The 31 Kings Episode 25

Wending our way past squares and parks, we saw trenches that had been dug months before to provide shelter against a bombardment that now would never come.

On some of the side streets dispirited civilians were pulling down barricades which had been rendered futile by the surrender of the city. I felt as if we were driving through the aftermath of a battle that had already been lost. It was such a bleak spectacle, I was glad when Dougal broke the silence inside the car.

“Since we’re here to find this Roland character, it would help if we knew a bit more about him.”

“Roland is a false name he uses to keep his true identity safe from the Germans,” I said. “So we know very little about him.”

“Mr Blenkiron has a hunch as to his true identity,” Jaikie added, “and if he’s correct, then I was acquainted with the man at Cambridge.”

“And that man would be...?” Dougal prompted.

Jaikie shook his head gravely. “I’m under orders not to speak his name. For one thing, the fewer of us who know, the more secure he is.

“For another, if Mr Blenkiron’s hunch is wrong, then I would be misleading Mr Hannay and the rest of you, sending you off on a false trail while time ticks away.”

His fellow Die-hards were clearly unhappy with this secrecy, but I came to Jaikie’s defence.

“I think you and Blenkiron have reasoned this out correctly. I have some leads of my own to follow, and you, Jaikie, must know the habits of your old college friend.”

He nodded. “That I do. Knowing what his passions and pastimes are, I can try to pick up his trail from that.”

“What about the rest of us?” enquired Dougal, not entirely pacified.

“You’ll establish a command base for us at the Louis Quinze hotel,” I instructed. “We need to be assured of supplies and transport for a speedy getaway once we’ve found Roland.”

The habitually silent Thomas spoke up. “And we had best try to discover what is the safest route out of the city.”

“The Germans are closing in from all sides,” said Peter gruffly, “but if there is a way out, I’d trust you to find it, Thomas.”

“Let me off here,” I said as we drove down the Boulevard de Clichy. “I have an errand to run close by.”

Dougal pulled in at the kerb. “Should we not go with you?”

“A whole gang of us moving around together will be too conspicuous,” I said. “You go on to the hotel and I’ll meet you there.”

Blenkiron had given me the address of a contact of his, the man who had acted as an intermediary for Mr Roland. With the city at least half deserted, I had a notion that enemy agents would be able to act with increasing impunity, and I did not want to tip my hand by having the Diehards in my company. Should anything happen to me, they would still be free to carry on with the mission.

Jaikie wished me luck as I climbed out and they drove off down the Rue Fontaine into town. Outside the confines of the car I became even more aware of the taut atmosphere pervading the city. In spite of the diamond bright sky and the fresh summer breeze, the air itself felt heavy with an awful oppression.

On my visits to Paris during the last war, the city had defiantly maintained its gaiety in spite of the battles raging to the north and east. The enemy had been stopped at the gates and the very survival of Paris was a cause for celebration with every new sunlit day.

Now as I walked through Montmartre, even the Sacré-coeur, in all its lofty beauty, looked lonely and as fragile as an eggshell.

The few people I passed in the street avoided my gaze and hunched their shoulders as though weighted down by the imminence of disaster. A line from The Pilgrim’s Progress ran through my mind, a passage that spoke of “the powers and terrors of what is yet unseen”.

I passed a closed-up butcher’s shop and a bakery that was open for business, though there were only a few loaves and some stale croissants on display. The breeze brought a scent of burning and I saw rising above the rooftops the smoke of several bonfires. I wondered if they were intended as a signal or a warning.

Then, as I rounded the corner I heard the voices of two men, their speech loud and slurred. They had a young woman pressed against a wall and were offering her a swig of wine. Each had an open bottle in his hand and more bottles protruded from their coat pockets. I had an intuition that none of these had been paid for but were looted from an abandoned shop.

When I hailed them they turned their bleary eyes upon me and I guessed that they had begun their day with a breakfast of wine and intended to continue with this diet until the invaders arrived.

I saw now that the woman had a pretty, slender face, with bright coral lipstick decorating her generous mouth. Her blonde hair was fashionably done up in curls and she wore a feathered bonnet that matched the colour of her jade green jacket and skirt. She looked uneasy rather than frightened, but I still felt she was in need of assistance.

“My friends, you should not offer wine to my sister,” I informed them in my most affable French.

“Your sister?” one of them bleated in surprise.

‘Yes, I have told her so many times not to wander out by herself.’ I drew closer. ‘But will she listen? No!’

‘Your sister?’ the other drunkard repeated blankly.

“Yes, she is forever finding ways to make trouble. Why, even a drop of wine turns her into a very she-devil. I once saw her smash a bottle across a man’s face because he spilled the merest drop of coffee on to her wrap.”

“You need to take care of her,” the first man advised me in an overly serious tone. They were both backing away and I saw a quirk of amusement on the young woman’s lips.

“Ah, Joseph, you never let me have any fun,” she pouted.

“What you call fun, the police call criminal assault,” I informed her severely.

More on Monday.

I once saw her smash a bottle across a man’s face because he spilled the merest drop of coffee on to her wrap

The Thirty-one Kings by Robert J Harris is published by Polygon and available in ebook and audio formats. His latest novels are Buchan-inspired adventure Castle Macnab, (£8.99, pbk) and A Study in Crimson, a new Sherlock Holmes mystery (£12.99, hbk) birlinn.co.uk