‘You ought to sit the exam,’ Meadowes said. ‘You’re too quick for in there.’
‘I’ll settle for twins,’ said Cork, and Valerie brought in the tea.
Meadowes had actually raised the mug to his lips when he heard the sound of the trolley and the familiar trill of the squeaky wheel. Valerie put down the tray with a bang, and some tea slopped out of the pot into the sugar bowl. She was wearing a green pullover, and Cork, who liked to look at her, noticed as she turned to face the door that the polo neck had brought up a light rash at the side of her throat. Cork himself, quicker than the rest, handed Meadowes the folder, went to the door and looked down the corridor. It was their own trolley, loaded high with red and black files and Alan Turner was pushing it. He was in his shirt-sleeves and there were heavy bruises under both his eyes. One lip was cut clean through and had been summarily stitched. He had not shaved. The despatch box was on the top of the pile. Cork said later that he looked as though he had pushed the trolley through enemy lines single-handed. As he came down the passage, doors opened one after another in his wake: Edna from the Typists’ Pool, Crabbe, Pargiter, de Lisle, Gaveston: one by one their heads appeared, followed by their bodies, so that by the time he had arrived at Registry, slammed back the flap of the steel counter and shoved the trolley carelessly into the centre of the room, the only door that remained closed was that of Rawley Bradfield, Head of Chancery.
‘Leave it there. Don’t touch it, any of it.’
Turner crossed the corridor and without knocking, went straight in to Bradfield.
16
‘It’s All a Fake’
‘I thought you’d gone.’ His tone was weary rather than surprised.
‘I missed the plane. Didn’t she tell you?’
‘What the devil have you done to your face?’
‘Siebkron sent his boys to search my room. Looking for news of Harting. I interrupted them.’ He sat down. ‘They’re anglophiles. Like Karfeld.’
‘The matter of Harting is closed.’ Very deliberately Bradfield laid aside some telegrams. ‘I have sent his papers to London together with a letter assessing the damage to our security. The rest will be handled from there. I have no doubt that in due course a decision will be taken on whether or not to inform our Nato partners.’
‘Then you can cancel your letter. And forget the assessment.’
‘I have made allowances for you,’ Bradfield snapped, with much of his former asperity. ‘Every kind of allowance. For your unsavoury profession, your ignorance of diplomatic practice and your uncommon rudeness. Your stay here has brought us nothing but trouble; you seem determined to be unpopular. What the devil do you mean by remaining in Bonn when I have told you to leave? Bursting in here in a state of undress? Have you no idea what is going on here? It’s Friday! The day of the demonstration, in case you have forgotten.’
Turner did not move, and Bradfield’s anger at last got the better of fatigue. ‘Lumley told me you were uncouth but effective: so far you have merely been uncouth. I am not in the least surprised you have met with violence: you attract it. I have warned you of the damage you can do; I have told you my reasons for abandoning the investigation at this end; and I have overlooked the needless brutality with which you have treated my staff. But now I have had enough. You are forbidden the Embassy. Get out.’
‘I’ve found the files,’ Turner said. ‘I’ve found the whole lot. And the trolley. And the typewriter and the chair. And the two-bar electric fire, and de Lisle’s fan.’ His voice was disjointed and unconvincing, and his gaze seemed to be upon things that were not in the room. ‘And the teacups and all the rest of the hardware he pinched at one time or another. And the letters he collected from the bag room and never handed to Meadowes. They were addressed to Leo, you see. They were answers to letters he’d sent. He ran quite a department down there: a separate section of Chancery. Only you never knew. He’s discovered the truth about Karfeld and now they’re after him.’ His hand lightly touched his cheek. ‘The people who did this to me: they’re after Leo. He’s on the run because he knew too much and asked too many questions. For all I know they’ve caught him already. Sorry to be a bore,’ he added flatly. ‘But that’s the way it is. I’d like a cup of coffee if you don’t mind.’
Bradfield did not move.
‘What about the Green File?’
‘It’s not there. Just the empty box.’
‘He’s taken it?’
