Darkest Longings
Page 52
‘He said, take one of the horses, as if you were going for a normal afternoon ride, and he’ll meet you by the old fishermen’s huts on the river bank.’
Claudine kissed Louis, much to his disgust, and went upstairs to change. Within fifteen minutes she was galloping down over the meadow towards the lower part of the forest, then ploughing through the trees on her way to the river.
François was already there by the time she arrived. He held out his arms to catch her as she cantered up to him, and she all but threw herself into them.
‘Why are we meeting here?’ she asked, when he had kissed her. ‘Why not in our rooms?’
‘Because they might be bugged and we have to talk.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘A quarter to five,’ he said, ‘that gives us a few hours before curfew.’
‘Do you think they were bugged the other night?’ she said, aghast.
‘I’ve no idea, but I doubt it. They weren’t expecting me back until now. God, you’re beautiful,’ he murmured, running a hand over her hair. ‘Come along, we’ll go into old Thomas’ hut.’
He led her to one of the huts, set back in the trees. Inside, as well as the tangle of fishing rods, nets and baskets, there were two dilapidated armchairs and a damp mattress rolled up in one corner.
‘No prizes for guessing where Thomas comes for a bit of peace and quiet,’ François grinned, unrolling the mattress and laying his coat over it.
‘Well?’ Claudine said, sitting cross-legged in front of him. ‘Did you find Erich?’
He sat down too, and rested his elbows on his knees. ‘Erich is dead,’ he said flatly. Then he reached into his pocket and handed her a letter. ‘This was waiting for me at the Bois de Boulogne.’
She opened it, read the one word ERICH, and felt a cold finger of dread start to run down her spine. ‘Oh God, François,’ she whispered. ‘I’m so sorry. He was such a good friend to you. Do you know when it happened?’
‘The concièrge at his apartment couldn’t remember the date,’ he said bitterly. ‘All she could remember was that it was before Christmas. She doesn’t even know where he was buried.’
Claudine sighed, and taking his hand she gave it a comforting squeeze. ‘You know what it means, don’t you?’ he growled.
She nodded. ‘That he had found out who Halunke was.’
‘Yes. But he didn’t tell anyone, so we’re still none the wiser. Now listen, has Lucien returned to England yet?’
‘I think so.’
‘Damn!’
‘Why?’
‘When he comes back, I want to see him. I want him to arrange for you to …’
‘No! I know what you’re going to say, but I’m not going, François. We’re in this together now, and I’m not leaving you. We’ll find out who Halunke is, and we’ll find out together. That’s my final word on it.’
‘Well, it’s not mine. You’ll do as I say, damn you, and get the hell out of here. I don’t want you messing around with this. Two people have already died …’
‘Ssh!’ she said, cutting him off. Making as little noise as possible, she got up and went to peer out of the broken window.
‘What is it?’
‘Nothing. It must have been the horse.’ She sat down again. ‘Now, you listen to me. I’m co-ordinating a network of Résistants here in this area. They, and Lucien, are depending on me, and I’m not going to let them down. Also, I’ve been cheated of too much of my married life already by this vendetta, and I won’t put up with losing any more. I love you, François, I want to be with you, and I’m going to be. You needed Erich before, which goes to show you couldn’t manage on your own. Well, now you’ve got me. We have to work this thing out together. We’d better begin with what you know, what Erich last told you and …’
‘Claudine, shut up and for God’s sake kiss me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’d like to know that you’ll do a least one thing I tell you to.’
‘I’ll kiss you later,’ she said.
He gave a shout of laughter, and just for a moment she was almost light-headed with joy. But as quickly as it had come, the moment passed, and suddenly they were both quiet again, staring down at the letter with Erich’s name on it, which was still lying between them.
‘We’d better begin with why I’m here,’ François said. ‘Why the Abwehr have sent me back to Lorvoire. You have to know because it’s going to affect you in a way you’re not going to like very much. They know there’s a Resistance group in the area with the code name Jupiter. No, don’t say anything until I’ve finished. They also know that there are several local escape-lines taking British pilots to safety, and that one of them runs through Touraine. The Abwehr want me not only to destroy the Touraine escape route but to arrest as many as I can of those involved. The same goes for the Jupiter réseau.’
‘Oh God,’ she murmured. ‘You do know what you’re saying, don’t you?’
‘I’m afraid I do. But I don’t want you to tell me anything. I don’t want to know who’s involved. You’re to tell me nothing, do you understand? And I can’t promise that I’ll give you information, either.’
‘But you have to!’ she protested.
‘No! If you act on information I give you, the Abwehr will know instantly where it has come from. That doesn’t only put me in danger, it puts Halunke back in action. You won’t have forgotten what they’re doing to keep me loyal. If I make one slip, then God knows what will happen to you.’
He turned away as an image of Élise came to his mind. He had called on her while he was in Paris, and she had been so pathetically grateful to see him that he had ended up staying the night. Béatrice had told him what was happening with the Abwehr officers, and he had known such a murderous rage that it was some time before he had himself back under control. He had decided then that he didn’t want her in Paris any longer, where they could abuse her like that, so he had made arrangements to move her out some time in the next few weeks.
