‘I have a lot of friends in Ireland.’ He smiled, and very briefly he looked more like the man Stefan had seen at the house in Merrion Square.
‘Is friends the right word?’ said Stefan.
‘People I can rely on. I’d like to go back. I still think of it as home.’
‘And I thought you were home now.’
‘Germany? You’re joking!’
‘They must owe you a pension by now.’
The sarcasm washed over Hugo Keller; he was entirely serious.
‘I don’t want enemies in Ireland. I’ve done you a favour, Sergeant. I hope you’ll remember it when you get home.’
It was an uncomfortable feeling for Stefan Gillespie, but it was true.
‘Why would you worry about me, Hugo? Like you said, you’ve got friends. No one’s waiting to arrest you. Whatever happened in Merrion Square no one even wants to talk to you.’
That seemed to please Keller. For a moment he smiled; but he couldn’t keep the present at bay.
‘There’s nothing to stay here for. Not just Danzig, Germany, Austria.’
He lowered his voice, shaking his head as he spoke.
‘If you want to know what’s coming, Mr Gillespie, you only have to listen. But nobody is. Nobody wants to hear. You’re close enough to it in Danzig though. Use your ears. Walk through the streets and fucking listen.’
He drained his glass of beer and stood up. ‘If Miss Rosen isn’t here, be grateful for it. Just forget what you know and what you think you know and fuck off.’ He walked out.
When Stefan left the bar, the street outside was quiet. The water of the New Mottlau lapped gently against the barges moored on the Speicherinsel side. He didn’t know how much faith to put in anything Hugo Keller had said. What he did know, because it was in every line of the Austrian’s now thin and sallow face, was that fear was driving everything he did. Hannah was a part of that fear; anything that threatened him was a part of that fear. If the Gestapo had arrested her, Keller would have known. It wasn’t much, but it was something. He took his bearings, trying to work out where he was as he walked towards the Mattenbuden Bridge. It would take him over the canal to the Granary Island. The island was a maze of old, crumbling warehouses, but if he kept to the lane called Münchengasse it would bring him across the island to the Cow Bridge and the Mottlau River itself. Hundegasse would lead him to the other end of the old town, and back to the Danziger Hof.
As he stepped off the bridge into Münchengasse the high, gabled fronts of its medieval granaries rose up on either side of the narrow lane. They were shuttered and barred; there were no lights anywhere. He could hear a rumbling sound from the other side of the city. It came and went. It was the Goebbels rally. He could make out the sound of people cheering and shouting; it was like a distant football match. He was conscious of footsteps behind him. He looked round. The footsteps stopped. He could see no one, but he was sure there had been movement in the dark street. And innocent footsteps didn’t stop that quickly. He walked on. There were lights ahead, along the Lange Brücke on the other side of the Mottlau; he could hear the traffic now. And still the ominous roar of voices rose and fell over the Free City. The footsteps were behind him again. He looked back, not stopping this time. There was a man following him. As he turned his head the man’s footsteps slowed. When he turned back towards the river there were headlights. A car had pulled into the narrow street in front of him. It was moving quite slowly. Then it stopped. The headlights went off. The doors opened and two men got out. They stood where they were, just waiting.
He had seconds to make a decision. The best bet seemed to be the man behind him. If he could get past him he had a chance. In the Granary Island’s maze of alleyways he didn’t have to know where he was going; he only had to get lost. He turned and ran. He could hear the two men from the car chasing him. Ahead he saw the third man waiting – a youth – barely out of his teens. The boy was terrified, but he stepped forward to block Stefan’s way. Stefan flung out his hand to push him off. The youth threw himself across the street, bringing Stefan crashing down on to the cobbles on top of him. As he pulled himself up the boy clung to his coat, then to his leg, holding him back. Stefan kicked him away, but stronger arms held him from behind. He tried to hit out. He felt another arm round his throat. A hand holding a white cloth clamped itself over his face. He could hear the roaring voices on the night air. ‘Back to Germany! Danzig, back to Germany!’ There was the sweet, sharp smell of chloroform. And then he blacked out.
