‘We helped Hess learn to fly a particular aircraft. And we did that because he was the Deputy Führer and he asked us. Goering asked, too. And guess what? I said yes.’ Merz paused, angry now. ‘So have you arrested the Reichsmarschall as well? Is he down the corridor?’
The detective ducked his head and Merz had the brief satisfaction of knowing the man felt uncomfortable. Press your advantage, he told himself. Close the distance between you. Go for the kill.
‘Why would Hess fly to Britain?’ he asked.
‘I have no idea.’
‘Of course you have. This is speculation on my part. These are bullets for your gun. Hess is an educated man. He understands a great deal more about this war than most of his sort. And my guess is that he’s gone to try and talk some sense into the English. I’m a fighter pilot. I see the war through a single gunsight. The British did well over the Channel back last year. The Spitfire is a superb aeroplane. But they’re fighting the wrong enemy, and so are we. Ask any aviator, any soldier, which direction we should be going next. Ask Hess, if he ever gets back. And you know the answer? Well? Do you?’
The detective wouldn’t reply. At length he circled the desk and folded his long frame into the other chair. Then he steepled his fingers and looked at Merz.
‘Is this you talking or der Stellvertreter?’
Merz held his gaze and then started to laugh.
‘If that’s a serious question,’ he said, ‘then we’re all in the shit.’
*
Moncrieff hadn’t been to Glasgow since before the war. The address he’d acquired from Ursula took him down to an area of tenements near the Clydeside shipyards. Mid-afternoon, even on a Sunday, he could feel the heavy industrial pulse of the city. The insistent clang of metal on metal. The throb of dozens of generators. The frieze of giant cranes silhouetted against the hills beyond the river’s northern shore. Ship launch after ship launch, war had brightened Glasgow. The streets were packed, the pubs were full and the men who’d avoided the call-up were duly grateful.
Kacper Wojcek lived in the end house of a terrace that straggled up from the shore line. Moncrieff’s insistent knocking finally brought him to the door. He was a tiny man, red pyjama bottoms, no top. He looked exhausted, as well he might. Spend half the night talking to the Deputy Führer and you deserved a proper lie-in.
‘May I?’ Moncrieff stepped past him without waiting for an answer. The place smelled ripe.
A woman had emerged from the steam of a kitchen at the back of a narrow hall. Moncrieff at first assumed she was foreign, like Wojcek, but he was wrong.
‘So who are you?’ she said, wiping her hands on the remains of her apron. ‘And why are you so bloody tall?’
She was a big woman, handsome. Her bare arms were blotched with scald marks, her shoulders were slightly hunched and her eyes had the wariness Moncrieff always associated with a good boxer.
He was peering into the scullery. Half a dozen nappies cut from old towels had been pegged to a line across the back of the room.
Moncrieff felt a movement behind him, then a hand on his arm. Wojcek again.
‘You never gave me your name,’ he said. ‘Or have I forgotten it already?’ Thick foreign accent, softened with a smile.
Moncrieff introduced himself. He said he’d just come up from London on government business. Was there somewhere they might talk?
Wojcek led him into a tiny living room at the front of the property. It was overfurnished but spotless. A wooden crucifix hung from the picture rail above the mantlepiece and there was a framed photo of a young girl among the clutter on the sideboard. Her face was sombre beneath an explosion of white taffeta and her gloved hands were pressed together in prayer.
‘Roseanne,’ Wojcek nodded towards the hall. ‘Her first communion.’
‘She’s your wife?’
‘My landlady. I rent a room.’
‘You’ve been here long?’
‘Long enough,’ he pulled a face. ‘How can I help you?’
Moncrieff wanted to know about Wojcek’s job. He understood he worked at the city’s Polish Consulate. Was that true?
‘Are you a policeman?’
‘In a way, yes.’
‘And you’re telling me I’ve done something wrong?’
‘I’m telling you we need to talk.’
‘Why?’
The door burst open. Roseanne was carrying a baby, a tiny thing pressed against her huge bosom. She gave it to Wojcek, raised an eyebrow in Moncrieff’s direction, and left. From somewhere else in the house came the cry of another child.
