Names of the Dead

by Mark Leggatt

  “Money?” Reinhard leapt forward and stamped on Montrose’s neck. “You think all I’m after is some dead Jew’s cash?”

  A searing shock of pain flashed down his spine. His legs began to spasm and his arms went limp in the ropes. For fuck’s sake, spit it out. The next one might be my last. “It’s . . . Holocaust money. You’re lower than . . . snakeshit.”

  Reinhard stepped back.

  Montrose saw it coming and tried to clamp his thighs together but Reinhard’s boot caught him hard in the balls. Nausea swept over him and he retched uncontrollably, his stomach pinned against his spine.

  “The Jews saw what was coming. They knew their accounts would be raided. It had already happened in Germany. So they moved all their money into gold, got together their most valuable possessions and stashed them all in safe deposit boxes. Guess where? Zurich!”

  Montrose raised his head, fighting to clear the mucus and vomit from his throat. “They’re numbered boxes. The Swiss will never let you near them.”

  “Are you serious?” Reinhard stared at him in disbelief. “It took the Swiss thirty years to admit the bank accounts even existed. So you think they’re going to own up about the boxes? There is untold wealth in those boxes. Completely untouched. From families going back generations. Have you any idea what I’m talking about?”

  “You can’t . . . ”

  “In my father’s apartment are the files of all the wealthy Jews from Antwerp. He interviewed them before the SS sent them to the camps. They were very forthcoming, for a number of reasons. Mostly to do with a gun being pointed at their children. I think you get the picture.”

  “We have their names.” Montrose spat green bile onto the carpet. “They will be remembered.”

  “Not for long. Yes, I know, we didn’t kill them all. So much for German efficiency. But, we can provide the correct documentation to open the boxes. And the Swiss don’t ask too many questions, especially when you are being represented by Kessler.”

  “They’ll find out – they won’t . . . ”

  “It’s not going to happen. Think about it. Gold, jewelry, lost art works. There are currently around three hundred Old Masters and Renaissance paintings unaccounted for since the war. But I know where they are. We’re talking maybe . . .” Reinhard shrugged. “A billion dollars. Picasso, Leonardo Da Vinci, Caravaggio, Rembrandt. And the combination numbers are in the envelope.”

  Montrose let his head drop to the floor.

  “So now you get it. Bank accounts? You fucking idiot.”

  The list. The names of the dead. Everything they owned. All waiting to be taken. His voice croaked as he spoke. “It’s not over, you sick bastard. What happens to me doesn’t matter. They’ll hunt you down like a dog.”

  Reinhard grabbed the poker. “I’m protected by the Swiss banking industry. They make the CIA look like fucking Greenpeace.” Reinhard hefted the poker in his hand and flexed his shoulders. “One last time. Where’s the bag?”

  A pulse hammered behind his eyes. There was no choice. Got to string it out. “Far away from here, sucker, and you need me to get it.” Here it comes. He squeezed his eyes shut and buried his chin on his chest, twisting his body to the floor.

  Reinhard roared and smashed the poker down onto Montrose’s kidneys.

  His body snapped into a rictus of pain, his back arched and his mouth opened in a silent scream.

  “I’ll leave this to the professionals.” Reinhard threw the poker to the floor. “Kessler’s men are betting you’ll tell them everything you know in thirty minutes. They want to get it done before the specialist arrives. Professional competition, you see. He’s a consultant urologist from a Zurich hospital. He has a special steel catheter that he sticks in your dick. Apparently, it’s for taking tissue samples. It opens up like an umbrella and the blades scrape the sides as he pulls it out. But this one’s a little bit bigger. And sharper. They tell me he has a one hundred percent success rate. By the time he’s finished, you’ll be able to piss an eight ball.” Reinhard made towards the door.

  Shock crashed through Montrose and he sagged in the ropes. The words came in a high pitched whisper. “I’ll . . . kill . . .”

  Reinhard marched from the room, slamming the door behind him.

  Montrose pressed his forehead into the carpet. The only man who could give me an alibi is dead. They are going to tear me apart. He slumped down in the ropes. He heard footsteps on stairs. He knew what came next. And he’d tell them. Everything.

