Hitler's Girls (14 page)

I must have made a loud sound of protest. The odious Graham simply laughed and leant forward on the bed, thus mingling armpit with sock in a cacophony of unpleasant odours.

“You ‘simply loved’ the other residents of the Trois Frères I have no doubt, Dr. Hastie. So well brought-up, well-dressed, good-mannered. Am I right?”

I refused to reply. The idea that Peter Müller was at this moment in the foyer—or, worse, at my discreetly placed table in the salle à manger—was too horribly evocative of recent unpleasant experiences to do anything other than bring a sense of nausea.

“I thought you might fall for them,” Graham went on with a quiet amusement which was almost intolerable, “but these people would kill you without blinking, as well as eradicate the refugee and immigrant populations of all Europe. They are the followers of Adolf Hitler. They hold your goddaughter Melissa prisoner. Is that enough for you?”

Before I could make any response, my “husband” (for I now saw he was essential to my future survival) went on to apologise and speak tenderly, a habit surely learned in those far-off days of male chauvinist superiority, when Norman Mailer and his
Time of Her Time
was considered the most telling and important description of a woman’s subjugation to man.

“I’m sorry, Jean, lassie. I didna’ mean to offend ye’.” Graham’s imitation of the Scottish accent was, needless to say,
atrocious. “Things being the way they are, I do believe the time has come to explain matters to you. It’s not so bad to have me here, I hope. I had a bit of research to do, talked to a few old mates with their ears to the ground. Besides, as the old song has it, it’s later than you think.”

I settled myself on the far edge of what is, I believe, unfortunately known as a “Queen size” bed and awaited the revelations of my companion.

“You must understand that the plan of your friends, gathered here to accomplish the most historically important coup since the Norman invasion, is to bring down the euro. Am I correct, Jean, in surmising that you understand by what process this will be done? No? Relax, Dr. Hastie.” (Here I must interpolate, to remark that Jim Graham’s habit of instructing women to “relax” had as much of an effect, as far as I was concerned, as an injection of belladonna: I stiffened, accordingly.) “They will crash the euro by buying up the sovereign debts of the weaker states of Europe, Greece, Italy, Spain, even the UK if they feel like it. Then they will sell it fast—they will need a lot of money from somewhere—they will cause panic in all the countries of the euro-zone. The weak ones will bust, facing inconceivable poverty and social chaos; the strong, France and Germany, for example, will be faced with dumping the euro altogether and breaking up the Union. Then, in come our guys under the banner of ‘Strength, Unity, and Leadership.’”

“I see,” I said. That I did not understand the workings of the international money markets was not a fact I intended to pass on to Jim Graham.

At this point, Jim Graham rolled sideways on the Reveillon Rose de Nantes glazed chintz coverlet and seized my upper arm. At the same time, his pipe rolled from its resting place in the glass dish and lay smouldering on the imitation Louis XV bedside table. A black ring began to form. I squealed.

“Yes,” Jim went on, his large brown eyes now not more than a few inches from my own and his breath (crumbed cod overlaid with cheap whisky) whistling straight into my face, “yes, Dr. Hastie, I do not believe that you would have tried to call Jennifer Devant, QC if you hadn’t found yourself near to discovering—or remembering—the lost code.”

Here, Jim Graham emitted a series of satisfied grunts at the revelation of this intelligence. The grunts revealed his extensive use of the mini-bar—located in another madly overdone article of furniture (I do not have the confidence to pronounce on its authenticity or otherwise at this stage) and were followed by stomach rumblings.

“I say, old girl, relax!” When it came to it, Graham was less of a Lothario than he liked to make out. It was his turn now to edge to the far side of the “Queen,” his hand sliding down in
the direction of the lower stomach with a coy modesty that was distinctly surprising. We both now lay flat. I pulled myself to a sitting position, and noted with horror that my Harris Tweed skirt had ridden up above the knee and my slip, grubby from lack of laundering in this hectic time, was clearly showing.

“That’s not all, Jean.” Alarmed at the possible implication in Jim Graham’s earnest tone I slid from the crease-resistant fabric on the bed and stood on the few inches of meanly uncarpeted tiles between the bed and the door. Surreptitiously I straightened my skirt: a repulsive smile flitted across Graham’s heavy features. “I need to tell you more of the nefarious intentions of our friends the neo-Nazis downstairs. Because they’ll need vast sums of cash for the purchase of the national debts.”

