With a feeling of relief she watched them dissolve into a swirl of colour; after a moment she felt the fractional increase in gravity which told her she was back on Earth.
She looked around, frowned. The room she was standing in seemed familiar. There was a leather armchair in front of a long-dead fire, a heavy wooden desk, a leaded window showing a view of brick walls and a dimly lit courtyard under a deep blue sky. A clock on the wall said six forty-five.
"Fifteen seconds," whispered Sutton. He and Betts crouched down, one under the table, the other behind the cover of the armchair. The muzzles of their rifles protruded from their hiding-places.
"Should I take cover, sir?" asked Summerfield.
"Stay where you are," came the whispered reply. But the words were redundant: Summerfield could feel her instructions forming in her mind as the Recruiter"s servants released the information.
She relaxed a little. The situation was still dangerous, but at least she knew what to do now.
A faint whistling, groaning noise began, echoing despite the small size of the room and the plush furnishings.
Summerfield felt a trickle of fear, and at the same time, contrarily, an odd, rea.s.suring sense of familiarity. She fought the familiarity, the rea.s.surance, knowing that they were the enemy.
The noise grew louder. A pale shape appeared in the middle of the room, thickened to become a large blue box with a light flashing on top of it. With a thud that shook the room, the box became solid, real. The light went out.
Summerfield waited for the Doctor to emerge, as she knew he almost certainly would. She pulled her sidearm out of its holster, checked that it was loaded. She was going to have to be careful here.
The door of the box opened, and a small man in a rumpled white suit, blue shirt and purple tie stepped out.
Instantly, Lieutenant Sutton and Sergeant Betts scrambled out from their improvised cover, jabbed their rifles at the newcomer. Summerfield took aim as well, just to be on the safe side.
He glanced from one to the other of them, then doffed his hat politely, said, "h.e.l.lo, I"m the Doctor and this is my friend Benny. I wonder if -"
Sutton ignored him, looked at Summerfield. "Sergeant?"
Summerfield nodded. "That"s him all right." She grinned.
"You can bet he"ll be the source of any interference that"s going on."
Sutton grabbed hold of the Doctor. Betts shoved the Recruiter field activator against his chest and held it there, but the Doctor didn"t seem to notice. He was staring at Summerfield as if seeing her properly for the first time. Oddly enough he wasn"t looking at the gun in her hand, but at a point a few centimetres above her eyes. Uncomfortably, she wiped her free hand across her forehead, felt the b.u.mps of the fresh training scars there.
They must look worse than they feel, she thought, for him to be staring at them like that. She wanted to tell him that it was all right, the scars didn"t hurt that badly and she felt as right as rain; but it wasn"t appropriate to talk like that to a prisoner.
The room was filling with rainbow colours as the Recruiter began to bring them home. But the Doctor wasn"t taking any notice; he was still staring at Summerfield.
"What have I let them do to you, Benny?" he asked suddenly, then suddenly crumpled in his captors" arms, shouting in what seemed to be a near-insane fury with himself. "What have I done? What have I done done?"
Book Two
Marching Orders
Chapter 7.
Amalie Govier added a little more salt to the cooking pot, then resumed stirring, pushing the wooden spoon round and round, letting herself relax in the steady heat radiating from the iron stove. Today had been a good day. Today the detectives had visited her again, as they had, without fail, every month since Gabrielle"s disappearance. And, better still, this time she had been able to help them. She smiled as she recalled the eager expression on the young man"s face when she"d mentioned the teddy bear she"d bought in Touleville, and later the negro woman"s satisfied nod when she"d taken the bear out of its packaging and examined it with the torchlike device. They hadn"t said anything directly, but it was clear that finding the bear was a big step forward in their investigation.
Perhaps they will find Gabrielle at last, thought Amalie.
Please G.o.d they will.
The big wooden door of the kitchen rattled open, and Nadienne walked in. The bulge in her belly was quite obvious now, and around the house she was wearing a loose print dress made for comfort rather than fashion. She smiled at Amalie.
"We do employ a cook, Auntie."
"I thought it would do her good to have an evening off,"
replied Amalie. In fact, Nadienne"s cook had most evenings off: Amalie enjoyed cooking. But she left the dirty implements in the sink, though she would rather have cleaned them herself, just so that Madame Detaze had something to do.
That way everyone"s pride was satisfied, and the portly cook, widowed in the war as Amalie had been, could go courting her new gentleman friend on the warm September evenings.
Nadienne"s remark, of course, was part of the game. So was her smile, and her half-hearted attempt to push Amalie aside from her position at the stove.
Amalie shook her head, jokingly patted Nadienne"s swollen belly. "You don"t want to stand too long with that," she said. "Believe me, I know."
"Five minutes won"t hurt me! It"s only six months."
"Tush! Everyone knows it"s eight!"
Nadienne blushed, and gave way, sitting down heavily on the one wooden chair in the kitchen, which was positioned by the door to the garden. That door was open, letting in a cool breeze. Nasturtiums hung around the outside of the door, framing the deep blue of the evening sky, their big round leaves waving gently. A few flowers remained, their yellow and orange colours deep and rich in the light from the kitchen lamps.
"Where"s Jean-Pierre?" asked Amalie.
