‘I know everything,’ said Hunter as confidently as he was able.
‘Oh, I doubt that,’ Sinclair laughed, ‘I doubt that very much, Scott. If you knew everything, I doubt you would be here at all. Isn’t that right, David?’ The use of his father’s Christian name shocked Hunter. More secrets. ‘The lists please?’
Hunter opened his arms. ‘I don’t have them.’
‘Really? That is a shame.’
Sinclair retreated into the shadows allowing the hulking figure Hunter had last seen pursuing him through the fountains of Hyde Park to emerge, in one hand the silenced pistol. The giant’s other hand Hunter noted with a small degree of satisfaction was heavily bandaged, the silver ring still evident.
‘So, now we’re all here I’m going to ask you again. Where are the lists?’
David stepped forward, positioning himself between Hunter and the professor. ‘I burnt them. What good can they do now? Isn’t it time we put all this behind us? There’s been enough death, hasn’t there?’
‘Oh, David. Ever the voice of reason, weren’t you? Always trying to do the right thing, as I recall. And always failing.’
Sinclair brushed past David and the giant followed. ‘He still has them.’ The professor stood directly in front of Hunter. ‘They’re up here,’ he said pointing at Hunter’s temple, ‘and that, I cannot have.’
‘Leave him,’ David pleaded, but the giant stood over his son, gun in hand barring his path.
‘That memory of yours, Scott. It should have lead to such great things, but you just wouldn’t apply yourself, would you? You squandered your God given talents. Are you simply lazy? No, I’m not sure that’s quite right. Was it Alec? Poor Alec, he always got everything you desired, didn’t he Scott?’
‘No! You don’t talk about her. You don’t even say her name.’ Hunter lunged at Sinclair but found his progress barred by a thick tattooed arm, ‘You filthy bastard.’
‘I can see how that must have hurt you. Every time you saw him, did you think about her? Did you imagine the pair of them lying together, in his bed?’
‘I understand now.’ Hunter had wanted to control his emotions, but Sinclair was goading him, ‘I understand why she found you so repulsive. She was everything you could never be,’ he shouted over the indelible black swirls, ‘She possessed everything you could never have.’
‘She was a butterfly, Scott, moving from man to man.’
Again Hunter tried to reach Sinclair, to hurt him and again he was beaten away, the giant loosing a vicious backhand, the ring catching Hunter crisply above his eye. He felt the skin split and gape, the blood trickle down the side of his face.
‘She was tolerant, compassionate and loving. Things you’ll never understand.’
‘How wonderfully sentimental you are, Scott. Really I had no idea. Although I have to agree, she certainly seemed “loving”.’
‘You’re a murderer and a coward.’
Sinclair considered the statement before stepping behind Hunter and speaking softly in his ear.
‘Let us talk about cowardice, shall we? Maybe,’ he said choosing each word with infinite care, ‘maybe if your mother hadn’t killed herself in quite such an act of puritanical self-pity and cowardice, you might have amounted to something, Scott? You might not have been left with the crippling memory of a mother who deserted you in the most irretrievable and irreconcilable manner imaginable. She abandoned her son. Her very own son. With her pious sneering from on high and her misguided moral certitude. Let us talk about cowardice shall we?’
Hunter turned. He was desperate to wound Sinclair, burning inside with the hurt and the betrayal. He wanted to kill him. But before he was able to do anything the giant let fly another vicious blow connecting with Hunter’s already bruised kidneys, dropping him to the floor. He clutched his sides and curled into a tight ball to stop the searing pain. Sinclair hitched up his light linen trousers and crouched beside him.
‘I know all about you and your week little family, do you see? You’re poor mother simply didn’t have the stomach for it.’
‘Stop it,’ David cut in. ‘There’s no need for this.’
‘David, please tell me he knows why his pathetic excuse for a mother took her own life?’
‘Stop it now. Scott, don’t listen to him.’
