Bright Dart

by Suninfo

  Obviously Kastner had gained the impression that Bormann was behind the move to seek a peaceful settlement of the war and this explained why, despite obtaining authority to do so, he had still not arrested Osler. In common with so many others Kastner was trying to keep a foot in each camp, and the memorandum he had prepared under the title of Münster—Case Black was merely an elaborate form of life insurance.

  Kaltenbrunner leaned forward and rifled through the contents of his pending tray until he found the docket which Frau Bungert had produced for his signature. Since Monday it had been lying there awaiting his attention and he wondered how much longer he could ignore its presence. To sign it would be an admission that the file existed, yet to pretend that he had never seen it would be equally dangerous because the Bungert woman had retained the carbon copies and once she produced them, the 145

  officious superintending clerk in charge of the central registry would insist on a complete check of all documents.

  Faced with a difficult situation, Kaltenbrunner looked for and found the perfect compromise. He signed the docket and then telephoned Kastner to ask him to account for his movements on the night of Monday, 9th October. He was, in fact, still playing both ends against the middle.

  The long wait from eight to eleven thirty was over, and Ashby was relieved when at last Jost arrived to pick them up with a horse and dray. The waiting room in the labour office in Münster had reminded him of a shelter for down-and-outs where, under the watchful eye of a uniformed official, twenty-five apathetic, shabbily dressed men drawn from practically every occupied state in Europe, passed the time until they were collected by their German employers. A few, like Quilter and Cowper, had dozed fitfully on the hard wooden benches, while the rest, with the exception of one man who was deep in a newspaper, had stared blankly at the array of propaganda posters displayed on notice boards around the room.

  At his bidding, they followed Jost into the cobbled, tree-lined square of the Dom Platz, threw their belongings on to the cart and then, without a word being spoken, climbed aboard. The German gathered the reins in his right hand, whistled to the horse and then slowly they began to move forward. It was a grey, chilly day and no one in that windswept square, least of all the two priests scurrying between the Cathedral and the Bishop’s Palace, took any notice of them.

  Jost said, ‘Where do you come from?’

  He spoke with a thick Westphalian accent which was difficult to understand and, playing for time, Ashby asked him to repeat the question. He wondered how much this man knew and whether he could be trusted.

  ‘I was born in Strasbourg.’ The lie came easily and Jost appeared to accept it readily.

  ‘Your first job in Germany?’

  ‘No, we’ve just come fron the labour camp at Singen.’

  Jost nodded thoughtfully. ‘Must be nice and quiet down there with no air raids to worry you. Mind you, we haven’t had much to grumble about either—you could say we’ve been lucky up to now.’

  He reined the horse in at the junction and waited for a tram before turning up the Prinzipalmarkt towards St Lamberti Church.

  Another tram passed them going in the direction of the Rathaus but otherwise, apart from a number of cyclists, there was very little traffic about.

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  Ashby said, ‘The town seems more dead than alive.’

  ‘We’ve had a few raids, nothing like the Ruhr, but enough to drive the rabbits out into the country. It’s bad around the station.’

  ‘So we noticed.’

  ‘Our turn is yet to come,’ Jost said grimly, ‘and then, God help us, because Münster will go up like a torch, especially the old part of the city. That’ll shake some of those fat slobs in the Aegiddii Barracks, I can tell you. Most of those cooks and bottle-washers have never been anywhere near the front.’

  Ashby tried to place the location of the barracks in his mind and then remembered from his study of the aerial photographs that it faced the junction of Johannisstrasse and Rothenburg, less than four hundred metres from the council chambers where Bormann was due to address the meeting of Party Gauleiters.

  Gerhardt had said that if any reinforcements were brought in to strengthen the security arrangements, they would probably be accommodated there rather than in either of the supply depots on the other side of the Aa river.

  They came up to the church and then turned right into Salzstrasse passing a large conical-shaped funnel on the street corner which reminded Ashby of the public urinals he’d seen in Paris before the war.

