by Kate Mosse
Chapter 130
‘Where is it?’ Laval said again.
Sandrine was no longer aware of the boundaries of her own body, only that everything was singing with pain. Her muscles were stretched to their limits and her head was throbbing.
She knew she hadn’t been here long. She wasn’t quite sure where she was either. Not far. One of the soldiers had put a hood over her head before they dragged her out of the car, then across a hard surface and into a building. But before she went inside, she thought she heard the shriek of a train on the tracks and a whistle, so she guessed she had been brought to the Gestapo headquarters on the route de Toulouse, which backed on to the railway.
She had been left alone for a while, hooded and strapped to the chair. It was hard to breathe beneath the heavy fabric and the air in the room was fetid. She’d felt she was suffocating.
Then Laval came back and started to question her. And with each question unanswered came pain. His hand across her face, once his fist into her stomach, a boot hard against her shin bone, she never knew where the next assault would come. And, always, the threat of something much worse.
‘Where is the Codex hidden? Who has it?’
‘I don’t know.’
She tried to twist away, but her arms were tied behind her back. Instinctively she kicked out at him and he hit her, hard, on the side of her ankle with something. A rod, a stick. For the first time, she screamed.
‘You will tell me what I want to know in the end,’ he said. ‘Why not save us all a lot of trouble?’
‘I don’t know where the Codex is,’ she said again, bracing herself for another blow. ‘I don’t know why you’re asking me about it.’
‘Because you sent us on a wild goose chase, didn’t you?’ he said, his mouth close to her ear. ‘So I know you are involved, you see.’
Sandrine tried to stay inside her head, a quiet and still place where she was safe and Laval couldn’t reach her. So far she had said nothing, nothing at all. She couldn’t think of anything but how to survive the next blow, then the next. She thought of Jean Moulin tortured to death by Hauptsturmführer Barbie in Lyon and the countless others who never talked, never betrayed their comrades. She didn’t know how much she could stand, but she would do her best to be as strong as them. Survive the next blow, then the next.
‘Tell me,’ he shouted with frustration.
Although she knew it would be worse for her in the long run, his anger gave her a little spark of courage. Her moment of triumph was short-lived. An iron grip pulling her to her feet, being marched, pushed, driven across the room. She felt even more vulnerable away from the chair. She didn’t know how big the room was or where she was being taken, and she tried to struggle free.
Then a hand – Laval’s hand – on the back of her neck, pushing her to her knees. A shudder of horror went through her, and then her face was plunged forward into ice-cold water. She felt the cloth sodden around her mouth, her nostrils, blocking the water and trapping the air, and she began to struggle. Her blood was roaring in her head, pounding as if her vessels would burst, her lungs shouting against the lack of oxygen.
She kicked harder, again, thought she heard someone laughing as her bare feet skeetered and slipped and thrashed on the wet floor. Then, just as she thought she would pass out, they pulled her up.
‘Where is it?’
‘I don’t know,’ she gasped.
This time she was ready for it. As she was pitched head-first into the stinking water, Sandrine held her breath. She told herself she was swimming in the Aude at Rennes-les-Bains, diving down to the bottom of the muddy water to fish for stones, for jewels hidden in the riverbed. She and Geneviève had spent hours each summer when they were children playing games in the water. Weighting themselves down, trying to stay beneath the surface for as long as possible.
When the lack of oxygen started thundering in her head, her lungs screaming for air, Sandrine made herself imagine she was floating slowly up through the beautiful green. The bright Midi sky, blue, high above. Told herself she didn’t want to wake up. That she could seal her silence by dying.
He left her under longer this time. When they eventually pulled her out, she slipped from their wet hands and smashed her head on the tiles. For an instant, Sandrine lay there and wondered if she might go to sleep. She felt pain reverberating all down her side, where bruises and wounds were in contact with the floor, but she hadn’t the strength to shift position.
How long had she been here?’
