BLOMBERG WAS CONTEMPLATING a map of Touraine, propped on an easel in front of him, when Hans knocked on his office door. Scowling, Blomberg barked admittance, but when he saw who was standing on the threshold his face visibly brightened. ‘Ah, Madame la Comtesse,’ he said, ‘come in. Thank you, Hans, you may go.’
Claudine took a few paces into the room and stopped. The only colour in her face, apart from the caked blood and dirt along her hairline, was the blueish-black of the swelling over her left eye, where the German soldier had hit her with the butt of his rifle the night she was captured. Her jacket had been taken away from her before she entered the room, and now she wore only her jodhpurs, boots and a thick sweater. She smelt dirty and stale, and her hair fell in matted strands about her shoulders.
Blomberg walked to his desk and sat down, not taking his eyes off her for a moment. Beneath her feet, sunlight dappled the thick blue carpet, and particles of dust floated in the rays that streamed across her body. The room was long and airy, and the tall windows behind her looked out onto gardens which sloped in tiers down to the River Indre.
Claudine knew where she was; they had driven through the outskirts of Montbazon to get here. Of course she might have guessed, when they’d come to get her from her cell an hour ago, that they were bringing her here – to the Château d’Artigny, to Blomberg – but weary and worn down as she was, she hadn’t really cared where they were taking her.
She had lain awake all the previous night, too numb to think beyond the gnawing pangs of her hunger. Just before five in the afternoon they had come to take Armand from his cell. Schmidt had been with her then, giving her the chance, right up to the last, to change her mind and talk. But she had remained silent, still not for one minute believing that any of it was real.
The firing squad had assembled in the yard above her cell, so she had heard every command, every footstep – and every shot. She was too tired even to be amused by the lengths they were going to to convince her that Armand was paying the price of her silence. Though the gunfire, when it came, had shaken her. But not enough to shatter her resolve, and when Schmidt finally left her he had told her not to make the mistake of believing her ordeal was over.
In the hours that followed she had tried to close her ears to the sickening sounds of torture going on in cells around her. She knew she must try to sleep because she would need all the strength she could muster to face her own when it came. But every time she closed her eyes, the sounds of gunfire seemed to echo mercilessly through her brain. It wasn’t that she believed they had shot Armand; on the contrary, to her the sound meant that he had been released – and now there was nothing and no one to stop him, because no one, apart from her, knew who he was. She had wept for a while, feeling like a child and longing for the comfort and safety of François’ arms. But she wasn’t going to give the Germans the satisfaction of seeing her weakness, so she had let the tears dry on her cheeks and lain quietly on the bed, praying that François would come …
Blomberg’s scrutiny continued. His desk was at the other end of the room, beneath a massive portrait of the Führer, and despite the ache in her neck she held her head high as she regarded him, not bothering to hide her repugnance.
‘Come forward,’ he said eventually.
Keeping her eyes defiantly on his, she walked towards the desk.
‘Good,’ he said, his protuberant bottom lip trembling as he smiled. He dropped the pen he was holding and sat back in his chair. Then, taking a sheet of paper from the drawer in front of him, he put it on the desk and said, ‘Herr Schmidt informs me that you do not believe we have shot the vigneron.’
Claudine’s nostrils flared over an insolent smile.
‘Perhaps you will tell me why you refuse to believe this?’ he said, folding his hands over his belly.
‘I’m not a fool.’ she said, biting out the words.
‘Perhaps not. But I must inform you that you are gravely mistaken in your refusal to believe he was shot.’
‘I’ll believe it when you show me the body.’
Blomberg sucked his bottom lip thoughtfully. ‘Would I be correct in thinking that you suspect him to be the man who is avenging himself on your husband?’
Now how would they know that, she thought, unless Armand had told them? ‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t suspect it. I know it.’
Blomberg’s body rocked back and forth as he nodded. ‘You seem very certain, madame. Are you equally certain of your husdand’s fidelity? That Monsieur le Comte puts your safety above all else? That he loves you, madame?’
Her eyes darted to his. ‘Yes,’ she said carefully, wondering what this could possibly have to do with anything.
‘I see.’ He looked down at his hands. ‘And if I were to tell you,’ he continued, raising his head until his malicious eyes connected with hers, ‘that for the past ten months your husband has been regularly visiting his mistress, Élise Pascale, who now resides in a house he has leased for her in Montbazon, what would you say then?’
‘I would say you were lying,’ Claudine snapped.
‘But I am not lying,’ Blomberg smiled pleasantly. ‘And I shall prove it.’
She stared at him. Weak with hunger as she was, her legs began to tremble with the effort of holding her steady.
