The Game of Treachery

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘I spoke with her the morning after the raid.’

  ‘You told her she’d been blown?’

  ‘She gave me the impression that she already knew that.’ Joanna frowned. ‘But she sounded all right?’

  ‘Who is this woman Liane?’ Lockridge inquired, now starting to sound plaintive.

  ‘Pound Twelve, sir,’ Rachel explained.

  ‘Did she sound all right?’ Joanna shouted.

  ‘She sounded perfectly calm. As I said, she almost seemed to know it already.’

  ‘Shit, shit, shit.’

  ‘Here, I say.’

  But both women were now ignoring him. ‘Don’t you think she got away?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘The Gestapo claim to have her in custody.’

  ‘Liane? Oh, my God! You don’t think they had her when I called? I used the JJX call sign. That would mean the entire route is blown.’

  ‘I don’t think the route is blown,’ Joanna said thoughtfully. ‘Otherwise I am sure they would have told me. Therefore they must have got her after your call. If they have got her.’

  ‘Do you mind if I interrupt?’ Lockridge said coldly. ‘Are you saying that you have a contact inside the Gestapo?’

  ‘Yes. Me.’

  ‘What?’ Lockridge and Rachel gasped together.

  ‘They have suborned me into working for them by offering to spare Liane’s life if I cooperate.’

  ‘But you’re Pound Three!’ Lockridge protested.

  ‘They don’t know that. They just know me as an American journalist who has links to the French Resistance. So to convince me to play ball, they had me speak with Liane.’

  ‘You saw her?’ Rachel was again aghast.

  ‘No. I spoke with her on the phone. That in itself was suspicious.’

  ‘But was it Liane?’

  ‘I don’t know. The voice sounded very tired and pretty scared, which figures if she was in a Gestapo cell. And she was well briefed, reminded me of our experience when we were captured by German soldiers in Auchamps.’

  ‘What experience?’ Lockridge asked.

  ‘We were gang raped.’

  ‘Here, I say …’

  ‘But I tried a curve ball of my own. I reminded her how my brother Aubrey had helped us to escape.’

  ‘And she didn’t remember that?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘Oh, sure she remembered it. The point is that my brother Aubrey wasn’t there. He’d been killed two days before when we were strafed by German fighters. Why do you think I’m working for you guys?’

  ‘Oh! I’m so terribly sorry. I didn’t know. But it was a brilliant idea. So you think it wasn’t actually Liane at all.’

  ‘I don’t know for sure. They said if I’d play ball they wouldn’t torture her. But suppose they already had? Sleeplessness, disorientation, electric shocks, none of those leave any visible signs, but they can drive someone out of their mind, cause them to forget things … We have to find out. If Liane got out of Paris, she’ll have returned to Vichy. When last did you speak with the group?’

  ‘Well,’ Rachel said, ‘not for several weeks.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Our instructions,’ Lockridge said, ‘are to maintain complete radio silence as regards this “group” until Operation Windrush has been completed.’

  ‘But they were all shot up a fortnight ago.’

  ‘We don’t know that. They are to call us.’

  ‘Well, we can’t wait for that. I have a notion that the Germans intend to take the group out, sometime very soon.’

  ‘A notion?’ Lockridge inquired. ‘Is this also from your Gestapo friends? They seem to be an awfully confiding lot.’

  ‘They don’t confide anything they don’t want to. One listens, and makes deductions, and then draws conclusions.’

  ‘But that would mean invading Vichy territory,’ Rachel said.

  ‘I don’t think that’s going to concern them too much. So let’s get on the radio and warn them. Just keep all reference to me out of it. Unless Liane happens to be there.’

  ‘I’m afraid that is quite out of the question,’ Lockridge said. Joanna glared at him, and his colour deepened. ‘We are under orders not to contact the de Gruchy group until and unless they contact us. I cannot contemplate seeking a change in orders on the basis of a “notion” suggested by an agent whose behaviour is, to say the least, of an irregular nature.’

  ‘You, buster, are looking for a punch on the nose.’

  ‘Now look here. I’ll have you arrested.’

  ‘Try another one.’

  Lockridge’s mouth opened and shut again.

