Citadel (83 page)

Yvette nodded and stood up, tying her headscarf beneath her chin.

‘We need to be in position, ready for when they move her.’

‘If they move her,’ Raoul muttered.

‘You go now. I’ll fetch a car, a little extra help, then meet you there. Brown Peugeot, corner of boulevard Omer Sarraut.’

Raoul nodded.

Sandrine didn’t think she could take any more. Her body was broken, racked with pain. The blood had dried between her legs, but she felt as if her insides had been ripped out. She had told Authié nothing, but each time it became more difficult not to give in. All she wanted after these hours, minutes – could it be days, she didn’t know – was for it to stop. The questions, the barrage of questions and blows.

‘If you’ll let me continue, sir.’

‘I don’t want her dead, Laval,’ Authié snapped, but then he clicked his fingers.

She’d forgotten Laval was still in the room. She registered that they were arguing. Then she was being dragged to her feet. She felt the slightest touch of fingers against her back, Authié or Laval, she didn’t know, then her shirt being torn from her back.

Before, she would have reacted, but she couldn’t see it mattered now. There was no humiliation she hadn’t been subjected to already, no pain they hadn’t inflicted on her. But then she smelt something new – the smell of heat and of metal, a hiss of iron – and discovered that she still had the capacity to experience fear.

‘Hold her down.’

Sandrine felt herself being pushed forward, her face hitting the hard surface of a table or a counter top, she didn’t know. Then, the most excruciating agony she’d ever felt as he pressed the poker into her shoulder, branding her. The spit and hiss of skin, the sickly smell of burnt flesh. It was seconds before her body and her mind caught up with one another. She tried to turn herself to stone, like the warrior statue. Impervious to pain.

Y penser toujours
. Never forget.

It was too much to ask. Finally, Sandrine submitted. She screamed and screamed, letting out everything she had kept inside her for the past hours.

Witnessing her being branded, even after everything he had seen, was too much for one of the
vert-de-gris
in the room. She heard him vomit and the angry response from Authié at the running feet. The murmured orders as someone was sent to clear up the mess. Even in her half-conscious state, Sandrine experienced a moment of triumph. One last, tiny triumph.

But now all she wanted was to sleep. The dark pull of oblivion. A few words, that was all it would take, to put an end to this.

The door opened again. The sound of shoes striding across the tiles, then stopping dead.

‘
Vous avez obtenu les renseignements desirés, Herr Authié?
’

A German voice speaking accented, formal French.

‘The prisoner continues to withhold information,’ he replied. ‘But we will make her talk.’

Sandrine was dimly aware of this new person leaning over her. She could feel the fire spreading through every part of her body, pain coming in waves from the place where the poker had met her skin.

Then disgust in the German’s voice. ‘What have you done to her, Authié?’

Another tiny moment of triumph.

‘
Y penser toujours
,’ she muttered before she passed out.

Raoul raced through the labyrinth of small streets running parallel to the route de Toulouse. When he was certain he was not being followed, he crossed to the far side of the road, then into the network of suburban cul-de-sacs lying between the railway sidings and the main road, until he was in position at the back of Gestapo headquarters.

There was no corner of the ancient city, north or south, west or east, left untouched by the war. Mostly, the Gestapo and the Wehrmacht had requisitioned the grandest of the buildings. This nondescript villa was the exception, a provincial house rather than a military installation, despite the fact that Chef Eckfelner, Sous-chef Schiffner and Inspectors Janeke and Zimmerman were key Resistance targets. Several attempts had been made on the building and had failed.

Armed guards patrolled the perimeter, cradling standard-issue sub-machine guns and with pistols at their belts. Raoul scanned the roof and windows on the first floor, seeing no signs of snipers or additional guards. Square, heavy floodlights were trained on the yard and, over the walls, out into the street.

Raoul glanced at his watch. From what Yvette had overheard, they would transfer her this morning. Always assuming it was Sandrine. That she was still alive. He shook his head, telling himself he could not allow himself to doubt. He wanted a cigarette, but knew the smoke would give him away.

