THEY HAD BEEN back at Lorvoire for over a week now – and it was as if the excitement of early July had never been. Already, on the journey from Paris back to Touraine, they had felt the change: war, for so long a remote possibilty, had become a real and imminent threat, and the countryside had an eerie, almost end-of-the-world feel about it. As the hot summer days passed, a hush seemed to settle all over France, a terrible, portentous gloom. On the surface people went about their normal business, but there was an undercurrent of horror and disbelief. Few dared to voice it, but everyone knew that France had neither the spirit nor the strength to defend herself – even Lucien, who had arrived unexpectedly in Paris for three days, had been unable to kindle a spark of hope.
Within an hour of arriving at the château Claudine had sent Magaly to find Armand, telling him to meet her at the farmhouse. Their reunion was as passionate as their parting had been, but Claudine sensed almost immediately that something in him had changed.
‘The young men have gone,’ he said sadly, when she questioned him. ‘They have been leaving every day for the past week. I’d have gone myself, but I’m too old. Too old at thirty-two, I ask you.’
Knowing now was not the moment to express her relief, Claudine tried to tease him out of his dejection, but even she was finding it difficult to remain unaffected by the pervading air of pessimism. ‘Shall we sit outside, under the trees?’ she said, and they took a rug and sat in the shade, her head resting on his shoulder while she told him about Monique and Karol Kalinowski.
‘Poor Monique!’ he said. ‘Where is she now?’
‘At the château, She clings to Solange like a frightened child, and Solange talks to her and listens in a way that tears at your heart. She’s the most wonderful mother, you know. Crazy and capricious as she is, she loves her family to distraction, and in their times of crisis her strength is amazing.’ She sighed. ‘You know, François has seen to it that Kalinowski is never allowed back into France. But I can’t help thinking about his wife and children – it could be that their only means of escaping the Germans is to seek asylum in France. He should have told Monique from the start that he was married.’
Armand nodded soberly. Then he chuckled. ‘I shouldn’t have liked to be in Kalinowski’s shoes when he came face to face with François!’
They sat quietly then, and as Claudine trailed her fingers lazily over his bare arm, inhaling the acrid smell of sun-dried grass and listening to the buzz and rustle of the forest, she felt herself beginning to relax at last. Bringing his hand to her mouth, she kissed it, almost in gratitude – she had been half-afraid that nothing, not even Armand’s love, would be able to exorcize the restlessness and doubt that had plagued her since the night of the July ball.
At first she had told herself that she had drunk too much champagne, that it was because she was missing Armand that she had felt that dreadful, demeaning desire for François again. But in her heart she knew that didn’t explain it. It didn’t explain why she had lain awake night after night, waiting to hear his footsteps on the stairs, dreading, and hoping that he would come to her bed. He had not come, and on the few occasions when their paths crossed she had had to turn away, terrified he might detect the anarchic lust she experienced whenever he looked at her. But it was a feeling that was mercifully starting to fade as she sat with Armand’s arms tight around her and the breath of his kiss on her cheek.
‘Did you talk to François about the other matter?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘He wanted to know if there had been any strangers in the area, but there’s only Claude Villiers. He said he would have him checked out. What do you think? D’you think there’s still someone here?’
‘While you were away I did get the impression I was being watched once or twice, but it’s difficult to know whether one is imagining it or not. Is François intending to return to Lorvoire?’
‘He didn’t say. But I don’t think so.’
‘Mm. A pity. I wanted to talk to him.’
‘What about?’
It was some time before he answered, and in the silence a strange foreboding stole over her. She felt his mood beginning to change, she felt him withdrawing from her into the sadness she had detected in him when she arrived. She waited, hardly daring to breathe lest it should inject further life into her dread.
‘Well,’ he said finally, ‘if they do raise the age for recruitment, I want to go, Claudine. I shall have to discuss it with François first, because it’ll mean there’s no one here to run the vineyards, but I don’t imagine he will raise any objections – except that neither of us will feel happy about leaving you here unprotected. Which reminds me, you shouldn’t have come through the forest alone, however eager you were to see me. Don’t do it again.’
‘No sir!’ she said, saluting. But there was more to come, she knew it.
‘Why didn’t you write while you were away?’ he said suddenly.
