Martel uttered a muted whoop of triumph. They were in.
Gustav Müller was not a man who cared for show. He cared for order and information. His office struck Romy as basic but his amassing of information was impressive. It was no wonder he kept a bastard lock on his door.
‘Romy,’ Martel said. His tone was solemn. As if he stood in church. ‘Look at this. It is our Holy Grail.’
One wall was stacked from floor to ceiling with brown files, shelves of them packed tight, hundreds of files, possibly thousands. Some fat, some thin. Many old and soft as netting, others new and crisp, their labels freshly typed. The room smelled of paper and ink. And of something else. It took Romy a minute to recognise it as it drifted through the gloomy room. It was fear. Raw fear. Whether it was her own or whether the files, she didn’t know.
The window shutters were closed but Martel did not risk the overhead light, instead relying on the torch. Its beam guided them through the names on the files, stacked in alphabetical order.
Martel murmured them, half under his breath, half to her, as he skimmed over them. ‘Arnaud, Boucher, Bousquet, Capelle, Clement, Duval . . .’ His finger hovered, hesitating.
‘Duchamps?’ she whispered. ‘Is there a Duchamps?’
He nodded, but reluctantly. It occurred to her that he feared that whatever was in it might hurt her. She peered into the grainy circle of light and reached for the file marked Romaine Céline Duchamps. It felt weightless in her hand.
‘It’s empty. Someone has removed the contents.’
‘Don’t look like that, Romaine. It could be that whoever it was is protecting you.’
‘What?’
He shifted the torch and it highlighted his strong profile against the dark room as he turned to her with a curious expression.
‘Horst Baumeister perhaps?’ he said.
‘Nothing happened, Léo. Between Horst and myself.’ She handed him the empty file. ‘Maybe it was taken to blackmail me.’
Martel suddenly grinned at her. ‘It must have made good reading.’
‘Not as good as yours,’ she laughed and started to hunt among the M’s, but she was glad that he couldn’t see the blush on her cheeks in the gloom.
She found Léo’s file. It was thick and heavy but she didn’t look in it. Instead she handed it directly to him unopened. He glanced inside it, frowned and threw it on the floor, then went back to the names.
‘Diane Motte,’ he muttered and threw the milliner’s file on the floor with his own. ‘François Perret, Grégory Quere, Jerome Roche.’ They all joined those on the floor.
‘Roussel?’ Romy asked.
Without a word he removed another two files. The names on them were Roland Roussel and Florence Roussel. Roland’s file was thick like Martel’s, but the one on Florence felt flimsy. It was also empty.
‘Something is not right, Léo.’
His eyes were hooded by the darkness. ‘Why would Müller remove these files?’
‘I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense.’
She took the torch from his hand and searched the files in the ‘D’ section again, while Martel stood with arms folded, staring grimly at the shelves.
‘I was so sure,’ Romy muttered, ‘that I would find a file on him.’
‘On whom?’
‘On my father.’
‘Why on your father?’
‘Because . . . Horst was with him the day my father died.’
‘Your father? You think he was in league with the Nazi party?’
Romy could not bring herself, not even now, to say yes. ‘It’s possible.’ The taste in her mouth was sour. ‘He was a government minister and had access to high-level information.’
Martel studied the files again, dancing the grainy spotlight over them, and Romy watched it track through the blackness to the top shelf under the coving of the ceiling.
‘Look. Up there. Those seem older.’
He was right. The files on the top shelf were grey with age, their covers frayed. They gave Romy a fleeting whisper of hope. Behind her in the corner of the room stood a wheeled stepladder for retrieving files, so she pushed it quickly into place and scrambled up it. Martel handed her the torch and she scoured through the top shelf files. Dimly she was conscious of time flying past while she searched and of Martel removing more files from the lower shelves.
‘Léo.’
Outside in the street a car was driving at high speed, engine racing. They froze. But it continued on past, leaving Romy’s heart thumping. She trained the torch beam quickly on the stretch of top shelf files that began with ‘D’. David. Delacroix. Deniaud. Dubois. Duchamps . . .
