Field Gray

by Philip Kerr

  A woman standing next to me was throwing carnations onto the gray heads below. “Isn’t it wonderful?” she said. “I never thought I’d live to see the day our boys finally came home. Germany’s heart beats in Friedland. They’re back. Back from the godless world of Bolshevism.”

  I nodded politely but kept my eyes on the faces in the crowd below the window.

  “This is chaos,” said the detective, whose name was Moeller. “How the hell are we supposed to find anyone in this? The next time we have prisoners arriving here, they’d do better to bring them on buses from the border station at Herleshausen. That way we might at least establish some kind of order. You’d think this was Italy, not Germany.”

  “Let them have their chaos,” I said. “For fourteen years these men have endured discipline and order. They’ve had a belly full of it. So let them enjoy a moment of disorder. It might help to make them feel like human beings again.”

  Flowers, fruit, candies, cigarettes, schnapps, hot coffee, hugs and kisses—every sign of affection was showered on these men. I hadn’t seen so much joy on the faces of so many Germans since June 1940. And two things were clear to me: that only the Federal Republic could claim to be the legitimate representative of the German nation; and that no one regarded any of these men—whatever crimes and atrocities they might have committed in Russia and the Ukraine—as anything other than heroes.

  But equally clear was the reality of the problem now facing me. For among the lined, grinning faces of the men underneath my gaze was one I recognized from Johannesgeorgenstadt. A Berliner named Walter Bingel whom I had befriended on the train from the MVD prison near Stalingrad. The same Bingel who had seen me leaving the camp in a ZIM saloon, accompanied by two German communists from K-5, and who assumed that I’d made a deal with them to save my skin. And if Bingel was on the train, then quite probably there were others from Johannesgeorgenstadt who, thanks to him, would have the same memory of me. It was beginning to look as if Inspector Moeller might be obliged to arrest me, too.

  Vigée’s keen eyes saw mine lingering nervously on Bingel’s face. “Recognize anyone?” he asked.

  “Not so far,” I lied. “But to be honest, these men seem older than their years. I’m not sure I’d recognize my own brother down there. If I had a brother.”

  “Well, that’s good for us, isn’t it?” said the Frenchman. “A man who has spent the last six or seven years working for the MVD ought to stick out from the rest of these uncles. After all, de Boudel is merely posing as a POW. He hasn’t been in a labor camp, like them.”

  I nodded. The Frenchman had a point.

  “Can we get a copy of that list of names made by the Red Cross?” I asked.

  Vigée nodded at Moeller, who went away to fetch one. “All the same,” he said, “I don’t think he’ll be using his real name, do you?”

  “No, of course not. But one has to start somewhere. Most police work starts with a list of something or other, even if it’s a list of what you don’t know. Sometimes that’s as important as what you do know. Really, detective work is simple, it’s just not very easy.”

  “Don’t sweat it,” said Vigée. “We always knew that finding de Boudel at the station would be a long shot. Reveille at the refugee camp tomorrow morning. That’s where I’m pinning my hopes.”

  “Yes, I think you’re right,” I said.

  We watched Moeller struggling through the crowd of men to one of the Red Cross officials. He said something, and the official nodded back.

  “Where did you find him?” I asked.

  “Göttingen,” said Vigée. “Why?” He lit a cigarette and flicked his match onto the heads of the men below, as if he wished to express his contempt for them. “Do you think he’s not up to this?”

  “I couldn’t say.”

  “Maybe he’s not the detective you were, Gunther.” Vigée blew out his cheeks and sighed. “All he has to do is arrest the man you identify. There’s not much to being that kind of a cop, n’est-ce pas?” he sneered. “Perhaps you should give him some tips. Tell him your forensic secrets.”

  “They’re quite simple, too,” I said. “I used to get up in the morning and go to bed at night. And in between I’d try to keep myself busy and out of mischief.”

  “Really? Is that all you have to offer? After how many years of being a detective?”

  “Any fool can solve a crime, Frenchman. It’s proving it that wears you out.”

  Moeller started back through the crowd to the station door but found himself making little or no progress. He looked up and, seeing Vigée and then me, threw his hands up and grinned helplessly.

  I grinned back and nodded affably, as if recognizing his difficulty. But all the time I was looking at him I was trying to gauge what kind of policeman I was going to be dealing with when, the following morning, Walter Bingel identified me as a collaborator and traitor.

  34

  GERMANY, 1954

  We remained behind until all of the POWs had marched off to the camp and most of the local people had left the station. Vigée was, I think, impressed that I had insisted on being there until the last; and, of course, he was quite without a clue that the real reason had much more to do with my trying to keep out of sight. Before we climbed into the Citroën that would take us back to our pension in Göttingen, Moeller handed me a twenty-page list of names and ranks and serial numbers.

  “All of the men who were in that train,” he said redundantly.

  I tucked the list into my coat pocket and glanced around the station ticket hall and beyond, onto the platform where those whose dashed hopes of seeing some long-lost loved one remained to the bitter end. A few of these people were in tears. Others just sat alone in quiet and stoic grief. I heard someone say, “Next time, Frau Kettenacher. I expect he’ll come the next time. They say it might be another year before they’re all home. And that the SS will be the last.”

