by Anton Gill
'Of course, we can discuss anything relevant to your investigation,' continued Scholz, who had noticed, as Kessler had, a look of satisfaction creep into Bauer's face. Kessler immediately saw something that he could use to his advantage. Scholz, like him, was an outsider. Also, regular police and Waffen-SS officers were not over-fond of the Gestapo, especially local bigwigs like Bauer. Scholz had no intention of putting Kessler down in front of a Gestapo-man, though clearly he was also intent on ensuring that everyone knew who was boss around here.
'Give my sergeant and me five minutes to freshen up and unpack our forensic equipment. Then I will start a thorough examination.'
'By all means,' said Scholz, turning to the aide who stood at his elbow and muttering instructions. 'You have had a long drive.' Scholz, despite his inauspicious surroundings, was as immaculate as if he had been on the parade-ground. Kessler was aware that his shabby appearance was worse than usual after the tyre-changing, and Kleinschmidt had an oil stain on his shirt and mud on his shoes. But Kessler had to keep up his advantage. He turned to Bauer.
'I'll read your preliminary reports when I return,' he said, taking care to keep any trace of condescension out of his voice, but hoping Bauer wouldn't be ready for this. He wasn't.
'I can give you a verbal report,' he replied stiffly. 'The facilities here - '
'In the morning, then,' said Kessler, drawing himself up for once, and adding just enough edge to the kindness in his voice.
'Inspector.'
82
By ten the next day, Kessler had read the five badly-typed pages of Bauer's report. They told him nothing that he didn't already know, except to outline the means by which the uniforms had been detached from the bodies, give the names of the slain, and describe the motorbike. No doubt Hoffmann - if he had been the rider - had picked it up in Leipzig, where, as the Inspector no doubt knew, said the report, investigations were in hand.
Kessler had spent since sunrise looking at the site. There were still dark stains on the soil in the square where the Werewolves had fallen, and the blackened bike was no more than a shell, its panniers gone and its saddle reduced to a metal frame. If anything had been concealed on it or in it, it was gone now, though Kessler had the fuel tank cut open to make sure that it was completely empty, taking care that he was alone except for the oxy-acetylene operator, whose presence there was as much a mystery to him as that of the bulk of the SS-men, who clearly had no part in the investigation, and kept themselves to themselves. Apart from making regular patrols of the village they confined themselves to the vicinity of their tents. Kleinschmidt had tried to interview their NCOs, but this, he reported, had been blocked – with great politeness, but nevertheless blocked – by Scholz's aide.
The inn and the market-hall were both in use - the former as a canteen and officers' billet, and Kessler deduced that the operations being conducted in the latter were not confined to the killings. He also found himself closely accompanied when he wanted to inspect any building beyond the square. What he was permitted to see yielded nothing: simple rooms with wooden furniture, kitchens leading directly into byres. The smell of dung still hung everywhere, though Kessler had no means of knowing when the place had been evacuated and no-one told him. Scholz remained polite, but seemed uninterested in the investigation. Bauer had begun to unwind, and was helpful – had he decided that it might help his career if Kessler looked kindly on him? But it was clear to Kessler that his motivation was also to get the policeman away from there as soon as possible.
There was little to detain him. The church, which he co-opted the local constables to help him search – yielded nothing. Apart from its pews, some of which had evidently been partly broken up for firewood, and some of which had been hauled out of place, the nave was empty. The altar was bare, no brass or silver or any furnishings to be found anywhere, the vestry and the choir equally void. The robing-room wardrobes contained a couple of dusty vestments, which blew out a little cluster of moths when he touched them, the only other sign of life being the bats which nestled, black specks, in the vaulting. If he hadn't noticed their droppings on the floor he might never have been aware of them. A melancholy place, whose emptiness was emphasized by the chill in the atmosphere there.
And there was no evidence of Hoffmann either. Cartridge cases Bauer's men had picked up in the square belonged to the rifles and to a Walther PPK - the weapon the killer had used. The dead NCO's holster contained an old Luger, which had not been fired.
