She tried combing the girl’s hair into some semblance of a style and Sarah said, “What’s it been like?”
“Not good, but not too bad if you behave yourself. Plenty of people think the Germans are all right and a lot of the time they are, but step out of line and see what happens. You have to do as you’re told, you see. They even made the Jersey States pass anti-Semitic laws. A lot of people try to excuse it by saying all the Jews had left, but I know two living in St. Brelade now.”
“What happens if the German authorities discover them?”
“God knows. We’ve had people sent off to those concentration camps we hear about for keeping Russian slave workers who were on the run. I have a friend, a teacher at Jersey College for Girls, whose father kept an illegal radio. She used to spread the BBC news around to her friends until an anonymous letter brought the Gestapo to the house. They sent her to prison in France for a year.”
“An anonymous letter? You mean from a local person? But that’s terrible.”
“You get bad apples in every barrel, Sarah. Jersey is no different from anywhere else in that respect. And weVe got the other kind as well. The postmen at the sorting office who try to lose as many of the letters addressed to Gestapo Headquarters as possible.” She finished combing. “There, that’s the best I can do.”
Sarah sat down, pulled on silk stockings and fastened them. “My God!” Helen said. “I haven’t seen anything like that for four years. And that dress.” She helped Sarah pull it over her head and zipped it up. “You and Martineau. What’s the situation there? He’s old enough to be your father.”
“My father he very definitely is not.” Sarah smiled as she pulled on her shoes. “He’s probably the most infuriating man IVe ever met and the most fascinating.”
“And you sleep with him?”
“I am supposed to be Vogel’s tart. Aunt Helen.”
“And to think that the last time 1 saw you, you had pigtails,” Helen said.
In the kitchen, she put two spoonfuls of her precious China tea into the pot, but Gallagher made his excuses. “I’ll go and put Mrs. Vibert off,” he said. “It’ll only complicate things having her around. Always the chance she might recognize you, Sarah. She knew you well enough, God knows.”
He went out and Helen, Sarah and Martineau sat around the table drinking tea and smoking. There was a knock at the door. When Helen opened it, Willi Kleist stood there.
Martineau got up. “You want me?”
“WeVe brought your Kubelwagen, Standartenfuhrer,” Kleist told him.
Martineau went out to have a look at it. The canvas top was up and the body was camouflaged. He looked inside and said, “That seems satisfactory.”
Ernst Greiser was sitting behind the wheel jf a black Citroen. Kleist said, “If there’s anything else we can do…”
“I don’t think so.”
“By the way. Captain Muller wanted me to tell you he’s spoken to Colonel Heine, the military commandant. Apparently he’ll be at the Town Hall this afternoon if you’d care to call in and see him.”
“Thank you, I will.”
They drove away and Martineau went back inside. “Transport problems taken care of. I’ll go into town this afternoon, call on the military commandant, then Muller and his friends at this Silvertide place.”
“You’d better go in with him and get your hair done,” Helen told Sarah. “There’s a good hairdresser at Charing Cross. You can tell her I sent you.” She turned to Martineau. “Very convenient. It’s close to the Town Hall.”
“Fine,” he said, “except for one thing. She mustn’t say you sent her. In the circumstances that would be quite wrong.” He got up. “I feel like a breath of air. How about showing me round the estate, Sarah?”
“A good idea,” Helen said. “I’ve got things to do. I already had eight to cook for tonight so I’ve got my work cut out. I’ll see you later.”
After leaving de Ville Place, Kleist and Greiser started down the road, but after about a quarter of a mile, the inspector touched the young man on the arm. “Let’s pull in here, Ernst. Stick the car in that track over there. We’ll take a walk back through the woods.”