Christine glanced at Jack, but he was no longer looking at anyone. He had assumed an air of indifference, but a nerve was twitching at his temple and gave him away.
“Helene was terrified that she was to be tortured. She had been questioned but then her tormentor was replaced by Major Von Sturmbakker…who was pretending to be generous. She said that she would escape if she could, but could not contact her friends in the Resistance. I asked her for a name and she seemed reluctant to give it, but in the end she decided to trust me. I was able to go to the village and contact that person and it was arranged for Helene to be got away that night…”
Christine looked at her as she hesitated. “What happened? Was it a trap? If it was you shouldn’t blame yourself, Clothilde. How could you have known?”
“Because I knew Von Sturmbakker,” Clothilde said, her eyes dark with remembered horror. “I had worked out a plan. I was going to distract the guard – seduce him if necessary…” She looked defiantly in Jack’s direction but he would not look at her. “But there was no one on duty. That should have warned me that something was wrong. I should have known then, but I went through with the escape. I watched as Helene ran into the woods and then I went back to the house…”
Chapter Twenty
That night in France
“Oh, my God!” Clothilde felt the scream building inside her but she held it back. She could not afford to give way to hysteria now. She had to be calm, to think about what had happened, because she might have sent Helene to her death.
She must be wrong about this! She was letting her imagination run away with her. But in her mind she could see the men waiting in the darkness of the woods for Helene to come…her leading the Germans to them…and then the hail of gunfire that would wipe out so many brave people. And Clothilde had walked straight into Von Sturmbakker’s trap, for she would have betrayed them – all those men, and Helene. It was a heavy burden to bear and yet there was something at the back of her mind – something telling her that there was more.
She had to know the truth! If what she suspected was true – but it would be too late by the time she reached them.
Please let her be wrong! Please let Helene get away to safety!
She straightened up, her stomach churning as the sickness rose to her throat and she rushed to be sick in the adjoining bathroom. Then she wiped her mouth with a wet flannel and went through to her bedroom. She couldn’t bear her own thoughts! Somehow she had to know for certain – but where to begin her search?
She left her own room and walked down the hall to the one Helene had occupied. The door was not locked, yielding easily to her touch. She went in, catching a breath of the other girl’s perfume.
The back of Clothilde’s neck was prickling. Her feeling that something didn’t ring true was growing. All Helene’s things were here. It was a luxurious prison. Indeed, if she had been deprived of her freedom she had been deprived of nothing else.
Clothilde touched the silver-gilt brushes and perfume pots on the dressing table. It was odd that Helene had taken nothing with her – even her jewellery was here.
Opening the box, Clothilde saw a string of valuable pearls and gold pendants – and a large diamond and emerald ring: an engagement ring by the look of it. Why had Helene left these things behind? Surely she could have slipped some of the jewellery inside her bodice? It would have given her some security in an uncertain future.
Clothilde closed the box and wandered over to the wardrobe. It was packed full of clothes – clothes that Helene had bought in the spring of the previous year, many of them looked unworn. She was about to turn away when a flash of white caught her eye. She hesitated for a moment before reaching out to take the dress from the rail, and then a chill ran down her spine and she knew she had found what she was searching for.
It was the white version of the blue gown she had modelled for Von Sturmbakker on his first visit to the showrooms. Suddenly everything clicked into place. Helene’s fear that she would be tortured – her claim that she was a prisoner – had been a charade for Clothilde’s benefit. But why go to so much trouble? Why build such an elaborate trap – was it just for her? She was nothing, an insignificant woman Von Sturmbakker could have disposed of at will.
“So you finally made the connection. You have disappointed me, Clothilde. I believed you would suspect us long before this, but Helene said you would believe her and it seems she was right, at least for long enough to spring the trap.”
Clothilde turned as she heard Von Sturmbakker’s voice.
“You bought this gown for Helene. She told you to come to us, didn’t she? You were engaged to her…”
“We thought you had guessed it last night,” he murmured silkily. “Helene almost gave herself away when you spoke of my fiancée.” He moved towards Clothilde, closing the door behind him but not locking it. He was so certain of his power over her that he did not think she might escape. “No one will disturb us, Clothilde. I have sent your lover off on an errand, because I am looking forward to this little encounter.”
“But why? Why the charade? I don’t understand. If she was your fiancée…”
“Helene was very foolish. She became involved with the Resistance before I came here. Had my superiors learned of it, she would have been arrested and shot. I should not have been able to save her.”
“So you thought of a way to make it look as if she were innocent?” Clothilde’s mind had a strange clarity now, her senses heightened. “If I am right there is a German patrol waiting at a secret rendezvous for Helene’s friends – only they aren’t her friends anymore, are they? She was prepared to betray them to you, because she still loves you – and you showed her a way out of her predicament, didn’t you?”
“Helene did not betray her friends, Clothilde. You did that.” His chilling smile sent a shaft of fear through her. “Just as you betrayed the priest in Paris. Did you imagine we were fools, Clothilde?”
