Death of a Dancer

by Anthony Litton

  Chapter 37

  ‘It’s going to be the devil’s own job to get it open safely,’ Bill Edwards said gloomily, staring at the sheath, glittering under the lights. The DNA swab taken from Elena Kujenikov had shown enough similarity to the degraded sample taken from the figure for them to be able to open it up, now all-but certain that it held Ariana herself.

  Calderwood nodded. He knew that, bar the use of brute force, opening the casing was going to be extremely difficult. Even when they did get through the sheath itself, they couldn’t be certain how the body would react as it became exposed to the atmosphere; and if it did react, as he remarked, they ran a real risk of having little or nothing left from which to find out how she died before she was entombed.

  ‘If she was dead,’ replied the medic quietly.

  ‘You think it’s possible that she was still alive?’ Calderwood asked, feeling as sick as he had when the possibility first occurred to him.

  ‘Yes, I do. There are absolutely no signs of any external violence, but until we actually open the shell, we can’t tell whether she was poisoned and dead, or merely drugged.’

  ‘How will you go about it?’ asked Calderwood.

  ‘How will I go about it? Simple, I’ll do bugger all,’ replied the doctor bluntly.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I said, I’ll do bugger all. Don’t worry, it will be opened, but not by me. I’ve been onto the powers above and – after all the usual yelps and squeals about costs, budgets, etcetera, bloody etcetera! – they’ve agreed that it can be transferred, unopened, to one of the big museums in London. Which one is yet to be decided, but more than one have their own experts and one of them can open the damned thing. They’ve got the expertise, with all those mummies and woolly mammoths and so on, that they keep digging up, to stand the best chance of being able to open it without destroying everything when the air gets to it,’ he explained.

  Calderwood nodded, silently applauding his colleague’s initiative.

  ‘Of course, for the sake of continuity, I’ll need to be there,’ the medical man added happily, looking forward to a trip to the metropolis.

  ‘Have you any idea what the actual make-up of the casing is yet?’ Calderwood asked, smilingly cutting across his colleague’s happy reverie.

  ‘No. I’ve sent off three or four samples to different organisations that have equipment advanced enough to tell us what it actually is. It’s obviously some sort of plastic, but I’ll confess I’m a bit baffled by it,’ he added honestly.

  ‘Baffled?’

  ‘Yes, and not just by the substance but also by the expertise needed to use it,’ responded the medic.

  ‘Go on,’ Calderwood urged, as the other man paused, marshalling his thoughts.

  ‘Well, even today, fifty years later, it wouldn’t be all that easy to find a substance that could encapsulate a human being like this, without even the tiniest bit of distortion, either on the body or the face, from the actual moment of it being sealed in. It’s quite remarkable. As you said, it has all the flawless perfection of a fly caught in amber,’ he added, looking at the encased figure. ‘Then, of course,’ he continued, ‘comes the problem of finding someone with the expertise to actually do it. Today, we could find both people skilled enough and the precision equipment necessary – but fifty years ago?’ The doctor shook his head. ‘Had I not seen this, I would have said it was impossible, utterly impossible.’

  Calderwood nodded his agreement.

  ‘We’re very blasé, these days, about not just plastics but a whole range of man-made materials that, fifty years ago, weren’t even conceived, let alone in existence.’ the medic continued, warming to his theme, ‘Graphene’s just one example. Hell, plastics, themselves, were still comparatively unsophisticated in the sixties. Yet here we have,’ he added, gesturing to the glittering capsule, ‘from over half a life-time ago, both a unique substance, and the expertise to use it. It will be interesting enough watching someone open it up, but then to be able to actually study how the body was placed inside without any blemish will be fascinating,’ he continued, professional enthusiasm momentarily blocking out his usual immense humanity.

  Calderwood nodded. He knew that he’d also need to be there for the opening of what was, in effect, a tomb, but, unlike his colleague, it was unlikely that he’d have the time to spare to visit any of the capital’s theatres or galleries, as he’d been politely summoned to a further meeting about his next career step.

