‘Larry …’ I said, the confusion obvious in my tone. ‘Why would you have a photograph of a Nazi pinned up in your kitchen?’
‘Oh … old Werner there?’ Franks laughed. ‘Werner’s my hero.’
I examined the picture again: a black and white head-and-shoulders image of a steel-helmed German infantryman. His eyes were bright and he had movie-star looks.
‘I’ll tell you something, Lennox,’ said Franks, ‘and I’m not crying for sympathy or any shit like that – but I saw some things, I’ll tell you. In the camps. Before the camps, and after. You either spend the rest of your life hating everyone because you know what they’re capable of, or you try to make sense of it and see some good in people.’ He took another sip of whisky and screwed up his eyes, lifting a finger from the glass to point it at me. ‘But if there’s one thing I learned, it’s this: no one is who he seems. Ever.’
He tapped the picture on the cork board with his free hand. ‘Take Werner here … good old blue-eyed, square-jawed, blond-haired, handsome-as-fuck Werner. This picture was taken for a Berlin newspaper and was titled “The Ideal German Soldier”. Goebbels or one of his monkeys cottoned on to it and Werner was plastered all over recruiting posters for the German army. This …’ he tapped the picture again, ‘was what all good Nazi Aryan soldiers should look like.’
‘I don’t —’
Franks cut me off by wagging the finger extended from his glass. ‘The thing is, Werner was kicked out of the army in Nineteen-Forty. You know why? Because this particular Ideal German Soldier’s surname was Goldberg.’
‘Jewish?’ I looked at the photograph again.
‘Half. A Mischling, as the Nazis called them. So you see, no one is ever who they seem in this life. Good or bad. But I think you’re someone who already knows that. Jonny says you’ve been through a wringer or two yourself.’
I smiled, contemplating my Scotch. ‘I guess I have at that. The First Canadian had a shitty war – from Sicily all the way to Hamburg. And I’ve got mixed up in a lot of things since. Things I shouldn’t have gotten mixed up in. I’ve seen a lot of crap all right. I even once had to spend a weekend in Aberdeen.’
‘Shit …’ Franks affected mock shock and sympathy. ‘Aberdeen?’ He laughed. Franks was all right. We had another couple of snifters and I began to feel the world’s rotation on its axis so we called it a night and I crashed out in his spare room. I felt relaxed and tired and grateful.
But I tucked the automatic under my pillow, all the same.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
‘Lennox. LENNOX …’ It was hissed into my ear. I woke to see Franks leaning over the bed, his hair mussed up and dressed in just his trousers, braces hastily pulled up over naked shoulders. I reached for the lamp but Franks grabbed my wrist. ‘No lights!’
‘What the hell is wrong?’ I said, easing up on my elbows, trying to push back the waves of sleep that tried to regain me. My mouth was thick with sleep and whisky.
‘We’ve got company …’ He stood back to give me room to get up. I reached under my pillow and pulled out the gun.
‘Jesus …’ said Franks. ‘What the hell have you got that for?’
‘It’s my comforter, I can’t sleep without it. What’s going on? What company?’
‘Outside.’
He led me to the window and eased the curtain back only just enough for me to see out without being seen. A car, a big one, parked outside in front of the main entrance to the block of flats and right behind the Cresta. I saw a dull red-orange glow as someone took a pull on a cigarette; too dull and too far away for me to see a face.
‘And he has a pal …’ Franks led me through the apartment to his bedroom, which looked out onto the street behind the building and towards the apartment blocks beyond. Again he eased the curtain back gingerly and I caught sight of a tall figure across the street, trying to stay in the shadows by standing midway between the street lamps.
‘They haven’t put him out there to stand all night,’ I said. ‘There’s going to be at least two others and my guess is that they’ll be on their way up to pay us a visit any time soon. How long have they been there, do you think?’
‘Out front? No more than ten minutes. But my guess is that they followed us here and have been watching from a distance and waiting for the time to be right. Unfortunately for them, I learnt long ago to sleep with one eye open, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I heard the car pull up outside, really quiet like.’
