“I’ll drive,” Billy said and took the keys. “I’ve had more practice than you recently.”
Burke handed the keys over. “Just make sure you don’t do anything to attract attention.”
Billy stowed his holdall on the rear seat while Burke climbed into the passenger seat. Billy climbed behind the wheel, slotted the key in the ignition and slid open the central tray, adjacent to the gear lever. He dropped the automatic into the tray.
“We need it handy, just in case,” he said with a smile.
He turned the key and started the engine. It purred softly, distantly.
“Luxury,” Burke approved.
“Like to have had her knickers off,” Billy chortled, as he slotted the Range Rover into gear. “That bitch cop.”
“Haven’t time,” Burke grumbled. “Besides, those gunshots might attract attention.”
“Who gives a toss?” Billy knocked the parking brake off, and gunned the accelerator.
He raced out of the drive, turning sharp right, past the parked patrol car, and accelerated quickly along the quiet road. Occasional curtains moved as neighbours investigated the noise of the fast moving car, a woman walking her dog on the corner of Maple Avenue, watched as it sped past, her faced curled into a prim mask of disapproval, and at the junction with the A49, a bus had to brake sharply as Billy turned out, cutting him up.
“I told you not to do anything stupid,” Burke grumbled. “Motorway?”
“Not likely. Didn’t you just say that every cop in the country will be looking for this car? We stick to the back roads until we can get false plates on it.”
Traffic leading out of Warrington towards the M56 was heavy. Billy took the opportunity to instruct Burke. “Check the glove box. See if there’s a map or something. We need a large-ish town somewhere not too far, where we can pick up false plates.”
Burke rooted through the compartment, removing a pair of child’s woollen gloves, a few till receipts from a petrol station, and an empty cigarette packet. “Nothing,” he said.
“Just have to trust to luck and memory, then,” Billy said, and accelerated to overtake a roadsweeper. “You know this area?”
“So-so,” Burke admitted. “I used to drive mother up to see father when he was in Liverpool prison. Long time ago, but I think if you cut straight across the motorway and keep to the A49, you’ll come to Tarporley. Small town. More of a large village, really.”
“And further on?”
A deep frown creased Burke’s brow. “Trying to remember. I know Whitchurch is about twenty, maybe thirty miles further south.”
“Too far,” Billy replied. “On these roads, it’d take an age to get there.”
“There are other places,” Burke said. “Some of them slightly off the beaten track. Winsford, Middlewich, and Crewe a bit further out. Handy for the M6, Crewe. Especially when we get the plates changed. But won’t these number plate shops want the registration doc?”
Billy laughed. “Who said anything about buying new plates? They’re easy to make, you know. These shops have a little laminating machine to do it. All you have to do is position the new numbers on the plate and turn it through the rollers. Piece of piss.” He chuckled again. “We’ll make for Crewe then.”
A local direction sign came up, with distances to other, nearby towns. “Northwich,” Burke declared, taking in its information. “Stay on the A49 across the motorway and there’s a turnoff not far along there. Northwich is handy for the M6 and we’re sure to find an autoparts shop there.”
Billy grinned. “All right. Northwich it is.”
Five minutes later, they crossed the M56 at its junction with the A49, and Billy cut left off the island, down the narrower A559, where a sign informed them Northwich was just eight miles.
Billy smiled. “Perfect.”
The road meandered and wound its way through small hamlets, outlying farms, the flat, Cheshire countryside basking in the sultry, summer morning. Three miles further on, a sign indicated to the right. Billy took the turn and found himself driving through more of the same rural pastures.
Burke’s features were concentrated, worried. Eventually, he gave voice to his concerns.
“I’m not happy about this, Billy. You killed Sinclair, and two cops, came out of their house driving like an idiot. There’s no planning, no forethought. That’s how you get caught.”
“You always were too picky,” Billy replied as the road took them beneath a canopy of trees and into the village of Comberbach.