‘Your husband told you, did he not,’ Blomberg continued, ‘that his rendezvous in Vichy was at nine o’clock in the morning. It was a lie, I’m afraid.’ He leaned forward and pushed the sheet of paper across the desk. ‘There is the memorandum instructing him to present himself at three in the afternoon, six hours later than he told you. He lied so that he could spend an uninterrupted night with his mistress. Oh dear, you look a little shaken. Would you like to sit down, madame?’
Claudine glared at him, inwardly struggling to fight back the panic – and persuade herself that it was only tiredness that was making her react like this.
‘Suit yourself,’ Blomberg shrugged. ‘But maybe you will change your mind when I tell you that not long after your husband arrived at Élise Pascale’s house, on the afternoon when you supposed him to be travelling to Vichy, Élise Pascale informed him of our intention to arrest you. She knew, because I had told her myself. Your husband had ample opportunity then to return home and try to prevent it happening, but as you know, madame, he continued on to Vichy. Now, are you still as firm in your belief that your husband loves you?’
She wished her head would stop spinning, then she would be able to think. As it was, tears were welling in her eyes, bitter, desperate tears. But she wouldn’t listen to him. He was lying. François would never …
‘No, of course you aren’t,’ Blomberg answered for her. ‘So now I return to the matter of Armand St Jacques, though I am sure it must have already occurred to you, madame, that you may have made a terrible mistake there too.’
Everything inside her suddenly froze. Her lips were parted to scream the denial, but nothing came out. She mustn’t listen to him. She must trust her instincts, and every instinct in her body screamed that he was lying. Why, then, was she suddenly so afraid?
Blomberg got up from his chair and walked round his desk. ‘I see you are not quite so sure of yourself now, madame,’ he said, his little round eyes gleaming with pleasure. ‘What is more, you appear to have mislaid that arrogance I find so offensive. And what has happened, I wonder, to that acerbic tongue? The one you used with such contempt when addressing me, an officer of the Reich. Perhaps you do not feel so superior now. Perhaps you are beginning to understand what it means to ridicule a German officer. You surely didn’t think you were going to get away with it, did you?’
He lashed out with his fist, so fast that Claudine didn’t even see it coming. She staggered across the room, fell against a cabinet and struck her head on the corner.
‘How does it feel, madame,’ he said, advancing towards her, eyes glittering and lip trembling, ‘to know that your husband has betrayed you?’ He caught her by the collar and rammed her head against the cabinet again. ‘Does it feel as good as knowing that you have sent an innocent man to his death?’
Tears of pain were streaming through the grime on her cheeks, but she didn’t make a sound as he hit her again, so hard that stars exploded before her eyes.
‘No, you’re not so proud now, are you?’ he jeered, letting her go and slapping her to the floor. His boot smashed into her thigh, then he grabbed her hair and jerked her to her knees.
‘You know what you’re going to do now, don’t you?’ he growled, and slammed his fist into her face.
Blood spurted from her nose and mouth, but as she made to cover them he caught her hair again and yanked back her head.
Oh God, let me die, let me die now, she prayed, squeezing her eyes shut against the searing pain. He slapped her again and again, harder and harder, until she started to gag on her own blood.
At last he let her go. She fell back to the floor, blood and saliva trickling from her mouth, her head rolling from side to side as she moaned softly at the terrible pain in her head. It was nothing compared to the pain and confusion in her heart, but still she wouldn’t let go, still she wouldn’t allow herself to believe that François had betrayed her, or that she had sent Armand to his death. ‘Lying,’ she mumbled through her swollen lips. ‘You’re lying.’
Blomberg seemed not to hear as he loomed over her, unbuckling his belt. ‘Take off your trousers,’ he snarled. ‘Take them off!’ And when she made no move and her eyes stayed closed, he whipped his belt from its loops and smashed his foot into her again.
She dragged her eyelids apart and watched as his hand reached inside his trousers. As he pulled out his penis her mouth flooded with bile.
‘Do as I say!’ he roared, and the belt slashed across her thighs.
Her fingers moved to her waist, but before she could get the first button undone the buckle smashed into her hands.
She screamed, which only seemed to excite him more. ‘Get on with it!’ he panted, and lifted his hand to strike again.
She cowered away, curling herself into a ball, and as his hand came down again and again, flogging her mercilessly with the belt, she willed herself to pass out. But she remained conscious, choking as she felt his hands fumbling with her trousers and breathed the nauseating stench of his sweat. She heard the fabric rip as he lost patience and tore her trousers open. Using his foot, he pushed her over and dragged them to her knees. The belt whistled through the air as he brought the buckle down on her naked buttocks.
