‘He borrowed a car, but I think he must have stung them rather hard. Och, the lass is a bonnie wee thing. Please don’ be turned away by her manner. She’ll come round.’
But would the Nazis leave it at that? wondered Hilary, the door swinging open, Karen’s voice smashing further thought. ‘It is raining again! Does it never stop in this shitty place?’
This isn’t going to work, thought Hilary, but calmly said in Deutsch, ‘It will pass. It always does. Go and see if there’s sunshine in the west, then come back and tell us.’
They had been whispering about her, thought Karen. Jews … they were both Jewesses. ‘I don’t have to do what either of you tell me!’
‘DO IT!’
The child bolted. Karen ran out to the gate in the low stone wall and, once beyond it, to the road and along a piece. Only then did they see her stop to gaze off to the west but neither of them could see into her mind.
Juden! As soon as she escaped, Karen knew she would have to report her father to the Gestapo. Herr Direktor Diels, at the school, had said everyone must do this; so had Fräulein Hauser, her teacher, and Frau Haslinger, Opa’s cook, and Mutti too.
She would have to tell the Gestapo everything. How Vati had taken her from the bedroom she always had when staying with Opa in his great big house. How they had driven through the night in Opa’s great big car with the swastika flags flying from the front fenders and Henke, the Gefreiter* Schellenberg, at the wheel with a revolver to his head, a British Mark VI Webley, a six-shot.
Vati would have shot him, too, but the Gestapo mustn’t punish the Gefreiter. It hadn’t been his fault that he had had to crash through the barriers at Aachen and drive on through into Holland to that darkened lane.
Switching cars, Vati had knocked Henke out and they had sped on through the night in their little car. It had been very exciting, very fast. Vati had given her a lipstick and a bottle of perfume, had even let her hold the steering wheel and had told her he would teach her how to drive. Like birds they had been. Birds way up in the air, she never thinking what it would really be like, a prison!
It was the one named Hilary who said, ‘Karen, Monica’s ready to go home. I’ll walk partway with you.’
‘Are you really Jewish?’
Quickly shaking her head, she didn’t ask if it would matter. Once they reached the road, Monica and the child had at least two miles to cover. They might catch a lift or manage to stop the afternoon bus. Otherwise, the rain-swept moor would simply swallow them up.
At the top of a gentle rise, Monica remembered the manuscript. ‘Must Pindanter kill that child and then hide in that derelict old mine of yours? Won’t he be terrified? I know I was, and still am, for you made me feel as if it really was happening.’
Until they were gone from sight, Hilary watched them, and then, the rain thinning to a mizzle, she turned and headed out across the moor, the engine house beckoning.
* The counterintelligence service, that of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, the army’s High Command
* The Sicherheitsdienst, the intelligence service of the SS and Nazi Party
* The British Military Intelligence Service
* Equivalent to a lance corporal
3
On Thursday, 26 May, when Joachim Burghardt heard the couple enter his office, he didn’t lower the field glasses or turn to greet them. Instead, he would, he decided, ignore Werner Beck and deal with the general’s daughter, since no faster way of discipline existed for a man like Beck. Besides, a superb three-masted schooner had come to anchor in the Weser.
Finally setting the glasses aside, he shoved the fingers of both hands into the waistband of his trousers and hooked his thumbs behind the suspenders. Not turning, he said, ‘The Führer has just ordered a further mobilization of our ground and air forces, Frau Ashby. The Kriegsmarine is accepting volunteers into the submarine service.’
The Czech crisis, thought Beck, and knew he was in for it. ‘I get the message, Kapitän. I don’t yet know what went wrong with the two I sent to that school of Ashby’s.’
‘Of course he doesn’t know, Frau Ashby, but you do see, I was not informed of this little caper. Berlin had to tell me about it and now I have to believe that a naval uniform would look good on him. He’d be a real officer once he had worked his way up in one of those tin sausages.’
‘You’re enjoying this,’ breathed Christina. ‘You know very well I use my maiden name.’
