SS-GB

by Len Deighton

  2. The difficulty that any graduate from the Hendon Police College encounters when requesting transfer to CID work is proved a short-sighted policy by Det. Supt. D. Archer’s outstanding aptitude in detective work.

  3. Douglas Archer is the son of a moderately successful but undistinguished civil engineer who was killed on the Western Front. His mother is the daughter of a well known racing-car driver. Archer attended one of the minor public schools as a day-scholar, and then studied law at Oxford University before going to the Hendon Police College. His strict upbringing and education has resulted in a conservative, humourless personality dedicated to the slow, inefficient, and out-of-date methods still current in British police procedure.

  4. Although he is credited with considerable powers of intuition in his work, a more rational explanation of his remarkable career as a police detective is that he has closely studied the scientific methods of the forensic theorists including our own great pioneer Dr Hans Gross. His careful methods, and long hours of work, are those of a neurotic personality obsessed with a determination to apprehend the wrongdoer. For this reason, and others, this officer’s security classification is hereby raised from Ba to Aa.

  5. It must be added that this officer is one of the most popular and respected of men serving with the Metropolitan Force and that, in contradiction to the findings of this report, his English colleagues believe him to be a wit and raconteur of considerable skill.

  Signed, Fritz Kellerman, Gruppenführer

  (Höherer SS und Polizeiführer).

  ‘What do you say about that?’ said Harry. ‘Sounds like you’re being short-listed for a staff job at Hendon.’ It was more of a stricture for Hendon than an accolade for his partner.

  ‘Am I really a humourless, conservative personality?’

  ‘You were all right until these bastards arrived,’ said Harry. ‘With these Huns breathing down your neck, we’re all losing our sense of humour.’ He took the report and pushed it back into the file. ‘And look at this one,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t want to look at any more,’ said Douglas. Outside the band was playing ‘D’ye ken John Peel’.

  ‘These German bastards love to rub it in, don’t they,’ said Harry. Douglas frowned, but Harry grinned back and said, ‘I mean our German visitors love to rub it in.’

  ‘They probably think that playing old English folk melodies is sensitive and endearing.’

  Harry Woods made a rude noise.

  ‘A lot of people feel as you feel,’ said Douglas. ‘But they keep it to themselves.’

  ‘Then I wish they wouldn’t,’ said Harry bitterly. He leaned closer to Douglas. ‘Would you like to meet some of my friends?…they’d interest you, I know they would.’

  Douglas wanted to confide in Harry, and tell him about the meeting with Mayhew, tell him he was already in contact with anti-Nazi groups. Douglas had always confided in Harry, ever since he was a child. He had asked Harry’s advice about every decision he’d made in his police career, and told Harry about his decision to get married even before he told his own mother. When Jill found she was pregnant, they called in to tell Harry the good news on the way to Jill’s parents.

  But he did not confide in his old friend. ‘You’ve always been a joiner, Harry. Back in the old days it was the Rugby Club and the Boxing. Then you became secretary for the Stamp Collecting Club…’

  ‘Philatelic Society,’ said Harry primly.

  ‘You’ve always enjoyed meeting and talking and –’

  ‘Boozing, that’s what you were going to say, isn’t it?’

  Douglas held up his hands in a gesture of deference. ‘It’s what makes you a good copper, Harry. And it’s what makes us a good team. You’ve always done the footwork, buttonholing the snouts, chatting up the villains and filing it all away in that memory of yours. I’m not like that – I’m just the legal man.’

  ‘Talk to my friends, Doug. Talk to them, please.’

  ‘Harry, you’re not making it easy for me. I came in here just now determined to persuade you to break free from these people. And here you are, trying to involve me too.’

  ‘Please, Doug.’ It was no more than a whisper but it was from the heart, and only with difficulty was Douglas able to do what he knew was logical and sensible. He shook his head.

  From the corridor they heard the sound of boots on the mosaic flooring and the armed sentry coming to attention and murmuring, ‘Heil Hitler!’ The door opened and Huth entered. He was wearing a Luftwaffe black leather zipper jacket, and a pair of army trousers. Only his shirt and tie were part of his normal uniform.