He raised his arm again and again, so aroused now that he was on the point of ejaculating. He circled his penis with his other hand and frenziedly jerked it back and forth. Her white flesh quivered beneath the strap, and huge red weals striped her buttocks and thighs. Feeling the semen start to leap from his body, he triumphantly raised his arm again. He heard a noise behind him, but he was too far gone now to care. He jerked the belt for one last savage assault, saliva dribbling from his mouth. Then an unholy scream erupted from his lips as his arm was wrenched over his shoulder, and with a sickening crunch the bone was snapped clean from the joint. Then a fist smashed into his face. He flew across the room and sprawled in a heap on the floor.
For a moment François stared down at him. Then, slapping down on the floor beside him the order von Liebermann had issued for Claudine’s release, he turned to his wife.
With the utmost gentleness he covered her nudity. Then he lifted her carefully into his arms, and without uttering a word to any of the officers who had followed him, carried her from the château. He put her into the jeep, smoothed the blood-sodden hair from her face and closed the door. Then getting in beside her, he started the engine and drove away.
Claudine was barely conscious. She felt as if she was inside a dream. Sometimes she could not seem to understand what was happening. They passed a river, the evening sunlight dancing on the water, and French people and German soldiers walking together along the embankment. Surely that was the bridge at Chinon? What was happening to her? But behind the confusion, and the terrible pain of her bruised and bleeding body, there was a sense that she was safe. And though she could barely manage to turn her battered head to look at him, she knew he was there beside her. François.
Only one thing she said before they reached the château. ‘Have I been released?’ she croaked. ‘Are we going home?’
‘Yes,’ François said. ‘Yes. We’re going home.’
He carried her from the jeep and up the steps. She was dimly aware of people in the hall – Solange, Tante Céline, Jean-Paul – of shocked faces, cries of alarm. And then of everyone receding, and François carrying her up the stairs to their apartment.
She shut her eyes then, and tears of exhaustion started to seep from under her lids. She felt him lay her down on the sofa, and heard him close the door behind them. Then she opened her eyes. He was standing beside her, looking down at her.
She heard herself say, her voice so constricted with misery that the words were barely audible, ‘Did you spend the night with Élise before you went to Vichy?’
He only looked at her, but there was such love and passion in his eyes that she could not bear it. ‘Oh, François!’ she choked. ‘François. François.’ And suddenly he was on his knees beside her, and she was in his arms, and he was saying, ‘It’s all right now, my darling. ‘It’s all right now.’
‘I thought you loved me,’ she said, her face buried in his neck. ‘I thought it was over, you and Élise … Tell me it’s not true … Tell me you don’t love her …’
‘Sssh,’ he said gently, sliding his hand under her hair and stroking her neck. ‘Sssh. I love you, Claudine. I love you with all my heart.’
She clung to him then, and cried as he had never known her cry before. He held her tight, feeling the tortured sobs shudder through her body and into his. And Claudine felt the warmth and strength of his body draw out her fear, as if he was telling her to let it go, to let him take it, and just to let him love her.
But she couldn’t. Armand. Armand. Armand. His name echoed round her head as if it was blasting from the guns that had shot him. But it couldn’t be true, what Blomberg had said. It couldn’t. She concentrated on François, pressing herself to him, pushing her face into his neck and choking his name.
At last she grew a little calmer, and taking her ravaged face between his hands, François said, ‘We have to talk, chérie. I have a great deal to tell you. But I don’t think you are up to it now. Let me …’
She was shaking her head. ‘No, François. I don’t want to wait. I have to know … about you and Élise, I have to know now.’
He looked hard into her grimy, battered face. ‘All right,’ he said at last, and sitting beside her on the sofa he told her about Halunke’s attack on Élise, how damaged Élise’s mind had become as a result, and the terrible burden of responsibility it had laid upon him. All the more terrible now, because he knew that it had been carried out by his own brother – but he wasn’t going to tell Claudine that part of it yet.
‘So that’s why I lied to you about the time I was expected in Vichy,’ he said. ‘She needs me to spend time with her whenever I can, and I simply can’t refuse it, not after all she’s suffered. And because of the way she so often claims that she’s arranged to have you killed, neither Béatrice nor I took any notice of her warning.’
He was holding her hand, and watching her. When finally she looked up at him, her eyes were swimming with tears, tears that he knew were for Élise. ‘Why didn’t you tell me all this before?’ she said huskily.
He sighed deeply. ‘I don’t know. I suppose I was afraid you would want to see her, that you’d want to try and help her in some way, and I had to keep you away from her.’
Claudine smiled briefly. ‘You’re right,’ she said, ‘I would have wanted to help her. I still do. But if you forbid it I won’t argue. I won’t ever disobey you again.’
François couldn’t help smiling at that. ‘I know you don’t believe me,’ she said solemnly, ‘but if I’d done as you told me before, if I hadn’t gone out after curfew, none of this would have happened.’
‘It would,’ he said. ‘Maybe not in quite the same way, but it would have happened. It was all arranged by Halunke.’