‘Yours?’ Moncrieff was looking at the baby in Wojcek’s lap, a little girl, huge blue eyes, chubby arms and legs, beautifully dressed in pink.
‘Mine,’ Wojcek agreed. ‘Agata.’
‘And upstairs?’
‘Tomasz.’
‘Not just a lodger, then?’
‘No.’ He dipped his head low, and nuzzled the tiny face, cheek to cheek, avoiding Moncrieff’s gaze. ‘You want to know about last night?’
‘I do.’
‘And you know who this man is? The man I talked to?’
‘Tell me.’
At last his head came up. He badly needed a shave.
‘You say you’re from London?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who do you work for?’
‘That’s of no consequence.’
‘You’re not going to tell me?’
‘No.’
‘Then maybe you should be talking to someone else. There were many people there last night. Soldiers. Airmen. The man landed in the middle of nowhere. A ploughman arrested him, called for help. Can you imagine that? A man like Hess? Held prisoner in a Scout hut? You know something? I felt sorry for him. Me, a Pole, feeling sorry for a German, after Danzig, after Warsaw, after everything. He conducted himself well. He was in pain but he didn’t let it show. He was polite, too. That was another surprise.’
‘But what were you doing there?’
‘I speak German. Someone called the Consul. The Consul was drunk. Useless. Worse than useless. So I went instead.’
‘To translate?’
‘Of course. Sometimes you get to look the enemy in the face. It doesn’t happen often.’
‘So what did he have to say? Herr Hess?’
‘He didn’t say his name was Hess. He said it was Horn, Alfred Horn, but I recognised him at once.’
‘Had you met him before?’
‘No, but I’d seen his picture.’
‘How? Why?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t remember. Maybe a newspaper.’
‘So what else did he say?’
‘He wanted to know whether we could take him to the Duke of Hamilton.’
‘Did he explain why?’
‘He said he was on a mission for humanity. You speak German?’
‘Ja.’
‘Eine Mission für die Menschheit.’
A mission for humanity. Moncrieff produced a notepad and scribbled down the phrase. Then he looked up again.
‘And were you there when he was searched?’
‘No. That must have been earlier.’
‘Was there a list of any kind? An inventory that you might have seen?’
‘No.’
‘Did anyone mention a letter?’
‘No.’
‘Not Hess himself? When he asked about the Duke of Hamilton?’
‘No.’
‘Did you get the impression he was expecting some kind of reception committee when he arrived? Had he planned to land the plane?’
‘I’ve no idea. He didn’t talk about that.’
‘And you? Were you expecting him? Was that why you were there? On hand? With your perfect German?’
‘Me? Why should I be there?’ He held Moncrieff’s gaze, unblinking.
‘So who were these people who came to collect you?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘They wore uniforms?’
‘Yes.’
‘What sort of uniforms?’
‘They were Army. Army uniforms. Army people.’
‘And they came here? Woke you up? Woke Roseanne? Maybe the babies, too?’
For the first time Wojcek hesitated. ‘No,’ he said at last.
‘They didn’t come here?’
‘No.’
‘So where were you?’
Wojcek wouldn’t answer. He was back with the baby. Finally he muttered that life was complicated, awkward, often a bitch. A man could make mistakes, many mistakes. His wife believed in God. He’d never had that pleasure.
‘You’re telling me you were with another woman?’
‘Of course.’
‘What’s her name? Where do I find her?’
Wojcek shook his head. He was rocking the baby now, gazing down at her. It was none of Moncrieff’s business, he muttered. It was nobody’s business. It was a weakness, something he needed to do from time to time. He didn’t want to talk about it any more. And he didn’t want anyone else to know.
Moncrieff let the silence stretch and stretch. One last question. Then maybe an entirely different conversation.
‘So how did these people know where to find you?’ Moncrieff asked softly. ‘When you’d hidden yourself away like that?’
At last his head came up. It was a woeful performance and he knew it. He looked distraught.
