by Jack Higgins
No woman had ever smiled at him quite like that. It was the sort of smile that went with the surroundings, drawing him in, enveloping him with a tenderness he had never experienced before.
As if she sensed what he was thinking, the smile disappeared from her face. He took the tray from her hands and said gently, “The coffee smells good.”
She led the way into the other room, and they sat down by the empty fireplace and he put the tray on a small table. As he poured, he said, “Nothing you’ve told me fully explains why a girl like you should be doing this sort of work.”
She held her cup in both hands and sipped coffee slowly. “My parents were German refugees who went to Palestine during the Nazi persecution, but I’m a sabra – Israeli born and bred. It makes me different in a way which would be difficult to explain. People like me have been given so much – I’ve never known what it is to suffer as my parents did. Because of that, I have a special responsibility.”
“It sounds more like a king-size guilt complex to me.”
She shook her head. “No, that isn’t true. I volunteered for this work because I felt I had to do something for my people.”
“Surely there are other things you could have done back home,” he said. “There’s a new country to be built.”
“But for me it isn’t enough. This way, I feel I can do something for all men – not just for my own race.”
Chavasse frowned and drank some of his coffee and she sighed. “I’m sorry, it’s difficult to put into words, but then feelings always are.” She shrugged and produced a packet of cigarettes from the pocket of her kimono and offered him one. “If it comes to that, how does anyone get into this kind of work? What about you, for instance?”
He smiled and gave her a light. “I started as an amateur. I was a university lecturer – Ph.D. in modern languages. A friend of mine had an elder sister who’d married a Czechoslovakian. After the war, her husband died. She wanted to return to England with her two children, but the Communists wouldn’t let her.”
“And you decided to get her out?”
He nodded. “The government couldn’t help, and as I speak the language, I decided to do something unofficially.”
“It must have been difficult,” Anna said.
He smiled. “How we managed it I’ll never know, but we did. I was in hospital in Vienna recuperating from a slight injury, when the man I work for now came to see me. He offered me a job.”
“But that still doesn’t explain why you took it.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t – not straightaway. I went back to my university for the following term.”
“And what happened?”
He got to his feet and walked across to the window. It was still raining, and he stared out into the night and tried to get it straight in his own mind. Finally, he said, “I found that I was spending my life teaching languages to people who in their turn would spend their lives teaching languages to other people. It suddenly seemed rather pointless.”
“But that isn’t a reason,” she said. “That’s the whole human story.”
“But don’t you see?” he said. “I’d discovered things about myself that I never knew before. That I liked taking a calculated risk and pitting my wits against the opposition. On looking back on the Czechoslovakian business, I realize that in some twisted kind of way I’d enjoyed it. Can you understand that?”
“I’m not really sure,” she said slowly. “Can anyone honestly say they enjoy staring death in the face each day?”
“I don’t think of that side of it,” he said, “any more than a Grand Prix racing driver does.”
“But you’re a scholar,” she said. “How can you waste all that?”
“It takes intelligence to stay alive in this game.”
There was a slight silence and then she sighed. “Don’t you ever feel like giving it up?”
He shrugged and said lightly, “Only when it’s four o’clock in the morning and I can’t sleep. Sometimes I lie in the dark with a cigarette and listen to the wind rattling the window frames and I feel alone and completely cut off from the rest of humanity.”
There was a dead, somber quality in his voice, and she reached across quickly and took one of his hands. “And can you find no one to share that loneliness?”
“A woman, you mean?” He laughed. “Now, what could I ever offer a woman? Long unexplained absences without even a letter to comfort her?” There was a sudden pity in her eyes, and he leaned across and gently covered her hand with his. “Don’t feel sorry for me, Anna,” he said. “Don’t ever feel sorry for me.”
Her eyes closed and tears beaded the dark eyelashes. He got to his feet, suddenly angry, and said brutally, “Keep your sorrow for yourself, you’ll need it. I’m a professional and work against professionals. Men like me obey one law only – the job must come first.”
