The French Promise (42 page)

They both stared at the small rubber-coated capsule in Luc’s hand.

‘This is different to Gestapo issue,’ von Schleigel remarked. ‘Ours were glass phials in tiny brass capsules.’ He laughed.
‘I threw mine away once I’d re-entered France; I never had any intention of using it. Where did you get this one?’

‘It belonged to Lisette. She didn’t know I knew about it. Perhaps she was issued with it in London, or maybe she was given it in Paris. I don’t know.’

‘Pity. I could count on a Gestapo one to work.’

Luc had smiled mirthlessly.

‘Ravensburg, you had always intended for me to use this,
didn’t you?’

Luc had blinked with faint surprise. ‘It was the only weapon I could carry across borders without any discovery.’

‘And Mossad?’

‘Originally my back-up plan that shifted to the main one when conscience got the better of me,’ he’d said.

Von Schleigel had nodded. ‘Contingencies are wise. My family will not understand a suicide.’

‘Be glad they’ll never know the truth about you.’ Luc had
looked down at the capsule in his palm. ‘It’s thin glass. Over in moments. I saw it work once.’ He hadn’t thought it appropriate to explain that it had looked agonising despite its swiftness. Besides, he’d been convinced von Schleigel already knew it.

Von Schleigel had sighed deeply. ‘Strange. I always thought it curious that the Jews we rounded up were always so meek, so complacent … accepting
even.’

‘And now you feel the same way?’

He’d nodded and reached for the capsule. For a moment Luc had wondered whether von Schleigel would simply throw it into the waters below. He wouldn’t have been at all surprised if so, but he was genuinely taken aback when von Schleigel then reached out his right hand.

‘You’ve been a worthy adversary, Ravensburg. I’m rather impressed you kept that
promise; held the hate for so long.’

Luc looked down at the proffered handshake. ‘I’d rather not.’

Von Schleigel had smiled as though he understood. ‘Would you pass me my glasses, please?’

Luc had shaken his head. ‘I’m not leaving fingerprints for anyone, but I do admire your slyness to the last.’ Besides, Luc had remembered his field training and that pressure on a gunshot wound is the single
most critical piece of advice anyone could give him. He had been pressing on his wound, despite the pain, since he’d landed on the ledge and had no intention of removing his hand until he absolutely had to.

Von Schleigel had somehow found a chuckle despite his pain. ‘Well, I guess your nasty pill will at least deliver me from this wretched broken hip,’ he’d quipped. He had then reached for his
glasses with a painful effort and put them back on, not bothered by the state they were in, before lying back down to ease the stress on his broken bone. ‘
Sieg Heil
, he’d said, sarcastically.
To victory
.

‘No, all the way to hell for you, von Schleigel. The victory is ours – your death is for Rachel and Sarah, for Wolf and for
all the other innocents who died under your orders. May the
likes of your evil never walk the earth again.’

Von Schleigel had sneered and Luc watched in dreaded fascination as his enemy bit down on the small capsule and released the cyanide poison. Luc’s sharp olfactory senses immediately homed in on the smell of bitter almond, as the former Kriminaldirektor began to gasp. He clawed for Luc but he pulled further away. He didn’t want to leave
any trace of himself.

He knew consciousness – and pain – would last for half a minute; brain death would occur next and the heart would stop within a minute or two. It was obvious that von Schleigel was rapidly losing consciousness, although the silent kicking struggle was hideous to witness. But Luc reminded himself – as he watched von Schleigel’s face contort in agony – that this was how each
beloved member of his Jewish family had died: choking in agony, kicking and coughing. Luc stuck it out, determined to keep his promise to ensure that von Schleigel was gone.

He fixed the memory of the man’s death mask in his mind.

The devil was dead.

The promise was kept.

Using the last reserves of his energy, Luc packed his wound using a small flannel from his rucksack so that no blood would
be left behind as he carefully, painfully, climbed back up to the summit. It hadn’t been far, but it had felt like a mountain over those sweating minutes, made tenser by the realisation that Max would be returning with police any moment, no doubt. He found the spent cartridge from von Schleigel’s gun and put it into his pocket to get rid of later.

He’d made slow but steady progress back to the
car,
picking his way gingerly across the terrain, having taken a longer route down but one that he felt sure would not risk him being spotted.

Luc was now sitting dazed and increasingly numb in the rental car. He had to get himself as far away now from Fontaine-de-Vaucluse as he could. He couldn’t go back to l’Isle sur la Sorgue, even though all he wanted to do was hug Jenny. He wasn’t
sure if he was dying. It felt like he could be. Pins and needles were pricking somewhere in his body but he couldn’t focus on where. A fever was rising. Soon he wouldn’t be able to drive.

There was only one place to go. It was the right place to die, if that was his fate today. He turned the ignition and eased the car out of its hiding place. Still being early, the road was deserted and he swung
in a wide U-turn and headed away from the pretty town of Fontaine-de-Vaucluse.

He was going home.

