guns, but they knew we were kids and always aimed high into the trees. With so much bombing now, I can see why the Germans would want to make use of it.’
As Joseph spoke, Rosie flipped through the notebook and saw pages of tiny writing, plus equations and intricate pencil drawings of gyroscopes and clockwork mechanisms. There were also pages of maps, with dashed lines plotting what looked like the course of a ship. It all looked like the work of one man, who was quite possibly bonkers.
‘My patient was a suicide attempt,’ Dr Blanc continued. ‘A well-spoken Frenchman who’d cut his wrists. Luckily he’d made the classic mistake of cutting across the vein and hadn’t lost too much blood. There seemed to be other Frenchmen there. I saw very little, but got the distinct impression that they were scientists being kept underground in some sort of research facility.’
‘How did you get the notebook?’ Rosie asked.
‘I was there for some hours stabilising the patient. I asked to use the bathroom and it caused a minor fuss, because the toilets in the bunker were foul and there were no facilities for ladies. The Germans were apologetic and sent an elderly Frenchman to clean a toilet for me. As he passed me in the hallway, the cleaner pressed the notebook upon me. He told me it was valuable. He said to hide it in the bottom of my bag and get the information to someone on the outside.’
‘But you didn’t try passing it to anyone until now?’ Rosie asked.
Dr Blanc shook her head. ‘This is a remote area. I’ve heard the resistance spoken of in BBC radio broadcasts, but you’re the first time I’ve physically encountered any sign of it.’
Joseph and Rosie were both intrigued by the story – but in Rosie’s case her fascination was tainted by doubt. Had she really just happened to meet a doctor who was in possession of a dossier smuggled out of a secret laboratory?
The tale had the whiff of a plot concocted by the local Gestapo. Perhaps Dr Blanc had offered to swap information for her older son who was a prisoner of war in Germany.
But despite the chills shooting down her back, Rosie had no choice but to play along. If Dr Blanc had visited the Gestapo, they’d almost certainly be watching the house. And the only reason they hadn’t arrested Rosie already would be that they hoped to discover more resistance members by tracking her movements.
‘I’m no scientist,’ Rosie said, as she looked back at the book. ‘You’re both doctors. You probably understand more of these equations and drawings than I do.’
Dr Blanc nodded. ‘There’s a certain manic quality to the entire notebook. I’ve tried to understand it, but I can’t tell if it’s a secret weapon or the insides of a cuckoo clock. All I have to go on is the apparent desperation of the man who passed it to me.’
Rosie nodded, as she noticed that the doctor had a rather disgusting way of cramming chicken into her mouth with her porky fingers.
‘I’ll make contact with my liaison in Paris tomorrow,’ Rosie said amenably. ‘The book weighs nothing and it can be passed up to my superiors for proper analysis.’
‘I do hope it proves valuable,’ Dr Blanc said, as she rose out of the armchair while wiping greasy fingers on a napkin. ‘When did you last check on the patient? I might go upstairs and take a look at her.’
*
There was no change in Edith’s condition. Dr Blanc headed home to her rooms above her surgery in town and Rosie retired to a comfortable attic bedroom some time after eleven. She’d not had much sleep, but sat in candlelight studying the notebook.
Her first instinct was that the whole thing was a Gestapo-engineered hoax. But if it was a hoax, the seventy-two sides of writing and drawing must have been prepared well in advance of her arrival. And if the Gestapo wanted to follow her back to Paris and see who she met, why give her the notebook when it would only serve to make any trained agent suspicious?
Perhaps she’d become part of some sophisticated plot. Maybe the book was genuine and Dr Blanc and Joseph were the decent people they appeared, but it all seemed fishy and churning it in her mind brought no great revelation.
Whatever the truth, Rosie’s doubts about her hosts meant that she had to act as if she was going to be tailed when she left. And the