Blue Noon Page 16

  Rope.

  One of the soldiers on the ground took the end and, with the speed and expertise of an old salt, made a complex knot. Now, where there had once been a simple rope, there was a noose dangling.

  Two ladders. Harry could see what would happen now. The executioner climbs one side, the victim the other. The noose goes around the neck. One ladder is removed from beneath the suspended victim, the feet kicking free, the fruitless struggle for breath. It wasn’t hanging, it was slow strangulation.

  He spat to try to get the sour taste from his mouth.

  He scanned again, alighting on two figures gesticulating, the officer arguing with the tall, blond civilian. The civilian wagged a finger at the SS man and was irritably pushed away. As Harry followed his faltering steps backwards something else caught his eyes. A lamppost. The same set-up as the balcony: two ladders, a circle of rope waiting for a neck.

  Again, to the left, another balcony, another thick rope, the free end quickly looped into a perfect sliding knot, ready for its customer. The whole square was sprouting lengths of cord, tumbling down like vines, swinging in the sharp morning breeze while Marshal Pétain gazed on.

  They were going to hang the airmen.

  Nineteen

  London, 1942

  JIMMY LANGLEY KEPT GLANCING across at the newly promoted Major Anthony Neave, his co-worker in Room 900, wondering what the cause of Neave’s Cheshire Cat grin was.

  He and Neave were in their usual evening positions in the SIS flat near St James’s, sunk into the large wing-back armchairs that faced the elaborate Adams-style fireplace, each with a tumbler of whisky in hand, the telephone placed on the occasional table between them within easy reach of either party.

  They were rarely off duty these days. A ring from that white piece of Bakelite could have them scurrying back to the War Office in seconds, a telegram from Darling—Sunday as he was known to Neave’s codename Saturday—or Cresswell, the diplomat in Madrid who was Monday, could mean a sleepless night while they tried to sort out one mess or another.

  ‘OK, who is she?’ asked Jimmy Langley, at last. ‘Nothing else could generate an irritating smirk like that. Only a woman. You’ve been in a foul mood for a week, and now you look like a dog with two dicks.’

  Neave stretched the grin further. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’

  ‘Yes, that’s why I bloody well asked. It was bad enough you being so damned sulky. I am not sure I can take much more of you beaming across the room at me.’

  Neave sipped his drink. He still suffered from a black fog of depression descending on him, especially when he was forced to send agents across the Channel. He despised the risks he was exposing them to. Especially the women, the Little Cyclones, as he called them. It was true, though, that he had met someone who could disperse those clouds within minutes of her entering the room. He said to Langley: ‘All in good time. Early days yet.’

  Langley looked at his watch. ‘How long does it take to get here from Hendon?’

  ‘He’s probably gone via a few pubs. I would in his shoes.’

  They were awaiting the arrival of Whitney Straight, the American racing driver and pilot, who had been shot down over France. After several months of evasion, capture and escape, he had managed to make it home by boat from the south of France. A returnee was always a cause for celebration, particularly when the man had as much propaganda value as the glamorous Straight. The rigid bureaucracy of the London Cage debriefings and psychological tests at Hendon meant he had only just been released into the eager clutches of Room 900. However, it seemed the man who had crossed half of Europe to make it back to England was having trouble finding his way from north to central London.

  The phone rang and, as usual, Neave got to it first. He clamped the receiver to his ear, expecting to hear Straight’s polished American drawl. Instead, a voice suffused with fury barked at him, ‘The name Monveaux mean anything to you?’ Neave admitted it didn’t. He heard Claude Dansey growl, before the man said very quietly: ‘It soon will, m’lad. It soon will.’ The line went dead and Neave felt that black swirl descending again.

  Three days. It had been three days since Pieter Wolkers had slept properly, in a bed rather than slumped in an armchair or on a sofa, his coat pulled round him. He hadn’t shaved or washed in that time. Now he was at the back of his favourite Lille café, having pushed himself deeper into the darkened recesses as the day wore on and the alcohol comforted him.