  Gently, the owner of the voice—some local pastor, it looked like to me—helped an old woman to her feet, collected her missing-person sign off the ground, and guided her toward the platform exit.

  We followed at a respectful distance.

  “Poor soul,” muttered Moeller. “I know how she feels. I have an elder brother who’s still a prisoner.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?” I said. “Suppose he’d turned up here? What would you have done?”

  Moeller shrugged. “I was sort of hoping he would. That’s one of the reasons I got put forward for this job. But now that I’ve seen that refugee camp, I’m not so sure. There must be better ways of treating our men, Herr Gunther. Don’t you agree?”

  I nodded.

  “They don’t do so bad,” said Grottsch. “Every week, the camp commander at Friedland gets hundreds of letters from single women all over Germany who are looking for a new husband.”

  The five of us squeezed into the car and set off north for Göttingen, some fifteen kilometers away.

  Sitting in the back, I switched on the courtesy light and nervously scanned the list for the names of any others from Johannesgeorgenstadt. And it didn’t take long to find the name of SS General Fritz Klause, who had been the SGO at the camp. It was beginning to look as if the radiation at the camp hadn’t been nearly as lethal as I had been led to believe. Then again, a man can use hate for his enemy as a blanket just warm enough to keep him alive through even a Russian winter.

  “I wish someone would write and offer to marry me,” said Wenger as he drove the car. “Or, at the very least, offer to take the place of the wife I already have.”

  “I wonder what they’ll think,” said Moeller. “About the new Germany.”

  “I imagine they’ll think it’s really not quite German enough,” observed Grottsch. “That was my impression when I came back from a British POW camp. I kept looking for Germany. And all I found was new furniture, cars, and toys for American boys.”

  “Turn the car around,” I said. “We have to go back.”

  Vigée, sitting bes
ide Wenger in the front seat, ordered him to pull up for a moment. Then he turned in his seat to look at me. “Found something?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Explain, please.”

  “As we were leaving, there was a woman back at the station seeking information about her loved one. She had written all of his details on a sign.”

  “Yes,” said Vigée. “What was her name?”

  “Kettenacher,” I said. “But there was also a Kettenacher who was on the train. Who’s on this list prepared by the Red Cross.”

  “It’s not an uncommon name in this part of Germany,” said Moeller.

  “No,” I said firmly. “But Frau Kettenacher’s son was in the Panzer Corps. He was a Hauptmann. A captain, same as me. Richard Kettenacher. Fifty-sixth Panzer Corps. Last heard of in the battle for Berlin.”

  “He missed his mother in the crowd,” said Moeller. “It happens.”

  “And what about all his comrades?” I asked. “Would they have missed her, too?”

  “Go back,” Vigée told Wenger urgently. “Go back immediately.”

  Wenger turned the car around.

  “Let me see that list,” said the Frenchman.

  I handed it to him and pointed out the name.

  “What do you think we should do?” he asked. “Go straight to the camp? Suppose he slips away before he gets there?”

  “No,” I said. “He’s here because he needs to be official. He needs some papers. Otherwise, the Russian state security people could have smuggled him across the border in Berlin. He needs his discharge papers. Ration cards. An identity document. All of that in order to enter German society. To become something new. He’s not going to slip away.”

  I thought for a moment.

  “We need to speak to the real Captain Kettenacher’s mother. That old lady we saw at the railway station. We need her to give us a photograph of her son. So that when you and Moeller here go to the camp tomorrow and he tries to throw some sand in your face, you’ll be able to deal with it by being able to produce a picture. You can leave asking her to me. I am, after all, a representative of the VdH.”

  “You said that in a way that implied you thought you wouldn’t be coming to the refugee camp,” said Vigée. “Why?”

  “Because I think you need to keep me in reserve,” I said smoothly. “Think about it, Émile. You arrest Kettenacher on suspicion of really being de Boudel. He denies it, of course. So you take him to the Pension Esebeck and show him the real Kettenacher’s photograph. He still denies it: There’s some mistake. An administrative error. There were two Captain Kettenachers. You let him talk himself into a corner. That’s when I step out from behind the curtain and say ‘Hello, Edgard. Remember me?’ I’m your ace, Émile. But you mustn’t play me until the end.”

  Vigée was nodding. “Yes. You’re correct, of course. But how will we find Frau Kettenacher.”

  I shrugged. “I’m a detective, remember? If finding people was difficult, they wouldn’t ask policemen to do it every day of the week.” I smiled at Moeller. “No offense intended, Inspector.”

  “None taken, sir.”

  “So where am I driving?” muttered Wenger. “Suppose the old lady doesn’t live in Friedland? Suppose she already left town?”

  “That pastor seemed to know her,” said Vigée.

  “Yes, but there’s no church in Friedland.”

  “There is one in Gros Schneen,” said Moeller.

  “Head back to the station,” I said. “We’ll see if anyone remembers them there. If not, we can then decide what to do.”

