Darkest Longings (57 page)

‘If you can call torturing two Frenchmen to the brink of

death passing, then the answer is yes.’

Von Pappen twitched. ‘Did you know either of them?’ he

asked, after a pause.

‘Yes.’ Then abruptly changing the subject, Francois said,

‘What have you discovered about Halunke?’

‘Not very much, I’m afraid,’ von Pappen confessed. ‘I’ve

been through the list you gave me, I’ve even come up with

some suggestions of my own as to who might have a grudge

against you, but as yet I have nothing conclusive.’

‘Did you check on Hortense de Bourchain’s family?’

‘Yes. They’re all still in Tahiti, with the exception of her

brother, Michel. He’s serving with the Seventh Army under

General Giraud, and hasn’t taken leave since arriving in

France.’

‘When did he arrive?’

‘Early in October. Two months after the attack on Elise.’

‘You’re certain of that?’

‘Absolutely.’

Francois didn’t bother to ask how von Pappen had got his

information; he trusted him implicitly, and had never yet

had reason to doubt him. ‘Is Elise up to giving a dinner

party?’ he asked.

‘I think so. I think she’ll be glad of something to do. She

rarely goes out these days.’

Francois’ mouth was set in a grim line. ‘How does she

look?’ he asked.

‘Better than you might think. Naturally, I haven’t seen her

body, though I imagine the scars are as yet barely healed.

But her face is good. Her left eye is partially closed, but you

have to look closely to notice. She walks with a slight limp.’

‘And her mind?’

‘She still has occasional lapses of memory, forgets what

she’s saying or who she’s talking to. The nightmares, as you

might expect, are still giving her trouble.’

Francois nodded. ‘Have you told her I’m coming?’

‘No.’

‘Then I’ll drop you at the avenue Foch now, and you can

tell her.’ He leaned across von Pappen and, opening the

glove compartment, pulled out a handwritten list of names.

‘I’d like you to arrange for as many as possible of the people

on this list to come to dinner tonight.’

‘Your brief?’ von Pappen enquired, his face twitching as

he looked down the list.

‘To persuade France not to go to war,’ Francois

answered prosaically. Then drawing up the corner of his

mouth in a smile, he glanced at von Pappen and said, ‘An

easy enough task, wouldn’t you say, Erich?’

Von Pappen chuckled. He knew precisely what Francois

meant. He would talk about capitulation tonight, of course,

but neither he nor the Germans expected him to succeed in

this mission - it was widely known in political circles that

France and Britain were on the verge of agreeing that

neither country should conclude peace separately. And if

Winston Churchill had anything to do with it, the British

would fight to the bitter end. No, the real reason why von

Liebermann had sent Francois to France now was to

discover how many of the country’s politicians and generals

were still prepared to listen to a man who - according to

rumour, at least - was a traitor.

‘There’s one other thing I’d like you to do, Erich,’

Francois said as they drove round the Arc de Triomphe and

filtered off into the avenue Foch. ‘I’d like you to travel to

Lorvoire tomorrow morning and speak to my father. Try not

to be seen, the chateau will be under heavy surveillance now

that I’m back in the country, which is why I can’t go myself.

Use the bridge at the back and speak first to Corinne. She’ll

arrange for my father to see you.’

‘You have a particular message for the Comte?’

‘I just want him to do as I instructed in my letter and

disinherit me. It’s the only way I know of preventing the

Germans from sending me back into France again. If I’ve

been denounced, publicly, as a traitor, then I’ll be worthless

as a spy against my own countrymen. It will cause my father

a great deal of pain to do this, so you must make certain he

knows all the facts. I want you to do this in person, so I can

be sure it’s handled properly.’

‘Understood.’

‘And before you go, Erich,’ Francois said, pulling in to

the side of the road outside Elise’s apartment. ‘D’you know

if anything’s been done about my other instruction in the

letter?’

Von Pappen pursed his lips. ‘You mean, concerning your

wife? I’ve heard nothing.’ Then, when it was clear Francois

was going to say no more, ‘You’re going to the Bois de

Boulogne now?’

‘Yes.’

‘The staff are expecting you. I shall telephone you there later.’ And slamming the car door, he walked off across the pavement, his hairless head exposed unflinchingly to the

wind.

When Francois arrived at the Lorvoire house in the Bois

de Boulogne he found that fires had been lit in the

drawing-room and study, and when he went upstairs to his

bedroom, there was Gilbert, his valet, pumping the bellows

at the hearth. Francois almost laughed then, as he thought

how old Gilbert might have reacted if he had walked into the

house wearing his German staff-officer’s uniform. He

greeted him fondly, for he had known the old man since he

was a child; then he went back downstairs to the study,

where he ate the late lunch which had been prepared for

him, and looked at the morning’s newspapers.

Afterwards, he went to sit in a chair beside the fire,

intending to consider how best to approach the task in hand

for the evening. But instead, he found that his tired mind

was continuously and disturbingly arrested by a sense of

impending doom that had been with him from the moment

he set foot back in France. The mind very often played

tricks when starved of sleep, he knew that, but the sense of

foreboding was so strong that he found himself sitting

forward in the chair and holding his head in his hands. He

wished to God now that he’d killed those two Frenchmen

before he left Germany. Never leave your man alive to tell

tales, one of the first rules of the game. But von Liebermann

had particularly required that they be left alive - and by now

would almost certainly have tortured them himself and

discovered exactly who they were. And once he knew that,

he would understand why Francois had had no compunction

about dealing with his fellow-countrymen in the brutal,

merciless manner he had. In other words, torturing two

French agents whom he knew for a fact to be working for the

Soviets, was going to do nothing to prove his fealty to the

Third Reich.

