‘What the shit … ' Roess turned to the door, hearing heavy feet in the corridor.
Liane rolled across the bed, sat up, giving a gasp of pain, and watched the door swing in. She stared at the big, unshaven, roughly dressed man standing there. Hercule!
He was armed with a Luger automatic pistol. ‘Bitch!’ he shouted, and then looked at Roess. Liane’s brain raced. Hercule was levelling his gun, and there could be no doubt he meant to shoot the Gestapo officer. She could hear feet on the stairs; there could equally be no doubt that they were about to be joined by every other officer in the building. If Hercule were taken, they were all as dead as if she had shot Roess herself. She had been this man’s lover for several months now. But that had been expedience; she was fighting a war to save France, and the rest of the people in this house were fighting beside her, utterly loyal to her. But Hercule, as she had agreed with Constance, had become a menace.
The decision was instantaneous. She tumbled out of bed on to her knees, reached the colonel’s holster and drew the gun. Roess had backed against the wall, still holding the belt, but clearly close to being paralysed as he stared death in the face. Hercule was distracted by Liane’s violent movement and turned towards her. As he did so, she aimed and fired. The bullet struck him in the face and he fell backwards without a sound as his head disintegrated into a mass of flying brains and blood.
‘My God!’ Roess gasped. The room filled with men and women, but the men were to the fore. Hands grasped Liane and tore the pistol from her hand. ‘Don’t harm her!’ Roess shouted. ‘She saved my life.’
Constance pushed her way through the throng. ‘Li — Jeanne?’
‘That man … ’ Liane panted, and now she was not acting.
Roess was pulling on his pants. ‘He broke in here, waving a pistol. How did he do this?’
‘He suddenly appeared, Herr Colonel,’ Marach said. ‘Meitner tried to stop him, and he shot him. I think he is seriously hurt. Then he ran up here … ’ He looked at Liane.
‘And this gallant little girl did what none of you gentlemen were able to do,’ Roess snapped. ‘Take your hands off her. Jeanne, my dear, are you hurt?’
Released by the officers, Liane sank on to the bed, and immediately stood up again. ‘Only in my ass.’
‘Yes. Well, you have been paid for that. But now you are a heroine.’ He glared around the officers, daring anyone to argue. Then he looked at Constance. ‘Who is this man?’
‘I have never seen him before in my life,’ Constance declared, without hesitation.
Roess looked at Liane. ‘He seemed to know you.’ i don’t know how. I only arrived a few days ago.’ ‘Perhaps he was on the train with you. Yes, that must be it.’ He surveyed the waiting men. ‘This must be kept quiet.’ ‘But, Herr Colonel,’ Marach protested, ‘the man tried to kill you.’
‘Undoubtedly 1 was his target. He must have been stalking me. But a killing in a brothel is bad publicity. Major Steuben, have this carrion removed and dumped somewhere. Ladies, you will speak of this to no one. Off you go.’
They filed out, reluctantly, except for Constance.
‘I will put a guard on the house,’ Roess announced.
‘A guard? Whatever for?’ That would cripple the Route. ‘This man may have friends, who may come looking for him.’
‘We can take care of ourselves, Herr Colonel.’
‘Ha ha.’ He smiled at Liane. ‘I know that she can. But she has no weapon.’
‘May I not have a weapon, Herr Colonel?’ Liane’s tone was demure.
‘It is not legal, but … take that fellow’s gun, before the ambulance arrives. I will tell Steuben I have given you permission.’
‘He fired most of his bullets.’
‘Take those from my pistol; they are both Lugers of the same calibre. I wonder where he obtained his.’ He watched her remove the magazine. ‘Where did you learn about guns?’ ‘On our father’s farm, before the war. We both did.’ Roess turned to Constance. ‘I understood that you were born and bred in Paris.’
‘Ah … Well, 1 was. But then my father went to live in the country, before Jeanne was born. She is younger than I.’
‘By several years, I would say,’ Roess remarked ungallantly. ‘But I am very glad she is here now. You take care, little lady.’ He stroked Liane's head. ‘I will see you again soon.’
The door closed behind him. ‘You have made a conquest,’ Constance remarked. ‘If he ever finds out the truth … ’ Liane sat on the bed again, gasped, and rolled on to her front.
Constance bent over her. ‘The bastard! What surprises me is that you didn’t shoot him when you had the chance.’
‘And have us all hanged?’
‘Jesus! You must let me put something on those stripes.’ ‘In your room. I don’t want to look at Hercule any more.’ ‘But you shot him.’
Liane got off the bed, ignored her dress, and went along the corridor to Constance’s apartment. There was a good deal of confused sound from downstairs, but she did not suppose any business was being done. Constance followed her. ‘Lie on the bed.’
Liane obeyed. ‘You had better go upstairs first and put the Britishers in the picture. They must be going mad.’
‘I’d forgotten about them. I’ll be back in a moment.’
