by Alex Gerlis
The officer said he had the perfect solution. ‘You know the old synagogue on Oranienburger Strasse?’
Max Stein said that of course he did. ‘My uncle used to worship there.’ The officer was being so pleasant to him, he wondered if he was Jewish himself. He’d heard the terrible rumours that half the Red Army officers in Berlin were Jews. That was all he needed.
‘It’s where Jewish refugees go. We’ll take you straight there.’
It was the last place Wolfgang Steiner wanted to be, and as he self-consciously entered the building, he worried that people were looking suspiciously at him. He asked to be shown to the toilets, and further down a corridor found a side door that led to the street. It was mid-afternoon but getting dark, and a bitter wind whipped around him. He wondered whether he should have stayed for a few minutes to get a warm drink and something to eat, and maybe some papers, but he decided to hurry away from Oranienburger Strasse. At least he was in Mitte, which was not far from his destination.
The destruction of Berlin was quite beyond anything he’d imagined. He’d seen what the bombing had done to Munich and Dresden, but as bad as that was, those were cities he was unfamiliar with. Berlin was different: it had been his home for seven years and he’d grown quite fond of it. In many ways he’d felt it had more soul to it than his native Vienna, lacking the latter’s suffocating formality.
Now it felt as if it wasn’t just the city’s buildings that had been destroyed but its heart too. There was no atmosphere; it was as if the remains of the place had been transported to an alien landscape.
The destruction was so bad he had trouble finding his way round. He’d got to know the city very well: during the curfew, he’d enjoyed strolling around it in the dark, enjoying the privilege of being able to do so thanks to his rank. But now it wasn’t just the street signs that were missing; it was the streets themselves, and the buildings and other landmarks that had helped identify them. He was reluctant to ask other pedestrians for directions: no one seemed to be in a mood to talk.
Eventually his instinct led him in what he hoped was the direction of Prenzlauer Berg. The house he was looking for was in Grenadier Strasse, just off Horst-Wessel Platz. But along with the name of the square, the house was missing too, as were half its neighbours. The street was like an old man’s mouth: foul-smelling, half open, with unsightly gaps between the teeth.
He spotted an old woman watching him from the doorway of a nearby house.
‘Frau Schulze…’
‘What about her?’
‘Do you know where she is?’
The woman was chewing something black, and her teeth were stained the same colour. She leaned forward and peered at the gap where the house had been. ‘She seems to have popped out!’ This was followed by a bitter laugh and a bout of noisy coughing. When she had recovered, she asked him why he wanted her.
‘I was a friend of hers.’
‘You don’t look like one of her friends.’
‘Do you know where she is?’
Another cackling laugh, followed by more coughing. She pointed to a high pile of rubble blocking the end of the street. ‘Somewhere in there, I imagine, what’s left of her. Her house took a direct hit. What’s your name anyway?’
He thanked her and hurried away. He hadn’t asked Bormann how he knew Frau Schulze, though the connection seemed strange. She wasn’t his kind of contact, not beautiful or an obvious Nazi. She was just an ordinary woman, a war widow with two sons on the Eastern Front. Maybe that was why he’d chosen her: because no one would suspect her of a connection with a prominent Nazi.
She was one of four contacts Bormann had set up across the city.
If I manage to leave the bunker, Wolfgang, and can’t get out of Berlin and down to you, I’ll try to leave a message with one of these people. I may even be able to hide there – or at least tell them where I am. That way you will know where to find me.
Steiner had had his doubts about the plan but couldn’t think of anything better. The idea had been to find contacts in different parts of the city, thus increasing Bormann’s chances of getting a message to at least one of them. As well as Frau Schulze in Prenzlauer Berg, there’d been a man called Köhler who ran a cobbler’s in Neukölln in the south-east of the city; a schoolteacher called Kühn who lived in a smart apartment with stunning views of the Tiergarten; and an elderly woman – Frau Vogt – in Schöneberg.
