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‘You see, someone informed on my friend, Sara. Thankfully, she got away in time, to someone she could trust: Guillaume, a friend of ours. But she told me when I went to bring them food that she feared that there was an informant. She implied it might be Louisa but Guillaume and I just dismissed it as girlish rivalry. They had never got along, and there wasn’t a meeting in which the two didn’t disagree or get into some kind of squabble. Despite the fact that Sara was the leader, and we trusted her, on this one point we didn’t take her seriously. She had no real proof apart from witnessing Louisa speaking to a Nazi one day in a flirtatious way, which Louisa had vehemently denied, saying she’d only asked one for a light for her cigarette. Louisa might not have been our favourite member but we never had any real cause to believe she was an informant. But what if she was?’
‘It’s possible,’ said Sabine. ‘And perhaps, somehow, Marianne knew that.’
‘It doesn’t explain Henri, though.’
‘No,’ agreed Sabine. ‘But maybe that was just collateral damage somehow.’
‘Maybe,’ agreed Monsieur Géroux, though the idea caused him pain, and he frowned.
Sabine took out the things she’d brought. ‘Maybe these will give us some clues?’
She took out the English passport first, and showed it to Monsieur Géroux. Then Sabine took a sip of wine, while pacing the floor in the sitting room.
‘So which name was the real one?’ she asked. ‘The passport with Elodie Clairmont – or the one on my mother’s birth certificate, Marianne Blanchet, the name you knew her by?’
‘Can I see the birth certificate?’ Monsieur Géroux asked.
She nodded, and took out the document from the box she’d brought with her, which included the passport and recipe book – it had seemed natural to bring them all, she was glad now that she had thought of it.
He put his glasses on and stared at it for some time. Antoine leaned in for a closer look.
But of course the name Marianne Blanchet was still there, and didn’t quite tell them anything, apart from confirming their confusion.
Monsieur Géroux made a ‘hmm’ sound.
‘What is it?’ asked Sabine.
‘It says your mother was born in the Abbey de Saint-Michel in Lamarin. Well, I was thinking, if the abbey is still in operation today, perhaps someone there might be able to shed some light. Marianne told me that she grew up in Provence, perhaps that part was true – perhaps it wasn’t far from this abbey?’
‘It’s possible,’ said Antoine. ‘Did the abbey handle the adoption?’
She went through the box until she found the adoption certificate, and then nodded. ‘Yes, they’re listed here too.’
Antoine took it from her, and then looked at the birth certificate.
‘That’s interesting,’ he said.
‘What?’ asked Sabine.
‘The dates from the birth certificate to the adoption are quite far apart. Your mother was born in 1939, but she was only adopted in 1944. Do you think Marianne raised her until then?’
‘Not while she had the restaurant – that was from ‘42 to ‘43,’ answered Monsieur Géroux with a frown.
‘Maybe the abbey will know something about that. Hopefully they are still in operation. I’ll see if they are listed in the directory tomorrow morning and try to give them a call.’
‘Fingers crossed,’ Monsieur Géroux agreed. ‘You will let me know as soon as you find out?’
‘I will, definitely. You deserve to know the truth, Monsieur Géroux. It is your story to discover as much as it is mine.’
