Page 75 of Shadows In Paris
‘I’ve got a horrible feeling it might be something to do with us.’
They left the flat as they had found it, storing the radio inits hiding place. A door opened a crack on a lower floor as they trod quietly down the stairs, but no one showed their face. They kept moving. This was occupied Paris. Always someone watching and informing.
The neighbour would have seen a young couple—the French woman’s arm looped through the man’s as they walked down the stairs.
The freezing air hit Lizzie in the face as she stepped outside into the courtyard that led to the parade of shops.
‘Let’s try to get some bread from the baker’s and we can read the poster whilst we wait,’ Hannah whispered.
They crossed the courtyard, acting like a young married couple.
Lizzie took a sharp intake of breath as Hannah’s face stared back at her from the printed poster:
Wanted. Murderer and Enemy of the Reich. Reward for Information.
‘At least it’s just me they are after,’ Hannah whispered. ‘That’s what we hoped for. It means they don’t suspect you and Celine, or they’d have your faces up there too.’
‘True. I was worried about Celine. What shall we do?’
‘Stick to our plan.’
Lizzie glanced at Hannah. Her disguise as a dark-haired man with a moustache and spectacles was brilliant. No one would imagine she was the major general’s beautiful blonde secretary.
They were early enough to be amongst the baker’s first customers, and they left the shop with a delicious smelling bounty of their ration of freshly baked baguettes.
‘I’m starving, but let’s get across the city before we eat,’ Hannah said.
They retrieved their bicycles and Hannah put the bread inher basket. Lizzie’s stomach rumbled at the mouth-watering smells from the bakery.
The city was waking up and Parisians who had kept their businesses going, either by collaborating with the Nazis, or by selling what people needed in wartime, were setting up for the day. The ground was slippery, snow hadn’t fallen overnight, and the temperature was below zero. By the time they crossed town, Lizzie’s hands were blue-tinged and felt like icicles.
The military presence was heavy as more and more soldiers piled onto the streets and stuck posters of Hannah’s face on trees and buildings.
Lizzie and Hannah rested for a minute and ate a few chunks of fluffy baguette.
‘That was a good idea to choose a dark wig. You’d be more recognisable as a blond man,’ Lizzie whispered.
‘This is a disguise I’ve used during the past year. I have identity papers too, so I had no choice but to stick with dark hair, which is just as well now I’m so famous.’
Lizzie admired Hannah’s stoic attitude, but the more posters and soldiers they saw spilling onto the streets, the sicker she felt. There was a high chance they wouldn’t get out of this alive, and she thought of the goodbye letter she had written to her family. She had written it before leaving on her first mission and couldn’t recall exactly what she’d said. Lizzie decided that if she made it out alive, she would write a letter to replace the old one. The innocent Jersey girl who had written it, had no idea what she was facing, and if she lost her life during one of her missions, she wanted to leave a message for her parents that reflected the woman she had become fighting with the Allies, not the girl she used to be.
‘I think they are locking down the city. Come, we must hurry,’ Hannah said, shoving the rest of their bread into the basket. ‘We can eat when we’re safe.’
The Seine swelled from the chill winds on the river and the sky was an ominous grey. Summer was a distant memory, and Lizzie trembled with a combination of cold and fear as two Wehrmacht soldiers bore down on them.
‘Stop right there,’ snapped one, holding up a hand.
CHAPTER 39
‘Is something wrong?’ Hannah asked the soldier, who held out his hand expectantly for their papers.
Lizzie blinked as she heard a man’s voice emerge from Hannah’s throat. What a chameleon she was.
‘You tell me.’ The soldier spoke passable French with a thick German accent. ‘Do you know anything about the woman in that poster?’
Hannah shrugged her shoulders with a touch of insolence. ‘Why would I?’
‘I’m asking the questions, not you,’ the soldier replied as he shuffled their papers in his hands.