For two days Max Stein walked the city, his identity card getting him through checkpoints easily enough and the dollars in his wallet enabling him to buy a bed for the night. The cobbler in Neukölln was horrified when he entered the shop and asked whether the pair of dark brown hunting boots he’d brought in to be re-soled months ago were ready… name of Graf. Köhler said he knew nothing – absolutely nothing, nothing whatsoever – and he was to leave. Please go! He pushed him out of the shop.
Frau Vogt’s apartment in Schöneberg was still there, but Frau Vogt wasn’t. As he knocked on the door of her apartment, he spotted neighbours watching him from every doorway.
She’s dead.
Steiner said he was sorry to hear that – how did it happen? he wondered.
The Russians raped her: they raped all of us. She bled to death.
A notice on Herr Kühn’s door in Tiergarten said the apartment had been requisitioned by the British, and that he was staying with his daughter in Wedding, her address helpfully added.
‘Let’s go for a walk,’ Kühn said after Steiner had identified himself: I was wondering if you’d heard from my friend Graf – he was a former colleague of yours, I understand?
They walked silently onto a patch of wasteland – there were plenty to choose from – and sat on two chairs incongruously placed in the middle. Kühn insisted Steiner should call him Willi.
‘Look, I don’t know where Martin is and I’ve not had any contact with him.’ He was looking around nervously. ‘But I can tell you what I heard, though it’s third-hand, from someone who says he got it from another man who spoke to Axmann – I presume you know him?’
Steiner nodded. Of course he did: Artur Axmann, head of the Hitler Youth.
‘According to them, Axmann left the bunker on the first of May, the day after Hitler committed suicide. He was in a group that included Bormann and an SS doctor called Stumpfegger. They escaped through a U-Bahn tunnel as far as Friedrichstrasse, and then tried to cross the Spree on the Weidendammer Bridge to reach Lehrter station along the railway line, but because the Soviets were so close they decided to split up. Axmann was on his own and escaped, but it’s not clear what happened to Bormann and Stumpfegger.’
‘Where’s Axmann now?’
‘This man said he’s hiding in the Lübeck area, I’ve no idea if that’s true.’
‘So Bormann could still be alive?’
‘It’s certainly possible.’
The two men were walking back across the wasteland. ‘Can I ask how you knew the Reichsleiter?’ Steiner said.
‘Our mothers were great friends back in our home town in Saxony, and he and I grew up together, so when we both found ourselves in Berlin, we kept in touch, though increasingly less frequently. It was a relationship based on nostalgia, I guess. I’m not a political person, but when Martin approached me in March, I felt obliged to help an old friend.’
‘Of course.’
‘You’re Wolfgang Steiner, aren’t you?’
He stopped abruptly. ‘Martin told you?’
‘He confided in me – I got the impression he wanted to unburden himself. He even told me about the Kestrel Line and—’
‘He told you all that?’
The other man nodded, and Steiner said it would be best if he didn’t mention a word of this to anyone.
‘And where are you based now, Wolfgang – in case Martin turns up and wants to find you?’
For Steiner, that was one question too many. He wasn’t sure about this urbane schoolteacher who knew far too much.
‘Martin will know.’
‘But wh
at if he contacts me and needs to get hold of you urgently?’
‘Memorise this telephone number, Willi – and don’t give it to anyone else, you understand? Only use it if there’s a message from Martin.’
It was not as much of a risk as it could have been. When he’d had the telephone installed at Frau Moser’s farm, he’d made it untraceable by ensuring all records of it were destroyed.
They came to Gericht Strasse and shook hands as they prepared to go their separate ways.
‘So you have no idea where Martin is?’ Kühn asked.
Steiner shook his head. He’d rather been counting on the schoolteacher to tell him.
Chapter 16
London, October 1945
‘Good Lord, Roly, you are being serious!’
‘Well of course I’m being serious, Tom. If one is to have some credibility with these people, then one needs to purchase… Look, Roland, perhaps you’d care to back me up here?’
