‘Then came 1933,’ he said and the light inside him switched itself off in a hurry. ‘Everything changed. The world stepped off a cliff when Hitler swept to power. As Chancellor of the Third Reich he immediately set up concentration camps for Jews and other undesirables. For me, that was it. I came home. To help protect France.’
Romy kissed his chin, her tongue prickled by his stubble. ‘So that’s why Hitler and his Nazis didn’t dare attack France back in those days.’
He laughed. But there was no joy in it. ‘My parents decamped to Detroit. My brother to England.’
She had a sudden sense of the loneliness of this man.
He picked up her hand and pressed his lips to its palm. ‘So that’s it. I set up an air courier service here and my brother did the same at Croydon airport in London.’
‘He’s the one who supplies you with the planes from England, I presume, the Tiger Moths.’
‘He is. I quickly became involved with the underground resistance groups in Paris and then I hired you. And you very quickly became part of our movement.’ He chuckled and snaked a hand along the curves of her naked buttocks and up over her back. ‘I must have been mad.’
‘You’ve missed something out.’
‘What?’
‘The accident.’
‘Oh that.’ He shrugged, as far as he could shrug with her lying on top of him. ‘Some idiot decided to park his plane on top of me. I survived to tell the tale. Enough said. The rest you know.’
Romy rolled off him and sat on her heels on the bed, not touching him, keeping her hands locked under her knees.
‘Léo, have you ever killed someone?’
Martel didn’t respond. He lay without moving for a full minute, stretched out on his back, naked and exposed. Scars glinted like fish scales in the light of the overhead bulb.
Romy repeated her question. ‘Have you ever killed someone?’
He rose to kneel in front of her, a powerful presence on the bed. ‘Yes, I have killed.’
It caught her by surprise. ‘More than one?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you think about them? Do you see their faces?’
‘No.’
Was it true? Or was he lying? To soothe her guilt. The way you lie to a child.
‘I killed a man. Eight years ago,’ she told him. ‘The man was my father.’ The words seemed to swell in her mouth.
Martel reached out and held her wrists, waiting in silence for her to say what she had to say.
‘I don’t know why I killed him. Something happened . . .’ She struggled to suppress the image of the brass pyramid taking shape inside her head. ‘And I had concussion, so I don’t remember what happened. The memory is gone.’
She tried to remove her wrists but he held them.
‘Until now,’ she said. ‘When I am with the Germans – Herr Müller and Horst Baumeister – it triggers flashbacks. I see things. Hear things. From that day.’
‘Merde! So this is what you’re running from.’
She nodded. She didn’t mention Karim Abed or an angled metal blade that weighs forty kilograms and travels to its destination in a seventieth of a second.
‘So you see, Léo, why I must have dinner with Horst Baumeister tomorrow night.’
‘Yes, I see.’
But he didn’t look as if he saw. He looked in pain.
‘I don’t for a minute think they know anything about my father, but I can’t walk away from it. I have to find out the truth.’
Martel released one of her wrists. He pressed the knuckles of his hand against his forehead, trying to rearrange his thoughts by force, his mouth a hard gash across his face.
‘If you go,’ he said, ‘I’ll give you a gun.’
Romy slid him a sad smile. ‘No, Léo. I think two murders are enough for anyone.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Paris on a Saturday night is eager to impress. Like a woman showing off her new gown. Or a whore painting her nails. Her lipstick is redder, slicker, and her jewels brighter than in any other city. Paris flaunts her delights with all the assurance of a beautiful woman who knows with certainty that she is irresistible.
Romy loved Paris. Its sights and smells were a part of her, like the colour of her hair was a part of her. She walked into Le Chat Noir and exchanged a warm greeting with Émile, the rotund patron who had been known to pay his gambling debt to her with a feast of tournedos à Rossini. He was such a rotten poker player.