She opened her eyes and looked up at him. “And don’t you think that I live by that law just as fully?”
He pulled her up from the chair. “Don’t make me laugh,” he said. “You and Hardt are dedicated souls, amateurs playing with fire.” She tried to look away, and he forced her chin up with one hand. “Could you be ruthless – really ruthless, I mean? Could you leave Hardt to lie with a bullet in his leg and run on to save yourself?”
Something very like horror appeared in her eyes, and he said gently, “I’ve had to do that on several occasions, Anna.”
She turned her face into his shoulder, and he held her close. “Why didn’t you stay back in Israel where you belong?”
She raised her head and looked up into his face and she was no longer crying. “It’s because I wanted to stay that I had to come.” She pulled him over to the couch and they sat down. “As a small girl, I lived on a kibbutz near Migdal. There was a hill I used to climb. From the top, I could look out over the Sea of Galilee. It was very beautiful, but beauty, like everything else in life, must be paid for. Can you understand that?”
She was very close to him, and he looked down into her eyes and they moved together, naturally and easily, and kissed. They stayed that way for quite some time, and after a while she said with a sigh, “This shouldn’t have happened, should it?”
He shook his head. “No, very definitely not.”
“But I knew it would happen,” she said. “From the moment you spoke to me at the club, I knew it would happen. And why not? We are human beings after all.”
“Are we?” he said, and got to his feet. He walked over to the window and lit a cigarette, taking his time. “Perhaps you are, but I don’t think I could change now if I wanted to.”
She walked near and faced him, eyes searching his face. “Then what just happened changes nothing for you?”
He nodded somberly. “Except to make me feel even lonelier at four o’clock in the morning.”
A sudden determination showed in her face, and she was about to reply when there was a knock on the door. When she moved across the room and opened it, Mark Hardt came in.
CHAPTER 5
He wore a dark, belted raincoat and his hair was wet from the rain. He slipped an arm about Anna’s shoulders and kissed her lightly on the cheek, and then he smiled across at Chavasse. “So you found her all right?”
Chavasse nodded. “No trouble at all.”
Hardt removed his coat and threw it across a chair, and then he walked to the table and sat down. Anna got another cup from the kitchen and filled it with coffee. He drank a little. “It’s raining heavier than ever now.” He looked up at her. “Anything to report?”
She nodded. “Katie Holdt didn’t come in to work. I checked with her landlady. Apparently, she packed a bag and left without leaving any forwarding address.”
He put down the cup. “I was hoping she might put us onto something in time.”
“What about the hotel in Gluckstrasse?” Chavasse asked. “Did you find anything of interest?”
“Only the fact that Muller never lived there,” Hardt said. “He seems to have used the
place simply as an address where he could safely pick up his mail.”
“And Otto Schmidt?” Chavasse said. “Any luck there?”
Hardt nodded. “He’s a widower – lives on his own in an apartment in Steinerstrasse. That’s not too far from here.”
Chavasse glanced at his watch. It was just after four-thirty. “How about paying him a visit? It’s amazing what one can sometimes get out of people in the cold, gray light of dawn.”
“Just what I was going to suggest.” Hardt got to his feet, and as he reached for his coat, he appeared to remember something. He turned to the girl. “By the way, Anna, didn’t you tell me that Muller had been in the Army?”
She nodded, a puzzled look on her face. “That’s right. Why, is anything wrong?”
“Only that according to a photo Chavasse found when searching Muller’s body on the train, he was in the Luftwaffe.”
“But he was in the Army,” Anna said. “I’ve got an old photo to prove it.” She picked up her handbag and rummaged through it. After a moment, she handed it across. “It fell from Katie’s handbag yesterday after she’d been showing it to me. It was taken in 1942 when she was only a child.”
Hardt took the photo and Chavasse moved to look over his shoulder. The photo was cracked and faded, but it was still possible to see the pride in the face of the little girl as she held the hand of the big brother who stood stiffly to attention in his Army uniform.