‘But a maiden you aren’t,’ he said. ‘Did you know, meine gute Frau, that before AST-X Bremen was assigned the British desk, our people there were tripping over each other? So many agents, so many who were known only by numbers and whose identities were jealously guarded by those who ran them. Far too much duplication of effort and competition, so …’ He paused, still not having turned to face either. ‘Berlin saw wisdom in consolidation and reorganization under myself. Now why, please, should you and that most current lover of yours think to take it upon yourselves to go back to the old ways?’
He was being an absolute bastard, thought Christina. ‘You wouldn’t have helped me.’
Burghardt relished the derisive snort he had given. ‘In that you are correct. Far too much is at stake for this office to have risked everything on such a trivial matter.’
‘My daughter is not trivial!’ Verdammt, he had pushed the suspenders out and had let them snap back against himself.
‘Please learn not to interrupt me, Frau Ashby. Those two that lover of yours sent over thought it would be easy. One little girl and a schoolmaster who had already outfoxed us and set Berlin to tearing the stripes off several border guards and Gestapo they had deemed responsible, but why did those two use a Bentley, if I might ask? It’s an expensive car, is it not?’
Beck heard Christina sit down in one of the chairs but didn’t glance at her. Burghardt’s sarcasm could only mean the old man had had enough of himself and had been on to Berlin about it. ‘Kapitän, they needed something fast to match that MG of his.’
‘Then why not another roadster?’
‘Too noticeable, Kapitän. It was thought a Bentley more appropriate to the parents of the boys at that school.’
‘It was thought, was it, Herr Beck? Who paid for the car?’
Christina had been right, decided Beck. The Kapitän was enjoying himself. Even now he still hadn’t turned to face them. ‘General von Hoffmann allowed sufficient funds for the purchase of such a car.’
‘Ach, then he is out of pocket a considerable sum since those two Dummkopfs you sent over had to abandon it and make a run for home.’
‘But why?’ blurted Christina.
Turning to face them now, he leaned back against the windowsill and said, ‘Why indeed?’ Understandably the general’s daughter couldn’t hide her uncertainty. Beck was better at it but due entirely to his ignorance of what had happened. ‘A barmaid,’ said Burghardt, watching the two of them closely. ‘Who would have thought it possible?’
‘A barmaid, Kapitän. Bitte, what is this?’ asked Beck.
Struck by the news, the general’s daughter had noticeably blanched, but had she still some feelings for Ashby? wondered Burghardt. And if so, could they be used?
As he told them of the murder, the general’s daughter took to plucking nervously at her gaily flowered frock until at last her eyes began to moisten. Naked, the schoolmaster would have played with her and she with him, but was her distress over Ashby or over what that barmaid had been forced to endure? ‘A murder,’ he said, ‘which has been emphatically denied, Herr Beck, by the two you sent over.’
‘Denied? Ach, if they didn’t kill her, who did?’ asked Beck.
‘That we do not yet know,’ said Burghardt. ‘Perhaps it was simply the act of a former husband. Ashby had, I gather, been keeping rather close company with the woman.’
‘With a barmaid?’ said Christina incredulously, on
ly to realize that the Kapitän was watching her every reaction.
Lowering that gaze of hers to her hands, Beck’s current woman pressed them against her shapely thighs, but was it in anger? wondered Burghardt. Did she consider it an insult that Ashby had been sleeping with such? ‘Perhaps it was the act of a sex maniac since whoever did it carved her up before she was silenced.’
‘How sure are you of this?’ seethed Christina.
Pinching his lower lip in thought, Burghardt waved a dismissive hand and said, ‘Ach, but you see, those two your lover sent over were able to ascertain a very candid opinion before they panicked and ran. Whoever killed her, first gagged her, then methodically used his knife before telling her not to scream as the gag was removed and her answers given. Then, of course, the gag was tightened and the whole process continued, but would Ashby have told this barmaid of his anything useful?’
The hands that now gripped the arms of her chair with whitened knuckles tightened further as she took a moment, then tersely said, ‘Ash wouldn’t have told anyone where Karen was hidden.’
