by Alex Gerlis
He assured Jäger he was mistaken: he had been to morning Mass and, as he’d left the cathedral, the man had asked him for directions. He had even gone somewhat out of his way to make sure the man went the right way.
‘And fancy the coincidence of me having met him in Bern last year!’
Franz agreed with Jäger it was indeed a coincidence. It’s a small world, as they say.
‘But so strange. When I was in Bern, he was about to travel to Stuttgart on business – I even helped him with his visa at our Embassy there. He was staying at the Schweizerhof, which, I tell you, Franz, is a very expensive hotel. And now look – he’s a mere courier.’
‘Perhaps he fell on hard times, Alois.’
‘Perhaps.’
Both men continued to be uneasy about the encounter. As was the custom on Tuesdays, the senior lawyers at the practice lunched together and the two men eyed each other throughout the meal. Hermann was worried Jäger did not believe him and Jäger was convinced Hermann was nervous. When they went back into their respective offices, each man closed his door and made a phone call. Jäger made his first, telephoning a good friend of his who was in charge of the Gestapo office in Treptow. ‘Tell me Lothar,’ he said after a brief exchange of pleasantries, ‘you must have good contacts with your colleagues at Tempelhof, no? You’re practically neighbours… Good, I thought as much. Do me a favour will you, Lothar? I’m sure it’s nothing, perhaps just me being suspicious, but could you discreetly check whether a Swiss citizen called Henri Hesse travelled on a flight from Tempelhof to Stuttgart at around 12.30 today?’
Lothar asked one or two questions. We are very thorough in the Gestapo, you know Alois! Both men laughed. Lothar checked the exact spelling of the man’s name. And could you describe him?
‘Perhaps mid-thirties; average height, slightly overweight. Pale complexion, darkish hair as far as I could tell, but he was wearing a trilby hat.’
‘I’ll see what I can do Alois.’
At the same time in his office one floor below Jäger’s, Franz Hermann was pacing up and down. Something was not right, but he had no idea what he could do about it. He picked up the telephone and dialled his mother’s number in Dahlem. At least he could be reassured all was well there.
***
Captain Edgar and Basil Remington-Barber had travelled to Geneva after spending the weekend with Henry in Zürich. They based themselves at a perfectly decent if somewhat anonymous hotel within sight of Cornavin railway station, where they hoped to meet Henry late on the Tuesday night.
The hotel had been chosen carefully: as well as their proximity to the station, they had been able to book two rooms on the top floor, set apart from the others on the corridor. Each room had a telephone and they made sure, from the moment they arrived, one of them would always be beside it. They did not expect to hear anything until 4.30 on Tuesday afternoon at the earliest, when Hunter’s flight from Stuttgart was scheduled to land at Zürich. Rolf would be waiting at the airport to see Henry arrive and check he travelled onto Zürich; one of Rolf’s men would then be at the station to watch Henry meeting with the Russians and catch the train to Geneva. Edgar and Remington-Barber ensured they were both waiting by the phone in Geneva from four o’clock on the Tuesday afternoon. At a quarter past, Remington-Barber observed Henry’s flight ought to be landing and they should be hearing from Rolf at any moment.
‘It’s a tight schedule we’ve allowed him, Edgar. He has to go to Bank Leu, then meet up with his Russian chap, allow them to copy the document and still make that last train to Geneva.’
‘He’ll be fine Basil. Why don’t you sit down and relax? Hedinger will stay on as late as he needs to and the last train to Geneva leaves at a quarter to eight. Please stop worrying. You can pour us another drink if you think that’ll help.’
By five o’clock Edgar, if pressed, would have described himself as concerned. Five minutes after that the phone rang and both men jumped. Remington-Barber answered it. Yes, Hello Rolf… I see… Yes… No… Are you sure?… And you’ve checked there?… Do it again please Rolf… Yes… Probably… Call us back in ten minutes. As he replaced the phone his hands were shaking.
‘Well?’ asked Edgar.
‘Henry wasn’t on the flight.’
