André had heard all that. Rosie had pushed the forcibly opened connecting door shut – more or less, but it had four-inch nails protruding through it – and waited half a minute before going up: primary objective being to get the bedroom door shut and locked. As they’d left her, stamping away into the main body of the house, she’d quavered – addressing Monsieur Henri but by then seeing only the sergeant’s broad back and slung Schmeisser – ‘I’ll finish cleaning in the kitchen then, M’sieur –’ and had no answer. Upstairs now: André wisely not speaking until she’d shut the door: he’d swung his legs off the bed, was sitting bolt upright, mouth opening with straight lips like a ventriloquist’s dummy: ‘Not going to get away with it, are we?’
‘Damn lucky they didn’t come up here.’ New thought then – to go and open the door of Monsieur’s room, so that if they came back to look around they might accept that that was where he’d been. She went out, found the room, and did it. Returning soft-footed to André then: ‘I can’t stay up here. Obviously. So—’
‘He’ll go to pieces, you know.’
‘Rat on you?’
‘Well – I’m sure he’d try not to—’
‘As you tried not to?’
‘As I told you – tell you again, if we’ve got time for this – by the time I woke up to what they were really after, they already knew it all – they were telling me!’
‘Because you’d already steered them to about a dozen réseaux? Thirty or forty agents?’ She agreed: ‘You’re right, we don’t have time. But one thing in your favour I’ll admit, you didn’t shop the Craillots. Drew the line when it came to old friends?’
‘They didn’t come into it. I was asked, “Are there any résistants in your father’s work-force or that village?”, but they had no information so I could safely deny it.’
‘Personal safety being your watchword. But would you now? In half an hour’s time, say, if it comes to that?’
‘I’d –’ a nod – ‘I’d try. And pray to God for help. That’s the truth, believe me.’
She could see it was. And honest, in its way. But it was ‘Hector’ she was talking to, not André: ‘Hector’ who’d helped fill that railway carriage. She didn’t have time for this, but there were still things she didn’t understand and would have liked to. She tried just one: ‘What about Joseph Lambert? Hey, wait…’
Stepping back further from the window.
‘What is it?’
‘A truck – three-quarter-tonner – stopping here. Well – nearer the Briards.’
Klebermann – and the SS Oberleutnant. And two helmeted troopers, also SS. Klebermann striding to the Briards’ door and banging on it: one trooper was staying with the truck. Tilting his head to look up this way.
‘They’ve gone into the Briards’. Klebermann and the SS officer I saw before. Briards up against it now?’
‘Informing, more likely. Saw something, or heard something.’ Eyes shut, and breathing through his mouth – short, panting breaths. ‘Tell you, Zoé – if you were in a position to repeat your offer of a flight out to Tempsford – which you’re not, of course—’
‘Are you serious?’
‘I would be, but—
‘If by some miracle we can last out without them finding you—’
‘Would I get a fair hearing now in England?’
‘Fair hearing, certainly, but beyond that I don’t know. I doubt you’d face a firing-squad. Even politically, at this late stage—’
‘But you’d have killed me.’
‘The preference has always been to get you back. But you know the rules.’ She knew she had to move: only needed to see first what was going to happen down there with the Briards… ‘Baker Street obviously wants answers to certain questions – especially disappearances – and if you’d co-operate, I suppose—’
‘Why you on such a brief, though – in the state you must have been—’
‘I met you in Rue des Saussaies – as you remember. And before that, thanks to you, I’d have been trapped on my way from Soucelles to Rennes. And I was then on a train to Ravensbrück with other women agents, at least some of whom there’s reason to believe must have been caught as a result of your – activities.’ She’d shrugged. ‘Or you might say, your blunders.’ Glancing at him again, but mostly watching the parked truck and the Briards’ door. ‘I asked you about Lambert – or rather the Lamberts.’
Staring at her: then closing his eyes. A murmur: ‘Obviously you know a certain amount already.’
‘Tell me what I don’t know?’
‘All right.’ A sigh. ‘They got Joseph through me. Not betrayal by me – they trailed Huguette – his wife – back to the safe-house where she’d arranged to meet him. She’d been with me, yes. Supposed to have been with her sick father in Neuilly – some of the time she had. So – they caught him and her, then threatened me with what they’d do to her. Oh, also that they’d tell her I’d informed on Joseph.’
‘Sure you didn’t?’
‘I’m telling you the truth!’
‘Why would they need such leverage when you were already working for them?’
‘I was not. They were using me, but – I’ve explained this to you, at least once – only as far as I knew in relation to the escape line in which my sister—’
‘Wait.’
Shifting sideways a little…
‘The Oberleutnant’s coming out. Klebermann too – and the trooper. Door’s been shut from the inside – Briards staying put, therefore. They’re talking at the truck. Going on now – Klebermann and the other – round to the front of the house, I suppose. Yes – rounding the corner. Could have taken a short-cut through here, maybe he doesn’t know that.’
‘Leaving the two with the truck to watch us.’