Chavasse frowned. “But this isn’t Muller,” he said to Anna.
She said firmly, “But it is – why would Katie Holdt lie? In any case, I can tell that she definitely is the little girl and there’s an unmistakable family likeness between her and the soldier. It must be her brother.”
“Then who was the man in your compartment?” Hardt said to Chavasse.
Chavasse shook his head. “He wasn’t Muller, we can be certain of that.”
“Then what do you think happened?”
Chavasse pulled on his raincoat and buttoned it quickly. “I’d only be guessing,” he said, “and I never like to do that. Let’s say a certain pattern has formed in my mind. I think a few words with Otto Schmidt might go a long way toward completing the picture.”
“Then we’ll go and see him,” Hardt said. He turned to Anna. “We’ll take the car. Have you got the keys?”
She quickly took them from her bag and handed them across, and then she opened the door for them. Hardt went out without a word, but as Chavasse descended the stairs, he glanced back and saw her still standing there, framed in the opening of the door. She raised her hand and her mouth moved silently. When he looked back again, she had closed the door.
THEY parked the car around the corner from Steinerstrasse and walked the rest of the way. Hardt found the apartment house with no difficulty and they moved inside. Schmidt’s apartment was on the third floor and they paused outside the door and listened. There was no sound and Chavasse gently tried the door. It was locked.
Hardt pressed the bell firmly, holding it in position, and they waited. Within a few moments, they heard steps approaching the door. It opened on a chain and Schmidt said sleepily, “Yes, who is it?”
“Police!” Chavasse said gruffly in German. “Come on, open up!”
Schmidt seemed to come to life at once. He disengaged the chain and opened the door. As he saw Chavasse, his jaw dropped. Chavasse moved in quickly and jabbed a fist into the man’s belly before he could cry out. Schmidt sagged at the knees and started to keel forward. Chavasse ducked, caught him across one shoulder, and walked on into the room.
Behind him, Hardt closed the door, and Chavasse flung Schmidt into a chair. He lit a cigarette, sat back, and waited.
Schmidt looked terrible in the half-light of the nearby table lamp. After a while, he seemed to have got his breath back. Chavasse pulled a chair forward and sat in front of him. “Surprised to see me, Schmidt?”
Schmidt looked frightened to death. He moistened his lips. “The police are looking for you, Herr Chavasse.”
“Nice of you to let me know,” Chavasse said. He leaned across and slashed Schmidt backhanded across the mouth. “Now let’s cut out the polite talk and get down to business. The coffee you served me on the train just before we arrived at Osnabruck – it was drugged, wasn’t it?”
Schmidt made a feeble effort to protest. “I don’t know what you are talking about, mein Herr.”
Chavasse leaned forward. “I haven’t got much time, Schmidt, so I’ll make it brief. I’ll give you about ten seconds to start talking. If you don’t, I’m going to have to break your left wrist. If that doesn’t work, we’ll try the right one as well.”
Schmidt’s mouth went slack. “But I daren’t tell you, mein Herr. If I do, he’ll kill me.”
“Who will?” Hardt said, moving across the room quickly and standing at the back of the chair.
Schmidt looked up at him, his eyes round and staring. “Inspector Steiner,” he whispered.
“I thought so,” Chavasse said. “Now we’re beginning to get somewhere. The man who was killed in my compartment – was he the man who boarded the train at Osnabruck?”
Schmidt shook his head. “No, mein Herr.”
“Who was he then?” Hardt demanded.
Schmidt seemed to have difficulty in forming the words and when he spoke, it was in a whisper. “He was the one Steiner and Dr. Kruger brought on board at Rheine on the stretcher.”
“And was there anything peculiar about him when they boarded the train?” Chavasse said. He pulled Schmidt forward by the front of his dressing gown. “Come on, answer me!”
“He was dead, mein Herr!” Schmidt moaned and collapsed in the chair, sobbing.
