Frances de Pole couldn’t move, couldn’t see, couldn’t make a sound. She was bound tightly, both arms and legs, and blindfolded and gagged, lying on her side on the wooden floor. The evening was warm enough, but she was bitterly cold and shivering. Her shoulder was in agony but she couldn’t even turn over.
The pain was bad, but the terror was far worse.
She was going to be killed.
The thought that she had climbed into the car of her own volition was tearing her sanity to shreds. There had been a moment of hesitation, hadn’t there? But she had cast her doubts aside, for she knew the man and why wouldn’t she trust him? Nothing could happen to Frankie. She was the life and soul of every party, the girl who never said no to a good time. She was half English, half German and spoke both languages fluently. She could go anywhere in this town and a friend was always at hand.
And then . . . what had happened then in the car? There must have been someone in the seat behind, crouching low, thrusting a hood over her head, injecting her with something. She recalled panic and then a curious blur before unconsciousness.
Now she was awake and she was about to die. She tried to calm her breathing, but the gag was tight in her mouth and she could scarcely get enough air into her nostrils. She couldn’t even cry, let alone cry out.
She thought of Rosie. Was this the way it had been for her? This hopeless terror?
She thought of home in the Oxfordshire countryside. Her mama, so German in many ways – her precision, her taste in food, her Bavarian Catholicism – but also so desperate to be English. She had married her father in 1910, and even when Europe exploded into war four years later she had never had any doubts that her place was in England with her new family rather than with her family of birth in Germany. Frankie understood that she had suffered greatly for it in those war years.
She spoke good English, but her southern German accent was strong and she was shunned in the village in the beautiful Vale of the White Horse. The butcher and the baker simply ignored her, wouldn’t take her orders, until she gave up going into their shops and had food sent from Fortnum’s in London instead. At least her best friends stood by her, but even that must have been strained at times, especially when they lost sons at the Somme and Passchendaele.
Daddy was away fighting, of course, and so Mama was alone with Frankie and her younger brother. The fact that her husband had a distinguished war as an artillery officer and was mentioned in dispatches, helped a bit, but it was never going to be easy. And when peace was declared, he rejoined the Foreign Office and rose to great heights.
If only he were here now to help her. Daddy. Her beloved father. Please, she begged God, please let him come and save me from the horror.
*
The house was quiet. Seb wondered who was here. Walter Regensdorf, of course. And his secretary/housekeeper Irmgard Huber. Had they retired to bed, worn out by the events of the day? Had they, perhaps, retired to the same bed?
Had they finished their filthy work and disposed of another corpse?
Seb closed the garden door softly, then removed his shoes and indicated Winter to do the same. They both switched on their torches and proceeded through the entrails of the great villa, first the work rooms – kitchen, pantry, boot room, laundry, scullery. All were in darkness and no sound emanated from elsewhere in the house.
Slowly, with great caution, they went through all the rooms on the ground floor – an immense reception room clearly designed for important events and, next to it, an exquisite dining room with a table that would seat twenty or more guests with ease, the master’s study, a smaller writing room and an administrative office that would have served as Frau Huber’s place of work when she wasn’t taking dictation or whatever it was she did. And, of course, the library where they had first been asked to wait by Maria Regensdorf all those days ago.
The books hadn’t meant much to him then, but now they did: Guido von List, Helena Blavatsky, Aleister Crowley, all those Völkisch tracts that served to tell a tale of what sort of man lived here. By your friends you shall be known, but perhaps even truer, by your books you shall be known. List and Blavatsky, Crowley and others – purveyors of mad occult, sexual, mystic, sadistic nonsense. Seb saw now what he hadn’t seen then.
Back in the front hallway, he pointed his torch at the staircase then down at the floor. The blood and hair had gone now.
Seb and Winter began to climb the stairs. Seb feared the wood might creak but in fact it was so solidly built that it made not a sound and their sock-clad feet were as quiet as cat paws.
As they reached the top, the landing was suddenly flooded with light.
Walter Regensdorf was standing there, fully dressed. His hand was at the wall where he had just flicked the switch.
‘You could have knocked at the front door, you know. And you can put your guns away.’
‘Herr Regensdorf,’ Seb said, for want of something better to say. He did not accept the invitation to lower his pistol.
‘Were you expecting someone else, perhaps?’
‘We are looking for a girl. Frances de Pole.’
‘Ah yes, my dear departed wife knew her mother. Well, I don’t believe I’ve seen her. In fact, I can think of no circumstances under which she might be here. There are maids, of course, and manservants, kitchen staff, my secretary – all now in their rooms and probably sleeping soundly – but no one named Frances de Pole. You have had a wasted trip, and a highly illegal one. I hope you haven’t harmed my dogs.’
