‘Nobody. I was the last out of the factory and it was up to me to return the keys. I think I was unconscious – for a few minutes. I’d suffered a blow to the back of my head – somehow – but when I came round I was able to – get here.’
There was a moment’s silence: Rosie edging sideways, to get a sight of him, but she couldn’t: not only for people in the way, but furniture restricting movement. Kroll meanwhile demanding an immediate interpretation, but Linscheidt had been putting some further question and was only getting André’s answer now: ‘Having spent most of my life here I was able to find my way quite easily in the dark.’
Linscheidt interpreted the previous answer and that one. Shifting feet meanwhile, mutters, Monsieur Henri’s short, hard breathing. Kroll, scowling as he listened to the flow of quiet German, was moving forward – hands clasped behind his back, eyes on Linscheidt. He’d stopped now between the prisoners – the troopers stepping back out of his way – and Rosie saw his right hand move to the pistol holstered on his belt.
A Walther 9-millimetre parabellum. Talking again – Linscheidt had finished – he was using it as a pointer, indicating father and son alternately. Hands together swiftly then, in a practised movement racking a round of 9-millimetre into the chamber. Linscheidt meanwhile telling them, ‘The Sturmbannführer desires to remind you, monsieur –’ Monsieur Henri – ‘and to advise you –’ André – ‘that the penalty for lying to him is death.’
Waiting then, with his eyes on Kroll, who put a short question in German to Monsieur Henri. Linscheidt’s gaze shifted: ‘Please answer truthfully. Your son was brought here at about one o’clock – by whom?’
Monsieur Henri was gazing past Klebermann at Rosie. The quick and truthful answer of course: if he’d only lifted one hand, pointed. But then he would have been declaring his son a liar – which would have meant his death. She’d put the glass of water down on the edge of a table near her. Holding her breath, almost: guessing that he’d support André’s earlier statement, therefore would not answer truthfully. Please God… Hers and all other eyes were on Kroll and on Monsieur Henri, whose answer he was awaiting with the pistol at arm’s length now – left eye closed and the pistol absolutely steady.
‘Well?’
Monsieur Henri’s lips moved: he croaked, ‘He came alone. As far as I know, that is, he—’
Kroll fired, at a range of about one metre. Rosie with both hands over her eyes, choking back a scream: le patron seemingly half rising from the chair, the bullet stamping a scarlet flower between his eyes, smashing through the thin bridge of his nose: blood in a spray, red mist. He’d fallen back, was sliding downward; there was mess and shattered mahogany where the bullet had exited through the back of his skull. Justine, she thought, would faint: she was on her knees, forearms on the cane seat of a chair which earlier had been kicked aside to make way for André’s when they’d dragged it forward; in an attitude of prayer – unintentionally and only for seconds, before a hand clamped on to her arm and jerked her up: the Oberleutnant – in close-up, bawling some explanation to Kroll.
Who’d given him the go-ahead. Gesturing to the SS soldiers meanwhile – ordering the removal of Monsieur Henri’s body, which was in a heap on the floor now. Raschler jerking her arm, demanding, ‘You work here – domestique?’
She’d nodded – vaguely. Justine in shock: seeing him through tears. André was in her field of view now – would have been if she’d looked that way – through several others having shifted. The Oberleutnant shouted into her face in guttural, laboured French, ‘In the room where he was is food and water. You carry up – uh?’
Blinking at him, shaking her head: ‘No food in this house. I looked when I arrived this morning. It’s why I was waiting – le patron when he returned might have required—’
‘There is food, up there! Eggs, and—’
André said, ‘My father cooked the eggs and I took them up.’
‘Silence!’
