Without his beard, Theo feels the cold. With unfamiliar boots he walks like a man whose shoes are too small. The only walking he has done in these boots is on concrete floors. Here, the ground is uneven.
‘I have things to say to you,’ Walter says. ‘I am going to confide in you. What I say must not be repeated. I am sure there is no need for me to explain to you what will happen to you – and to your son – if you are foolish enough to betray my trust.’
That Walter wishes to confide anything at all is bad news. The man is part of a plan, perhaps the instigator of it. There is no way of knowing if it is sanctioned from on high or if, as Theo suspects, he is being dragged into something dishonourable. It is well known that the state treats its detractors without mercy. The slaughter following the attempt on the Führer’s life was swift and vicious – the suspects, together with their families, their relatives and friends, were rounded up, tortured and hanged.
‘What is all this?’ Theo asks. ‘Why am I here?’
The big-engine drone of a generator, always in the background, gets louder. There are other sounds, voices carried on a bracing breeze and the ring of a hammer on metal. There is also the unmistakable pounding of distant, galloping hooves.
Theo continues: ‘Tell me why we are at Reichsmarschall’s house. Are you planning to assassinate him? Am I to be a scapegoat? Is that why I am here?’
The angry outburst he expects doesn’t come. Walter is looking away, stifling laughter.
‘God in Heaven, Theodor! If that isn’t the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard! It offends me you should think me capable of such a thing.’ He takes a silk handkerchief from a trouser pocket and dabs each eye in turn. ‘What a thought, Theo, eh? What a thought! Take care, my friend. By rights I should have you arrested for even thinking such things.’
Theo, walking bolt upright and noticeably tense, breathes more freely. It is the first time he has seen Walter’s genuine amusement since the man joked with the Generalmajor. He wants to respond to the comment but he dare not. To him, Walter has developed a split personality, one minute an officer of the Reich and the next his boyhood friend.
‘Let me tell you, Theodor. I assume you aware our enemies have invaded France?’
‘There are rumours. I do not subscribe to rumours.’
‘So tell me what you have heard.’
‘I have heard they are at our borders. They will be driven back. To say otherwise is defeatist talk.’
‘Defeatist talk? It is only a matter of time before we are overrun from the east and from the south and the west. It appears our enemies are in a race to see which of their rabble bands can steal the most from our country. Because of this our treasures must be protected. The Reichsmarschall’s collection must be preserved.’
‘So I am here to help you to move boxes.’
‘You are here because I trust you.’
‘You know longer know me. There must be others you could have called upon.’
Walter turns and inspects Theo, cap to boots and then back again. His eyes fix on Theo’s.
‘Let me be the judge of that. You look passably smart – and bloody uncomfortable. I thought you old sea dogs could handle the cold?’
Through a plantation of slender pines Theo gets his first glimpse of Carinhall. What at first he mistakes for a large stone-built barn turns out to be a Medieval style hall with a roof of red pantiles, only one part of a rambling collection of interconnecting, impressively large buildings and surrounding courtyards. Some of the outlying buildings are linked by covered walkways, constructed from massive timbers like those used to build quays. It is the style of the place that surprises Theo, it is a scaled up hunting lodge fit for a prince.
From a door in an outbuilding come two Luftwaffe men wearing tunics bearing the Göring armband. Like the others Theo has seen they are members of the Reichsmarschall’s own regiment, the equivalent of the Leibstandarte, the Führer’s elite guard. As they pass Walter and Theo they salute with a drillmaster’s eyes right.
Apart from the guards at the estate entrance, the place appears undefended. There are no gun emplacements, no blast walls. It is as if here in the forest there is no war; no bombs have fallen on Berlin and the northern ports; Erica is still alive, and Peter safe at home.
Walter is beckoning.
‘Come! Why do you dawdle? I have brought you here simply to show you that everything from here on is forbidden to you. Through that passage is the Reichsmarschall’s house. You will not go there.’