‘Perhaps, but then perhaps not.’
Must Burghardt be such a Schweinehund? ‘I know him, Kapitän. You can’t ever know him the way I do.’
And how good of her to have said it, thought Burghardt, Werner at last realizing that everything that had been said so far had been focused on getting this one response from her.
With a sinking feeling, Beck understood that the Kapitän was having the conversation tape-recorded. Lighting one of the small cigars he preferred, Burghardt didn’t offer cigarettes or suggest that either of them smoke.
‘This morning,’ he said, ‘I received two telephone calls, two apologies. The first was from Admiral Canaris and the second from your father, Frau Ashby, but I do realize that retirement was offered should I fail in this.’
He blew smoke to one side and spat a shred of tobacco. Sunlight, streaming into the spartan office, made it difficult for them to look at him but easier for himself to spot any slight hesitation or weakness. ‘The point is, there will be no more such mistakes. There can’t be, because the echelons of the British MI5 still remain almost totally focused on the Communist threat and another revolution like that of the Soviets, while downplaying the threat of the Reich, much to the consternation of but a few in their ranks, and that is something we definitely do not want to change. First we must find out why that woman was murdered and by whom. Was it merely a sex killing—there is still that possibility—or was it done as a means of forcing your husband into cooperating with the British MI5, who have virtually no resources, far too few men in the field, especially those who are decidedly against us, and far too great a need to convince Whitehall and Number Ten Downing Street to increase those resources?’
‘You can’t mean that!’ blurted Christina. ‘They wouldn’t deliberately kill someone.’
Sickened by the thought, she was afraid for her child, noted Burghardt, whereas Herr Beck now felt a surge of adrenaline, Werner saying, ‘Oh, but they would, Christina. The battle has just become a war.’
One ought to let him continue grinning, thought Burghardt. Men like Werner had such a need to prove themselves, especially when in front of women like Christina von Hoffmann.
‘Did those two,’ she asked, ‘talk to this barmaid before she was taken and killed?’
‘On four occasions,’ said Burghardt. ‘Twice at the pub where she worked, once in the village of Kilve on market day—it was then that they asked her for the location of the chantry—and once on that beach itself.’
‘By moonlight?’ she asked.
Delighting in her acidity, he said, ‘Even in late May it is far too cold for bathing in the Bristol Channel. They came upon her in broad daylight, catching a bit of sun while minding a handful of village children. A Sunday-school outing, I believe.’
‘Then the two,’ said Christina, ‘that Werner sent over were being watched by someone from MI5 and yet, Kapitän, they did not realize this?’
Meaning that they had been unsuitable for that task or any such other, though chosen by her lover and employed by the Abwehr, thought Burghardt, again finding himself warming to her suitability. Spoiled, she might well be, pampered and far too used to having her own way, but when faced with such a task and the glory of the Reich would she not come through?
As he studied the end of his cheroot before tapping its ash into a palm, he decided that the time for truth had come and he had best go and stand directly in front of her. ‘Is there any feeling left between yourself and your husband?’ he asked.
It was, thought Christina, as if Werner no longer existed. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because I must. Because all avenues must be explored.’
The shit! ‘Then forget that one. Any regard Ash might have had for me died the day he found me in bed with another man.’
‘With two men, Frau Ashby. A party, I believe, and the evening of the 16 May 1934, a Saturday. Ein Orgie at the house of a wealthy cousin, Untersturmführer Jaeger. The other man not wearing his uniform or anything else was Obersturmführer Langbehn, but I will spare you the details of which two of your portholes they were using.’
As if she was a ship! But who the hell had told him? ‘I was very drunk.’
‘Ach, I’m sure you were. These things happen, and of course they were SS and of the master race and out to prove themselves, whereas Herr Ashby certainly wasn’t.’
What did he really want of her? ‘My father will post a reward, Kapitän, of 10,000 Reichsmark for the safe return of my daughter.’
Must she cause him to still question her suitability? ‘Your father has already offered far more than an old sea captain such as myself needs to purchase a yacht as fine as that of Herr Beck, Fräulein, and to retire in comfort if and when all this talk of war should cease.’