  ‘Ah,’ Rachel said, endeavouring to keep the peace, ‘you said the Gestapo blackmailed you into working for them. To do what?’

  ‘I’d forgotten about it.’ Joanna opened her handbag and handed her the letter. ‘I’m to mail this from the Dorchester, and wait for a reply, which I’m to take back to Germany with me.’

  ‘The Dorchester?’ Lockridge demanded. ‘Why should you mail it from the Dorchester? That’s a very expensive hotel.’

  ‘It’s also where I happen to be staying.’

  Lockridge did another of his fish-out-of-water acts, and looked at Rachel for an explanation. ‘Jonsson always stays at the Dorchester when she’s in England, sir.’

  ‘Good God!’

  ‘This letter, sir. I would say it’s an MI5 job. They handle internal security.’

  ‘Aren’t you even going to open it?’ Joanna demanded. ‘It would have to be steamed open and resealed. I’d better get on to the brigadier.’

  ‘Don’t you mean Pound?’ Lockridge inquired.

  ‘Yes, sir. Of course. Pound. He’ll know what to do about it.’

  ‘Right,’ Joanna said. ‘And tell him I want to see him.’

  ‘My dear woman,’ Lockridge said. ‘Pound doesn’t see his agents. That is my job as Pound One.’

  ‘He’s seen me before, and he’ll see me now.’

  Lockridge looked at Rachel. ‘I’ll just find out if he’s available,’ she said, and used the phone, then looked at them above the receiver. ‘He’s out of town in a conference.’

  ‘Then I am in command,’ Lockridge announced.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Joanna commented.

  *

  ‘Madeleine! How well you look.’ Franz Hoeppner was waiting on the Bordeaux Central station.

  Madeleine allowed herself to be kissed on each cheek. ‘Do you really think so?’ She wore a flowing cape and a loose dress; she was just starting to show.

  ‘I think a pregnant woman is the most entrancing of sights.’

  ‘Then why have you never married?’

  ‘I never seem to have found either the time, or the right woman. My car is outside.’ It waited in the courtyard, watched from a respectable distance by the other disembarking passengers and those who had come to greet them. When Madeleine emerged there was a rustle and a whisper. ‘One would almost think they know you,’ Franz remarked.

  ‘They do. I grew up in Paulliac, which means Bordeaux.’

  ‘Of course.’ He showed her into the open tourer, sat beside her. ‘All right, Willi.’ The driver engaged gear. A soldier sat beside him, a submachine-gun resting on his knees.

  ‘Is that necessary?’ Madeleine asked.

  ‘It could be. We know we are not very popular.’

  ‘Well, it is very good of you to meet me.’

  ‘I could hardly do less. How long will you be staying?’

  ‘I suppose for as long as I am welcome.’

  ‘Your parents are expecting you?’

  ‘I wrote them, but they never replied. I suppose it’s the mail. All those censors opening letters.’

  ‘Yes,’ Franz said, thoughtfully. They were out of the city now, and driving down a country lane with the river on their right.

  ‘Have you seen them?’ Madeleine asked.

  ‘Oh, yes. I met them when they arrived, in May, and I come out every couple of weeks to see how they are getting
on.’

  ‘And how are they getting on?’

  ‘Ah … being imprisoned is a pretty awful experience, especially for people like your mother and father, who have never, shall I say, come into contact with the seamy side of life. But surely you saw this for yourself.’

  ‘The last time I saw my parents, Franz, was the day I married Freddie.’ She made a moue. ‘You were standing at his shoulder.’

  ‘My God, but that is a year ago.’

  ‘Almost to the day.’

  ‘And before the bomb outrage and their arrest. Well …’

  ‘Tell me.’

  Franz looked away from her as the trees parted and they could see the water. ‘I have said they underwent a rather grim experience.’

  ‘But they are well?’

  ‘Physically, they have recovered very well.’

  ‘But mentally?’

  ‘They harbour a deep resentment. This is entirely natural.’

  ‘Resentment against whom?’

  ‘Well, the Reich.’

  ‘And?’

  He had been looking straight ahead. Now he glanced at her. ‘I have told you, the Reich. And anyone connected with the Reich.’

