Voices on the Wind (16 page)

Alone with Janot, Dulac sat down. His fine hands were clasped together, as if he were a priest hearing confession.

‘What's the word on Cabrot?'

Janot said, ‘He's very sick.'

‘But not beaten, not tortured?'

The young man shook his head. ‘His wife said not. They asked a few questions. The new chief came himself. Then he was released. Just like that. But nobody knows why.'

‘I know why,' Dulac said sadly. ‘And so do you. Something has to be done.'

‘No one has been arrested,' Janot mumbled.

Dulac looked up at him. There was no anger left, only a drained, unhappy man forced to pronounce sentence.

‘They've released him because he's promised to work for them,' he said. ‘They never let anyone go because they're sick. They question them until they die. I don't judge him, Janot. None of us must judge him. But you must do it tomorrow. That is an order.'

The young man nodded. ‘I'll go there tomorrow,' he said.

‘You're a patriot,' Dulac told him quietly. ‘Remember that and it will give you courage. Now call Ma Mère, will you? I'm going up to speak to Cecilie.' He paused and put his arm round Janot's shoulders. ‘You shall come with me when we attack the convoy,' he promised. ‘After tomorrow, you will do more for France than carry messages.'

Kate had transmitted the message. She packed the set away and hid it as usual. He didn't knock, he just opened the door and stood looking at her.

‘Did you send it? Exactly as I gave it to you?'

‘Yes. Word for word.'

‘Can I come in?'

Kate said, ‘Of course.'

I can still remember that feeling, Katharine Alfurd thought, leaving the silence to lengthen. All the old clichés, the pounding heart and the trembling, when he put his arms round me. The kiss that was more sexually exciting than anything I'd imagined, or ever experienced with anyone before or since. I never shared it with a man again. And I'm not going to share it with you, sitting there, waiting. I'm not going to tell you what he said or I said, or what happened between us. You're being quiet and tactful, not trying to pry. You're a good operator.

‘I need you tonight, Cecilie,' he said. ‘I need you very much. Are you a virgin?'

‘Yes,' she whispered. ‘That doesn't matter.' She reached up and kissed him as passionately as he had kissed her.

As he undressed her he said, ‘I love you.'

‘I sent his message to London,' Katharine Alfurd said. ‘And afterwards we became lovers. Would you pass me that ashtray, please?'

He got up and put it beside her. She had made the statement and closed it off. He wouldn't ask a personal question; that was understood.

‘The next day Janot went down to the town as usual. Dulac said he was completely recovered and was going back. Ma Mère tried to argue with him, but he wouldn't listen. Julie and Pandora were to follow the next day, using Janot as transport.'

‘What about you?' Roulier asked.

She said, ‘He took me with him. And that's how it was from then on. He kept me with him as much as possible.'

‘Even when it was dangerous?'

‘Yes. I didn't care. In a way I felt he took less risks if I was there.'

‘You didn't stay at the safe house then?'

‘No. I took the transmitter and went with him to Nice. I used his flat.'

Roulier said quietly, ‘Wasn't that very careless?'

‘It was criminal,' Katharine Alfurd admitted. ‘But that was how it was. He wanted me with him, and I went.' I would have done anything, gone anywhere, she thought. I didn't even think about danger. All I wanted was to make love. To touch him, to feel him holding me. Even when I discovered why he'd come to my room and gone to bed with me that first night, even then I couldn't help myself.

He had slipped through the back door, avoiding the Gestapo watcher in a parked car up the road. Louis Cabrot was asleep. Janot moved very silently. The big clumsy man was like a stealthy cat as he approached the bed. There was a chipped enamel basin by the bedside, with bloodstained cotton swabs in it. Cabrot looked sunken and grey, his mouth ajar, the rasping breath indicating that he was sleeping and alive. Janot didn't look directly at him. He had seen Cabrot's wife in the yard at the side, hanging out washing. The back door was open and he sneaked inside. He had a cushion in his hand, picked up from a chair in the kitchen. He still didn't look directly at Louis Cabrot when he held it over his face. Cabrot's wife finished putting out the washing. There was a lot to do with all the stained pillowslips and his clothes and the children's. She paused, stretched her aching spine with one hand on her hip, shouldered the empty basket and went back into the house. Five minutes later she went into the bedroom to look at her husband, and began to scream.

