Never Leave Me

by Margaret Pemberton

  His hands slid up and under her sweater, cupping the delicious weight of her breasts. She drew in a deep, ragged breath, her pupils dilating.

  ‘Will you free them?’ she panted as his thumbs brushed the pink tips of her nipples and her body screamed in agony of pain and ecstasy. His eyes were dark with passion.

  ‘No,’ he said, and lowered his head to hers, certain of his sexual domination over her.

  It was over. Finished. She tilted her head back and, her heart breaking, spat full in his face. ‘Murderer!’ she hissed, twisting away from him, running for the door, ‘May you rot in hell!’

  ‘Jesus God!’ His face was sheet-white. He sprang after her with terrifying speed and she slammed the door on him, racing past the startled sentry, sobbing for breath, knowing that if he caught her he was quite capable of raping or killing her.

  He seized hold of the door handle and then smashed his other fist into the wood above it. He had lost her. From the moment his troops had burst open Valmy’s doors and thrust the Frenchmen at his feet, he had known that he had lost her. To pursue her was futile. He spun on his heel, marching back towards the table, slamming his fist into the palm of his hand, time and time again as he damned Gilles and Caldron and fought for control over his rage and frustration.

  He halted abruptly, his blood running cold. Paul Gilles and André Caldron. He had wanted to question them for the same reason the Gestapo wanted to question them. To gain every last scrap of information about the Resistance network in and around Sainte-Marie-des-Ponts. Even if they did not talk when he interrogated them, they would talk once they reached Caen. Only the exceptionally brave, or exceptionally stupid, remained silent. They would give information and they would give names. In that moment all his suspicions of Lisette’s bicycle rides and Elise’s presence in the chateau crystallised into certainty. He knew, without a shadow of doubt, that those names would include Elise Duras and Lisette de Valmy.

  He blasphemed viciously. Headquarters already knew of the men’s arrest. There was no pretext on which he could release them. Yet to send them to Gestapo headquarters at Caen would be to deliver Lisette herself into the hands of the SS. The thought made him go cold with terror. He had to act and act quickly. Gilles and Caldron could not be allowed to reach Caen alive. The danger to Lisette was too great.

  He strode towards the telephone, intending to order the immediate formation of a firing squad, and then paused. To execute them out of hand when Gestapo headquarters had specifically requested they be sent there for questioning, would be crass stupidity. Far fewer suspicions would be aroused if they were shot whilst trying to escape.

  His knuckles whitened. What he was going to do would sever himself from Lisette irrevocably. Her fury now was not for him, but for the action he had taken. Once blood had been spilt, it would not be fury that filled her heart, but cold, unyielding hatred. Yet it had to be done. For her sake, it had to be done.

  He moved quickly, taking a small bunch of keys from his pocket and crossing to the nearest window. A steel-mesh security grille prevented entry or exit. It was hinged to the window frame on one side, locked on the other so that it could be opened in case of fire. Swiftly he unlocked it top and bottom. The stained-glass window behind it opened outwards, the window-sill a mere three feet from the ground.

  There were no carefully tended rose gardens on this side of the chateau. No stables or courtyards with loitering soldiers. The land shelved, bleak and bare, towards the cliffs and he saw that low clouds were scudding in, suffocating the sunlight and shrouding the land in mist. His eyes narrowed. Only a fool would imagine that escape lay that way, but the slim chance would surely be preferable to Gilles and Caldron than the certainty of what awaited them in Caen.

  Grim-faced, he pushed the unlocked grille gently against the window pane and crossed to the telephone. ‘Have the schoolmaster sent in to me,’ he ordered curtly.

  He wondered how Gilles would stand up to questioning. He was a thin, ineffectual-looking creature, but they were often the ones who showed the most resilience. His lips tightened. He hoped to God that Gilles broke down and told him about Lisette’s involvement. If he did so, it would make what he had to do so much easier. The last thing he wanted to have for Paul Gilles was respect.

  There was a sharp knock at the door. He paused for a brief second before calling out, ‘Entreten.’ He knew that if he were in Gilles’position he would suffer the worst that the sadists in Caen could devise and not breathe a word that would bring harm to her. But then he loved her. Her life meant more to him than his own. And because of Gilles and Caldron, she wished him in hell.

