Darkest Longings

by Susan Lewis

  Armand’s voice was thick with scorn, his mouth twisted with venom. ‘The man isn’t human, he’s a devil, the devil. His only weakness is that he loves, and that is why I’ve used it as my weapon against him.’

  ‘But so many people, Armand! Not only those François loved, but Yves and Thomas, the pilots and agents who were captured in the escape-line, Estelle … Why did you kill Estelle?’

  ‘You saw her that day in the forest, cavorting with his brother. Another de Lorvoire. I’d lost my wife to one, I’d lost my son because of one – I wasn’t going to lose her to one as well. She paid, you’ll all pay, but this will be the bitterest price. As for the others … Regrettable, but there was nothing I could do. I was a tool of the Abwehr. They made me do it. Stinking, filthy Germans, I despise them. They’ve manipulated me all the way. But not any more. They won’t be able to control my life ever again, because after today they’ll have nothing on me. Because François will be dead. It will all be over, and at last I shall be free.’

  ‘No, Armand, you won’t be free. No matter what you do to François you’ll never be free, because nothing you do is going to bring your son back.’

  He stared at her, blinking as though she had delivered him a brutal blow.

  ‘She’s right, Armand.’

  A shadow fell across the barn, and they both spun round to see François standing at the centre of the arch.

  ‘Papa!’ Louis shrieked. And oblivious to the gun pressed against his head, he started to struggle over Armand’s leg to get to François. Then, to Claudine’s amazement, Armand lowered his leg and let Louis go.

  She watched as he flew across the barn into his father’s arms. François scooped him up and Louis clung to him, sobs shuddering from his little body as he buried his face in François’ shoulder. But François wasn’t looking at Louis, his eyes were fixed on Armand.

  Claudine turned back, then started as she saw Armand’s gun only inches from her face. ‘So,’ Armand hissed, looking at her but speaking to François, ‘you’ve come at last.’

  François didn’t answer.

  Armand shifted so that his back was against the wall beside Claudine. Then gesturing towards the floor in front of him, he made her lie down.

  ‘On your front!’ he growled. ‘Put your hands under your body and turn your face to me.’

  She did as he told her, and then, keeping the gun out of her reach but still aimed at her head, Armand lifted his eyes to François. ‘I take it you’ve been there for some time,’ he sneered.

  ‘Long enough,’ François replied.

  ‘So tell me. How does it feel to know that Halunke, the only man you’ve ever feared, was all the time fucking your wife? Does it feel good, François? Or do you want to kill me for it? I even drank your son’s milk from her breasts. I suckled her, François. How does that make you feel? Does it get to you, right deep down inside?’ He twisted a hand into his gut. ‘Because that’s where it got me, François. It got me, and ate me like a cancer. But we’re equal now, aren’t we? You made my wife love you, and I made yours love me. But it doesn’t end there, does it? It doesn’t end there François, because you made me kill my son!’ Armand stopped and wiped the saliva from his lips with the back of his hand. ‘So you know what you have to do. You’ve ruined my life, de Lorvoire, and now I’m going to ruin yours. So kill him, kill him now, or I’ll kill her.’

  For a long moment François merely stared at him. Then, without uttering a word, he put Louis on the ground, took him by the hand and walked away.

  Claudine knew they had gone, she could hear their footsteps crunching on the gravel. Her heart started to pound in her chest. He had gone; he hadn’t spoken a word, he had just walked away.

  Armand swore violently under his breath, and her eyes dilated as his hand tightened on the gun.

  Then he started to laugh, a low rumbling sound that seemed to creep into every shadowy corner of the barn. ‘So he’s fooled us both! He’s fooled you, and me, he’s fooled us all. François de Lorvoire has won again! Yes, he even managed to convince me that he loved you. But he doesn’t love you, does he, Claudine? Because he’s left you here to die. He’s walking away. He’s made his choice, and he’s left you. But as far as he was concerned there never was a choice, because all that matters to him is his son. You don’t matter at all, you never did. So how does it feel, Claudine, to know that he’s tricked you as foully and as ingeniously as he’s tricked everyone else? How does it feel to be one of his victims? Hurts doesn’t it? It hurts here.’ He thumped his fist into his heart. ‘So why don’t I put you out of your misery?’