17. The Forest Opera
As Stefan Gillespie came to he was in complete darkness and the darkness was in motion. He was dizzy. He tried to move but he could push his legs only a few inches before they came up against some kind of wall. There was a smell of oil and leather and something sweet. The disorientation was clearing; he recognised the sweetness. It was chloroform, quite faint now, but enough to bring what had just happened into focus. He was in the boot of a car, doubled up and barely able to move, but not tied. He could make no sense of why he was there. If the Gestapo wanted to teach him a lesson, surely a few broken ribs would have done. This was something else. He didn’t know the Nazis but he had grown up in a civil war. When they came for you, whichever side it was, they didn’t need to take you away for a thrashing; they only took you away when they intended to kill you.
Occasionally he heard faint voices over the sound of the engine. Nothing he could make out, but he thought there were two of them in the car. He couldn’t tell how long they’d been driving. The jolting was worse now. The car had to be off the road on some kind of track. His thoughts were all of Tom now. It couldn’t end here. He had to do something. He reached out with his left hand. He could feel something on the floor. He stretched his fingers along it. It was a wrench or a tyre lever. He gripped it. When the boot opened he might have his opportunity. If he feigned unconsciousness they’d pull him out. There would be a moment, maybe the only one, to take them off guard and run. The car stopped. He heard dogs barking. The doors opened. The sound of feet. They were at the back of the car now. As the boot lifted he saw darkness and trees. That was good. If he could get into the trees he would have some chance at least. Torchlight shone down on to his face. He closed his eyes.
‘He’s still out.’
Someone else was approaching. Stefan was gathering his strength. As soon as he was upright he would have to use every bit of that strength.
‘Wake him up.’
His hand tightened on the tyre lever. He was ready to hit out. But the touch on his face was unexpectedly gentle. There was a scent he recognised.
‘Come on then sleepy head!’
He opened his eyes. In the torchlight, Hannah was smiling at him.
*
They were somewhere above the Free City, in the forests that climbed the hills overlooking Langfuhr and Oliva. There was a small clearing here, and an old hunting lodge. It was a single-storey building with some kennels and an enclosure of cast-iron railings at one side. Tiles had fallen from the roof; windows were broken; ivy crawled up the crumbling brickwork. But inside the lodge a fire burned in the grate and there was a basket of cut timber. Animal traps hung from the walls. There was an oak table in front of the fire. And there was a bottle of Machandel vodka on it. Hannah Rosen and Stefan Gillespie sat on a bench opposite one of the men who had pulled her off the street outside the Danziger Hof. An hour ago the same man had clamped a chloroform-soaked handkerchief over Stefan’s face on the Speicherinsel. He was in his mid-twenties, thin, with fair, curling hair. He called himself Leon, here anyway. Two grey Weimaraner dogs stretched out in front of the fire.
The fact that Hugo Keller was in Danzig had surprised and shocked Hannah. She wanted explanations, but as Stefan gave them they only silenced her. She had achieved nothing. She had put her own life and the lives of others at risk, and she hadn’t even got the truth out of Francis Byrne. She heard the words of the old man in the library again. He was right. She had almost delivered herself to
the Gestapo, walking blindly into a situation she didn’t understand, in a place she had no business to be. Stefan had been in a Gestapo cell because of her. He didn’t tell her he was lucky he wasn’t still there, but she knew it anyway. She thought about the boy he had brought with him to the synagogue in Adelaide Road, who talked about the tricycle in the window at Clery’s. She had felt a lot in the last few days, anger, frustration, loneliness, shock, fear; now as she sat beside Stefan she felt sick inside. She needed to touch him, but she couldn’t. She was glad he was there; she had wanted him there. But she was irritated by the number of people who had every right to make a list of her mistakes and throw it at her now.
Hugo Keller troubled Leon; the whole thing troubled him.
