Non-Suspicious

by Ed Church

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I think your officer is just suffering from toxoplasmosis.’

  ‘Toxic what?’

  ‘Never mind...’ He cut the call and tossed the phone on the passenger seat.

  Chapter 30

  ‘This is it,’ said Nick, pushing open the door to Harry’s bedroom. The modest room had an en suite bathroom, with various support bars and pull cords, and a window looking onto a patch of grass. Brook stepped in behind his tour guide and the door swung shut on its weighted mechanism. The cloying sweetness of Peak View’s favourite air freshener was present in the bedrooms too.

  A framed photo on the bedside table seemed to be the only personal touch. From what Brook had seen on the CCTV, he would say Harry was about ten years younger in it. He was sitting in a deck chair next to a white-haired lady Brook guessed was his late wife. Using a few more guesses, there appeared to be three younger generations around them…

  The son that Debbie had mentioned – now in Canada – was there with his wife. And then there was their daughter who was holding a baby. Despite the sunshine, no-one was really smiling or had any joy in their eyes. Even the baby had been captured with a stern expression. Brook found himself frowning. Harry’s life didn’t seem very happy.

  ‘So, what are you looking for?’ asked Nick.

  ‘Well…’ Brook wondered how best to put it. ‘When you join the police you’ll hear some searches described as a bit of a fishing expedition. They’re generally discouraged, but can be surprisingly useful.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means I have no idea what I’m looking for.’

  ‘A clue,’ said Nick. Brook smiled at how the student’s two little words had summarised the situation far better than his rambling explanation.

  ‘Well put,’ he agreed.

  Emboldened by Nick’s tacit approval, the detective nudged open the wardrobe doors. Hangers of shirts and slacks didn’t seem to offer much. The chest of drawers was a similarly clue-free zone of folded clothes. Brook closed everything back up and moved over to the bedside table.

  ‘We should probably check he didn’t have any midnight snacks that might go off,’ he said.

  ‘I agree,’ replied Nick.

  The top of the small unit was home to a lamp, radio and big-button telephone. Beneath that was a drawer and cupboard. Brook opened the drawer – some spare batteries, a packet of mints and a few pens. Nothing of interest. Then he forced himself into a crouch and opened the cupboard.

  ‘Was that your knees?’ winced Nick at the loud click.

  ‘Yep. I’ll let you know if I need one of your Zimmer frames.’

  The cupboard contained a row of books – a mix of thrillers and history. Brook almost closed the door without noticing the thin brown envelope slotted between a couple of paperbacks. Had it not been a few millimetres out of line he may never have seen it. He plucked it out and pushed himself upright.

  ‘Catch anything?’ asked Nick, peering over from his position by the door.

  ‘Catch? Oh…’ The fishing expedition metaphor. ‘Not sure.’

  The front of the envelope displayed the handwritten Peak View Care Home address and a stamp with a robin in the snow. It was franked with ‘Melbourne’ and the date it was posted, just before Christmas 2015. Brook could feel there was a card inside – he slid it out through the envelope’s torn top edge and laid everything on the bed.

  The card showed a nativity scene on the front, while what little writing there was inside appeared to be in the same hand as the address. ‘To Harry’ was in the top left, followed by the pre-printed Happy Christmas halfway down. Beneath it, ‘21st December’, followed by ‘VICTOR’ and a brief message: ‘See you soon’.

  ‘Funny place to put the date,’ said Nick, still peering over.

  He was right, but it wasn’t Brook’s first thought… That was the fact that Victor – a guy in his nineties with seemingly no traceable friends or family – had apparently spent Christmas in Australia.

  ‘If I tell you I’ll speak to Debbie about seizing this, then you can watch me take it with a clear conscience, can’t you?’ said Brook, raising an eyebrow in Nick’s direction as he slipped the card and envelope into an evidence bag.

  ‘Totally clear,’ said Nick, with a conspiratorial wink.

  All right, don’t overdo it, thought Brook.

  ‘Now,’ he said, stuffing the evidence bag into his jacket. ‘I’d really love to see the garden.’

  ‘You think there’ll be clues in the garden?’ asked Nick.

