Women of Courage (68 page)

‘Mr von Weichsaker.’

Werner turned to look at him. He had unfolded his arms and slipped his left hand inside his pocket for the pistol.

‘Yes? What now?’

‘I want to talk to you.’ He jerked his head back over his shoulder at Deborah and Tom. ‘Just you and me together.’

Werner considered. His lips curled in a sarcastic smile. ‘I would be loathe to part you from your beloved family, when they have just brought about such a remarkable improvement in your health. A little while ago you couldn’t even stand.’

‘That’s what I want to talk about.’ For a long moment Charles watched his enemy, taking in the startling pale blue eyes, the raised mocking eyebrow, the sarcastic insolent smile. Does he want me to
plead
with him? he wondered.

At last Werner shrugged. ‘All right.’ He nodded to Franz, who moved his rifle aside. ‘Step outside into the hall, then. For a couple of minutes only. But remember — if Franz hears a shot or a shout, he will kill these two immediately. The woman first.’ He stared meaningfully at Franz, intent on beating down any suggestion of resistance or scruples. Once let those show and we’re lost.

Outside in the hall, Charles shivered suddenly. The cold draughty wind whistled over the wooden floor. Or perhaps it was fear.

He said: ‘Look, Werner, I have a bargain for you.’

‘A bargain? Do you honestly think you’re in a position for that?’

‘I don’t think any of us are in a good position. You must realise by now that you can’t go through with this.’

‘Must I?’ It was exactly what Werner feared, but he wasn’t going to show it. Or allow Charles to defeat him.

‘Yes. You’re a sensible man. Too many things have gone wrong. But look – if you call the whole thing off, and drive away from here, I undertake not to raise the alarm or come in pursuit for . . . two hours. That should give you enough time.’

Werner laughed. ‘And would this promise bind your wife as well? She seems the force to be feared, at the moment.’

‘She is my wife, of course she would agree.’ Charles flushed. ‘All she cares about is the boy.’

‘She would be even better behaved if we took the boy with us.’ Those cold blue eyes watched him levelly.

‘Oh no.’ Despite his efforts at self-control Charles felt his face flush, his hands clench by his sides. ‘You’re not taking the boy.’

Werner watched, impassive, assessing the rush of emotion coolly. ‘So, the boy still matters most of all to you.’

‘You unfeeling beast . . .’

‘Please!’ Werner raised his right hand, the crooked fingers waving irritatingly in Charles’s face. ‘No insults or shouting. Remember, Franz is in there with your son and heir.’

‘All right. But you are not taking Tom with you. I forbid it!’

Werner did not trouble to answer. He let the words hang in the empty hall between them, like the memories of pride and power that gazed down at them from the large oil portraits on the walls. Past, gone, irrelevant. Whatever happens, I have had part of my revenge already, Werner thought. This moment, in this cold, draughty hall. All the power has come to me.

And power is addictive. The more you have, the more you want. At that moment he made his decision. I will not go home with half a victory, he thought. Half is only the beginning. Forget Simon Fletcher, he was an irrelevance. I can still do it all, on my own.

His voice, when he spoke, was calm, clear, determined. Like the head prefect of a school talking to a junior fag.

‘Listen to me, Cavendish. I am not going to run away or take your son to Germany with me. So you can put your mind at rest about that. Instead, I am going ahead with the plan exactly as I described it to you, with a few minor alterations to take account of the, er, changed circumstances of this morning. I will tell you these alterations now.’

Charles said nothing. Werner even detected a faint, almost imperceptible nod. The sense of power tingled in his veins like champagne.

‘First, you are obviously fit enough to walk and talk and lead Sir Edward Carson to the car. That is all you will have to do, and you will do it well. I congratulate you on your swift recovery. Second, not only your son but your wife will accompany us in the car to Craigavon. I see no alternative to that, because I am too much of a gentleman to shoot her — and after tonight I do not trust her to remain confined in any place I might leave her. Since you are so particularly attached to conventional family life, you may perhaps take some comfort from this.’

Still no reply. Charles stood quite still, almost like a soldier at attention before his commanding officer. Werner noticed a slight swaying in the legs, and thought: he will have to learn to control that, for his son’s sake.