‘Who do you really work for?’ he asked.
‘The government. I think I told you.’
‘But that should make us friends?’ His eyes drifted back to the baby. ‘Shouldn’t it?’
*
Moncrieff had noticed a pub down the road towards the shipyards. When he pushed the door open, it was packed. The single bar was thick with tobacco smoke and heads turned as he asked the landlord for a phone.
When Ursula Barton finally answered Moncrieff did his best to shield the conversation with his body. She already had Wojcek’s address. He wanted her to book him a room for the night at the Caledonian Hotel. Then he asked her to talk to the Glasgow police. They were to raise two search warrants, one for Wojcek’s place, the other for the Polish Consulate, both under the provisions of the Defence of the Realm Act. When Ursula pointed out that the Consulate might be tricky because it had diplomatic protection Moncrieff said it didn’t matter. In these circumstances it paid to make a noise, kick a few doors in, see what happened. Shooting pheasants in the hills you always started in the denser parts of the heather.
‘Ask any beater,’ he laughed. ‘Never fails.’
Moncrieff paid the landlord for the call and left the pub. A shop across the road still had a pile of Sunday newspapers for sale. Moncrieff bought a copy of the Glasgow Herald. From the corner of the street he had line of sight on Wojcek’s front door. He’d already established that the terrace houses were back-to-back, no rear access, and within minutes the front door opened. It was Roseanne. She didn’t have the kids. She was carrying a bag. She set off up the hill, away from the river. She was walking fast, her head down. She seemed preoccupied and Moncrieff was tempted to follow her but knew he should wait for the police. He wanted to be there when they tore the place apart. He wanted, above all, to be watching Kacper Wojcek.
The police arrived within the hour. Moncrieff was deep in an article about the black market in venison. He crossed the road and walked up the hill. The van was dark blue and had seen better days. Two uniformed constables were on the pavement staring up at Wojcek’s house while the sergeant in charge sat in the driving seat studying a form.
Moncrieff opened the door of the van and showed the sergeant his Security Service Pass.
‘Pain in the fucking backside,’ the sergeant gestured at the DORA regulations. He was an older man, at least fifty, and his thick fingers were stained yellow from years of cigarettes. He’d scarcely glanced at Moncrieff’s pass. ‘So what are we after here?’
Moncrieff asked him to search the house. Cupboards. Hidey holes. The kids’ room. The attic. The lot.
‘Looking for what?’
‘Documentation. You find anything, I’ll take care of the details.’
‘Aye. That’d be a blessing. And then?’
‘You leave.’
‘With the householder?’
‘No.’
‘You’re serious, laddie? All this way for no arrests?’
At last Moncrieff had the sergeant’s full attention. He repeated the brief. Lift every floorboard. Leave no corner unmolested. And then leave.
‘Remarkable,’ the sergeant shook his head and tossed the DORA form onto the passenger seat. ‘At least you’re a fucking Scot.’
Wojcek was holding the baby Moncrieff hadn’t seen when he opened the door. This one was a boy, older, noisier. The sight of two policemen pushing past him didn’t appear to come as any surprise. Neither did the search warrant the sergeant thrust beneath his nose. From upstairs came the noise of splintering wood.
Moncrieff was in the hall now. Already he could smell burning.
‘Something on the stove?’ He nodded towards the kitchen.
Wojcek shrugged, said he didn’t know. The little boy in his arms must have been nearly two. The drumbeat of boots on the thin boards overhead had made him cry. Wojcek tried to comfort him, turning his back on Moncrieff.
‘Your mummy’s back soon,’ he whispered.
Moncrieff wanted to know where she’d gone.
‘Shopping,’ Wojcek said vaguely. ‘She’s gone shopping.’
‘On a Sunday? You’ll have to do better than that.’
Wojcek shrugged. They were in the kitchen now. The little girl he’d seen earlier was asleep on a blanket in a cardboard box and the bottle of vodka on the table was nearly empty. Monopolowa. Polish. Moncrieff took a look round. There was nothing on the gas rings on the cooker, nothing to explain the lingering smell. Footsteps clattered down the stairs. Moncrieff turned to find the sergeant holding a book.
