Voices on the Wind Read Free Page A

him.
    â€˜You’ve improved,’ he said. ‘The reading is only slightly below average. You’ll live, Eilenburg, and I’m going to make sure that you do.’
    The prisoner glanced up at him. ‘My heart is strong,’ he said. ‘It won’t give out again. Doctor, how old are you?’
    â€˜Thirty-three.’ The answer was curt. He didn’t want to talk to the man. Treating him was bad enough.
    â€˜Why should you care whether I get to a court or not? You weren’t even born till the war was over.’
    â€˜I care about what you did,’ the answer snapped back at him. ‘You and the others who got away. And I’m not a Jew, if that’s what you think. I’m French!’
    Eilenburg smiled. His false teeth had been taken away when he was ill. The mouth was a toothless slit, the eyes bright and still clear blue.
    â€˜Then you should kill me before I get a chance to give evidence,’ he murmured. ‘A lot of Frenchmen would be grateful. And Frenchwomen.’ He turned his head and shut his eyes. The doctor stood and looked down at him. Then he walked out. The old man tilted his head and saw him go under his eyelids. He knew the type. They were the troublemakers, the self-styled patriots. How his indignation burned, that young man – how they had all burned with that righteous fire, when they planted bombs that blew up other men of the same age, who also had fire in their hearts for their country. Or ambushed them and slit their throats; set them up for women to poison with a glass of wine. He knew the type, and he had treated them as they deserved. He made martyrs of them, and they didn’t see the justice of it. He sighed. He felt tired; probably because of the tranquillizers he was given. Rest, Standartenführer Eilenburg. Sleep, Standartenführer Eilenburg. Grow strong so that we can stand you up in the dock and sentence you to life imprisonment, or death, if we can get the law amended.
    They might regret it, he thought, and the little smile twitched round his mouth. They might wish they’d let him die before they let him speak. Even left him to end his days in Chile, and take the truth to the grave with him. So now, he was going to conserve his strength for the trial. He would turn French justice into Christian Eilenburg’s vindication. He would not be tried alone.
    Ten minutes’ drive from Paul Roulier’s London hotel, two men were dining together in a house in Montpelier Square. It was a tall, elegant Georgian house, far too big for one man living alone. It was a family house, needing children on the nursery floor that overlooked the square. The man who lived there had inherited when his father died after the war. He scarcely remembered his mother; she’d seen very little of her only son and died long before he left preparatory school. There had never been a woman in his life. He lived in solitary state, looked after by a couple who’d worked for him for over thirty years. In his spare time, before he retired, he’d covered a set of Chippendale chairs with exquisite petit point needlework. He was old now, and out to grass, as he said; he had time to start on a small carpet.
    The dining room was lit by candles; the silver shone; he enjoyed good food and took pride in his cellar of fine wines. As the two men talked, a film of cigar smoke drifted up to the moulded ceiling. The host had a rich, rather theatrical voice, more suited to a Shakespearean actor than a retired colonel.
    â€˜What a pity about Eilenburg. You’d think someone in Paris would have had the sense to put a stop to it.’
    â€˜I thought they had,’ his guest remarked. He had a summer cold, and his voice was croaky. He shouldn’t have accepted the cigar.
    â€˜Obviously not, old chap. He got better.’ The port came in the Colonel’s direction. He saw a few drops spill on to the polished table. He leaned over and dabbed at