The Perfect Corpse

by Giles Milton

  Will you look at it? All thoughts, comments, advice (& criticism) appreciated. As you know, I always value your help. Text me when you’ve seen it. And keep well.

  *

  Jack downloaded the attached file, Interview 1, and found himself watching an uncut, unedited version of the interview that Karin had done on the previous day.

  He pulled the screen towards him, adjusted the brightness. He could see her in the foreground, leaning forwards in a Biedermeier armchair, almond-eyed and fashionably dishevelled. She had the air of a contented cat sitting in a warm pool of sunshine, slim, dark, her long legs accentuated by her skinny jeans. Her face was an almost perfect symmetry, except for the dimple on her left cheek that showed up when she smiled. When he’d first sketched her, he’d kept her smiling to capture the dimple.

  She was positioned to the right of a Sony Betacam SP camera and was being test-filmed by one of the crew, probably on her hand-held Canon.

  Jack hit the pause button and looked closely at the lady that Karin was about to interview. Late-sixties or thereabouts, although she looked a lot younger. Silver hair neatly coiffed into a bun and lively blue eyes. The sort that wore eau-de-cologne from Kiehl’s and took herself off to Café Buchwald each afternoon for coffee and chocolate gateau.

  He pressed ‘play’ again and heard Karin explaining how the film was being made for a production company in London and was to be screened on the History Channel.

  ‘If you could start by saying your full name and date of birth,’ she said. ‘Talk to me, not the camera, even though I’m just the prompt. I’ll ask questions, but I won’t be in the final film. So if you can remember to frame your answer so as to include the gist of the question.’

  Jack noticed Karin give the woman a reassuring smile. Then she reached out and touched her hand to reassure her further.

  ‘It’ll be fine, promise.’

  The woman nodded but the nerves were visible in her face. She had that pained expression that he’d seen in people who were about to identify a corpse.

  ‘Can I stop if I need to?’ she asked. She had just the trace of an accent. Her composure broke for a second. ‘It’s just that, see, I’ve not done anything like this before. I need time to think.’

  Karin gave another smile. ‘Of course. Just try to relax. Be yourself. We can stop the camera at any point. And we can shoot and re-shoot. We’ve got all day. If you need to think about anything, run through it with me first, that’s all fine. Just as long as you’re comfortable.’

  The film switched abruptly from the hand-held Canon to the big Sony Betacam. The quality was better and the angle much wider. Jack could see the wall hangings and shelves of books behind the woman. The room was one of those huge 1920’s salons with an improbably high ceiling and plate-glass windows the size of wall mirrors. The sort of place that once hosted soirées for idols of the German silver screen.

  ‘All phones on silent, please.’

  It was the voice of Viktor, the producer. There was the sound of mobiles being switched off.

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘Camera rolling.’

  ‘Ready?’ Viktor’s voice again.

  ‘And - action.’

  The woman began with a confidence that seemed to surprise even herself. ‘My name is Katarina Bach and I was born in February, nineteen-forty-five.’

  She stopped abruptly, unsure what to say next. Jack heard Karin come to the rescue.

  ‘What was your earliest memory?’

  Frau Bach placed one hand on her silvery bun, as if to check it was still tidy.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, pausing once again. ‘It’s not easy.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Karin’s voice again. ‘Take your time. We’ve got as much time as you need.’

  ‘Camera still rolling -’

  ‘It’s not really a memory,’ she said. ‘It’s what I learned many years later. It was my first birthday, the seventh of February, the day that Himmler came to visit. He was the Reichsführer, of course, and because it was my birthday he brought me a box of Rapunzel chocolates. Chocolates for a baby! And he also brought a golden candlestick with my name, Katarina, engraved in the old German letters.

  ‘“You are the future, Katarina.” That’s what he said to me. The future indeed! When defeat was just around the corner.

  ‘It was many years before I learned the truth about my birth, my parents. That my mother had been working for the lebensborn programme, that she’d volunteered to take part in Himmler’s project to breed a pure Aryan race.

  ‘No one wanted to speak about it, of course. Not after the war. My adoptive parents wouldn’t tell me anything. They were embarrassed, especially in Adenauer’s Germany. But I wanted to understand. You see lebensborn was a part of me, whether I liked it or not.’

