The Best of Our Spies Read Online Free Page A

services. Why was she in this part of the country, so far from home? She would smile, she would always smile. Her best smile. I was frightened. Isn’t everyone? I joined other people escaping the fighting and thought I would head for somewhere quiet. I made a mistake. Then she would smile again.
    She realised she was being ridiculous anyway. She was worrying far too much. It was hard to imagine that with everything they had on their minds, the Germans would remember anything about her. A foolish promise she had made in a rash and impetuous moment. It had been an exciting proposal they had made two years ago in Paris and one that was not hard to agree to after the wine, the flattery and the charm. The training in Bavaria. ‘Go home and wait there,’ they had told her. ‘ We’ll come and find you when we need you. Lead a normal life. Go to work, go home, and don’t talk about politics to anyone. Just make sure you are where we know you are. ’She was not important. In the great scheme of things, she was barely even a pawn. Surely it would be weeks, months even before they remembered about her and by then she would be beyond their grasp.
    ‘ Carte d’identité ... Carte d’identité !’
    The soldier next to the SS man behind the trestle table was shouting at her and a sentry was pushing her roughly in the side. She had reached the front of the queue.
    She fumbled in her bag and found her identity card, only just remembering to smile as she placed it carefully on the rough wooden surface. The SS man looked at the card and handed it to the soldier next to him, who spoke to her in hesitant French.
    ‘Where are you heading?’
    ‘The hospital. You can see that I’m a nurse. I’m going to volunteer to ...’
    He cut her short. ‘Why are you in this town? You have travelled a long way.’
    She shrugged and smiled again. ‘I used to come to this area for my holidays when I was a child. I thought it would be safe. I didn’t realise ...’
    The SS officer looked carefully at her and then at her identity card. He was turning it slowly. She noticed that his fingers were immaculately manicured, his nails quite perfect. He looked once more at the card and passed it to the table behind him.
    It was then that she noticed that the men in civilian clothes behind that table were checking the cards against lists. What if her name was on one of the lists? She was being ridiculous again, but it did make her realise that getting a new identity was an absolute priority. By whatever means, she would make sure ...
    Something was wrong.
    She sensed it before she saw it.
    She could not tell which of the officials had been looking at her card, but one of them had called over a man in a long raincoat who was standing behind the table and together they were looking at an identity card and checking it against the list. Another man dressed in a long raincoat was called over and he too looked at the card and then at the list. The three men nodded and she was sure that at least one of them had glanced in her direction. She tried to look as relaxed as possible, but her heart was crashing against her chest. She turned round, but it was impossible. There were soldiers every side of her. Maybe if she pretended to faint, or to ...
    ‘Please ...’ One of the men in long raincoats had appeared at her side and was holding her firmly by the elbow.
    ‘We need to do some more checks. Please come with me.’
    ooo000ooo
    ‘You are sure that you have told me everything?’
    The Gestapo officer who had brought her to the Hôtel de Ville from the checkpoint had stopped circling her chair and was now stood directly in front of her, his arms folded tight against his chest and looking genuinely confused. He had removed his raincoat and his hat and looked no more than thirty. His French was excellent, so she abandoned her attempts at speaking in her much less fluent German.
    ‘I told you. I was recruited in Paris two years ago. I have been trained. My