  ‘What’s that?’ he said.

  ‘An inspection shaft leading to the sewers,’ said Jost.

  If Gerhardt’s friends had managed to obtain the maps of the city drainage system from Bürgermeister’s office, thought Ashby, he might be able to put this newly acquired information to good use. Although it was their intention to pose as SS security guards, there was an alternative approach to the Rathaus through the sewers.

  ‘Something worrying you?’ Jost’s voice broke through his concentration.

  ‘No, I was just thinking of home, that’s all.’

  ‘Are you married?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Cheer up, the war will soon be over if you do your stuff on Saturday.’ Jost favoured him with a bleak smile. ‘Either that or we’ll all be dead and buried.’

  Two kilometres beyond the station they crossed the bridge over the Dortmund Canal and left the city behind them.

  Dryland walked into the pub on Northumberland Avenue and looked for Laura Cole among the lunchtime crowd. Given any choice, he would have preferred a quieter venue where they were unlikely to be seen by any of his colleagues but the terse note 147

  which she’d slipped into his tray had ruled that out. He didn’t see her at first but as his eyes scanned the room a second time, he suddenly spotted her sitting in a booth near the bar and he noticed that she had kept a place for him. He gave her a cheery wave, pushed his way to the bar, ordered a small beer and a medium sherry and then carried the drinks across to their table.

  ‘I’m afraid they’re out of gin again,’ he said, ‘so I got you a sherry, okay?’

  Laura Cole pointed to the glass in front of her. ‘You needn’t have bothered, I already have one, thank you.’

  ‘Never mind,’ he said lightly, ‘I’m sure it will go down well.’

  ‘Thanks. Have you got a cigarette?’

  Dryland took out a packet and offered her a Craven A. As she leaned forward to take a light from his match, he noticed that the cigarette was shaking between her fingers.

  ‘What’s the matter, Laura?’ he said quietly.

  ‘I had another letter from Frank this morning. His posting has been cancelled.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Do you?’ she said quickly.

  ‘Well, of course I do recall you saying that you didn’t want to see me again, but this puts things in rather a different light, doesn’t it?’

  ‘You mean we can take up where we left off?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  She puffed nervously on her cigarette. ‘Is that all you have to say?’

  ‘What else do you want me to say? You must know how I feel about you.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘This last week has been absolute hell for me,’ he said smoothly,

  ‘I’ve missed you terribly.’

  She looked down at the table and toyed with the glass of sherry.

  Presently, in a low voice, she said, ‘I think I’m going to have a baby.’

  Dryland felt as if he had been winded by a blow to the stomach and he was slow to react. ‘Are you sure?’ he said hesitantly.

  ‘I’m five days overdue.’

  He almost sighed with relief because clearly she was panicking unnecessarily. ‘I expect it’s a bit late, that’s all,’ he said confidently. ‘Have you tried to bring it on?’

  ‘With a hot bath and plenty of gin?’ Laura said coldly.

  ‘I believe that is the usual remed
y.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Tony, do try and be your age for once.

  Don’t you think I’ve already tried that dodge? I’ve never been late 148

  before, so it’s no use you telling me not to worry. I’m almost sure I’m pregnant and the question is—what are you going to do about it?’

  Laura had been an entertaining diversion but she had never figured in his plans for the future. For the first time in months he was out of the red, but twenty-three pounds was hardly enough for what he had in mind and he wondered how much he could raise from the bank.

  ‘I think I can get an overdraft,’ Dryland said cautiously.

  ‘Are you trying to buy me off?’

  ‘Of course not,’ he said hastily, ‘I was just thinking …’ He felt the colour rising in his face and he tried to skate round the point. ‘Well, there are people who know about these things and I thought that when you’re quite sure, we could perhaps arrange something?’

  ‘If you think I’m going to let some old hag perform an abortion on me, you’re very much mistaken.’