Luc opened his eyes, blinking at the gritty feeling. He looked around, frightened, trying to focus, wondering where he was. He heard someone murmur ‘Thank heavens’ in a trembling but relieved voice.

He thought he recognised it. A soft, lovely voice. A face came into view, hovering above him with a tearful smile. ‘Luc? Your fever’s broken …’

‘Jane?’
was all he could croak initially but was never more pleased to see anyone. She wiped her eyes, embarrassed.

‘Dad.’ He turned his head at the new touch. His daughter held his hand, her beautiful face – so like her mother – a study in anxiety. ‘I thought you were going to die on me.’

‘Jen … I’m sorry.’

‘I promised her you wouldn’t. Thank you for not making a liar of me,’ Jane laughed but was helplessly
weeping. ‘Are you in pain?’

‘Only the good kind. The kind that tells me I’m alive. I’m not dreaming, am I?’

Jenny kissed his cheek softly. ‘Does that feel real?’

He nodded.

She found a crooked smile. ‘We’re all here. Your strange little family.’

He looked to his right and could see another pair of familiar faces.

‘Max, Robert …’

The two young men smiled their relief. ‘We’ve all become
quite acquainted,’ Jane said. ‘How long …?’ he began.

‘Three days of anguish, Dad,’ Jenny said. ‘Jane refused to sleep; refused to leave your bedside. You’re lucky she was given some training in nursing during the war.’

Jane tutted and moved away, embarrassed. ‘I’m sure every woman my age did,’ she murmured.

Luc frowned. His mind still felt fuzzy, not yet fully connected. ‘How did you all get
here?’

Jenny took the lead as the others seemed reluctant to steal her thunder. ‘Max was taken by the police for questioning but was allowed to ring Jane. He sent her to find me and Robert. Then when Max joined us later and discovered you weren’t with us … he completely fell apart and had to tell us what had happened.’ Her words were greeted by a self-conscious sound from Max. She ignored him
and continued. ‘I have a lot of questions for you, but Jane has insisted I let them keep. Anyway, none of us wanted to believe you’d died up there. Robert kept saying you’d cheated death before and you would again because you had a few magical lavender seeds with you.’ Luc couldn’t believe that Robert would remember his family superstition. ‘I trusted that you’d got away, Dad – I
had to. But then
we had to work out where you might go,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘There was only one place I thought of.’

‘I came home,’ he croaked, emotion crowding his mind, closing his throat. He recognised the room he was in now. It was his parents’ bedroom. It looked very much the same as he remembered it, with dark furniture, even the same curtains that Golda had sewn. There were no pictures,
though. The room had once been crowded with family photos. He vaguely recalled now staggering into the house. He’d still had the key and had worn it around his neck to journey alongside the lavender and Lisette’s cyanide pill. The locks hadn’t changed; it appeared that no one had lived in the house since the Bonets had left it. He didn’t know why he’d expected it to have been taken over by another
family or squatters, perhaps, but the silence of the village should have clued him that tiny Saignon was near deserted. Many locals had clearly left, and their children had probably fled to the cities after the war to find work of a different style to the traditional farming of their parents. He now remembered collapsing on the flagstones of their old hallway as the front door had closed behind
him, welcoming their deep chill just before he’d passed out.

He was increasingly aware of the trio of adults watching him, their breath collectively held; perhaps they understood the enormous emotional toll that returning to his childhood home was taking.

Jane was most keenly aware of his discomfort. ‘Okay, everyone; Jen … let him rest.’ She shooed the others out of the room despite their protests
and Luc sensed her immediate awkwardness in spite of his increasingly hazy thoughts.

‘Jane …’

‘Luc, you misunderstood.’

‘You have nothing to explain,’ he said.

She re-fluffed his pillows, helped him to sip some water and laid him back down on the bed while she busied herself changing his dressing. He liked the feel of her cool, gentle hands on his belly. ‘Listen to me. I know you’re
fragile and I know Jenny is busting with questions, which you’ll be obliged to answer truthfully later. But right now, forgive me for hustling them all out. I have things to say to you.’ He opened his mouth and she glared before continuing. ‘I wasn’t meeting anyone else. It was Max having dinner with me at my hotel.’

‘What?’

‘Max came to see me, suddenly unnerved and frightened about what you
were going to do. He needed to tell someone. I was shocked, I won’t lie, and I tried to reach you but you’d already left. I know what happened now – how it must have looked – but it was all a misunderstanding. But by the time I worked that out it was too late. Then we had no choice but to try to intercept you. We raced south and Max was sure he could beat you to Fontaine-de-Vaucluse as we figured
you’d go via Mont Mouchet to meet Robert. Anyway. Max has now told us everything about you and von Schleigel.’ At Luc’s startlement, she laid a hand on his chest. ‘Be still. He had to tell us. It’s not as though we were going to let him keep it a secret. And I had to somehow keep Jenny calm – she needed to understand. She was beside herself, Luc. What was in your head to risk your life like that,
knowing you’d leave her an orphan?’