She was stunned. Not only because of the reproach in his voice, but because it hadn’t even occurred to her to write.
‘I take it you did miss me?’
She sat up and turned to look at him. ‘Of course I did,’ she answered, her voice imbued with feeling. ‘I’m surprised you even need to ask.’
He smiled. ‘That’s all right then, isn’t it?’
But it wasn’t. There was something in his voice … ‘What is it?’ she said. ‘What are you thinking?’
He lifted a gentle hand to her cheek. ‘Of how much I love you.’
‘No. There’s more, Armand. Tell me, what is it?’
He laughed, and turned his eyes into the forest. ‘The truth,’ he said. ‘I’ve been so terrified of losing you these past weeks that somehow, in my mind, I’ve managed to convince myself that it has already happened, but I’m refusing to see it.’
‘But Armand, I love you!’ she cried. ‘You know I do. Nothing has changed, except perhaps that having been away from you, I love you more than ever.’
‘Even though I can never give you the life you have now? Balls at the Polish Embassy, soirées at the Bois de Boulogne, visits to the opera, a household of staff? They will all be things of the past if you come to live with me.’
‘But they don’t mean anything! All the time I was in Paris I wanted to be here, with you, the way we are now. I love you, Armand. You’re all that matters to me.’
He shook his head. ‘No, Claudine. I know you’d like that to be true, but it isn’t. I’ve been thinking about it while you were away, and I know, as you do too in your heart, that there’s no future for us, and if we go on like this I’ll only make you unhappy. That’s why I want to talk to François. I want him to pull strings for me to join the army, because that way it will be easier for us to say goodbye.’
Her face was ashen. A terrible panic was beginning to stir inside her. ‘No!’ she cried. ‘No, you don’t mean that!’
He held her away as she made to throw herself against him. ‘I do mean it, Claudine. This time apart has shown me how futile our love is. You don’t belong to my world, any more than I do to yours. I want you to think about that, and I want you to be honest with yourself. You can’t leave your family, and you know it.’
‘But we’ll think of a way, Armand! We’ve always said that, that one day we’ll find the answer. I couldn’t bear to lose you. If you want to go and fight for France, I’ll even talk to François myself for you, but if you’re going just to be away from me, then I beg you not to do it.’
He looked away, but she saw the tears in his eyes and threw her arms around him. ‘I beg you, chéri!’ she cried. ‘I beg you. Don’t do this.’
He buried his face in her shoulder, and suddenly he started to sob. ‘Dear God, if only I had the guts!’ he said savagely. ‘If only I had the courage to walk away from you now. I want to fight for my country, but I’m afraid to leave you. Afraid you won’t be here when I get back. I love you so much I can hardly think straight. I wanted you to beg me to stay. I needed to know that you love me that much. I’m so afraid of losing you, of having you tell me that it’s over. I thought about nothing else while you were away. I waited for your letters, and when they didn’t come I thought you’d stopped caring, that maybe you’d found someone else. Someone who is worthy of you, who can give you the life and happiness you deserve. Claudine, hold me, please, hold me. Tell me you love me. I’ve got to hear it. I know I’m a coward, that I don’t deserve your love, but without it I’m nothing.’
‘Oh, mon chéri,’ she cried, lifting his face and holding it between her hands. ‘Of course I love you. And you’re not a coward. You’re wonderful and kind and the biggest idiot I’ve ever met in my life. How could you have put yourself through such torment? But I’ll never go away again, and nor will you. We’ll find an answer. I will find the answer. Trust me.’
His eyes were still clouded with uncertainty as he looked at her, and she smiled at the way his tears had left furrows in the dust on his cheeks. ‘Will you spend the night with me tonight?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she whispered.
By the time he left her at the bridge he was more his old self, and was even laughing about his ‘pathetic display of tears’. Whereas, in the past, she had always been the one who was reluctant to let go, this time it was Armand who found it hard to part. Claudine wondered if he had noticed the change. But inside the château, on the nursery landing, Magaly was waiting with news which pushed all thoughts of Armand from her mind. She flew down the stairs to the family sitting-room, where she found Louis and Solange talking quietly.
‘Magaly told me,’ Claudine said. ‘But what does it mean?’
