‘The other day, at the camp, when I spoke to O’Donnell about the travel permits,’ Payne said. ‘Was he telling me the truth? It’s important.’
The nurse looked over her shoulder before answering. She shook her head.
‘Not all the documents are properly processed. There is a man, a German man. He has come to Mr O’Donnell three times now. Each time O’Donnell has had the documents drawn up but there has been no record made of them. He does everything in private. I only came across him doing it one night when I was looking for something in his office.’
‘Did you not think it suspicious?’
‘I assumed it was only people bribing their way to the head of the queue. There’s normally quite a wait for travel permits. You don’t think these people have done anything wrong, do you?’
‘And who is this German man?’
‘The doctor, Seiler I think his name is. He was at the camp today and I saw O’Donnell give him something.’
‘That happened today?’
She nodded.
Payne thanked the nurse before he ran back to his car to drive to the Red Cross camp. It was dark now and the camp was preparing itself for bed. The light was still on in O’Donnell’s office. Payne knocked before he pushed the door open. O’Donnell’s face fell when he saw who his visitor was.
‘What the hell do you want?’
‘On my last visit I asked whether you ran background checks on everyone to whom you issue travel documents. I want to ask you that question again.’
O’Donnell folded his arms. ‘You’ve obviously heard something or other, Detective Inspector. So out with it.’
Payne pulled the photo of Konrad Jaeger from his pocket. ‘Do you remember doing the documents for this fellow? He’s wanted for war crimes. And you helped secure him the documents. Now, you may be right if you say that I have no jurisdiction here. But I’m sure the lawyers working down in Nuremburg will be interested when I tell them a Red Cross official is helping war criminals to escape. And they do have jurisdiction.’
‘That’s a lie.’ O’Donnell spoke with genuine anger but there was a trace of uncertainty to his bluster now. He kept licking his lips and blinking.
‘When did you last do travel documents for Seiler? Come on, man. People could die.’
O’Donnell bit his lip. ‘Today.’
‘Did you give them to Seiler?’
He nodded his head. ‘He brought me the photos yesterday. But he told me they were for a man and woman that needed medical treatment abroad. He’s the one that’s been helping war criminals, not me. You remember that.’
‘And where did Suttpen fit into all of this?’
‘He supplied the houses. These people needed places to meet and sort out their business.’
Payne drove to the Rathaus and found out where Seiler lived. When he pulled up outside the townhouse, he saw the earth in front of the building had been churned by deep tyre tracks, as if a heavy vehicle had driven across it recently.
He jumped out of his utility and rushed up the steps. He knocked on the door, but there was no answer, although lights blazed within the house.
He knocked again then kicked at the lock of the door. On his fourth try, the wood around the lock splintered and the door opened.
Seiler lay on the floor of the living room in a pool of blood, his throat slit from ear to ear. Payne stepped around the mess of blood. The daughter lay dead in the kitchen. Her throat was cut, too.
The killer was tidying up all the loose ends. He was preparing to move on. Payne had to catch him now. Payne knew he would be using one of the houses Suttpen and Lockwood had secured for the man. He would drive to each in turn until he found which one.
Payne ran back to his car.
13
BOOTH WAS IN his jeep, driving out of town. His face felt numb, but it had nothing to do with the wind that was driving against it.
He knew the truth now: Ursula wasn’t who she’d said she was. He muttered her real name as he drove towards the house: Ilse Hoffman.
He’d known something was wrong as soon as he saw the photograph inside the file on the SS man Freddy was hunting, that Johannes Drechsler. The black-and-white image that stared up from the page was the spitting image of Ursu . . . of this Ilse bitch. The queasy feeling of dread growing in the pit of Booth’s stomach had increased when he read details of Drechsler’s service record. He’d been in the 3rd SS Division, the Totenkopf, one of the Waffen-SS’s elite units. And then his career had been crushed by disciplinary problems. One moment he’d been the top of the pile. The next he was transferred to the SS-Sturmbrigade ‘Dirlewanger’.
Dirlewanger.
For a split second Booth had wondered why the name was so familiar. Then he remembered Ilse asking him about them, in the kitchen, the day he’d taken Piotr to the house.
It was the account of Drechsler’s service in the Dirlewangers that occupied most of the document. Drechsler’s unit had machine-gunned women and children. They had locked civilians in barns and burned them alive. Throats had been slit, heads crushed, limbs lopped off. They had been pitiless rapists. The Poles had found dozens of mass graves amid the ruins of Warsaw in the sector where the Dirlewangers had been operative.
A separate file contained details of Drechsler’s Nazi affiliations and his family connections. His brother-in-law, Rüdiger Hoffman, had been a known Nazi and ‘coordinator’ of a mine in conquered Polish territory. He had married Drechsler’s sister.
That was when Booth had realised there were more photos beneath the documents. With a trembling hand, Booth had pulled out a photo of Ilse Hoffman, dressed in furs, gripping the arm of her husband on the stairs of some huge building against a spot-lit background of swastika banners. She stared directly at the camera, hips angled to display the curves of her body to best effect. She was instantly recognisable but utterly alien at the same time: her eyes had a dark shine to them; her face was a mask of hauteur.