  The scheduled trip took place several days later. Although it would provide some answers, it would also result in the case taking a jolting twist which threatened to overshadow, if not derail, the entire investigation.

  Chapter 38

  ‘Come in and take a seat, Inspector,’ the thin, dry voice said, its owner not looking up from his desk. Calderwood, surprised, took a seat opposite the room’s occupant. He was someone the young policeman didn’t know, clearly replacing the two men he’d expected to see.

  The figure continued to read and occasionally annotate a document, so his visitor used the time to study his surroundings. The room was medium-sized, as was the desk. Both were in neutral shades of grey. Each was also devoid of any ornamentation. There were no photographs on the desk’s neat surface, which was, save for the papers the other man was reading, bare, except for a slim file and a single glass of water. No pictures or diplomas hung on the room’s blank walls. Grey blinds masked the windows, allowing no view to allow even momentary escape from the drab, utilitarian space.

  Calderwood noted, with wry amusement, that the shades of grey were carried through even onto the writing figure, as the thin, balding, middle-aged man, was using a silver-grey pen and was dressed in a grey suit. The colour scheme was broken only with his crisp white shirt, though, as this was worn with a pale, blueish-grey tie, it merely emphasised the homogeneity of the rest.

  ‘Anonymous’ was the word that entered the young DI’s mind and stayed there right up to the moment the writer put down his pen and, raising his head, looked directly at him.

  Then, a far darker word seemed more appropriate. The small eyes were flat, black and held all the emotion of a lizard, and seemed scarcely to blink as they stared at the young policemen.

  ‘I’m talking to you this morning only because your new post means you have been vetted to the highest level, meaning you possess the topmost level of security clearance,’ he began. ‘Had it been otherwise, your current case would have been re-assigned to someone who did have that clearance.’

  He paused to see the younger man’s reaction. Getting none, he continued. ‘You expected to see Commander Bagot and Deputy Assistant Commissioner Tillottson.’ It was a statement and not a question. ‘They will see you on another occasion,’ the man continued, ‘and, although they’re aware of my having a conversation with you this morning, they are not, nor will ever be, privy to its content; nor will either your superiors, or anyone else, back at your current HQ. Is that clear?’

  Calderwood looked calmly back at the man and kept his rising temper in check. Whatever the reasons for the secrecy, the speaker’s manner seemed unnecessarily brusque and offensive.

  ‘If those are my orders, sir, then, yes, it’s perfectly clear,’ the young DI replied quietly, then added, ‘Of course, my not having met you previously means I do need to ask for some confirmation of your authority to issue that order.’

  Something flared briefly within the flat, empty void behind the man’s eyes and then disappeared, as he gave the briefest of nods. Saying nothing, he reached for the file and, opening it, took out a single sheet lying on the top of a sheaf of papers and flicked it across the desk. Catching it just before it fluttered to the floor, Calderwood read swiftly through the few words it contained. Few though they were, they were very much to the point and signed by two very important signatures that Calderwood knew extremely well. The, as yet unnamed, holder of the letter was indeed able to direct his actions for the remainder of the time it took to solve the DeLancy case.
He nodded and passed the letter back across the desk.

  ‘My name is John Adams,’ the man said, which Calderwood didn’t, for one moment, believe. ‘The case you’re currently investigating now comes under my remit,’ the man continued, his brusque manner unabated.

  ‘Certainly, sir,’ Calderwood accepted; the two signatures more than telling him that, however much of a social misfit the thin man opposite him was, he had sufficient clout to do more or less anything he pleased.

  ‘The reason is this,’ the man calling himself Adams said, extracting another piece of paper from the file and pushing it across to his increasingly mystified visitor.

  ‘Our routine request for fingerprint matches?’ Calderwood queried, looking up from the sheet of paper. It was a copy of an email Bulmer had sent attaching copies of all the unidentified prints found in The Dolphin.

  The other man gave a brief nod. ‘Have you ever heard of a man called Dieter Arnhalt?’