Walter, closely followed by Theo, enters what looks like a stable block. Theo expects to see the horses he heard earlier but the interior of the building has been gutted and refurbished with a row of small rooms. All but one of their doors are open, revealing small windowless offices with bare metal desks and wooden chairs. Screwed to each door, at eye level, is a small brass frame, all empty except for one on the closed door. Slipped into it, typed on a slip of white card, is Walter’s name and rank. There is no title, nothing to say what Walter does.
Walter, key in hand, unlocks the door. The furnishings are sparse here: a metal desk, a wooden filing cabinet and three chairs.
‘Sit down, Hauptmann Vogel, make yourself comfortable. Would you like coffee? Hot coffee? Real coffee? Before Theo can answer Walter is yelling down the corridor to unseen ears. From some way off, like an echo, comes a curt reply.
‘Now, Hauptmann Vogel. Where was I?’
‘The Reichsmarschall’s collection.’
‘Yes. I told you to sit down, so do it. Our Führer’s personal collection of artistic works is being transported to safety. You are a mining man, possibly you have heard of Altaussee?’
‘It is a salt mine in Austria. I know nothing about salt mines, they are quite different to metal mines. If that is why you want me you have chosen the wrong man.’
Walter is in an unusually good mood and he laughs. Then, as if fearing he may be overheard, he lowers his voice. ‘After what I told you about our Hermann, do you really think he wants to store his collection in a mine with Adolf’s pieces? The Führer considers his as treasures as belonging to the Reich. Göring considers his loot to be his own.’
‘His loot?’
‘The last thing Göring wants is for the Führer to know what he has. The crates you have seen… a bunker is being constructed for them in the south, near Berchtesgaden. You may have heard the Führer also has a stronghold there. My guess is that the bunker is closer to Hitler than Göring would like, but I suspect he has no choice in the matter.’
This is dangerous talk and Theo wants no part of it. He is no longer concerned Walter may be out to trap him, he is more anxious they will be overheard – perhaps by whoever is tapping on Walter’s door now.
The aged orderly who brings Theo his meals is standing in the corridor carrying a tray. He apologises to Walter for having brought only one cup and he scurries away to get another one. While he is gone the two men say nothing; when he returns with a second cup he brings a message that Walter is needed elsewhere. The man leaves and Walter curses, opens his briefcase, grabs papers and holds them out.
‘Here, take these. What I have to tell you can wait. Take the papers to your room, read them and remember what you read. Then burn them in the stove.’
‘They are stamped confidential.’
‘It is your service history. I’m not expecting you to tell me what you think of it because I am not interested. From now on you are this man. Get used to it, Hauptmann!’
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
OSCAR BAR DID NOT LIVE IN ALMERIA. He lived to the north of the small town of Mojácar, a fifty mile journey from the airport undertaken at speed in a Mercedes that, for a second or two, Spargo thought was the car from Madrid.
Benares sat beside Spargo in the rear of the car and hummed softly. Spargo, sneaking a surreptitious glance, saw him picking at his fingernails with the point of a blade, scraping them white underneath and then flicking the bits from his lap. Spargo had a
ssumed the knife was a penknife. A second glance showed it was a switchblade with an ornate wooden handle and a slim, curved blade. Benares, aware he was being watched, turned to Spargo with a brief smile. He folded the knife in the palm of his hand. It locked with a click.
Spargo, numbed by the bizarre string of events, realised as he gazed out of the car window that he had been there before. What was once a quiet coastal road was now a highway servicing hotels and timeshares, seafront restaurants and bars. He came here when he while at university and visited mines in the hills. Were they still there, he wondered? The whole thing about mines is you dig away everything worth digging and then close them down.
Just as Spargo convinced himself that the entire Mediterranean coast had been ruined by rambling developments, everything changed. The road narrowed. Hugging the coast it wound into coves and out onto headlands. Though the view inland was obscured by low cliffs the view out to sea was quite stunning. He compared it with Kilcreg. There, grey sea blended with grey sky. Here, waveless blue sea joined clear, cloudless sky.