“And so?” I enquired coldly.

“The money to which you hold the key is crucial to the whole plot. Jean, the economies of the West are ruined. Don’t you see? The neo-Nazi groups are assembled here to meet in the chateau where your goddaughter Mel is already immured.”

My first reaction to this was to turn and open the door from the tiny bedroom into the corridor.

Jim held up his hand to stop me. “Not so fast, Jean. I knew she was here because Lady Ray—dear Artemis—informed me of the group’s plans. Incidentally, she confided to me they have her sister on the famous mad leader’s cocktail—steroids,
amphetamines, and the rest, guaranteed to give you the strength of a tiger though it strips away the minor stuff like common sense, judgment, and morals. More importantly, driving here, I saw Mel high in one of those mediaeval windows of the chateau. Whatever else they’ve done to her, the new grooming has turned the girl into a striking beauty. Had a good mind to bring her down here, enjoy a weekend together. But this is hardly the time for it, I daresay you’ll agree?”

I didn’t listen to the rest of Jim Graham’s description of the neo-Nazi takeover of Europe. I thought only of Mel. I had known, when walking that morning in spring sunlight up the hill from the village to the chateau that she was not far from me then. I cursed myself for failing to find her, a flaxen-haired princess in a Provencal song, imprisoned behind a window high up in the walls of the castle.

“It’s up to us to stop them, Dr. Hastie. And up to you to make sure they don’t catch you and squeeze you till those numbers you discovered come tumbling out. That, I suppose you could say, is what I’m here for: to save you from capture and interrogation at the hands of Muller and his friends. And if you want to know how I know all this, just remember that Jim Graham still goes to the old hang-outs: the Blue Lion in Fleet Street, the Medina Bar in Cairo…even in Nairobi.”

As the ex–Foreign Correspondent droned on, even going so far as to laughably suggest room service for the two of us, my mind raced to create a plan which would save Mel from her captors and leave my hands free to escort her home.

Graham must have noticed my silence, for he swung his legs off the bed and looked across at me. “Don’t even think about making a dash for it, Jean. If necessary I’d bring you down in a rugger tackle: at least you’d be kept from the attentions of the disciples of France’s Le Pen, Germany’s Roeder, and British exaficionados of Sir Oswald Mosley et al.”

Unable to prevent himself from chuckling at this further exhibition of wit, Graham energetically stuffed his pipe, and began to get it alight again. I advanced: only two steps did it. “Your idea of a room service repast sounds most tempting, Jim. Is this the menu I see on the desk under the window?”

It was. We got down to choosing the meal.

Jim Graham announced that
Steak Frites
would do the job, though he was unable to resist adding that his own
Tete de Veau Sauce Bigarade
, when made at home, was world famous.

I chose an
omelette fines herbes
and a green salad, to be followed by profiteroles.

Then we switched on the TV and watched an old movie,
All that Heaven Allows
, with subtitles in French. By the time I tiptoed round the bed, Jim Graham was noisily asleep.

Peter Müller and his generals met in the sparsely furnished upstairs sitting-room. Two console tables had been taken from the sides of the room and put together in the centre, with spindly gilt chairs placed around it. Only George Drago sat at the table, at its head, with a bottle and glass beside him. Lachaume sat with his legs extended in a narrow-armed chair beside the fireplace, his long face and intelligent almond eyes deliberately expressionless. Fyodor Grigoriev stood, one arm on the mantelpiece, talking to him. Toscano, in the chair opposite, tapped on his laptop. And the Dutchman, Leyden, smoked a stubby cigar, leaning against a wall near the door, looking ready to leave.

At the end of the long room Peter Müller stood by the window with his back turned to the room. He gazed over the arid landscape below, where at one time men and women might have tended vines. Once the EU agricultural policy is displaced, he thought, and once the drift to the cities is reversed, they will return. There will be peasants and small farmers again tending
the land of their fathers. But, behind him, he knew something like a rebellion was growing. He turned and faced the room, taking in George Drago, whom he knew to have been the author of many massacres. Then there was Leyden, ever-angry; the cold-hearted Lachaume, whom he secretly thought of as his own Robespierre; the subtle Toscano; and the brutal Grigoriev. He respected and needed these men. Together, they would save Europe from itself and from the millions who would invade it. As he turned, Leyden burst out in English, “So where are those numbers, Muller? Have you got them? Are you hiding them from us?”

