‘I say Professor, I was wondering if this symbol meant anything to you?’ Booth said, drawing the professor aside and showing him a sheet of paper on which he had copied the sword-and-ribbon symbol found on the film canisters and the crates at Wolffslust.
‘It’s the symbol of the Ahnenerbe,’ Svoboda said, his interest immediate. ‘It was an intellectual society formed by high-ranking Nazis who were dedicated to ‘proving’ the historical superiority of Aryan culture. Himmler was its principal patron.’
‘You know of it, then?’
Svoboda nodded. ‘Despite its lofty intellectual trappings, the Ahnenerbe was guilty of engaging in all sorts of pseudo-science. In fact, it commissioned a great deal of the medical experimentation on human beings that the WMA is investigating.’ The professor’s saturnine face became animated and his voice rose. ‘Some of what they got up to beggars belief: immersing victims in freezing water, undertaking muscle and bone transplants without anaesthesia, deliberately exposing patients to mustard gas and phosphorus. And don’t think I’m exaggerating. I’ve seen the photographic evidence and I didn’t eat for days afterwards. They’ve got two dozen Nazi doctors in Camp Ashcan, now. They’re going to be tried at Nuremburg right alongside Göring and Speer and all the others.’
‘Would you mind if I showed you something?’ Booth said.
Twenty minutes later they were at the makeshift cinema in Eichenrode. Svoboda sipped his drink as Booth set up the projector and played the films found at Wolffslust.
Svoboda sneered when Booth played him the film containing the pornographic images, but his interest returned when he saw the footage of the mass killings.
‘What do you think it means?’ Booth said afterwards.
‘Judging by the names on the canisters, it would seem these films served some purpose beyond mere titillation. I would suggest the surnames listed here were those of the patients or test subjects each film was designed to be used with.’
‘But why?’
‘We’ll likely never know. Perhaps they were used to see how patients would react to certain visual stimuli.’
‘And what is it that we are seeing? What do the killings and the dead bodies signify, I mean.’
Svoboda’s gaze remained fixed on the blanket-screen, as if still contemplating the images. ‘The level of the Germans’ barbarity – especially in the east – has been an open secret for years. What is not generally known is the extent. The scale of it is quite . . . staggering. According to depositions taken from high-ranking Nazis and Wehrmacht personnel, there was an organised policy of extermination operative in the east from the very earliest days of the war. At first these killings were undertaken by mixed SS and police units known as Einsatzgruppen, men who simply marched their victims into the countryside and shot them beside open graves.
‘However, this policy was deemed unnecessarily stressful’ – here, Svoboda’s voice dripped with scorn – ‘for the killers. Many of them suffered severe psychological traumas due to their experiences and so a new policy was introduced: secret camps were established in Poland and a policy of industrialised slaughter initiated, using gas chambers and crematoria. Some estimates put the number of victims in the millions.
‘I think these films document those processes. The first film shows mass executions by rifle. I think the second shows one of the gas chambers being cleared. Those naked women we saw were probably queuing outside a gas chamber. They used to disguise them as showers.’
Neither man said anything for a long while after that, but as they walked outside Booth thought of the dozens of crates of documents he had taken from Eichenrode.
‘Are you going to be in this area for long, professor?’ he said. ‘Because there’s something for which I could really use your help.’
7
NEXT MORNING ILSE rose early and washed herself using a bucket as best as she could. It was Thursday morning and Captain Booth was coming to see her.
She was downstairs, drinking tea and smoking, when she heard the crunch of his tyres on the gravel outside. She fixed a smile on her face, went outside to greet him . . .
. . . and stopped dead.
Sitting beside the Tommy in the jeep was a young boy with the worst hare lip she’d ever seen. What the devil is he doing, bringing people like that to the house? Ilse thought.
Booth must have seen her smile falter, because when he got out of the jeep he put an arm around the boy and said, ‘Ursula, this is my friend, Piotr.’
Piotr stuck his bony hand out. Ilse hesitated before grasping the mangy fingers, but forced a smile when she saw Booth frown. Then he said, ‘I’ve brought you some victuals,’ and lifted a box of vegetables, fruit and tins from the jeep’s rear seat. ‘There’s fat and potatoes in here. I thought we could fry them. Can I come inside the house?’
Thank God I can say yes, Ilse thought, as she motioned for him to come inside. The suspicion in Booth’s eyes had been evident this time. Now she no longer needed to provoke his mistrust.
She led him into the kitchen and made tea, which they drank sitting at the rickety kitchen table. Booth’s pensive air continued, though. There was something else on his mind, she realised. He looked tired and nervous, but he wouldn’t say what the matter was, so Ilse stopped asking and they drank in silence. Why was it that men always thought they were protecting women when they refused to tell them what the hell was going on?
They smoked cigarettes as Booth began cooking; soon the kitchen was filled with the smell of frying potatoes. God, she nearly fainted when she breathed it in. For a moment, it was as if the hollow in her stomach had become a real thing and she’d felt herself folding in half.
When the food was ready, Booth took the Polack a plateful. The boy set about it with his filthy fingers, seated on the grass. Ilse and Booth sat down together at the table inside.
