“You won’t,” Croft assured him.
“Applying any kind of disguise needs skill, Croft,” Shannon argued.
“Burke’s father was a stage performer. Ten to one Burke taught him everything.”
The superintendent groaned. “Oh, hell, I forgot about that.” He shook his head and reached for the phone. “Ronnie,” he barked when he had a connection, “put the word out. Remind everyone all over the country that Burke was the son of a stage performer. Chances are, he taught our man and he’ll be able to make use of whatever he took from the theatrical supplier in Wolverhampton and disguise himself quite skilfully.” He put the receiver down and yawned. “I’ve been a copper all my life, and for the most part, I’ve enjoyed it, but this…” He gestured again at the reports. “Millie, when this is over, when we have this crazy so-and-so behind bars, there’s likely to be a vacancy in this office. I’ll take my pension and open a flower stall on the market.”
“You can’t throw the towel in, guv,” Millie protested.
“I’ve had enough, girl. This is a young man’s game, and I’m not young enough anymore.”
“Felix, tell him,” Millie pleaded.
“As a matter of fact, I know exactly where Shannon is coming from,” Croft told her. “I was a celebrity, remember. Not something I planned, but it happened, and for a while, I loved it. Then suddenly, everybody wanted a piece of me, my marriage fell apart and I just got so cheesed off with the whole scene that I did what your boss has just said he’ll do. I opened a metaphorical flower stall on the market by disappearing into academic corridors. But for neighbourhood psychopaths like Burke and X, I’d still be luxuriating in the anonymity.” He smiled wanly. “It hurts me to admit it, Shannon, but you are an excellent police officer, and this country could do with more like you, but if you want my totally unprofessional opinion, I’d say go for the flower stall while you have the chance.”
“Thanks. I’ll consider it. Now, what are you up to? Anything constructive?”
“The Great Zepelli,” Croft said and left it at that.
“You come up with anything, let us know.”
21
“Sit down, Reiniger,” Corporal Burke ordered.
To Julius’s surprise, when he was shown to the interrogation room, the two sentries left and closed the door behind them. This time there was a chair for him facing Corporal Burke.
His eye still partially closed, bruises covering his face, his lip sore but healing, Julius approached and sat down with caution.
“Rules of the game,” Burke said. “The squaddies are outside the door. Take the piss with me, I call them in and they give you another going over. You understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t call me ‘sir’. Not anymore. I’m not an officer and I’m not a gentleman. You address me as Corporal.”
“Very well, Corporal.”
Burke relaxed. “You’re a hypnotist?”
“I am.”
“So am I.”
“Really?”
“I had a variety act afore your bleeding Hitler invaded Poland.” Burke ran a hand across his chin as if checking for stubble. “All right, matey, you’re a hypnotist. Hypnotise me.”
For the first time since his arrival in England, Julius felt himself with a measure of control. “I cannot, and if you are, as you claim, a hypnotist, you know I cannot.”
Burke leaned forward quickly and for a moment the fear flashed across Julius’s face. “Why not?”
“Because you hate me. Come, Corporal, if you really are a hypnotist, you know that hypnosis is a symbiosis. It depends, not on friendship, but mutual co-operation, and where you have hatred, you cannot have co-operation.”
Burke shrugged. “Fair enough. So what’s this Deep Secret you told me about?”
“I cannot tell you that, either. Not until I know you are to be trusted with it.”
“I could have my people beat it out of you.”
Julius felt his confidence growing. “No, you could not, Corporal. As I pointed out at our last encounter, I can resist until I am dead, and then The Deep Secret would die with me.” Now he leaned forward. “But it is a secret my master and I have used for years. And from it we have made many thousands of Reichmarks, and enjoyed the pleasure of many women.”
A momentary gleam came to Burke’s eyes. It soon passed. “All right, give me the gist of it. Tell me what advantage you can get from it.”
Julius considered his words for a moment. “How long does it take you to induce a medium to deep state on stage?”
