Romy laughed, loud and joyful. In the passenger seat in front of her, the brown leather helmet turned sideways and she caught the edge of a broad grin on Martel’s face.
‘Not so dull now, boss.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Romy stubbed out her cigarette. Its glow made her an easy target in the dark. She paced back and forth in the central plaza of Santa Casilda, uneasy and watchful.
They said it was safe. They said no one had information they were here. But what did they know? What did anyone know in this brutal civil war? Secret information was a commodity, bought and sold as readily as guns. Information about a surprise attack could snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and betrayal was a currency passed from hand to hand.
Martel, take care.
She stared down into the valley below. Night had fallen, a dense black cloak concealing the raw granite crags and the treacherous hollows where snipers could hide. She was holed up high in the foothills of the Pyrenees over the Spanish border in Catalonia, where a unit of Republican troops had dug in. The Fascist Nationalist army continued to push forward in a spearhead movement to the coast and to Barcelona, in an attempt to split the Republican forces into two weaker halves.
Her hackles rose as a truck approached the village. Its headlights bored tunnels through the solid darkness as it snaked its way through the valley towards Santa Casilda. She could hear its engine now, grinding through the gears as it climbed. In the silence of the night, the sound of it reverberated off the face of the mountain cliffs.
One of ours, they said. From the fighting south of Berga.
How could they be sure?
She backed away from the road and flattened herself against the building where Martel had been closeted for the last three hours.
What were they discussing in there? Why so long?
The night air was cold in the mountains, the wind sheering off the cliffs. She pushed her hands in her pockets. She badly needed a drink to fight the chills. To stop her thoughts and drive away the spectre of death. At the corner of the plaza was a tiny cantina with a light still burning and she started towards it. One drink. That’s all. One drink wouldn’t . . .
Out of nowhere came the sound of boots pounding over the cobbles. A group of army uniforms rushed past her, shouting urgently to each other in Spanish, shouldering aside the darkness. What was going on?
Her heart hammered. She understood no Spanish. She glanced with concern to the far end of the village where her Gipsy Moth was parked, but she knew she’d never get Martel and herself out of here in the dark. It had taken all her skill to squeeze them into this narrow gorge in daylight without tearing off a wing.
Suddenly lights erupted into the plaza and the lorry from the valley lurched into the square where its rear tailgate was thrown open and hands reached in. Men stumbled out of its interior, men with faces twisted by pain, frozen in fear. Bandages were bloodied. The truck had come from the fighting south of Berga and she recognised the smell on it, knew it well. It seeped from the wounded like sour breath, in the fibres of their clothes, clinging to the hairs on their skin. It was the foul stench of death.
Her mind tried to run, but the stench caught at her and wrenched her back. She remembered a stretch of cobbles in the thin light of dawn. Karim Abed’s face looked ravaged. It was a raw day, snow in the air. A wind that had teeth. Romy had arrived far too early outside the Saint-Pierre prison in Versailles and stood on the cobbles for hours in the pre-dawn darkness, the cold chiselling her features. It was a self-punishment. A self-laceration. To be scourged by cold while her guilt raged hot and sulphurous in her stomach. To force her eyes on to the dark monstrosity of the guillotine and to picture Karim’s neck imprisoned in the wooden lunette. The blade hung there, suspended. Waiting to fall.
Dimly she was aware of a crowd jostling around her as dawn approached and of gendarmes holding them back. The space around the lethal contraption lay naked and empty, too dangerous to step inside. The National Razor of France, that’s what they called it. Each machine was handcrafted lovingly, a tall thin upright wooden frame, a bascule bench for the prisoner, a déclic for the rope, leather straps for restraint. And the blade. All eyes returned again and again to the angled blade. Romy looked once. It was enough. More than enough.
Made of steel, it was attached to a heavy metal mouton to give it its speed. Weight: eighty kilos. Drop: four metres. Romy knew these facts, knew each detail. She had made herself become acquainted with its details, prepared for the way the delicate street lamp cast its shadow on the cobbles.
It happened quickly, too quickly. The massive door within the prison’s arched entrance swung open and the executioner with his three assistants marched the prisoner towards Madame Guillotine.
‘Karim!’
His name was shrieked out through the clamour of the crowd.
‘Karim!’
Was it her own voice? Unrecognisable.
Off to one side an Arab woman at the front of the crowd was howling, howling like a wounded dog. Beating her breast. Gripping the hand of a small boy of about five years old, his eyes full of shock and terror.
Karim was shivering, shaking visibly. Fear or cold? He wore only a thin white shirt with its collar hacked off to leave his swarthy neck naked for the blade. His eyes found the Arab woman and the boy and for a moment his knees buckled, but a warder jerked him upright, and in that brief second of despair his gaze locked on Romy’s. His dark eyes widened with surprise and then filled with immense sorrow.
Not hatred. Sorrow.
Hate me, Karim. Hate me.
It was over in seconds. The burly executioner – Romy even knew his name, Anatole Deibler and that he had despatched three hundred and ninety-five criminals in his career – moved with a smooth well-practised motion. Karim lay face down on the guillotine, the top half of the lunette was lowered on to his neck, the déclic was released and the blade sped down, separating head from body in a split second.