‘I don’t know. Praschko might. I don’t.’ He shook his head.‘I’m sorry.’ He continued: ‘You’ve to find him before they do. Because if you don’t they’ll kill him. That’s what I’m talking about. Karfeld’s a fraud and a murderer and Harting’s got the proof of it.’ He raised his voice at last. ‘Do I make myself clear?’
Bradfield continued to watch him, intent but not alarmed.
‘When did Harting wake to him?’ Turner asked himself. ‘He didn’t want to notice at first. He turned his back. He’d been turning his back on a lot of things, trying not to remember. Trying not to notice. He held himself in like we all do, sticking to the discipline of not being involved and calling it sacrifice. Gardening, going to parties. Working his fiddles. Surviving. And not interfering. Keeping his head down and letting the world go over him. Until October, when Karfeld came to power. He knew Karfeld, you see. And Karfeld owed him. That mattered to Leo.’
‘Owed him what?’
‘Wait. Gradually, bit by bit he began to … open up. He allowed himself to feel. Karfeld was tantalising him. We both know what that means, don’t we: to be tantalised. Karfeld’s face was everywhere, like it is now. Grinning, frowning, warning … His name kept ringing in Leo’s ears: Karfeld’s a fraud; Karfeld’s a murderer. Karfeld’s a fake.’
‘What are you talking about? Don’t be so utterly ridiculous.’
‘Leo didn’t like that any more: he didn’t like fakes any more; he wanted the truth. The male menopause: that is it. He was disgusted with himself … for what he’d failed to do, sins of omission … sins of commission. Sick of his own tricks and his own routine. We all know that feeling, don’t we? Well, Leo had it. In full measure. So he decided to get what he was owed: justice for Karfeld. He had a long memory, you see. That’s not fashionable these days, I understand. So he plotted. First to get into Registry, then to renew his contract, then to get hold of the files: the Personalities Survey … the old files, the files that were due for destruction … the old case histories in the Glory Hole. He would put the case together again, reopen the investigation …’
‘I have no idea what you are referring to. You’re sick; you are wandering and sick. I suggest you go and lie down.’ His hand moved to the telephone.
‘First of all he got the key, that was easy enough. Put that down! Leave that telephone alone!’ Bradfield’s hand hovered and fell back on to the blotter. ‘Then he started work in the Glory Hole, set up his little office, made his own files, kept minutes, corresponded … he moved in. Anything he needed from Registry, he stole. He was a thief; you said that. You should know.’ For a moment, Turner’s voice was gentle and understanding. ‘When was it you sealed off the basement? Bremen wasn’t it? A weekend? That was when he panicked. The only time. That was when he stole the trolley. I’m talking about Karfeld. Listen! About his doctorate, his military service, the wound at Stalingrad, the chemical factory –’
‘These rumours have been going the rounds for months. Ever since Karfeld became a serious political contestant, we have heard nothing but stories of his past and each time he has successfully refuted them. There’s hardly a politician of any standing in Western Germany whom the Communists have not defamed at one time or another.’
‘Leo’s not a Communist,’ Turner said with profound weariness. ‘You told me yourself: he’s a primitive. For years he kept away from politics because he was afraid of what he might hear. I’m not talking rumours. I’m talking fact: home-grown British fact. Exclusive. It’s all in our own British files, locked away in our own Brit
ish basement. That’s where he got them from and not even you can bury them any more.’ There was neither triumph nor hostility to his tone. ‘The information’s in Registry now if you want to check. With the empty box. There’s some things I didn’t follow, my German’s not that good. I’ve given instructions that no one’s to touch the stuff.’ He grinned in reminiscence, and it might have been his own predicament that he recalled. ‘You bloody nearly marooned him if you did but know it. He got the trolley down there the weekend they put up the grilles and sealed off the lift. He was terrified of not being able to carry on; of being cut off from the Glory Hole. Until then, it was child’s play. He only had to hop into the lift with his files – he could go anywhere, you see; the Personalities Survey gave him the right – and take them straight down to the basement. But you were putting an end to all that though you didn’t know it; the riot grilles queered his pitch. So he shoved everything he might need on to the trolley and waited down there the whole weekend until the workmen had done. He had to break the locks on the back staircase to get out. After that, he relied on Gaunt to invite him up to the top floor. Innocently of course. Everyone’s innocent in a manner of speaking. And I’m sorry,’ he added, quite graciously, ‘I’m sorry for what I said to you. I was wrong.’
