The French Gift by Kirsty Manning

Author:Kirsty Manning [Manning, Kirsty]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2021-02-05T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

MARGOT

ANRATH PRISON‚ NOVEMBER 1943

Rain pattered on tin. There had been dark, grey showers for days.

Margot was grateful for their German roof. No holes. That was something, at least. It felt like winter had set in early. Relentless wind juddered against the eaves. Sheets of water pounded the roof. On the rare occasion the rain paused, the silence was filled with the screech of an air-raid siren, then the boom and fire of artillery as planes roared overhead.

Rain pounded into concrete and mud. Rain, gunfire, bombs. Repeat.

She sighed and rolled over in her bunk, taking care not to tug too much of the blanket from Joséphine, who slept soundly beside her. Margot closed her eyes and remembered the sound of spring rain on her attic roof at Villa Sanary. On rainy days, she used to love waking up and throwing open her blue shutters to watch the wind create ripples across the lavender fields, then pick up and smash turquoise waves against the sandstone cliffs. The air would smell of the sea and pollen—roses, lavender, clematis. What Margot wouldn’t do to smell that crisp, sweet air again.

Inevitably, her thoughts turned to her last day at the villa—as they always did. The day of Peggy Schramsburg’s murder. Over the years, Margot had told and retold her story to Joséphine as she stepped the length of their tiny cells. Margot was convinced that she had been set up. But by whom?

Agitated, she rolled onto her other side and was dismayed that her hipbone dug into the thin straw, rubbing against the wood below. As she tried to find a comfortable position, she accidentally kicked Joséphine in the shin. ‘Go back to sleep,’ mumbled her friend. ‘Stop wriggling.’

But Margot couldn’t sleep. Instead, she took herself back to the morning of Bastille Day, 1939.

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