by D A Kent
‘I should have known.’
‘Gunn knew.’
Sol kissed her hand and then reached into the boot for the bags.
‘Come on in, I have some people for you to meet.’
The interior of the house was simply furnished; the walls were thick, keeping it cool. Sol dumped the bags by the stairs and, inviting her to follow, stepped through the house, past a dining area with a long wooden table, into a kitchen and out onto the terrace of a courtyard which was fringed with orange trees.
Adjusting her eyes to the light, Sylvia did a double take. Here was one of the Vogel girls, all right, she thought, as Marguerite Werner stepped forward to take her hand. The unimaginable horrors she had undergone were etched on her face, but Sylvia could still discern the girl who had smiled into the camera for Jonathan at Chartrettes, her arm around her sister. Lev Werner, her husband, must once have been a tall man; he was now stooped. He moved slowly, as if each step hurt him. Like a living ghost, thought Sylvia, as she shook his hand. Aaron, Marguerite’s cousin, was quiet and watchful, although quite welcoming. His part of the family, he explained, had been settled here for some years.
Sylvia noticed straightaway that Sol had introduced her as Sylvia Fordred of Clements Investigations of London. He had either done his homework well, or Gunn (where had he got to?) had divulged more than he had let on to her. On the Sidonia, she had been Mrs Gunn. Well, it probably didn’t matter, she reasoned.
‘I expect you want a wash and spruce-up after that journey,’ said Marguerite, showing her towards the bathroom. ‘We’ll talk properly after lunch. Sol has told us a little. You have to understand that Lev is a very sick man, and Aaron, well, he is kindness itself, but he doesn’t really like to hear about what we went through. He never says anything, but I can tell and I understand.’
Sylvia smiled her thanks. She was looking forward to talking to Marguerite at length. She could tell they were going to get on.
‘Sol, where is Gunn?’ she called back over her shoulder. She followed her hostess and was soon grateful for a splash of cool water across her face and wrists.
Gunn had decided that leaving the Packard out front was a risk too far. He manoeuvred the car along to the end of the block, counting as he did so, took a left down a scrap line alley and then another left, the car protesting as its flanks nuzzled up against stone walls. He counted again and stopped the Packard in the scrappy shade of a worn down olive tree, underneath a wall which was topped with the heads of orange trees. He switched the engine off and stepped onto the bonnet. He hoisted himself up via a creaking olive branch and onto the wall of the courtyard. His count had been good, he thought, as he looked down. He could see Sol. He jumped down and landed like a tired cat. He grinned at Sol, who handed him a drink. Vodka, with a dash of freshly squeezed orange. It hit the spot.
Sylvia appeared at his side. Sol gave her a vodka and orange too, with a ‘L’chaim.’
‘So, are you two going to bring me up to speed?’ asked Sylvia. Aaron, Lev and Marguerite were having an animated discussion over by the table, she noticed, so this would be a perfect opportunity.
‘Polish,’ Sol observed, as he sat down in the shade of the orange trees.
‘Of course,’ Gunn grinned. ‘Though I prefer the Swedish as a rule.’
‘The Polish does not bruise as easily.’ Sol helped himself to an orange, peeling it with a commando knife, British army issue. ‘So, we will eat and relax a little, drink a little more and talk business.’
Sylvia could see she was going to get very little sense out of these two. Cryptic utterances, in-jokes and meaningful looks were going to be the order of the afternoon. She couldn’t help feeling a little jealous, but she decided that it was simply because she had had Gunn all to herself. That kiss had perturbed her. Everything would be fine when they started to present their findings to the assembled company. ‘Get a grip,’ she told herself. ‘We’re a professional team.’ Drink in hand, she wandered over to talk to the others.
In Pompeii, in a corner of Ancient Rome that would forever be the Fatherland, Voss lay undisturbed in his makeshift grave. There was nothing on his body to identify him, even if somebody found him. He was, as Sylvia and Gunn had surmised, in what had been a grain store for the House of the Seven Women, one of the lesser-known and rougher brothels. The grain store and the other outbuildings had suffered some bomb damage. Nobody really had cause to go there.
