The Dark Place: A historical suspense thriller set in the murky world of fugitive war criminals, vengeful Nazi hunters and spies

by Damian Vargas

  Liv realised that Blackman held a cigarette packet in his hand. It was a Spanish brand. She looked aghast as he pulled one out and put it between his lips. ‘I thought you despised smoking,’ she scorned, her look of surprise genuine.

  He replied with an apologetic shrug as he lit the cigarette. ‘It’s a bad habit I seemed to have picked up since I came to this country.’

  Liv snatched the packet and lighter from his lap. ‘If you are having one!’ She pulled one of the Spanish cigarillos from the packet, lit it, and took a long drag. She let the smoke linger in her lungs for several seconds before releasing it. She gave him a friendly slap on the arm. ‘I’ve not had one since you arrived at the house, you shit.’

  Blackman glanced at her, a look full of affection. She did likewise, doing her best to mirror it. His guard was down.

  ‘Who was the worst?’ she asked. ‘Of all those Germans you hunted. Was there one you sought more than all the others?’

  The warmth left his face. He broke eye contact, shifting his stare out through the bedroom window towards the mountain range in the distance. ‘There was one.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He was in the SS. His specialism was in supplying prisoners that would be worked to death in their factories and quarries, building railways and bunkers. By our estimations, he was responsible for the deaths of at least eighty thousand people. People from all over Europe. Poles, Czechs, French, Ukrainians. You name it. He didn’t distinguish between any of them. They were all Untermenschen.’

  ‘What was his name?’

  Blackman sat completely still, eyes remaining focussed off in the distance, his mouth open. The cigarette smouldered between his fingers an inch before his lips, the smoke being dispersed to the floor by the downdraft from the ventilation fan above him.

  ‘His name was Joachim von Ziegler.’

  27

  The worst of them

  The Tyrol, Austria,

  October 12th 1945.

  The German sat patiently, his back ruler-straight, staring at the bare cinder block wall in front of him. He was tall with a light build. The body of an administrator. His hair was blonde and short, albeit no longer tightly cropped like it had been while serving in the Third Reich. A three-inch scar ran from near his chin up to his right cheek. An old duelling injury. He thought about that moment so many years ago, pictured his younger self, then forced the memory away. Today he had to be someone else.

  He tried to adjust his position to be able to better make out the muffled English voices from the other side of the metal door behind him, but it was not feasible - his captors having lashed his hands and feet to the chair on which he sat, its legs firmly bolted to the concrete floor.

  The cords around his wrists and ankles were somewhat uncomfortable, but so far the British unit that had caught and arrested him had treated him surprisingly well. The same would not have been true if the tables had been turned.

  He heard a key being inserted into the lock and steeled himself.

  The door creaked open and one of the captors flicked the light switch on. The German blinked to let his eyes adjust to the brightness from the light that hung above his head. He had been sitting in that darkness for, he guessed, at least two hours now.

  A man in the uniform of the British Commandos stepped in front of him holding a wooden stool, placed it down, then sat down on it. The man’s uniform bore the insignia of a captain. The German glanced over his shoulder to see two more British soldiers standing, glaring at him.

  ‘Look at me, you bastard,’ the captain snarled in perfect German.

  The German looked back towards the British captain sitting opposite him, and fought to maintain the neutral, slightly confused look he had been rehearsing in the mirror for several weeks now. He had always accepted that there was a high probability that he would get caught; the wretched Allied soldiers were crawling through every city, town, village, and hamlet across Western Europe seeking out people like him. He had almost made it to Italy, to Milan, from where he would have travelled south to Rome and to the Vatican. If he had been able to make it there, he would have then been able to embark upon one of the busy ratlines to South America. That plan had been foiled, however, when some treacherous shit of a ticket inspector had reported him to an American patrol as he waited for a train connection at Innsbruck station.

