The Girl in the Baker's Van

by Richard Savin

  ‘The Bratwurst is good,’ he said complimenting her. ‘Where did you manage to find it?’

  She looked a little uncomfortable. ‘Brandt at the delicatessen. He has ways of finding things.’

  He looked at her awkwardly. ‘You know I don’t like the black market. Remember my position, we could be denounced. Then what?’

  ‘People know you are Gestapo; they like to help,’ she protested, ‘stay on the good side of me.’

  ‘Gudrun.’ He put out his hand to touch hers across the table to show he was not angry but just concerned. ‘No one is safe; not me, not my boss, not anyone – except maybe Himmler – and even that I can’t be sure of. Please don’t do it. I know what happens to people when they fall. I can live with rationing but not without you.’ She smiled a little guilty smile. He was a good husband, she thought, and these were terrible times.

  ‘How is our son?’ he asked, changing the subject.

  ‘He doesn’t say much; just he is well and his regiment are fighting valiantly – I suppose he can’t say much else. Is it really going that well, Otto – the war I mean?’ Her husband looked doubtful and set his head to one side as if to say it was unlikely.

  ‘I don’t understand why if we are winning all these victories we have to have food rationing – and clothes too – and only hot water twice a week for the bath?’

  ‘Don’t ask the questions, Liebling. Be happy we are alive and have our children and our home. Many do not.’

  The thought crossed his mind that Kandler must have been like them – a man with a home and a family – and now he was dead. He would have to go and tell his wife or whoever was the next of kin.

  ‘I have a most unfortunate case at the moment,’ he said slowly. He did not normally discuss his work at home because much of it was unpalatable but now he made an exception; he thought he might demonstrate how fortunate they were by citing the misfortune of another. ‘One of the records clerks, a man about my age, committed suicide yesterday. He threw himself under a train at Potsdamer Platz station.’

  Gudrun looked dismayed. ‘Why did he do such a thing?’

  He shook his head. ‘Don’t know. We found an envelope in his pocket with a suicide note but it didn’t really tell us why. Curious though – it had a wad of paper with it – small rectangles cut from newspaper.’

  ‘How odd – do they mean anything?’

  ‘I don’t know. The SD have stuck their nose in; they’re convinced it’s some kind of code.’

  *

  The apartment in Kreuzberg was on the third floor. An odour of boiled cabbage pervaded the stairwells and the paint was peeling from the walls. The building was uncared for, showing its age, reflecting the poverty of its residents. They were shown the way by a concierge, a taciturn woman who grudged every word and offered nothing unsolicited. She walked them silently up the stairs and unlocked the door to the apartment. Inside, the rooms were a mess.

  ‘We’re not the first,’ Kraus observed casually, ‘or was this your people?’

  Schreiber shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. I read the file. He was just a small-time black market operator. He died from a heart attack shortly after he was arrested. I don’t think this place was ever searched.’

  ‘Well, someone has done a thorough job, so he must have had something of value. Look here,’ Kraus walked over to where a carpet had been rolled back and a floor board had been lifted. Between the flooring joists there was a metal box securely fixed into position. Its hinged lid was buckled where it had been forced open. ‘Something of value was kept here.’

  Schreiber looked over to the concierge who was loitering just inside the doorway, arms folded and casting a sullen gaze over the wreckage. ‘Have there been any recent visitors?’

  ‘Last night – a man came. He had a key so I didn’t take much notice. People come and go at all hours. A lot of them work night shifts.’

  ‘Can you describe him?’

  She screwed up her mouth into a sour expression, slowly shaking her head and looking doubtful. ‘Big man, taller than both of you. Couldn’t really see his face, he had his cap pulled well down. He had a big blonde moustache – that’s all.’

  ‘I’ll send over someone to inspect this room tomorrow,’ Schreiber said routinely as if it would be no more than a formality. ‘In the meantime don’t let anyone else in.’