The inland cliffs bored him but they wouldn’t bore Jez. Spargo had never encouraged his daughter to study geology and he wondered if it was in her genes, a love of the Earth that passed from grandfather to son, and son to daughter. Far more likely she was entranced by the minerals he brought back from his trips abroad and if that was the case then it pleased him. He always assumed Jez would follow Theresa into politics and then law. It also pleased him that Theresa had not been at all impressed by their daughter’s choice of career.
Jez had done well. At university she was awarded a First. Years later, as Doctor Jessica Spargo, she took a temporary lecturing job that soon became permanent. The fact that she stayed in Edinburgh was the only thing they had disagreed on, the only time he’d interfered. There were other places in the world, he told her.
But then, he had been everywhere and look where it had got him. Yesterday Madrid. Today Andalucia. A trip that was looking increasingly like a fool’s errand.
The sea view was still there but the low cliffs had gone, replaced by tight narrow valleys that sliced up through the hills. Ravines, he supposed. Jez would know the correct term.
‘Are we there yet?’ he asked. The humour was lost on Benares. The man turned his head and looked up the hill.
‘Indeed we are, Mister Spargo.’
Indicators clicked. The car turned inland. They hadn’t gone far before the road they were on changed from firm tarmac to a rock-strewn track. A road better suited to a four-by-four than an executive car.
The Mercedes ascended effortlessly in a cloud of pale dust. High up, the track levelled out. Spargo guessed that at some time in its history the hillside had been quarried; rocks and rubble had been dumped over the edge, tumbling towards the sea to form a wide slope of boulders. All done long ago, Spargo told himself, noting the short stunted trees that studded the slope. He had seen such quarries before, chunks cut out of hillsides to leave ugly, flat scars, homes to tall weeds and abandoned, rusting machinery. But not this one. This site had been flattened and cleared.
Spargo saw, up ahead, a single storey villa with a red tiled roof, a house that would not have looked out of place on the Tyrol. It was an eagles’ nest, he decided. An eagles’ nest with a sea view to die for.
The long flat drive forming the approach to the villa had been dressed with gravel, its edges raked out in curved swathes like a Zen temple garden. The driver slowed the car to a crawl. Tried not to disturb the fine patterns.
‘So!’ exclaimed Benares. ‘We have arrived, Mister Spargo!’
Spargo stayed quiet. It was one of the few times Benares had imparted information voluntarily. The only time it wasn’t necessary.
Still on the gravel and some way from the villa the car drew to a stop. Spargo, determined to get out of the car before the driver opened it for him, stepped out into the heat of the day and took long strides towards the villa.
Not only had Bar cleared away all traces of former industry and imported hundreds of tons of gravel for the driveway, he had also imported vast quantities of topsoil to make formal gardens. A man in a wide floppy hat stood half hidden by roses, directing a trickle of water on to neatly raked soil. With the enthusiasm of a salesman Spargo made straight for him.
Not bothering with footpaths Spargo stepped over the rose beds. Realising at the last moment that the man he was heading for was not Oscar Bar but the gardener, he changed direction mid-stride and aimed this time for a larger and more smartly dressed man seated on a patio in the shade of the house. In full flight, and having changed direction, Spargo found his new route impeded a long, rectangular swimming pool.
‘Spargo...’ he called out as he weaved his way around numerous obstacles. ‘John Spargo,’ he said again when closer, this time with hand outstretched.
The man stayed motionless. Moving only his eyes he regarded Spargo silently. Only then did Spargo realise he was sitting not on one of the patio’s wooden chairs but in a motorised wheelchair. The man regarded him with an expression bordering on derision. Finally deflated, Spargo lowered his hand.
‘Sit down,’ the man said in English. ‘You are blocking my view. Who are you anyway? What did you say your name was?’
Unfazed by Bar’s attitude Spargo dipped a hand into the top pocket of his jacket and scissored out a business card between two fingers. He flipped it upright, the way a magician might produce a playing card. Bar waved it away.
Spargo, embarrassed by his failed sales pitch, calmed down.
‘My name is John Spargo,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m a mining engineer. I am here because Mr Benares believes I can help you.’