Roland Bentley was Tom Gilbey’s superior in MI6, an enigmatic man skilled at the art of standing above any dispute until the last possible moment. He had recently been knighted, and the gossip was that he was about to become the head of a Cambridge college. He looked up at Gilbey and Pearson, the two men sitting either side of him.
‘Perhaps if we calm down just a little bit, eh? Roly, how much did you say the painting is?’
‘The asking price is two hundred and thirty guineas, but I’m of the view—’
‘I’m sorry, but I’ve never heard of Joseph Wright of Derby. Have you, Roland?’
‘Wright of Derby? Of course I have, Tom: he is an outstanding painter, perhaps not with the reputation he deserves – at least not among the general public.’ Bentley managed to make the word ‘general’ sound as if he meant uncultured.
‘As I was saying, I’m of the view that two hundred and thirty guineas is something of a bit of a try-on. I have bought fine art before and I’m sure a price nearer to two hundred guineas would be feasible. The point I was endeavouring to make is that if my new persona of Anthony Hawke is to be taken seriously so that I can find out what they’re up to, then his interest in art must be demonstrated to be a genuine one through the purchase of a painting.’
‘If it helps, Tom, the money need not come from your budget; I’m happy to cover it from central funds. After all, it’s not as if Roly’s going to keep the painting, is it? Once this is all over, we can sell it. We may even make a profit.’
They all laughed, and Gilbey said in that case maybe he could see the merit of the idea, and he’d have a word with their man at Coutts and ensure there was an account opened that afternoon in the name of Anthony Hawke.
‘You’ll have a chequebook by lunchtime, and then you can head off to Cork Street. We only had time to give you a fairly basic backstory, as you know, so one hopes they don’t dig too deeply. I doubt they’ll be up to that, though – certainly as long as you give them no cause for concern, eh?’
‘And our objective?’ It was a classic Roland Bentley pronouncement: straight to the point. Both he and Pearson looked at Gilbey.
‘To see whether these fellows are involved in funding the Kestrel Line. If Roly believes they are then he’ll say he wants to make a small donation and we can see how matters develop from there. No heroics, please, Roly: I’ll have a couple of chaps outside the gallery just in case.’
‘I’m not sure what you think I’m going to do, Tom. I sense they may indeed want to me to make a donation to their cause – that’s the most likely outcome, wouldn’t you have thought? In which case you’d better make sure there are sufficient funds in the Coutts account.’
‘How much did you have in mind?’
‘Twenty-five pounds should open a door or two: plus the cost of the painting, of course.’
* * *
Sir Roland Pearson’s return visit to Bourne and Sons did not start well. He was shocked as he approached the gallery on Cork Street to see a silver-grey Jaguar sports saloon parked more or less outside the building. It was obvious to him that the two middle-aged men in the car – both reading newspapers – were Gilbey’s ‘chaps’, as he called them, there ‘just in case’.
He hoped they were not as obvious to other people.
When he entered the gallery, there was no sign of Ridgeway. No sooner had the bell rung as he opened the door than a man appeared from the rear. He was shorter than Ridgeway and about the same age, wearing a black suit with a grey waistcoat and a bow tie.
‘May I help you?’ He sounded more confident than Ridgeway, less servile. Pearson said he had met a Mr Ridgeway here two days earlier who had suggested he return around this time.
‘And for what purpose, may I ask, sir?’
Pearson hesitated. He had no idea who this man was. ‘I was interested in purchasing a painting, actually: the Wright of Derby landscape.’ He’d moved in front of the painting, admiring it once again. It was actually a fine piece, one that would look good in his study. Maybe Bentley would let him have it at a discount once this was all over.
‘An excellent choice, sir, a very good example of Wright’s work, and I have little doubt a painting like this will appreciate considerably in value. You will of course understand that its excellence is reflected in its price.’
‘Of course.’
‘We are asking two hundred and thirty guineas for it, sir. May I know your name?’