‘Watch this end, and the Briards maybe. You don’t exist.’ She thought: one non-existent, and one brain-damaged: why watch them? Moving to the door: ‘I’m going. Tell me quickly – the Lamberts – it was her, was it, not your sister—’
‘The threat to my sister was to keep my father in line – because of the security importance of the new product. But over my head—’
‘Huguette Lambert.’
A movement of acquiescence. Then: ‘Guesswork, or—’
‘I think it was Lambert who told Baker Street you’d been turned.’
‘Oh, very likely – but purely out of malice, I had not been—’
‘That’s what you told Baker Street, I know. Your mother’s friend Bob Hallowell, to be precise.’
‘Christ – you did come briefed!’
‘But réseaux with which you’d been in contact were being blown, agents were disappearing – that was the factual background to Lambert’s report. What happened to your sister?’
‘I don’t know. Well – sent east, I suppose. Some camp…’
‘Don’t you care?’
‘Of course I care. Simply was not allowed to know. Whereas Huguette Lambert – they told me where they were holding her, frequently assured me she was all right and being well treated—’
‘So eventually you and she would live happily ever after.’
‘We were in love. Completely – lost… I don’t know if you’ve ever been in that – condition—’
‘You don’t, do you?’ The truck was still down there: one man leaning against it, smoking, the other one inside. She looked back at André. ‘If we got out of this, would you still come back with me?’
Acquiescence again… ‘Except if the balloon went up before that, I’d rejoin Guichard.’
‘You wouldn’t be fit to. We’re talking about the next two or three days: and in England you’d go straight into hospital. In any case you’ve made your mark with Guichard – it was a successful operation and you led it – right?’
Peering: nodding, then. ‘Yes. One might hope…’
‘It’s fact. Even in London, at least to some extent—’
‘All right. If as you say, in the next two or three days—’
‘This a promise?’
‘Well—’
‘Because I might arrange the pick-up before I see you again. A Hudson with a doctor, maybe. Could save your life, you know!’
‘All right.’
‘But in case it doesn’t work out—’
‘Uh?’
‘Can’t bank on it exactly, can we?’ She’d handed him a white handkerchief. He looked up from it questioningly, and she showed him: ‘Cyanide – in this corner. Observe the deft needlework?’
Tongue-tip moistening cracked lips: ‘Sure the needlewoman won’t need it?’
‘She’s got another one.’
Nodding slowly… ‘It’s for yourself of course that you’re concerned.’
‘Also for Jacques and Colette. Even young Saurrat. You said you had doubts about withstanding torture – and Christ, who doesn’t—’
His head more trembling than shaking: ‘I’d sooner take my chances.’
‘You mean let us take our chances.’
‘The truth is I’d never use it.’ Poking at the capsule’s outline. ‘I’ve thought about it, often. I’ve dropped more than one down storm-drains.’ A shrug – faint gleam of humour, even: ‘See your way of looking at it, of course: heads you win—’
‘André –’ frowning into eyes like cracks in greasy plaster – ‘the odds are we won’t get out of this. Unless this SS creature’s stupid – which unfortunately he can’t be—’
‘I still don’t want it.’
‘Then you’re stupid.’ He was also ‘Hector’, for Christ’s sake. Looking back at him from the doorway, reminding herself of that.
Third start at making so-called coffee, and this time she hadn’t been interrupted. Fairly foul, but strengthening. Eight forty now – felt more like midday. She’d left a broom and a dust-pan in the hallway as evidence of work in progress, and a duster on the rather ugly side-table on which Linscheidt’s cap had been when she’d got here. Sipping the hot, strong-tasting ‘coffee’: thinking that if nothing had happened by say nine o’clock, Justine Quérier would probably make tracks for the auberge – having started here just before seven, the agreement being for two hours’ work each day, and having no idea at all what was happening. Although maybe concerned for Monsieur Henri – for instance the question of whether he’d want her to bring him a meal from the auberge…
She finished the chicory-mixture, rinsed the mug out and left it on the draining-board. The only dishcloths were rags, better ones having been taken upstairs for André’s use. If he survived without getting those burns infected, she thought – guessed – he’d be very lucky. Even if in a day or two’s time she was able to arrange a Hudson pick-up – with a quack on board and an ambulance standing by at Tempsford.
Not that he’d necessarily keep his promise. Unless he was really scared for himself by then.
Well – he might be.
Justine probably wouldn’t scrub the kitchen floor now, although it needed it. Take too long. Rosie didn’t bloody well intend to, was the truth. Push a broom around in the hallway instead maybe: or dust in the petit salon. She was standing in its doorway, duster, dust-pan and broom at the ready, gazing critically at the over-abundance of rather ghastly furniture without which the room wouldn’t have looked nearly so small, when she heard them coming. Like noises-off in some play: a tramp of boots growing louder, coming from the corridor beyond the connecting door: she was facing it, her line of sight actually just past the foot of the stairs, when the sergeant who’d come with Klebermann barged it open again, came through pointing at the nails, warning those behind him – two SS men half dragging Monsieur Henri, and the Oberleutnant behind them, glaring around – at her, briefly, but at the hallway and its furniture generally, before pointing at one heavy-timbered, high-backed chair. For Monsieur Henri: they dumped him on it. Rosie – Justine – struck dumb, turning in alarm and utter confusion from that slumped figure to this new, brisk one, the Sturmbannführer: less evidently insane perhaps than the Oberleutnant but similarly ruthless, savage-looking. Linscheidt then, and Klebermann. The room seemed full of them. Le deluge, she thought. Not après moi but autour de moi – and with a horrifying sense of inevitability, the remorseless unfolding of what Lise would call Fate. Because I shouldn’t have been here in the first place. Like being in a pit that was filling up – swastikas, jackboots, belts with Gott mit Uns in gilt on their buckles, sound-effects in that brutal-sounding language.