  ‘I see.’ The car turned a corner and the high iron gates were before them. Two armed German soldiers stood to attention. ‘So you keep them under arrest.’

  ‘These guards are for their protection. They may be resentful of the Reich, but many of the people of this area consider their arrest and subsequent release as evidence of some kind of collaboration.’ The gates swung open and the car proceeded down the drive, to stop before the huge porch. Dogs barked and the Alsatians came bounding round the house. ‘Will they greet you?’ Franz asked.

  ‘Dogs never forget a friend.’ Madeleine stepped down. The Alsatians charged up to her, then licked her hands as she took off her gloves. Franz also got down, signalling the soldier to take Madeleine’s bag to the steps. ‘Will you not come in?’ she asked.

  ‘No. It is best you see them alone. But Madeleine —’ he held her hands — ‘if, well, you feel unwelcome —’ he took his wallet from his inside breast pocket and extracted a card — ‘call me, and I will come and pick you up.’

  Madeleine gazed at him for several moments, then put the card in her handbag.

  A man wearing a somewhat shabby frock coat had appeared at the top of the steps. He frowned as he looked at Madeleine, then came down the steps. ‘Mademoiselle Madeleine? How good …’ He changed his mind. ‘Welcome home, Frau von Helsingen.’

  ‘It is good to be home, Paul. Are my parents in?’

  ‘Indeed, madame.’ He looked past her at the car, which was turning to drive away, then at her suitcase.

  ‘Bring that in, will you.’ She went up the steps and into the porch. The front doors were open, revealing the wide hall and the great staircase. Madeleine went forward, stopped as a man appeared from the doorway of the drawing room. He looked far older than his sixty-seven years. Almost completely bald, what was left of his hair was quite white. His head had always seemed too large for his body, had hung forward between his shoulders like an outsize bloodhound; now it seemed almost too heavy for him to sustain. He had been a big man, but his frame had dwindled, and he moved hesitantly behind a tapping stick. ‘Papa? Oh, Papa!’ She ran forward. Albert de Gruchy accepted her embrace without protest, but did not respond. ‘I am so glad to see you,’ she said.

  ‘Your mother is in here.’ Albert stepped away from her, and indicated the drawing room door.

  Behind them, the butler waited with the suitcase. ‘Take it up to my room,’ Madeleine commanded.

  Paul hesitated, looking to his employer for confirmation, but when there was none carried the suitcase up the stairs.

  Madeleine went into the drawing room, and faced the woman who had been sitting, reading a book, but who was now rising to her feet. ‘Madeleine? My God! What are you doing here?’

  Barbara de Gruchy had been an English aristocrat before she had married into the French mercantile aristocracy. She had always looked, and been, an imperiously beautiful woman, who had bequeathed her looks to her four children. Now, like her husband, she seemed to have shrunk, her hair white and her shoulders bowed, although the superb bone structure of her face remained, as did the fire in her eyes.

  ‘I have come to see you, Mama.’ Madeleine went forward with outstretched arms.

  ‘You are pregnant!’

  Madeleine stopped, a few feet away. ‘Yes. Will you not congratulate me?’

  ‘I assume you are expecting a blond, blue-eyed Aryan superman.’

  ‘If he takes after his father, hopefully yes. I had hoped you would congratulate me.’

  Barbara sat down again, still without touching her daughter. ‘How long do you intend to stay?’

  ‘How long would you like me to stay?’

  ‘That is entirely up to you. Lunch is served at one sharp.’ Barbara picked up her book again.

  Nine - The Price of Spying

  Liane de Gruchy gazed up the hill at the men coming through the trees. She stopped walking to wait for them, bringing her shoulder bag round in front so that she could thrust her hand inside and find the butt of the Luger. But she did not suppose she was going to need it, as she recognized at least one of them. ‘Etienne!’

  ‘Liane!’ He embraced her. ‘It is good to see you. But what are you doing here? Has there been trouble?’

  ‘That is what I would like you to tell me.’

  ‘I do not understand. You think there is trouble here?’

  ‘Who is here?’

