Cold Harbour. Jack Higgins

Trevaunce made no comment. She sat down in one of the wing-back chairs by the fire and said calmly, ‘Have you come far, Major?’

      ‘London.’

      ‘A long drive.’

      ‘Easy enough. Not much traffic on the roads these days.’

      There was an awkward pause, but it could be put off no longer. ‘How exactly did my sister die?’

      ‘In a plane crash,’ Craig told her.

      ‘In France?’

      ‘That’s right.’

      ‘How would you know that?’ Genevieve asked. ‘France is occupied territory.’

      ‘We have our channels of communication,’ he said. ‘The people I work for.’

      ‘And who would they be?’

      The door opened and Mrs Trembath came in with a tray which she placed carefully on the side table. She glanced at Osbourne briefly and departed. Genevieve poured the tea.

      ‘I must say you’re taking this remarkably well,’ he said.

      ‘And you’ve just managed to avoid answering my question, but never mind.’ She handed him a cup of tea. ‘My sister and I were never close.’

      ‘Isn’t that unusual for twins?’

      ‘She went to live in France when my mother died in 1935. I stayed with my father. It was as simple as that. Now, let me try again. Who do you work for?’

      ‘Office of Strategic Services,’ he said. ‘It’s a rather specialised organisation.’

      She noticed a strange feature of his uniform. On his right sleeve he wore wings with the letters SF in the centre which, as she learned later, stood for Special Forces, but underneath he also wore British paratrooper’s wings.

      ‘Commandos?’

      ‘Not really. Most of the time our people wouldn’t tend to go in wearing uniform at all.’

      She said, ‘Are you trying to tell me that my sister was involved in that sort of thing?’

      He produced a pack of cigarettes and offered her one. She shook her head. ‘I don’t smoke.’

      ‘Mind if I do?’

      ‘Not at all.’

      He lit one, got up and walked to the window. ‘It was in the spring of 1940 that I met your sister. I was working for Life magazine. She was quite big on the social scene, but then you’d know that.’

      ‘Yes.’

      He peered out at the garden. ‘I did a feature on the de Voincourts which, for various reasons, never saw press, but it meant I had to interview the Countess . . .’

      ‘Hortense?’

      He turned, a wry smile on his face. ‘Quite a lady, that one. She’d just lost her fourth husband when I saw her. An infantry Colonel, killed at the front.’

      ‘Yes. And my sister?’

      ‘Oh, we became,’ Craig paused, ‘good friends.’ He came back to the fireplace and sat down. ‘And then the Germans took Paris. Being a neutral, they didn’t bother me at first, but then I got involved with entirely the wrong people from their point of view and I had to exit stage left rather quickly. I came to England.’

      ‘Which was when you joined this OSS of yours?’

      ‘No, America wasn’t at war with Germany at that time. I worked for a British outfit at first – SOE. Same kind of work, you might say. I transferred to my own people later.’

      ‘And how did my sister come to be involved?’

      ‘The German High Command started to use your aunt’s château. Generals, those sort of people, putting up there for a few days’ rest, a conference or two.’

      ‘And Anne-Marie and my aunt?’

      ‘Allowed to stay on as long as they behaved, and it was good for propaganda purposes to have the Countess de Voincourt and her niece acting as hostesses.’

      Genevieve was angry then. ‘You expect me to believe this? That Hortense de Voincourt would allow herself to be used in this way?’

      ‘Hold on a minute and let me explain,’ Craig said. ‘Your sister was allowed to travel backwards and forwards to Paris whenever she wished. She got in touch with people in the Resistance there. Offered to work for us and she was in a unique position to do that.’

      ‘So, she became an agent?’ she said calmly.

      ‘You don’t seem very surprised?’

      ‘I’m not. She probably thought your kind of work rather glamorous.’

      ‘War,’ Craig Osbourne said quietly, ‘is not in the least glamorous. What your sister was doing even less so, considering what they’d have done to her if she’d been caught.’

      ‘I think I should tell you that I’m a Staff Nurse at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, Major,’ Genevieve said. ‘Military Ward 10. We had one of your boys in during my last week of duty. An air gunner on a Flying Fortress and we had to amputate what was left of his hands. You don’t need to tell me much about the glamour of war. I meant something rather different. If you knew my sister as well as you say, I’m sure you’ll understand me.’

      He didn’t answer, simply stood up and paced restlessly around the room. ‘We got information about a special conference the Nazis were going to hold. Something very important. So important that it was necessary for our people to talk to Anne-Marie face-to-face. She arranged a holiday in Paris and a Lysander aircraft was sent to pick her up. The idea was that she would be brought to England for a briefing then flown back.’

      ‘Is that usual?’

      ‘Happens all the time. A regular shuttle service. I’ve done it myself. She was supposed to be driving to St Maurice to catch the Paris train. But in fact, the car was looked after for her and she was taken by truck to the field where the Lysander was to put down.’

      ‘What went wrong?’

      ‘According to our Resistance sources, they were shot down by a German nightfighter as they took off. It seems the plane blew up instantly.’

      ‘I see,’ Genevieve said.

      He stopped pacing and said to her angrily, ‘Don’t you care? Do you even give a damn?’

      ‘When I was thirteen, Major Osbourne,’ she told him, ‘Anne-Marie broke my right thumb in two places.’ She held it up. ‘See, it’s still a little crooked. She told me she wanted to see how much pain I could stand. She used one of those old-fashioned walnut crackers – the kind you screw very tight. She told me I must not cry out, however much it hurt, because I was a de Voincourt.’

      ‘My God!’ he whispered.

      ‘And I didn’t. I simply fainted when the pain became unbearable, but by then, the damage had been done.’

      ‘What happened?’

      ‘Nothing. A playful prank turned sour, that’s all. Where my father was concerned she could do no wrong.’ She poured herself another cup of tea. ‘How much of all this have you told him, by the way?’

      ‘I simply said that we’d learned through our Intelligence sources that your sister had been killed in a bad car accident.’

      ‘But why tell me and not him?’

      ‘Because you looked as if you could take it, he didn’t.’

      He was lying, she knew that instantly, but at that moment, her father walked past the window. She stood up. ‘I must see how he is.’

      As she got the door open, Craig said, ‘None of my business, but