Krista's Escape Read online

  Krista meekly went ahead as they walked towards the bushes.

  When they returned, the car doors were all closed and the driver had a tartan blanket spread over the grass. He had opened the large wicker picnic basket and spread the food out. Krista’s stomach grumbled. It had been a long time since she’d eaten. The driver was holding a sheaf of papers in one hand and the look in his eyes caused Krista to trip over her own feet.

  “What is the matter?” Miss Andrews asked as soon as she saw the expression on her travelling companion’s face. “Oh, by the way, Bertram, I think you should know that Krista here was one of my best students. She speaks and understands English perfectly.”

  “I found this in the back of the car.” He shook the man’s black jacket. He pointed the gun at Krista, his finger steady on the trigger. “Who does it belong to? The only reason you are still breathing is because it obviously belongs to a man. What man? What is his name? Who does this belong to?” He was shouting now, the veins in his neck standing out starkly.

  “I don’t know … I swear I don’t!” she cried when the gun was once more waved at her. “I found it in the laundry room at the auberge. I needed something to hide the white of my blouse.”

  “Why?”

  “I saw your car from the laundry-room window. You were my only chance of escape. I had to have something to hide my white blouse or you would have seen me straight away. I swear that is all I know. The jacket was hanging on a hook behind the laundry-room door. I grabbed it just before I hid in your car. I swear it.” Krista was shaking.

  “What is it, Bertram?” Miss Andrews said from behind Krista’s back.

  “Orders, my dear,” the man bit out. “Orders of the vilest kind.”

  “Let us all sit down,” Miss Andrews said. “We present quite the tableau for any passing motorist to see.” She walked around Krista’s rigid body and knelt down elegantly on one side of the blanket on the grass. “Krista will not run. I give you my word.” She put her handgun under the edge of the blanket. “Where would she go?”

  “Very well.” The man never took his eyes off Krista as he sat down on the blanket. He too put his gun under the edge of the blanket. “Sit down and you may explain to us how you ended up in the back of my car.”

  She didn’t move.

  “Sit, sit!” he ordered.

  Krista joined them on the blanket. She was afraid to move while the other two unpacked the picnic basket. She stared at the items being removed. The bread, sausage and wine were all German not French. She tried not to show her surprise.

  “What?” the man suddenly demanded. “What are you looking at? Tell me? Something has made you stare.” He reached for the spot on the blanket that concealed his gun.

  “The food is German!” Krista gasped, before he could once again threaten her with that evil weapon.

  “It would appear, Bertram, my dear, that you have been out of the game for too long.” Violet Andrews smirked. “Such a simple error could get us all killed.”

  “We will eat and drink the evidence of my failure while we listen to this young one’s story.” He poured wine into three of the four glasses he had removed from the lid of the picnic basket. “I want to know how she ended up in my car and then I will have some idea of what is to become of her. But only after she answers my questions about that jacket and who it might possibly belong to.”

  “That is sure to give anyone an appetite.” Miss Andrews applied herself to the food. She was hungry and didn’t particularly care where the food had come from.

  “Well, young woman,” he sipped his wine, staring over the glass at Krista, “begin.”

  “I don’t know where or when to begin.”

  “The beginning is usually the best place,” Miss Andrews said.

  “Well, this day started off badly with Maurice La Flandre coming into the café claiming his family were taking over the village boulangerie …”

  Krista paused as she leaned over to help herself to some German bread and sausage. It would make a nice change from the mainly French food served at the auberge.

  The only sound for a long time was that of eating as they calmed their hunger and Krista’s voice as she recounted the events of her day up to and including being discovered in the car. Violet Andrews noticed that Krista’s appetite did not seem to be affected by her peril. Ah, what it was to be young!

  “I can well believe that Dumas would try to save his own skin by offering Krista up to La Flandre,” Violet commented to her companion when Krista had recounted her tale.

  Krista was looking down at the blanket, now void of any foodstuff. She wanted to cross her fingers while she waited for the verdict to be passed on her story.

  “Someone should have put a bullet in that young man’s head long ago.” The man pushed to his feet.

  “Please,” Krista was afraid to move without permission, “may I see that jacket? I grabbed it in haste, grateful to find something I could use to hide myself under. I didn’t really look at it but it has been over my head since we left the auberge. There is a smell lingering in it that I can’t place. Perhaps if I could look at the jacket I would know to whom it belongs.”

  “If I am not mistaken it smells of blood!” he barked.

  “Maurice La Flandre, could it be his?” Krista could think of no-one else at the auberge who might have bloodstains on their jacket. Then she thought of her two eldest brothers. Hadn’t Philippe questioned them about the grazes on their hands this morning?

  “The young man’s a fool – but surely even he would know better than to leave such evidence of his crimes lying about.” He shook the papers he held in a white-knuckled fist.

  “Maybe he was distracted,” Krista whispered. “He seemed very eager to reach my room and inflict pain.” She remembered the gasping quality of his voice as he spoke of beating her.

  “We must bury this jacket. But these papers are important. We will hide them somewhere in the car or about our persons where they will not be found. Come along, hurry, we must be on our way.”

