‘No.’
‘What?’
‘Playboy was waiting for me outside the building when I came home today.’
‘The wireless operator?’
She nodded. ‘We never meet. I send messages via a dead-letter drop.’
‘So what was different this time?’
‘This,’ she said, holding up a piece of paper. ‘A response from London to my coded message. It was so urgent they made Playboy take the risk of personally delivering it.’
‘So what does it say?’ He held his breath.
‘I am to continue with my mission and find out everything I can about whether a conspiracy exists, its timing and who the architects are.’
‘They’re mad. Kilian is too far away to be privy to such a plot.’
‘Instructions come from the highest level, apparently; from Churchill himself. Playboy said my mission was prompted by information revealed by German generals imprisoned in England, suggesting a high level of anti-Hitler sentiment in the Wehrmacht. And what would Stülpnagel have to do with Kilian? It doesn’t add up, given their roles.’
‘Lisette, you’re getting in too deep.’
‘If when I see Markus Kilian again there are no repercussions from von Schleigel, then I’m staying with him and I’m going to learn everything I can about whether this plot exists. I have to.’
‘I can’t leave you alone, Lisette. We’re bound, whether we like it or not. I have orders from Kilian.’
‘Then do what you must.’
He stared at her, lost for words.
She took a breath. ‘This invitation doesn’t ask me to come to his office, not even to his hotel. It suggests a coffee by the river. I suppose it doesn’t sound like a man who feels threatened. He may well be interested to hear my side of the tale.’
Luc began to pace. He knew better than to try to dissuade her in this mood, her mouth set like it was. On their walk up the mountain in the Luberon he had asked her what it felt like to live during the bombings over London and she had answered so casually. She wasn’t afraid at all, it seemed to him. ‘We’re all dying a little more each day,’ she’d said to him. They had recruited well when they chose her; alone, lonely, rudderless. Perfect. Add to that her obvious talent for espionage and her ability to blend in, as well as her intelligence and charm, and she was tailored for her role. She could be cold, so cold when she chose to be. But it was the serious, romantic girl that Luc loved; the girl who’d taken joy in lavender fields, who revelled in speaking French again, who’d admitted on that walk that her favourite story was about an angry man called Heathcliff who loved one woman to distraction.
Luc realised that all of Lisette’s anxiety was connected with the safety of the mission, not her own safety. In l’Isle sur la Sorgue, her driving fear had been that she might never fulfil her role for London. Even now, her determination to face Kilian tomorrow was all about the mission. If he was ever going to get her out, he had to do so on her terms; let her believe the mission mattered.
‘So how will you handle this?’ he asked.
She smoothed her brow with her fingertips. ‘I’m going to be forthright; I’ll tell him about l’Isle sur la Sorgue. If I beat him to the punch by innocently offering the information, how can he consider me suspicious?’
‘Well, that’s certainly one approach.’
She gave a rueful smile. ‘I don’t have much choice. I know you’d like to argue the opposite, but frankly, to walk away now is unwise. It would be all the more suspicious. Can you understand that?’
Luc hated her in that moment for making perfect sense. He hung his head. ‘You’re right.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You agree?’ Luc smiled at her in response. Her tone became tender. ‘Just for a second there, the angry maquisard faded away and I saw the romantic lavender grower who stole my heart.’
And in that moment all his resistance dissolved.
He reached for her. ‘I can’t bear the thought of losing you again,’ he whispered.
She let him hold her for a long time before she gently pulled away. ‘I have to be clear-headed now. I am Kilian’s lover, and you are his spy.’
He nodded. He would bear this pain, and he would wait for Lisette to see out this part of her life on her terms. And when it was done – if they were both still alive – he would pick up the pieces and put what they had together again. ‘Adieu,’ he said. There was nothing more to say.
She nodded. ‘Adieu.’
He kissed both her cheeks and then tenderly caressed her lips with his own before leaving.