  The German had been forced to abandon his suitcase, and to flee into the city’s dark streets, sleeping in a coal shed for a night before escaping into the countryside where he had stumbled across an abandoned farm building. It had served as his shelter for two weeks. The farm owners had both died; the man on the Eastern front, according to his wife’s dreary diary. She had hung herself from the high beams in the old cowshed. The German been forced to take down her bloated corpse himself in case the smell attracted unwanted attention. It had occurred to him at that moment. He had ordered the deaths of a great many people, seen untold thousands of corpses during the war, but her’s had been the first dead body he had actually touched. He had laughed at the irony of the situation.

  There has been an ample supply of lamb, poultry, potatoes, fresh water, apples and wild berries and the German had found the location quite pleasant; he even considered adopting the dead man’s identity and becoming a farmer himself. That ridiculous notion had vanished in an instant, however, the day the British army jeeps had screeched to a halt outside the wooden homestead, and the dozen or so soldiers stormed in and arrested him. Now he found himself tied to a chair, ready to play dumb and to trying to fake an Austrian peasant’s accent.

  The captain glared at him. ‘You are Joachim von Ziegler.’

  The German presented his very best look of ignorance. He had seen it a thousand times from prisoners desperate to avoid being singled out for special treatment by camp guards, or the often even crueller capos. When you are hunting out a victim among groups of so many defenceless captives, the trick was to search their faces for a glimmer of defiance. The Jews who still maintained the absurd belief that they were better than their captors were usually the ones that got picked out first. Pride, spirit, hope - those were the facets you had to extinguish first if you were going to get the rest of the herd to work themselves to the bone. And beyond.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ the German replied, in his fake accent.

  ‘You are Joachim von Ziegler.’

  The German shook his head. ‘No, sir. My name is Günther Franke.’ His interrogator was trying to appear calm, but the German saw that the man was breathing rapidly, his eyes erratic, and his hands were trembling. Not from fear, though. Adrenaline was flowing through the British man’s veins. Probably no small amount of Benzedrine too. The German knew that the Allied soldiers relied on the drug to keep them going, just as the Wehrmacht had used amphetamines to sustain their troops through long campaigns. The English captain was excited. Elated even.

  ‘No. You are SS Oberführer Joachim von Ziegler. You were deputy camp commandant at Mittelwerk Dora.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what that is.’

  ‘We were there. These men and I. We got there the day you and all your fellow coward Nazi officers ran away. But I saw what you did there.’

  The German glanced over his shoulder at the other men, shaking his head once more.

  ‘I said look at me!’ the British soldier yelled. He was an emotional one, this captain.

  ‘Look, I was in the army. Yes.’

  ‘You were in the SS.’

  ‘No, I was a corporal in the Volksgrenadier. They made me join up in late ’44. I’d avoided the draft before that because of my asthma, thank god.’

  ‘You are SS Oberführer Joachim von Ziegler. You were deputy camp commandant at Mittelwerk Dora, in charge of labour supply.’

  The German took a deep breath. His neck was going to hurt soon if he had to keep shaking it. ‘No, I’m sorry. You are mistaken.’

  ‘Thousands died in that camp. Your camp.’

  ‘I’m afraid you have
made a mistake. I understand, it cannot be easy with so many refugees around. They are everywhere now, aren’t they? Wandering around. Trying to get back to whatever is left of their lives from before.’

  ‘And what was your life before?’

  ‘Me, oh I was just a clerk in an engineering company in Zürich. They made wheels for locomotives. Big wheels. But I was not important. I was just a clerk, ja?’

  ‘Is that how you see yourself, Ziegler? Just a small cog in a big machine?’

  The German let out the exasperated laugh he had been saving for this part of the proceedings. ‘I am not this Ziegler, I keep telling you’. He laughed again. ‘My name is Franke. Günther Franke. I was just a corporal. I didn’t do anything wrong.’ He angled his head towards the soldiers behind him. ‘I wish I could help you, I really do.’