  He hooked his thumb over the cock and drew it back. Claudine closed her eyes, and through the horror of what was happening to her she started to pray.

  The shot blasted into the silence, ricocheting from the walls, vibrating from the beams and echoing out into the field where it finally faded into the chill, empty air.

  Still holding Louis’ hand François kept on walking, not betraying, even by the twitch of a muscle, that he had heard the shot.

  Minute after minute ticked by. The wind rustled the trees behind the barn, and the magnificent Château of Rigny-Ussé slumbered peacefully on the opposite bank of the Indre. Besides François and Louis, the only other sign of life was inside the Mercedes, parked on the cart track halfway between the field gate and the barn. From behind the open window in the rear seat von Liebermann and Max Helber watched as de Lorvoire finally stopped at his jeep, stooped to speak to his son, then handed him up to his sister. Then she drove away.

  Another ten minutes slipped by. Clouds massed angrily overhead; the rain didn’t come, but the sky darkened about the sun covering its face with black, bulbous warts of cloud.

  Inside the barn, Armand stood up. A sheen of sweat glimmered on his face, but his senses were brittly alert. He stepped over Claudine and stole quietly across the barn to the arch. As he peered outside, he prepared the gun to fire again. Then his eyes narrowed dangerously as he saw someone sitting on the bank of the river with a fishing rod.

  ‘Get over here,’ he hissed to Claudine.

  Too terrorized to do anything other than obey, Claudine got up and went to stand beside him.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he growled.

  Claudine turned to look where he was pointing and as she recognized the man sitting nonchalantly on the riverbank, a sob gurgled in her throat. She had no idea how he had got here, but it was her father, and she was so swamped by relief that it was all she could do to stop herself collapsing. She knew she should never have doubted François, but when she had heard his footsteps retreat, when he had gone with no arguments, no protests, no attempt even to reason with Armand, she had believed … But now she knew that somehow he was in charge of the situation. Somehow he had found out about the torturous climax Armand and von Liebermann had plotted between them, and had laid his own plans. And if Beavis was here, perhaps there were others.

  ‘Who is it?’ Armand seethed.

  ‘It’s my father,’ she answered, knowing that he would recognize him sooner or later.

  Armand uttered a stream of obscenities, then pushing her in front of him and jamming the gun into her neck, he edged a short way out of the barn. Seeing von Liebermann’s car, he waited for a sign to tell him what was happening, but the General’s face was lost in shadow.

  Then suddenly both Armand and Claudine spun round as they heard a footstep behind them. It was Lucien, standing at the corner of the barn.

  ‘At last,’ Lucien said, starting towards them. ‘We were beginning to think you would never come out. Now put the gun down, Armand, and let’s talk.’

  Before Armand could answer, someone else was striding up behind him, and he twisted round again to see a masked figure coming from the other side of the barn. ‘Hand it over, there’s a good chap.’ The American accent was strong – Claudine suddenly realized that this must be Jack Bingham.

  Armand took a step back, pulling Claudine with him, his eyes darting between Lucien and B
ingham. Then he noticed that Beavis had gone. ‘Get away from me!’ he growled. ‘Get away or I’ll kill her.’

  ‘And what then?’ Lucien said mildly.

  Armand stared at him.

  ‘And what then, Armand?’ he repeated. ‘Tell me, Armand!’

  Armand flinched as Lucien boomed out his name, then he staggered as the cry started to echo through the valley like the deathly chant of ravens. Voices, hundreds of voices, resounding from the trees, from the barn, from the river, from the château. They were coming from everywhere. Below him, above him, in front of him, behind him, from every side. Shouting his name: ‘Armand! Armand! Armand!’

  At the side of the barn François was climbing swiftly and quietly from the ladder into the hay loft.

