by Susan Lewis
Hans went away again, and Claudine knew she had made a grave error. That Blomberg had had to call for a junior officer because he had been attacked by a woman would make him the laughing-stock of the Château d’Artigny. But she refused to flinch as he approached, and when he grasped the rip in her blouse and tore it right down the front, she only looked back at him with contempt.
‘Undress yourself, whore!’ he snarled. ‘Do it now, or I shall instruct my colleagues in Germany to step up the torture of your husband. And then I shall tell your mother-in-law why I have been obliged to take that step. I’m sure you can imagine how she will feel to know that you might have saved him.’
Staring into his eyes with unmitigated loathing, Claudine peeled away the shreds of her blouse, then unfastened her skirt, telling herself all the time that her body was merely a product of nature, that it meant nothing to reveal it. But if he made one move to touch her, she would break his neck …
‘All right,’ he rasped, when she stood naked in front of him. He loosened his collar and tried to speak again. ‘Walk over to the window.’
She sauntered to the window, turned, and walked back again. Then, remembering that his intention was to humiliate her, she decided to let him believe he had succeeded. That way, it might be over sooner.
‘Can I put my clothes back on now?’ she said meekly, covering her breasts with her hands and crossing her legs.
‘No!’ she answered. ‘Go and stand by the mirror.’
She did as he instructed, forcing tears into her eyes to add to her masquerade of disgrace.
‘That’s it,’ he said, ‘turn so I can see you from behind as well as in front. Good. Hans!’
Again the door opened, and when Hans came in and saw the lady of the house standing naked in front of the mirror, he quickly averted his eyes.
‘Look at her!’ Blomberg growled. ‘That’s what she’s there for.’
Hans’s young face was beet red as he obeyed the order and allowed his pale blue eyes to travel the length of Claudine’s exquisite body. Claudine hung her head in mock shame. She wondered if Hans was clever enough to realize that this was something he was expected to tell his fellow officers about.
‘You may go closer, Hans,’ Blomberg panted.
Claudine froze. Blomberg was keeping his promise not to lay a finger on her all right, but the promise had not extended to the junior officer.
‘She’s a fine specimen, don’t you agree, Hans?’ Blomberg asked him.
‘Yes, sir,’ he replied in a strangled voice.
‘All right, you may go now.’ Claudine almost fell to her knees with relief. ‘And you,’ Blomberg said to her, ‘where is your pride now?’
Claudine kept her eyes lowered and Blomberg laughed.
‘I shall see to it that your husband is told how obliging his wife has been. I daresay he will enjoy the joke. Now, put your clothes on and get out.’
When Claudine left, she went straight to her room and doused her face in cold water, hoping it might calm her anger. After all, she told herself, if that was all she had to suffer to prevent any more harm coming to François, she would gladly do it again.
She looked at herself in the mirror, and suddenly his name erupted from the depths of her buried fear. François! she cried silently. Oh, François! She sank onto the edge of the bath and bowed her head over the washbasin. It was as though some barricade she had erected against pain was suddenly being cleaved from around her heart and in one almighty surge the terror of what might be happening to him rushed to every corner of her body. It was seven months since she had seen him, over five since he had written. Where was he now? What were they doing to him? Oh dear God, please let Blomberg have been lying. Please, please, God, let him be safe.
The following night Claudine was in the drawing-room, helping Jean-Paul to black-out the windows, when Corinne came down from the nursery to find her.
‘Erich von Pappen is here, madame,’ she whispered.
Claudine’s heart leapt into her throat, but her face remained calm. In the hall she smiled politely at Hans, who was standing to attention outside the dining-room, and wished him goodnight. Then she followed Corinne at a leisurely pace up to her apartment.
‘I cannot stay above a few minutes, madame,’ Erich said, as she burst into her bedroom.
‘François!’ she cried in a heavy whisper. ‘Is he all right? What…?’
Von Pappen shook his head. ‘I have not come for that reason,’ he said. ‘I need to know if you have heard from Lucien?’
