Vengeance 10

‘A whore,’ Walsch repeated. ‘That, however, is beside the point. Except,’ he added, chuckling, ‘as it makes your task easier and more pleasant.’

‘That is all you want me to do…?’

‘Yes. If you agree, I am willing to suspend the charges for the moment.’

‘For the moment?’ Memling could not keep the bitterness from his voice.

‘Do not try my patience,’ Walsch warned. ‘Remember the wire noose. A few days’ grace?’ He stubbed out his cigarette and glanced at Memling. ‘You do understand?’

‘But I do not have… ’

‘You what? Speak up!’

Memling was shaking badly. ‘She will have nothing to do with me,’ he gabbled. ‘I do not have money. I am not the kind she…’

‘That is your problem.’ Walsch waved a hand in dismissal. ‘You have three days, until Friday afternoon.’

No one said a word about the blood-encrusted abrasions on his forehead or the stiffness with which he carried himself when he returned to the laboratory. The double vision persisted, and bouts of nausea assailed him. The door to the director’s office remained tightly shut. The attention of the Gestapo was the curse of death.

* * *

Jan Memling knew he was under surveillance. They wanted him to know. A black Volkswagen followed him wherever he went through the streets of Liege. No one spoke to him or looked at him, and even his landlady hurried inside and slammed her door when he returned in the evening. That first night, in the refuge of his dingy room, he wrapped himself in the blanket and, too frightened to eat, sat staring at the blackout curtains long into the night, waiting for the shivering to stop and the fear to abate to its usual tolerable level. But like the nausea that wracked him at regular intervals, it refused to do so. He was under no illusions that his life would extend beyond his immediate usefulness to Walsch. If the Gestapo agent knew who he was, he would also know that he must have a connection to the resistance. Was Walsch gambling that Maria was that connection?

For the first time in weeks he allowed himself to think of Margot. Her features were there, just beyond memory, eluding him now in a way he had never thought possible. Until tonight he had sought to dismiss her, to ignore the intense longing thoughts of her always induced, and he had done so successfully enough that she was slipping away. They had married a year ago, the previous October, after her mother had finally succumbed to a combination of disease and pent-up bile.

There had been a week’s leave for a honeymoon in the Lake District where he had obtained a tiny cottage overlooking the far north end of Lake Windermere. Indian summer was giving way to autumn, and the wind blustered with rain. Inside, Jan kept the fire high, and between long, soothing stretches of lovemaking they had taken walks in the hills, discovering one vantage point after another as the lake displayed its moods: iron-grey under the lash of rain, sapphire in the brief periods of intense sun. Dry leaves under graceful oaks amid golden sunshine had more than once served as a lovers’ couch. It had been quite as both expected it would be, loving and companionable after the years of impatient waiting. In the long evenings before the fire they had discovered unknown facets of each other’s character.

He had never told Margot for whom he worked. She was still under the impression that he was employed by a small electrical appliance manufacturer. When he had left for Belgium that late April day, he had laughed at her fears about war on the Continent. After all, the war had been nearly eight months old and nothing much had happened since the previous September.

Memling woke with a start. The image of Margot sitting across from him before the fire, the memory of her soft body beneath his in the high, handcrafted bed, her gentle laughter at his attempts to master the kitchen plumbing, were gone. He knew then that he would never see her again.

* * *

By mid-afternoon, Thursday, Jan Memling had formulated his plan. It was desperate and full of loose ends, but anything was better than waiting to be slaughtered at Walsch’s command. The resistance had to be warned away, and he had to disappear. The Ardennes was the only possibility. There in the forest he might survive long enough to carry out a few acts of sabotage.

Memling knocked on the director’s door with his excuse all prepared, a mistake in the projected production figures for the MG42. The director wrote his pass quickly and slammed the door. The mark of death, Memling thought grimly.

Maria glanced up as he entered, and except for a slight tightening about her eyes at the sight of his bruises, she gave no indication that he meant any more to her than any other employee — and thereby signed her death warrant. Walsch would be watching her. When a woman shows no sign of recognising a man who three days earlier invited her into his bed, and whom she turned down with a public slap, she must be concealing something.