Burke shrugged again. “I dunno. I’ve never timed it. Five, ten minutes. Depends how many volunteers I have.”
“The Deep Secret is a system that will induce a deep state in seconds, and without saying a word.”
Burke laughed. “Bollocks.”
“You doubt me?”
“Well, o’course I bleeding do.”
“And yet, I have seen and used this so many times in the past.”
“All right, then,” the corporal challenged. “Use it on me, right now.”
“Again, I cannot. It wouldn’t work because, as I have pointed out, you hate me. You see, Corporal, as with ordinary hypnotic inductions, The Deep Secret does not require friendship, but a small bond must develop between the hypnotist and the subject or it will not work. I have seen my master meet a woman and an hour later she was in his bed.”
“But I can induce a volunteer in less than an hour,” Burke argued.
“A volunteer, yes. But a total stranger? And one who is not aware that she is being hypnotised? One who is not co-operating with the process?”
“Tell me how it’s done!”
Julius shook his head obdurately. “I will not.”
“Then what fucking use are you to us? Why shouldn’t I tell the captain to have you hanged?”
Julius considered this. “I do not offer The Deep Secret to your forces. I offer my services as a master hypnotist, a control hypnotist. As I told your commanding officer, Captain Stokes, if you bring before me a German agent I will make him talk. I will hypnotise him in his native language and where he may or may not give information via other means, I guarantee that he will give it to me.”
“Yes, and I can do the same thing with a Lee Enfield 303.”
Julius smiled, and winced as his lip hurt. “If you can get me the chemicals I need, only a small amount, and you bring to me a German agent, I guarantee I will have as much information out of him as he has in a matter of an hour or less.”
“And this Deep Secret thing?”
Julius smiled again, but this time ignored the split in his lip. “If we can make some progress, Corporal, some small step towards an understanding, then I will give it to you personally. Not to your government, but to you.”
***
“Du wirst mir den echten Namen geben.”
“Beg pardon, sir,” Burke said, “but how do we know what Reiniger is saying? I mean, I don’t speak any German.”
“Fortunately, I do,” replied Stokes. “He’s just said, ‘you will give me your real name’.”
They were stood in a small, darkened room, hidden from the interrogation room by a two way glass, and watching Julius at work on one of the suspects he had named. Douglas Kenworthy, a forty-year-old supposed businessman from Norwich, was suspected of being a German agent before his name appeared on Julius’s list. He had been held for four weeks and so far resisted all attempts to break him.
Julius had been under careful supervision while he manufactured what he called his ‘hypnotic cocktail’, which consisted of a dash of Veno’s cough mixture, blended with a small tot of brandy, to which he added a few drops of chloral hydrate.
“It’s a bloody truth serum,” Stokes had declared.
“Not so, sir,” Julius replied. “Truth serum like sodium pentothal will make a man talk liberally, and at some point in the conversation, he may give himself away. This mixture, which was taught to me by my master, Franz Walter, mim
ics the first stages of light hypnotism, and permits a lowering the subject’s guard so that my suggestions will be more readily accepted. Within minutes, the subject will be deeply hypnotised, and under my control.”
Still suspicious, still ready to order a firing squad for both the suspected agent and Julius Reiniger, Stokes watched while Julius persuaded Kenworthy to drink the mixture, and had Burke standing by to comment on the process.
Julius’s usual clothing was standard POW issue chocolate coloured drills, with a white patch, denoting him as low security, non-Nazi, but the dress could be varied according to the grading of the prisoner he was interrogating. For the interrogation of Kenworthy, he had asked for and been given a blouse with a black patch, indicating a hardline Nazi sympathiser.
“It will help to reassure him that he is dealing with a devout follower of the Führer, Captain,” Julius ha explained, “and that will make him more amenable to drinking the hypnotic cocktail.
And so it had proven, but on Burke’s protest at his lack of German, Stokes tossed the wording in his head. “Curious thing to say.”
