Chapter 38
CHAPTER 38
H annah crossed to the window to check there were no ominous vehicles lurking outside. Moving safe house was always dangerous, but they had pushed their luck at the farmhouse and couldn’t stay any longer. On the way to work on the last day, she had taken anything vital with her and lodged some of it in a hiding place . She had several secret spots she used to store identity papers, money, and disguise props. Hannah left nothing incriminating behind.
Lizzie barely had any stuff and had brought her critical items with her. The wireless was hidden in the secret compartment, and they hoped no one would find it.
As soon as Lizzie was safely on the plane to England, Hannah planned to get out of Paris. She’d left a marking on Philippe’s mailbox to warn him to lay low for a while. Hannah scratched her forehead. The wig was itchy, and she longed to remove it, but she must stay in disguise until she was far away. Her face throbbed, and her lips were cracked. The carefully applied makeup covered the damage the Nazi pig had done to her, but it didn’t stop the sting and the soreness of his merciless slaps and punches.
Hans was arrogant until the final moments of his life. When she’d bitten his most treasured possession, she’d taken full advantage of his weakness. She knew she would have to kill him.
Not that she regretted it for a minute, but it was obvious her undercover mission at German High Command was over, and he must die. It was him or her.
She had aimed her gun with the silencer at him, her hand steady, and released three shots. As the bullets ripped into him, two in his chest, and the third in his head, she said, ‘This one’s for Francois. This one is for my parents. And this one is for all the Jewish families you’ve persecuted and murdered.’
Hannah felt no emotion about killing Hans. He was evil and one less Nazi in the world would make it a better place. She knew from all the reports she had read that Hans was responsible for hundreds of deaths, and she had witnessed firsthand how he relished his work.
She turned from the window to see Lizzie watching her.
‘Are you alright?’ Lizzie asked. ‘You’ve had a tough few days.’
Hannah nodded. ‘I did what needed to be done. I thought about killing him before I even took the job. He is the very definition of Hitler’s henchmen, glorifying in the murder of Jews and anyone else who gets in their way.’ Hannah paused, then continued. ‘Francois is dead. I picked up a message from a contact at the morgue.’
Lizzie blanched. ‘I am so sorry, Hannah. What a good man he was. How unfair.’
‘It was as we suspected. He died from his wounds the day they shot him. That’s why no one came after us.’
Lizzie and Hannah looked at each other, both thinking the same thing. Hannah said it first. ‘But they will come after us now. The major general was a high-profile figure.’ Hannah remembered the dead body tied to the chair in the cupboard and hoped it was still there.
‘Yes, we need to get away as quickly as possible. His brother saw me as we were leaving. He came to visit him.’
Hannah’s eyes widened. ‘Merde. What happened?’
Lizzie explained how they’d escaped.
‘That was lucky!’
‘Yes, luckier than you might think. His brother was the same officer I met on the train journey to Paris, and the same one I told you about who gave me the cakes.’
‘Oh my God. Did he recognise you?’
‘Yes. I was wearing the cleaner’s clothes, but he knew it was me. I acted as though it was normal for me to have a cleaning job, and it seemed like he believed it.’
Hannah set the wireless up and prepared a message to transmit to London.
‘Isn’t it dangerous to message from within the city like this?’ Lizzie asked.
‘It is, but if we do it quickly, we should be alright. All we need is to arrange a pickup as soon as possible. I doubt it’ll be tonight, so we’ll stay here and move again tomorrow.’
Lizzie explored the small flat, marvelling at Hannah’s ingenuity. How many of these safe houses did the Liberty Network have? She guessed there must be hundreds of them with the various Resistance networks sprouting up throughout France. Her thoughts moved back to the owners of the safe houses in Reims. The people who offered sanctuary to agents and those fleeing from the Nazis were courageous beyond words. They had everything to lose, but they risked it all for the greater good.
Lizzie hoped Celine wouldn’t be arrested in connection with the murder. When she first approached her and they made the plan, she had asked Celine if she wanted help to leave the city to make sure she didn’t suffer retribution. Celine had lived in Paris all her life and said she wasn’t going anywhere.
Lizzie returned to Hannah’s side just as a response arrived. ‘What do they say?’
‘You won’t believe it. Raven is here!’
Lizzie stared at Hannah. ‘In Paris, now? But it’s the worst time for him to be here. As soon as they discover the body, surely, there’ll be an intensive search for his killer.’
‘Yes, there’s a high probability. Raven doesn’t know about the major general’s untimely end though, does he?’
‘No, he couldn’t. But it’s just like him to come, although I’m surprised he got the go-ahead.’
Hannah said, ‘That man has a silver tongue. He could talk anyone around to his way of thinking.’
The blood rushed to Lizzie’s head and panic swirled through her body. Jack had no way of knowing what he was walking into, dropping into Paris with no warning.
‘They arrested me in a random roundup the other day, and that was before you eliminated one of the top brass at German High Command. Lord knows what they’ll do now for vengeance.’
