by Rob Kitchin
‘Not if you think you’re the golden goose in waiting. Are we done yet? I need to be getting on.’
‘I believe you also argued about your father’s will,’ McEvoy persisted.
‘Who told you that?’
‘It doesn’t matter. But if you were arguing about his will then it sounds like you weren’t happy with it.’
‘What is it you’re trying to say?’
‘Perhaps you decided to try and find his will to check it? You aren’t, after all, Dr Koch’s natural daughter.’
‘You… what?’ Marion D’Arcy replied, temporarily flummoxed. ‘How dare you… You’ve no right to pry into my affairs!’
‘I’m investigating the murder of your father and exploring his affairs. As his daughter you’re part of that. He adopted you when he married your mother?’
‘So what!’ Marion snapped, her forehead creasing in anger. ‘I… I don’t believe you’re… Albert Koch was as much my father as he was Charles’! He never said or acted otherwise. We were always treated the same. Do you hear, the same!’ She stood up and started towards the door.
‘Mrs D’Arcy?’ McEvoy said, standing, realising that he’d pushed her too hard. ‘I’m sorry. I know this is very difficult, but it’s my job to ask these questions.’
She stopped and turned back to face him. ‘It’s your job to find my father’s killer – if there was a killer – not to make wild accusations. You’re implying that because I was adopted I had a motive to murder my father! That I was searching the house for his will. Why would I be searching the house in the middle of the night when I could look for it anytime? Besides, his will is held by his solicitor,’ she said angrily. ‘I’ve never been… You seem to forget that I’m a lawyer,’ she said, regaining some composure.
‘I might not have studied or practised criminal law for years, but I have many friends who do,’ she continued. ‘If there is one thing you can be sure of, Superintendent, it’s that I’ll be getting the very best legal advice. And I won’t be speaking to you again unless my lawyer is present.’ She paused, challenging McEvoy to say something. ‘And speaking of legal matters and the will, when are we going to find out what my father’s will says? His stupid, old fool of a solicitor says he wants to wait until the killer is caught before he’ll make it public, but we need to start making plans.’
‘Plans for what?’
Marion D’Arcy’s desire to know the contents of her father’s will troubled McEvoy. It would detail the redistribution of billions of euros of assets. People had been killed for much, much less. And when that kind of money was on offer, others could be drawn into the conspiracy or contract thieves or killers hired. Koch’s daughter might not have killed her father directly, but she could still have been the main agent of his death.
‘Plans for the future of Ostara. Our own plans. Just plans!’ she snapped.
‘What’s the rush?’ McEvoy asked as neutrally as he could. ‘A few weeks isn’t going to make a big difference, is it?’
‘Because we need to know,’ Marion stated firmly. ‘If it’s not released in the next day or so I’ll be seeking legal action.’
McEvoy decided not to pursue the issue. He’d already pressured Marion D’Arcy more than he should have. And now, no doubt, he was going to have to deal with lawyers much more accomplished than those he usually dealt with. Needling her hadn’t been a clever move. No surprise there. His handling of the investigation so far had been haphazard and poorly executed. He was too tired and stressed and it made him antagonistic and impetuous. His mobile phone rang.
He pulled it from a pocket and checked the screen. ‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered, ‘I should take this. I won’t be a second. McEvoy.’
Marion D’Arcy rolled her eyes and stormed from the room, pulling the door closed behind her.
‘We’ve found the East European couple who’d been asking questions about Koch,’ Joyce said. ‘They’re staying in Navan. They claim they didn’t come forward because they were worried we’d think they’d killed him.’
‘Why would we think that?’
‘Revenge. The woman says Koch killed her grandfather.’ Joyce paused. ‘In Monowitz; a satellite camp of Auschwitz.’
‘Auschwitz?’ McEvoy repeated. ‘Oh, Jesus. I’m on my way. Don’t let them go anywhere.’ He headed for the door, massaging his tired scalp.
James Kinneally was waiting for McEvoy in the hall. ‘What the hell did you say to Mari… Mrs D’Arcy?’ he snapped. ‘She’s furious.’
