The Frozen Circle

by Peter Watt

  ‘Constable, if that is all I think I shall leave,’ Sarah said, this time rising fully from her chair. ‘You know where to find me if there is anything of any consequence to talk about.’

  Morgan watched as she walked out of the station and down the stairs to the street below. He picked up the phone and called the detectives’ office in Hume City.

  ‘Got back some info on that Kildare bloke,’ Ken Barber said over the phone. ‘He came into Australia about three weeks ago on a flight from London via Singapore. Our liaison officer with the Pom police tells us that Kildare is employed as a sales rep for a toy company in the UK based out of London. He has nothing in the way of a criminal record and zero else on him to report. So write him up as a missing person for now.’

  ‘Just got a bad feeling about this one, Ken,’ Morgan said. ‘I don’t think he did a runner on our pub. It’s like he has truly disappeared into thin air.’

  ‘Not much else you can do until something turns up,’ Ken replied. ‘But I do think that your info on the two Poms might have something in it unless you can find two other Poms to fit in the frame.’

  Morgan frowned. He had his suspects and no one else in the tiny town fitted the picture so well.

  ‘I will give you a call when we get something back on this Sarah Sakharov sheila,’ Ken said in closing. ‘In the meantime, just keep an eye on her.’

  Not hard to do, Morgan thought. No doubt all the red-blooded males in Valley View were doing that every time she stepped out of her hotel room. He replaced the telephone and found that he was thinking about Monique Dawson. She had told him that she was preparing to leave town for a stay in Sydney. He was wondering if she was still in town when the telephone on his desk rang.

  ‘Valley …’

  ‘Morgan, it’s me,’ the voice cut across.

  Morgan immediately recognised Ken Barber’s voice and the urgency in his tone.

  ‘Get yourself down to the creek at Paddy’s Crossing. A local of yours has just found a body and put it through triple-0. It sounds like your missing Pom. Just contain the scene until we get out to join you.’

  THIRTY-TWO

  Riga

  September 1919

  Joshua felt Maria trembling and in the flickering shadows of the candle by his bed, when he looked down at her face he could see fear. Gently, he stroked her hair and kissed her on the forehead. Time in the trenches under fire had taught him that the mind was something very vulnerable. Despite his desire for her, Joshua knew her gesture was not what it seemed. He spoke softly to her with soothing words until her trembling turned into racking sobs, for Joshua had seen in her eyes the horror she had experienced in the village when the Bolshevik militia soldiers had forced themselves on her. It was not that different from the looks in soldiers’ eyes when they had just survived an artillery bombardment.

  Maria sobbed until there were no more tears and Joshua held her to him. At length she fell into a deep but troubled sleep; she twitched and muttered words in Russian he did not understand. Joshua laid her down carefully, pulled a thick blanket over her and then slid under to hold her until sleep eventually overtook him.

  Before dawn his internal clock woke him and he shook Maria awake. She sat up, pulling up the blankets to cover her breasts. Joshua left her to make her way back to her room to dress and they were both ready to leave when the Polish pilot arrived shortly after.

  No words about the previous evening passed between them and it was only when they were following Jan from the house that Maria whispered in Joshua’s ear the words, ‘Thank you.’ That was enough for Joshua to know that he had done the right thing.

  The day broke with a stiffening wind over the grassy field where the great bomber sat waiting as if it was eager to climb into the sky. Joshua watched as Jan carried out his ritual of preliminary checks on the aircraft.

  ‘We reach Hamburg today,’ he said, rubbing his hands together against the cold. ‘Not good like Riga. Much trouble with Bolsheviks and Freikorps fighting in streets. You be careful.’

  Joshua helped Maria to climb into the cockpit and followed. He positioned himself in the nose but was aware that he might also have to man the rear machine gun if the situation arose that they had to fight off attacking aircraft.