That was why Booth was driving out to her house now, the house of lies. His anger was cold and hard; he focused on it alone.
As the jeep advanced through the darkness, Booth considered how he would greet her, this changeling bitch. First of all he had thought he would strike her in the face, but he decided against that. That would be what a Nazi would do. There was no reason to behave so brutally. He would look her in the face and spit in her eye. He would let her see the contempt he felt for her. Then he would arrest her.
He drove his jeep right up to the house, beeping the horn. In the trees, two wild dogs were worrying at something on the ground. They growled when Booth got out of the car. Booth shouted at them, feeling suddenly furious. He kicked the kitchen door, expecting it to be locked, but it flew open.
He realised why when he examined the interior of the house. Everything was gone. All the food. All her clothes. The two battered suitcases.
The bitch had done a runner.
Then he noticed the boot marks on the flagstones, the muddy prints that belonged to a man’s feet. The brother. It had to be. But where would they go? They would never get past the roadblocks, the patrols.
Then he noticed the bottle of Korn on the table and the sheet of paper beneath it. He looked at the address written on it in pencil. He saw that it belonged to a rural property. Perhaps they had journeyed across country. That meant there was still time to catch them.
When Booth went back outside he noticed the dogs were fighting. He jumped into his jeep and turned on the headlights.
And stopped.
The beams of light had revealed a pale shape protruding from the ground. That seemed to be what the dogs were fighting over.
Booth took a flashlight and walked towards the two animals.
One of them fled. The other, the larger one, stood its ground. It growled at Booth as he approached and stared at him with feral eyes. Booth made calming
noises but the dog’s stance did not change. It lowered its head, teeth bared.
But Booth hardly noticed now. He was staring at the thin pale arm the dog had been gnawing, the bulge of freshly-dug earth. Someone was buried here. The animals had gnawed the flesh from the fingers.
Booth unbuttoned the pouch that held his sidearm and shot the animal in the face. The sound sent birds flapping from the tops of the trees.
Booth scraped away the earth. His fingers increased in speed when he saw the face that was emerging, saw how the dark earth had filled the mouth and now revealed the huge black rent in the centre of the corpse’s features, just below the nose.
Captain Booth realised that he was staring down at Piotr.
He screamed and fell to his knees.
It took Booth ten minutes to recover. He considered digging up Piotr’s body to rescue it from further indignities, but he realised he didn’t have time. He wanted to find Ilse Hoffman. She had killed Piotr and left him as carrion for wild animals. He would give Piotr the burial he deserved later on. At the moment he needed to ensure that justice was done.
The first thing he did was walk to the edge of the wood where the other dog still lurked and shot it. Now there were two animal corpses for any new predators to chew on.
Then he drove out to the road and headed towards the address he’d seen on the paper.
14
ILSE AND JOHANNES were crouching in the bushes opposite the house, waiting, until they saw the vehicle arrive. The lorry’s headlights formed twin pools of white light as they swept across the front of the building.
The driver jumped out of his cab and Ilse realised she knew him. It was that wretched driver from the Red Cross camp, Joost. So he was in on it. Yes, that made sense. He knew all the Tommies that guarded the road. They were used to him rumbling back and forth picking up supplies and taking people from one transit camp to the next. What could be more natural than for him to offer a couple heading in the same direction a lift?
Joost went inside the house. Johannes waited for at least five minutes, anxiously peering into the darkness. Once Ilse fancied she saw someone else moving amid the trees. Then Johannes dragged her to her feet and pushed her towards the cellar door.
Joost turned when they pushed the door open. He looked at them from behind his glasses in that curious way he had of looking at people, almost as if he saw straight through them. He didn’t smile. He licked his dry lips twice and nodded towards the Red Cross travel permits on the table. Johannes scooped his up and tucked it deep within his tunic. Ilse put hers in the bodice of her dress.
Joost was unwrapping a leather pouch from which he extracted glass vials and some hypodermic syringes.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Johannes said.
‘Don’t you want your vaccinations?’ Joost said, and for the first time Ilse realised his German was perfect. He spoke with a slight accent, was from Hamburg, maybe. He was no more South African than she was, she realised.
‘Vaccinations?’ Johannes said.
‘I believe Doctor Seiler mentioned them to your companion. You are travelling to South America. Doctor Seiler told me to give you shots for Hepatitis, Diptheria, Typhoid, Tuberculosis and Rabies. It would be a shame to have survived so terrible a war only to fall victim to a fatal and yet easily preventable disease. And you have paid a great deal of money for them.’
Johannes shook his head irritably and began to roll his sleeve up. ‘Who are you to be administering vaccinations?’ he said. ‘Are you a doctor, too?’
‘Something like that.’
The light swung from the ceiling, glinting in the glass of the bottle.
15
WHEN SILAS PAYNE drew up in front of the house and saw the Red Cross lorry outside he knew he’d found the right property. Pale light shone from around the edges of the cellar door.
