British Bulldog (21 page)

As she tried to do so she realised this would have been easier in appropriate attire. Women in cocktail dresses did not move out of the way for someone they considered their social inferior, even if that woman was heavily pregnant. McGregor proved an effective usher but it took a good five minutes to battle their way through the crowd. At last, only two or three layers away, the woman in the purple dress came into view. She was comforting a younger woman who had obviously joined the party. The newcomer was wearing taupe chiffon with a short fox fur cape slung over one arm, and was fanning herself furiously with a programme. Mirabelle observed that the girl was pink-eyed from crying, which Mirabelle assumed was on account of the performance. The opera appeared to have moved many people in the audience. Mirabelle had noticed a debutante at the bar with a watery stream of mascara down her cheek, and along from her a handsome man, in the requisite evening dress, comforted another man similarly moved by the music.

Beside the bar, the woman in purple was explaining something to her friend, both of them intent on whatever she was saying. Next to them the men were smoking and engaged in their own conversation, the low pulse of their voices just audible under the general hum of the crowd as Mirabelle and McGregor pushed closer. Although Mirabelle couldn’t distinguish individual words, she could make out that they were speaking in French. Coming from the side she could also see their faces now. Of the two men, one was only in his thirties and the other must be at least in his late fifties – both the wrong
age for von der Grün. Where on earth was the man? She tried to work it out, and saw the woman in the purple dress put her hand on her friend’s arm and whisper into her ear. Then she drew the slim red scarf from her neck and handed it over. The other woman dabbed her nose with it.

Mirabelle stopped in her tracks. Of course. It was the scarf. It must be. Somehow it contained information or signified something – a message, or at least a symbol. It had to be – there was no other way, and yet it seemed so innocuous, which was of course its strength. No one would think twice about a woman passing on a cheap rayon scarf – a mere item of fashion. It was small – easy to transport – only the size of a handkerchief. They were using the opera as a drop – and such an ingenious one. The young woman dried her tears and slipped the scarf into her satin clutch bag.

A bell sounded and the waiters at the bar served last orders. There was a shift in the crowd as people began to move back to their seats. Mirabelle tried to push forward but it was impossible against the tide. The group put down their glasses and started to return to their box. They were slipping away, back to the opera, out of reach.

‘Wilhelm,’ Mirabelle called, hoping a head might turn. ‘Wilhelm.’ Then she tried the name in French. ‘Guillaume.’

Neither man responded.

Pushed along behind them by the tide of bodies, Mirabelle and McGregor were swept back towards the auditorium with the box party tantalisingly just out of reach. Then Mirabelle saw the girl who had been crying peel off. She was manoeuvring herself across the stream of people, away from the auditorium. Grabbing McGregor’s hand tightly, Mirabelle heaved him in her wake, indicating the crown of the woman’s head.

‘You’re taller. Can you see where she’s going?’

McGregor strained. ‘She’s leaving. She’s opened a door.’ His voice was raised. ‘I think it must be the back stairs.’

‘Follow her.’

In less than a minute they were jammed against the wall with a sconce above them. McGregor reached for the brass handle and the door opened onto what must be a service stairway. A dull pale green light illuminated scuffed beige walls as Mirabelle squeezed through. Footsteps echoed from below as the young woman tottered downstairs in heels. Then the sound of the street echoed in their ears and a breeze whispered up the stairwell.

‘I thought it was a man we were after,’ McGregor objected, resisting the pressure of Mirabelle’s pull on his arm. ‘What about the matter in hand?’

Mirabelle shook her head. ‘That woman has the information,’ she whispered. ‘I want to see where she takes it.’

Chapter 25

A well-dressed woman can conquer the world
.

O
utside, the cold air stung and Mirabelle scanned the side street for any sign of taupe chiffon. McGregor looked left and right but they were too late to see which direction their quarry had taken.

‘If she wants a taxi she’ll make for the front,’ he reasoned, but Mirabelle was already striding in that direction. The main street was better lit, and the flower woman and a couple of chauffeurs were milling about. One man passed a pewter hip flask to another as they inspected the tyres on his vehicle. Three men were playing cards in the back of a brand new Citroën Avant.

