‘I’m Maximillian. I have reference D5.’ I pointed at the map area on the easel. He nodded and looked down at a scruffy envelope. His notes. ‘I talked to four shop owners today. I got talking to some customers too. Asked them about new people. And to keep an eye out for people that acted differently.’
‘Good, Max. Any signs?’
He shook his head. ‘Next,’ I called.
And so it went. Sometimes there were overlaps of areas. Sometimes there were questions from other members of the team.
‘Hey, Eli? You said you’d been in MacDougall’s. You know his brother has a butcher’s in Partick. I hear he’s big in the black market. He’s got poachers who bring him meat. We should watch for anyone with cash to spend on meat.’
‘Ja, I know this.’
We had nearly finished with the men. I looked up to the back of the audience. She sat quietly, watching.
‘Bathsheba. Miss Goldstein. Would you please report?’
The girl’s eyes widened – which scarcely seemed possible –and she tucked a strand of stray black hair into her scarf. Slowly she got to her feet and the room grew quiet.
She started too low for me to hear.
‘It’s OK, Miss Goldstein. Please speak up.’
She coughed and found her voice. ‘I have K4. I’m asking the shop owners to keep an eye out. Some of them are helpful. Jews own three of the shops and I will see them each day from now on.’
‘Well done, Bathsheba. And what languages do you speak?’
‘German, a little Polish and, of course, English.’
‘Of course. Thank you. Everybody: this is working well now. I have decided we’ll meet every second night. In between times, if any of you find out anything, you must phone me at the Gazette newsroom or at my digs. You have the numbers on your instruction sheets.’
We didn’t finish until after nine. As we wrapped up for the evening, I suddenly felt woozy. I’d been keeping going with sheer will power. Danny and I were the last to leave.
‘Who was the girl?’ he asked casually.
‘The one you were staring at all night?’
‘Was it that obvious?’
‘Danny, you bored holes in her. You heard me use her name. Bathsheba Goldstein. Got out of Germany to Paris just before the war. Holed up there with non-Jewish friends. Lost her folks and wants to get her own back. Like your girl, Eve.’
‘No one’s like Eve. But I have to admit, Miss Goldstein is easy on the eye.’
I raised an eyebrow at him, wondering where this might go; wondering, too, if I’d just felt a small and inappropriate pang of jealousy.
We negotiated our way over the rollercoaster hills back to Sam’s house. Down Hill Street and up Lynedoch Street into Park Circus. A crow would have done it in a couple of wing flaps. But we were fighting icy pavements and the gravity of our years. I think Danny was slowing his pace for me.
Later, when the lights were out and the house was silent, Sam crept into my room and sneaked into my bed.
‘Are you sure this is sensible?’
‘It’s never been sensible, Brodie.’
‘I mean with . . .’
‘Are you suddenly worried for my reputation?’
‘How it looks. In front of Danny.’
‘I’m probably seen as the whore of Kelvingrove. At least by the good matrons of Park Ward. I can almost hear them tutting as I walk by. Net curtains twitching.’
‘I could make an honest woman of you.’
‘Wheesht, Brodie. I’m off to Edinburgh tomorrow for three days. Carpe diem. Carpe meam.’
With the last of my flagging strength, I did.
FORTY-TWO
The days and evenings fell into a pattern. Danny McRae would head off first thing and walk the streets himself. Unbidden, he’d simply adopted the role as my second in command. He got a map and list of the streets and the names of the hunters assigned to reconnoitre them. He made it his business to spend a few minutes with each of them every day. Probably longer with Bathsheba, though I didn’t ask. Lucky man.
But it gave me an invaluable pair of experienced eyes and ears out on the streets, sifting and evaluating. He hadn’t lost his detective skills. Or his questioning, restless mind. An unquiet heart.
We got into the habit of sharing a bottle in the evening. Sam wasn’t around to dilute the topics, and initially we talked of our days in the force, and the girls we danced with and kissed. But halfway down the bottle we usually got round to comparing notes on our respective wars. We’d been in the same theatre for a while with the 8th Army in the desert. It’s where he got wounded; he still carried the limp that showed at the day’s end.