  ‘No,’ Calderwood, replied. ‘Oh wait a moment,’ he corrected himself, dredging deep into long forgotten memories of his political history minor. ‘I think I may have. Wasn’t he a high-ranking Nazi thug, viciously sadistic even by their standards, and sometimes involved in the running of one of the concentration camps?’

  ‘Among other things, yes,’ agreed Adams. ‘Anything else?’

  Calderwood shook his head. ‘Only that he was very high on the list of those hunted by all the allies after the war; but was never caught, I believe,’ he added.

  ‘Correct, or partly correct, anyway. ‘He was listed only just behind Himmler, Goering, Hess and the like – in notoriety, if not in importance. His cruelty to anyone he got his hands on and who he regarded in any way as one of the Untermensch, or sub-human, which was almost all the non-German people he came into contact with, was legendary – and much-admired in the circles that then counted. Add to that, the power and influence that came from his being a special pet of Hitler’s made him untouchable and, as you say, he was a top target for capture, post-1945.’

  ‘But he wasn’t, I don’t think; caught, I mean,’ Calderwood responded.

  ‘He was,’ responded Adams flatly. ‘By us,’ he added.

  ‘Us? You mean we, the British?’ Calderwood asked, stunned.

  ‘Yes, in early 1946.’

  ‘Why was nothing heard about...?’ Calderwood trailed off, as a wave of sick realisation hit him.

  ‘Quite,’ responded Adams, seeing that the younger man had realised what had happened. ‘He had something we wanted rather badly. In return we would... overlook... his past. All of it. It was a top-secret operation in which we first caught him and then got him out of the country. He got a new identity as Victor Andrews, a new back history, the lot, all at top speed. He was so notorious, we couldn’t be seen to be using, rather than killing, him. He was, however, far too valuable to risk losing, or, even more wastefully, be tried and executed, which is what our erstwhile allies would have insisted on.’

  ‘I understood he was little more than a butcher, so what could he possibly have that was of such value that we’d overlook his butchery?’ asked Calderwood, forcing himself to keep his voice mild and his manner calm, despite his revulsion.

  ‘Oh, he was a great deal more than he appeared. His involvement in the camps and the Einsatzgruppen, the official death squads in Eastern Europe, were what he used to laughingly call his R & R – Rest and Recreation. He regarded them as a break from his real job, which was, quite simply, being the best scientist the Reich had in the then developing field of plastics.

  Chapter 39

  ‘Plastics! You mean...?’ Calderwood felt winded and also acutely grateful for the chair underneath him.

  ‘Yes. Two of the fingerprints you sent match those of his that we have on file,’ Adams replied in an emotionless voice. ‘You were right to wonder about the level of expertise needed to do what was done to the girl,’ he went on, almost conversationally.

  So he has access to my case notes as well. Another example of the man’s power and reach, Calderwood thought. Aloud he said, ‘That raises at least two questions, I think, sir. Firstly, how did he get involved with the DeLancys, indeed, how was he allowed to; secondly, what happened after that involvement?’

  Adams nodded, with a small smile that glinted like ice. ‘Fair questions, Inspector. The answer to the first is that we don’t know. And the answer to the second is the same: we don’t know. He was kept under tight control for many years. That control, meant both a high level of surveillance and a limit placed on his movements. Valuable though he was deemed to be, the fall-out amongst our wartime allies, had they discovered we had him, would have been catastrophic.’

  ‘But surely, sir, they did the same: hid top Nazis after the war?’

  ‘Indeed they did; the Americans with their ridiculously named Operation Paper-clip and the Russians with their Operation Osoaviakhim, though that wouldn’t have stopped their shows of virtuous outrage,’ Adams replied with casual cynicism. ‘Had Arnhalt only kept his predilection for garrotting, chopping off limbs whilst the victim was still alive and operating without anaesthetic, and so on and so on, to Eastern Europe, there’d have been no problem. After all, we were swiftly in a state of near-war with Russia and its satellites after 1945. Inconveniently, he didn’t. There was irrefutable evidence that he tortured and killed not only French, American and British, both civilians and POWs, but Western-European women and children as well.