I nodded, watching the man in the shadows. He was wearing a camel coat and a narrow-brimmed hat. What light there was on him from the lamps on either side was shaded by the hat’s brim, keeping his face in shadow. And he was a fair distance away.
‘What do we do?’ asked Franks, no signs of fear or panic in his voice or expression. I guessed that the fear had been burned out of him a long time ago. He was a good man to have at your side at a time like this.
‘We wait. If they try to break in, we let them.’
‘And you’re going to use that?’ He nodded to the gun in my hand. ‘Listen Lennox, I don’t want to swing or spend the rest of my life dodging dicks in the prison showers.’
‘I’m not going to kill anyone, Larry. But waving this around has a habit of evening the odds a little.’
‘Unless they wave back. It’s a no-go, Lennox.’ Franks’s eyes were locked on the gun, a strange expression on his face. Then he looked up at me decisively. ‘Listen, gather all your stuff up, I’ve got an idea …’
I did what I was told. I put the gun down, pulled on my shirt and jacket, stuffing the tie in my pocket, then put on the duffle coat. I picked up the automatic again. Once more, I caught Franks’s expression as he looked at it. As if it was some object of great evil.
‘What’s wrong Larry? You got a thing about guns?’
‘About that particular kind of gun, yes.’
‘You know it?’
‘Intimately. That’s a Femeru-Frommer. Hungarian-made but manufactured for the German army. Very popular with members of the Arrow Cross. The last time I saw one of those a Hungarian Hunyadi SS Oberscharführer had it jammed into my cheek, threatening to blow my eye out with it because I hadn’t spotted a piece of litter I was supposed to be clearing up. Never thought I’d see one again … Never wanted to see one again, I tell you that.’
‘I’m sorry, Larry,’ I said, tucking it into the waistband of my trousers and pulling my jacket over it. ‘That other case I was talking to you about … the Hungarian one. I think I’ve gotten mixed up with some bad bastards. And I have a horrible feeling that’s who we’re dealing with here.’
‘Then it’s time you took a powder. Listen carefully: just outside the front door there’s a hatch in the ceiling. It gives maintenance people access to the roof void and the skylight. If our chums aren’t already outside the door, you could get up onto the roof and cross over not just to the other side of this block, but right across the next two. There’s a skylight for each block. You can come down in the farthest away block. They’re not watching that.’
‘And what about you? You better come along too.’
‘I’ll be fine. I can keep them occupied.’
‘I don’t know about that, Larry. If it’s the Hungarians, they play for keeps, as I’ve found out to my cost.’
‘Yeah? Then I think I’d better contact the constabulary. Get ready …’
He went back into the living room and picked up the telephone. I heard him dial three numbers, then ask for the police.
‘This is Mr Franks, over in Dugdale Avenue. Listen, there are four men who have just turned up in a large green car … I think they’re trying to break into my downstairs neighbours, the Ashers … Yes, yes, please come quick …’
He turned to me when he replaced the receiver in its cradle. ‘You’ve got a couple of minutes, no more …’
Keeping the lights off in the flat, Franks carefully opened the front door without making a sound. He leaned his head through the gap and peered out. Once
he was satisfied that the coast was clear, he stepped into the hall and beckoned for me to follow. The landing and stairwell were illuminated by wall globes and there was no sight nor sound of anyone coming up the stairs. Yet.
Franks pointed silently to the square hatch above his head; crouching, he made a cradle with his hands and I put my foot in it. He boosted me until I could reach the hatch which I pushed up and clear. Franks heaved again as I pulled myself up into the roof void. I turned round, looked back down at him and we exchanged silent thumbs-up signals. He disappeared back into his apartment and I put the hatch back into place, becoming immersed in the pitch darkness of the roof void. It took several seconds for my eyes to adjust and I lay motionless, listening for sounds of activity in the stairwell below.