‘Taxi!’ McGregor put up his hand and whistled.

Mirabelle ran up the steps, and the vantage point afforded her a view of a short fox fur cape disappearing into a car further along. The doorman peered down at her. She waved at him, putting her other hand on her stomach as she realised that pushing through the crowd had left her with a misshapen baby bump. She pulled her jacket closed to obscure it from view. In the meantime the woman’s car set off along the rue Auber with a smart chauffeur at the wheel. Mirabelle hurried back to the pavement and slipped into the back of the taxi McGregor had procured. She asked the driver to follow the car and sat forward on the edge of her seat. McGregor looked at Mirabelle’s stomach, and then he smiled.

‘Perhaps you’d better give me back my scarf.’ His eyes
crinkled. Mirabelle undid a button to withdraw it. The action seemed too personal and McGregor looked away.

‘Here.’ She pushed the material into his hand.

‘What do you think she’s up to?’ he enquired as he wound the scarf around his neck and they took the corner onto the boulevard Haussmann, heading towards Passy.

Mirabelle shook her head and cast her eyes towards the driver. You never knew, and after what had happened to her this afternoon it was as well to be careful. After three or four minutes the woman’s car turned off the main road and drew up at a bar on a grubby-looking side street. Mirabelle directed the taxi driver to keep going and they passed just as the woman got out, waved away her chauffeur and disappeared inside. On the street the bells of a nearby church struck the half-hour. Ten thirty. It was getting late. Mirabelle peered at the bar’s picture window. The woman was overdressed for the venue. Formica tables lined one room, while the wooden bar itself was housed in another adjacent to it. Apart from the woman and the barman, the place was deserted. Mirabelle instructed the driver to pull up a few yards further on, McGregor paid the fare, and the couple walked back towards the dimly lit entrance. Mirabelle felt very aware that her outfit looked even worse than when she’d started now the ruse with the scarf had stretched it.

‘You look fine,’ McGregor comforted her.

How did he know what was on her mind? Were her concerns so transparent? She felt suddenly, inexplicably cross as McGregor held open the door and they entered the bar. The woman in taupe was sitting by herself in the other room. She had taken a table at the window. In front of her was a glass of brandy and a cup of coffee. She was scrabbling inside her handbag and Mirabelle peered to see what she might be looking for, but the woman only withdrew a packet of cigarettes and a slim gold Rolex lighter. She lit up and inhaled deeply.

McGregor ordered a beer. ‘What can I get you?’

‘A glass of red,’ Mirabelle said curtly and left him at the bar, wandering through and settling at the table behind the woman, who she could now see was even younger than she had thought. Before he could follow her, she leaned over and asked for a cigarette. The woman spoke French with a Parisian accent, indistinguishable from Mirabelle’s own.

‘That’s a beautiful dress,’ Mirabelle complimented her.

The woman smiled and said thank you as she held up a flame so that Mirabelle could light the Gitane. In England Mirabelle’s remark would have felt unbearably personal, but in France women expected to be admired – they accepted it. ‘I like the colour,’ the woman admitted, ‘the blandness of it. It means you can shine.’

This furnished no clues as to her identity or who she might be working for but it confirmed to Mirabelle that she was French. Such self-confidence was the reason that French women were considered sexy worldwide.

‘Cold night,’ was Mirabelle’s attempt to continue the conversation, and she inwardly cursed herself for being so very English as McGregor arrived with the drinks.

The young woman wasn’t interested in the weather. She shrugged lazily and turned towards the window. She took a sip of coffee and checked her watch, then got up and disappeared in the direction of the lavatory.

‘Is it true what they say about the toilets in places like this?’ McGregor whispered. ‘The French don’t mind if it’s just a hole in the ground?’

Mirabelle didn’t answer. Instead she reached over smoothly and scooped up the satin clutch bag the woman had left on the table beside her drink. With one eye on the bar and the other on the route to the lavatory, she clicked the bag open. There was nothing inside but the cigarettes – not even the gold lighter or a few francs to pay for drinks. The lining was secure and
there was nothing secreted inside. Most important, the red rayon scarf was missing. The woman must have put everything of value into her pockets and left the bag to make it look as if she’d be coming back.

