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

‘That’s why London has lost track of you. This address isn’t on the safe house list, is it?’

‘It will be soon. I don’t know what I’d have done without Antoinette. A dozen or more agents and goodness knows how many Resistance members have been taken prisoner over the last six months – and many of them after staying in Paris. The Gestapo and the SS have got intelligence of some kind. It’s almost as if they know our movements. Anyway, I didn’t know who to trust, so I asked Antoinette if I could stay here. She said yes immediately and asked if there was anything else she could do to help the Resistance. I broached the subject of a safe house and she jumped at the chance to help. She had to ask her parents of course, as it’s their home – and they said yes immediately. So this address will be on the safe house register as soon as I get to a wireless.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

It was early afternoon by the time Claire and Eddie arrived in Gisoir. The train from Paris to Orléans had stopped at every station, or so it seemed, and at every station the Gestapo and half a dozen gendarmes boarded to check passengers’ identity papers. Claire and Eddie, who travelled in the same carriage but didn’t sit next to each other, kept their identity papers and travel permits on their laps, as did most of the passengers. Halfway through the journey an over-zealous young gendarme ordered everyone to open their cases. Eddie and Claire only carried handbags, which he searched first. Tipping the contents of Eddie’s bag into her lap and finding only a powder compact, comb and lipstick, the gendarme turned to Claire. She glanced at Eddie, saw a look of horror in her eyes, and blinked twice, which was the code for all is well. She had burned the letter from Flight Officer Manders promoting her before leaving Antoinette’s. Finding nothing suspicious, the gendarme ripped open the lining of Claire’s bag before upending it onto her lap.

When the train pulled into Gisoir station, Claire looked out of the window expecting to see Frédéric. He hadn’t made it to Paris, but she felt sure he would be at the station to meet her. He wasn’t. Leaving the train, it crossed her mind that being so near to Jacques’ house she could call on him, introduce Eddie, and ask him if he had any news of Alain. But if she did that, Eddie would ask Jacques to send a message to the colonel and her time in Gisoir with Aimée would be one day less, so she decided against it. If Jacques had heard anything he would have told André or Frédéric. She would know soon enough.

Claire was doubly disappointed that Frédéric wasn’t in the alley at the back of the house to greet them. She looked up at his bedroom window. Eddie followed her gaze. ‘What is it?’

‘The curtains in Frédéric’s room are drawn. That’s why he wasn’t at the station to meet us. The lazy devil’s still in bed. We’ll have to go round the front,’ Claire said, already on the move.

Claire knocked at the front door and waited. There was no reply. She knocked again, this time louder. Still no one answered. She stepped carefully through the flower bed under the front window and peered inside. ‘It doesn’t look as if anyone’s home.’

‘Madame LeBlanc?’ Claire turned to see Édith’s neighbour, Madame Oran, at her front door. ‘You are back. Édith will be pleased to have you home.’

‘We’re pleased to be home,’ Claire said, including Eddie with a gesture of her hand. ‘Do you know where Édith is, Madame?’

‘Yes. She has gone to see Father Albert. She left the key with me, to let Thérèse and Aimée in when they returned from visiting Thérèse’s mother. As you have arrived first, I will get it.’ Knots of love and emotion tightened in Claire’s stomach at the thought of seeing her daughter. Madame Oran gave her Édith’s key and said, ‘Welcome home.’

Claire unlocked the door, stood back to let Eddie enter, and followed her in closing the door behind her. After taking off her coat, she hung it up and went through to the kitchen. A chill washed over her and she shivered. The fire in the range, which Édith never allowed to go out, had died down to a few embers. Claire filled the kettle and put it on the stove. ‘Find a match and light the gas, Eddie, while I get the fire going.’ She took a few dry sticks from the wood pile, laid them carefully on what was left of the fire and fanned them with a newspaper. When the kindling took hold she added a couple of logs. Then she went into the sitting room and did the same to the fire in there.

While Eddie made the tea Claire went upstairs. Édith’s bed was unmade, which was unusual, and Frédéric’s hadn’t been slept in. She looked into André’s old room and saw Thérèse’s nightdress folded neatly on one side of the bed and André’s pyjamas on the other. Her room was much as she had left it. She went downstairs and joined Eddie in the kitchen. ‘I’m going to the church.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Eddie said.

‘Do you mind staying, Ed? Someone needs to be here when Thérèse and Aimée get back. I wouldn’t ask, but I’m worried about Édith. It isn’t unusual for Thérèse to take Aimée out, but it is that Édith isn’t here when they are due home. And going out when she knew we were expected is completely out of character.’ Claire looked around the kitchen. ‘She hasn’t even left a note. Something is wrong, Eddie, I can feel it.’

‘Wouldn’t you rather be here when Aimée gets back?’ Eddie