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PROVENCE, 1987
Gilbert knocked over his lemonade as he stood up full of anxiety.
‘Are you certain, Jacques Blanchet – Marianne’s husband, I mean, Elodie’s husband –was killed by a man named Otto Busch?’
Sister Augustine took a deep breath. She looked at Gilbert with concerned eyes, and nodded.
‘Yes – I gather you knew him.’
Sabine frowned. Even she knew the name, from all of Gilbert’s stories.
Gilbert sat back down in his chair with a heavy thud. ‘It was no coincidence – was it, that she chose to work with him, so that she could kill him?’
Sabine blinked.
Sister Augustine sighed. ‘No, it was not,’ she agreed. ‘Though at first she didn’t set out to kill him or anyone. She just wanted to meet him.’
‘So after Jacques died, she set off – what? To find him?’
The nun frowned as she rubbed her fingers together like they were causing her some pain, though perhaps it was the memory that ailed her, as a shadow fell across her face.
‘No, not at first. In the beginning, she really did try to put her life back together. She was to become a mother, and that was incredibly important to her. She loved baby Marguerite from the minute she fell pregnant with her and it was the only thing that kept her going after Jacques died.
‘But then after war broke out, and Paris became occupied by the enemy, she came across an article from the gloating victors about a Nazi who was delighted with his new promotion, and his role as Paris’s new cultural liaison. Seeing him – this man who had taken everything from her – being rewarded, well, something just sort of snapped inside her.’