‘She didn’t like being questioned,’ McEvoy said unsympathetically. ‘Unfortunately I have to question everyone, including the deceased’s daughter. I’ll be back to interview you further as well.’ He opened the front door and stepped out into the chill morning air. He stopped and turned. ‘And if you see Charles Koch, tell him I’ll need to talk to him again.’
* * *
‘How did you find them?’ McEvoy asked.
‘Persistence and luck.’ Joyce paused. ‘And a tip off.’ He smiled coyly.
They were in Navan, a bustling market town 30 miles to the northwest of Dublin, standing on the steps of a well-maintained bed and breakfast, the genteel ambience somewhat dissipated by the heavy traffic on the road just beyond the gate.
‘And what do you make of them?’
‘They’re driven and they tell a hell of a story. They have a strong motive, but also an alibi. They were here on Saturday night.’
‘And the owners can verify that?’
‘Well, they were definitely here for some of it, but there’s nothing to say that they didn’t sneak out to take a look round Koch’s place, things went wrong, they killed him, and they crept back here to lay low.’
‘Nothing either to say that they did,’ McEvoy observed.
‘True,’ Joyce conceded. ‘I think they’re more motivated by justice than revenge.’
‘Right, okay, let’s go and talk to them then. Their English is good?’
‘Pretty much perfect; there’s no need for any translators.’
‘Good.’ McEvoy followed Joyce into the house. He glimpsed a nervous looking face at the end of the hall, probably the owner, and turned right into the front room.
The waiting couple rose from a floral patterned sofa, both wearing worried frowns. The woman had an oval face framed by long brown hair that was starting to turn prematurely grey, and sad brown eyes. She was wearing dark blue jeans and a sky blue jumper with a patterned, blue silk scarf wrapped around her neck and tucked into the neckline. It was difficult to judge her age, but McEvoy guessed she was probably in her late thirties or early forties. She was clutching a large, plain brown envelope. The man appeared slightly younger, with short brown hair with a side parting, and clear blue eyes behind small, round glasses. He wore a brown corduroy jacket over a pale blue shirt and faded blue jeans.
‘I’m Detective Superintendent Colm McEvoy.’ He held out his hand. ‘I’m in charge of the investigation into Albert Koch’s death.’ He shook their hands in turn.
‘Adolf Kucken,’ the woman said firmly with the trace of an eastern European accent.
‘I’m sorry?’ McEvoy asked puzzled, indicating that they should sit down again.
The couple dropped back down onto the sofa, but both perched on the edge of the cushions. McEvoy sat on the arm of an armchair and Joyce continued to stand by the door.
‘Adolf Kucken,’ she repeated. ‘That was Albert Koch’s real name before he changed it. He was a Nazi war criminal.’ She removed a photograph from the envelope and handed it to McEvoy.
The photograph showed a head shot of a young man who clearly resembled Albert Koch. The man was wearing the black uniform of the SS, his officer’s cap, with its distinctive skull badge below an eagle and swastika, tugged rakishly to one side. His eyes were dark, staring fiercely into the lens.
‘Kucken was a member of the SS and a chemist at the Buna factory at Auschwitz,’ the woman continued, ‘and he almost certainly took part in the infamous Jewish Skeleton Project.’
> ‘The Jewish Skeleton Project?’ McEvoy repeated slowly, aware that the case was taking on a whole new aspect.
‘One of Heinrich Himmler’s pet projects. The aim was to create a collection of Jewish skeletons for supposedly “scientific” purposes; that of identifying Jews through their pathology, such as their skulls’ shape and size. The project was part of the Institute of Military Scientific Research, a branch of the Abnenebre. That was a research organisation founded by Himmler to prove the superiority of the so-called Aryan race,’ she explained in what seemed to be a well-rehearsed speech.
‘The process was simple – you take many measurements of a person’s head and body while they are alive, then you kill them, take away the flesh and measure their bones.’ She pursed her lips and shook her head sadly. ‘Of course, to make sure it is properly scientific you need Jews from different places and you need a lot of them to have a sufficient sample. A good place for that was somewhere like Auschwitz, where millions of people from all over Europe were sent to be murdered.
