One Shot Kill - Robert Muchamore Page 0,3
than a mother. Having no real family must have been tough for you.’
‘She treated me better than a state orphanage would have done,’ Edith answered. ‘At least until one of your goons snuffed her out in one of these torture chambers.’
‘Madame Mercier’s death was not intentional,’ Huber said. ‘She suffered a heart failure while under routine interrogation.’
‘Bad news for you,’ Edith said. ‘She knew more than anyone.’
Huber bristled. He’d have liked to watch the guard bounce Edith off a couple of walls, but decided to have one last attempt at making an emotional connection.
‘You lived at the stable, with Madame Mercier’s horses?’
Edith was annoyed by the inference that Madame Mercier hadn’t cared about her. ‘And I suppose I’ll do fine now I’ve got the Gestapo looking out for me?’
Huber rubbed his eye and took a moment to think up a response. ‘Where are the horses now?’
This was something Edith didn’t like to think about. She resented the fact that Huber had found a weak spot and failed to hide the lump in her throat.
‘A little bird told me that it was an horrific moment for you,’ Huber said, as Edith wondered who’d been talking about her. ‘Your beloved horses burned to death, following a British bombing raid. You must have been devastated.’
Edith had run the stable for years and the death of the horses in a firestorm after a bombing raid had affected her more than anything, including Madame Mercier’s death.
Huber looked at the guard, speaking gently as a tear left a salty track down Edith’s cheek. ‘Fetch her some hot coffee, and a bowl of hot water for her to wash with.’
The guard seemed surprised. ‘Are you sure, sir? She might try something. She bit Thorwald’s wrist so deeply that you could see the tendons.’
‘Thorwald is a moron,’ Huber said, as he shot to his feet. ‘She’s a little girl and I don’t appreciate you questioning my orders.’
‘As you wish, sir,’ the guard said stiffly, before clicking boot heels and leaving the room.
Huber moved around the desk. Edith was horribly bruised and winced as Huber rested a hand on her shoulder.
‘I can make things more comfortable for you, Edith,’ Huber said. ‘I just need something to work with.’
Edith glanced at Huber, then awkwardly at the notebook resting on the table.
‘Everything in the book is written in a simple code that Eugene taught me,’ Edith explained, as she reached out for the notebook. ‘Can I show you?’
Huber was delighted. Younger investigators like Thorwald thought he was past it, but while they failed he’d cracked Edith in no time at all. Mentioning the burned horses had been pure genius.
Edith opened the notebook. ‘This column is names. There are addresses, dates. The places where we met, and details of how much money I paid them.’
Huber nodded. ‘Are all of the agents paid?’
‘Yes,’ Edith said. ‘Eugene said it’s important to put everyone in the circuit on a professional footing. Agents receive money, plus chocolate, coffee, and other treats when they get dropped by parachute. It’s never a lot of money, but he says it shows them that the British and Americans appreciate the risks they’re taking.’
This information wasn’t news, but Huber felt it was too early to push hard and risk losing Edith’s confidence.
‘I’ll need a pen to show you how the decoding grid works,’ Edith said meekly. ‘Once you have that, you’ll be able to understand all the entries in my book.’
Huber slid a fountain pen from inside his jacket and unscrewed the cap. Edith’s hand trembled, as she wrote three tiny rows of four letters.
‘I’m sorry it’s so messy. Thorwald bent back my fingers,’ Edith explained.
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Huber said, as he leaned closer to the page and squinted at the minuscule letters
V I V E
L A F R
A N C E
Vive la France – meaning long live France – was a popular resistance slogan. As Huber realised Edith had been stringing him along, she thrust violently upwards, spearing the Gestapo officer’s neck with the pen nib.
Edith had never received formal espionage training, but Eugene gave everyone who worked for his resistance group as much knowledge as he could, and one lesson that stuck in Edith’s head was the one about going for the jugular vein if you ever get a good shot at someone’s neck.
As Edith tore out the pen, a fountain of blood spurted half a metre from Huber’s neck. He tried to scream, but the hot liquid was already flooding the German’s lungs and he gurgled