‘Third, when we come within a mile or so of Craigavon, I myself will get out of the car with your wife and precious son. That is because I regret to say I do not entirely trust my brave German sailors not to take pity on them, at the last moment. But I trust myself, absolutely. If you do not return with Sir Edward to the place where you leave us in a given time, I shall shoot them both dead, and make my escape alone. Do you understand?’

Charles shook his head. ‘No. I do not understand how any man could even think of behaving like this.’

The faintest trace of a flush crossed Werner’s face, and was gone. ‘You are a soldier, you are not required to understand why. Only what you have to do, and what will happen if you disobey. Now, time is pressing. I suggest you go in and explain things to your wife, and be prepared to leave within a few minutes.’

As Charles went back into the library, Werner heard the car draw up on the gravel outside, and went through the front door to meet it.

It was the wrong car.

To his astonishment, Karl-Otto and Adolf appeared not in Charles’s Lancia, as they had been specifically instructed, but in the black Daimler which Werner and Simon had driven here yesterday. And the two German sailors were alone — there was no chauffeur.

The car jerked unsteadily to a halt. Karl-Otto got out of the driver’s seat, an anxious frown on his stolid boxer’s face. Werner dashed down the steps towards him.

‘No, no, not this one! The Lancia, I said — where is the Lancia?’

‘Not there, sir. It has gone. And the chauffeur, too.’

‘What? God in heaven!’ No sooner was one problem solved than another arose, like the heads of a hydra. If the chauffeur had gone, Werner thought, then he might be trying to summon help. He gazed wildly down the drive, as though a regiment of soldiers might appear there at any moment. Then he took a deep breath, tried to recover himself. ‘Are you sure? Did you look everywhere?’

‘Yes, sir, of course.’

‘But it
can’t
be gone. We would have heard it go.’

‘Well, not necessarily, sir. You see there’s some sort of bridle-path behind the stables that leads out between the fields. It probably joins that track where I was keeping guard last night. We went to look. There are tyre-marks in the mud.’

Werner swore again. He had asked Simon to call Karl-Otto in — when? It couldn’t be much more than an hour ago. But an hour would be enough for whoever was in the car to get clear and pass a message to Craigavon. Had it all gone wrong?

He stood quite still for a moment on the drive, turning the possibilities over in his mind. Could they still go to Craigavon in this car instead of the Lancia? Yes, probably. People who saw Charles would expect him to be in the Lancia but he could cook up some plausible explanation for that, if forced to. Could they still get away from Glenfee? Yes, if they hurried. What would happen when they turned up at Craigavon? Ah, that was the problem. If the chauffeur had gone only to fetch help to Glenfee, then there would be no danger. But if he had known enough to pass a message on to UVF HQ at Craigavon, then whoever went there would be walking straight into a trap.

Whoever went there.
That was the key to his decision, Werner realised. As the plan stood, it would be Franz, Karl-Otto, and Adolf who would turn up at Craigavon with Charles. Not Werner. He himself would be safely hidden beside the road some miles away with the woman and the boy as hostages.

So it’s still a risk worth taking, Werner decided.

‘Right.’ He smiled at Karl-Otto and Adolf coolly, trying to dispel the anxiety on their heavy, honest faces. They looked to him for leadership and it was his duty to supply it.

‘Don’t worry, boys, it’s not your fault. The operation goes ahead as planned. We’ll just have to take this car instead, won’t we? Come in now and fetch the prisoners, then we’ll be on our way.’

As he turned, a shot rang out from the library.

Charles stepped back into the library and stared at his wife and son.

It was a haunting sight. Deborah was in a long brown dress with her fair hair pinned up roughly into two wide swathes at the top of her head, and her hot dark eyes watching him anxiously. She had one arm round Tom, who was still clutching the blankets over the grey school shirt and orange pullover and tie and shorts which he had worn all night in the ice-house. He still shivered occasionally and his face was unusually pale, but his eyes were alight and his chin was raised defiantly as though there was still hope.

When there is none, Charles thought. There should be a portrait of those two sitting like that, mother and son, because they will soon be dead, like all the other sitters in all the other portraits round the wall. And if they are not portrayed like that, no one will see them as they should be remembered.