Fixing his eyes on the metal grille, he emptied his mind and listened for the mechanism of the gate getting ready to open. Ten minutes passed before, as Robert had explained, a red warning light began to flash by the vehicle exit. There was a clunk of heavy machinery, then the gate itself began to slide open. Moments later, a green police car shot out of the compound into the small street and rounded the corner, heading towards the main road. It had been so quick, he wasn’t sure of what he’d seen, but it looked like a driver and a guard in the front, then two people in the back. A glimpse of black hair.

Raoul broke cover, along the track that led beside the railway sidings, to the corner of the boulevard. Robert’s brother Gaston was waiting with a Luger ·38 special tucked into the waistband of his trousers, half shielded beneath his jacket.

Raoul held up three fingers, to confirm what he’d seen. Gaston nodded and set off quickly through the Jardin des Plantes, watching out for the green Citroën.

Raoul stayed on the far side of the road, drawing his pistol but holding it pointed down to the ground by his side. Keeping Gaston in his sights, his attention was caught by the flapping of the Nazi flag on the building opposite. Most public buildings now carried the hated Croix Gammée, the swastika, in place of the Tricolore of the French Republic.

He located the brown Peugeot and darted across the boulevard. Robert was waiting at the top of the rue du Port. There was no other traffic of any kind.

‘A driver and guard in the front, two people in the back,’ he said.

‘Was it her?’

Raoul hesitated. ‘I think so.’

Bonnet nodded and pushed the starter. The engine spluttered into life. Raoul looked back up the road, seeing the green Citroën turn the corner and drive towards them.

‘Here they come.’

He stepped away from the car, looking for Gaston in the shade of the trees. Located him, raised his hand.

Then everything happened at once. Robert stamped down on the accelerator pedal. The Peugeot shot forward, forcing the police car to swerve. He put the car immediately into reverse, slamming into the side of the
panier à salade
, driving it back into the kerb. The police car juddered, jerked, its back wheels skidding, steam billowing from the buckled bonnet.

Robert kept his engine running.

Gaston came alongside the nearside window, raised his pistol and emptied the clip. Glass shattered everywhere. The driver was thrown back, then slumped forward on the dashboard, the guard collapsed sideways on top of him. Blood, glass, scattered, shimmering on the road.

Raoul ran to the car. He could see Sandrine and a man in plain clothes lying across the back seat. He pulled at the handle, but it was jammed. He hesitated, then smashed the window with his pistol, trying not to send too much glass in. He reached in and released the lock, and dragged the door open. The street was filling up, customers from the Café Continental and Café Edouard coming out to see what was happening. German soldiers rushing out of the Hôtel Terminus, weapons raised.

‘Unconscious in the back,’ he said to Gaston. ‘Cover me.’

Raoul put his arms beneath Sandrine. She cried out in pain. It was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard, though a violent torrent of rage and desire for revenge swept through him at the sight of her. Her eyes were swollen shut, her clothes torn. Blood was dried on her face, her arms, her legs. On her shoulder, an open weeping burn. Desperate not to inflict any more pain on her battered body, he placed her on the back seat of the Peugeot and got in beside her. As he shut the door, Robert was already accelerating, leaving Gaston to make his getaway through the shaded, overgrown alleyways of the botanical gardens.

The car swung round as Robert doubled back to avoid a roadblock. Outside the Terminus, soldiers raised their machine guns and opened fire. Bullets ricocheted off the bumper and Raoul felt one tyre blow, but Robert kept control of the car. Cradling Sandrine in his arms, Raoul looked back at the scene of devastation behind him. A man staggered out of the back of the
panier à salade
, then straightened up with his hand on the roof of the car. Soldiers and police rushed to help him. Raoul felt his chest tighten another notch. He had barely looked at the man in the car. His only aim was to get Sandrine out and away. But now he could see it was Leo Authié.

He had had him there, and hadn’t realised. He should have killed him. Shot him while he was unconscious. He’d had another chance at him, but had let it slip through his fingers.

Robert turned the corner, driving dangerously fast, then up towards the cimetière Saint-Vincent. The motion of the car disturbed Sandrine.

‘I don’t know anything . . .’ she murmured.

Raoul felt her shift in his arms and cry out again in pain, and he forgot everything.

‘I’ve got you, I’m here,’ he whispered. ‘You’re safe now.’

He thought he saw a smile flicker across her bruised lips.