Two enterprising Belgian schoolboys had read about the ‘dirty frescoes’ and had made it their mission to visit every whorehouse in Pompeii, something which was not on the itinerary that had been so carefully planned for them and their classmates. The House of the Seven Women, after a most enjoyable afternoon, was the last whorehouse on their agenda. It was not to be. Their outraged schoolmaster, sweating profusely and brushing two flies fastidiously away from his forehead, had eventually caught up with them at the foot of the hill, given them a good clout each and dragged them back to the rest of the group.
In the Bavarian mountains, Mueller had woken up early. Although officially on holiday, he was never one to switch off altogether. That went against the grain and all good sense. He had a small office set up, with a ticker tape machine that kept him abreast of events in the fields that concerned him. He wandered in, cup of coffee in hand, his velvet robe shifting uncomfortably where it touched skin red from the thrashing his wife had so kindly administered the night before. Tender, loving abuse, as Mueller termed it.
The early morning sun was creeping in through the windows and the ticker tape machine was chuntering merrily away to itself. Mueller set down his cup and padded over to see what the chatter was about. He frowned. This seemed to be from an old Abwehr contact of his, who, with the help of an agent with the code name Alaikum, provided a daily briefing on the Middle East. They had an office in Cairo. What they provided was quite often generic. Frankly, he sometimes rather resented having to pay for it. Their intelligence didn’t normally come through until the afternoon. Mueller decided on balance to read it now, as he and his wife had planned a long walk to the lake at the top, which would require an early start. The restaurant up there was excellent and the forecast was good.
Checking there was sufficient ink in the drum, as there seemed to be a lot coming through today, Mueller settled down to decipher the long strips of paper. Amongst the usual chat and gossip was a note from one of their contacts in Israel, to the effect that an English couple had been seen disembarking from the SS Sidonia in Haifa that morning, in a red Packard Vignale Convertible. Mueller put the strip of paper down carefully and considered.
Wait. A Packard? Hadn’t that cretin Voss been boasting about a new Packard recently, after a particularly dirty piece of work he had given him to do? Well, it was his business what he spent his money on, but where the devil was he now? Why was somebody else driving his car? It could only be the two assets.
He ran to the telephone and, trying hard to keep his voice very calm, asked the operator to put him through to Rome. Sofort. He would make that verminous, pox-ridden Italian whore of Voss’s tell him exactly where he was. The number had been disconnected, he was told. Scheiss. He slammed his fist down hard on the desk. Voss had almost certainly taken the advance money and ‘cut and run.’ In retrospect, he should have paid ‘on delivery.’ The Packard was a puzzle. How had the assets got hold of it? It was a distinctive car. Was it simply a coincidence or had Voss sold it to fund his escape? That was probably irrelevant at this stage, Mueller decided. He would hunt Voss down and kill him, slowly and painfully, and would relish every moment. For now, he needed to focus on Israel, the worst possible place for the assets to be. They needed to be apprehended, fast; hopefully, it wasn’t already too late. He asked the operator to place another call, this time to Cairo. He needed somebody, he told Alaikum in no uncertain terms, who was not an amateur.
In Haifa, several hours later, Omar Bin Saladin sipped a coffee so strong he could have stood a spoon upright in it. It shot through his sy
stem. It felt good. He stretched out his legs and leaned back in his chair. He unfolded the note again, and memorised the address and instructions. They were clear and specific. Getting up, he threw a coin on the table, adjusted his jacket to conceal the 9mm Browning under his arm, and, with a wave, joined the others in the run-down Citroen in the street outside.
There were four men in the Citroen; well-dressed, businessmen to all intents and purposes, and well-armed too. Each had a 9mm Browning and they had two Sten guns between them. That should be more than adequate, Bin Saladin thought, checking the note again. The Englishwoman was to be spared and brought to London, with a set of papers. The papers were vital; if she said she didn’t have them, she was to be made to reveal their whereabouts by whatever means necessary, although she was not to be injured and was to be kept alive. The man was to be dispensed with.
