Cold Harbour (29 page)

They reached the top corridor, Priem nodded and the young Lieutenant brought a chair forward which he positioned where he could watch the doors of both bedroom suites. He looked different, harder somehow. Pale and determined.

“You really are concerned about our welfare tonight, Colonel,” Hortense observed.

“Lieutenant Vogel is merely on call, Countess, should you need him, as is the man Captain Reichslinger has stationed under your balcony. I wish you a peaceful night.” She hesitated, glanced at her niece once and went in.

He turned to face Genevieve. “It went well, I think,” he said. “The Field Marshal enjoyed himself. Of course, if he had been aware that a certain file had disappeared from his briefcase, however temporarily, he would not have been so pleased. But that, I think, we can keep to ourselves.”

“Naturally. It wouldn’t look too good for you, would it? May I go in now?”

He opened her door. “Goodnight, Miss Trevaunce,” he said formally.

She could have told him to go to hell, but there would have been little point. So, she simply went in, closed the door and leaned against it. She heard the murmur of voices, the sound of footsteps receding. Her key was missing and a closer inspection of the door revealed that the bolt had been removed also. And, of course, the gun with which she’d so carefully practised was gone.

So she took off her dress, changed into slacks and sweater again, then stepped out on to the balcony. It was
still raining and quite dark. She listened for sounds of the guard down below and after a few moments heard a cough. So that was that, and the ledge round the corner to her aunt’s balcony was so narrow that only a skilled rock climber could have hoped to negotiate it.

She returned to the bedroom, picked up the silver case and flicked it open. Not a single cigarette left, only the spool of film in its secret compartment and useless now. She felt tired and cold and put on Anne-Marie’s hunting jacket and slipped the cigarette case into the pocket.

She got the quilt from the bed, wrapped it around herself and settled in the chair by the window, leaving the light on like a little girl afraid of the dark.

SHE DOZED OFF
for a while, came to, stiff and miserable and saw the curtains stir. They parted and Craig Osbourne moved into the room, a Walther in his right hand. He was still in SS uniform. He raised a finger to silence her.

“We’ll take your aunt as well. Satisfied?”

Genevieve was filled with sudden cold excitement. “How did you get here?”

“Climbed up to your balcony.”

“I thought they had a man down there?”

“Not any more.” He padded across to the door and listened. “What have they got outside?”

“A young Lieutenant with a machine pistol.”

“Get him in here. Tell him you’ve heard something suspicious on the balcony—anything.”

He holstered the Walther and took something from his pocket. There was a sharp click, a blade gleamed dully in the light. She stared, fascinated and he gave her a little push. She moved to the door, knocked lightly, then opened
it. Vogel was across the corridor in an instant, the machine pistol ready in his hands.

“What is it?” he demanded in bad French. “What do you want?”

Her throat was so dry that she could hardly speak and yet forced herself, turning and pointing towards the curtains that lifted in the slight breeze. “Out there, on the balcony. I think I heard something.”

He hesitated, then came forward. Craig Osbourne moved too, an arm around the throat, knee up into the spine, arching Vogel backwards like a bow. Genevieve never saw the knife slide home, heard only the faintest of groans as she turned away, remembering how well he had danced, sick to her stomach. There was the scraping of feet across the floor as Craig dragged the body to the bathroom. When he returned, he was holding the Schmeisser.

“All right?”

“Yes.” She took a deep breath. “Yes, of course I am.”

“Let’s go, then.”

HORTENSE WAS SITTING
up in bed, a shawl about her shoulders, reading a book. She showed no surprise at all as always completely in control.

“So, you would appear to have made a friend, Genevieve.”

“But not quite what he seems.”

“Major Osbourne, ma’am.”

“You’ve come for my niece, I presume?”

“You too, ma’am. She won’t leave without you.”

She got a Gitane from the box on the bedside cabinet and lit it with her silver lighter. Genevieve took out her empty cigarette case and filled it from the box quickly.

“You are familiar with the work of the English novelist, Charles Dickens, Major Osbourne?” Hortense asked. “
A Tale of Two Cities
in which a Mr. Sidney Carton, in a glorious act of self-sacrifice, goes to the guillotine in another man’s place? By tradition, we have always believed that incident concerned a member of my own family.” She blew out smoke in a long plume. “But the de Voincourts were always over-enamoured of the grand gesture.” She turned to Genevieve now. “However misplaced.”