‘The only problem with Auschwitz was that Silesia was a long way from the laboratory of August Hirt, the scientist responsible for the experiments, and the journey would be un-refrigerated so the bodies would decay. The solution was to ship the intended victims to the Natzweiler concentration camp in the Vosges Mountains near to the Anatomical Institute at the Strassburg Reich University then kill them there. Bruno Beger, an SS researcher, visited Auschwitz in 1943 to select suitable victims, to take initial measurements, and send them on to Natzweiler.
‘Natzweiler had a specialist medical laboratory for the lunatic, Hirt, where he performed very cruel experiments with mustard gas and he tested methods of sterilisation such as injecting testicles with various poisons. In order to kill the new prisoners they built a gas chamber. However, getting cleaned skeletons was not so easy. Once dead the problem is to remove all the flesh. The traditional process was to first put the bodies in lime chloride to dissolve the soft tissues. Then they put them in gasoline to get rid of the fat. The whole process takes weeks. As a skilled chemist and enthusiastic member of the SS, Kucken was consulted about how to more efficiently strip the flesh from the bones of those Jews murdered at Natzweiler. We think Kucken was temporarily moved from Auschwitz to Strassburg to help Hirt carry out the task.’
‘You think?’ McEvoy said, his mind trying to process the horrific story.
‘We’re almost certain,’ the man said, his voice weak and reedy. ‘We have many boxes of evidence – documents and witness statements. We know that Kucken was on leave from Monowitz and in Strassburg at the right time. The prisoners were shipped there in early August 1943. Eighty-six of them were killed from the eleventh onwards and the corpses shipped to the Anatomical Institute within a few hours of death. Kucken was there from the ninth to the nineteenth; at the Institute. He had no other reason to be there. His family were in Freiberg.’
‘And Monowitz was?’
‘The forced labour camp built to house the slave workers used in constructing the buna factory; it produced artificial rubber for the German war machine,’ the woman answered, handing McEvoy four more photos. One was of a large factory with four tall chimneys, two wide stacks, and a plethora of buildings and exposed pipework. The second was row after row of barracks surrounded by barbed wire and watch towers. The final two photos were of emaciated men in striped rags staring forlornly at the camera.
‘Auschwitz was a complex of many camps and works. Many of the workers at the factory were foreign, “volunteer” labourers or ethnic Germans, but twenty to thirty per cent were concentration camp prisoners who were systematically worked to death. Somewhere in the region of thirty-five thousand unfortunates passed through Monowitz between 1943 and 1944. The number of confirmed deaths was twenty-three thousand. People were forced to work eleven or twelve hour days carrying heavy loads in all weathers with pitiful clothing and the minimum of food. And these were the people fit enough that they weren’t sent straight to the gas chambers as they climbed off the trains.’
‘Jesus,’ McEvoy muttered.
‘Have you heard of Primo Levi?’ the man asked.
McEvoy shook his head no.
‘He was an Italian chemist who survived Monowitz. Everyone should read his books.’
McEvoy nodded his head, unsure what to say. If true, then Ireland had not only been sheltering a war criminal for nearly sixty years, it had enabled him to live a very successful life.
‘Kucken was the star chemistry student of his generation at Heidelberg University,’ the woman continued. ‘Heidelberg had produced a number of Nobel Prize winners, including Carl Bosch, one of the founders of IG Farben, and it was felt that Kucken had the potential to follow in their footsteps. In 1941 at the age of twenty-three he was already near to completing his doctorate and he’d secured a post with IG, then the largest chemical conglomerate in Germany. An early member of the Hitler Youth he was recruited by the SS and encouraged to continue his career. When IG started to build the buna plant near to Auschwitz, given his interests and his SS involvement, Kucken was an obvious candidate to go there and help run it.
‘He was a brutal man who we know from personal testaments killed at least five people in cold blood; probably several more. We have a picture of him standing next to a gallows from which several people are hanging. He certainly attacked and maimed many people. And we have strong evidence that he knew about and took part in the Jewish Skeleton Project. Through his SS contacts we know he also came into contact with the infamous Josef Mengele – the Angel of Death – and that he also met Bruno Beger when he visited Auschwitz.’