Chavasse stood up. “I thought so. There was something about the body that didn’t quite fit when I examined it. At the time my brain was still feeling the aftereffects of the drug and I couldn’t make any sense of it. But I remembered on the way here in the car. The fingers had already stiffened and the body was as cold as clay.”
“Because he’d been dead for some hours?” Hardt said.
Chavasse nodded. “I don’t know who he was. Perhaps simply a body supplied by Dr. Kruger. He and Steiner boarded the train at Rheine, made Schmidt drug my coffee, and waited in my compartment for the real Muller to board the train at Osnabruck.”
“Then Muller was the man on the stretcher when it left the train at Hamburg?” Hardt said.
Chavasse nodded. “It was a neat plan. They eliminated me and they got their hands on Muller. Presumably, they intend to screw the information out of him at their leisure.”
“I wonder where they’ve taken him,” Hardt said.
Chavasse shrugged and then a thought occurred to him. “Perhaps our friend here can tell us.” He lifted Schmidt’s head back by the hair. “Any suggestions, Schmidt?”
“The ambulance was from Dr. Kruger’s private clinic at Blankenese,” Schmidt said. He lifted his hands pleadingly. “For God’s sake, mein Herr, you mustn’t let Steiner know you found these things out from me. He’s a terrible man. He was a group leader in the SS.”
“Then why did you help him?” Hardt said.
“But I had no choice,” Schmidt said. “You do not know how powerful these people are.”
At that moment, a step sounded outside on the landing and there was a knock at the door. Chavasse jerked Schmidt to his feet and pulled him close. “Find out who it is,” he whispered, “and don’t try anything funny.”
Schmidt walked hesitantly toward the door and said in a cracked voice, “Who is it?”
“Inspector Steiner!” The words came clearly through the thin paneling, and Schmidt turned toward the two men inside. “What shall I do?”
Chavasse looked inquiringly at Hardt. “Are you armed?”
Hardt shook his head. “No, but Steiner will be.”
Chavasse nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. What a wonderful opportunity for him to get rid of both of us and prove himself a hero at the same time. We wouldn’t stand
a chance.”
He walked across to the window, brushing aside the panic-stricken Schmidt, who clutched at his sleeve, and opened it. A little to one side, a thick iron drainpipe dropped forty feet to the cobbles of the yard at the rear of the building. Three feet beyond it, there was an iron fire escape.
As Hardt moved beside him, Steiner hammered on the door and said angrily, “Schmidt, open up.”
Schmidt plucked at Chavasse’s arm. “He’ll kill me.”
Chavasse ignored him and nodded toward the fire escape. “I’d say it’s our best way down.” Without waiting for Hardt to agree, he climbed out onto the windowsill. He reached out for the drainpipe, skinning his knuckles on the rough brickwork as he slid his hands round it. For a moment, he paused, and then he launched himself to one side, his left hand grabbing for the iron railing of the fire escape. A moment later and he was safe on the platform.
Hardt emerged onto the windowsill. He successfully negotiated the drainpipe and jumped for the fire escape. Chavasse reached out and caught him by the arm as his foot slipped. A moment later and Hardt stood safely beside him on the platform.
Schmidt leaned out of the window, a look of terror on his face. “Help me, I implore you. He’s breaking in the door.”
Chavasse was already clattering down the iron steps of the fire escape and Hardt followed him. As they started across the cobbled yard to the alley that gave access to the front of the house, there was a sudden cry from above and they both paused and looked up.
Schmidt was hanging onto the drainpipe, obviously too terrified to make a move. At that moment, Steiner leaned out of the window and reached toward him. With a courage born of desperation, Schmidt jumped for the fire escape, his hand clawing the air.
His fingers seemed to find a hold and for a moment he hung there, and then he slipped and fell, his body twisting in midair so that he hit the cobbles headfirst.
Hardt gave a cry of horror and started forward, but Chavasse grabbed him by the arm and hustled him through the alley and out into the street. “We’ve got to think about the living,” he said. “If we don’t get away from here fast, Steiner will have half the Hamburg police force breathing down our necks.”