‘No,’ Claudine answered. ‘No, nothing. Why?’
Again von Pappen shook his head. ‘He has been missing for some time and we – I – am concerned.’
She didn’t miss the way he had changed the ‘we’ to ‘I’ and her heart started to pound. ‘Where is François, Erich?’ she said.
He looked away, but she caught him by the shoulders and turned him back to face her. ‘Where is he? Tell me!’
He stared dumbly into her eyes and she felt suddenly dizzy with fear. ‘Erich,’ she said steadily, ‘I think, I’m not sure, but I think Halunke is back. So tell me, what has happened?’
She heard him groan under his breath, then he snatched himself away from her and started to beat his hands against his head.
‘Erich!’ It came out almost as a scream. ‘Where is he, Erich? You’ve got to tell me.’
‘I can’t,’ he whispered. ‘Madame, I can’t.’
‘Is he with Max Helber?’
Von Pappen seemed surprised, and quickly she told him about Blomberg and what he had said to them.
‘No,’ von Pappen said when she had finished, ‘François left Helber some time ago. But you’re right, Blomberg is here for a reason. I don’t know what it is, but if you’re thinking that he is Halunke, you are wrong.’
‘Then who is Halunke? Do you know? In his letter François said …’ She swung round as the door opened and Corinne came in.
‘I am sorry, madame,’ she said, ‘but Colonel Blomberg wishes to speak with you, immediately.’
‘Tell him to go to hell!’ Claudine spat, and turned back to von Pappen.
‘Madame I am sorry,’ he said, backing away, ‘I should not have come.’
‘No!’ she cried. ‘You can’t go now!’
‘I must. I shall return when I have some news. In the meantime, please stay out of the forest and keep all the doors and windows locked.’
‘Just tell me if he’s all right, Erich?’ Claudine pleaded. ‘Please, I beg you …’ But as she started after him, Corinne caught her by the arm and pulled her back.
‘He does not know where your husband is, madame,’ Corinne said softly. ‘He has not known for over three months.’
– 26 –
SWEAT WAS POURING down his face, and the blinding pain racked every nerve in his body. After a while a shadow started to creep over his brain, but as he was sucked into the blessed release of oblivion a wall of icy water hit his face. He was too exhausted even to lift his head. A few minutes later he heard a door open and close, muted voices, then footsteps receding into the distance.
His left arm hung lifelessly at his side, the broken bones of his fingers jutting out at right angles where they had been snapped back. His right hand was resting on the table, but as far as he could tell the bones remained intact. His arms, like his back and legs, were covered with burns, but the true extent of his injuries, internal and external, was unclear to him; he was long past the point of being able to distinguish one part of his body from another.
He had no idea where he was, or how long he had been there. All he knew was that he had been in this dazzling pool of light at the centre of this windowless room for so long now, inhaling the stench of his own burning flesh, his own blood, that it could only be a matter of time before he lost all sense of reason, if not his life.
He had believed himself to be alone, but suddenly someone coughed. François carefully raised his eyes until he saw the feet of his companion. He willed
himself to try again, and got as far as the man’s waist before his head fell back onto his chest. He had not slept for days. It felt like months.
The door opened again, and as if they were approaching down a long, dark corridor of confused consciousness, the sound of footsteps he both recognized and dreaded came to him. For a moment the tiled floor started to swim, the blood on it – his blood – was rising like waves. He blinked hard, and it was steady again.
Walter Brüning, a member of General von Liebermann’s élite Komitee, glanced at the officer partially hidden in the shadows. Then he pulled a chair up to the table so that he was facing François, and said, ‘So, at last you have admitted to working for the Services de Renseignements.’
‘Yes,’ François answered, with difficulty. ‘But I have sworn allegiance to the Reich. I no longer work for France.’
Brüning rested his arms on the table and eyed the ropes binding François to his chair. They were so tight that the man could barely breathe. ‘I am glad to hear this,’ he said. ‘But if it is true, why will you not tell us from whom you obtained the information you so misguidedly passed to the Führer?’