In the other room, the barman switched out the light over the doorway, then wandered through with a greying cloth in his hand. Mirabelle hid the satin clutch bag down the side of her chair.

‘We’re closing now. Drink up. You have to leave.’ He reached out to remove the coffee cup and brandy glass from the young woman’s now vacated table, and ran the rag over the surface in a half-hearted attempt to clean it. Mirabelle lifted her glass of wine and took a sip.

‘I better go and fetch my friend,’ she said. ‘She’s in the toilet. I don’t think she’s finished her drink.’

‘You have to leave now,’ the barman repeated steadily, holding Mirabelle’s eye.

Mirabelle got to her feet. She wasn’t letting the other woman disappear that easily, but the barman blocked her way.

‘Now look here,’ McGregor cut in.

‘We’re closed,’ the barman repeated, and indicated the exit. McGregor didn’t argue – he just muscled the fellow out of the way to let Mirabelle dart in the other direction. Leaving McGregor to it, she checked through the door that lay beyond but there was no sign of the woman in the chiffon evening gown.

‘Hello,’ she called.

No answer. Further along the corridor some empty drinks crates were piled at the top of a flight of stairs. She took the stairs down into what seemed to be a cellar, but it was too dark to make out anything properly. Cursing, she wished she had brought her torch. She recalled last seeing it on the table in the hallway of her flat. She’d bought new batteries only a couple of weeks ago. Above, she could hear a chair scrape along the
café floor. Were the men fighting? She pushed on, her eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness. The cellar smelled of stale beer and the floor was uneven.

‘Hello. Is anybody down here?’ Nothing. She tried again in French. ‘
Il y a quelqu’un?’

Silence. She checked behind a couple of large barrels that were piled to one side but the cellar was completely unoccupied.

At the back she pushed open a door that led onto an alley. Looking left and right only confirmed that the place was deserted. There was no sound of heels clicking on the tarmac, not even a car engine. But on the ground was a solitary button, covered in taupe chiffon. It must have fallen off the girl’s dress as she left.

She’s made a run for it, thought Mirabelle as she picked it up. Then she paused. She walked down the alley to the corner and turned back onto the side street where they’d come into the bar. Strolling towards the entrance, she saw through the window that the barman and McGregor were still tussling at the table. McGregor’s beer had toppled and the missing woman’s coffee cup had smashed, trailing a brown milky smear across the floor. As she watched, McGregor grabbed hold of the barman by the collar and pushed him against the wall. He pulled back his fist. His lips were moving, but Mirabelle couldn’t hear what he was saying. She rapped sharply on the window and motioned for him to join her. He held off the barman, dropped his fist to his side and looking slightly disappointed backed out to the street.

‘Did you find her?’

Mirabelle shook her head. The barman kept an eye on them as he surveyed the debris of the fight. Then he locked the door.

‘Did you get anything out of him?’ she asked.

‘No time … Where do you think the woman has gone?’

‘We need to find her car. The chauffeur will have waited,
don’t you think? If she intends to go home, she wouldn’t send him away for the night. Parking directly outside would be far too obvious – round here a car with a liveried chauffeur would attract attention – but he must be somewhere.’

‘Unless she was expecting a lift from whoever she intended to meet,’ McGregor hazarded.

‘Either way, we need to look for her car. If it’s gone then she’s either run for it because we scared her or taken a lift with whoever she was meeting. But if the car’s still waiting and she hasn’t gone back to it, then it’s likely she’s been taken.’

‘Taken?’

‘Picked up.’

‘By whom?’

Mirabelle didn’t like to say. ‘Come on. The chauffeur drove in this direction.’ She touched McGregor’s arm to encourage him to fall into step along the uneven paving stones.

‘How long do you reckon we were inside?’

‘Five minutes. Maybe seven. Tops.’