  She paused. Jack could hear Karin’s voice filling the silence. ‘And your mother? Your real mother?’

  ‘My mother had been singled out as ‘very good for propagation’. Isn’t that a terrible expression? I mean it’s like animals. She was blond, the right weight and height. A loyal member of the Bund Deutscher Mädchen. And she was of pure German stock. That was very important.

  ‘My father was an officer in the SS, loyal, fanatical and devoted to Himmler. He was hand picked to be a biological father, yes, hand picked to breed a child with my mother.

  ‘Many years later, when I was seventeen or eighteen, I tried to track down both my mother and father. But it proved impossible. The records were destroyed when the Americans arrived. I never even discovered their names.

  She stopped speaking.

  ‘Great, great,’ said Karin quietly, adding: ‘Can you tell us more about how it felt? It’s hard to imagine.’

  ‘Camera still rolling -’

  Frau Bach nodded.

  ‘It made me feel, well, inadequate. Lonely. Yes, there was much loneliness. I’ve often thought children of rape victims must feel the same, uncertain who they are. I was bred – bred - as an experiment, a genetic experiment, and it’s taken all my life to accept that fact. I live every single day of my life knowing I carry the genes of my father and mother. You can’t escape your genes.’

  She sighed wearily. ‘I’m grateful to the organization Life Sentence with Hope. They’ve been wonderful in supporting those of us who struggle with this every day of our lives.’

  She turned away from the camera for a moment and her eyes seemed to drift towards Karin.

  ‘I wasn’t at all sure about agreeing to be filmed. But, well, I think it’s important for the younger generation to know about lebensborn and the terrible impact it’s had on people’s lives. Today’s young people often ask how so many Germans could be so stupid to follow Hitler. My father certainly wasn’t stupid. I’m told he had a degree and had brilliant prospects.’

  She faltered.

  ‘Fantastic.’ Karin again. ‘It’s moving. You were wonderful.’

  The camera clicked off but the sound continued.

  ‘Coffee everyone?’ A man’s voice. ‘Thank you very much, Frau Bach. A very eloquent witness. We’re going to break here for lunch. D’you want to stay? Can we give you a lift anywhere?’

  ‘No. It’s very kind but I can walk. I’m only going to the Tiergarden for some air. It feels quite breathless today. They were saying there’ll be a storm later.’

  There was the sound of a door closing and then the talking grew more muffled, as if they’d all turned away from the mike.

  ‘But surely, somewhere in Germany there must be a lebensborn mother still alive? Karin - ? We really need a mother as a witness. The film would benefit a lot.’

  ‘We’ve been trying, Viktor.’ Karin’s voice again. ‘But it’s not easy. Two of the ones we tracked down have died, a third’s got pleurisy. There’s only one we haven’t yet managed to contact. She’s in some nursing home in Murnau. Near Munich, I think. She must be in her nineties.’

  ‘That’s the one,’ said Viktor. He clicked his fingers. ‘Can you get on the case?’ />
  There was a pause in the recording. And then the sound clicked off abruptly.

  *

  Jack turned back to re-read Karin’s email.

  ‘Viktor wants a lebensborn mum,’ she’d written as a postscript. ‘You’ll hear him talk about it on the clip. But they’re mostly dead. I called the old people’s home in Murnau where one woman’s supposed to live. Spoke to the matron in charge. A nightmare called Frau Schmidt. She didn’t even want to hear what I had to say. And she said Frau Trautwein wouldn’t agree to be interviewed. Help! Any ideas?’

  Jack looked at his watch. Almost midnight. That meant it was morning in Germany. He picked up his mobile and toyed with the idea of calling Karin. Only when he’d decided against it did he realise that he’d hit the call button and it was ringing. She answered immediately.

  ‘Jack? Well that’s a surprise. Lovely to hear your voice. You alright?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he lied. ‘Just fine. And you were great. In fact you were excellent. One day soon I’m going to turn on the TV and you’ll be incredibly famous and I’ll be saying to myself, that’s the woman I used to share my life with.’