  ‘Nope. Fresh air.’

  Five minutes later – after saying his goodbyes to Debbie – Brook climbed back into the Defender. The visit had given him plenty to think about. Still, he didn’t want to do it while sitting outside the care home, drawing attention to himself. He fired up the engine, swung the vehicle around so he was pointing towards home and looked for a quiet side street to pull into.

  After less than fifty yards, a cul-de-sac rose steeply to his left. Brook turned into it, just as he began wondering what to do about the Tourist having his phone number. He was so lost in thought, he almost crashed into a black Ford Fiesta that had chosen that very moment to come tearing out. At least it had left a useful parking spot.

  Brook cruised past it, turned the old 4x4 around and tucked into the empty space. He felt more comfortable being able to see any people or cars coming up from the main road.

  Not that the Tourist was likely to show up in a random Sheffield cul-de-sac.

  He was probably miles away by now.

  Chapter 31

  Saturday, 21st April 1945

  Stalag IV-B, Mühlberg, Germany

  The extra creaking of the hut’s floorboards gave the first clue as to the new guard’s identity. Victor knew of only one man in the whole of Stalag IV-B who was heavy enough to put that much strain on the wooden planks. Maybe if he just stayed on his bed, out of sight, the new guard would deposit the morning’s food and be on his way. He heard the metal tray clang down on the small table and waited. One minute. Two. Three. There were no more creaking floorboards. No sounds to indicate the guard was going anywhere. After five minutes, Victor got to his feet and walked to the doorway.

  ‘Hello, Blondie,’ he said.

  The psychopath looked up from the table. After all the hours Victor had spent in front of the sinewy von Eberstein, it felt strange to see such a bulging Nazi uniform. Blondie had helped himself to a seat and now he was helping himself to the food.

  The cheese was already reduced to a few crumbs, while the jar of potted meat was empty, as was today’s tin of peaches. Half of the final piece of black bread hung from his big lips. He grabbed it and threw it back onto the plate. Then he finished his mouthful in one enormous gulp and gave a big smile. Victor regretted setting up the second guard with that tin of peaches.

  While still smiling, Blondie washed it all down with the mug of ersatz coffee. He thumped the metal mug down on the table and burped as if he were in a Bavarian Bierkeller.

  ‘Das war mein Essen,’ said Victor… ‘That was my food.’

  ‘Ja. Das war dein Essen,’ replied Blondie… ‘Yes. That was your food.’

  ‘Übrigens, du wirst heute sterben,’ he added… ‘By the way, you’re going to die today.’

  He leaned back in the wooden chair, testing its Teutonic craftsmanship to the full. Victor stayed in the doorway, embracing the illusion of security it offered – for he was well aware it was only an illusion. He was in a hut with a man who killed prisoners for fun. His exact location in that hut didn’t matter a great deal. Unless he could outwit his enemy, the Englishman’s fate was entirely in Blondie’s hands.

  ‘Und was soll ich jetzt essen?’ asked Victor… ‘And what am I going to eat now?’

  He avoided the whole issue of dying and forced himself to hold Blondie’s gaze. He knew displaying weakness only encouraged psychopathic tendencies and, as a self-styled Übermensch, Blondie no doubt considered it his du
ty to eliminate the weak. After a few seconds, a new smile spread across the bigger man’s broad features. He wiped the traces of coffee from his mouth with the back of a hand and pointed at the prisoner.

  ‘Gute Frage!’… ‘Good question!’

  Reaching into the left pocket of his tunic, he produced a tin of peaches, placed it on the table, then tilted his fist to show bruised and swollen knuckles. The mirror image of the same action followed. Right hand into the right pocket… a second tin of peaches placed on the table… battered knuckles of the right fist displayed.

  ‘Man darf nicht stehlen,’ he said… ‘One mustn’t steal.’

  Well, at least that explained who von Eberstein had employed to discipline the two guards caught with the tinned peaches.

  ‘Nimm,’ said Blondie, pushing the tins across the table… ‘Take them.’

  Victor ignored the peaches and nodded at the half slice of black bread.