Claudine’s heart lurched. ‘François, there’s something I have to tell you – about Halunke,’ she said. She could feel the hammer of dread start up in her head again, but she pressed on, telling him everything, from the day she had first suspected Armand, to Estelle’s murder, right through to the moment the guns had fired outside her cell. Yet all the time she was speaking, she could hear Blomberg’s voice. ‘I am sure it must have already occurred to you, madame, that you may have made a terrible mistake there too.’
‘But I didn’t see a thing,’ she finished. ‘And I think, no I know, that it was all a sham right from the minute they started torturing him. It was, I know it was,’ she cried, her voice beginning to shrill as François’ expressionless eyes stared into hers. ‘Why else wouldn’t they let me see him? Why else wouldn’t they let me see the body? It was a trick, François, don’t you see? They wanted me to think … François! Why are you looking at me like that?’
‘I’m sorry, chérie,’ he said sadly.
Panic threatened to engulf her. ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ she breathed. ‘Armand is dead.’
Slowly, François nodded.
‘Oh my God!’ she spluttered. ‘No! François, you’re wrong! Don’t you see, everything I told you, everything …’
‘Chérie, Lucien escaped from the Château St Hilaire where they were holding you. He escaped the morning after you were all arrested. In other words, they let him go.’
‘No!’ She buried her face in her hands, wishing this nightmare would end.
François rose, and pulled her gently to her feet so that she stood facing him. ‘You must be strong, chérie’ he said, taking her hands in his. ‘You must listen to what I tell you now, and you must be strong.’
Her tormented eyes gazed up into his as, sparing her the details of his degradation, he told her everything Max Helber had told him the previous day. ‘And when I returned to the château last night,’ he finished, digging his hand into his inside pocket, ‘this was waiting for me.’
He passed her the note, and her fingers started to shake uncontrollably as she unfolded it. She looked down, and as Armand’s name danced before her eyes it was as though the hands of death had closed around her heart. ‘No,’ she whispered brokenly. ‘François … Oh my God, what have I done?’
She slumped forward against him, and for a moment he thought she had fainted, but then she straightened herself and looked at him. And it was only then, when she saw the anguish and bewilderment in his eyes, that she realized what all this meant to him. She was stunned by her selfishness. She had thought no further than her own guilt and grief, but what must he be feeling, knowing that his own brother…?
‘Did Helber tell you why?’ she said.
‘Apparently Lucien himself will tell me, when he is ready.’
A silence fell between them, and Claudine shivered. ‘Does that mean…?’
‘Oh yes,’ said François. He looked away, and for a moment he could not speak. ‘Oh yes, I’m afraid Halunke is still intent on his revenge, my darling.’ He looked back at her, and in the fading light she could see how he was suffering. ‘I want to kiss you,’ he said, forcing himself to smile, ‘but your mouth looks too painful.’
She touched her fingers to her swollen lips, then pressed them to his. But it wasn’t enough, so she took him in her arms and kissed him.
When finally she let him go, the cuts on her mouth had reopened and he dabbed at them gently, saying, ‘For the first time in my life, Claudine, I know what it is to need someone. And I need you, my darling. I need and love you so much that if anything were to happen to you I know I couldn’t go on living.’
‘Nothing’s going to happen to me, François,’ she whispered. ‘Not now.’
He gave her a bath then, dispensing with Magaly’s services and undressing her himself. Now that she was in the sanctuary of her own home, her exhaustion had finally caught up with her, her head lolled against his shoulder and her arm hung limply in the air as he carried her into the bathroom. But she was still fighting it, he could see her eyelids fluttering as she struggled to keep them apart. What strength and resilience she had. Her head was painfully cut and bruised, and there were terrible weals on her buttocks and her hands where Blomberg’s belt had caught her – but she had not once complained. He must get Lebrun to her in the morning …
He wondered about the internal wounds. It would be a long, long time before she came to terms with Armand’s death – sometimes, scars like those never healed. He’d already decided that it would be better if she never told Liliane what she had believed, just as he would never tell his mother about Lucien. Of course Solange already knew that Lucien was being hunted for Estelle’s murder, but she was convinced the gendarmes had made a mistake. However, if Lucien were caught … Well, that was a bridge they would have to cross when they came to it.
‘I got Magaly to put some salt in it,’ he said, lowering her gently into the bath. ‘It’ll help those wounds to heal.’
Claudine looked up at him. She felt her heart might almost dissolve with love, just as her body felt as if it was dissolving in the healing warmth of the water. ‘Have I ever told you,’ she said, ‘how much I love you?’
François smiled. ‘Several times,’ he said. ‘But I don’t mind hearing it again.’
Claudine didn’t wake the next morning until nearly eleven, and she made sure that the very first thing that happened – even before Magaly brought in her breakfast – was a visit from Louis.
