by Alex Gerlis
He picked up one of the glasses he’d just wiped and began to fill it.
‘Where are you from – not these parts, eh?’
‘Switzerland – the French part.’
‘I didn’t think you were German. Over there,’ he pointed with his head to the table of four by the window, ‘they’re also Swiss. Two of them are French too, appalling German, not as good as yours.’
Prince’s plan of spending a couple of hours in the dark corner of a dimly lit bar while nursing a couple of beers and generously tipping the barman no longer seemed such a good idea. The last thing he needed was to be in the proximity of people who’d soon realise he wasn’t Swiss. He slowly sipped his beer and thought if he could continue like this until six o’clock then he could go into the main part of the hotel and find one of the warrens Hendrie was so fond of.
‘Broscht!’
The barman must have mentioned about him being Swiss to the four men, because after one of them returned to their table with another bottle of wine they’d all turned towards him and were wishing him ‘cheers’. Prince raised his nearly empty glass of beer in response and quickly drank it up.
‘Please, come over – you must join your fellow countrymen!’
Prince smiled pleasantly and said he was sorry, tapping his watch as he got up and walked into the main area of the Bayerischer Hof. He moved quickly through the hotel, away from the main entrance towards what he assumed was the service area at the rear. At the end of a corridor, by a goods lift, was a small flight of stairs leading down to a doorway. When he opened it he was in a dark and narrow corridor with a dim yellow glow at the end. In the distance was a hum of machinery and the sound of voices, so he waited at the door before entering.
He was in a laundry storage area, with racks of hotel uniforms, enormous shelves piled high with clean linen and large baskets full of dirty laundry. As he moved further into the room he came across another corridor, this one with a series of cubicles with different items stored in them: towels, pillows, tablecloths, shirts.
The last cubicle was full of blankets and he settled down, moving a pile of them to the floor to form a mattress and taking more to cover himself. He was exhausted; he’d barely done more than doze for a few minutes here and a few minutes there on the train from Prague, and since arriving in Munich he’d not stopped darting around the city. But his mind was too occupied to sleep just yet. He might be safe for a few hours here, even overnight, but he’d have to leave in the morning and he was still without any usable identity. He checked his backpack. The strips of film were still concealed in the toothbrush holder, the false papers were hard to find in their compartment. He removed his Beretta, deciding to keep it on him. He was beginning to feel warm at last and found himself able to rest.
Tomorrow he’d get up early and take a local bus. And then another one. And more after that. All day Thursday he’d take local buses.
He’d fallen asleep dreaming of a big red bus –one from a book Henry insisted he read to him over and over again – when the bus’s journey through an English town was halted by an enormous explosion. Prince couldn’t understand why the bus driver – a genial man with snow-white hair called Fred, if he remembered correctly – didn’t stop as more explosions rocked the bus.
He woke with a start. The basement was shaking, the sound of explosions coming from above, plaster breaking from the ceiling and a crump crump sound all around, like the sound of heavy machinery moving over a rough surface.
Prince checked his watch: it was midnight and he couldn’t decide whether to stay where he was or move. From the intensity of the explosions which had woken him he suspected the hotel had been hit. He gathered his things, placing his toothbrush holder in an inside jacket pocket and slipping the Beretta into the rear waistband of his trousers. Despite the noise and the dust he seemed relatively safe where he was: he stood up and tapped the low ceiling, which seemed to be solid.
The air raid continued for another hour, the sound of sirens above him louder than the crump noises which became more distant before they faded away.
At four in the morning he decided to venture upstairs. The lights were all out as he carefully felt his way along the corridors and up the small flight of stairs into the corridor on the ground floor which he moved along towards the bar he’d been in. He paused, wondering whether it was too early to leave the hotel, but decided to carry on – at least he’d be able to plot a route out of the hotel for when he did have to leave.
The bar door was open, the interior dark and he could just make out the elderly barman by the counter, the man sitting on his own at the end of the bar and the four Swiss around the table by the window. But no one replied to his hello and, as he gingerly moved forward, it became apparent why. They were all dead: the man by the bar slumped over it, most of his head missing. The barman was dead too, his hands gripping the beer taps in front of him and the Swiss had all died at their table. It was only as his eyes slowly adjusted to the dark he realised the whole of the front of the bar had caved in. The bomb must have exploded in the street outside.
Prince knew he could be disturbed at any moment. Of the four Swiss men, two were much older than him but the other two were in their thirties. He knelt down and rummaged through their pockets. He removed the wallets and papers from the jackets of those two, stuffing them into his own jacket. He took two of their briefcases and a smart coat which had been neatly folded and didn’t look in bad condition.
He did likewise with a trilby and also removed two pairs of shoes from corpses which seemed to be a similar size to him and the two pairs of spectacles which weren’t broken.
He froze when he heard voices coming from the entrance to the bar.
‘Have you checked in here?’
‘All dead, let’s move on.’
He waited a few minutes before leaving the bar, crouching in its entrance as he checked the corridor. He then ran back to the basement, down the flight of stairs, into the corridor and then the laundry area – and straight into a large man in a dark uniform. The collision caused Prince to fall over, the two briefcases, the coat, hat and shoes spilling over the floor.
