by Robert Rigby
Julia’s blood froze. For a moment she was ready to burst into tears and beg the German not to hurt her. But she sucked in a halting breath and spoke bravely. “As I said before, I don’t know exactly where my husband is.”
The radio operator had sent a simple message to base. There was an unexpected slight delay in the mission. The pick-up for the return flight could not go ahead tonight.
Lau was irritated but calm; he wouldn’t allow himself to become angry. Anger was not good or useful in a soldier. It affected clear thinking and decision-making, and Lau needed to think clearly and make firm decisions.
Once the radio transmitter was shut down, Lau sent the operator outside to join two more of his men who were keeping watch for unexpected visitors. The sixth member of the team was back at the Bernards’ house in Bélesta, waiting.
Lau and Steidle were in the kitchen smoking strong cigarettes.
The officer took a long drag on his cigarette and frowned. The barking dog was only increasing his irritation. “Where are the twins?” he asked gruffly.
“Cutting down trees,” Steidle told him with a shrug of his shoulders. “Or chopping logs, or whatever it is they do.”
“Why don’t they take that animal with them?”
“They say it’s meant to warn them if strangers turn up when they’re away from the yard. The sound of barking travels for miles.”
Lau sighed. “I’ve noticed.”
“Do you believe the woman, sir?”
Lau had given Julia time to think but warned her that she didn’t have long.
“Of course not. Do you?”
Steidle shook his head. “Shall I question her?”
“Not yet. If she’s harmed, her husband is far less likely to cooperate when we do track him down.”
“Where do you think he is, sir?”
“Not in Perpignan, for sure. He’s close. Maybe he did go visiting, but only overnight. He’ll be back.”
“Should I put another man in the house?”
Lau nodded. “When we relieve Werner. He can cope if Bernard returns before then.”
“They won’t be in gendarme uniforms, sir. Unless we give them ours.”
“No, the uniforms will become a liability if we’re seen in them too often. The locals will start asking questions. Once more and then we’ll switch to civilian clothes over our own uniforms.”
“And the police vehicle?”
“We’ll use it once more, that’s all.”
“But we don’t have another car, sir.”
“Then we’ll get one if it becomes necessary!” Lau snapped. He sighed and looked at Steidle. “I’m sorry, Erich. It’s that bloody dog; the howling is beginning to drive me crazy.”
“It’s all right, sir,” Steidle said. “I understand.”
The officer stubbed out his cigarette in the tin lid that served as an ashtray and glanced around the room. It was grubby, untidy, and even more dilapidated in daylight than beneath the dull lamps of night.
The isolated position meant there was no electricity and no telephone. Apart from radio contact with headquarters, Lau and his team were cut off from the outside world. The operation was not proving as simple as he had anticipated.
“I still believe we’ll take Bernard today,” he said. “Then we can call in the plane and be away from here tomorrow night.” He checked his watch. “And if Bernard is coming home today he’ll be back by midday. Frenchmen never miss their lunch.”
TWELVE
Rudi Werner was bored. Sitting straight-backed in an upright chair, he had read the spine of every book on the sagging shelves in the sitting room at the back of Max and Julia Bernard’s house. First he read them all silently and then he read them aloud, practising his far from perfect French.
He reached the final book on the bottom shelf and, rather than go back to the top shelf and start yet again, he took out his Walther P38 pistol. It was cold in his hand. Cold but comfortable.
Werner liked weapons, particularly small arms: the pistol, the rifle, the submachine-gun. He was good with them all, and even better with the stick grenade. He could throw a stick grenade a very long way.
He examined the pistol. It was new, and he preferred it to his previous pistol, the old Luger P08. The Walther P38 was a little smaller and lighter and, in the right hands, was accurate at up to fifty metres. Werner released the eight-round magazine and checked the weapon for dust. It was immaculate, as always. And ready for action, as was Werner.
He clipped the magazine back into its housing and studied the pistol closely. Perfectly balanced and weighted, it was a precision killing machine. Just like Werner. He glanced at his watch: 11.35. They would come to relieve him soon.
Werner didn’t enjoy being in France and he wasn’t particularly enjoying this mission; it was too … passive.
Werner wanted to go to England, to be part of the invasion. He was convinced the invasion would still happen, no matter what the doubters said. Werner dreamed of marching triumphantly up Pall Mall among the ranks of proud German soldiers when the ultimate victory was won.
He was daydreaming about this victory march through the streets of London when he heard the key slip into the lock of the front door. Before it had even turned, he had moved noiselessly to the connecting wall between the sitting room and the equally small kitchen and dining area at the front of the house.
He pressed his back against the wall and raised the Walther so that it nestled softly against his chest. Werner smiled. Bernard was back, just as Hauptmann Lau had predicted. He would take him, no trouble. And if Bernard gave him any trouble at all, he would be sorry. Very sorry.
The front door swung open and Werner waited.
Bernard didn’t call out. Why would he? He was expecting his wife to be there as usual.
Werner heard the door close and then footsteps. Bernard was crossing the room. The connecting door between the two rooms was open.
