‘You are Herr Professor Franz Bethwig, are you not?’ she asked with a smile that made him catch his breath. ‘They told me you were quite handsome and very athletic. I can see that they were correct.’ She shifted her legs, so that she was now sitting, and patted the bed beside her. ‘Come, here beside me. I can promise you I will bite.’ This last pronounced with laughing authority.
Desperate for something to say, Bethwig cleared his throat. ‘What is your name, please?’
‘Oh my, so formal.’ She pouted a moment, then gave him that heart-stopping smile once more. ‘Inge. Do you like it?’
Even though Bethwig was experienced enough to know that her entire manner was a well-practised art, he nevertheless felt drawn to the girl and moved to sit beside her. His hands were shaking, and he clenched his fists to hide his nervousness. Inge touched a fingertip to his cheek and smiled again.
‘Do you like Inge?’ She postured for him, thoroughly enjoying herself. Her voice was pitched quite high, and as he turned to her the soft light shone into eyes that were little more than dark pupils. ‘Men always tell Inge she is beautiful. They always want me to take off my clothes.’ She laughed again. Bethwig closed his eyes a moment, in pain as he realised that she was mentally retarded.
‘Well,’ she demanded.
‘Yes, very much so,’ he told her softly. ‘You are quite beautiful, Inge.’
The girl preened like a cat, arching her back so that her breasts shivered seductively. In spite of himself, Bethwig touched a gentle curve, tracing it upward towards the nipple.
‘I have never before made love to a professor,’ she whispered. ‘Have you ever had a girl like me? No? Well, I can teach you and you can teach me. Would that be all right? Isn’t that what professors do?’ Her hands were busy unbuttoning his shirt. He made a half-hearted effort to brush them away, but she persevered with a giggle. A musky odour compounded of sleep and French perfume enveloped them, and he drew a shaky breath. In spite of his inclination not to touch this beautiful but helpless woman, his defences were crumbling. As if able to sense his misgivings, Inge sat back and regarded him with the perceptive understanding of a child.
‘Please, Franz, I am a woman. Please do not deny me that.’ She stared anxiously, willing him to understand. The combination of her appeal, her nearness, and her obvious need for him shattered his good intentions.
‘I can help you if you let me. Will you?’
There was nothing else he could do, and he nodded.
They lay quietly side by side, and Bethwig wondered if he would ever again experience anything as emotionally trying yet satisfying. That the girl was an accomplished sexual artist, there was no doubt. Strange as it seemed, it did not trouble him when he thought of how she had learned. There was a sense of giving, of sharing pleasure, that he had always thought represented the state of love, and to find it in an SS prostitute had taken him completely by surprise. Bethwig wondered what would eventually happen to the girl and discovered that he very much cared. He propped himself up and caressed her shoulder until she murmured sleepily, snuggled into his body, and, with her fingernail, began to trace patterns that made him catch his breath. His erection came swiftly, and Inge was astride him before he could protest. She put her hands on his shoulders and rocked and rocked until his thrusts matched hers in desperate need, and, inconceivably, their lovemaking was better the second time, seeming to last for ever until both exploded into exhaustion.
Afterwards, when the girl had fallen asleep, Bethwig got out of the bed and covered her with the eiderdown. He stood a moment, studying her face, then found his cigarettes, filled a large tumbler with brandy, and went through to the bath. Lighting a cigarette, he eased himself into the hot water. Trying to concentrate on Inge, he discovered he was too emotionally exhausted. He took a deep pull at the brandy and then a second, half emptying the glass.
Franz Bethwig was certainly not a virgin; he was far too attractive and personable for that. Inexperienced perhaps; but even so, there had been affairs, and once he had nearly married. He supposed the sum total of those experiences must have taught him something about lust, if not about love. And then there was the contribution of the party to the health and welfare of the German people, or so the joke ran: the promotion of free love – as long as you were a party member. A perk, one might say.
But never had he been subjected to an emotional assault like this evening’s. No one had ever done those things to him nor, literally, begged him to do them to her. And it had all been so free, so naturaclass="underline" Bethwig shook his head. He did not want this; she was a cripple, a mental cripple. He could not afford such an affair. And she belonged to the SS. How in the name of God could he cope with that?
The bathwater had cooled, and the brandy was gone. He got out, dried himself slowly, and returned to the bedroom. The night was warm, and in her sleep Inge had thrown off the eiderdown. A pale moon had risen and was shining fitfully through the curtains, touching her body here and there with silver. Bethwig drew the curtains open and returned to the bed, entranced with the vision. For a moment he had an inkling of the power that drove men to kill for a woman’s body.
Thinking of the soft presence beside him and the brief gleam of insanity he had glimpsed twice now in Heydrich’s eyes, Bethwig slept little that night.
Norway – England
April 1942
Lieutenant Jan Memling crouched behind the pilings of a warehouse, spooning tasteless rations from a tin. A frigid wind flung spatters of rain, and his sergeant cursed. The fjord fled into the fog less than half a mile from where they were sheltering. Beyond that, he thought, anything could be happening. Rumour had it that a German destroyer was on its way from Bergen, but rumours weren’t worth a damn. He dug the last of the pasty mess from the can, licked the spoon, and slipped it into the light pack lying beside him. Memling then turned the tin this way and that, trying to read the scratched label in the failing light. It was impossible to know what he had eaten from its taste alone.
They had landed shortly before noon, in full daylight. A diversion, they had been told. ‘Need someone to distract Jerry’s attention while we drop a load of paratroops up on the plateau. Very important job, hush-hush. Wizards tell us there’s a big hydroelectric plant at Rjukan the Nazi needs.’
Their target village was defended by a small army detachment that had grown a bit soft with garrison duty, or so they had been informed. No one, it turned out, had so informed the Germans.
His section had been targeted on the wireless facility, which intelligence had pinpointed in the local school, a single-storey redbrick affair that looked very much like an English village school. It stood on the highest point in town, barring the mountains rising almost vertically from the fjord, and so was a logical choice. Apparently the Germans thought so as well, and no one had checked the information with MILORG, the Norwegian resistance organisation.
Memling had realised there was no radio in the building as soon as the door was kicked in. An elderly teacher and fifteen or so students had stared at them in wide-eyed fright. Ten vital minutes had been wasted before the radio was located in the town hall and destroyed, by which time every German garrison in central Norway had been notified.
The wireless set rattled and the sergeant major took the headset from the operator and pressed it to his ear, muttered something in reply, and shook his head.