It was the same thing I’d witnessed last March. We had been warned of the ambush, but not in time to abort the drop. The agents were killed, and it was a small miracle that we survived.
‘Who was the other man?’
‘Claude? Stocky man, about forty or so.’
I met Matthew’s questioning glance and shrugged.
‘Do you know Claude’s surname?’ I asked.
Jones looked at me with narrowed eyes. ‘You wouldn’t understand, miss. We wasn’t s’posed to talk about ourselves. Claude weren’t his real Christian name.’
‘And what was yours?’ Matthew asked.
‘What? Told you. Bert Jones.’
‘Your codename?’
‘Oh, that. Ulysse, if you’ll believe it.’ His lips twisted. ‘Greek chap what went to war, then took twenty years to get home. A girl I sh— stepped out with liked her lit’ratcha.’
Jones’ voice had tightened as if he wondered how long it would take him to get home, and who would still be waiting.
‘Is Claude still alive?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘Last I knew he was still in Fresnes.’
‘So he didn’t escape with you?’
‘No, it was just me an’ Marc an’ Robert.’
I’d trained with an operative called Robert. Would SOE use the same codename for different men?
‘Can you describe them?’
‘Which one?’
‘Both, Bert,’ Matthew answered.
‘Let’s see. Marc was tall and skinny, thick glasses. Bookish but a good laugh. His idea that we escape. He’d already worked it out, but couldn’t do it on his own, like. We talked, decided to keep it small. Just the three of us. The more what knows, the bigger chance Jerry’ll find out. Right?’
Matthew nodded. ‘How did you communicate?’
‘Hard not to. We was all in the same cell.’
‘And Robert? What did he look like?’
‘Robert looked like he’d stepped out of a bleedin’ Hollywood film. Dark hair, dark eyes. Like that Gone with the Wind bloke.’
I swallowed. Rhett Butler: we used to tease Robert that he looked like Rhett Butler. A cold certainty gripped me, knowing I was about to hear how another friend died.
‘Right, Bertie. Back to your capture,’ Matthew said. ‘Where did they take you?’
‘Avenue Foch. Fifth floor. Questioned me ten ways from Sunday, they did.’
‘You said nothing?’
‘Of course I bloody said nothing,’ he snarled. ‘What do you think I am?’
‘Better than they are, Mr Jones, and that’s all that matters,’ I murmured. ‘Please continue.’
Jones stared into his half-empty tea cup. ‘You have anything stronger than this?’
Matthew called for an aide to bring a bottle of Scotch. Jones reached for the bottle of Laphroaig with an appreciative smile which quickly turned horrified as the bottle began to slip through his bandaged hands. He looked at me, ashamed of his weakness. Gently pulling the bottle from his failing grip, I poured a generous serving into his teacup.
‘Thanks, miss,’ he mumbled as those mittens cradled the porcelain, carefully raising it to his lips.
As he slurped the Scotch, his eyes closed and he made a curious little sound, almost a whimper. Matthew looked down at him with pity. Jones put down the cup and stared out of the window. The sun was high and shimmered off the street below, but I didn’t think he saw that.
‘It were never the same twice,’ he said. ‘Sometimes it was one of them, sometimes more. Sometimes in French, sometimes English. Sometimes with fists. Sometimes with batons.’
His voice was no much more than a whisper, as if speaking the words forced him to relive it.
My friend Dominique had been interred at Avenue Foch for weeks before Jérôme got her out. She was a woman, and tiny. She must have endured that, and worse. How had she survived it? I looked away, desperate to get that image out of my mind.
‘Did you see anyone you knew while you were there?’ Matthew asked.
‘They threw Claude and me in a cell with another Englishman. But after the first few hours, we just ignored him.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he kept trying to get us to say things.’
‘Things?’
‘Like where we were from, where we trained, an’ what we were supposed to do. Who else we knew. Same bollocks yer asking, matter o’ fact. Claude played with him for a while, making up outrageous stories, but then he got bored.’
‘Who was this man? Do you remember his name?’
‘Called hisself Peter Fearson, but I think he made that up.’
‘Why?’
‘If you was a traitor, would you want people to know yer real name?’
Jones tried to rub his eyes, but the bandages got in the way. He stared at them as if wondering how they’d got there.
‘No, I suppose I wouldn’t.’ Matthew wrote down the name; we’d run it past Baker Street later. ‘When were you transferred?’
‘Lemme check my diary,’ Jones said.
He’d been through a lot and was clearly exhausted. His manners, on display for my benefit, were slipping.
‘Roughly?’
‘Spring, I reckon. The flowers were blooming. Little yellow ones.’
‘Daffodils?’ I asked. ‘Tell me about Fresnes, Mr Jones.’
‘Lovely parties. Champers . . .’
‘Mr Jones, please don’t waste my time.’
He shrugged. ‘As I said, three of us in a cell. Me an’ Marc an’ Robert.’
‘Where was Claude? Strange you wouldn’t have included your mate.’
Jones shrugged again. ‘Didn’t see him much inside. In a different cell, mebbe a different section.’
‘Did they question you again? In Fresnes?’ I asked.
‘Did they, hell!’ he snorted. ‘Same questions as Avenue Foch. Methods a bit worse.’
His shoulders hunched and his arms crossed his body. His actions seemed unconscious and when he caught my eyes on him, he looked away. He picked up the delicate china in those awful mitts and drained the rest of the cup.
It was the words he didn’t say that made me believe him.
‘Such as?’ Matthew asked.
‘Such as things not fit for a lady’s ears.’
He didn’t expect me to press him. In lieu of words, or sympathy, I refilled Jones’s cup and tried to keep my mind from conjuring images of what my captured friends would also have had to endure.
‘Fair enough,’ Matthew said. ‘We’ll discuss that later. Tell me how you escaped.’
‘Bloody brilliant. Marc was working in the laundry. The officers had him do their cleaning as well. He started to
