The Man Who Played Trains: The gripping new thriller from the author of Playpits Park

by Richard Whittle

  Heiss scowls. Again he considers responding but thinks better of it. He walks briskly away, and as soon as he is out of sight Walter calls to the soldiers. They step smartly. They salute. Walter raises an arm and points.

  ‘My aide and I will unload the crates for you and you will move them over there, away from the doors. Start with those we have unloaded.’

  The soldiers nod, salute, and instruct the workers. As soon as they are alone, Theo and Walter move Peter and place him on the driving cab floor. The boy is stirring from sleep so Theo stays with him, comforting him.

  Now Peter is clear, Walter sets the men to work unloading the remaining crates, sliding them to the rear of the truck, lifting them down and stacking them with the others. Heiss returns as they are finishing their tasks. He is waving papers. He starts to speak but Walter talks over him.

  ‘Do you have the bronze boxes? Are they ready?’

  ‘They are ready, of course. They are stored elsewhere.’

  ‘You were instructed to send a prototype of the box to Munich for approval. Did you do that?’

  Heiss shrugs. ‘There was simply no time. It was constructed to your specification, as were all the others.’

  ‘Do you have it?’

  ‘Of course. You can inspect it in my office. But there is no point, we have already made all of the – ’

  ‘I wish to see it. Bring it to me.’

  Heiss drops his jaw, a theatrical display of disbelief.

  ‘Oberführer, I have just been… the weight… it is bronze, it is heavy. It would be easier if you came – ’

  ‘Easier for you, possibly. We are tired, Doctor, we have been driving for days whereas you appear to have done very little. You will bring it now.’

  Heiss looks around him as if hoping for help. The soldiers and workers have completed their tasks and are returning to their snow clearing work. He starts after them, as if to get them. It is a route that will take him close to the cab and to Theo and Peter.

  ‘Doctor Heiss,’ Walter says quietly, pointing to the distant end of the building. ‘I assume your office is that way?’

  Heiss turns and shuffles away. Once he is out of sight Walter grabs the quilt from the back of the truck and takes it to Theo.

  ‘Heiss has gone. How is the boy?’

  ‘Not good. He’s been drugged on and off for two days. I daren’t give him more. Is it true what you just said?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘That only SS personnel are permitted in this truck?’

  Walter smiles a rare smile. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  Walter stays for a while, standing on the steps to the cab, looking in at the bundle on the floor. Peter’s hair is showing around the edge of the bulked-up quilt, an overlong, coarse brown tangle. Walter steps down quietly. Closes the cab door.

  Steel wheels trundle on the concrete floor. Heiss is returning, he has loaded the prototype bronze box onto a sack truck and in the hangar-like void it rattles and clatters. In the cab Peter stirs; he is trying to fight his way out of the quilt; frustrated, he cries out. Heiss, still some way off, hears the sound. He stops, cocks his head, and listens. Walter breaks the silence.

  ‘Come, Doctor! What are you waiting for? We do not have all day. Why have you brought me a car battery?’

  ‘Like you instructed, I have brought you the box.’

  Walter stares down at a block of black rubber. He stoops. Tries to lift it up.

  ‘God, man, it weighs a ton!’

  ‘It is as specified. We have coated the box with rubber but have left the lid uncoated so you can inspect it. The lid is screwed down. Beneath it is a rubber seal to make it watertight. The crates you have brought will, of course, be coated completely with the rubber.’

  Walter is nodding. He looks towards the truck and calls out.

  ‘Kapitänleutnant, your attention please!’

  Theo is surprised he has been called. He has no option but to leave Peter. When he gets to the two men Walter nods at the box.

  ‘Tell me what you think of this, Kapitänleutnant. It is merely a prototype. Others have been made to the same specification, but to the correct measurements to house each of our wooden crates.’

  Theo tries to shove the box with his boot but it doesn’t move. He crouches down and attempts to lift it. He manages to raise one edge and then drops it.

  ‘Bronze,’ Theo says. ‘Six millimetre thick plate.’ He nods his approval. It seems the right thing to do.

  ‘What about water-tightness?’ Walter asks. ‘The doctor says there is a rubber seal inside. Is that suitable?’

