Lisette followed her to the cellar stairs. “Godspeed. And be careful. Vesper would never forgive me if something happened to you.”
Marie stepped out, squinting in the daylight, the brightest she had seen in almost a week. She hesitated, wondering if it would have been wiser to wait until after dark. But getting around after curfew was even harder. And if she didn’t go now, she knew she might never leave at all.
She smoothed her hair, hoping her bedraggled appearance would not cause her to stand out. But the pedestrians here were students and artists, their clothes an eclectic mix. Then she started down the boulevard, taking in the sloping houses of the Latin Quarter. She passed a cathedral, its doors wide-open. The familiar musty smell of the damp, ancient stones filled her nose. Marie paused. Once, she and Tess had gone faithfully every Sunday, hand in hand, to Saint Thomas More in Swiss Cottage. Now she entered the church and fell to her knees, feeling the cold, hard stone beneath her. Prayer flowed from her like water, for Julian and the other agents who might still be at large, for her family.
A moment later, she stood and started for the door, wishing there was time to light a candle in one of the darkened naves. But taking the time to stop and pray had been frivolous enough. Instead, somewhat fortified, she pressed on.
It was midafternoon by the time she reached Rosny-sur-Seine. The clustered houses seemed tiny and claustrophobic after the teeming streets of Paris. But as she neared the safe house, a feeling of warmth overtook her. Somehow, in the weeks she had been here in the village, it had become her home.
There was no time for sentiment, though. As she eyed the shuttered café on the ground floor of the house, Marie’s doubts grew. She should not be here. She hurried across the street, nodding to the bookseller through the plate glass window of his shop. Had she imagined it, or was his expression more uneasy than usual? She paused before the safe house. The café on the ground floor was nearly empty, the Germans who frequented in the evening still sleeping off the previous night’s drink. The window shutters of the landlord’s flat on the floor above, usually flung wide-open, were drawn. She walked around the back of the house, then stopped again.
The back door was ajar.
Run, a voice inside her screamed. Instead, she studied the ground. There was thick brown dirt, creased like the sole of a man’s shoe, looking out of place on the stoop, which the landlady, Madame Turout, always kept so meticulously clean. The dirt was fresh; someone had been there within the hour.
Marie looked over her shoulder. She should turn around and leave, she knew. Will was right; coming back was too dangerous. But she could not desert the radio and risk having it found. She started up the steps.
When she reached the top, she pulled out the skeleton key and promptly dropped it. It clattered noisily to the wood floor. Hurriedly, she picked it up and tried again to insert it in the lock with shaking fingers. She slipped inside the flat, wondering as she did if she was too late.
The flat appeared as she had left it a week earlier, seemingly untouched. The gramophone containing the radio looked as ordinary as a toaster or other household appliance. Studying the radio, an idea came to her suddenly: she should send one quick last message to London, signaling to Eleanor that Julian was still missing and that she was coming home. Marie knew she should not linger here. But she had to try.
She put the crystals in and turned the dial. Nothing. Her body broke out in a sweat. It wasn’t going to work. She checked the back of the radio, wondering if someone had tampered with it. Everything she knew about fixing the wireless set ran through her mind. But there simply wasn’t time. She needed to go. And she couldn’t take it with her without attracting attention. No, if she couldn’t transmit one last time, she would simply destroy the radio so that no one else could use it. She reached for the iron pot she’d nearly used to wreck it a week earlier, raised it above her head.
There was a quiet knock. Marie froze. Someone was here.
She looked from the door to the fourth-floor window, wishing the tree outside was heavy enough to support her. But there was no means of escape. The knock came again. “Yes?” she managed, setting down the iron pot.
“Mademoiselle?” a high-pitched voice said on the other side of the door. Marie relaxed, recognizing the landlady’s seven-year-old son, Claude. “There’s a message for you downstairs.”
Marie’s heart lifted; could it be a message from Julian? “Moment, s’il vous plaît,” she said, setting down the pot. She closed the wireless case and picked it up, starting for the door. “Claude, would you please tell your mother...” she began as she opened the door.
Pointed at her chest was the barrel of a policeman’s gun.
“Marie Roux,” said the officer who was holding the gun. “You are under arrest.” A second milice pushed past her and began to search the flat.
She raised one hand to indicate surrender. With her other, she tried to set down the radio case behind the door. But the second officer kicked it with his foot.
“Easy,” his colleague admonished. He smiled coldly at Marie. “I’m told you’ll be needing that.”
Chapter Twenty
Grace
Washington, 1946
“Come,” Mark said, leading her from The Willard when her meeting with Annie was over. Outside, Grace inhaled the fresh air, trying to clear the cigarette smoke from her lungs.
Mark started for the taxi line, but Grace reached out and touched his arm. “Wait,” she said, pulling back. “Do you mind if we walk for a bit?” It was a habit she had formed in New York, strolling great swaths of the city, block after block, when she was sad or wanted to think things through.
He smiled. “I’d love to. Have you ever seen the monuments at night?” She shook her head. “You must.” She wanted to protest—it seemed too far, too late. More than she had intended. But the air was crisp and lovely and the Washington Monument beckoned in the distance. “I did this all the time in law school,” he added, as they walked past the darkened government buildings. “But then with the blackout and curfew, I wasn’t able to for years.” He led her south on Fifteenth Street along the edge of the Ellipse. “So, was talking to Annie helpful?”
“In a sense. She confirmed what we thought from the archives—Eleanor ran the women’s unit for SOE. But there was something else.” Grace stopped, turning to Mark. “She said that someone betrayed the girls.”
“Betrayed how?”
“She didn’t know.”
“That seems fairly incredible,” Mark replied.
“Maybe, but she seemed quite sure about it. And she said Eleanor came to see her sister, asking questions because she was convinced of the same thing. You don’t believe it?”