Jackdaws

"Not willingly. I'll tell you something. Before the war, when I was involved in politics, people would sometimes say to me, 'How can you be a socialist, with an accent like that?' I explained that I was flogged in school for dropping my aitches. That silenced one or two smug bastards."

Percy stopped the car on a tree-lined street. Paul looked out and saw a fantasy castle, with battlements and turrets and a high tower. "This is a jail?"

Percy made a gesture of helplessness. "Victorian architecture."

Flick was waiting at the entrance. She wore her FANY uniform: a four-pocket tunic, a divided skirt, and a little cap with a turned-up brim. The leather belt that was tightly cinched around her small waist emphasized her diminutive figure, and her fair curls spilled out from under the cap. For a moment she took Paul's breath away. "She's such a pretty girl," he said.

"She's married," Percy remarked crisply.

I'm being warned off, Paul thought with amusement. "To whom?"

Percy hesitated, then said, "You need to know this, I think. Michel is in the French Resistance. He's the leader of the Bollinger circuit."

"Ah. Thanks." Paul got out of the car and Percy drove on.

He wondered if Flick would be angry that he and Percy had turned up so few prospects from the files. He had met her only twice, and on both occasions she had yelled at him. However, she seemed cheerful, and when he told her about Maude, she said, "So we have three team members, including me. That means we're halfway there, and it's only two pip emma."

Paul nodded. That was one way of looking at it. He was worried, but there was nothing to be gained by saying so.

The entrance to Holloway was a medieval lodge with arrow slit windows. "Why didn't they go the whole way and build a portcullis and a drawbridge?" said Paul. They passed through the lodge into a courtyard, where a few women in dark dresses were cultivating vegetables. Every patch of waste ground in London was planted with vegetables.

The prison loomed up in front of them. The entrance was guarded by stone monsters, massive winged griffins holding keys and shackles in their claws. The main gate-house was flanked by four-story buildings, each story represented by a long row of narrow, pointed windows. "What a place!" said Paul.

"This is where the suffragettes went on hunger strike," Flick told him. "Percy's wife was force-fed in here."

"My God."

They went in. The air smelled of strong bleach, as if the authorities hoped that disinfectant would kill the bacteria of crime. Paul and Flick were shown to the office of Miss Lindleigh, a barrel-shaped assistant governor with a hard, fat face. "I don't know why you wish to see Romain," she said. 'With a note of resentment she added, "Apparently I'm not to be told."

A scornful look came over Flick's face, and Paul could see that she was about to say something derisory, so he hastily intervened. "I apologize for the secrecy," he said with his most charming smile. "We're just following orders."

"I suppose we all have to do that," said Miss Lindleigh, somewhat mollified. "Anyway, I must warn you that Romain is a violent prisoner."

"I understand she's a killer."

"Yes. She should be hanged, but the courts are too soft nowadays."

"They sure are," said Paul, although he did not really think so.

"She was in here originally for drunkenness; then she killed another prisoner in a fight in the exercise yard, so now she's awaiting trial for murder."

"A tough customer," Flick said with interest.

"Yes, Major. She may seem reasonable at first, but don't be fooled. She's easily riled and loses her temper faster than you can say knife."

"And deadly when she does," Paul said.

"You've got the picture."

"We're short of time," Flick said impatiently. "I'd like to see her now."

Paul added hastily, "If that's convenient to you, Miss Lindleigh."

"Very well." The assistant governor led them out. The hard floors and bare walls made the place echo like a cathedral, and there was a constant background accompaniment of distant shouts, slamming doors, and the clang of boots on iron catwalks. They went via narrow corridors and steep stairs to an interview room.

Ruby Romain was already there. She had nut-brown skin, straight dark hair, and fierce black eyes. However, she was not the traditional gypsy beauty: her nose was hooked and her chin curved up, giving her the look of a gnome.

Miss Lindleigh left them with a warder in the next room watching through a glazed door. Flick, Paul, and the prisoner sat around a cheap table with a dirty ashtray on it. Paul had brought a pack of Lucky Strikes. He put them on the table and said in French, "Help your-sell" Ruby took two, putting one in her mouth and the other behind her ear.

Paul asked a few routine questions to break the ice. She replied clearly and politely but with a strong accent. "My parents are traveling folk," she said. "When I was a girl, we went around France with a funfair. My father had a rifle range and my mother sold hot pancakes with chocolate sauce."