Citadel (78 page)
‘Thanks ever so,’ Lucie giggled. ‘
Danke
.’
The captain and lieutenant got back into the truck and continued down the chemin des Anglais. Lucie gave a little wave to the soldiers looking longingly back at her as they drove round the corner and vanished from view.
Sandrine gave a long sigh of relief. ‘Well done,’ she said. ‘That was . . .’
Lucie pulled a face. ‘You’re going to have to make a bit more effort than that, if you want to persuade them you’re a working girl.’
Sandrine blushed. ‘I’m just no good at that kind of thing.’
‘It doesn’t come naturally to me either,’ Lucie said wryly.
Sandrine shook her head. ‘I know, of course it doesn’t. But you’re very good. A born actress.’ She sighed. ‘Come on, we need to keep moving.’
The small hairs on the back of Sandrine’s neck were standing on end. She’d concentrated so much on the practicalities of getting to the Tour du Grand Burlas unobserved that she’d hardly thought about what she had to do. Suzanne was good, one of the best. Her devices rarely malfunctioned, rarely blew up before they were designed to. But it happened, Sandrine knew it could happen. One false move, one touch of the wrong wire.
‘If anything goes wrong,’ she said to Lucie, ‘save yourself. Get away as quickly as you can.’
‘Nothing’s going to go wrong,’ Lucie said. ‘I have every faith in you.’ She smiled. ‘Always have, kid.’
‘
W
hy am I here?’ the old man said.
Giraud was in an airless interrogation room in the Commissariat. A table, two chairs, no window. He was hiding his fear as best he could, but his watery eyes skittered from the table to the door to the two blue berets keeping guard.
‘On whose orders have I been brought here?’
It was the end of the afternoon. Giraud had been arrested in boulevard Barbès. Since midday he had been sitting in the shade of the lime trees, keeping watch on the door of the Clinique du Bastion. His son had been forced to change his plans. Rather than a day of performing operations, he’d been called to help two injured maquisards, hiding at a house in Trèbes. His daughter-in-law Jeanne had spent the morning telling patients about the delay and had then taken a little boy, due to have his tonsils out, back home. Giraud had offered to sit guard outside the clinic to stop anyone Jeanne hadn’t been able to tell about the change of plan from trying to go in.
Then the Milice had come. A hand on his arm, a hand in his back, no need to draw their weapons. His only consolation was that he was not the only one, but his fears for his son and daughter-in-law were growing.
‘Why am I here?’ Giraud asked again.
Neither of the
miliciens
even looked at him. He stood for a moment longer, then sat down again. A few minutes went by in the same heavy silence. No one speaking, Giraud aware of his own nervous intakes of breath, fear growing all the time. If only he knew what they wanted, he could be prepared.
Finally, the door opened. The
miliciens
sprang to attention and a man walked in. Wearing a light grey suit, he was broader than when Giraud had last seen him, but he recognised him immediately.
‘Wait outside,’ Authié said, dismissing the police.
The
miliciens
left immediately, closing the door behind them. Giraud watched Authié leaf through his papers. The old man felt tired. Felt his age.
‘Giraud, is it?’ Authié looked up, then his eyes narrowed. ‘Have we met before?’
‘Bastille Day, July 1942,’ he said. ‘You came to talk to me when I was in hospital.’
Authié stared, clearly trying to remember. ‘That’s right.’ He looked back at the list in his hand. ‘Félix Giraud. Residing in rue de la Gaffe, quartier Trivalle? Is that still correct?’
‘It is, Captain Authié.’
‘Major.’
Giraud raised his hand in apology. ‘Major Authié.’
‘And your son is Jean-Marc Giraud?’
‘He is.’
‘Did they force you to help, Monsieur Giraud? If that is the case, the courts have it in their discretion to give a lighter sentence. Two or three years, at most.’
The old man’s eyes flashed with shock at the abruptness of the threat, but he kept his head.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Major Authié.’
Authié gave a thin smile. ‘Did they really think they’d get away with it?’
‘They?’
‘Your son and his colleagues.’
‘There’s obviously been some mistake. My son is a doctor.’
‘A mistake? No, I don’t think so,’ Authié said, tapping the paper. ‘It’s all here. All the comings and goings, odd times of the night. It disturbs the neighbours, you see. They don’t like it.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Giraud repeated. ‘He is a doctor. A good man.’