Monsieur Henri slumped unconscious or semi-conscious in the chair with its thick, ornately carved arms: Justine started towards him as if to help in some way but then stopped – frightened, uncertain whether she should still have been here or what was happening or about to happen – and the Sturmbannführer suddenly noticing her, pointing at her and asking Linscheidt who or what – despite the duster she had in one hand, dust-pan in the other, which she thought might have given him some clue – and others including the Oberleutnant turning to look at her while Linscheidt explained – including the bit about her being simple, she hoped. Open-mouthed, glancing nervously from face to face but then back at her employer – still motionless, eyes shut – maybe breathing, maybe not. She couldn’t see any broken skin or blood: if they’d beaten him, which she assumed they would have, the blows would have been to his body – ribs, belly, diaphragm, kidneys. He wouldn’t have had much resistance to it. She moved quickly out of the Sturmbannführer’s way as he strode into the petit salon, glanced around it and came out again. His overriding expression, whether natural or assumed, was of contempt more than of anger. Jerking his head towards the other door – the room le patron had said he used as an office: the Oberleutnant threw that door open and looked in, glared around, came out shouting something like ‘No, nobody, nothing…’
Linscheidt then – addressing Monsieur Henri in his not-bad French, ‘Sturmbannführer Kroll asks: do you still maintain that you have not had visitors during the hours of darkness?’
No reaction, no reply. He hadn’t opened his eyes, mightn’t even have heard. Linscheidt repeated the question in the same tone, and the trooper on Monsieur Henri’s left punched him behind the ear, knocking him sideways in the chair. Linscheidt tight-faced, looking away – exchanging glances with Klebermann, she noticed: the Oberleutnant’s vicious stare was directed at him, then. She’d never been exactly fond of any Boches, but there were two distinct varieties in here, she realized. Monsieur Henri’s eyes had opened: he was straightening himself slightly, or trying to. Wincing at the effort: they obviously had been knocking him about. Stammering weakly, ‘There have been no visitors. Please.’ Licking his thin lips; there were tear-streaks on his face. Tears welling in his eyes again as he added – lifting a limp hand as if requesting permission to speak in class – ‘Madame Briard only tells you what she hopes will make things bad for me.’
Linscheidt put that into German, and Kroll growled something – angry, threatening – which was then interpreted as ‘The Sturmbannführer says you should remember that the penalty for answering his questions with lies is death!’ And in reply to that, she saw, another movement of that hand: a dismissive gesture. She thought, Incredible… Then reassessing: it might have been less dismissive than submissive – recognition of there being no answer or way out, that his helplessness was absolute. She caught her breath then – startled by a bark of German addressed, it seemed to her – and which Linscheidt then took up in his capacity of interpreter: ‘Mam’selle Quérier: the Sturmbannführer asks, are you aware of persons having visited Monsieur Marchéval during the night?’
She shook her head – mystified… ‘I’m not here at night, M’sieur. Two hours a day only – and this is my first day, as you know.’ Gabbling, as Justine would: ‘I’ve been here longer than two hours now, but that’s only because I don’t know – understand – and I thought Monsieur Marchéval when he came might want me to—’
Tailing off… With the thought – sudden flash of hope – They’re looking for evidence of someone having been here, not guessing anyone might be here now. Why should they – why would anyone have been so crazy as to hang around?
Kroll was braying again to Linscheidt, though; who translated, ‘You would have noticed in the course of your work whether bedrooms have been used, for instance.’
‘No, M’sieur – not bedrooms. Only the kitchen and in here a little.’ Nodding towards the petit salon: ‘And in there, I was about to—’
‘Raschler.’ The Oberleutnant jerked to attention: Kroll told him – with the accompanying gesture his meaning was obvious – ‘Search the whole place.’ Maybe having realized his mistake or slowness in about the same moment she’d begun to hope. Monsieur Henri’s eyes, she saw, were on her – pleading, the way a dog’s eyes plead. But so much for hopes… Kroll had shouted at Raschler to hurry: now he was leading Linscheidt into the petit salon. He was quite a short man – strongly built, athletic-looking, walked with a springy strut – but Linscheidt towered over him, following him through that doorway. Monsieur Henri’s gaze still on her. She remembered again his anguished appeal, There has to be some way, some answer… If there was, she wished to God she could see it. Her notion of pinning the guilt on Legrand obviously hadn’t got him anywhere.
