Huber's Tattoo

by Quentin Smith

  Bruce ran to the balustrade in time to see the back of Schröder’s beige coat disappear around a corner.

  “Where does that path lead?” Bruce said, turning quickly to one of the local armed policemen.

  “Pulteney Bridge, sir, about two hundred yards away along a secluded pathway beside the Avon weir.”

  Bruce paused for a moment.

  “Take a few men, go to the bridge end of the pathway and block off their exit. No shots, understand?”

  “Sir,” the man said, turning back to his men.

  “Come with me, Natasha,” Bruce said, flying down the Palace Garden steps, two armed policemen in tow.

  *

  “Do you know how long I’ve been looking for you, Gustav, the heir to the throne, the first-born of the Nazi swine who dreamt up this sick, evil business?” Schröder spat as they made their way along the narrow pathway.

  To their right the swirling waters of the Avon turned turquoise as they cascaded over a V-shaped weir, pointing towards Pulteney Bridge like a giant arrowhead in the water. Mist rose up and moistened the pathway, making it slippery. The sound of the rushing waters became louder and louder.

  “We are all suffering in one way or another. You are not alone. Look at Henry here,” Gustav gesticulated at Henry. “People with very high IQs are far more prone to a range of psycho-social maladjustments: anxiety, depression, personality disorders, especially after a traumatic childhood,” he continued calmly. “There is effective help for all of us, you know.”

  Schröder snorted.

  “Are you suggesting that this is my fault, that I have a maladjustment that causes me to behave this way, after what your parents have done to my life? You sanctimonious…”

  “I fully agree with you. I’m sorry, I still don’t know your name.” Gustav’s voice was calm but edged with nervy tension.

  “You’ve ruined my life, the life of my dear friend Lars… your people filled my head with… nonsense… you can’t do this, can’t do that… you must be… perfect…”

  “I can help you. I help Lebensborn descendants.”

  “Descendants?” Schröder’s eyes narrowed. “I am not a descendant of anything. I am just… fucked up… by your parents…”

  “We must not use swear words,” Henry said in his juvenile voice.

  Schröder stared at Henry, adjusting his grip on the knife.

  “Exactly. We must not swear, must not drink, must not smoke.” His eyes blazed. “I loved Lars… but such a love was not… permitted.”

  Schröder brought a clenched fist to his face and grimaced. He emitted a low moan, like a wounded animal. Then he raised the large blade, his eyes fixed on Gustav. “And now he is dead… because of you!”

  “Henry!” Natasha shouted from behind them.

  Schröder spun around, recognising the voice. Henry looked up, confused, his face twisting as though he might cry.

  “Henry, it’s me, Natasha, your Sergeant.”

  Schröder pushed them along the pathway, prodding Gustav with the knife.

  “Henry is an eleven-year-old boy called Heinrich at the moment,” Gustav said loudly without turning around. “If he hears a voice he recognises he may revert to Henry.”

  “Shut up!” Schröder shouted, lunging forwards at Gustav and almost losing his footing on the slippery pathway.

  What did Gustav mean by that, Natasha wondered, an eleven-year-old boy? Then she thought back to the half-eaten croissant at the hotel in Carsac, the lebküchen at the Gasthaus in Ebersberg, and Henry’s memory lapses.

  “Henry! Please, listen to me, it’s Natasha. I need you, Henry,” Natasha pleaded as she and Bruce made their way cautiously along the pathway, some distance behind the group of men.

  “You cannot escape, Schröder. We have this pathway sealed off!” Bruce shouted above the roar of the water over the weir.

  Schröder stopped momentarily and turned around.

  “Ah! You know who I am.”

  “There is no way out. Put the knife down,” Bruce said, his voice even.

  “Who says I have any plans to escape? I have my prize now.”

  Natasha’s heart lurched. They would be too late, she feared. With a slash of that blade he would send Henry’s life blood spilling into the Avon, as he must have done to Francois Pequignot, pitching his body into the swirling waters below. This brief, selfish act would rob her of the man she now regarded as more than a colleague, more than her senior officer, much more than a friend. She would be helpless to stop it, forced to watch.

