with him. ‘It is obvious that my wife is less than overwhelmed
by my return,’ he said, in a voice heavy with
sarcasm. ‘Never mind. If you’ll excuse me, Fritz, I’ll go and
see my son.’ And putting an arm round each of their
shoulders, he drew his mother and his sister up the stairs
with him to the nursery.
Blomberg, Claudine noticed, seemed nervous, and could
not meet her eyes. Had she known it, he was remembering the words of one of his fellow-officers. ‘I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes, Fritz, if de Lorvoire ever found out how
you’ve been humiliating his wife.’ The problem was,
knowing that the fun would have to stop now made
Blomberg want it all the more. He watched Claudine walk
away, tossing her head at him as she went, and swore to
himself that he would have the bitch yet.
An hour later, Francois came down from the nursery
alone and went outside. Soon afterwards Corinne and
Louis came into the library, and Corinne whispered to
Claudine that Francois wanted to see her in half an hour.
‘He said, take one of the horses, as if you were going for a
normal afternoon ride, and he’ll meet you by the old
fishermen’s huts on the river bank.’
Claudine kissed Louis, much to his disgust, and went
upstairs to change. Within fifteen minutes she was galloping
down over the meadow towards the lower part of the forest,
then ploughing through the trees on her way to the river.
Francois was already there by the time she arrived. He
held out his arms to catch her as she cantered up to him, and
she all but threw herself into them.
‘Why are we meeting here?’ she asked, when he had
kissed her. ‘Why not in our rooms?’
‘Because they might be bugged and we have to talk.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘A quarter to five,’ he said, ‘that gives, us a few hours before curfew.’
‘Do you think they were bugged the other night?’ she
said, aghast.
‘I’ve no idea, but I doubt it. They weren’t expecting me
back until now. God, you’re beautiful,’ he murmured,
running a hand over her hair. ‘Come along, we’ll go into old
Thomas’ hut.’
He led her to one of the huts, set back in the trees. Inside,
as well as the tangle of fishing rods, nets and baskets, there
were two dilapidated armchairs and a damp mattress rolled
up in one corner.
‘No prizes for guessing where Thomas comes for a bit of
peace and quiet,’ Francois grinned, unrolling the mattress
and laying his coat over it.
‘Well?’ Claudine said, sitting cross-legged in front of
him. ‘Did you find Erich?’
He sat down too, and rested his elbows on his knees.
‘Erich is dead,’ he said flatly. Then he reached into his
pocket and handed her a letter. ‘This was waiting for me at
the Bois de Boulogne.’
She opened it, read the one word erich, and felt a cold
finger of dread start to run down her spine. ‘Oh God,
Francois,’ she whispered. ‘I’m so sorry. He was such a good
friend to you. Do you know when it happened?’
‘The concierge at his apartment couldn’t remember the date,’
he said bitterly. ‘All she could remember was that it was before
Christmas. She doesn’t even know where he was buried.’
Claudine sighed, and taking his hand she gave it a
comforting squeeze. ‘You know what it means, don’t you?’
he growled.
She nodded. ‘That he had found out who Halunke was.’
‘Yes. But he didn’t tell anyone, so we’re still none the
wiser. Now listen, has Lucien returned to England yet?’
‘I think so.’
‘Damn!’
‘Why?’
‘When he comes back, I want to see him. I want him to
arrange for you to …’
‘No! I know what you’re going to say, but I’m not going,
Francois. We’re in this together now, and I’m not leaving
you. We’ll find out who Halunke is, and we’ll find out
together. That’s my final word on it.’
‘Well, it’s not mine. You’ll do as I say, damn you, and get
the hell out of here. I don’t want you messing around with
this. Two people have already died …’
‘Ssh!’ she said, cutting him off. Making as little noise as
possible, she got up and went to peer out of the broken
window.
‘What is it?’
‘Nothing. It must have been the horse.’ She sat down
again. ‘Now, you listen to me. I’m coordinating a network
of Resistants here in this area. They, and Lucien, are
depending on me, and I’m not going to let them down. Also,
I’ve been cheated of too much of my married life already by
this vendetta, and I won’t put up with losing any more. I love
you, Francois, I want to be with you, and I’m going to be.
You needed Erich before, which goes to show you couldn’t
manage on your own. Well, now you’ve got me. We have to
work this thing out together. We’d better begin with what
you know, what Erich last told you and …’
‘Claudine, shut up and for God’s sake kiss me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’d like to know that you’ll do a least one thing I
tell you to.’
‘I’ll kiss you later,’ she said.
He gave a shout of laughter, and just for a moment she
was almost lightheaded with joy. But as quickly as it had
come, the moment passed, and suddenly they were both
quiet again, staring down at the letter with Erich’s name on
it, which was still lying between them.
‘We’d better begin with why I’m here,’ Francois said.
‘Why the Abwehr have sent me back to Lorvoire. You have
to know because it’s going to affect you in a way you’re not
going to like very much. They know there’s a Resistance
group in the area with the code name Jupiter. No, don’t say
anything until I’ve finished. They also know that there are
several local escape-lines taking British pilots to safety, and
that one of them runs through Touraine. The Abwehr want
me not only to destroy the Touraine escape route but to
arrest as many as I can of those involved. The same goes for
the Jupiter reseau.’
‘Oh God,’ she murmured. ‘You do know what you’re
saying, don’t you?’
‘I’m afraid I do. But I don’t want you to tell me anything. I
don’t want to know who’s involved. You’re to tell me
nothing, do you understand? And I can’t promise that I’ll
give you information, either.’
‘But you have to!’ she protested.
