Three Hours in Paris Read online

  Gunter could almost smell the Schokoladenkuchen. Ach, why on his daughter’s birthday?

  He blinked again, still trying to dislodge the stubborn grit from his eye, bringing himself back to the dusty runway. “A privilege, Gruppenführer.”

  “Make us proud, Gunter,” said Jäger. “You excel at the hunt. No one assembles the pieces better than you, putting order to the chaos.”

  “Danke.” He hoped his boss would leave it at that and let him get to work.

  Jäger nodded. “Your uncle trained you well.”

  Gunter’s mother had abandoned him as a child on his policeman uncle’s doorstep. He’d never known his father. Gunter counted himself lucky to be raised by his uncle, who had made sure there was always a coat on his back and bread in his school lunch pail, even during the hungriest days of the Weimar Republic. His uncle, a stickler for order and detail, had provided young Gunter a sense of safety he’d never known with his mother. No wonder he’d followed in his uncle’s footsteps. He’d found a great sense of purpose in police work, a world where his efforts produced tangible results.

  “An honor to be of service,” Gunter said, a repetition of what they’d learned to always reply at the police academy. “I’ll assemble a team and report back to you as soon as I have news, and liaise with the SD at the Paris Kommandantur.”

  Jäger took Gunter’s arm. “You will issue reports only to me. Am I clear? No information to SD, or anyone else. No assembling a team.”

  “Jawohl, Gruppenführer, but without contacts on the ground . . .”

  “I’ll see you’re in communication with the right people.” Jäger tapped his thick fingers together. “Your cousin Eva’s biology professorship is up for tenure at Universität Bayern, isn’t it?”

  What business was it of his? Gunter’s heart beat hard in his chest.

  “My old friend Professor Häckl heads the science department,” said Jäger. “He could smooth the way to tenure for her. But if that business with the Jew came up, well, it might be a bumpy road.”

  His silly little cousin Eva’s affair, long since over, was a vulnerability that never went away. It had almost cost his uncle his police position a few years ago. Gunter, who had his own family now, had to be careful.

  But Jäger had never put personal pressure like this on him before. His boss’s job must be on the line. That meant Gunter’s was, too.

  Jäger stuck a cigarette between his thick lips. Lit it and inhaled. Gunter always thought those lips were mismatched to his otherwise long features. “You will keep me exclusively informed of findings.”

  Already Gunter didn’t like this. He wondered if he was being set up to be the fall man. But what choice did he have?

  He nodded. “Jawohl, Gruppenführer.”

  Part I

  Eight Months Earlier

  October 14, 1939

  Scapa Flow, Royal Naval Base,

  Hoy, Orkney Islands, Scotland

  In the naval munitions factory, Kate Rees pushed her hair under her bandana and shouldered the Lee-Enfield rifle. The indoor firing range sweltered. The late-afternoon sun bathed Lyness’s converted brick works in an orange glow. It was her last round testing the rifle, then off her aching feet. She couldn’t wait to go home to her husband, Dafydd, a naval officer on weekend leave from his engineer’s unit.

  The piercing whistle blew the all-ready.

  Kate put her eye to the sight and lined up the bead at the tip. Calculated the air current rustling the factory rafters. Focused on the black target rings three hundred yards ahead.

  “Fire,” boomed a voice.

  She squeezed the trigger ten times. Reloading and firing at ten consecutive targets. A bull’s-eye each time.

  Sherard, the line supervisor’s work coat stretched tight around his middle, ticked a checklist as Kate shelved the Lee-Enfield into the satisfactory bin. He pointed to a man with sparse brown hair combed across his crown. “Gentleman wants a word, Yank.”

  Still called her Yank even though she’d been working here almost a year.

  “Impressive,” the man said, his English accent like cut glass. He leaned on a cane. “Where did you learn to shoot like that?”

  “I grew up on ranches in Oregon,” she said, couldn’t help the flicker of pride in her voice. “My father taught me to hunt when I was a little girl.”

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, his tone making it clear he wondered why anyone would come to this godforsaken Orkney island unless they were under military orders. She got that all the time. Hoy’s naval base at Lyness and Rinnigill required security clearance and was considered a hardship posting, although both bases now employed a civilian workforce of locals and non-locals: secretaries for the various departments, staff to work in the laundries and canteens. Twelve thousand shore-based personnel were billeted here at camps and installations all over the island.