Christian Eilenburg heard of Cabrot's death by midday. The deputation of citizens waited on him at three o'clock. He kept them waiting for half an hour and then saw them in his office. The Mayor was a respectable middle-aged hotelier, who had lived on terms with Stohler and protected his town and his people out of his own pocket. Eilenburg knew all about him, and about the others who came with him, to plead for the release of the hostages and the lifting of the punitive curfew. He stayed behind his desk and looked at them one after the other, like a snake confronted by a row of rabbits.

‘I have very little time,' he announced. ‘Monsieur le Maire, state your business please.'

He saw the hatred in the man's eyes and the fear. This was not Stohler, greedy and merciless but open to offer. This prototype of Hitler's nightmare ruling race made them feel already dead men, mouthing their pleas and protests without sound.

‘This has been a peaceful and cooperative town,' the Mayor insisted. ‘In spite of the incident eight months ago, the people of Nice are anxious to maintain good relations with you and the army, Herr Standartenführer. Arresting these innocent people and confining everyone to their homes under this new curfew doesn't make sense to any of us. If it is a demonstration of authority, I assure you, it's unnecessary, and could have unfortunate consequences.'

Quite a brave speech, Eilenburg decided. It wouldn't make any difference to his response but at least the Mayor had earned his respect.

‘The only unfortunate consequences could be for the people of Nice,' Eilenburg said. ‘This is not a demonstration of authority. I have authority. I have it from Reichsführer Himmler himself. You mention an incident eight months ago. Forty people were shot in reprisal for an act of terrorism. The criminals were never caught. You say your town has been peaceful and cooperative. Let me remind you of the sabotage and murder that has gone unpunished under Standartenführer Stohler.' He pushed his chair away and stood up, overshadowing them all from his height. ‘For every German soldier murdered, there will be twenty Frenchmen shot. For every act of sabotage or destruction aimed at German property or the German war effort, there will be fifty Frenchmen shot. You complain about the present curfew? Unless you can deal with the terrorist elements in your town, there will be no need for a curfew, because I shall recommend that the population be transported to labour camps at the rate of ten per cent per month!' There was total silence. He said, ‘I will release the people arrested as a token gesture. I will also amend the curfew back to its original times. For two weeks only. And during that time, I want hard evidence of your cooperation. I want information which will help me to capture the Communists and terrorists who have operated so freely in this area for the last two years. If I don't get it, Monsieur le Maire, you and your deputation will be among the first deported to the East. Good afternoon!'

Cabrot was dead. Conveniently dead, before the Gestapo could compile a list of suspects. Eilenburg dismissed the deputation from his mind. They had gone away cowed; the Mayor was a man of courage and principle, and if his judgement was right, wouldn't sacrifice the people of Nice. Or himself, and leave the town without a leader. Before long, someone would begin betraying the Resistance.

He concentrated on the death of the humble street cleaner, who had interested the military Intelligence. He had released him for nothing. He used the telephone.

‘I want a post mortem carried out on Louis Cabrot. I'm not interested in the widow's objections. See to it!'

At the end of the day he called for his car and went back to the hotel. He had dinner in the restaurant with two of his Paris subordinates. One of them suggested a visit to a nightclub. There was a good floor show and a discreet brothel upstairs. He had been told that the Gestapo went in free of charge. Christian Eilenburg refused. He had work to do, he said. Another time, perhaps. They thanked him for dinner and left.

He sat on in the lounge, drinking coffee, reading the French newspapers. He was expecting letters from home, but none had come. He felt restless and lonely, sitting there. He regretted not going with the others to the nightclub and maybe taking a look at the brothel. Abstinence wasn't healthy. It made a man brood and think too much. But it was late and he felt depressed. A waiter came and asked if there was anything he wanted.

