by Anton Gill
'Well, who the hell was in it? The old couple?' asked Kessler.
'No, they're still locked up.'
'Jesus. Did you at least check what kind of a car it was?'
'Yes,' The cop looked a little less panicky. He could be exact. 'A Maybach, SW 42.'
'Not many of them on the road. Get its number?'
'Other things to think about when I saw it first.'
Kessler looked towards the drawing room. Kleinschmidt was sitting in a chair near Hoffmann, his gun in his lap. Kessler didn't think either of them could have heard.
'Weigel's still upstairs. Go up and assist. Back here in ten minutes. And let him know it's you coming. He's got the MP 38 and he's nervous.'
'Sir.'
Kessler watched him go. He let out his breath noisily. He knew whose car it was.
He returned to the drawing room, the contents of Schiffer's pockets in his hands. He placed them on the table by the brandy decanter.
'Nothing,' he said to Kleinschmidt. 'Nothing of any significance, anyway.'
'Why don't you let me take care of it, sir?'
'No. I'll put most of it back. Look odd if he was found with nothing on him.'
'We could take the bodies out in the grounds and burn them.'
Kessler looked at him curiously.
'Make identification difficult,' Kleinschmidt explained.
'I don't think so. Someone'll know where he is. We'll have to make some kind of report. Dress it up.'
Kleinschmidt considered. 'You're the one with the Hitler-Order, sir. And you've got your man. Schiffer was a maverick anyway. No-one's going to blame you.' Kleinschmidt paused. 'What are the others doing?'
'Searching the other floors. I want you to go and watch the cars. Christ help us if they had backup.'
Kleinschmidt shook his head. 'They won't have. I'd better stay with you.'
'I'd feel safer if someone kept an eye on the cars. You can do it from the front steps. The columns will give you cover.'
'If you say so.' Kleinschmidt rose and made his way out of the room. Kessler wondered how much brandy he had drunk, but the decanter was still almost half-full.
Left alone, he and Hoffmann looked at each other at last.
130
'Well,' said Hoffmann.
'Well.'
Hoffmann let out his breath. 'Thank you for giving Tilli that break.'
'I don't know what you're talking about,' said Kessler. He knew what he was going to do. 'There isn't much time. Where are your papers?'
'In the bureau drawer. There's a panel at the back. Hidden compartment. Good workmanship in those days.'
There was a large Biedermeier desk between the windows that overlooked the garden. Kessler went over to it and found the Swedish passport, the Farben papers, the telephone engineer's papers, which Hoffmann had not destroyed, and the Walther 9. He glanced out of the window and could just see Kleinschmidt leaning on one of the columns that flanked the front porch, smoking a cigar, his gun in his hand. He looked like an American gangster, thought Kessler.
He returned to his prisoner.
'Schiffer took the other gun,' said Hoffmann. 'I hope to Christ they're going to be all right.'
'My man identified the car exactly. Even with the start they've got, they'll be lucky to get far in a car that, and I'm going to have to get the local police to look for it.'
'The car will command respect at the local road-blocks at least. I just want Stefan safe.'
'You did what you could.'
'I've put him in danger all his life.'
'I'm going to have to keep some of these papers,' said Kessler. 'What can you spare?' He was listening for the cops returning from upstairs.
'Take the telephone engineer's. He'll be glad to get them back.'
'Fine.'
'And find Emma,' said Hoffmann.
'I will.'
Kessler looked at the table near Hoffmann. He put the remaining stuff from the drawer and the handcuff keys on it. Next to them he placed the slip of paper with the address he'd taken from Schiffer's wallet.
They could both hear the other two policemen clattering hurriedly back down the central staircase.
Kessler went to the door, speaking fast. 'I've got to collect my sergeant, put this stuff back in Schiffer's pockets, find a telephone and call the locals about that Maybach.' He looked towards the windows at the far end of the room, which overlooked a summerhouse nestling in a copse about a hundred metres to the rear of the main building. He looked at Hoffmann again. Kessler thought, I'll never see him again. I'll probably never see any of them again. 'I'll find Stefan too,' he said, leaving the room, closing the door, and locking it carefully behind him, in time for the two Munich cops to see him do it. Kleinschmidt, too, had returned to the entrance hall. He took his time returning Schiffer's property to his body. Then he stood up.
