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Maddie studied the map beneath a tent she et as far as she could tell The glaring prison fence was close to a railway bridge over a river which should have been the turning-back point Maddie switched off the torch and stared out of the , her night vision ruined by trying to read the map But she could tell they had turned back
‘You didn’t need my help after all,’ she said, and passed him back his torch and map
‘I’d have just played follow-my-leader after Jamie all the way to Paris if you hadn’t re to Paris, is he?’
Michael said enviously, ‘He won’t get to buzz the Eiffel Tower, but he’s picking up a couple of Parisian agents He’ll have to land well outside the city’ Then Michael added in aThat prison gave ht place, and then –’
‘You were,’ said Maddie
‘I’,’ Michael repeated
He said it a third tiland two hours later The relieved squadron leader grinned and nodded tolerantly as he welcoht?’
‘A piece of cake, apart from the bit at the end where the pinpoint turned out to be next to a ruddy great prison!’
The squadron leader laughed ‘I’ll say you did find your way That always coh Or did you have help?’
‘He found it all hih for letting ’
‘April in Paris, eh?’
‘Nearly as good as’ Maddie ached for Paris, imprisoned, inaccessible, remote
‘Not this year Perhaps next!’
Michael went to bed whistling Maddie found her way through the darkened Cottage with his tune stuck in her head After a nised it as ‘The Last Ti
It was nearly four o’clock in thewith elation, Maddie crept into the roo with Queenie She checked the blackout blinds were down and then lit a candle, not wanting to put on the lights and wake her friend if Queenie was asleep But Queenie’s bed was eht Queenie’s small travel case stood unopened by the foot of the bed where Maddie herself had set it down earlier Whatever Queenie was here to do, she was still doing it
Maddie put on her pyjamas and pulled the blankets up to her chin, her ht and the silver Seine She did not sleep
Queenie came in at half past five She didn’t think about whether or not she’d wake Maddie; she didn’t even check that the blinds were down She snapped on the electric light overhead, heaved her travel case on to the bare bureau and hauled out the regulation WAAF pyjamas and a hairbrush Then she sat down in front of the mirror and stared at herself
Maddie stared too
Queenie was different Her hair was pinned up as usual, but not in the signature French chignon twist she’d been wearing when Maddie had left her last night Queenie’s hair was scraped back severely froht bun at the nape of her neck It wasn’t flattering It made her seem plainer, and her face waseither There was a harshness to the set of her mouth that Maddie had never seen before
Maddie watched Queenie laid down the hairbrush and slowly took off her blue WAAF tunic After acautious, not slow – h it were painful to stretch her shoulders She took off her blouse
One ar purple, the clear, brutal o for soly ht the way round Soo
She touched her throat gently and stretched her neck, exae in the small mirror on the dresser The roohed and inched herself into the cotton shirt of hercautiously Then she stood up, incautiously this tihtly bound hair With a vicious scrape of the back of one hand she scrubbed the beige lipstick from her mouth Suddenly she looked very h she’d pulled off aat her
‘Hullo,’ Queenie said with a crooked smile ‘I didn’t mean to wake you’
‘You didn’t’ Maddie waited She knew better than to ask what had happened
‘You saw?’
Maddie nodded
‘Doesn’t hurt,’ Queenie said fiercely ‘Not ht Had to do a bit e –’
She scrabbled abruptly in her tunic for her cigarettes Maddie watched quietly Queenie sat down on the end of Maddie’s bed and lit a cigarette with hands that shook a little
‘Guess where I ith the lads tonight,’ Maddie said
‘To the pub?’
‘To France’
Queenie spun round to stare at her and saw the sky and theup Maddie’s eyes
‘France!’