Chapter 14
Lunch in Marguerite and Lev’s courtyard was simple but good. A Polish meatloaf, plenty of salad and fruit, and a wine that had Sylvia and Gunn reaching for the vodka bottle after the first sip. The rhythm of food allowed awkwardness to slip away. Sylvia found that explaining the reasons behind their presence in Israel came more easily than imagined. Gunn sat back and let her do most of the talking. Sol listened carefully too. She spoke eloquently. He was starting to change his opinion of her. He could see what Gunn saw in her.
There were plenty of tears during the course of the afternoon, but laughter as well. Marguerite of course knew the story of Jonathan and Louise better than anyone. She described idyllic summers in Chartrettes, swimming in the lake and helping with the farm. She had been told about Louise being taken (it had actually happened just before she and Lev were betrayed by their landlady) and put on a train going east. Later, they had been told about her death by the Red Cross, and then Jonathan had managed to trace them.
They had been in a bad state. ‘Living dead,’ as Lev described it. The Red Army’s arrival at that point had saved them. They hadn’t heard about Jonathan’s death. They were a little out of the way here, and tended not to read the foreign newspapers much, finding it more therapeutic to tend their orange trees instead. They knew, because he had mentioned it briefly, about Jonathan’s small stroke. But for him to die like that, and then not to be found for days…
‘That will be Mueller’s doing,’ was Marguerite’s immediate response. She had plenty to say about Marta and Mueller.
‘Do you remember when we went to Berlin, Lev?’ She turned to her husband. ‘When Marta had just taken that job with him?’
‘If you can call it a job,’ responded Lev. ‘I didn’t like Berlin very much.’
Sylvia had been there once with Jutta, and stayed with her parents. They had been kind to her and Jutta had taken her to the Zoo. Jutta had bought them both ice creams. They had both decided that Bobby the Gorilla was their favourite. She had been sad to learn that the zoo animals had to a great extent survived the war but not the Russians. She decided not to share her reminiscences. It was strange how memories came back, almost unbidden.
‘There was almost a forced atmosphere then,’ Marguerite went on, thoughtfully. ‘As if it was one great party before the end of the world. And you had no choice but to enjoy it.’
‘Live fast, die young,’ chipped in Lev.
Mueller had been almost embarrassingly infatuated with Marta at that point. He had taken them to the best restaurants and nightclubs, insisting flamboyantly on paying for everything. It was in one such establishment that they had met a friend of his, Lothar, who had been to school in England, now a solicitor in England and over on a visit.
‘A most unpleasant, rude man,’ Marguerite said. ‘So was Mueller, although he disguised it better.’
Sylvia and Gunn exchanged amused glances. Rude and unpleasant? Surely not.
‘Where was it they were working, can you remember, Lev?’
Lev said that the last place he could think of, although of course they never actually went there, was along the Tiergartenstrasse, something Mueller was working on, but that came much later. Again Sylvia and Gunn exchanged glances; that was the headquarters of the euthanasia programme, for people who were ‘incurable.’ What a euphemism. Marta had sent some of the papers back just before she was killed. It was all in the report. Not the type of thing Mueller, after his recent exoneration, would want bandied about.
Sylvia took another sip of vodka, which was going down a treat with the lovely orange juice, and cleared her throat. She brought the subject back again to Chartrettes, and the will, going through it briefly with them and explaining that Marguerite was the sole beneficiary. She understood from her client that there was a lot of money involved.
‘I see,’ said Marguerite, thoughtfully.
She and Lev had of course lost everything in Paris, even the clothes they stood up in. From the enquiries they had made, it seemed that their landlady had sold all of their possessions as soon as they were rounded up. She had been there, watching, her arms folded and an avaricious smile playing across her lips when they were dragged downstairs. Luckily, Marguerite’s father had made some very shrewd investments in Palestine in the 1930s, with the assistance of Aaron’s father, her uncle, who was already there. Consequently, they wanted for nothing out here, and never would. Like Louise and Jonathan, they had not been blessed with children. They lived quite simply. They were lucky to live at all. Each new day that dawned was a special one to them now.
Thinking it best to keep the atmosphere light before they moved to the inevitable and most tricky topic, Sylvia got out the photographs and the letters Jonathan had written to Louise. Marguerite clutched the letters to her for a moment, then excused herself and went inside. Gunn, who was sitting next to her, pulled her gently towards him.