‘This is hardly the time for apologies,’ Bradfield retorted, and rang Miss Peate for some coffee.
‘I’m going to tell you the way it is on the files,’ Turner said. ‘The case against Karfeld. You’d do me a favour not interrupting. We’re both tired, and we’ve not much time.’
Bradfield had set a sheet of blue draft paper on the blotter before him; the fountain pen was poised above it. Miss Peate, having poured the coffee, took her leave. Her expression, her single disgusted glance at Turner, was more eloquent than any words she could have found.
‘I’m going to tell you what he’d put together. Pick holes in it afterwards if you want.’
‘I shall do my best,’ Bradfield said with a momentary smile that was like the memory of a different man.
‘There’s a village near Dannenberg, on the Zonal border. Hapstorf it’s called. It has three men and a dog and it lies in a wooded valley. Or used to. In thirty-eight, the Germans put a factory there. There was an old paper mill beside a fast-flowing river, with a country house attached to it, right up against the cliff. They converted the mill and built laboratories alongside the river, and turned the place into a small hush-hush research station for certain types of gas.’
He drank some coffee and took a bite of biscuit, and it seemed to hurt him to eat, for he held his head to one side and munched very cautiously.
‘Poison Gas. The attractions were obvious. The place was difficult to bomb; the stream was fast-flowing, and they needed that for the effluent; the village was small and they could chuck out anyone they didn’t like. All right?’
‘All right.’ Bradfield was writing down key points as Turner spoke. Turner could see the numbers down the left side and he thought: what difference does it make about the numbers? You can’t destroy facts by giving them numbers.
‘The local population claims it didn’t know what was going on there, which is probably true. They knew the mill had been stripped and they knew that a lot of expensive plant had been installed. They knew the warehouses at the back were specially guarded, and they knew the staff weren’t allowed to mix with the locals. The labour was foreign: French and Poles, who weren’t allowed out at all, so there was no mixing at the lower level either. And everyone knew about the animals. Monkeys mainly, but sheep, goats and dogs as well. Animals that went in there and didn’t come out. There’s a record of the local Gauleiter receiving letters of complaint from animal lovers.’
He looked at Bradfield in wonder. ‘He worked down there, night after night, putting it all together.’
‘He had no business down there. The basement archive has been out of bounds for many years.’
‘He had business there all right.’
Bradfield was writing on his pad.
‘Two months before the end of the war, the factory was destroyed by the British. Pinpoint bombing. The explosion was enormous. The place was wiped out, and the village with it. The foreign labourers were killed. They say the sound of the blast carried miles, there was so much went up with it.’
Bradfield’s pen sped across the paper.
‘At the time of the bombing, Karfeld was at home in Essen; there’s no doubt of that at all. He says he was burying his mother; she’d been killed in an air raid.’
‘Well?’
‘He was in Essen all right. But he wasn’t burying his mother. She’d died two years earlier.’
‘Nonsense!’ Bradfield cried. ‘The press would long ago –’
‘There’s a photostat of the original death certificate on the file,’ Turner said evenly. ‘I’m not able to say what the new one looks like. Nor who faked it for him. Though I should think we could both guess without rupturing our imaginations.’
Bradfield glanced at him with appreciation.
