Voices on the Wind (32 page)

They paid for their drinks and left. That afternoon, when the patrons of the hotel were drifting down to take tea on the terrace, and coming up from the tennis court, the receptionist was faced with a young man of hostile attitude who demanded to see the manager. Before the receptionist could say he wasn't available, the ID of the SEDEC was thrust in front of him. The French Secret Service was not impressed by wealth or privilege; the manager was found and came to the foyer in a hurry. After ten minutes spent in his private office, he escorted the young man upstairs and personally stood by while he went into Katharine Alfurd's room and checked her belongings. They came out together and down the handsome spiral stair, back into the private office at the rear. ‘When the lady comes back,' the manager was told, ‘you will immediately ring this number.' He was left with the card in his hand, and the slam of his own door echoing after his visitor.

They had left the villa by the same back stairs that morning. Kate had glimpsed a magnificent garden with lawns and flower beds through the trees as they sped down the back drive and out on the road to Marseilles. They returned and drove through the front gate. The façade was beautiful. White stucco, delicate wrought iron, a balustrade spilled over by geraniums, and a king palm standing at a majestic height in the centre of the gravelled sweep. A manservant opened the front door and they were in a cool, tall marble hall.

A massive flower arrangement of hothouse lilies and rare orchids stood on a scagliola centre table. ‘In here, please.' The servant opened a door and stood aside for them. Roulier led the way. It was a soft green room, full of flowers, a refuge from the heat outside. Beautiful early French furniture, a pair of Regency lacquer commodes that belonged in a museum; over the fireplace a famous Renoir, discreetly lit.

Kate stood and looked round her. The safe house was safe no longer. She could feel the presence even before she saw the woman. She got up from a deep chair and came towards them. She was small and greyhound thin, with a face so perfectly made up that it was like a beautiful mask. A mask that showed no trace of age but wasn't young. Large brown eyes with a gentle expression in them, and a painted red mouth with tight lips that opened slowly in a smile. She moved with grace, like an actress crossing a stage, and a diamond flashed blue fire from the folds of her silk dress.

‘Madame Vigier,' Paul Roulier said formally, ‘may I present Madame Alfurd.'

‘It is a pleasure to meet you.' The voice was light and sweet. ‘I am so sorry we didn't meet last night, but I was dining with friends. I hope you were comfortable.'

‘Very comfortable, thank you,' Kate replied.

‘Please sit down. Has Paul told you about me?' She indicated a sofa, and Kate followed her and sat down. The woman moved beside her. Another diamond blazed from her hand as she settled the folds of her skirt.

‘I am Antoinette Vigier, and you are my guest while you're in France. Paul, how did this morning go?' She had a smooth authority; more than authority, it was power. When she spoke people listened, and her questions would always be answered.

He said, ‘Very well, Madame. Very satisfactory.'

‘And how is he?' The voice was tender.

‘Better; stronger.' A look passed between them, which Kate saw. Roulier said, ‘Excuse me; I have some calls to make,' and left them alone as arranged.

‘Madame Vigier,' Kate turned towards her, ‘you say I'm your guest. Are you employing Paul Roulier? Are you the client he talks about?'

‘Yes, I am.' The big brown eyes looked at her out of that ageless face, and they were old and sad.

‘Why are you helping Christian Eilenburg?'

She gave a little smile. ‘You're very direct, Madame. You don't waste time, do you?'

‘No,' Kate answered. ‘Nor do you, I think. I would like some kind of explanation before I commit myself any further.'

‘Of course. It must have seemed strange to you, all the secrecy, Paul coming out of the blue to see you. But there was a need, you see. I had to be protected or I couldn't help my husband. That answers your question, Madame Alfurd. I am Christian's wife, not that woman he married in Chile. He married me in 1945, just before he had to flee to Spain.' She saw Kate glance at her jewelled hand and the wedding ring on it, and again she smiled.

‘I always hoped to join him, but it wasn't possible. So I married again; twice, both of them very nice men, and as you can see, very very rich. I am a widow now, unfortunately. If I hadn't met Christian, I would still be scrubbing floors in some hotel round here.'