  Theo is about to respond when there is a noise in the truck. Not a cry, but bumping and banging. Peter is kicking.

  ‘You are an expert in these things,’ Walter tells Theo. ‘Take the box to the cab. Under the seat you will find tools. Remove the screws. Open the top and check the seal. Tell me if it is good enough.’

  Theo grabs the handles of the sack truck, turns it and pushes it to the cab. He knows Walter is going through a routine to fool Heiss. Inspecting the box is pointless because the full-size ones will already have been made. But Peter is still kicking, and Heiss is attentive, distracted by sounds from what should be an empty truck.

  Frustrated, Heiss makes a move towards the cab. Walter blocks him.

  ‘You have a job to do, Herr Doctor. Tonight you will seal my crates in your bronze boxes. Pay attention to the codes on the schedule and the number on the crates. I want the each wooden crate sealed in its correct bronze box.’

  Heiss is outraged. ‘’Am I not to unpack the crates? I consider myself a student of the arts. I was assuming I would be able to see – ’

  Walter draws himself up to his full height so he can stare down at the man. While shifting the crates he unbuttoned his tunic and now he is refastening it. His cap, with its deaths-head badge and SS eagle, rests on an empty oil drum nearby. He reaches for it and places it squarely on his head.

  Heiss is no longer looking at the truck. No longer listening for sounds.

  ‘You disappoint me, Doctor. Surely it is not possible for you to know what is in these crates? Could it be you have been listening to idle gossip? Could it be you have been making enquiries you have no right to make? This is a serious matter that I must report to my superiors. They will want to know how you came by this information. They will want to know who you have told about this mission. Is that what you do, Doctor, pass confidential information to those like yourselves that have no right to know it?’

  ‘No, Herr Oberführer! I am a loyal servant of the Reich! There are things I may have heard, but I have not repeated them. Indeed, I considered reporting what – ’

  He raises a hand as if about to gesticulate, to emphasise a point he is about to make. Changing his mind he lowers his hand gradually as if surrendering a weapon.

  ‘Herr Oberführer, I have told nobody. I can honestly – ’

  ‘That will be for others to decide. My concern meanwhile is the crates. In no circumstances must they be they be tampered with. If I so much as see –’

  ‘Of course, Herr Oberführer. I shall ensure my team works on them day and night. Do you wish to supervise?’

  ‘Shut your mouth and get on with whatever it is you have to do. I trust you have experienced staff?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say they... yes, Herr Oberführer, of course!’

  ‘Very well. As I said, I will leave tomorrow night.’

  Heiss looks at the floor. ‘That is not possible, Oberführer. The full-scale plant is not yet working, we are plagued by acts of sabotage. We have only a pilot plant manufacturing the rubber.’

  ‘So how long? Wednesday? Thursday?’

  ‘Two weeks, Oberführer. Possibly it can be done in ten days, but with the bombing…’

  Walter argues and threatens but Heiss is unyielding. There are problems, he says. He repeats his concern that the Soviets are close.

  ‘The camps here are closing, I can no longer get workers. Even my own pri
soners will soon leave.’

  Theo listens from the cab. It is as he feared. As with the French mines, these factories use slave labour. For all the problems that have befallen him lately he knows that choosing the Kriegsmarine rather than the French mines was the right choice. His crewmen might occasionally behave like stubborn pigs but at least he doesn’t have to whip them to make them work.

  Walter is still talking.

  ‘If I am to be here a few days I shall need a car. I want to leave the truck here, I do not want to drive it around. Who deals with these matters?’

  ‘The Regulating Office. You can telephone from my office.’

  ‘Do you have a car I can use?’

  ‘We have a small van. It has no petrol.’

  ‘That is not a problem. I have petrol.’

  ‘There is of course the SS, Herr Oberführer. They have their own vehicles.’

  Walter pauses to think. Considers that the fewer people he meets, the better.

  ‘Forget it, I have changed my mind, I shall keep the truck, it will cope better with the snow. I need somewhere to stay. Who deals with accommodation?’

  ‘Again, it is the Regulating Office. There is also the SS barracks, perhaps you know it? If you came on the road from Katowice you will have passed close to it.’