He parked and began to creep towards the door. He wanted to find some window, some vantage point where –
A figure moved out of the darkness. Payne jumped before he saw that it was Captain Booth. His face seemed different somehow, lit as it was from below by the orange light of his cigarette.
‘He’s inside. The man you are looking for. Your killer. His victims are with him,’ Booth said, with a curious lack of inflection in his tone.
‘What the hell are you doing out here, then?’
‘Because I want the people inside to die. I know who they are. I know the killer’s name, by the way. It’s Otto Flense. I stood over there in the trees and watched his victims go down the steps there with him. He’s probably wrapping his ligature round their necks right now.’
Payne began to walk towards the cellar door.
Booth stepped into his way, blocking his path.
‘What are you doing? Let me pass.’
‘Isn’t that what you want? Justice. Then let the bastard alone. Those people in there deserve to die.’
‘That’s not your decision to make, damn you.’
Payne moved forward. Booth fumbled the sidearm from his holster and pointed it at the policeman.
Payne stood very still, watching Booth, seeking eye contact.
‘You don’t want to do this, Captain Booth.’
The barrel of the pistol trembled.
‘They have killed my friend. So what better way to repay them than to let that psychopath have his way with them? We’re going to stand out here and let Flense finish. Then you can arrest him.’
‘Captain Booth, I am not going to stand aside and allow these people to be murdered, even if they are murderers themselves. So you’re going to have to shoot me or get out of my way.’
Payne took one measured step forward, then another. Booth hesitated. The pistol barrel trembled.
‘Stay where you are, Payne.’
‘No.’
Payne took another step forward and Booth cried out, ‘Damn you!’, lowered the pistol and threw himself at Payne, trying to push him back.
The two men struggled and then the pistol suddenly bucked in Booth’s hand and Payne’s ears rang and he fell back onto his buttocks.
Silas Payne groaned and sat up. Then he saw that Captain Booth lay on the floor, gasping, with his hands clasped over his stomach, trying to staunch the flow of blood welling through his fingers.
Payne knelt beside Booth and tried to unbutton his battle-blouse. Booth was shaking and his face was already pale.
‘I’ve blown a bloody hole in my guts,’ he said, wincing.
Payne took his coat and rolled it up, placing it beneath Booth’s head.
And then the cellar door rattled.
Payne froze. Someone inside was trying to open it. The handle moved, the door rattled again and blows began to sound on the wood.
Payne rose and looked at the door. A tremendous blow shook it and the wood around the lock began to break and splinter. More blows sounded. Payne picked up the pistol from the ground.
The door opened. Dim light within outlined a man’s figure.
‘Stay where you are, Flense, or I’ll shoot,’ Payne said, positioning himself at the top of the stairs and raising the pistol.
‘What the fuck are you saying?’ the man said in German.
‘I know you speak English. I saw the records.’
Flense still spoke in German. ‘Do you know, I’ve just about had enough of this fucking nonsense for one night. Get out of my way or I swear I will cut your eyes out.’
As the man spoke he began to shuffle up the stairs towards Payne.
Payne brandished the revolver. ‘I won’t let you –’
Something heavy flew up the stairs and hit Payne on the shoulder. He stumbled backwards and the man charged at him.
‘Stop!’ Payne shouted, knowing the warning was pointless, as the moonlight caught the wild, murderous look in his attacker’s eyes. The kn
ife blade rose and . . .
The pistol barked in Payne’s hand and the man seemed to hit an invisible wall. The bullet stopped him dead and he collapsed.
Payne rose and walked towards him, keeping the pistol trained on his head.
The bullet had caught the man in the centre of his chest, right above the sternum.
He made weak movements as blood poured from his wound, but his eyes held Payne’s as he whispered low curses, teeth bared in his gaunt face so that he seemed more animal than man. Hatred and rage flared for a moment and then the light faded from his eyes. A hideous rattle sounded in his throat: he was gone.
Payne raced down the stairs to the cellar.
A woman lay face up on a table. She was breathing, but her skin was pale. A single droplet of blood was meandering across the inside of her bared forearm.
A man was lying on the floor beside her, face down. The hair on the back of his head was matted with blood and there was blood on the floor beside him. It looked as if there’d been a struggle in the cellar: a chair was overturned and another had been smashed.
Payne checked their vital signs and found that both their hearts were beating strongly. He ran towards the road and began waving his flashlight in the direction of the nearest army checkpoint, flashing a single repeated message: SOS.
After he had done this for several minutes, he returned to the place where Booth was lying, caught hold of his hand and held it. Stomach wound, he thought. It was the worst place to get hit. Booth was losing a lot of blood. Several times he had tried to speak, but it caused him too much pain to continue.
It took ten minutes for the soldiers to arrive and another ten before the ambulance drew up. By then Booth was unconscious.
The ambulance took Booth and the two people from the cellar away on stretchers. Payne called out to one of the stretcher bearers, ‘Make sure those two are placed under guard. They might try to escape.’
Afterwards he stood outside the house, staring up at the moon. He was trembling. He’d made a point of avoiding physical confrontation throughout his career and now within the space of thirty seconds he had separately shot two men.
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