by Susan Lewis
Solange handed them both a brandy, then sweeping the morning’s papers from the sofa, she sat down herself. Claudine watched as with a trembling hand she lifted her glass to her lips. Of all of them it was Solange who had taken the greatest strain these past few weeks. Monique’s broken heart was as big a sorrow to her mother as it was to Monique, and with her constant, almost irrational, terror for Lucien, her fears for François and her anxiety over Louis’ obviously diminishing health, Claudine wondered how much longer her mother-in-law would be able to hold on. She knew then, as she looked into that beloved, startlingly jovial face, that no matter what Neville Chamberlain had to say, and whether François’ morbid predictions came true or not, she had been right to tell him she wouldn’t leave Lorvoire – and she would stay as long as Solange needed her.
She went to sit beside her on the sofa. ‘François says that Britain is about to declare war,’ she said in a trembling voice to no one in particular. ‘Apparently Mr Chamberlain is making a broadcast at twelve fifteen.’
Louis nodded. ‘And France?’
‘Later today, François says. He didn’t say what time.’
Solange looked at her watch. ‘It’s almost one fifteen,’ she said. ‘I wonder if François gave you British or French time?’
‘Well, there’s only one way to find out,’ Louis said, pulling himself from his chair and walking across to the wireless. As they listened to the crackling and whining of his search for the BBC’s World Service, Monique came in and took the remaining glass of brandy from the tray.
They had no more than two minutes to wait before Neville Chamberlain’s sombre voice came over the crackling air-waves. ‘I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room at Ten Downing Street,’ he began. ‘This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note, stating that, unless the British Government heard from them by eleven o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany …’
There was more, but none of them heard it. Louis looked at Solange, and with tears running down his face, said, ‘In nineteen eighteen I looked around for the men I’d known, but they were all gone. The battlefields were strewn with their brave young bodies. One and half million of them gave their lives in that war, Solange. Their hearts numbed by the cold, their skin crawling with filth, their nostrils filled with the stench of blood and decaying flesh. I never thought we would come to this again, Solange, I never thought …’
Solange wiped the tears from his eyes, and as the British National Anthem started to play on the wireless, Claudine let herself quietly out of the room and went upstairs to the nursery. Louis was playing with his toy car, but when he saw her come into the room he ran into her arms.
‘Corinne,’ Claudine said, settling Louis on her hip.
‘Madame?’
‘I want you to teach me the skill of unarmed combat.’
*
François’ black eyes moved meditatively about the room. The creamy-white walls were unadorned, apart from a crucifix between the windows, and the bare tiled floor was scrupulously clean. The smell of disinfectant lingered in the air churning his empty stomach, making him feel bilious. Next to the brown leather armchair in which he sat was a small iron-framed bed, and through the windowed walls facing him he could see white-overalled doctors and nurses in stiff uniforms going about their business.
Earlier, the air-raid sirens had sounded, and he had heard the commotion in the street outside as Parisians rushed panic-stricken to the shelters. When it was over several women had been brought to the hospital, stifled and half-fainting in their gas-masks. It had been another false alarm.
He closed his eyes as the Herculean burden of his tiredness weighted his limbs. But still sleep eluded him, as it had done for days. He was now a machine, operating ceaselessly, monotonously, without feeling … All the same, he grinned when he recalled his conversation with Claudine that morning. Her passionate refusal to leave France had not surprised him, but he would telephone again later for her final decision. If she was determined to stay he wouldn’t argue, he had no time for it now … Just as he had no time for the self-recrimination that was razoring his mind of sleep. It was too late now to regret the path he had chosen, to regret his marriage, to regret, most bitterly of all, what had happened to Élise.
He turned to look at her, but she was still sleeping, and resting his head against the winged back of the chair, he stared sightlessly up at a corner of the room. A few days ago the doctor had told him that she was at last out of danger, but the road to recovery was going to be a long one, he had warned, and she might never reach the end of it. Her breasts and her buttocks would always bear the scars of the knife, but that was nothing to the way her insides had been ripped. It was doubtful if she would ever be able to make love again, and the memory of the last words he, François, had spoken to her on the night they entertained Helber would remain forever branded on his mind.
‘Do you want to make love, Élise?’ he had asked her.
‘Yes, oh yes,’ she had moaned, turning in his arms.
‘Then as a professional whore you should have no trouble in finding someone to satisfy you,’ he had said, and letting her go, he had turned and walked out of the room.
He would never have said that if he had not known Helber was listening at the door, and now that he knew the extent of Élise’s injuries he had vowed that one day he would sever the man’s genitals from his body, so that he too should be denied the pleasures of love.
But that would never give Élise back what she had lost. He sighed, and again closed his eyes as the choking monster of guilt heaved in his chest. He had tried everything he could to stop her falling in love with him; at times he had disgusted even himself with his brutality. But despite all his efforts he had failed. To her he had been the ultimate challenge, and she had believed herself strong enough, clever enough, brave enough to take him on, together with the world of intrigue in which he moved. She had never stood a chance. Her sophistication lay in her body, not in her mind; in her beauty and her matchless bedroom skills. Yet for a while she had held her own, had surprised even him with her determination and her ruthlessness.