  “I married a naval engineer.”

  “We’ve got a job for you.”

  “Already got a job.” The military often scouted around the rifle factory and test range. Women were recruited for all types of work these days. She didn’t think much of it.

  “It’s government work, and a bump in pay. In Birmingham.”

  A bump in pay sounded attractive. But not Birmingham. She’d gotten accustomed to this wild, desolate place.

  “My daughter’s a baby, too young to move to Birmingham. And my husband’s stationed here,” she said, thinking. “Why not a rifle instructor position here in Lyness?”

  “Women as rifle instructors?” Sherard snorted.

  Why not? She’d qualify.

  “We only recruit rifle instructors from the army. No civilians,” the man said. He handed her a card. “Let me know if you’re interested in Birmingham.”

  When Kate got home to their cottage, Dafydd was rocking Lisbeth to sleep on the chintz settee. His curly dark hair glinted in the flicker of the coal lamp as he read the card she’d tossed on the table. “A government job offer in Birmingham?”

  “I like this job here.” And this windswept Orkney island—its sheep, rainstorms, Neolithic sites and Viking stones, the diamond-like stars in the black sky and murmur of the sea at night. Reminded her of home in a way. She liked the buzzing activity on the naval base, which had kicked into even higher gear since the September visit of Sir Winston Churchill, Lord of the Admiralty. Dafydd had told Kate about Plan Q, the strategic army defense plan for the Royal Navy Fleet Base. There were to be upgrades to the roads, underground fuel stores built and a massive wharf in the emerging naval dockyard to be constructed. Orkney was the best of both worlds to Kate—an untouched wilderness and a hive of human industry all at once.

  She kicked off her shoes. Shut the window and pulled the blackout curtains, a new regulation, blocking the panorama of Scapa Flow harbor, dotted by charcoal shadows of a warship.

  “Glad someone appreciates my long-legged Yank’s talents.” He brushed her cheek with his palm. Lisbeth, their sleepy-eyed eighteen-month-old, squirmed and caught Kate’s hand in her chubby fist. Dafydd winked. “We certainly do.”

  Happy he was home for a long weekend leave, she snuggled up next to them. Kissed Lisbeth’s tiny pink toes until the baby laughed.

  “Should I go down to the pub and bring us back some bitter?” Dafydd said in a low voice. “We can pretend it’s wine and spend an evening très intime. It might be the last for a while.”

  She sat up. “What do you mean?”

  Dafydd pulled her back, kissed her. “There are reports that the Luftwaffe’s flying surveillance.”

  “How does that affect you? Not your job, is it?”

  “More than ever. I’ve been assigned back full time to the officers’ barracks.”

  Kate felt a pang thinking about Dafydd toughing it out in the barracks. “Those horrible Nissen huts? They’re like tin cans.”

 
; Meanwhile she and Lisbeth would enjoy the comfort of the granite crofter’s cottage they’d made home. It reminded her of something out of Grimm’s fairy tales, full of nooks and crannies and odd angles, yet snug. She looked around at the paraphernalia of their family life here: Dafydd’s sketch pad, Lisbeth’s toys scattered across the quilt, the neat pile of folded diapers, the teapot covered by Mrs. McLeod’s crocheted tea cozy and sitting in the middle of the rustic farm table.

  “You and Lisbeth shouldn’t be on your own here.”

  Not this again. “We’ll manage, Dafydd. It’s not like you’ll be far away. We’ll see you every day.” She and Lisbeth had had lovely days going down to meet him at Rackwick Bay, collecting seaweed on the beach, Lisbeth tottering through the sand, fascinated with the round pebbles. Kate and Dafydd had laughed at the startled sheep they’d discovered when they had clambered over the island’s moors to a prehistoric stone cairn, Lisbeth carried in their arms. A limitless sky, the sea everywhere.

  “Look, Kate, Scapa Flow’s strategic defenses need an overhaul. The antiaircraft system is from the last war, the anti-submarine nets still need repairs, a lot of things aren’t as safe as I’d like them to be. Better for you and Lisbeth at my ma’s in Cardiff.”