Louis took off his spectacles, and her heart almost ground to a halt as she saw the terrible anguish in his eyes. ‘It means that in a matter of days France will be at war,’ he answered soberly.
‘But Communist Russia and Nazi Germany!’ she cried. ‘It doesn’t make sense. How could this have happened?’
‘Nobody knows,’ Louis said in a voice that cracked with fatigue. ‘Maybe the details will come out later, but it will be too late to change anything. A non-aggression pact between Russia and Germany means that Poland and all her people are already lost.’ He turned to Solange and gripped her hands between his own. ‘I’d like to lie down for a while, chérie,’ he said. ‘I’d like you to come with me.’
‘Is Monique in her room?’ Claudine asked. ‘I’d better go and tell her the news.’
As Claudine walked up the stairs in front of Solange and Louis, she was thinking again of Armand. She had never seen him like that before, so uncertain of himself, nor had she ever seen Louis anything but strong – and the bewildering change in two men she had come to depend upon so much was in its way as horrifying as the imminence of war. But it wasn’t until later that night that she began to feel the full impact of the day’s news; to face up to the chilling reality of war with Germany, and even the possibility of defeat.
The nation’s mood over the next eleven days vacillated between dread and hysteria as Britain and France signed a formal alliance with Poland, then tried to persuade her to negotiate with Germany. Poland refused, and in the early hours of Friday morning, September 1st 1939, German troops crossed the frontier into Poland.
François telephoned at eleven thirty on the morning of September 3rd and asked to speak to his father. Claudine took the call, since Louis was in the chapel with Solange. ‘Where are you?’ she asked him.
‘In Paris.’
‘Are you coming home?’
‘No. I can’t. But I’m glad to talk to you, Claudine, because I want you to start packing, now. I want you and Louis to come to Paris, and from here I’ll see you on a flight to the United States. I don’t want you to argue, I just want you to get out of France while you still can.’
‘No!’ she cried. Tears were stinging the backs of her eyes and the ghastly panic she had been trying to stave off over the past eleven days suddenly threatened to overwhelm her.
‘Claudine, listen to me,’ he said. ‘Neville Chamberlain is going to broadcast to the British nation at twelve fifteen on the BBC. It will be a declaration of war on Germany. France will follow within hours. So please, start packing.’
There was a pause as she took in the full impact of his words. Then, as she slowly started to come back to life, her shoulders straightened, her head lifted, and in a voice of inflexible resolve she said, ‘No, François.’
‘Claudine …’
‘No, François! I won’t discuss it any further. I’m not coming to Paris. I’m staying here where I belong.’ There was a fierce determination in her voice that she had never used with him before, and she thought he was smiling as he said, ‘All right, I won’t force you, though I ought to. But if it is your wish to remain in France, you’ll have to understand what it will mean. This is a war we cannot possibly win, Claudine. Now the Russians have signed their pact with Germany, our case is hopeless – unless the United States decides to back us. So far they have not committed themselves, and I don’t believe they will until forced. By then France will probably be a defeated nation.’
She could hear him breathing at the end of the line, and for a moment, more than anything else in the world, she wanted him to come home.
‘I will, as soon as I can,’ he answered her. ‘But I don’t want you looking to me for your strength. You have your own strength, Claudine, and if you stay at the château you’re going to need it. Our son is safe as long as Corinne is there, but you are a different matter. I’ll come home as often as I can, but I have no idea yet what will be required of me in the months ahead. If Armand stays he will give you the support you need, for as long as he is able.’
There was a choking dryness in her throat as she said, ‘What do you mean, as long as he is able?’
‘I’m saying that I am doing all I can to see he stays at Lorvoire, at least for the time being. But the day is not far off when France will need all her men – no matter what their age – to defend herself. Armand will have to go, he’ll want to go. It may seem petty, just at this moment, to remind you of the man who is watching you, watching all of us, but when I tell you that he’s working for the Abwehr – German Intelligence – you will understand why you’re in danger if you stay in France. Will you reconsider your decision now?’
‘The Abwehr?’ she breathed. ‘He’s working for the Abwehr? My God, François, what have you been doing? Why have you put us in this danger?’
‘Will you reconsider your decision?’ he repeated firmly.