  There was a long silence then Karin said with forced jollity: ‘Well that’s just flattery. And let’s not go there. Listen, a question for you. What do I do about this old woman they want me to interview?’

  ‘Go and visit her,’ he said. ‘Use all your charm. Christ, you could persuade anyone to do anything. Believe me, I know.’

  ‘But they’ll never let me into the home. And they’re hardly going to let me speak to her.’

  ‘If you can’t get in, no one can. Go with your instincts. And your powers of persuasion.’

  He heard a sigh. ‘I’ll try, I’ll try. Did you really think it was okay?’

  He laughed. ‘More than okay. I’d say great.’

  ‘And you?’ she said, suddenly hesitant. ‘Are you okay? You don’t sound it.’

  ‘I’m fine. In fact I’m good.’

  He told her about everything that had happened. About Tom and Hunter. About ZAKRON. About Ferris Clark. And then he told her about the project to bring him back to life.

  ‘Holy shit,' she said when he'd finished. 'Jack, don’t get involved. For Christ’s sake don’t get involved with these people. Are they crazy or what? You’ll get yourself arrested and locked up if you’re not careful. I thought all this lebensborn stuff was mad but what you’ve just told me is a million times madder.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘What’s the name of the place?’

  ‘ZAKRON. Most high-tech lab I’ve ever seen. Makes the Innsbruck place look like the Middle Ages. And Tom Lawyer’s dodgy but smart. Took against me from the moment I set foot in the building. He does not want me here.’

  There was a moment’s pause before Karen spoke again.

  ‘Then why the hell did he invite you in the first place?’

  TWELVE

  Jack rubbed his left hand over his unshaven chin and then glanced towards Tammy. She was gazing into the small mirror on the sunshield and applying dark red lipstick. He put the car into drive and swung out of Logan’s Corner. It was a few minutes after six in the morning.

  ‘So what d’you think?’

  She ran her fingers over the dashboard. ‘Not bad. And fast. At least it’s fast when you’re at the wheel. But -’ she threw a glance towards the back seat, where his cases and computer bag were occupying most of the space - ‘not great if you’ve got two kids and three bags of groceries.’

  Hanford Gap was a town that ended unsatisfactorily in every direction. The spaces between the houses widened, first into gardens and the occasional kitchen plot and then into dry wasteland. There was the odd bungalow, a petrol station or two. A stray panel advertised chiropody at the end of the world. And then all sign of human life was gone. They were driving across the surface of the moon. Miles and miles of dried-up gravel that stretched all the way to Vegas.

  Not until they reached Walker Lake did the landscape start to change. A giant bulldozer had scoured a wide trench across the scrub, pushing up two lines of rock-strewn hills. Tammy called a couple of hotels to see if they had rooms available. She found one on the third attempt.

  ‘Hanford Comfort Inn,’ she said. ‘On the east side of town. Not exactly the Four Seasons. But it’s anonymous at least.’

  There was a long silence as they crossed a huge rocky valley, barren and waterless. Jack was the first to speak.

  ‘Tammy I’ve got to say something. I’m sorry about last night. Christ, what the hell was I thinking of?’

  ‘Don’t have to be sorry. To be honest I was flattered. And I like your style. Direct, up front, no messing. Exactly what I want in a guy. Never been the romantic type. Romance went out of my life when I met Bill.’

  She paused for a moment and then hastily changed the subject.

  ‘Say you were a gambler,’ she said, ‘and you were gambling on finding the truth about Ferris Clark, how much would you bet?’

  ‘That’s the Vegas girl speaking.’

  He thought for a moment. ‘But not sure I can answer. It’s like I said to Tom. I gave up gambling years ago. Bad for your health.’

  ‘And wealth,’ she said. ‘Bill’s a gambler, nearly ruined us. Hundreds of dollars lost in a single spin of the wheel. Every Friday he’d come home with empty pockets, a black eye and breath like a beer hound.’

  ‘I don’t trust chance. Does your head in. I prefer dealing in facts. Probably makes me dull as crap, but that’s how it is.’ He paused. ‘I reckon we’ll find Ferris Clark’s records. Check everything Tom’s said. Least we’ll know where we stand. Confirm where he lived. What he was up to in Greenland. Never know, Tom might have overlooked something. Deliberately.’