‘No,' Eilenburg said. ‘Nothing,' and then added, ‘thank you.' He watched the old man move away. They were all so polite; he could feel their hatred and fear and ignore it. It had been worse when he first went to Paris. The sensation of being loathed was new to him. Some men reacted very badly to living in a miasma of hostility. It made them savage. It impaired their efficiency because all they wanted to do was strike back. Eilenburg had resisted that temptation. He refused to diminish himself by being cruel or brutal to the people who hated him, because of that hatred. He stood above them. When it was necessary he unleashed the sadist from the Milice and the thugs in his own organization. He had learned to live with the feeling of isolation outside the company of his fellow Germans. To take women when he needed them and never look at their faces, because of what he would see there.

That night he felt acutely alone. He threw the papers aside and went out to the lift. When he opened the door of his suite, he saw a quick movement from the bedroom. Gun in his hand, Eilenburg moved to the doorway. The chambermaid with the haunted look of Minna was turning down his bed.

‘Sit down, Colonel Reed. The General asked me to apologize for not seeing you himself, but he's very tied up at the moment.' The speaker was Lord Wroxham, a man in his mid-thirties. Reed knew his background better than he knew the man. Born in the purple of the British Establishment; too tall and too thin, as if the inbreeding of centuries had produced what the racing world dismissed as a ‘thoroughbred weed'. He had beautiful manners, marred by a subtle hint of condescension. Reed detested him. He had been telephoned late at night and asked to come to the War Office for consultations. He used the word in inverted commas. Consultations my foot, he told Wheeler as he got ready to leave Baker Street. Bloody interference in our operations. He was in an aggressive mood, ready to confront the General himself. But the General was tied up, and only his aristocratic front man was waiting.

‘Can I get you some tea or coffee? A drink perhaps?' The charming smile was like bullet-proof glass. ‘I'm sure we can run to a whisky and soda.'

‘Nothing, thank you,' Reed snapped. ‘I've interrupted a lot of work, so if you can come to the point, I'd be grateful.'

Lord Wroxham unfolded his long body into a chair. He said quietly, ‘It's about your Dulac network, Colonel.'

‘What about it, exactly? You've had the information the General asked for; there's nothing new to add.'

‘The reply sent to your message was a flat refusal to obey instructions, as we understood it.'

Reed said, ‘Not for the first time. You people aren't used to dealing direct with agents in the field. They get very touchy at times. It'll be sorted out.'

‘Can you guarantee that?'

Reed lost his temper. ‘No, of course I can't bloody well guarantee what somebody in France is going to do! What I can guarantee is that we have experience in dealing with men under these conditions and we know best how to handle them. I wish the General would let us get on with it!'

‘Colonel Reed.' There was an edge to the voice now and a very hard stare went with it. ‘Colonel Reed, this man Dulac is going to attack a convoy of German troops and a group of senior army officers travelling with them. It is absolutely imperative that he doesn't go ahead with this plan. And it's your responsibility to make sure of it.'

Reed got up. ‘What's so special about this convoy and these officers? If you're taking this attitude, you've got to explain why. It's possible that an explanation conveyed to Dulac may be enough.'

‘The last person to know is anyone the Germans may capture,' Wroxham said. ‘The General authorized me to answer your question, Colonel, on the understanding that you treated it as top secret. We have information that one of the most important anti-Nazi generals in the German army is travelling with the group of officers. This man is vital to Allied plans, and mustn't be put at risk. That's the reason why your people have got to leave that convoy alone.'

After a pause Reed said, ‘This information comes through your own channels. And you're sure it's reliable?'

‘Unquestionably. It should be reliable to you too. The General has authorized me to give you the contact's name.'

He took a slip of paper out of his breast pocket and handed it to Reed. Reed looked at it. He reddened slowly. ‘I shall make the strongest possible protest about this,' he said. ‘At the highest level.'

‘It's already known at the highest level,' was the answer. ‘This and other deceptions have been authorized. It's vital that we mislead the enemy, no matter what the cost.' Suddenly he spoke as one man to another. ‘It can't be easy for you having us poach on your ground, but there are enormous issues at stake. If you can't stop Dulac from making a balls-up, then we'll have to deal with it ourselves.'