His restaurant was old, with black beams and ancient brickwork, checked tablecloths and candles stuck in the necks of wine bottles. Nothing fancy. Except Émile’s cooking. Horst Baumeister was already there, waiting for her. He rose to his feet and kissed her hand, his smile warm and expectant.
‘I’m glad you came,’ he said.
‘Did you think I wouldn’t?’
‘It was a possibility I considered.’
‘But here I am.’
His eyes took her in and she wondered what he was seeing. She was wearing a dress she had bought second-hand from Louis Capel’s pawnshop, the pale grey colour of Paris’s zinc roofs. She had stolen a crimson rose from the Tuileries Garden and wore it pinned to her shoulder. Did Horst see someone who had made an effort? Or someone who didn’t care? Or was there some other image of her in his head that she was unaware of?
They sat down at the table but the evening began awkwardly. Neither knew quite where to look or what to say. Their dancing, so intimate at Monico’s, was forgotten. She needed him to trust her, so she steered him down the path that had drawn them together in the nightclub.
‘I hear that Willy Messerschmitt has just been appointed chairman of the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke and renamed the company after himself.’ She leaned forward and tipped her head to one side in imitation of her sister. ‘He is a genius when it comes to aircraft design, don’t you think?’
That’s all it took. They were off and running. Over the meal they discussed in detail the importance of the Messerschmitt Bf109 to Germany’s rearmament plans and the designer’s innovation of merging the load-bearing parts into a single reinforced firewall. This saved weight and improved performance.
‘Willy Messerschmitt himself has become quite a favourite with the Nazi party,’ Horst told her and there was an unexpected sadness in his voice. At first Romy thought she was imagining it. But no. It was there. Unmistakably. But inexplicably. He cut into his tarte Tatin and when he lifted his head his rigid features had relaxed again. ‘Do you know,’ he asked her, ‘what Messerschmitt means in German?’
‘No.’
‘It means knife-maker. Appropriate, don’t you think, for a man who makes the finest fighter planes in the world that cut through the air like a knife?’
The wine had done its work of unlacing their tongues and Romy settled down to what she had come for.
‘Horst, what is the meaning of the German words “Ich möchte mich nicht streiten”?’
‘It means “I don’t want to argue”.’ He waved a hand at Émile for coffee. ‘Why? Who have you been arguing with?’
‘Herr Müller.’
He didn’t look at her. Silence fell between them. He swilled the last of the mulberry-coloured liquid and it clung to the sides of the glass. Romy had a sense that Horst was clinging to something, but she had no idea what.
‘Stay away from him,’ he said at last. ‘Steer clear of that man if you can.’
‘I thought you work with him.’
‘I do.’
‘So why warn me off him?’
But instead of answering he stood up. ‘Come with me. I want to show you something.’
Horst Baumeister drove his sleek Mercedes saloon through the dark streets of Paris with the ease of long practice.
‘How long have you lived here?’ Romy asked him.
‘A year.’
‘Really? I didn’t realise you’ve been here so long.’
‘There’s a lot you don’t realise, Romaine.’
It was a h
ot and sultry summer evening. The streets were crowded with Saturday-night revellers and one threw a shoe at the car’s windscreen. It smacked against the glass and bounced off. Horst didn’t flinch.
‘Some Parisians don’t like German cars,’ he commented.
Nothing more.
‘Where are we going?’ Romy asked.
But he remained silent. His profile, etched by the wrought-iron street lamps, was set firm, as though something unpleasant lay ahead. Maybe she’d been unwise to climb in the car with the German but it was the only way to get answers out of him. With each turn of the wheels, her heart beat faster, Léo Martel’s final words clanging in her ears. ‘Be careful, Romy. Take no risks.’
But there was something about this German that she liked. Really liked. Not just his enthusiasm for aircraft – though that helped – but also his directness. As if he thought in straight lines. No convoluted twists and turns to baffle and confuse others, but straight lines that could slide you straight into hell if you didn’t watch out.