Werner silently moved the pistol away from his chest into a comfortable firing position. His index finger was on the trigger but applying no pressure.
The approaching footsteps stopped.
Werner frowned; perhaps Bernard was suspicious after all. But then the footsteps began again and Werner made ready to terrify the target with a shouted command to halt.
But the word froze on his lips.
It wasn’t Bernard. It was a small, plump, elderly woman, wearing a blue and white checked housecoat over a black dress.
She saw Werner, and the pistol aimed at her heart, and her eyes bulged. An ear-piercing scream escaped from her gaping mouth, and before Werner had the chance to order her to stop she had fainted and was lying at his feet.
“Shit!” Werner breathed.
“You’d better come away from the window, Antoine,” Paul said as they watched the police car cruise slowly past and come to a standstill outside the Bernard house further down the street.
Four men got out, two of them dressed as gendarmes and two in plain clothes.
“They’re not from around here,” Antoine Granel said.
“They don’t even look French,” Didier added.
“They’re Germans,” Antoine said. “Max was right.”
They had travelled quickly to Bélesta, Antoine leading the way in his ancient Renault, with Paul and Didier following on Didier’s motorbike. Even at the snail’s pace at which Antoine drove, the eight-kilometre journey took just fifteen minutes.
Back in Lavelanet, Paul had come up with the idea of watching the Bernard house, reasoning that if someone was waiting for Max, he would have to be relieved at some point. Even if the house were empty, Julia’s abductors would surely return for another attempt to find Max.
And Paul had been proved right. As he watched, the four men took a cursory look up and down the deserted street and then went quickly into the house.
“My Rosalie, my poor Rosalie,” Antoine said, turning away from the window. “I should have forbidden her to go over there.”
“I
don’t think that would have stopped her,” Paul said. “She was very determined.”
“She’s always been brave,” Antoine continued. “And an actress, such an actress. I’m always telling her she should have been on the stage.”
Antoine’s wife, Rosalie, had volunteered to go across to the Bernard house to discover if anyone was lying in wait. She kept a spare key for emergencies and said that if necessary she would say she was the cleaner paying her regular weekly visit.
It seemed like a good idea to Paul and Didier at the time, but when Rosalie didn’t emerge soon after going into the house, they began to have their doubts. And now the police car had arrived.
“I’m scared,” Antoine said. “She’s old, you know, older than me. And I’m nearly seventy. I must go over.”
“That could make the situation worse,” Paul said. “Wait a little longer, please.”
“But they might hurt her.”
Paul risked a look through the window. “I don’t think so; they’ve got no reason to hurt her. And anyway, from what I saw, I think your wife can look after herself.”
THIRTEEN
The twins stood in gloomy silence watching their dog devour scraps of fatty meat and leftovers from their own lunchtime meal. The huge mongrel licked the tin bowl clean and then lapped noisily at the fresh water Eddie had poured into a second tin.
The twins had never bothered giving the animal a name, but that didn’t mean they didn’t care about it. They did: they liked the dog, but it wasn’t a pet. It was a working animal, doing its job, keeping watch.
It was docile when the twins were nearby, but only then. The twins could approach without fear, but no one else. Any unfamiliar sound would provoke deep, ferocious barking, while the merest sight or smell of a stranger would see the animal bare its fangs and prepare to attack.
But with the twins, the dog was different. They didn’t offer any affection, but they fed it regularly and made sure its wooden kennel was dry and draught free. And in the depths of winter, when the snow was thick on the ground, the dog was allowed into the house at night, where it slept by the stove before returning to its work place in the morning.
Finishing the water, the animal lifted its head and looked at Eddie, who, without a word, refilled the tin bowl from a can he had carried over from the house. The twins usually said little while they were at work. By the time they left the house they knew exactly what had to be done, so they saved most of their conversation for the evenings.
And besides, they were twins, and like many sets of twins they had an almost telepathic understanding. Both had been thinking a lot that morning, and their thoughts had been along similar lines.
“I didn’t like seeing them drag the woman into the house,” said Eddie, breaking the silence.
“I know,” Gilbert answered. He watched the dog lap up the second bowl of water before continuing. “But they didn’t hurt her.”
“How do we know that? For certain? We’ve been working all morning.”
“The one who stayed behind, the radio operator, he told me she hasn’t been hurt.”
“And you believe him?”
Gilbert hesitated before replying. “He said they’ve given her food. And coffee.”
The dog looked from one twin to the other, as though following their conversation. He shook himself, and padded over to Eddie to stand at his side.
“I didn’t think about this when Forêt asked us to help,” Eddie said.
“Of course you didn’t, you just thought about the money. Like I did.”
“I don’t like this, Gilbert, it doesn’t seem right. Forêt said they were coming to pick up a wanted man. That’s all. I thought he meant he’d be some sort of criminal. And he didn’t say anything about the man’s wife.”
“Maybe he didn’t know.”
“And what if they don’t find the husband, the one they really want? What will they do with the woman then?”