But he should have known that something like this would happen in the end – that von Liebermann would find her Achilles heel. She had wanted to become the Comtesse de Rassey de Lorvoire, and no doubt that was what von Liebermann had promised her. If only she had listened to him, believed him, when he told her he would never marry her! But the blame was his, he should have acted the moment he realized von Liebermann had got to her. Instead he had merely kept her ignorant of what he was doing, thereby letting the Abwehr know that he no longer trusted her.
And it was that, as much as anything else, that had sealed her fate. Knowing that Élise was no longer in his confidence, could supply no more useful information on him, von Liebermann had unleashed on her the man Helber had told him about, as a warning of what would happen to those he loved if he failed to co-operate …
Now, hearing Élise stir, he braced himself for the thin, frail sound of her voice. Every time he heard it, it was as though he was reliving the violent, vindictive slashing of the knife that had ruined her body.
‘François, are you there?’
‘Yes, I’m here,’ he answered, sitting forward and taking her hand. It was limp and cold, and his heart contracted as he looked down at her terrible caved-in cheek. ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked softly.
‘Quite good.’ She tried to smile, and the gruesome twist of her face made him wince. It was only in the last two days that she had started to speak coherently, and though he longed to ask her about her attacker, he couldn’t bring himself to make her relive even a moment of what had happened. Of course he knew who had done it, but he needed the man’s name.
He looked at her, but as she gazed up at
him from the valley of swellings around her eyes, he said simply, ‘Would you like me to read to you?’
‘Can it be Perrault?’
He smiled. It had been Erich von Pappen’s idea that he should read her fairy tales, and now she wanted nothing else. He kissed her hand and then picked up the book, but as he opened it at the first page she said, ‘You’ll have to go away soon, won’t you?’
‘For a while,’ he answered.
‘Will you come back?’
‘Yes.’
She lowered her eyes as a tear rolled over her bruises and fell onto the pillow. ‘I know you have to go, but I don’t want you to. I’m afraid without you.’
‘Erich will be here, chérie,’ he said, putting down the book and taking her hands again. ‘Nothing will happen to you. And when you’re well enough to leave, I’ve arranged for someone to watch over you.’
Again she smiled, and he lifted his hand to stroke the hair from her face. Then suddenly her eyes were wide and terrified; her lips parted and she started to mumble.
It was often like that, and the doctor had warned him that it might never change. The trauma she had suffered had tragically affected her brain as badly as her body.
He waited, unable to understand her ramblings but knowing that in a few minutes she would be with him again. Yet when her eyes focussed at last, they were still glazed with terror.
‘Halunke?’ she gasped. ‘Are you Halunke?’ And then she screamed.
The piercing cry whipped round the room, and he grabbed her as she tried to sit up. ‘Élise!’ he cried. ‘Élise! Stop!’
The door flew open and a doctor ran in, followed by three nurses. They held her to the bed while a needle was pushed into her arm, and within seconds she was sinking into oblivion. The doctor turned to François, an accusatory frown on his face, but he said nothing and left the room.
François stood to one side as the nurses checked Élise’s wounds to see that none of them had opened. That strange word Élise had uttered … Halunke. It was the German word for rat, yet she had used it as a name. ‘Are you Halunke?’ she had said.
He glanced at his watch, and as he did so Erich von Pappen walked into the room, five minutes later than expected. François motioned for the nurses to leave, then turned to his courier.
Von Pappen was an odd-looking man, whose eyes and mouth formed three circles above and below a thin, upturned nose. He had no hair, no earlobes and no neck, and his short, scrawny body was racked with alarming frequency by a nervous twitch.
‘Well?’ François said.
‘The same,’ von Pappen answered. ‘Liebermann wants you in Berlin.’
François nodded, and rubbed his fingers over the black shadow on his chin.
‘I don’t think you can ignore this summons any longer,’ von Pappen told him. ‘He wanted you there three weeks ago, his patience is wearing thin.’
‘Have you contacted Captain Paillole?’
‘Yes. He’ll see you at nine o’clock tonight at the avenue de Tourville.’
François’ eyes were hard. ‘Les Services de Renseignements’ headquarters? That must mean he intends to tape the meeting.’ He gave a mirthless laugh. ‘So he no longer trusts me! Very wise of him.’ Then, looking up, ‘Contact von Liebermann as soon as you can after midnight. Tell him I’m on my way.’
‘It may take you some time to get there,’ von Pappen warned. ‘The roads out of Paris are blocked for miles. Everyone’s fleeing the city, there’s pandemonium out there.’
Dismissing this with a wave of his hand, François said, ‘Have you visited the Jews?’
‘All except two, and I’m told they’re in the United States. I doubt if they’ll come back.’
‘I see. And the others?’
‘I have their valuables already. They’ll be transported to Lorvoire sometime over the next few weeks.’
François smiled. ‘And the Jews themselves?’
‘Everything is as you instructed.’
