Into Darkness

by Anton Gill

  75

  They were half his age and strong, but they were amateurs and they were led by a lunatic. Hoffmann knew he hadn't convinced them, that Kurtz was acting out of vanity and his mood could swing back to aggression just as fast as it had swung away. He couldn't take any risks. The least they'd do would be to detain him until some real soldiers arrived.

  He shifted his weight and half turned, seizing the rifle by the barrel and wrenching it out of the stocky boy's hands, hurling it far across the square. The Werewolves, taken aback, watched it arc through the air and in that moment Hoffmann had slipped the safety on the PPK, drawn it, and pumped two bullets into Kurtz's abdomen. They were so close together that the force shoved Kurtz backwards and spun him round as his guts began to spill black blood. The other three were rooted to the spot.

  Hoffmann fired twice at them, hitting one, while another let his rifle fall and threw himself to the ground, crouching and whimpering. The third, the stocky one, moved fast to pick up the abandoned gun. Hoffmann fired again, and missed. Now he had to close in fast. He dropped his pistol back in his pocket and lunged at the stocky boy, seizing his right wrist and forearm in both hands and twisting hard, at the same time pulling the boy round, and away from him, dislocating his arm at the shoulder. As the boy reeled away, bellowing in pain, Hoffmann drew his gun again, shooting him as he fell. It was now too dark to tell where he'd hit.

  But the others were recovering now. The one Hoffmann had wounded had his rifle up and was firing wildly. His five rounds were soon spent. Hoffmann had one left in his own clip. He fired, hitting the Werewolf in the neck as he was struggling to reload. The fourth stayed on the ground, rolled up, his head on his knees and his hands over his head. His trousers were wet round the crutch. He was keening something, but Hoffmann couldn't make out the words.

  He punched in a fresh clip and crouched on the steps of the church, shielded by part of the stone balustrade. In the faint light that remained he looked at the mess. Kurtz lay motionless in the black pool he had shed. The stocky boy sat on the ground near him, in another dark pool of fluid, uttering grunting sounds, and nursing his wrecked arm with his good one.

  Hoffmann stood up. He was winded and dusty, but there was no blood on him, as far as he could see. He looked around again. There had been one hell of a noise. If there were more of them, they'd have been here by now. Where had these hidden themselves? In the church?

  The church loomed behind him, the door still half open, the darkness beyond it now total. He could not make out the figures on the tympanum any more. They were cast in shadow.

  He walked back down the step. He stood over the stocky boy, who raised his head and looked at him, not with hatred, but in bewilderment and pain. Hoffmann looked down at him. He knew that if the tide hadn't turned as it had, not three minutes earlier, he would be lying there now, if not dead already. He knew, too, what reason was telling him to do, but he did not even raise his gun. He walked over to the other boy, who stopped weeping and looked up at him, his eyes glistening with fear.

  'Get up,' said Hoffmann, gently, miserably; but the boy stayed where he was. Day had given way to night and the light now was obscure, silvery. The wide sky was scattered with stars, and the sickle moon was halfway up the horizon. 'Look,' said Hoffmann. 'I am not going to kill you. Are there any more of you?'

  The boy was silent. He was shuddering.

  'I am not going to kill you.'

  The boy stayed silent, but his eyes did not leave Hoffmann's face. Hoffmann did not know what he read in them now, but his attention was attracted by a smell which must have been in the air already, but which he had only just noticed. Petrol. He hurried over to the bike. Two of the wild shots from the Mauser had ripped into the lower part of the tank, and petrol was trickling out onto the ground from two gashes. There must have been a cascade at first, for the tank was almost drained. Hoffmann bent to examine the bullet holes, felt them with his fingertips. He had the spare can of fuel, but it would be of no use unless he could repair the tank, and he could see that even if he had the means to do so, it would be a long job. The gashes were too wide and too low down to wad with cloth.

  He'd hoped to be in Bayreuth the next day. Now, Christ knew how long it would take him, and as a pedestrian, he'd be that much more vulnerable. He hadn't got shoes fit for long distances, and, with the exertion of walking in the summer sun, his appearance would degenerate fast. He couldn't pass himself off as a Beobachter journalist if he looked like a tramp. He kept looking at the bike impotently, wanting to kick it, as if it were a dead mule, as if it had some consciousness of how badly it had let him down; but he soon drove such thoughts from his head. They wouldn't help. He had to adapt to the new situation. He wondered about the boots the boys were wearing. Might any of the pairs fit him? Might they make walking easier, at least until he found some new form of transport, which he'd have to do.