‘And how long might you leave, if you were booking a driver to come back and get you after a drop …’ McGregor looked dubious. He had never made a drop, but Mirabelle seemed to know a good deal about it. ‘Ten minutes? Quarter of an hour? How long do you think it takes?’

‘Not long,’ Mirabelle replied decisively. ‘And you want to leave immediately after if you can. Especially here. There’s no one else about, which makes it easy to spot intruders like us. But it also makes the drop highly visible.’

McGregor looked at her sideways. She really was extraordinary. The sound of an acoustic guitar and a woman singing snaked across the pavement from a dimly lit bistro with candles in its window. Mirabelle ignored McGregor’s look of admiration and peered inside, but the woman wasn’t there. Almost at the main street they passed a hairdresser’s and a jewellery shop – both closed. Mirabelle was aware that her steps were quieter
than usual, the soft thump of the boots’ soles on the pavement matching that of McGregor’s sensible shoes. An elderly woman wearing a heavy winter coat and a headscarf let herself out of a door and crossed the road. A taxi stopped at a red light and then zoomed off in the direction of Opéra.

‘Left or right?’

‘Right is the more natural turn. They drive on the right,’ Mirabelle decided.

The streets were spaced randomly – Paris was not laid out on a recognisable grid. Here and there a dark passage linked the side streets. The iron gates were open but the shops inside were closed. They turned right and right again, and then from the other end of the street a familiar car chugged towards them.

‘There,’ Mirabelle said.

No one was sitting in the back. Mirabelle waved down the chauffeur but he didn’t slow until McGregor stepped off the pavement and interposed his body. He raised one hand and pulled out his police badge with the other. The car came to a halt. Mirabelle was impressed. She felt a glow flush her skin. McGregor was surprisingly competent for a man who couldn’t speak the language and had never worked undercover.

The driver rolled down the window and Mirabelle leaned in and spoke in swift French. ‘Are you going back to pick up the young lady you dropped at the bar?’

The chauffeur didn’t respond to the question. ‘Who is he?’ he said, casting his eyes towards McGregor.

‘Police, of course.’

You could tell a lot by threatening people with the police. It occurred to her that if the chauffeur had been paid off by someone he’d show some sign of panic – a twitch or a flicker in his eyes. Instead the man nodded stoutly at McGregor and drew himself up in his seat. Mirabelle pulled the woman’s clutch bag from her pocket.

‘Your mistress left this in the bar. She seems to have disappeared. Where were you due to meet her? When?’

The chauffeur’s eyes narrowed.

‘It’s important,’ Mirabelle insisted. ‘She may be in danger.’

The man stared at the clutch bag for a moment, weighing things up. ‘She should be there now. Get in,’ he said finally. ‘You can give it back to her yourself.’

‘How long have you worked for her?’

‘I work for her father,’ the chauffeur admitted. ‘The family.’

‘For long?’

‘Since I came to Paris after the war.’

‘So you know her well?’

‘I don’t know Mademoiselle Durand at all. I am a servant, madame.’

Mirabelle noted the name and opened the car door. McGregor followed her onto the back seat.

‘This is risky,’ he murmured. ‘We don’t know anything about this man.’

‘It’s less risky with you here,’ Mirabelle whispered. ‘I had no idea you were so handy.’ Besides, the fellow was a family retainer. The driver pulled back onto the main road and overshot the turning for the bar, taking a left beyond it and then turning left again. He pulled up short of the next corner, parking tight into the kerb.

‘Mademoiselle Durand didn’t walk in this direction,’ Mirabelle pointed out. ‘She’d have had to pass us sitting in the window if she was heading here.’

‘She might have gone round the block the other way,’ McGregor said.

The little street was as deserted as the rest of the area. McGregor got out of the car and walked to the end of the road, stopping on the corner and peering in the direction of the bar. The windows were black and the light over the door was switched off. He gestured towards Mirabelle, shrugging
his shoulders. A ginger cat stalked across his path and stopped to look at this stranger.

‘Where were you going to take her?’ Mirabelle asked the driver.

‘Mademoiselle Durand didn’t say, madame.’ He checked his watch. ‘But it is customary to wait.’