Clothilde’s heart gave a sickening lurch. For a moment even Helene was forgotten as his words sank in…and the smile on his cruel mouth made her want to vomit. It was her worst nightmare, the one thing she had dreaded to hear.
Andre …Andre forgive me.
“What happened to…”
She caught back the words, fearing a trap.
“Father Lombard?” Von Sturmbakker’s brows rose. She could tell that he enjoyed taunting her; he wanted to see her squirm, to break her. “He was very brave, Clothilde. He died before he would reveal a single name…”
“Oh, my God!” Clothilde felt the pain shaft through her. Andre was dead! Her head went spinning. He was dead because she had been too careless. Somehow she had betrayed herself and him. “You…devil…”
The pain coursed through her and for a moment she thought she might faint as her grief almost overwhelmed her. In her mind she could see Andre being tortured, hear his screams, and she felt physically ill…but then anger and disgust rose up in her. How could anyone take pleasure in such cruelty? Von Sturmbakker was an animal, and she would not let him break her spirit! Whatever he did to her she would not break. She was fiercely glad that she knew nothing that could help him in his mission to seek out and destroy members of the Resistance.
He was looking at her with those cold eyes, evidently unmoved.
“I have been called such names before. But we were discussing Helene I think? You were the one who betrayed her and her friends tonight. You went to Jeanne for help. It is you who will bear the blame for their deaths – and Helene’s too, of course.”
“Helene is to die, too?” She stared at him in horror, feeling bewildered. Had she misunderstood him? “But she loved you – she betrayed them for you!” The sickness swept over her. “Yet you would let her die. You never loved her at all.”
“I thought her suitable for breeding purposes once,” Von Sturmbakker said. “But her father decreed otherwise and the engagement was broken. He insulted me and I do not forgive such an insult.”
“You did
all this for revenge?” Clothilde looked into his eyes and saw him for what he was – a vain, evil man. She began to understand the reasoning behind his machinations; it would not satisfy him merely to have his ex-fiancée shot, he had wanted to break her, to force her to betray those who had been her comrades. The fact that Clothilde had also inadvertently betrayed another branch of the Resistance was an added bonus for him.
“But of course. I find very little satisfaction in physical pleasure, Clothilde, but I enjoy watching people…making them do as I want. Helene was easy to manipulate, too easy. She believed I was in love with her. My predecessor frightened her, as I instructed him to do. She was pathetically grateful when I came charging to the rescue. She would have done anything I asked of her. I have all the names I need to wipe out this little nest of rats. My men are already waking households, taking away the traitors to be shot.”
“You disgust me.”
“Yes, I have known that from the beginning – it made the game so much more pleasurable, my dear, knowing that I was forcing you to smile at me when you would much rather have killed me.” His eyes chilled her. “You are clever at hiding your thoughts, Clothilde. You imagine that you are in control – but your eyes betray you sometimes. It amused me to have you followed, to use you for my own purposes.”
She raised her head, looking at him defiantly. “What are you going to do with me? Torture me? I know nothing, but if you want to waste your time.”
“Oh, it would not be a waste of time, believe me. It is a pleasure I may indulge at some future date – but perhaps not yet. You are my guest, Clothilde. Why should I kill you? My plan would not have worked without you. Helene was afraid that she would never be able to return here if she betrayed her own people. I think she might have died rather than give up this place. I promised her that she would get it back after we have conquered our enemies. She was foolish enough to believe me.”
“So sure of yourself. What was supposed to happen? Was Helene expecting to return here? Were you going to take her to Austria?”
“That is what she believed, of course – but she was stupid. I would never have married the daughter of a Jew.”
Clothilde was looking towards the door. She had heard and seen what Sturmbakker had not. He was enjoying himself, relishing his triumph.
“She was a stupid bitch. I have no use for a Jew bitch.” He moved a little closer to Clothilde. “I am not usually interested in sexual encounters, Clothilde – but tonight I need physical release and your fear and disgust excites me. I have always admired you and now I am going to show you that I can perform as any normal man…”
“No!” Helene’s shrill cry stopped him in his tracks. Clothilde watched the gloating expression fade from his face, to be replaced with shock and then anger – anger that his plans had somehow been thwarted and she was still alive. “You can’t want her. You love me…you love me!”
Helene’s voice rose on a sobbing note of despair. Major Von Sturmbakker turned slowly to look at her, his expression one of cold indifference to her distress. She had served her purpose and was of no further use.
“You were supposed to die with the others. Why are you here?”
“No…” Helene’s hand crept to her throat. “I didn’t want to see. I waited in the woods until she went back and then…You can’t mean that, Siegfried. You loved me…” There was horror in her eyes as she stared at him. “You promised me we would be married.”
“He loves no one but himself and his own cleverness,” Clothilde told her. “Can’t you see? He used you just as he used me. He is an evil man. You were merely a means to an end – you betrayed your father’s memory and your people for nothing.”
“Liar!” Helene screamed. “You turned him against me. You are nothing but a filthy whore. You stole my father from me. I wanted you to die.”
