The Caves of Périgord: A Novel

Jacquot, and stayed there? That would have done it.”
    “We were both glad to get home, and you know it,” said Jacquot. “I thought I’d had my share of German bullets, last time.”
    “You’re just going to have to remember how to dodge them, Jacquot,” said Manners, relieved to have a name for the man. “I rely on the old soldiers like you to teach the young ones how to do it.” He put his empty glass on the table, thanked Boridot, and turned to go. Sybille rose too, and in automatic courtesy, he asked if he could escort her anywhere.
    “You seem determined to get me arrested, monsieur,” she laughed, as he helped her don a thick jacket of black wool. “Yes, I’d be pleased if you rode with me. But if we see any Germans, you have to promise to jump over the hedge.”
    “No bloody Germans round here,” called Jacquot as they left. “We killed the bastards.”
    They rode in single file up the cart track, her bicycle even older than his, but well cared for, the chain oiled and no rust on the wheel rims. He rode behind her, looking at the neat ankles that disappeared into her boots, the well-shaped rump above the basket that was tied above the rear wheel, filled with the straw to protect the eggs Boridot had given her.
    “I can’t give you any parachute silk,” he said as they reached the wider track and he could pedal along beside her. “It’s a firm rule. Security, you understand.” She snorted. “But I promise to buy you a set of the finest silk lingerie in Paris when this war is over.”
    “Very well, monsieur, I will accept that as my fee for treating Jacquot and all the others I fear you will be sending me. You must buy them from Lanvin, if you please. And how many Frenchwomen have you promised such a gift?”
    “Just you. I’m not sure I could afford the amount of silk that some of these farmers’ wives might need. A lot of them seem to take very large sizes.”
    “That’s an insult to French womanhood,” she replied, and he couldn’t tell if she were joking. She spoke again. “I won’t ask where you are heading, but you’d better wait before we reach the road to le Bugue, and then follow me. There may be a Milice patrol. I presume you have papers—you had better tell me the name on them.”
    “I think I should turn off before le Bugue, rather than ride through it,” he said. “The name on my papers is Alain Guyon, but I’d like you to know my real name—Manners, Jack Manners.”
    “Jacques. But to be known as Alain,” she said. “Well, Jacques, if you don’t follow me you’d miss the chance of a perfect omelet, and I’d miss the chance of another of your cigarettes.” She grinned at him, and suddenly she did not look plain at all. “I can imagine the kind of food you boys make for yourselves. Come back and eat. Go through the town and past the church to the square where the men play boules . Just across the street you’ll see the sign for the vet. Use the surgery entrance. I’ll put up the ‘closed’ sign if there’s any sign of trouble.”
    “Now you wait here until I’m out of sight,” she added. “And one more thing, Monsieur Jacques.”
    “Yes,” he said, nervously, not sure of himself now that she had suddenly taken charge.
    “You might want to hide your gun before you cycle into the town.”

CHAPTER 10
Time: The Present
    T he Château Malrand looked imposing as they first drove up the long gravel drive from the road, but then it seemed curiously to get smaller the closer they approached. It was not at all as grandiose as Lydia had expected of the country residence of the President of France. Her sense of proportion was jolted again as she suddenly realized that the drive was taking them past the formal garden and what she had not realized was the rear of the building, and around the side to deposit them abruptly into the entrance yard. What from the rear had been a reasonably proportioned seventeenth-century building with three stories and a turret with a pointed spire became from the front something shrunken. There was a narrow, almost mean little door on the ground floor into the base of the turret. And then a stone staircase began by being as wide as their car and then shrank to the width of a single person as it reached the main entrance on the first floor. It was topped incongruously by a small glass portico, an afterthought to keep off the rain while waiting for the door to be answered.
    As Manners parked the Jaguar, Lydia looked behind