by Mick Hare
“the monastery has been invaded - the monks endangered – not all aware of threat – need to be informed - need sanctuary – chapter completion unlikely.”
“Cup of tea, Mr Trubshaw?” Mrs Kitson asked as Andrew’s head fell into his hands. The sound of her voice seemed to bring him back to reality. He looked up at her as if just becoming aware of her presence.
“Tea?” he reiterated. “Yes, Mrs Kitson, tea! And after that a return ticket to Leicester on the next train.”
Entering the house on Dronfield Street in Leicester at midnight, Trubshaw realised that if his hopes came to fruition here, he would have to book the boat train to Ireland tomorrow and begin a thorough investigation of Sean. Every mission carried with it the danger of entrapment; possibly a double agent at work to expose the people involved. He had to check out the two under his control. If they were in the clear it would be someone in the dissident network. His heart would not let him believe that Sean was the double agent. He had worked so brilliantly on previous missions. But Trubshaw knew his heart could not be allowed to affect his thinking. He must investigate every angle.
On the journey northwards he had re-read the notes he had made when he first investigated Lily.
The Dronfield Street terraced house felt and smelled like a house that had not been occupied for many weeks. Cold, musty and empty of spirit. He spent several minutes lighting gas fires in the two downstairs rooms having made sure the blackout curtains were drawn tight. He then set about a systematic search of the property. His problem was that he had already conducted a search of this property and it was hard for him not to skim over areas he remembered scrutinising before. As he searched he knew that something was tugging at his thoughts. Something was jarring. But it was too faint for him to determine it accurately.
Having found nothing incriminating downstairs he moved his search to the upper floor two hours after entering the property.
As the stairs creaked beneath his tread he smiled with relief to think that he was not a cat burglar with the occupants upstairs in bed. The creaking stairs would surely wake them.
Beginning in Lily’s bedroom he worked around the room geographically. He started at the door and worked around the walls back to the door examining the interior of every item of furniture meticulously. He then moved each piece of furniture and examined the floor beneath. He was annoyed with himself when he shifted the chest of drawers and allowed Lily’s photograph album to fall to the floor with a noisy clump. He lifted it and threw it onto the bed. Having lifted sufficient floorboards to permit a good view of the area below he was beginning to feel better. He wanted Lily to be genuine. He did not want to find any incriminating evidence. He hoped, if there had to be a traitor that it was from within the German network.
Moving systematically from the outer to the inner areas of the room, Trubshaw was content that this room held nothing incriminating. Before moving onto the second bedroom he took the photograph album and replaced it on the chest of drawers.
It was as he was pulling the bedroom door to behind him that the thought entered his head. It was a memory of a thought in actuality and the thought he had had originally had said, “such luxuriously thick pages”. As the thought echoed in his head his heart sank. His mind raced. He snatched up the album and opened it. For a moment he fingered the soft, richly textured pages; one, then another, then another.
“Damn!” he bellowed.
His fingers tore frantically at the edge of a page. As he tore along it he saw that it was a double page. In here, as in an envelope, there was a space; a secret cavity. He peeled the two leaves apart and exposed the hidden interior.
He did not need to recognise the characters he was looking at to know what they were. Radio codes! He opened other pages. Geographical information about the British Isles. Another cavity showed an escape plan. In total the album contained all the information an agent would need once he or she became active in Britain. The information would be useful now in rounding up other agents. There were no names or contact addresses but some careful detective work would reveal Lily’s web of treachery.
“Thick, luxurious pages!” The words taunted him as they ran across his brain again. How could he have missed it? In a sense he hadn’t missed the clue. His brain had registered it but his consciousness had failed to scan it in his internal inventory.
And just as he thought that his brain jarred and something else his brain had already registered suddenly jumped into place in his internal inventory.
“Creaking stairs!”
He virtually ran to the stairs and set about ripping out the stair rods. He let them clatter down as he tossed each one aside and then he pulled away the linoleum. He recognised it as substantially expensive linoleum now. Incongruous in the context of this terraced house. The beam of his torch illuminated the wooden stairs and immediately he saw what he was looking for. A tiny catch clicked as he flicked it and he pulled towards him a stair-shaped door hinged atop the second step. Inside the exposed recess sat a transmitter in excellent condition. He knew all he needed to know now.