Kessler decided to leave the village the following morning. He'd considered going to Weimar to file a final report, but when he'd radioed Leipzig to confirm, he was told that he should continue following whatever route south he thought Hoffmann might have followed. That meant, roughly, Coburg, Bamberg, Nuremberg. If that was where Hoffmann was headed. Kessler wondered if he shouldn't fabricate a little evidence to put them off, but it was a high-risk consideration, especially as he wasn't working alone. And his mind was still preoccupied with thoughts of Emma.
But he seemed to have a charmed life – he'd half expected to be recalled to Berlin for questioning, if the information in the anonymous letter he'd received was true. Perhaps Hitler's protecting hand was still over him.
In the late afternoon Kessler decided he'd have a last look at the material which was still spread out on the trestle tables. He knew Hoffmann would never have been careless, but if he'd been caught off guard something might have slipped through, and better that he found any lead than anyone else. And something was gnawing at the back of his mind.
The large bag which had been recovered from the bike was high-quality, heavily grained cowhide, and had escaped complete immolation. The bag had several compartments. He'd been through them before, and so had Bauer, but looking at it again, he noticed a side pocket - visible just as a slit on the outside of the bag - which hadn't attracted his attention before. He glanced around. The handful of people in the room were absorbed in paperwork, the radio operator was fiddling with dials on his machine, and cursing under his breath.
Kessler slipped a hand into the pocket. It was deep. It ran right under the bag. Within it his fingers located another, buttoned compartment. He opened it and touched something which crumpled, Paper? Cardboard? And there was something hard as well, wood, or, more likely, metal. He closed his hand round whatever it was and drew it out carefully.
It was a small, brown, oblong cardboard box, but almost smashed to pieces, so that its contents were immediately visible. A silver whistle, not unlike a police whistle, but smaller - an expensive toy. Kessler detached it from the remains of its box and brought it up to his eye. There was a name engraved on it.
At that moment he heard approaching footsteps. He palmed his find and turned to the Gestapo-man.
Bauer smiled at him cautiously. 'We've been over that bag with a fine-tooth comb,' he said defensively.
'You didn't find this.' The pieces of the cardboard box were on the table in front of him.
'What is it?'
'No idea. Remains of a box?'
Bauer looked. 'Could be. Ammunition box?'
'Could be. Too smashed up to tell.'
'Want us to tag it?'
Kessler shrugged. 'No. Not worth it. Let's bin it.'
Bauer was relieved. 'I told you we hadn't missed anything.'
'Quite right. I was clutching at straws. You know how it is.' He slipped the whistle into his pocket as he said, 'Have you seen my sergeant?'
'Next door.'
Kessler nodded and made his way to the inn. Kleinschmidt, a beer in front of him, was busy with his notebook. He looked up as Kessler approached.
'Made the report?' Kessler asked.
'Yes.'
'Orders?'
Kleinschmidt shrugged. 'What do you think? They want us to carry on. Bugger it.'
'Tomorrow. When we get to Coburg, we'll look around there. After that, Bamberg, or Bayreuth.' Kessler spoke reluctantly. This was the route he would have taken if he'd been Hoffmann, but there was
n't much leeway, and he knew his own actions were under scrutiny. He was not the only one to know how Hoffmann's mind worked. There'd been no positive identification of his old boss here; and if Kessler could get the trail to lead to Munich, he might - possibly - manage to trace Emma. Dachau was on the city's outskirts.
'Well,' said Kleinschmidt, interrupting his train of thought. 'The bastard can't get far on foot.'
'If it's him.'
'It'd better be,' said Kleinschmidt. 'For our sakes.'
They had a muted dinner with Scholz and Bauer that evening. The whizz-kid from Berlin had failed to work a miracle. Bauer's men were bagging up the evidence to take back to Weimar, where it'd be archived in case a fresh lead ever came up, but it was more likely that it would gather dust in a storeroom for years. Bauer and his men had nothing left to do here either, and would be leaving soon after Kessler and Kleinschmidt. No-one knew what Scholz's plans were, and he was keeping the talk small, though he was clearly relieved that the police were departing.