  Wolkers had his back to the curtain that led to the shabby under-used kitchen out back. This was the kind of establishment where people came to drink, not eat, and his place in the shadows allowed him to watch the customers drift in and out. Occasionally someone would spot him and he would see them stiffen. They were wrong though, he wasn’t here to spy on the customers. He was here to keep drinking, to try to block out what he had seen. What he had started.

  After the atrocity at Monveaux, Diels had acted unsurprised when Wolkers complained about the hangings. Knochen had machine gunned some British POWs back in 1940, the Abwehr man had explained. Why didn’t you tell me? Wolkers had asked. Because you have to learn about what happens when you wind up the Waffen-SS and let them go.

  Six they’d hanged. Not the pilots, as he’d expected. They’d been made to watch, their heads clamped in position by a soldier on either side, yelled at and slapped if they dared to close their eyes, so they had no choice but to bear witness to each lynching in turn.

  Six civilians, as an example to any village that might consider harbouring airmen and spies, Knochen had declared as he watched the victims ascend the ladders, one at a time, mostly in silent acceptance of their fate, apart from one. When the Death’s Head troopers had selected a young man from the crowd, his father begged not to be separated from him. Knochen had thoughtfully hanged them from adjoining balconies.

  It was then the airmen cracked, realising that the deaths would go on and on until there were no more necks left to stretch. They had promised to reveal everything, and were led away. The villagers were told to disperse, but many stood unmoving, gazing at the slowly rotating bodies.

  Diels had invited Wolkers to interrogate the flyers, but he had refused. ‘The trouble with you,’ said Diels, ‘is you think there are rules. Those soldiers have been on the Eastern Front, where you soon find out there are no rules at all. Total war, that’s what the Waffen-SS believe in.’ He paused. ‘And so will you, eventually.’

  It was time to move on, to get away from here. Ask for a transfer where nobody knew him. Paris. Paris would be good. Surely they needed a few good Brandenburgers there.

  Wolkers felt the barrel press against his neck, the draught as the curtain was parted prickling the hairs on his neck. Assassin, Wolkers thought. Anyone watching that scene in the square would think he was part of it, had instigated it. He squeezed his eyes tight shut, waiting for the bullet to sever his spinal cord and exit in a cloud of bone, sinew and blood.

  ‘How much would the Germans pay for every flyer within a hundred kilometres of here?’ The voice from behind was low and muffled, and he strained to catch the words.

  Wolkers opened his eyes slightly.

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Yes. How much? In marks. Every pilot, gunner, navigator, every safe house, every escape line.’

  ‘And that’s yours to give?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘You know me as Mason. The one on those posters? Perhaps you’ve heard of me as Paul. Or Cole. It doesn’t matter.’

  Of course, now he could hear the faint English accent. ‘Why would you do that? Why give me your precious flyers?’

  ‘Because I don’t want to see what I saw the other day. No more Monveauxs. I want you to promise the airmen go to POW camps, that the French helpers will be spared execution.’

  Wolkers snorted, thinking of how his protests had bounced off Knochen. ‘I can’t grant them immunity.’

  ‘You can stop them being strung up like animals. Y
ou can recommend labour rather than liquidation. You can keep them away from the Waffen-SS.’

  Wolkers hesitated. Could he? With a coup this size, perhaps he could. And with this feather in his cap, well, a ticket to Paris Abwehr or SD for him, and probably Diels, was guaranteed. They weren’t hanging people from lampposts in Paris. Not yet.

  ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘Perhaps. I can do that. And in answer to your question … you’d be a rich man. How do you propose to do this?’

  ‘I’ll send you a messenger with the information. I’ll be in touch.’

  ‘If you are serious, Mason, I need … Mason?’

  The gun was no longer pressing against his neck, the greasy curtain was back in place, the kitchen empty. Wolkers looked down at the drink before him and pushed it away. Clouds and silver linings, he thought. Maybe some good would come of the grotesque circus of Monveaux after all.