Returning to the downstairs sitting room he threw himself into a chair beside the gas fire, which by now had removed the uncomfortable chill that pervaded the rest of the house. He stared at the popping flames and mentally berated himself. He had made the easiest mistake of all to make. He had liked the idea of Lily and Sean as a team so much that he had lacked total thoroughness. Now Sean and the members of the network in Germany were all endangered.
Lily had obviously begun to work her treachery; hence the message from the apothocary. But they clearly had not identified her yet. He had to get the information to them immediately. Why? She had been so convincing. Her anti-Nazi credentials had seemed impeccable. As a sleeper she had pulled the wool over his eyes.
In the coming days, as he re-read his notes it would start to make sense to him. He had initially read the loss of her mother and brother as one of those unfortunate tragedies that occur in wartime. But a little military research revealed to him that despite popular recollection, parts of Germany had been invaded during the Great War. We all remember Belgium and France being overrun by Germany but few remembered that Alsace and parts of southern Bavaria, not to mention large tracts of eastern Prussia had been overrun by the allies. He had written:
My original notes suggest Renate and Friedrich killed in accident whilst travelling into Freiburg in Alsace to visit Renate’s dying mother. Military records confirm that Freiburg was under allied siege for most of the war and suffered many artillery bombardments.
Could this be it? Did a British shell kill her mother and brother? Resentment forged in early childhood against the British. The loss of a much-loved mother and brother. A desire for revenge. It could easily be the case. But what matter? He had failed. Now brave combatants were endangered and a vital mission was in jeopardy.
The resignation that he submitted was returned to him three times. But on his fourth attempt his request to be enlisted was granted. He completed basic training and was shipped out to join a Special Services Unit. His last administrative act before leaving his office for the last time was to write an instruction to the office in charge of homeland security. His communication ordered the release of former Detective Inspector Peter Herbert. Trubshaw was in Italy with his unit when news reached him that Former D.I. Peter Herbert had died of pneumonia in his prison hut on the Isle of Man.
Thirty-two
If Helga’s dread of capture had been crippling, Adolf’s prospects were considerably bleaker. As a member of the police force he was not truly Gestapo, but he took most of his orders from them. His was the worst possible kind of treachery. If caught his treatment would be extra special.
But Adolf had always expected this moment to arrive and he was fully prepared for it. He sighed with relief as he thanked God that his parents were dead. He had been an only child so there were no other family members to consider except his wife and their only son. He now congratulated himself for the
hours he put in each week in his garden shed. Despite his wife’s complaints, he had never neglected to spend some time every week working on his motor-bike. He had serviced it, fitted new parts, cleaned it and run the engine to keep it in trim. He had also collected, carefully and painstakingly, a full tank of fuel and several spare drums.
As he hurried home he knew he had one more task to perform for the group before vanishing from sight. At the corner of the avenue where he lived he knocked upon a house door and waited impatiently for it to be opened. A small boy of about ten years stood in the doorway.
“Hello, Adolf. My father’s out.”
“That’s all right, Johann. It’s you I wanted anyway.”
“Me. What can I do?” asked Johann with surprise.
“Well I’ve got to get into work and I don’t have time to deliver this prescription to the apothecary. If you will take it round there for me I will give you this.”
Adolf unrolled a 100 deutschmark bill. It was not a massive amount but it was more pocket money than a boy of Johann’s age and circumstances would see in a long time.
“Wow!” gasped Johann. And he shot into the house, reappearing in an instant in his coat and hat.
“Give it to me,” he said. “I’ll take it right now.”
Adolf gave the boy the slip of paper with the carefully encrypted note and also the money.
“Thank you, Adolf,” he called as he ran off down the street.
Adolf was unable to raise a smile as Johann ran away. Instead he turned and hurried to his own house. This was not going to be easy. His wife was a home bird. She would not like having to drop everything and leave. She would curse him for his treachery and the danger it had placed them in. But he had made up his mind that he would be firm and accept no argument. He was taking the boy with him and he knew she would follow.
In the end he had had to drag her out into the rear lane and force her astride the motor-cycle. She cried enormous tears at the thought of all she was leaving behind that had taken years to save for. But she straddled the pillion seat and hugged her son when Adolf placed him in front of her. He then got onto the driver’s seat, kicked the engine into life and roared away from the house, away from the avenue, away from Munich.
From the moment he had decided to become a dissident, Adolf had prepared for this. In his minimalist luggage he carried several sets of identity papers that he had rifled away from criminals he had arrested. He had his life savings. He had a destination in mind and a planned route to get there. He was happy that the chaos of war would probably assist him in his plan of escape. He pointed his front wheel in the direction of his first staging post; the Sudetenland village where his father’s family had originated.
