I don’t know what made me look up, but I had a strange feeling that I was being watched. A train was pulling in at the opposite platform as I looked across the two railway tracks. I glimpsed someone, but the train obscured my view. My heart gave a brief flutter and my stomach performed an unwelcome turn.
No. It couldn’t be. Surely not. I tried to look through the train windows to see them again, but there were too many people standing up ready to disembark from the train.
I could feel my heart picking up its pace.
I needed to get out of there.
I couldn’t stand around.
I needed distance.
I spun on my heel and although I told myself to walk, my feet were paying no attention to the instruction and I ran out through the ticket office and on to the street.
I looked behind me, but all I could see was a small crowd of people exiting the building.
I wanted to calm myself, to think rationally, but I couldn’t.
I spotted a bus on the other side of the road and, without thinking, raced across, just managing to dodge the traffic, which earned several beeps of the horn from a bread van.
I jumped on the bus and almost threw myself into the window seat where I had a full view of the train station.
The bus pulled away, and I stared at the ticket office door, craning my neck but I could see no one I recognised and certainly not who I thought I’d seen.
Chapter 39
Nathalie
My brain scrambled with so many thoughts. Had I seen them? Was my mind just playing tricks on me? The more I thought about it, the more I was sure I was imagining things. Still, the uneasy feeling settled on me and, much as I tried to ignore it, to convince myself it was all in my mind, I couldn’t.
I arrived back at Geraldine’s house, where she was entertaining a friend in the library. She invited me to sit with her and I spent the next hour exchanging polite chit-chat, as Geraldine had described it. Of course, I had a cover story, insomuch as I was a friend of a friend and had escaped France and was staying with Geraldine for a few weeks.
Her friend had given me a knowing look and then said no more. The conversation turned to how Geraldine was going to plough up the rear of the garden and dig for victory, as she called it.
I hadn’t realised England was struggling for food as well as the rest of Europe, although I gathered it wasn’t on the same scale or in the same desperation as back home. In fact, Geraldine and her friend seemed rather excited at the idea of growing vegetables and went into great detail about how the other gardens in the village now resembled agricultural land.
Later that morning, after Geraldine’s friend had left, we were taking lunch in the lounge when the telephone rang. The housekeeper, Lottie, answered it and then came into the room.
‘Who is it?’ asked Geraldine, looking up from her cup of tea.
‘It’s someone from the Home Office asking for Miss Leroux,’ said Lottie.
Both Geraldine and I exchanged curious glances.
‘The Home Office,’ I repeated to make sure I’d understood.
‘Well, I suppose you had better take the call,’ said Geraldine.
I went out to the hall, wondering who on earth from the Home Office would want to speak to me. ‘Hello,’ I said, glancing back towards the open door to the lounge.
‘Nathalie Leroux?’ The voice was female and French.
‘Yes. That’s right. Who is this, please?’ I asked in French.
‘Nathalie Leroux, the thief. Nathalie Leroux, the murderer. Nathalie Leroux, the spy.’
I thought I was going to vomit right there in the hallway. I glimpsed my reflection in the mirror on the coat stand, and it was as if a ghost was looking back at me. I was so pale. I recognised the voice instantly. It was Madame Bochette. I hadn’t killed her that day. Somehow, she had survived.
‘What do you want? How did you find me?’