It almost broke her heart to see how solemn-faced he was when he came in to her. He was used to a Papa who came and went, but not a Maman – and Maman had been gone for almost a week, and he had felt how frightened everyone in the house was; and he had been frightened too, but had known he must not show it because he was a big boy now, and a de Lorvoire. All this Claudine read in his face, and as she lifted him onto the bed and held his small body close to hers, it was all she could do not to cry.
‘I don’t like it when you go away, Maman,’ he said, looking her straight in the eye, ‘so please don’t do it any more.’
‘Oh no, I won’t, my darling, I promise you I won’t,’ she said, kissing him.
He looked at her consideringly. ‘You’re allowed to make my face wet this time,’ he said, ‘because you’ve got a bad bruise and I expect it hurts. But you’re not to do it again.’
When Louis had gone, François came in with her breakfast tray and sat with her while she ate. When she had finished she leaned back against the pillows and sighed.
‘Feeling better?’ François asked, one eyebrow raised.
‘Mm,’ she answered. ‘Real coffee. I’d almost forgotten what it tasted like. Where on earth did it come from?’
‘It’s some Solange has been saving for a rainy day.’ He smiled. ‘She’s longing to see you, of course, and so is Céline. Do you feel strong enough?’
‘Almost!’ she said. ‘And I want to see Monique, too. Is she here?’
‘Ah, Monique!’ François said with a smile. ‘Yes, she’s been released, and now she’s at Rivau.’
‘Rivau?’ Claudine was mystified. ‘Why Rivau?’
‘Because Rivau,’ François said, ‘is where Jack Bingham is. He’s been moved to safety to an old tower there and Monique’s keeping house for him.’
‘But …’
‘And before you say any more, it appears that Jack Bingham’s wife died three years ago, and Bingham himself is improving every day, and Monique is very happy.’
Claudine was stunned. ‘I feel as if I’ve been away a year, not a week!’ She thought about it for a moment, then her smile faded, and her eyes met François’. ‘You haven’t told me anything about yourself yet, chéri,’ she said. ‘What happened in Vichy? Why did von Liebermann want to see you?’
François’ face was suddenly expressionless. ‘I and four others,’ he told her, ‘one of whom is Blomberg, are to oversee the rounding up of Jews from this area for transportation to an internment camp at Beaune-la-Rolande.’
She groaned inwardly. How much more could he take? ‘But do you have to do it, François?’ she said, ‘now that you know who Halunke is?’
‘If I don’t, von Liebermann will ally himself with Lucien again.’ He paused, then said quietly, ‘But there may be a way round it.’
She waited.
‘You remember Bertrand Raffault, at the Manoir de Pontoise? Where we spent the first night of our honeymoon?’
‘I remember,’ she said dryly.
‘I found out some time ago that he spends half his time working with the Resistance in Paris, and the other half in Poitiers smuggling pilots and agents through to the Free Zone. The trains carrying the Jews from Touraine will have to pass near Paris on their way to the internment camp, and if I can get a message through to Bertrand, he and his group may be able to ambush them.’
Claudine thought of the Jews she knew, of Gertrude Reinberg, little Janette and Robert. ‘Isn’t there anything else we can do to help them?’ she said. ‘Can’t we get a message through to the British?’
‘They already know. Jews are Jews, Claudine, and the British, French, Americans, Russians, all of them will save their own skins before they do anything to help the Jews. And even then …’
He left the sentence unfinished, and they sat for a long time, thinking their own thoughts. Then François reached over and took her hand. ‘I have a surprise for you,’ he said quietly. ‘Would you like to see it?’
‘A surprise?’ Claudine said, intrigued. ‘Yes, of course I’d love to see it!’
‘I think it’s downstairs. I’ll just go and get it for you.’
A few moments later, she heard footsteps crossing the sitting-room to her bedroom door. Then the door opened.
‘Papa!’ she cried ‘Papa! What are you doing here? Oh Papa, if only you knew how pleased I am to see you!’
‘Not half as pleased as I am to see you,’ he answered, holding her tight. He looked searchingly into her face. ‘Was it very bad chérie?’
The surprise and joy of seeing him had unsettled her, so that for a moment she was on the verge of tears. ‘Terrible!’ she said, with a lop-sided grin. Then she kissed him again, to hide her distress, and said, ‘But you, Papa, how did you get here?’
‘Céline got me here,’ he said, grinning.
‘Tante Céline?’
‘She managed to get a message to me in London. Used one of your Resistance operators to do it. It took me a couple of days to organize things, but I parachuted in the night before last. Etvoilá, here I am!’ He saw no point in bothering her with details of the difficulties he had had to overcome, and the loud disapproval of his colleagues in Whitehall. ‘So what’s been happening here?’