Because the prisoner hadn’t been invited to make any contribution. But had volunteered it, chosen to back her up. From what, she wondered – blind instinct? He had nothing to win now, not a hope in hell: this wasn’t speculation, he couldn’t surely have any doubt of it. She could breathe again now – for the moment anyway – Kroll had barked something at the Oberleutnant – with a silencing gesture to him, and something like ‘You’re wasting time!’, and Raschler had let go of her. Justine sagging, using the back of this small chair for support: looking round as if wondering where she was, and catching her first sight of André’s mutilated face: hand to her mouth, gasping – and still confronting that reality, that it would be his turn now. Which half an hour ago – or fifteen minutes, whatever – he hadn’t been able to face up to as the virtual certainty which even then it had been. Rosie glancing round, seeing that the water-glass was in her reach, on that table. She had it: was edging round the sergeant – there was room to, and most attention was on Kroll and Linscheidt and the removal of le patron’s body; there’d been a general shifting of positions after the killing. Justine slithering to her knees beside André’s chair, murmuring ‘Ah, mon pauvre!’ A stricken Justine, with in the same hand as the water she was offering him, her handkerchief. He’d got that, curled fingers round it, but not the glass which dropped and smashed as the sergeant grabbed her, pulling her away from the prisoner and lifting his hand to hit her, forestall incipient hysterics, her weepy protest of ‘That poor man’s face!’ Linscheidt’s intervention saved her from the slap – might have saved her life even – Linscheidt pointing towards the kitchen, shouting ‘Sergeant, get her out!’
* * *
Might have saved her life, if otherwise it had been left to Kroll to deal with her. But her memory of the ensuing period in the kitchen was a blur. She might have passed out – had been on the floor with her back against a table-leg when Klebermann had come through and she’d emerged from never-never land to hear him telling her that the hall floor and that chair would need washing down, but that she’d have to come back to do it later or tomorrow, because everyone was required to assemble now in the market square and there was room for her in a truck with the Briards – it was ready to leave now.
Staring at him, while it sank in. Then: ‘But I have my bicycle here…’
‘Collect it tomorrow when you come to clean up. Move, now!’
‘Madame Briard can clean up.’ On her feet, but groggy, and heart still pounding. Not so damn fit… Justine, anyway, however slow or simple, would know well she had no job here now. And more immediately to the point – this market square business: a ratissage, punishment of the whole village?
André had said – his last words to her – I still don’t want it. But he’d taken the cyanide capsule. Whereas if he’d rejected it – which he could have done, more or less publicly and with no worsening of his own situation: well, Christ… But effectively, by taking it he’d backed her up for the second time – which she’d had no logical reason to expect. Barely knowing how she’d managed it in any case. Without prior thought – only an instinct that with his father out of it, all the weight on him now…
‘Mam’selle!’
‘Oui. Oui.’ Inclination of the head to Klebermann as she let go of the kitchen table: ‘Pardon…’
The hallway was deserted, both connecting and front doors standing open. In the yard – she’d glanced round half expecting to see Monsieur Henri’s corpse dumped somewhere out there – were two trucks with their engines running, one with Klebermann’s sergeant behind the wheel and the other with its driver just embarking: another Boche pushed her up and slammed up the tail-gate. It was the first time she’d embarked in such a vehicle since departure from Fresnes prison for the Gare d’Est and Ravensbrück. The Briards were on the bench-seat on the left, and there was room for her at this end of it – which was preferable, she thought, to facing them. The man was a nonentity but his wife did resemble a toad – and had given evidence against Monsieur Henri this morning.
Would
be giving it against André, now?
The front passenger door had slammed, and the truck rolled forward: passing Klebermann’s, which then followed. Other vehicles were standing at the front of the house and in that parking area. Neither she nor the Briards spoke. She wondered how they’d fare when the Boches pulled out. Pull out too, maybe: she guessed they’d have to. Although with about five exceptions – seven if you included the Craillots’ daughters – the whole village were collaborators at least technically. They’d swear they hadn’t been, hadn’t known what they’d been manufacturing, et cetera – and probably would take it out on the Briards – who’d betrayed their beloved patron and his son – who’d been an active résistant, planned and led this attack by Maquisards…
‘Mam’selle?’
Madame Briard. The truck had slowed at the gates, was turning out on to the road and picking up speed again. Rosie was watching out of the back to see Klebermann following, and didn’t look round.
‘Well?’