  ‘Either of you two know a tailor? I need a new uniform.’ He did not seem to notice that his two subordinates were leaning over his desk.

  ‘There’s a man in Lambeth Road,’ said Harry, who always had an answer for such a question. ‘He does German uniforms. A lot of the Savile Row people subcontract jackets to him. Very good quality.’

  ‘I’m not competing in a beauty contest,’ said Huth. ‘Is he quick? I must have it by tomorrow night.’

  ‘I’ll phone him, boss.’ Huth did not react to being called boss, and Douglas guessed that this had become a regular form of address. Harry had not mastered the complexities of the SS rank system.

  ‘Harry,’ said Huth affably. ‘Would you send this up to the photo department and ask for three dozen copies and the negative. I need it within the hour. I’m preparing “wanted” posters.’ He passed to Harry the same picture of Professor Frick that had been stolen from Douglas. ‘And list everyone appearing on that photo on a Primary Arrest Sheet and bring it to me for signature.’

  ‘General Kellerman is the only person here authorized to sign the PA sheets,’ said Harry.

  ‘Not any longer,’ said Huth. Douglas looked at Harry, who raised an eyebrow.

  When Harry Woods had departed to the photo department, and Douglas was working at his desk, Huth came and propped himself on the window-ledge alongside. ‘Sergeant Woods is a hard worker,’ said Huth.

  ‘He’s the best damned copper in the building.’

  ‘But that wouldn’t be any good at all, unless you were here to give him covering fire,’ said Huth.

  ‘What’s that mean?’ said Douglas without breaking off his work.

  ‘Sergeant Harry Woods is a liability to you – a dangerous liability. That’s what it means. How long do you imagine you are going to be able to protect him from the inevitable?’

  ‘How long do you think?’ said Douglas with a calm he did not feel.

  ‘Not long.’ Douglas looked up in time to catch one of Huth’s razor blade smiles edge-on. ‘Not long.’

  ‘This one needs your signature,’ said Douglas. He twisted the form round on the desk, so that Huth could read it. But Huth tugged a gold pencil from his shirt pocket and signed the form with no more than the merest glance.

  ‘Don’t you want to read it?’

  ‘It’s a memo from Kellerman,’ said Huth. ‘It tells me that one or the other of his administration conferences will be held on Tuesday in future – instead of some other time in the week. A lot of decisions will be taken on Tuesday in future. You see if I’m not right, Superintendent Archer.’

  Huth took a packet of Players cigarettes from his pocket and lit one with all the casual skill of a movie cowboy. He inhaled and breathed down his nostrils. ‘Because I can’t be here on Tuesdays,’ he explained. ‘The General is frightened of what my remarks might put into the printed minutes of his cosy little conferences.’ Huth put away his cigarettes without offering one to Douglas. ‘General Kellerman is concerned that someone might take over this nice job he has in London. Flattering to think that he sees me as the most likely candidate, don’t you think?’

  ‘Very flattering, sir.’

  ‘You’re a fool, aren’t you, Archer?’

  ‘A lot of people have expressed that opinion recently, sir.’

  Huth got to his feet and turned to look out of the window. Douglas’s telephone rang. It was
his direct line. ‘Detective Superintendent Archer? This is Colonel Mayhew.’

  Anxiously Douglas glanced at Huth but he was taking no interest in the phone call. ‘Yes?’ said Douglas guardedly.

  ‘I understand you will be visiting Miss Barga this evening.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Douglas quietly. He wondered if the switchboard man was monitoring the call.

  ‘I’ll see you there…about nine?’

  ‘Very well.’ Douglas replaced the phone without saying goodbye. He looked up at Huth, but the Standartenführer was still staring out of the window.

  ‘Am I to understand that you are ordering the arrest of everyone in this photograph?’

  ‘Correct,’ said Huth, without turning round.

  ‘For the murder of Dr Spode?’

  ‘For questioning in connection with the murder.’

  ‘There is good reason to believe his young brother murdered him. He was certainly at the flat that day.’

  ‘I’m keeping an open mind,’ said Huth. ‘I want all of them arrested.’