He shook his head. ‘You’re right. It’s been a madness. A cancer of my mind. But I cut it free, Jane. It’s gone. He’s dead.’

‘So I hear.’

‘It was by his own hand.’

‘You’re not innocent of his death, Luc, no matter how you want to view it.’

‘I don’t care. At last I’m free.’

‘Are you?’ He frowned.

‘Has it brought back anyone?’ she asked evenly.

Luc scowled
at her. ‘I didn’t do it to—’

‘Stop lying to yourself. You’ve managed to convince yourself that by seeing this von Schleigel off you’ve somehow atoned for something that was never your responsibility, Luc. The war was not about you and it was not your fault either. Blame the inactivity of the Allies to stop the Holocaust, blame the sea, blame Hitler! But you can’t change anything. And now there’s
one more death to add and another family in mourning. Those were the lunatic days of war and it makes beasts out of men. What happened between 1939 and 1945 should stay locked away.’

‘Do you really believe that?’

She sighed. ‘Yes. I want to put the war behind me. All I can believe in is that you walked into my empty life and filled a dark space with a bright light. You made me fall in love with
you, with Jenny, and then you ruthlessly punished me by walking out of my life, nearly dying in the bargain.’

Luc didn’t know what to say. After a difficult pause he murmured, ‘Who fixed me?’

She gave a sad gasp of a laugh. ‘A fine young man I met just a few days ago – your friend Robert. He’d seen his fair share of bullet wounds and seemed to know exactly what to do with very few supplies. We
found you on the floor downstairs, passed out. He was worried about infection, I
was worried about the cold, Jenny was just horrified by the amount of blood but you’d done a good job stemming the flow.’ She gave a sad twist of her mouth, aware that she was praising him when she wanted to be angry with him. ‘Robert stitched you, dressed you with hands that were steady and sure. You will have to
see someone, Luc, but Robert has probably saved your life.’

‘Again.’

She nodded. ‘He pointed out the clean exit of the bullet so we know it passed straight through and miraculously missed everything important.’

‘It was point-blank. I virtually chose the spot,’ he said with bleak humour. ‘Is everyone all right? Max …?’

‘Oh, those three are getting on famously. Jenny’s in seventh heaven
to have two handsome young men waiting on her every whim; they’ve both been brilliant with her, treating her like a little sister. It was touch and go when Robert was looking after you and you were murmuring feverishly about Lisette, about someone called Wolf and getting to a station platform in Lyon. Jenny was understandably frightened and I must admit, I nearly called the hospital but Max and
Robert begged me not to. They seemed to understand you were on a ridiculous personal crusade and you wouldn’t want any authorities involved.’

She’d let go of his hand, but he took it again.

‘It’s not ridiculous.’

‘It is, Luc, when you threaten other lives. It wasn’t just yours in the balance. If you’d been killed by this old Nazi, imagine what you’d have done to Jenny’s life, or Max’s. And how
do you think I would have felt?’

‘I don’t know,’ he answered honestly. ‘How do you feel?’

She shook her head, looking sad. ‘You frighten me. I’ve never felt like this about anyone before and I barely know you and that’s the problem. I know so little about you – and now I discover you’re a madman with a death wish.’

‘You know more than that …’ he appealed.

‘All right, you have a beautiful,
clever, young daughter who desperately needs your guidance; two young friends who adore you and both seem like lost boys searching for a father figure, which may well be your role to fill. I know you hold grudges – lifelong ones. I know when you love someone you love them hard. I know you make me laugh but you also make me cry because you hold so much back. Your life hasn’t been easy or simple
but tell me a person your age who can claim otherwise – everyone’s been touched darkly by the war. But the tough people, I believe, are those who move away from it and walk on.’

She stood. ‘Make us enough, Luc. Jenny should be all that you worry about – and Robert, Max … Everything else – especially the past, because it’s done now – is irrelevant. You can’t change it. But your behaviour now can
change Jenny’s life in a blink. Some of us would give a limb to have a daughter like her. And what did you expect Max to do with a grieving child?’

His mind was clouding thickly again but Luc only needed to listen to Jane’s tone to feel the sting of her reprimand.

He’d been selfish, martyrish, and Max’s revelation about finding von Schleigel had given him the excuse to unleash all the years of
guilt he’d obviously carried around. It was true also that his guilt was unfounded. None of the events that had turned him into this vengeance-seeking vigilante had ever been even vaguely under his control. Not the
six members of his family that he’d lost, not Laurent or Fournier, not Wolf, not Kilian, and certainly not Lisette or dear Harry. They’d all died, yes. But he couldn’t have saved any
of them.

He lay in his parents’ bed, memories erupting and Jane’s confronting words echoing, along with the laughter of childhood days at the back of his mind and, above all, the smell of lavender scenting his thoughts.

Luc wept, feverishly and helplessly, releasing years of tightly held anguish while Jane held and cried alongside him.