The door closed and Liane, lying on her stomach, gazed at the wall. The paper, like the bed covers, was pink. / have shot Hercule, she thought. Oh, Hercule! Hercule had owned the bar in Montmartre for several years before the war. She had first met him when she and some of her actor friends had stumbled in there for a drink after a performance. She had known from the moment of that first meeting that he had fallen hopelessly in love with her, but she had not at that time been in the mood to take up with lower-class barmen. When she had had to return to Paris the previous year, heavily disguised, a wanted woman for killing a Gestapo officer, he had been the obvious choice for a refuge. She had known what would be his price, and in the upside-down world of a country at war she had been happy to pay it. Her business had been to set up the Route, and she would have done anything to accomplish that goal. Besides, he had been good in bed.
And he had never let her down. If she had been given the credit, it had been Hercule who had shot them to safety when the Germans had finally caught up with them, and brought them both to a refuge at the house. When London had ordered her to return to the south and the Group, he had been upset at being unable to accompany her, but she had promised to return in a couple of months. As she had done. She had not suspected that he would go crazy at the news of her death. And now …
Constance closed the door behind her. ‘You were right. They were agitated. But I have soothed them.’ Again she surveyed Liane’s backside, then fetched ajar of cream from her dressing table and started work. ‘One would have supposed that even a man like Roess would have preferred to fondle these than beat them. Why did you have to shoot Hercule?’
‘Because in a moment he would have said my name. Once he did that we were finished. And even if he had shot Roess, we would all have been arrested and it would have come out. The Route would have been destroyed and we would have been hanged. I could not permit that.’
‘Your cold-bloodedness frightens me.’
‘I am not the least cold blooded. What I did horrifies me, too. But it was a decision that had to be made, and I made it. What is that noise?’
‘Those are the people coming to remove Hercule.’
‘I did not hear the siren.’
‘That is because there was no siren. Roess does not want the world to know that he visits my house, remember? That may be useful for us. I had better go. Will you come?'
‘No. I do not wish to look at him again.’
‘I had better see how the girls are getting on as well. Stay awake. 1 have something important to tell you.'
‘What?’
‘I will be back in a little while.’
She closed the door. Liane got off the bed and twisted round to look at her
self. Even through the cream she could see the weals; the skin was broken in several places. Well, presumably they would disappear eventually. What she had to do was stop moping, both about herself and about Hercule’s death, and determine how her elevated status could be used to the advantage of the Resistance. She had no doubt it could, even if getting too close to the Gestapo was highly dangerous. But there were only four living and important Germans who actually knew her by sight, as opposed to a battered photograph.
Her personal war had begun within a week of the invasion in May 1940, when she and Joanna had been captured by six deserters and gang raped. But all six had been hanged. They had been interviewed by the local commander, a man named Rommel, who had been both apologetic and solicitous for their well-being, but as far as she knew he was fighting the British in North Africa. They had been interviewed then by two Gestapo officers, Colonel Kluck and Captain Biedermann, mainly in an attempt to persuade them not to publicize their ordeal for fear of embarrassing the Wehrmacht. She had regained Paris, and Biedermann had visited her there — Joanna having left, ostensibly to flee back to the security of the United States, but as she now knew, to get her revenge by working for British Intelligence. Liane had killed him, thus beginning her tally, and becoming very rapidly the most wanted woman in France.
Kluck was still alive, as far as she knew, but had been returned to Germany in disgrace for his failure to catch her. Then there was that unfortunate fellow Franz Hoeppner, whom she had had to use to extricate her parents from their home in Paulliac. She did not suppose he would ever forget her. But he was now in Bordeaux.
And lastly there was Oskar Weber, a man who from all accounts would make Roess seem like a babe in arms, but who was being led, like that babe, by the nose because of his lust for Joanna. Weber was based in Berlin, but he did visit Paris from time to time, and it had been on one of those visits that he had come to the brothel and she had met and serviced him. Back then she’d had black hair. But he had seen her again after that shoot-out in the Massif Central, briefly, before he had been shot himself, by Joanna. She knew that Joanna had claimed it had been a dying partisan who fired the shot, just as she had claimed that moments later Liane herself had been shot and killed. In the confused darkness of the cavern, and with their commander badly wounded and perhaps dying, none of the German soldiers had disputed her version of events. Thus Weber, and everyone else, thought her dead. In that lay her ultimate security.
She found the bottle of cognac she knew Constance kept in the room and poured herself a glass, drinking it walking up and down. She turned to face the door as it opened.
‘What a shambles,’ Constance said. ‘Everyone is having hysterics.’
‘They won’t do, or say, anything stupid?’
‘No, no, they are absolutely trustworthy. They hate the Boches, and they know their necks are in it as much as ours. Anyway, all the clients have gone home; they seem to be quite off sex. This has been a calamitous evening. We have hardly taken a franc. Do you know, that louse Marach was supposed to pay me a hundred for what Roess did to you, and he went off without a word.’
‘You’ll get your money. You say you had something to tell me.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Constance poured herself a glass of cognac, and thoughtfully topped up Liane’s glass.
‘You think I am going to need this?’ Liane asked.
‘Yes. There are two things I learned tonight. I don’t suppose one is very important, but did you know the Japanese have attacked the US?’
‘Good Lord. Why did they do that?’