‘The things people say about us are not true, I’d have you know.’
‘For your sake I hope you can prove it.’
‘Prove? Why should we—’
‘I know nothing about you, and I don’t want to.’
She’d fiddled her blouse out to hang outside her skirt; had now located the capsule in its hem and begun working it round to the front where she’d be able to get at it if she had to. If, and when. The same problem, though, which she’d remembered after André had refused her offer: basically a matter of judgement and timing, but you might say also of nerve – that as long as there was any hope at all, you wouldn’t use it, but if you left it too late you mightn’t be in a position to. How it had been in Rouen in fact, a year ago… The truck was braking, pulling in to stop with two wheels on the pavement halfway along the front of the market square. She took in the set-up pretty well at a glance: a crowd which must have comprised just about the whole village, Marchéval work-force and their families, had been herded in along the back of the square, beyond the covered market area – which was slightly raised – pavement-level. There were Boche soldiers here and there, in groups of two or three, and at each end, to the right and left of the roofed centre, SS troops with Spandau machine guns on open-topped personnel-carriers. Klebermann’s truck was coming up to stop behind this one, and there were others, bigger vehicles, parked off the road on the opposite side, what had been the frontage of the Hôtel Poste but was now an area of blackened devastation, some of it still smoking – that stench like burning rubbish which she’d been aware of during the night. She was waiting to get down into the road as soon as the tail-gate was dropped – being disinclined to arrive apparently in company with the Briards. Most of the soldiers around the covered area and keeping the crowd back were carrying Schmeissers: and that was Wachtel, Linscheidt’s engineer – moon-faced, the early sun glinting on his spectacles. She’d seen him only once before, on her first visit to the manor with Colette – who with Jacques would be somewhere in that crowd… Tail-gate banging down: she was down too, her view of it all much more limited, and the soldier telling her to go that way – around the covered area to the left, not through it. She saw Klebermann striding over towards Wachtel: his sergeant was backing that truck away. She wondered whether if she made a break for it they’d shoot: in fact it would be fatal anyway, only draw attention to oneself: the grim truth was that walking obediently into this, wooden-soled shoes clattering on the cobbles, one had no more option than a prisoner in an extermination camp sent to join others in the gas chamber. Which the SS, who ran and staffed such camps, would doubtless regard as right and proper.
She told herself – seeing Klebermann exchanging salutes with Wachtel a dozen metres to her right as she passed round that end of the covered area – Soon be running like bloody rabbits…
But here and now – what?
Maybe they were wondering. Maybe only Sturmbannführer bloody Kroll—
There was a rope – no, a cord, about the thickness of a washing-line and with a noose in it – dangling from one of the roof-supporting timbers. Below it, a market-stall table, and a bench. Klebermann staring as if he too had just seen it: Wachtel shrugging, explaining. Out of her sight now as she passed: wondering whether André might have been left on his own or unobserved for long enough to fiddle the capsule out of the slot in that handkerchief. His alternative would be to bite on the handkerchief itself – if they’d let him keep it anyway…
‘Justine!’
Colette, and Jacques: they’d seen her coming, were edging through the crowd towards her. Rosie feeling a surge of relief in the reunion, her arms out to embrace them, both of them at once. Colette whispering as she clutched her, ‘Are you all right? Is it true le patron’s been killed?’
‘Shot – by a sod of a Sturmbannführer name of Kroll. I saw it. How long have you been here?’
Her question and Colette’s ‘What about André?’ had overlapped: Jacques told her, ‘Hours. Soon after you went off, they routed us all out.’ Nodding towards the dangling cord: ‘We’d guessed that was for Monsieur Henri, but – for André now.’ Jacques unshaven, hard-eyed, adding, ‘It’s not set up for a hanging. Not enough drop to break a man’s neck. That’s strangulation – torture.’ Rosie answering Colette then – others listening, pressing close all round – ‘They found him in a bedroom at the manor. Kroll was questioning them both – then shot Monsieur Henri – for lying to him, he said—’
‘What was M’sieu André doing there anyway?’