  She couldn’t stand the thought of the cramped townhouse in Wales, living again with her prissy mother-in-law, who folded bandages for the Red Cross, and Dafydd’s half-blind retired RAF colonel father, an air warden with spare-the-rod, spoil-the-child opinions on child-rearing.

  “But I’ve got a job, Dafydd,” she said. “And Lisbeth’s so happy with Mrs. McLeod when I’m on shift.”

  A jewel, Mrs. McLeod. She lived next door and coddled Lisbeth as if she were her own grandchild. She babysat on Friday nights so Kate and Dafydd could go out dancing—they’d both learned to dance local reels at Longhope. Mrs. McLeod rented them this cottage for a “pittance,” according to Dafydd. Took in their laundry. Baked for the men in Dafydd’s unit. The Orkney locals offered warmth and welcome—in contrast to the Brits on the base, who had never made Kate feel particularly comfortable.

  “It’s safer down there, and better for you and Lisbeth.”

  She didn’t want to argue during the precious time they had together.

  “Okay. But it’s harder for you to visit on leave,” she said, nibbling his neck. “And how would we play cowboys and Indians?”

  “You’re changing the subject.” He rubbed the baby’s back.

  “What about all your repressed British schoolboy urges? Don’t you want me to get out my cowgirl boots?”

  Dafydd grinned.

  “That’s why you married me,” she said. She wanted to snatch Lisbeth off his lap, tuck her in the crib and straddle him. “Admit it.”

  And for a moment his smiling eyes went serious. He took her hand, kissed it. “You’re unlike anyone I’ve ever known, Kate,” he said. “Who’d have thought I’d find a cowgirl in Paris. One I’ll never let go of.”

  He’d gone to Paris to paint and had come back to Britain with her instead of a portfolio.

  She draped her arm around his shoulder and pulled him close. Inhaled him—his musky smell she loved. “Like I’d let you?”

  “You’re the sexiest thing in boots this side of the pond,” Dafydd said. “If there are more like you in Oregon . . .”

  She nuzzled his cheek. “I’m the last one.”

  Lisbeth’s pale pink eyelids fluttered like butterfly wings. Kate leaned down to kiss her and felt Lisbeth’s little breaths hot on her cheek. Sometimes she couldn’t believe that she and Dafydd had made such a beautiful thing together.

  Lisbeth finally fell asleep with her favorite rattle and Kate and Dafydd ended up under the quilt, laughing and trying to be as quiet as they could. Later, warm in Dafydd’s arms, his legs wrapped around hers, she put away her worries until tomorrow.

  In the middle of the night, Lisbeth’s cries woke Kate. She cradled the baby and felt how warm her daughter was.

  She sponged her with cold cloths to cool her down. Crushed a quarter of Pulverette no. 67, the brown pill Mrs. McLeod swore by for its analgesic and fever reducing properties. Kate filled Lisbeth’s bottle with warm milk, added the crushed pill and shook it. Lisbeth drank little, listless and burning with fever. Fifteen minutes passed, but nothing had changed. Worried, Kate switched on the lamp and roused Dafydd.

  “Her fever’s high, Dafydd. We have to do something.”

  Lisbeth’s little legs and arms jerked in Kate’s arms. Then her eyes rolled up her head. Her body went limp. Panic filled Kate. Everything she’d been doing must have been wrong.

  They had no telephone but Mrs. McLeod did. “Go next door, call the doctor.”

  “She’s not there. She went to her daughter’s on the other side of the island this afternoon,” said Dafydd, pulling on his pants. “That’s a febrile convulsion.”

  “What?”

  “I had one as a child, my mother told me. Kate, the convulsion itself isn’t serious, but the danger is that it could mean meningitis.”

  People died from meningitis.

  Here she’d been trying to bring down the fever on her own, wasting precious time, when the situation was too serious for that.

  Kate grabbed his keys. “We’re taking her to Doctor Tavish.”

  They drove in Dafydd’s staff vehicle, a Tilly, an Austin converted into a military utility rust bucket, over the bumpy pitch-black country road, flying past blacked-out farmhouses and cottages. These were the accommodations Orkney could furnish naval families on wartime deployment on the island.

  It was a moonless night, the air thick with a web of fog. Dafydd cursed into the darkness as he drove. “Can’t see a bloody thing.”