“I stole nothing. Auguste loved me.”
Helene’s scream of rage startled Von Sturmbakker. As she reached for a silver paperknife on the dressing table, he drew the pistol he wore in a holster at his waist. Then, as she ran towards them, arm uplifted, he shot her in the stomach twice.
Clothilde was not sure if Helene had meant to kill her or Von Sturmbakker. She covered only a few short steps before his shots rang out and she dropped the knife, screaming as she clutched at herself in sudden pain and disbelief. The blood was pulsing through her fingers in a floodtide of crimson gore, her screams echoing in the room around them. To Clothilde each moment that she stood there staring at them in horror was a separate lifetime, then she slowly sank to the floor, pitching forward to twitch in agony for several more lifetimes before she finally lay still.
“Helene…” Clothilde whispered, finally released from the stupefying numbness that had held her. Helene’s screams would live with her for the rest of her life, but silence had claimed her now – the silence of the dead. “Oh, my God! You killed her…”
“One less Jew to contaminate the air.”
Von Sturmbakker’s smile of triumph told her what he planned to do next. In that instant she saw clearly that she had only one chance, and rushed at him before he realized what she was about, throwing herself into his body with all her strength.
He recoiled from the shock of her unexpected attack, giving her a momentary advantage, but then he started to wrestle with her as she tried to snatch the gun from him. She was breathing hard, desperate, her heart pounding wildly. She had to get the gun away from him somehow…
Sturmbakker was strong. Surely he was too strong for her? But she had to win! Clothilde knew that he would never let her live now and the instinct for survival made her fighter harder.
She was panting, fighting with all her strength to win this struggle for life, but she feared losing as his fingers tightened their grip on her hand. Then, quite suddenly, the gun went off and the shock of the explosion sent Clothilde staggering back. She glanced down at herself, saw the blood spattered on her clothes but felt no pain. A horrid gurgling sound drew her stunned gaze back to Von Sturmbakker. He was covered in his own blood, which was gushing out of the hole in his chest in an unstoppable flood. There was a look of such horror and disbelief on his face that it might have been amusing if it hadn’t been so terrifying.
Then he slumped forward and lay still. Clothilde stared at him not daring to move. She was half-afraid that he would get up again, laugh at her and then shoot her – but he couldn’t get up. He was dead and it was his own hand that had pulled the trigger.
She pressed her fist into her mouth as she fought back her scream. She had to get out of here before someone came to investigate the source of the shot.
Too late! Before she could make herself move, the door was wrenched open and someone rushed in. She saw with a kind of relief that it was Kurt, but she was still too shocked to do more than stare at him.
“I went to your room,” he said, his eyes assessing the situation. “Sturmbakker sent me off somewhere but I came back because I suspected he was up to something. What happened?”
Her tongue seemed to have stuck to the roof of her mouth, but she managed to mumble, “He killed Helene and then…”
“Tell me later,” Kurt commanded. “We have to get out of here. Come now – back to your room. Leave this to me…”
He grabbed her arm. She was too shocked to resist, letting him rush her to her room. He locked the door, then turned to look at her.
“Take those clothes off. They have blood all over them so we have to hide them for now. I’ll get rid of them tomorrow.”
Clothilde fumbled with her clothing as she tried to make her fingers obey her. At last her mind was beginning to function, to realise the danger. She was aware that he was trying to help her to the point of risking his own life.
“Kurt…you could be shot as a traitor for helping me.”
“I told you I loved you,” he said, beginning to strip off his clothes. “Get into bed, Clothilde. When they come banging at the door we are asleep. We heard nothing and saw nothing. Do you under
stand?”
Her teeth were chattering and she was shivering but she answered him clearly, aware that only he could save her from certain death.
“We were sleeping. We heard nothing…”
She thrust the bloodstained clothes under the bed and scrambled naked between the sheets. Kurt threw himself in beside her. They had hardly covered themselves before the pounding began. Clothilde trembled, gazing at him in alarm. He put his fingers to her lips, letting the pounding go on for a while before responding. Her nerves were stretched to breaking point. At any moment the guards would smash down the door and still Kurt did not answer.
“What is it?” he yelled at last. “Damn you, whoever you are! Waking us up. Wait a moment or I’ll put you on a charge.”
“Captain Von Secker?”
“Who wants to know?”
“It’s Hans, sir. You must come. Something terrible has happened.”
“Wait while I put something on. No, no, Clothilde – stay there, darling. I shall be back soon.” He was buttoning his breeches, his feet bare as he went to answer the door. Hans looked over his shoulder into the room. Clothilde was sitting up in bed, one naked breast revealed by the dipping sheet. Hans went red. “Speak up man – or did you come to gawp at my mistress? This had better be good.”
“It’s Major Von Sturmbakker…” Hans lowered his voice, whispering the dreadful news in his ear.
“Good God!” Kurt ejaculated. “I’ll come and look.”
“What is it, Kurt?” Clothilde asked. “Is there anything I can do?”
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