  He swore beneath his breath and then the door opened and Paul Gilles and his escort entered the room. Gilles’broken spectacles and bloodied face made him a pathetic sight, but his eyes burned defiantly.

  ‘Bastard!’ he shouted as, his hands still tied behind his back, he was yanked unceremoniously towards a chair.

  Dieter asked the escort to leave the room and regarded the schoolmaster curiously. There had been a time when he had wondered jealously if Lisette had been emotionally involved with him, but now he saw that it was impossible. In his eyes, the unprepossessing Frenchman had nothing whatsoever to offer a woman. Unhurriedly he flicked open a packet of cigarettes. He knew, before he started, that he was going to learn very little from the man before him. There wasn’t the time to wear him down, either mentally or physically. But information was no longer the purpose of the exercise. The purpose was to see to it that he never reached headquarters in Caen. That the name Lisette de Valmy was not screamed out under torture to the SS.

  ‘Who, in Sainte-Marie-des-Ponts, takes messages for you?’ he asked. It was a voice that Lisette would not have recognised. A voice hard with menace.

  Paul looked at him with loathing. The questioning was civilised enough now, but he knew very well to what depths it would descend. His thin-boned face hardened.

  ‘You’re wasting your time. You’ll get nothing out of me. Not now. Not ever.’

  Dieter, knowing the interrogation methods of Caen, regarded him pityingly. ‘Don’t be a fool. Tell me what want to know.’

  Paul spat on the floor derisively. Dieter glanced at his watch. The airman would be nearly at Caen by now. Very soon the telephone would ring and there would be a demand to know where the two captured Frenchmen were.

  ‘Don’t be so confident that you will not talk, Gilles. Braver, better men than you have done so,’ he said, and slowly and explicitly he began to tell Paul Gilles exactly what he could expect in the prison cells in Caen.

  He could see fear spark in the Frenchman’s eyes, but to each and every question he only repeated, ‘You’re wasting your time. I won’t talk. Not ever.’

  ‘Lisette de Valmy takes messages for you, doesn’t she?’ Dieter said suddenly.

  The pause before Gilles answered was infinitesimal but Dieter was thunderingly aware of it and knew that the SS at Caen would have been aware of it too. For all his brave words, Paul Gilles would break under questioning. If the SS got hold of him they would, with terrifying rapidity, get hold of Lisette too.

  The telephone rang shrilly. He knew, even before he answered, who it would be. ‘Good morning, Major Meyer,’ the commandant at Caen said smoothly. ‘We appear to be two prisoners short.’

  ‘Gilles and Caldron are here at Valmy.’

  ‘The questioning of suspected Resistance members is a task that is to be carried out here, Major. Is that understood?’

  ‘Yes, Commandant,’ Dieter said, his voice cold with dislike.

  ‘Then I will expect them here within the hour, Major.’

  The line clicked and was dead. Dieter waited a second and then dialled his lieutenant’s number. ‘Send Caldron in,’ he rasped. He turned once more to Gilles. ‘Caldron may be more willing than yourself to talk of Mademoiselle de Valmy’s involvement with the Resistance. Especially if in doing so he thinks he will save his own skin.’

  The fear in Paul Gilles’ eyes de
epened and Dieter knew with sudden certainty that it would be Caldron, not Gilles, who would break first under questioning. Caldron who must, on no account, reach Caen.

  When the middle-aged café proprietor was thrust into the room and Paul Gilles once again seized by the guards, Dieter said easily, ‘Please leave him, Lieutenant Halder.’

  Halder looked at him oddly, but complied, and Paul Gilles was abruptly released.

  ‘Danke schon,’ Dieter said, and as the door closed behind the escort, he turned to the apprehensive André Caldron and said tersely in his immaculate French, ‘Tell me the extent of Lisette de Valmy’s involvement with the Resistance.’

  André stared at him stupidly. He had expected to be questioned about the airman. About addresses of other safe houses along the escape chain. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said blusteringly.

  ‘I think you do,’ Dieter said softly, his eyes narrowing. ‘And you’re going to tell me. That is, you will tell me if you don’t want to go to Caen.’

