They liked the plan, she could see that. Gaspard was the king of the roadside ambush, and Fournier had developed a way with plastic which had taken out a dozen small bridges and two key factories since D-Day, but they all liked the idea of a proper battle.
Still, they were angry at her. About Anne, about Denden, and so they tried to suppress their pleasure at the idea. Christ, it was like dealing with schoolboys. Anne came in with the rolls. She’d managed to filch some butter from the general store. The smell was divine. They leaped on it. Mateo couldn’t even wait to butter his, just biting down through the crust and casting his eyes up to heaven. Yeah, they’d forgive anything now. Men.
Nancy spread the butter slowly, getting ready to savor it. Tardivat pointedly ignored the plate, pointing at the map instead.
“If we can find a route here, and I know a tracker there I trust. We’ll be able to use the higher ground to fire down on them. Turn that whole section of road into a killing field.”
It was a good idea. She set down her roll for a second. “How many men would we need?”
Mateo grunted. She looked at him, wondering if he had some issue with the plan. He had his hand on his throat and his skin was red and livid.
“Mateo, shit, are you choking? Greedy bastard. Hit him on his back, Gaspard, give him a drink of water.”
Gaspard laughed, and clapped him on the back. The coughing increased and a bubbling pool of drool gathered at the corner of Mateo’s mouth. He started scrabbling at his throat, then coughed again. Blood spattered across the map.
“Fuck!” Gaspard shouted and grabbed the water cup, trying to force it between Mateo’s lips, but Mateo pushed him away, staggered to his feet and out of the bus, then collapsed.
“It’s poison!” Fournier said following, and dropped on his knees beside Mateo.
Footsteps thundered down the path, and a group including the other Spanish lads emerged, guns at the ready, to see their friend and brother thrashing on the grass. Mateo convulsed.
“Role him on his side!” Nancy said. She crouched down next to him, putting her hand under his head.
He stared at her, his eyes filled with panic; the blood from his mouth streamed over her wrist. She stroked his hair, tried to meet his gaze, but his eyes were darting all over. She could not tell if he knew her. She said his name again and again, quietly, clearly.
His body convulsed again, then stiffened, the muscles on the side of his neck stood out like ropes and he gave a wet, rattling gasp. His eyes went blank. It was impossible. It was true.
Nancy stood up. From behind the Spanish boys and the others Anne was watching them. Nancy started to run. The girl turned and darted into the forest, west up the slope toward the promontory. Nancy moved fast, unthinking. Anne was crying, yelping as she ran and Nancy gained on her steadily, her heart pumping hard but with no doubt as to the outcome. The girl had nowhere to go.
Anne broke through the trees on the promontory and just managed to stop herself on the edge of the rock face, her arms windmilling. She stumbled backward onto the rough grass, then rolled over to see Nancy blocking her retreat. She slid back toward the edge on her belly.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Anne.”
Nancy took a step forward; Anne slithered back again. God, the terror on her face. The wild animal terror. Nancy took a long breath.
“You didn’t want to hurt us, did you? Someone made you do this?”
Anne blinked, but Nancy thought she caught a tiny nod.
“I understand… I understand. Now, just come back from the edge. Let’s talk, you and me. I won’t hurt you.”
Anne’s eyes were crazed, darting left and right.
“Anne, I won’t let any one else hurt you either, I give you my word.”
Nancy edged closer, put out her hand. And this time Anne took it.
The poisoned bread was burning in a covered camp fire. The men watched Nancy march Anne between them and into the bus. She saw the look in Tardivat’s eyes as they passed. He was asking her a question and she didn’t know the answer yet.
The blood-spattered map was still on the table. Nancy left it there.
“Tell me everything.”
The girl was shaking, hard, like someone with a fever.
“Come on, Anne, the better angels of my nature say we can solve our problems with talking, so talk.”
“The man from the Gestapo… he said it was my duty. That I was special.”
Böhm. Of course it was him.
“When?” Nancy asked.
Anne looked around as if she was expecting the officer in question to pop out from behind one of the seats.
“When did he tell you this? Last night?”
“He came to the café, minutes after you left. After your friend took you to his barn. We all knew he’d been renting it from M. Boutelle. I remember I was still crying. He was very interested when I told him my name, that we’d spoken. He was kind. The Germans are trying to build a better world. The Jews and foreigners are trying to stop them. He said it was because of women like you… You forced the Germans to do things they didn’t want to do. Like burn down farms. He said if you and your men were gone, there would be peace. He said many things. He gave me the stuff to put in your food. He sent me after you.”