‘So remember,’ he said to Claudine, ‘and keep this in your mind the whole time: I am not only a collaborator, I am the very worst kind of collaborator. I shall be wearing a German uniform, and I shall be turning my own countrymen over to the Gestapo.’
Her face was ashen. ‘You won’t!’ she breathed. ‘You can’t do it! François …’
‘Of course I won’t be doing it!’ he cried. ‘But you have to believe that I am. Everyone must believe it, even the Abwehr. Though God alone knows how I’m going to convince them.’
‘What about Lucien?’ she said. ‘Don’t you think we should take him into our confidence? In fact,’ she added, ‘I think we have to. Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this, but the Resistance already has weapons. Not many, but there could come a time when they start using them …’
‘The FTP are already using weapons,’ François butted in.
‘The Communist Résistants? There you are, then. And you’ll be one of the first targets for the Resistance in this area. We – they – hate collaborators almost more than Nazis. Lucien might be able to tip you off if someone is planning to kill you.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ he said. ‘In the meantime, there’s Halunke.’
‘The last time we spoke about this,’ she said, ‘you thought Erich was drawing the wrong conclusions. But now he’s been killed … Well, perhaps he was on the right track.’
François gazed into her vibrant blue eyes, then looked down at the torn and faded patterns of the mattress.
‘François,’ Claudine said quietly, ‘is Halunke’s identity tied up with what happened to Hortense de Bourchain?’
His head came up, and she could see that he was both annoyed and surprised. ‘What makes you say that?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. It was just a feeling I had. Has it got something to do with her? Is that the line Erich was pursuing?’
François nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, it was.’
‘Then don’t you think it’s time, chéri, to tell me what happened?’
‘But we don’t know that. All we have to go on is what he said to you when he came to the Château. And we have to start somewhere, so it had better be there.’
‘All right,’ he sighed. He went to sit in one of the chairs. Running a hand over his jaw and fixing his eyes on the fishing paraphernalia at his feet, he began. ‘Hortense was in love with me,’ he said. ‘She wanted me to marry her, she even went as far as getting her father to speak to mine. My father was in favour of the match; it was eminently suitable, and as you know, he wanted grandchildren. I was fond of Hortense, I suppose I did love her in a way. But it was all happening at the time your father was introducing me to the Secret Service. I told her to wait, that maybe in a year or two I would be ready to marry her.’
He sighed. ‘Hortense flew into a royal rage at that and told me I was a philanderer. She said we were practically engaged already, and I couldn’t treat her like that. Nevertheless, I didn’t see her for three or four weeks. Then she came to the house in Paris one night when she knew I’d be there alone and … She was a very attractive woman, she wanted me to make love to her, so I did. She said I had to marry her then, that I was honour-bound to do so. It was my turn to fly into a temper and I ordered her out of the house. She came back the following day, begging forgiveness and promising she would wait for as long as I wanted, provided I did marry her in the end. We continued to see one another, though we didn’t make love again. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, it was just that I knew she was hoping to become pregnant so that then I’d be forced to marry her. I didn’t want to be trapped like that. The truth was, though I did love her in a way, I didn’t want to be married at all.
‘Over the next year or so, things went from bad to worse. I tried to stop seeing her, but wherever I went she was there. Then one night, when we were all staying at Lorvoire, she asked me to go outside with her, into one of the caves. She told me then that she’d been sleeping with Lucien and that Lucien was in love with her. I made the great mistake of laughing. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe her, it was simply that her motives were so transparent. And sure enough, she told me that she would continue sleeping with Lucien if I didn’t promise to marry her within the month. I told her she could sleep with Lucien as often as she liked, that as far as I was concerned she could sleep with any number of men, and I wished her well.’
François paused, and shifted uncomfortably in the chair. ‘It was then that she pulled out a knife. A dagger. God only knows where she got it, but she had it. She said that if I didn’t promise, she would kill herself. I tried to get the knife from her, but she just went crazy. In the struggle she managed to slash my face, and it was then, in the moment that I let go of her, that she lifted the knife to plunge it into her chest. Again I managed to get hold of it, but as I wrenched it away from her my hand jerked downwards, she pushed herself against me, and the next thing I knew I had stabbed her. I didn’t even give myself a moment for disbelief, I simply picked her up and ran with her to the car. All I could think of was getting her to a doctor. As I drove off I looked in the mirror and saw my father talking to Armand. I had no idea how much either of them had seen, but it hardly mattered at the time. I had to get Hortense to a doctor.
‘It was her parents who wanted the whole matter hushed up. They knew what had been going on, and when my father told them exactly what had happened in the wine cave, well I think they wanted the whole episode to receive as little attention as possible. Armand never mentioned it, though my father told me he had spoken to him, and he had promised to keep everything to himself. Lucien never mentioned it either. Whether he and Hortense had been sleeping together I don’t know, it never seemed appropriate to ask. But I think they had.