  ‘But if I find any of Professor Frick’s staff, you want me to arrest them, and ask them about it?’ Douglas was exasperated by Huth’s reticence.

  ‘You won’t find Professor Frick, and I doubt if you’ll find any of his staff.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Douglas.

  Huth turned round slowly and looked at Douglas. ‘Because Professor Frick’s co-workers are under the protection of the German army.’

  ‘But the “wanted” notices, that you just ordered Harry to prepare…?’

  ‘Just a device, to force those army idiots to tell me where they are…even to let us see them.’

  ‘I see,’ said Douglas who did not see at all. Had Huth not seen the railway ticket to Bringle Sands that had been in the dead man’s pocket? Harry Woods must have destroyed the ticket. Now Douglas had no doubt that Professor Frick’s team were working for the German army somewhere near to Bringle Sands, where the dead man had come from.

  Huth said, ‘You find where the army have hidden Professor Frick’s scientific staff and I’ll give Harry Woods the sort of protection that no one dare challenge.’ He inhaled on his cigarette, still staring at Douglas. ‘Back in Berlin I had a drunken homosexual working for me. Some of his treasonable remarks would have made even you turn pale.’

  ‘I turn pale very easily,’ said Douglas.

  Huth wasn’t listening. He had those steely grey eyes drilling into Douglas’s head. ‘Do you know what I did?’ Without pausing he added, ‘I wrote instructions for him to act as an agent provocateur.’ Huth laughed briefly. ‘A perfect defence. From then onwards he had no one to fear.’

  ‘And whom has Harry Woods to fear?’

  ‘Well certainly not that white-haired fatherly old Fritz Kellerman. He’s a Prussian gentleman of the old school.’ Huth laughed, got up, put on his overcoat and picked up the piece of paper on which Harry Woods had written the name and address of the tailor in Lambeth. When he got to the door, he turned and said, ‘Are you going to find young Spode for me?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Time is running out,’ said Huth, and left.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Douglas found it difficult not to feel smug when he first noticed the man. He was exactly the type Huth would be bound to choose. He was twentyish, perhaps younger, a thick-set man with a reddish complexion that still suffered the skin eruptions of adolescence. He wore a belted coat, and a tweed hat of the sort favoured by anglers and college professors. He carried a carelessly rolled umbrella, and a street-map, which he consulted each time Douglas halted.

  In the Haymarket Douglas jumped aboard a passing bus. Its platform was already crowded but the others made room for him. He looked back to see the young man frantically elbowing his way through the home-bound office workers, and craning his neck to keep Douglas in sight. By Piccadilly Circus Douglas had lost sight of his pursuer. Halfway up Regent Street, he got off the bus and went east into Soho.

  It was too early for Bertha’s bar. Douglas walked up to the floor above and returned the dinner suit to Charlie Rossi. He grumbled about the marks on it in a good-natured way that a couple of cigarettes smoothed over. There, ready for him, was his own suit, folded more carefully than it had ever been folded before. Douglas remembered the time when Rossi’s hire service had been distinguished by the use of black and white layers of tissue paper, and dozens of pins, and beautiful boxes with Rossi’s name in scrollwork. Now the old man had wrapped his suit in newspaper, and could spare not more than two layers of that.

  Douglas insisted on paying for the hire of the suit and Rossi responded by bringing from under the counter a bottle of Marsala and two glasses. Compared with his fellow tradesmen, Charlie Rossi was a lucky man. As an Italian, he enjoyed the special status of being allied to the Germans. But as the old man said – straight-faced but with twinkling eyes – the British had not interned him at the beginning of the war, and that had been his downfall. In fact, they both knew that Charlie had been famous for his anti-Mussolini jokes for more than a decade.

  It was twilight as Douglas emerged into the crowded streets of Soho. In spite of the restrictions on the use of electricity, there were still many illuminated signs, and Germans of all shapes and sizes in every imaginable kind of uniform were spending their money on the delights everywhere offered. At the end of Old Compton Street, the Feldgendarmerie unit attached to West End Central Police station manned the regular checkpoint. The NCO recognized Douglas and let him through the barrier ahead of two black-uniformed tank officers and their girlfriends. They objected to this but the Gendarmerie Feldwebel told them that Douglas was a SIPO officer and this silenced the officers immediately.