As he emerged from Lisette’s building he couldn’t know that the German tourist on the other side of the street, seemingly taking a photograph of his wife in Montmartre, was actually focusing his lens on Luc. He snapped another photograph of him as he crossed the road and disappeared into the drizzle of a Paris evening.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The next day Kilian was waiting for Lisette on the Pont Neuf. Just yesterday he had stood here, wondering whether she was a spy. But now, as he watched her weaving her way towards him with that bright smile, he felt vaguely ashamed for having ever entertained the notion.
Loewe confirmed that she had gone home last night alone, eaten quietly and switched off her light at eight. This morning she had gone to work and had stepped out at lunchtime alone to pick up a few groceries.
Kilian had to smile as she waved happily at him while waiting to cross the street. She was so young, so beautiful, so German and so French. Why on earth would she want to work against him? He’d looked into her life this morning, calling up a few favours in certain offices. A few phone calls revealed exactly what Lisette had told him: she’d lived in Strasbourg, her parents had been killed in a car crash when she was seventeen. Her junior primary-school records checked out. And then there was Walter, the ultimate endorsement. How could she be the enemy?
In those last few seconds before Lisette arrived, Kilian wished he hadn’t contacted Stülpnagel so impulsively. It was the right thing to have done, but he hoped it hadn’t stirred up a hornet’s nest. He should have waited. Well, it was too late for recriminations. Perhaps his new plan would ease his worries.
‘Hello, Markus,’ Lisette said breathlessly, and without any inhibition she put her arms around his neck and hugged him. She kissed him three times on his cheeks and impetuously embraced him again. ‘You look a bit sad.’
‘Do I? Forgive me. I was wishing I’d met you when I was thirty.’
‘But that would make me fifteen,’ she giggled. ‘And I was entirely in love with Didier Badeau then, a sixteen-year-old chess player who made me weak at the knees when his hair would flop across his eyes.’
Kilian couldn’t help but be amused. ‘He could never have made you happy.’
She laughed. ‘You’re absolutely right. Thank you for inviting me here.’
‘Did you think I wouldn’t see you again?’ he asked.
‘No.’ She grinned shyly. ‘Isn’t this spring weather glorious?’
‘Yes, I thought we’d walk. A stroll along the Seine.’
‘Perfect,’ she said, linking her arm through his. They fell in step together and passed the bouquinistes that lined the banks – tiny stalls selling all manner of secondhand books.
‘I love looking through all those old books,’ Lisette said.
‘Really? You’re too young to have your head in dusty books.’
‘Don’t be condescending. I can enjoy old things. I like you, after all.’
He burst into laughter. ‘How have you been?’
‘I’ve missed you. Is that wrong, seeing as we barely know each other?’
He gave her a sideways glance full of tenderness and shook his head. He so wanted to hold onto this feeling; his world had been filled with grey for too long.
They stepped off the bridge and started strolling down the Left Bank.
Lisette asked, ‘Have you heard the saying that the Left Bank thinks while the Right Bank spends?’
‘Because of the Sorbonne, presumably?’ he suggested.
‘Yes. I suppose this area was filled with so many learned men – historians, philosophers, writers, teachers. I like this side. It has soul.’
‘But you choose to live on the Right Bank?’
‘What I can afford and what I like are often poles apart.’
He smiled, pointed at one of the bookstalls and they made their way towards it. They spent the next half an hour browsing in pleasurable companionship, brushing against each other now and again. He couldn’t deny the connection that sizzled between them. He was too old for her, he kept telling himself. He couldn’t deny that there was an age gap. But then another voice would whisper back: so what? He wasn’t attached to another woman. He had nothing to feel embarrassed about as a single man with a young French lover. In his daydreams she was already his wife. It was an impossible notion.
Your days are likely numbered anyway, the invisible voice reminded. So enjoy her!
They finally found a café not far from Les Deux Magots, where they’d first met.
‘Did you buy a book for yourself?’ he said, noticing it in her hand.
‘I bought a book, yes. But it’s for you.’ She handed it to him with a triumphant smile. ‘Enjoy.’
‘Notre-Dame de Paris.’ He looked up. ‘I like the work of Victor Hugo very much.’