Kessler had to stop his hand from going to the whistle in his pocket. It was only after dinner, when he was alone in his room, that he had an opportunity to examine it more thoroughly. He held it close to the oil lamp by his bed, turned it over in his fingers, and brought his face up close to the inscription.
'Stefan…' he said quietly, reading it.
83
Hoffmann had been on the road for two days since the fight. But he had found shelter now.
He was in the living room of a farmworker's abandoned cottage. There was a table and two chairs, and a divan on which he had slept - or tried to sleep - for most of the night. At least there were no bedbugs here: it had been too long since the place had been inhabited for them to have anything to prey on. Not even mosquitoes disturbed him.
After the battle, he'd walked until dawn, keeping to the edge of the road, which had widened as it left the village. He didn't want to run the risk of encountering any more SS, and it had seemed to him that the likelihood of their presence was high. But there had been no-one, and finally he stopped to rest. He knew very little about typhus, but after he'd heard Kurtz mention it, he'd worried that he'd drunk the water at the inn. Was it a water-borne disease? Kurtz had said the place had been sanitised, but had it? Were those boys really living there?
Towards nine in the morning he could go no further - he thought he might have made twenty kilometres - and climbed off the road into a dense copse, where, come what may, he knew he'd have to lie down and rest.
He slept deeply and dreamlessly until late afternoon and for a moment after waking lay calmly and drowsily, the warm sun on him, but an instant later he was alert, aware again of where he was and of his situation. He sat up cautiously, thirsty and conscious of his aching legs. His whole body ached, felt dirty. His shirt collar chafed and the insides of his thighs were sore. He could not become ill. His body could not let him down. He would have to find some means of transport.
He thought about the motorbike and cursed. Then he remembered something else. He searched his pockets in increasing panic, then rummaged through his bag, but all along he knew that he had left Stefan's whistle behind. Fool! He could see it in his mind's eye, hidden in the inner pocket of the pack he'd left in the village. But why had he been stupid enough to bring it at all? Perhaps it had melted? Unlikely. All he could hope was that whoever found it would have no idea of Stefan's identity.
But if they linked the bike to Hoffmann, they'd start foraging in his past. What might they find? What could he have overlooked?
There was nothing he could do. But now he had another, even more pressing reason to keep ahead of the game.
He remained still, listening, but there was no noise. He'd have to find water again, and then food, but water was more important. And he'd have to brace himself for another night's trek. Luckily, there was enough moonlight to guide him, and the road was a solitary one - there were no turn-offs except for cart-tracks, and he had not come across another village. He only had a dozen cigarettes. He'd have to ration them.
He had slogged through another night and by the end of it he thought he was at the limit of his endurance. He had not eaten for nearly two days and what water he had found he had drunk from rivers and streams. He had no idea what effect this might have on him. Close to dawn on the second day he noticed a hamlet some way off the road, a track leading down to it. He'd been tempted to go there but feared a possible trap. He didn't dare take off the boots, which by some miracle remained comfortable, though his feet felt foul. There was a partly-cultivated field at the side of the road and he'd managed to dig out a couple of black radishes, straining his ears for dogs as he did so.
The sun rose roughly behind him and a little to his right, so he guessed the road was still taking him in the right direction, and he stayed with it. There had been three or four other turnings off it by now, but he knew the pursuit would follow every lead.
He'd eaten the radishes with an appetite he wouldn't have believed possible two weeks ago, though his stomach ached afterwards, and later on he had to plunge towards the cover of some bushes, victim of a violent bout of diarrhoea. But it was better afterwards. He cleaned himself with leaves.
Christ, he had to get out of this.
84
He forced himself to keep going the whole of the following day, though he doubted if he'd made more than seven or ten kilometres. Maybe thirty or thirty-five in total, now, since leaving the village. He'd started to look for somewhere to rest when he'd noticed an overgrown path to his left. In desperation he'd taken it, and after one hundred metres or so he saw the low roof ahead of him. He drew his gun and stumbled forward.