Someone must have spotted Nancy before she’d even got to the bar. She had a fleeting image of the man passing them in the street.
“He said he’d protect my family! That I must be brave for them! He said he’d protect me!”
Nancy could feel the anger bubbling in her veins. She’d seen herself in this girl.
“He can’t. Only I can do that, Anne.” Anne. “Did you tell him what I said about the book?” Anne shook her head, confused. Böhm had known already what Nancy’s favorite book was. “And Böhm told you to say you had run away from your mother?”
A nod.
“You know how he got that information?” Nancy said at last. “He got it from torturing my husband, you Nazi bitch.”
She grabbed hold of Anne’s arm, dragging her out of the bus. She tried to resist, crying and screeching, grabbing onto the old seats, the edge of the door, but she was weak and Nancy had grown strong.
“You said you wouldn’t hurt me!” she screamed as Nancy threw her onto the floor at Tardivat’s feet.
He hauled her upright, grabbed hold of her right arm; Rodrigo gripped her left.
“I guess that makes us both lying cunts,” Nancy spat the words out.
What had Böhm done to Henri to make him give up all those small secrets of the past? Her family, her favorite book. She felt the dry heat of her old hiding place under the porch in Sydney, reading by the light which shone in bright bars through the floorboards. The threat of her mother’s footsteps above.
Nancy unholstered her pistol, and offered it to Juan. “She murdered your brother.”
He shook his head. “She’s just a girl.”
Anne sank down between the men holding her. “Let me go, I’m sorry, I’m sorry… You’ll never see me again…”
“Tardi?”
“I cannot.”
“Fine.”
Nancy lifted the gun. Anne’s head snapped up and she stared into Nancy’s eyes.
“He’s dead! Your husband. Major Böhm said to his captain it was a shame he hadn’t lasted longer, as he’d been so helpful.” Nancy began to squeeze the trigger and the girl’s face distorted into a vicious grimace. “Heil Hit—”
Nancy fired twice. The girl’s body jerked in Tardi’s arms and they dropped her. Nancy re-holstered the gun and stalked off into the woods, leaving the men to clear up the mess.
She went straight up to the promontory and made it to the edge before she fell to her knees. Her hands were shaking again. She needed a moment, just a moment. Her mind would not give it to her. Henri was dead. Tardi was right, Böhm had lied. She could hear the rattle of blood in Mateo’s throat, she could feel Anne’s thin wrist in her grip, she could see the girl’s final look of murderous rage.
There could be no peace now, not for her. Buckmaster and his type thought peace was just the end of fighting, the German army rolled up neatly, the French free and grateful. The end is near, Nancy! He was a fool. They were all fools. This hell had no end, just different colors and flavors.
The rope Denden had used to show her how to hang over the cliff was still there. Just ordinary rope, like the one the Germans had used to make nooses for the one-armed farmer and his wife. Nancy rose, picked it up. One end was still firmly attached to the tree. They were at peace now. That was peace. Not in heaven, not hell, just a place of silence where you did not have to think, to remember.
Nancy made a loop.
No love, no hate. No bullies, no propaganda, no children desperate with loathing for revenge. No rage, no guilt. No Henri.
She fitted the rope around herself.
She must look a sight. Instinct is a powerful thing. She took the compact from her pocket, flicked it open and looked at herself, wiping the corner of her mouth as she caught her own gaze.
The rage and disgust lifted her in a wave, and she threw it, Buckmaster’s sweet little goodbye, hope-you-don’t-get-tortured-and-starved-to-death gift hard over the edge of the cliff—then she gave chase and threw herself forward into the void.
And was caught.
Her feet on the crumbling edge, her arms forward like a skydiver, the rope around her waist taut. The knot gave a little and she jerked forward an inch. It made her smile. Perhaps it would give. Come on, God, if you’re there. I’m easy pickings. Perhaps she and all her sudden talent for death would disappear into the clear air of the Cantal and her flesh would feed the trees and rot away her sin.
But the rope held and she stared down and out into the valley. She thought of Böhm. That curious gentle smile that told her he was content with his world. He was in Montluçon now, at his desk, signing his forms. This prisoner dies, that village to be burned to the ground, these men to be beaten till their own mothers wouldn’t know them, these to be crammed into a stinking cattle cart and carried off to Germany. He wasn’t in hell. How could that be? She shifted her weight and lifted her arms high.
She was mistress of the void. She would bring hell to him.