‘I gave him no information,’ François answered in muted tones, ‘I had none to give.’
Brüning nodded to the man beside him. The man lifted a wafer-thin knife from the table and went to stand beside François.
‘Again, monsieur,’ Brüning said. ‘From whom did you acquire the information?’
François didn’t answer. They had been through this a thousand times, and would probably go through it another thousand before they were done with him, but his answer would remain the same. He had given no information, he had had no information to give.
A gasp burst from his lips as the knife slid smoothly under his thumbnail. His head flew back and his teeth bared in agony. Again Brüning nodded, and the man slowly peeled the nail from the skin. A white-hot blaze of pain shot through François’ arm, and blood started to stream from the wound. He braced himself, waiting for his index finger to suffer the same fate, but nothing happened.
Finally, as the searing pain dulled to an excruciating throb, he lowered his head to look at them.
‘Are you prepared to talk now?’ Brüning enquired.
‘For God’s sake,’ François muttered, ‘I’ve got nothing to say.’
A peculiar smile twisted Brüning’s mouth. ‘All right, we shall return later, monsieur,’ he said.
When they had gone, François let his head fall back to his chest and tried to wrench his mind away from the pain, but it was a long time before he was capable of coherent thought.
It was pointless, he knew it and they knew it. He was here because someone had to be blamed for Hitler’s astonishing error back in May, when he had halted his army for those three vital days – days in which the British had managed to mount one of the most extraordinary rescue operations the world had ever seen. As soon as Hitler realized what was happening he had given the order to mobilize again, but by then it was too late. The British were snatching their troops from under the Germans’ noses, and despite the fierce battle that raged in the sky, on the sea and on land, they had managed to rescue over three hundred thousand men, who now lived to fight another day. The Germans’ three-day halt was likely to prove one of the greatest strategic errors in history, and Hitler had been persuaded to attribute it to false information supplied by the Abwehr. And he, François, was the Abwehr’s chosen scapegoat. Not only because his loyalty was still in question, but because while he was on a visit to the Franco-Belgian border in May, von Liebermann had introduced him to the Führer. Now the Abwehr were claiming that he had somehow succeeded in passing information to their leader in a three-minute encounter during which any number of generals could have heard his every word.
It was fatuous – and yet, despite everything, it still gave François a certain satisfaction to know that Hitler’s bull-headed refusal to mobilize sooner had had such dire consequences. He knew that France had fallen, but he also knew that Operation Sealion – the plan to invade Britain – had been postponed. That was undoubtedly one consequence of that extraordinary three-day halt – and there were sure to be others.
His mind blurred for a few minutes, then his eyes opened again and he tried to ease himself to a more comfortable position. But his broken ribs and the vice-like ropes intensified the pain as soon as he moved. The scar on his face was once again a fresh, open wound, and blood trickled down his cheek. He wondered dimly if they were going to keep him here until he finally expired from the injuries they were inflicting. He would be of little use to them then – but better that than become a traitor.
His mind, as it always did when he was left alone for any length of time, turned to Claudine. How he wished he had allowed himself the luxury of her love sooner! Perhaps then the thought of dying would be easier to bear. As it was, he wanted more than anything to live, to turn those ten days they had known into a lifetime. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard on the choking emotion. Lack of sleep and food had weakened him, and the desire to see her again, to hold her in his arms and breathe the fragrance of her hair as he told her over and over how much he loved her, was as vivid and unrelenting as the pain.
He had no idea what was happening in France, what she was having to face under the occupation, but he knew that she would find the courage for whatever ordeals she had to meet. The thought reassured him a little, even though he knew how headstrong and impulsive she could be. He just hoped to God Helber’s brother-in-law, Fritz Blomberg, wasn’t carrying out the threats he had made before departing for Lorvoire. Though she would put up a fight, he knew that if she thought his life depended on it she would do whatever Blomberg asked of her, and he had no way of telling her that he would rather die than have her submit to him. As it was, he had contemplated suicide as a means of rescuing her from the threat of Halunke – but he did not have the means for suicide here. And he had no idea where Halunke was, or whom he was planning to strike at next.