She reached for a silver box. ‘Will you smoke? No – how wise. I can't give it up, I'm afraid. It makes my doctor very cross.'

‘You married him,' Kate said slowly, staring at her. ‘You married Eilenburg in 1945? You're French – you're from the Midi –' It was like a nightmare; the beautiful woman, smiling and talking in her soft voice, the Frenchwoman who had married the war criminal and was paying for his defence.

‘I met him here,' Antoinette Vigier said. ‘I was a little chambermaid at the Hôtel Negresco. The hotel receptionist was a pig; he sent me upstairs because the German officer wanted a girl, and he couldn't find one, so he told me to go. Or be sacked, of course. So I went. I was so terrified, Madame, I was a poor little virgin and I didn't know what the German beast was going to do with me. Do you know what he did? He sent me away. He said, “I asked for a prostitute, not a human sacrifice.” I was so frightened, I said, “I am a prostitute.” I can see it now, Madame, I can see this amazing man, so handsome, so proud, being kind to me in his own way. Nobody had ever been kind to me before! Nobody. But this young man, so beautiful – like a god.'

‘I don't want to hear,' Kate said. ‘What happened with you and him is nothing to do with me.' The hand on her arm was surprisingly strong.

‘You don't want to listen because it's not a horror story. If I told you he had ill-treated me, threatened me, you'd sit still and say nothing. You asked for explanations, I didn't offer them. I became Christian's mistress. I fell in love with him and I am still in love with him. We lived together in this house. Twenty years ago I got my second husband to buy it for me. I didn't care how much it cost. I wanted to be here and remember my time with Christian.'

‘Why didn't you go to him?' Kate asked. She felt numb and sick. ‘Why didn't you join the other sadists and murderers hiding out there with him?'

Antoinette Vigier got up and stood facing her. Two red patches burnt on each cheek, like dabs of paint. ‘What hypocrites you people are,' she said. ‘Sadists and murderers because they were Germans. The Frenchmen who butchered young soldiers as they slept, the women who saw men die of strychnine poison that they'd given them, they were heroes and heroines of the Resistance!

‘What did the torturers of the OAS do to their prisoners in the Algerian war? What did the Russians do when they marched into Berlin? What does every nation do to its enemies today, when we're supposed to be at peace? Christian was at war. I was with him the night his German fiancée was killed by English bombers, nursing the sick in hospital! How many children died in the fire storm at Cologne? Nagasaki, Hiroshima? Oh, you make me sick, Madame Alfurd, with your double standards. At least I am honest. I loved him and I didn't ask what he did in the course of his duty. And I'm not going to stand by and let them drag him out and put him on exhibition in a courtroom while the collaborators and the crooks who profited from what he did, here in Nice and Cannes, pass judgement on him! And I know them, believe me –' She began to pace up and down, twisting her hands together, working herself into a passion as she went on. ‘How do you think I was provided for? How do you think I got away and made a new life for myself where I wasn't known? Men here who owed him favours and didn't want me talking about them – they paid to get me out. Otherwise I'd have been paraded with my head shaved, while the old bitches spat in my face and the men punched me in the breasts – and then sent to prison! No, Madame Alfurd, you were one of the heroines, and your lover has a statue to him in Nice, where every year people lay wreaths. He was a patriot. Christian, fighting for his cause and his country, is the “Butcher of Marseilles”. Well,' she stopped, then swung round on Kate again, ‘we shall see when the trial comes. Paul tells me your Intelligence people are hunting for you – they don't want you and Christian to exchange information. Naturally, they can't afford that. They have to protect their own heroes, don't they? And they will, my dear Madame, even if it means pushing you under a motorcar to stop you talking. Now.' She made a visible effort, drew a deep breath and composed herself. ‘Now, let's have a drink and try to be calm. I apologize if I've been rude to you. But this has been a terrible ordeal for me, too.' She turned away and Kate saw her blink back tears.

Kate said, ‘I won't help him. He killed my friends. There was a girl I worked with; she was caught and they raped her till she gave me away. Then she was shot. Don't ask me to excuse that. I don't know how any woman could excuse it to herself.'