“If you’ll come and sit down, I’ll explain,” Muller said.

Leyden marched to the table and sat down at the end opposite Drago. “Well?” he asked. Drago poured some liquid from the bottle into his glass and drank.

Muller walked rapidly from the window and took up a position in front of the fireplace. “When you hear what I have to say, you’ll understand why I wanted to discuss this in a private meeting. You already know that the numbers for the secret account in Switzerland were not found in Monica Stirling’s house. And that her granddaughter was never told of them.”

“A pity the daughter died,” Lachaume remarked, in French. Muller knew he expressed a discontent felt by all the other men in the room. The death of Monica Stirling had, he
knew, been a mistake caused by the sudden intervention of a gang of neighbourhood girls, running wild on drugs, something which, in an ordered world, they would not be allowed to do. But Muller decided to explain nothing.

“There is a Scottish art historian of some kind named Jean Hastie. A childhood friend of Monica Stirling. She left a letter from Monica in the haversack that she abandoned on the train when she fled. And in this letter Monica Stirling left a clue: that Dr. Hastie has the numbers in her memory.”

“Where is she now? Time is running out,” Leyden said loudly.

“Shall we listen?” Lachaume said idly.

“She is on her way here,” said Muller. “I have set a trap for her. She is walking into it.”

“A trap!” Drago said from the table. “A stupid animal can avoid a trap. Why are we waiting?”

“I believe this Dr. Hastie is that strange woman I glimpsed at the auberge,” said Toscano. “Certainly, I have never seen a woman so like a Scottish art historian in all my life. But if she is the woman we want, why is she not here? After all, the auberge is ours.”

Muller said, “You are right, of course, that the woman at the auberge is Dr. Hastie. She is with an Englishman, who apparently claims to be her husband, though he is not. He is
a retired journalist, a man of little repute. It would be a mistake to enter the auberge and capture her there. The woman and her companion are British and may have friends in Britain who know where they are. A violent intervention in daylight would be clumsy and dangerous. Better she comes here to find our girl, who is not only Monica’s granddaughter, but also Jean Hastie’s goddaughter.”

“Can you be sure she’ll come?”

“She is coming. My watchers at the auberge have told me. She has accomplices, an Algerian and his wife, who will be dealt with later. But first we need Dr. Hastie. We will catch her on the road here, in darkness. Or when she arrives here. Once she is in our hands, we will have those numbers. Tomorrow we will be in Switzerland to claim the money. Tomorrow, we shall begin.”

“If she won’t give up the numbers?” said Lachaume.

“She will give up the numbers,” Drago told them.

“I think we can be sure she will,” agreed Muller.

Later, Muller entered a large room on the same floor. Mel, in her elaborate red dress, sat on the edge of a huge rumpled bed, a servant at her feet, sewing the hem. As Muller entered, he heard the two of them talking. The conversation broke off as he came up. Mel, one shoulder out of her dress, said to him, “Got the pills?”

She remained very pale, but her hair had been coloured to a pale golden-brown.

Muller nodded towards the door. The servant got to her feet and left the room.

“Mel—you are very important to me—”

She held out her hand. “Come on,” she said. “You said you’d bring me the pills.”

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t take any more. Tonight is very important. I should like you to be aware—”

“Aware of what? This is all mad—this room and that dress. Where did they dig that up from? It looks like something in a black-and-white film. Why am I here? What do you want? You told me we were going to a hotel, like a holiday. This isn’t a hotel.”

“I need to explain some things to you—”

“Starting with where I am. And what’s going on downstairs. And I looked out of the window and there’s armed coppers walking around.”

Muller pulled a bottle from his pocket and found a carafe of water. He poured a glass and took it over to Mel. He shook out two tablets and gave them to her. “Lean back and relax,” he said.

Mel lay back, the red dress pooling around her. Muller sat down on the side of the bed and took her hand, limp and chilly
in his own. Bending towards her he said, “Mel. This is serious. You are very important to me, and to many people. You have a big part to play. You are of the blood of a conqueror, a hero. You are a symbol.”