She found herself back here now, in the city she had lived in until she was eighteen years old and had always loved, as it pulled itself back together, following the occupation and subsequent routing of the German army from its streets. This wasn’t her first stop in post-war France. For the last few weeks she had been living and working in a small vineyard in Burgundy, on the trail of her fiancé, Arthur Melville-Hare, who had left her various coded letters that had helped her solve the mystery of his own disappearance.
It was never far from Fen’s mind, however, that those clues were all she had left now of her clever, brave fiancé. He had been killed in the war, and although it broke her heart whenever she thought of him, at least she had found her answer. He was at peace now, the horrors of the war could no longer haunt him, as they did so many other men and women, and for Fen it had been not knowing if he was alive or dead, captured or wounded, that had been the very worst. In some way, slowly, now she could start to find her own peace, too.
Fen placed her sturdy brown suitcase down on the platform and waited for her travel companion to join her. Captain James Lancaster had been a huge help to Fen in solving the crimes they’d stumbled across in Burgundy and, what’s more, he had been a good friend to Arthur. Fen felt comforted by his presence, and all the way since changing trains at Dijon, he had been telling her what he was allowed to about his and Arthur’s certain style of war work. As members of the highly secretive Special Operations Executive, they had been parachuted in to aid the local Resistance cells, sabotaging the advancing and occupying German army in any way they could. Heartbreakingly, this brave work had cost Arthur his life.
‘Here we are,’ James pulled his own kitbag off the train and came to stand next to Fen. He stretched his long limbs out, reaching his arms up and ruffling his straw-like blond hair with one of his hands on its way down.
The journey had been a long one compared to pre-war speeds; as Fen had reported back to her friends, military trains took priority over civilian trips, and there were also still craters in some of the lines, due to either the retreating Germans or guerrilla-style subterfuge of the Resistance during the occupation. It was a stark reminder that although the war had officially been declared over in May, France was still very much feeling the after-effects of it all.
‘Hats, gloves and coats?’ Fen said, parroting the sort of thing her mother used to say whenever they’d travelled.
‘Check, check and check,’ James replied, holding up his long khaki-coloured dispatch rider’s coat while checking its pockets for his leather gloves.
‘You’ll be pleased of that now the weather’s on the change,’ Fen remarked, wondering if her own thin cotton trench coat would suffice, and if she had sufficient funds in her pocketbook to afford a new, slightly warmer one. At least she had her thick wool jumpers: one was standard War Office issue from when she had been farming in the fields to help the war effort, and one had been hand-knitted by Mrs B and it had kept her warm on many a cold and muddy morning in West Sussex. À la mode they may not be, but the one from Mrs B now carried with it the distinction of not just being warm but having recently saved Fen from the worst effects of a bayonet.
She shuddered at the memory of that night up in the attic rooms of the château in Burgundy and pulled her trench coat around her, tightening the belt a notch. Using the glass windows of one of the kiosks as a mirror, Fen checked that her hair was still as neatly curled and styled as it could be after a night on the train – her chestnut locks were not known for their obedience to hairpins – and pursed her lips to apply some lipstick in lieu of a decent wash and brush-up.
Popping the tube of Revlon back into her bag, she turned to James again and said, ‘I just hope I pass muster among the fashionable ladies of Paris!’
Her comment made James look down at his own outfit. He’d spent most of the war working undercover in the vineyard where Fen had met him, and his clothes hadn’t been any smarter than they’d needed to be for that. She now noticed him frown slightly at his own woollen trousers and ill-fitting waistcoat, worn over a button-up shirt. He’d spent a few hundred francs at the local tailor in Morey-Fontaine, the small town they’d been staying in, but the result wasn’t exactly high fashion either. Fen had to remind herself that ‘a few hundred francs’ wasn’t worth that much these days, barely a pound, more like twelve shillings or so.
He’s filthy rich… hadn’t those been Arthur’s words to describe his friend in the letter he left for her in Morey-Fontaine? Fen smiled as she thought about it – no man could look less like some wealthy heir than the one standing in front of her now.
‘They’ll just have to take us as they find us.’ James shrugged and picked up his kitbag, then, without asking, picked up Fen’s small suitcase too.
‘Thank
