by Jack Higgins
Max Priem sat opposite her and she noticed Reichsünger at the far end of the table with some other SS officers. When he glanced towards her, his eyes glittered with hate, reminding her strangely of Joe Edge. She'd made an enemy there, for certain. '
A couple of orderlies in dress uniform and white gloves came round with wine and she remembered that Anne-Marie couldn't stand red, but was capable from an early age of putting away far larger amounts of white than Genevieve ever could. She also noted, wryly, that the wine was a Sancerre, the pride of her aunt's wine cellars which must have been pretty ravaged by now.
Reichsünger laughed loudly above the buzz of general conversation. From the expressions on the faces of his companions, he wasn't exactly popular.
Ziemke leaned close. 'I trust the Countess will feel in better spirits tomorrow?'
'You know her moods as well as I do.'
'The day after, Field Marshal Rommel himself visits us. We are naturally giving a reception and ball for him afterwards and if the Countess were to have one of her headaches…' He shrugged. 'It would be most unfortunate.'
'I understand you perfectly, General.' Genevieve patted his hand. 'I'll do my best.'
'I would be loath to order her to be there. In fact,' he added frankly, I'd be afraid to. You weren't here at the time, but the day Priem and I arrived here… My God, how she ran rings around us. Isn't that so, Priem?'
'I fell in love with her instantly,' the Colonel said.
'People have a habit of doing that,' Genevieve told him.
She found his smile so disquieting that she had to look away from the penetrating blue eyes, her heart beating quickly. She had the strangest feeling that he could see right through her.
The General was speaking again. 'The day we came, you were in the village as I recall. Your aunt barred the door to us for quite some time. When we finally gained admittance, there were several conspicuous spaces on the walls.'
'Have you tried the cellars?'
He laughed delightedly and for the rest of the meal was in the highest of spirits. As for Genevieve, the strain of playing her role was beginning to tell and she found that she was becoming increasingly tense.
'Coffee in the drawing room, I think,' Ziemke finally announced.
There was a momentary confusion as everyone rose and she was aware of Priem at her shoulder. 'May I have a word?'
But he was definitely someone to avoid, at least for the moment. 'Perhaps some other time,' she said and moved towards the General.
'My dear,' he said, 'I must introduce you to a countryman of yours, now serving with the Charlemagne Brigade of the SS, here for tonight only with dispatches.'
The officer bowed to her. She noticed his cuff title, the tricolour on his left sleeve as he smiled and carried her hands to his lips as only the French can. He was blond, blue-eyed, handsome, more like a German than anyone there, an incredible contrast to Max Priem standing a few feet away.
'Enchanted,' he said and she noticed how well the uniform suited him and wondered what would happen if the Maquis ever got him up a back alley, this Frenchman in the SS.
Ziemke steered her across the room and out through the french windows to the terrace. 'That's better,' he said. 'Fresh air. Cigarette?'
As she took it, she said, 'You're worried about this conference. Is it so important?'
'Rommel himself, my dear. What would you expect?'
'No, it's more than that,' Genevieve said. 'You don't agree with them - not any more. Isn't that it?'
'You make it too complicated,' he said. 'We'll be talking about defenses and I know what most of the others think.'
This, of course, was exactly the kind of conversation she'd come to hear. 'And you disagree?'
'I do.'
'But surely this is only a preliminary?'
'Yes, but the conclusions, in the main, will hold. Unless the Fuhrer makes a sudden decision to change it all.'
'He's got you this far,' she said lightly.
'We will lose the war.'
She reached for his hand. 'I wouldn't say that too loudly if I were you.'
He held her hand and stared out into the dark grounds, seemingly lost in thought. She didn't mind, that was the strange thing. He was kind and he was unhappy and she liked him and that hadn't been part of the scheme at all. There were footsteps and she pulled away.
'Sorry to disturb you, Herr General,' Max Priem said, 'but there's a call from Paris.'