  Twenty

  ‘DO YOU BELIEVE IN God?’

  Odile stirred, opened her eyes and blinked. It was pitch black, except for the red tip of Harry’s cigarette, wagging in the dark as he repeated the question. ‘Harry, what time is it?’

  ‘Two thirty or so.’

  ‘I have to be on shift at seven.’

  She felt him snuggle up against her, his knees behind hers. Not now, Harry, she thought.

  ‘Do you believe in God?’

  The words drifted over her with the smoke and she sucked up the fragrant tobacco. Harry always had good cigarettes. ‘I used to. Turn over.’

  He stayed where he was and she closed her eyes. It took her a while to realise something was wrong. It was beautifully quiet outside, the way it used to be. ‘No planes.’

  ‘Low cloud. Strange isn’t it? No guns. No bombers. Nice. Sorry, I shouldn’t have woken you.’

  He turned over, stubbed out the cigarette, and pulled the blankets up to his neck and she lay for a second before she spoke. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘About what?’

  She kicked him and he laughed.

  ‘I was lying there, trying to discard all that I hate about this world. You ever do that? Just try and concentrate on the good things.’

  ‘Like me.’

  He laughed again. ‘Well, possibly. In with a chance I’d say. After my mum. Anyway, suddenly I just felt this … this void.’ It was a hole so dark, the very thought of it made his head spin. ‘And I just thought … maybe that’s all there is. Strip away what we’ve got now, and there is nothing.’

  ‘Harry, what are you talking about? Are you getting religion?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just fighting some demons, I guess.’

  She stroked his head, felt the beads of cooling sweat, realised he had probably had a good old-fashioned nightmare. ‘I do believe in God.’

  ‘Do you?’ he asked. ‘Believe that he’s real? That you will see him one day?’

  He heard her swallow hard. ‘I think so. Don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know. It always struck me that the main difference between religious people and me is simple.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They think that believing is seeing … I know seeing is believing. G’night.’

  She lay there for another half hour, listening to him snore, trying to figure out what the hell he was trying to communicate. Odile suspected that inside her husband a continuous conflict was raging most days, as he fought to grasp exactly what it meant to serve a higher purpose than the purely venal.

  Never mind God, she said to herself as she finally drifted away, could she believe in Harry Cole?

  Harry became aware of his shadows just after he had left Quint, the butcher, having negotiated to supply thirty rabbits for the Wednesday after-hours opening of the shop, when rare cuts of sundry animals were sold at up to ten times the official maximum price of 20 francs per kilo.

  The two raincoated men were walking parallel to him on the opposite side of the street. The moment they entered his consciousness, he swerved and looked in the window of the pawn shop. His eyes alighted on a trumpet, way over at the back. He hadn’t played for years, not since the Officers’ Club in Hong Kong. He puckered his lips slightly, as if he were going to blow a tentative G. He missed the touch of the mouthpiece against his lips.

  In the glass, he could see the pair crossing over towards him and he doubled back the way he had come. He knew what they were. They always affected the same look—the hats pulled down low, the coats tightly buttoned and belted. The most conspicuous undercover police force in the world.

  He quickened his pace, turned the corner and the Citroën was already waiting for him, doors open, its driver pointing a pistol at his stomach. He was trapped. He raised his arms and walked towards the Gestapo car.

  Harry was puzzled when the men didn’t take the road into Lille but headed north towards the border. The evening was thickening, the first stars flickering in the clear sky. Bombers’ night. They’d be over soon, the small twin-engined Wellingtons, looking for the synthetic rubber and fuel works, the ball-bearing manufacturers, the tank turret presses, but dispersing their high explosives across the landscape like a willful child scattering building blocks. The driver switched on the blackout lights, and Harry asked for a cigarette from the man next to him. He shook his head. Harry thought back to the last beating he had taken, in that cold south London warehouse, with the voice from the gloom telling him to lay off pretending to be a member of HM Intelligence Services. How would he hold out this time? About the same, he reckoned. He was no hero.

