Chasing Ghosts Madalyn Morgan (free e books to read txt) 📖

‘Maybe she wasn’t in the prison. She could be someone Alain met after he had escaped, after he’d been shot. She might have helped to nurse him, or she could have been one of the drivers who brought him to Paris.’

Thomas picked up his napkin, dabbed at the corners of his mouth and laid it on the table. ‘Thank you for the meal,’ he said to Antoinette and Auguste. He then looked at Claire. ‘I have a friend who was in the Paris Maquis with me. He now lives in the north. I will arrange for him to take you to the prison. From there it will be easier to trace Alain’s steps and hopefully find the woman called Simone.’

And find Alain with her, Claire thought. Her heart plummeted.

‘Claire?’

‘Yes? I’m sorry. I--’

‘Begin with the doctor who saved his leg, and then talk to the Resistance guys who brought him to Paris. Someone must know who this woman is.’

‘Thank you, Thomas.’

‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said, getting up. ‘It might take a day or two to organise things, so use the time to relax. Go and see the sights.’ Claire nodded, though sight-seeing was the last thing she wanted to do.

Claire and Antoinette walked Thomas to the front door. With Antoinette’s arm around her shoulders, Claire watched the muscular Maquis leader open the driver’s door of his car and, holding onto the doorframe, swing himself onto the seat. It was snowing heavily but after a slippery start, the sporty Citroën was soon down the road and out of sight.

Claire and Antoinette quickly stepped inside out of the wind. Antoinette closed and locked the door and arm in arm the two friends returned to the dining room. ‘Let’s take a brandy through to the sitting room. Sit by the fire for ten minutes before we clear the table.’

Auguste took the decanter and a glass from the sideboard, indicating with a nod to Gabrielle that she should take the rest of the glasses and join them.

‘I had better not drink brandy,’ the young woman said, ‘I have a paper to write.’ She picked up two bell-shaped brandy glasses. ‘I’ll take these through, then clear the table and wash the dishes before I go up to study.’

‘No, you will not!’ Antoinette said, taking the glasses out of Gabrielle’s hands. ‘Take a glass of brandy upstairs, for when you’ve finished your paper, with pleasure,’ Gabrielle wrinkled her nose. ‘Then make yourself a mug of hot chocolate but go up and do your work. I am grateful for the help you give around the house, but you are here to study not to skivvy!’

‘Thank you,’ Gabrielle said, and poking her head around the sitting room door, called goodnight to Auguste.

A log fire blazed in the hearth warming Claire on the outside while the brandy warmed her on the inside. The three friends talked and laughed, discussed the changes that had taken place in both their countries since the autumn of 1945 when what the government and the newspapers were calling the Second World War ended. Claire didn’t like the phrase, it implied there might be a third, or even fourth, war. She hoped there wouldn’t be and shuddered.

‘Are you cold, Claire?’ Auguste asked.

‘No, not at all. I was thinking about the war, and the future.’

Paris was as exciting as Claire remembered - but much safer. There seemed to be little austerity, even though some things were still rationed. Shop windows advertised fashionable coats and shoes, couture gowns were displayed on slender-waisted mannequins and there were chic hats of every style and colour.

On the left bank of the Seine street artists attracted crowds as they painted buildings on the far side of the river or boats sailing on it. The two friends walked down to the Latin Quarter in the fifth arrondissement where they met Auguste for lunch.

The airy modern restaurant overlooked a cobbled square where every few yards there was a bench beneath an elm tree. A smart but casually dressed waiter in a white open neck shirt and grey slacks, instead of the traditional buttoned to the neck white shirt, black tie and black trousers - showed the trio to a table that was near enough to the window for Claire to watch the students in the square. Some were laughing, some were serious, some were simply eating their lunch, but they all had one thing in common - they were free.

‘How different life is today,’ Claire mused, watching dozens of young people from Paris’s universities larking about.

Auguste laughed. ‘Now they can speak without fear of being arrested, most of them don’t know when to stop. It seems everyone has an opinion,’ he said, shaking his head and laughing again.

‘A good thing too,’ Antoinette gently chided, ‘they were denied a voice for far too long.’

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Instead of carrying food around all day, Claire and Antoinette left the tram a couple of stops before Avenue St. Julien to buy bread and meat. Like England, some food was still rationed - and again like England, it was mostly food that was imported from abroad.

Arm in arm, Claire and Antoinette walked along Boulevard Victor Hugo. They passed the statue of the Duke of Orléans on his horse, a familiar landmark from the time Claire had spent with Antoinette and her parents in the war. Claire had many bittersweet memories from those days, but now was not the time to remember them.

She was surprised to see that the large apartment block en route to Antoinette’s house, which had been damaged by both enemy and allied bombs, had been pulled down. As she walked on she saw to her delight