‘Hallo? Is there someone there?’ the boy said, in German, his voice failing to reveal his concern.
‘Ja,’ Blackman hissed as he stumbled out of the darkness ten yards from the teenager. The Englishman marched forward, lifting his revolver towards the boy who stood transfixed like a hapless animal before a fast-approaching truck.
Blackman thrust the heavy gun into the boy’s stomach, pushing him up against the stone wall, paying no attention to the boy’s cry. He looked along the track to see the saloon’s taillights disappear from view, then back to the quivering boy.
‘Let’s see how much your daddy loves you, shall we?’
46
A blast from the past
Oxford, England.
December, 1968.
Harry Blackman stood, leaning against his office desk, surrounded by six of his most senior employees, each of them holding a champagne glass. Northwind Ltd, the company that he had founded in 1959, was celebrating the end of an extremely good year. It had recently completed the first phase of its biggest and most lucrative contract to date, a landmark project for British Rail. The company, a civil engineering consultancy, had doubled in size over the previous two years, and possessed a full order book for the next two.
‘Gentleman,’ Blackman said, reaching for his glass, ‘We have achieved some remarkable things over the last decade and especially over the last couple of years. We are growing much faster than our closest competitors, and we have invitations to tender coming in thick and fast. I want you to take a well-deserved rest over Christmas with your families. Recharge your batteries, because we are going to be very busy for the next twelve months. This is a time of opportunity, gentleman. One we must ensure that we grasp. I trust that I can continue to rely on your support?’
The assembled men nodded as one. ‘Absolutely,’ said one, a tall, balding man with a pointed, grey beard.
‘You can count on us, Harry,’ said another.
‘Hear hear,’ said a third man.
Blackman lifted his glass. ‘To nineteen-sixty-nine being our best year yet,’ he said, before taking a gulp of the champagne, the men around him doing likewise. He placed his glass down and shook each man’s hand in turn.
There was a knock at the door. It opened and a young woman poked her head inside. Blackman beckoned at her to come in.
‘What is it, Angie?’
‘There’s a call for you, Mr Blackman. A mister Ferguson.’
Blackman’s face stiffened. ‘Gus Ferguson?’
The secretary shrugged. ‘He didn’t say his first name.’ Her eyes darted to the group of men engaged in loud conversation behind Blackman. ‘Should I ask him to call back later?’
‘No, I’ll take the call at your desk.’ He turned to face one of his most senior employees, pointed at the bottles of Bollinger on the table nearby. ‘I need to take this, Ian. You and the lads help yourselves to the bubbly. I don’t want it going to waste.’
He followed the secretary to her desk in the building’s reception area. A waiting visitor was perched upon one of the four brown leather sofas, his attention fixed upon the wall opposite him which hosted an array of photographs; images of the sites of some of the company’s most prominent and profitable projects. Each image was accompanied by a modest label detailing the project name and the associated client. The names of the businesses included many renowned enterprises, household names. It made for a powerful first impression for those visiting the building for the first time - Northwind Ltd was a company that was going places.
The secretary handed Blackman the handset that she had left on the desk, the caller on hold. She pressed an illuminated plastic button on the console in front of her and nodded at Blackman.
‘Hello, this is Harry Blackman.’
‘Harry, it’s Gus. Long time no speak.’
Blackman grinned upon hearing the caller’s Scots accent, perching himself on the side of the desk behind him. ‘Bloody hell, chap. It must be what? Ten years? How the devil are you?’
‘I’m…well, sir. And you?’
‘Never better, old boy. Never better. And your family? How’s Fiona? And your lad? Jacob, isn’t it?’
‘They’re well, aye. Fi’s got a steady job with the council. Jacob’s taking his O-Levels next year.’
Blackman’s eyes narrowed, and he glanced at the handset. Something about the Scotsman’s tone was running counter to what he was saying. ‘That’s great to hear,’ he said. ‘It’s been far too long. We really must catch up in person. So, what can I do for you?’