‘You haven’t told him, have you? Oh David, have you been protecting him all these years? With what, with a pack of silly lies? That was always your mother’s failing Scott, she was unable to embrace the truth, however awful that might have been. Now, I would like you to tell me all of the names on both lists, please.’
Hunter had started to sit up, still clutching his side. ‘I know your father’s one of them. Seidel!’ He spat out the name, hoping to shock Sinclair.
The professor’s laugh was one more of exasperation. ‘Yes, I think we’re all aware of my father. The other names, Scott. The other names. Now please, if you don’t mind?’
‘No.’
‘Very well,’ Sinclair looked at the giant. ‘You have fifteen minutes to tell me all of the names on the second list.’
‘Or what?’
‘Or your father bleeds to death in the most unpleasant manner.’
The giant’s gun jerked once and David slumped to the floor.
‘You will understand, and I am no great authority in such matters,’ Sinclair continued calmly, ‘but people who know about such things,’ he nodded towards the tattooed killer, ‘tell me a wound such as that, to the stomach, normally takes about fifteen minutes to finish a man. It’s not an exact science of course, so you’ll forgive me if he bleeds to death a little sooner. Once I have the lists, you are free to go and take your father with you. Mount Auburn Hospital is not far. I shall not ask you again though. The names, please.’
‘You mustn’t tell him, Scott,’ David groaned.
Hunter knelt by his father. The dark crimson patch of blood on his shirt and cardigan already spreading quickly. David Hunter clutched his stomach against the pain and held his son’s eyes, steering his gaze lower. Scott thought he was looking at his wound but quickly realised his father was staring at something else. The dull metal butt of the Super-Star pistol.
‘Someone once told me a father should never see his son with a loaded weapon,’ Hunter whispered.
‘And when was the last time you listened to anything I said?’
Hunter had to smile. He spun in the kneeling position, the safety still on. Seeing the pistol the giant swung the silenced Glock towards him as Hunter struggled with the sixty-year-old catch. If the monster fired first there was every chance he would hit his father again. Hunter rolled to one side trying to draw the fire away from his father and find cover amongst the rowing equipment, scrambling on his knees, pushing past ropes and buckets whilst he grappled with the unfamiliar weapon. The giant shot and a round sparked off the concrete next to him.
‘Stop,’ Sinclair shouted. ‘Do not harm him.’
The killer turned on Sinclair and for a second Hunter thought he might challenge his superior. In that moment he saw his chance. Discarding the useless pistol Hunter seized an oar and charged at the giant. The Glock puffed and another round buried itself in the concrete floor at Hunter’s feet. The giant was raising his gun in his broken hand, but now Hunter had the initiative, he kept moving forward, towards the danger, swinging the oar as he went. A round hummed past him and another, but the giant was backing away as he shot, unsteady on his feet. Hunter’s father lay huddled on the floor, unable to help his son, but as the killer backed away from the flailing oar, he stumbled over David Hunter’s legs and his son pounced. The oar flashed through the air and caught the giant’s throat, ripping through the swirling tattoos and crushing his wind pipe. The hulking figure swayed slightly and collapsed. Hunter had never so much as slapped someone before. He looked down at the twitching, grisly corpse before him amazed at just how little remorse he felt. That, in some small way, was pay back for Amy, Alec and Joth. But it wasn’t enough. This man dy
ing at his feet, whoever he had been was only working to Sinclair’s orders. Hunter threw down the bloodied oar, picked up the Glock and turned it on Professor Frederick Sinclair.
‘Who was he?’
‘A kindred spirit,’ Sinclair replied calmly, ‘of yours.’
Hunter stepped closer.
‘Explain.’
‘When you have relatives like ours, Scott, in certain circles it is possible to garner a degree of celebrity. But what am I saying? You still don’t really know who or what your grandfather was, do you?’
‘Go on.’
‘Has it never struck you as odd how little you knew of him? Do you for instance have fond memories of the man? Actually, do you have any memories of him at all? I’m assuming not? Why would that be, Scott? How old were you when he died, four, five?’
