Finisterre

by Graham Hurley

  ‘My colleague’s name is Herr Erwin Busch.’ Schellenberg nodded at the younger man beside him. ‘He’s here because I trust him and because he’s exceptionally good at what he does. As it happens he also comes from Hamburg. I suspect you’ll have much in common.’

  Stefan wondered whether the introduction should be sealed with a handshake. So far, Busch hadn’t moved. Then he put down his pencil and smiled.

  ‘Wandsbeck,’ he said. ‘Hansa Schüle. Then the university.’

  Stefan had had friends at the university, many of them. He asked Busch how old he was.

  ‘Twenty-three.’

  ‘We all look older, Herr Kapitän.’ It was Schellenberg. ‘Under that beard I happen to know you’re only twenty-four.’

  ‘You were in Hamburg when the raids came? When the city burned?’ Stefan was still looking at Busch.

  ‘No, thank God.’

  ‘Your parents?’

  ‘Survived,’ Busch said. ‘They’re still alive.’

  ‘And the rest of your family?’

  ‘An uncle and an aunt died. They lived in Hammerbeck, down by the canals. They were lovely.’ He paused. ‘Where did you grow up?’

  ‘Hammerbeck.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘All gone.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Yes. Except my sister-in-law. She’s paralysed for life.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Stefan looked at him for a moment and then shrugged.

  ‘It’s happened to thousands. Tens of thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Millions if you include what’s been happening in the east. And for what?’

  There was a long silence. Herr Busch was looking at his pad. Then Schellenberg checked his watch and leaned forward over the desk.

  ‘I have to be back in Berlin by tomorrow morning. My plane must leave by seven this evening. Young Erwin here has a proposal for you. If for whatever reason you decline this proposal, you will be shot tomorrow morning for desertion and for killing a senior member of the SS. The arrangements are already in hand. If you are happy to agree to this proposal, and if you play the role we have in mind for you, then the rest of your life will be your own.’

  Schellenberg was on his feet now. Stefan gazed up at him. A proposal? A role? This was a major surprise.

  ‘And Eva?’ he said.

  ‘Eva will be waiting for you.’ He buttoned his jacket. ‘Afterwards.’

  15

  Gómez and Diego drove back up the coast to Ensenada. Diego had been thinking hard about auto thefts. Donovan wasn’t the only man in Mexico who’d spotted the booming US market for second-hand cars and there was now a regular supply of stolen vehicles making the journey north across the border. This latest wave of thefts hadn’t so far attracted much interest from the authorities but recently, after political pressure, the police had got themselves organised. A special unit had been established and Diego knew someone who knew someone who was supplying regular fucks for the guy in charge. His name was Carlos and – to Gómez’s deep satisfaction – he was based in Ciudad Juarez.

  When they got to Ensenada, Diego dropped Gómez downtown. He’d go back to his office in the police station and make some calls. When Gómez asked when they’d next meet, Diego told him seven thirty. Same bar as last night.

  It was nearly five o’clock. Gómez strolled towards the waterfront. He had a couple of hours to kill and after last night’s drinking the cogs in his brain were finally meshing again. In Diego’s place, he wasn’t sure he’d have been quite so brutal with Francisca’s sister but Mexican cops had always enjoyed a certain reputation and you couldn’t argue with the results. Violence, like it or not, sometimes kicked open doors that would otherwise have stayed tight shut. No way would Gabriela have helped otherwise.

  Twenty minutes later he was on the promenade watching kids swimming off a bunch of rocks. These had to be kids from the poorer side of town, lean brown bodies, a grin for the watching stranger, absolutely no fear. They splashed among the drift of rubbish, occasionally collapsing with a yell and then floating face down, playing dead. Winning the game depended on keeping your nerve. The one who could hold his breath the longest, not a flicker of movement, would be the champion. Neat, thought Gómez. Keeping your nerve among all the shit. Just like real life.

  After some minutes, the sun on his face, Gómez became aware of another spectator. He was slim, carefully dressed – new-looking black chinos, scarlet waistcoat. It was hard to guess his age – late twenties? Early thirties? Older? – and there was just a hint of make-up on the smoothness of his face. He had a little dog on a lead, a white poodle, and the mutt looked as groomed as its owner. The kids obviously knew him. One shouted his name, Ramón, and spun round to wiggle his ass at him. The other kids laughed and started to do the same. Ramón acknowledged the chorus line with a lazy flutter of his hand. Painted nails. Five-dollar sunshades. The full rig.

  Gómez had stepped back from the water and was about to leave when a jeep arrived. It was battered and dusty, dents in the bodywork, a long crack in the windshield. Once it might have belonged to the military but now it was occupied by a couple of guys with private business to transact. They were well-built, in shape, heavily muscled under the tight T-shirts. The guy behind the wheel had shaved his head, the other was wearing a black bandana. They parked the jeep and approached Ramón. There was no foreplay, no conversation, no warning push, just a savage flurry of violence – fists and heavy boots – that brought Ramón to his knees, his face wrecked, pleading for his life.

  ‘Maricón,’ one of them jeered, kicking him in the belly.

  Ramón folded under the blow, the air whistling from his lungs, and he tried to protect his head with his hands while the dog yapped and barked and did his best to protect his master.

  It was the dog that did it for Gómez. He walked across, taking his time. The guy with no hair saw him coming, warned his partner to stop. The two men turned round to confront Gómez. Their barrio Spanish was too fast for Hector to understand but he didn’t need a translation. Stand back, amigo. Mind your own fucking business. Faggots deserve what they get.

  Gómez shook his head. He’d never let any man intimidate him and he didn’t intend to start now. With a jerk of his head back towards the jeep, he suggested they leave. One of them stepped forward, pushed Gómez in the chest. Ramón was still on his knees, staring at the blood on his hands, on his jeans, trickling across the sidewalk. He was crying.