‘Oh Papa,’ Claudine sighed, ‘I hardly know where to begin. But this afternoon, after I’ve seen Solange and Tante Céline, and we’re all a bit calmer, François wants me to sit down with him and see if we can work out what’s the best thing for us to do. I’m sure he will want you there too, and then we can tell you everything, and perhaps you can help. You are here to help, Papa, aren’t you?’ she said, giving him another hug. ‘That’s why Tante Céline sent for you, isn’t it? Or no,’ she looked at him with a sudden glint of mischief in her eyes, ‘perhaps it was just that she couldn’t stand being without you any longer!’
She watched delightedly as her father’s normally calm and dignified face came as near as it could to looking embarrassed. He cleared his throat loudly, but when she caught his eye she saw that he was smiling.
‘Oh Papa,’ she said, ‘I’m so glad you’re here!’
‘There’s something I want to ask you,’ he said suddenly. ‘Something personal. May I?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘Are you … you and François, are you happy?’
Despite the bruises on her face the smile she gave him was so radiant that he could almost feel the warmth of it – and felt the secret knot of doubt that had tormented him since the day he first brought his daughter to Lorvoire, begin to unravel. It was clear, from what conversation he had had with his son-in-law over the last twenty-four hours, that François loved Claudine with extraordinary depth and intensity, but Beavis had wanted to make sure for himself that his daughter returned that love. Now, there could be no doubt of it, and though he was not a religious man he found himself sending up a silent prayer of thanks to God that he had done the right thing in bringing them together.
Later that afternoon, Claudine, François and Beavis sat down in the library.
Of course, Beavis knew through his Intelligence contacts a great deal of what was happening now in France, but he did not know precisely how François stood with von Liebermann and the Abwehr, and the Halunke situation was entirely new to him. He sat and listened while François filled him in, his face growing steadily more grave.
‘So that’s how things are at the moment,’ François finished. ‘I’m no more use to the Abwehr as a spy, and von Liebermann knows it. In fact, I suspect he’s got an execution order on me from Himmler in his pocket now. But he wants us alive, and available for Halunke. That’s why he ordered Claudine’s release, and that’s why he’s making me useful round here, with the Jews. What he really wants is to see his iniquitous little game with Halunke played out to the end. He wants to be in at the kill.’
There was a heavy silence in the room. ‘And Halunke himself?’ Beavis said, not using Lucien’s name in order to spare François’ feelings. ‘Is there any news of him?’
François shook his head. ‘He’s out there somewhere, watching and waiting. Biding his time.’ He turned to Claudine. ‘I hope you meant it when you said you don’t intend to disobey me again, chérie, because I want you never to leave the Château alone, and preferably not without me. Is that understood?’
‘Understood,’ she said, giving him a mock salute. But her face was serious.
‘So the question is,’ Beavis said, ‘what do we do now?’
There was another long silence. Then François said, ‘There is one step I’ve taken already. I’ve asked Bertrand Raffault to see if he can arrange to get Claudine and Louis, and possibly Solange and Céline too, across to England – perhaps in a boat out of Nantes.’ He looked at Claudine waiting for her response. She returned the look steadily, then to his relief, she got up from her chair and planted a kiss on his forehead. ‘It’s all right, François,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to argue. Only …’ she looked at him ‘… will you be coming too?’
François put his hand over hers. ‘We’ll talk about that later, chérie,’ he said, looking back at her.
‘But in the meantime, what else can we do to protect you?’ Beavis said.
After a long moment, François shook his head. ‘I think we can only go on as we are. Lie low, not attract attention, not run unnecessary risks – no more Resistance activity, Claudine, not of any kind.’
‘How soon will it be before Bertrand contacts you?’ Beavis asked.
‘I don’t know,’ François answered, ‘but I hope to God it’s not long.’
Somehow the days of waiting passed. At the château, the family went about their daily tasks mostly in silence, none of them wanting to burden the others with their inner fears and anxieties. During the day François was at the Château d’Artigny, or at Camp Ruchard where the Jews were held before being transported to Beaune-la-Rolande. He came home in the evening depressed beyond words by the gruesome tasks he was required to perform, but his day didn’t end there, and though Claudine begged and pleaded with him not to, he went out into the forest in the hope of finding Lucien. But there was not a sign of him, and the gendarmes, who were hunting him for Estelle’s murder, had drawn a blank too.
Claudine herself spent much of the time trying to fight the debilitating depression that came over her every time she thought of Armand. She did everything she could to fill her days, keeping herself so busy that there wasn’t time to think, for the guilt was always there, ready to pounce every time she stopped. She had let him die, a man whose only crime was to love and protect her. Despite François’ assurances she knew she would never forgive herself, never! It didn’t matter that she had been a weapon in Halunke’s – Lucien’s – grotesque bid for revenge. There was no excuse, no forgiveness. Armand was dead. Sometimes she woke in the night, sweat pouring from her skin and the deathly echo of gunfire still sounding in her mind. François was always there to hold her until she slept again, but she hated inflicting her suffering on him when his own was beyond anything she could begin to imagine.