‘I was six.’
‘I see. I’m guessing your home isn’t littered with pictures of smiling little Scott sat on granddad’s knee, playing with a ball in the park, flying a kite or going for long walks in the country? And shall I tell you why that is?’
Hunter looked across at his father. He was bleeding badly and slipping in and out of consciousness.
‘Tell me,’ Hunter flicked the gun at Sinclair, ‘Quickly.’
‘I’m intrigued. What exactly was it you thought your grandfather did?’
‘He was a chemist.’
‘Indeed,’ Sinclair nodded. ‘There is some truth in that.’
‘A good one too. He was brought here after the war.’
‘Ah, I see.’
‘Wiseman helped him disappear, along with your father.’
‘Yes. That’s right. And why was that do you suppose, Scott? Why not welcome them both with open arms as the Americans had done with von Braun and Reinhard Gehlen? The vanquished forced to work for their victors. Why do you suppose we chose not to celebrate them as the Americans had done?’
‘They had to remain hidden. The Cold War. The Russians.’
‘To stop the Russians from what, kidnapping them? Oh Scott, is that what you really think or have you inherited your father’s charming naivety?’
Hunter wrapped both hands around the semi-automatic. There would be no mistake this time.
‘Your grandfather, my father, they were undeniably great men in their fields. But during the war they made certain choices. They joined the Nazi Party. Well, many good people did, but they embraced the Nazi Party. They let it into their hearts, their souls, their very beings. All of the people on that list worked in Hitler’s Death Camps. They were torturers, sociopaths, murderers, butcherers and the vilest of human beings. They did things which you cannot even imagine. Unspeakable things and they did them willingly, Scott, on a daily basis and with a clear conscience. Had they not been such gifted scientists they would surely have been tried for their crimes or found with piano wire around their necks hanging from the nearest lamppost, like this man’s grandfather.’
Hunter considered the corpse at his feet.
‘Some, your mother for instance, might have found that preferable. The Jew, Wiseman was responsible for bringing them here and helping them disappear not because they were great men but because they were quite the opposite, do you see?’
‘Who was he?’
‘He was nobody, but his grandfather was Otto Kästner. He served at Ravensbrück. Himmler awarded him the Totenkopfring for his work. Look the poor fool still wears it.’
Hunter examined the death’s head ring, able to make out the mystic runes clearly now, so not a Hell’s Angel after all.
‘I met his father at Bayreuth. Our type are always welcome there. He had fully embraced Hitler’s teachings, do you see? Not a pleasant individual you understand, but, and I think you would have to agree, not lacking in enthusiasm for his work.’
‘I still don’t understand why your father’s reputation is worth killing for?’
‘How ironic. Your mother didn’t have that problem. She was so consumed with guilt and shame she couldn’t live with herself. If it’s any consolation, she wasn’t alone. Martin Bormann’s son became a priest, poor misguided fool. He could have had the world at his feet. I, on the other hand have a distinctly more pragmatic outlook on life. Whilst I find the whole affair deeply distasteful…’
‘Distasteful?’
‘I am neither proud of my murderous father’s work, like this fool,’ he said kicking Kästner, ‘nor ashamed. He was him and I am me, we were related, nothing more. I’ve heard people say you can’t choose your parents. A little trite I think you’d agree, but perhaps there is some truth in it? I suppose you would argue that we’d have been a lot better off if our respective relatives had suffered the consequences, not to say indignities of the War Crimes Investigation Unit? Anyway, when my father’s reputation stands between me and something I truly deserve, well that I cannot have.’
‘The deanship.’
‘Quite. I mean really, how many deans of Trinity College have a Nazi war criminal for a father do you suppose? Thanks to the Wiseman’s rather archaic fondness for secrecy, had the existence of the lists not become known, none of this would have been necessary. I have kept a watching brief on all things Enigma for the last fifty years, on the off chance that something unpleasant should surface. My father you see was convinced the Wisemans had kept some record. He hated both of them. Not just because they were Jews but because they held that over him, the lists I mean. I was horrified and deeply sorry the morning you showed up with that code. I knew what it must be and I knew I must prevent it from ever becoming public and at any cost. So you see I’m afraid all of this is very much your doing, Scott?’