  Kate grabbed a flashlight from the glove compartment. Its weak beam was little help. Lisbeth felt so warm, so still in her arms.

  On Rinnigill’s outskirts, she pointed to a dark stone cottage. “That’s Doctor Tavish’s.”

  Dafydd hit the brakes. Kate gathered Lisbeth to her chest, climbed down from the Tilly. Even in her fever Lisbeth was clutching her favorite rattle, which jingled softly as Kate ran up to knock on the cottage door. “Doctor Tavish?” No answer. “Please, Doctor Tavish, my baby’s sick. She’s burning with fever.”

  Still no answer. Dafydd took Lisbeth in his arms. Now Kate was yelling and pounding on the door. It felt like a very long time before the door opened to a yawning older woman in a dressing gown, her face lined with irritation.

  “Why are ye wakin’ me in th’ middle o’ th’ night?”

  Kate barely understood the woman’s Scottish dialect, but the meaning was clear. “I’m sorry but please, we need the doctor. My baby’s seriously ill.”

  “He’s doon at th’ pub ev’ry night.”

  Doon at th’ pub, that much Kate understood. She saw a doctor’s bag by the woman’s bare feet at the door.

  “May I just take his bag to him at the pub, would you mind?”

  “God be wi’ ye, lass.” The woman’s look had softened as she handed Kate the doctor’s bag. “Hope he’s nae had tae many pints.”

  Kate threw a thank-you over her shoulder as she hurried back to the Tilly, where Dafydd, Lisbeth crooked in one arm, had already started the ignition.

  “We’re almost there, Lisbeth,” Kate said, taking her back in her arms. Her heart pounded as she rocked her daughter, bracing herself against the door in the bare-bones two-seater. Dafydd hurtled through Rinnigill’s dark countryside, shifting into fourth gear and accelerating toward the pier.

  In the distance a loud explosion sounded from the middle of the dark harbor where the HMS Royal Oak warship anchored.

  “Is that an attack?”

  Before Dafydd could answer, a ship burst into flames, lighting the sky and the surrounding water.

  “Bloody hell, either the ship’s cordite exploded or a submarine got t
hrough the nets and torpedoed it.”

  Sirens wailed as they neared the pub on the pier. Kate trembled, feeling Lisbeth’s blanket damp with sweat against her chest. Searchlights were scanning the cold sky. A Red Cross truck flashed its headlights for them to get out of the way and shot ahead of them, then promptly stopped, blocking further progress down the narrow street to the pub. Rescue workers were unloading equipment and shouting instructions.

  “I can’t get any closer,” said Dafydd, pulling over in front of the post office. “It’s too cold outside for Lisbeth and the pub will be rowdy. Go fetch the doctor, we’ll wait here for you.” He opened his arms, collecting Lisbeth from Kate. His face was tearstained as he rocked her. Stricken, she realized he was right. Still she hated to leave them. But what else could she do?

  She kissed him hard.

  “Hurry, Kate.”

  She ran, passing the Red Cross truck, the rescue workers streaming to the pier—what a disaster—and pulled the pub door open.

  She squinted through a smoky haze. The pub resounded with raucous laughter and singing. Peaty smells emanated from the beamed fireplace.

  “Lookin’ fur a pint, missus?”

  “Where’s the doctor?”

  “What’s ’at ye say?”

  The place was so noisy she could hardly hear herself talk. “The doctor! It’s an emergency!” she shouted.

  “Over thar.” The barkeep pointed to the bearded man singing by the fire, a beer in his hand.

  She pushed by the laughing patrons, ignoring the invitations for a drink, if that’s what they were even saying to her. As she took the beer from the doctor’s hand and replaced it with his bag, the blacked-out windows in the pub shattered. Bottles fell, spraying whiskey on the bar. The crowd had quieted enough now to hear the wailing sirens.

  “We’re under attack,” someone shouted. Men stood and reached for their jackets.

  “Hurry, Doctor Tavish, come with me.” He stank of beer but she pulled the doctor’s hand and he stumbled out of the pub door. Behind them men were rushing out to the pier. “Please, it’s this way. My baby’s sick. She’s with my husband—they’re waiting around the corner.”