‘How well do you know my sister?’
He glanced across at her, surprised. ‘Not well.’
‘And Roland, her husband?’
‘Too well.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘He is cruel.’
‘What? Why do you think that?’
‘I once saw him beat a man.’
He came to a junction on rue des Petits Champs and raced across, blaring his horn to force a slow-moving Citroën to give way. She looked at his face. It was angry, but not with the Citroën.
‘Tell me why,’ she said quietly.
‘The man was Jewish.’
The building to which he took her was hidden away behind the Élysée Palace in the 8th arrondissement. An official-looking building with classical pillars and a massive arched doorway that looked as if it could withstand an army. Yet there was no plaque, no identification. Horst drew a key ring from his pocket and opened it. It was a relief to step out of the night-time shadows, but when she heard the door lock behind her the hairs on her neck rose and she thought again about the weapon she had rejected so readily when Martel offered it.
He flicked a switch. One solitary lamp illuminated a small cathedral-like space with a high domed ceiling and marbled floor, pale and veined like an old woman’s hand. Three wide corridors splayed out from it into dark unknown areas. Romy didn’t know what this place was, but she had the distinct feeling it was somewhere she was not meant to be.
‘Where is this?’ she asked.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ His manner had become brusque. ‘It’s where Müller and I work. His office is opposite mine.’
Definitely not meant to be here.
‘Come with me.’
Horst set off down the central corridor, his footsteps echoing on the marble. When he realised she hadn’t followed, he pulled up and glanced back over his shoulder.
‘It’s not a trap,’ he said. ‘And I have no orders to rape you.’
She inhaled sharply. Blond hair. A sticky scarlet mat of it. A bottle in her hand. This man knew.
‘Lead on,’ she said.
He continued down the corridor deeper into the gloom, she followed at a distance, passing closed doors on each side. Ahead of her, Horst Baumeister had come to a halt outside one of the doors. He extracted the key ring again, unlocked it and entered, leaving the door open for her. A sudden burst of electric light from the room jumped out at her and she knew this was her chance. She walked in.
An ordinary office. That’s all it was. Ordinary desk and chairs and ordinary bookshelves. But the room itself was anything but ordinary. It had lovely proportions with a high-frescoed ceiling and a florid rococo frieze that twined itself around the walls. Not a room she would associate with Nazi officialdom.
‘So,’ she said, surveying the interior, ‘this is where your plans are hatched, yours and Müller’s.’
She watched him closely, half expecting him to cast off his lightweight suit and don a grey Nazi uniform, or throw up his arm in a Heil Hitler salute. There was something different about him here. The strong rigid lines of his Aryan features were melting, the muscles under the skin softening and she could see the boy he must once have been. She wanted to go over and take his hand. But that was a risk too far.
‘Why am I here?’ she asked bluntly. ‘What is it you want?’
He stepped back, away from her. ‘Herr Müller believes you are part of the underground movement ferrying planes illegally to the Republican forces in Spain.’
‘He is mistaken.’
‘And that this group of yours has agents attempting to steal information about Germany’s planes on the ground in Spain. And here in Paris.’
‘No.’
He folded his arms across his chest. ‘Let us be straight with each other, Romaine.’
How do you tell a man he is wrong when the air in your lungs has turned solid and the tension in the room is as sharp as the paperknife that used to lie on Papa’s desk? But there was something. Something. In his face. Not quite right.
Had he laid a trap for her? Was it under this fine building that the basement lay, the one Martel had warned her about? The one where you spilled your guts to make them stop, where you’d give them your soul just to make them put down their tools. Had Horst betrayed her?
‘Of course we must be straight with each other,’ she dragged up a smile and approached him, putting a sway in her hips the way she’d seen Florence approach men. She rested a hand on his arm. ‘We can be friends,’ she said softly. ‘We can be honest with each other, you and I.’