‘Have you heard about the murders that happened a few days ago?’ he said, after a long silence.
‘Of course. People in the town are talking about them.’
‘I don’t think you should be alone out here, but I’m going to be very busy for while, so I’ve asked Piotr to come and look in on you each day. I promise he won’t be too much bother. He can chop wood and fix things for you, do some odd jobs. I think you’ll find he’s very handy to have around. I hope that’s not a terrible imposition.’
Ilse did her best to smile. Imposition? As far as Ilse was concerned, the Polack was precisely the sort of person she should be locking doors and windows against. Who knew what sort of raddled nonsense went through a head like that?
‘Well, if he’s to come here, I want him to wash,’ she said. ‘He smells like a pigsty.’
Booth nodded in agreement. They continued to eat in silence.
‘Have you ever heard of the Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger?’ she said after a while. ‘They were part of the Waffen SS, I think. Were they an elite unit?’
Booth scoffed. ‘Elite? They were the worst of the worst. Thieves and murderers, for the most part. I think they were originally made up of poachers, the idea being that they would hunt down partisans in the woods. In the end, though, they let all sorts of criminals join.
‘The Poles are very keen to get their hands on ex-members, that’s how I know about them. According to intelligence reports, the Dirlewangers single-handedly destroyed an entire quarter during that bloody mess in Warsaw last year. The list of crimes attributed to them beggars belief: rape, torture, murder, mutilation. But why do you ask?’
‘Oh, nothing, just curiosity. A woman at the camp mentioned something about her son.’
They ate in silence as Ilse considered the information. Thieves and murderers? That couldn’t be true, Ilse thought. That was the wretched Polacks spreading lies. And yet Ilse had heard men talking in Berlin about what had happened in Warsaw when the SS had gone to quell the rebellion. There had been little room for mercy so late in
the war. Terrible things had happened. Could Johannes have been involved?
They had finished eating now. As they cleared away the plates, Ilse remembered O’Donnell. God, she was supposed to be asking Booth about this wretched policeman. She’d already missed one opportunity to turn the conversation to the subject, so she sat next to Booth and snuggled her head into his neck.
‘Actually, darling, talking of the women at the camp, one of them mentioned a curious thing the other day,’ Ilse said. ‘She claims there is an English policeman here. From Scotland Yard.’
The cigarette paused on the way to Booth’s mouth. ‘What an extraordinary thing for one of your friends to know,’ he said, after a moment’s consideration.
‘Is it true? Is there a Scotland Yard man here?’
‘Quite true, yes. He’s not here in an official capacity, though. He’s supposed to be training German policemen – his mother was Swiss-German, apparently, so he’s a fluent German speaker – but they’ve all been interned, so he’s at a bit of a loose end. He’s been looking into this murder business.’
‘Is he a good policeman?’
‘Do you mean good as in competent? Or good as in a good man?’
‘The first one.’
‘Yes, he seems very thorough. Hard-working, too. He’s a bit of a cold-fish, though. Not an easy man to like.’
‘Has he discovered much?’
‘He was out interrogating a Gestapo man yesterday. But I haven’t had much to do with him, really.’
‘What actually happened out at the house on the Brunswick Road? I’ve heard so many rumours.’
‘It’s really quite a strange affair. They found a man and a woman strangled to death. The man was Waffen SS, but we’ve no idea who the woman was – his girlfriend, probably, given the age difference. But it sounds like someone was planning on chopping them up. Apparently there were all sorts of scalpels and surgical instruments there and some –’
An involuntary shiver shook Ilse. Booth looked at her.
‘Are you all right, darling?’
‘Oh, let’s not talk about such horrid things, please,’ Ilse said, and meant it.
He placed a hand on her shoulder.
‘What’s the matter, Ursula? Why do you look so scared all of a sudden?’
‘I’m fine. It’s just . . . all that talk of scalpels and strangled bodies. You make me think the Flickschuster is loose again.’
She felt the change in him immediately. Booth’s body tensed.
‘The Flickschuster? Who was that?’
‘Oh, it’s just a story mothers used to scare children,’ she said, trying to play the matter down. ‘I’m sure what they said about him was exaggerated.’
Booth was gazing at her intently now. ‘Do you mean to tell me something like this has occurred before? Look at me, Ursula, this is important.’
Ilse sighed, realising she would have to explain herself now.
‘There were murders a few years ago, here in the Reich. They called the killer the Flickschuster. But they caught him, a Dutchman. He was executed. I read it in the newspaper. So forget all about it, please. People got so hysterical about the whole thing, he became a stupid story, like the Bogeyman or Jack the Ripper.’
Booth was quiet for a long while. Then he said, ‘Jack the Ripper was real,’ as he stared at the window, lost in thought.
8
SILAS PAYNE WAS born in 1901. He was thirteen years old when the Great War began.
The question of his mother’s Swiss-German nationality wasn’t a problem at first. But, by October 1914, when the British had suffered their first serious reverses and the newspaper stories of German atrocities had done their work, business began to tail off at the grocery shop his parents ran.