As the level in the bottle dropped further we began to delve into the damage inflicted on us. The mental damage.
‘It’s the nightmares,’ I said. ‘Sometimes I’m scared of going to sleep.’
‘I know how that goes. But I couldn’t work out whether I was having bad dreams or flashbacks. When they first brought me back here I couldn’t remember much of the year before. From the time the Gestapo picked me up.’
‘Has it come back? Do you remember it all now?’
‘Mostly. It’s a bit jagged. But in truth there’s not much you’d want to remember.’
The more Danny told me, the more I found myself opening up to him in a way I hadn’t ever done to anyone, even to Sam. Especially to Sam.
‘And you still get down at times, Danny?’
‘Don’t we all?’
‘Oh aye, but does it get bad? Really bad?’ I chose my words carefully. ‘To where it all seems . . . pointless?’
‘Sure. Lately. Since I lost Eve.’ He eyed me carefully. ‘You mean ending it? That bad?’
I shrugged. ‘But you don’t, do you?’
‘You just bugger on.’
We were quiet for a bit.
‘Can I tell you something?’
‘I hope it’s not about your sex life, Brodie.’
‘Nothing as simple. Look, I thought I was over it. And I was. For a while there. But for no reason, sometimes, I get really het up. Like I’m standing on a cliff and I’m about to fall off. Or like I’m being attacked. I just . . .’
‘Blow up? No reason?’
I nodded.
Danny smiled and refilled the glasses. He stared into the fire. The white of his scar glowed like a silk ribbon among his red mane.
‘I used to get blank spots. As though I’d got stocious the night before. But without having touched a drop. I’d lose a few hours – a couple of days even. Couldn’t recall a thing. But I’d find scribbling. My own scribbling on a wee notepad. Some kind of warning to myself. Thought I was going daft. And before Eve . . . Naw, it disnae matter . . .’
‘Go on. You’re among friends.’ I waited.
‘The girl that got killed in France. By Caldwell. She came back to me in London.’
‘How do you mean? In a dream?’
He shook his head. ‘It wisnae like that. She seemed real. Completely real. There was this quack I saw. A big Irishman. One of life’s good guys. He said there’s stuff goes on in our heads that we haven’t a clue about. It’s how our brains make sense of things that we can’t control. How we deal with traumatic events. And often there’s a trigger. Something happens that sets it off.’
‘Like me with my funny moments?’
He nodded. ‘Sounds like it, does it no’?’
Later, in my cold lonely bed, I lay thinking about what Danny had said. The trigger thing seemed to make sense. But what was mine? Violence? Flashbacks brought on by confronting the Nazi guards at the trial? It seemed to have been going on for some time, probably since I was demobbed, if I were honest. As though it had been building up inside and I’d tried to ignore it. Where was my stiff upper lip when I needed it? But it seemed I wasn’t alone. What I didn’t understand was why I waited till I got home from Hamburg to fall apart. Force of will keeping me going? Then when I was safe, I could fall over?
I didn’t like it
but I could comprehend it. Sleep gently drew me into a quieter night than many recently. As though by accepting I wasn’t in control, I’d regained some of it.
Inspector Duncan Todd kept calling me or, as he put it, just passing, thought I’d pop into the Gazette for a wee chat. He seemed unusually determined to keep in touch with what my Jewish platoon – as he called them – and I were up to. It wasn’t just his solicitous nature. Todd hated the idea of beasts on the loose as much as Danny and me. To manage his ‘drop-bys’ a bit better I made a deal that the three of us – Duncan, Danny and I – would meet a couple of times a week for a pint at McCall’s. Todd would explain what the official manhunt was getting up to and Danny and I would share any titbits we got. Besides, it was like old times. The banter was balm. I could see light up at the mouth of the pit. And I had stopped digging.
We eased into March with no let-up in winter’s grip. Over 150 roads were blocked across the country. Scotland was facing famine as food and milk supplies failed to get through. The government was trying to get us to eat snoek, a tough pike-like fish from South Africa, but folk seemed to prefer empty bellies. The Silver King night train between Edinburgh and London got stuck in a snowdrift for nine hours. Over in Palestine, the Stern Gang bombed the British officers’ club, and Monty issued a ‘shoot on sight’ order to rioting Jews.