A farmhouse.
He could tell from the look of the place that it was empty. Weeds grew everywhere and a vegetable garden near the house had long since turned into a wilderness. Thistles and brambles crowded round the stone walls of the low-slung stone main building, and the wooden barn and sheds wilted, their sides licked by an encroaching green tide. By one of the sheds stood a forlorn cart with a broken wheel.
This farm, like so many, must have been empty for a year or more. Some of the smaller outhouses were falling down, and the yard had been invaded by nettles and dockweed. In the yard there was a rusty pump, which hadn't looked promising, but he'd managed to unstick the lever and after a few minutes' perseverance clean water spouted from the nozzle. He'd drunk deeply, scooping the water up in an earthenware bowl he'd found among other bits and pieces of crockery, some smashed, in a sideboard in the farm's kitchen.
He explored the place quickly but thoroughly. Upstairs the rooms were tiny, two of the three containing beds too broken down to be slept on, and wardrobes which contained farm overalls.
Downstairs, the living room covered most of the floor area; it led off in one direction to a byre, and in the other to a kitchen, with a huge stone sink and a large wooden table. A few kitchen implements hung to one side of the range, but he could find no fuel to fire it up. In any case, he was afraid of drawing attention to his presence by chimney smoke.
The outhouses contained rusting farm equipment, a harrow and a plough, a yoke for oxen and some harness, the leather rotting, the brass green. There was a pitchfork, a couple of rakes, a mattock and a spade, and a long-handled axe. In the barn, bales of hay mouldered.
He took the mattock and used it to dig in the vegetable garden but the ground was choked with weeds, and after a short time he found the effort beyond him. He began to think dangerously that as long as he could rest he would not care if they caught up with him.
He returned to the house, thinking despondently that at least there was water, but hunger clawed at his stomach in a way he had never experienced before. He was neither as fit as he should have been, nor was he used to the country. He had no idea what wild berries or mushrooms he could eat, if there were any; there was a small orchard, but the trees were twisted with neglect and tangled with ivy and mistletoe. Wizened fruits hung on some of the dusty green branches, but the
thought of encouraging another bout of diarrhoea prevented him from trying them.
In the living room, he'd noticed a mirror above the chimney-piece, and checked himself in it. He was appalled at what he saw. The transformation was bad. The face was haggard and unshaven. He'd have to let the beard grow now, no choice. Maybe the full untidy growth of hair would take attention away from the moustache.
He went to the kitchen and rummaged through drawers without much hope, and indeed all they yielded was a handful of rusty utensils and cutlery. Then he noticed a larder door. He didn't want to waste ammunition on rats, but there weren't any - there was nothing for them here. On a high shelf he noticed a handful pickle jars. Why had they been abandoned? Forgotten when the owners of this place had left it?
There were gherkins, onions, cherries and eggs. Tentatively, he unclipped the lid of the jar which contained the eggs, and pulled one out, nibbled it. Vinegary, but otherwise... He ate some more. It seemed fine. He finished it.
He knew he'd have to go easy, but he made himself a rudimentary meal, washing it down with plenty of water. Nectar and ambrosia couldn't have tasted better, he thought.
Having feasted, three eggs, three onions, some gherkins and a very few cherries, he dragged one of the chairs over and made a more thorough examination of the upper larder shelves. At the back of one, he found two pots of sausage meat. One revealed nothing but a puffball of mould, but the other looked and smelled fine. He ate a little, then finished the pot.
By now it was late, and darkness had gathered. It had also grown cold. The silence was oppressive, but he was too tired to care, and, flushed with his minor triumph, he lay down to sleep.
But, tired as he was, he failed to enjoy real rest. The boys he'd killed came back to haunt him. And Stefan's whistle blew through his dreams, the ghosts of the kids he'd shot dancing to its blast. What had they known about anything? Brutalised and conditioned by Party propaganda, weren't they also his responsibility? Hadn't he helped create them?