  Her voice had risen sharply and, to his embarrassment, heads were beginning to turn in their direction and he knew from that moment on, everyone within earshot would be listening to their conversation. Somehow they had to find a more private place.

  ‘We can’t talk here,’ he said.

  ‘Where do you suggest then?’

  ‘We could go for a walk.’

  Laura Cole picked up her handbag. ‘All right,’ she said abruptly.

  They walked down Northumberland Avenue, along the Victoria Embankment and thence back to Whitehall through Horse Guards Avenue. For Dryland it was an interminably long half mile because in that short space of time, she made it very clear that there would be no abortion and that if it came to a divorce, she expected him to stand by her.

  That final cliché of hers could nevertheless spell ruin for his career. The war might have changed attitudes and shaken up the social order but the Foreign Office still clung to its old code of moral behaviour and they would never accept him if he was cited in a divorce case. Marrying Laura would entail living in a semi-detached house in the outer suburbs and commuting to an office job in the City for the rest of his working life; marrying Laura would involve bridge nights, membership of the local golf club, shopping in the High Street on Saturday afternoons and a fortnight’s holiday in Bournemouth every year; marrying Laura meant embracing everything he abhorred.

  There was perhaps a way out of the mess. If he could wangle an immediate posting to South East Asia Command, then in his absence Laura could work out her own salvation and there was 149

  just a chance that if Frank was reasonable, there might not be a divorce. His mind made up, Dryland, later that afternoon, asked for an interview with Truscott.

  Inserting the key in the lock proved unusually difficult but Pitts managed it at the fourth attempt and pushed open the door to his flat. He knew that he had drunk more of the Algerian wine than was good for him and that he’d regret it in the morning, but he had enjoyed himself immensely and these parties which Anna Peach held once a fortnight to promote a better understanding of the Soviet way of life were always something of an occasion.

  Invariably among her guests there was someone who was worth meeting, and although the food was rather unappetising, at least Anna made sure that your glass was never empty for long.

  He turned on the lights, closed the door and immediately both Siamese cats bounded towards him and, as was their habit, they followed him into the kitchen flicking at his ankles with a paw.

  He filled two saucers with water from the cold tap and placed them on the floor. Lifting the lid from the saucepan on the gas stove, he ladled two equal portions of offal into their eating bowls and then stood well back knowing that, despite his efforts to distract them with a judas saucer of water, the cats would leap up on to the draining board once their food was ready.

  He watched them with tolerance and great affection as they gobbled at the offal, conscious that these Siamese gave him more pleasure and comfort than most humans. If they were moody he could rub their ears and they would soon snap out of it, which was more than could be said for Major-General Vassily Kurochkin whom he’d met that evening at Anna’s. A fascinating yet suspicious man whose mistrust of the British was complete and irrevocable, he’d spent two years in the Volkhov sector of the Leningrad Front where, in the heavily wooded marshes, they had waged trench warfare on the bitter, bloody pattern of ’14–’18.

  While Kurochkin was justly proud of the Red Army and was loud in its praise, he was equally emotional about the Western Allies who, he alleged, had failed to open a second front in 1942

  and 1943 because it was not in their long-term interests to do so since the capitalists wished to deal with a weakened Soviet Union in the postwar world. As Pitts knew well, it was a monstrous distortion of the truth, but as an admirer of the Soviet Union and a communist sympathiser, he could fully understand and share their fears and anxieties for the future. With the Soviet army bogged down in front of Warsaw, Kurochkin had stated point blank that the Eastern Front had been reinforced by additional formations which until recently had been opposing the British 150

  and American armies in the west, and in his view, this was clear evidence that a secret agreement had been made with the Fascists contrary to the principle of unconditional surrender. In warming to his theme, he had hinted that a team of negotiators under the leadership of a British army officer was already in contact with representatives of the German High Command to finalise arrangements for ending hostilities.