They had come for her at five o’clock, not quite light. Was it day now? Night? It felt endless but might have been only minutes. She wondered if anyone else was being held here. She tried to push the names from her head, un-remember them so that they were buried too deep to be excavated. Tried not to think about Raoul or Robert, Lucie or Monsieur Baillard.
Then she was being dragged to her feet and someone – Laval again – seized her wet blouse and pulled hard, causing her to stagger forward into him. Someone laughed. She felt the material rip and the sound of the buttons bouncing lightly on the floor. He dropped her back on to the chair.
‘Who helped you with the forgery?’ Laval was saying. ‘Very good, by the way, you had us all convinced.’ He put his hand around her neck, resting it gently at first, then beginning to tighten his grip.
‘All I’m asking is where the Codex is now. You tell me, then this stops. You see? This will stop.’
‘I don’t know anything,’ she managed to say.
Suddenly there was a shuffling of feet and the sound of the door being flung back against its frame. Laval’s hand dropped from her throat and she felt him step away. Felt other hands dragging her to her feet. Even in her disorientated state, Sandrine realised the atmosphere in the room had changed. An angry voice through the ringing in her ears. Then, the hood being untied and taken from her head.
For a moment, Sandrine felt only pleasure at the touch of air on her skin. She closed her eyes and turned her head away from the bare bulb, bright after the darkness of her confinement.
‘Asseyez-vous.’ Sit down.
Although she tried not to give him the satisfaction of reacting, Sandrine flinched at the sound of Authié’s voice. She stood, swaying slightly, held up by the hands of the Gestapo officers standing either side of her, then she was being pushed down on to the chair, her arms dragged behind her again and secured.
The swelling above her right eye was pushing her lid closed, making it hard to see properly.
‘Mademoiselle Vidal,’ he said.
Sandrine forced herself to raise her head, determined to look him in the eye, but the motion made her feel sick. Despite everything she had endured at Laval’s hands, she feared Authié more, though he had never laid a finger on her. Sweat pooled in the small of her bruised back, between her breasts; she could smell it coming off her skin, sour, feral.
‘Major Authié,’ she said. ‘Lieutenant Laval has been asking me questions. I don’t know why. I don’t know what he wants to know.’ She realised she was rambling, but hoped she might be able to persuade him of her ignorance despite having failed to convince Laval. ‘I don’t know what he wants,’ she said again.
Authié walked round behind her, standing so close that she could smell aftershave, soap and tobacco, in sharp contrast to the smell of blood and wet material. Sandrine felt her body shrink into itself, as if there were thousands of tiny wires pulling at her skin. Furious that she was allowing him to affect her so utterly, she forced her chin up, ignoring the pain thudding in her neck and her jaw.
He dropped his hands on to her shoulders. Sandrine recoiled from his touch. He dug his fingers deeper into the skin and muscle, increasing the pressure, then let his right hand slide lower, hooking under the thin cotton of her blouse, and lower still.
‘No,’ she said quickly.
‘You flatter yourself,’ he said. ‘Lieutenant Laval informs me you have been less than helpful.’
‘He cannot accept I don’t have the an
swers he wants.’
He leant forward. Sandrine thought he was going to touch her again, but instead he jerked the chair so she was teetering backwards towards the floor. She swallowed a cry, determined not to show any fear in front of him.
‘Come, you can do better than that,’ he said.
‘Please,’ she said, despising the pleading tone in her voice. ‘I don’t know anything.’
‘Please,’ he mimicked. He set the chair roughly back on its legs, sending a jolt of pain snaking the length of her spine. She bit her lip to stop herself crying out.
‘You see, I think you’re lying when you say you don’t know anything, Mademoiselle Vidal – “Sophie”, as I believe you’re known now.’
Sandrine forced herself not to react.
‘I think you knew exactly what you were doing when you told me about the forgery. And that you know where the actual Codex is.’ He leant forward. ‘Do you have it?’ he said, whispering like a lover into her ear. ‘It’s true, isn’t it? You know where it is?’
