Jackdaws

"Something hush-hush, I suppose."

She smiled acknowledgment, then sighed as she remembered her problem."! don't suppose you happen to know a female telephone engineer who speaks French, do you?"

He stopped. "Well," he said, "sort of."

CHAPTER 15

MADEMOISELLE LEMAS WAS in agony. She sat rigid on the hard upright chair behind the little table, her face frozen into a mask of self-control. She did not dare to move. She still wore her cloche hat and clutched her sturdy leather handbag on her lap. Her fat little hands squeezed the handle of the bag rhythmically. Her fingers bore no rings; in fact she wore only one piece of jewelry, a small silver cross on a chain.

Around her, late-working clerks and secretaries in their well-pressed uniforms carried on typing and filing. Following Dieter's instructions, they smiled politely when they caught her eye, and every now and again one of the girls would speak a word to her, offering her water or coffee.

Dieter sat watching her, with Lieutenant Hesse on one side of him and Stephanie on the other. Hans Hesse was the best type of sturdy, unflappable working-class German. He looked on stoically: he had seen many tortures. Stephanie was more excitable, but she was exercising self-control. She looked unhappy, but said nothing: her aim in life was to please Dieter.

Mademoiselle Lemas's pain was not just physical, Dieter knew. Even worse than her bursting bladder was the tenor of soiling herself in a room full of polite, well-dressed people going about their normal business. For a respectable elderly lady, that was the worst of nightmares. He admired her fortitude and wondered if she would break, and tell him everything, or hold out.

A young corporal clicked his heels beside Dieter and said, "Pardon me, Major, I have been sent to ask you to step into Major Weber's office."

Dieter considered sending a reply saying If you want to talk to me, come and see me, but he decided there was nothing to be gained by being combative before it was strictly necessary. Weber might even become a little more cooperative if he was allowed to score a few points. "Very well." He turned to Hesse. "Hans, you know what to ask her if she breaks."

"Yes, Major."

"In case she doesn't... Stephanie, would you go to the Caf‚ des Sports and get me a bottle of beer and a glass, please?"

"Of course." She seemed grateful for a reason to leave the room.

Dieter followed the corporal to Willi Weber's office. It was a grand room at the front of the chfteau, with three tall windows overlooking the square. Dieter gazed out at the sun setting over the town. The slanting light picked out the curved arches and buttresses of the medieval church. He saw Stephanie crossing the square in her high heels, walking like a racehorse, dainty and powerful at the same time.

Soldiers were at work in the square, erecting three stout wooden pillars in a neat row. Dieter frowned. "A firing squad?"

"For the three terrorists who survived Sunday's skirmish," Weber answered. "I understand you have finished interrogating them."

Dieter nodded. "They have told me all they know."

"They will be shot in public as a warning to others who may think of joining the Resistance."

"Good idea," Dieter said. "However, though Gaston is fit, both Bertrand and Genevieve are seriously injured-I'll be surprised if they can walk."

"Then they will be carried to their fate. But I did not summon you to discuss them. My superiors in Paris have been asking me what further progress has been made."

"And what did you tell them, Willi?"

"That after forty-eight hours of investigation you have arrested one old woman who may or may not have sheltered Allied agents in her house, and who has so far told us nothing."

"And what would you wish to tell them?" Weber banged his desk theatrically. "That we have broken the back of the French Resistance!"

"That may take longer than forty-eight hours."

"Why don't you torture this old cow?"

"I am torturing her."

"By refusing to let her go to the toilet! What kind of torture is that?"

"In this case, the most effective one, I believe."

"You think you know best. You always were arrogant. But this is the new Germany, Major. You are no longer assumed to have superior judgment just because you are the son of a professor."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Do you really think you would have become the youngest-ever head of the Cologne criminal intelligence department if your father had not been an important man in the university?"

"I had to pass the same exams as everyone else."

"How strange that other people, just as capable as you, never seemed to do quite so well."

Was that the fantasy Weber told himself? "For God's sake, Willi, you can't believe the entire Cologne police force conspired to give me better marks than you because my father was professor of music-it's risible!"