But worse, perhaps, even than this, was the fear they both shared: that Lucien would strike again before she, and the rest of the family, could be got from the country.
One evening, François and Claudine were sitting reading in the family room. It was still early, but Solange and Céline, and even Beavis, had gone to bed soon after dinner; hard as they all tried, an evening’s light-hearted conversation was beyond them. Claudine was idly turning over the pages of a magazine – a fashion magazine from the old days, before the war – how strange and silly it seemed now! – when she thought she heard a knock on the door.
‘Did you hear anything, François?’ she said, half-rising from her chair. ‘I thought …’
Immediately, he was up and out of his chair and striding across the room. These days, any strange noise, any unexpected happening was cause for instant alarm, and sensing the fear in his reaction, she rose too.
François flung open the door, and a woman almost fell into the room – a middle-aged woman, her grey hair in disorder and her face drawn with anxiety. ‘Oh, monsieur!’ she said, ‘I am so glad I have found you. I have travelled across country from Montbazon, it has not been easy, and then I could not get into the château. Your servants are all gone, no doubt, because of the war, and your doors are very well secured – but the Alligator is not so easily defeated, and at last I found a window that would let me in …’ She smiled, but it was a weak, half-hearted smile, and when the woman looked up at François, Claudine could see that her eyes were full of grief and pain. ‘I could not telephone, you see, monsieur,’ the woman went on. ‘Such news has to be given in person.’
‘Who is this?’ Claudine said quietly to François. She saw that his face was dark with anxiety.
‘This is Madame Béatrice Baptiste,’ François said. ‘Élise’s “nursemaid”, formerly known to the Secret Service as the Alligator. Béatrice, this is my wife, Claudine.’
Claudine took Béatrice’s hand and led her over to the sofa. ‘Haven’t we any brandy left, François?’ she said. ‘Madame Baptiste has come a long way, and …’
‘Oh, monsieur, madame,’ said Béatrice, looking from one to the other and unable to contain her distress any longer. ‘I am so sorry. I am so sorry to be the bearer of such tidings, but I have to tell you. Élise is dead, monsieur! Élise Pascale is dead.’
There was a long and terrible silence, until at last François said heavily, ‘Tell us how it happened.’
Gathering herself together, Béatrice began to tell them. Watching her, Claudine could see how deeply Élise’s death had affected her; there was no doubt that Béatrice had loved and cared for her, and as she listened to the tragic story Claudine’s heart was full of pity for them both.
‘It was at a café in Montbazon, Monsieur,’ Béatrice said, addressing herself chiefly to François. ‘A café that the Germans frequented – that Blomberg, and others. I did not like to take her there, monsieur, but the soldiers had not come to the house since she got worse, and she missed them so much. So I took her to the café …’
‘She had got worse?’ François said sharply.
‘Yes, monsieur, there had been more convulsions, and the soldiers witnessed one of them. She was definitely deteriorating. I sometimes wondered, you know, if she was deliberately withdrawing into a shell of madness, unable to face her life the way it was, her inadequacies, her disfigured body – her insatiable hunger for you, monsieur. Perhaps it was the only way she could mask the horror of all she had lost. There were still moments of lucidity, you know, when she would speak rationally and her eyes would reflect all the pain she felt inside, but they were becoming fewer and fewer.’
Béatrice paused. ‘You know what she said to me only the night before, monsieur? She said, “I want to die, Béatrice. Please let me die. Let me go to a place where I can be rid of this torment. There’s nothing anyone can do to help me now, not even François. I know he tries, but it hurts him to see me, as much as it hurts me.” It was truly pitiful, monsieur. “Only God has the answer for me now,” she said. “Let me go to Him. Please Béatrice, help me to go to him.”’
She stopped to wipe away her tears, and they were all quiet then, feeling Élise’s tragedy strike at their hearts – the tragedy of her life, and of her death.
At last Béatrice continued. ‘Blomberg was there at the café and two of his officers. They were not really interested in Élise, monsieur. She batted her eyelids at them, tried to whisper in their ears, but they shoved her away so that she almost fell from her chair. She just laughed, you know, as if it was some kind of joke. She seemed so lost sometimes, monsieur, so uncertain, so lonely …’
Again, Béatrice was overcome, and Claudine’s heart swelled with pity for her.
‘Then,’ Béatrice said, ‘Blomberg started talking about you, madame.’ She looked at Claudine. ‘Forgive me, madame, but he said such dreadful things. About how he had whipped you, and …’ she looked at François unsure whether to continue.