  The Gotha bounced down the field with its nose into the stiff breeze and rose like a kite. Joshua thought that the aircraft seemed to struggle a little getting into the air as if carrying extra weight, but the earth fell away to a patchwork of green fields, dirt roads and in the distance the outline of the city on the mighty river snaking its way to the sea. Joshua could also see columns of troops below on the roads and the horse-drawn artillery of an army at war. He did not know whose forces he was viewing from the sky – Russian, German or Latvian – but so long as they were flying away from the troops below it did not matter.

  After a couple of hours Jan passed out paper-wrapped bundles of bread, ham and cheese along with a bottle of good, red wine. The skies had cleared and the view was magnificent despite the bitter cold and rushing wind around them.

  The flight went well and late in the afternoon Jan signalled that he was going in for a landing. Joshua peered at the horizon and could see glimpses of the sea as well as a sprawling city he guessed was Hamburg. It felt eerie to be flying into the city of a country he had once been at war with.

  As before, Jan had a field picked out that Joshua guessed was his depot in Germany. He could see a huge hangar and some small buildings that suggested the place was a former military airfield. This time they would be landing on a cleared strip. As they drew closer, Joshua could see that there were other aircraft adjoining the airstrip, former fighter aeroplanes of the German air force. He noted the tiny figures of people moving about on the ground.

  Jan circled his Gotha and waggled its wings. Joshua saw a flare fired from near a tall building with people standing on a platform. The red flare fizzled out as it fell back to the earth and the big Gotha made its approach. With the ease of his expertise behind the controls, Jan drifted into line with the hardened earth and roared to a stop adjacent to the cluster of wooden buildings. A beautiful, golden-haired young woman broke away from a small gathering of men in overalls to rush towards the aircraft. Her long hair flowed in the breeze. When the engines powered down Joshua heard her call Jan’s name. Jan leaped from the cockpit to the wing and then to the ground to embrace the woman, lifting her from the earth. She squealed with delight and kissed him all over his oil-spattered face.

  Joshua and Maria climbed down and joined them.

  ‘This is Helga,’ Jan said, introducing the young woman who thrust out her hand to Joshua. ‘She is my wife.’

  Jan said something in German and Helga shook Maria’s hand also.

  ‘She not speak good English like me,’ Jan said, holding Helga around the waist.

  The four men standing aside moved forward on a command from Jan and Joshua was surprised to see them pull aside a panel in the fuselage to reveal legs of ham stacked inside. As well as recovering the pile of hams from inside the fuselage they also removed the drums from under the former bomber’s wings and opened them to reveal even more legs of ham.

  ‘The Allies continue to blockade Germany,’ Jan explained, seeing the question on Joshua’s face. ‘Many hundreds of thousands German, man, woman, child starve to death. Food more valuable than gold. I get lots of gold for food. But come, you are guests who pay well and Helga good cook. We go my house in Hamburg and eat.’

  With little other option, Joshua and Maria accepted the kind invitation and Jan led them behind the sheds to a car.

  ‘Is Ford 1915 Model T touring car,’ Jan said proudly as Joshua gazed at the shiny black vehicle with its gold-coloured framed radiator. ‘Has electric starter. No more crank car to go. You get in and I drive.’

  Joshua and Maria slid into the comfortable leather seat in the back while Helga and Jan took their places in the front. Jan kicked over the engine and was pleased to hear it sputter into life. With a shif
t of gears the car jumped forward and the Polish pilot flew the Ford towards an open gate out onto a rutted dirt road. Both Maria and Joshua hugged each other as the Polish captain hurtled recklessly along. Joshua guessed that Jan was a better pilot than he was a driver. But Helga screamed in her delight while the rear passengers gritted their teeth against the jolts.

  ‘Is good,’ Jan yelled back over his shoulder. ‘I get from Yankee ship to port. Make me pay much.’

  When they arrived in the outer suburbs of Hamburg Joshua could see what the Pole had meant by starvation. Every face he saw on the sidewalks was pinched and pale. Old people and children held out their hands begging and Joshua could not feel any animosity towards his former enemy when he took in their desperate situation. Anger flared in him when he considered that the Allies had continued their blockade of Germany as further punishment. In Joshua’s world, it was putting the boot into a man when he was down. How could the bony, wide-eyed child they just passed sitting in the street be an enemy?