“Sir?”
“Normally, when we’re interrogating, Corporal, we would say, ’tell me your name’. Reiniger didn’t. He said ‘you will tell me your name’. I was thinking it’s a curious way of expressing it.”
“Standard hypnotic practice, sir,” Burke explained. “Commands need to be put as suggestions. Reiniger is using pretty forceful tones, but he’s still constructing the order as a suggestion.”
Stokes watched again. Kenworthy appeared slightly woozy, but otherwise fully awake and alert.
“Mein echter Name ist Douglas Kenworthy.”
Stokes laughed. “My eye and Aunt Fanny. Why would an uneducated man with a name like Douglas Kenworthy speak fluent German? He’s holding out, I’m afraid, and it looks like your Reiniger is not cutting the mustard.”
In the interrogation room, Julius persisted. “Ihren deutschen Namen.”
“He’s now said, ‘you will tell me your German name’,” Stokes said.
To the captain’s astonishment, the answer came immediately.
“Mein Name ist Albrecht Brunner.”
“Bloody hell,” Burke commented.
“Absolutely amazing,” Stokes agreed. “But is it just a flash in the pan?”
He tapped on the glass. Julius glanced towards it, nodded, then spoke to Brunner. “Bleiben Sie hier.”
Having ordered Brunner to stay there, Julius stood and approached the door. Stokes and Burke left the darkroom, and met their charge on the corridor.
“All right, Herr Reiniger, you’ve made your point. He’s given himself away. I want to know now what he’s doing here in England.”
Julius half bowed. “As you wish, sir.”
While Stokes went back into the darkroom, Burke became friendlier to his prisoner. “How long can you keep him like that, Julius?”
“As long as I wish, and with post-hypnotic suggestion, I can bring him back to this state at will.”
“But you didn’t use any secret induction on him,” Burke argued. “I saw what you were doing. You were getting him pissed.”
Julius shook his head. “He is merely very relaxed and now completely hypnotised, as I will demonstrate when he tells me what he is doing in your country.”
Burke grinned. “Pull this off, pal, and you’ll do me, and yourself a lot of good. Then we can talk about your Deep Secret.”
Julius smiled back. “We shall see.”
22
With a yawn, Croft pushed the last page of the section across to Millie, and checked the time. “Two o’clock? What say we adjourn to the kitchen and grab a bite to eat?”
She did not answer immediately, and for the next minute or two, he watched her eyes darting back and forth across the lines of Zepelli’s neat handwriting.
They had been back at Croft’s mansion for over an hour, poring over the latest chapter in Zepelli’s manuscript. So far, although he found the potted history of Walter and Reiniger of interest, he had seen nothing that would indicate a key to the code at the front of the book.
Eventually, she placed the page on the stack they had already studied, leaned back, and drew a deep breath. “What did you say?”
“Kitchen? Food?” Croft patted his tummy. “I can bell the takeaway, have them deliver a couple of chicken kormas, and we can be boiling the kettle while we wait.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she agreed and stood up.
Croft followed suit and, collecting their empty beakers, led her from the study, across the hall and into the kitchen, where he picked up the phone and ordered, while Millie washed up the beakers.
Soon settled at the table, waiting for the food to arrive, Millie said, “You always claimed that Walter used drugs on Anna. Now we’ve seen that Julius was using his watchemacallit, hypnotic cocktail, on the German agent, and I suppose Walter could have used a similar trick on Anna at the railways station.”
“The text is a little vague on events surrounding Walter’s meeting with Anna, but remember, we’re reading a third hand account. It happened between Walter and Anna, and Julius learned of it from Walter, and then related it to Zepelli, who wrote it down thirty years later. It may have lost or gained something in the meantime.”
“Chinese whispers,” Millie said. “My point is, while I accept that Walter could have used it on Anna, how could he have done so with the guard, Kohler, when he made Kohler disobey a direct order from his superior? He must have used The Deep Secret on the guard.”