'What do we do now?' said Kleinschmidt.
'Go and get those servants, find out where the telephone is and see if it works. Get on to the local cops if it does.' Kessler turned to the other two. 'One of you, take the car and drive to Iphofen. Tell the cops there what's happened. That way someone'll be here as soon as possible.' Weigel nodded and made for the door. Kleinschmidt lingered for a moment.
'Yes?'
'What about him?'
'He's locked in and he's handcuffed. Who do you think he is, Houdini? Get on with it.'
Kleinschmidt nodded and made his way, quickly for him, towards the back of the house. Kessler turned to the remaining cop, hoping to God that he had allowed enough time.
'Let's see how he's doing,' he said. 'Can't leave him alone for long.'
'Like you said, he isn't Houdini.' The cop grinned.
Kessler gave him the key. 'Watch him. I'm going to see how Kleinschmidt's getting on with that phone.' He hurried away before the cop had time to unlock the door.
131
The local police treated everyone with suspicion, but cleared up the mess, took the bodies away, and released the Zieglers and the dogs. The old couple were scared to death. Herr Ziegler worried about the dogs' welfare, neither he nor his wife had any idea where their mistress and her nephew had gone, or why. The local cops took them away anyway. Kessler had to give them something. His Hitler-Order had taken care of the rest. And there was no fingerprinting. It'd be pointless in the circumstances, and there wasn't any time to waste.
Kessler's crew split into two teams and used the two remaining cars to scour the area, spent the rest of the day and part of the next at it, going as far as their petrol supply would allow, bullying a few more litres out of the local police, without any success at all. Kessler then telephoned Munich, asked if they should continue the pursuit, but they were angrily recalled. A new team was coming out, a big one. Forty men. All Gestapo this time. It was already on its way. They would take charge. Schiffer's car should be left for their use. It wasn't going to be Kessler's business any more.
Kleinschmidt had been the last to leave the house, emerging from the back carrying a heavy bag which he placed between his feet as he took his seat in the car. The local police watched them drive off.
They'd worked out their story: they'd arrived in the middle of a gun battle between Hoffmann, two henchmen, and the Gestapo. Schreiner had been shot as they hastened to help their secret police colleagues - the last part a little suspect, but they were evidently on the same mission, let the Gestapo in Munich confirm or deny that Schiffer had gone beyond his brief. In the confusion, Hoffmann and his men had escaped in the Maybach.
The car smelt stale. Everyone was smoking.
'He'll find a blacksmith somewhere who won't talk,' said the cop who'd shot Schiffer. 'Get those cuffs off, no problem.'
'He hasn't got any money,' said Kleinschmidt. 'Has he?'
'He might not need it. Some of these bastards don't have any faith left,' grumbled Weigel. 'People are turning against us.'
'I just hope nobody starts digging,' said the cop who'd shot Schiffer.
'He won't get far.'
'What if he talks?'
'Who'll believe him?'
'I'll take the flak,' said Kessler.
'Should never have switched his handcuffs to the front, sir,' said Kleinschmidt.
'We don't talk about that, though, do we?' said Weigel. 'He was never arrested at all. His people shot our people, and he got clean away.'
'If they capture him and he's still got handcuffs on - ' said Kleinschmidt, and let the sentence hang. 'But what I'd like to know is, what happened to the keys?'
'Maybe the Gestapo dropped them,' said Weigel incautiously as his colleague shot him a warning glance: Kessler and Kleinschmidt were outsiders, after all. 'They should have let us carry on after him,' he continued, but more hesitantly. 'Take the new team hours to get here.'
'Out of our hands,' said Kleinschmidt. 'Just as well.' He turned to Kessler. 'Hard lines for you though, sir; would have been a feather in your cap, like I said.'
Kessler was thinking of Emma.
Kleinschmidt rummaged in his bag, producing bread and sausage, and four large bottles of beer. 'Bloody well-stocked kitchen there,' he said. He also brought out a packet of real cigarettes, and passed them round. Kessler recognised them as the ones he'd replaced in Schiffer's pocket.
