Pim had known that, as had Laura, but the color briefly left her face anyway. Her son had died taking the Ridge. Her eyes and Laura’s met, just briefly, in the darkness.
· · ·
Poperinghe was in a ferment greater than Laura had ever seen. Cars, lorries, horses. Bicycles and motorcycles and people on foot. Telephones, messengers, men calling news. Troops going up, the wounded coming back. The noise of shelling, drumroll-fast, the whole sky stabbed through with wild light.
The car drew up in front of HQ. Young spoke to some men, turned back to them. “My uncle’s with the prisoner now,” he said. “You can wait to speak to him. Or…there is some hope that, in your presence, perhaps, when he learns what you shall reveal, he might be induced to say…”
Pim had gone just briefly still. “All right,” she said.
His voice a little hoarse. “If—you are sure, Mrs. Shaw?”
Pim said, “I’m sure.” She took his arm to escort her into the building. “I’m quite brave, you know.”
“Oh,” said Young fervently, “I know.”
They would see Winter. Laura didn’t know how to feel. He may have owed a debt to her brother, but he’d been a loyal German in the end. Seen a chance to kill a general, and taken it. It was only luck, and Pim, that had thwarted him. Perhaps it was right that she’d be there. If she could tell him somehow that Freddie was all right. For her brother’s sake.
Reason pricked her, told her that didn’t explain Faland’s presence outside the château or Winter’s gaze locked on hers.
Perhaps she’d never know.
· · ·
Young took them to a cellar room with a strong door, a room that might have contained liquor, or town money, once upon a time. Now Winter was there, in a chair, with bruises on his face. Laura supposed they’d no time for gentle interrogations, not with an attack literally in progress. Rationally she knew that. But her every instinct rebelled at beating a wounded man. She crossed the room in three strides, her fingers finding the pulse beneath the cold sweat on Winter’s neck, turning so she could see the blood on his side where Jones’s painstaking work on his burst stitches had torn again. His eyes fixed instantly on her face.
She gave him the barest nod.I found him. He’s alive.
He closed his eyes.
“Miss Iven,” said a voice. Laura turned. The room was not empty. There were Young and Pim, of course, behind her. And Gage himself, standing, with an aide seated, and another man wearing the uniform of Military Intelligence. “So glad to see you again, my dear. Your charitable impulses do you credit.” A faint irritation in his well-bred voice; of course he didn’t want the prisoner comfortable. But he didn’t remonstrate with her. He’d turned to Pim, luminous even in the harsh light, and said, “Tell me now, Mrs. Shaw. What did this man admit to you? Hurry, hurry, I must go back up in a moment.”
Winter had raised his chin, and Gage obviously saw it; he turned his head, watching Winter’s reaction. But Winter surprised them all. His eyes were locked on Pim, but he spoke to Laura. His split lip cracked and began to bleed when he said, “Iven, take her out.”
Even as he said it, Laura heard a disturbance in the corridor. A crash, shouting. Then, strangely, someone laughing. Everyone in the room tensed.Sabotage?Laura wondered first, and Gage obviously had the same thought. “Edwards, Boyne, go see,” said the general, and the intelligence officer and the aide hurried to the doorway, peered down the corridor.
Then she happened to catch Pim’s eye, which was wild and cold and entirely unsurprised.“No,”said Winter, trying to rise.
But Pim had turned toward the door behind the two officers. She slammed it, and shot the bolt. Laura, startled, was slow to react when Pim pulled a pistol from her pocket, got behind the indignant general, and pressed the gun just behind his ear.
Everyone froze.
Gage, holding himself rigid, whispered, “Have you gone mad?”
“Pim?” whispered Laura.
Young stood frozen, his mouth a little open. “Penelope?”
“I warn you, young woman,” said Gage. “Stop this nonsense at once, or—”
“Or?” said Pim, in a low, terrible voice. “You’ll kill me, just like Jimmy?”
The air seemed to leave the room. Pim’s back was straight, and her eyes were cold, cold, cold. Was that madness, there in the glitter?
“Penelope?” said Young again. His voice was small and strained. “I told my uncle he shouldn’t have told you. He’s sorry now. He’s sorry. Put the gun down.”
Winter was rigid under Laura’s hands, his face salt-white. “Talk to her,” he whispered. “Don’t let her do this.”
“Pim,” said Laura again. But she didn’t have words, didn’t understand in the slightest the expression on Pim’s face.
