‘No, you did not have access to Bem-me-Quer and were never inside. Do I think sometimes you pass on gossip to your Englishman? Yes, Solange, I do. However, these things are common knowledge within days. You fight with the tools you have, and while I do not like it, I accept it.’
‘Isn’t it your job to root out spies?’
‘My job has many aspects.’
Was one of those to arrest Matthew? Me?
The PPK was in my handbag, the sgian dubh at my thigh. Close enough if I needed to defend myself, but could I really stab Eduard?
The answer bubbled up on a wave of despair. No. Not even to defend myself.
Leaning against the sideboard, he watched my face, gauging my response as only a lover can.
‘I am a soldier, Solange. I accept that if I die in the service of my country, I die with honour. There is no honour in kidnappings. In making people “disappear”. But I am not everyone and I am frightened of the game you play.’
‘I’ve never played with you, Eduard.’
‘Yes. I know.’ His smile, tired yet genuine, didn’t last long. ‘But I know the way your mind works. I do not know what it is, but Harrington has a hold on you. I do not like it, but I am not foolish enough to think I can sever it.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘No? As you wish. All I ask is that you are careful. Whoever you really are, here you are a Frenchwoman, involved with a German officer. If you start asking about Harrington, trying to find him, the question must be asked – why is she interested? People will look at you closer. At me. I cannot allow this.’
He was right. I would happily take risks on my own behalf, but with Köhler lurking about, I couldn’t risk drawing his attention to Eduard. Even if he was, by Claudine’s reckoning, the one man Köhler wasn’t looking at, I’d seen the Gestapo play the long game too many times to trust anything about them. To save one man I loved, would I be forced to betray the other? I sat down hard and looked down.
Eduard’s hand covered mine.
‘I cannot allow you to jeopardise yourself. I would not be able to protect you.’
‘I don’t need your protection,’ I muttered.
Eduard’s hand on mine was warm and secure. A knot rose in my throat, but I tried to brazen my way through this.
‘What makes you think I want to do anything anyway?’
He snorted. ‘Angel, I would expect nothing less. Listen to me – this kidnapping wasn’t sanctioned. It confirms our guilt, makes us seem like animals. It is dishonourable. Do this for me – allow me to find out what happened.’
I gasped, unable to believe what I was hearing.
Eduard Graf took a deep breath.
‘Allow me to find your Englishman.’
*
Eduard left early the next day, the Ritterkreuz around his neck, a tangible reminder of his bravery. He rarely wore his uniform, much less the “iron necktie”, and I felt an odd foreboding when he kissed me goodbye.
He’d asked me trust him, but how could I, when the only rationale he would give me was that he wanted to keep me safe? Why would an Abwehr officer do that?
He couldn’t really expect me to sit around and do nothing. And he wouldn’t, of course. The only problem was that I had no plan. No starting point and no resources to find, much less free, my godfather. Certainly not without putting Eduard into Köhler’ cross hairs.
I prowled through the house, making and discarding cups of coffee. Opening windows, only to close them moments later.
Why would this German officer risk his life for a woman whom he didn’t entirely trust and a man who worked for his enemy?
I had never asked him about that first evening, when he’d met Köhler at the Avenida Palace. Never asked about Köhler at all. Or his absence in the days between his accusing me of working with Matthew after the incident in the old castle, and his showing up at my house. Never pressed him as to why he pinned the Iron Cross to his uniform, but not the Nazi party badge. Was it as he had said, that his loyalty was to his country?
He was a good German, but maybe not a good Nazi?
If that were the case, then what the devil was he up to?
Chapter Thirty-eight
The Pastelaria Suíça, located beside to the Rossio and some of the best shopping in Lisbon, did a good late-afternoon business. The locals referred to it as Bomparnasse, a nod to the Parisian district Montparnasse, combined with the Portuguese phrase for ‘good legs’. An obvious reference to the risqué refugee community that congregated there for coffee and pastries.
A group of men sat beneath the awning, speculating on what had happened to the English diplomat when security was at the point where a seagull needed to show papers at the border. It was the question on everyone’s lips.
Bertie and I communicated via dead letter boxes and newspaper advertisements, only when he had information to relay, and I hadn’t physically seen him in months. There was no time to make the appropriate arrangements to meet, but he’d mentioned this place before and it was better than waiting down at the docks. If I was lucky, he’d head here after his shift. And hopefully it was an early shift.
A storm was brewing, and more than just on the political front. Dark, heavy skies threatened rain, and despite this, there were no tables available outside. I sat inside, in the corner, near a rotating fan that pushed tepid air around, listening to émigrés’ stories: the Portuguese minister, now forced into retirement, who’d helped French Jews escape before they could be sent east to the work camps; the horrible acts of the Gendarmerie, bastards in Occupied as well as Free France. Speculation on how one Otto Skorzeny had rescued Mussolini from where he was imprisoned in the Apennine Mountains. And
