‘I needed time.’
‘You knew Victoria Bodicker would come out here on that Sunday, that Alain Schrijen would also have been here with his sister.’
‘He killed Renee, didn’t he? He and that father of his.’
‘They had to stop them, Colonel, and those three women knew it and lived in terror until the one begged her friend to help her, that friend now having paid for it.’
‘And the other?’
‘Why not come and see for yourself?’
The ravens had returned. Two of them flew silently from the body while a third watched from a nearby branch at the very edge of the Kastenwald where a field-grey giant madly shooed them away, waving arms and gloved hands but making no sound whatsoever.
Still dazed, Hermann broke through the edge of the woods. Wandering uncertainly toward them, he looked frightened, lost, puzzled-ah, so many things-had bound his head with his scarf, had pulled the collar of his greatcoat up and had buttoned it tightly. Bloodstains were everywhere on him; the cuts and nicks having congealed. ‘Hermann,’ said St-Cyr. ‘Hermann …’
‘He’s in shock,’ grunted Rasche. ‘He can’t hear you.’
‘He’s frozen. He’s hungry and exhausted, has had nothing to eat but Benzedrine and snow.’
‘Get him into the car. Get him out of here now. You mustn’t miss that train. This is perfect. Lowe Schrijen will cry foul about the resistants and terrorism and claim his daughter had to put a stop to it but died in the process.’
‘Colonel, you came out here to find out what had happened to us and to them.’
‘Listen, you, get in. With luck we’ll make it and you’ll be well on your way to the frontier before Meyer and the others find out. I’ll stall them all I can.’
‘Papers … The Ausweise and safe-conducts we’ll need?’
‘In your grip, your weapons also. Alain Schrijen found he had no choice but to give them to me.’
‘Danke, Colonel. It … it was the least you could do.’
‘There are some sandwiches and a vacuum flask of soup Yvonne insisted she pack in case you had …’
‘Solved the matter and survived? Settled it as best we could, given the circumstances? But, please, what has happened to those men who were being held in Straf?’
‘When I sent the ones I had here to the front, I sent them along to stalags. I couldn’t let Lowe Schrijen pry answers from them.’
‘Be honest, Colonel. You needed the insurance their continued presence on this earth would provide to keep him from pointing the finger at yourself for allowing it all to happen.’
‘He’ll have dealt with Deiss and Paulus.’
‘No, Colonel, you will already have had that taken care of. Seeing as Herr Lutze did not accompany you this morning, I assume he has …’
‘Silenced them. As it turns out, another “terrorist” attack.’
‘And the watchmaker?’
‘Yvonne insisted I send him to relatives in Provence.’
At Belfort there was an hour-long stopover. Leading Hermann by the hand, St-Cyr took him into the station and sat him down next to the stationmaster’s stove. Everyone went out of their way to be kind. ‘Shell-shocked,’ they whispered. ‘An RAF bomb. A stray one, hung up in the bomb bay and finally jettisoned.’
Cigarettes, one after another, were found and lit and placed between his lips, those faded blue eyes still vacant, the continued silence a tragedy to compound tragedies.
In silence, they ate. What Hermann needed most was sleep.
‘Don’t even think of it, Louis. If you feed me Evipan, I’ll never thaw out.’
‘Hermann …’
‘Shh! You’re across the frontier, aren’t you? You’re on your way back to Paris. Paris, Louis.’
Ah, merde, he had been faking!
At Dijon a telex from Gestapo Boemelburg, Hermann’s boss at 11 rue des Saussaies, caught up with them. Return HQ immediately. Streets being terrorized by blackout crime. Heil Hitler.
A tapestry … that’s what this life of theirs was like. A wall-hanging to keep out the cold until the fortress on high was finally taken and its occupants thrown from the walls.