‘Who the hell are you and what’s all that?’
In the gloom Prince couldn’t work out what uniform the man was wearing. He’d raised himself to a sitting position as the man moved towards him, his huge frame looming over him. The man bent down and picked up one of the briefcases and then the coat.
‘You’re a fucking looter, aren’t you? Let me see your papers!’ He spoke with a strong Bavarian accent.
‘I was upstairs… and the bombing… so I came here – for shelter.’
‘A fucking foreigner, eh? Come on, let me see your papers.’
‘I must have lost them in the bombing, I’m sorry if—’
‘…sorry? You’ll soon be sorry, come with me. Let’s see what the police make of you, eh?’
He bent over to grab Prince by the lapels and haul him up.
‘If someone bends over you they’ll be off balance. Use gravity to pull them down – head first.’
It had been in a barn in Derbyshire, a training session on unarmed combat with a trainer who had the manner and appearance of a sickly parish priest but who’d spent a morning throwing Prince all over the place.
And now he remembered everything: not resisting when the man grabbed him but letting his weight pull him down a bit, forcing the man to bend lower. As he did so he reached up with both hands to grab the man on his upper arms – ‘not like that sir, not the forearm, higher… above the elbow, please’ – and then dropped down so he was almost flat on his back, pulling the man forward, head first to the floor. The man was hurt but still moving as Prince straddled him, placing one hand over his face, punching him with the other. But the man recovered quickly, using his weight and strength to push Prince over and clambering on top of him.
The fight could not have lasted for more than a minute. Prince took a painful punch to his ribs but did manage to s
lide from under the man. The man had moved back now and had picked something up which he was waving at Prince. It looked like a broom and it caught the side of his head, causing him to topple backwards. But as he did so he felt something painful in the small of his back.
The Beretta.
He pulled it out as the man launched himself again on top of Prince and positioned his hands round his neck. Prince felt himself blacking out and had to wriggle as violently as he could to get him to loosen his grip, all the time the hand with the gun caught under him. When he finally managed to free the Beretta he jabbed it into the man’s side, just under his ribcage. In the fleeting moment before he pulled the trigger what little light there was in the basement caught the man’s face – it was a look of understanding and of fear.
The sound of the first bullet was muffled by the man’s body and it was a second or two before he stiffened and toppled over, groaning. He somehow hauled himself to a seated position and shouted ‘help’ in a weak voice.
Prince stood up and kicked the man hard, catching him on the jaw. He looked around and grabbed a pile of dirty laundry, piling it over the man’s head. He then held the Beretta tight against it and pulled the trigger twice.
The man’s body slumped to the ground; he was clearly dead, his eyes open as if he was looking around the room in a state of mild surprise.
Prince allowed himself a minute to catch his breath and then pulled the body to the rear of the laundry area and covered it with sheets. He returned to wipe the blood from the floor.
* * *
He set himself a deadline of six o’clock; by his reckoning people would enter the laundry around then and it wouldn’t do for them to discover either him or a dead body. He was aware that might be cutting it a bit fine, but nor could he risk leaving the hotel too early. He found a storage room with a light and a lock on the door and he settled down to go through the papers he’d brought down from the bar.
Pierre Martin seemed to be his only option: a thirty-nine-year-old businessman from Geneva. With the spectacles Martin was wearing on his identity card photograph and with the trilby, Prince had a chance of passing for him.
Dressed in the smart coat and with a better pair of shoes he looked more presentable. He removed the Irish, Swiss and Czech papers, ripped them to shreds and dropped them down a drain in the corner. He transferred what little else was in his backpack to one of the briefcases.
Before leaving he had one final decision to make. He hesitated, unsure what to do, but was forced into making a decision by the sound of voices not far away.
He went back to the drain and reluctantly dropped the Beretta and its spare bullets into it.
* * *
As was so often the case, Sir Roland Pearson and Tom Gilbey came across each other in one of the many corridors that criss-crossed their world.
‘Are you trying to avoid me, Tom?’
‘Why on earth would I do that, Roly?’
Sir Roland Pearson was slightly breathless as he hurried to catch up with Tom Gilbey. ‘Because I saw you glance round and quicken your pace. This isn’t a cross-country race, you know.’
‘Perhaps you’re just too slow, Roly.’
‘I heard a whisper, Tom, and I’d go so far as to wager a bottle of Château Pétrus, no less, that you did too.’
‘You’ll need to be more specific, I’m afraid, Roly – in my job I hear whispers all day long and I dare say you do too. In any case, I’m late for an Operation Overlord meeting. You don’t need to hold me like that Roly – I’m not under arrest, am I?’
‘It’s not funny, Tom. I just need to talk. You must have heard what the SOE are now saying, that the Prague operation has been totally broken. The Germans have got everyone!’
‘I heard there’ve been more arrests, Roly, but as far as Prague is concerned it was pretty much broken anyway. It wasn’t much of an operation, just a few brave souls doing their best to stay alive.’
‘And our man – you said he was in Prague? You said there was one man in Prague who may know where he is.’