François turned back to Élise. As von Pappen walked round to the other side of the bed and gazed down at her too, he said, ‘Claude Villiers?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ von Pappen answered.
Though he hadn’t expected to find his nemesis so easily, François’ spirits sank. They were still no closer to discovering the man’s identity. ‘Halunke,’ he said. ‘Does that mean anything to you?’
Von Pappen shrugged. ‘It means rat.’
‘His code name,’ François said, digging a hand into his pocket and pulling out the note he had received the morning after Élise’s mutilation. It contained only one word – ÉLISE. ‘I think he meant to kill her,’ he said.
‘Maybe it would have been better if he had,’ von Pappen answered solemnly.
François scowled at the little man, then pushed the note back into his pocket. ‘Have we any idea where he is now?’
‘None.’
François looked back once more at Élise, then turned abruptly away. ‘Stay with her, Erich. When she comes round, read to her from Perrault, and if she asks for me, tell her I’ll be back as soon as I can. If need be, swear on your mother’s grave that I have not abandoned her.’
Von Pappen’s bony limbs twitched in answer.
François drove to the house in the Bois de Boulogne, where he took a long bath, shaved, changed, and ordered an early dinner. In the study he placed a person-to-person call to Lorvoire. Knowing it would take some time to come through, he decided that the long-overdue explanation to his father must be dealt with now. As it turned out, it covered only one page, but more than an hour passed before he was ready to sign his name to the most soul-destroying letter he would ever write. At that very instant, the telephone rang.
When he heard Claudine at the other end, he felt the weariness pull at his bones – God, how he longed to hold her! But the sudden and unwelcome weakness angered him, and his voice was like steel as he said, ‘Have you changed your mind?’
‘No,’ she answered stiffly, ‘I’m staying at Lorvoire.’
‘Then you’re a fool.’
There was a pause before she said, ‘A fool maybe, but better that than a traitor.’
His eyes narrowed as her accusation bit into him. He would have liked to ask her how she had found out, but as it made little difference, he simply replaced the receiver.
As he walked from the room, his face turned even uglier as he watched a valet deposit his bags at the foot of the stairs, ready for his departure. With the advent of war, the tightrope he walked had been drawn impossibly tight, and already the fraying strands were beginning to snap. And he was in no doubt that the safety net which had always been there to catch him would, that very night, be removed by Captain Paul Paillole.
He toyed then with the idea of putting a call through to London. But on a night like this the connection would take hours, if he got one at all. And even if he did, the chances of finding Beavis at home were so slim as to be virtually nonexistent.
– 20 –
THE MORNING SUN was bright, the air pungent with the smell of autumn. On the hillsides the Lorvoire vines were weighted with clusters of luscious purple grapes, now almost ready for harvest, and the trees were tinged with gold as they prepared for their seasonal change.
Claudine, Solange and Liliane were walking down over the bank outside Liliane’s house to the cobbled street. Claudine, leading her horse, was thankful for the small veil on her riding hat, which partially concealed the mirth she could not suppress. Solange had come to the village in her nurse’s uniform, which she had been wearing for the past three weeks, ever since war had been declared. Her tufts of grey hair sprouted from under her cap and her busy fingers were constantly lifting the watch pinned to her apron, but the chief source of Claudine’s mirth was the stethoscope draped importantly around Solange’s neck. It was the first time Claudine had seen it, and she had no idea where Solange had got it, but it wouldn’t surprise her in the least to discover that Doctor Lebrun had inexplicably lost one … Hea
ven help them all, she thought, if Solange managed to get her hands on a syringe!
‘It’s a pity I’m too old to go off to the front,’ Solange was saying. ‘I did in the last war, you know. So did you, Liliane. Don’t tell me you’d forgotten!’
Liliane had confessed to no such thing. Her watery eyes met Claudine’s as she said, without a trace of irony, ‘It must be my age, Solange. I’m forgetting everything these days.’
‘Poor Liliane,’ Solange soothed – and Liliane’s eyes widened in horror as Solange started fingering her stethoscope with obvious intent.
Fortunately, Liliane was saved from an impromptu medical examination by a sudden stampede of small feet. The village children had spotted Claudine and her horse, and come running over to beg a ride.
‘Splendid idea!’ Solange cried, instantly forgetting Liliane, and ignoring Marcel who was standing to attention at the open door of the Bentley. ‘I’ll take them. Sit them on, Claudine. Two at a time, and I’ll lead them round the square.’
With a grin, Claudine watched Liliane hurry back up the bank to the safety of her kitchen, then turned to lift Thomas Crouy’s grandchildren into the saddle. As Solange took the reins and led the horse steadily into the square, Claudine wandered over to the well to wait with the other children, enjoying their chatter as they told her how their older brothers and fathers had gone off to fight the Germans, and asked if Captain Lucien was going to be a hero.
‘I hope so,’ she told them, glad that Solange was out of earshot. No one had mentioned Lucien since the outbreak of war, but they all knew he was the reason why Solange was slipping from the rails again. He was stationed at Metz with Colonel de Gaulle’s tank brigade, and Metz was far too close to Germany for Solange’s peace of mind.