  The first sobs racked his body. He lay face down, rocking back and forth as he wept.

  His eyes opened. Rage tore through him like a savage bolt of lightning. A guttural roar burst from his chest and his head thumped the floor as he thrashed and strained against the ropes. His breathing became fast and ragged and he jammed his mouth shut to stop himself hyperventilating. “Focus,” he croaked, “fucking focus!” The pain in his jaw was incredible, but it cleared his mind. He blinked away the tears, looked up and heard the rumble of water pipes behind the walls.

  They were running a bath. For me.

  “No!” He twisted his wrists, the rope burning and tearing his skin. The chair creaked under the strain. Montrose shot a glance down at the antique frame. Maybe two hundred years old.

  Rolling onto his knees, he threw himself back and balanced on the balls of his feet. He hopped across the room and hurled himself towards an overstuffed leather sofa. The legs of the chair cracked when they hit the sofa, but were muffled by the cushions. Struggling upright, he jumped into the air and dropped down hard. The legs splintered and folded and he tugged the rope under the chair seat and past his feet. The knots were wound tight around his wrists, but the rope was loose and he wrestled free and ran to the French windows.

  Locked. No key in sight. The window panes were about the size of his hand, framed in thick wood. I’ll never get through in one go. If I smash the glass, they’ll be on me in seconds. Maybe seconds are all I’ve got. The garden outside was about twenty feet long. Too long. I’ll never make it.

  He ran over to the door. Guard outside? He placed his hand on the handle then snatched it back. Too risky. He knelt down. Through the door jamb he could see two bolts. Locked.

  Do something. Do it now. Or you’re a dead man.

  He spun around. No other windows or doors. He grabbed the poker from the floor. Wait until they came through the door? No. Too many guns.

  The panic began to rise in his gut. No, godammit! Fight it! I’m not gonna die. Not today. No fucking way.

  An ancient gas fire stood in the grate. Candles on the mantelpiece. Matches beside them. To the right, a six foot tall Normandy armoire. Solid oak.

  If I’m going down, some of these bastards are going with me. He pulled open the doors of the armoire and stifled a cry of despair. Every shelf was covered in delicate crockery. His mind raced. The shelf. Take out the shelf. The crockery chinked together as he slid out the shelf and laid it on the floor, followed by two others.

  Grabbing the candles and matches from the mantelpiece, he ran to the door and listened for a moment, but there was nothing. They were upstairs. He rubbed the candle hard into the jamb of the door below the hinge. Wax flaked and fell to the floor, but some stuck to the wood. He ripped the sandpaper from the side of the matchbox and wrapped it around the head of the matches, then gently pushed them into the wax, until they were wedged together in the door jamb.

  Water. I need water. A drinks tray sat in the corner of the room. All of them contained spirits. No good. The handle of a soda siphon stuck out from the back of the tray. He lifted it clear and squeezed the handle, spraying it in his eye to wash out the lighter fluid, then sprayed the curtains and ripped them down. Beside the window lay a length of cord for the curtain.

  Something to make a noise. The clock. The goddamn fucking ugly clock.

  He threw one end of the curtain cord to the fireplace. It was long enough. He ran over and looped one end around the clock then dropped down to the gas fire.

>   He found the controls and twisted them around until he heard the hiss of gas. A flame burst into life and he bent to blow it out. He was breathing so fast he could hardly keep the air in his chest. He slowly turned down the control and blew hard. The flame sputtered and died.

  He spun the controls to full and stepped back, listening to the escaping gas. It’s not enough. Water pipes rumbled and banged in the wall, then stopped. The bath was full. It was time.

  At the side of the fire was a copper pipe and he stamped on it with all his weight. It didn’t budge. Sweat stung his eyes and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth as he tried to breathe. He held on to the fireplace, then jumped and dropped down hard.

  He heard a sharp crack as the fitting came away from the side of the fire. The hissing increased. He grabbed the pipe and tugged with all his might. It snapped back, sending him tumbling onto the carpet.