‘Are you sure?’ Edgar’s face was just inches from his colleague’s.
‘You heard what I said, Edgar. Rolf Eder is no fool, he’s one of the best men I’ve ever had in the field, doesn’t miss a thing. He said there were 12 passengers who came off the Swissair flight and Hunter wasn’t one of them.’
‘Maybe he missed the connection at Stuttgart? After all, there was only a 20-minute gap between the Berlin flight landing and the Zürich flight taking off…’
‘Yes, but they’re connecting flights. If the Berlin flight is late they hold the Zürich one. It’s possible he missed the flight from Berlin, but it’s unlikely: he had ample time to meet Hugo, go to the Reichsbank then get to Tempelhof.’
When Rolf called back ten minutes later he said he’d been able to check the flight’s manifest with a Swissair contact: though a Henri Hesse had been booked in, he had not been on the connecting flight from Berlin. Edgar snatched the phone from Remington-Barber.
‘Rolf? It’s me, Edgar. Look, your best bet is to get to the station in Zürich as soon as possible and join your man there. See if you can spot Viktor and his chaps. If Henry’s not going to show up they’ll probably get worried at some stage and break cover. Just see what they’re up to. If we see them looking for him, then at least that tells us something.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ said Edgar, slamming the phone down and pacing the room. ‘Basil… You telephone Hedinger and ask if his courier has arrived from Berlin. I can’t imagine he will have done, but there’s a distant possibility he may have heard from him or Reinhart. In fact, ask him to send a telegram to Reinhart asking if all went well with the courier, then tell Hedinger to stay on until at least seven. Jesus Christ.’
By eight o’clock they knew little more. Michael Hedinger told them he had neither heard from nor seen his courier and promised to send a telegram to Reinhart that night. Rolf reported he had managed to get to the station by six o’clock, where he was joined by three of his men. At seven they spotted Viktor prowling around, looking anxious. There was no sign of Hunter boarding the last train to Geneva or any of the ones before it. Viktor had been waiting by the ticket barrier, his face creased in anger as the train departed.
‘At least he’s let them down too.’
‘What do we do Edgar?’
Edgar continued to pace the room angrily, cursing under his breath. ‘It’s that bloody woman, I’m sure it is. Jesus Christ. We’d better get on the first train to Zürich in the morning.’
***
The mood in a dingy rented apartment between the railway tracks and the river in Zürich was scarcely any better. Each of the four men who had been with him at the station were brought in one by one and questioned by Viktor, but, as he had been there himself, there was little point in it. Henry had not come anywhere near the station.
‘He seems to have disappeared,’ said Viktor.
‘When we met him last week, he said something about having asked you for the details of any comrades he could contact in Berlin, in an emergency,’ said one of Viktor’s men.
‘So…?’
‘So I was thinking that if you did give him details of any comrades in Berlin, then they might know what’s happened to him.’
Viktor said nothing for a while, thinking how little he could trust even those closest to him.
‘You’re mistaken. I’ve no comrades left in my network in Berlin: they’ve all gone – either escaped, disappeared, dead or become Nazis. I told him to contact the Embassy.’
‘Really? I thought you didn’t trust anyone there?’
‘I don’t,’ said Viktor ‘I don’t trust anyone.’
***
Back in Berlin that Tuesday evening Alois Jäger finally heard back from his
friend in the Gestapo. It was 6.30 and Jäger had remained behind in his office awaiting the call.
‘You say his name is Henri Hesse and he’s a Swiss citizen?’
‘Yes,’ said Jäger.
‘Well, I not only contacted Heinrich at Tempelhof but I actually went over there to his office myself, so I was able to look at all the paperwork. There were three Swiss nationals on the Deutsche Luft Hansa flight that left for Stuttgart at 12.30, but none of them had that name. The officer in charge of checking the papers as the passengers boarded the plane said, as far as he could recall, one of the Swiss was a woman and the other two were men in either their fifties or sixties.’
‘He wasn’t on that flight then, obviously.’