The Oberleutnant having checked the kitchen, pantry and cloakroom came more or less at the double across the hall to the stairs, jerking his head at one of the troopers to go with him. Rosie bracing herself for disaster now: with only Justine’s ignorance and simplicity, total lack of complicity or guile to cling to – and no faith whatsoever in André keeping his mouth shut. Monsieur Henri still watching her – at least, watching this way – through tears and spasms of trembling. She guessed that his endurance this far – the fact he wasn’t on his knees begging for mercy, or whatever – would be rooted in desperation to protect his son. His eyes and Rosie’s – and others’ – shifting to Kroll and Linscheidt emerging from the petit salon – having discussed God only knew what, but Linscheidt certainly wasn’t looking any happier for it; he’d beckoned to Klebermann, was sending him to the telephone. While upstairs, doors were being wrenched open and slammed shut: now a shouted order from the Oberleutnant and a series of crashes: kicking a door open – she knew which door. Anyway kicking at it; it was a well-built house and the woodwork wasn’t flimsy. Meanwhile from behind her Klebermann was having to shout into the telephone: she heard, ‘Oui – veux parler avec Captaine Wachtel: Vite, s’il vous plait!’ From upstairs though, another crash – of a different kind, those two together she guessed putting their shoulders to it. Klebermann was shouting in German now, presumably with Wachtel on the line. Most others were looking upward – as if it were their eyes they used for listening – and at the next heavy thump she heard the door give – splintering, cracking timber, door smashing back and a shout of Germanic triumph. Kroll pushed past Linscheidt, dashed up the stairs: the other SS trooper went up close behind him and the sergeant moved to stand beside Monsieur Henri – whom Linscheidt was asking from that straight-backed but slightly forward-leaning stance of his, in a lower, confidential tone, ‘You have known all the time there was some person up there?’
Wide, wet eyes staring up – wandering towards Rosie then back to Linscheidt: a deep breath, and a nod.
‘My son.’
‘Your – son?’
Klebermann – back from the telephone – intervening: ‘His son and daughter were arrested – some months ago. We had the report from Geheime Staatspolizei in Paris – remember, Herr Major? It was by way of—’
‘I remember what it was by way of.’ Expression of distaste on Linscheidt’s gaunt features. Distaste for the Marchéval family, Rosie wondered, or for Gestapo methods of ensuring collaboration? There’d been shouting up there, and now a racket of boots clattering on the stairs. Linscheidt inclining closer to Monsieur Henri: ‘You lied to the Sturmbannführer – despite his warning. Couldn’t you have guessed he’d have the place searched?’ Le patron mouthing – gasping, almost retching – as if he was trying very hard to speak and couldn’t. Linscheidt glanced towards the stairs and then at Rosie: ‘Glass of water!’ Back to the old man then: ‘For God’s sake, save your life, from here on answer truthfully!’ Hearing this as she moved away, hurrying to the kitchen: remembering Colette telling her there was a degree of rapport between those two. Because of the Gestapo blackmail? Filling a tumbler from the tap, she heard the SS party coming off the stairs – with André, obviously. She dreaded whatever was to follow. Hands shaking, heart racing. Kroll’s voice out there high, insistent, a longer, quieter utterance from Linscheidt and then Kroll again, that peremptory tone, and Linscheidt’s interpretation: ‘You collected the keys from your father and returned them to him later in the night – is that correct?’
‘Yes.’ André’s voice was husky. ‘It was my scheme, not his. I persuaded him.’
Plain statement of fact. Maybe he was going to answer truthfully. In which case… She took the glass of water in with her – although it was unlikely Monsieur Henri would get any now. They’d put André in his striped pyjamas in a lower chair turned away from his father’s, she saw – so they couldn’t easily see each other, especially as each had an SS thug in close attendance. The others were grouped mainly behind Kroll, except for Linscheidt who was beside him. Kroll screaming at André again – apparently straight at him, although it was again for Linscheidt to interpret: ‘Sturmbannführer Kroll demands the names of those who were with you in the sabotage action against the factory!’
‘They were Maquisards. I never met them before, don’t know their names.’
More German, then: Linscheidt’s translation and Kroll’s fury. Which was dangerous – as Linscheidt obviously realized, and she could see. Pent-up, barely restrained violence visible in both him and the Oberleutnant – Raschler. She had a vision of their unit’s defeat in battle, military humiliation, the fury and bloodlust stemming from that, maybe. And/or frustration at being diverted to this backwater: maybe that most of all. Waiting with her glass of water in both hands – she’d had to drink some – behind Linscheidt and Klebermann and their sergeant; she could see Monsieur Henri between Klebermann and the sergeant, but not André. Linscheidt interpreting again: ‘The Sturmbannführer says there must have been participation by individuals in the village. You were caught in the blast of an explosion, it’s plain enough that you could not have made your way here without assistance. In any case we have information that at about one o’clock this morning voices were heard outside there. You would be wise to answer truthfully this time: who brought you here?’
‘Nobody. I was the last out of the factory and it was up to me to return the keys. I think I was unconscious – for a few minutes. I’d suffered a blow to the back of my head – somehow – but when I came round I was able to – get here.’
