Their work was a good cover, as groceries had to be delivered on special bikes, with a huge basket built onto the front. No matter what messages they were asked to take where, they would simply look as though they were delivery girls.

They were passed off as nieces of a cousin of Madame Bachelet. They’d listened many times to Madame relay to customers how her cousin, who lived on the outskirts of Paris in the Saint-Denis area, had fled the country and left the girls to make their way down to her for help. ‘My cousin brought them up, as both of her sisters – who were my cousins too, of course – died: Margarita’s mama at her birth, and Sibilia’s in a car accident when Sibilia was just one year old. Their fathers married again, and in the beginning rarely visited their daughters, until one day their visits ceased. My cousin was good to the girls, but dared not take them with her. She had an English husband and had to go with him. A whole family would have attracted too much attention. So she gave the girls my address and told them to come to me. It is a great burden, but what can I do? Still, they are making themselves useful.’

* * *

‘Sibbie, you’re getting so good at this. It only takes you a few minutes to freckle me now, when it took almost half an hour the first time.’

‘Keep still, Marjie. When you talk, you move your cheeks.’

‘Of course I do!’

‘Well, shut up then.’

The disguise was very important, as Marjie was not far from an area where she was well known. Not in Narbonne itself, which lay some thirty-six miles from Laurens, where her home was, although people Marjie knew did travel there, for whatever reason, and she must not be recognized.

They had kept their cover names from their training days – Margarita for Marjie and Sibilia for Sibbie – which made things very easy for them, as they could continue using the same nicknames they had for each other. All in all, they had settled into their roles well, but both of them so wanted to be sent on their first mission.

When the coded message arrived a week later, they were excited to realize it was from their Uncle Arnie, but fearful as to whether they were doing the right thing by obeying the order. ‘Be at the cathedral for one p.m. Bring essentials. A.’

‘Essentials’ were their papers and what they’d come to look on as the tools of their trade: the component for activating a radio transmitter; a pen that was really a knife; a strangulation cord, which was threaded through a seam of their coat sleeve and could be quickly accessed; and their special boots, with the parts of a gun that could be speedily assembled concealed in the heels.