  Douglas hurried on self-consciously. He turned south past the ruins of the Palace Theatre, now a ‘garden’ of weeds and wild flowers that were said to thrive on the cordite traces. In the lower part of Charing Cross Road, Douglas stopped to look at an outdoor rack of secondhand books. Then he saw him again. Of course Huth would have assigned an experienced man to this task. Douglas wondered if it was something to do with the phone call from Colonel Mayhew, although at the time Huth appeared not to notice it. Douglas stopped to give a penny to an old man at the handle of a street-piano and turned to look round. The man stopped and looked at his map.

  Irritably, Douglas decided to give this man the slip once and for all. He moved through the crowds quickly, keeping close to the buildings so that as he reached the Leicester Square entrance to the Underground he was able to move smoothly down the stairs, dodging in and out of the people coming up. Once at the lower level, he ran across the concourse, past the ticket offices, machines and kiosks. Holding up his police pass he went through the barrier with a nod from the ticket inspector. Then he hurried down the long moving staircase that went to the Piccadilly Line trains.

  The platform was crowded, and Douglas imagined the young man still fumbling with his change at the ticket office, or arguing with the ticket inspector. But Douglas did not depend on that. He forced his way through the people, and on to the first train that arrived. A porter had to help crush the last few passengers in. The automatic doors slammed shut and the train lurched away.

  At the next stop – Piccadilly Circus – Douglas waited until the doors were about to close before stepping out on to the platform. Then he crossed to the Northbound side and waited until a train disgorged its passengers, before melting into the crowd, to go with them along the exit tunnels.

  Douglas was at the foot of the moving staircases when he saw the man again. By now he had abandoned the idea of disguising his intentions, and, this time, when Douglas stopped to look back, the man did not consult his street-map. Douglas stepped on to the moving stairs, and stood still to let them carry him upwards. Both men needed a moment to catch their breath. The two of them – seemingly oblivious of each other – stared at the advertisements that floated past, and took deep breaths of warm, stale air.

  By now the contest had become a
trial of strength. Each persuaded himself that nothing was more important. In his state of stress and tiredness, Douglas began to believe that he would become the laughing stock of the entire Metropolitan Police Force if he failed to shake off this limpet. Douglas turned to assess the man. The Piccadilly line trains are deeper than any others in the London Underground, and here they are at the lowest part of the railway system. The escalator joining them to street level is of dizzying length. Douglas watched him carefully. The man was toying with the handle of his umbrella and did not look up. Perhaps this was a good thing. If he thought Douglas had given up hope of shaking him off, one last ruse might do the trick.

  As, at last, Douglas reached the very top, he waved his pass at the ticket collector but instead of exiting he turned round to descend on the escalator alongside. Soon the two men were abreast of each other, each moving in different directions. The man’s face contorted with anger. He pushed his umbrella into the belt of his coat and began to climb from one moving staircase to the other. He gripped the electric light stanchion with one hand and rolled his body over until he got one foot on to the moving handrail of Douglas’s staircase. For a moment it seemed he must fall. With the agility, and the handgrip, of an athlete, he threw his weight into a kick that moved him far enough to grab the handrail with his free hand. The floppy umbrella slipped loose and came clattering on to the steps, the man followed it. A woman screamed.

  He had landed heavily, knees bent and body crouched forward, as if about to faint or vomit. As he straightened, he was holding the umbrella in two hands. The hands parted and Douglas saw the shiny length of steel blade that had been concealed within the bamboo stick. And suddenly the man was leaping forward.

  He lunged with all the desperate anger of the assassin. His arms stretched wide, uncaring for his own safety, the blade high in a tightly clenched fist. It swung down, beginning a curve that would have ended in Douglas Archer’s heart, had sheer terror not made the intended victim totter on the edge of the step. The sharpened blade sliced the shoulder strap from Douglas’s raincoat, and blood gushed from his ear.