  But how far could he go tonight? He thought again of how reduced he'd become by the loss of the bike. Now that he couldn't get far away fast, the mercy he'd hoped to show the two survivors of the little battle would be misplaced. He'd be overtaken in two hours at the most. And he had to sleep and eat - more important now than ever. In that instant he realised that he had dropped his guard badly. Two of the Mausers lay within reach of the surviving Werewolves, and one was still loaded. The stocky boy was in no condition to handle a gun, but the other -

  He turned swiftly and dropped low as the first bullet flew past him, close enough to nick the shoulder of his jacket.

  'You killed my mates, you fuck!' The whimpering boy was on his feet, his gun veering in his hands as he struggled to calm himself and control it. 'Bastard!' His words came through an angry sob, the kind of noise a thwarted child makes. He fired again but on the third shot the bolt closed on an empty chamber. Not a full magazine. Hoffmann heard the click too late, he had already fired himself, and fired to kill. One bullet smashed the boy's nose, crushing his face and snapping bone and teeth inwards; the second hit the gullet, fountaining blood as the boy staggered about, clutching his neck to dam the flow, stumbling over the rifle which had got entangled with his legs as he let it drop, and then falling to lie on the earth, but not yet still, though dead. The epileptic twitching went on for eight seconds.

  Hoffmann was shaking as he pocketed his gun again. Five left in the clip. He walked back to the stocky boy, now sallow, and sweating. Fear in his eyes. His right arm, swollen, swung from his shoulder as he tried to push away from Hoffmann, using his legs, backwards along the ground.

  This was the worst of the three, the one who would have led the torture under Kurtz's direction, the one whom Kurtz would have allowed to fire the final bullet. A bullet in the groin, to ensure a slow death. Hoffmann knew the methods, he'd seen people like Kurtz in action, he'd stood in the camps as an official witness, dying inside as he saw the people herded naked into the 'delousing' sheds, snapped at by dogs and slashed with whips. Telling himself that he had to keep his cover intact, that keeping his rank was important for the greater good. Except that the greater good was never reached, and never would be, now. Hoffmann had served evil too well. The good he'd hoped to achieve was valueless. The good had failed.

  He'd tried to minimise the damage he was responsible for. It was cold comfort now, and would never banish the horror which gnawed him.

  Wearily, he got behind the stocky boy and manoeuvred him, as gently as he could, to the elm, leaning the boy's back against it. The wind had come back now, and it was chilly, it was an autumn night wind. There was nothing to cover the boy with. Hoffmann stripped off Kurtz's messy jacket and placed that over his chest. The boy looked at him but there was nothing in his eyes.

  Hoffmann wondered if he would last the night, and strangely found himself hoping that he would.

  Christ, what a world.

  He bent over Kurtz again and took off his boots. Good quality. Soft leather. Almost new. Where the hell had he got them from?

  They fitted Hoffmann perfectly.
He sorted out what he could carry in his shoulder bag, abandoned the rest, and, once he'd set fire to the bike, set off.

  He'd have to walk through the night.

  76

  Hoffmann had been wrong about the innkeeper in Althof, but right about her face tugging a memory.

  She hadn't spent her life in the factory town, she went there after her brothel, which catered to specialised tastes, was closed down by the Vice Squad in autumn, 1936, when Hoffmann had been ordered to effect a post-Olympics cleanup.

  Where their quarry had gone, she couldn't tell them, but the next place to look was Leipzig. Kessler and Kleinschmidt drove there in their police Volkswagen. Kleinschmidt could barely fit his gut behind the wheel, but once ensconced he was a driver of genius, or so it seemed to Kessler, who, not knowing cars himself, had no idea of the risks his sergeant took.

  Kessler knew his old boss would take advantage of Leipzig to shed a skin. Despite Müller's threats, he hoped the trail would go cold there. But he also had to reckon with Kleinschmidt, in whose presence Kessler would have to do things by the book. He had considered taking his sergeant into his confidence, sure that the man was riding out the storm, like most others. But he'd learnt caution, and in any case the chances of the trail really disappearing in the city were high.

