CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ROSE
Rose’s palm was clammy against the handle of her case as she walked. It was heavier this time. She’d thought the trip back would be easier because it was her second time and she knew what she was doing, knew what it was like getting past the security checks and into the train, how she felt playing her role. How wrong she’d been.
The case was certainly weighing her arm down, and she had to grit her teeth and force herself to keep walking, a smile fixed on her face as she pretended it wasn’t just about taking her arm off. In truth she could walk for hours if she had to – she was determined enough – but her stamina wasn’t her concern. It was being stopped. It was someone touching her case. Because this time, she had a crucial radio part and additional aerial with her, as well as explosives that she’d been given in case they needed to do more to assist before the landings.
The wind was cool on her cheeks but Rose welcomed it, enjoying how it felt against her flushed skin. She wanted the war to be over as much as the next person, but she also loved the work she was doing. Her racing pulse might unsettle her, but she was good at what she did, and something about that understanding always sent a sense of pride through her.
She noticed Gestapo and flashed a smile, not slowing her pace. She would be in the train station soon. Once she was inside she’d be able to show her pass, flirt if she had to, then find a seat and keep to herself until it was time to board. Only once she was seated and the train was moving would she start to relax.
Rose took comfort from the click of her low heels, the rhythmic noise soothing her as she kept up her fast walk. She was almost there, she was in the station, she was . . .
‘Roseanne?’
Her heart felt like it jumped with a thud to the concrete beneath her feet. Rose sucked back a breath and turned, knowing from the thick German accent who it had to be.
‘Kurt!’ she exclaimed, waving at him and grinning as if he was the best thing she’d seen all day.
He pushed off the wall he’d been leaning against and strode over, his smile wide, just like it had been that night on the train. She thought again what a shame it was that he was a Nazi. Not that she was even interested in other men, her heart was still full to brimming for Peter, but the thought still crossed her mind.
‘Are you heading back again so soon?’ he asked in German.
She nodded. ‘My, ah, business,’ she said, ‘it is all’ – she paused for effect – ‘finished.’
He gestured in the direction she’d been heading and matched her pace as they slowly walked side by side.
‘If I wasn’t working,’ he said, eyes as bright as his smile, ‘I would have asked you to have dinner with me.’
She blushed, her cheeks hot, only it wasn’t because she was flattered. The burn inside of her was anger at the fact that a man who was an intruder in her beautiful country thought she would be swooning over the idea of dinner with him.
‘That would have been . . . ,’ she said, laughing. ‘Wonderful.’
‘Let me take your bag,’ he said, taking her by surprise as he reached for it, his hand grazing hers as he clasped the handle. ‘Please.’
Rose felt her heart sink for the second time in less than a few minutes. She let go – she had no choice unless she was about to refuse him – and his eyes narrowed the moment he took it from her.
‘It’s heavy,’ he said, no longer walking as he looked from her to the bag.
‘So much make-up,’ she explained quickly. ‘And I took some magazines, ah, catalogues of new cosmetics that I can show to my customers.’
She realised she was speaking too rapidly, her German suddenly too fast for someone who was supposed to have only a limited grasp of the language. Rose smiled and laughed, flashing her eyes at him, doing her best to flirt when inside a voice screamed at her to run. She’d blown it. She knew as surely as she knew her own name that she’d blown it.
‘Magazines?’ he said, his smile returning. ‘Oh, of course. Of course.’
She started to walk again, trying not to panic, letting him hold it for her, the tension within her slowly starting to subside. There was some shouting then and she glanced back, saw a couple being pulled aside, followed by more raised voices. She had no idea what was going on but Kurt stopped and walked back a few steps, calling out and then looking back at her.
‘May I see your pass,’ he said quietly, looking more like a guard and less like a friendly face now. ‘I should have checked it before.’
Rose tried to stop her hand from shaking as she reached inside her jacket pocket for it. She smiled at him when she passed it over. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘You know me, sorry, I didn’t think to show it to you.’
He silently took it from her.
‘Will you be able to sit with me?’ she asked, smiling. ‘On the train ride back?’
He looked up at her, still holding her pass. When another Gestapo officer joined them, her mouth went dry as if every bit of moisture in her body had been drained away.
The other man gestured to her case. She smiled. Kurt looked at her again, frowning now, then assuring the other man that he’d met her before and that nothing was amiss. She watched on with a smile, acting like she had no idea what they were talking about.
Until she heard the words she’d been dreading from the other man.
‘Open her case and look.’
Had someone betrayed her? Were they looking for someone? Why was she being searched? This man was obviously Kurt’s superior given the way the younger man nodded, ready to obey orders.
Kurt met her gaze again before dropping the case to the ground and bending to one knee. Her lungs screamed, her body shook, her face froze into a smile. She had a knife on her body. She could stab him or the other man, slit their throats if she had to, just like Hazel had done to the German near the train line. But then instead of a chance at life, she’d be shot in the head by their comrades before she had time to see the bullet coming.
Rose’s breath shuddered out as Kurt looked up. His face was blank, the smile long gone as he instead searched through her things, clearly confused. He lifted the catalogue that was on the top, pushed aside the pots of make-up and lipsticks, and then his hand hovered. Rose waited, barely breathing. When he asked quickly for something sharp, her heart sank – a sharp blade cutting through the lining that she’d so carefully sewn in herself to hide what she was carrying.
He pulled out a thin sheet of paper first, paper that had codes on it for Hazel. The Gestapo couldn’t take possession of it!
She lunged for it, her movement fast, jerking down and forward and snatching it from him. Arms grabbed at her, roughly hauling her back by her stomach as Kurt jumped up to take it from her. But Rose was fast, far too fast for them. She didn’t bother to use her elbows to slam into the guard who had her from behind. Instead she frantically bit at the paper, tearing it with her teeth twice and quickly chewing.
Kurt snatched what was left from her but she’d already eaten out the middle of it, which meant there would be no way it could possibly make any sense to any of them. His hand clamped around her jaw, trying to prise her mouth open, but Rose swallowed, gagging as she tried to push the paper down her throat. There wasn’t enough saliva, she hadn’t chewed it for long enough, but she was not going to give in until she’d forced it down.
‘You bitch!’ he swore in German, holding his hand back and slamming it into her face.
She wanted to scream as pain echoed through her body, the crack loud, knowing he’d broken something, maybe her cheekbone. But instead she swallowed through the pain, opening her mouth wide once she was done to show him it was gone.
He’d dropped down again, and she struggled against the hold the other man had on her. By now there were other guards, even civilians looking on, no doubt wondering what was going on and who she was.
She saw him find the explosives at the same moment a rifle butt slammed into her head from behind. For a moment she saw the concrete coming up to meet her, but then everything went black.