‘Hawke – with an “e”. Anthony Hawke.’
‘Ah yes, indeed, Donald did say you had shown interest in this particular painting and might be returning. Are you by any chance related to the Dorset Hawkes?’
‘No, Westmorland actually, though my wife and I are in the process of moving to the North Riding. We’re rather between the two at the moment.’
‘The Pennine Hills, then?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘The Pennine Hills – they’re between Westmorland and the North Riding.’ The man chuckled in a self-satisfied manner.
‘Oh, I see, yes – jolly good.’ Pearson was bending down to study the painting in closer detail, trying to remember that Anthony Hawke was not meant to be jovial. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I caught your name?’
‘I do apologise, I ought to have introduced myself: Charles Bourne – as in Bourne and Sons.’
‘One of the sons?’
‘Grandson, actually.’
Pearson nodded and stepped back from the painting, frowning as he looked at it. He caught a movement at the window and was sure it was one of Gilbey’s men peering in, which was really not good enough. ‘I think I would consider anything above two hundred guineas to be too steep.’
‘Perhaps if we were to suggest two hundred and twenty, sir?’
He was concerned that in the absence of Ridgeway this would turn out to be a futile visit, but he could hardly leave now. ‘Would two hundred and fifteen be agreeable to you?’
Bourne said it was, and enthusiastically rubbed his hands as he removed the painting from the wall and carried it over to a large table. He said he’d wrap it and prepare the provenance and the invoice.
Ridgeway looked around and lowered his voice, ‘Donald said you spoke most movingly of your love for England when you were here before.’
Anthony Hawke grunted as he removed his Coutts chequebook from his pocket. ‘I make the cheque out to Bourne and Sons, I presume?’
Bourne said indeed, and added that he very much shared the sentiments he understood Mr Hawke had so admirably articulated to his colleague.
‘There we are, Bourne.’ Hawke passed the cheque across the table. ‘One of course has one’s views on where this country is going and how the war turned out, and I do rather despair, but I very much doubt there’s very much one can do about it.’
Bourne paused and wondered whether Mr Hawke would join him in his office so they could finalise the paperwork? Hawke said of course, and Bourne apologised as he led him to the back of the gallery, explaining that the office was not as tidy as perhaps it should be
but he blamed his grandfather for that.
It was only when he sat down in an ancient chair that he was unsure would hold his weight that Sir Roland noticed a woman sitting in the corner of the room, her slim legs crossed and her hands resting on her lap. Bourne said she was a colleague and someone who could absolutely be trusted – ‘Perhaps even more than me!’ Pearson was intrigued by her: she was perhaps in her mid-fifties, a remarkably elegant woman with a face he’d describe as pretty. In her day she must have been quite beautiful. She nodded her head in his direction but otherwise remained impassive as Bourne completed the paperwork and placed the cheque in a small safe.
‘You said, Mr Hawke, that you doubted there was much one could do regarding the way the country is going.’ He coughed and paused as he considered what he was about to say. ‘There are those of us who take the view that that is not necessarily the case. We have long believed that this country has been perhaps… misguided in the allegiances it formed and in whom it sought to protect and those it chose to oppose.’
He paused and turned round to the woman, who said nothing but nodded: carry on.
‘A number of us are seeking to support those in Europe who may have hitherto been seen as the enemy but who we regard as the last defenders of Christian Europe against the communists – and the Jews, of course.’
The room dropped into silence and Anthony Hawke half nodded.
‘Support them in what way, Bourne?’
‘Perhaps I could explain.’ The woman had uncrossed her legs and was smoothing her skirt. ‘What Charles is trying to say is that there are Germans who are being hunted as war criminals when they did no more than fight for their country. We are of the view that these people are in the vanguard of defending Europe’s traditional values. To this end, a number of them are seeking to assume new identities and leave Europe, so that they are in a position to resume their cause. We are assisting one particular group in a practical manner, specifically by providing funds to enable their passage. There are also people in this country we wish to send on the same… route.’