His mother tacked signs to the inside of the display windows – This is not a German business – but it did no good. Payne’s father came home one night with a bloodied lip and buttons missing from his shirt; the next day, a group of girls spat at Silas as he walked home from school.
Silas was in bed on the night of November 2nd, the night the mob came. There were only a few of them at first, hurling insults up at his parents’ bedroom window, but within minutes others began spilling out of the local pubs and a crowd began to form.
Silas had gone into his parents’ room as the insults grew in volume and severity.
Hun bitch.
Fuck off back to Germany.
Hang the spy.
Then someone threw a stone and glass smashed downstairs; the crowd’s restraint broke with it. They were all over the shop in seconds, dragging the goods from the window. Payne remembered them standing in the street, afterwards, chatting and laughing as they munched apples and sausage and bits of cheese.
Payne’s father had been all set to go outside with a walking stick, but his mother had thrown herself on his legs and begged him to stay. They had sat there, the three of them, huddled together on the edge of his parents’ bed, listening to the sound of their livelihood being torn apart.
And then the whistle had sounded, a single three-beat blast that had silenced the crowd immediately.
When Payne peered from the upstairs window he saw the local police sergeant standing between the crowd and the shop window, taking his tunic off and flexing his big fists open and closed.
‘You all know me,’ he said in a low, calm voice, ‘and I know most of you. So believe me when I say that the next one of you blighters to take something from this shop is going to have to go through me to get to it. Is that perfectly clear?’
The crowd wavered and men began whispering. The quiet seemed to last forever but when no-one made a move, the police sergeant cracked his knuckles and smiled, the master now of the situation. ‘It’s a mighty cold night, lads, so either we get straight to it or we all go home. What’s it to be?’
That had broken the spell. Some laughed at the sergeant’s temerity, others pulled their caps down to hide their faces and slunk towards the shadows. As quickly as the crowd had formed, it was gone.
‘Don’t you worry, Mrs Payne,’ the sergeant had said afterwards, as Payne and his parents began salvaging what they could from the wreckage, ‘I’ll see those animals don’t trouble you again.’
He’d been true to his word, too, prowling up and down their street each hour, on the hour, for the next two weeks, whistling tunelessly and swinging his truncheon. And, as Silas had watched the man, feeling the calming aura of strength and safety he exuded, he had realised one person could make a difference – it was all a question of persistence and determination. From then on, Silas Payne had known precisely what it was he wanted to do with his life . . .
Payne blinked eyes that were gummy with sleep. He sat up on the creaky trestle bed in the police station and pressed a hand to his chest. His heart was hammering, the way it always did when he dreamt of that night back in 1914. Even now, more than thirty years later, Payne remembered the hysterical terror and confusion of the experience with total clarity; during the whole of his career in the police force, nothing had ever come close to it. He rose, made coffee and got straight to work. He knew from experience that the best antidote was to occupy his mind.
As soon as it was light, Payne went to the Rathaus. He kept going over what the Gestapo man, Toth, had told him. Was there any truth to his claims? There was only one way to find out, Payne decided.
The cellars of the Rathaus were extensive. A veritable warren of corridors connected dozens of vaulted stone chambers, some of which must have been over five hundred years old. There was a chaotic lack of orderliness in most of these chambers: Eichenrode had been bombed by mistake back in ’44 and most of the books and paperwork salvaged from the town’s library had been stored haphazardly in the cellars.
Payne picked his way through piles of cardboard boxes towards a desk that stood at the back of the main chamber.
‘How do you say newspaper in German, sir?’ the man asked.
‘Zeitung.’ Payne wrote the word down for the man.
‘Ah, yes, I recognise that word. Down that corridor, turn right, chamber on the right. You’ll find all the zai-tongs you could want in there, sir. But I don’t think they’ve been sorted.’
He was right. There were boxes and boxes of newspapers but they were all jumbled together. Once Payne had located all the relevant boxes, he took them to a desk in a side chamber and began the laborious process of sorting the newspapers by title and date. First, he divided them into their relevant editions. The boxes contained copies of three newspapers: Der Stürmer, Völkischer Beobachter and Das Reich.
An hour later, Payne leant back in his chair and sighed. He’d become totally sidetracked, he realised, massaging his temples. His head was swimming and not just from the effects of staring at newsprint under the dim light. He had never realised quite how cynically perverse the minds that had controlled Germany had been.
Within the pages of these newspapers, every single event of the last ten years of European history had been turned about-face, upside down and inside out: British aggression had started the war, Stalingrad was a great feat of German arms, the Russians were Asiatic barbarians who had launched a war of extermination against the virtuous and peace-loving German people and the Jews and Bolsheviks were responsible for everything . . .
Payne could pinpoint the moment when the war had begun to turn against the Germans: the smug tone common to all the publications was replaced by an ever more histrionic incitation to ‘resist’, ‘punish traitors’ and ‘hold on until the Final Victory’.
The closer the publication date to the end of the war, the more the newspapers shrank in size. They provided a graphic depiction of the melting of the Reich’s power and of the delusional nature of those final months. The Völkischer Beobachter had still promised Final Victory even when it had diminished to a single sheet of paper.
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