“I plan,” Burke countered. “I think everything through. Christ, man, I got away with it for two years in Scarbeck. I’d still be free if it weren’t for Croft.”
“Trust me, Gerry. This end of the business was always going to be the most dangerous. Once we’ve sorted the car out, changed its plates, we go back to our original plan, and no one, not even the mighty Croft, will latch onto us until we’re ready for them.”
He accelerated as they passed out of Comberbach and back into more open country. A mile or so further on, was a vacant lay-by on the left. Billy put on his left indicator, slowed down and pulled into the lay-by, where he stopped the engine.
“Something wrong?” Burke asked.
“Need a piss,” Billy explained, and grabbed the pistol. “Just in case any nosy parkers come along.” He climbed out.
The lay-by was shrouded with trees in full leaf. Across the road was an open field, and a couple of hundred yards the other side of it, a line of tall trees. No one could see them other than passing on the road or overhead.
Billy made a show of relieving himself at the roadside, and as he did so, he peered into the undergrowth off the carriageway.
“Hey, Gerry. Come and look at this.”
Cautiously, looking up and down the road for passing traffic, Burke climbed out of the Range Rover and also looked into the bushes beneath the overhanging trees. “What?”
Billy mirrored Burke’s check on the road, ensuring it was traffic-free. Then he turned and levelled the pistol at Burke’s temple. “You have to pay for the old man, Gerry.”
Burke stared into the barrel. “Wha… what is this, Billy?”
“My dad. It’s time for the reckoning.”
“No, Billy, you have this wrong. I didn’t kill him.”
“No bullshit, pal. It’s time to balance the books.”
Burke’s features paled and he trembled visibly. “No. Please, you’re not listening. I helped bury him, yes, but it wasn’t me who killed him.”
“You forget, Gerry. I could always tell when you’re lying.” Billy squeezed the trigger gently.
“No, Billy, no. NO!”
Burke’s cry echoed through the fields and woods, cut off by the crack of the pistol. He fell, instantly dead, to the roadside where his head struck with an audible thump.
Satisfied, Billy reached into the car, dug into the holdall and pulled out the shotgun. Loading both barrels, he bent and levelled it under Burke’s dead chin, point up towards the head.
“Sorry, Gerry, but I don’t want them identifying you too quickly.” He pulled both triggers.
The sound was muffled by close proximity to Burke’s chin, but the shot tore away his face and the front of his skull.
Tossing the shotgun back into the holdall, Billy climbed back into the car, started the engine and, whistling cheerfully to himself, drove off.
On a quiet road like this, Burke’s body could be found within ten minutes or ten hours. Billy didn’t care. With Gerry Burke dead, the real plan could come into force. The £100,000 for The Deep Secret would be his and his alone.
7
(As recounted by Franz Walter to Julius Reiniger.)
In the spring of 1927, all Walter could read in the newspapers was Hitler, Hitler, Hitler. A man could be forgiven for thinking that this upstart with the look of Charlie Chaplin was the new messiah.
Walter allowed his newspaper to fold into his lap. Irritably, he took a gold Longines watch – a ‘present’ from an unsus
pecting client – from his waistcoat pocket. A few minutes after noon. With a sigh, he tucked the watch back into his pocket.
The slow train from Bühl to Heidelberg was the perfect vehicle for the tourist who wished to take in the sights of Karlsruhe/Heidelberg area. It stopped at every silly little halt along the way, and took almost two hours to complete the eighty-kilometre journey. But Walter was not a tourist and he did not want it to take two hours. He wanted to be in Heidelberg now.
He recognised the symptoms. Boredom. He was always the same after his weekly visit to Frau Mahler in Baden-Baden. He had effected his ‘cure’, taken his fill of her, left her the poorer by twenty Marks, heavier by a sample of his semen, and now he wanted to be home, in Neuenheim, settled before the fire in his apartment with Julius waiting on him.
Tucking the watch back into his pocket, he reflected, with great satisfaction, that the old woman who had given him this family heirloom was not aware that she had done so, any more than the dumpy Frau Mahler knew that she had taken her drawers off for him.