‘No! No, damn it, I won’t! And I want you to come home. I want you to explain this to me, and make me understand. Do you hear me?’
‘I hear you,’ he said, ‘but I won’t be coming. You have to stand on your own feet and take responsibility for your decision. I’ve tried to help you, and believe me, if I was there I’d force you to leave. Listen to your Prime Minister at twelve fifteen, maybe he will change your mind.’
‘François! Don’t go!’
‘I’m still here,’ he answered.
She didn’t know what she wanted to say, but just knowing he was at the end of the telephone gave her sense of security that would start to crumble the moment he rang off. She needed to hear his voice again. ‘Where can I contact you?’ she said.
‘You can’t. I shall contact you.’
‘Why?’ she shouted. ‘All I need is a telephone number!’
‘Listen to Chamberlain,’ he said, and the line went dead.
She turned as the door opened and Louis and Solange came into the library. ‘What is it, chérie?’ Louis asked, alarmed by her stricken face. ‘Who was that on the telephone?’
‘François,’ she answered.
Louis and Solange exchanged glances. ‘Did he say where he was?’ he asked.
‘In Paris,’ Claudine said – and Louis seemed almost to crumple with relief.
‘Louis,’ Claudine said, putting a hand to her head as if trying to hold in her sanity. ‘Can you tell me what’s going on? What is François doing? Who is he with?’
‘Chérie, please don’t ask questions you would rather not know the answers to,’ Louis said.
‘Don’t patronize me! I have a right to know. He’s my husband, for God’s sake!’
‘In name only, Claudine.’
She looked from Louis to Solange, then back to Louis. For a moment it was as if they were strangers instead of the people she had come to love as her own parents. She took a step back, as if to run away, then checking herself, she raised her chin and said, ‘I didn’t deserve that, Louis. Your son has never shown me a moment’s affection in the entire two years we have been married. I tried to love him at the beginning, I tried, but he pushed me away, he didn’t want me. He still doesn’t want me. So if there are accusations to be made, they should be made at him. And if I’m facing danger because of something he has done, and you know what it is, then I think you owe it to me to tell me.’
Louis looked at her for a long moment. ‘I think we could all use a little brandy, chérie,’ he said to Solange, and while Solange went to fetch the cognac, he beckoned Claudine to the chair beside him. ‘Sit here,’ he said. Then he turned to face her and removed his glasses.
‘If I knew what François had done, Claudine,’ he said earnestly, ‘I would tell you. You have my word on that. But as it is, I would only be guessing. And I beg your forgiveness for what I said earlier. You are right, you didn’t deserve that. There are difficult times ahead, and François will be involved in a way I neither understand nor approve of …’ He paused, and turned his pale grey eyes to the hearth.
‘Louis,’ Claudine ventured, ‘François mentioned something about the Abwehr. Is that …? Does that mean …?’
Louis shook his head. ‘If you’re going to ask me if he is working for them, then the answer is that I don’t know, Claudine. I hope to God he isn’t. He’s my son, and I love him, but if I ever learned that he’d become a traitor to his country …’
Claudine looked at him, aghast. She hadn’t been going to ask that at all, it had never even crossed her mind that François might be working for the Abwehr. ‘Did you know we’re being watched?’ she said. ‘All of us.’
Louis nodded.
‘François says the man is affiliated to the Abwehr. So surely that must mean he is as much their enemy as we are?’
‘If only it were as simple as that, chérie,’ Louis sighed. ‘There was a time when François always took me into his confidence. Now he tells me only what he wants me to know, which over these past few months has become less and less.’
‘Why were you so relieved just now, when I told you he was in Paris?’ she asked, after a pause.
‘Because I was afraid he had gone to Berlin.’
Solange came back into the room then, with a decanter of brandy and four glasses. ‘Monique is about to join us,’ she told them.
‘Good.’ Then turning back to Claudine, Louis said, ‘There’s always the hope that he’s keeping us in the dark for our own protection. That there’s a method in the madness of what he’s doing which one day we will understand.’ He looked away, and the tired lines around his eyes visibly deepened. ‘But you have my solemn promise, Claudine, that as soon as I find out exactly what he’s doing, and for whom he’s working, I will tell you. As you said before, you have a right to know.’
