Douglas Brodie 03 - Pilgrim Soul

by Ferris, Gordon

  ‘It’s a’ right, sir. You’ll get used to it.’ It was an army sergeant, a Jock. He was carrying two boxes each with a red cross on the side.

  I stood, rooted to the spot in stupefaction. Nothing made sense. Not these tattered skeletons, some moving, some still. So I didn’t see the figure until it was next to me. I jumped. It was a woman. Had been a woman. Her eyes were out of proportion to her skull. Her skin was smudged and wrinkled. She bared her teeth. The ones she had left were brown and thin.

  ‘Help,’ she croaked. Then she fell towards me. I put my arms up but she slid through them, like a collection of coat hangers. She crumpled at my feet, a puppet whose strings were cut. She lay still, her mouth grinning up at me. Then her eyes went blank.

  I lifted my head and realised Danny was watching me, silently. My tears said it all.

  ‘I’d forgotten, Danny.’

  He nodded. ‘You hadn’t, Douglas. You really hadn’t.’

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Danny got up, flung a rug at me from the couch and found one himself. We sat huddled up like two old men left to rot at a nursing home. Twice we took turns to go into the back kitchen and make some tea while the other kept silent watch in the front room. We added brandy to it to sweeten it. We found some bread and a tin of corned beef and wolfed down thick sandwiches. By midnight it was clear she wasn’t coming back, but we couldn’t risk missing her. We turned out the lights and hunkered down in our chairs and slept fitfully till the morning.

  We struggled to our feet and stretched our stiff limbs. Sam would be worried. Duncan had promised to give her a call to let her know what we were doing, but even so. It had been a long day and a longer night. Danny looked as though he’d spent it on a park bench. I didn’t want to hear his thoughts on me, but I could see a mirror of my image in his red eyes.

  I peeked out between the curtains. There had been another dump in the night. All landmarks except the trees had been obliterated. I rubbed at the opaqueness but it was outside.

  We closed the door behind us, left the entry and stepped out into the new snow up to our knees. I took out a cigarette and stuck it between my lips. Then I threw it away, unlit. My mouth already tasted like an ashtray.

  ‘Your beard’s red,’ Danny commented.

  ‘So’s yours,’ I replied, rubbing my face.

  ‘So’s my hair. Yours is dark.’

  ‘The beard’s from my mother. The hair’s from my dad. You’ve just never seen me unshaven.’

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Let’s see if we can find Malachi.’

  We trudged up to Sam’s through deep drifts. The gangs of council snow clearers had given up the Sisyphean challenge. We might as well have been on the Fenwick Moors rather than Argyll Street. We were in time to join Sam for breakfast tea, toast and jam before she headed to Edinburgh’s high court for a preliminary hearing. Assuming the main line was open. We fell into chairs around the kitchen table, exhausted by our struggles.

  ‘You look like wrecks.’

  ‘You fair know how to bolster a man’s self-esteem,’ said Danny.

  ‘It’s her trademark.’

  It was hard to argue with her analysis. We told her what had happened since we set out yesterday morning to trap Langefeld – as we now knew him.

  ‘This woman? Did you check the bra size? Dress size?’

  Danny and I looked at each other. In our mind’s eye each of us was sensuously handling the silk knickers and slips. Too distracted to have Sam’s practical vision.

  ‘Er, no. Not exactly. She wasn’t big. I mean we’re not talking about giant bloomers or the like. About your shape, Sam.’ The kitchen went quiet as the implications of my last comment sank in. Her smile had fangs.

  ‘Well done, detectives.’

  I called Todd from the hall phone before heading up to shave and change.

  ‘Good idea, Brodie. Good thinking.’

  ‘It was Sam’s idea.’

  ‘Woman’s insight. We need more of that in the force. I’ll get one of ours straight round there. In the meantime . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Ah owe you an apology. Ah was keeping you in the dark.’

  ‘About what you found at Mandel’s place?’

  ‘Ah knew you’d noticed. The thing is we’ve got a lead. Of sorts. I’ve arranged a meeting. The day. It’s important, Brodie. And you need to come open-minded.’

  ‘When am I not?’