The train trundled into the suburbs of Graben-Neudorf and Walter frowned. Outside, a temperate spring day lifted the despondency of political turmoil in Germany, casting a balm on the Black Forest countryside, lifting, cheering the spirit, expunging thoughts of the in-fighting between Herr Hitler’s National Socialists and von Hindenburg’s moribund administration.
Across the compartment sat a teenage girl. Dressed in a cloche hat, her pageboy haircut tucked under it, Walter noticed the brim of the hat sat a little too far forward to be truly fashionable, and the toes of her buckle shoes were scuffed. She was, he decided, a farmer’s daughter. She had boarded the train at Friedrichstal, a small town, not much more than a village really, a few kilometres back down the line. He had watched her from behind the discreet screen of his newspaper. A pretty girl, with dark hair, china blue eyes, a heavy bosom. Occasionally she would wince in pain and clutch at her tummy.
Walter would dearly love to clutch at more than her tummy, but he knew these rural types well. If, as he suspected, her father was a farmer, she would have been brought up ‘properly’, taught not to speak to strange men unless she had been formal introduced, warned to guard her ‘honour’, save herself for the farm boy to whom she was betrothed.
Walter almost sniggered at the idea. Farm girls found sex all around them when the bull was brought to the cow, the boar to the sow, and despite the safeguards parents put in place, many of these strong young women lost their virginity in the hay loft long before they were marched down the aisle.
The train braked suddenly. She clutched once more at her tummy and her bag, a heavy, leather affair resting on her lap, fell to the floor, spilling its contents. She made to pick them up, but Walter moved quicker, gathered up the pieces, tucked them back in her bag, and handed the lot back to her with a smile.
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure, Fräulein. Permit me to introduce myself. I am Franz Bergen. A doctor. I couldn’t help noticing that you appear to be in some pain.”
“A minor ailment,” she concurred. “I am on my way to Heidelberg, to the university, where I must find a doctor to help with the problem.”
Walter gave her a diffident smile. “One is hesitant to blow one’s own trumpet, but disorders of the gastric system are one of my specialities. I have a weekly clinic at the hospital. In fact, I’m on my way there right now. Perhaps I could take you in my cab, when we get there, and leave you with my nurse.”
“That would be kind of you, doctor.”
Once more he fished into the waistcoat, the other pocket this time, and withdrew a business card, passing it to her. She made a study of it, and tucked it into her bag.
The train slowed even further, until it was crawling along past houses and factories, until it reached the ornate and rusty awning above Graben-Neudorf station where it ground to a jerky halt.
Walter got to his feet. “The train will stand here for about forty minutes while the engine takes on coal and water. Forgive me, Fräulein, but I do not know your name.”
She smiled shyly. “Anna Haller.”
He clicked his heels smartly together and half bowed in a display of chivalry. “Franz Bergen. If you will excuse me, Fräulein Haller, I will visit the buffet and take coffee.” He made for the door and paused. He turned and put on an effective display of bumbling reserve. “Er… perhaps you would care to join me.”
Anna, too, hesitated, her face strained with indecision.
“No. Of course not. We are complete strangers. It’s just that I may be able to get a deeper insight into your medical problems over a convivial cup of coffee and Schnaps than the more formal situation of a hospital clinic.”
Anna made up her mind and stood. Walter was pleased to see that she stood taller than his shoulders. He enjoyed women of all shapes and sizes, but if given a choice, he preferred them tall and lean.
“Thank you, doctor. I should enjoy a cup of coffee.”
They stepped off the train into warm sunshine, the air filled with the fresh scent of pine and lavender, people milling about their business, many of the passengers, regulars, Walter would bet, making for the buffet, while up ahead, the engineers positioned a water funnel above the engine’s intake vent.
Walter found a table outside the buffet, drew back a chair for Anna, then took the one alongside her, so they were both facing the sun. He ordered coffee for the two of them, and Schnaps for himself, and while the waiter went away to fill their order, he studied the headlines on a newspaper of a man at the next table.
