‘Oh, but … ' Joanna checked herself in time before she mentioned the hundred hostages; she was not supposed to know anything that had happened. ‘Surely some of the locals would know where to find her?’
‘Again, one would have supposed so. We have sent Roess to sort it out.’
‘Roess?’
‘I know he is not your favourite man, but even you must admit that he is good at his job. However, at the end of the day, it is our baby.’
Joanna realized that he was giving her the opportunity to do even more than James had wanted. ‘Of course it is. I will go down there and find out exactly what is going on.’
‘Do you think you can handle it?’
‘Of course.’ She went into the bedroom, lay on the bed. She didn’t bother to put any clothes on; she needed him to find concentration difficult. ‘Listen. Nobody down there knows I work for you, save for Hoeppner himself.’
He sat beside her and stroked her legs. ‘And Roess.’ ‘Roess will surely be happy to work with me, if he knows I am coming from you. As far as the rest of the world knows, I am a journalist. I have been to Bordeaux before. Better yet, I was once arrested by the Wehrmacht there, for irregular activities. These things will be well known to the locals. And I am also an old friend of the de Gruchys. It is entirely natural for me to hurry down there to see if there is a story. Equally, it is highly likely that once I am known to be there, Amalie, or someone who knows where she is, will wish to get in touch with me. All I need is for you to inform Roess of what I am about, and tell him to give me every cooperation. You should also brief Hoeppner.’
‘And should Amalie get in touch with you?’
‘I hand over to Hoeppner and return here.’
‘You are prepared to betray your oldest friend?’
‘My dear Oskar, I shot my oldest friend, remember. I do not have any friends left, except you.’
He squeezed her thigh. ‘Suppose Amalie knows that?’ ‘How is she to know that? We only entered that cave after the assault had been successfully carried out. Every one of the guerrillas who was in the cave mouth was killed, either outright or immediately afterwards. Those who did not die, and in this category we must now include Amalie, had obviously long retired to the deep interior, and equally obviously stayed there until we had withdrawn, or they would have died too.’
Weber leaned over the bed and kissed her. ‘You are a treasure. I must get back to the office. I will see you again before you go. But you must leave tomorrow. This matter is urgent.’
‘Fraulein Jonsson is here, Frau Helsingen,’ announced Hilda the maid, disapprovingly. She certainly did not approve of Joanna. But then, considering her tight features and stiff shoulders, it was difficult to suppose she approved of anything. Joanna ignored her as she entered the room. ‘Madeleine!’ Madeleine von Helsingen stood in the centre of the drawing room. The tallest of the sisters, now that she had regained her figure she had also regained her natural elegance, which was her principal asset. Being a de Gruchy, she was also a handsome woman, even if her features were too softly rounded to equal the beauty of her elder sister. As always when meeting Joanna, her expression was apprehensive.
‘How well you look,’ Joanna declared, advancing into the room. ‘Motherhood becomes you.’
‘It becomes most people,’ Madeleine pointed out. ‘You should try it some time. But what are you doing here? How are you here? How did you get in?’
‘I am a Swedish citizen.’
‘Oh, really, Joanna.’
‘Your government is quite happy with that, so why should you not be? Don’t you have a kiss for me?’ Madeleine reluctantly allowed herself to be embraced, and Joanna whispered in her ear. ‘And get rid of that harpy. I need to talk to you.’ ‘And I have no desire to talk to you. About — ’
‘Things of mutual interest, darling. Do it.’ Joanna gave her a hug and released her. ‘I’ve come to see baby.’
Madeleine sighed. ‘Hilda!’ she called. ‘Will you make some tea, please?’
‘Tea?’ Joanna demanded.
‘Believe me, it is better than any coffee I can offer you. It is quite impossible to buy real coffee in Germany any more, for love or money. Anyway, it is virtually teatime.’ She led the way to an inner doorway. ‘Now, you must be quiet. Helen is asleep.’
She opened the door and tiptoed in. Joanna followed her example, stood above the cot. ‘What a lovely child. She looks like you.’