  ‘Do you happen to know Hauptsturmführer Ortmann? He is a friend of mine. I believe he is here somewhere.’

  ‘There are many SS men in the work camps, Herr Oberführer. I confess I do not recognise the name.’

  Walter nods. ‘Very good, Herr Doctor. Now, leave us. You have much work to do.’

  At the Regulating Office Walter refuses the duty officer’s offer of beds in the officers’ quarters and by late afternoon Walter, Theo and Peter are settled in a furnished army hut in an otherwise deserted part of the site, the truck parked discretely away. Theo and Walter are sprawled on beds with their caps off and their tunics unbuttoned.

  Peter has recovered from the sleeping pills and is playing with a pile of sawn logs, stacking them high and laughing when they fall, it is the first time Theo has heard him laugh. Rather than use logs in the stove Theo burns gas coke he found in a bin and which burns without smoke. Though the army knows where they are, there is no point advertising their presence.

  Walter nods towards Peter.

  ‘I must have been mad to bring him, Theo. So far we have been lucky.’

  ‘So far?’

  ‘We still have a long way to go. A couple of days here, then another long journey. Five days at least.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then we will be in Hamburg where you will join your new boat. You will be given new orders. I cannot say more, I am not party to every decision. Once I have safely delivered you and the crates my responsibilities are over.’

  Theo doesn’t comment. The man has left his bed and commandeered a threadbare, high-backed armchair. He is lying stretched out on it, one boot crossed over the other.

  The room is frugally furnished with six beds, a row of lockers and two tables. Several long benches have been stacked against a wall and Theo moves from the bed, takes one down, sits on it and gazes absently, half at his boy and half at the remaining beds. He has rediscovered his pipe and is fiddling with it, cleaning it out with a knife. Walter seems more relaxed than he has been for days.

  ‘We will not be disturbed here,’ he says. ‘They hate us, you know.’

  ‘Who does?’

  ‘The regular army. They hate us, just like you do.’

  ‘You think that?’

  ‘I know that. I saw it in your eyes when I arrived at the farm. I am well used to it and it doesn’t trouble me. We are Germany’s elite. We expect resentment and envy.’

  ‘So you think it is envy?’

  ‘What else? The SS rules Germany, we are like a State within a State. We have our own laws, we set our own standards. Our officers and fighting men are all equal in the sight of each other. Is that not a culture to be envied?’

  Theo says nothing. He has strong opinions but this is not the time to air them.

  ‘The future of the Fatherland is in our hands,’ Walter continues. ‘We have our own industries, our businesses and factories. This industrial giant, this Monowitz, it is run by us, did you know that? We succeed because we will stop at nothing to get what we want. It is our right.’

  ‘It sounds to me like a lust for power.’

  ‘A desire, Theodor, not a lust. There is nothing wrong with power.’

  Neither Walter nor Theo hear the vehicle until it stops close by. The driver has drifted there, switching off the engine when some way off. Walter is on his feet before Theo. He scoops the boy up and passes him to Theo.

  ‘Go to the bathroom. Lock yourself in. Stay there until I come for you.’

  Carrying Peter, Theo sprints to the door at the back of the hut. It connects by corridors to others, also to the ablutions block with its laundry, sinks, showers and lavatory cubicles.

  Peter is quiet. Though the place where they hide is unheated, Theo sweats, his nerve close to breaking. Time passes. All is quiet. Then, from some way off, he hears the squeak of a hinge and soft footsteps. Someone is close.

  ‘Theodor, you can come. It was nothing, a routine patrol.’

  Walter is standing at a row of sinks. Idly, he turns a tap but no water runs. The pipes are frozen. Peter, released from Theo’s grasp, runs to Walter but is ignored.

  ‘Come,’ Walter says. ‘Before you both freeze to death.’