‘I am not Japanese. But apparently they have been bickering for a long time. The point is that Hitler has now declared war on America as well.’
‘What?’ Liane lowered her glass.
‘Well, it’s the sort of thing he would do. 1 don't see how it can affect us. America is a very long way away.’
‘But … ' Liane bit her lip. Constance knew nothing about Joanna, nor should she. But if America and Germany were at war, Joanna had lost her immunity. On the other hand, while she had no idea where her oldest and dearest friend was at that moment, she would surely have the sense either to get out or stay out of Germany. She had to believe that. ‘You’re probably right. You said there was something else.’
‘Brace yourself. The commander of the Bordeaux garrison has been killed. Shot down in broad daylight.’
‘Not that poor chap Hoeppner?’
‘No, that wasn’t the name. It was someone else.’
‘Then Hoeppner must have been replaced. Ah well … '
‘It is the name of the assassin that matters. Marach said it has thrown the Security Services into a frenzy.’
‘Tell me!’ Liane almost shouted.
‘Amalie Burstein. She is your sister, is she not?’
‘Yes,’ Liane said, her voice now low. ‘She is my little sister.’
‘Of course, you have another sister. The one who turned traitor and married a Nazi.’
Liane opened her mouth to argue, but then closed it again. That Madeleine had also betrayed her husband and his people by helping their parents to escape in September had to be her secret alone. And Joanna’s. ‘Yes,’ she instead said.
‘Marach says they had supposed that Amalie was killed in the same battle in which you supposedly died.’
‘Well, obviously she wasn’t,’ Liane snapped, trying to think.
‘So they are wondering how many of your people managed to escape.’
‘They think 1 escaped?’
‘No, no. They are sure you are dead. One of them identified your body.’
‘Yes,’ Liane said. But if Joanna was now persona non grata … But what on earth had induced Amalie to do such a thing when they had been commanded to lie low until orders came from London? How could Pierre have permitted it? How could Henri, Amalie’s husband, have allowed his wife to take such a risk? She had just killed an old friend and lover to protect the secrets of the Resistance. Amalie had just endangered the Group by killing — and for what purpose?
What would Jean say? Jean Moulin, who had been Prefect of Chartres when the Germans had invaded, had been arrested and savagely tortured by the Gestapo, but had escaped and made his way down to the Massif Central in Vichy. There he had created the band of guerrillas that had become known as the de Gruchy Group. Jean would never have permitted something like this to happen without discussing it with James. But Jean was in England, summoned there by General de Gaulle, the man who was claiming to command all Frenchmen and women who were still resisting the Nazi invaders. Jean was supposed to be returning, but he had not yet done so. Thus, with her absent as well, the breakdown in discipline was perhaps inevitable. But by her own sister? Most important of all, what would James say? Worse, what would James dol For all his urbane exterior, Liane knew James to be utterly ruthless when it came to his job, which was controlling his various agents in France. Despite his love for her, which she was sure was genuine, she knew that if he felt her Group had been compromised to the extent that it might endanger other groups, or even agents, for whom he was responsible, he would close it down without hesitation, cut off all supplies of arms, ammunition and information, all contact with London and, most importantly, the promised funding for Constance.
If only she could get in touch with him. But the only radio in the brothel, carefully hidden in an attic bedroom, was a receiver. It had not been considered necessary or desirable for them to make calls out, only to receive advice regarding the arrival of the next lot of evaders, as the downed RAF personnel using the Route were called.
‘What will you do?’ Constance asked. ‘She has probably been caught by now, anyway.’
‘If she had been caught, would the Germans not be shouting it from the rooftops? I must get down there.’
‘No! It would be too dangerous. Anyway, you cannot leave Paris. Roess has said he wishes to see you again, and I would say it is going to be quite soon.'
‘Ah,’ Liane said. ‘But he owes me a favour. H
is life.’
‘Jeanne?’ Johann Roess rose from behind his desk, an honour he never accorded any of his usual visitors. ‘My dear girl! But you should not be here.’
Liane glanced right and left. The walls of the office were bare, save for the portrait of Hitler. But then, all the walls in this building were bare, and cold. ‘It does give me the shivers,' she said, and she was not lying.
‘It should only do that to enemies of the Reich,’ he said. ‘Not to those who protect the Reich.’ His secretary hovering just beyond the door — she had in any event been astonished when this rather cheaply dressed if good-looking young woman had been granted instant admission to the Commandant’s office
- raised her eyebrows and returned to her desk in the antechamber.
‘But you are not pleased to see me,’ Liane suggested.
He held her hands to escort her to a chair. ‘My dear girl, I am always pleased to see you. But after what happened last night … ’ He frowned. ‘There has been no trouble for you?’ ‘No, no.’
He nodded, squeezed her shoulder, and went back behind his desk. ‘I gave orders that you were not to be implicated. So tell me what is bothering you.’
‘We have heard from Limoges. Our father is gravely ill.’ ‘Limoges? You come from Limoges?’
‘Why yes. Have you ever been there?’
‘I have passed through it. It is just that I did not know you were from the south. I am sorry about your father.’
‘I must go to him. He may be dying.’
Legacy of Hate Page 5