  ‘I have to let these rooms,’ she grumbled. ‘They’re in demand, you know.’

  ‘We won’t take long,’ he assured her, and they left.

  ‘The man she described,’ Kraus said, as they drove back to Prinz Albrecht Strasse, ‘the blond moustache – that’s the man I’m looking for. That’s my Polish spy. So what was your man Kandler up to?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I don’t think it was suicide. Why would a man write a note and then keep it in his pocket where it might never be found? And what was all that cut up paper about?’

  CHAPTER 2

  Turckheim, Alsace

  It had snowed all night. By morning the town was covered with a thick layer draped over it like the icing on a Christmas cake. At first light it had been overcast and it looked certain the snow would continue to fall, but as the sun rose the sky gave way to a veil of blue, bathing the countryside in a blindingly white light – scintillant and surreal like an exaggerated picture on a postcard.

  Not far from the Hôtel de Ville the Bakerei zum Berceau stood in a medieval side street where its aromas of freshly baked bread seeped out through small ventilation grills on the front of the shop. Soon the customers would be making their way through the carpet of snow to get their breakfast pastries. In the back room of the small shop three people – two men and a young woman – stood hunched over a long wooden pastry table preparing bretzels and schneckekeuchen for the oven. Joseph, the baker, was a short solid man in his mid-40s with dark black hair and a square jaw. His shoulders were rounded and his arms brawny from years of kneading the thick heavy dough. Alain, the other man, was hardly more than 20, of medium height with a pale complexion and sharply defined features. He had a Teutonic look about him; his grandmother was a Schwartzwalder and he carried the mark of her genes in his face. The young woman was of average height and figure, not particularly remarkable except for her hair, which was very fair and fell naturally in gentle curls; for this reason she kept it cut short, bobbed in the modern style.

  ‘Alain, come and help me.’ The baker pulled up the blind and unlocked the shop door. ‘Leave your sister, I have to clear the snow from the front or there will be no customers this morning. Evangeline can finish the pastries and get them into the oven.’

  Outside, the street was already resounding to the scrape and clang of shovels as other civic-minded townsfolk of Turckheim set about making their streets passable.

  ‘Joseph, I still need to use the van, you know,’ the younger man said as the baker swept the last of the powdered snow off the paving slabs. ‘We can’t let the snow stop things – not now.’

  Joseph looked agitated and tried to ignore what he didn’t want to hear. He carried on sweeping for a bit, a sullen look on his face. ‘I’m not happy. You know I’m not happy with this.’

  ‘It’ll be all right, and besides it’s too late.’

  *

  A short distance from Turckheim, along the route to Epinal, there was a farmhouse. It was set back off the road up a short track but it was visible to those driving by, though not necessarily something that might command attention. It was a traditional Vosges building made from local timber just like many clinging to the slopes that led to the mountains above. Its rough planked walls rose solidly for three floors and it was capped with a broad pitched roof like a Swiss chalet. The land it stood on was steep and difficult. It faced east and caught the bitter winds – no good for vines and none too easy for livestock either. Here and there the lower slopes were dotted with wooded clumps where farmers had left the occasional copse for game cover. It was typical of the Vosges hills, a patchwork of small alpenblicks where cat
tle grazed throughout the day before being herded back to their byres under the farmhouses at dusk.

  From the first floor of the house two men stood watching. They had seen the van coming up the valley for the last few kilometres of its journey – a small green Peugeot, at first just a tiny dot, barely visible. The dot grew bigger. Painstakingly it worked its way along the snow-covered road, here and there losing its grip on the surface, sometimes slipping a little sideways on the bends. It was a slow business but Alain was used to driving on snow. It happened every winter throughout the Vosges and this winter was no different, but when he turned onto the track that led to the farmhouse things changed. The wheels lost traction and on the compacted stones and mud the vehicle began to slide towards a gulley that ran along the edge of the track. Alain stopped and got out. He rubbed his boot across the thin layer of snow covering the surface, it was frozen and the ice underfoot caused him to slip and he nearly lost his balance.