‘So you bump into this Keller, in the police station in Weidengasse, where you’ve just been interrogated by the Gestapo, about Hannah. He’s a man you arrested in Dublin last year, who was spirited out of Ireland by influential friends, including some Irish policemen and the Nazi Gauleiter, Adolf Mahr. You find out he’s working for the Gestapo in Danzig now, and he’s blackmailing this priest, Byrne, at the cathedral. Then the two of you go out for a drink together.’ He looked at Stefan hard. ‘Does that sound odd?’
‘It wasn’t easy to say no to a drink. He’d just lied about knowing me. If he’d told them who I was they’d have taken me straight back to the cell.’
‘That’s what doesn’t fit. Why would he do that?’
‘He’s a frightened man, I know that. He’s been brought to Danzig because of Father Byrne, because he’s the one who’s got a hold over him. I don’t know why the priest is so significant, but that’s what it’s about.’
Leon was silent, thinking through what Stefan had told him. It was beginning to make some kind of sense.
‘Generally everyone in Danzig’s got a good idea who the informers are, but this man Keller’s an outsider. I don’t know him. I doubt anyone knows him. The priest isn’t good news,’ he reflected. ‘Not at all. There’s not much opposition left in our Free City. Socialists, communists, liberals, Catholics, Jews, we’ve all been battered into silence over the last few years. We’ve got an election now, but don’t let that fool you. The Nazis have probably held a thousand election rallies this year. Compare that with a dozen from the opposition, and most of those were broken up by the brown shirts and the police. Tomorrow they’ll be outside every polling station. They already know who’s going to vote against them. And you’ll need guts to do it. Some of the only guts left are in Oliva Cathedral. I’m a Jew, Herr Gillespie. I haven’t got much to thank the Catholic Church for, but while Edward O’Rourke is bishop of Danzig there’s someone still standing up to the Nazis here, someone they can’t just knock down. People trust him.’
Stefan nodded. It explained the relationship between Byrne and Keller. ‘Well, they might want to think twice about that with Father Byrne on the bishop’s payroll.’
‘Not all the opposition is out in the open,’ said Leon. ‘A list of everyone the bishop talks to would be worth a lot. Especially if the Nazis win this election big time. That’s when the arrests will really start, on a scale we’ve never seen.’
Stefan remembered the sense of darkness he had felt earlier, knowing nothing about any of this. Keller was doing what he did best, but Stefan still felt there was something else, something more urgent than mere information. Hannah reached across and took his hand.
The two dogs suddenly leapt up, growling, and raced to the door. Leon stood and moved to the window. He could see nothing in the darkness, but the dogs had heard something. He pointed to another door, at the back of the room.
‘If I say go, walk out that way, into the woods, and keep walking.’
He opened the front door. The Weimaraners disappeared into the night, barking furiously. Leon followed them outside. Over the noise of the dogs Stefan and Hannah heard an engine. Stefan got up and went to the window. He could see white headlights through the trees. A pickup emerged into the clearing. The dogs bounded towards it. Leon turned away and walked back inside.
‘It’s all right,’ he smiled, relieved. ‘We’ll be going soon.’
He poured a glass of vodka and drank it.
‘How long will it take?’ asked Hannah.
‘It depends which way he goes.’
A man Hannah knew as Johannes walked in, smiling, wearing a student’s cap. He had been the driver of the car outside the Danziger Hof. He had been the other man in the car that brought Stefan to the hunting lodge. He was younger than Leon, barely in his twenties. Where Leon was tense and nervous, Johannes was cheerful and relaxed. Behind him was an older man, bearded, dressed in green loden. He had a pipe between his teeth that had gone out some time before. The Weimaraners pattered beside him, sniffing at the leather bag over his shoulder. He clicked his fingers at the dogs. They went back to the fire and curled up in front of it. Leon’s expression had changed as the man walked in. It wasn’t who he expected.
‘Who’s this, Johannes?’
The older man smiled, taking out a box of matches to relight his pipe.
‘How’s it going?’
‘Peter’s broken his leg,’ explained Johannes. ‘This is Karl. He’s a friend of Peter’s. It’s fine. He knows the forests backwards.’
‘I’m sorry, Karl.’ Leon looked at him uneasily. ‘I don’t know you.’
The bearded man carried on lighting his pipe.