The voyeurs cheered.
Cheered.
Dear God, forgive me. Romy wanted to fall to her knees and weep. The body was tumbled into a large trunk and the head in a leather basket. Through her tears the basket swam out of focus and she could hear again in her head Karim’s soft voice saying, ‘Why you do this to me, Mademoiselle Romaine?’
Why? Why?
Because I do not want to die.
She was the last to leave. Sick and trembling and full of hate, she moved with no purpose, but ahead of her she spotted the Arab woman and the boy, the woman still wailing her grief. His wife and son. Romy quickened her step and followed them silently through the streets.
‘Where have you been?’
‘To the execution.’
‘Karim’s?’
Romy nodded. Her sister had been waiting for her in the hallway and dragged her into the dining room before their mother heard her return. Florence’s cheeks were flushed and her blue eyes too bright.
‘You shouldn’t have gone,’ she stated.
‘I had to.’
Florence looked good in black. It suited her, the contrast with her creamy young skin and pale blonde hair, but she was not in mourning for Karim Abed. There was no chance of that. Roland’s father had just died from apoplexy and she was showing respect.
‘You look awful, Romy. Put a decent dress on, will you? You look like a rag.’ Florence moved briskly over to the rosewood drinks cabinet in the corner and poured a double shot of brandy into a glass. ‘Roland is coming over. He wants to speak to you.’
Romy felt the blood grow chill in her veins. Roland was the only one, other than her sister, who knew what she had done. She never wanted to speak to him again.
‘Why, Florence? What has happened?’
Florence thrust the glass into her twin’s hand. Romy did not like alcohol.
‘Drink, sister.’
Romy drank it down in two mouthfuls. It burned her innards, as if she had swallowed flames. Florence studied her closely. She put a hand on
either side of Romy’s head as if she would crush the pain out of it.
‘It’s done, Romy. It’s over. Now we get on with the rest of our lives. Forget Karim. He no longer exists. We will never mention him again.’
‘How can you care so little?’
‘If you mean would I prefer to have this pretty little head in the basket instead of his, the answer is no.’
There was a fierceness in Florence’s eyes that frightened Romy. She pulled away. Refilled her glass and drank it down, feeling it burn the frayed edges of the pain.
‘What has happened, Florence? What have you done?’
The flush on her sister’s cheeks darkened. ‘Roland has asked me to marry him and I said yes.’
A strange curtain, a kind of mist, came down behind Romy’s eyes and she felt sick.
‘Today? He asked you today? Of all days?’
‘Yes.’
Romy drew close to her sister and wrapped her arms around her, cradling her gently. In a whisper, she begged, ‘Please don’t marry him, Florence. Please don’t marry that man.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
Romy knelt in the church in Santa Casilda listening to a soldier’s outpouring of grief in Spanish, not understanding a word of it, but murmuring quiet words of comfort. The wounded from the battle had been carried from the truck into the safety of the ancient house of God to bring healing to the soul, as well as to the body with medical attention. Twelve narrow metal cots lined the walls with military precision under the watchful eyes of saints, while makeshift beds were spread out on the flagstone floor, bundles of bedding, straw palliasses and even horse blankets called into service.
Romy had bathed wounds with antiseptic. She’d bandaged limbs, swabbed vomit and faeces from the floor and she’d held hands. More than anything, she held their hands.
‘Don’t leave me.’
‘I won’t leave you.’
This one was English. So very young. One of the International Brigade, the thirty-thousand volunteers from all over the world who held such passionate belief in the Popular Front government of Spain and such hatred of Fascist oppression that they had come here to fight for freedom and risk everything for it. Romy wanted to hold this wounded young boy and his ideals in her arms and tell him to go home to his mother in the green shires of England.
‘You’re brave,’ she told him. ‘A hero. Spain is proud of you and grateful to you.’
He smiled. Such a small smile that it made Romy’s eyes fill with tears. He was covered in sweat, his boyish tufty hair plastered to his head and his right leg was smashed to pieces. The doctor was low on morphine, so the men’s moans rippled through the church to join the prayers trapped among the arched beams of the roof.
‘I won’t leave you,’ Romy said again and bathed his burning skin. He closed his eyes, his breathing laboured, his soft mouth stretched in pain. For a long time he seemed to sleep, but opened his eyes abruptly and stared directly at her.
‘I see an angel,’ he whispered.
‘What the hell are you doing in here, Romaine? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.’ It was Martel’s voice.
Romy did not lift her head.
‘For God’s sake, Romaine, you need to get some sleep.’
Romy did not reply.
A heavy hand rested on her shoulder, but its touch was warm.
‘Come on, out of here.’ A pause. ‘Merde, Romaine, that boy is dead.’
Of course he was dead. People died around her.
‘Enough, girl. Do you realise what time it is?’
She didn’t answer. She was thinking of the boy’s mother in England, drinking her sherry, wearing her pearls. Waiting for her son.
‘It’s two o’clock in the morning,’ Martel said with impatience. ‘You have flying to do at dawn.’
