Because I lived in an expat community. Because my housekeeper was given enough money to buy whatever was needed on the black market. Because even as a spy, here I was shielded, if not from the Germans, at least from the Portuguese. Barring, of course, Adriano de Rios Pilar’s men.
My mood quickly became as grey and grim as the room.
The door burst open, startling me. A man, his hands cuffed behind his back, was pushed through, followed by two more men, a woman, and a pair of PVDE officers. One of them called to the man behind the desk and I understood that these prisoners were overflow from another station.
They looked rough, clad in sturdy burlap clothes, and bruised. One man held his arm gingerly to his chest; the second had a swollen nose and a black eye, and blood trickled from a split lip on the third. The woman looked worse. Petite to the point of being frail, her dark hair straggled around her face, emphasising a haunted, dead look in her eyes. Her ripped blouse barely covered her breasts, and she moved deliberately – every movement designed to mimic normalcy, and yet failing miserably.
Once, in France, I’d seen a woman move like that. The daughter of one of our couriers had been captured by the Gestapo. Not for questioning, but for an afternoon’s ‘dalliance’, and I understood what had been done to this woman. Hated the PVDE officers as much as I hated the Gestapo goons.
A PVDE man, barrel-like and with a greasy moustache, shoved her along. With her hands tied behind her back, she fell and although I wanted to help her, I knew anything I tried would land me on the floor beside her.
For once, I held my tongue. One of the bound men muttered something and crouched next to her. He was either very brave or very foolish. Like Alex.
And like that day, I remained mute. And ashamed. Unable to watch, I fled outside. The air felt dirty, and so did I. What sort of person was I to run away from that?
My hand shook as I lit a cigarette. And another. And another. Until Claudine emerged an hour later, looking as despairing as the Portuguese woman. She dropped on the bench next to me.
‘They say they don’t know where he is. Told me to check with the embassy or . . . Or his mistress.’
I stared at my fingers laced together in my lap. ‘Claudine . . .’
‘I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to ask me if it is possible, but I told you – it is not. Christophe didn’t have a mistress – he had no time for one.’ She rested her head on the back of the bench and closed her eyes. Under her tan, her skin was grey; the situation had taken its toll. ‘I’ll go to the embassy to see if they know anything. I should have gone there first. Yesterday. Then I am going to telephone Christophe’s friends, the ones I know. Again. Perhaps they can tell me something new.’
‘Can I help?’
‘Would you know who to call?’
‘No.’
‘Then you can’t help, can you?’
She didn’t mean to be cruel, but my shoulders hunched nonetheless.
‘No, I suppose not.’
‘And after I am done asking questions they cannot or will not answer, I’m going to get myself – how do the British say it? – stinking drunk. You are not obliged to join me. I won’t be good company.’ She held up a hand to stop my protest. ‘It’s true. Don’t take this the wrong way, my dear, but please, can you make your own way home?’
‘Of course. Will you be all right?’
I understood her need for solitude and had no words to salve her pain.
‘Always.’
She held herself upright as she passed an American couple, arguing over whether a camera had been lost or stolen.
I didn’t believe her.
*
With no taxis in sight, I took the train. Fighting the undertow of exhaustion, I leant my head against the seat, closed my eyes, and missed my stop. I disembarked at Cascais; it was only a twenty-minute walk and I couldn’t bear the press of sweating bodies.
There had been no ransom note, a likely sign that Christophe was already dead or had chosen to go missing. My projects didn’t have a much better prognosis: how could one person – two if I included Bertie – crack an espionage ring and halt a smuggling operation where Britain’s best had already failed?
A youth brushed against me and my handbag began to pull away. Realising that the little sod was robbing me ignited righteous anger. It had been a ghastly morning – a ghastly week – and I’d be damned if I allowed the urchin to steal my bag, my papers, my keys, and my bloody PPK.
Leaning back, I counterbalanced him and, anchored by his grip on my bag, he propelled himself around and into my right fist. Blood poured down his face into a mouth open with shock and pain. He let go but I wasn’t finished.
In that moment, he had become everyone I hated: the neighbour that betrayed me in Paris; the Nazis; the PVDE goons. It would have been easy enough to kill him. The targets were visible: the bridge of the nose, the base of his throat. Or either side of the throat up to his temples. Maybe another two or three other places. But, angry as I was, I knew that would only brand me as a spy. I stifled the killing rage and made do with a knee to his groin. He doubled over, wheezing and cursing as he shuffled back, disappearing into the crowd.
Applause blossomed around me – tourists and businessmen, mothers and their children. Blushing, I tried to slink away.
‘Nice hook you have there, Angel.’
Eduard Graf leant against a rock wall with his arms crossed over his chest, looking as amused