‘However,’ said Lothar, ‘he was booked onto that flight, he just didn’t turn up for it. And furthermore, there’s a record of him having arrived at Tempelhof yesterday, on the flight from Stuttgart. What is it that concerns you about this man, Alois?’
Jäger thought long and hard.
‘I’m not sure, Lothar. Something about him doesn’t quite add up. And now missing his flight like that…’
Very odd, they both agreed – so much so they decided to meet up the next day to discuss the matter.
***
Franz Hermann had telephoned his mother’s house five times on the Tuesday afternoon and each time the call went unanswered his anxiety increased. By 4.55 he decided he had to go down to Dahlem to check, but he was wary of Alois Jäger; he decided it would be unwise to leave the office before him. Normally his colleague was so preoccupied with Nazi Party meetings in the evening he invariably departed the office no later than five o’clock, but that day it was 6.30 before he left.
As soon as he did, Franz Hermann made his exit too. It was nearly quarter past seven before he arrived at his mother’s house on Arno-Holz Strasse. He knocked on the door but there was no answer, so he used his own key to let himself in. The house felt empty and there was no reply when he called out. The lights were on downstairs but the upper floors were dark. Certain he was walking into a trap he headed for the room at the back overlooking the garden, where his mother spent her days.
He found her propped up in her armchair, swathed in blankets with a tray next to her and her eyes red from crying.
‘I’ve been calling her for hours Franz!’ she said in a hoarse voice. ‘She said something about going out but that you’d be here later. What does she think she’s up to? I’ve been on my own all this time. I’m desperate to go to the toilet and I haven’t had my evening meal yet. The telephone was ringing but I couldn’t reach it!’
Setting aside his fear, Franz Hermann acted swiftly. He helped his mother to the toilet then settled her before going upstairs. There was no sign of Rosa and Sophia, and within half an hour he had gathered up any items belonging to them or that could even be associated with them. He bundled everything into old laundry bags and carried them into the attic, where he locked them in an old trunk, which he then covered with old tennis rackets, a cello case and other reminders of when life was more normal.
When he came downstairs he telephoned Gunter Reinhart at his home. He knew it was a big risk, but he had no alternative.
‘Did your courier visit today?’
‘Yes – why?’
‘And was he acting normally?’
‘I think so, hard to tell really. Is there a problem?’
‘No, no, no – of course not. I was just checking what time he left you?’
‘I’m not too sure, I would say by 10.30. Something like that.’
‘Perhaps we’ll meet tomorrow for a chat?’ said the lawyer, hoping the other man would recognise the urgency in his voice.
‘Yes, perhaps that would be a good idea.’
After that Hermann telephoned his wife and told her he would stay at his mother’s house tonight as the nurse had been called away. He telephoned his sister with the sad news that the nurse who cared so well for their mother had been called back to Bremerhaven because her husband had been killed at sea. It was terrible, they both agreed. The poor nurse had no idea how long she would be there, but in the meantime they needed to sort out their mother. Hermann’s sister paused for a while then said if he could look after her until Thursday, she would come over and bring her back to Brandenburg. She can stay with us for a week or so: I imagine the nurse will be back by then.
‘I’m sure she will,’ replied Franz.
***
It was some time after dawn on the Wednesday before enough light to wake them penetrated the woodland just to the north of Göttingen. Sophia was upset again when she woke up. The tall trees frightened her and she wanted to know if there was no such thing as goblins, what about witches? Hardly reassured by her mother’s promise that they were quite safe, she then wanted to know when she was going to see Alfred.
‘Soon, darling.’
‘When is soon, Mama?’
Henry had been out of the car for a few minutes and had just returned.
‘The sooner we can leave this place, the better,’ he said.
‘Give us a few minutes, Henri,’ said Rosa. ‘Sophia, eat these biscuits and drink the milk, then we can be on our way.’
‘To see Alfred and Papa?’
‘Maybe not today, but hopefully soon. And remember, darling, if anyone asks, your name is Gisela: Gisela Keufer. We’ll all play that game until we meet Alfred, do you understand?’