“The good life,’ Walter chuckled with the vaguest nod of the head to indicate the headline. “Especially if your name is von Hindenburg or Hitler.”
Anna smiled wanly and winced again, her delicate hands clutched across her abdomen.
“My father says that what this country needs is a man like Hitler to repair the damage done since the war.”
“Your father is interested in politics?”
She gave a twitching shake of her head. “He is a good citizen. He was on the Somme and saw too many of his comrades slaughtered and it was all for nothing. At least, that’s what my father says. What do you think, Doktor Bergen?”
Walter was not remotely interested in her father’s obdurate patriotism, nor his opinions on Hitler, von Hindenburg or the Treaty of Versailles. He was, however, interested in Herr Haller’s daughter and sought to avoid alienating her.
“I think such questions are beyond mere men like me. As a medical man, I deplore the wanton killing of all men, be they German or otherwise, but I served my country as a medical officer in the thirty-fifth infantry division.”
It was not true. At the outbreak of war, he had falsely declared himself to be a student, and therefore exempt from military service.
“Then you must have seen the slaughter first hand.”
“Indeed, Anna – may I call you Anna – and it is not something I choose to remember. But come, you are too young and pretty to dwell on the appalling atrocities one man is prepared to commit upon another in the name of nationalism. We should talk about the finer things in life. Tell me about yourself. Are you married?”
She blushed. “I am barely seventeen years of age, Herr Bergen. But I am betrothed to Heinrich Etzler. He is a civil servant in the city of Heidelberg. My father says I should marry him to take me away from farm life and into a better world.”
“Your father obviously cares very deeply about your future, Anna, and your intended husband sounds a fine man.”
The waiter returned with their coffee, took payment from Walter, and left again. Musing on the congeniality of such a fine spring day, Walter fussed adding cream and sugar to her coffee, a little cream to his own.
Anna passed a comment on how the land could do with a little rain for irrigation, and took a sip of her coffee.
As she replaced the cup in its saucer, and let go of it, Walter turned a penetrating stare deeply into her eyes, fixing her gaze with his, and grabbed her wrist.<
br />
From that moment on, Anna Haller lost all will of her own.
***
When Walter first brought Anna to the house, Julius was captivated by her youth and beauty. Strong bones and pretty features, she encapsulated everything the young man felt would be needed of the woman in his life.
But when he heard of her engagement to Heinrich Etzler, he was overtaken by immediate panic.
Anna was hypnotised. He had seen the signs often enough to recognise the state; her lack of animation, the need to tell her to do everything, including sit at the table. She could not hear any of the conversation between Franz Walter and his manservant.
“I know Herr Etzler, master. He works in the planning department in Heidelberg, but he is from Munich,” Julius explained, “and like me he was a member of the Jugenbund, the youth wing of the National Socialists. Master, if he learns who his betrothed has been seeing, they will come, take me away, and they will learn everything about me, about you, everything.”
Walter tut-tutted in a mildly reproving, amused manner. “Julius, my boy, when will you learn to trust me? Anna does not know she is here, she does not know you, nor I. At the moment, she does not even know who she is, never mind anything else. And with the political turmoil in this country, rumours of yet another election coming in the near future, do you not imagine that the little Austrian clown has more to think of than pursuing a boy who ran away from the Feldherrenhalle four years ago?”
“But, Herr Walter, you do not understand. If we dispose of her the way we have done with others, Herr Etzler will not stop and will bring in the entire Nazi Party machine to track down those who did it to her.”
The statement, while wildly extrapolating events, was nevertheless the truth, and gave Walter food for thought.
“In that case, Julius, we shall not dispose of her as we have done others. After all, I cannot say for certain that no one saw us in the buffet at Graben-Neudorf, which would be a bigger danger than this town hall minion. No, Julius, we shall cling onto our little sparrow, and see what kind of profit we can make from our association.”
The Deep Secret Page 6