  ‘You stay here,’ he said to his sister, leaning into the van and picking up a package wrapped in oilcloth. ‘It won’t take a minute; no point in two of us struggling across this ground.’

  She watched him make his way uncertainly up the track, sticking to the edges where the layer of snow gave him a better footing. She put her hand into the glove compartment in front of her and fished out a twist of paper with one of the bretzel she had made that morning wrapped in it – breakfast. It would be better with something hot to drink, but she was hungry.

  Alain reached the house and climbed the steep wooden staircase that clung to the outside of the building, tucked under the cover of the wood-shingled eaves; the stairs took him to the living quarters. The air was ripe with the warm smell of the cattle that had been kept overnight in the byre below; then, as he reached the top, he caught the acrid stench of burning dung, dried out over the summer and now being consumed as fuel on the household fires; it seared its way into his nostrils.

  At the top of the stairs he came to the front door of the house. Above the door, there was a tin-plated cowbell strung from a bracket with a cord hanging down from it; he gave it a good hard yank and then waited. After a short while the door opened and he was greeted by the face of a man he knew. He stepped inside and, as he did so, was confronted by two other men. He hesitated, surprised – he had not been expecting others; they should not have been there. There was a strained look on the farmer’s face. Something was wrong.

  ‘Patrice?’

  Then it came to him – it was a trap. One of the men took a pistol from the pocket of his coat and waved it at him. The other stepped forward and grabbed the package out of his grasp.

  ‘Alain Pfeiffer,’ the first man said, speaking in German, ‘I am arresting you for espionage. You will come with me.’

  *

  When she saw them making their way down the track she immediately realised things were not right. Alain was walking with difficulty, his hands held in the air above his head. In a panic she scrambled across to the driver’s seat and pulled at the starter. The now cold engine wound over laboriously for a couple of turns, then with a kick chugged into life. Alain and the other man were now about halfway along the track to where she sat behind the wheel of the van but they were moving slowly, sliding and slipping on the ice. She found reverse gear with a crunch and let up the clutch, but she had been too hasty. The wheels lost traction and began to spin. She panicked and stamped on the accelerator. The engine screamed but it only made things worse. The van slewed sideways in a slow arc and then the back wheel settled into the gulley, leaving it stranded. They were much closer now.

  She got out of the van; she knew she had to make a run for it. The snow made it hard to move, but she had a head start. The man herding Alain down the track stopped and shouted at her to halt, but she ignored him. She looked over her shoulder and saw he had raised his arm; then there was a sound like a hollow smack and the zipping hiss of a bullet as it passed away to her left. There was another shot followed by two more, but she was now over a hundred metres from him and the snub-nosed automatic he was firing had no accuracy at that range. She made it breathlessly to the top of the field and scrambled into the cover of a pine copse. Hidden inside she stopped and turned to look down at where Alain and his captor were standing by the van. She was free for the moment, but for how long and what next? Evangeline stopped to catch her breath, then made her way through the copse to a spot where she could see the farmhouse. As she emerged from the edge she came face to face with the man who had snatched the package from Alain.

  ‘Sicherheitsdienst,’ he said through a mocking smile, ‘Reich Security.’ He put out a hand and grabbed her wrist, jerking her towards him but the violence of the movement caused him to slip on the snow and he fell backwards. He cursed loudly and struggled to get up, his feet slipping from under him as he tried to stand. For a split second she did nothing; she just looked at him, mesmerised. Then, as her survival instinct kicked in, she ran – this time towards the farmhouse.