The men ate and drank, refining their story. Kleinschmidt kept coming back to the point that Hoffmann got away so easily.
They fell silent after that. The drive back was a long one.
132
Once in Munich, Kessler gave the men orders to report to Police Headquarters the next morning at eight for debriefing. He was too tired to start thinking of the contingency plans which he'd have to make if he came in for a serious bollocking, or if he were recalled. But their story seemed pretty watertight, if they all stuck to it. He'd run the man down, after all; and now, with such a horde of secret police on his heels, the Gestapo would imagine - not knowing Hoffmann as Kessler did - that his capture could only be a question of time.
He went to his room, took off his jacket and shoes, loosened his tie, lay on the bed. It wasn't yet ten. He took off his glasses and placed them on the bedside table.
He must have slept without knowing it, for the next thing he knew was being awoken by a thunderous hammering on the door, punctuated by angry, hysterical shouting. He was up in moments, seizing his spectacles and pulling on his shoes. But his room was five storeys up, and the window gave onto a sheer drop. No escape. The ledge was narrow, and the next ledge too far away to reach. There were no footholds anywhere. Kessler was taking stock of this when the door burst open.
The cell had no windows. It was lit by three bulbs which hung high in the ceiling. A new metal desk and chair stood near the centre, and, across from them, a wooden stool, whose seat had holes bored into it to allow ropes to be passed through. Such rooms were familiar to Kessler. He was tied to the stool, and his ankles were bound. He couldn't believe they'd left him his glasses, though they were slipping down his nose and there was nothing he could do about it. Maybe they wanted him to see clearly.
He looked at the dark stains on the walls. The walls themselves were painted two different shades of grey, a darker giving way to a lighter about a third of the way up them. Kessler tried not to think of the physical pain, of broken bones, lost teeth, an eye put out, a punctured eardrum, a ruptured kidney; but he knew what went on, and he'd seen what they'd done to Adamov.
Footsteps at last, and a key turned in the lock. Metal door swinging open and a figure silhouetted in the glare from the corridor behind him. Stout and familiar, it approached and sat behind the desk as the door swung shut, leaving them alone in the baleful, chthonic lamplight.
'I've arrested the others, too,' said Kleinschimdt, having looking at him coldly for a minute. 'I don't yet know what to do with them. I can't return them to duty. But they've cooperated fully, and I'm convinced they know nothing. Just cops doing their job, as far as I can see. But perhaps it'll be better to be safe than sorry in the long run.'
'Who are you?' asked Kessler, trying to remember how long they had worked together. Eighteen months? As long as that? More?
'I don't owe you any explanation, Kessler.' Kleinschmidt took out one of his cigars, looked at it, decided against it, and replaced it in its box. 'You were a bit of a mystery to us. You weren't a Party member, yet you didn't seem to have anything to do with the conspiracy. Of course you enjoyed Hoffmann's protection. We had to keep an eye on you.'
'I thought Schiffer was doing that.'
'Yes, Schiffer.' Kleinschmidt fiddled with the cigar box on the table. What a good actor he'd been, thought Kessler. Took me in completely. He couldn't believe the change in the eyes.
'Schiffer was our backup,' continued Kleinschmidt. 'I was against his appointment. Too ambitious. Too much out for himself. But Müller overruled me. I had everything well in hand. Then the bloody fool went and fucked everything up.' The anger in his face was startling.
'He answered to you?'
'He thought it was the other way round. I didn't reveal my full hand to him, ever. I'm a Standartenführer.' He smiled thinly at Kessler's reaction. 'Thought that would surprise you. It's because I'm good at my job.' He clenched his fists gently, staring into the air. 'And now this. I had Hoffmann in my grasp. I would have wished a slower death on Schiffer.' He sighed. 'Well, we must do what we can to limit the damage.'
'But what were you doing at the house? Why didn't you join forces with him then?'
