kiss, but noticed a black car drive up outside. ‘René Bousquet,’ he said, letting go.
The head of the police. I perked up.
Bousquet walked briskly from the car and into the Hotel du Parc, motioning for Gérard on the other side of the window with a wave of his hand. ‘Le mouchard,’ Gérard said, eyes wide. ‘He’s here!’
I put my hand to the glass, catching first glimpse of the informant Gérard had been waiting for, and I was surprised to see it wasn’t one person, but two. A man and a woman. They got out of the back of Bousquet’s car, walking together, holding hands. I inched closer to the glass, watching in earnest, thinking I saw something familiar in the way they looked, their walk, the way they held their heads.
The man lifted his hat.
‘Mother of Christ,’ I breathed, and I collapsed into the curtains, grasping at the folds to stay upright.
18
The bald man and his wife. They looked the same as they did all those months ago, greedy, and angry as the day they buried Marguerite’s fiancé. The pair stopped on the pavement while the wife adjusted her wool coat, sliding a thick roll of francs into her cleavage. Marguerite, the raid. They must have told the police all about her, and the Alliance. I could barely breathe.
‘Be here when I get back,’ Gérard said, pointing at me as I hung on to the curtains, and he rushed out of the brassiere. People on the dance floor stopped and stared, first from the commotion of Gérard leaving and then from me and my desperate bid to stay upright. I swallowed, hand to my chest.
The waiter came by with his tray. ‘Another drink, mademoiselle?’ He looked at me strangely as I struggled to compose myself. I snapped my fingers. ‘My coat!’
I ran down the street and around the corner, breathless in the cold air. That’s when I saw what I already knew: the flower cart was bare; the old woman had long since gone home. I raced back to the brasserie and hopped into the car I arrived in, waking up the driver who’d fallen asleep with a newspaper over his face. ‘La maison! La maison!’ I said, closing the door. ‘I’m not well!’ The driver crumpled up his newspaper and started up the engine. ‘Now!’ I laid my hand against my forehead and moaned, thinking about Marguerite and the ambush the police had planned.
The driver sped away, shooting sharp glances at me through the rear-view mirror. ‘Don’t vomit in the car!’ He tossed a paper bag into the back seat as we squealed around a corner. My heart raced thinking about Luc—he was the only other contact I had—and I prayed like hell he’d be in his radio room when I got home.
The driver nearly kicked me out of his car thinking I’d throw up. I waited until he was completely out of sight before running over to the barrel cellar in search of Luc. The room was dark, even after I left the doors wide open. I pounded on the trapdoor. Nothing. ‘Luc,’ I yelled, futilely.
Mama ran barefoot into the barrel room dressed in her peignoir. ‘Adèle!’ She shouted at first but then whispered, ‘What are you doing?’
‘There’s a spy in the Résistance,’ I said. ‘I have to inform Luc.’
The trapdoor flung open. Mama jumped back while I peered down the ladder and into the room. A dimly lit lantern shined on two faces: a man I’d never seen before, small, with thin brown hair, and a woman with piercing eyes, the kind that could look right through a person, see their guts and tell you what was inside.
‘What do you know?’ the woman said.
I stared at them, unsure who they were and if I should talk. She climbed up the ladder, the man right behind her, the scratch of Luc’s radio a nervy cadence deep below.
She held the lantern up to my face. ‘What did you say about a spy?’
I looked at Mama and then to her, still not answering.
She shook me by the shoulder. ‘Adèle, I know who you are and where you have been. Tell me, what did you hear?’
Her eyes burrowed into mine, and it was then I recognized who she was. Dressed in the same tan trousers and white shirt she wore in the crypt all those months ago, she was the one they called Hedgehog, the leader of the Alliance. Résistance.