The General nodded heavily. 'I'll come.' He kissed her hand. 'Goodnight, my dear,' and went back into the drawing room.
Max Priem stood to one side. 'Fraulein,' he said formally. She caught the mocking in his eyes and strangely, something else too. Anger.
TWELVE
SHE SLEPT WELL and didn't dream and woke so suddenly that she knew something must have caused it and lay there, trying to work out what it was. Then the shots came and she was out of bed very fast, reaching for her dressing gown and running to the balcony.
Someone shouted in German, an object spun up very fast and was shot to pieces. She looked down. Just below, Priem was reloading a shotgun, snapping the barrels back into position. Behind him, an orderly crouched on the ground beside a box. They were clay pigeon shooting.
Priem shouted, the soldier released the spring and another disc spun into the blue sky. The barrels of the gun were up and following, he squeezed the trigger. She watched the disc explode, shading her eyes against the bright sky.
'Good morning,' she called.
He paused in the act of reloading and looked up. 'Did I wake you?'
'You could say that.'
He handed the shotgun to his orderly. 'Breakfast in the dining room in ten minutes. Are you joining us?'
'No, I think I'll have a tray in my room this morning.'
'As you wish.' He smiled. She turned, slightly breathless and went inside.
Hortense sent Chantal for her just after she'd finished breakfast. She was in her bath when Genevieve went in.
'I've decided to go to Mass this morning. You can come with me,' her aunt said. 'But I've already eaten.'
'How inconsiderate of you. You will come anyway. It is necessary.'
For the salvation of my immortal soul?' 'No, to give that little slut, Maresa, a chance to search your room. Chantal overheard Reichslinger giving her her instructions late last night.' Genevieve said, 'He suspects me then?' 'Why should he? You made a bad enemy there, that's all. This is probably just the start of his campaign to get back at you any way he can. An RAF propaganda leaflet would be enough for that one to denounce you as an enemy of the Reich. We must see if we can't make his little plan backfire.' 'What do I do?'
'When you return you will make the unpleasant discovery that your diamond earrings are missing, which they will be because by then, Chantal will have transferred them to some suitably stupid hiding place in Maresa's bedroom. You will naturally raise the Devil. Go straight to Priem who is, after all, in charge of security.' 'And then what happens?'
'Oh, he is a very astute man. He will find the earrings in Maresa's bedroom very quickly. She will protest her innocence, but the facts will speak for themselves. It is at that point that the silly girl will begin to cry…'
'… and will confess that she was acting under Reichslinger's instructions?' 'Exactly.'
'You could beat the Devil himself at cards, I suppose you know that?'
'Of course.'
'But will Priem believe her?' Genevieve said.
'I think we may rely on it. No public announcements - no fuss. He'll deal with Reichslinger in private perhaps, but he'll deal with him. He is, I think, a hard man, this Colonel of yours, when he has to be.'
'Mine? Why do you say that?'
'Poor Genny.' Nobody had called her that for years. 'Since you were old enough to climb on my knee, I have been able to read you like an open book. He fills you with unease, this man, am I not right? Your stomach turns hollow with excitement just to be near him.'
Genevieve took
a deep breath to steady herself and stood up.
'I'll do my best to resist the temptation, I think you can rely on that. Have you told Chantal?'
'Only that Anne-Marie is up to her neck in subversive activities. I think you will find that she will smile on you more warmly now. Her brother, Georges, is in a labour camp in Poland.'
'All right,' Genevieve said. 'Now, as to a plan of campaign.'
'All sorted out. We'll discuss it later. Be a good girl and tell Maresa to inform Rene that I'll need the Rolls.'
Genevieve was a child again to do her bidding. She did exactly as she was told, of course. Nothing changed.
Their first shock came when they went out of the front door and down the steps. There was no sign of Rene or the Rolls, only Max Priem and a black Mercedes.
He saluted gravely. 'Your car, it would appear, is out of order this morning, Countess. I've told our own mechanics to do what they can. In the meantime, I am wholly at your service. You wish to go to church, I believe?'