‘He’s the same price as Peter,’ said Johannes with a shrug.
‘It’s not about the bloody price. We don’t know him!’
‘Peter sent him instead. He said Karl knows what he’s doing.’
‘It’s not up to Peter to decide –’
‘Look, it’s no skin off my nose, son.’ Karl drew on his pipe, grinning amiably. ‘I had to come up and feed Peter’s dogs anyway. I could do with the cash, but if you don’t want a guide, that’s your business. I’ve done it before. You wouldn’t be the first ones I’ve helped get across into Poland.’
Leon still wasn’t happy; he’d been backed into a corner.
‘We’ve got to get them out, Leon,’ said Johannes, shrugging.
‘I know that.’
‘Well, I’m here if you want me. I’ll feed the dogs.’ Karl whistled quietly to the Weimaraners and went outside. They trotted out after him.
‘It’s not a decision you should have made, Johannes.’
‘We’ve always trusted Peter.’
‘There are people you pay and people you trust.’
Stefan exchanged a look with Hannah.
‘Is there a problem, Leon?’ she asked.
‘No. It’s just not the way we do things. But we’ll have to get on with it. It’s too late to worry about it now. The sooner we go the better. Ten minutes, right? You two get some air. I’ve just got a few things to sort out.’
It was clear Leon wanted to speak to Johannes on his own. Stefan smiled, knowing there was a bollocking to be delivered. He glanced across at Hannah. She nodded. As they walked out into the night the forester was heading back in, filling his pipe. He stopped to relight it once again.
‘Boys! You wouldn’t think their mothers would let them out, would you?’ He carried on into the lodge, whistling cheerfully to himself again.
They walked on in silence. Hannah held Stefan’s hand.
‘I still don’t know how you got here.’
‘Someone told your father what you were doing. He’d found out where you were. He came to see me, with Robert Briscoe. I assume you know him?’
‘Yes. But how did my father –’
‘Maybe you’ve got better friends than you know.’
‘Probably,’ she said very quietly.
‘He wanted me to get you out of here before you did anything stupid.’
‘Talking to Francis Byrne didn’t feel like it was stupid.’
‘Maybe it wouldn’t have been if he’d been in the Isle of Man. I know what you’ve been doing for the last three months. At least I know who
you’ve been doing it for. And I just thought you were growing oranges.’
‘If they’d leave us alone to grow oranges I wouldn’t be doing it.’
They were still walking, deeper into the trees, away from the lodge.
‘I’m sorry, Stefan. I’m sorry you got involved –’
He shrugged. ‘I know why you left Ireland the way you did anyway.’
‘I had to go. And I think it was time to go.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Because if I’d stayed any longer, I might not have wanted to.’
‘Maybe it was worth a session with the Gestapo after all,’ he smiled.
‘What?’
‘To hear you say that.’
‘Do you think it didn’t matter?’
‘I didn’t want to think that.’
For a moment they looked at each other. He took her in his arms and kissed her. All of a sudden he was very tired. He didn’t want to talk any more; nor did she. There was a deep silence in the woods that surrounded them. As they kissed again they moved backward slightly and Stefan stumbled. Hannah laughed. He turned to look down at what he had stumbled over. It was the carcass of a dead Weimaraner. He saw the body of the other dog, closer to the clearing. He walked across to it, unconsciously silencing his footsteps. He didn’t need to know what the danger was to feel it. Hannah was still staring down at the first dog, aware of the unidentified threat in the darkness too. Stefan crouched down. There was a pool of vomit by the second dog’s mouth and there were several pieces of undigested meat.
‘They’ve been poisoned,’ he whispered.
‘He just went out to feed them. How could –’
Stefan put his finger to her lips. She didn’t understand, but suddenly he did. He stood perfectly still. His hand moved down to hold her arm. They waited. The silence seemed as deep as it had moments earlier when they were kissing. There was the sound of an owl some way off. Then another one, much closer, more urgent, and the noise of wings and branches as it took off, unseen, disturbed and irritated, into the night sky.
The City of Shadows Page 27