Croft shook his head. “I don’t think so. In 1940, he’d been in prison six years, two of them on remand. The Nazi party was strong in Heidelberg, probably because they wanted to keep an eye on the university population. The Nazis thought all academics to be in working with the Jews and communists to undermine the economy and bring down the Nazi regime, and once Hitler was established in power, he would have taken steps to minimise any disruption from those alleged Jews and communists.”
“Wonderful,” Millie mocked. “I ask a question and get a lecture on German history.”
“It’s important,” Croft told her. “Zepelli clearly states that Private Kohler was a civilian prison officer before the war.”
“Like Vince Alton, only in reverse?”
“Correct. When war broke out, many of the civilian law enforcement agencies became paramilitary.” He grinned. “Here’s more German history. Do you know what Gestapo means?”
Millie nodded. “A bunch of genuine fascist bastards who employed torture as a matter of routine.”
Croft laughed aloud. “You’re falling for the Hollywood myth. It’s short for Geheime Staatspolizei. They were a true secret police, but still police for all that. Their main source of information came from the general public, and they were more overworked than your lot. Anyone who had an argument with his neighbour would denounce them to the Gestapo as Jews, communists or homosexuals. The vast majority of the information the Gestapo received was dismissed just as routinely as Shannon dismissed the sightings of Burke and our man in Fort William and Brighton today.”
Millie sighed. “Is there a point to this?”
“I’m getting there. The point I’m trying to get across is that at the outbreak of war, or possibly earlier, many of the civilian organisations would become military or paramilitary, and that obviously included the prison service. Therefore, Herr Kohler had probably been working with Walter for the whole of his prison term, in much the same way that Vince Alton had worked with Burke for the whole of his time on remand and later at Hattersley. Zepelli even hints at it earlier in the manuscript. You see what I’m driving at?”
Millie’s eyes lit up. “I do now. If Walter had had access to him for all that time, he could have been using – how did you describe it – covert hypnosis on him.”
“In exactly the same way that Burke must have used it on Alton.” Croft stared through the rear windows at the overgrown vegetation of his once-pristine gardens. “Walter was a
master hypnotist. No two ways about it. He had to be in order to maintain the degree of control he had over Anna for all those years. Burke, too, was a master. His father was, so he had to be. Even allowing for the knowledge that he used drugs to initiate his Handshaker attacks, he nevertheless needed hypnosis skills to keep them quiet.”
“So we’re still no nearer finding The Deep Secret?”
“Despite what Zepelli says in his introduction about it being encoded in this manuscript, I still don’t believe it exists. I never did. And as you’ve just pointed out, Reiniger’s induction methods relied upon chemicals.”
“Chloral hydrate,” Millie ruminated. “Never heard of it.”
“A well known palliative, and it was in common use back in the twenties and thirties. A sleeping draught and hypnotic. It’s been largely superseded by more effective pharmaceuticals. Gerry Burke used Flunitrazepam to subdue his victims, if you remember. Rohypnol. The date rape drug. Lowers inhibitions and, in the right doses, it leaves the victim open to suggestion. Reiniger’s hypnotic cocktail was an early version of Rohypnol. Once administered, he used standard hypnotic techniques for deepening the state.” Croft yawned again. “As far as I’m concerned, The Deep Secret remains a myth and I think that if and when we crack the puzzle Zepelli set up, we’ll learn something, but it won’t be what we’re expecting.”
“Then why are we bothering to crack it?” Millie demanded.
“Because when he’s ready, our man will demand it. This isn’t just Gerry Burke we’re dealing with, Millie. When X calls, he knows I will have to face him, and he also knows I won’t be able to scam him over The Deep Secret. I will have to give it to him. He’ll ask questions to make sure I’ve read the code and analysed it, and everything will be so arranged that I have no choice. I can’t make something up. If I could, I would have done it already. I have to try my damndest to break the puzzle.”
The Deep Secret Page 16