  Jan slowed down in the cobble-paved streets and drove cautiously to avoid the pedestrians that ambled across his path with little regard for their welfare. By now Helga’s happy mood had turned sombre. Joshua somehow doubted that the food Jan had flown in from Latvia would grace the tables of the people he saw starving in the cold, windswept streets. It was more likely destined for the larders of those who still had old money to spend.

  Eventually they reached a modest villa in a leafy suburb and Jan pulled into a lane beside the house. Alighting from the car Joshua and Maria followed Helga and Jan into the house which was far less pretentious than the one Jan owned in Riga, small but comfortable. Joshua felt the warmth of a fire burning in a wood combustion stove. It was strange, he reflected, that they were in Germany and he was relatively safe with Maria.

  After a very pleasant evening with Jan and Helga, Maria and Joshua retired to separate rooms, where the clean sheets and thick eiderdown blankets on their beds promised a good night’s sleep.

  Joshua stripped down to his long johns and pulled the blanket up to his chin. In a short time he fell into a deep sleep but thankfully the nightmares of being back in the trenches did not come to him. In the early hours of the morning however he was torn from his sleep by the sound of crashing boots and shouted words. Joshua reached for the revolver under his pillow and leaped from his bed, standing in the centre of the darkened room attempting to clear the cobwebs of sleep from his mind.

  Two thoughts swirled in his head: he must see if Maria was safe and that her linen belt containing the fortune in precious stones and gold coins was hidden. The latter occupied him first as it was at hand. Groping for the belt, Joshua found it and hurriedly searched for a place to secure the fortune. Joshua picked up a small fireplace shovel from nearby a smouldering fire in the hearth and lifted the burning log. He slipped the linen cloth containing the gems into the fire. The cloth burst into flames and petered out but the gemstones and coins were concealed under the hot coals at the back.

  He was just about to go to Maria’s room when he heard heavy footsteps outside his door. Joshua immediately brought up his pistol to cover the door, which burst open to reveal a uniformed soldier pointing his rifle directly at him. Behind him were two other uniformed soldiers. He was cornered with little chance of fighting his way out. Realising that he was outnumbered and wouldn’t be able to shoot all three men before one of them was able to kill him, he deftly slid his revolver under the bed and the three men fell on him with their rifle butts pounding Joshua into the floor.

  Joshua covered his head until the rain of rifle butts ceased when a fourth man entered the room, barking a command in German. Joshua was pulled roughly to his feet. The fourth man was obviously a high-ranking German officer Joshua ascertained from the insignia on his smart uniform. He shouted something in German while the other soldiers made a messy search of the room in the semi-dark, upturning the bed and pulling out drawers spilling the contents on the floor.

  Joshua stood still, nursing his jaw where a rifle butt had clipped. His revolver had not been discovered and none of the searchers took any notice of the glow from the fireplace.

  ‘I don’t speak German,’ he said, rubbing his jaw.

  The officer frowned. ‘I speak English,’ he said. ‘Who the devil are you?’

  Joshua sized up the square-faced officer standing before him. He was about Joshua’s age and seemed to be an intelligent man.

  ‘I am Sergeant Joshua Larkin, formerly of the British army fighting in Russia,’ Joshua replied, deciding that telling the truth was the best option, considering the overwhelming edge the Germans had. ‘I am attempting to make my way back to England. I missed the boat at Archangel.’

  The German officer’s expression softened slightly. ‘You do not have an English accent,’ he said.

  ‘I am an Australian by birth,’ Joshua replied. ‘I volunteered to fight the Bolshies with the British army and prior to that I was an Australian officer – a captain – in the Western Front campaign.’

  ‘I am Major von Fettermann, at your service,’ the German officer said, bringing his heels together. ‘I do not know why you would be in Hamburg, Sergeant Larkin.’

  ‘I and the Russian lady travelling with me availed ourselves of the services of Jan Novak to fly us out of Russia. If you want to know I am probably thought of as a deserter by the English. A bit of a mix-up where I was cut off from my regiment near Archangel.’