‘So do I. And as we’ve been walking in the shadow of the great cathedral, I thought it appropriate.’
‘I’m charmed. Thank you, sweet Lisette.’ He leant over and kissed her, wondering whether she’d have to go without food for spending money on him.
‘You’ve been so generous to me.’ Then her face grew animated. ‘Oh, I must tell you what happened to me yesterday.’
‘Something happened?’
‘Well, it’s more that something happened to Walter, but it involved me.’ She told him about an officer of the Gestapo paying Walter Eichel a visit, as though relating a tale of high intrigue.
He was astonished at her honesty, watched carefully for guile and found none. She spoke enthusiastically, laughing at the folly of the Gestapo. ‘Can you imagine Walter’s face when that horrid man stepped into his office? No, of course you can’t. But let me assure you, Markus,’ she said, dropping her voice to a whisper, ‘that this von Schleigel embodies everything detestable about the Gestapo. Ugh.’ She shivered.
‘So his tale had no basis in fact?’
‘Oh, he wasn’t lying,’ she admitted, grinning mischievously. ‘I was arrested … I think – and I’m not sure, only because slippery von Schleigel barely spoke to me. He just locked me into a room and left me there to contemplate life for two hours. And then he let me go. But not before I’d casually let him know that Walter Eichel was my godfather. It was a ridiculous waste of time.’
This was it, Kilian thought. She was being honest, but would she tell him it all? He almost didn’t want to ask. ‘So why did he arrest you and then ignore you?’
Her eyes sparkled with amusement. ‘I was travelling with a friend, Lukas Ravensburg, a German, who I’d known since schooldays. The Gestapo arrested Lukas, not me. I was caught in the crossfire, you could say.’
Kilian felt relief easing through him, dissipating the pain that had been skewering him. How could anyone look so gleeful if they had something to hide?
‘That must have been frightening for you?’
She gave a casually dismissive gesture as she sipped her coffee. ‘It was all a big misunderstanding. Von Schleigel had muddled Lukas with some resister somewhere in the Luberon. Anyway,’ she said, looking bored with her tale suddenly. ‘They let Lukas go soon enough, they apologised to me and I was on the next train to Paris. But it seems von Schleigel was worried I might create a problem for him with Walter, who has connections, as you know.’
Kilian nodded.
‘Heavens! How arrogant von Schleigel is. He really believed I would spare him a second’s thought and chat to Walter about him. Horrid man. I forgot him the moment I left Lyon.’
‘And Lukas?’
‘Hmm?’
‘What happened to your friend?’
‘Lukas? Well,’ she began airily, looking up as she thought. ‘He saw me off at Lyon and …’ she shrugged. ‘He was going back to Avignon, as far as I know.’
‘And did he fall in love with you?’
She chuckled. ‘Perhaps he did.’
‘And you, Lisette?’
She gave him a wry smile. ‘No, Markus, I didn’t fall in love with him. He’s a boy in comparison to you. But … I did lie to the Gestapo and tell them we were engaged. You can imagine Walter’s surprise when the Gestapo man told him of my engagement.’
He feigned surprise. ‘Why would you say you were engaged?’
‘It was the fastest way to get both Lukas and me away from that vile place; I swear I could hear the scream of someone being tortured, Markus. It was …’ Her expression became haunted. ‘It was frightening, actually. Von Schleigel was grasping at straws, convinced that my Lukas and this Resistance fellow shared vaguely similar features.’ She looked away, distracted by the noise of laughter near the riverbank.
‘Your Lukas?’
‘What?’ she said, returning her attention.
‘You said my Lukas.’
He watched Lisette as her gaze softened. ‘We were not lovers, Markus,’ and the way she said it made him realise that she knew he was jealous.
He loathed how weak she made him feel. He genuinely felt like a possessive teenager. He would put a stop to it. He would call off Loewe today! And he would tell Stülpnagel that he’d simply been unbalanced by von Schleigel’s insinuations. And he knew exactly how to end this tawdry episode.