  “Henry! Please listen to me. Come back, Henry, talk to me. It’s Natasha. I… I… I love you, Henry.”

  Henry’s eyes blinked. A tic ravaged his cheek as he twisted his head slightly, glancing at Gustav, then Schröder, then back at Natasha.

  “Give yourself up, Schröder, there doesn’t need to be any more bloodshed. We can all walk away from this and talk about it,” Bruce said, steadying himself with his hands on the metal railing.

  “We don’t all deserve to walk away from this,” Schröder said, his face contorted in a grimace as he reached forward and grabbed Gustav by the lapel, bringing the gleaming blade upwards.

  “No!” Natasha shouted. “Henry, run!”

  Natasha’s heart was pounding in her chest. She felt sick, helpless. All she could hear was the rushing of the waters below and the thudding of her heartbeat. Henry turned around, clearly confused. Had he recognised her voice, she wondered?

  “Henry! This is Superintendent Bruce. Henry!”

  Gustav’s eyes were open wide, staring, like a sacrificial goat about to be slaughtered, as the blade rose to his throat.

  “Your whole extended family is the devil’s work,” Schröder hissed through clenched teeth. “It is time to end my suffering, all of our suffering. This will mark the end of the Steinhöring disgrace!”

  Suddenly, Henry heaved his frame into Schröder and the two men crashed into the railings. Schröder’s grip on Gustav remained resolute and he too stumbled forward towards the railing, unable to steady himself.

  “No!” Natasha yelled and tried to rush forwards, slipping on the pathway and landing hard on her knees.

  The three men clattered against the railing and then toppled over. In the blink of an eye they were immersed in the foaming turquoise waters of the Avon weir, thirty feet below. Natasha and Bruce stared over the railing in disbelief, looking for signs of someone surfacing, a hand, a foot, anything.

  “Oh God! There’s a lot of currents in there beside the weir,” one of the local armed response police said, shaking his head disconsolately. “They suck you under.”

  Natasha covered her face with both hands, staring at the waters below, like a child peering through parted fingers at a ghoulish film. Would this be how it ended? Struggling for breath, she turned suddenly and retched on the pathway beside Bruce’s highly polished shoes.

  Seventy-Seven

  “What do you think, sir?” Natasha asked, staring through the glass past her reflection.

  Sitting beside her in his formal tunic, with cap balanced on his lap, was Superintendent Bruce, knees pressed together and legs bouncing nervously, his rubber soled shoes squeaking on the linoleum flooring. The psychiatric unit smelled of antiseptic cleaning solutions and bleach.

  “It’s all very circumstantial, isn’t it, no hard evidence whatsoever, though Warburton remains suspicious. We know that Henry was in Grasmere around the time that David Barnabus was shot; he was also in Cenac St Julien around the time that Francois Pequignot was murdered; he was certainly in London when both Jeremy Haysbrook and Vera Schmidt were shot and we have him on CCTV at Covent Garden Underground station minutes before Haysbrook, together with hundreds of other commuters.” Bruce shrugged his shoulders. “He was in Durham the night Luc Bezier was killed as well, but we have not a shred of physical evidence to prove anything.”

  Natasha couldn’t but agree with his assessment of the situation.

  “What would Henry’s motivation be, any
way?” he said.

  Natasha remained silent. She had no real answer.

  “Did he go missing at all in Steinhöring? You didn’t mention anything to me,” Bruce asked, his eyes never leaving Natasha’s face.

  Natasha thought back to both the night in Carsac and the night in Ebersberg when Henry had gone off mysteriously on his own, without any recollection on his return. She had not informed Bruce about either of these incidents, partly on Henry’s insistence, and had always feared that it might catch up with her.

  “You don’t really suspect Henry is involved, do you, sir?” Natasha said, avoiding the question. “I mean, an eleven-year- old boy?”

  Bruce glanced away through the glass, at Henry.

  “No, no, I don’t.”

  “They found a 9mm Parabellum Luger in Schröder’s house, I heard,” Natasha said.