  Gas spewed out and he snatched up the curtains and ran to the armoire. He jumped in, pulled the curtains over his head then picked up the cord and pulled the armoire door closed.

  In the darkness he could see a faint sliver of light from the bottom of the door. They made these old cupboards well. Just how well, I’m about to find out. He crouched, his arms wrapped hard around his leg. He lifted his head for a moment and sniffed the air. It won’t take long. The gas was under pressure. Unless they came in first. Then I’ll know. Yeah. I’ll know.

  The stench of gas was getting stronger. They could come in at any moment, but if he waited any longer . . . No. It had to happen now. He pushed the armoire door open a crack and jerked the cord, hauling the door closed before the clock crashed to the floor.

  Voices. They were coming. He pulled the curtain tight over his head and pressed his hands to his face.

  The force of the blast slammed the armoire against the wall. The doors burst open and he tumbled out onto the floor. The whole room was alight. Two men were lying by the door, screaming and beating flames from their clothes and hair. A long tongue of yellow flame spewed out from the broken pipe, fed by gusts of air pouring in from the shattered windows. Fumes and smoke scorched Montrose’s lungs. One of the men got to his feet, his clothes ablaze and his scalp covered in black and bleeding wounds. He roared and ran across the room.

  Montrose turned, but his foot caught in the curtain and he tumbled backwards to the floor. The air exploded out of his chest as the man dropped onto him. Thick hands clamped around his throat. The flames from the man’s clothes licked his face. The man rose up, bringing his full weight down on his arms. Montrose heard the cartilage of his windpipe crack. His sight began to blur and the noise around him dropped to a whisper. Weakness washed over his arms and chest. His grip on the man’s arm slipped and his hand dropped onto the shelf of crockery. His fingers tightened around crystal. One shot . . . It had to be one shot.

  He brought up a champagne flute and thrust it deep into the man’s eye. Blood and optical fluid spurted from the eye socket, hissing as it sprayed the man’s smoldering clothes. Montrose pushed the screaming man aside, rolled over on to his knees. He pulled his jacket over his head, dipped his shoulder and ran for the windows. He burst through the broken door frame and into the garden.

  Montrose felt himself running in slow motion until he slammed into the wall. He hauled himself up, skin tearing from his fingers, then scrambled over the top. He caught a glimpse of the inferno just before he dropped to the ground.

  Fuck them. He hit the sidewalk.

  He spun around at the roar of a motorbike as it slithered to a halt on the cobblestones. He grabbed the handlebars and stood in front of the bike, staring into the shocked face of a girl. “I need your bike!”

  She pushed up her visor and stared at his clothes. His jeans were still smoldering.

  Montrose leant over the handlebars. I’ve never hit a girl before. I’m not going to start now. “Listen to me, please. I need your bike. Now!”

  She gazed at him for a moment and then recovered. “What you need, Monsieur Montrose, is a ride. But if I drop this clutch, you’ll get a tire mark straight up your chest.”

  Montrose stared at her, his mouth wide open.

  “Make your mind up,” she said. “I don’t know what happened behind that wall, but I’m not hanging around to find out. Get on.”

  CHAPTER 27

  “Hold tight and lean into the corners.” She dumped the clutch and opened the throttle. The bike shot forward, rear wheel spinning and snaking around on the cobbles.

  Montrose looked over her head and saw traffic flash past at the end of the road. He twisted his legs to take the pressure off his aching balls, but slammed into her back when she hit the brakes at the end of the alley and threaded the bike through a gap in the traffic. The only way to survive was to hold on tight. His arm could have wrapped around her entire body. She pulled the Norton down to the left and gunned the engine along the Boulevard Saint-Germain.

  The twin exhaust roared as she went up hard through the gears. His chin thudded against her helmet as the bike lurched forward with each gear change. He lifted his head clear to stop the pain in his jaw. The bike weaved through the rush hour traffic. Pedestrians crossing the road heard them coming and stepped back. They knew what was good for them.

