Determined to summon a taxi for the return trip, I smiled back at her and counted the minutes until Christophe turned off the road onto a short drive. He stopped the Peugeot in front of a small but elegant villa and helped his wife, and then me, from the vehicle. It was the closest I had been to him. From a distance, he had seemed remote; up close, there was something repellent about him. His eyes. They were flat, emotionless.
I forced a smile and followed them into a villa that seemed only slightly more boisterous than Christophe. A servant opened the door for us, pointing the way through the house to a garden at the rear, scented with roses and jasmine. Gabrielle Ribaud rose to meet us; her dress was magnificent, but her face taut.
‘I found out only a couple of hours ago. Horrible news. Martin Billiot was murdered.’ Her voice was low and, unless I misread her, shocked.
‘Murdered.’ Claudine raised a hand to her mouth. ‘How? Why?’
‘Car crash.’
‘Surely that could have been an accident?’
Could this city be so paranoid that even an accident was considered nefarious?
Gabrielle shook her head. ‘They say he was driving.’
Her words were met with a hushed silence I didn’t understand.
Finally, Claudine asked: ‘Who told Rosalie?’
‘One of the Director’s men.’
‘Who?’
Christophe’s mouth pursed under his pencil moustache. ‘Agostinho Lourenço, captain of the PVDE. They call him “the Director”. He returned his attention to Gabrielle. ‘Do you know who informed his wife?’
After a furtive glance, Gabrielle whispered: ‘Adriano de Rios Vilar.’
It didn’t feel right to capitalise on someone else’s misery, but if I was going to make Solange Verin believable, I had to start now.
‘Forgive me for interrupting, but who are the PVDE?’
Claudine glanced at her husband. ‘The political police.’
‘Why would they get involved for a simple traffic accident?’
‘Because, Madame Verin, it wasn’t a simple traffic accident. Martin Billiot had a driver. He never drove himself . . .’
Gabrielle glanced at me, her trailing voice indicating her unwillingness to postulate in my company.
I sighed, murmuring just loud enough for them to hear: ‘And I left France because with the bombings it was no longer safe.’
‘You don’t strike me as being that naïve, Madame Verin.’ It was the most I’d heard Christophe speak so far, his voice soft but derisive. ‘Nowhere is safe. Especially not Lisbon.’
*
Martin Billiot’s death rated a small column, almost hidden in the next day’s paper – a not-so-gentle warning not to get too comfortable in Lisbon.
Needing time to myself, I ventured farther afield, taking a taxi along the Estrada Marginal. The coast road, the driver explained in broken French, was only completed a few years ago, as one of Salazar’s great building projects. I tuned out his history lesson, fascinated by the flashes of blue water and rocky coastline. I planned to gorge myself on the sights I had missed on the way in: the tower of Belém, where the Portuguese World Exhibition was held three years ago, the palatial Mosteiro dos Jerónimos behind it, and the ruined castle on the hill in Lisbon.
Sandbags and barbed wire guarded the national treasures, but not like London or Paris. I knew Spain had tried to negotiate with Germany to extend her borders to the sea, and yet the Portuguese seemed more concerned about dissent from within than invasion from any outside nation. Newspapers barely acknowledged the food shortages, one thing that I had a hard time understanding, given how well Sabela Figueiredo, my housekeeper, provisioned my villa.
Despite my instruction, the driver let me out at the Rossio, a busy area which, from the looks of it, was the meeting point for refugees from across Europe. Figuring that being seen here would fit with my cover story, I took a seat between two families with a clear view out of the window. I ordered a cup of the thick black brew they called coffee and tried to block the stories being told around me: Jews who had been hiding for years before making their escape; Frenchmen who had fallen foul of neighbours, or the Gestapo. The trials they endured while waiting for a visa and the ship – or for the rich, the Pan Am Clipper – to take them to New York.
It was an interesting place, but not likely one a German sympathiser would frequent. I had already called for the bill when I saw the man stride past the window. For a second I considered letting him pass, but then my curiosity got the better of me. Throwing down a note, I followed my godfather into the warren of little streets – the Baixa.
It was a seedy part of town. Bridges arched overhead, giving the tourists a safe path above the grime, the scent of docks and of decay. Sailors weren’t a particular lot, but worryingly, neither was my Matthew. He stopped in front of a short, round woman with a pockmarked face. She was young, with hard eyes and a straining décolletage.
I hid in the darkened doorway of a bar, horrified when Matthew followed the whore into a shabby building. In all my life, this was the one thing I never expected to see. I stumbled into a chair and, despite the early hour, ordered a brandy.
I wasn’t naïve. With his wife in England, I didn’t expect him to live like a monk, but to pay for company? I ignored the waiter’s reproof and ordered a second drink.
‘Hey, beautiful.’ A sailor swaggered up to me, speaking Italian. ‘You busy?’
Not sure whether to be amused or irritated by his intrusion, I chose the latter.
‘Too busy for you.’
Too busy watching the brothel Matthew had disappeared into. Forty-six minutes later, he emerged, a smug smile on his face. My illusions began to crumble even as
