‘How do you know about Cheval?’
‘You’d be surprised what I know,’ Claire said, unable to keep cynicism out of her voice. ‘But I don’t have time to explain now. I’m catching the nine o’clock train to Paris, but first I need to telephone Thomas and tell him not to come up here because you have the documents. Then I am going back to England to tell Commander Landry what I know. So, as soon as he calls off the dogs, you’ll be free to get on with your life.’
‘Get on with my life? What did Commander Landry tell you?’
Claire gave him a scathing look. ‘He didn’t tell me anything. He’d have guessed I knew something when I didn’t turn up for the meeting he ordered me to attend the following day. But, like the goons who came to Édith’s house in Gisoir, I gave him the slip too. By the time he realised I wasn’t going to show up for the meeting, I was halfway across the Channel.’
Claire’s eyes began to smart. She swallowed to stop the tears. ‘You should have told me about the accusations Lucien Puel made against you, Mitch.’
‘I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to put you in danger.’
‘Then it’s a damn good job your grandmother told me, or the authorities would be hunting you as they will soon be hunting him.’
Mitch put his hands on his head and exhaled a long breath. ‘She got the letter?’
‘Yes.’
‘And the medical report?’
‘Yes. She showed me both.’
‘And she’s still got them? Military intelligence didn’t find them?’
‘No. How would they know you’d sent Esther a copy?’
‘Because Puel’s secretary came back from lunch early and saw me copying them. She said she wouldn’t say anything, but she’d be bound to tell Puel.’
‘Well, she obviously didn’t.’
‘No.’ Mitch ran his fingers through his hair. ‘How is Grandma Esther?’
‘She’s fine. Commander Landry had her in for questioning while I was away. She saw the same letter that you’d sent to her on his desk and was worried, which is why she showed it to me. And now I can prove that what Puel said about you working for the Germans and being a double agent is a lie. It’s Puel, or should I say, Doctor Heinrich Beckman from the Gestapo prison at Saint-Gaudens, who is the German agent. But you worked that out when you were in Canada, didn’t you?’
‘I wondered, which is why I copied the documents. How the hell did Beckman end up in Canada?’
‘He got out of the prison before the Allies went in. He killed the grandson of the retired doctor who saved your leg, took his identity papers and his doctor’s diploma. I don’t know how he got to Canada. Most Nazis who escaped went to South American, but he travelled cross-country to Switzerland.’
‘Who would refuse to help a French doctor?’ Mitch said.
‘No one. Which meant in just a few years the murdering, mind-meddling, German doctor had become a renowned Swiss psychiatrist. But not for much longer,’ Claire said.
Before she could say more, the conversation was interrupted by another tap on the door. Mitch opened it to find the waiter who had brought Claire’s breakfast holding a tray with coffee and croissants.
Taking the tray from the waiter, Mitch crossed to the table and sat down. ‘Come and have some coffee, honey,’ he said, ‘I owe you an explanation.’
‘That’s an understatement!’ Claire spat, unable to hide the anger she felt for her husband. Mitch poured coffee and cream into both cups. Claire sat opposite him and while she drank her coffee, she listened.
‘We had planned our escape to coincide with a Resistance guy, a passeur who would take us over the Pyrenees to Spain. It had to be that day or we’d have to wait another month, maybe longer. The night before, guards took a woman from our hut to the exercise yard. They beat her until she couldn’t stand and when they’d finished, threw her to the ground.’
‘And the woman? Was she alive?’
‘Yes, just.’ Mitch’s eyes sparkled with anger. ‘Those bastards didn’t care what happened to her. She was French, a member of the Resistance, and what made it worse for her, she was a Jew. To them, she was less important than a dog. They laughed and joked as if nothing had happened and passed around cigarettes. When they’d finished smoking they stamped out the butts and strolled off as if they were walking back from a dance, or a night out in a bar.
‘When they were out of sight, two of us went out and carried the woman back.’ Mitch shook his head. ‘There was a deep cut by her temple. From when she fell on the cobbles in the yard, I guess. We couldn’t stop it bleeding. One of the men said it needed stitching, so we carried her to the hospital block.’ Mitch spat out a harsh cynical laugh. ‘Hospital? It was more like a torture chamber.’ Reminded of the straps across the beds and the bars at the windows of the psychiatric ward that he had been kept in in Canada, Claire wondered if Beckman was still experimenting. A chill ran through her.
‘That was the first and only time I met the prison’s doctor, Heinrich Beckman.’
‘Who we
