The Paris Spy's Girl by Amanda Lees

Author:Amanda Lees [Lees, Amanda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-02-06T00:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-FIVE

I gave myself a final once-over in the mirror, tugging my dark wig more securely into place then covering the whole with a hat I pulled low before wrapping a scarf around my throat. Good. Now my face was barely visible. Next, I shrugged on a baggy coat and sensible shoes that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a Parisian matron. It was freezing cold outside so no one would give me a second glance.

One final thing – I had to change my walk. A few moments’ practice replacing my customary sashay with a far more muted shuffle and I was satisfied. If there was one thing I excelled at, it was being a chameleon. It was why they’d picked me out of training to be an agente provocatrice. Although I often thought it was why Suzanne had picked me for my role long before that, perhaps even as far back as that first time she met me in the café where I was already busy shedding my past en route to the woman I would become. The woman I’d just buried under a disguise.

Taking one last look at myself in the mirror, I almost curtseyed. In another life, I might have joined the theatre. Instead, here I was in the theatre of war.

I slipped out of the back door and in among the other Parisians scurrying along the pavement, going about their daily tasks while trying to attract as little attention as possible. It was safer that way. The Germans tended to pick on anyone who stood out. Blending in was what kept you alive, whether that was in a bordello or out here, with the ordinary citizens who were simply trying to stay under the radar so they could get through each day unscathed.

I recited the address in my head as I trudged along, head bowed, shoulders hunched. The apartment was a few streets from Avenue Foch. Trust the Americans to choose a safe house in the 16th. No slumming it in Pigalle for them.

I stopped to light a cigarette in a doorway opposite the building, looking back down the street to check I’d not been followed and across at the apartment block itself to make sure there was nothing out of the ordinary. Only when I was satisfied there were no German agents watching did I cross the street and press the bell for the concierge.

The concierge looked me up and down, a knowing expression on her face. I wondered how many women came calling at apartment eight. It seemed from her expression I was most certainly not the first. As if to confirm my suspicions, a woman answered the door when I knocked.

‘Hello. I’m looking for Mr Ryan.’

If she didn’t know his codename, I’d make my excuses and leave.

A moment as she studied me with clear hazel eyes, her dark hair swept behind her ears, displaying a pair of small, gold hoop earrings. She was startlingly pretty in a very French way. A bolt of something I scarcely recognised shot through me.

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