‘So there you have it, the murder of Hortense de Bourchain. Why Erich thought it had some vital connection with Halunke I simply don’t know. He checked on Hortense’s family and none of them were in France at the times that mattered. The only other people who know what happened are Doctor Lebrun, my father, Lucien and Armand, and as none of them could conceivably be Halunke …’
Looking up, François saw in the fading light that Claudine’s eyes were shining with tears. ‘Why are you crying?’ he asked softly.
‘I’m not. Not exactly. I just feel so sad. But you’re right, none of them could be Halunke. The only one who has anything approaching a motive is Lucien – if he loved Hortense. And Lucien wouldn’t have killed his own father.’
‘So, we’re right back at the beginning. Erich must have discovered something else, and we – I – have to find out what that was.’
‘We,’ she corrected. ‘Will you come here, please? I want to give you that kiss now.’
As he knelt in front of her, she put her arms round his neck and said, ‘How does a man with such an ugly face and such a chequered past manage to fill my heart with so much love?’
‘I don’t know, but I’m glad I do,’ he smiled, lowering his mouth to hers.
Five minutes later he was handing her up onto her horse.
‘That wasn’t enough,’ she said, looking down at him sulkily.
‘I didn’t think it would be,’ he answered with a wry smile.
‘Can we make love tonight?’
‘If you can make it sound like rape.’ He thought about that, then his eyes met hers and they laughed.
‘How are you getting back?’ she asked, turning her horse.
‘There’s a tunnel. It leads from the river bank over there, into the middle cellar.’
‘The middle cellar!’ she gasped. ‘The boxes!’
‘Don’t tell me,’ he groaned. ‘You’ve opened them.’
‘It was your father’s idea,’ she said sheepishly. ‘But where did all those valuables come from?’
‘Jews,’ he answered. ‘They belong to wealthy Parisian Jews. I’m keeping them until they, or their descendants, can come to collect them.’
Claudine smiled widely as tilting her head quizzically to one side, she said, ‘Is that a halo I can see shining over your devilish face?’
‘Get out of here,’ he laughed, and giving the horse a slap, he sent her galloping off into the forest.
– 29 –
DURING THE MONTHS that followed François’ return to the Château it was easy to forget that there was a war taking place beyond the borders of Lorvoire – that was, if you ignored the drone of aircraft passing overhead, the daily wireless broadcasts and the presence of the Germans stationed in Chinon. Even Claudine’s Resistance group went to ground for a time, once she had warned the Jupiter réseau that the Germans knew about them. But as soon as Lucien returned from England with news that the RAF were to begin a series of fighter sweeps over northern France, the escape-line went back into operation and the search for safe-houses and couriers began again. At first, though, the number of Allied pilots needing to be escorted through France to Spain was small, and Claudine was more than happy to concentrate on other things.
As those balmy summer days passed, she could feel herself inexorably changing. She was light-headed with love, with a sense of fulfilment, a feeling of well-being. She walked taller than ever, her glorious hair bouncing on her shoulders, and was so unmistakably radiant that François was forced to see that continuing to try and delude the family they were not in love was a waste of effort. But the truth must go no further than that, he warned her. Apart from anything else, her fellow Résistants would take a dim view of her attachment to a collaborator.
He told her little about the days he spent at the Château d’Artigny, though she knew that as yet he had been required to do very little. Following the breakdown of the Russo-German non-aggression pact, Hitler had turned his ar
my east, and von Liebermann and his Komitee were heavily involved in intelligence-gathering for the planned invasion of Russia. Without von Liebermann’s specific instructions it appeared that François’ commanding officers in Touraine were at a loss to know what they should do with him. This suited François perfectly, of course – though he was curious to know why von Liebermann – or more accurately, Himmler – had not yet ordered his execution. He had as yet done nothing further to prove his fealty to the Reich, and if he wasn’t to be actively engaged on the Abwehr’s behalf he couldn’t see what purpose his staying alive served. Still, the German plan for his fate would no doubt be made clear soon enough, and meanwhile he and Claudine determined to make the most of the reprieve.
It wasn’t long before Blomberg, whose discomfort since François’ return had been painfully obvious, started to spend more and more nights away from the château. This delighted Solange, because it meant that the family – including Lucien – could spend the long, hot summer evenings together, singing and dancing in the ballroom, or simply listening to Edith Piaf’s lazy, seductive voice on the gramophone. Lucien couldn’t come often, but when he did François allowed Louis to stay up late as a special treat. Solange, whose hair was back on end as though the crazy ideas in her head were pushing up through her skull, played loudly on the piano while Louis sang with Monique and Claudine. And when Louis became tired and snuggled sleepily into his father’s lap, the cries for Lucien to sing next were almost as loud as the protests that were made when Armand joined in. Liliane was often there too, and neighbours from nearby châteaux took to bringing their rations to Arlette so that they too could join the de Lorvoire soirées. No one objected to François’ apparent allegiance to the German cause since most of them, like Tante Céline, were Attentistes – waiting to see which way the war went before deciding which side to take. Besides, most of them played host during the day to hunting and shooting parties in the Chinon Forest which François and many other German officers attended.