  Possibly he could give Odile and the others enough time to get away. But how would they know something was wrong? Because he was late? That’s Harry, they’d say. They’d give him a day, two, three. By which time he’d be telling these blokes everything they wanted to know. Maybe he could trade Odile for something else, someone else, anyone else.

  The car took a familiar road, one he usually cycled, and the Citroën stopped at the brow of the hill, with its copse of trees and its rapidly fading view over the darkening fields below. The door opened, he was pushed out, and there, silhouetted against the horizon, the tip of his cigarette glowing, was King. He ground out the butt beneath his foot. Harry did a double take and said: ‘Changed sides have we?’

  King laughed. ‘Who is brave enough to question the credentials of the Geheime Staatspolizei? Perfect cover.’

  He beckoned him over. Right on cue, the drone of a bomber, high above. Over to the east, a bloom of white. Searchlights.

  ‘Remember what this looks like in daylight, Harry?’ King began to point out into the blackness. ‘Coal, obviously. Mostly for the Ruhr. Precious little finds its way into French homes. Cement and concrete works. Mostly shipped to the Atlantic coast for gun emplacements. Some for the new submarine pens being built at St Nazaire. Over there, tank factory. Panzers. Here, gun barrels for eighty-eights. End up as ack-ack in France or Germany. Or knocking our tanks out if they so much as set a track in this country.’

  ‘You’ve got better eyes than I have.’

  ‘I memorised them. Every day I come up here, just to remind myself what we are up against. What sort of war this is.’

  ‘Very touching.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it? And you chaps are threatening it all, Harry.’

  ‘I’ve done everything you asked.’

  ‘You haven’t kept a lid on them, Harry.’

  ‘They aren’t all mine.’

  ‘I appreciate that. Even so.’

  ‘Even so, what?’ He jumped as flame spurted from a gun battery directly ahead, the deep thudding reaching their ears almost immediately afterwards. It was the eighty-eights opening up, hurling their big shells blindly into the sky. Now the searchlights, flicking back and forth, trying to trap some poor hapless plane, catch it long enough for the shells to blow the flimsy wooden framework to splinters.

  ‘War never stands still, Harry. A year ago, when you were bringing out soldiers, sailors, pilots, we’d take all you could give us. Now … now we have people in deep cover down there’
—his arm swept across the landscape dotted with light and fire—‘who are being harmed by your activities. You … well, the airmen, are fucking us up, Harry. Fucking us up.’ He turned to face him. ‘They were two of mine, Harry.’

  ‘Who were?’

  ‘Father and son. Both railway workers based at St Omer. They knew every single battalion that went through that railhead, told us where the wall was being reinforced, the quality of troops, when front-line men were replaced with the old and the infirm, with Romanians or Hungarians. They were mine, Harry. And they were worth fifty pilots to me.’

  He resisted the urge to wipe away the spittle that flecked his face. ‘Why are you telling me this? I told you, they weren’t my flyers.’

  ‘No, no they weren’t. But guess what? Monveaux was chosen because of the rumours of a couple of Englishmen who sat at a bar under the noses of the Germans. Heard that rumour? The bar owner dined out on it for a week. And, eventually, the rumour got repeated to some V-man or Brandenburger who scuttled off to the Abwehr … They were yours, weren’t they, Harry? The two jokers in the bar.’ King sniffed, as if what he was about to say was of no consequence. ‘I want you to blow your line.’

  Harry shook his head in disbelief. ‘You want me to do what?’

  ‘Blow the line, every house down to Toulouse. I want the Mason Line dismantled. I’ve done the preliminary work. Borrowed your name for a little chat with one of the Brandenburgers. They’re expecting you or your emissary to turn the information in.’

  Harry spun on his heel and walked a few paces away, rubbing his neck. ‘I … I don’t understand …’

  ‘It’s simple. The Germans will think they have scored a big victory, and the pressure is off. Our people get to carry on their work in peace, without fear of lynching reprisals. The pilots just get sent to some Stalagluft in Germany.’