François groaned as his frustration fired the physical pain through his body. He had brought her to this, to a point where she was trapped, hemmed in by Blomberg’s lechery and Halunke’s revenge. If anything happened to her … The worst of it was, if he hadn’t been so insanely foolish as to let von Liebermann know how he felt about Max Helber, he might by now have discovered Halunke’s identity. As it was, during the three days he had spent at Helber’s Berlin apartment, Helber had seen to it that they were never alone together; and though he had managed to push a note under Helber’s door telling him that he was now prepared to do whatever Helber wanted in return for the information he required, Helber hadn’t trusted him. And Helber’s instincts were right, because the day would come when he would carry out the threat he had made. Even now, even in here, the thought of Élise’s injuries incensed him beyond words.
Outside in the corridor, at a distance from the room where François was being held, von Liebermann was talking quietly with Brüning.
‘It is hardly surprising that he continues to deny it,’ he wheezed, still breathless from his climb up the stairs. ‘No one in the world knows why the Führer took that decision, least of all de Lorvoire. But we have to make a show. How is he bearing up?’
‘Any other man would be close to death by now,’ Brüning answered. ‘The only thing de Lorvoire has come close to is unconsciousness.’
Von Liebermann scratched the warts on his chin. ‘I did not go to all this effort so that he could be used as a scapegoat for …’ He stopped before the treasonous words were spoken. ‘Everyone knows there can be no confession, and I have plans for de Lorvoire that require his health. So, I am ordering you to leave him be for a while. I will speak with Herr Himmler and see what can be done. How long, in your estimation, will it take for his wounds to heal?’
‘If it was any other man,’ Brüning said with a smirk, ‘I should say six months, possibly more. As it is de Lorvoire, three months.’
Von Liebermann nodded thoughtfully. �
�That will take us into the New Year.’ Annoyance flashed in his eyes. ‘We might have had him sooner if the Luftwaffe’s defeat in the sky battle hadn’t been presented as a direct result of halting our troops for those damned three days. Why, oh why, did I introduce him to the Führer? If I hadn’t, someone else’s neck would be on the block and we wouldn’t be here now, wasting our time. And if you repeat one word of that, Brüning, I’ll have your tongue cut out.’
Brüning saluted. ‘Yes, sir.’
Von Liebermann chuckled. His Komitee were loyal, but it amused him to make that kind of threat. ‘Get a doctor to de Lorvoire,’ he said, starting back towards the stairs and gesturing to Brüning to follow, ‘and keep me abreast of his progress. In the meantime, I have something of a more personal nature to discuss with you concerning de Lorvoire. I have heard from Fritz Blomberg. He has, as we instructed, made contact with Halunke.’
‘Ah! And how is our friend Halunke?’
‘Worried. He believes that de Lorvoire’s courier is getting a little too close for comfort. It would appear von Pappen has been asking questions of the right people, and is presumably coming up with the right answers. Naturally, I share Halunke’s concern. It would be most inconvenient if his identity were to be discovered now. Fortunately he is not planning a Blitzkrieg on de Lorvoire’s family because de Lorvoire is not there to witness it – which, as we know, is something our friend Halunke prefers. Even so, his next subject, I believe, will be the vigneron.’
Both men laughed. ‘It will shake de Lorvoire considerably when his wife’s protector is slaughtered,’ von Liebermann continued. ‘He will really feel the net beginning to close then, and that will give us even greater leverage on him.’ Again he laughed, and clapped Brüning on the shoulder as they reached the bottom of the staircase. ‘I do hope I can obtain de Lorvoire’s release soon; I’m looking forward to the time when those two men are forced to pit their skills against one another. It will be a most interesting spectacle, don’t you agree?’