  The local police had nothing at all for him, and the Gestapo were, as always, unwilling to cooperate. That hoop had to be jumped through, and Kessler had a lot of pull, working on a direct Hitler-Order. It even entertained him to see how much clout it gave him.

  He was waiting now in a well-lit corridor, along one wall of which was a series of polished oak doors. Kessler was alone, having sent Kleinschmidt to ferret out leads. He sat uncomfortably on a wooden bench under one of the gleaming windows of the corridor - the place was like a merchant bank - and read through his list of questions for the tenth time. Even in a matter like this, he thought, they liked to let you wait a while. Especially if you were from Berlin. How the provincials hated that.

  But someone must have telephoned someone, for he didn't have to wait long. Within five minutes, one of the doors opened and a young man in a blue suit stepped out.

  'Inspector Kessler, first name Paul?'

  Kessler stood up, pushing his glasses to the bridge of his nose. The Gestapo-man was taken aback by his dishevelled appearance. In any other circumstances, Kessler would have been amused.

  'Eisenberg, ' said the man by way of introduction. He didn't mention his own rank, and appeared ill at ease. 'Come this way.'

  The office was plain and functional. A large desk and two chairs, one on either side of it, the visitor's decidedly less comfortable than the other; a table against one wall piled with papers. A bookcase with legal publications. A map of Germany hung on one wall, and a city plan on another. Eisenberg gestured to the visitor's chair and took the other seat himself. He offered cigarettes, good ones. They both lit up.

  'Yes,' he said, as Kessler removed his glasses and polished them on the end of his tie. 'You may take notes, of course,' he added.

  Of course I'll take bloody notes, thought Kessler, prepared for half what he was about to hear to be cover-up and lies.

  'We had a covert operation going. It was being managed by a team under Sturmbannführer Schmidt.' Eisenberg hesitated. He obviously didn't want anything bad to get back to Berlin, to Müller's office, or, worse, to the Führer himself. How he must hate me, thought Kessler. I'm regular police, he outranks me, that's for sure, look at the size of this office, it's even got a carpet, but he's got to pander to me. That must hurt.

  'Yes?' he prompted politely.

  'Schmidt had him virtually in his grasp,' said Eisenberg. 'The net was closing.'

  'How many in the team?'

  'Dealing with a man like Hoffmann, who has eyes in the back of his head, one has to be discreet, deploy one's best men. Schmidt and a back-up man.'

  'Who was leading the operation?'

  'How do you mean?'

  'From here.' Kessler leaned forward.

  'Uhm - I was ultimately responsible.'

  Kessler knew what he meant. This was a cover-up. Schmidt had recognised Hoffmann, or someone had tipped him off, and he'd acted on his own, wanting all the glory of the arrest for himself. The people here had given Eisenberg the can to carry, he was junior enough to be the scapegoat if necessary. But who was the back-up operative?

  'What went wrong?'

  Eisenberg stood up, clenching and unclenching his hands a little helplessly. 'There was an air-raid. Bloody RAF. Schmidt was killed. No-one saw Hoffmann afterwards. By the time the dust had cleared, it was too late.'

  'And the back-up man?'

  Eisenberg was silent.

  'The other man?' Kessler pressed him. 'I am here on a Hitler-Order,' he added.

  Eisenberg sighed. 'I'm sorry. Just a journalist. Schmidt, as we later discovered, had him there to witness the arrest. Please don't let this go any further.'

  'And was he killed too?'

  'That is unfortunately the case.'

  But not by bloody Biggles, thought Kessler. The Gestapo were masters at covering their own backs; but in this case it was to Hoffmann's advantage, and Kessler felt relief for his old boss, though at the same time the policeman in him regretted the death of a lead. He considered asking whether they knew anything about Hoffmann's transport, but realised that he'd get nothing out of the Gestapo even if they knew. One of their men had buggered things up for them in a big way by trying to go it alone, and then there had been that unfortunate air-raid. Now, all the Nazis were concerned with was damage-limitation. Eisenberg stood up. Shrugging mentally, Kessler took his leave. No point in hammering one's head against a brick wall.

  77

  He met Kleinschmidt at Auerbach's Keller. His sergeant sat at a table near the door, his back to the wall, in front of him a mug of beer and a pair of Weißwürste, and potato salad. He looked up philosophically at his chief.