  ‘Und das?’ said the Englishman... ‘And that?’

  Blondie picked up the bread and flung it on the floor in front of Victor. Then his Aryan eyes flickered between the prisoner and the scrap of food. The tactic was obvious. An invitation for Victor to show weakness by eating food from the floor. No doubt it would bring back joyous memories of the Russian who dived on a splash of muddy soup before Blondie stamped him to death. The anticipation was racing through him, adrenalin kicking in. He began licking his lips.

  Victor stared at the bread, thinking. Then he scurried the few feet over to it, grabbed it and scurried back to the doorway.

  ‘Genau,’ said Blondie, nodding slowly… ‘Exactly.’

  He got to his feet, knocking the chair over backwards, and approached his prey across the creaking floorboards. He was almost drooling now. It was time to add to his tally…

  Victor took a mouthful of the bread and began chewing quickly, backing up into the sleeping quarters. Blondie stalked him, savouring the moment, cracking the swollen knuckles of both hands as he closed the gap.

  Then the Englishman stopped retreating, a look of confusion in his eyes. With a violent spasm, he coughed up half the bread he had been wolfing down. Blondie took a step back as it landed between them. Raising a hand to his mouth, Victor coughed up more bread with a strange hacking sound. It landed even closer to Blondie.

  The prisoner’s eyes began to swim upwards and he steadied himself with a hand on the side of the hut. The coughing continued, turning into dry retching and desperate wheezing. Victor dropped awkwardly to one knee, banging his head on the panels of the hut wall and drawing blood. His eyes were looking right through Blondie now. He raised a hand to the head injury then covered his mouth, smearing blood around it. More retching. He sank further, tears running from his eyes. Blondie took another step back as Victor raised what remained of the bread to his nose, then threw it away with as much force as he could muster.

  ‘Von Eberstein,’ he growled through gritted teeth. ‘Von−’

  ‘Was? Von Eberstein was?’ said Blondie… ‘What? Von Eberstein what?’

  Victor struggled to get the words out, hugging the wall with one arm while beating the floor with the other.

  ‘Gift!’… ‘Poison!’

  He ardently hoped a couple of things were going through Blondie’s mind at that moment. The first being that he weighed twice as much as Victor, so any poison in the food would need a little longer to take effect. The second, that he did indeed have the hint of a funny feeling in his tummy (after devouring cheese, potted meat, peaches and black bread in a few short minutes of gluttony).

  Victor was just beginning to feel faint from the exertion of his own acting when Blondie clutched his stomach and ran headlong for the exit, sending one of the outside guards tumbling head over heels as he charged to the toilet block to make himself sick.

  The Englishman lay on his back for a couple of minutes, composing himself after the intense theatrics. Then he stood up, dusted himself down and had peaches for breakfast.

  Von Eberstein arrived early. And by a different method. Victor heard the motorbike approaching at speed just as he was sipping the last of the syrupy juice from the tinned fruit. Moments later, the hut door flew open and the SS-Sturmbannführer burst in – a helmet, cream scarf and leather gloves over his regular uniform. The prisoner matched the bustling energy of the new arrival, leaping up from his chair and jabbing a finger in the officer’s direction.

  ‘Now, look here! I want a bloody word with you. You’re playing fast and loose with the Geneva Convention. I could have been killed earlier!’

  Von Eberstein waved a dismissive hand, keeping up his quick pace over to the mahogany desk and his regular chair. He left all of the motorcycle kit on, even the helmet, as he leaned to one side and began fumbling with the key to one of the locked drawers.

  ‘Ja, Ja, Ja,’ he said. ‘Could have, could have…’

  He was jittery and growing increasingly agitated with the little key.

  ‘SCHEISSE!’ he shouted, the frustration mounting. When the lock finally clicked, he flung the drawer open with such force it came clean out of the desk and skidded six feet across the floor. Victor watched in baffled silence.

  The SS officer went after the drawer, finally grabbing the bottle of whisky that had seemingly been the object of his frantic behaviour. He whipped the top off and poured it down his neck – a quarter of the bottle in one go. Then he squeezed his eyes shut and grimaced before slowly opening them again in a series of hard blinks. The blue eyes were bloodshot and watering.