‘And what evidence do you have that Albert Koch was Adolf Kucken?’ McEvoy asked trying to equate their story with the ashen corpse he’d inspected a couple of days ago. It was hard to see the frail, old man as a mass murderer, despite the fact that he knew murderers had no typical recognisable traits.
‘You’ve seen the photograph, Superintendent. Even after sixty years he looked the same. Besides, his brother also changed his name. Franz Kucken became Frank Koch. If you check the internment records for the Curragh camp during the war there is no record for Frank Koch. But there is for Franz Kucken – Adolf Kucken’s brother. Adolf Kucken laid low after the war, then somehow found a way to Ireland. Once here he persuaded his brother to slightly modify his name and started a new life, keeping his past hidden.’
McEvoy realised that he’d let the couple say their piece without actually finding out anything about them. ‘And you’re here to expose his past?’ he asked.
‘We’re here for justice,’ the woman said firmly. ‘One of the people he killed in cold blood was my grandfather on my mother’s side. He shot him in the head in January 1944 for not working fast enough. We’ve been trying to persuade Kucken to confess to his crimes.’
‘And you are?’ McEvoy asked, taking the opportunity to wrestle back the initiative.
‘I am Ewa Chojnacki from Krakow in Poland. This is Tomas Prochazka, he is from Slovakia. We both belong to an organisation called Yellow Star. We try to track down the last of the war criminals before they die to capture their confessions and to make sure the world does not forget the evil they committed. Adolf Kucken lived a very good life. He became very rich and very powerful. He destroyed thousands of lives and yet he did not suffer for his crimes. Instead it appears that he was rewarded.’
‘And would taking his life be a suitable revenge?’
‘If you are asking whether we killed Adolf Kucken, then the answer is no. We wanted Kucken to confess; to admit to his crimes and face prosecution. A quick death was too good for him.’
‘And what did Dr Koch say to your accusations?’
‘He refused to talk to us. We tried to persuade him; we threatened to take a case against him unless he confessed.’
‘And what did he say to that?’
‘He told us his lawyers would wrap us in legal tape to silence us. We tried talking to his brother, but he just got angry and would
n’t answer our questions. We also tried to talk to his housekeeper, Roza, but she didn’t want to know. She lost several family members during the war, including a grand-uncle that died on a death march from Auschwitz towards Germany as the Russians approached the complex. This is our third trip here to try and persuade him.’
‘Does Roza know about her great-uncle?’ McEvoy asked.
‘Possibly. We don’t know. We haven’t told her yet.’
‘And what were you doing late on Saturday night?’
‘We were here in the guest house.’
‘And can anyone confirm this?’
‘Only each other, and perhaps the landlady. We did not kill him. We wanted him alive so that he could suffer the humiliation of being exposed for who he really was.’
McEvoy nodded his head. If what the couple were saying was true then Koch’s reputation would soon be in tatters.
‘If you didn’t kill him then why didn’t you come forward straight away?’
‘We wanted to see if the real killer was caught quickly. Given our interest in Adolf Kucken we are seen as suspects, yes?’
‘I’m afraid so. Koch’s, or if you are right Kucken’s, house had been searched when he was killed. You were after information about him. Did you break into his house?’
‘No. We have all the evidence we need from the German, Polish and Irish archives. We were after a confession, nothing more.’
‘But you did visit his farm on Saturday?’
‘We went to the house in the morning, but he would not talk to us. His son and grandson were there. We left and did not go back.’
‘You needed evidence that Koch was Kucken.’
‘We knew he was Kucken. You’ve seen the photo. His history fits.’ She shrugged as if to say, ‘what more do I need to say to prove it?’
‘We’re going to need to verify your story. You said you have boxes of evidence?’
‘We only have a little of it here. Most of it is at our headquarters in Israel.’
‘Israel?’
‘It is the safest place for it. Many people would like our files to disappear, Superintendent. Much of the original sources are still in their proper archives, but our files are carefully catalogued and cross-referenced to reveal patterns of association and guilt. Adolf Kucken was a billionaire. He could have tried to use his wealth to destroy our evidence, so we protected it well.’