Solange handed them both a brandy, then sweeping the morning’s papers from the sofa, she sat down herself. Claudine watched as with a trembling hand she lifted her glass to her lips. Of all of them it was Solange who had taken the greatest strain these past few weeks. Monique’s broken heart was as big a sorrow to her mother as it was to Monique, and with her constant, almost irrational, terror for Lucien, her fears for François and her anxiety over Louis’ obviously diminishing health, Claudine wondered how much longer her mother-in-law would be able to hold on. She knew then, as she looked into that beloved, startlingly jovial face, that no matter what Neville Chamberlain had to say, and whether François’ morbid predictions came true or not, she had been right to tell him she wouldn’t leave Lorvoire – and she would stay as long as Solange needed her.
She went to sit beside her on the sofa. ‘François says that Britain is about to declare war,’ she said in a trembling voice to no one in particular. ‘Apparently Mr Chamberlain is making a broadcast at twelve fifteen.’
Louis nodded. ‘And France?’
‘Later today, François says. He didn’t say what time.’
Solange looked at her watch. ‘It’s almost one fifteen,’ she said. ‘I wonder if François gave you British or French time?’
‘Well, there’s only one way to find out,’ Louis said, pulling himself from his chair and walking across to the wireless. As they listened to the crackling and whining of his search for the BBC’s World Service, Monique came in and took the remaining glass of brandy from the tray.
They had no more than two minutes to wait before Neville Chamberlain’s sombre voice came over the crackling air-waves. ‘I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room at Ten Downing Street,’ he began. ‘This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note, stating that, unless the British Government heard from them by eleven o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany …’
There was more, but none of them heard it. Louis looked at Solange, and with tears running down his face, said, ‘In nineteen eighteen I looked around for the men I’d known, but they were all gone. The battlefields were strewn with their brave young bodies. One and half million of them gave their lives in that war, Solange. Their hearts numbed by the cold, their skin crawling with filth, their nostrils filled with the stench of blood and decaying flesh. I never thought we would come to this again, Solange, I never thought …’
Solange wiped the tears from his eyes, and as the British National Anthem started to play on the wireless, Claudine let herself quietly out of the room and went upstairs to the nursery. Louis was playing with his toy car, but when he saw her come into the room he ran into her arms.
‘Corinne,’ Claudine said, settling Louis on her hip.
‘Madame?’
‘I want you to teach me the skill of unarmed combat.’
*
François’ black eyes moved meditatively about the room. The creamy-white walls were unadorned, apart from a crucifix between the windows, and the bare tiled floor was scrupulously clean. The smell of disinfectant lingered in the air churning his empty stomach, making him feel bilious. Next to the brown leather armchair in which he sat was a small iron-framed bed, and through the windowed walls facing him he could see white-overalled doctors and nurses in stiff uniforms going about their business.
Earlier, the air-raid sirens had sounded, and he had heard the commotion in the street outside as Parisians rushed panic-stricken to the shelters. When it was over several women had been brought to the hospital, stifled and half-fainting in their gas-masks. It had been another false alarm.
He closed his eyes as the Herculean burden of his tiredness weighted his limbs. But still sleep eluded him, as it had done for days. He was now a machine, operating ceaselessly, monotonously, without feeling … All the same, he grinned when he recalled his conversation with Claudine that morning. Her passionate refusal to leave France had not surprised him, but he would telephone again later for her final decision. If she was determined to stay he wouldn’t argue, he had no time for it now … Just as he had no time for the self-recrimination that was razoring his mind of sleep. It was too late now to regret the path he had chosen, to regret his marriage, to regret, most bitterly of all, what had happened to Élise.
He turned to look at her, but she was still sleeping, and resting his head against the winged back of the chair, he stared sightlessly up at a corner of the room. A few days ago the doctor had told him that she was at last out of danger, but the road to recovery was going to be a long one, he had warned, and she might never reach the end of it. Her breasts and her buttocks would always bear the scars of the knife, but that was nothing to the way her insides had been ripped. It was doubtful if she would ever be able to make love again, and the memory of the last words he, François, had spoken to her on the night they entertained Helber would remain forever branded on his mind.
‘Do you want to make love, Élise?’ he had asked her.
