Page 54 of The Paris Agent
Now, I wondered if she, like me, just had no idea who she could trust.
Something was definitely off. I just did not know how to figure out where the rot was coming from.
I was treading very carefully with Mr. Turner now. I wanted badly to trust my circuit leader, but the timing of Campion’s arrest left me uneasy. A few days after I spoke with Veronique, he called me to his apartment and asked me to deliver some cash to an address in the 4th Arrondissement. As I was leaving, I noticed a slip of paper, curled up beside the hallway runner.
I didn’t break stride as I bent to scoop it up, stuffing it into my brassiere as I walked down the stairs to the street. And only once I’d completed my drop and returned to my own room did I fish it out to read it.
It was a notice of debt—1000 francs, due within a week. There was no name on the notice—not even an address. But beside the total due, someone had scrawled the wordblackjack.
I told myself it didn’t matter one bit if Mr. Turner was gambling after hours at some sketchy underground club. Even during SOE training schools, when the instructors would walk us to pubs, to ply us with drinks to see if alcohol loosened our tongues, Mr. Turner was known to always seek out the local bookmaker. Like his drinking, gambling had never hampered his work. And perhapsthisgambling club was where he was recruiting new contacts.
If I hadn’t already been feeling uneasy, I’d have convinced myself to ignore that little slip of paper, but my senses were on high alert. I buried it under a loose floorboard in my room, the place where I kept my spare counterfeit currency and identity cards—my other “insurance policies.”
C?H?A?P?T?E?R16
CHARLOTTE
Liverpool, England
1970
“I just wanted to check in on Noah,” Theo tells me quietly when he calls a few days later. “I’ve been thinking about him. I hope he’s alright. I’m just so sorry the meeting with Jean was...”
“...a disaster?” I finish miserably.
Theo sighs.
“Is your dad ready to talk about it yet?”
“No,” I mutter. I’ve tried—God, how I’ve tried. Every time I strike up a conversation with Dad, he snaps at me or makes an excuse to leave the room. Each night, he retires early, locking himself in his bedroom with the dog. He wasn’t this irritable even in the depths of acute grief and I am beside myself with worry. “I know he’s a good man. He would never,everhave done anything to put those other agents in danger. And if Marion or Jean were trying to suggest my dad was a double agent, then—” I break off, indignant. “Of course he wasn’t! I mean, right? Just because Dad’s memories of the time aren’t the best and he says he feels a little guilty about something doesnotmean he betrayed his country. It sounds like it made good sense for them to pull over that day. Maybe if theyhadsurrendered, Fleur would still be alive and my dad wouldn’t have wound up in hospital. Right?” Theo doesn’t say anything, so I try again. “Right, Theo?”
“It was very hard to get a read on their conversation at Jean’s house, especially because your dad isn’t ready to discuss it yet. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard a rumor of a double agent in the SOE ranks. But to lead a group of agents directly into an ambush would make little sense even if your dad was conspiring with the Germans. I mean—why risk his own life when he could have just called them and given them the location of a safe house?” Theo breaks off, then adds quickly, “Not that I’m suggesting hewas...”
I knowmy dad wouldn’t betray his country, but I’ve been too outraged by the very suggestion of it to think it through as logically as Theo has.
“Thank you,” I say, exhaling with relief. “Yes. That’s right.”
“What’s your plan now? Will you just wait and see if your dad decides he wants to talk about it some more?”
“Actually, no,” I say. “Dad set out to thank the agent who saved his life, remember? He was content to just lay flowers on Remy’s grave if he’d died.”
“You want to keep going.”
“I know Fleur died in the war, but I figure there’s probably a grave or memorial somewhere and I want to try to find it. Maybe even a living relative. Remember Dad said he’d be content just to make sure Remy’s family knew what he had done? Perhaps the same will apply to Fleur. I know we’re back to square one, but I just don’t know what else to do. This obviously means so much to Dad and I feel like I’ve let him down somehow.”
“Charlotte,” Theo says thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose you’re free to meet for lunch?”
Theo and I meet at a small pub just a few blocks from the house I share with Dad. Today, he has a smudged thumbprint on the lens of his glasses, and I can’t stop wondering if it’s obstructing his vision. One errant wave in his hair has formed a curl that sits at a wild angle away from his forehead. But his eyes are always so soft and kind, and I’ll be eternally grateful to Theo for his support over the past week.
“I love being a teacher,” I tell him. We’ve ordered our meals and we’re sitting at the bar as we wait. “But summer break is great, isn’t it?”
“I don’t disagree with you there,” Theo says, knocking his glass of beer gently against mine before he asks, “Why did you go into teaching?”
“Mum was a teacher and I always felt drawn to it,” I say, my gaze dropping momentarily, before I clear my throat and ask, “And you? Why did you choose this career?”
“I loved the idea of becoming knowledgeable about history so that I could help people piece together their own family stories, just as I do with the family history group at the church. But I also have to earn a living, and trying to get the next generation excited about history is a great thing too.”
“That’s noble,” I say. Theo shrugs awkwardly.