  He watched as the British soldier unbuttoned one of the pockets on his battle smock, pulled a piece of paper from it, looked at it for several seconds, then held it up. It was a photograph - a black-and-white image of the German in his SS uniform back in 1941. He cursed himself for not making more effort to alter his appearance before being caught. The duelling scar on his cheek was as clear in the photo as it was on his face.

  His eyes rose to meet the British captain. He dropped the - now pointless - act of innocence and the fake Tyrolean accent. He grunted. ‘I was only a major back then.’

  The British officer glanced at his fellow soldiers standing at the back of the room.

  ‘Fuckin’ ell,’ one of them said. ‘The Captain was right. It bleedin’ well is him.’

  ‘Call it in,’ said the British captain, the relief in his voice unmistakable. The two other soldiers hurried out of the room.

  The two men glared at each other. It was the German who spoke first. ‘So what now then, Herr Kapitän? Are you going to shoot me?’

  ‘Oh, I’d like to, believe me. I’ve been hunting you for seven months, you spineless weasel. I’ve seen your handy work. At Buchenwald. Mauthausen. Nordhausen. I know evil when I see it. I know who you are, and I know what you are.’

  The German leaned forward as much as his bindings would allow. ‘Don’t deceive yourself, Englander. I see it in your eyes. You and I, we are the same.’

  ‘You are wrong.’

  ‘No,’ the German snapped. ‘In my position, you would have come to the same conclusions, made the same decisions, and done the same deeds.’

  ‘We are not alike,’ the Englishman said through gritted teeth. ‘I know it, and now the world is going to know it. And it will never forget.’ The British captain pushed himself up from his chair. ‘You and your kind, you will pay for what you did. I will stake my life on it.’

  The German glanced at the holster that hung from the British officer’s belt, noticed the name stencilled onto the brown leather, and smirked. ‘These are uncertain times. I’d be careful what you stake your life on…Captain Blackman.’

  28

  Demands

  Police Station, La Mesita Blanca

  All Saints’ Day, 1970.

  12:35am.

  Garcia stood, a cup of black coffee in hand, watching the desk sergeant lock the door to the cell that held Liv Johansson, a man’s name revolving around his head.

  Joachim von Ziegler.

  It was a name he had heard mentioned before - an overheard conversation in a bar several years ago. One of those situations where you keep your eyes on your drink, pretend you hadn’t heard anything. An act at which the Inspector had become well versed over the years.

  ‘Captain.’

  Garcia turned to see officer Gomez walking through the open doors towards him. ‘You went to the hotel?’

  ‘Yes sir. I spoke to the manager at the hotel. She said the missing man, Walter Krügel, arrived late last night.’

  ‘Did she say where he had come from?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He arrived on a flight from Argentina. I called the airport and found the flight. The airline confirmed it as well. Also, she said that he told her that he was expecting his daughter the next morning. He told her that he hadn’t seen her for many years. The manager said she was confused, because she had no bookings for a single woman over the next few days.’

  ‘Maybe his daughter is staying somewhere else?’ said the Inspector.

  ‘Shall I call around to see if I can find her?’

  Garcia thought for a moment. ‘No. If she is coming, she’ll turn up at the hotel. Tell them to notify us if that happens.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Did you check his room?’

  ‘Yes. Most of his clothes were still in his suitcase. It looked like he had gone straight to bed, but his pyjamas were on the floor, and his coat and shoes were gone. It’s like he had got dressed again, in a hurry.’

  ‘What time did they report him missing this morning?’

  ‘Around ten o’clock. One of the maids noticed his door ajar and checked on him.’

  ‘And did you find anything else?’ said Garcia.

  ‘Yes. There was an oxygen bottle with a respirator attachment, as well as these…’. The young officer reached into his pocket, pulled out three different packets of medicine tablets. ‘I recognise this one,’ he said, pointing at a blue and red packet. ‘My uncle took them before he died. It was for his cancer.’

  Garcia took the packet of tablets from the officer’s hand, inspected the contents for a moment. ‘It would seem unlikely that Herr Krügel went for a brisk morning run then.’ He handed the packet back to Gomez. ‘Start making enquiries. See if anyone saw the man earlier this morning. Have Rafa call the army checkpoints to see if they know anything.’

