China Blue (The Dudley Sisters Saga Book 3) by Madalyn Morgan (top 100 novels of all time TXT) 📕

‘I am going to visit my grandmother, sir,’ she said, calmly.

He scrutinised her papers, then stared at her for what seemed an age. She began to panic. Was there something wrong with her documents? How could there be? The paper was authentic and the creases, where they had been opened and folded so many times, were as worn as André’s or Frédéric’s. She smiled up at him. Did he know her from Gisoir? Had he seen her perhaps in the market or shops? She hadn’t seen him before; if she had she would have remembered. She half smiled and looked at her papers in his hand, willing him to give them back to her.

‘What’s in your bag?’

Claire instinctively looked up at the holdall. ‘Clothes, some food, and a little money for my grandmother. She has not been well and--’

Ignoring her explanation he said, ‘Get it down.’

Standing on tiptoe, she reached up for the bag, but before she could lift it down there was a commotion in the corridor. ‘Assistance! Assistance!’ a man was shouting.

The gendarme flashed an angry look at Claire, as if she had somehow engineered the disturbance, and ran out of the carriage. Claire, already on her feet, followed him to the door. Sideways on, to make herself small, she peered out. Half a dozen policemen were chasing a man along the platform, while in the corridor a policeman had been floored by a man twice his size. The young policeman from Claire’s carriage jumped on the back of the big man, who swung him over his shoulder onto the first policeman. Leaving them in a heap on the floor, the man leapt out of the carriage and in seconds had disappeared. The last Claire saw of the gendarmes who had chased the first man, they were pushing their way through the crowds empty-handed.

Claire returned to her seat and sat down. She allowed herself a breath of relief before joining in the general conversation as to who the two men were and what they had done. Claire wondered if they were part of a Resistance group and hoped if they were they had got away.

Claire arrived at Paris’s Gare d’Austerlitz railway station nervous and excited. Since her first French lesson she had dreamed of visiting Paris. She had seen photographs and read articles in English and French magazines about the most romantic city in Europe, where artists sat in cafés on the Left Bank and talked about painting, poetry and the theatre – and where lovers, hand in hand, strolled along the banks of the River Seine. Claire checked the time on the station clock. The journey from Orléans to Paris, even with all the stopping and starting, had only taken a couple of hours. She had an hour before she needed to meet Thomas Durand at Le Park Café on the Avenue de Champs Élysées. After that she would be free to find Professor Marron’s wife at her parents’ house. Claire left the station and walked along the Quai d’Austerlitz.

She felt hungry. She didn’t want to eat at the rendezvous, so she ran across the busy street to a café. She ordered coffee and an open cheese sandwich and found a table. While she waited she took from her bag the copy of the Métro directory that Éric Marron had given her. The small book gave the names of Paris’ underground stations and times of the trains. It also had a comprehensive street map of the city folded neatly in the back. Claire laid the directory on the table and carefully opened the map square by square until the whole of Paris lay before her. The paper was thin. It felt like tissue paper. She worried that it would tear before she was able to find the street where Madame Marron’s parents lived. She scanned the maze of streets and avenues. Éric had said it was central, quite near the Champs Élysées, which Claire found almost immediately. She closed her eyes to remember what else Éric had said, what he had shown her on his father’s map. Six. Yes, there was a six. Her photographic memory could be a nightmare, literally, but now if she could only bring the information the boy had given her to the front of her mind it would be a godsend. Sixty. The SOE offices are number sixty-four, Éric’s grandmother’s address is sixty-five! That was it, 65 Avenue St. Julien. Claire looked again. Just a few stops further on the Métro from the Champs Élysées. Not quite the centre of Paris, as Éric had said, but not far away either. Claire memorised the route, folded the map and put it back in her bag. Her refreshments arrived. She thanked the waiter and bit into her sandwich hungrily. She had woken feeling nervous, which built into a feeling of nausea, so she had given breakfast a miss, saying she didn’t have time. The truth was she felt overwhelmed by the thought of travelling to Paris and having to find her way about on her own. She didn’t tell Édith how she felt or she’d have insisted André or Frédéric accompany her. She looked out of the window at the busy Parisian thoroughfare and laughed. Travelling from Orléans to Paris had been no more difficult than travelling from Rugby to London, but it was a great deal more exciting. She washed her sandwich down with coffee, put a franc on the table and left.

Claire walked along the Rue d’Austerlitz in the summer sunshine and crossed the River Seine by the Austerlitz Bridge. The Resistance had taken down some of the street names to confuse the Germans. Claire didn’t know about the Germans, but the lack of information certainly confused her. She turned right after the bridge and right again into the Boulevard de la Bastille. A few minutes