Authors: Robert Ryan
Williams grunted. The real answer was no, but he couldn’t see any alternative.
Maurice took a small track into the forest that had closed around them, bumping the Hotchkiss down a rutted sand road, churning up a plume of dust. The trees parted almost theatrically to reveal a wonderful, almost perfectly circular lake, with a dilapidated wooden jetty running from the shore and a tethered swimming platform bobbing in the centre.
Eve squealed in delight and Maurice crowed: ‘Welcome to Chez Maurice, a spot known only to the fortunate few. This is an official no-war zone, mention of the Germans is forbidden, as is brooding too much.’ He turned to look at Williams. ‘This means you.’
Williams managed a smile. They had decided the previous night that the Atlantic had to go. Eve had won. It was to be put out of action for the duration of the war, safe from plundering Germans. ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ continued Maurice, ‘but I borrowed your portable gramophone.’
There was five minutes of furious activity. Eve unloaded the player and cranked it up to give them a soundtrack of Jean Sablon. Maurice spread out the blankets while Robert and Williams unpacked, with increasing disbelief, ham, chicken, a pie, tripe sausage and four bottles of wine.
Eve, revelling in the feeling of hot sun on her pale skin, took off her blouse. Then her skirt. And her slip. The water was calling her. The first the others knew was, when they heard the splash of a body knifing into the lake and the heartfelt gasp as she surfaced, shaking the water from her hair.
‘Maurice,’ she shouted, ‘you could have heated the damn thing!’
He shrugged. ‘Too early in the season.’
Williams stood and undid his trousers, stepped out of them and unbuttoned his shirt. Robert looked on, puzzled, wondering what he was going to do. He answered by waiting until Eve had struck out for the platform then sprinting along the jetty, picking up a couple of splinters as he went, performing a rather heavy, inelegant dive into the water and striking out crudely but strongly.
Eve heard the splashing behind her, and redoubled her effort. She felt vulnerable in open water with what had to be Robert closing on her fast. She started to scream a little, like a pursued maiden, and in her haste her strokes became ragged. She was aware of the splashing directly behind her, could feel the hand scything through the little waves the breeze was creating, the hand almost touching her feet. Then he was alongside. She turned to say something and swallowed a great gulp of water, spitting and coughing and hacking and managing to splutter in surprise: ‘Will …’
He trod water while she recovered her composure and they did the last fifteen metres in parallel, Williams hauling himself on to the platform and holding out a hand for her. He jerked her out of the water and they stood there, dripping and drying in the sunlight.
‘I thought you couldn’t swim.’
‘I have to have some mystery in my life.’
‘Not from me.’
He kissed her. ‘Especially from you. Don’t want you to take me for granted.’
The crooning of Sablon came across the water intermittently as the breeze blew, like a radio going in and out of tune. She could see Robert opening the wine and helping himself to a large glass.
‘I feel sorry for Robert,’ Eve said.
‘Why?’
‘He should have a woman.’
‘He has a wife, a mistress in Nantes and the odd “friend” he can call upon.’
‘Wife in name only. The woman in Nantes is a bitch. Robert told me he thinks she has a German lover, which is why he no longer travels there. And “friends”? Pah. No, he needs someone to love him properly.’
‘Are you offering to fill the post?’
Eve slid an arm through his, leant on his shoulder and said teasingly: ‘Would you mind?’
‘Maybe after I’m gone.’ He pulled her face round. ‘Or have you comforted him already? While I was in England.’
She slapped his face lightly.
‘And what about that Rose Miller woman with the big eyes and big chest?’ Williams knew better than to protest that her chest wasn’t all that big. That was a pit with sharpened stakes in the bottom, just waiting for him to stumble. ‘There must have been many lonely nights in London.’
‘There were,’ he said, and kissed her again. ‘And they stayed that way.’
She pouted to let him know she was prepared to accept this for the moment. ‘She likes you. I can tell.’
‘Everybody likes me.’
‘Yes, everybody finds someone to like because there are so many of you. Irish gangster, faithful chauffeur—oops, chauffeur—top racing driver, dog breeder, secret agent …’ She traced a line on his chest and Williams shuddered. He held her close, feeling her nipples pressing into his flesh and, as blood flowed into his groin, wondering how much they could see from the shoreline. ‘I still don’t really know your secret, Mr Williams.’