"Gone over to Septangy for Henri and Mich.e.l.le." Despite the breeze, Nadienne had pulled a fan from her pocket and was waving it about in front of her face. "He"s ever so proud of his new car, he"ll think of any excuse to drive it."
Amalie smiled, remembering Nicolas and a white horse called Salamande, back in the early days. Men were all the same.
She became aware of footsteps on the path outside the garden door. Nadienne had heard them too: she was twisting round in her seat, looking over her shoulder. "It"s a soldier,"
she said. "English, I think."
Amalie frowned. "What would a soldier be doing here?"
Something fluttered in her stomach. A soldier meant trouble.
A soldier meant death.
She shook her head, told herself not to be silly.
Outside, there was the sound of someone knocking on the front door. "h.e.l.lo! Is anyone home?" A man"s voice, with a strong English accent. Amalie belatedly remembered that the manservant, Georges, was out in the vineyard, checking the ripeness of his precious grapes, and wouldn"t be answering the door. She lifted the cooking pot on to a cooler part of the stove top, then walked around Nadienne"s chair into the dim coolness of the garden. Above the high tops of the michaelmas daisies, she saw the man standing with his back to her at the main door of the house.
"h.e.l.lo! Can I help you?" she called.
The man turned round, traced his way along the flagstones that skirted the flowerbeds, his soldier"s boots clicking on the stone. He stopped a pace away from Amalie and saluted.
"Good evening, ma"am," he said in his accented French.
"I"m Sergeant Dale of the British Army Special Investigations Unit. I don"t like to trouble you, but I wonder if you could spare a few minutes to help with an enquiry I"m making in this area?"
Amalie stared at the man, frowned. There was something about the expression in the man"s grey eyes that was familiar. She couldn"t remember where she"d seen it before, but - The fluttering feeling returned to her stomach.
"Certainly," she said, managing to keep the nervousness out of her voice. "Come in a moment."
Nadienne was standing in the doorway, her face flushed.
"What is it about?"
"You needn"t worry," said Dale calmly, stepping past her into the kitchen. "It only concerns Madame Govier."
How did he know my name? Amalie felt her stomach clench, tight. There was a roaring in her ears. Amalie felt her stomach clench, tight. There was a roaring in her ears.
"Is it to do with Gabrielle?" she asked aloud. Have you found Gabrielle?"
The sergeant shook his head. "We"ve heard about the disappearance of your daughter, Madame Govier. Believe me, we"re sorry for your distress."
He doesn"t sound sorry, thought Amalie. And he doesn"t look sorry. His face is calm. Too calm. If only I could remember - "But I"m afraid this is a different matter," Dale went on.
"We"re looking for a couple of fraudsters. A man, and a negro woman claiming to be Americans. They may also be claiming to be private detectives."
Amalie knew that she had to sit down then. She collapsed on to the wooden chair by the door.
"You"ve seen them?" Dale"s voice, from somewhere to her left. He sounded oddly far away.
"Auntie?" Nadienne was standing in front of her. She raised her eyebrows slightly, and Amalie knew what she was asking: what shall I tell him? what shall I tell him?
Amalie looked over her shoulder, saw the sergeant standing there in front of the oak dresser, his face impa.s.sive.
A deep gut instinct told her to tell him nothing, to get him away from here. But she knew that he had already guessed the truth, and his next words confirmed it.
"They were here today?"
Amalie nodded, though her instincts howled in protest.
What else could she do? The man was official, wasn"t he?
And Cwej and Forrester were most certainly unofficial.
But they"re my friends friends.
Dale was pulling a notebook out of the pocket of his uniform shirt, stepping forward so that he was standing in front of her, beside Nadienne. "When did they arrive?"
Amalie shrugged. "They arrived for breakfast. And they left about an hour ago."
"Have they been regular visitors?"
"Once a month. The sixteenth."
Dale nodded, wrote rapidly in his notebook. Amalie remembered Cwej, sitting in the auberge auberge six months before, also writing rapidly. Her throat tightened painfully at the memory. six months before, also writing rapidly. Her throat tightened painfully at the memory.
"Are you sure they"re fraudsters?" she said aloud. "I trusted them. They just talked, asked how I was, told me a little about their investigation. They didn"t take any money."
She glanced at Nadienne, as if for rea.s.surance: the young woman shook her head. "Not a centime, as far as I know. Unless my father was paying them, but I doubt it."
Dale seemed unmoved. "What did they say about their investigation?"
Amalie frowned. "Oh - just general things. They were rea.s.suring." She looked up at Dale"s face, met the grey English eyes. "I needed rea.s.surance, monsieur. I still do."
Dale nodded. "Of course. I understand."
But your eyes don"t understand, monsieur, thought Amalie. Why don"t they? Have you no children?
"Nevertheless I must know what they told you," Dale went on, remorseless. Did they mention an investigation in England?"
Amalie jumped, though she supposed that she shouldn"t have been surprised, given the nationality of the sergeant.
She wondered how much she should tell him, how much he already knew.
"England, yes," she shrugged. "And Austria, Germany, even Russia. They said it was a worldwide conspiracy."
Did they say where they were going, when they left you?"
They had; Cwej had told her that they were meeting the Doctor and travelling to England. But Amalie decided that the time had come to lie. She wasn"t going to betray her friends to this cold-eyed man.
She shook her head. "They never told me their plans."
She gave a half-glance at Nadienne, hoped that the younger woman would understand it.