There was a moment’s silence: Rosie edging sideways, to get a sight of him, but she couldn’t: not only for people in the way, but furniture restricting movement. Kroll meanwhile demanding an immediate interpretation, but Linscheidt had been putting some further question and was only getting André’s answer now: ‘Having spent most of my life here I was able to find my way quite easily in the dark.’
Linscheidt interpreted the previous answer and that one. Shifting feet meanwhile, mutters, Monsieur Henri’s short, hard breathing. Kroll, scowling as he listened to the flow of quiet German, was moving forward – hands clasped behind his back, eyes on Linscheidt. He’d stopped now between the prisoners – the troopers stepping back out of his way – and Rosie saw his right hand move to the pistol holstered on his belt.
A Walther 9-millimetre parabellum. Talking again – Linscheidt had finished – he was using it as a pointer, indicating father and son alternately. Hands together swiftly then, in a practised movement racking a round of 9-millimetre into the chamber. Linscheidt meanwhile telling them, ‘The Sturmbannführer desires to remind you, monsieur –’ Monsieur Henri – ‘and to advise you –’ André – ‘that the penalty for lying to him is death.’
Waiting then, with his eyes on Kroll, who put a short question in German to Monsieur Henri. Linscheidt’s gaze shifted: ‘Please answer truthfully. Your son was brought here at about one o’clock – by whom?’
Monsieur Henri was gazing past Klebermann at Rosie. The quick and truthful answer of course: if he’d only lifted one hand, pointed. But then he would have been declaring his son a liar – which would have meant his death. She’d put the glass of water down on the edge of a table near her. Holding her breath, almost: guessing that he’d support André’s earlier statement, therefore would not answer truthfully. Please God… Hers and all other eyes were on Kroll and on Monsieur Henri, whose answer he was awaiting with the pistol at arm’s length now – left eye closed and the pistol absolutely steady.
‘Well?’
Monsieur Henri’s lips moved: he croaked, ‘He came alone. As far as I know, that is, he—’
Kroll fired, at a range of about one metre. Rosie with both hands over her eyes, choking back a scream: le patron seemingly half rising from the chair, the bullet stamping a scarlet flower between his eyes, smashing through the thin bridge of his nose: blood in a spray, red mist. He’d fallen back, was sliding downward; there was mess and shattered mahogany where the bullet had exited through the back of his skull. Justine, she thought, would faint: she was on her knees, forearms on the cane seat of a chair which earlier had been kicked aside to make way for André’s when they’d dragged it forward; in an attitude of prayer – unintentionally and only for seconds, before a hand clamped on to her arm and jerked her up: the Oberleutnant – in close-up, bawling some explanation to Kroll.
Who’d given him the go-ahead. Gesturing to the SS soldiers meanwhile – ordering the removal of Monsieur Henri’s body, which was in a heap on the floor now. Raschler jerking her arm, demanding, ‘You work here – domestique?’
She’d nodded – vaguely. Justine in shock: seeing him through tears. André was in her field of view now – would have been if she’d looked that way – through several others having shifted. The Oberleutnant shouted into her face in guttural, laboured French, ‘In the room where he was is food and water. You carry up – uh?’
Blinking at him, shaking her head: ‘No food in this house. I looked when I arrived this morning. It’s why I was waiting – le patron when he returned might have required—’
‘There is food, up there! Eggs, and—’
André said, ‘My father cooked the eggs and I took them up.’
‘Silence!’
Because the prisoner hadn’t been invited to make any contribution. But had volunteered it, chosen to back her up. From what, she wondered – blind instinct? He had nothing to win now, not a hope in hell: this wasn’t speculation, he couldn’t surely have any doubt of it. She could breathe again now – for the moment anyway – Kroll had barked something at the Oberleutnant – with a silencing gesture to him, and something like ‘You’re wasting time!’, and Raschler had let go of her. Justine sagging, using the back of this small chair for support: looking round as if wondering where she was, and catching her first sight of André’s mutilated face: hand to her mouth, gasping – and still confronting that reality, that it would be his turn now. Which half an hour ago – or fifteen minutes, whatever – he hadn’t been able to face up to as the virtual certainty which even then it had been. Rosie glancing round, seeing that the water-glass was in her reach, on that table. She had it: was edging round the sergeant – there was room to, and most attention was on Kroll and Linscheidt and the removal of le patron’s body; there’d been a general shifting of positions after the killing. Justine slithering to her knees beside André’s chair, murmuring ‘Ah, mon pauvre!’ A stricken Justine, with in the same hand as the water she was offering him, her handkerchief. He’d got that, curled fingers round it, but not the glass which dropped and smashed as the sergeant grabbed her, pulling her away from the prisoner and lifting his hand to hit her, forestall incipient hysterics, her weepy protest of ‘That poor man’s face!’ Linscheidt’s intervention saved her from the slap – might have saved her life even – Linscheidt pointing towards the kitchen, shouting ‘Sergeant, get her out!’
