The Third Woman. Mark Burnell
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Véronique was an ideal way to vanish from the street. No security cameras, no registration, no witnesses. Inside her home, Petra would have options; some brutal, some less so. But it was after four; there was no longer any pressing need for a Véronique.
Stephanie let her down gently with a version of the truth. ‘It’s too late for me. If only we’d met earlier.’
She turned left into rue Vieille du Temple. The shop was a little way down, the red and gold sign over the property picked out by three small lamps: Adler. And beneath that: boulangerie – patisserie.
Stephanie knocked on the door. Behind the glass a full-length blind had been lowered, fermé painted across it. A minute passed. Nothing. She tried again – still nothing – and was preparing for a third rap when she heard the approach of footsteps and a stream of invective.
The same height as Stephanie, he wore a creased pistachio shirt rolled up at the sleeves and a black waistcoat, unfastened. A crooked nose, a mash of scar around the left eye, thick black hair everywhere, except on his head. The last time, he’d had a ponytail. Not any more, the close crop a better cut to partner his encroaching baldness. There was a lot of gold; identity bracelets, a watch, chains with charms, a thick ring through the left ear-lobe. As Cyril Bradfield had once said to her, ‘He looks like the hardest man you’ve ever seen. And dresses like a tart.’
‘Hello, Claude.’
Claude Adler was too startled to reply.
‘I knew you’d be up,’ Stephanie said. ‘Four-thirty, every day. Right?’
‘Petra …’
‘I would’ve called, of course …’
‘Of course.’
‘But I couldn’t.’
‘This is … well … unexpected?’
‘For both of us. We need to talk.’
It was delightfully warm inside. Adler locked the door behind them and they walked through the shop, the shelves and wicker baskets still empty. The cramped bakery was at the back. Stephanie smelt it before she saw it; baguettes, sesame seed bagels, apple strudel, all freshly prepared, all of it reminding her that she hadn’t eaten anything since Brussels.
Adler took her upstairs to the apartment over the shop where he and his wife had lived for almost twenty years. He lit a gas ring for a pan of water and scooped ground coffee into a cafetière. There was a soft pack of Gauloises on the window-ledge. He tapped one out of the tear, offered it to her, then slipped it between his lips when she declined.
‘Is Sylvie here?’
‘Still asleep.’ He bent down to the ring of blue flame, nudging the cigarette tip into it, shreds of loose tobacco flaring bright orange. ‘She’ll be happy to see you when she gets up.’
‘I doubt it. That’s the reason I’m here, Claude. I’ve got bad news.’
Adler took his time standing. ‘Have you seen the TV? It seems to be the day for bad news.’
‘It is. Jacob and Miriam are dead.’
He froze. ‘Both?’
Stephanie nodded.
At their age, one was to be expected. Followed soon after, perhaps, by the other. But both together?
‘When?’
‘Last night.’
‘How?’
‘Violently.’
He began to shake his head gently. ‘It can’t be true.’
‘It is true.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I saw the police. The ambulances …’
‘You were there?’
‘Afterwards, yes.’
‘Did you see them?’
Stephanie shook her head.
‘Then perhaps …’
‘Trust me, Claude. They’re dead.’
He wanted to protest but couldn’t because he believed her. Even though she hadn’t seen the bodies. Even though he didn’t know her well enough to know what she did. Not exactly, anyway.
‘Who did it?’
‘I don’t know.’
He thought about that for a while. ‘So why are you here?’
‘Because I’m supposed to be dead too.’
Adler refilled their cups; hot milk first, then coffee like crude oil, introduced over the back of a spoon, a ritual repeated many times daily. Like lighting a cigarette. Which he now did for the fourth time since her arrival, the crushed stubs gathering on a pale yellow saucer.
Now that he’d absorbed the initial shock, Adler was reminiscing. Secondhand history, as related to him by Furst: the pipeline pumping Jewish refugees to safety; the false document factory he’d established in Montmartre; 14 June 1940, the day the Nazis occupied Paris; smuggling Miriam to Lisbon via Spain in the autumn of 1941; forging documents for the Resistance and then SOE. And finally, betrayal, interrogation, Auschwitz.
Adler scratched a jaw of stubble, some black, some silver. ‘He always said he was lucky to live. Listening to him tell it, I was never so sure.’ He stirred sugar into his coffee. ‘You survive something like that, the least you expect is to be left alone to die of natural causes. Fuck it, he was nearly ninety.’
‘You’re right.’
‘You know what I admired most about him?’
‘What?’
He drew on his cigarette and then exhaled over the tip. ‘That it never occurred to him to leave. From 1939 on, he could’ve run. But he didn’t. He chose to stay behind, to create false documents to help others escape. He knew the risks better than most. Yet even when they got Miriam out, it never crossed his mind to go with her.’
‘That was the kind of man he was. Silently courageous. Understated.’
‘True. He was a man who believed in community. His community.’
‘Talking of which, did Jacob ever go back to Sentier?’
Adler stared at her. ‘That’s a blunt question on a morning like this.’
‘That’s why I’m asking it, Claude.’
He shrugged. ‘Not so much, I don’t think. Not since he sold the shop.’
‘I saw it yesterday.’
‘What?’
‘The shop. In Passage du Caire. Part of the sign is still above the entrance. At least, it was. It’s not any more.’
Adler’s jaw dropped. ‘You were there?’
‘Moments before the explosion, yes.’
‘My God … why?’
‘To see Jacob. He called me the night before last and asked me to come to Paris. He said it was important. He wanted to meet at La Béatrice. I turned up. He didn’t.’
‘At La Béatrice? That used to be his favourite place.’
‘I know.’
‘A coincidence?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine.’
Adler’s gaze drifted out of the window. ‘We were up all night watching the news. Twelve dead, fifty injured. We were wondering who we’d know.’ He looked her up and down. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You’d