Jackdaws (15 page)

"Yes," she said.
"Quite alone."

She was telling the truth. He was
sure. A woman such as this could not lie without betraying herself with her
eyes.

He turned and beckoned Stéphanie.
"My colleague will join us." He was not going to need Weber's men.
"I have some questions to ask you."

"Questions? About what?"

"May I come in?"

"Very well."

The front parlor was furnished with
dark wood, highly polished. There was a piano under a dust cover and an
engraving of Reims cathedral on the wall. The mantelpiece bore a selection of
ornaments: a spun-glass swan, a china flower girl, a transparent globe
containing a model of the palace at Versailles, and three wooden camels.

Dieter sat on a plush upholstered
couch. Stéphanie sat beside him, and Mademoiselle Lemas took an upright chair
opposite. She was plump, Dieter observed. Not many French people were plump
after four years of occupation. Food was her vice.

On a low table was a cigarette box
and a heavy lighter. Dieter flipped the lid and saw that the box was full.
"Please feel free to smoke," he said.

She looked mildly offended: women of
her generation did not use tobacco. "I don't smoke."

"Then who are these for?"

She touched her chin, a sign of dishonesty.
"Visitors."

"And what kind of visitors do
you get?"

"Friends… neighbors…" She
looked uncomfortable.

"And British spies."

"That is absurd."

Dieter gave her his most charming
smile. "You are obviously a respectable lady who has become mixed up in
criminal activities from misguided motives," he said in a tone of friendly
candor. "I'm not going to toy with you, and I hope you will not be so
foolish as to lie to me."

"I shall tell you
nothing," she said.

Dieter feigned disappointment, but
he was pleased to be making such rapid progress. She had already abandoned the
pretense that she did not know what he was talking about. That was as good as a
confession. "I'm going to ask you some questions," he said. "If
you don't answer them, I shall ask you again at Gestapo headquarters."

She gave him a defiant look.

He said. "Where do you meet the
British agents?"

She said nothing.

"How do they recognize
you?"

Her eyes met his in a steady gaze.
She was no longer flustered, but resigned. A brave woman, he thought. She would
be a challenge.

"What is the password?"

She did not answer.

"Who do you pass the agents on
to? How do you contact the Resistance? Who is in charge of it?"

Silence.

Dieter stood up. "Come with me,
please."

"Very well," she said
staunchly. "Perhaps you will permit me to put on my hat."

"Of course." He nodded to
Stéphanie. "Go with Mademoiselle, please. Make sure she does not use the
telephone or write anything down." He did not want her to leave any kind
of message.

He waited in the hall. When they
returned, Mademoiselle Lemas had taken off her apron and wore a light coat and
a cloche hat that had gone out of fashion long before the outbreak of war. She
carried a sturdy tan leather handbag. As the three of them were heading for the
front door, Mademoiselle Lemas said, "Oh! I forgot my key."

"You don't need it,"
Dieter said.

"The door locks itself,"
she said. "I need a key to get back in."

Dieter looked her in the eye.
"Don't you understand?" he said. "You've been sheltering British
terrorists in your house, you have been caught, and you are in the hands of the
Gestapo." He shook his head in an expression of sorrow that was not
entirely fake. "Whatever happens, Mademoiselle, you're never coming home
again."

She realized the full horror of what
was happening to her. Her face turned white, and she staggered. She steadied
herself by grabbing the edge of a kidney-shaped table. A Chinese vase
containing a spray of dried grasses wobbled dangerously but did not fall. Then
Mademoiselle Lemas recovered her poise. She straightened up and let go of the
table. She gave him that defiant look again, then walked out of her house with
her head held high.

Dieter asked Stéphanie to take the
front passenger seat, while he sat in the back of the car with the prisoner. As
Hans drove them to Sainte-Cécile, Dieter made polite conversation. "Were
you born in Reims, Mademoiselle?"

"Yes. My father was choirmaster
at the cathedral."

A religious background. This was
good news for the plan that was forming in Dieter's mind. "Is he
retired?"