“We’re rather short on time, ma’am,” Craig said patiently.

“Then I suggest you go, Major, while you still can. Both of you.”

Genevieve filled with panic, reached forward to pull the bedclothes back. Hortense grasped her wrist with surprising strength. “Listen to me.” There was iron in her voice now. “You once told me you knew I had a bad heart?”

“But that wasn’t true. Just another lie they fed me to induce me to come here.”

“Anne-Marie believed it. An invention of my own to explain certain dizzy spells I’ve become increasingly subject to. I kept the truth to myself. One has one’s pride.”

The room was so quiet that Genevieve could hear the clock ticking. “And what is the truth?” she whispered.

“A month now, perhaps two, and it will be painful. Already is. Dr. Marais didn’t pretend. He’s too old a friend for that.”

“Not true.” Genevieve was angry now. “Not any of it.”

“Did you ever wonder where you got your eyes from,
chérie?
” She had both of Genevieve’s hands now. “Look at me.”

Green and amber, flecked with golden light and filled with love, more love than Genevieve could ever have believed existed and she was telling the truth, she knew
that. Her childhood seemed to slip away from her. She experienced a feeling of utter desolation that was almost unbearable.

“For me, Genevieve.” She kissed her on both cheeks gently. “Do this for me. Always you have given me your love, total, unselfish. The most precious thing in my life, I can tell you this now. Would you deny me the right to give less?”

Genevieve backed away, hands shaking, unable to reply. Hortense said, “You’ll leave me one of your guns, Major?” It was a command, not a request and Craig took out his Walther and placed it beside her on the bed.

“Hortense?”

Genevieve reached out, but Craig caught her by the arm. “Go now,” her aunt said. “Very quickly, please.”

Craig got the door open, started to pull Genevieve through. Her eyes were hot. No tears would come. The last view she had of her aunt was of her sitting up in bed, one hand on the Walther and she was smiling.

THEY MOVED SILENTLY
down the great staircase. The hall was a place of shadows. Nothing stirred.

“Where would Priem be?” Craig whispered.

“In his office in the library. He sleeps there too.”

A light showed under the door. He paused, the Schmeisser ready, turned the handle very gently and they went in.

PRIEM WAS STILL
in uniform, seated by the fire, working on some papers in the light of a desk lamp, totally absorbed in what he was doing. He glanced up, but showed no surprise, calm, totally in control as always.

“Ah, the lover. Not quite what he seemed.”

“Get his pistol,” Craig told her in English.

“American?” Priem nodded. “Of course a burst from that Schmeisser would arouse the whole household.”

“Leaving you very dead indeed.”

“Yes, that thought had occurred to me.”

He stood up, hands on the desk. Genevieve moved behind him and took the Walther from its holster.

“And now,” Craig said, “the papers. The Atlantic Wall material. In that safe behind you, perhaps?”

“And there, I’m afraid, you really are wasting your time.” Priem smiled. “When I last saw them, they were in Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s briefcase. Half way to Paris by now, I should imagine. You’re welcome to check, naturally.”

“No need, Craig.” Genevieve took the cigarette case from her pocket and held it up. “I had those documents for five minutes in my room earlier tonight as the Colonel well knows. I used this to good effect, just as you taught me. All twenty exposures.”

“Now that really is beautiful,” Craig said. “Wouldn’t you agree, Colonel?”

Priem sighed. “I said you were a remarkable woman, Genevieve, did I not? So . . .” He came round the desk. “What happens now?”

“We leave by the side door,” Craig told him. “The cloakroom entrance. Then we take a little walk down to the back courtyard. I noticed the General’s Mercedes there earlier. That should do very nicely.”

Priem ignored him, addressing himself to Genevieve. “You’ll never get away with it. Reichslinger is on duty himself tonight at the gate.”

“You’ll tell him the Field Marshal left important papers,”
Craig said. “Anything goes wrong, I’ll kill you and if I don’t, she will. She’ll be down in back of us.”