Duchamps.
She plucked it out. Antoine Bernard Duchamps. Her father. The moment it was in her hand, for some reason she didn’t understand, she started to cry, a great raking sob that shuddered through her for the father she had lost.
No, not now. Not here. Not when she held in her hand the answers to so many questions.
She leaped down from the stepladder, clutching the file tight, and her feet skidded from under her so that she almost fell. She swivelled the torch beam. Strewn across the floor were hundreds of sheets of paper, climbing on top of each other in a mountain of secrets and lies. Martel was sweeping the files off the shelves at random, shaking out their contents, his breathing sharp and urgent, his movements spiked with rage.
Another noise erupted outside. Two more cars raced along the dark street, but this time they braked and stopped outside. Car doors opened. Slammed shut. Voices sounded.
‘Léo, they’re here.’
Somewhere there must have been a security guard on watch who had called in reinforcements. Whether they were French or German, neither Romy nor Martel had any desire to hang around long enough to find out. Martel dragged one last pile off the shelf and sent them spinning across the room. ‘Then we must give the bastards something special to greet them.’
He bent down. She saw his lighter glint between his fingers. A flame leaped from it, stretching its golden tongue to one of the sheets. Hungry for more, the fire spread to another and then another, until the papers writhed and blackened, spiralling across the room. The stink of burning was suffocating as flames licked at the feet of Müller’s desk.
Martel, with a bunch of files under his arm, yanked open the door and the fire sucked in the sudden rush of oxygen, letting out a roar. No uniforms were yet in sight in the corridor but Romy could hear them in the building. Shouting. Coming closer.
‘Romy! Hurry.’
The shutters were closed as they stood side by side in total blackness, alert for sounds, shoulders touching. No risk of a torch. The smoke Romy had inhaled felt like the rasp of sandpaper inside her lungs and she was struggling to suppress a cough. Boots were running down the corridor, which was already filling with smoke. They had slipped across the corridor into Horst Baumeister’s office using the second key on the key ring stolen from Horst’s body, but it would not be safe here for long. They had to escape.
‘Feu!’
‘Vite!’
There were sounds of panic. Voices raised. Romy could see nothing, but Martel’s hand gripped her shoulder. His fingers felt strong and calm.
‘We have minutes, Romy. That’s all.’
She wanted to say, I want more than that. I want a lifetime, Léo. But instead she let her body nudge against his, unable to make out his face in the blackness, and whispered, ‘If anything happens to us, Léo, if they should part us . . . I want you to know I love you.’
‘They won’t.’
‘But if they do.’
There was silence in the room. She sensed the movement of his tall figure beside her and felt the soft sweep of his hair on her skin as he leaned down and rested his forehead against hers.
‘I won’t let them part us, Romy, my love.’
She knew what he was saying and the relief of it caught her by surprise. They would go together whatever happened.
‘The window is to our rig
ht,’ she whispered.
Martel took hold of her arm and steered her across the black space until they bumped into the sill. He lifted the gun from under his jacket, raised the files to protect her face and crashed the gun down on to the windowpane. The glass exploded. Slivers of it nipped at their skin but the noise was drowned out by the shouts of panic in the corridor.
Somewhere a voice was screaming and Romy clamped a hand over her own mouth to ensure it wasn’t hers.
Martel’s car was parked two streets away. They ran, tucked tight against the wall. Two more shadows in a city of nighttime shadows. They ducked around the glare of street lamps, moving fast away from the back of the building from which they had climbed. Aware of the knife-edge of danger they were treading.
They ran in single file, Martel hard on Romy’s heels. She could hear him behind her. Knew why he was there, like an echo of herself, his broad back positioned between her and any bullet from a pursuing rifle.