"He died five years ago, after
a long illness."

"And your mother?"

"Died when I was quite
young."

"So, I imagine you nursed your
father through his illness?"

"For twenty years."

"Au." That explained why
she was single. She had spent her life caring for an invalid father. "And
he left you the house."

She nodded.

"Small reward, some might
think, for a life of dedicated service," Dieter said sympathetically.

She gave him a haughty look.
"One does not do such things for reward."

"Indeed not." He did not
mind the implied rebuke. It would help his plan if she could convince herself
that she was somehow Dieter's superior, morally and socially. "Do you have
brothers and sisters?"

"None."

Dieter saw the picture vividly. The
agents she sheltered, all young men and women, must have been like her
children. She had fed them, done their laundry, talked to them, and probably
kept an eye on the relationships between the sexes, making sure there was no
immorality, at least not under her roof.

And now she would die for it.

But first, he hoped, she would tell
him everything.

The Gestapo Citroën followed Dieter's
car to Sainte-Cécile. When they had parked in the grounds of the château,
Dieter spoke to Weber. "I'm going to take her upstairs and put her in an
office," he said.

"Why? There are cells in the
basement."

"You'll see."

Dieter led the prisoner up the
stairs to the Gestapo offices. Dieter looked into all the rooms and picked the
busiest, a combination typing pool and post room. It was occupied by young men
and women in smart shirts and ties. Leaving Mademoiselle Lemas in the corridor,
he closed the door and clapped his hands for attention. In a quiet voice he
said, "I'm going to bring a French woman in here. She is a prisoner, but I
want you all to be friendly and polite to her, is that understood? Treat her as
a guest. It's important that she feels respected."

He brought her in, sat her at a
table and, with a murmured apology, handcuffed her ankle to the table leg. He
left Stéphanie with her and took Hesse outside. "Go to the canteen and ask
them to prepare lunch on a tray. Soup, a main course, a little wine, a bottle
of mineral water, and plenty of coffee. Bring cutlery, glasses, a napkin. Make
it look nice."

The lieutenant grinned admiringly.
He had no idea what his boss was up to, but he felt sure it would be something
clever.

A few minutes later he returned with
a tray. Dieter took it from him and carried it into the office. He set it in
front of Mademoiselle Lemas. "Please," he said. "It's
lunchtime."

"I couldn't eat anything, thank
you."

"Perhaps just a little
soup." He poured wine into her glass.

She added water to the wine and
sipped it, then tried a mouthful of soup.

"How is it?"

"Very good," she admitted.

"French food is so refined. We
Germans cannot imitate it." Dieter talked nonsense to her, trying to relax
her, and she drank most of the soup. He poured her a glass of water.

Major Weber came in and stared
incredulously at the tray in front of the prisoner. Speaking German, he said,
"Are we now rewarding people for harboring terrorists?"

Dieter said, "Mademoiselle is a
lady. We must treat her correctly."

"God in heaven," Weber
said, and he turned on his heel.

She refused the main course but
drank all the coffee. Dieter was pleased. Everything was going according to
plan. When she had finished, he asked her all the questions again. "Where
do you meet the Allied agents? How do they recognize you? What is the
password?" She looked worried, but she still refused to answer.

He looked sadly at her. "I am
very sorry that you refuse to cooperate with me, after I have treated you
kindly."

She looked somewhat bewildered.
"I appreciate your kindness, but I cannot tell you anything."

Stéphanie, sitting beside Dieter,
also looked puzzled. He guessed that she was thinking: Did you really imagine
that a nice meal would be sufficient to make this woman talk?

"Very well," he said. He
stood up as if to go.

"And now, Monsieur," said
Mademoiselle Lemas. She looked embarrassed. "I must ask to… ah… visit the
ladies' powder room."

In a harsh voice, Dieter said,
"You want to go to the toilet?"

She reddened. "In a word,
yes."

"I'm sorry, Mademoiselle,"
Dieter said. "That will not be possible."

CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

THE LAST THING Monty had said to
Paul Chancellor, late on Monday night, had been, "If you only do one thing
in this war, make sure that telephone exchange is destroyed."

Paul had woken this morning with
those words echoing in his mind. It was a simple instruction. If he could
fulfill it, he would have helped win the war. If he failed, men would die—and
he might spend the rest of his life reflecting that he had helped lose the war.

He went to Baker Street early, but
Percy Thwaite was already there, sitting in his office, puffing his pipe and
staring at six boxes of files. He seemed a typical military duffer, with his
check jacket and toothbrush mustache. He looked at Paul with mild hostility.
"I don't know why Monty's put you in charge of this operation," he
said. "I don't mind that you're only a major, and I'm a colonel—that's all
stuff and nonsense. But you've never run a clandestine operation, whereas I've
been doing it for three years. Does it make sense to you?"

"Yes," Paul said briskly.
"When you want to make absolutely sure that a job gets done, you give it
to someone you trust. Monty trusts me."

"But not me."

"He doesn't know you."

"I see," Percy said
grumpily.

Paul needed Percy's cooperation, so
he decided to mollify him. Looking around the office, he saw a framed
photograph of a young man in lieutenant's uniform and an older woman in a big
hat. The boy could have been Percy thirty years ago. "Your son?" Paul
guessed.

Percy softened immediately.
"David's out in Cairo," he said. "We had some bad moments during
the desert war, especially after Rommel reached Tobruk, but now, of course,
he's well out of the line of fire, and I must say I'm glad."

The woman was dark-haired and
dark-eyed, with a strong face, handsome rather than pretty. "And Mrs.
Thwaite?"

"Rosa Mann. She became famous
as a suffragette, in the twenties, and she's always used her maiden name."

"Suffragette?"

"Campaigner for votes for
women."

Percy liked formidable women, Paul
concluded; that was why he was fond of Flick. "You know, you're right
about my shortcomings," he said candidly. "I have been at the sharp
end of clandestine operations, but this will be my first time as an organizer.
So I'll be very grateful for your help."

Percy nodded. "I begin to see
why you have a reputation for getting things done," he said with a hint of
a smile. "But if you'll hear a word of advice.."

"Please."

"Be guided by Flick. No one
else has spent as much time under cover and survived. Her knowledge and
experience are matchless. I may be in charge of her in theory, but what I do is
give her the support she needs. I would never try to tell her what to do."

Paul hesitated. He had been given
command by Monty, and he was not about to hand it over on anyone's advice.
"I'll bear that in mind," he said.

Percy seemed satisfied. He gestured
to the files. "Shall we get started?"

"What are these?"

"Records of people who were
considered by us as possible agents, then rejected for some reason."

Paul took off his jacket and rolled
back his cuffs.

They spent the morning going through
the files together. Some of the candidates had not even been interviewed;
others had been rejected after they had been seen; and many had failed some
part of the SOE training course-baffled by codes, hopeless with guns, or
frightened to the point of hysteria when asked to jump out of a plane with a
parachute. They were mostly in their early twenties, and they had only one
other thing in common: they all spoke a foreign language with native fluency.

There were a lot of files, but few suitable
candidates. By the time Percy and Paul had eliminated all the men, and the
women whose language was something other than French, they were left with only
three names.

Paul was disheartened. They had run
into a major obstacle when they had hardly begun. "Four is the minimum
number we need, even assuming that Flick recruits the woman she has gone to see
this morning."

"Diana Colefield."

"And none of these is either an
explosives expert or a telephone engineer!"

Percy was more optimistic.
"They weren't when SOE interviewed them, but they might be now. Women have
learned to do all sorts of things."

"Well, let's find out."

It took a while to track the three
down. A further disappointment was that one was dead. The other two were in
London. Ruby Romain, unfortunately, was in His Majesty's Prison for Women at
Holloway, three miles north of Baker Street, awaiting trial for murder. And
Maude Valentine, whose file said simply "psychologically unsuitable,"
was a driver with the FANYs.