  At eight o’clock that evening the door of the hut is kicked open with such force it slams against the wall, bounces back and is kicked open again. Three soldiers burst in and Peter, startled, yells out. A fourth man, an army officer, comes in behind them, looks around and steps outside again, returning seconds later with a man in civilian clothes. He is about Theo’s age, and short and stocky with dark, close-cropped hair. To keep out the cold he has raised the high collar of his overcoat and he peers out from between the lapels. Surveys the dim room.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THE MINE TRACK on the high moor ran straight, a narrow green runway through waist-high dark heather. The white SUV with Benares at the wheel rose and fell over dips and bumps like a ship on an ocean. To Spargo, beside him, it was a miracle the road was still driveable. Twin groves had been gauged in the ground, first by the steel wheels of carts and later by the mine’s heavy trucks. Benares kept the wheels in the grooves as if driving in tram tracks.

  Spargo, gripping a hand-hold, sat quietly. Everything had happened so quickly. Benares and the binoculars. Benares and the threats.

  ‘Mister Spargo…’ he’d said. ‘The mine house is no longer there and I am told it is empty, there is nothing to be found. You and I are both wrong, yes?’

  Spargo, still with Jez’s pleas in mind, had shaken his head. Not sure at what.

  ‘Mister Spargo, we are here for the same things, I think. They are not in the house, we can see that now. The men would have found them, would they not?’

  ‘Things?’

  ‘Boxes, Mister Spargo. Boxes.’

  ‘What have you done with my daughter?’

  Benares had frowned. ‘I have done nothing with your daughter. Why do you ask such a thing?’

  ‘You have done all this, you are responsible for this. Where is Jez? What have you done with her?’

  ‘I have done what, Mister Spargo? I am responsible for what? Please calm yourself, it is better that way. Better also that you drive your car to your mother’s house and conceal it. Do not even think of driving away.’

  Spargo had protested, accusing Benares of all manner of crimes. Then he did what Benares told him to do – he left his car at his mother’s empty house and clambered into the SUV.

  He had supposed he was being driven back to civilisation, up the hill and out of Kilcreg. They had continued for miles until Benares slowed down, spun the wheel, and swerved onto the drover’s road. The old mine track.

  Inste
ad of driving cautiously Benares kept up his speed, bouncing and lurching across hard-packed, grassy ground. Spargo nervously kept up the questions – where is my daughter? What have you done with her? Benares, seemingly relaxed, said nothing.

  Ten minutes down the track Spargo had another go at him. Even went through the almost comic routine, if anything happens to my daughter...

  Benares turned to him and smiled. Showed his teeth.

  Spargo’s concern for Jez masked his own fear. He was being abducted, taken to one of the remotest spots he knew. He pictured Letchie, naked in his basement, strangled by the garrotte – a method of killing as traditional to Spain as poisoned darts were to the Amazon.

  Jez’s words came to him. Chocky. And Tim. He knew no-one called Tim and the only Chocky he’d heard of was the imaginary friend in John Wyndham’s sci-fi classic. If there was a connection to be made between those two names then he couldn’t make it. Jez had been too subtle by half.

  To one side of them the overgrown track from the plant yard came out from deep heather. For a while it ran parallel to the track they were on and then, without warning, and rather like railway lines at points, the two sets of ruts joined. The SUV lurched and bounced over them, managing to stay upright somehow.

  Rain came, a drizzle that seeped from thick mist. Spargo knew that way ahead of them were cliff tops and sea. Was that where Benares was taking him? Had he planned to garrotte him like Letchie and throw him into the sea?

  Benares switched on the wipers and the screen cleared. Ahead of them a dark shape, that Spargo bizarrely supposed might be a sailing ship, emerged from the mist. When closer, its hull became the mine’s old counting house, the two-roomed, two-storey building where his mother once worked. Its masts became the still-standing telegraph posts that once carried the mine’s phone wires.

  ‘Is Bar here?’

  ‘Why should Mister Bar be here?’

  Spargo wondered if he’d got it wrong. Wondered if all this involved only Benares, and whoever it was with Jez.

  The mine buildings once sat surrounded by a hard-rolled surface of furnace ash – a sea of black clinker like in the plant yard. That surface was now deep beneath heather. The mine shaft sunk by his father’s men and now filled in had been some way off. The flat concrete slabs on which other buildings stood were still there and Spargo remembered how, long ago, he had raced across them on his bike. Now they were broken, shot through with a maze of cracks sprouting tufts of long grass.