There was no build up. No faint whisper growing louder. The roar of powerful engines suddenly engulfed them, assaulting their ears with a thudding ferociousness. The Mosquito came over at tree-top level, the propeller blades almost crowning whole swathes of the forest, and burst over the lake. They could see the pilot, briefly, but he was looking straight ahead, all his energy and concentration focused on keeping the machine low and level.
Then it was gone, leaving only a ringing in their ears and their hearts pounding. ‘That’s it!’ exclaimed Williams. ‘What if we get the RAF to do a dummy raid on the pylons while we blow them. That way the Germans blame the airforce, not the locals. And no reprisals. What do you think?’
Remembering Maurice’s restrictions on topics of conversation she turned and pushed him as hard as she could. Williams stood for a second balanced on the edge, windmilling his arms theatrically before allowing himself to topple.
‘You broke rule number one,’ she shouted as he crashed into the lake. ‘No war talk.’ Even so, she couldn’t help considering it. No reprisals, she thought. As if anybody could guarantee such a thing these days.
In the sun-dappled courtyard of the Avenue Foch SD headquarters, Hans Keppler leant against his powder-blue Opel and lit a small cheroot. He had started smoking them to try to cut down on cigarettes. And he was perhaps drinking too much. A bottle of excellent wine seemed to be permanently open in his office. The belt of his uniform was beginning to slide under his burgeoning gut, as if he was an old man.
On the far side of the yard, Neumann paced up and down in front of the six men they had plucked from the streets of Villers, near where Legine had been assassinated. Six months ago they would not have bothered, but now there was an epidemic of clandestine killings—even the Milice were being targeted.
The firing squad marched out and assembled in front of the prisoners, some of whom only then began to appreciate just why the wall behind them was so badly pock-marked and stained. They weren’t the first prisoners to be lined up here. They certainly wouldn’t be the last.
‘I have given you every opportunity to help,’ announced Neumann in the pompous voice that made Keppler’s teeth grate. ‘One of you must know something. Gossip. Hearsay. Anything.’
The six, their jaws slack, their eyes full of pain from beatings, merely shuffled. ‘Fine. Sergeant.’
The soldiers shouldered their weapons. Virginia looked at the floor. ‘Take aim.’
‘Nobody?’ asked Neumann.
‘Fire.’
Even though he had seen this pantomime dozens of times, Keppler still flinched at the sharp metallic click as firing pins fell on empty chambers. As expected, the men were quaking. One of them had lost control of his bladder. Ashamed, he stepped forward.
‘I … I would like to talk with you.’
Neumann frowned. ‘You left it a little late.’
The squad chambered the rounds into their Mausers and prepared to fire for real.
The short Frenchman shuffled forward, the ankle chains preventing him from making much headway. ‘First save these men. Let them go back to their families.’
Keppler was suddenly interested. Neumann was not a man to let people go back to their families if he could help it. He saw that as defeat, evidence of weakness, rather than good public relations. Entrance to Foch should be a one-way ticket as far as he was concerned. ‘Bring him here, Joachim,’ he shouted.
Two of the firing squad frogmarched the man over to the Opel, his chained feet dragging on the brick flooring. Most of his top teeth were missing and livid bruises criss-crossed his cheeks, as if he had been whipped. One eye twitched uncontrollably. And he smelt of fear, sweat, blood and piss. Keppler stepped back from him in case some of the odour clung to his uniform.
‘What do you have?’ asked Keppler. He could see Neumann pacing, irritated that he had been usurped.
‘A car. A very low car. Knee-high to a grasshopper, they said. Two men in it.’
‘Did you see it?’
‘No. A friend.’
‘Which friend?’ Keppler asked casually.
The eye starting twitching faster. ‘I mean a man I met in a café. Didn’t know his name.’
Keppler didn’t have time to waste extracting the name of his gossipy chum from him, and admired the man for trying to protect him, so he simply asked: ‘Anything else?’
‘No.’
Keppler sighed. ‘Back in line then.’
‘Except he said, it was very strange. It had a fin down the back.’
‘A fin?’
‘Yes, like a fish. Big metal fin.’
‘Back in line.’