  ‘Monsieur Moulin, and your sister, and half a dozen of us, and Mademoiselle Round.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Mademoiselle Round. She is an English agent. Oh, the experiences she has had. She has been captured by the Gestapo twice, and escaped each time. She was tortured by them, terribly.’

  ‘I must meet this woman.’ Liane resumed the walk up the hill. ‘But where are the rest of the men? My brother, and Henri?’

  ‘They are still away, on the mission to St Valery.’

  ‘Ah.’ Liane decided to wait until she could speak with Amalie and Jean. She had no idea what had been happening during her slow progress from Paris, moving only by night. She had seen a newspaper which had mentioned a great naval battle in the Channel, and it had occurred to her that it might be something to do with the raid on St Valery, but the reports in the heavily censored French papers had been sketchy, and of course there had been no mention of any Resistance involvement. But Amalie would know because of her radio contacts with James.

  *

  ‘Liane! Oh, Liane!’ Amalie hugged and kissed her. ‘To have you back, safe and sound.’

  ‘Did you ever doubt it? Jean!’

  More hugs and kisses. ‘But why?’ Moulin asked.

  ‘I was told by Pound to get out.’

  ‘But does that mean the route has collapsed?’

  ‘The route is in good hands. I was instructed to get out and return to base. So here I am. Now tell me why?’

  ‘I cannot think of a reason.’

  Liane looked at the dark-haired woman standing behind Amalie. ‘You must be Mademoiselle Round.’

  ‘Monica,’ Amalie explained. ‘She is a British agent, and our friend.’

  ‘And you are the famous Liane,’ Christine said. ‘I am so pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Am I famous?’

  ‘Oh, indeed. Everyone speaks of you.’

  ‘I am flattered. Perhaps you will explain to me how you got here.’

  ‘When you have eaten, and had something to drink,’ Amalie said. ‘And a bath.’

  ‘That first,’ Liane agreed.

  She bathed in the stream, washed her hair to remove as much of the dye as possible; Amalie could renew it when it was time to return to Paris. While she did so, Amalie and Christine washed her clothes, then Amalie lent her something to wear — some sizes too big — and she sat with them and Jean and Etienne to have a meal. She was in
fact very hungry, as she had existed on sparse handouts for the past fortnight. But she was more interested in what Amalie and Christine had to tell her. ‘Isn’t it incredible,’ Amalie asked, ‘that Papa should have been an English agent all of these years?’

  ‘Yes,’ Liane agreed. Incredible, she thought, was the only word to use. She knew that because she had chosen to live her own life — one not approved of by her parents — she had seen far less of them during the few years before the war than she should have, and had really drifted apart from them, the estrangement accentuated by the Joanna affair, and the fact that she had refused to stop seeing her old friend, even if their meetings had hardly been more than once a year. Therefore Papa could well have been an English agent. But according to this woman Monica Round, he had been such an agent before the war. Telling the British what? Only about French affairs; certainly not German. Papa had had many friends in French military circles, she knew. But that would mean that, although Britain and France had been allies even before the war started, Papa had been a traitor to France. She could not believe that, nor did she want to consider it. And then, Joanna … ‘But how did she find you?’

  ‘She said she knew we were situated in these mountains.’

  James must have told her. Liane knew that Joanna had become a courier for the SIS, like them under James’s control, in the summer of 1940, because of her furious determination to hit back at the people who had not only raped her but had murdered her brother; she had been a contact of Pierre’s in Paris before he had had to flee the city hours before the Gestapo had raided his flat to arrest him. It had always been a comfort to her that she and Joanna were working together, even if in widely separated areas. But why would James have sent Joanna to the base? And then … ‘You say she was captured by the Gestapo?’

  ‘I think they were the Wehrmacht,’ Christine said.

  ‘But why? She’s a neutral.’

  ‘There was a wanted poster of her,’ Amalie said.

  ‘Yes, there was,’ Christine agreed. ‘But I think it was really because when they asked her where she was going she told them to see the de Gruchys. The Germans knew about your father, you see.’

  ‘But if that were the case, why did they let him go?’

  ‘I think perhaps because they hoped to use him to entice you or your brother out of the hills to see him.’