There was a pause.
‘Gus?’
‘I need your help, sir.’
One of the suited men emerged from Blackman’s office, breaking into a brisk walk towards the bathroom. Blackman waited for a moment, then, ‘I’m sorry, Gus. You said you need my help?’
Another pause, then, ‘It’s von Ziegler.’
A cold wave rolled down Blackman’s spine and into his legs. ‘What did you say?’
‘He’s alive. I saw him.’
Conscious of the secretary close by, Blackman turned away, cupping the receiver to his mouth. ‘You saw Joachim von Ziegler?’
‘Aye. In Spain. He’s living on the Costa del Sol. I took the family there for a week at half term earlier in the year. I saw him.’ Blackman stared at the receiver, then at the green linoleum floor. ‘Did you hear me, Harry?’ the voice on the line asked. ‘Harry? Are you still there?’
‘You’re quite certain it was him?’
‘No doubt about it. And he’s no’ the only one, neither. There’s a bunch of the bastards livin’ there. They’ve got their own little town up in the hills.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘I went to the police, but they were no’ interested. I wanna go after him, Harry. He got away before, but this is our chance to get ‘em. To bring him to justice. But I can’t do it alone. I need your help.’
An explosion of memories from a quarter of a century ago burst forth inside Blackman’s head. Devastated landscapes, the shells of family homes, bombed factories, and burned churches. The horrors of the concentration camps. Mass graves. The bodies. The faces.
‘That was a long time ago,’ he said.
‘But Harry—’
‘Stop, Gus. That isn’t your job,’ he said, his words barked into the phone’s receiver; a man of authority giving an order he expected to be obeyed.
‘But I cannae do it without you, sir.’
‘We’re not soldiers anymore, Gus.’
‘I’m begging you, Harry. I have to do this. I have to get him. For what he did. Or have you forgotten all those things we saw?’
‘No, but I’ve spent more than twenty years trying to. That was a long time ago. A different time. And we’re different people.’
‘I’m not,’ said Gus. ‘I still see those things. Every night. Every day. As if they were yesterday. I still smell them, those burning corpses at Mittelwerk. In my sleep. My nightmares. I have to put a stop to this. Don’t you see?’
‘I said no, and I mean it.’
‘But Harry. You owe me. You promised, if I ever needed your help—’
Blackman’s eyes were fixed upon the wall of photos behind him; images that served as his daily reminder of all he had achieved in his business career. A pictorial scoreboard of challenges he had overcome, all his big wins. Everything he had succeeded at, since ceasing to be a warrior and transitioning back into civilian life.
‘I’m sorry Gus. The answer is no.’
He placed the phone down, the secretary glancing up at him.
‘If Mr Ferguson calls again, tell him I’m not available.’
47
Hit & run
Police Station, La Mesita Blanca.
All Saints’ Day, 1970.
6:47pm.
Inspector Garcia cleared his throat, the sound breaking the tense silence in the small holding cell. It felt like the most appropriate way to snap the Englishman out of his thousand-ya
rd stare. ‘And did you hear from Mr Ferguson again?’
Blackman, his right hand supporting the plaster-clad left arm in its sling, lifted his head up to the Inspector. He shook his head. ‘Nothing. Then, autumn last year, I arrived home after work one evening. His wife, Fiona, was waiting for me. It was late evening. Dry, I think. But cold. And quite windy. I remember swirls of brown leaves in the streets. She was in the passenger seat of a car. She called out to me through the open window as I walked to my front gate. That’s when I spotted the two men standing nearby, watching the street. Her brothers.’ He pinched at the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, rubbed his eyes. ‘I could see she was upset, so I invited her into the house. She refused. And then she told me Gus was dead.’
Johansson shot Garcia a glance. ‘How?’
‘He’d been hit by a car in London. On a pedestrian crossing.’
‘And she did not believe it was an accident?’ said Garcia.