Might have saved her life, if otherwise it had been left to Kroll to deal with her. But her memory of the ensuing period in the kitchen was a blur. She might have passed out – had been on the floor with her back against a table-leg when Klebermann had come through and she’d emerged from never-never land to hear him telling her that the hall floor and that chair would need washing down, but that she’d have to come back to do it later or tomorrow, because everyone was required to assemble now in the market square and there was room for her in a truck with the Briards – it was ready to leave now.
Staring at him, while it sank in. Then: ‘But I have my bicycle here…’
‘Collect it tomorrow when you come to clean up. Move, now!’
‘Madame Briard can clean up.’ On her feet, but groggy, and heart still pounding. Not so damn fit… Justine, anyway, however slow or simple, would know well she had no job here now. And more immediately to the point – this market square business: a ratissage, punishment of the whole village?
André had said – his last words to her – I still don’t want it. But he’d taken the cyanide capsule. Whereas if he’d rejected it – which he could have done, more or less publicly and with no worsening of his own situation: well, Christ… But effectively, by taking it he’d backed her up for the second time – which she’d had no logical reason to expect. Barely knowing how she’d managed it in any case. Without prior thought – only an instinct that with his father out of it, all the weight on him now…
‘Mam’selle!’
‘Oui. Oui.’ Inclination of the head to Klebermann as she let go of the kitchen table: ‘Pardon…’
The hallway was deserted, both connecting and front doors standing open. In the yard – she’d glanced round half expecting to see Monsieur Henri’s corpse dumped somewhere out there – were two trucks with their engines running, one with Klebermann’s sergeant behind the wheel and the other with its driver just embarking: another Boche pushed her up and slammed up the tail-gate. It was the first time she’d embarked in such a vehicle since departure from Fresnes prison for the Gare d’Est and Ravensbrück. The Briards were on the bench-seat on the left, and there was room for her at this end of it – which was preferable, she thought, to facing them. The man was a nonentity but his wife did resemble a toad – and had given evidence against Monsieur Henri this morning.
Would be giving it against André, now?
The front passenger door had slammed, and the truck rolled forward: passing Klebermann’s, which then followed. Other vehicles were standing at the front of the house and in that parking area. Neither she nor the Briards spoke. She wondered how they’d fare when the Boches pulled out. Pull out too, maybe: she guessed they’d have to. Although with about five exceptions – seven if you included the Craillots’ daughters – the whole village were collaborators at least technically. They’d swear they hadn’t been, hadn’t known what they’d been manufacturing, et cetera – and probably would take it out on the Briards – who’d betrayed their beloved patron and his son – who’d been an active résistant, planned and led this attack by Maquisards…
‘Mam’selle?’
Madame Briard. The truck had slowed at the gates, was turning out on to the road and picking up speed again. Rosie was watching out of the back to see Klebermann following, and didn’t look round.
‘Well?’
‘The things people say about us are not true, I’d have you know.’
‘For your sake I hope you can prove it.’
‘Prove? Why should we—’
‘I know nothing about you, and I don’t want to.’
She’d fiddled her blouse out to hang outside her skirt; had now located the capsule in its hem and begun working it round to the front where she’d be able to get at it if she had to. If, and when. The same problem, though, which she’d remembered after André had refused her offer: basically a matter of judgement and timing, but you might say also of nerve – that as long as there was any hope at all, you wouldn’t use it, but if you left it too late you mightn’t be in a position to. How it had been in Rouen in fact, a year ago… The truck was braking, pulling in to stop with two wheels on the pavement halfway along the front of the market square. She took in the set-up pretty well at a glance: a crowd which must have comprised just about the whole village, Marchéval work-force and their families, had been herded in along the back of the square, beyond the covered market area – which was slightly raised – pavement-level. There were Boche soldiers here and there, in groups of two or three, and at each end, to the right and left of the roofed centre, SS troops with Spandau machine guns on open-topped personnel-carriers. Klebermann’s truck was coming up to stop behind this one, and there were others, bigger vehicles, parked off the road on the opposite side, what had been the frontage of the Hôtel Poste but was now an area of blackened devastation, some of it still smoking – that stench like burning rubbish which she’d been aware of during the night. She was waiting to get down into the road as soon as the tail-gate was dropped – being disinclined to arrive apparently in company with the Briards. Most of the soldiers around the covered area and keeping the crowd back were carrying Schmeissers: and that was Wachtel, Linscheidt’s engineer – moon-faced, the early sun glinting on his spectacles. She’d seen him only once before, on her first visit to the manor with Colette – who with Jacques would be somewhere in that crowd… Tail-gate banging down: she was down too, her view of it all much more limited, and the soldier telling her to go that way – around the covered area to the left, not through it. She saw Klebermann striding over towards Wachtel: his sergeant was backing that truck away. She wondered whether if she made a break for it they’d shoot: in fact it would be fatal anyway, only draw attention to oneself: the grim truth was that walking obediently into this, wooden-soled shoes clattering on the cobbles, one had no more option than a prisoner in an extermination camp sent to join others in the gas chamber. Which the SS, who ran and staffed such camps, would doubtless regard as right and proper.
She told herself – seeing Klebermann exchanging salutes with Wachtel a dozen metres to her right as she passed round that end of the covered area – Soon be running like bloody rabbits…
But here and now – what?