Romy was lying on a bed of straw in a stable and over her was draped a military greatcoat to keep out the chill. Where Martel had stolen it from, she had no idea. She ached. Everything ached, inside and out. But she couldn’t sleep. The sound of the darkness inside her head was too loud.
Two metres to her right Léo Martel was enclosed in his own nest of straw and though he lay unmoving she was convinced by his uneven breathing that he was not asleep either. Inside the stable, which held no horses – had the military seized them? – it was pitch black, too black to see anything but the thinnest slats of paler black that in places sneaked in between the planking of the walls. The mountain air smelled sweet but felt cold in her lungs. Everything inside her felt cold.
‘Martel?’
The reply took some time to come. ‘Go to sleep.’
‘Why was the meeting so long? What is happening?’
‘Don’t ask, Romaine. I told you before, the less you know, the safer you are.’
Romy tossed aside the greatcoat. She was aware of the scurrying of mice somewhere close. Or were they rats? She shuffled over and squatted on her haunches beside Martel.
‘This isn’t what I want to hear.’
Unable to see him, she reached out in the darkness and tightened her fingers around his arm. The muscles were hard and tense.
‘I have risked my life flying you and your planes here.’ She kept her voice low, conscious of sound carrying at night in these mountains. ‘At any time I could have been shot down by a Heinkel fighter or one of the Italian Fiat G.50s, we both know that.’
It was something that had been left unsaid between them till now.
‘I bring you information. Packages from Spain. I’ve seen two men with bullets in their brains. Our secret cell is being decimated and there are others in hiding. Now two high-level Germans are showing more interest in me than is good for my health, for reasons that I can only guess at.’ She gave his arm a shake. ‘So don’t tell me, Léo Martel, that I am not allowed to know what’s going on. For my own safety. To hell with that.’ She turned and spat her anger into the darkness. ‘I have a right to answers. Who is doing this? What went on in that meeting of yours? Who should I be watching for? Tell me. What is going on?’
She finally stopped. Drew breath.
‘Tell me. You owe me that much.’
Martel stood and walked over to the far end of the stable where a skylight created a rectangle of blackness that was not quite so dense.
‘Come here, Romaine.’
She went over to him and their faces were pale ovals. The smell of horse sweat was stronger here. Martel placed his hands on her shoulders, as though he feared she would run away.
‘Romaine, I do understand your desire for more information, so I will tell you this much.’ He spoke softly, his face drawing closer to hers, his breath tinged with nicotine. ‘Colonel Mendez has learned that there is a tight organisation in Paris that is dedicated to removing all those who are helping the Spanish Republican cause.’
The image of a third bloodied eye flashed into Romy’s head.
‘Grégory and François,’ she whispered.
‘It would seem so. The assassin is code-named Cupid. He is efficient and lethal.’ His hold on her shoulders tightened and she knew she was not going to like what was coming next.
‘At dawn,’ he said, ‘we fly out of here back to Paris and that’s the end of it for you. We cease all contact. You pack up that hellhole of a pit you call home and move to a new address. I will give you funds to keep you going until you find a new job that . . .’
She was shaking her head.
‘Yes, Romaine. I will not accept any refusal on your part. It is finished for you. This is a seriously organised assassin, not just a rogue agent working as a loner.’
‘No.’
‘Yes. You must stay out of it.’
‘No. I am a part of this operation.’
‘It is too dangerous.’
‘Just as dangerous as for you.’
‘Romaine Duchamps, I don’t want your death on my conscience.’
‘Why now, Martel? Why banish me now? This is my cause, as much as yours. I am committed to the fight against Fasc
ism.’
Abruptly he removed his hands. She reached out and attached herself to the edge of his leather flying jacket. It was old and familiar. It made up for the gap he was forcing between them.
‘What is it? What is it that you are not telling me?’
‘There’s no need for you to know more.’
‘Yes, there is.’
In the night-time gloom, she saw the swoop of his dark eyebrows as they plunged down, but he said nothing. To her surprise he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and drew her to his chest. He held her there, silent and reassuring, her cheek pressed against the ancient flying jacket; she could smell wide open places on it, endless horizons and air so clean it scoured your lungs.
‘The assassin,’ he said so quietly that his words barely reached her ears, ‘with the code name Cupid. They think he is German.’
German?
There were lots of Germans in Paris. Hundreds of them. Yet she felt a chill creep down her spine. It was absurd to think Cupid might be one of the two Germans she happened to know. But Martel did not think it was absurd. That’s why he wanted to bundle her out of their reach.
Cupid. The god of love. Of desire.
She remembered dancing in Horst Baumeister’s arms.
Romy curled up on her side on her pile of straw, her knees drawn up to her chin. Martel pulled the greatcoat over her once more, patting it down around her shoulders, tucking it in. He then bundled more straw on top of it. The temperature was dropping fast. His hand stroked her head, plucking dog-ends of straw from her hair, his thumb feeling for the fierce pulse at her temple. Gently his thumb eased around it in a circle, as if he could draw the pain out of her head like a nail.
Outside, the wind had picked up. She thought about her plane. She thought about taking off in this narrow gorge and knew she would be threading her Gipsy Moth through the eye of a needle.
The Betrayal Page 12