Henry checked the map and tried to show the route to Rosa, but she wasn’t interested.
‘It’s amazing we’ve got this far, Henry. Our luck can’t hold out much longer.’ She spoke quietly so Sophia could not hear, but there was no disguising the annoyance and fear in her voice.
‘I don’t see why not, especially if we keep to the back roads.’
‘What if they’re looking for us?’
‘How would anyone know? Franz is unlikely to report us, is he?’
They waited until seven o’clock before starting off, first heading south through Göttingen then keeping to the patchwork of smaller roads until they reached Würzburg at lunchtime. They needed to stop for petrol, which was risky, but Würzburg was just 70 miles west of Frankfurt, their supposed home town. They drove slowly through the town centre, looking out for a petrol station. The first one they found had a police van waiting at one of the two pumps, so they drove on. Then just before the river they came to a garage with a solitary pump and an elderly owner sitting outside on a bench with a large dog sitting next to him and less than an inch of a lit cigarette protruding from his lips. He asked to see the documents entitling them to petrol.
‘If I was minded to be difficult,’ he said in a gruff Bavarian accent, ‘then I’d say you’re only entitled to half a tank.’ He smiled, revealing a mouth filled with near-black teeth. The cigarette stub seemed to be stuck to his lower lip. The man’s eyes focussed on the Nazi Party badge on Henry’s lapel and swiftly his mood became less hostile. ‘But, fortunately for you sir, I’m not minded to be difficult. I had a delivery yesterday – the first for over a week. I’ll fill you up but you don’t need to tell anyone that. Come inside. It takes longer these days to do the paperwork than it does to repair a car… Maybe even longer than it takes to build one.’ The man’s throaty laugh echoed around the workshop before breaking into a violent cough.
They went over to a counter at the side of the garage. The owner checked the paperwork painfully slowly: he looked at the identity card in the name of Erich Keufer and the documents showing that the Opel Super 6 sedan, registration number UTM 142, was entitled to petrol every ten days. Henry glanced out of the garage and saw Rosa looking worried: this was taking a long time. The owner wrote slowly in a large ledger.
‘So tell me, are you returning to Frankfurt?’
‘No, we’re just on our way from there. We’re visiting my wife’s family in Nuremberg.’
‘You sound like you may not be from Frankfurt?’
‘Well spotted my friend: I’ve lived all over Germa
ny, which explains my accent!’
The owner nodded and handed back the paperwork, which was now covered in grey grease marks. ‘Odd that your petrol entitlement document was last stamped in Berlin.’
When he returned to the car Sophia was asleep on the back seat and Rosa looked pale and tense.
‘Why did it take so long?’
‘Paperwork,’ he said.
***
The garage owner, Jürgen Neumann, was a worried man as he watched the Opel Super 6 pull away awkwardly from the forecourt of his garage. He was not a political man by any means and nor was he any good at keeping his mouth shut, and that was his problem. In recent months he had rather too openly complained to his decreasing number of customers, about the infrequency of his deliveries, the cost of food and the lack of business. This had led to a series of visits, firstly from a Würzburg police officer who happened to be a friend of his, and culminated in a visit from the deputy head of the local Gestapo, who was no friend at all.
This complaining has to stop. If you’re out to make trouble then be assured we can make plenty of trouble for you. It’s about time you were more co-operative with us.
And that had been followed by a noticeable drop in business and in the delivery of fuel. So now Jürgen Neumann had decided enough was enough. Unless he went out of his way to ingratiate himself with the powers that be he would have to close down his business. He picked up the telephone and dialled the number of the deputy head of the local Gestapo, the man who had recently given him his warning.
‘It’s probably nothing, sir, but I did promise to contact you with any information.’
He explained about the car that had come from Frankfurt but whose petrol entitlement document was last stamped in Berlin, and whose driver said they were heading for Nuremberg but had driven off in the other direction. It all seemed rather… odd.
Do I have the registration number sir? Of course I do.