‘He told me about her,' Antoinette Vigier said. She had regained her composure. ‘She was a victim of the war; and a victim of her own people who betrayed her to the Gestapo. What about that, Madame Alfurd? If I can make excuses for Christian, can you excuse them?'

Kate said very slowly, feeling as if she were choking with anger, ‘No, I can't. And that's why I'm here.'

‘Then I will call Paul back, and we shall have a drink and be friends,' Antoinette Vigier declared. ‘If not friends, allies at least until the trial is over.' She rang a bell and the manservant appeared. ‘Ask Maître Roulier to come in,' she said. ‘You saw him today.' She turned back to Kate. ‘I can't go, you understand. All I have is other people's reports – how did he look?'

‘Old,' she answered coldly. ‘White-haired and shaky. I wouldn't have recognized him in a million years.'

‘But his spirits were high?' The question was asked anxiously.

‘They seemed to be. He had a lot of facts to hand, he seemed to remember everything as if it were yesterday. I imagine,' she didn't hide her sarcasm, ‘he's been briefed.'

Antoinette Vigier brushed that aside. ‘Of course. He needs help if he's going to defend himself. Paul is very thorough; quite a number of people have been helpful, apart from you.'

‘French people?' Kate asked.

‘Yes, in fact we even found a little woman living in Paris whose husband had been in the Resistance, and your friend Jean Dulac had him murdered because he thought he'd agreed to work for the Gestapo. When she discovered that,
she
worked for the Gestapo. I went to see her; it was quite fascinating.'

‘Her husband's name was Louis Cabrot,' Kate said quietly. ‘I remember. She betrayed us.'

‘Wouldn't you have done the same?' The soft voice asked the question, and Kate couldn't answer. ‘It isn't all black and white, is it? The poor devil hadn't done anything wrong; he was too ill to be questioned, and Christian sent him home. That will come out at the trial too.'

‘She's agreed to give evidence?' Kate asked her.

‘Yes; she feels very bitter even now. She has given a deposition and she has promised to come as a witness. What will interest you is that the poor woman would never have known what the Resistance did if one of its own members hadn't told her. She said he came and showed her a newspaper report. The German doctors had already told her her husband had been murdered. Naturally she didn't believe them. But she believed him. He had an odd code name. Harlequin –'

‘Pierrot,' Kate corrected. ‘My God, that's how he did it. Through Cabrot's widow.'

Roulier came in and she heard Madame Vigier ask if he would get them a drink. He spoke to Kate, ‘There's champagne, whisky, gin, what would you like?'

‘I don't care,' she said. ‘Anything. But not champagne, thanks very much.'

‘Now,' Antoinette Vigier announced, ‘we will all feel better in a few minutes. More relaxed. Paul, will you explain our plan to Madame Alfurd?'

He cleared his throat. The intimacy that had grown up between them seemed no more than a pretence, a fiction he had created to gain her confidence. He was businesslike and cool, the front man for his rich employer.

‘I am preparing the case for Standartenführer Eilenburg's defence,' he said. ‘My colleague will lead.' He mentioned one of the most famous defence lawyers in France. ‘Will you give a deposition stating everything that you have told me about the events in Nice at that time? Just facts, that's all. And will you be prepared to come to court and take the witness stand? That's really the most important part of all, if we're to present a true defence. And if you are to expose the people who have protected themselves for all these years. I believe that is what you really want, isn't it?'

Kate didn't answer. She put down her drink. ‘I don't know,' she said. ‘I need time to think about it.' For a moment the big dark eyes of Antoinette Vigier went black.

‘Think about your lover,' she said. ‘You mentioned that girl who was captured … think about the people in London who deliberately betrayed them. If Christian is on trial, they should be tried with him. And you, Madame Alfurd – what did they do to you?'

She didn't wait for Kate to answer, she ignored Roulier's signal to stop. ‘To keep you quiet they ordered one of their own officers to marry you. To shut you up. They boxed you in without you even knowing it. Was it a happy marriage? A happy life? They're hunting you now, and I meant what I said. You won't be allowed to expose them if they find you. Believe me, a signed deposition is as much in your own interests as in ours. Once they know we have that, they won't dare to harm you. I am going upstairs to change; I will see you at dinner.'