Maybe they were wondering. Maybe only Sturmbannführer bloody Kroll—
There was a rope – no, a cord, about the thickness of a washing-line and with a noose in it – dangling from one of the roof-supporting timbers. Below it, a market-stall table, and a bench. Klebermann staring as if he too had just seen it: Wachtel shrugging, explaining. Out of her sight now as she passed: wondering whether André might have been left on his own or unobserved for long enough to fiddle the capsule out of the slot in that handkerchief. His alternative would be to bite on the handkerchief itself – if they’d let him keep it anyway…
‘Justine!’
Colette, and Jacques: they’d seen her coming, were edging through the crowd towards her. Rosie feeling a surge of relief in the reunion, her arms out to embrace them, both of them at once. Colette whispering as she clutched her, ‘Are you all right? Is it true le patron’s been killed?’
‘Shot – by a sod of a Sturmbannführer name of Kroll. I saw it. How long have you been here?’
Her question and Colette’s ‘What about André?’ had overlapped: Jacques told her, ‘Hours. Soon after you went off, they routed us all out.’ Nodding towards the dangling cord: ‘We’d guessed that was for Monsieur Henri, but – for André now.’ Jacques unshaven, hard-eyed, adding, ‘It’s not set up for a hanging. Not enough drop to break a man’s neck. That’s strangulation – torture.’ Rosie answering Colette then – others listening, pressing close all round – ‘They found him in a bedroom at the manor. Kroll was questioning them both – then shot Monsieur Henri – for lying to him, he said—’
‘What was M’sieu André doing there anyway?’
A stooped, hollow-chested, heavily moustached individual: Jacques reminded her, ‘Guy Fortrun – you met, I’m sure.’
She remembered – when she’d gone into the bar to tell him he was wanted on the telephone, some request for charcoal. A day ago – a month? She told him, ‘It seems André led the Maquisards last night – and they got in using his father’s keys.’
A whistle shrilled. German-French shouts for silence: ‘Attention!’ Kroll was in the centre there, with Raschler – and now Linscheidt, head and shoulders taller. Also the two SS men whom she’d last seen preparing to drag Monsieur Henri’s body out. And André: they had him between them, lifting him on to the bench and from there forcing him up on the table. A murmur – collective growl – running through the crowd: reaction, she supposed, not only to what was happening now but also to the fact this was André Marchéval, le patron’s son – and getting their first sight of his burnt face. Fortrun swearing, in a low, repetitious rumble: Colette with a hand pressed to her mouth, eyes brimming. Others weeping too. André had his hands behind his back, Rosie saw suddenly: from the way he stood and those two had handled him it was obvious that they were tied or handcuffed. So if either the handkerchief or the capsule on its own were in the pyjama pocket – on the left breast of the jacket…
Maybe he’d got rid of it. As he’d said, wouldn’t ever use it.
Better than being strangled on that cord, André…
Might have it in his mouth – only have to bite on it. Please God… Her concern by this stage was as much for André personally as it was to save herself and the Craillots from the consequences of his breaking down. For André, one might say, not ‘Hector’. They had the noose over his head and were working it down – he’d tried to twist away – his mouth open, a cry of pain as it scraped down over his face, and the crowd reacting with a growl of anger – and soldiers in turn reacting to that – Schmeissers and Spandaus levelled, and the SS menacing on those vehicles. The noose was down round André’s neck, one of the guards tightening it. André still open-mouthed – panting, gulping air.
Probably did not have the capsule in his mouth, she thought. An echo in her head again: truth is I’d never use it. He’d been telling the truth then: less ‘telling’ in fact than rather shame-facedly admitting it.
Linscheidt’s voice now, as surrounding noise fell away. He was using a megaphone, calling for silence.
‘I speak on behalf of Sturmbannführer Kroll, who has the duty of investigating sabotage action which took place last night and in which the prisoner André Marchéval took part.’
Silence. They’d want to hear this anyway. Distantly, the rattle of a train. Linscheidt was embarking on a résumé of the night’s events as background to this – performance. One, the provision of keys by Henri Marchéval. Two, his son injured by premature triggering of an explosive device, but managing to get from the factory to the manor – primarily to return the keys, although on account of his injuries he’d been obliged to remain there, a logical deduction being that if he had not had help from others, he couldn’t have got there in the first place: and this had been borne out by a witness statement to the effect that when he’d reached the manor – at about 0100 – there had been others with him.
‘He’ll pay for his own criminal actions – as his father has already paid for his. But Sturmbannführer Kroll has the duty also of identifying those who were with him. So – any of you who can identify such persons – step forward, now!’