The only light that leached into the void was coming through the skylight Franks had told me about: the dim, blue-grey luminosity of the night sky, lightened from below by the diffuse glow of streetlights. The skylight was about ten yards to my left, which meant it was directly above the block’s central stairwell. One false move in the dark, one crossbeam missed, and I would fall through the plaster ceiling with nothing to stop my plunge straight to the bottom of the stairwell.
I fumbled in my duffle coat pocket and found the penlight. Shining it around me, I could see that this was no attic but simply an access crawlspace too low for me to stand up in. It was obviously intended for use by maintenance workers, electricians, plumbers and the like, just as Franks had said, and although the roof void wasn’t floored, there was a crawl-way, like a gangplank, leading from the hatch to the skylight.
I moved as quickly as I could towards the skylight, crouched over and trying to make as little sound as possible. There was a screw catch holding it in place, but only finger-tight, so I was able to release it and slowly push the skylight up and over, allowing me to squeeze through onto the flat roof of the apartment block. Franks was a smart cookie, all right.
I eased the skylight shut behind me. The temperature had taken an even deeper dip and I felt the raw night bite through my clothes. I crossed to the edge of the roof, staying on my hands and knees. The car was still there, parked behind the Cresta. I went over to the other side of the roof, still keeping low, and confirmed for myself that the camel-coated watcher between the streetlamps was also still in position.
There was no sound of police cars approaching with bells ringing and I was beginning to worry about having left Franks alone in his apartment, so I hung off starting my journey across all three blocks and coming down the other side.
I went back to the front edge and again looked down to where the cars were parked. Right enough, two heavy-set men slipped out of the back seat of the car behind the Cresta and, after exchanging a few words with the driver through his window, started to make their way towards the apartment block’s main entrance.
This was it. No coppers yet and Franks was on his own, so I pushed away from the edge and prepared to cross back to the skylight. I was halted by the sound of a car pulling up. Then a second.
I scrambled to the roof’s edge once more and was enormously relieved to see two police Wolseleys pulled up at angles to block in the goons’ car. Unfortunately, one of the patrol cars had blocked the Cresta as well. Four big coppers got out, two from each patrol car, and they closed in on the two heavies, who didn’t put up any resistance.
Time for me to go. Satisfied that Franks would be okay, and already chilled by the night, I ran crouching across the connected flat roofs of the horseshoe of apartment blocks. The roofs were covered in some kind of pitch that muffled my footsteps, but all the same I tried not to think what they must have sounded like in the apartment bedrooms beneath me.
I made it to the third block and tried to ease up the skylight. When it didn’t budge, I cursed inwardly at my stupidity. Of course it wouldn’t open. The skylights were engineered to be unlatched only from below. In my haste to get up onto the roof, I hadn’t thought through the fact that I’d had to unscrew the fastening from inside the void to release the first skylight. Muttering obscenities at myself, I indulged in a moment of panic, lost as to what to do next. I threw a forced calm over the panic like a fire-blanket and made myself think through options. There were only two.
The first was that I take off my duffle coat and drape it over the skylight to muffle the sound as I broke the glass with the muzzle of the automatic. Yeah, Lennox, I thought, brilliant thinking – smashing my way into an apartment block in the dead quiet of night, with a deadly weapon, while there were already four coppers on the scene looking for burglars.
The alternative was to go back the way I came and drop down into the stairwell of the first building. It was my only option, but blocked for the foreseeable by the presence of the police, who would no doubt pay Franks a visit to reassure his good citizenly concerns.
In the meantime, I had to stay put. I tugged the duffle coat collar tighter around my throat and pulled the hood over my head, trying not to think about the cold that was penetrating my flesh like an x-ray. It made sense to stay on the roof: no one was going to look for me up here and I decided to remain exactly where I was, not yet crossing back to my original escape hatch on the first roof for fear of alerting residents to my presence.