So now the question was, what would von Liebermann do

to make his displeasure known? To teach him what a

madman he was even to consider deceiving the Abwehr…

Which led Francois to the most pressing question of all:

where, and who the hell, was Halunke?

‘I don’t like it, Lucien,’ Claudine sighed. ‘Armand said he

thought he saw someone this morning. I know it could have

been anyone, but who in their right mind is going to go into

the forest with this fog still hanging around? And what does

this man want? What is he doing here when he must know

that Francois is in Germany?’

‘Assuming you’re right, and there is someone out there,’

Lucien answered, lighting two cigarettes and handing one

to her, ‘then I guess Francois is the only one who can answer

those questions.’

Claudine turned to scan his handsome face. ‘What’s he

done, Lucien?’ she said. ‘Do you know? He told me he thought this man had some kind of grudge against him…’

Lucien shook his head. ‘There’s a whole side to my

brother that’s as much of a mystery to me as it is to you,

Claudine,’ he said. ‘I imagine there are any number of

people who think they have cause to hate him.’

‘But so deeply that they must terrorize his family like

this?’ She shivered. ‘Do you really think this man intends to

harm us?’

Lucien smiled, and getting up from the sofa, strolled

across to the fire. ‘Who can tell what’s going on in his mind?’

he said. He turned back to look at her and took another draw

on his cigarette. ‘Perhaps you should go away for a few days, cherie. You haven’t seemed at all yourself lately. Why not go up to Paris? A change of scene might do you good. Take

Monique with you.’

‘I couldn’t leave Louis. Not when that … that man is

outside.’

‘Then take Louis too. Though he’s quite well taken care

of here, you know. Francois has seen to that, remember?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, Yes, he has, hasn’t he?’ She looked

down at her cigarette as she flicked the ash into an ashtray

beside her. Lucien’s suggestion was tempting, though

perhaps not for the reasons he thought. Oh, she would

certainly like to escape from the loathsome prying eyes that

she felt were following her everywhere - but what she really

wanted was to get away from Armand for a while. For his

sake more than her own. Since they had broken off their

affair, he had withdrawn so deeply into himself that any

attempt she made to be friendly was met with just a stony

glare. And if he did reply, it was in a voice so thick with pain

or sarcasm that she could hardly bear it. And as well as

Armand, there was Francois; her fears for his safety, her

anger at what he had done, her feelings for him - so many

thoughts whirling frenziedly around in her mind that the

prospect of getting away from the chateau, of being

somewhere else for a few days, was extremely inviting.

‘Monique is going to Paris anyway,’ Lucien said. ‘And I

do believe she has arranged to meet your aunt to go and

rattle tins at the Ritz with her, for refugee relief and soldiers’

canteens.’

That settled it. Why on earth it hadn’t occurred to her

before to go and talk things over with Tante Celine, she

couldn’t imagine.

‘Then yes. Yes, I’ll go too,’ she said decisively, getting up

to ring the bell for Magaly. ‘Why don’t you come too?’ she

said.

‘I can’t. My leave is over at the end of the week, and I

don’t think Maman would appreciate it if I spent my last few

days anywhere but with her. Anyway, ma chere, what you

need is time for yourself-so go to it! And by the way, the

uniform for tin-rattling is a simple black dress, or so they tell

me.’

‘I’ll tell Magaly,’ she laughed.

He walked across the room, but at the door he turned

back. ‘Claudine,’ he said, a serious note to his voice that

belied the twinkle in his eyes, ‘you’ll work it out in the end,

you know.’

She lowered her eyes, not wanting him to see the sudden

and terrible desperation that had rushed from nowhere to

swamp her. ‘But it’s not that easy, is it?’ she whispered,

‘when I don’t even know if I’ll ever see him again?’

‘Oh, you will. And if I know my brother, much sooner

than you think.’ He grinned. ‘And don’t be too surprised,

either, if one of these days you discover that he loves you

every bit as much as you do him.’

Her hand reached out to grab the back of a chair. ‘No!’

she cried. ‘No, Lucien don’t say that! Please!’ But it was

already too late. That tiny, withering seed of hope that she

had tried, since the day she married him, to destroy, had

absorbed the words so greedily that it was already starting to

thrive again.

It was just past five thirty in the evening when the telephone

rang. Francois, heaving himself from the chair where he had

fallen into an uneasy slumber, got up to answer it himself.

‘Good news,’ von Pappen’s voice came down the line.

‘There will be eight guests for dinner this evening,

including Paul Reynaud, Captain Paillole and William

Bullitt, the American Ambassador. Every one of them has

cancelled other engagements; they’re obviously keen to

hear what you have to say.’

Francois wasn’t sure how he felt about that, and made no

comment.

‘I have also taken the liberty of inviting someone not on

your list,’ von Pappen continued. ‘I’m sure you would have

invited him if you’d known he was going to be in Paris.’ He

paused. ‘It’s Colonel de Gaulle.’

Francois’ eyebrows flickered. ‘What is he doing in Paris?’

‘He’s here only for the day. There was talk that he was to

be made Under-Secretary for Defence, but Prime Minister

Daladier has vetoed it. As you can imagine, Monsieur de

Gaulle is not in the best of humours.’

Francois grinned, already looking forward to seeing his

old friend. ‘How is Elise?’ he asked, his smile fading.

Von Pappen lowered his voice, and faintly Francois could

hear the sound of Elise singing in the bathroom. ‘Excited,’

Erich answered. ‘And nervous.’

‘You’re sure she’s up to this?’

‘Positive. She’s looking better than I’ve seen her for a

long time. Would you like to have a word?’

‘No. But tell her I’m looking forward to seeing her.’

Throughout the evening, Francois could feel Elise’s eyes on

him down the polished length of the dining table. Once in a