‘Yes, oh yes,’ she had moaned, turning in his arms.
‘Then as a professional whore you should have no trouble in finding someone to satisfy you,’ he had said, and letting her go, he had turned and walked out of the room.
He would never have said that if he had not known Helber was listening at the door, and now that he knew the extent of Élise’s injuries he had vowed that one day he would sever the man’s genitals from his body, so that he too should be denied the pleasures of love.
But that would never give Élise back what she had lost. He sighed, and again closed his eyes as the choking monster of guilt heaved in his chest. He had tried everything he could to stop her falling in love with him; at times he had disgusted even himself with his brutality. But despite all his efforts he had failed. To her he had been the ultimate challenge, and she had believed herself strong enough, clever enough, brave enough to take him on, together with the world of intrigue in which he moved. She had never stood a chance. Her sophistication lay in her body, not in her mind; in her beauty and her matchless bedroom skills. Yet for a while she had held her own, had surprised even him with her determination and her ruthlessness.
But he should have known that something like this would happen in the end – that von Liebermann would find her Achilles heel. She had wanted to become the Comtesse de Rassey de Lorvoire, and no doubt that was what von Liebermann had promised her. If only she had listened to him, believed him, when he told her he would never marry her! But the blame was his, he should have acted the moment he realized von Liebermann had got to her. Instead he had merely kept her ignorant of what he was doing, thereby letting the Abwehr know that he no longer trusted her.
And it was that, as much as anything else, that had sealed her fate. Knowing that Élise was no longer in his confidence, could supply no more useful information on him, von Liebermann had unleashed on her the man Helber had told him about, as a warning of what would happen to those he loved if he failed to co-operate …
Now, hearing Élise stir, he braced himself for the thin, frail sound of her voice. Every time he heard it, it was as though he was reliving the violent, vindictive slashing of the knife that had ruined her body.
‘François, are you there?’
‘Yes, I’m here,’ he answered, sitting forward and taking her hand. It was limp and cold, and his heart contracted as he looked down at her terrible caved-in cheek. ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked softly.
‘Quite good.’ She tried to smile, and the gruesome twist of her face made him wince. It was only in the last two days that she had started to speak coherently, and though he longed to ask her about her attacker, he couldn’t bring himself to make her relive even a moment of what had happened. Of course he knew who had done it, but he needed the man’s name.
He looked at her, but as she gazed up at him from the valley of swellings around her eyes, he said simply, ‘Would you like me to read to you?’
‘Can it be Perrault?’
He smiled. It had been Erich von Pappen’s idea that he should read her fairy tales, and now she wanted nothing else. He kissed her hand and then picked up the book, but as he opened it at the first page she said, ‘You’ll have to go away soon, won’t you?’
‘For a while,’ he answered.
‘Will you come back?’
‘Yes.’
She lowered her eyes as a tear rolled over her bruises and fell onto the pillow. ‘I know you have to go, but I don’t want you to. I’m afraid without you.’
‘Erich will be here, chérie,’ he said, putting down the book and taking her hands again. ‘Nothing will happen to you. And when you’re well enough to leave, I’ve arranged for someone to watch over you.’
Again she smiled, and he lifted his hand to stroke the hair from her face. Then suddenly her eyes were wide and terrified; her lips parted and she started to mumble.
It was often like that, and the doctor had warned him that it might never change. The trauma she had suffered had tragically affected her brain as badly as her body.
He waited, unable to understand her ramblings but knowing that in a few minutes she would be with him again. Yet when her eyes focussed at last, they were still glazed with terror.
‘Halunke?’ she gasped. ‘Are you Halunke?’ And then she screamed.
The piercing cry whipped round the room, and he grabbed her as she tried to sit up. ‘Élise!’ he cried. ‘Élise! Stop!’
The door flew open and a doctor ran in, followed by three nurses. They held her to the bed while a needle was pushed into her arm, and within seconds she was sinking into oblivion. The doctor turned to François, an accusatory frown on his face, but he said nothing and left the room.
François stood to one side as the nurses checked Élise’s wounds to see that none of them had opened. That strange word Élise had uttered … Halunke. It was the German word for rat, yet she had used it as a name. ‘Are you Halunke?’ she had said.
