The Alice Network

Charlie and Finn listen as Eve recounts the story of her capture. Having heard the old woman’s ghastly tale of torture and betrayal, Finn and Charlie are speechless. Eve then reveals that Charlie, too, may have a reason for seeking vengeance against René.

During her dinner with Allenton, Eve learned that René was the informant who told the Nazis that Rose was a Resistance fighter. They massacred an entire town based on René’s testimony. Eve tells Charlie, “It’s unlikely you’d ever find out which man fired the shots that killed your cousin. Those men are probably beyond your reach. René is not. He didn’t pull the trigger, but he certainly did his best to arrange your cousin’s death” (380).  

In Brussels in March 1916, Eve, Lili, and Violette stand trial for espionage. They are all sentenced to death until Lili intercedes. She pleads for mercy for her two companions even though Eve and Violette refuse clemency. The judges withdraw to deliberate and return with a verdict of 15-year prison sentences for each spy.

As they are led away, Lili is lighthearted. She says they will be liberated as soon as the war ends. Lili also forgives Eve for her supposed betrayal: “Pah, who knows how the Boches got my name or found out I ran the network? You don’t remember giving it up, opium or no opium” (387).

In Limoges in May 1947, Charlie studies a picture of the 73-year-old René that Allenton gave to Eve: “I stared at his face in the grainy photograph, looking for remorse, guilt, cruelty. But you couldn’t see those things in a picture. He was just an old man out to dinner” (392-393). Charlie now feels the same need for revenge against René that Eve does.

Meeting the other two downstairs, Charlie agrees to continue the quest. Eve suggests they might find René in Grasse because he’d always intended to retire there. Since it’s a two-day drive, they plan to stay the night in Grenoble. As they drive through the sunny French countryside, Finn and Charlie ask Eve to tell them about her time in prison.

Life is bleak in Siegburg Prison for the women of the Alice Spy Network. They are surrounded by other female spies who risked everything for their country during the war: “And what women these were. Identical skeletons wearing the same prisoners’ cross, dirty-haired, hollow-eyed fleurs du mal every one” (396).

Eve, Lili, and Violette spend more than a year in the prison, where disease, cold, and hunger wear them down: “Endure, Eve thought. A year slipped by—more foul gray days, more slaps, more lice, more screams in the night” (396).

In September 1918, Eve learns that Lili is scheduled for surgery to lance a pleural abscess between her ribs. The master spy is gaunt and weak but maintains a brave face as she is marched off to surgery. That night, Eve hears Lili’s screams as she is being operated on without anesthetic. The next day, Lili is dead. 

On their way to Grenoble, Eve finishes her story of Lili’s death. Charlie finds herself wishing that there was some way she could help Eve: “As much as I was always yearning to fix what was broken, I could do nothing to fix Eve. Or could I?” (404).

Once they reach their hotel, Charlie places a call to Violette. She asks the former spy if she can get her hands on the trial records of their sentencing. Charlie thinks that something doesn’t add up in the court proceeding, and there may be a lie buried in the documentation. Intrigued, Violette agrees and promises to contact her in Grasse the following day

That evening, Finn knocks on Charlie’s door and asks her out for a proper date during which they talk and get to know one another better. Despite their best intentions to keep the evening respectable, they wind up in bed together.

In March 1919, Eve arrives back in Folkestone for the first time since the war ended. Cameron is there to greet her, but the war has taken a toll on both of them. Eve can never forgive herself for betraying Lili: “Now what she mainly felt was grief and rage and guilt, devouring each other like tail-eating serpents” (416). Cameron also suffers from guilt for the number of his recruits who died in the line of duty. Eve and Cameron go to a nearby pub where they both drink heavily.

Cameron gives Eve the medals she’s earned from the French and English governments. She refuses them but is willing to accept the small pension that he has also arranged for her. As they part, she says her one remaining mission in life is to kill René. Cameron informs her that René is already dead.