‘You’re doing brilliantly, sweetheart. I love how you’re doing this, letting the story tell itself. You’re a star.’
Marguerite, coming back to the table with some cups, gave them both a knowing look and smiled. They looked at the photographs together over coffee, with a running commentary from Marguerite. Aaron had been to Chartrettes too as a boy and had fallen under its spell. The pictures of the interior were exclaimed over. Louise and Jonathan had done a lot of work on the demeure when they first bought it, and had thoroughly enjoyed doing this.
‘Oh, look, that’s them,’ commented Marguerite. ‘Mueller and that Lothar. Loathsome creatures. How alike they look.’
This was one of Marta’s pictures; they hadn’t paid much heed to it. All agreed there was a striking likeness between them. Sol leaned forward to take a closer look, as if he wanted to commit their features to memory.
‘Now, that brings me to Marta’s papers,’ Sylvia said, softly. ‘Were you aware that she was sending Mueller’s correspondence back to Chartrettes?’
They were not altogether surprised to hear about this. Sylvia went on to explain how the papers clearly documented Mueller’s involvement with the euthanasia programme and incriminated several others. In addition, and this was very unusual for 1939, when the future seemed golden for the Third Reich, the rudiments of a pipeline had been put in place, so that key people could be removed to safety if needs be, with Lothar and Mueller at the centre of it. Again, there were some high profile names on there, including two who had been sentenced in absentia by the War Crimes Tribunal.
‘Maybe it would also have been useful at the point when Britain was to be invaded?’ suggested Gunn. ‘With Lothar already on the ground, gathering sympathisers around him?’
He and Sylvia unfurled the diagram they had made from several sheets of the purser’s paper, detailing the network. Marguerite marvelled at the amount of work that must have gone into it.
‘If I may interrupt at this stage,’ said Sol. ‘I represent SherutBitachon. I have told Mr Gunn a little about it already. Aaron, Lev, you of course know more, and we’ve already had discussions about my bona fides. I think you are satisfied, yes? In short, we would be very interested in these papers.’
‘It
’s Marguerite’s decision of course,’ volunteered Sylvia, who had decided that they could probably trust Sol. She usually had a decent instinct, having had to survive alone from a young age, for this type of thing. She had never been convinced by the ‘porch in Gallilee’ story.
‘But Mr Gunn and I both thought all along that it was futile to hand these papers to the British or French authorities. That’s why we brought them to you here. Frankly, you are going to need close protection now, whatever you decide. And fast.’
‘Which SherutBitachon will give.’ Sol smiled reassuringly. ‘I can have my men here in ten minutes. Less, even.’
Marguerite looked dazed. She took Lev on one side for a few minutes and they conferred. They called Aaron over. He lived with them; he had to be part of the decision.
Then, speaking very slowly, as if deep in thought, she thanked Miss Fordred and Mr. Gunn from the depths of her heart for bringing the documents and photographs to her, and of course Jonathan’s will and diary. It meant a lot to her. Provided Mr. Kalinsky could guarantee them protection, and if there was anything he could do to bring these filthy creatures to justice, then she would gladly hand him the papers. Although it would never bring Louise and Marta back (she angrily wiped away a tear at this point) it might save others, especially if they were planning to re-group in South America. So all those rumours were true! All she and Lev wanted now, all they had ever wanted, was a quiet life. While Mueller and his ilk remained on this planet, they would be denied one.
‘So, Mr. Kalinsky, please take them now, with my blessing. I don’t want to look at them again. Do what you have to do.’
She moved the papers up the table in front of Sol and turned to Sylvia and Gunn. Still speaking slowly and deliberately, she took from the bundle of photographs the key which Joan had given them.
‘I have no desire ever to set foot in France again. Chartrettes turned from a place of happiness, tranquillity and love into a place of horror and fear. It is the last place on earth I would wish to visit. I think the demeure is a relatively small part of Jonathan’s estate. Lev and I already have more than enough money to live out our days in comfort and peace. With the rest of Jonathan’s money, we can enjoy life; even spoil Aaron here a little. Perhaps buy more land nearby.’