Priem looked faintly amused. “You think you could, Genevieve? Now that I doubt.”

No more than she did. Her flesh crawled at the very idea her fingers, wrapped around the butt of the Walther trembled her palm already damp with sweat.

“No more talk,” Craig said. “Now put on your cap, nice and regimental and let’s get out of here.”

AND THEN THEY
were somehow outside and walking through the rain across the cobbles of the rear courtyard. It was amazingly still, the Château black and empty. Nothing stirred and she tightened her grip on the Walther in the right-hand pocket of her hunting jacket.

They reached the Mercedes. She opened the rear door and crouched down in the darkness between the seats holding the Walther ready. Priem got behind the wheel, Craig beside him. There was not a word spoken. The engine roared into life, they moved away. It wasn’t long, of course, before they started to slow, then rolled to a halt. She heard the sentry’s challenge, the click of his heels as he sprang to attention.

“Your pardon, Standartenführer.”

Priem hadn’t needed to say a word. There was a slight creaking as the barrier was raised and then, quite suddenly, another voice, calling sharply from the guardhouse.

Reichslinger.

Genevieve held her breath as his feet crunched across the gravel. Perhaps he hadn’t recognised Priem at first for there was only the diffused light of the guardhouse lantern. He leaned down, saying something in German she couldn’t understand.

Priem spoke to him. The only word she recognised was Rommel, so he was playing Craig’s game after all. Reichslinger replied. There was a slight pause, his boots crunched in the gravel again, and, imagining him to be walking away, she glanced up cautiously. To her horror, she saw his face above, peering in at her through the side window.

As he jumped back, tugging at his pistol, Craig raised the Schmeisser and fired straight through the window, showering her with glass, driving Reichslinger back in a mad dance, then he had the barrel hard against Priem’s neck.

They surged forward into the night, Priem working the wheel, swerving furiously as the sentry behind started to fire. And then the darkness swallowed them up and they were away.

“
YOU OKAY BACK
there?” Craig asked.

There was blood on her right cheek, sliced by a sliver of flying glass. She wiped it away casually with the back of her left hand, no pain, only the air, cold on her face and the rain drifting in through the shattered window.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“Good girl.”

They passed through Dauvigne, quiet as the grave and took the mountain road. “A pointless exercise,” Priem said. “Already every command post for miles will have been alerted by radio. Within an hour there will be a roadblock at every conceivable point.”

“Long enough for our purposes,” Craig told him. “Just keep driving and do as you’re told.”

HORTENSE DE VOINCOURT
lay there in bed, propped against the pillows, aware of the pandemonium in the grounds outside that had followed upon the sounds of firing down at the main gate. There was shouting in the hall below, footsteps a moment later pounding along the corridor and then a thunderous knocking. She took a Gitane from the silver box and as she lit it, the door was flung open and Ziemke appeared, a pistol in his hand, an SS corporal standing behind him holding a Schmeisser.

“Why, Carl,” she said. “You do look agitated.”

“What’s going on,” he demanded. “I’ve been informed that Anne-Marie, Priem and that French Standartenführer just drove out of the main gate. Reichslinger’s dead. That damned Frenchman shot him. The guard saw it from the hut.”

“The best news I’ve heard in ages,” she informed him. “I never did like Reichslinger.”

He went very still, a slight frown on his face. “Hortense? What are you saying?”

“That the party’s over, Carl. That it’s time I acted like a de Voincourt and remembered that you and your kind are occupying my country.”

“Hortense?” He looked totally bemused.

“You’re a nice man, Carl, but that isn’t enough. You see, you’re also the enemy.” Her hand came out from under the bedclothes. “Goodbye, my dear.”

She fired the Walther twice, catching him in the heart, driving him out into the ante-room. The SS corporal ducked out of sight, poked the barrel of the Schmeisser round the door and fired in return on full automatic, emptying the magazine. For Hortense de Voincourt, the darkness was instant and merciful.

ST. MAURICE WAS
quiet as the grave as they drove through. Twenty minutes further on at the speed at which Priem was driving and they reached the coast road and Leon. The moon came out from behind a cloud at that moment as they reached the wood on the cliffs above Grosnez.