A stooped, hollow-chested, heavily moustached individual: Jacques reminded her, ‘Guy Fortrun – you met, I’m sure.’
She remembered – when she’d gone into the bar to tell him he was wanted on the telephone, some request for charcoal. A day ago – a month? She told him, ‘It seems André led the Maquisards last night – and they got in using his father’s keys.’
A whistle shrilled. German-French shouts for silence: ‘Attention!’ Kroll was in the centre there, with Raschler – and now Linscheidt, head and shoulders taller. Also the two SS men whom she’d last seen preparing to drag Monsieur Henri’s body out. And André: they had him between them, lifting him on to the bench and from there forcing him up on the table. A murmur – collective growl – running through the crowd: reaction, she supposed, not only to what was happening now but also to the fact this was André Marchéval, le patron’s son – and getting their first sight of his burnt face. Fortrun swearing, in a low, repetitious rumble: Colette with a hand pressed to her mouth, eyes brimming. Others weeping too. André had his hands behind his back, Rosie saw suddenly: from the way he stood and those two had handled him it was obvious that they were tied or handcuffed. So if either the handkerchief or the capsule on its own were in the pyjama pocket – on the left breast of the jacket…
Maybe he’d got rid of it. As he’d said, wouldn’t ever use it.
Better than being strangled on that cord, André…
Might have it in his mouth – only have to bite on it. Please God… Her concern by this stage was as much for André personally as it was to save herself and the Craillots from the consequences of his breaking down. For André, one might say, not ‘Hector’. They had the noose over his head and were working it down – he’d tried to twist away – his mouth open, a cry of pain as it scraped down over his face, and the crowd reacting with a growl of anger – and soldiers in turn reacting to that – Schmeissers and Spandaus levelled, and the SS menacing on those vehicles. The noose was down round André’s neck, one of the guards tightening it. André still open-mouthed – panting, gulping air.
Probably did not have the capsule in his mouth, she thought. An echo in her head again: truth is I’d never use it. He’d been telling the truth then: less ‘telling’ in fact than rather shame-facedly admitting it.
Linscheidt’s voice now, as surrounding noise fell away. He was using a megaphone, calling for silence.
‘I speak on behalf of Sturmbannführer Kroll, who has the duty of invest
igating sabotage action which took place last night and in which the prisoner André Marchéval took part.’
Silence. They’d want to hear this anyway. Distantly, the rattle of a train. Linscheidt was embarking on a résumé of the night’s events as background to this – performance. One, the provision of keys by Henri Marchéval. Two, his son injured by premature triggering of an explosive device, but managing to get from the factory to the manor – primarily to return the keys, although on account of his injuries he’d been obliged to remain there, a logical deduction being that if he had not had help from others, he couldn’t have got there in the first place: and this had been borne out by a witness statement to the effect that when he’d reached the manor – at about 0100 – there had been others with him.
‘He’ll pay for his own criminal actions – as his father has already paid for his. But Sturmbannführer Kroll has the duty also of identifying those who were with him. So – any of you who can identify such persons – step forward, now!’
Silence, again: broken by some German comment – Kroll to Linscheidt, she thought. The SS guards had been adjusting the cord, taking up the slack and securing it so that it was vertical, although André’s head was tilted slightly sideways and downwards by his own effort to keep his face clear of it. She could see what Jacques had meant: they could increase the tension or lessen it, have him up on his toes or lift him right up, actually to hang. It must have been rigged up for Monsieur Henri, she supposed. Then Kroll had had the surprise gift of André, hadn’t then needed the old man, had settled for using him as an example to his son. Something like that: combined perhaps with sadism pure and simple… The guards were standing back now. From the crowd, nothing more than murmurs, whispers – and a baby crying. She wondered where the Briards had hidden themselves, but didn’t want to risk drawing attention to herself even by as much as turning her head. Conscious that she was still a stranger here and might well be seen by some as a handy scapegoat: if for instance Madame Briard chose to elaborate, add that among the voices she’d heard had been a woman’s – which she might, if she thought of it…
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