‘No she does not She looks like Freddie.’
‘Well … Does the boss approve?’
‘The Fiihrer sent me a bouquet of red roses.’
‘And he is still going to be its godfather?’
‘Her godfather.’ Madeleine led her back out of the nursery and closed the door. ‘Of course. I think he would have preferred her to be a boy, but he always keeps his word.’
‘I’m sure.’ Joanna sat down, crossed her knees, and watched Hilda bring in the silver tray and place it on the table. ‘How is Freddie, by the way?’
‘Thank you, Hilda, that will be all.’ Madeleine waited for the maid to leave the room. ‘He is very well. But the letters he writes are terrible.’
‘I know,’ Joanna agreed. ‘Frozen engines and frost-bitten men. Now tell me about Amalie.’
Madeleine glanced at the open door, and then sat beside Joanna on the settee. ‘I know nothing about Amalie except that she appears to have committed suicide, and in doing so has compromised everyone.’ She got up again, poured two cups of tea, and brought them back to the settee.
Joanna regarded hers with disfavour. ‘What is that?’
‘A slice of lemon.’
‘With sugar?’
‘There is no sugar.’
‘You mean you have run out of sugar as well.’
‘There is a shortage, yes. But you are not supposed to put sugar in this tea.’
Joanna sipped and made a face. ‘OK, I’ll suffer. Amalie has not compromised anyone except herself. Her folks — your folks — are safely tucked away in England … Aren’t you interested in how they’re getting on?’
‘Of course I am. But I can do nothing about them now. You do not suppose that Liane has been compromised by this stupid murder?’
‘The Germans are satisfied that Liane is dead.’
‘Do you not suppose she commanded this assassination?’ ‘I cannot believe that.’
‘You do not think she would sanction such a thing? You think you know Liane very well, but the Liane you knew before the war no longer exists. What about that man, Biedermann? She cut his throat while he was sleeping.’
‘He had just raped her.’
‘She still did it.’
‘Which at least proves that she does not delegate,’ Joanna said stubbornly. ‘If anyone in her group was going to shoot a German officer it would have been her. But she would never disobey orders, certainly those given by James Barron. And her orders were to do nothing until instructed by him.’
‘Well, all I can say is that it’s a mess, and I want nothing to do with it.’
‘We’re talking about your family.’
‘And I helped my family, in September. I am happy Mama and Papa got away, but I will always regret having Franz so humiliated.’
Joanna finished her tea. ‘I’ll give him your love,’ she said.
*
‘Well?’ The brigadier was a stockily built man, bald except for a fringe of dark hair, with a pronounced jaw. He invariably barked, at least to his inferiors, and the fact that he was paying the office a visit, rather than requiring James to visit him, indicated that he was upset.
James, standing by his desk, which the brigadier had just appropriated, drew a deep breath. ‘I’m afraid she’s gone in, sir.’
‘I gave precise instructions that she was to abort and return here.’
‘And those instructions were delivered, sir. Pound Twenty-Three assures us of that. But apparently she decided to ignore them.’
‘That woman is a fucking menace.’ He
glanced at Jennifer, whose ears were pink. ‘Who are you?’
Jennifer looked at James. ‘Cartwright’s replacement, sir. Temporary.’
‘And what about Cartwright? Or have you managed to lose her also?’
‘We know she was put down safely. Flying Officer Brune told us that when he got home, and this was confirmed by Pound Seventeen. This was a week ago. Since then there has been nothing. But 1 am certain Pound Seventeen would have called if anything had gone wrong. So I am assuming she is making discreet enquiries. Perhaps she has made contact with the Group, and is sorting things out.’
‘Perhaps and perhaps not. Pound Seventeen must be able to get in touch with her. Have him do so and report. It may be necessary to pull her out.’
‘Ah … We did allow her a fortnight, sir.’
‘That is if all is going well. I want to know that. But Jonsson is a more serious problem. You are quite sure she has returned to Germany?’