He was dragged away and Keppler felt the old excitement rise in him, the kind of thrill he rarely felt these days, the frisson of the chase and the kill that had made him want to be a policeman. The solution to this matter was nearly all there in his head now, he knew it. He just had to order his thoughts. Plus he had a hunch, a strong instinct about where he could find the missing elements.
As he turned to hurry inside he hesitated and shouted across to his junior. ‘Neumann, you can stop. Send them for labour duty—’
The flat slap of the rifle shots rang out around the courtyard, making Keppler start, and the six jerked grotesquely, before slumping into a heap, some of them still twitching. Neumann pulled out his Walther pistol to administer the
coup
de grace
and shouted: ‘Sorry, Sturmbannführer. What were you saying?’
Keppler flung open the door to Virginia’s cell with a force that made her jump. Behind him stood Obst, his stenographer, a plump bespectacled man who looked as if he should be in a tax office in some provincial town.
‘I didn’t mean to startle you, but time is short.’
Virginia looked up at him and tried to compose herself. So this was it. She felt the blood drain from her face. ‘Time for what?’
Keppler clicked his fingers and Obst handed over a light blue document, with black carbons attached. ‘Do you know what this is?’
She shook her head.
‘It is a
Nacht und Nebel
order. Filled out in your name. What it means is very, very simple. You go to Germany. You don’t come back. We don’t care what happens to you in the meantime. Here.’ He held out the pages. ‘How is your German?’
‘Poor.’
She took the document and scanned it, from her cover name, Yolande Laurent, printed at the top down to the flamboyant signature of the Sturmbannführer.
‘As you see, ready to implement.’ The voice was harder than she had ever heard, making sure she knew the time for bluffing was over.
Virginia pointed to her spare dress and the toiletries. ‘Can I take some things?’
‘You can tear it up.’
Virginia waited, knowing that Keppler was about to offer her something, some way out.
‘I have been looking at dates. There is someone I am after, someone I am fairly sure went through with your batch of agents. Had to have. It fits in with the time we started to see … to see a pattern emerge.’
‘What pattern?’
He ignored her. ‘I need that list. Just the men. Now.’
‘I can’t do that.’
Keppler sat down next to her on the bed. ‘Listen, what you do will make no difference to my actions. I know exactly how to proceed. However, I just want some confirmation of a suspicion I have.’
‘I can’t give you a list.’
Keppler snatched the
Nacht und Nebel
order from her and handed it to Obst. ‘I have seen where you will end up, you know. Or at least, something very similar. The Kommandant was most proud of his work. I made my excuses and left. On the way home I had to stop my car to be sick. What happens here is as nothing. Nothing.’
Keppler watched a spark of fear flash in her eyes. It was there for a second, but he knew he had her, knew her imagination was doing his job for him. Slow it down, soften it. Play the trump card. ‘Look, Virginia …’
Her head snapped up. Her Beddington name. How could he know that?
‘Virginia Thorpe. We showed your picture to one of your fellow agents. He identified you not as Yolande Laurent, but Virginia Thorpe.’
‘Then why not ask him for the list?’ she said.
Keppler had anticipated the question. He flicked the
N&N
form. ‘He is rather difficult to get hold of at short notice.’ In fact he was extremely difficult to get hold of because the man from Coutt’s was dead, falling from the roof of number 84 while trying to escape. All I need to know is this—was there a man who raced cars? A racing driver? A man couldn’t keep that quiet for ever. Nothing else, that’s all I need. No name, nothing. Just confirmation.’ He let his voice harden slightly. ‘In ten seconds Obst here will implement the order.’
Five of them ticked away.
‘All you have to do is nod if I am right.’
Three more went by.
‘A racing driver.’
The inclination of the head was sharp and fast, as if that somehow made it better.
‘And he was called Williams, wasn’t he? Not there and then, but that was his real name. Wasn’t it?’
Another brief nod and even as he watched her blanch with self-loathing, inwardly Keppler gave a whoop of joy and let the warm glow of victory wash over him. The knee-high to a grasshopper car was a Bugatti Atlantic and the two men had to be Benoist and Williams. Now all he had to do was find out where they were hiding themselves and that car. And that was the easy part.
The day after the picnic Williams slapped thick grease over the bodywork of the Atlantic, thick gloops of it running off down on to the gravel driveway and lying there like so many beached jellyfish. Robert was inside, covering the seats with oiled tarpaulin.