  ‘Aye well, see you do. Meet me here at Turnbull Street at eleven o’clock. On the dot. This is important. Very.’

  I was there at quarter to. I stood between the columns of St Andrew’s in the Square looking across to the familiar red sandstone of Central Division. I didn’t miss it. I finished my fag and crossed the road. I walked into the front desk and found Duncan already pacing up and down.

  ‘Good. Come on.’ He grabbed me by my arm and hauled me back out of the door.

  ‘Where are we going, Duncan?’

  ‘You’ll see. Just promise me this, Brodie. Best behaviour. No taking the piss.’

  ‘About what? Are we seeing the Pope or something?’

  He looked at me queerly. ‘Shut up, Brodie. I said no piss-taking. OK?’

  We walked – marched is the more the word – down Turnbull Street and into Glasgow Green. We pressed south and west towards Saltmarket. By the time we were walking along Clyde Street, I was beginning to guess where we were going.

  ‘Are we no’ too late for mass, Duncan?’

  He stopped dead. ‘See! Ah telt ye. Yer taking the piss, Brodie.’

  ‘Just tell me where we’re going, then.’

  He took a deep breath. ‘St Andrew’s Cathedral.’

  ‘To see?’

  ‘Donald Campbell.’

  ‘As in Donald Campbell, Archbishop of Glasgow?’

  ‘The very man.’

  ‘Duncan, it’s too late for me. You’ll never get me to confession.’

  We stood eyeball to eyeball; Duncan fuming and anxious, me taking the piss and wishing I wasn’t. But unless he explained, this was what he was going to get.

  He sagged. ‘It’s about the papers. On the woman, Mandel. I contacted his grace and he asked me to visit. With you.’

  ‘His grace? Is that what you have to call him?’

  ‘And you. Unless you want me to arrange for your body to be found floating by Dumbarton Rock.’

  ‘Would sir not do?’

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Brodie!’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘I made the really stupid mistake of mentioning you. Besides, he seems to know about some of the stuff you’ve been up to. Now can we get a move on? We’ll be late.’

  As we walked I tried to recall what little I knew of the Archbish. He’d been in the job a couple of years and, as his name suggested, he’d previously held the bishopric of Argyll. Campbell country. Sam would be pleased.

  As we neared the cathedral I couldn’t help glancing across the Clyde to Carlton Place.

  ‘Did your policewoman get the knicker size?’

  Duncan sighed. ‘Aye, she did. Petite, apparently. Which narrows it down to half the wee women in Glasgow.’

  ‘Maybe so, but how many wearing real silk?’

  We wrenched our minds from the secular as we turned into the cathedral frontage. I was reminded what a little gem it was. Nothing on the grandiose scale of some English or French cathedrals, just a beautifully proportioned church with a central portico and high stained-glass window above. On either side of the door were tall, slim towers with slender shafts thrusting up from the corners of the steep slanting roof. A priest was waiting for us. We were shown into a small study and invited to take a seat. He took our coats and hats.

  ‘His grace will be with you shortly.’ He bowed and left us alone.

  Within a few minutes the rear door opened and a man walked in. He was wearing a plain dark cassock surmounted by a huge cross on a chain.

  Duncan and I got to our feet. Duncan shot forward and knelt. The Archb
ishop stepped forward, pressed the back of his hands to Duncan’s face, allowed him to kiss his ring of office before getting him to his feet. He turned to me. He could see I wasn’t going to bow the knee.

  ‘Colonel Brodie, thank you for coming. I hope you don’t mind this invite?’

  His voice still held the lilt of the Highlands and the Isles.

  ‘Not at all, your grace.’

  He beamed at me. ‘Please drop the title. I hope we can be informal, just the three of us.’

  I saw Duncan’s face redden. His indoctrination hadn’t prepared him for anything but ‘his grace’. And Donald Campbell pointedly hadn’t indicated how we should refer to him. I decide to use no honorific whatsoever.

  ‘Now shall we all sit?’

  His non-grace took his seat behind the plain wooden desk. We sat opposite. We waited while tea was brought and his secretary had left us.