‘That is what Pound Twenty-Three reported, sir.’
‘Then she’s almost certainly been arrested by now. And blown our entire operation sky-high.’
‘I don’t think that will have happened, sir.’
‘James, I know you regard Jonsson as the best we have, but there is no one, and certainly no woman, who is going to be able to hold out once the Gestapo get their claws into her.’
James reflected that it was a very good thing Joanna was not here to listen to that piece of male chauvinism. ‘I meant, sir, that as she is travelling on a Swedish passport, she remains outside the reach of the Gestapo, quite apart from the fact that she is protected by being an SD agent.’
‘James, has it ever occurred to you that she is an SD agent? That it is we who are being hoodwinked?’
‘I can’t believe that, sir. She hates the Germans. Or at least, the Nazis.’
‘Because she claims to have been raped by some German soldiers. Do you have any proof whatsoever that that actually happened?’
‘It was corroborated by Liane de Gruchy, who was there. And suffered the same fate.’
‘Liane de Gruchy. Another young woman who follows her own agenda and makes up the rules as she goes along. I’m sorry, James, but this is a risk we cannot carry any longer.’ He looked from James to Jennifer and back again. ‘Who have we got in Berlin capable of carrying out executive action?’
James swallowed. ‘With respect, sir, you ordered executive action to be taken against Jonsson last year, and were very happy that it was never carried out, in view of the information she brought to us.’
‘That does not mean that she has not actually been turned. I believe that is what has happened. I want something done about it now.’
‘I’m afraid I have no professional assassins on my books, at least in Berlin.’
‘Well, then, one will have to be brought in. Get on to the Basle station, and tell them what we want. Be sure to use code. And tell them the matter is urgent.’ The brigadier stood up. ‘Keep me informed. And about Cartwright.’ The door closed, and Jennifer and James looked at each other.
‘You heard the man,’ James said. ‘Code a message for the Basle office and send it. Request a confirmation.’
‘But … You mean … Well, he can’t be serious.’
‘I assure you that he is very serious.’
‘About murdering one of our own people?’
‘We happen to be fighting a war, Jennifer. If, just for example, Jonsson were to be interrogated by the Gestapo, or if she has truly been turned, the lives of all our Pound agents in the field will be at risk. That includes Rachel. Incidentally, the word to use is execute, not murder.’
‘But … Do you believe Jonsson is a traitor? You know her well, don’t you?’
‘I know her very well. No, I do not believe that she is a traitor. But I accept that she has put herself into an impossible position. Now send that message. And then bring in that bottle of Scotch.’
Footsteps. On the stairs. Rachel sat up, then swung her legs off the bed. She did not bother to put on her shoes, but took the revolver from her bag. It was not a heavy army issue Webley, but an altogether smaller and lighter Smith & Wesson thirty-two.
Her heart was pounding. But then her heart had been pounding almost non-stop from the moment she had said goodbye to Brune. Up till that moment she had been utterly confident. She had flown with Brune before and knew his capabilities — and besides, he was always so confident himself, so calm in every crisis. Not that there had been any crises. The meadow had been lit with flares, and there had been several people waiting for her, even including two women. That had been reassuring. But then Brune had said goodbye, got back into the Lysander, and soared into the night. Then she had been alone with a bunch of complete strangers, terribly aware of the capsule she had placed in her mouth on leaving the aircraft. It was wedged between her gum and her cheek, to obviate any risk of her biting it inadvertently, but it was there to be used if she had been betrayed. She had been assured that she would be dead in ten seconds. But what would happen in those ten seconds? What terrible pains would rip through her body, what horrifying thoughts would inflame her mind? Besides, she did not wish to die. Not in ten years, much less ten seconds.
The people had taken her to the house of Pound Seventeen, a man with whom she had communicated on many previous occasions, without the slightest idea of what he might look like or be like. He had turned out to be a baker named Anatole, in a village only a few miles south of Limoges. A stout, good-humoured man who clearly enjoyed his own bread, and equally shaved only when necessary, for instance when going to mass. His wife, Clotilde, no less plump and pleasant, was equally welcoming, but they had both made it clear that they considered her presence a danger to them. This close to the border the gendarmerie were inclined to be less accommodating than their fellows in the Massif Central.