Kleinschmidt looked at him. 'It's odd, Inspector, but that's why I've grown almost fond of you. You do have to ask questions.' He smiled and the room grew colder. 'Schiffer cocked things up. He moved too fast, went quite outside his remit.' He stood up and walked around the room. 'He wanted all the glory for himself, and he thought he had it in his hands. Do you think, if things had gone his way, he would have hesitated to shoot me? His superior officer? He could have passed it off to our masters as an accident, or blamed it on one of the regular cops, and none of them, including you, would have left the villa alive.'
He moved back to the desk and sat at it. 'I kept my eye on you. I half suspected what was in your mind. Perhaps I should have shot you then, and the other two.' He sighed. 'But there were other factors. I might have been outgunned. The other two might have taken your side against me. There wouldn't have been time to explain things. Ah well, it's too late now.'
'I didn't think your interests went further than food and booze.'
'You have a lot to learn. I want to know why you let him go?'
'Because he's a good man. Because of what he did.'
'You could hang in Plötzensee just for saying that. If we bother to take you back. But you might just be enough of a sop to throw to the Führer. Buy us time.'
'Save your neck.'
'That's my principal concern, yes.' Kleinschmidt paused. 'We will get him, you know, despite this.'
'I think you underestimate him.'
'What I don't know, I'll get out of you,' said Kleinschmidt.
'I don't know where he is.'
'I think you do.' Kleinschmidt stood up. 'I'm not going to throw you to the wolves yet. I'm going to keep you for myself. But I'm going to have to work fast, if my boys don't run your man to ground in the next day or two. And you don't seem to think they will.'
That was why they'd reacted so quickly, thought Kessler. Kleinschmidt must have rung Munich from Tilli's house before they left. Tilli's telephone worked efficiently, given the friends she had.
'I'll leave you to think things over; but I'll see you again soon.' Kleinschmidt finally lit a cigar, went to the door, and hit it hard twice with the flat of his hand. It opened immediately. Kessler saw no-one behind it. Kleinschmidt walked unhurriedly through it, into the glaring corridor, said something in a soft voice to someone, then his footsteps receded.
133
They moved Kessler up some stairs to a small cell on the ground floor. It had a high, barred window, a bunk bed, table and chair, washstand and bucket. Kessler saw little of the build
ing, and didn't recognise any of what he did see, but in the short time he was hurried down corridors he noticed plenty of activity. Men were piling papers into boxes, closing down offices, and in one room he glimpsed an officer feeding documents into a stove that roared like a furnace. They gave him some salt herring, some turnip, and a flagon of water, and they left him. He could hear men and women constantly on the move outside in the corridor, but he imagined the cell overlooked an inner courtyard, for there was no sound from outside. He stood on the chair to reach the window, but it was set too high, and deep in the thick wall.
Twice only in the next forty-eight hours, towards noon, as he judged, a jailer came to feed him, and escort him to where the bucket was emptied. He doubted if he were he the only prisoner here, but at times he wondered. There were air-raids during the night, one bomb fell close; the light in his cell flickered and finally went out; it did not go on again.
Late in the afternoon of the second day his cell door opened to admit Kleinschmidt. He looked less confident.
'We're moving you,' he said.
'When?'
'Coupla days.'
'What's going on?'
'None of your business.'
'Have you found him?'
'If we'd found him, you'd be dead,' said Kleinschmidt. 'As it is, you and I will talk soon.'
Left alone again, Kessler noticed how quickly silence fell throughout the building. He wondered if he were the only person left there. He drank the water in the flagon. It tasted of tin. In the distance, he heard the rumble of bombers again.
He thought he wouldn't sleep, but he did, at first fitfully, then deeply. He dreamt that he was in a wood. He recognised it, it was in a place he'd visited three or four times on holiday with his parents when he was a small child. He was six years old in the dream. There was a pool in the wood, in a small clearing. He would go to its bank and sit on some flat stones overgrown with moss, warm in the late afternoon sunshine, and, feet dangling, stir the dark blue water with a long stick, watching the ripples glitter. He had never felt such peace, though he knew he was in the wrong; his mother had forbidden him to go down there alone. Then - gunfire. A hunting party after boar? He stood up too quickly, slipped, and fell in. The water was soothing, like a friend. It covered him.