You need to somehow get me on a boat back to France. I know I am asking a lot of you, and I can only imagine how conflicted you must be feeling, but people’s lives and the success of the upcoming Allied invasions depend on me being back in place in Paris.’
He reached out and took her hand, and she tried to fight the thrill that ran through her body. She needed to think straight.
‘How far would you get with your injuries? You still need a nurse for your leg at least for another few weeks. Who will take care of you over there?’ she asked, wanting to make him wait until she had worked out who he really was. Her gut was telling her he was Resistance but her training was reminding her not to trust anyone.
‘If you can get me onto a boat, I will take care of myself once I get to France. The… Party will look after me. They will be very impressed I escaped the British – it will actually help me curry favour. Please, Vivi, there is no one else I can trust. Once you have me on the boat, you can come back here and say I forced you to do the things you did. That way you will be blameless. But I have to get back to Paris.’
After she left him that night, Vivi tossed and turned, trying to decide what to do. If he was the enemy, it would make her a traitor, but what if he was telling her the truth?
At three o’clock in the morning, she made her decision. There was really only one way to be sure he was who he said he was, and that was for Vivi to go with him. In his weakened state, she would have the upper hand. Furthermore, if it became clear he was not really undercover, she could expose him to operatives still working in Paris and maybe he could be stopped. But if he was telling the truth, she may have a chance to help her country once more and put right some of what she had done wrong.
27
They set the escape plan for the following evening, going through all the details carefully. Vivi had alerted the same fisherman from before that she needed to go back to France. He was a little reluctant at first, as it had become more and more dangerous and the Helford Flotilla had not been dropping agents in France for a while. But Vivi used all of her persuasive charm and eventually Mr Thompson agreed to take her. The only thing Marcus didn’t know was that she would be travelling with him. Vivi decided she would tell him at the last minute. That way he had less time to protest.
She left the fisherman, and a thousand thoughts and feelings assaulted her as she moved around the harbour, looking across at the beach, teary-eyed. She had a sinking feeling. Vivi knew how dangerous this mission was, and if that wasn’t hard enough, the fact she could not tell anyone what she was planning to do made her feel isolated and alone.
Making her way back to the manor, she knew she couldn’t tell her brothers or sister, or her father either. But she would find a way to let them know her intentions were good, and hoped that they would think the best of her.
Vivi swiped away tears with her hand and fixed a smile on her face to greet her brother, Tom, who raced up the beach to meet her, telling her he was off fishing with his small bamboo rod. She had a plan that would, hopefully, help them understand who she was even though she knew how her actions would be perceived.
‘Tom, I have a little gift for you. When you come back from fishing, I’d like to give it to you.’
He nodded with enthusiasm.
She was on the evening shift, so she spent the day preparing the clues she would leave for her family. Clues that she was still the Vivi they knew and trusted. Unfortunately, her older sister now lived in Canada and Vivi realised with a real ache she may never see her again. This was devastating to her, but she kept reminding herself it was probably a good thing, as Caroline was the one person who would have been able to see through her deception.
Once she finished painting a picture for Tom, she pulled down the well-worn copy of the