  Kessler joined him and ordered a white wine. 'Anything?' he asked, knowing what the answer would be. Even Kleinschmidt would be taking some kind of action if they had anything remotely resembling a lead.

  Kleinschmidt waved his fork expressively. 'Our old master was driving a black VW, just like ours. He and it have vanished into thin air. Officials are hopeless, and I can't root out any of the old under-the-table lot. Waiter here who knows them says most of the old Monbijou people have cleared out. Everyone else has gone to ground.' He cut a slice of sausage and shovelled it into his mouth, swilling some beer after it and wiping his chin with a large napkin. 'I've got one last thing to follow up after lunch. Meeting at two. But it's a long shot, so don't get your hopes up.' He surveyed the table. 'Need some more bread,' he grumbled. 'Can't get decent stuff anymore, even in a place like this.'

  'Can you manage this meeting on your own?'

  Kleinschmidt winked theatrically. 'Much better, sir. Old grass of mine; gets nervous in company.'

  Kessler thought about the car. Kleinschmidt was far from being a fool, though it amused him to appear one; if he said the car was gone, it was gone. Whoever had acquired something as valuable as a VW would have had time by now to change its colour and plates five times over if they'd wanted to, and they'd have moved fast, because if they'd been caught with it they'd have been strung up. His guess was that it would be in Switzerland by now, sold there for solid Swiss francs which would remain in a bank until the vendor could pick them up once Germany had capitulated. The Reichsmark would be worth zip soon, though Kessler knew that no-one would let Germany fall into economic chaos, while the Ammis and the Russkis carved Europe up between them. He wished to Christ he had some Swiss francs himself.

  'So what have we got?' He asked himself.

  'Fuck all,' answered Kleinschmidt, unbidden, but concisely, through a mouthful. 'Let's go home.'

  'We can't do that without a head on a platter.'

  'Yeah, I know,' said the sergeant mournfully. 'And we can't conjure one out of thin air, so on we go.'
r />   Kessler watched his colleague slowly but surely clear his plate, then wipe it clean with a slice of bread. 'Who's on our tail, do you think?'

  Unsurprised by the question, Kleinschmidt said, 'Bound to be someone, make sure we keep picking our feet up.' He sucked his fingers and inspected his nails. 'They've got so jumpy upstairs that I shouldn't be surprised if you didn't have two people on your back - one to watch you, and one to watch him.'

  Kessler was following his own thoughts. 'They won't approve of us farting around here.'

  Kleinschmidt shrugged. 'A man's got to eat. In any case, I came here to interview that waiter, and you came here to pick up my report. That's work. Want a cognac?'

  'We've still got plenty to do.'

  'A cognac's never stopped me yet. Anyway, what have we got to do? The trail's gone cold. No-one's fault. Happens all the time.' Kleinschmidt paused. 'Still, be a feather in your cap, wouldn't it?'

  'Yes.'

  Kleinschmidt called their waiter over and ordered two Asbachs. Then he lit a cigar.

  78

  He had waited until Kessler and his sidekick had searched Hoffmann's room at the Imperial. The room had been used since Hoffmann's evident departure by other guests, since no authority had issued an order to seal it, so it came as no surprise that they left apparently without having been able to gather any kind of forensic clue about their quarry; and as Kessler and he had been trained by the same master, he was able to second-guess his colleague's train of thought with, he flattered himself, relative accuracy. The local police had been through the stuff Hoffmann had left behind, but it had yielded nothing of any value to the investigation.

  As soon as he could, he moved into the room. It had already been reserved for someone else but a wave of his Gestapo card changed all that. Once installed, Ernst Schiffer, now Obersturmbannführer Schiffer, conducted his own inspection.

  It was of a different kind from Kessler's. Schiffer would spend a night here, sitting in the chair and sleeping in the bed, and try to coax out of the very walls an impression of what had been running in Hoffmann's mind when he'd been here, five days earlier. Get inside the quarry's mind, and you have the key to his actions. At the same time, Schiffer hoped that by a stroke of luck or flash of inspiration, he would pick up something Kessler had missed. It was a fantasy, of course; only the purest good fortune would hand him a break like that, for he knew that Kessler, always the favoured pupil, had a flair which he could only envy.