‘Your dogs are fine but I can tell you they are not well trained. Guard dogs should not be diverted by a slab of meat.’ He eyed up his jacket and tie. ‘Were you going somewhere?’
‘To bed. As all honest men should at this time of night. So what do we do now, gentlemen? I’m not going to call Adolf for he has the cares of the world on his shoulders and he needs his sleep. But I could have ten heavily armed SS men here within five minutes, and that would be the end of you both.’
‘No, you won’t do that. We are going to look in every room in this house. I think we should start with your bedroom. Is that it?’ Seb indicated the open door beside the light switch.
‘Do come in.’ His voice was urbane, almost that of an English gentlemen, but beneath the skin, there was murderous fury. It seemed impossible to Seb that both he and Walter Regensdorf should come out of this encounter alive.
They searched his room, the wardrobes, his en suite bathroom, under the bed, in a linen chest and found nothing.
‘Stay here with him, Sergeant. I’ll search alone.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Don’t take your gun off him for a moment.’
‘Your time’s up, Wolff – your uncle won’t be able to save you this time.’ Regensdorf was wound like a coil, his voice no longer cultivated but seething with bile. He turned towards Winter, whose right hand was gripped like iron on the butt of his Walther. ‘And you, what manner of creature are you? You bring shame on your service and your people.’
His people, thought Seb. Thankfully, this man had no knowledge of Winter’s people.
‘If he tries anything, Sergeant, shoot him in the leg. If that doesn’t stop him, go for his chest.’
Seb left the room and, for the next hour went up through the five storeys of the villa. He explored the bedrooms and the bathrooms, woke servants – male and female – from their slumbers and questioned them. He looked in the attics and the corridors and returned downstairs to search for cellars or basements, but found none.
This was bad, very bad. There was no way out of this. Once he left this building, he and Winter would be arrested within a short time. Dachau would likely follow, or trial and execution if some capital offence could be framed against them. He felt a surge of guilt for bringing Hans Winter into this scheme.
Returning to the bedroom, he found Regensdorf smirking as though he knew exactly what Seb would discover.
‘No sign of your secretary Frau Huber.’
‘That’s hardly my business, Wolff. People come and go – they have lives of their own.’
Seb walked across to the telephone and ripped it from the wall. ‘Come, Sergeant, let’s get out of this hellhole.’
‘You won’t get very far.’
‘Don’t worry about us, Herr Regensdorf. You’re not getting out of this a free man.’
‘You know, Wolff, I saw you at the Thule meeting and I wondered what you were doing there as you clearly understand nothing. You do not understand the old ways of our race, the blood honour, duty and sacrifice of Germany and German people. There are mysteries that are so far beyond your comprehension that you are nothing but a naive child.’
‘Sex magic?’
‘What do you know of that? What do you know of the gods?’
‘More than I want to.’ He nodded to Winter. ‘This place gives me the creeps.’ Still carrying the telephone, Seb took the key from the inside of the door and closed it and locked it as they left. ‘That’ll give us a bit of time. And we need it, badly. Let’s get our shoes.’
‘What do we do then, Inspector?’
‘I was sure we would find her here. Maybe we didn’t look everywhere.’
‘Perhaps there are outhouses.’
‘We can’t look again now. His SS friends will be here any minute.’
*
Either they didn’t know she was fluent in German or they didn’t care. Perhaps they said these things out of cruelty, to intensify her terror, if that was possible.
How many voices were there? Definitely one woman and at least one man. They were talking about murdering her, slitting her throat at Hesselberg. Saying these things casually, as though they might discuss when to slaughter the Christmas pig.
She heard the words ‘sex magic’ and thought of the message Maria had begged her to write in lipstick on the blouse of Inspector Wolff’s girlfriend. What had she become involved in? Why hadn’t she spoken more openly to Wolff? Perhaps he would have understood what was really happening. Perhaps he could have protected her.
Frances was still bound, still on the floor, still unable to see or speak, but she could hear perfectly and she knew that her fate was imminent and that she was powerless to stop it.
She felt hands. Damp, clammy hands on her skin and through the thin fabric of her summer dress and tried in vain to wriggle away. The hands were lifting her from the floor as though she weighed nothing. A man’s hands and arms. She knew it was a man from the smell of beer and smoke and armpit sweat and from the strength of his arms. He slung her onto his back like a coalman with a sack.
‘This will be the best,’ the woman said. ‘We will have all the time in the world, no hurry, no interruption.’
‘If you say so,’ the man grunted, his lack of interest evident. ‘To be honest, Irmgard, I don’t give a monkey’s fuck so long as I get my money.’
The woman’s voice? Was that the stern-looking secretary from the Villa Saphir? Was her name Irmgard? She had only met her once and seemed to recall she was called Huber, but that was a surname. Beyond that, voices were difficult when not spoken in your first tongue. Frankie was fluent in German, but English was the language of home.