‘Well, there’s nothing we can do now. Jack sent a location for us to meet him, and presumably he’s planned a pickup to get you both out. He must think we need backup.’
Lizzie paced around the room. ‘Should we leave now and warn him?’
Hannah said, ‘No, it’s curfew and more difficult to escape the city undetected at this time of night. If they’ve already found the body, it will be even riskier. Let’s get some sleep and leave first thing.’
Lizzie was exhausted and after giving it some thought, she agreed Hannah’s plan was a good one. She peeled off her clothes, readied herself for bed, and fell onto the hard mattress in the tiny bedroom. Hannah joined her and they pulled the thin blankets up to their chins and huddled together for warmth.
‘I didn’t expect to share my bed with a man.’ Lizzie smiled at Hannah.
‘I wish I could pull this bloody wig off, but I’d better not just in case we have any uninvited guests.’
Within three minutes, their breath slowed, and they were both asleep. Lizzie dreamt of a raven in the woods, watching over her. Always watching over her.
The next morning, Lizzie peeked through the window. ‘A soldier is sticking posters on the shop windows opposite,’ she called to Hannah, who was tidying herself up at the mirror, ready to leave to meet Jack.
‘Can you see what they say?’ Hannah asked.
‘No, it’s too far. It’s a picture and some text.’
‘They love plastering those antisemitic cartoons all over the city. The ones that blame Jews for every ill that has ever befallen the world. And now the Reich blames us for the downfall of Germany after World War I. The Jews who made up less than 1% of the population were accused of orchestrating the Treaty of Versailles. This scapegoating is nothing new, unfortunately,’ Hannah said as she turned from the mirror.
‘It’s awful to see those ugly pictures and hateful messages, but I hope it is one of those and not something else.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve got a horrible feeling it might be something to do with us.’
They left the flat as they had found it, storing the radio in its hiding place. A door opened a crack on a lower floor as they trod quietly down the stairs, but no one showed their face. They kept moving. This was occupied Paris. Always someone watching and informing.
The neighbour would have seen a young couple—the French woman’s arm looped through the man’s as they walked down the stairs.
The freezing air hit Lizzie in the face as she stepped outside into the courtyard that led to the parade of shops.
‘Let’s try to get some bread from the baker’s and we can read the poster whilst we wait,’ Hannah whispered.
They crossed the courtyard, acting like a young married couple.
Lizzie took a sharp intake of breath as Hannah’s face stared back at her from the printed poster:
Wanted. Murderer and Enemy of the Reich. Reward for Information.
‘At least it’s just me they are after,’ Hannah whispered. ‘That’s what we hoped for. It means they don’t suspect you and Celine, or they’d have your faces up there too.’
‘True. I was worried about Celine. What shall we do?’
‘Stick to our plan.’
Lizzie glanced at Hannah. Her disguise as a dark-haired man with a moustache and spectacles was brilliant. No one would imagine she was the major general’s beautiful blonde secretary.
They were early enough to be amongst the baker’s first customers, and they left the shop with a delicious smelling bounty of their ration of freshly baked baguettes.
‘I’m starving, but let’s get across the city before we eat,’ Hannah said.
They retrieved their bicycles and Hannah put the bread in her basket. Lizzie’s stomach rumbled at the mouth-watering smells from the bakery.
The city was waking up and Parisians who had kept their businesses going, either by collaborating with the Nazis, or by selling what people needed in wartime, were setting up for the day. The ground was slippery, snow hadn’t fallen overnight, and the temperature was below zero. By the time they crossed town, Lizzie’s hands were blue-tinged and felt like icicles.
The military presence was heavy as more and more soldiers piled onto the streets and stuck posters of Hannah’s face on trees and buildings.
Lizzie and Hannah rested for a minute and ate a few chunks of fluffy baguette.
‘That was a good idea to choose a dark wig. You’d be more recognisable as a blond man,’ Lizzie whispered.
‘This is a disguise I’ve used during the past year. I have identity papers too, so I had no choice but to stick with dark hair, which is just as well now I’m so famous.’
Lizzie admired Hannah’s stoic attitude, but the more posters and soldiers they saw spilling onto the streets, the sicker she felt. There was a high chance they wouldn’t get out of this alive, and she thought of the goodbye letter she had written to her family. She had written it before leaving on her first mission and couldn’t recall exactly what she’d said. Lizzie decided that if she made it out alive, she would write a letter to replace the old one. The innocent Jersey girl who had written it, had no idea what she was facing, and if she lost her life during one of her missions, she wanted to leave a message for her parents that reflected the woman she had become fighting with the Allies, not the girl she used to be.
‘I think they are locking down the city. Come, we must hurry,’ Hannah said, shoving the rest of their bread into the basket. ‘We can eat when we’re safe. ’
The Seine swelled from the chill winds on the river and the sky was an ominous grey. Summer was a distant memory, and Lizzie trembled with a combination of cold and fear as two Wehrmacht soldiers bore down on them.
‘Stop right there,’ snapped one, holding up a hand.