He glanced at his watch, and as he did so Erich von Pappen walked into the room, five minutes later than expected. François motioned for the nurses to leave, then turned to his courier.
Von Pappen was an odd-looking man, whose eyes and mouth formed three circles above and below a thin, upturned nose. He had no hair, no earlobes and no neck, and his short, scrawny body was racked with alarming frequency by a nervous twitch.
‘Well?’ François said.
‘The same,’ von Pappen answered. ‘Liebermann wants you in Berlin.’
François nodded, and rubbed his fingers over the black shadow on his chin.
‘I don’t think you can ignore this summons any longer,’ von Pappen told him. ‘He wanted you there three weeks ago, his patience is wearing thin.’
‘Have you contacted Captain Paillole?’
‘Yes. He’ll see you at nine o’clock tonight at the avenue de Tourville.’
François’ eyes were hard. ‘Les Services de Renseignements’ headquarters? That must mean he intends to tape the meeting.’ He gave a mirthless laugh. ‘So he no longer trusts me! Very wise of him.’ Then, looking up, ‘Contact von Liebermann as soon as you can after midnight. Tell him I’m on my way.’
‘It may take you some time to get there,’ von Pappen warned. ‘The roads out of Paris are blocked for miles. Everyone’s fleeing the city, there’s pandemonium out there.’
Dismissing this with a wave of his hand, François said, ‘Have you visited the Jews?’
‘All except two, and I’m told they’re in the United States. I doubt if they’ll come back.’
‘I see. And the others?’
‘I have their valuables already. They’ll be transported to Lorvoire sometime over the next few weeks.’
François smiled. ‘And the Jews themselves?’
‘Everything is as you instructed.’
François turned back to Élise. As von Pappen walked round to the other side of the bed and gazed down at her too, he said, ‘Claude Villiers?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ von Pappen answered.
Though he hadn’t expected to find his nemesis so easily, François’ spirits sank. They were still no closer to discovering the man’s identity. ‘Halunke,’ he said. ‘Does that mean anything to you?’
Von Pappen shrugged. ‘It means rat.’
‘His code name,’ François said, digging a hand into his pocket and pulling out the note he had received the morning after Élise’s mutilation. It contained only one word – ÉLISE. ‘I think he meant to kill her,’ he said.
‘Maybe it would have been better if he had,’ von Pappen answered solemnly.
François scowled at the little man, then pushed the note back into his pocket. ‘Have we any idea where he is now?’
‘None.’
François looked back once more at Élise, then turned abruptly away. ‘Stay with her, Erich. When she comes round, read to her from Perrault, and if she asks for me, tell her I’ll be back as soon as I can. If need be, swear on your mother’s grave that I have not abandoned her.’
Von Pappen’s bony limbs twitched in answer.
François drove to the house in the Bois de Boulogne, where he took a long bath, shaved, changed, and ordered an early dinner. In the study he placed a person-to-person call to Lorvoire. Knowing it would take some time to come through, he decided that the long-overdue explanation to his father must be dealt with now. As it turned out, it covered only one page, but more than an hour passed before he was ready to sign his name to the most soul-destroying letter he would ever write. At that very instant, the telephone rang.
When he heard Claudine at the other end, he felt the weariness pull at his bones – God, how he longed to hold her! But the sudden and unwelcome weakness angered him, and his voice was like steel as he said, ‘Have you changed your mind?’
‘No,’ she answered stiffly, ‘I’m staying at Lorvoire.’
‘Then you’re a fool.’
There was a pause before she said, ‘A fool maybe, but better that than a traitor.’
His eyes narrowed as her accusation bit into him. He would have liked to ask her how she had found out, but as it made little difference, he simply replaced the receiver.
As he walked from the room, his face turned even uglier as he watched a valet deposit his bags at the foot of the stairs, ready for his departure. With the advent of war, the tightrope he walked had been drawn impossibly tight, and already the fraying strands were beginning to snap. And he was in no doubt that the safety net which had always been there to catch him would, that very night, be removed by Captain Paul Paillole.
He toyed then with the idea of putting a call through to London. But on a night like this the connection would take hours, if he got one at all. And even if he did, the chances of finding Beavis at home were so slim as to be virtually nonexistent.