Hortense hesitated, then shrugged, got inside and Genevieve followed her.
He drove them himself and Genevieve had to sit there, looking at the back of his neck, acutely uncomfortable. Hortense ignored him and glanced at her watch. 'We're late. Never mind, the cure will wait for me. He's seventy, if he's a day, you know. The first man I ever fell in love with. Dark and handsome and with so much belief. Faith is an attraction in a man. I never went to so many services.'
'And now?' Genevieve asked.
'His hair is white and when he smiles, his skin crinkles so much that his eyes are hidden.'
Genevieve became uncomfortably aware that Priem was watching her in the driving mirror, his eyes full of laughter, and so did Hortense.
She said coldly, 'I understand the SS do not believe in God, Colonel?'
'I have it on the most reliable authority that Reichsfuhrer Himmler does, however.' Priem turned the car in beside the church gate, got out and opened the rear door. 'If you please, ladies.'
Hortense sat there for a moment, then took his hand and got out. 'You know, I like you, Priem. 'It's a great pity…'
'That I'm a German, Countess? My grandmother, on my mother's side, came from Nice. Will that help?'
'Considerably.' She turned to Genevieve. 'No need for you to come in. Pay your respects to your mother. I shan't be long.'
She pulled down her veil and went up the path between the gravestones to the porch of the ancient church.
Priem said, 'A remarkable woman.'
'I think so.' There was a slight pause as he stood there, hands clasped behind him, a kind of fantasy figure in that magnificent uniform, the cross at his throat. She said, 'If you'll excuse me, I'd like to visit my mother.'
'But of course.'
She entered the churchyard. It was an ideal setting in the far corner, shaded by a cypress tree. The headstone was beautifully simple as Hortense had intended it to be and there were fresh flowers in the stone vase.
'Helene Claire de Voincourt Trevaunce,' Max Priem said, moving to the other side and then he did a strange thing. He saluted briefly, a perfect military salute, nothing Nazi about it. 'Well, Helene Claire,' he said softly, 'you have a very beautiful daughter. You would be proud of her, I think.'
Genevieve said, 'What about your family?'
'My father died in the last war, my mother a few years later. I was raised by an aunt in Frankfurt, a schoolmistress. She was killed in a bombing raid last year.'
'So, we have something in common?'
'Oh, come now,' he said, 'what about this English father of yours, the doctor in Cornwall? The sister of whom you so seldom speak? Genevieve, isn't it?'
She was frightened then at the fact that he knew so much, was aware of a desperate feeling of being balanced on some dangerous edge. She was saved because of a sudden shower. As it burst upon them, he seized her hand.
'Come, we must run.'
They reached the shelter of the church porch and she noticed that he appeared to be having some difficulty with his breathing. He slumped down on the stone bench.
She said, 'Are you all right?'
'It's nothing, believe me.' He managed a smile and produced a silver case. 'Cigarette?'
'You were wounded in Russia?' she said.
'Yes.'
'It was bad there in the Winter War, they tell me.'
'I think you may say it was an unforgettable experience.'
She said, 'Reichslinger and the others - you inhabit different worlds. You're…'
'A German whose country is at war,' he said. 'It's really very simple. Very unfortunate perhaps, but very simple.'
'I suppose so.'
He sighed, his face softening a little. 'Always since I was a boy I have loved the rain.'
'Me, too,' she said.
He smiled gravely. 'Good, then we do have something in common after all.'
They sat there waiting for Hortense as the rain increased and her aunt had been right as usual for she had never felt so excited in her life before.
In London, Craig Osbourne rang the bell at Munro's flat in Hasten Place
. When the door opened, he went upstairs and found Jack Carter waiting to greet him on the landing.
'Is he in, Jack?'
I'm afraid not. He was called to the War Office. A good job you're here. I was about to send the bloodhounds out after you. Your people have been trying to get hold of you.'
'OSS? What for?'