The depth of her uncertainty was revealed in the look she gave him, she saying, ‘Ash won’t listen to me.’
‘Oh but he will, especially if you were to …’
Instinctively she clenched a fist and pressed a foot hard against the floor. ‘Ash hates me just as much as I hate him, Kapitän. Werner, tell this dolt—’
Burghardt shook his head and wagged a forefinger. ‘Your current lover, though not perhaps as good at performing as those two that husband of yours first found you with, now knows he must only speak when ordered. As of this moment, he has been suspended from active service without pay, which means, of course, that since he is available, the Kriegsmarine can have him if I so choose.’
To give him credit, thought Burghardt, Beck took it like a man, merely snapping to attention and saluting.
Obviously crestfallen, she asked, ‘Am I to go over there?’
Again he would tip ash into his palm, thought Burghardt, but he could, he knew, tell her only so much. ‘I must, yes, ask that you go over to England to have a talk with that husband of yours. By whatever means possible you must try to make him see reason and let you return with your daughter. You will also, since this office requires the information, find out all you can about the murder of that barmaid and who it is in MI5 that has made contact with Herr Ashby.’
That lovely throat of hers constricted and, obviously thinking of what had happened to that barmaid, she could no longer force herself to look up at him.
‘When must I go?’
‘When and only when I judge things ready. So, Herr Beck, a means of quietly withdrawing the girl from under their noses. Backup systems, blind avenues that are certain to draw MI5’s attention from the one we will actually use. No contact whatsoever with Frau Ashby or any of our existing operatives. We simply can’t afford to lose good people at a time like this, not even for a child of the Reich. For this we will have to find someone else, someone so deep the British won’t know of him.’
‘Ein Schweigeagent,’ breathed Beck, suppressing the grin of elation he felt.
Dummkopf, thought Burghardt, but allowed a quiet patience to enter his voice. ‘A debt that must be repaid, a secret held perhaps. Who knows? An awakening, yes, but let us hope we don’t waste that one too, for then heads other than my own will surely roll.’
A sleeper, thought Christina. A homosexual, a former prisoner of war who had turned informant for the Kaiser and betrayed escape attempts, a German woman working as a nanny or housekeeper in a British household—there were plenty of those, as were there Irish nationalists. Really so many possibilities existed, even the payment of a large enough sum, or simply someone who bore a grudge. Ash would never know until it was too late.
As the sounds of London’s Friday traffic and the cries of competing news vendors faded from him, Ashby stood outside the entrance to Spurgeon’s Bombay Tea and Spice on Carnaby Street in Soho. Mullioned, floor-to-ceiling windows were capped by fanlights, the black, painted oak and gilded letters faded, cracked and lined with soot, the scents of ginger, curry and cinnamon mingling with that of the smog. Across the lower half of both doors were the words PURVEYORS TO HIS MAJESTY, BLENDERS OF THE FINEST TEAS AND SPICES. ESTABLISHED IN 1832. They hadn’t even changed it when Victoria had acceded to the throne in 1837.
The teas were to the left, the spices to the right, and the clash of scents came heady on the stillness of the air, for the shop was overly long. There were two counters, backed by ranks of numbered, lettered drawers, and what the drawers didn’t contain had spilled over the counters in tall, glass-stoppered bottles with Latin letters for the spices and Chinese porcelains for the teas or lead-lined cases that bore such bold black letters as BULKED: PURE INDIA TEA, CEYLON ORANGE PEKOE, CEYLON PEKOE SOUCHONG and FORMOSA OOLONG.
No one came to ask what he wanted. Indeed, there appeared to be nobody minding the shop. A hammer mill was running behind yet another door and timbered partition at the very back of the dingy warehouse that lay beyond the front shop, the noise deafening: like hail beating mercilessly on a tin roof, now a slug, a sack, a sudden gust that trickled off within minutes to a pebble or two that raced madly round inside the machine dodging the rotating hammer blades.
The Sleeper Page 6