Thirty-three
“Lily, is that you?”
Helga peered into the gloom of the cell at the silhouetted figure she was beginning to discern.
“How did you get here? Where’s Sister Fa…?”
Before she could finish her question a large, gloved hand came over her shoulder and clasped itself over her mouth. She felt the immense strength of the arm around her neck and the other now encircling her waist.
In answer to her first question, the figure in front stepped forward. The facial features resolved themselves into those of Lily. Lily approached until their eyes were fixed together, their noses almost touching. A contemptuous smile flickered at her lips. She opened her mouth to speak to Helga but then seemed to think better of it.
A voice spoke softly and clearly in Helga’s ear.
“Now my pretty! We have many exotic delights waiting for you back at headquarters. And you have many stories and names to tell us.”
With a sudden movement Lily raised her right hand and struck out at Helga. Helga’s scream was muffled by the leather glove smothering her mouth. Blood spurted from her neck as Lily withdrew her hand. Netzer pulled his hand away sharply and jumped back, tossing Helga aside.
“What the…?” yelled Netzer.
“Shhh!” urged Lily, placing a hand to his mouth. Her other hand still held a shiny blade now dripping red with Helga’s blood.
“What did you do that for?” hissed Netzer. “She could have told us all we need to know. She could have led us up the network to the leaders of this conspiracy.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, darling. She is far too lowly in this conspiracy. Besides, I thought she had a gun. When she moved her hand I acted instinctively. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you.”
Netzer lifted his eyes away from the bloodstain on his sleeve and looked into Lily’s eyes. “Come here,” he said. And he took her in his arms and kissed her mouth. As the kiss went on Lily’s arms rose, circled his neck and they embraced as lovers.
Helga lay on the floor of the cell uselessly attempting to stem the gush of blood that poured from the wound Lily had inflicted upon her. Her eyes widened and dilated but not in fear. All fear was gone. As she slipped from consciousness she could not take her eyes away from Lily’s face. Lily, who was unnerved by the stare, went across to Helga and turned her over with the sole of her foot. The woman’s body slumped and gasped a final breath and then lay still.
Lily whispered, “We must get on before someone comes.”
“You are right.”
“What will you do with the body?” Lily asked.
The captain laughed, “The British will take care of that. Tonight she will be thrown into a burning building. Just another victim of bomber command.”
“Good. Now get your men to remove this garbage from here. If Adolf Stern has been apprehended we have no reason to worry. We can carry on. The dissidents will be unaware that they are known to us. They can go about their mission and hopefully expose to us their networks, their chain of command. These people are nothing to us but they can lead us to the heart of the resistance in the upper echelons of the Wehrmacht.”
“Never mind that,” the captain whispered as he attempted to sweep Lily into his arms once more. How about another kiss? And when can we get together for some real lovemaking?”
Lily turned away as she pushed him from her.
“Stop it,” she hissed. “There will be plenty of time for that all in due course. For now we have work to do.”
The captain took hold of her elbow and jerked her round to face him.
“You’re not going cold on me are you?” he asked.
Lily softened and put her lips to his.
“Don’t be silly. I am yours always. But we have to get rid of this mess before it is discovered.”
“All right,” grunted the captain. He put his head out of the door and called out. Two men dressed in working clothes came in and he pointed at Helga’s body.
“That thing,” he said. “Get rid of it. Air raid casualty.”
“Yes, Herr captain.”
They bent down together and folded the limp corpse into a sack which they had brought with them and carried her out between them.
Thirty-four
The men in the guardroom stood to attention as Captain Netzer burst in. He glanced at the glove on his right hand with distaste as he realised there was a saliva stain there at the junction between thumb and index finger. Helga’s mouth had been crushed there. He threw a desultory salute and the men returned with a sharp “Heil Hitler!”
He passed through to his office beyond. After a few minutes he called, “Schirach!” Corporal Schirach, a man of superb physique, jumped to his feet and walked into the office.
“Yes mein Obersturmfuhrer?”
“Where are they?”
Correctly inferring to whom the captain referred Schirach replied, “In room 12 Obersturmfuhrer.”
The captain got up from his desk and walked towards the door.
“Come with me,” he said.
Hauptsturmfuhrer Schirac followed Netzer through the guardroom, along a corridor and down three flights of stairs deep into the bowels of Gestapo headquarters. He stopped outside room 12 and allowed Schirach to open the door for him.