I crawled to the edge and looked over. The coppers were still talking to the two heavies. Then the driver stepped out. He was a tall man in a dark coat and hat, and he moved with a quiet, unhurried authority. As he unfolded from the car, he reached into his pocket and held something up for the coppers to see. And with that, the whole dynamic of the conversation below changed. The uniformed policemen moved back from the heavies and the driver of the car did all of the talking. He pointed up to Franks’s apartment. By this time it was obvious he was exerting some kind of authority over the constables.
‘Don’t believe him …’ I muttered, trying to will some intelligence into the coppers’ thick Highlander skulls. ‘Don’t believe him … the warrant card’s a fake …’
My telepathic skills were clearly not up to scratch. There was a little more chat, then the driver of the car headed towards the entrance to the flats, flanked by one of his own heavies and a uniformed copper.
Again my mind raced through options. Even if I could do the hundred-yards dash faster than Lindy Remigino, I wouldn’t be able to get across the roof, through the crawlspace and down to Franks before they got to him. And, even if I did, they had gotten a copper to tag along; and coppers were decidedly sniffy about people waving ordnance in their direction.
Undecided what to do, I simply froze, in all senses of the word. All I could do was wait to see what happened.
They came back out after a couple of minutes. They had Larry Franks with them, hatless but with an overcoat pulled over his tieless shirt. He was steered out by the boss man-driver and his heavy, each of whom had a proprietorial hold of one of his elbows; the uniformed cop just tagged along. When they got to where they were parked, the uniforms began to get back into their cars, leaving their fake colleagues in charge of Franks. And that was something I couldn’t allow. If they took him away, the least that would happen to Franks is that he would be tortured to tell them where I was. And I had seen what these bastards had done to Andrew Ellis.
I pulled the Hungarian automatic from my pocket and snapped back the carriage, putting a round in the chamber. I didn’t have much of a plan, other than to get their attention and try to convince the uniformed coppers that their new chums were phoneys. It was desperate and dangerous and more than likely stupid, but it was all I had.
Then Franks solved the problem for me. He’d obviously been thinking the same and began to remonstrate loudly with the uniforms, clearly trying to persuade them to take him in. The driver of the other car said something to them and the policemen again started for their patrol cars, leaving Franks to the mercies of the heavies and their boss.
It was perfectly done. Little Franks’s right arm arced hard and so fast that the big uniformed policeman took the punch squar
e on the side of his jaw. The copper didn’t even twitch or stagger: Franks had switched his lights off and he was felled like a big, dumb Hebridean tree. I grinned. It was a very impressive punch. The other three uniforms laid into Franks, but nothing he couldn’t handle, then they handcuffed his hands behind his back and bundled him into the back of a police Wolseley, which was exactly what Franks had wanted them to do when he hit the copper. Again the driver of the other car protested and tried to exert authority over the uniforms, but one of their own had been clobbered and they were having none of it.
Franks was in for a rough time, all right, but he’d survived worse, much worse, and avoiding being taken by the bogus detectives had probably saved his life. Yep, Larry Franks was a smart cookie, all right. And I owed him a drink or two.
The cop Franks had sent to sleep came round and his partner eased him up and into the second police Wolseley. Then they were gone.
Once they were left alone, the three men had a discussion. One of them disappeared around the back of the building, coming back with the guy in the camel coat. He was obviously being quizzed about the chances of me having dodged out the back and past him and there was some vehement shaking of his head. Then they all seemed to be talking about the Cresta. I guessed that they were trying to work out why – if I’d managed to slip out before they closed their trap – I hadn’t taken the car.
There was a lot of pointing to the open fields and trees beyond the parking area and then the tall boss man turned and scanned the flats, as if to check they weren’t being watched. I ducked back. When I inched forward to see again, he was trying the handle of the door of the Cresta, only to find it locked.
I was desperately cold but I knew it was maybe going to be a long, chilly wait. At least I could be reasonably confident that the only person I was likely to encounter up here on the roof would be Captain Oates out for a stroll.
Dead Men and Broken Hearts: A Lennox Thriller (Lennox 4) Page 28