  ‘Yeah. But none of this is going to tell us how he died.’

  ‘No. But it might tell us why he wasn’t conscripted till nineteen-forty-four. Why wait ’til he was thirty-seven? That’s weird. And why Greenland? It’s not like he came from somewhere like, I don’t know, Montana, where they ski before they walk.’

  He pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the car for a moment. They put down the roof. Tammy delved into her bag and pulled out her sunglasses, pink retro and Vegas chic. She tied a chiffon headscarf around her neck.

  ‘Like it,’ he said. ‘Quite the nineteen fifties movie star look.’

  She laughed. ‘No. Just Tammy Fox in danger of getting fried.’

  They stopped once more to buy cold Cokes at a lonely roadside caravan, then set off again across the scrub. She told him about her divorce from Bill, about her kids, about everything. And then she asked him about the corpse he’d pulled from a bog in Lincolnshire.

  ‘Pickled like an onion. Like he’d been dumped in balsamic. One of the best preserved bodies I’ve ever seen. Skin, internal organs, you’d never have guessed he was medieval. Tortured, garroted and then shoved into a bog. Slow and brutal. Not nice.’

  ‘I saw it on your website. Loved the pictures. The Wragby man, yeah?’

  Jack nodded. ‘Not his real name. It’s actually the village where he was found. Not very original. And not my idea. He didn’t even come from there.’

  ‘You found where he came from?’

  ‘Opened his intestines, analyzed the contents. Identified his last meal and when he’d eaten it. Poppy seeds. Flax. Grains of barley. Enabled us to piece it all together, bit by bit. Very south of Lincolnshire, on the border with Cambridgeshire. See what I mean about forensics? If you can do all that for someone who died six hundred years ago -’

  They talked some more until Jack put down his foot and the flush of the wind forced them to silence. He was enjoying the drive and the car and having Tammy beside him. He was in a film and they were heading into the unknown and there was the dusty scrubland and the sun just kept beating down. The Viper handled well, especially at speed, snapping at the silver foil mirages that scuttled across the road. In less than three hours the first low-rises of Vegas’s ou
tskirts appeared ahead of them. Then the buildings grew in height and the traffic increased until they reached a huge neon sign saying ‘Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas’.

  ‘You can seriously lose here,’ said Tammy.

  ‘Only if you gamble.’

  She checked the GPS. ‘You need to bear right into Las Vegas Freeway then come off at West Charleston Boulevard.’

  Ten minutes later they were standing outside the Family Research Center at 509 South 9th Street. Two palm trees, a steep gabled roof and a ferociously blue sky. Inside the building, if Tom was to be believed, was a slim wartime file on Ferris Clark.

  The librarian wore a name-tag that read: ‘Betsy: Happy to Assist.’

  Mid-fifties and big hair.

  ‘Now then,’ she said, peering over her green-rimmed glasses. ‘How can I help?’

  Tammy explained they were seeking information on a wartime conscript named Ferris Clark.

  ‘Ferris Clark - Ferris Clark,’ she said slowly, deliberately, as if she’d once known someone named Ferris Clark. ‘Why does that sound familiar? Weren’t you here a few weeks ago?’

  She paused before answering her own question.

  ‘No, no. Wasn’t you. There were two of them, it’s all coming back, but they were both guys.’

  ‘That’s Tom and Hunter alright,’ said Tammy to Jack. She turned back to the woman. ‘Mid-fifties? Suntanned? Balding head? And the other one taller. Italian looking.’

  Betsy searched for their faces.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s them.’

  Pause.

  ‘Yeah. I remember. Missing in Greenland. That’s what they were after. Strange request. First time in years, in fact. Service personnel in Greenland. They ordered up all the files.’

  ‘All the files?’

  ‘Yeah. We file the army personnel individually, see. Always have. There were six or seven of them, I think. Maybe more.’

  Jack looked at her and smiled. ‘Exactly the ones Tom asked us to look through again. Can we get those same ones?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Tammy, nodding. ‘All of them.’