Chapter 40

Hélène had her breakfast in bed the next morning and asked Annette to stay with her while she ate. In fact she hardly ate anything, simply drank some coffee and picked at a warm pastry Madame Paquet had sent up in the hope of tempting her appetite, but after one mouthful she pushed it away.

‘I can’t,’ she said listlessly. ‘I can’t eat.’

‘You can’t not,’ Annette said in a rallying voice. ‘You have to keep up your strength for tonight if we’re to put our plan into action. And after your nightmare last night, we really have to get you away.’

‘It was only a dream,’ Hélène answered. ‘I used to get them when I was younger.’

‘I know, you used to wake us up with your screams at St Luke’s!’

‘Did I? I’d forgotten.’ She sighed. ‘I can’t remember when I last had one, but it was exactly the same dream.’ And she described it to Annette.

Annette shuddered. ‘Well, we know what caused it last night, don’t we? Listen, Hélène, you’ve always had the courage of a lion. Don’t give in now. You’ve still got one chance.’

‘Running away is the coward’s way out,’ murmured Hélène.

‘And staying is the fool’s,’ Annette assured her. ‘We’ve got it all planned. All we have to do is creep out during the night and get to the station in time to catch the first train to Paris. Once we’re there, even if he does come looking he’ll never find us. We shall be swallowed up by the city.’

‘But we’ve nowhere to go,’ sighed Hélène. ‘It’s no good.’

‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong,’ Annette said. ‘We have got somewhere to go.’

‘Where?’

‘It’s not my secret,’ Annette told her, ‘but I can promise you, Simon Barnier will not find us.’ She noticed a gleam of interest, or possibly hope, in Hélène’s eye and went on, ‘While you’re all at dinner, I’ll pack a bag for you. We can’t take much, as we have to carry our own luggage, but enough to keep us going for a few weeks.’

‘And what happens after that?’

‘We stay safely away until we hear that he’s given up looking and gone back to Gavrineau. Then we can return to Belair, or perhaps go back and live in the Avenue Ste Anne for a while until all the furore dies down.’ She reached and grasped Hélène’s hands in hers. They were like ice and she began rubbing them gently between her own, encouraging the blood to return to them. ‘Tonight, when everyone has gone to bed, I’ll come and fetch you and we’ll leave the house through the kitchen and the stable yard. Pierre will be waiting for us outside by the field gate and he’ll carry the bags to the station for us. We can do it, Hélène, and then you’ll be safe.’

‘I don’t know…’ Hélène still hesitated.

‘Well, you’ve got until tonight to decide,’ Annette said. ‘I will have everything ready, and you can decide, but tomorrow will be too late!’