photographic paper large enough to produce the kind of pictures used in identity documents.
‘Go stand under the wall clock,’ Henderson said, as he worked with the tiny camera, inserting a small rectangle of photographic paper.
Henderson looked up and saw a peculiar mix of apprehension and emotion on Marc’s face.
‘Nobody ever took my photograph before,’ he admitted.
Henderson looked surprised. ‘Not at the school or the orphanage?’
Marc shook his head.
‘We’ve got very little light,’ Henderson explained, as he propped the camera on a stack of ledgers. ‘So I need you to stay absolutely still and keep your eyes open.’
Marc stood rigid for twenty seconds, then rushed forwards on Henderson’s signal.
‘When can I see it?’ he asked, as he blinked his stinging eyes repeatedly.
‘I have a developing kit,’ Henderson explained. ‘There must be a kitchen somewhere. I need you to find me three saucers and some warm water.’
As Marc raced upstairs to find the kitchen, Henderson began looking around the offices for blank passports. He discovered an entire drawer full of them, along with a wooden cigar box containing all the necessary stamps and, most helpfully, a crumpled blue manual detailing the correct procedure for dealing with a consular passport application.
One of the telephones rang, but Henderson ignored it and began shaking his photographic chemicals, ready for when Marc came back with the water.
A second phone thrummed as Marc came downstairs with three saucers and a tobacco tin filled with hot tap water. Henderson found the ringing irritating, but with France in chaos it didn’t surprise him that the consular phones would ring through the night.
‘I need absolute darkness to develop the photograph,’ Henderson explained, as he spread out the three saucers and dipped a fragile glass thermometer in the hot water. ‘Get the lights.’
Once the office lights were out and the blinds at the rear adjusted to shield the moonlight, Henderson gathered his saucers of chemicals in tight formation, leaned forwards over the desk and flipped the jacket he’d been carrying in his suitcase over his head, protecting his equipment from any remaining light.
Marc watched as Henderson fidgeted mysteriously beneath the jacket and the sweet smell of developing fluid filled the air. He stripped the rectangle of photographic paper from the camera and counted the ticks of his watch to ensure it spent the correct time in the developing fluid.
Marc had no idea how long it would be before Henderson emerged with the developed photograph. He thought of asking, but didn’t want to affect Henderson’s concentration.
‘Have you ever made a cup of tea, Marc?’ Henderson asked, once he’d moved the sliver of paper from the developer into the bleaching solution.
‘Sorry …’ Marc said weakly. ‘I’ve never even drunk it.’
‘You’re a blank canvas, Marc Kilgour,’ Henderson laughed. ‘You go upstairs, put a kettle on the stove and I’ll show you how to make a proper English cuppa while your picture dries.’
‘What’s a cuppa?’ Marc asked, liking the word, even if he wasn’t sure what it meant.
Henderson trembled with laughter beneath the jacket.
He didn’t laugh for long, though. Both phones had stopped ringing, but it became clear from a loud scuffling sound that something was happening on the steps out front.
‘Those gendarmes must have heard us breaking in,’ Marc said anxiously, as the metal gates over the front door whined for a shot of oil. ‘I bet it was them on the phone.’
Henderson remained calm. ‘Ignore your emotions and use your brain,’ he said firmly as he pulled his head out from beneath the jacket. ‘The police don’t phone up and ask burglars if they’d be kind enough to leave and the Germans certainly wouldn’t tip us off with a fracas on the doorstep. I just need half a minute now to fix the image. Go up to the front window and tell me what you see.’
Marc vaulted the counter and dodged two lines of chairs in the waiting room, then peeked through a tiny crack in the velvet curtains. A white Jaguar sports car had parked up on the cobbles and an anxious crowd hassled its female driver as she unlocked the gates.
‘Guessing it’s someone who works here,’ Marc hissed. ‘She’s got keys and everyone in the queue’s giving her stress.’
Marc could hear what was being said, but it was all in English so he didn’t have a clue.
‘I have urgent consular business,’ the woman yelled. ‘You all need to come back in the morning. We’re open normal office hours. Nine to five and noon on Saturday.’
Marc ducked behind chairs as the woman squeezed through the front door and told the people outside to mind their fingers before banging it shut.
As soon as she flicked on the lights she saw Henderson. He’d finished developing Marc’s photograph and stood behind the counter with his arms out wide to make it clear that he was no threat.
‘I’m sorry to startle you like this, Madame. The name’s Henderson. Charles Henderson.’
Marc studied the woman from his position crouching behind the chairs. She was in her twenties, and nearly six feet tall. She wore the white blouse and pleated skirt of an office girl, but sculpted black hair and an elegant gold watch gave the impression that she lived off somewhat more than an office girl’s salary.
‘Charles Henderson,’ the woman said knowingly. ‘I decoded a transcript from London. Quite a few people are looking for you. Of course, if you’re really Henderson, you’ll know his code word.’
‘Seraphim,’ Henderson answered, as the woman placed her bag on the countertop then kicked on a wooden panel and ducked under. Marc’s eyebrows shot up as he sighted the tops of her stockings.
‘I do beg your pardon, but young Marc here needs a passport. We did a bit of damage to your landing window but it’s easily fixed …’
‘Forgive me,’ the woman said, making a quick glance back at Marc before cutting Henderson dead with a raised hand. ‘My name is Maxine Clere, clerical assistant to the consul. Please make use of our facilities … It looks like you’ve found the blank passports already. I know your work is important, but I have to make immediate contact with London on the scrambled telephone. We’ve lost the Cardiff Bay on the River Garonne, less than thirty kilometres out of Bordeaux – and many are dead.’
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