  She could hear the angry shouting as her assailant struggled to his feet and started after her. Evangeline got to the foot of the steps and scrambled up them. She had no real idea of what she would do once she got inside the house, but the farmer was a résistant – a fighter with Pur Sang, a newly formed local cell – and he would help her. At the top of the staircase she stopped and looked out over to the copse to see how close her pursuer was behind her. The landscape was empty; there was no sign of him. At first she distrusted what she saw. She turned and looked down, expecting to see him with a foot on the first step – but no, nobody. She banged on the door and shouted out for help, all the time glancing over her shoulder. Desperately she pushed on it; it opened. Cautiously she crossed the threshold. Inside the huge wood-clad walls everything was quiet. She stood for a short while not sure what to make of it then, slowly, she moved across the room. The window shutters were open but the light inside was low. In the gloom she thought she heard the sound of what might be a dog growling; it was coming from the floor above.

  ‘Dominique, Patrice, is that you?’ she called as she started to climb the stairs. She reached the top and stood for a moment on the landing. There was that noise again, but now it sounded different; it had more of a gurgling, rasping tone than a growl. She walked stealthily towards where she judged the noise was coming from until she reached the first bedroom door. She hesitated for a moment. There it was again; somebody inside the room was crying – a deep, mournful, sobbing – choked and retching with despair. With her heart racing she turned the handle and pushed open the door. On the floor in front of her a middle-aged woman was down on her knees hunched over the body of a man, gently smoothing her hand across his head and running her fingers through his hair. She looked up at Evangeline, letting out a low, desolate moan that seemed to come from depths of her soul.

  ‘Patrice!’ Evangeline gasped under her breath.

  ‘They killed him,’ the woman said, finally finding her voice. ‘That filthy Gestapo man and that other one from the SD. They just killed him,’ and she started to sob again, rocking back and forwards over the corpse. ‘You were betrayed,’ she said, ceasing the rocking motion. ‘We were all betrayed. There is an informer in the group – a dirty collaborationist informer.’

  Evangeline held up her hand. There was the faint but definitive sound of someone moving cautiously on the floor below. ‘Shush – there is someone in the house. Is it one of your family?’ The woman shook her head slowly, her eyes red from crying now wide open with fear.

  ‘Is there a gun in the house?’

  The woman nodded towards the landing. ‘In the room at the end,’ she whispered, ‘on the shelf above the hearth, there’s a shotgun. There are cartridges in the bureau to the side.’

  Evangeline moved quietly onto the landing and made her way stealthily along the corridor to the room. As she stepped inside she heard the creak of timber; someone was on the stairs. It had to be her assailant, the SD agent she had run from in the copse; it had to be him. She nee
ded the shotgun and quickly. She could hear the noise more clearly as the sounds got closer. There was no longer time to be quiet. Ignoring the noise, she ran across the room and grabbed the gun from its shelf. Turning in the same moment towards the bureau she frantically pulled open the draws without regard to the racket she made rummaging in the contents until she finally found a box of cartridges. She tore the top off the box, broke the gun and loaded it. Snapping it shut she made her way to the door. Her heart beat was beginning to calm as she felt the confidence of being armed – now she was on equal terms.

  She stepped out into the corridor as the intruder reached the top stair tread and put a foot on the landing. As the figure came into the light from the single bulb that illuminated the space she could see it was a man, a very tall man. She could just make out that he was dressed in worker’s blue overalls covered with a heavy overcoat hanging open at the front and a black beret on his head. Glanced at casually he looked like any French ouvrier; he could be a farm worker or just the mechanic from the garage in the village. At first he didn’t see her and, as he came onto the landing and fully into the light, she could see he was quite pale with straw-coloured hair and a moustache. He was not French – she could see that from the way he looked – more German she thought.

  ‘Arrêtez monsieur,’ she said calmly, stepping out into his view. ‘If you value your life you will stand quite still,’

  The intruder hovered on the threshold of the landing but he showed no fear, instead running his eyes over her like an animal sizing up its prey, assessing its next move. He had a slightly mocking half-smile on his face; she knew she would have to shoot if he made the least wrong movement.