  The traffic in front came to a halt and she stamped down on the gear shift, the engine shuddering in protest. Turning into a narrow street, barely wide enough for a car, she weaved past delivery wagons and bumped the Norton up onto the sidewalk to pass a dustcart, scattering pedestrians. Buildings crowded in on either side, the street lined with expensive boutiques and cheap trinket shops for the tourists. His face chilled in the blast of cold air, but it took away the pain in his face.

  She stood on the foot brake at the end of the street. He glimpsed Notre Dame to their left, golden stone rising high into the morning sunshine. She pulled on to a main road, cutting up a line of cars, then took the road for the bridge across the Seine and the Ile Saint Louis.

  Where the hell are we going?

  The traffic cleared and she pulled the throttle wide open over the Pont Marie. Montrose caught a glimpse of the corner of Rue Lamont and the pawnbroker where he had jumped to the street. Shit, the whole of Paris to choose from and she comes here.

  The front of the bike dipped when she braked at the end of the bridge. She threaded her way past a line of tourist buses and into the side streets of Le Marais.

  The old Jewish Quarter. Maybe that answers the question. And explains who the old guy in the pawn shop was calling.

  Mossad.

  The thought sent a shiver through his guts. The most ruthless agency on the planet. The fun in Zurich and Rome had probably set off alarm bells in cop shops all over Europe. Mossad would have picked it up. And the boys from Tel-Aviv were not known for their forgiveness and understanding when it came to Nazi loot.

  They were deep into the back streets of Le Marais. No cops. They would be hitting the road junctions and train stations. But if Mossad were on the trail, it wouldn’t take them long to find me. He held on tight to the girl as she weaved between the cars. Maybe they already had. But I’m not their enemy. No need to add them to the list.

  The bike slowed and turned up the Rue du Temple. She snicked the gears down through the box and turned the Norton into a dark alley towards Rue Rambuteau. The alley narrowed and the walls became closer around them. At the end was a wooden door.

  Montrose looked behind. Nothing.

  She nudged the front tire up to the door and pushed it open. The door sprang back and opened into a dimly lit stairwell. Feathering the clutch, she eased the Norton over the step and onto the worn flagstones of a cramped hall. The engine thundered in the tight space at the foot of a winding flight of stairs. She hit the kill switch and the engine coughed and died.

  She turned her head. “You can let go now.”

  Uncurling his arms, he stepped off the bike. “Where are we?”

  “Home.” She kicked the door closed. “Come with me. Keep your feet to the s
ide, the staircase is very old.”

  Montrose looked up at the dusty wooden steps. Some of them were almost worn right through. It might take her weight, but he wasn’t sure it would take his. A faint light came from above. He looked up the winding staircase and saw a narrow skylight high up in the roof.

  She said nothing and headed up the stairs. He began to follow. It looked about four or five flights to the top. The banister was unpainted iron, smooth and black with age. The air was clean and dry. At each landing was a small, heavy wooden door that looked as though it came straight from the middle ages. No nameplates. These weren’t apartments. No one lived here.

  He caught her eye when she turned up another flight of stairs.

  “They’re old workrooms,” she said, “from when the building was used in the last century. The lace trade. No one works here now.”

  He ran his hand along the rough walls, paint flaking at his touch. The whole place had to be pre-Haussmann, the age before progress had flattened vast swathes of medieval Paris to form the broad boulevards and grand buildings so loved by the tourists.

  She stopped at the top and pushed open a low door. Montrose followed her into a small attic room, one wall sloping and a large skylight showing the rooftops of Le Marais.

  She pulled off her bike jacket, then lit a one-ringed gas stove. Montrose walked straight to the window.

  “Yes,” she said, “you can escape through the window. But we’re five floors up. You’ll fall through a rotten roof, or you’ll end up on the street. Very quickly.” She pushed her fingers through her auburn hair where it had been flattened by the helmet. Her dark eyes flashed a nervous look as he stood in the middle of the room.

  Montrose rubbed his jaw. His mouth hurt like hell, and his tongue found a few loose teeth. The dull ache in his kidneys spelled trouble. He gingerly touched the swollen flesh of his lower back and knew he’d be pissing blood for a week. He lifted his head. She was looking him up and down with a mixture of shock and disgust. “Who are you?” he said.