Eyes that might once have been blue looked him up and down. If this was indeed Mr Bar then he was a heavy man, big and bald and with dark, unkempt eyebrows. And old. Very old. Much older than Spargo could have imagined. Ninety, he guessed.
Spargo grasped the back of one of the wooden chairs, swivelled it round, placed it in front of Bar and sat down on it. In case Bar would think he was invading his space he jumped it back while still sitting. Bar looked off to one side as if to avoid eye contact and then raised a hand slowly, pointing first at Spargo’s shoulder and then wagging his finger from side to side. ‘Still you spoil my view,’ he said. He moved the finger, pointing to one side towards the open French windows. ‘Sit there. I suppose that now you are here you want a drink...’
Before Spargo could respond, Bar addressed Benares, still in English. Unnoticed by Spargo, the man had come up to them. Silently.
‘How about you?’ Bar asked him. ‘You look as if you could do with one.’
Spargo tried to place Bar’s accent. Spanish, certainly, but also something else, Swedish, possibly. Bar swivelled his thick neck, tilted his head back a fraction and shouted, this time in Spanish. Several seconds passed before a motherly woman came trotting from the house, out through the French windows, untying her apron and bunching it in one hand as she closed in on Bar. When she reached the patio she saw Spargo, changed direction and went for the drinks trolley.
Drinks came in tall glasses with Tapas accompaniments in small porcelain bowls, brought by the woman from deep in the house. Spargo eyed them hungrily. Hoped he would be invited to eat.
‘So, Mister Spargo,’ Bar said. ‘What do you do?’
‘I’m a mining engineer.’
‘So you said. I asked you what you do, not what you are.’
‘I’m a consultant. I have my own company.’
‘And how big is your company?’
‘If I need assistance I can call on associates.’
In reality the only associate he’d ever had was Grant Murphy, a petroleum engineer he met and worked with when he returned to Scotland from Zambia. Murphy was a man who dabbled in mining in the way Spargo dabbled in oil. In practice the two – oil and mining, as well as Spargo and Murphy – did not mix. The partnership hadn’t worked well. Hadn’t worked at all. Murphy, luckily for both of them, got work in Canada and
seldom returned.
‘So, Mister Spargo, you are a one-man band.’
Spargo let the remark lie. Benares, still close, picked up a glass, drifted away from the table and struck up a conversation with the man with the hose.
‘Mr Benares hasn’t yet explained your project to me,’ Spargo said.
‘That is because Luis knows nothing. It is not his job to explain to you my requirements.’
Bar snapped his fingers and the woman came running. Still speaking English he demanded his cigars. When the woman made no move to obey him he repeated the demand in Spanish and she hurried away. She returned to the patio carrying a humidor that she placed on the table next to Bar.
‘You do not smoke, John Spargo. I trust you will not be troubled when I do.’
Bar selected a cigar, rolled it between finger and thumb, held it to his ear and listened to it. Then he put it to his nose and smelt it. Benares, unbidden, appeared from nowhere with his knife, flicked it open, took the cigar from Bar, trimmed off one end and handed it back. The woman held out a table lighter and Bar, taking short sharp puffs, rotated the tip of the cigar in its flame.
Bar settled back and blew smoke. ‘I like order, John Spargo,’ he said. ‘I demand the highest standards from those I employ. When I first came to this country it was governed by General Franco. Governed, John Spargo, not led from behind by political weaklings. Now in Spain we have this bastard democracy, squabbling politicos and governments of compromise. Good countries need good leaders, it is the same in business and trade. What about you, John Spargo? Are you a good leader?’
Spargo sat bemused. It wasn’t the first time he had encountered a client who liked hearing his own voice. The man had denied knowing anything about him. He hadn’t looked at his business card and yet he was calling him John. And how did Bar know he didn’t smoke? Was it a Sherlock Holmes thing? No nicotine stains on his fingers, no harshness in his voice? And are you a good leader? He didn’t know if he was or not. He hadn’t really thought about it.
The Man Who Played Trains: The gripping new thriller from the author of Playpits Park Page 14