spun round, her nerves like needles and her heart in her
throat. Then she saw that it was Lucien, standing at the
other side of the clearing. She was about to shout at him for
making her jump when Estelle walked out from behind him.
Imagine, Claudine thought as she turned back into the
forest, shy little Estelle flirting with Lucien! But then she no
longer found it quite so amusing. Armand had had a lot of
bad luck where women were concerned, and Lucien had
plenty of women fawning after him without having to add
Estelle to their number.
She tried to concentrate on this as she walked on through
the trees; anything to keep her mind away from the terrible
misgivings she had about Francois’ visit to Vichy, and to
dispel the sense of unease that had started just after she left
Thomas’ hut that morning. But her hand on the gun was as
tight as the tension in her head. He was back, she knew it.
She could feel his eyes on her as surely as she could hear her own voice humming its tuneless melody.
She took the gun out of her pocket and quickened her
pace. She should go back, ask Lucien to walk her to the
chateau, but her feet kept moving her deeper into the forest.
Everything was so still, not even a breeze moved the
branches above her.
Suddenly she slipped in the mud, and as she righted herself a bird fluttered from a branch. She jerked the gun upwards and fired. Then, hearing footsteps behind her, she swung rounds both hands on the gun. Again she squeezed
the trigger, but there was nothing there. Something
slithered in the undergrowth, only feet away. She jerked the
pin towards it, slipped and fell. Another bird flew screeching
from a tree, and she fired, the din of it drowning the
beating drum in her head. Terrified, she pulled herself to
her feet, her eyes hunting the shadows. Then suddenly she
knew that someone was there, standing behind her. She
turned. She tried to fire, but her hands were shaking. She
looked up into his face and then her legs buckled under her.
‘Armand,’ she choked. ‘Oh, Armand!’
‘Were you expecting someone else?’ he said, putting a
hand under her arm to help her up and apparently quite
unruffled by the fact that she had almost shot him.
‘He’s back!’ she sobbed. ‘Armand, he’s here. I know it. I
can feel it.’ She looked up into his face, and suddenly her
eyes dilated. ‘Armand, why are you looking at me like that?’
she cried.
‘Ssh!’ he hissed.
Then she heard it too. Someone running. They spun
round as Lucien came racing through the trees.
‘What is it?’ he cried. ‘What’s happening? I heard a shot
…’ He looked at Claudine’s white face, then at the gun
hanging limply in her hand.
‘It’s all right,’ Armand told him. ‘No one’s been hurt.’
‘But what happened, for God’s sake!’
‘It’s Halunke,’ Claudine interrupted. ‘He’s back.’
Lucien’s eyes shot to Armand, and Claudine turned to
look at him too. Then she moved her gaze to Lucien, and in
that instant, as she stared up at their strikingly handsome
faces, the world around them started to spin. The gun
slipped from her fingers and there was a terrible cacophony
in her ears. She covered them with her hands, shaking her
head as the two faces seemed to whirl about her, faster and
faster, ballooning and shrivelling, writhing and twisting.
And through it all the long-forgotten words of the old
fairground gypsy returned to her.
She started to back away. She stumbled, picked herself; up, then turned and ran. She could hear them coming after her, shouting her name, their voices drowning the terrible
words in her head.’… He will be like a brother,’ the old
woman had said. ‘Or perhaps it will be his brother.’
- 30
The reason Francois had lied to Claudine about the time he
was expected at Vichy was because he had promised to
spend the night with Elise. She was now living in the upper
two storeys of a town house in Montbazon, overlooking the
river Indre, which he had taken for her and Beatrice soon
after returning to Lorvoire. The house was forty kilometres
from Lorvoire, but little more than a stone’s throw from the
Chateau d’Artigny.
When he arrived in the middle of the afternoon, letting
himself in with his own key, it was to find Beatrice sitting
alone knitting and looking every bit the middle-aged woman
she was. How deceptive appearances could be, he thought
wryly. Beatrice was as dangerous as her Secret Service
name suggested: the Alligator, they had called her.
‘It’s good to see you, monsieur.” She smiled warmly,
setting aside her needles. ‘We weren’t expecting you until a little later. Elise is taking a nap. I’ll fetch some coffee.’
‘How is she?’ Francois asked when she returned a few
minutes later. He took a sip of coffee, and could not hide his
distaste. ‘Acorns?’ he said.
‘All there is, I’m afraid,’ Beatrice laughed. ‘Revolting,
isn’t it?’ She took up her knitting again. ‘Elise is much the
same. There has been no real change.’
‘Has anyone called recently?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ Beatrice sighed.
Francois’ face darkened. He jerked himself to his feet
and walked to the window.
They had been in Montbazon only three weeks when
Beatrice first told him that Abwehr officers were paying
calls again on a regular basis. Francois had been livid, but
Beatrice had begged for tolerance. Debasing as it was, she
told him, Elise needed to do it. It was all part of the fantasy
that gave her a reason for living: the services she performed
for the Germans were to persuade them to enter into a plot
to kill Claudine. If it wasn’t so pathetic, Francois thought
bitterly, gazing down at the people milling about on the
bridge below, it would be laughable.
He had always known that Elise loved him, but now her
love placed on him an almost insupportable burden of guilt
How deeply now he regretted the way he had treated her in
the past, how he had used her to the point of abusing her.
Almost since he had first known her, he had been aware that
behind the sophistication she held like a barrier between
herself and the world, there was a child crying out to be
loved; but he had refused to acknowledge it. And now it was
too late. Nothing he did would ever make up for what she
had lost because of him. All he could do was reassure her
that he would never desert her - which he wouldn’t,
anymore than he would allow himself to give way completely
to his guilt. It was what Halunke wanted, that he should
destroy his own life with self-condemnation and blame for the deaths and mutilations of those he loved.