There was no cry of warning. No shouts or demands. No checking of names or papers. But a hail of bullets spat out of nowhere, ripping past their ears, snatching at their clothes. Romy felt one tear at her skirt, her leg stinging. They dodged around a corner and could see the dark outline of their car waiting for them, but as they started to sprint across to it, two figures in uniform stepped out from the deep shadows of a high arched doorway into Romy’s path. French Security Police. Rifles were aimed at her head.
‘Halt!’
Time didn’t just slow, it stopped, while she hung on to no more than a thread of life. Her heartbeat ceased. She knew she could run. A bullet in the brain would be quick. Or she could drop the file to the ground, put her hands on her head and let them drag her off to the guillotine blade.
She did neither. She stretched an arm out behind her to find Léo but his hand was already swinging up past her cheek, his grip locked around his gun, one finger squeezing the trigger. The explosion set her ears ringing and made a circle of blood burst into flower over the policeman’s face. His features lost their shape and he hit the ground like a stone.
The second security officer’s rifle was aimed straight at Martel’s vulnerable chest and yet at the moment of pulling the trigger he seemed distracted. Even in the black night Romy saw the whites of his eyes widen and his mouth open into an oversized silent scream. There was something trickling from his mouth and his knees buckled. Romy heard the crack of his head as it hit the paving slab.
Behind him was standing Noam. He was wearing a grin so wide it threatened to split his face and in his hand lay a long carving knife. It seemed to quiver. Its blade was coated in something that looked like paint, black and glistening.
‘That,’ Noam said, ‘is what happens to the enemies of France.’
Martel said nothing. Not even a thank you. He seized Romy’s wrist and hurried to the car, his limp more pronounced. It was only when he slumped into the back seat of the car and handed the keys to Noam that it occurred to her that Léo was hurt. She slid a hand down his back and it came away wet.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
FLORENCE
Today Papa is in my mind.
I did not invite him in. But Papa was always a man who followed his own path with no regard for the objections of others, so if that path now leads him to my mind, in he marches without knocking. It’s not that he was indifferent to the needs and desires of others – of his wife, of his family, of his colleagues – not at all. It’s just that he was totally unaware of them. Oblivious.
Antoine Duchamps was a man of such internal intensity that he could see no further than his own needs and desires. He got things done.
I admire that.
Roland reminds me of him. Except that Roland is acutely aware of my needs and my desires.
Papa and Horst Baumeister did not sit well together. Like mixing fire and water. Papa burned everything in his path, while Horst flowed around it and continued carving out his own riverbed. Yet even so, Papa saw a use for him.
‘You will marry my daughter.’
That’s what he ordered. Horst looked as though he’d been kicked by a mule, which, now I think about it, was a gross insult to me. But I excused him at the time because I had only just met him in the study and he probably had a pretty little dummkopf Fräulein back home in Berlin. But neither of us had the slightest wish to cross Papa.
Papa had plans. Great plans. We were chess pieces in his game. I was young and Horst was handsome and I believed in the Cause because Papa believed in it.
Papa was my God.
I roll on to my side now, my cheek in my hand, and I feel tears trickle over my fingertips.
Go away, Papa. Leave my mind alone. I am no longer seventeen. If I wish to change the world I can do it without you.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
‘Hush now,’ Martel murmured.
As if Romy were the one injured. She was re-dressing the wound on his back and uttering small mews of pain each time she swabbed the blood from his skin. It was almost dawn and the first grey threads of the day were finding their way into the damp basement apartment where Martel lay on his stomach on the bed.
His back was beautiful despite the patchwork of scars from the flying accident, the muscles well defined under his skin as they tensed to protect the new wound. Noam had fetched a surgeon even at that time of night and the bullet had been removed from Martel’s shoulder blade. Romy had sat with him, her hand in his, crushed to a pulp as the scalpel did its work. She dosed him with brandy before and after but didn’t touch a drop herself. Just the fumes of it were enough to make her gut cramp.
The surgeon left quickly, his fist bulging with franc notes, clearly nervous at being there at all. But the wound had opened up again and Romy was bathing it with antiseptic and binding it tight once more. She ducked her head and dropped a tender kiss on the finished bandage.