  There was sweat on Andrdé’s thick upper lip and Dieter knew that he was going to talk. He felt suddenly sick. He didn’t want to hear the words confirming his suspicions. He didn’t want to know. His hands shook slightly as he lit himself another cigarette. He had to know. For her own sake, if she was involved, he had to know how deeply.

  He walked towards Caldron until the perspiring Frenchman was only inches away from him. ‘If you want to go free,’ he said, the menace in his voice naked, ‘tell me about Lisette de Valmy.’

  Within five minutes the words came spilling from the big, bull-necked Frenchman as easily as from a child. Paul Gilles, white-faced, shouted obscenities at his compatriot until he was hoarse. Lieutenant Halder hearing the disturbance, knocked and enquired whether his assistance was needed and was sent brusquely away. The last thing Dieter wanted was for anyone else to hear Lisette’s name on Caldron’s lips.

  ‘I’ve told you everything I know about her,’ the Frenchman panted at last, his face shiny with sweat. ‘Can I go now?’

  Dieter wanted to vomit. Without having a hair of his head harmed, the creature in front of him had told him enough for him to have had Lisette immediately arrested. The man’s cowardice was beyond belief.

  ‘Bastard!’ Paul Gilles was screaming at Caldron, his face contorted with hatred. ‘You miserable, yellow-bellied BASTARD!’

  ‘Tell me about Elise.’

  Caldron looked blank. Dieter’s eyes flickered towards Paul Gilles. His shouted obscenities had ceased. He looked as though he had stopped breathing. Dieter didn’t need to see or hear any more. Caldron knew nothing of Elise, but Gilles did. And he no longer had any time in which to question Paul Gilles.

  Slowly and deliberately he walked towards the window. He didn’t like what he was going to do. There was a meanness to it, a deceit, which was not in his character. A shot in the back was no way for a man to die. Thin white lines etched his nose and mouth as he swung the window open and tossed his cigarette stub far out over the grass. He was doing it because he had no choice. Not if he wanted to safeguard Lisette. And to safeguard Lisette he would have razed Sainte-Marie-des-Ponts to ashes.

  He spun on his heels, walking back to them, the window open behind him, the breeze gently lifting the edges of the heavy damask curtains.

  ‘Can I go now? I’ve told you all I know,’ Caldron whimpered.

  ‘No,’ Dieter said icily, ‘you leave for Caen in ten minutes.’

  Caldron’s face was ashen. ‘You promised!’ he gibbered. ‘You gave your word!’

  Dieter ignored him. He wasn’t worth wasting breath on. He looked across at Paul Gilles and felt pity for him. He didn’t deserve to die with such a coward. ‘Caldron’s shame is his alone,’ he said brusquely, ‘not yours.’ Then he turned on his heel and left the room, Caldron’s frenzied protests still ringing in his ears.

  The sentry looked at him disconcertedly but knew better than to say anything. If Major Meyer had left two Frenchmen in a room with highly sensitive documents, it was because he had a good reason for doing so.

  Dieter flicked open a packet of cigarettes. One minute passed, and then two, and still no sound had come from behind the closed doors. His lighter spurted into flame and then there came the barely audible sound of a booted foot scraping the windowsill and the soft thud as a body dropped to earth.

  ‘When you shoot, shoot to kill,’ he rasped to the sentry, whipping the door open, springing across the room to the open window.

  Paul Gilles was already thirty yards away, head down, and running dementedly. André Caldron lumbered behind him, weaving unsteadily, his balance hampered by his bound wrists.

  Dieter lifted his firing arm and took careful aim. He felt no compunction at all in shooting down the man who had so cravenly implicated Lisette in the hope of saving his own skin. With cool deliberation he fired and André Caldron fell to the earth, his skull shattered. He did not know whether it was his shot or the sentry’s that brought the still running figure of Paul Gilles down to the ground in a bloodied heap. Nor did he want to know. It was enough that it was done. Over. Lisette’s name would not now be added to the list of French men and women suspected of being members of the Resistance. Slowly he lowered his firing arm, the pistol, heavy in his hand and turned. Halder and a squad of men were running across the hall and into the room. Tersely he ordered them to retrieve the bodies and then he saw the gleam of her hair as she pushed uncaringly between the soldiers, fighting her way into the room.

