She didn’t look down. Stared right back at him, her expression blank.
‘In summer 1944, the group was betrayed. The details are a little sketchy, but it seems they were picked up by the Germans one night during a meeting. They were sent to a place no sane person ever wanted to see: a concentration camp called Natzweiler-Struthof. The men, the woman — all of them.’ The clank of a trolley sounded from out in the corridor, and a door thumped, followed by the squeak of soles on tiles. ‘None was ever seen again. Until recently.’
Francine’s eyes had closed. And suddenly Rocco felt sorry for her; for the memories he was releasing, for the realisation that more was known than she could possibly have imagined ever would be. But he forged on. He had to.
‘The man named Tomas had a second name: Didier. His surname was Broute, after his mother. He probably didn’t care much for it — couldn’t do, anyway, because people would have remembered it too easily. You’re probably ahead of me here.’
No reaction.
‘It doesn’t matter. Unknown to anyone at the time — especially the other members of the group — Tomas had allowed his desire for Elise to get the better of him. Or maybe he’d just grown sick of the other members of the group because they wouldn’t allow him to do whatever he wanted — I’m sure he had the skills if not the lust to want to go out killing Germans whenever he could, but uncontrolled, that would have had serious consequences for the local community. Whatever his reasons, he decided to betray the others to the Germans. Only, in his twisted mind, he hadn’t quite allowed for the fact that the Germans would take everyone in the group, no matter who they were. The result was, Elise disappeared into the camp with everyone else. All except Tomas, who slipped away. And survived. He couldn’t risk keeping his surname of Broute, after his mother, because that would have been too easily recognised locally and someone might have put two and two together. He’d have been strung up as a collaborator. So he took his second name and the surname of the registrar on his birth certificate, and moved away from the Poitiers area and became someone else. He became Didier Marthe. And eventually, years later, he arrived in Poissons-les-Marais, where nobody knew him. Where he could start a new life.’
He leant forward and picked up the photo, tapping Francine on the shoulder with it until she opened her eyes and looked at him. He held it up for her to see, one finger on the thin man near the end of the group.
‘That’s Tomas Broute, as he was known then. Now miraculously alive and calling himself Didier Marthe.’ He moved his finger. ‘And that’s Elise, isn’t it?’
Francine stared up at him, a glint of something in her eye. Was it resentment? Anger? Or something like a muted appeal for help? He couldn’t tell.
‘I don’t know anyone called Elise,’ she said finally, her words a whisper.
‘Really?’ Rocco felt a flutter of irritation. Maybe she was tougher than he’d thought. ‘You should do. You shared the same surname.’
Her eyes flickered. ‘What?’
‘You’ve never forgiven the man who betrayed her, have you? Elise Thorin was your big sister.’
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Claude’s chair creaked dangerously as the garde champetre shot to his feet with surprise.
‘Lucas, are you crazy?’ He sounded shocked and angry, puffing out a blast of air in disbelief.
Rocco ignored him. He had his eyes firmly on Francine’s face, watching for a sign — a hint — that she was about to fold. This couldn’t go on for much longer.
‘You don’t know anything.’ The response was sudden, so faint he almost missed it. She hadn’t moved her head, but her shoulders had gone limp.
It was the beginning. Time to push it as far as he could. He held the photo alongside her face, then beckoned Claude over and made him look. Made him compare.
‘Tell me what you see. Don’t think about it — use your instincts.’
Claude resisted at first, his face red and his eyes hating Rocco for what he was suggesting. Then finally he looked. And started.
‘ Jesus! ’ He crossed himself, then looked again. Rocco knew Claude didn’t need to look at Francine to check the similarities — they were there, now plain to see. They had missed the resemblance before because the very idea wouldn’t have even entered their thinking. In terms of time, then was then and now was now — a whole world and too many years apart. Elise then was a similar age to Francine now. Seen side by side, the characteristics were too close to ignore.
‘Elise and Francine Thorin,’ said Rocco. He didn’t need to look at the paper in his pocket, which Desmoulins had handed to Massin. ‘Born to Andre and Claudine. There never was a marriage, was there? No husband killed in a factory accident. That was merely a fact you borrowed from your sister’s life and adapted to suit your needs.’
He sat down again.
‘Please tell me,’ he said softly.
‘Elise was sixteen years older than me,’ she began, and reached out to take the photo from Rocco’s hand. She smoothed her fingers across it, brushing away imaginary dust. ‘I was twelve. She used to talk about the men in the group, but not the things they did against the Germans. It was too dangerous even between families… in case someone talked. She said Tomas was insanely jealous of the other men, who were all so confident and brave and… could talk to a woman like her. He was always trying to start an affair with her, but she wasn’t interested. He was dangerous. She thought he was unstable. They used to argue, and she had to pretend to be friendly with him because he was always trying to start fights when one of the others so much as looked at her. Especially the newcomer.’ She stopped and a tear dropped onto the photo. She didn’t seem to notice.
‘The SOE agent?’
She nodded. ‘I didn’t know what he was — just that a man had arrived from somewhere to help the group. I knew Elise meant England because I heard the plane go over the night he arrived. She was out with the others, so I knew something was happening. The planes only came from England; small square ones with enough room for a couple of people and the supplies they dropped. She came back smelling of kerosene, for the signal flares.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Anyway, the new man was tall and handsome and sophisticated — an officer, Elise said. Charismatic. Somebody who had seen places. I think she was attracted to him, but he hardly noticed.’
‘You met him?’
‘No. I saw him in Poitiers once. Elise pointed him out to me. Even being undercover, he had a way of holding himself.’
‘Did she know his name?’
‘No. Nobody did. He had a code name: Cormorant. A silly name for a man like that, don’t you think?’ She shrugged, not expecting an answer. ‘He brought supplies for the group, and money to pay people.’
‘Bribes?’
‘Yes. Officials in the town hall and the railway, others who needed money to do things for the group. A lot of money, Elise said. He was also calling on other groups in the region.’
‘What happened?’
‘She overheard Tomas — Didier — talking with this new man a few days after he landed. He was French, so she understood. They were arguing about the money. The agent was telling him that it had got lost in the drop; that it must have fallen into a lake and sank because the coordinates had brought them too close to water that night and the parachute had drifted too far on the wind. The argument got quite violent. Didier said the man was lying, that there was no wind that night. Elise told me the same thing. Too much wind would have blown the parachutes off course.’
Rocco found he was holding his breath. He didn’t dare look at Claude for fear he might break the spell and Francine would shut down.
‘What then?’
‘Didier then told the agent he’d followed him out one night and seen him concealing a package in an