‘A doctor who helps the insurgents, patches up the terrorists so they can continue to maim and kill innocent people.’
Giraud managed not to react. ‘I can’t tell you anything. I don’t know anything.’
Authié stared. ‘Believe me, Monsieur Giraud, I can assure you that you will discover you have plenty to say.’ He smiled. ‘Although I hope it will not come to that.’
‘I’m a veteran. I live quietly.’
‘Yet you are a supporter of Général de Gaulle?’
‘I am a patriot.’
‘De Gaulle is a traitor. Whereas Maréchal Pétain has worked tirelessly for men like you.’
The old man’s face clouded in confusion. ‘I don’t . . .’
‘To bring home our prisoners of war, Monsieur Giraud. French prisoners of war. Your son amongst them. He’d still be in a POW camp were it not for the Maréchal. The “hero of Verdun”, I’m sure you called him that yourself once upon a time.’
The old man’s expression hardened. ‘That was then.’
Authié let his words hang in the air for a moment.
‘Tell me, Giraud, what do you think about the bombing of the tunnel at Berriac?’
Giraud blinked, struggling to cope with the sudden change of subject.
‘I don’t think anything about it. I don’t know anything.’
‘You didn’t hear about it on the wireless?’
‘I may have done. There’s no crime in listening to the wireless.’
‘What about your daughter-in-law.’ Authié made a show of looking at the papers, although he clearly didn’t need to. ‘Does Jeanne listen to the wireless?’
For the first time, concern flickered in the old man’s eyes. He said nothing. Confident that the threat had been heard and received, Authié moved on.
‘A veteran, yes. Highly decorated. France is –
was
– in your debt.’ He made another show of glancing at his papers. ‘You don’t belong to the LVF?’
Giraud met his gaze. ‘I do not care for organisations. I keep myself to myself. Live quietly, as I said.’
‘The driver of the Berriac train is in hospital, Monsieur Giraud, two broken arms, broken back. Even if he survives, he will never walk again. Lost the use of his eyes. That’s the reality of being a “patriot”.’
‘I have nothing to say.’
Authié leant forward. ‘Witnesses talk of seeing a young woman in the vicinity of the village of Berriac itself. That wasn’t your daughter-in-law, Monsieur Giraud?’
The alarm in his eyes intensified. ‘Jeanne was at home with me on Sunday night. She’s a good girl.’
‘Sunday night, monsieur?’ he said smoothly. ‘So you do know something about the incident?’
Giraud’s throat was dry. Authié’s questions were muddling him up. He didn’t know what he wanted, so was terrified about, somehow, saying the wrong thing.
‘It was on the wireless. Everyone knows when it happened.’
Authié sat back on his chair. Giraud was one of a dozen older men and women he’d ordered to be rounded up and brought in. None of them had done anything in particular. It was a random selection designed to scare Carcassonne and make it clear that things would be different now he was back.
The
résistants
and maquisards were skilled at avoiding patrols. Those who were captured mostly refused to talk. Authié considered the Milice – Schiffner’s men too – had failed to pursue tactics that would have delivered information more quickly to the intelligence services. The old Carcassonnais men and women had courage and they were steadfast, but they feared for their children as much as any young mother.
Authié got up and walked around the desk, to perch on the edge immediately in front of Giraud.
‘I don’t know anything about it.’
Authié’s eyes narrowed. ‘Nothing about all the visitors who come to the rue de la Gaffe?’
‘I’m an old man. I don’t get involved.’
Authié saw the old man’s gaze slip to the cross pinned on his lapel.
‘Do you believe in God, Monsieur Giraud?’ Authié said, jabbing him in the chest.
The unexpected physical contact caused Giraud to flinch, but he held Authié’s gaze.
‘My beliefs are my own business.’
‘Do you fear God?’ Authié continued. ‘Do you think God will save you?’
‘I believe men are responsible for their own fate,’ Giraud said with dignity. ‘Our lives are in our own hands.’
‘Do you now?’ Authié murmured. ‘A pity . . .’
‘What do you mean?’
Authié put his hand to his pocket. Giraud flinched, half expecting him to pull out a gun. It was only a photograph.
‘Do you recognise this man?’ Authié asked.
Giraud looked at the black and white image and relief flooded through him. It was not his son – nor any of the men or women who came regularly to the house – though there was something familiar about the face.