  He gestured for them to stand before pulling the blanket from the grass, shaking it and throwing it into the rear of the car.

  “But what about me?” Krista stood staring at her two companions with her mouth open. They were in the middle of nowhere. Were they just going to leave her?

  Chapter 5

  The driver’s eyes travelledover Krista from head to ankles. He stood for a moment with his hands on his hips, looking around the remote area he had chosen for their first stop. He sighed deeply and turned his attention back to the women.

  “Violet,” he said, “can you make this,” one hand made a sweeping gesture over Krista’s figure, “young woman look less like our dinner waitress and more like our travelling companion?”

  “I’ll try, but …”

  “Just do it.” The driver turned back to the car. “I have a shovel in the car. I’ll bury this jacket while you sort her out.”

  “Wait!” Krista held out a hand as if to touch the man but pulled it back. “May I see that jacket – please!” A new thought had occurred to her.

  “Why?”

  “The smell.” Krista didn’t know how to explain what she was thinking. “There is something about the smell of that jacket that bothers me.”

  “Very well.” He threw the jacket to her. “The only thing I can smell is blood on the sleeves.”

  Krista grasped it to her with an expression of distaste. She ignored his comment and started sniffing at the lapels of the jacket.

  “Absinthe,” she murmured, almost to herself. “Yes, absinthe.”

  Absinthe was a much-in-demand drink at the café-bar-tabac. It was a very odorous herbal drink mixture that was high in alcohol content.

  “Monsieur Beaumont, he drinks absinthe.” Krista took the jacket by the shoulders and shook it. The size was very narrow to her eyes. It would not fit any of the men in her family. She closed her eyes briefly, thanking God that they were not the cause of the fury burning in
the driver’s eyes. “You both know him. He works at the Mayor’s office. He drinks absinthe and has the nasty habit of skimming his thumb over his drink and rubbing it onto his lapel.” She wrinkled her nose in disgust, remembering all the times she had watched the little ferret of a man wet his thumb over his liqueur glass. “But why would his jacket be in the laundry room of the Auberge du Village?”

  “Why indeed?” The driver sounded deeply satisfied about something.

  Krista didn’t understand the glance the pair exchanged.

  “We have more information than we started our journey with,” Miss Andrews said cryptically.

  “I will find some way of passing this information along.” The driver took the jacket from Krista’s hands. “I’ll add some petrol to the car while I wait for you to do something about the girl’s appearance.” He turned to walk away.

  “Sir,” Krista called before he had gone very far, “would it not be better to burn the jacket? The absinthe would help flame the fire. It is very high-proof alcohol.”

  The driver nodded his head. “Yes, let us get to it.” He walked away, his fingers on the jacket white-knuckled.

  “Come, my dear.” Miss Andrews took Krista by the elbow and followed the driver. “I am sure to have something in my suitcase that we can use to change your appearance. You are taller than me but your height is all in your legs.”

  Krista stood watching her companions.

  The driver opened the boot of the car and removed a can of petrol. Miss Andrews pointed to one of her suitcases and he removed it for her, putting it on the grass at her feet.

  While the driver turned his attention to the car and Miss Andrews riffled through her suitcase, Krista wondered what it could mean that Monsieur Beaumont’s jacket had been left in the laundry room. Why would he even be in the rear of the auberge? What was his business there?

  “Remove your blouse,” Miss Andrews said. “It is not at all fashionable.”

  It was one thing to remove her blouse in front of her brother but quite another to do it while standing in open countryside with a man close to hand. Krista opened her mouth to object than snapped it shut. She needed the help of these two people. She started to open the buttons on her blouse, trying not to blush.

  “Take your hair out of that ugly bun.” Miss Andrews hadn’t looked to see if Krista was obeying her orders. “Here!” She held out a silver-backed hairbrush while using the other hand to root further into her suitcase.

  Krista took the brush and put it between her knees while she continued to open the tiny buttons on her blouse. When she had them all open, she began to remove the clips from her hair. Without removing her blouse, she stood upright to brush out her hair. Her entire body felt covered in a blush but she ignored her own embarrassment.

  Out of the corner of her eye she watched the driver. The man appeared to be paying no attention to what they were doing. After pouring a small amount of petrolonto the jacket, he turned his attention to pouring the rest of the can into the tank. He replaced the cap on the can and put it back into the boot of the car before picking up the jacket and walking off in the direction of a hedge in the distance.

  “Here!” Miss Andrews held out a pale-blue cardigan.

  She removed several more items from the suitcase, throwing a length of wide blue ribbon almost the same shade as the cardigan over her shoulder. She stood and walked over to watch Krista remove her blouse and shove her arms into the sleeves of the cardigan.

  “Yes, I thought that would fit you.”

  “It is very soft.” Krista had never worn such a fashionable garment. The cardigan had white daisies embroidered along the sides of the front closure and along the collar.