  ‘You will come with us, Sergeant Larkin, until I sort out your story. I warn you – do not attempt to lie to me.’

  Joshua allowed himself to be escorted to another room where Maria and Helga huddled together in their night-dresses under armed guard. Jan appeared to have suffered badly from a beating and was being stood over by more German troops. In the light of the living room Joshua could see that the soldiers wore the armband of the Freikorps.

  Maria stared fearfully at Joshua who attempted a crooked smile to reassure her. As he was marched past he whispered one word in French, ‘Fireplace.’ He hoped that she would understand its significance.

  Jan was forced to his feet and prodded with rifles to accompany Joshua out of the villa to a flat-bed truck waiting outside. They clambered onto the tray on the command of their captors and sat down with their backs against the cabin. The captors quickly scrambled aboard and the officer climbed into the cabin. Within minutes the truck had puttered away from the house and Joshua could feel the beating he had taken almost overwhelm him.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ he whispered from the side of his mouth.

  ‘I have trouble with Freikorps tax,’ Jan groaned quietly. ‘Major von Fettermann my contact.’

  Joshua shook his head. If this is how Jan’s contact treated them what would a complete stranger do?

  Very soon they arrived at a cobblestoned square adjoining a large three-storeyed building. Lights shone on all floors and Joshua had a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. A miracle would be required for him to emerge into the square alive once they were taken through the doors.

  The truck came to a stop and orders were shouted in German for them to dismount. Jan and Joshua climbed down from the tray and were escorted into the building under guard. Neither man spoke. The German’s mood was not worth the trouble of a beating to test.

  The interior of the building confirmed Joshua’s apprehension. It was manned by uniformed men wearing Freikorps armbands. They sat behind desks shuffling papers or stood around maps. The place had the feeling of a military headquarters and both prisoners were ushered through to rooms at the end of a long corridor that smelled of wax.

  Joshua was separated from Jan and pushed into an office. Still in his long underwear Joshua was feeling the cold and shivered when he took a chair in the sparsely furnished room. He had not been alone for long when the door opened and the officer who had identified himself as Major von Fettermann entered and sat behind the desk.

  ‘Can I get you anything, Sergeant Larkin?’ von Fettermann as
ked politely, setting Joshua slightly more at ease.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind a smoke right now,’ Joshua replied.

  The Freikorps officer pushed a packet of English cigarettes across the desk to him. Joshua took one and von Fettermann lit it for him. ‘And something to keep me warm.’

  ‘I can arrange a blanket for you,’ the officer said, lighting a cigarette himself and blowing smoke into the cold air. ‘Strangely, the Pole has corroborated your story about who you are and why you are in his company. If you are a deserter from the British army it is no concern to us but I will still verify who you are before I can release you. You may be a Bolshevik agitator returning to England from Russia and if so I am sure that our English colleagues would like to know about your presence in Hamburg. Now that the war is over we are friends once again.’

  Joshua detected a note of sarcasm in the last few words. He had seen the starving children in the streets and doubted that there was any love for the British in this part of Europe.

  ‘If I may ask,’ Joshua said. ‘Why have you brought us here?’

  ‘Your Polish friend owes what you might call a lot of back taxes for us providing him bed and board in our country,’ von Fettermann answered. ‘He was supposed to report to me as soon as he returned from Russia but I did not know he was back until a friendly little bird I have planted at the airfield informed me. So, I thought it wise to visit Herr Novak and ask him in person why he was so reticent to see me.’

  ‘So, it’s all about money,’ Joshua said, breathing a slight sigh of relief.

  ‘Not for you if the English inform me that you are a Bolshevik agitator,’ von Fettermann responded mildly. ‘You will be executed if that is so.’

  In the brighter light of the office Joshua noticed that the German officer was missing two fingers on his left hand. ‘Where did that happen?’ he asked.

  Von Fettermann looked down at his hand. ‘A place called Mont St Quentin,’ he said.