Against this depressing backcloth, I still had the sense that someone else was inhabiting my body, as though I didn’t have day-to-day ownership. Sometimes the heebie-jeebies hit for no reason that I could see and I found myself with racing heart and panting lungs. As though some rude ghost had sneaked up on me and screamed in my ear. Danny’s presence seemed to help. Knowing that someone as tough as McRae had gone through a similar flirtation with madness kept things in perspective. However, I was learning that rationality wasn’t always achievable just by willing it.
But I was safer to sleep with. No jolts in the night. Less shouting. When Sam returned from her stint at the Edinburgh courts she took to creeping into my room each night – to check up on me, she said. And ended up staying the night. The girl was fearless.
She even brazened it out with Izzie. It’s hard not to spot damage to sheets and pillowcases by two folk in one bed as opposed to separate ones. It was still Mr Brodie this and Mrs Dunlop that but there was also a look in Izzie’s eyes that said, I ken what you’re up to, you dirty bugger, don’t you take advantage of my pal.
It was in the second week of platoon meetings that our searches bore the first real fruit. The young man could hardly contain his excitement.
‘My name is . . .’
‘Joshua, I know. Please continue, Joshua.’ I had most of their names under my belt by now, and some idea of their varying personalities.
He nodded, pleased. ‘I have the area east of the Necropolis. Near the brewery. Fisher Street. An old man came up to me. I’d spoken to him before. He said a woman moved into the house next door about a year ago. She kept herself to herself, he said. Almost never going out. She drinks a lot. Gin. He’s seen the bottles. By herself. An expensive habit. There is always the smell of meat cooking. Steak and pork. Who can afford that? He had only spoken to her once and she cut him off. He thinks she is Polish. It fits, does it not?’
The room fluttered with excitement.
‘Good, Joshua. But why didn’t the old man mention her the first time you spoke to him?’
‘He wasn’t sure. Didn’t want to make a fuss. But last night there was a visitor. A man. To this woman’s house. The walls are thin. There was shouting. In Polish. The old man knows a few words. He is from Byelorussia. But he heard the word gold twice. He didn’t see the man but he sounded educated.’
‘Educated?’
‘Not farmyard Polish.’
Joshua stood waiting as I mulled over the information. The rest of the room was buzzing, looking at him intently. Malachi stood up from his traditional place at the rear, surrounded by his small coterie of hard-eyed men.
‘Let’s go get her. Question her.’
‘No! I will deal with this. Tomorrow, I’ll get one of my police colleagues and we’ll visit this woman. Do you know when she comes and goes, Joshua?’
‘The old man said she rarely goes out.’
‘Good.’ I looked up to see if she was sitting in her usual quiet corner. ‘Bathsheba? I want you to meet me and Joshua first thing tomorrow. Let’s say eight o’clock.’ I looked at the map on the easel, tracing the streets. ‘At the corner of Ark Lane and Fisher Street. No one else. We want no noise. No warning. Understand?’
She looked panicked for a moment, but then nodded her head.
FORTY-THREE
We converged in the dark of early morning on Ark Lane just round from our target. We were so well wrapped up I could hardly recognise any of us. Joshua was shaking with either excitement or cold. Bathsheba’s eyes – just visible between the thick scarf round her mouth and the woollen hat pulled down over her forehead – were flickering with anxiety. Duncan Todd stood huddled and grumpy under his layers. I’d managed to get hold of him late last night and after some argument about bringing a squad of his men, he’d agreed to come alone. Danny McRae – uninvited but welcome enough for all that – stood smoking beside him as I issued instructions.
‘Bathsheba, you said you speak Polish?’
‘Everyone did in Cottbus. We spoke both in school.’
‘OK. I want you to go and knock on this woman’s door. We’ll be right behind you. I want you to knock and speak in Polish. Say you’re looking for Irma Grese.’
Her eyes grew even wider. ‘Who’s Irma Grese?’
‘She’s one of the ones we hanged after the Belsen trials.’
Her hand shot to her face.
‘Are you OK with that, Bathsheba?’