He ducked his head and kissed her lips. Brief and harsh. He pulled back his head. ‘I know honest when I see it. And I know a liar. You, Romaine, are a liar. Which disappoints me. I hoped you would trust me.’
‘I trust you, Horst.’
She circled an arm around his neck and drew his head down to hers. Her lips found his, warm and full of desire. She may not be able to lie with words, but she knew only too well how to lie with her body. Her hips fitted themselves to the shape of his.
‘No.’
He pulled down her arm and broke free from her. ‘No, Romaine. Whatever it is you want from me, this is not the way.’
He stalked over to the far side of his desk and yanked open a top drawer. Was he going for a gun? But it wasn’t a Mauser he threw down on the desktop, it was a buff folder fat with documents that landed on the surface with a heavy thud. Horst left it there and without another word walked out of the room.
Dear God. They would kill her now. Now that she had read the file. They had reason to.
Romy was cramming facts and figures into her head as fast as she could. Laying them down in orderly rows, memorising them with the same tenacity with which she remembered the points along a flight path, the bridges and rivers and church steeples as markers along the way. Except this time it was troop numbers, grid references, dates and names. She was seated at the desk, eyes and mind focused.
She had to get out of here. Find Léo Martel. Pour into his ear the information Horst had thrown so casually within her hand’s reach and use it to save lives. She heard a footstep and looked up. Horst was standing in the doorway, leaning one shoulder against it, his face veiled in the shadows from the corridor. But she could hear his breathing, fast and laboured.
Or was that hers?
He came no closer, but stood there in silence. She realised he was waiting for her to finish before he . . . What? Before he put a neat bullet in her brain, the way he had dispatched François and Gregory? Or dragged her screaming to the basement? None of this made sense. On her lap under the desk where he could not see, one hand clutched a pair of scissors like a dagger. She had found them in the bottom drawer. It wasn’t much but it was all she had and she intended to make it count.
There was one final document in the folder. She picked it up. It was only one page of closely typed work, an account of various conversations. She started to read, one eye on the silent
figure in the doorway, but within two seconds she had forgotten him. A pulse pounded in her ears.
This was a death sentence.
For her. And for Hitler.
Conspirators. They were crawling behind the woodwork like cockroaches. They dare not show their faces nor speak their names except in whispers.
The final document revealed a plot between a brigadier general called Hans Oster of the Military Intelligence Office, the Abwehr, and General Ludwig Beck, a former Chief-of-Staff of the German High Command, Oberkommando des Heeres.
Terror and exhilaration churned through Romy as she read the document that detailed a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. The paper shook in her hand.
Horst?
She glanced up, though it hurt to drag her gaze from the typed words, and she saw he had not moved. He stood still as the scaffold on which this information could put her. He must know he had sentenced her. More names jumped out at her. Goerdeler and von Moltke, others that she burned into her memory as her hand tightened on the scissors.
She put down the paper and closed the folder on the desk.
‘Why me, Horst? Why now?’
This man, whom she barely knew but who was now tightly bound to her by the knowledge they shared, moved out of the shadows.
‘Because, Romaine, the dark forces of evil are massing across Europe. They are marching in the bloody footsteps of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco, while just over the border in the east awaits the savage great bear of Russia and Stalin. A holocaust is coming in which we will all be sacrificed to the fire of power-crazed men, and it is the God-given duty of each one of us to play our part in battling to put out its flames before they consume mankind.’
His voice was passionate, his eyes fierce, and Romy’s hand abandoned the scissors on her lap.
‘Try to understand, Romaine. I was brainwashed into believing that the Führer’s word was gospel. But now I see more clearly with my own mind. I have stood by while terrible acts were committed, I’ve seen the shops and homes of Jews smashed and ransacked, people fleeing in fear of their life. But no more. I realise now that Hitler is an evil tyrant who must be cut down before he sets the whole of Europe on fire.’
The Betrayal Page 20