Blackman stared back at him, a darkness in his eyes. ‘The driver accelerated out from behind stationary traffic, struck Gus at over forty miles an hour, then drove away without stopping. The police found the car later that day, several miles away. It had been burned out.’
‘The British police could not trace the owner?’ said Garcia.
‘It had been stolen,’ said Blackman. ‘A week earlier. The number plates had been falsified.’ His jaw was quivering, his fingers clamped to the thin mattress. ‘Does that sound like an accident to you, Inspector?’
‘It would seem…unlikely,’ said Garcia.
‘Fiona said someone had murdered him because he’d discovered something. Something from the war. She was scared. Not for herself, I think. For her children. She said Gus had made half a dozen trips to Spain. He’d never told her why, but she knew it was something bad. She’d asked him to stop, but he refused. She said it was like some kind of sacred mission for him. A “crusade”. That’s how she described it. Like everything depended on it. She said that he’d always been like that, standing up for others. Righting wrongs. Protecting the weak. It was who he was.’
‘And why did she come to you?’ said Garcia.
Blackman’s eyes were full of tears. He sniffed in the way that men do when they think they are hiding the frailty within them. Trying to project strength, no matter how obvious the lie.
‘She said that I owed him. Her husband, the father of her kids, had come to me, his oldest friend, to ask for help. Me, the man whose life he’d saved in the war. And I had said no. He’d saved my life, and he’d never drawn on that debt. But when he came to me for help, because he’d found them. He’d found those beasts we were supposed to have caught. But I refused to help. I wouldn’t even take his calls.’ Blackman swallowed, wiped the dampness from under one eye with his index finger.
Garcia leaned forward. ‘It’s not your fault. Many years had passed. You had a new life. Most of us would have done the same.’
Blackman’s head lifted, his eyes meeting Garcia’s. ‘I knew the enemy he was facing. I knew the evil in them. And I left him on the battlefield. I did nothing. And then they killed him.’
‘What did she say after that?’ said Johansson.
‘Fiona gave me a package. She said Gus had left instructions for her to bring it to me in case anything happened to him. He’d said I’d know what to do with it. He had told her that I was a good man. She didn’t believe that. I could see it in her eyes. Why would she? But she said that if it was true, if I really was a good man, then I would do something about what had happened to him. That I’d make things right.’ Blackman lifted his head to the ceiling, his eyes on the corroded light fitting above him. ‘She said she never wanted to see me again. And then she left. She didn’t say another word.’
‘What was in the package?’
‘Gus had been very busy down here, watching, making lots of notes. Taking photos. There were many pictures of men in restaurants and bars. On beaches. Walking their dogs. Enjoying life with their families. At that point, before I came to La Mesita Blanca, I had no idea who most of the people in the photographs were.’ Blackman glanced up at Garcia once again. ‘But you, Inspector. You would have recognised all of them.’
Garcia dropped his gaze to his notepad, lifted his pen, but had not the faintest idea what to write. ‘You believed the German community in our pueblo had something to do with your friend’s death?’
‘There was another photo. Another man. The image wasn’t the best. It was somewhat out of focus. Gus probably took it with a long-range lens.’
‘And you recognised this man?’ said Johansson.
Blackman eyed her, offering the barest semblance of a nod. ‘It had been twenty-five years since I’d last seen that animal, but that didn’t matter. I recognised him immediately. We hunted him, Gus and I. We found him, and we arrested him. But he went free. He never paid for his crimes. So yes, I knew who it was. I knew it was Joachim von Ziegler. The man you know as Joseph Narravo.’
Garcia has suspected what Blackman had been about to reveal, but the revelation still hit him like a medicine ball to the chest. He swallowed, coughed to clear his throat. Straightened his back. ‘So you decided to come after him yourself?’
‘I didn’t embark upon this course of action lightly, Garcia. It takes a lot for a man like me to lose his faith in his country. In the system.’