‘Would you have silenced the others?’
Sinclair thought for a moment, as though he were considering a particularly irksome crossword puzzle or struggling to recall a student’s name. ‘Yes, if it had become necessary.’
Hunter didn’t know what to think. He looked at his father. The colour had drained from his face and he was shaking violently. He had to get him to a hospital and quickly.
‘Scott, do one last thing for me. Leave the gun.’
Hunter found a table by the door. He was about to lay the Glock down and present Sinclair with the easy option, the path Wiseman had chosen, unable to confront his past and his part in Amy’s death, the path his mother had chosen, unable to confront her father and his past.
No.
He turned and marched straight at Professor Frederick Sinclair firing as he went.
‘How’s this for sentimental you fucker.’
The first round tore out Sinclair’s throat, Hunter following the body as it descended towards the floor, the second cracked his sternum and as Sinclair hit the ground the last bullet struck him precisely between his eyes. One for each of his victims.
✽✽✽
As Hunter carried his father from the boat house a blacked out Audi A4 pulled up. Bennett and Healy had received the text Hunter had sent from his father’s house. Hunter caught Healy’s eye. There it was again, that look of practised indifference, but this time Hunter thought he detected something else. Was that a hint of grudging respect, a glimmer of admiration?
‘They’re in there,’ Hunter said nodding grimly towards the boathouse. Neither Bennett nor Healy replied. Just business.
He placed his father carefully on the back seat of the Volvo, found an old travel blanket to
cover him with and set off into the night.
12
Hunter spent the days before the funeral in Fellows’ Gardens. He’d always thought if he were to propose to Amy he’d do it there, beneath the cherry trees, when they were in blossom. Now he went there to drink and contemplate. The rhododendrons had shed their beautiful flowers, they lay in an ugly carpet of faded pinks and browns, slowly decomposing into the borders. The plant would come again. Next year, it would be stronger if it were well cared for, perhaps more beautiful still.
He spent long hours considering Wiseman’s parting statement to him, seeking to comprehen
d what exactly the old man had meant. What had been the nature of his terrible mistake? Had it been a mistake to help and thereby involve Hunter? Was he trying in someway to atone for Amy’s death? Then there were the five men and one woman who should have stood trial but had instead been deemed too valuable and so had been spirited away by the Wisemans, perhaps that had been George’s greatest offence? And always in the background the sense that the real fallacy hadn’t been George’s at all, but his father’s?
Hunter thought long and often about his own crimes. Had it been wrong to kill Sinclair? Had it brought back Amy or the others? Had it made him feel any different, any better? Fleetingly perhaps, but ultimately there had been no satisfaction in the act. In fact, Hunter had been surprised how little he had felt at the ending of another human being’s life and that had troubled him more than anything, the formidable persona of his grandfather now ever present. Could he have inherited some of his distant relative’s disregard for humanity, for the sanctity of life?
With Sinclair’s murder Hunter knew he would be forever changed. He had taken another’s life, that could not be reversed and he had done so in the most personal and intimate of manners. He wasn’t certain of the details of his grandfather’s time in the concentration camps. It was possible, he supposed, that he had watched the slaughter of innocents from afar, an interested spectator, but that didn’t make him any less guilty, any less culpable. Hunter had actually killed, with his own bare hands. He was, and always would be, a murderer.
He met Mr and Mrs Proctor the day before the funeral. They had taken him out for lunch to give them a chance to talk. He’d had to fight his new found instincts to drink before and during the meal. Afterwards, well that had been a different matter, there had been no one to prevent him then. He went back to the house and found a bottle of whisky. Bottles of whisky or at least half or quarter finished bottles were easy to come by since his confrontation with Sinclair.
Birth of a Spy Page 19