‘It’s all right,’ Claudine said quietly. ‘Go on.’
‘Élise loved what Blomberg was saying. She bounced in her chair, and applauded and wanted to hear more, and of course the Germans roared with laughter at that, and Élise laughed too.
‘Anyway,’ Béatrice went on, ‘after about an hour, I went to the lavatory, and when I came out, Jean, the proprietor, was waiting for me in the corridor. I had noticed at the beginning that he didn’t give us our usual welcome, monsieur. He is a man of few words, and slow-witted, but usually he was eager to serve us and cold with the Germans, and today it was the other way round. And when I came out of the lavatory he was there in the corridor, and he said, “You must get Élise out of here now!” “Why, what is it, Jean?” I asked. He was ashen-faced and trembling. “Madame,” he said, “it is the Resistance. They are coming here! You must get Élise away, immediately, but you must not alert the Boches …”
‘Well, monsieur, as you can imagine I started back to our table at once. But even before I could reach it, the firing had started, monsieur. Even before I could reach it …’
Claudine and François waited, imagining only too easily the horrific scene inside the café, the deafening noise as machine-gun bullets drove into walls and tables, the screams, the blood, the splintered glass …
Béatrice’s mouth was trembling, so that she could hardly get the words out. ‘When it was over,’ she said carefully, ‘I got up off the floor and looked for Élise. She was not hard to find, monsieur. She was lying on the floor, beside Blomberg’s table. She was covered in blood, there was no doubt that she was dead. And the bodies of Blomberg and his friends were sagging over her in their chairs, monsieur, like … like …’ She shivered, ‘Like puppets. Grisly, abandoned puppets.’
She looked up at them, and now the tears were coursing shamelessly down her cheeks. ‘It was terrible. I made the sign of the cross over her, monsieur. And you know, I cannot help thinking that maybe it is better this way. Maybe now God will take away the pain and the torment and give her peace. And I shall pray every day,’ she said, in a voice so quiet now that it was almost inaudible, ‘that He loves her enough to forgive her. Do you think he will, monsieur? Do you think he will?’
François did his best to comfort her and much later that night, after they had made up a bed for Béatrice in the west wing, he and Claudine sat together on the sofa in their sitting-room.
‘I was thinking,’ Claudine said, as François stroked her hair. ‘I know that in your own way you cared a great deal for Élise, so perhaps she should be buried at Lorvoire, in a family plot. I think she would have liked that.’
‘Claudine,’ he said gruffly, ‘I love you so much that I …’ But his voice was too full of emotion to continue.
The next day, a message came through from Bertrand. He could arrange passage to England, from Nantes, for three. Within the next couple of days they were to expect a messenger who would tell them where to rendezvous for the trip across country.
They decided that the passengers would be Claudine, Louis and Solange. Céline was under no threat from the Germans, and Beavis said that, of all of them, he was the one best equipped with the knowledge and experience to enable him to get out of France on his own. François would not go; Claudine had known that from the beginning. But he had promised her that he would go into hiding as soon as she left, and she had to be content with that.
They had another piece of news that day, too. Though François had not seen them at Camp Ruchard, they heard that Gertrude Reinberg and her two children had been arrested. They had been hiding out in the deserted château of Montvisse, and Florence Jallais had betrayed them to the Gestapo.
That night, knowing that it might be their last night together, Claudine’s heart felt close to breaking, and when François made love to her there was a tenderness and passion in it that they had never known before. Afterwards, they lay silently together, holding one another close; there were no words to say what they felt – their bodies had spoken for them.
Just before noon three days later without knocking, Corinne burst into Claudine’s sitting-room. ‘Madame, the messenger has come!’
‘The messenger? From Bertrand? Where is he?’
‘He could not stay, madame. He came over the bridge, and he has already gone back again into the forest. But he says the rendezvous with Bertrand’s guide is in the big barn opposite the château of Rigny-Ussé. The barn is deserted now, and you and Louis are to go there as soon as you can. Madame Solange is to follow before nightfall – you are to go separately, you understand, so that you do not arouse suspicion.’
Claudine nodded, her thoughts in a whirl. She would go on Solange’s bike, that would be the easiest thing, with Louis in the passenger-box.
‘Corinne,’ she said, ‘do you think Solange can ride my bicycle?’
‘What? Oh yes,’ Corinne said, rapidly realizing how her mind was working. ‘Yes, I’m sure she can.’
‘Good. Then we must hurry. There’s no time to lose.’
Half an hour later, having said an emotional farewell to Tante Céline, Beavis and Corinne, Claudine helped a delighted Louis into the passenger-box of Solange’s bicycle, and began to pedal off down the drive. All she could think of was when, dear God, when, would she see François again?
She was already out of sight by the time Lucien let himself into the château.