  This absurd accusation had angered Pitts and the wine had made him indiscreet for, in rebutting Kurochkin’s theory, he now realised that he had said far too much about Force 272 and its objective. Although he had been unable to give the date, time and place of the assassination, in the heat of the moment he had named the target. Now, as the effect of the alcohol began to wear off and his befuddled mind cleared, something of the enormity of his crass error of judgment came home to him and he was afraid. He wondered if it would be advisable to report their conversation because there was no getting round the fact that he had been guilty of a gross breach of security but then, on reflection, he took refuge in the conviction that Kurochkin would not betray a confidence.

  It was a stupidly naïve and false assumption. Kurochkin, whatever Pitts had been led to believe, was not a Red Army hero but a Major-General of the NKVD whose presence at Anna’s party that evening had not been coincidental. In fact, it was the logical result of the squalid manoeuvres which he and Dryland had pursued in their attempt to stop Ashby.

  The Soviet Military Mission, having provided Pitts with a series of photographs taken of Gerhardt’s men as they witnessed the execution of Russian partisans, had naturally been anxious to see some return for their cooperation.

  Blissfully unaware of the train of events that he had set in motion, Pitts fetched out a hot water bottle, filled the kettle and then turned on the gas. As the match touched the jet, the wall behind the stove bulged outwards and the floor started to give way beneath him. Deep fissures appeared in the masonry and the slates were plucked off the roof and sent skimming through the air. The timber joists splintered like matchwood, the windows shattered, plaster rained down from the ceiling and water poured out of the fractured pipes, and suddenly, as the world around him became a dark and terrifying place, he was falling over and over into a bottomless pit. Each load-bearing wall caved in under the blast and the building collapsed like a pack of cards. A giant hand was slowly crushing his chest and he tried to call out for help, but the words wouldn’t come, and there was this numb, dead feeling in his limbs and he knew that his back must have 151

  been broken in the fall. And the brick dust was in his nose and mouth and ears and eyes, but now, in the comparative silence, he could hear something creaking and he became aware that above him was a wooden beam which seemed to bend in the middle like a drawn bow as it slowly g
ave way under the weight of the rubble. Final oblivion was but a few seconds away.

  The V2 which fell in Cadogan Gardens had been launched from a site just outside The Hague. In addition to Pitts, it claimed twenty-eight other victims.

  Shortly before midnight, the duty radio operator in the Soviet Embassy sent a Flash message to the Kremlin for the attention of the State Defence Committee. The text was necessarily vague.

  Decoded it read: FROM RELIABLE SOURCE HAVE HEARD THAT WITHIN NEXT SEVENTY-TWO HOURS ATTEMPT WILL BE MADE ON LIFE OF MARTIN BORMANN BY BRITISH

  COMMANDOS. TIME AND PLACE NOT KNOWN BUT INFORMANT CONFIDENT IT WILL SUCCEED.

  MESSAGE ENDS.

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  18

  KASTNER HAD SPENT a sleepless night in the stuffy hotel bedroom on the shores of the Aa See. Grey ash and cigarette stubbs filled to overflowing the heavy glass ashtray on the writing desk, and two empty packets of Lucky Strike lay crumpled on the carpet. The screwed-up sheets of notepaper which were scattered untidily around the waste bin represented hours of fruitless work.

  The statement accounting for his movements on the night of Monday 9th October, which he had been ordered to produce had been on his mind from the moment Kaltenbrunner had called him late on Thursday afternoon. For some reason he had been kept completely in the dark about the progress of the police investigation, and it was difficult to know what evidence they already had in their possession, but he could make a pretty shrewd guess. Obviously they had traced him through the registration number of the Volkswagen which had been parked overnight in Wielandweg, but in order to connect the vehicle with the murder, two other links in the chain had to be established.

  Someone who had seen him leave Werner’s bar with the woman had given a description of his appearance which was accurate enough to jog the memory of yet another witness who recalled that he had collected the car on Tuesday morning.