Silence, again: broken by some German comment – Kroll to Linscheidt, she thought. The SS guards had been adjusting the cord, taking up the slack and securing it so that it was vertical, although André’s head was tilted slightly sideways and downwards by his own effort to keep his face clear of it. She could see what Jacques had meant: they could increase the tension or lessen it, have him up on his toes or lift him right up, actually to hang. It must have been rigged up for Monsieur Henri, she supposed. Then Kroll had had the surprise gift of André, hadn’t then needed the old man, had settled for using him as an example to his son. Something like that: combined perhaps with sadism pure and simple… The guards were standing back now. From the crowd, nothing more than murmurs, whispers – and a baby crying. She wondered where the Briards had hidden themselves, but didn’t want to risk drawing attention to herself even by as much as turning her head. Conscious that she was still a stranger here and might well be seen by some as a handy scapegoat: if for instance Madame Briard chose to elaborate, add that among the voices she’d heard had been a woman’s – which she might, if she thought of it…
Kroll had been talking to Linscheidt, and now the megaphone came up again.
‘Attention! The prisoner – André Marchéval – knows he can make it easier for himself by naming the persons concerned. I am instructed to inform you that any of you who may be able to name them can do him the same favour – he could ask to die by a bullet instead of – in great discomfort. And you could then go home.’
Kroll speaking again. Behind him were Wachtel and Oberleutnant Raschler. Linscheidt, she saw suddenly, seemed to be arguing with Kroll: maybe questioning whatever he’d just said. And the others – Klebermann there too now – watching and listening with tense expressions. Kroll’s voice high-pitched again, insistent on – whatever… Linscheidt staring at him until he’d finished: then still hesitant, but turning back this way.
Hesitating again, then, with the megaphone half up and his one eye blinking steadily – as if driven by his doubts. Glancing round at Kroll again: finally shrugging, turning back. He cleared his throat.
‘In the event of guilty persons not being identified either by the prisoner or by others, Sturmbannführer Kroll warns that hostages may be taken from amongst you and – summarily executed. Now – you have one minute—’
André kicked the table away from under him. Understanding his move in retrospect – the only way, since the moment itself had been virtually explosive, instantaneous, totally unexpected – he’d folded suddenly at the knees, dropping his full weight on to the cord so that it jerked bar-taut and wrenched his head back, while in the same convulsive movement he kicked out with his legs – sending the thing crashing over. A roar from the crowd… The thin cord had torn the skin of his neck – she saw blood running – and the body dancing, threshing around on the jerking cord, legs still kicking wildly a few feet above the cobbles. The crowd’s reaction – shock, women’s screams – was cut off by a blare of fire from a Schmeisser: which was in Raschler’s hands, the Oberleutnant firing over the people’s heads. Some were on their knees: mothers crouching with hands over their children’s eyes. The body already moving less though – twitching more than jerking, and turning on the cord, André bringing his tied wrists into Rosie’s view as if he might have been showing them to her. See, no hands?
But Linscheidt was prominent suddenly – had his back to the still slowly turning body, long arms spread horizontally to bar the approach of the SS guards. Who’d have taken André’s weight off the cord, no doubt – maybe so ordered by Kroll, the programme being slow and perhaps intermittent strangulation, not the quicker death André had chosen. Kroll was face to face with Linscheidt now – he had that Walther out of its holster, brandishing it. Linscheidt weaponless, fists on his hips – the two guards had backed off – he was talking down at the smaller man and pushing his authority even further by gesturing to the Oberleutnant to return that Schmeisser to the trooper from whom he’d borrowed it. She’d thought that was what he’d done, but people who’d had a clearer view from other angles said later that he – Linscheidt – had actually grabbed it, presumably having had reason to feel threatened by it – which was close enough to the truth but not definitively so, according to Gaspard Legrand, who it transpired spoke and understood German and had been able to hear as well as see it all. He told Jacques later that it had been Kroll screaming an order to the SS men in respect of André that had sparked it off, then Oberleutnant Raschler’s threatening behaviour with the machine pistol: Linscheidt hadn’t ‘grabbed’ it, only calmly and authoritatively put his hand on the stubby barrel and depressed it: rather like telling a child not to point guns. But Linscheidt hadn’t been prepared to stomach either the prisoner being sadistically kept alive or Kroll’s plan for others to be taken and shot: he’d told Kroll that in his view the investigation and punishment had been completed satisfactorily and that he’d not stand for any further killing. Both Marchévals had clearly been involved and had been dealt with in accordance with the Sturmbannführer’s brief, but no evidence had emerged of other villagers having taken part; if Madame Briard – who anyway was known to be a liar and to have borne a grudge against Henri Marchéval – if she had heard voices in the stable-yard, they could well have been those of Maquisards, who’d still have had half an hour in which to get away before the moon rose. Therefore, further punitive action as proposed would amount to murder – to which he, Linscheidt, would bear witness if necessary. And finally, when Kroll had insisted furiously that such decisions were for him alone to make et cetera, Linscheidt had challenged him with ‘In that case you’d better be prepared also to shoot me and my officers.’
Jacques queried, ‘But that SS thing backing down – did he think up some way of saving face?’
Legrand nodded. ‘That it suited him very well not to be delayed here. If Major Linscheidt was so easily satisfied…’
They were sitting, by this time – all of them, several hundred people – and had been for the past hour. André’s corpse still dangled – no ‘niceties’ were being observed as yet – but it was understood, Sergeant Hannant had told Legrand, that once all the SS had pulled out, the people were to be dispersed back to their homes. Holding them here for the time being was for their own safety, on Linscheidt’s orders.