  ‘Mr Brodie, this is a delicate matter. I am asking for your complete discretion. You are not of our faith’ – he indicated Duncan – ‘so I am relying on your word as an officer and a gentleman. Is that fair?’

  ‘So you wouldn’t trust me if I was a mere corporal?’ I saw Duncan put his hand to his face.

  Into the strained silence I went on, ‘Is this about the Vatican connection with escaped Nazis?’

  FORTY-NINE

  The Archbishop stared at me for a long moment. ‘Inspector Todd said you were direct. Yes, it is. Or rather it’s about the supposed connection.’

  ‘Do you mean the documents are fake?’

  ‘Not necessarily. They could be real but might simply have been misused, do you see?’

  ‘If we are to be open with each other, then I need to know what documents we’re talking about. If they are the ones Duncan found at the dead woman’s house, I haven’t yet seen them.’

  They glanced at each other briefly and Todd nodded in acquiescence. The Archbishop pushed his chair back and pulled out a drawer in his desk. He took out some papers and placed them on top. ‘Please,’ he said, indicating them.

  I walked over and picked through the papers. There weren’t many. A passport like the others, but also letters with seals similar to the ones I’d seen over two months ago taken by Malachi from Dragan’s house. I held up the one with the seal of the Vatican on it and the signature under the printed name and seal of the Austrian Bishop Hudal.

  ‘Does Bishop Hudal exist?’ I asked.

  ‘Most certainly. He is the rector of the Pontficio Istituto Teutonico di Santa Maria dell’Anima in Rome. It is a seminary for Austrian and German priests.’

  ‘And has he been arranging escape routes – rat lines – for Nazis?’

  The Archbishop folded his fingers together and said carefully, ‘Some escape routes were set up during the war. For our own people. For persecuted churchmen. To help them get out of the occupied territories during the war. It seems perhaps these routes have been compromised.’

  ‘By Bishop Hudal?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Are you saying that someone else might be using the bishop’s signature and stamp?’

  The Archbishop twisted in his chair. His eyes flicked to Todd’s. ‘We are not certain.’

  ‘It’s an uncertain world. But tell me, why am I here? What do you want from me?’

  ‘I want you to know – believe it if you will – that here in Scotland the Catholic Church plays no part in these so-called rat lines.’

  ‘So they exist but outside your control. I see.’ My sarcasm must have stung. It brought colour to Campbell’s cheeks and a groan from Todd.

  ‘You don’t, do you, Brodie? Why should you?’

  I waited. The Archbishop got up. We began rising too. I assumed the audience was over and that I was about to be thrown out for failing to take the word of a bishop of Rome. And for being chippy.

  ‘No. Sit, please,’ he said and moved round from behind his table. He walked over to a small painting on the wall next to his desk. It showed Paul, kneeling and blind, while a great light shone down on him.

  ‘You know this scene?’

  ‘The road to Damascus.’

  ‘I’m not going to make simplistic parallels, Brodie. But let me at least throw some light on this matter.’ He walked over to the window that gave out on to the side passage of the cathedral. He turned and looked at me. His face was contorted with anguish. ‘I hear your friend McRae was in Dachau?’

  I nodded.

  ‘These stories of Nazi concentration camps. The stories of mass murder of our brothers in Christ, the Jews. They are our stories, Brodie. Thousands of my Catholic brothers were murdered by Hitler’s gangs.’ His Highland accent was growing stronger as he talked, the lilt making the words sing.

  ‘Ask your friend McRae about the priests who died alongside him. They were gathered in Dachau from all over Europe and were slaughtered there. I am telling you that your enemy is mine. Nothing, nothing would have made me give them assistance to escape justice.’

  I noticed the tense he was using. ‘You sound as though there was temptation.’

  His face darkened even more. He nodded. ‘Christ himself would struggle with the choices. Nazism or Communism? Stalin is as much a persecutor of the Church as Hitler. Two years ago – shortly after I was appointed here – a representative of Rome called on me. He was the envoy of Cardinal Eugène Tisserant.’

  ‘French?’

  ‘Yes. And anti-communist.’

  ‘Calling on the Auld Alliance?’ I said with incredulity.