He put his cup down and steepled his fingers. ‘Lisette. I have to go away.’
‘Oh,’ she said, and an unreadable emotion flashed across her face. ‘For long?’
‘A few weeks maybe.’
‘I see.’ He watched her happy mood deflate. ‘That’s rather sudden, isn’t it?’
‘Not really. I’ve been putting it off. I can’t any longer.’
She looked to be doing her best to hide her disappointment. It thrilled him. ‘Berlin?’ she wondered.
‘Er, no, actually. Around France.’
‘A holiday?’
He gave a snort. ‘No, my dear. I am working. I have been promising to tour some of the key regions in France to speak with the clergy. It’s part of my job to maintain relations between Berlin and the regional church hierarchy.’
‘A holiday, like I said.’ She grinned, regaining some of her humour.
‘Well, I admit this is hardly work for a battle-hardened soldier. I’m sure it will be torture.’
‘I feel terribly sorry for you, having to tour beautiful France. Take your punishment bravely, Markus,’ she said. ‘I will miss you, though … my battle-hardened man.’
He stared at her. He wanted to take her to his bed that moment, wanted to feel her naked limbs entwined around him. ‘Will you?’ he asked, his voice suddenly croaky.
‘I can’t get through an hour without you invading my thoughts. It’s disastrous for work, for sleep. You’ve ruined my life!’ she said jokingly, but neither of them laughed. ‘And if I can’t get through an hour, how will I get through several weeks?’ Lisette looked down and fiddled with the scarf in her lap. ‘I’m sorry—’
‘Come with me,’ he said, and suddenly everyone around them was invisible. Nothing and no one else mattered.
Lisette’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘What? How?’
‘As my assistant. I need a good interpreter, someone amiable, charming. You’re perfect.’
‘But … the bank, I—’
‘I’ll speak with Walter. I can requisition you if I want, but that shouldn’t be necessary. I’m sure he will gladly agree.’
He watched the light in her eyes catch aflame. ‘You mean it?’
He nodded. ‘I want you with me … need you with me.’
She surprised h
im by leaning across the table to give him a deep and lingering kiss. He was shocked to realise he felt no embarrassment; if anything, he lengthened her kiss by pulling her closer. He was utterly entranced by her.
‘Take me back to your hotel, Markus,’ she whispered.
He nodded, paid the bill and, without speaking, they walked arm in arm back to the Hotel Raphaël. Markus didn’t want this moment to end, for in this magical instant he had never felt happier, never felt more in love. He’d admitted it: he loved Lisette. He’d never loved like this before, never felt this lightness in his heart … this unbearable, exquisite, all-consuming agony of desire and commitment.
And if this was love, he doubted he could ever tire of it; no wonder people wrote poetry and great novels about it. He led Lisette up to his room and was pulling off his clothes the moment he closed the door behind them.
Later, sleepy in their tangled warmth, Lisette lay lightly on top of him. Their fingers were intertwined and she kissed his hand gently. ‘I wish we could just see out the war like this.’
‘Naked, you mean?’ he teased.
‘No. Sated and happy. I feel safe here in your arms, in your room. It’s as though nothing else exists.’
‘I’m sure driving through the French countryside won’t be so bad. And we shall have each night together.’
‘You make me feel guilty,’ she said. He pushed back her hair and looked at her with questioning eyes. ‘I mean, I’m being really spoilt. I’m very privileged, while the rest of my sort have to grind on.’
‘You don’t have a sort, Lisette. You are one of a kind, especially now that I know what you can do with that mouth of yours …’
She gasped and covered his mouth with her hand as he laughed beneath it. Lisette smiled self-consciously. ‘That’s our secret,’ she whispered.
‘Come on. Get up. I’m famished. You sap all my energy.’
She gurgled with laughter, and they reluctantly untangled themselves and began to dress. ‘Oh, by the way,’ she said. ‘We’re driving rather than taking trains on this trip?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can we have a different driver to that man called Loewe?’
The Lavender Keeper Page 32