He looked up as the door opened and Elise walked in.
The instant she saw him, her face lit up, and she hurtled
across the room into his arms. ‘Kiss me, cheri,’ she said,
tilting her face back to look at him. ‘Kiss me and tell me how
you’ve missed me.’
He kissed her gently, then took her hands from around
his neck and held them between his own. Every time he saw
her, he felt the tragedy of what had happened to her more
deeply than ever. The doctors had told him that she might
never improve, but they had not prepared him for the fact
that she might get worse. Her once beautiful green eyes now
held the depraved look of a madwoman, and the effort it cost
her to control her poor, tormented mind showed in the deep
ridges forming round her mouth. Her hair, as ever, was
immaculately dressed, but the golden sheen had vanished and the grey strands were thickening. From her dress he could see that today she was the Marquise de Pompadour,
though she must have removed the wig before she lay down
to sleep.
‘How are you, cherie?’ he asked.
‘Troubled,’ she said, frowning.
my is that?’
‘Because you have not been to see me for so long. But I
tell myself that it is because you are looking for that man
Halunke. Have you found him?’
Francois’ eyes darted to Beatrice, but she too looked
surprised. It was the first time for months that Elise had
mentioned her attacker.
‘No, cherie, I haven’t,’ he said gently.
‘It is of no matter,’ she trilled. She picked up her skirts
and tried to glide across the room in a way her limp would
not quite permit. ‘You will sleep with me tonight?’ she said,
suddenly turning round.
Again Francois looked at Beatrice. ‘You know Francois is
staying, Elise,’ Beatrice said. ‘I have prepared the room next
to yours.’
Elise’s eyes flashed. ‘No! He is to sleep with me!’ she
declared. ‘You want to sleep with me, don’t you, Francois?’
But before he could answer, she said, ‘Beatrice, fetch monsieur some wine.’
Obediently Beatrice got up and left the room. ‘Take no
notice of her,’ Elise said, not even waiting for the door to
close. ‘She is a prude. But I have laid out my prettiest silk
nightgown and perfumed the sheets. You see, I knew you
would come. You said you would, and you never let me
down, do you Francois? You never lie to me. Not like the
others.’ She was moving towards him again, and his heart
sank as he saw the smile twitching the corners of her mouth.
Any moment now, regardless of Beatrice’s imminent
return, she would drop to her knees and beg him to let her
satisfy him. He often wondered which was worse, that or the
hideous embarrassment he felt when she behaved as though
he were a king.
But to his surprise and relief she stopped before she
reached him, and assuming a coquettish stance, her head
lowered so that she was looking at him from beneath her
lashes, her hands trailing along the back of the sofa, she said
sweetly, ‘When did you last make love to a woman,
Francois?’
The question threw him. She had never asked him that
before, even though he had never permitted her to ‘satisfy’
him, as she put it, and he was at a loss to know how he should
answer.
‘When?’ she prompted.
‘Does it matter?’
She nodded.
‘Why?’ He was watching her closely, beginning to suspect
that there was more to this than he had realized.
‘Because I want to know.’
They eyed one another for a long moment until, to his
profound relief, she seemed to lose interest and turned
away. But then she looked at him again, and he realized that
it wasn’t over yet. Her eyes were narrowed, her lips drawn in
a tight, bitter smile. Like a striking snake, she rasped,
‘You’ve been making love to her, haven’t you?’
Francois was dumbfounded. There weren’t many situations
he couldn’t handle, but this was beyond him.
‘You’ve been making love to her, haven’t you!’ she
screamed, advancing towards him. ‘Admit it! You’ve taken
her to your bed. You’ve given her everything that belongs to
me!’
She stopped an arm’s length away from him, and her eyes
blazed into his. ‘Say something!’ she yelled, and suddenly
she sprang at him, her nails brandished like the claws of a
wild-cat, and her teeth bared. ‘Answer me!’ she screeched.
‘Answer me, you bastard!’
He caught her hands, but only after she had scratched his
face. ‘Elise, calm down!’ he barked, trying to take her by the
shoulders. But with tremendous strength she threw herself
at him again, hitting, kicking, scratching and biting. ‘I’m
going to kill her!’ she spat. ‘I’ll get her out of your life. She
can’t have you! You’re mine! It’s me you love, not her. You
despise her!’
He grabbed her arms and twisted them behind her back.
The door opened and Beatrice came running in.
‘They’re going to kill her for me!’ Elise screamed. ‘Tell
him, Beatrice! Tell him they’re going to annihilate The
Bitch!’
Beatrice rushed across the room as Elise sank to the floor.
Francois let her go, but as she rolled over she struck out with
her feet, kicking Beatrice hard in the stomach. Winded,
Beatrice fell back, and Elise screeched with demonic
laughter. ‘They’ll get her, Francois!’ she cried. ‘They’ve
promised me. They’re going to arrest her, and torture her,
and then they’re going to kill her. They’re going to do it
tomorrow, Francois.’
Suddenly her eyes rolled back in their sockets, her back
arched and her whole body started to convulse. Immediately
Francois dropped to his knees, taking her in his arms, but
Beatrice pushed him away.
‘Leave her to me,’ she said. But even as she spoke Elise’s
body went limp as unconsciousness overtook her.
It had happened in a matter of minutes, but it was more than half an hour before Beatrice came back into the room.
Francois was standing in front of the mantlepiece, staring
down at the dying fire.
‘That’s the first fit she’s had,’ Beatrice said pouring them born a thimbleful of precious cognac. ‘But the doctor warned me it might happen if she ever became seriously
overwrought.’ She passed him a glass and went to sit in the
window-seat. She could see how shaken he still was. ‘I’m