Thus, while they had given her a job in the bakery, keeping the accounts, they had also found her this room in a boarding house, so that no one could suppose she was too closely connected to them. The people in the boarding house seemed to accept her as what she claimed to be — a schoolteacher who had been forced to leave Paris because of some trouble with the Germans. This was necessary as her French, although flawless, was of the langue d’oil variety rather than the langue d’oc of the south. But while they might sympathize with her, they also did not wish to get too close, nor did she wish to get too close to them. Then it had been simply a matter of waiting and worrying. The worrying was because Anatole had entirely lost contact with the Group. James had placed his faith in Liane’s leadership, but according to Anatole, Liane had been the first to leave, claiming that she had business in Paris.
Aware of the orders from London that the de Gruchys were to lie low for a while following the battle in the Massif Central, Anatole had assumed that they were doing just that — that whatever business had taken Liane back to Paris had been of a private nature — and had not worried until the news of what had happened in Bordeaux had reached him. Now Rachel got the impression that he did not care if he never heard from them again, in which case his repeated assurances that he was trying to find out where they were and have them contact her had to be a load of codswallop. She was wasting her time. But to call for Brune to return and pick her up after only a few days would be too humiliating. She could not imagine Joanna accepting defeat so easily. And now there was someone outside her door, at … She peered at the luminous dial of her watch. It was two o’clock. How had he, or she, got into the house?
For this trip into the unknown she had forsworn the habits of her adult life and had brought pyjamas, which she was now wearing. But there had been no room in her limited knapsack for a dressing gown, so she pulled the topcoat from its hook behind the door, retrieved her spectacles from the table beside the bed, held the revolver against her shoulder, and waited. Fingers scraped across the wood. Rachel stood against the wall beside the door, wishing she had some saliva. ‘Identify yourself.’
‘Pound,’ came the lo
w, masculine voice.
Should he have had a number? Rachel knew that Pierre de Gruchy was Pound Thirteen, and Liane was Pound Twelve, but the only other member of the Group who had been given a number was Moulin himself, Pound Eleven, and he was in England. On the other hand, that this man knew the code word at all had to indicate that he was a member of the Group, or that he had been sent by Anatole, although why Anatole should send someone to her in the middle of the night when he would see her in the bakery in a few hours was mystifying.
But she was here to do, not to speculate. She drew the bolt. ‘It’s open.’ The door swung in and the man stepped through. Rachel moved behind him, closing the door and pressing the muzzle of the revolver into his neck. ‘Identify yourself.’
‘If you squeeze that trigger, mademoiselle, you will arouse the entire house and be arrested for murder. You would be guillotined. That is not a suitable fate for a pretty woman like you. Besides, we are old friends, are we not?’
‘Monterre!’ Rachel lowered the revolver.
‘It is good to see you again, mademoiselle. Is there no light?’
‘There are matches on the table.’ She continued to point the gun. Monterre was one of the de Gruchys’ senior people, and indeed she had fought beside him in the battle. But he was also a Communist, and she knew that Liane had not altogether trusted him.
A light flared and the gas was lit. ‘You are as beautiful as ever, mademoiselle.’
Rachel snorted while she surveyed him in turn. He was a solidly built man, with coarse features and stubble on his chin. She remembered that even without Liane’s opinion she had not liked him on the occasion of their earlier meeting. But he was the nearest she had come to locating the de Gruchys. ‘How did you find me?’
‘Anatole told me where you are living.’
‘And you have come at this hour?’
‘It is safer for me. I am a wanted man.’
‘But you can take me to Monsieur Pierre.’
‘I know where he is, yes.’
‘How far is it?’
‘It is a good distance. But I have transport.’
‘You have permission to drive at night?’
Legacy of Hate Page 7