‘Now don’t you dare move, Léo Martel. Not a muscle. You hear me?’
His face was turned to the side on the pillow and she saw his full lips curl into a smile. ‘Yes, Nurse Duchamps, I hear you loud and clear.’
‘I will sit here all day and make damn sure you don’t, you can bet your life on it.’
‘Romy.’
‘Am I hurting you?’
‘No. Get the file on your father and bring it here.’
‘No, Léo. You must rest now.’ His cheek was pale and waxy even through his early morning stubble. ‘I want you to sleep and—’
‘Romy.’ Sharp this time. ‘Do as I ask. Please.’
‘There’s no point. I’ve looked. It’s all in German.’
He nodded. ‘Bien sûr. Of course. But I read German.’
She laid her head on the pillow beside him, nose to nose, mouth to mouth. ‘Sleep first,’ she whispered. ‘Read afterwards.’
His lips brushed hers. ‘Bring me the file, Romy, or I will get up and fetch it myself.’
Reluctantly she fetched the file from the living room where Noam was smoking a Turkish cigarette and eating raw onion. Back in the bedroom she removed the first few pages from the file and handed them to Martel. It was awkward, reading while lying on his front, but he adjusted his position.
‘I will translate it for you,’ he announced. ‘Then you will leave and find out whether your sister is home.’
A wind had sprung up, swirling the dust of the city on to the windscreen of the old Peugeot. Noam was driving Romy through the somnolent streets of early morning to Avenue Kléber. Only the street cleaners were about with their brooms, and an occasional flower stall. The light was silvery and soft, and it painted the roofs to look like snakeskin.
What worried Romy was that Noam did not need to ask her for her sister’s address. He drove straight there. He parked a block away but Romy sat in silence looking out the side window once the engine was turned off. Noam’s gaze settled on her, waiting. In no hurry.
‘Thank you, Noam.’
‘What for?’
‘For saving Léo Martel’s life.’
&nb
sp; ‘I didn’t do it for you.’
‘I know.’
She turned and openly studied his face, his heavy features, large nose and dense black hair. ‘Noam, are you Jewish?’
‘Yes, I am. What’s it to you?’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing. But it would explain why you are anti-Nazi.’
‘So would a lot of other things. You’re not Jewish but you are also anti-Nazi.’ He flashed her a quick angry smile. ‘Unlike your sister. And her husband.’
Romy pressed her hands together in her lap. Keep still. Don’t let him smell fear.
‘Noam, do you know where my sister is?’
‘No.’
‘If you did, would you tell me?’
‘Probably not.’
‘Are you lying?’
A thin slippery laugh slid out between his lips. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’
Romy’s hand leaped at him and seized a handful of his shirt. ‘If you harm my sister in any way, I swear I will cut off your balls with your own knife and stuff them in your mouth.’
She opened the car door, climbed out and slammed it behind her. Noam leaned across and rolled down the window. He was grinning from ear to ear, his teeth large and threatening.
‘I like a woman with ambition,’ he said and drove off in the direction of the Arc de Triomphe.
The apartment was silent. Romy stood in the hallway, listening. The hairs rose on the back of her neck, though she couldn’t work out why, except for the heavy fragrance of the white roses. She was struck by a sudden fear that the apartment was empty and she panicked. She ran to Chloé’s bedroom and threw open the door but the child was asleep in her bed as normal, her limbs spread out with a contentment that steadied Romy’s pulse. She kissed the warm forehead, inhaled the sweet scent of her sleep-soaked skin and left her in peace.
So what was it? This sense that something was not right. She walked on tiptoe to the door of Florence and Roland’s bedroom. It was shut, but she stood there for five minutes, breathing silently, listening for any sound. She heard none. Was her sister in there? Had she returned? Romy was tempted to turn the door handle and walk straight into their bedroom but she resisted the urge. Instead she fetched pen and paper from the drawer of the hall table and retreated to her guest room with it. She sat down at the dainty chair and table and started to write.
The Betrayal Page 26