‘I don’t know about any forgery,’ she said. Every part of her was smarting, battered, damaged, but her mind felt suddenly sharp. ‘And my name is Sandrine.’
‘A birth certificate is an easy thing to find,’ Authié laughed. ‘I would have thought you’d be more inventive. But Sophie, Sandrine, it doesn’t matter at the moment. I have all the time in the world,’ he said. ‘I am quite happy to stay here until I get what I want.’
‘You’re talking to the wrong person,’ Sandrine insisted. ‘I don’t know anything.’
She raised her head and forced herself to look into his eyes. They were dark, devoid of any emotion. All she could see was her own fear reflected back at her. Then her eyes slid sideways, a glint of light, to the silver crucifix on his lapel.
‘We seem to have reached an impasse,’ he said. ‘In which case, I had better find a way to help you remember what you do know.’
Authié drew his gun from his belt. Sandrine felt the atmosphere in the room change. Laval half stepped forward.
‘I have nothing of value to tell you,’ she said, with as much courage as she could muster. At the same time, she knew that if he killed her, at least it would be over. She would die without giving anyone away.
Authié suddenly pulled her skirt up above her knees, then pushed the muzzle of the gun between her legs, slowly pressing the cold metal against her skin.
‘Where is the Codex?’ he said. ‘Let’s start with this.’
‘I don’t know.’
Authié moved the weapon higher up the inside of her thigh. ‘Come now, you can do better than that.’
Sandrine felt the muzzle of the gun jabbing against her pubic bone now and realised what he intended to do. She closed her eyes.
‘I don’t know,’ she said again, bracing herself for the pain.
Then she heard it, the same whispered word. The same voice, just for a moment.
‘Coratge.’
And then another memory. The warrior stone angel in Square Gambetta. Her determined stare, her hands wrapped around the hilt of her sword, her wings broken but her fighting spirit undimmed. And the thought of her gave Sandrine the courage to hold out. For a little longer.
‘I don’t know anything,’ she said again.
Chapter 131
Raoul had been in the bar since six fifteen. Bonnet and Yvette arrived about half an hour after that.
‘They came in at five fifteen, you say,’ Raoul said desperately.
Yvette nodded. The bar was noisy, even at this time in the morning, and she had to raise her voice to be heard. ‘Milice and Gestapo. Six of them for one prisoner.’
‘You saw her?’
Yvette shook her head. ‘I can’t say that I did. There were so many of them shielding her.’
‘But how do you know it was a woman?’
‘She was wearing a skirt,’ she replied, ‘and had a funny pair of socks on. Those Scottish tartan things that were all the rage a couple of years back.’
‘Anything else you noticed?’ Robert prompted.
‘I didn’t see anything else. They took her to one of the rooms at the back.’
‘Did you hear anything?’
Yvette shook her head. ‘Not allowed in that part of the building.’
‘What part?’ Raoul said quickly.
‘The interrogation rooms,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m sorry.’
Raoul blanched, but didn’t let himself think about anything other than how to get her away.
‘As I was leaving, Major Authié arrived. He looked angry. I think he’d been with Schiffner already, but I’m not sure. I overheard him saying they would move the prisoner this morning, then he went striding down the corridor and into the room, and I didn’t hear anything else.’
She glanced at Robert, then back to Raoul. ‘Robert was waiting for me. Asked me to come to meet you.’ She frowned. ‘I don’t know if it’s your girl,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You’ve been a great help, love,’ Robert said, putting his large hand over hers. ‘Thanks to you, at least we know she’s there.’
‘Someone’s there,’ Yvette corrected.
Bonnet turned to Raoul. ‘From what Yvette says, there might be a chance of getting to her.’
‘How?’ Raoul lit a cigarette, jiggling his leg up and down. He couldn’t trust himself to speak.
