Page 108 of The Last Library of Paris

Marcus darted down to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Was ist los?’ he shouted. What’s going on?

One of the soldiers noticed him and started in surprise.

‘Wer bist du?’ he asked.

‘Oberst Marcus Berger,’ said Marcus.

Another Nazi, in a slightly different uniform from the rest, appeared from one of the stacks, smoking a cigarette. The other men paused in their destruction.

‘Was ist los?’ Marcus said again.

The other man spoke in such rapid, aggressive German that I couldn’t keep up. Marcus replied, just as quickly. Catching the odd word here and there was enough, though, and I realised they did indeed know we had been sending books containing information. My blood ran cold as I heard him say my name.

‘Frances Reed,’ the Nazi said, clear as day. There was no mistaking he knew who he was looking for.

But Marcus was shaking his head, denying all knowledge as he stood on the bottom step. ‘Ich kenne sie nicht,’ he said. I don’t know her.

The German stared at him for a moment. Then, calmly, he flicked away his cigarette, and to my utter dismay, pulled a gun from his holster and aimed it at Marcus.

‘No!’ I shouted, letting go of Sylvie’s hand and running down the final few stairs.

‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘I’m Frances Reed. Ich bin Frances Reed.’

The German barked a few words at his men and suddenly I too had a gun trained on me. I’d never been held at gunpoint before. It wasn’t something that happened to librarians as a rule.

Slowly I put down the empty brandy bottle and raised my hands. I opened my mouth to speak, but all my German had completely deserted me. In fact, I couldn’t think of any English words either. All I could focus on was the dark eye of the gun that was pointing at me.

After what seemed like hours, but can’t have been more than seconds, I said: ‘Ich werde mitkommen.’ I’ll come with you. And then in English I added: ‘No one else was involved. Just me.’

‘Non!’ said Sylvie. She came down the stairs to stand next to me. And then so did Guy and Alain. The Three Musketeers, just as they’d said.

‘Si vous la prenez, vous nous prenez tous,’ said Sylvie boldly. If you take her, you take all of us.

‘Sylvie,’ I hissed under my breath, my eyes still glued to the gun. ‘No.’

But she stood firm.

‘Hands up,’ said the soldier in English, gesturing with the end of the gun in a way that made my breath catch in my throat. ‘And you.’

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sylvie lean back slightly and put something on the stair behind her, then she put her hands up.

Alain raised his hands slowly, gazing in defiance at the line of Nazis in front of us. But next to me, Guy was struggling to free his little hand from his pocket.

‘Hands. Up!’ the soldier barked again.

‘He’s trying,’ I said. ‘He can’t …’

‘He has a gun!’ the soldier said, his voice panicky and shrill. ‘He’s reaching for a gun!’

‘No!’ I shouted.

But the soldier pulled the trigger. The gunshot sounded impossibly loud as it echoed round the high ceilings of the library. There was smoke and shouting and suddenly Alain was lying on the floor, blood spilling from beneath him, and Guy – both hands now free – was looking at him in horror.

‘He pushed me,’ he was saying. ‘He pushed me out of the way.’ He crouched down beside Alain, and Sylvie pulled off her scarf and joined him, trying to stop the bleeding with a makeshift bandage.

Guy was sobbing. Sylvie was talking to Alain softly but urgently, begging him to stay awake.

I watched everything happening, like I was at the pictures. My mind was struggling to take in everything my eyes were seeing.