Gilbert glanced over towards the house. “It’s got nothing to do with us, Eddie.”
“You think they’ll take her back to Germany without the husband?”
“They’ll let her go if she’s no use to them.”
Eddie stared at the ground. “Or kill her and bury her somewhere in the forest.”
Gilbert thought back to the previous day on the plateau, when their cousin, Alain, had come perilously close to being shot simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. “We won’t let them kill her.”
“Oh, and how are we supposed to stop them? There are six of them and two of us.”
Gilbert turned and stared at the house again. “There’s only one of them in there now.”
FOURTEEN
The five Germans stood in a ragged semicircle, looking down at Rosalie Granel, who was sprawled on the small sofa in the sitting room, a glass of water in one hand and a sheet of paper, with which she was fanning her face, in the other.
Hauptmann Lau, Steidle, Werner and the two soldiers who had called themselves the Brothers Grimm had combined to lift her fairly gently from the floor, settle her on the chair and fetch her the water.
Now they just stared, limp apologetic smiles on their faces, as they waited for her to speak.
“It was a shock,” she gasped eventually, “such a shock. That big man there,” she aimed at Werner with the hand holding the glass, “and the gun, pointed at my heart. I was certain he was going to shoot me.”
She shivered and rested the sheet of paper over her heart. “I can feel it pounding,” she said dramatically, staring at Lau, who was closest. “My heart. Pounding,” she repeated for emphasis. “I was certain I was going to have a heart attack.” Her voice quivered and she pointed at Werner again. “If he didn’t shoot me first. And then, everything went dark and I knew nothing more until you lifted me from the floor.”
Lau, who spoke almost perfect French, had indicated to his men that he would do the talking. “We’re so sorry, terribly sorry, madame. We had no idea that you would be arriving.”
“But I’m always here at this time, every week,” Rosalie told him. “To do the cleaning. For Julia.”
“Oh, I see,” Lau said.
Rosalie sipped a drop of water as she considered her next words. “But a gun! Here! In Bélesta! Is that really necessary? We’re peaceful people here in Bélesta. You’ll find no criminals here. Is that what you’re doing? Are you searching for criminals?”
Lau thought for a moment before replying. “Not exactly. But we urgently need to speak to Monsieur Bernard.”
“Max? What do you want with Max?”
Lau answered with a question of his own. “Do you know where he is?”
“I have no idea,” Rosalie said sincerely.
“Does he go away often?”
“Away? Is he away?” Rosalie asked innocently. “Where?”
“That’s what we’re trying to discover, Madame…”
“Granel,” Rosalie said. “I live down the street. I’ve lived in Bélesta all my life.”
“Yes, I understand. And as I said, we’re very sorry…”
“But I don’t recognize you, any of you. You’re not local, are you? I know the local police officers; I know everyone.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“Then who are you? Where are you from?”
“From Toulouse, Madame Granel.”
“Toulouse? What has Toulouse to do with Bélesta?”
“All I can tell you, madame, is that we’re here on a matter of national importance. And I must ask you to keep that to yourself.”
“Oh, you can trust me. I never say anything to anyone. Not even my husband.”
Lau forced another smile. “Now perhaps you’ll permit me to escort you home?”
“But what about the cleaning?”
“I’m afraid the cleaning will have to wait this week.”
“And what about Julia? Where’s Julia?”
Lau reached down and gently but firmly took one of Rosalie’s arms. “Allow me to h
elp you to your feet, madame.”
“But I’m still feeling a little faint.”
“The air will help you,” Lau said more forcefully as he hoisted the elderly woman to her feet. “You’ll feel better outside.”
“I can manage, thank you,” Rosalie said, pulling herself free. “And there’s really no need for you to come with me. I know the way.”
“But I insist,” Lau told her. “You’re still feeling a little faint; you said so.”
“I feel better now, there’s no need.”
“I insist, madame!”
This time Rosalie realized that there was no arguing. She sighed and walked unsteadily from the sitting room. Lau gestured to Steidle and Werner to accompany him and to the Brothers Grimm to remain where they were.
The two soldiers waited until they heard the front door shut before grinning and sitting down. “She was lucky not to get her head blown off,” the more talkative of them said. “Werner’s trigger-happy, he’s determined to kill someone on this mission.”
The other man nodded his agreement. “First the old girl was certain Werner would shoot her, then she was certain she was having a heart attack. Playing us for fools, she was. And she knows more than she’s letting on.”
“Hauptmann Lau knows that,” the other soldier said. “That’s why he’s gone with her. He’ll find out exactly what she knows. And if he doesn’t, Steidle will.”
FIFTEEN
There was an overpowering reek of garlic as the Spaniard grinned through yellowing teeth at Josette and her grandmother, Odile. At least, Josette thought it was a grin, but it could have been a sneer. The expression had already vanished and the Spaniard was now focusing on cutting another thin slice from the long, fat sausage lying on the wooden chopping board.
Josette reckoned the black sausage was probably made of wild boar, and the pungent smell that filled the room suggested it contained an almost equal amount of garlic.