  Bruce nodded.

  “Ballistics have confirmed that it did fire the bullet found in Luc Bezier, the victim in Schröder’s house and the one found in the boat shed in Grasmere. As for Francois Pequignot…” He left the sentence hanging.

  Natasha stared straight ahead without moving.

  “How did Schröder get the Luger into the UK?” she asked.

  Bruce laughed cynically.

  “Do you really think that much of our border controls at ferry ports?”

  Natasha shrugged her shoulders.

  “Why did Schröder kill all those people?” She paused. “Including his close friend Lars?”

  “It seems as though he concealed his love for this man, Lars, all his life. Like Henry said, perhaps he despised the deviances of others like him because he couldn’t live out his own.”

  Their eyes met and Bruce shrugged.

  “Was it simply an elaborate plan to flush out Gustav Nauhaus, the closest person he could feasibly hold responsible?” Natasha said.

  Bruce didn’t reply. Perhaps they might never know the whole truth. An image of the dozens of candles in Schröder’s house suddenly entered Natasha’s mind. How many victims were there?

  “What did the psychiatrist say?” she said.

  “Dissociative Identity Disorder, most likely,” Bruce said. “The alter ego, Heinrich, is likely to be a throwback to Henry’s childhood of forced Nazi indoctrination, traumatic separation and repeated re-homing.” Bruce paused. “Apparently, it is more common in very intelligent people subjected to extraordinarily stressful events.”

  Natasha and Bruce both stared in silence through the plate glass window. On the bed in a square white room, punctuated only with pale green curtains, lay Henry, his eyes closed beneath an encircling cream bandage, looking peaceful and calm. The starched white sheets were pulled up to his mid- chest and both arms rested on top of the woven white blanket. One arm was encased in a plaster cast. He opened his eyes and turned to the glass window.

  Natasha felt a lump rise in her throat at the sight of him, lying in a hospital bed in a psychiatric ward, having nearly drowned. They stood up and entered his room. It smelled of fresh plaster of Paris and antiseptic cream.

  “It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?” Henry said croakily, his eyes following Bruce and Natasha as they walked to the foot of his bed.

  “You went from villain, to victim, to hero, all in one afternoon. Enough to make any girl giddy,” Natasha joked.

  Henry smiled, his eyes fixed on her face.

  “How is Gustav Huber?”

  “He’s still on a ventilator. They don’t know yet if he has suffered brain damage,” Bruce replied, holding his cap in front of his chest in both hands. “He was under the water a long time.”

  Henry nodded.

  “And Schröder?”

  Bruce and Natasha both shook their heads.

  “How do you feel?” Natasha said, taking a step towards the bed, arms entwined in front of her pale yellow buttoned jumper.

  “Sore,” Henry said, coughing painfully. “Very sore.” He paused. “How did I get to the river?”

  “It’s a long story, which I can tell you whenever you’re up to it,” Natasha said with a smile.

  Henry closed his eyes for a moment.

  “I love your perfume, Sergeant. Come closer.”

  Bruce cleared his throat.

  “You two have things to discuss, so I think I’ll get along.”

  “Sir, I’d like to take a little time off, please,” Natasha said, meeting Bruce’s eyes.

  He smiled.

  “Of course, but I want to know about any unusual behaviour, Sergeant.” He laughed awkwardly before donning his cap. “Get some rest, Henry. I’ll see you for a de-briefing when you’ve recovered.”

  Natasha watched Bruce leave, wondering if he would reinstate Henry, whether an officer with a major personality disorder was treatable, curable, let alone employable in the Met. With a small inner sigh she sat on the bed beside Henry’s broken arm.

  She frowned.

  “What is it?” Henry asked, adjusting his head so that he could see her more clearly.

  Her eyes wandered down from his face.

  “Henry, who sent that threatening letter to me? It couldn’t have been Schröder.”

  Henry did not falter.

  “It was George, I’m afraid. I’m sorry.”

  Natasha felt a weight being lifted off her shoulders and smiled.