‘After the war, the British were in Hamburg and they sent a team to look at what was left of Hapstorf, collect souvenirs and take photographs. Just an ordinary Intelligence team, nothing special. They thought they might pick up the scientists who’d worked there … get the benefit of their knowledge, see what I mean? They reported that nothing was left. They also reported some rumours. A French labourer, one of the few survivors, had a story about experiments on human guinea pigs. Not on the labourers themselves, he said, but on other people brought in. They’d used animals to begin with, he said, but later on they wanted the real thing so they had some specially delivered. He said he’d been on gate duty one night – he was a trusty by then – and the Germans told him to return to his hut, go to bed and not appear till morning. He was suspicious and hung around. He saw a strange thing: a grey bus, just a plain grey single-decker bus, went through one gate after another without being documented. It drove round the back, towards the warehouses, and he didn’t hear any more. A couple of minutes later, it drove out again, much faster. Empty.’ Again he broke off, and this time he took a handkerchief from his pocket and very gingerly dabbed his brow. ‘The Frenchman also said a friend of his, a Belgian, had been offered inducements to work in the new laboratories under the cliff. He went for a couple of days and came back looking like a ghost. He said he wouldn’t spend another night over there, not for all the privileges in the world. Next day he disappeared. Posted, they said. But before he left he had a talk to his pal, and he mentioned the name of Doctor Klaus. Doctor Klaus was the administrative supervisor, he said; he was the man who arranged the details and made things easy for the scientists. He was the man who offered him the job.’
‘You call this evidence?’
‘Wait. Just wait. The team reported their findings and a copy went to the local War Crimes Group. So they took it over. They interrogated the Frenchman, took a full statement but they failed to produce corroboration. An old woman who ran a flower shop had a story about hearing screams in the night, but she couldn’t say which night and besides it might have been animals. It was all very flimsy.’
‘Very, I should have thought.’
‘Look,’ Turner said. ‘We’re on the same side now aren’t we? There are no more doors to open.’
‘There may be some to close,’ Bradfield said, writing again. ‘However.’
‘The Group was overworked and understaffed so they threw in the case. File and discontinue. They’d many bigger cases to worry about. They carded Doctor Klaus and forgot about him. The Frenchman went back to France, the old lady forgot the screams and that was it. Until a couple of years later.’
‘Wait.’
Bradfield’s pen did not hurry. He formed the letters as he always formed them: legibly, with consideration for his successors.
‘Then an accident happened. The kind we’ve come to expect. A farmer near Hapstorf bought an odd bit of waste land from the local council. It was rough ground, ve
ry stony and wooded, but he thought he could make something of it. By the time he’d dug it and ploughed it, he’d unearthed thirty-two bodies of grown men. The German police took a look and informed the Occupational authority. Crimes against Allied personnel were the responsibility of the Allied judiciary. The British mounted an investigation and decided that thirty-one of the men had been gassed. The thirty-second man was wearing the tunic of a foreign labourer and he’d been shot in the back of the neck. There was something else … something that really threw them. The bodies were all messed up.’
‘Messed up?’
‘Researched. Autopsied. Someone had got there first. So they reopened the case. Somebody in the town remembered that Doctor Klaus came from Essen.’
Bradfield was watching him now; he had put down his pen and folded his hands together.
‘They went through all the chemists with the qualification to conduct high-grade research who lived in Essen and whose first names were Klaus. It didn’t take them long to unearth Karfeld. He’d no doctorate; that comes later. But then everyone assumed by then that the staff were working under pseudonyms, so why not give yourself a title too? Essen was also in the British zone, so they pulled him in. He denied the whole thing. Naturally. Mind you: apart from the bodies there was little enough to go by. Except for one incidental piece of information.’
Bradfield did not interrupt this time.
‘You’ve heard of the Euthanasia scheme?’
‘Hadamar.’ With a nod of his head Bradfield indicated the window. ‘Down the river. Hadamar,’ he repeated.
‘Hadamar, Weilmunster, Eichberg, Kalmenhof: clinics for the elimination of unwanted people: for whoever lived on the economy and made no contribution to it. You can read all about it in the Glory Hole, and quite a lot about it in Registry. Among the files for Destruction. At first they had categories for the type of people they’d killed off. You know: the deformed, the insane, severely handicapped children between the ages of eight and thirteen. Bed-wetters. With very few exceptions, the victims were German citizens.’
A Small Town in Germany Page 30