The Inspector was standing now, one hand massaging at the pain in his lower back, which was now close to unbearable. He would be needing a glass or two of that brandy soon, he thought. ‘So, what did you do next?’
‘I went to see my local Member of Parliament, of course.’ Blackman let loose a sardonic snigger, shook his head. ‘He seemed genuinely sympathetic at first. He was a former British Army officer who’d served in France. I thought he’d understand.’
‘And did he?’
‘Well, he made all the right noises at first. And I think he was genuinely shocked when I showed him Gus’s folder and told him about von Ziegler. I left him copies of the photos and he said he would see what he could do.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘Then…,’ said Blackman, peering up at him, ‘the system did what it always does. It protects its interests.’
48
Representative democracy
Oxford, England.
November 1969.
Three weeks after first going to see his MP, Harry Blackman stood, seeking refuge from the unrelenting drizzle under a bus shelter, his eyes fixed on a mundane, two-story office building nearby.
He glanced at his watch. It was nearing six o’clock in the evening. Rainwater ran down the back of his neck, and he shivered - momentarily picturing a cold, wet Italian landscape back in the autumn of 1943. He shook his head to repel the memory and refocused his attention on the entrance to the office building.
The illuminated windows of one of the first-floor offices turned dark. A few minutes later, he spotted movement behind the frosted glass windows at the reception level. The door opened, and a moment later Richard Wallace, the Member of Parliament for Oxford, stepped outside, unfolding an umbrella.
The MP made his way down the stairs and hurried across the pavement to the car park. By the time he had arrived at his vehicle, Blackman was there waiting for him.
‘You’ve not been returning my calls, Mr Wallace.’
The MP, cowering under the umbrella, gawped back at him. ‘Good god, Blackman. Now’s not the time for this. Make an appointment with my secretary, and we can discuss it.’ Wallace removed his keys from his pocket and stepped towards the car door, but Blackman pushed him back. ‘What the blazes are you playing at, man?’
‘You said you would make some enquiries.’
‘You have to understand, these things take time.’ Wallace tried again for the door, but Blackman stood, unmoving, blocking his way.
‘Who did you talk to?’ he demanded.
‘I took it to the Home Office, naturally. It’s up to them now.’
�
�Who did you speak to?’ said Blackman, glaring at the smaller man. ‘Give me a name, so I can call them.’
Wallace shrugged. ‘I don’t have a name.’
‘Did you or did you not speak to someone?’
‘Yes, of course, but—’
‘Did you show them the copies of the pictures I gave you?’
The MP glanced around, as if looking for support. ‘Yes, I gave them the photographs. Look here, man. Now’s not the time for this.’ Wallace tried yet again for the door, but Blackman knocked his hand away, sending the keys falling to the ground.
‘You said you agreed with me that something had to be done.’
Wallace glanced back to the office building to where a woman and an older man were peering from across the car park. The woman pointed towards Blackman and Wallace, and the man started down the stairs, striding towards them.
Wallace looked back at Blackman, clearly emboldened by the prospect of reinforcement. ‘The thing you need to understand, old boy. Is that there isn’t much appetite for digging up the past.’
Blackman grabbed Wallace by the collar, pulling him forward. ‘They got to you, didn’t they?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You’re scared. Did they threaten you? There’s an election coming soon. That’s it isn’t it? They told you to drop it or they’ll find a new candidate for the next election. Is that it? Is that what they said?’
Wallace grabbed at Blackman’s hand, forcing him to release his hold. He glanced behind to see the approaching man, now just thirty yards away. ‘Alright, if you want it straight, I’ll tell you. The file went to Scotland Yard. They sent it to the Home Office, who sent it to the intelligence services, and I got a call from the head of my party, who had himself taken a call from the Home Office Minister who had personally discussed it with the Prime Minister.’
Blackman stared at the MP, struggling to take in what he had just heard.
The Dark Place: A historical suspense thriller set in the murky world of fugitive war criminals, vengeful Nazi hunters and spies Page 24