She nodded. ‘What happens if she doesn’t answer?’
‘Keep knocking till she does. If she’s innocent, she’ll come out. If not, we’ll go in.’
‘Hang on, Brodie,’ said Duncan. ‘That sounds like breaking and entering.’
‘Not if it’s polis. That’s why you’re here.’
‘Christ.’
We slid round the corner and along Fisher Street until we got to the entry. We opened the door and quietly filed into the dark corridor. The door to the back yard was closed. The only light filtered in through the filthy windowpane above the door. I closed the door gently behind me. I moved forward, touching the walls as I went. I took out a torch and played it down the hall. In the middle of the corridor were two doors facing each other. Beyond, a stairwell led up. We wanted the first floor. I motioned to Bathsheba to go in front and pointed her at the stairs. I gave her the torch. She stood for a moment, then nodded at me and crept up, the torchlight showing the way. The four of us gathered at the foot and waited.
I watched as the light shifted up and up and stopped as she found the door. There was a long moment’s silence before the first knock, timid at first, then louder. Nothing. She knocked twice, harder, and called out in Polish. I heard the name Irma Grese. It sounded convincing to me.
At last Bathsheba found her nerve. There was a flurry of heavy knocks and shouted demands for the long-dead Grese. Silence followed. She waited. We waited. Then Danny slid past me and started up the stairs.
‘Danny!’ I hissed. He didn’t stop. Bugger. Still the madman. I went after him, closely followed by Duncan.
We had barely rounded the corner when there was huge bang and a flash. Something cracked past my head and we all dived to the floor. Danny was on his feet first and lunging forward, shouting Bathsheba’s name. The torch swung drunkenly. Bathsheba slid down the wall, still clutching the torch. I couldn’t make out if she’d been hit. I was too busy dragging out my service revolver, wishing, as I did so, that I’d brought the bigger-calibre Webley.
Danny flung himself down, cradled her and grabbed the torch. He flicked its beam up at the door, at the splintered wood. It gave me my chance. I aimed at the hole and fired. The second crash echoed through
the stone hallway for what seemed like long minutes. I kept on moving and built up speed as I neared the door. I smashed into it with my shoulder. It buckled and crashed partly open. Something was stopping it from inside. Danny joined me and we shoved our way into the dark corridor. He shone his torch down. It picked up a figure groaning and writhing at our feet. A woman. Blood seeped from her shoulder. Beside her was a discarded sawn-off shotgun.
‘Shine the light forward!’
I stepped over her and moved down the short corridor, gun up in both hands. I charged into the first room. Empty. Then the kitchen. Empty. By the time I got back Duncan was bent over the woman, stanching the blood with her own dressing gown. Beyond her stood Danny. He was holding Bathsheba. She had her coat off and Danny was inspecting her arm.
‘Are you hurt, lassie?’
‘It’s OK. I’m fine,’ she said.
‘You’re not. You got hit by splinters and pellets,’ Danny said, pressing a large white hankie to her seeping wounds.
The woman on the floor groaned and started cursing.
‘What’s she saying, Bathsheba?’
‘She’s calling us names. Says she’s sorry she didn’t kill me. Not nice.’
‘Tell her the feeling’s mutual.’
Duncan got up. ‘Jesus Christ, Brodie! Where the hell did you get that cannon?’
‘It came with the uniform. Self-defence, Duncan. Just in case.’
‘Noo Ah’m implicated in a shoot-out. Again! Ah’m gontae huvtae arrest you.’
‘What for? I’m a commissioned officer acting under the direct orders of both the head of MI5 and your own Chief Constable. We’re dealing with – as you can see – an armed enemy. She shot first. I was protecting my agent here.’ I pointed at Bathsheba. ‘And not to put too fine a point on it, Duncan, saving your arse.’
Danny said. ‘He’s right, Duncan. Don’t go all bureaucratic on us.’ He looked beyond us. Lights had come on under the door opposite and from downstairs a voice called out:
‘Whit’s goin’ on? Ah’m ca’ing the polis.’
Duncan shouted, ‘We are the polis! Have you got a phone down there?’
Douglas Brodie 03 - Pilgrim Soul Page 22