  The stationmaster, a stooping, etiolated figure, was sweeping up after the crowds. His flower bed had been trampled and, as a result, he could have been in a better mood. He shook his head when I asked him about Frau Kettenacher, but he seemed to remember the pastor all right.

  “That was Pastor Overmans, from the church in Hebenshausen.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “A couple of kilometers south of here. You can’t miss it. There’s even less in Hebenshausen than there is here in Friedland.”

  Wenger drove south, and we soon found ourselves in a village that lived down to the stationmaster’s description. We were just in time to see a bus leaving the village square, and the pastor and the old lady, still carrying her missing-person sign, walking away from the bus stop. Behind the bus stop was a largish half-timbered house, and behind the house was a small square church tower. The pastor and the old lady went inside the house and some lights were turned on.

  Wenger stopped the car.

  “Moeller,” I said. “You come with me. And don’t say anything. The rest of you wait here.”

  The pastor was surprised to see us there so late, until I explained that I was from the VdH and that we’d missed Frau Kettenacher at the station.

  “I try to see all of the families in this part of Lower Saxony who have a missing loved one,” I said. “But I don’t think I’ve met the lady before.”

  “Ah, that’s because she’s from Kassel,” explained Pastor Overmans. “Frau Kettenacher is from Kassel. I’m her brother-in-law. She’s been staying with me in order that she could be at the railway station tonight.”

  “I’m very sorry that your son wasn’t on the train,” I told her. “In the hope of avoiding further disappointments, we’ve been pressing the Russians to provide more details of who they’re still holding. And when these POWs might be released.”

  The pastor, a brick-faced man with white hair, glanced around the somberly furnished room at the sagging heap of a woman who was sitting on an inadequate-looking chair. “Well, that would be something, eh, Rosa?”

  Frau Kettenacher nodded silently. She was still wearing her coat and a hat that looked like an air-raid warden’s helmet. She smelled strongly of mothballs and disappointment.

  I continued with my cruel deception. If I was correct and Edgard de Boudel was indeed using the name of Hauptmann Richard Kettenacher, it could only mean one thing: that the real captain was dead and had been for some considerable time. I managed to persuade myself that his cruelty and the cruelty of the Russian intelligence service that had put together this legend was crueler than mine, but only just.

  “However,” I said weightily, “the Soviet authorities are not known for the efficiency of their record keeping. I know—I was a prisoner myself. When our men are repatriated, it’s the German Red Cross and not the Russians who establish who is actually being released. For this reason, we’re in the process of compiling our own records of who is still missing. And while this may not seem like the best moment to be asking questions like this, I wonder if I might take a few details of the loved one still missing.” I smiled sadly at the pastor. “Your nephew, is it?”

  “Yes,” he said, and repeated the missing man’s name, rank, and serial number, and the details of his war service.

  I noted these down conscientiously. “I won’t take up too much of your time,” I said. “Do you have any personal documentation? A pay book, perhaps? Not every soldier kept his pay book on him like he was supposed to. A lot left them at home for safekeeping so that their wives could claim the money. I know I did. Or perhaps a military service record book. A party card. That kind of thing.”

  Frau Kettenacher was already opening a brown leather bag that was the size and shape of a small coracle. “My Ricky was a good boy,” she said in a strong Saxonian accent. “He wouldn’t ever have disobeyed the rules about carrying his pay book.” She took out a manila envelope and handed it to me. “But you’ll find everything else in here. His National Socialist Party personal identity card. His SA identity card. His craftsmen’s guild certificate. His ID for commercial travelers—he trained to be a metalworker, see? And then became a traveling salesman selling the things he used to make. His German state travel passport. That was for the time he went to Italy on business. His bombing victim’s pass—Ricky’s apartment in Kassel was bombed, you know. And his wife was killed. A lovely girl, she was. And his military service pas
sbook.”

  I tried to contain my excitement. The old lady was giving me everything that could have identified the real Richard Kettenacher. Several of the documents contained not just photographs but personal signatures, blood types, details of medical examinations, his size of gas mask, helmet, cap and boots, a record of wounds and serious illnesses, and military decorations.

  “The inspector here will issue you with a receipt for these documents,” I said. “And he’ll make sure that they’re returned safely to you.”

  “I don’t care about them,” she said. “All I care about is having my Ricky returned safely to me.”

  “God willing, yes,” I said, pocketing the missing man’s life history.

  As soon as Moeller had written one out, we left the pastor and the old lady alone and walked back to the car.

  “Well?” asked Vigée.

  I nodded. “I got everything.” I brandished the old lady’s envelope. “Everything. Kettenacher’s double couldn’t get past this lot. That’s the great thing about Nazi documentation. For one thing, there was so bloody much of it. And for another, it’s virtually impossible to contradict.”

  “Let’s hope it’s not the real one,” said Vigée. “If he was blind, then perhaps he couldn’t see his mother. And perhaps her eyes are not so good and she couldn’t see him.” He looked through the documents. “Let us hope you’re right about this. I don’t like disappointments.”