  “Cashmere,” Miss Andrews said absentmindedly. “It is a very fine wool woven from the soft undercoat of the goat.” She had been a tutor too long not to share knowledge whenever possible. She took the hairbrush from Krista and with rough strokes brushed her hair. Without a word she took the ribbon she’d thrown over her shoulder and, after gathering Krista’s hair into a tail, made a very fine job of tying a big shiny bow around it. “Pass me some of those hairclips.” She held her hand over Krista’s shoulder and waited until she had passed over the clips she had taken from her hair. She used them to hold the bow in place.

  “Let me look at you.” Miss Andrews walked around Krista and stood for a moment, examining the change in her appearance. “It is not wonderful but it is the best I can do with what I have to work with.” She began to restore order to her suitcase before closing it again, leaving it standing on the grass for the driver to put back in the boot. “Bertram!” she called over to the man who was almost concealed by the smoke rising from the fire he had set. “Are we about ready to leave?”

  “One moment!” he called back. “I left the keys in the ignition. You could crank the car while you wait, Violet!”

  “Cheek,” Miss Andrews muttered while moving to obey.

  She took the crank from the boot of the car and walked around to the driver’s door. She turned the key in the ignition before walking to the front of the car.

  “It takes a great deal of upper-body strength to do this,” she said to Krista as she applied herself to turning the crank in the car. The engine took, shaking the vehicle momentarily.

  The man arrived back. He had waited until the fire was snuffed out completely. The only evidence he had left was a scorch mark on the grass.

  “Get in the car. This time, child, you may sit in the back. Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut.”

  Krista didn’t need telling twice. She climbed in.

  The driver used a rag from the boot to wipe his hands, then placed the suitcase, crank and Krista’s blouse in the boot.

  There was silence in the car as they travelled through open countryside. They sometimes passed a local walking along the side of the road but it seemed few vehicles chose this route. After what seemed a long time to Krista, the driver slowed as they approached a large white barn set off from a small farmhouse. There did not appear to be anyone around. Krista wondered where the chickens were who would, in her experience, be pecking around. The place seemed deserted. She silently prayed her body was not going to be dumped in this remote place. One heard of such things happening. Surely they would not have changed her appearance if they meant to do her harm? She felt her insides clench as she waited to see what would happen next.

  “Violet, give me a hand.”

  The car was left idling while the driver and Miss Andrews jumped out and hurried over to open the large double doors of the barn.

  Krista got out of the rear and took the driver’s seat. Hoping she was doing the right thing, she waited for the doors to be opened completely before releasing the brake and driving the car forward into the barn. It felt strange to be sitting in what to her eyes was the passenger side, driving. The barn was terribly dark when the doors were shut behind her – only the motes of light coming in through holes in the structure broke the darkness. She almost jumped out of her skin when someone slapped at the window by her side. She wound the window down and waited.

  “Are you okay to drive her forward?” The driver put his face near the window to ask.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good girl, come on. Violet, help me open these doors.”

  Krista waited and watched as light streamed in when the double doors in front of the car began to open. She looked over her shoulder to the doors where they entered. What a strange barn. She’d never seen its like before. There were no animals inside and with the window open she could detect no odour of farm animals. She drove the car through the open doors and out into more remote countryside. What on earth was the point of that? She stepped out of the car and once more sat in the back while the driver and Miss Andrews got in.

  “I was not aware you could drive a motor vehicle.” Miss Andrews turned to look into the back of the car as the vehicle was driven down a farm track.

  “I have never been allowed out on the road by myself but
my brother Philippe taught me.” After much begging and bribery from Krista. “It is sometimes necessary to move the vehicles belonging to guests at the auberge.” And to take them out for little drives if they could get away with it.

  “I see.” Miss Andrews turned back to face the front.

  It was only a matter of moments before they were over the farm track and out onto a road.

  “Bertram, what was the purpose of that little manoeuvre back there?” Miss Andrews enquired.

  “We entered the barn on the French side of the border and drove through the barn over the border into Belgium,” he answered absentmindedly. “The locals use it to avoid paying tax on their goods.”

  “Clever.” Violet looked back over her shoulders and shrugged. It was none of her business. “Where are we going, Bertram?”

  “We are close to Arlon on the Belgian border. I plan to drive through Belgium to Antwerp, attracting as little attention as possible. I have enough cans of petrol in the boot to see us well on our way. We need to get as far from this area as we can.”

  “You truly believe there will be another war?” Miss Andrew’s voice was shaking. “The last one we fought in was to be the war to end all war. Dear Lord … Bertram, it has only been twenty years since the world talked peace.”

  With his eyes on the road and one hand on the wheel, the driver fumbled with his jacket, removing the pages that, to Krista’s eyes, appeared to incense him, and threw them at Miss Andrews. “Read those and tell me again that we are not marching towards war with our eyes closed.”

  Miss Andrews clutched at the papers before they could fall to the floor. She opened them and glanced down the page, her breath catching as one name jumped out at her. “They are in German. I cannot read these – I understand only a little.”

  “Pass them back to our passenger,” he said as he drove slowly along the streets of a village. “Young Krista has been very well schooled in the German language.”

  No one seemed to be paying particular attention to them, but several people looked at the luxury car in admiration. It was always remarkable to see the driver sitting on the wrong side of the car