‘I may do,’ he said. ‘Who is he?’
‘A man called Raoul Pelletier,’ said Authié. ‘Do you remember, Giraud? That demonstration outside Saint-Michel. You were there. Your daughter-in-law was there.’
Giraud remained silent.
‘A boy died that day,’ he said. ‘Murdered by this man. I interviewed you then.’
‘It was two years ago.’
‘Perhaps you saw Pelletier detonate the bomb?’
‘You asked me then, the answer is the same. I saw nothing.’
‘Are you refusing to help the police, Monsieur Giraud?’
Giraud could feel fear churning in his stomach, but he held his head high and looked Authié in the eye.
‘I cannot testify to something I know to be untrue.’
Authié glanced at him for a moment longer. Then, without emotion, he drove his fist into Giraud’s face. The old man cried out with shock and pain, blood splattering down his shirt. As he put out his thin and frail wrists to break his fall, he heard Authié shout an order.
‘Bring in Jeanne Giraud. Perhaps she will be able to help us.’
‘No,’ Giraud tried to say, but the door slammed shut on his protest.
S
andrine took off the high-heeled shoes and hid them in the bushes.
‘Good luck,’ Lucie said. ‘If anyone comes, I’ll whistle “Lili Marlene”. Appropriate, don’t you think? The girl under the lantern?’
‘Lucie, be serious,’ Sandrine warned.
‘I am serious,’ Lucie said, the lightness gone from her voice. ‘If you hear me whistle, stay out of sight.’
Sandrine looked up at the outer walls of the Cité. The huge searchlights, blind in the flattening heat of the late afternoon, were set at intervals along the outer walls. She could see Wehrmacht soldiers in pairs patrolling the battlements, but there were no signs of additional troops on this section.
From her hiding place, she counted the time it took for the sentries to walk from one tower to the next before turning back again. The question was how many extra men had been drafted in. Most of the Gestapo wore plain clothes, so Sandrine couldn’t be sure. She hadn’t caught sight of any
miliciens
, but it didn’t mean they weren’t there.
She wished she could talk her changed tactics over with Raoul. It just seemed obvious, now she was here, that she should act straight away rather than waiting for night to fall. It wasn’t that they weren’t watching now – there had to be some increase in security already – but the Gestapo would expect them to wait until it was dark, until close to the time Authié had been scheduled to arrive.
Motionless, Sandrine could hear nothing more than the usual sounds from the Cité. The soldiers’ boots on the rough stone surface of the battlements marching up and down, occasional orders shouted. It was calm. There was no sense of expectation, no sense that everyone was poised, waiting for something to happen.
Not yet.
For a fleeting moment, a snapshot of herself sitting in Coustaussa with Monsieur Baillard on the evening they had met came into her mind.
‘Evil has not yet won,’ that was what he’d said.
For two years she had fought to make that true. She and Raoul, Marianne and Suzanne, all of them. And, for all the hardship and the fear, they had succeeded in part. They had never given in, they had never allowed themselves to become people they would be ashamed to know. They had held true to their principles and a sense of right and wrong. No collusion, no compromise.
‘Now or never,’ she murmured to herself.
The next time the patrol turned, Sandrine ran. She covered the open ground and threw herself against the grey shadow of the outer wall. She stopped, held her breath, anticipating the wail of an alarm or Lucie’s warning whistle. But nothing happened. The only sound she could hear was her own heart beating, strong in her chest, and the roar of blood in her ears.
She made her way to the low door set in the thick stone walls at the foot of the Tour du Grand Burlas. She studied the padlock. It didn’t look as if it had been tampered with. Trying not to make a sound, she reached out, unhooked the lock and removed the chain, then went inside.
Everything was as they had left it. The device was still propped in the corner, the fuse sticking out like the tail of a mouse, waiting only for the flame to bring it to life. Sandrine gave a sigh of relief. Carefully, she removed the fuse and took the pipe packed full with explosives, as Suzanne had told her to do. It was a waste to leave the rest, but she couldn’t hope to conceal it.
The whole business lasted less than two minutes. She said a silent prayer to a God she didn’t believe in, then started to make her way down towards where Lucie was waiting. She almost tripped on the gravel path, keeping her balance with a gasp and holding the explosive tight against her chest. Just as she thought she was safe, she heard a man’s voice. Immediately she pushed herself back into the shadow of the walls.
