Around her, late-working clerks and secretaries in their well-pressed uniforms carried on typing and filing. Following Dieter's instructions, they smiled politely when they caught her eye, and every now and again one of the girls would speak a word to her, offering her water or coffee.

Dieter sat watching her, with Lieutenant Hesse on one side of him and Stephanie on the other. Hans Hesse was the best type of sturdy, unflappable working-class German. He looked on stoically: he had seen many tortures. Stephanie was more excitable, but she was exercising self-control. She looked unhappy, but said nothing: her aim in life was to please Dieter.

Mademoiselle Lemas's pain was not just physical, Dieter knew. Even worse than her bursting bladder was the tenor of soiling herself in a room full of polite, well-dressed people going about their normal business. For a respectable elderly lady, that was the worst of nightmares. He admired her fortitude and wondered if she would break, and tell him everything, or hold out.

A young corporal clicked his heels beside Dieter and said, "Pardon me, Major, I have been sent to ask you to step into Major Weber's office."

Dieter considered sending a reply saying If you want to talk to me, come and see me, but he decided there was nothing to be gained by being combative before it was strictly necessary. Weber might even become a little more cooperative if he was allowed to score a few points. "Very well." He turned to Hesse. "Hans, you know what to ask her if she breaks."

"Yes, Major."

"In case she doesn't... Stephanie, would you go to the Caf des Sports and get me a bottle of beer and a glass, please?"

"Of course." She seemed grateful for a reason to leave the room.

Dieter followed the corporal to Willi Weber's office. It was a grand room at the front of the chteau, with three tall windows overlooking the square. Dieter gazed out at the sun setting over the town. The slanting light picked out the curved arches and buttresses of the medieval church. He saw Stephanie crossing the square in her high heels, walking like a racehorse, dainty and powerful at the same time.

Soldiers were at work in the square, erecting three stout wooden pillars in a neat row. Dieter frowned. "A firing squad?"

"For the three terrorists who survived Sunday's skirmish," Weber answered. "I understand you have finished interrogating them."

Dieter nodded. "They have told me all they know."

"They will be shot in public as a warning to others who may think of joining the Resistance."

"Good idea," Dieter said. "However, though Gaston is fit, both Bertrand and Genevieve are seriously injured-I'll be surprised if they can walk."

"Then they will be carried to their fate. But I did not summon you to discuss them. My superiors in Paris have been asking me what further progress has been made."

"And what did you tell them, Willi?"

"That after forty-eight hours of investigation you have arrested one old woman who may or may not have sheltered Allied agents in her house, and who has so far told us nothing."

"And what would you wish to tell them?" Weber banged his desk theatrically. "That we have broken the back of the French Resistance!"

"That may take longer than forty-eight hours."

"Why don't you torture this old cow?"

"I am torturing her."

"By refusing to let her go to the toilet! What kind of torture is that?"

"In this case, the most effective one, I believe."

"You think you know best. You always were arrogant. But this is the new Germany, Major. You are no longer assumed to have superior judgment just because you are the son of a professor."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Do you really think you would have become the youngest-ever head of the Cologne criminal intelligence department if your father had not been an important man in the university?"

"I had to pass the same exams as everyone else."

"How strange that other people, just as capable as you, never seemed to do quite so well."

Was that the fantasy Weber told himself? "For God's sake, Willi, you can't believe the entire Cologne police force conspired to give me better marks than you because my father was professor of music-it's risible!"

"Such things were commonplace in the old days." Dieter sighed. Weber was half right. Patronage and nepotism had existed in Germany. But that was not why Willi had failed to win promotion. The truth was that he was stupid. He would never get on anywhere except in an organization where fanaticism was more important than ability.

Dieter had had enough of this stupid talk. "Don't worry about Mademoiselle Lemas," he said. "She'll talk soon." He went to the door. "And we will break the back of the French Resistance, too. Just wait a little longer."

He returned to the main office. Mademoiselle Lemas was now making low moaning noises. Weber had made Dieter impatient, and he decided to speed up the process. When Stephanie returned, he put the glass on the table, opened the bottle, and poured the beer slowly in front of the prisoner. Tears of pain squeezed from her eyes and rolled down her plump cheeks. Dieter took a long drink of beer and put the glass down. "Your agony is almost over, Mademoiselle," he said. "Relief is at hand. In a few moments you will answer my questions; then you will find ease."

She closed her eyes.

"Where do you meet the British agents?" He paused. "How do you recognize one another?" She said nothing. "What is the password?"

He waited a moment, then said, "Have the answers ready, in the forefront of your mind, and make sure they are clear, so that when the time comes, you can tell me quickly, without hesitation or explanations; then you can seek rapid release from your pain."

He took the key to the handcuffs from his pocket. "Hans, hold her wrist firmly." He bent down and unlocked the cuffs that fastened her ankle to the table leg. He took her by the arm. "Come with us, Stephanie," he said. "We're going to the ladies' toilet."

They left the room, Stephanie leading the way, Dieter and Hans holding the prisoner, who hobbled along with difficulty, bent at the waist, biting her lip. They went to the end of the corridor and stopped at a door marked Damen. Mademoiselle Lemas groaned loudly when she saw it.

Dieter said to Stephanie, "Open the door."

She did so. It was a clean, white-tiled room, with a washbasin, a towel on a rail, and a row of cubicles. "Now," said Dieter. "The pain is about to end."

"Please," she whispered. "Let me go."

"Where do you meet the British agents?"

Mademoiselle Lemas began to cry.

Dieter said gently, "Where do you meet these people?"

"In the cathedral," she sobbed. "In the crypt. Please let me go!"

Dieter breathed a long sigh of satisfaction. She had broken. "When do you meet them?"

"Three o'clock any afternoon, I go every day."

"And how do you recognize one another?"

"I wear odd shoes, black and brown, now can I go?"

"One more question. What is the password?"

"'Pray for me.'"