We Shall Not Sleep_ A Novel - Anne Perry [131]
It caught her breath, and tears blinded her eyes. She veered sideways and hit a pothole, jarring the ambulance. She swore, partly in fury with herself.
He started to laugh, the emotion in him too powerful to contain.
She laughed with him, and managed to stop it from turning into weeping. They had today and tomorrow, and they were infinitely precious. They must not be spoiled with a word, a look, an instant of self-pity or blame that they would afterward regret. Above all there must be no cowardice.
“No, I don’t think I did like him,” he said at last. “But I loved the dream. Now it’s time to wake up.” He put his hand over her shoulder and she felt the warmth of it through her. “I hate to admit it,” he added. “But I rather like Schenckendorff. There’s nothing manipulative about him.”
She smiled, steering around a chicken in the road. “So do I. And I admire his quiet courage. He never complains.”
In the early afternoon they came to a village that seemed unusually deserted on the outskirts. But as they reached the square in the center, they found at least thirty people gathered. Most of them were watching while half a dozen crowded close, pushing and jostling, arms raised, flailing against one person who cowered beneath the blows, unable to resist.
Judith jerked the ambulance to a stop and Mason jumped out. A moment later the back door opened and Joseph and Matthew scrambled out.
Joseph started straight toward the crowd, most of whom were shouting and snarling at the figure now fallen to the ground and being kicked. They parted to allow him through, thinking he wanted to join them.
“You lost someone? You deserve to help her die!” a heavy-boned woman cried out. “Kick her for me! Kick her for my son!” Her voice became choked in a racking sob.
Another woman let out an animal cry of hate, wordless and raw with pain.
Joseph found himself pushed to the front, only feet away from the figure huddled on the ground. Her head was shaven, and her few remnants of clothes torn and covered with blood.
Joseph stared at her. She was no more than thirty, and slight. Barefooted, she looked as if she had been dragged along the ground.
Joseph was sick with revulsion at the violence. He stared around him at the people, their faces gloating, vivid with hate.
“What in God’s name are you doing?” he demanded in French.
The man nearest him spat one word. “Collaborator!”
Others took up the cry, adding taunts and curses. It was the worst accusation of all, worse than enemy, even than spy. It was the lowest form of human life, the final betrayal. Still Joseph was horrified that they could do this to her. Without thinking of the danger of attracting their anger, he bent and lifted the woman off the ground, pulling first at her shoulder, gently, to turn her so she could rise.
Her face was beaten; her nose broken and bloody, her eyes swollen half shut, her teeth chipped and lips torn. Even so he recognized her, because the one time he had seen her had been so powerfully engraved in his memory. It had been last year, in Paris, when he had needed to get evidence for the court-martial. Sam Wetherall had asked her to help. Her name was Monique, and she worked for the French, spying against the Germans in the heart of their command, risking her life every day.
“Monique…,” he said softly. “Monique…”
She blinked once, her eyes focusing with difficulty. “Did you find him?” she whispered, her words distorted by her shattered face.
“Yes, I found him. Thank you…” She knew him. There could be no doubt it was her.
He cradled her in his arms, trying to think what he could do for any of her injuries. How bad were they? She was covered in blood and it was still oozing through her thin dress, but—far more urgent than that—how bad was the bruising, what bones were broken?
“Collaborator!” A man spat on the ground. “Get out of the way, Monsieur, I am going to hang her. You, too, if you stand in the path of justice.”
“She worked for