  She broke free of the last of them and stood before him, her eyes wide with horror, her slender body trembling. ‘You’ve killed them!’ she gasped, and a dreadful shudder ran through her, convulsing her. ‘Oh, my God! You’ve killed them!’

  He looked into the ashen perfection of her face and knew that he could say nothing. He could never tell her why he had shot them. The burden was not hers to carry. ‘Take her away,’ he said quietly, his voice raw with weariness.

  She arched her spine as she was seized, her hair tumbling around her shoulders, her eyes anguished.

  ‘Murderer!’ she hissed, the cry sounding as if it had been torn from her heart, and then louder, in potent, raging hate. ‘Murderer! Murderer! MURDERER!’

  Chapter Six

  Elise came to her room an hour later. ‘He suspects,’ she said tightly. ‘He’s ordered me to leave. Now. Immediately.’

  ‘He can’t suspect you! If he suspected you, he would have had you arrested and shot you as he shot Paul and André!’

  ‘He suspects,’ Elise repeated, shocked by Lisette’s grief-ravaged face. She remembered the rumours she had heard concerning Lisette’s relationship with Paul Gilles and for the first time wondered if they were true. ‘He won’t allow anyone else into Valmy. Not unless it is purposely to trap them. Goodbye, Lisette. I’ve no more time. I have to go.’

  Lisette stepped swiftly towards her. ‘Where is the camera,’ she asked urgently.

  Elise looked gaunt. ‘In my bag!’

  Lisette’s finely etched nostrils flared. ‘You’ll be searched,’ she said tightly. ‘Give it to me. Let me hide it.’

  ‘It’s too dangerous,’ Elise protested, but there was indecision in her eyes.

  ‘Give it to me!’ Lisette insisted with passion. Her cool facade was gone. She was a creature of fire and steel and implacable will and Elise bent down to her travelling bag unhesitatingly. ‘It’s inside there,’ she said, pulling out a tin of dried milk.

  ‘Is it loaded with film?’

  Elise’s eyes widened. ‘Yes, but…’

  ‘Who do I pass it on to?’

  ‘You can’t do it, Lisette,’ Elise said aghast. ‘You won’t be able to get into the room. It’s an impossible task.’

  ‘I can try,’ Lisette said fiercely. ‘And if I succeed, I need to know who to give the film to.’

  There came the sound of booted feet tramping into the hall and querying voices. Elise backed away towards the door. ‘I must go. They’re looking for me.’

&n
bsp; ‘Who do I give the film to?’

  Elise paused for a fraction of a second and then said in a rush, ‘Jean-Jacques, the Bar Candide, Bayeaux. Goodbye, Lisette, and good luck.’

  She ran from the room, hurrying along the corridor and down the stairs. A few seconds later there was a slam of a door and then silence.

  Lisette sat down on the bed and opened the tin, pressing her fingers down amongst the soft granules until they came up against something hard and solid. Her eyes burned. She would do what Elise could no longer do. She would ensure that the Allies knew exactly what Dieter Meyer’s plans for them were. And she would render them worthless. Paul and André’s deaths would not go unavenged. Not even if it cost her her own life.

  Five days later the body of André Caldron was buried in the churchyard of Sainte-Marie-des-Ponts. Dieter had abruptly informed the Comte that no one from Valmy would be allowed to attend the service. It wasn’t Lisette or her father that flagrantly disobeyed him, but the Comtesse.

  ‘But you hardly knew Caldron,’ Henri protested, anxiety lining his face.

  ‘It’s a matter of principle,’ Heloise de Valmy said quietly, setting a small black pillbox hat on the smooth upsweep of her chignon. ‘He died at Valmy. I have a duty to attend his funeral and no one, certainly not Major Meyer, is going to prevent me.’

  ‘My dear, I know how you feel, believe me, I do. But Meyer is not a man it is wise to cross.’

  Heloise de Valmy adjusted the wisp of veiling across her eyes. She looked as though she were about to dine at the Ritz, not attend the funeral of Sainte-Marie’s café proprietor. Her long, slim legs were encased in black silk stockings. She had hidden the stockings away three years ago, intending to wear them on the day of liberation. André Caldron and Paul Gilles’death, in the grounds of her home, demanded that they be worn now. Her black suit was by Balmain, bought on her last shopping trip to Paris before the outbreak of war.