Tom Gilbey said nothing for a while, starting to speak and then pausing as two men walked passed them, one of them saying ‘Roly’ as he did so.
‘That was Wilcocks, same year as me. Christ knows how he’s ended up in the Treasury. As far as I recall he couldn’t count properly.’
‘Maybe that’s a qualification for the Treasury.’
‘You were about to tell me about the chap in Prague who knows where our man and his photographs are?’
‘I’m afraid it’s not good news at all, Roly.’
Chapter 27
Munich and Switzerland
February 1944
Sigrid Schneider arrived for work at the Swiss consulate on Ottostrasse at precisely eight o’clock that Thursday morning. In common with everyone else in Munich the air raid had deprived her of a night’s sleep and she was hoping for a quiet morning in her warm office. It was normally a pleasant ten-minute walk to work but this morning her journey had taken twice as long as she negotiated her way through an obstacle course of rubble-strewn streets and piles of twisted metal. She was debating whether to treat herself to some of the real coffee she kept in her safe when the head of mission stepped forward and greeted Fräulein Schneider formally.
‘Perhaps you could join us in my office?’
Henri Gerber was an ambitious young diplomat from Zurich, quick to assure anyone who’d listen how his next posting – a long-overdue one in his opinion – would be as an ambassador. Also in his office was Lieutenant Colonel Crameri, an elderly Swiss Italian who was the Swiss Military Intelligence officer at the consulate. They sat on one side of a table, Sigrid Schneider facing them.
‘Lieutenant Colonel Crameri has some questions for you. I’d appreciate frank and honest answers.’
‘Can you describe your relationship with Inge Brunner?’
Sigrid Schneider hesitated, contriving to look utterly confused. ‘Relationship? I don’t have a relationship with Inge Brunner.’
‘But you know her?’
‘I know her of course – but as a colleague with whom one has cordial relations. We worked together in the Foreign Ministry in Bern many years ago and briefly in Vienna before the war, but to describe it as a relationship… no. Obviously because she’s in Prague and I’m in Munich we’re in contact professionally and naturally one asks how the other is, but little more than that. We’re friendly rather than friends, if you understand. Can I ask if there’s a problem?’
‘I told you yesterday that Fräulein Brunner was arrested by the Gestapo on Tuesday night, didn’t I?’ The head of mission looked tense.
‘You did indeed, sir.’
‘Our colleagues in Prague have now been told by the Gestapo they believe Fräulein Brunner worked with the Czech resistance to help people escape from Prague. Our colleagues are understandably concerned and have been checking all her recent communications and correspondence. They discovered on Tuesday she issued temporary papers to enable a Charles Rochat from Le Châtelard in Montreux to travel from the Protectorate to the Reich. Apparently he’d lost his passport.’
‘There is no record of a Charles Rochat from Montreux having ever had a Swiss passport,’ said the lieutenant colonel. ‘Our colleagues in Prague also discovered that on Tuesday afternoon Fräulein Brunner cabled you to say a man of that name would present himself at the consulate the following day – which would have been yesterday – and requested you organise papers to allow him to travel to Switzerland. Do you recall that, Fräulein Schneider?’
‘I think I do… yes, now you mention it I do recall a cable from Inge to that effect. But no Charles Rochat ever turned up here.’
‘Are you certain?’
‘Of course I’m certain, sir. Please have a look at all my paperwork and you’ll see there’s nothing at all relating to a Monsieur Rochat. I certainly didn’t issue any papers for him.’
‘We have done already.’
‘Well then—’
/> ‘…but we’re not satisfied Fräulein Schneider. The guard on duty yesterday morning told us a man did come to see you around ten o’clock and left soon after. Does that ring a bell?’
‘No, sir.’ She realised her reply had been too quick and she felt herself getting hot.
‘Really, Fräulein Schneider?’ The head of mission had stood up now and removed his jacket, taking a few moments to brush the shoulders and place it on a hanger. ‘I would like you to think most carefully because this is a matter of great concern to Switzerland. I don’t need to tell you how seriously we take our neutrality, and if it transpires that Fräulein Brunner was indeed trying to help someone escape from the Protectorate and had drawn you into it you need to tell us. Of course, Fräulein Schneider, we would be quite prepared to accept that you were inadvertently involved, that you were only trying to help a colleague and suspected nothing improper.’
For a while the only sounds were of the two men coughing, typewriters competing in adjoining offices and of children playing in the distance. Sigrid Schneider began to realise someone like Lieutenant Colonel Crameri was too thorough and too experienced to have revealed everything he knew at once. He was sure to be keeping something up his sleeve.
‘I hope you’ll appreciate, sir, that with all the pressure we’ve been under and the air raids… one’s memory is affected. Now I think about it perhaps I do recall this visitor I had yesterday morning…’
* * *
Richard Prince left the Bayerischer Hof hotel on Promenadeplatz just after seven o’clock that Thursday morning, an hour before Sigrid Schneider turned up for work at the Swiss consulate.
He’d been unsure when to leave the hotel. He knew it would be only a matter of time before people came into the laundry area and discovered the body. But at the same time he knew he couldn’t risk being on the streets too early.