  ‘It won’t work, de Lorvoire!’ he heard Armand scream into the cacophony.

  ‘Armand!’

  ‘Armand!’

  ‘Armand!’

  The noise rose to a deafening crescendo. François stole through the hay, then lowered himself into the barn. He could see them now, grouped in a pool of sunlight on the waste ground.

  ‘Kill him, de Lorvoire!’ Armand roared to the sky. ‘Kill your son or I’ll kill her.’

  ‘Armand!’

  ‘Armand!’

  ‘Armand!’

  ‘Shut up!’ he bellowed. ‘Shut up or I’ll fire.’

  More voices, flat, monotonous, menacing voices. No faces, only Lucien and Bingham and … Armand stepped back, looking for Claudine. Then he saw her. She was on the floor, covering her head with her arms. He raised the gun, aimed it straight at her, then screamed as a foot crashed into his wrist. Then he became aware of the pressure on his spine, and he clenched his teeth as the agony tore through his limbs. But he still had the gun, and he fired it, again and again …

  He couldn’t move his arm; the bullets were blasting randomly into the air. Armand jerked his body forward – then screamed as François’ hands tightened their grip. But now the gun was pointing right at her … A splintering pain seared through his skull. His knees were sagging, but he tightened his finger on the trigger. He tried to throw the weight from his back. It shifted and he staggered, then the gun was on her again. He fired – and in that same instant François broke his neck.

  Claudine stared at the bullet, buried in the ground only an inch from her face. She couldn’t move, her whole body was frozen in terror. She knew François was there, she could feel him holding her, lifting her, but she couldn’t tear her eyes from the bullet.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he soothed. ‘It’s all right, chérie, it’s over.’

  ‘Louis,’ she mumbled. ‘Where’s Louis?’

  ‘With Monique. He’s safe.’

  ‘Oh François!’ she gasped, then fell sobbing into his arms.

  Then she opened her eyes and stared down at Armand’s limp, broken body lying at her feet. His eyes were still open, staring back at her. She shuddered, and François stooped to close them.

  ‘Did you know?’ she said. ‘About Jacqueline?’

  ‘No.’

  He looked at her, and her heart twisted as she saw the torment in his eyes. She could read his thoughts, almost as if he were speaking them aloud. Hortense, Jacqueline and Élise. Three women whose lives had been ruined because of him, because he had been unable to love them. He would never forgive himself, yet there was nothing he could have done to prevent it. Claudine choked back her tears, and pulled him tightly into her arms. He pushed his face into her hair and clung to her the way Louis had clung to him.

  Finally he pulled away and gazed searchingly into her eyes. ‘Are you all right?’ he whispered.

  She nodded.

  He brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers, then turned to Armand’s body.

  ‘What are we going to tell Liliane?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing, if we can avoid it. It’s better that she thinks he died by the firing squad.’

  ‘Do you think she knows? About all this.’

  He shook his head. ‘I doubt it. Except about Jacqueline, she must have known about that. But she would never have imagined him capable of doing all he’s done. What mother would?’

  ‘A mother who persuaded me to have an affair with her son?’

  François lifted his head. ‘I asked her to.’

  Claudine shook her head in dismay, then, as she started shakily to pull herself to her feet a voice boomed into the stillness.

  ‘François!’

  Both she and François swung round. Then François flew back as a stultifying blow crashed into his chest. Claudine started for the barn as first one shot, then another and another blasted through the air. Then suddenly she staggered to the ground beside François as both Résistants and Germans emerged from the woods, from the barn, from the river bank and from the road, until the whole world was alive with the sound of machine-guns, pistols, rifles, even grenades.

  Bullets tore through the air above their bodies, plunging into the earth all around them. Black smoke curled round the barn as canisters were thrown from the woods to disguise the emergence of the Résistants. The air rang with shouts, barked orders and the sound of running feet. Men in berets and masks swooped into the field, while the German soldiers in their tin helmets and uniforms flattened themselves to the grass and blasted bullets into the mêlée.