‘No! If you act on information I give you, the Abwehr will
know instantly where it has come from. That doesn’t only
put me in danger, it puts Halunke back in action. You won’t
have forgotten what they’re doing to keep me loyal. If I make
one slip, then God knows what will happen to you.’
He turned away as an image of Elise came to his mind. He
had called on her while he was in Paris, and she had been so
pathetically grateful to see him that he had ended up staying
the night. Beatrice had told him what was happening with
the Abwehr officers, and he had known such a murderous
rage that it was some time before he had himself back under
control. He had decided then that he didn’t want her in
Paris any longer, where they could abuse her like that, so he
had made arrangements to move her out some time in the
next few weeks.
‘So remember,’ he said to Claudine, ‘and keep this in
your mind the whole time: I am not only a collaborator, I am
the very worst kind of collaborator. I shall be wearing a
German uniform, and I shall be turning my own countrymen
over to the Gestapo.’
Her face was ashen. ‘You won’t!’ she breathed. ‘You can’t
do it! Francois …’
‘Of course I won’t be doing it!’ he cried. ‘But you have to
believe that I am. Everyone must believe it, even the
Abwehr. Though God alone knows how I’m going to
convince them.’
‘What about Lucien?’ she said. ‘Don’t you think we
should take him into our confidence? In fact,’ she added, ‘I
think we have to. Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this, but
the Resistance already has weapons. Not many, but there
could come a time when they start using them …’
‘The FTP are already using weapons,’ Francois butted
in.
‘The Communist Resistants? There you are, then. And
you’ll be one of the first targets for the Resistance in this
area. We - they - hate collaborators almost more than
Nazis. Lucien might be able to tip you off if someone is
planning to kill you.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ he said. ‘In the meantime, there’s
Halunke.’
‘The last time we spoke about this,’ she said, ‘you thought
Erich was drawing the wrong conclusions. But now he’s
been killed … Well, perhaps he was on the right track.’
Francois gazed into her vibrant blue eyes, then looked
down at the torn and faded patterns of the mattress.
‘Francois,’ Claudine said quietly, ‘is Halunke’s identity
tied up with what happened to Hortense de Bourchain?’
His head came up, and she could see that he was both
annoyed and surprised. ‘What makes you say that?’ he
asked.
‘I don’t know. It was just a feeling I had. Has it got!
something to do with her? Is that the line Erich was!
pursuing?’
Francois nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, it was.’
‘Then don’t you think it’s time, chert, to tell me what
happened?’
He stood up and walked over to the door. For a moment
she thought he was going outside, but then he turned back to look at her. ‘I’ll tell you,’ he said, ‘but I still don’t think that’s where the answer lies. I hadn’t seen Erich for some
time before he died, he might have discovered something
else, nothing to do with Hortense at all.’
‘But we don’t know that. All we have to go on is what he
said to you when he came to the chateau. And we have to start somewhere, so it had better be there.’
‘AH right,’ he sighed. He went to sit in one of the chairs.
Running a hand over his jaw and fixing his eyes on the fishing paraphernalia at his feet, he began. ‘Hortense was in love with me,’ he said. ‘She wanted me to marry her, she even went as far as getting her father to speak to mine. My father was in favour of the match; it was eminently suitable,; and as you know, he wanted grandchildren. I was fond of
Hortense, I suppose I did love her in a way. But it was happening at the time your father was introducing me to the Secret Service. I told her to wait, that maybe in a year or two I would be ready to marry her.’
He sighed. ‘Hortense flew into a royal rage at that and told me I was a philanderer. She said we were practically!
engaged already, and I couldn’t treat her like that. Never!
the less, I didn’t see her for three or four weeks. Then she
came to the house in Paris one night when she knew I’d be
there alone and … She was a very attractive woman, she!
wanted me to make love to her, so I did. She said I had to marry her then, that I was honour-bound to do so. It was my turn to fly into a temper and I ordered her out of the house,
She came back the following day, begging forgiveness and promising she would wait for as long as I wanted, provided I
did marry her in the end. We continued to see one another,
though we didn’t make love again. It wasn’t that I didn’t
want to, it was just that I knew she was hoping to become
pregnant so that then I’d be forced to marry her. I didn’t
want to be trapped like that. The truth was, though I did love
her in a way, I didn’t want to be married at all.
‘Over the next year or so, things went from bad to worse. I
tried to stop seeing her, but wherever I went she was there. Then one night, when we were all staying at Lorvoire, she asked me to go outside with her, into one of the caves. She
told me then that she’d been sleeping with Lucien and that
Lucien was in love with her. I made the great mistake of
laughing. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe her, it was simply
that her motives were so transparent. And sure enough, she
told me that she would continue sleeping with Lucien if I
didn’t promise to marry her within the month. I told her she
could sleep with Lucien as often as she liked, that as far as I
was concerned she could sleep with any number of men,
and I wished her well.’
Francois paused, and shifted uncomfortably in the chair.
‘It was then that she pulled out a knife. A dagger. God only
knows where she got it, but she had it. She said that if I
didn’t promise, she would kill herself. I tried to get the knife
from her, but she just went crazy. In the struggle she
managed to slash my face, and it was then, in the moment that I let go of her, that she lifted the knife to plunge it into her chest. Again I managed to get hold of it, but as I
wrenched it away from her my hand jerked downwards, she
pushed herself against me, and the next thing I knew I had
stabbed her. I didn’t even give myself a moment for
disbelief, I simply picked her up and ran with her to the car.
All I could think of was getting her to a doctor. As I drove off
Hooked in the mirror and saw my father talking to Armand.
I had no idea how much either of them had seen, but it
hardly mattered at the time. I had to get Hortense to a
doctor.
‘It was her parents who wanted the whole matter hushed
up. They knew what had been going on, and when my father