They will be dead either way. Werner will shoot them if I refuse, and if I agree he will still shoot them in the end because I will fail. I am bound to fail, I am no actor. However hard I try I shall never be able to go up to Carson in Craigavon with a bandage round my head and persuade him to walk beside me to a car full of men who will kill him. It is just not possible.

So Deborah and Tom are bound to die.

He walked towards them slowly across the room. As he did so, another thought came to him.

There is only one armed man in this room.

Franz was watching him calmly, backing away a little towards the windows so that he could cover the three of them easily with his rifle. He didn’t look unduly worried, but most of the time the rifle was trained towards Charles, not Deborah or Tom.

What had Werner said?
I cannot entirely trust my men to kill women and children
. Something like that.

There were a number of small tables in the library, with vases and books and oil lamps on them. To reach the armchairs and sofas round the fireplace, Charles had to pass close by one of these tables with a small expensive black china flower vase standing on it. The vase was about eighteen inches tall, with a long narrow neck and a wide bulbous base to hold the water. There were a number of tulips and ferns in it.

Franz was on Charles’s right, the vase was on his left. As he passed the table, Charles moved his right hand across his body, seized the vase by its neck, and flung it back-handed straight into Franz’s face.

It was a perfect shot. The base of the vase hit Franz full on the nose, and shattered into a dozen pieces. Water and flowers sprayed everywhere. Franz’s head snapped backwards, almost breaking his spine, and his feet took two tottering steps back as well before the momentum of the blow flung him over on his back so that he fell, cracking his head hard against a windowsill behind him. As he collapsed, he pulled the trigger of his rifle.

The bullet ripped into a portrait of an elegant eighteenth century lady and her child on a Shetland pony over the mantelpiece. Deborah screamed. Charles gasped, staggering from the force of the throw which had sent him off balance. His head was reeling, dizzy. But he recovered enough to see Franz lying propped against the wall with his head slumped on his chest and the rifle rolling forwards out of his nerveless hands onto his knees. Charles bent down and picked it up.

Instinctively his military training came into operation. He went down into the firing position, one knee on the floor behind him, the other raised with his elbow resting on it and the rifle pointing towards the door of the library. He flicked the bolt back to eject the used round, and forwards to load a new one. Then the library door opened and Werner ran in with an automatic pistol in his left hand shouting: ‘Franz?
Was ist los?
’ and Charles shot him through the chest.

Werner lurched, the force of the bullet carrying his chest backwards while his legs still carried him forward, and then he skidded, fell flat on his back and crashed into a table. Charles flicked the bolt back to eject the used cartridge and forwards to load a new one, saw the massive bulk of Karl-Otto coming through the door with his rifle raised, and fired again.

Karl-Otto stumbled forwards and fired his own rifle into the floor. Charles’s shot had taken him high in the left shoulder, but he was not dead. He crashed face down onto the floor on top of Werner, his rifle still clutched in his massive right hand. Charles flicked his bolt back and forwards again, searching for the third target, Adolf. But Adolf took one look through the door and then backed away, flat against the wall in the hall outside. Charles waited. One to go.

He stayed exactly where he was, kneeling in the firing position, rifle cocked, finger on the trigger, butt pressed into his shoulder, staring at the door. One second . . . two . . . five seconds . . . ten . . .

Tom let out a tiny, strangled whimper as though he might be hurt. Charles glanced swiftly over his shoulder and saw Deborah with both her arms wrapped round him and Tom peering out over his blankets with eyes black with utter terror. Charles frowned at them both, meaning: Keep down! Keep quiet! and turned his eyes back instantly to the door. Nothing. No sign of Adolf. He waited.

Karl-Otto groaned. Charles risked another swift glance away from the door. Karl-Otto was hard to see. He was lying face down on top of the inert Werner, half-hidden behind a small desk, and an ornamental table had collapsed on top of his head. He groaned again, and moved a little bit, and Charles saw the big brawny right arm that still held the rifle shift slightly. He couldn’t quite see the rifle though, it was hidden beneath a pile of papers and the remains of a potted fern that had fallen on top of him with the tables. But he thought the rifle was moving.