  Lucien and Beavis, crouching low with guns slung over their shoulders, waded through the river to the bridge. Jack Bingham, Pierre Bonet the melon farmer, and three others, crawled through the next field’s vines towards the road. Still more withdrew into the woods, firing and shouting and holding cover for those gone to circle the Germans.

  François turned his head to look at Claudine, half expecting her to have crawled into the barn. But she was still there, lying only an arm’s length away. He twisted himself a little further so he could see her face. Her arms were spread out, her hair was tangled around her mouth and her eyes were wide, staring straight into his. His lungs turned to pockets of ice as the whole world tilted on its axis. Then she blinked, and he breathed again.

  Almost from the moment he’d fallen, he had realized that the hammer-blow to his chest had come from Claudine as she’d knocked him to the ground, but he continued to lie where he was, unmoving. Von Liebermann and Helber must think he was dead.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he hissed.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Stay right where you are. For God’s sake let them think you’re dead.’

  She blinked again, not daring to move another muscle, as the battle raged on around them. Then she watched, as François slid his hand carefully beneath him and pulled out his gun.

  He waited until there was a drift in the smoke, then aimed directly at the Mercedes. Again he waited, until von Liebermann’s eyes finally came to rest on his, but before von Liebermann had a chance even to register surprise, the bullet ripped through his face.

  And there was still one more score to settle. From the rear door on the other side of the car, Max Helber emerged, his face splattered with von Liebermann’s blood. As he staggered round the car, dazed and disoriented, into full view, François took aim again, pointing the gun this time between Helber’s legs.

  As Helber screamed, chaos broke loose. The Mercedes roared off, and what seemed like an entire battalion of Germans closed in around the woods. No one thought to look in the direction of the barn, no one knew that the bullets which had killed the General and his henchman had come from François de Lorvoire.

  Still neither he nor Claudine moved, but lay there feigning death until finally the battle was drawn into the depths of the wood and the gunfire started to recede into the distance.

  After a while they heard footsteps running towards them.

  ‘François!’ Lucien called in a heavy whisper.

  ‘It’s all right, I’m alive,’ François answered, recognizing his brother’s voice.

  ‘I thought you must be. I saw what Claudine did. Are you all right?’ he added turning to her. ‘Come o
n, let’s get you both out of here.’

  François was already on his feet. The smoke had all but disappeared by now, and for the moment there was no sign of the Boches.

  ‘It’s all right, chérie, you can get up now,’ he said, starting to help Lucien drag Armand’s body into the barn.

  When she didn’t move, he looked up. ‘Claudine, you can get up,’ he said, a hammer of alarm suddenly starting to thud in his chest.

  ‘I can’t,’ she answered.

  Dropping Armand, he threw himself down on his knees beside her. ‘What is it?’ he said.

  ‘Oh François, I’m sorry,’ she gasped. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  And then he saw the pool of blood, spreading thickly across the ground beneath her.

  – 34 –

  IT WAS THE first real day of summer, warm and tranquil. François was standing on the hillside, gazing out at the valley of Lorvoire. It was a very different view now from the one he had looked out on a week ago when the fire had heaved its massive chest and roared through the vineyards, curling great tongues of flame round every root and leaf of the vines. The village was unharmed, so too was the château, but the sloping banks of the valley were now a blackened mass of destruction. He could still smell it, the pungent aroma of fuel that the Germans had thrown on the vines before setting them alight, and the acrid stench of the ash that drifted lazily on the breeze. He raised his eyes to the trees at the top of the hill opposite, where he could see the coned turrets of the château shimmering like silver in the sunlight. No one was inside now, it had been closed and boarded-up just over a month ago. Jean-Paul had seen to it, but there had been nothing Jean-Paul could do to stop the Germans raiding it first. They had even helped themselves to the Jews’ property stored in the cellar. Since then the servants had dispersed, and the family, all of them, had been living in the chapter-house at the Royal Abbey of Fontevraud –the abbey where he and Claudine had married.