  ‘Besser,’ he said, taking a deep breath.

  Von Eberstein returned to his chair and collapsed into it, gripping the whisky bottle in his right hand and staring straight ahead. He looked as pale as a Nazi ghost. Finally, he turned towards Victor, who had barely moved during the whole strange episode.

  ‘Sit,’ he said, gesturing at the chair opposite.

  Victor stayed where he was.

  ‘I want to see the letter from the SS-Brigadeführer. The chap who ordered my removal from camp.’

  The wraith-like von Eberstein managed a patronising expression.

  ‘Your German is not sufficient to understand.’

  ‘Then there’s nothing to lose by showing it to me,’ said Victor.

  The Nazi frowned as if considering the statement. He took another massive swig of the whisky. For mid-morning he was really going for it.

  ‘Very well,’ he said at last.

  His hand was marginally less shaky this time as he opened the relevant drawer and pulled out the manila envelope. He spun it through the air to Victor, wincing at the small physical action of throwing. The prisoner kept his eyes on his captor as he retrieved the envelope from the floor, only looking down once he had removed the letter and unfolded it. He scanned the typed text. Then he took his regular spot opposite von Eberstein.

  ‘Satisfied?’ asked the SS officer.

  Victor tossed the letter across the desk.

  ‘You wrote that,’ he said.

  Von Eberstein took another big swig with a gloved hand and banged the bottle down on the desktop. The little grimaces kept on coming. He was clearly in some kind of pain.

  ‘Explain,’ he said.

  ‘In Kriegszeiten und in Frieden. In wartime and in peace,’ said Victor.

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘It’s in the letter. The bit about showing respect for our shared Anglo-Saxon culture. You used the same phrase when describing how you von Ebersteins always adapt and succeed. I think you like that phrase.’

  ‘They are common words. It proves nothing.’

  ‘Maybe not. But Western Ham United does. You’re the only bugger who uses that. Yet there it is in the letter. I thought this Brigadeführer who wanted Vic Watson protected was meant to be a fan from his time in England. Such a fan that he doesn’t even know their proper bloody name?’

  Von Eberstein opened his mouth to give another rebuttal and then changed his mind. He looked down at the letter and placed a gloved hand on top of i
t as if accepting ownership. Then he looked up at Victor with bloodshot eyes.

  ‘Oops,’ he said.

  The two men stared at each other in silence, their minds running through the implications of the new situation. Finally, von Eberstein shrugged.

  ‘It makes no difference.’

  ‘It makes every bloody difference! It means the reason I’m here has nothing to do with mistaken identity or some superior of yours trying to look generous. It was all a charade. You arranged the whole little ruse yourself. Now, what the devil would you want with me?’

  The Nazi took his time in replying, examining Victor.

  ‘Clever,’ he said. ‘Clever, clever, clever… You truly are an English fox.’

  With another swig, and another wince of discomfort, he reached down to unlock a new drawer, pulling out the calendar he had shown Victor once before.

  ‘You remember this?’ he asked, holding it up. Victor remembered the crosses – the ones marking the dates of escapes… escapes previously thought to have been secret and successful.

  ‘Look more closely,’ instructed von Eberstein, tossing over the 1945 calendar. ‘And this one,’ he added, taking a 1944 version from the same drawer.

  Victor worked his way back from the current date to his arrival at Stalag IV-B in February ’44. There were more crosses. Every one at the time of a supposed escape ‘success’. In a camp with so little to do, each one had been a major event. A big morale boost. And, even if Victor couldn’t quote all the exact dates, he knew to within a few days. Here they were. A dozen or so crosses. The vast majority of the escapes they thought their captors had never known about. The ones where the escapee had never been returned to camp.

  ‘Why are you torturing Harry for useless old information? These people are long gone,’ said Victor, returning the calendars. ‘I want to see him.’

  Von Eberstein drained the remainder of the whisky and blinked hard again. Just under a whole bottle in five minutes. Then he threw the calendars over his shoulder, followed by the letter and the empty whisky bottle. It smashed on the floor.