  Gomez hurried away, back through the front door.

  The Inspector glanced at sergeant Rubio who was peering up at him from behind the desk, chewing on the end of a pen.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ said the desk sergeant.

  ‘I’m thinking that I need another aspirin,’ said Garcia.

  The sergeant pulled a drawer open and picked up a small glass bottle. ‘Here you go.’

  Garcia extracted two of the white tablets, threw them into his mouth, then swallowed them down with a mouthful of cold coffee. ‘I’ll be in my office.’

  He had been so lost in thought, sitting alone in his office and reflecting on the events of the day, that he only noticed the ambulance through the window as it drove away.

  He swallowed the last of his brandy, screwed the lid back onto the bottle and returned it to the desk drawer before getting up from his seat. He strode from his office and made a beeline for the desk sergeant manning the counter.

  The desk sergeant was talking, the black phone receiver at his ear, but Garcia cut in nonetheless. ‘Bring me the inglés,’ he commanded.

  ‘But I haven’t processed him yet.’

  ‘Fuck all that, Rafa. I want to talk to him straight away. And for Christ’s sake, can someone please find me some cigarillos?’

  As the Inspector headed towards the interrogation room, he spied Guy Weiland using the pay phone along the corridor. The Englishman was shovelling coins into the device. A long-distance call to his spy-masters in London, quite probably, thought Garcia.

  He walked into the interview room and plonked himself down on the seat in front of the metal table once more. He wondered how many times he had sat in this same place over the years as he pulled his little black notebook from his inner jacket pocket and started scanning the recent pages. How many suspects had he questioned? How many had he sent to prison?

  How many had been innocent?

  Garcia’s memory was not so sharp these days - a fact he blamed solely on the stress and lack of sleep, rather than upon his fondness for a stiff drink.

  He flicked backwards through thirty or so pages of his investigation notes, pausing over the more salient points while yawning repeatedly, before realising that Guy Weiland was now in the room. The man had a capacity for stealth, it seemed. As all weasels do. The Englishman was standing to Garcia’s right, hands join
ed at the small of his back, and examining a framed watercolour that hung from the wall. The painting was of a cluster of traditional white Spanish buildings - a group of children playing in the foreground, dark mountains in the distance.

  ‘Is that this village?’ he asked, seemingly aware of the Inspector’s glare.

  ‘Yes, my wife painted it. Many years ago.’

  ‘It hasn’t changed much.’

  ‘Places stay the same around here,’ said Garcia. ‘It is the people that change.’

  Weiland peered over his shoulder, his eyebrow raised. ‘Not what I would have expected to see in a Guardia Civil interrogation room.’

  Garcia gave him a disinterested shrug, returning his gaze back to his notebook. ‘I like to put people at ease. I find they tell me more then.’

  ‘Quite so,’ Weiland replied.

  Two of the green-uniformed police officers, Alonso and Gomez, had appeared at the door, guiding Harry Blackman into the room. Garcia eyed him as he shuffled forward with his left arm in a plaster cast and sling, the other attached at the wrist to one of the policemen with steel handcuffs. His belt and shoes had been taken from him, his trousers and shirt were filthy and torn.

  Weiland pointed at the shackles. ‘Inspector, I think we can remove the cuffs, don’t you?’ Both of the policemen proffered the same look of surprise, looking at Garcia for instruction.

  The Inspector nodded his approval and stood up as Blackman was led to the chair on the opposite side of the table. He reached for a jar of water and filled a Tupperware beaker, then offered it to Blackman.

  The Englishman ignored it.

  Garcia left the drink, then sat down on the side of the table next to Blackman. ‘How are you?’ he said. ‘How is your shoulder?’ He noticed dried blood matting a section of the Englishman’s hair above his right ear, and what looked like fingernail scratches on his neck. ‘You’ll be able to clean up soon, after you’ve answered a few questions.’