  ‘We had no option, therefore, but to keep our acquisition very much to ourselves. Unfortunately, although he was of use, considerable use, in fact, very little of his acknowledged genius ever flowered again. What no one, possibly even Arnhalt himself, realised was that his forays into inventive ways of killing and hurting people were more than just “R&R”, they were actually a fuel to his undoubted brilliance. Obviously, there was no question of him having such outlets over here; not on the same scale anyway,’ he added, casually and chillingly, giving Calderwood yet another glimpse into a world he wished nothing to do with.

  ‘Inevitably, as it became increasingly clear that he couldn’t give us the world lead in plastics, interest in him dwindled and, unfortunately, so did the security surrounding him. One day in the mid-sixties, he simply disappeared. Where he went, and who he met up with, we didn’t know. It was assumed that he’d defected, though to whom we also didn’t know, nor,’ he added, ‘provided where he’d been for the previous nineteen or so years was kept quiet, did anyone care a great deal. The field had moved on and we, and others, were acquiring expertise without Herr Arnhalt. And there matters rested, until your sergeant’s email set many alarm bells ringing,’ he concluded, sipping from his glass of water.

  Placing it down and wiping his lips carefully with a handkerchief, he continued. ‘Obviously, none of this goes outside this room. No one, I repeat no one, is to know the content of this conversation. You will carry out your investigation as you would do normally. Only you will be aware that, now, its real aim is to discover what happened to Arnhalt, and then to keep a very tight lid on whatever you do discover. Nothing is more important than that, even today.’

  ‘Obviously, sir, if those are your orders, I will carry them out. I must make clear though, that to keep everything from my DS and my team, could severely hamper us actually finding out what you want us to,’ Calderwood said, with quiet firmness.

  Unsurprised, Adams nodded. ‘Very well: you may tell them there is a national security issue, but nothing further. And, as I said, your efforts must be centred on finding out what happened to Arnhalt. Nothing must take precedence over that.’

  ‘We are investigating the callous murder of two young people, sir,’ Calderwood commented, again quietly.

  ‘Murders that happened fifty years ago, to two people who, compared with your new brief, matter very little, Inspector – bear that in mind,’ Adams responded brutally, standing up to indicate the meeting was over.

  Chapter 40

  ‘Thanks for letting me know. No. No,
that’s fine; it’s not your fault,’ Calderwood said, switching off his mobile. He was walking to the Incident Room in Estwich, having just got off the early train from London and was, rarely for him, in a foul mood, so he’d decided that the walk would do him more good than a taxi. His meeting with the mysterious Mr Adams had unsettled him. Though young, he was far from naïve and was well aware of the hidden, darker forces that existed within the network of national law enforcement, but had determined, early on in his career, that he would, from choice, have nothing to do with them. Unfortunately, he now realised, the luxury of actually having that choice had been taken away from him.

  His thoughts were sombre as he walked along the High Street, oblivious at first to the icy sleet starting to fall on his unprotected head. Becoming aware of it, as it started to drip down his neck, he decided to take cover until it had stopped and looked out for either a café to take refuge in, or an awning to stand under; by this stage he wasn’t too fussy. Then his nose caught the appetising smell of cooking, and, following it, he found himself peering into the window of the small café from which the mouth-watering aromas wafted enticingly and saw Gwilym surrounded by newspapers and looking considerably more relaxed than he, himself, felt. Hoping some of it would rub off him, he opened the low door, ducked his head and went in.

  ‘Hi, Gwilym; you’re looking busy,’ he remarked, with a smile, as he reached his friend’s table.

  ‘I am busy,’ the Welshman replied, moving his various newspapers off the table and chairs to make room for him. ‘Desmond and I are shopping,’ he added. ‘It’s part of a lifestyle deal that’s kept us still talking after all these years,’ he went on, in response to the younger man’s raised eyebrows. ‘The last time I went proper shopping with Desmond,’ he explained, ‘was when we were both eight years old. He’d received money for his birthday and we went off one Saturday morning to spend it. I swear, Robert, if the proprietors of the very large number of shops we trudged into and then out of hadn’t wanted to close sometime that evening, we’d have still been there!’