Page 23 of The French Wife

‘I’m alright now, Hauptmann Bauer,’ she said, moments later. ‘And I really need to get back to work, or the mayor will be wondering where I am.’

She got to her feet and this time the room didn’t spin. She felt the German officer’s hand on her arm, guiding her gently to the door. Strangely, it didn’t feel unpleasant; it felt natural, reassuring even. She shook herself inwardly. Whatever was she thinking? This man was a German, her enemy. The touch of his hand on her arm should have repelled her.

He opened the door. ‘Good afternoon, Madame Garnier. And please do not worry. I will let you know as soon as I have any news about your workers.’

When she got home that evening, she didn’t say anything to Bruno about having spoken to the German officer, nor did she tell him she’d visited the workers in the cells. She was sure that if she mentioned they’d been beaten up, Bruno was quite capable of storming down to the mairie and kicking up a fuss. And that wouldn’t end well for anyone concerned, not least Tomasz, Marcel and Lili.

As usual she cooked dinner for the remaining workers and for herself and Bruno. This time it was a rabbit Bruno had shot in the woods.

‘There’s one extra for supper tonight,’ Bruno told her when he came in from the barn. He’d been supervising the storage of the olives they’d collected that day.

‘Really, who’s that?’ she asked, surprised.

‘I don’t know his real name,’ Bruno said, lowering his voice. ‘I only know him as Raoul. He’s coming to step up Resistance activity in the area now the Germans have arrived.’

‘Are you sure that’s safe?’ Amélie asked, her stomach churning at the thought of putting up a known member of the Resistance. It was all very well the men on the farm helping them out with minor acts of sabotage, but to actually shelter a core member was a far riskier step.

‘Of course it’s not safe,’ Bruno said grumpily. ‘But it’s another pair of free hands that I could well do with for the olive harvest.’

‘Oh, Bruno,’ she said, stirring the rabbit stew miserably. She wanted to protest further, but knew it would only provoke an argument, so held her tongue. She also wished he had consulted her before agreeing to put the man up. Le Châtaignier was her home too, and he never considered that when he made decisions about who to shelter on the farm.

But within a few minutes there was the sound of footsteps in the courtyard and the dogs in the barn began to bark and whine.

‘Is that him?’ she asked.

Bruno shrugged. ‘I thought he was being brought in a truck,’ he said. ‘Maybe they dropped him at the end of the track and he walked up.’

There was a knock on the front door. Bruno stomped through to the hallway to answer it. Amélie paused what she was doing and listened. Instead of one visitor’s voice, there seemed to be at least two people speaking to Bruno in the hall. She strained to hear what they were saying; there was a woman’s voice amongst the men’s and something familiar about all the voices. And then she realised.

They came into the kitchen at that very moment. They looked battered, filthy and exhausted, but all three were smiling broadly. It was Marcel, Tomasz and Lili, their faces flushed from their walk in the cold.

‘They let you go!’ Amélie said, hurrying over to greet them, flinging her arms around Lili, holding her tight.

‘Thanks to you, madame,’ Tomasz said. ‘The officer told us if it hadn’t been for you, we would have had a very long stay in the cells. We are very grateful indeed.’

NINE

EMMA

2010

The detective arrived with his assistant less than half an hour after Gaston had made the call to report the stash of antique guns they’d found in the cellar. In the meantime, Pierre had continued working, and by the time the two policemen arrived, the electricity supply in the kitchen was reconnected and functioning.

Emma stood at the hallway window and watched the detectives get out of their battered, old, black Citroën DS in the courtyard. The senior detective was a tall, bulky man. He looked hard-bitten and world-weary, with a lined face, grey hair and an unkempt beard. He was dressed shabbily in jeans and a grubby white shirt. His assistant, a dark-haired man in his twenties, looked dapper and keen in comparison.

It was clear Gaston knew both men already. He greeted them with a handshake each and introduced them to Emma. ‘Madame Hudson, this is Paul Brodin, our local police chief, and this is his assistant, Sergeant Antoine Barbier. Monsieur Brodin was at school with my father,’ Gaston said with a wry smile. ‘Everyone knows everyone else in St Marie. You will get used to it.’

‘Bonjour, madame,’ the detective said, shaking her hand with a firm grip and looking around admiringly at the cavernous hallway. ‘Congratulations on buying this beautiful old place. It has been shut up for so many years. I have never been inside before, but it has always fascinated me.’

‘Thank you,’ Emma said. ‘It is a wonderful old place. And thank you for coming so quickly.’

‘No problem. As you might imagine, we don’t have a lot of crime to deal with in St Marie,’ the detective said, ‘so when Gaston called, telling me about your find, we were only too happy to have an excuse to get out of the office. Now, please, show me what you’ve discovered.’

‘The guns are in the cellar. We put them back into the cupboard there so you could see exactly how and where they had been stored. Please, come this way.’ She led the three men down the stone steps and into the cellar, which was now lit with bare electric bulbs, thanks to Pierre. The harsh white light showed how grimy and neglected the place was, with cobwebs in the corners and dust on every surface.

‘We discovered a hidden room beyond this one,’ she said, guiding the police officers past the heavy bookcase and into the second room.

Paul Brodin strolled through, looking around him all the time – at the ceiling, the floor, the walls. The sergeant followed, scribbling on a notepad.