'Well, the way things worked out, you were never debriefed over the Dietrich affair. They're annoyed at Munro using Ike's authority to steal you but rather pleased at the way you handled things. I think another medal might be in the offing.'
'I've got a medal,' Craig said.
'Yes, well be a good lad and get over to Cadogan Place
, just to keep them happy. What did you want anyway?'
'I promised Genevieve I'd keep an eye out for her sister. Thought I'd drop in at the nursing home, but the guards refused me admittance.'
'Yes, well security has been tightened there for various reasons.' Carter smiled. 'I'll give Baum a call. Tell him to expect you.'
'Fine,' Craig said. 'I'll go and take care of things at OSS Headquarters then,' and he turned and hurried down the stairs.
In a spy film Genevieve had seen, the hero had placed a hair from his head across a door so that he could tell later whether his room had been entered. She had employed the same ruse with two of the drawers in her dressing table. It was the first thing she checked when she got back from church. They'd both been opened.
Maresa was not around because she'd told her before going out that she wouldn't need her again until after lunch, so she lit a cigarette, just to fill in a little time, then went in search of Priem. She found him at his desk in the library, Reichslinger at his side, going over some list or other together.
They both looked up. She said, 'It really is too much, Colonel. That your security people should search our rooms from time to time is something that one must regrettably take for granted. What I am not prepared to overlook is one pair of very valuable diamond earrings, pearls set in silver, a family heirloom. I really would be infinitely obliged to you if you would see they are returned.'
'Your room has been searched?' Priem said calmly. 'How can you be sure?'
'A dozen different ways - things not as I left them - and the earrings, of course.'
'Perhaps your maid was simply tidying up. Have you spoken to her?'
'Not possible,' Genevieve said impatiently. 'I gave her the morning off before leaving for church.'
He said to Reichslinger, 'Do you know anything about this?'
Reichslinger's face was pale. 'No, Standartenfuhrer.' Priem nodded. 'After all, there would be no question of you undertaking such a search without my authority.' Reichslinger stayed silent. Genevieve said, 'Well?' 'I'll deal with it,' Priem told her, 'and come back to you.' 'Thank you, Colonel.' She turned and walked out quickly. Priem lit a cigarette and looked up at Reichslinger. '
So.' 'Standartenfuhrer?' Reichslinger's face was already damp with sweat. 'The truth, man. Five seconds is all you've got. I warned you.'
'Standartenfuhrer, you must listen. I was only doing my duty. The Walther - it worried me. I thought there might be other things.'
'So you force Mademoiselle Trevaunce's maid to search her mistress's room and in the process, the stupid little bitch gets sticky fingers? Very helpful, Reichslinger. I'm sure you'll agree.'
'Standartenfuhrer, what can I say?'
'Nothing,' Priem said wearily. 'Just find Maresa and bring her to me.'
Genevieve waited in her room a little nervously, sitting by the open window to the balcony, trying to read. But Hortense, after all, had been right. In a little more than an hour after her visit to the library, there was a knock at her door and Priem entered.
'You have a moment?' He crossed the room, held up the earrings and dropped them into her lap.
'Who?' she asked.
'Your maid. You see, I was right.'
'The ungrateful little slut. You're certain?'
'I'm afraid so,' he said calmly and she wondered what had passed between him and Reichslinger.
'Right - it's back to the farm for her.'
'An impulse of the moment, I would say, more than anything else. A stupid girl who persisted in her innocence of the charge in spite of the fact that I had discovered the earrings in her room. In any case, she could hardly have hoped to get away with such a thing.'
'Are you suggesting that I give her another chance?'
'That would require a little charity, a commodity in short supply in these hard times.' Priem looked out across the balcony. 'It really is a most pleasant view from here. I hadn't realised.'
'Yes,' Genevieve said.
He smiled gravely. 'So. There is much to do if we are to be ready for the Field Marshal's visit tomorrow. You will excuse me now?'
'Of course.'
The door closed behind him. She waited for a couple of minutes, then left herself, quickly.