  ‘You might say that. The cardinal had been approached by certain Argentinian cardinals. They were offering to establish escape routes to South America for French anti-communists.’

  ‘And for anti-communist read Nazi?’

  ‘He made a powerful argument. A subtle argument. Let me paraphrase. Communism’s implacable goal is to wipe out religion. The Red Army is Satan’s hordes. We cannot afford to be too selective as to who would serve with us under Christ’s banner. Indeed, if we are clever, we can stand to one side and let the Bolsheviks and Fascists fight each other to extinction.’

  ‘Total war doesn’t work that way. There are no sidelines.’

  ‘You’re right, Brodie. That is the pragmatic objection. But there is also the moral one. I wrestled with this proposal for a day and a night. But in my heart I had already instantly decided. This was a squalid argument and a squalid bargain.’

  ‘You refused to help.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But someone accepted? Someone locally.’

  ‘It seems so.’

  ‘Do you know who?’

  ‘Not the name.’

  ‘But . . .?’

  ‘The envoy said that America was on our side. His side. Against communism. That they wanted selected senior Nazis – scientists, doctors, spies – to help them in this new war.’

  ‘So the local contact is an American?’

  ‘A senior officer of some sorts.’

  ‘In Glasgow?’

  ‘At the airport. At Prestwick Airport.’

  I stared at the Archbishop, then at Duncan. It was so obvious that it felt as if I was having my own Damascene enlightenment. I’d flown into it barely a fortnight ago. Prestwick had been a major allied hub for war planes throughout the war. Hundreds of freight and bomber flights every day poured in from America and Canada. The US Air Force had based a huge staff there marshalling forces for D-Day and beyond.

  The airport was only eight miles from Kilmarnock. I remembered coming home on leave once and taking the train down to watch flight after flight roaring over the white beaches of Troon and Monkton. Now Prestwick was the booming heart of civilian transatlantic passenger flights. It was never fog-bound and offered a short direct hop to and from America’s east coast. A perfect escape route.

  FIFTY

  I walked back to Central Division with Duncan.

  ‘Did you know all this beforehand, Duncan?’

  ‘Nup. I was dumbfoonert. Ah just had a wee chat with my own pr
iest about the Vatican letter and next thing it’s a holy summons.’

  ‘At confession? I thought that was sacrosanct? No clyping even to an archbishop.’

  ‘It was outside the confessional, I’ll have you know.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure you’ve earned yourself an indulgence or two.’

  ‘Don’t mock, Brodie. That’s as near as Ah’ll get to the top man.’

  ‘God?’

  ‘Ye cannae help yersel’, can ye?’

  ‘What are you going to do about the American connection?’

  ‘What am Ah gonnae do? What do you suggest? Raid Prestwick Airport? Just roll down there wi’ a fleet o’ Black Marias and lift every Yank in sight. Is that the plan?’

  ‘It’s pretty desperate, isn’t it?’

  ‘Aye, it is.’

  ‘We have to do something. This stinks.’

  ‘To high heaven. But I assume it’s occurred to you that it might be sanctioned?’

  ‘By our own government? Yeah. Nothing surprises me any more. But Sillitoe would have said something. Surely.’

  We walked back through the park and up Turnbull Street. Ahead of us was a small group of people. They seemed excited. As I got closer I recognised some of them, one especially. Rabbi Silver.

  ‘Maurice, what’s going on?’

  ‘Brodie! It’s Shimon and Isaac! They’ve taken them!’

  ‘What! What are you saying? Who’s taken them?’

  The crowd re-formed round Duncan and me. To one side was a red-faced police sergeant.

  Duncan pressed forward. ‘What’s going on, Sergeant?’

  ‘Sir, these men say they got a phone call. Someone claiming they’ve kidnapped two of their pals.’

  Maurice Silver cut in. ‘They called the synagogue. Said they’d taken Shimon from his shop in Candleriggs and Isaac from his place and were holding them until we freed the man on the bridge, they said. They said they were both going to die unless they got their man back. We checked both shops. They’re empty. But they’d carved a swastika on the counters. The two families are in a terrible state. Brodie, who is this man they want to trade for our two?’