‘I didn’t tell them anything . . .’

‘
Ma belle
,’ he muttered, trying to keep the distress from his voice. ‘I’m here. It’s going to be all right. Everything’s going to be all right.’

But as he looked down at her bruised and battered body lying beside him, the blistered skin and the blood on her legs and skirt, he didn’t know how it could ever be all right. The car screeched around another corner, then started to struggle up the hill.

‘Hurry.’

Robert glanced at him in the rear mirror, then slammed his foot hard on the accelerator. The old engine stuttered and whined, but the car leapt forward again as they climbed into the hills around Cavayère.

‘Hurry,’ Raoul said again.

Chapter 132

COUSTAUSSA

‘
T
hank you,’ said Lucie, getting out of the back of the van. One of the men handed Jean-Jacques down to her.

‘You’ll be all right with the little one?’

She nodded. ‘There’s bound to be someone who can give me a ride to Coustaussa.’ The man looked doubtful. She wondered if she was wrong. She’d been gone for eighteen months. She had no idea how much Couiza might have changed.

When the van had driven off, Lucie walked through the woods and down to the river’s edge, her son’s chubby little hand in hers. It was such a pleasure to be away from the watchful streets of the Bastide that she felt in no hurry. The dappled sun through the canopy of leaves, the sweet sound of the Aude flowing over the rocky riverbed.

‘Careful now, J-J,’ she said. ‘Watch where you’re going.’

The little boy put his arms up. ‘Mama, carry. Carry, carry, carry.’

‘Come on, my little man, you can do it on your own. Just a few more steps.’

Jean-Jacques started to frown, then changed his mind and stumbled the last few paces to the water’s edge on his own. Lucie knelt forward and splashed water on her cheeks, then used her handkerchief to wipe her son’s face.

‘Swim?’ he sang hopefully. ‘Swim, swim, swim.’

Lucie laughed. ‘Not now,’ she said, scooping him up. ‘Too early to go swimming. We need to find everyone and have breakfast, then we’ll see.’

Jean-Jacques frowned.

‘We’re going to see Marieta and Tante Liesl.’

The little boy smiled. ‘Liesl.’

‘Good boy.’

Lucie began to walk along the river towards the town. Now he was away from the city, Jean-Jacques no longer had a sore throat. He was playing with the buttons on the collar of her shirt. He couldn’t have any memory of either Marieta or Liesl, but she hadn’t wanted them to be disappointed, so she had talked to him about them all the time.

‘And Tante Marianne and Tante Suzanne will be there too,’ she added.

The little boy’s eyes brightened. ‘Suzu,’ he said. ‘Plane.’

Lucie smiled. His favourite toy was a cardboard aeroplane Suzanne had made him and repaired a hundred times.

‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘Plane. If you’re a very good boy, perhaps Suzu will make you a new plane? What about that?’

‘Plane, plane, plane . . .’

As Lucie came into town, she immediately knew the place had changed. Raoul had warned her, but she hadn’t expected it to be so obvious. There was a major Wehrmacht arms depot and food store on the hill at Montazels, which meant there were military vehicles on the roads a lot of the time. He’d also told her there was a small Maquis unit hiding out in the garrigue between Alet-les-Bains and Coustaussa, on the opposite side of the valley. The Milice had made several attempts to destroy the group, but had so far only succeeded in driving them higher into the hills.

Lucie hugged Jean-Jacques closer to her. She walked towards the Grand Café Guilhem. There were a few women sitting at the tables on the terrace. She didn’t recognise any of them. No men at all.

‘
Faim, faim
,’ Jean-Jacques suddenly said, trying to wriggle down from her arms.

‘You’re hungry, little man?’

Jean-Jacques pointed at the bread one of the women was dipping in a cup of black barley and chicory coffee.

‘
Tartine
.’

‘No, we’re going to the boulangerie to choose something nice. Shall we do that? J-J help me choose?’

To her relief, Jean-Jacques vigorously nodded his head. ‘Choose. J-J choose.’

Lucie walked briskly across the square, her bag swinging from her arm, heading for the patisserie, run by the station master’s wife, Mathilde. She stepped through the fly curtain in the doorway, grabbing at J-J’s hand to stop him pulling the beads, then into the cool interior.