  “I thought I was going to lose you yesterday, in so many possible ways.” Her voice tightened as her eyes welled up.

  “I don’t remember much.”

  “Survival of the fittest – isn’t that what Charles Darwin said?”

  “No, it was actually Herbert Spencer who said that.” Henry smiled, teasingly. “I’ll have to sneak you to some Mensa meetings.”

  Natasha blew a raspberry at him.

  *

  What do the ravages of time not injure?

  Our parents’ age has produced us who will soon give rise to a yet more vicious generation.

  Quintus Horatius Flaccus, Roman Poet

  Epilogue

  Lebensborn e.V.

  The Lebensborn programme is regarded as one of the most secretive and terrifying of the Nazi projects, which, were it not for a clutch of clandestine photographs and a few leaked documents, might never have come to light. The direct English translation means literally “fountain of life”.

  Heinrich Himmler founded Lebensborn eingetragener Verein (registered association) on 12 December 1935 with the specific intentions of boosting Germany’s falling population with racially pure Aryans. The first home was opened in Steinhöring in 1936. The ideology was that Lebensborn children would one day be the leaders of the one thousand year Reich.

  Though it provided a safe environment in which young unmarried girls could give birth in secret, strict racial purity tests were enforced on their physical characteristics and family lineage was traced back three generations. Only forty per cent of applicants passed. SS officers, whose lineage and purity was stringently scrutinized prior to their commissioning, made natural choices as fathers, and many believe that racially pure women who wished to meet and have children with SS officers were actively encouraged.

  The vast majority of mothers were unmarried and most of the children ended up being fostered by the SS. Emotional, psychological and social adaptation disorders were more common in these children, who were not accepted back into their own communities after 1945, suffering ostracism, institutionalisation and rejection.

  By the end of the war there were Lebensborn homes across Germany, as well as in several European countries under Nazi occupation. In excess of twenty thousand children were born in Lebensborn homes, eight thousand in Germany alone, nearly three thousand of these in Steinhöring.

  Despite the later sinister progression of the Lebensborn programme to kidnap Polish children deemed “racially valuable”, no post-war charges against those involved in Lebensborn were ever upheld in courts of law. Many Lebensborn records were lost or destroyed by SS members prior to fleeing the advancing Allied forces.

&
nbsp; Hadamar Euthanasia Centre

  The Hadamar Euthanasia Centre started out as a psychiatric hospital in Hadamar. As one of many similar centres, it began by performing tens of thousands of sterilizations on people deemed “a life unworthy of life” (Lebensunwertes Leben): those with psychiatric illness, physical disabilities, inherited disease, the list was long. This progressed under the leadership of Viktor Brack into a mass euthanasia programme, called “T4 Euthanasia Program”, which killed an estimated seventy thousand disabled Germans by gassing.

  Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, Berlin

  The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (KWI) was one of the most eminent scientific research units in Germany in the 1930s. The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics was founded in 1927 and produced research of crucial benefit to the National Socialist and later the Nazi ideals. Anthropobiology was used to measure and group physical characteristics to classify and distinguish racial stereotypes. This was central to the propaganda behind Lebensborn, the sterilization programmes, the T4 euthanasia programmes, deportations, medical experimentation on prisoners and ultimately genocide in the concentration camps.

  The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research, too, was one of the most dynamic research facilities of its kind in Germany during the 1930s, producing no less than fifteen Nobel Prize winners between 1919 and 1944 in the fields of chemistry, medicine and physics.

  KWI was supported by high level government and industrial financiers. Political influence was inevitable, especially during the Third Reich, when those who upheld Nazi attitudes were more likely to prevail at the institute. Prominent scientists who worked at KWI included Fischer, Verschuer, Magnussen and Mengele, all with close Nazi ties. Fischer, Verschuer and Magnussen were never prosecuted as war criminals, despite repeated recommendation, for fear of the resulting damage to the German scientific establishment.

  In 1930 the Institute for Brain Research was opened at KWI by Oskar Vogt. At that time it was the leading institute of its kind in the world. During the war years brains from victims of the T4 Euthanasia program were studied at the institute.