‘Upstairs. Room at the front.’ He thrust it towards Wojcek. ‘Bedtime reading, laddie?’
It was a copy of Mein Kampf, the spine nearly broken.
‘Hess wrote some of this,’ Wojcek had taken the book. He offered it to Moncrieff. ‘Did you know that?’
Moncrieff ignored the question. He thumbed carefully through, looking for annotations, phrases circled, finding nothing.
The sergeant had disappeared upstairs again. Then came the crash of something heavy and an oath from one of the policemen. He clattered down the stairs and out into the street. When he came back he was holding a crowbar.
‘The wardrobe’s fighting back,’ he said. ‘Very Polish.’
Moncrieff smiled. He’d forgotten how witty people in this city could be, and how unforgiving. He pushed at the door into the sitting room and stepped in. The smell of burning was suddenly stronger. He gazed down at the tiny hearth beneath the mantlepiece. The delicate curls of ashes hadn’t been there earlier. He knelt beside them and reached for the stub of a poker. Paper, he thought. Pages and pages of paper.
He gave the remains a gentle prod and watched them settle in the grate. Just one curl had survived, scorched brown by the heat. He lifted it carefully out. It was no more than a fragment, the corner of a single sheet. He held it up to the light from the window. Heavy-gauge paper, he thought. Official looking.
The scrape of the door opening wider brought him to his feet. It was Wojcek. God knows what he’d done with his son.
‘What happened there?’ Moncrieff nodded at the ashes in the grate.
‘Rosanne gets cold. She wanted a fire.’
‘Very funny. What were you burning? What was it?’
‘Old stuff. Stuff she didn’t want any more.’
More lies, Moncrieff thought, but the man didn’t care. His work in the shadows had brought strangers to his door and now he was looking at four lives in ruins. Later, if he had to, Moncrieff might try and get the rest of his story but in the meantime he’d let events take their own course. In circumstances like these it paid to be
patient.
‘My friends upstairs have the worst manners in the world,’ he said. ‘If there’s anything you think might interest me, now is the time to say. Otherwise there’s no knowing what they might do.’
‘There’s nothing to find,’ he said. ‘You’re wasting your time.’
‘And this?’ Moncrieff still had the curl of singed paper.
‘That’s nothing. That’s less than nothing. If that’s all you’ve got then you might have saved yourself the journey. You know what someone told me recently? About your sort of people? They said you were all Bauern. And you know something else? They were right.’
Bauern. Peasants. Exactly what MI6 would say.
Moncrieff smiled. He could smell the alcohol on Wojcek’s breath.
‘Do you have an envelope, by any chance? A bag, perhaps?’
‘I have nothing.’
Moncrieff turned and left the room. The police van in the street was locked. He returned to the house and made his way upstairs. The search party had begun on the floorboards, the sergeant on his hands and knees among the contents of the emptied drawers. He looked up at Moncrieff.
‘There’s nothing here,’ he said. ‘If there was we’d have found it.’
Moncrieff told him to keep looking. In the meantime, he needed an old envelope, a bag of some kind, somewhere he could store an item he needed to remove. One of the policemen tossed him the keys to the van.
‘Bag in the back,’ he grunted. ‘Full of all kinds of shit.’
By late afternoon, the search was finally over. When the sergeant offered to make a start on tidying up, Moncrieff told him not to bother. They’d done a thorough job and he was duly grateful. The lady of the house might be back soon and she was the one who knew where everything belonged.
‘And your wee man downstairs?’
‘Leave him be.’
‘You mean that?’
‘I do.’
Moncrieff followed the three men downstairs. Wojcek was in the kitchen nursing the smaller of his two children. The older one stared up at Moncrieff, baleful, angry, uncomprehending.
Moncrieff had torn a sheet of paper from a pad in the van. He handed it to Wojcek.
‘My name’s Moncrieff,’ he said. ‘If you’ve anything else to tell me, that’s where I’ll be tonight.’
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