‘Apparently they don’t keep suspects in the cells for long. If Authié wants to move her, more than likely it will be to the detention centre in the Caserne Laperrine. That’s the usual pattern once an interrogation’s completed: the Gestapo transfer prisoners either to the hospital—’
Raoul interrupted, unable to bear thinking about that. ‘You say she was alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s what I was coming to,’ Bonnet said. ‘A single prisoner, a woman, they’re likely to transfer her in a panier à salade rather than use a prison van. Should make it easier. Is she likely to be able to help herself?’
‘You know Sandrine,’ he said. ‘She’s brave. She won’t talk.’
‘You think she’ll need help?’
Raoul met his gaze. ‘She’ll have held out for as long as she can.’
For a moment, no one spoke. Then Robert turned to Yvette. ‘Can you go to the Clinique Bastion and warn Dr Giraud that we might have a patient for him.’ He paused. ‘On second thoughts, he won’t be at the clinic. There was a round-up in boulevard Barbès and Trivalle, so he’s more likely to be in the cabin he uses out at Cavayère. Can you find out if he’s there? Warn him to expect us?’
Yvette nodded and stood up, tying her headscarf beneath her chin.
‘We need to be in position, ready for when they move her.’
‘If they move her,’ Raoul muttered.
‘You go now. I’ll fetch a car, a little extra help, then meet you there. Brown Peugeot, corner of boulevard Omer Sarraut.’
Raoul nodded.
Sandrine didn’t think she could take any more. Her body was broken, racked with pain. The blood had dried between her legs, but she felt as if her insides had been ripped out. She had told Authié nothing, but each time it became more difficult not to give in. All she wanted after these hours, minutes – could it be days, she didn’t know – was for it to stop. The questions, the barrage of questions and blows.
‘If you’ll let me continue, sir.’
‘I don’t want her dead, Laval,’ Authié snapped, but then he clicked his fingers.
She’d forgotten Laval was still in the room. She registered that they were arguing. Then she was being dragged to her feet. She felt the slightest touch of fingers against her back, Authié or Laval, she didn’t know, then her shirt being torn from her back.
Before, she would have reacted, but she couldn’t see it mattered now. There was no humiliation she hadn’t been subjected to already, no pain they hadn’t inflicted on her. But then she smelt something new – the smell of heat and of metal, a hiss of iron – and discovered th
at she still had the capacity to experience fear.
‘Hold her down.’
Sandrine felt herself being pushed forward, her face hitting the hard surface of a table or a counter top, she didn’t know. Then, the most excruciating agony she’d ever felt as he pressed the poker into her shoulder, branding her. The spit and hiss of skin, the sickly smell of burnt flesh. It was seconds before her body and her mind caught up with one another. She tried to turn herself to stone, like the warrior statue. Impervious to pain.
Y penser toujours. Never forget.
It was too much to ask. Finally, Sandrine submitted. She screamed and screamed, letting out everything she had kept inside her for the past hours.
Witnessing her being branded, even after everything he had seen, was too much for one of the vert-de-gris in the room. She heard him vomit and the angry response from Authié at the running feet. The murmured orders as someone was sent to clear up the mess. Even in her half-conscious state, Sandrine experienced a moment of triumph. One last, tiny triumph.
But now all she wanted was to sleep. The dark pull of oblivion. A few words, that was all it would take, to put an end to this.
The door opened again. The sound of shoes striding across the tiles, then stopping dead.
‘Vous avez obtenu les renseignements desirés, Herr Authié?’
A German voice speaking accented, formal French.
‘The prisoner continues to withhold information,’ he replied. ‘But we will make her talk.’
Sandrine was dimly aware of this new person leaning over her. She could feel the fire spreading through every part of her body, pain coming in waves from the place where the poker had met her skin.
Then disgust in the German’s voice. ‘What have you done to her, Authié?’
Another tiny moment of triumph.
‘Y penser toujours,’ she muttered before she passed out.
Raoul raced through the labyrinth of small streets running parallel to the route de Toulouse. When he was certain he was not being followed, he crossed to the far side of the road, then into the network of suburban cul-de-sacs lying between the railway sidings and the main road, until he was in position at the back of Gestapo headquarters.