  ‘Vete a la mierda.’ Fuck off.

  Gómez and the driver were nose to nose. The guy’s eyes were bloodshot and his breath stank.

  ‘You smell worse than an animal,’ Gómez said in English.

  The guy understood. He took a tiny step back and swung at Gómez. The blow went nowhere. Gómez barely felt it. His big hand went out, his fingers locking on to the man’s throat, his thumb and forefinger on the pressure points beneath his ears. He began to squeeze. Hard. The guy’s eyes were popping. He was struggling for breath. Then his compadre arrived, circling to get a clean kick at Gómez, but Gómez had been here before. He knew exactly how to use the driver as a shield, as a buffer, while all the time increasing the pressure on the man’s neck, cutting off the supply of blood to his brain.

  The driver was frightened now. Gómez could see it in his eyes. He hadn’t been expecting this. So sudden, so practised, so efficient. Gómez looked at him, aware that his world was changing fast. First grey, then – all too suddenly – nothing but darkness. His head lolled back, a baby in Gómez’s arms. Gómez let him fall to the sidewalk, hearing the crack of bone as his shaved skull hit the paving stones, then spun round. The other guy had the chance for a clean shot. Gómez took the blow on the side of his chin. His brain exploded, pain everywhere, then his vision cleared and he had time to duck the next swing. Off-balance, the guy was briefly vulnerable and Gómez helped himself. Two short jabs to the solar plexus, bam-bam, then a knee to his face as his body folded. Sprawled beside his partner, he began to throw up.


  Gómez stepped back. He was breathing hard, way more than he should have been. Easy on the beer, he told himself. Maybe a little more exercise. Maybe even a proper workout. He was looking down at the guy with no hair, the one who’d attacked him first. He didn’t appear to be moving. Then came a flurry of movement as a young woman came running along the promenade. She’d seen the fight. She’d come to help.

  Gómez watched her as she went over to the body on the sidewalk. The man in the bandana was sitting up now, wiping vomit from his trousers, oblivious to everything else. Ramón was nursing his dog. Gómez knelt beside the woman. She was trying to find a pulse. Nothing. She put the back of her hand against the guy’s open mouth. Nada. She looked up at Gómez and shook her head.

  Gómez was suddenly aware that the kids in the water had fallen silent. He turned round to find them standing in the shallows, staring up at him. They’d seen the fight. They’d seen everything. They weren’t smiling any more.

  The one who had shown Ramón his backside slid his forefinger slowly across his scrawny throat. It was a question. When Gómez nodded he turned to the other kids.

  ‘Muerto,’ he said. Dead.

  *

  To Stefan’s relief, Erwin Busch turned the second interview into a conversation. He had an easy style, a light touch. Not once did he refer to Schellenberg’s parting threat of execution, should Stefan decline to co-operate with whatever plan they’d hatched. On the contrary, he seemed already to have assumed that Stefan would prefer to live rather than die, an assumption he coupled to the woman he’d left behind in the village by the sea.

  ‘Otto has met your friend. We understand she speaks English.’

  ‘She does. That’s how we got by.’

  ‘And afterwards? You’ll learn Spanish?’

  ‘I’d like to. If there is an afterwards.’

  ‘There will be,’ he said with a smile. ‘You have my word.’

  ‘You’re the one making the decision?’

  ‘No, you are. But the decision will be easy. Believe me.’

  Stefan wanted details. He needed to find out exactly what his role in this plan involved. Erwin nodded. He wanted to know whether Stefan ever made up stories as a kid. Stefan thought hard about the proposition. Finally, he said that he and his elder brother used to invent little plays at Christmastime, entertainments for their parents. When they were young, the plays were based on old fairy tales, the Brothers Grimm, and other books their mother used to read them. Later, once Hitler had come to power, they’d dream up little adventures with settings in the neighbourhood. The men in the brown shirts, he added, were always the losers, especially the local Blockwart who spied on all the families in the apartment buildings and reported them for minor breaches of regime discipline.

  ‘We had that, too, in Wandsbeck,’ Erwin said. ‘The man was an oaf. Really stupid. No one took him seriously. Not at first.’ He paused. ‘Your father, especially, must have been pleased.’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘With your entertainments. I understand he had no time for the regime.’

  It was true. Stefan’s father had worked all his life in the shipyards. He loved American jazz and practised smoky riffs on his saxophone whenever he got the chance. His heart was with the workers and, at first, when the Nazis were producing thousands of jobs after the grim years of little food and a worthless currency, he’d reserved judgement about whatever might happen next. But then had come the huge rallies, and the bully boys, and the city-wide pogroms against the Jews, and after that he regarded Hitler as a virus, breeding a terrible disease that was turning Germany into a country run by gangsters.

  ‘You’re right,’ Stefan said. ‘My father hated the regime. How come you know so much about my family?’

  ‘Because we made it our business to find out.’

  ‘But they’re dead. My mother, my father, Werner, all of them.’

  ‘We ask around. It’s not a hard thing to do. You were the golden boy in the neighbourhood. Iron Cross First Class? Not once but twice? People remember such things.’

  Stefan wondered whether to feel flattered but decided the compliment was genuine. He liked this man. Under any other circumstances they’d be sitting in some bar by now, sharing a beer or two.

  ‘Your plan,’ Stefan said. ‘Tell me about your plan.’

  ‘Of course. I’m sorry. Let’s go back to the entertainments.’

  For reasons Stefan might one day understand, Erwin explained, they had to invent an addition to Stefan’s family, and for this to happen, for this to be plausible, Stefan would have to do much of the work himself.

  ‘Addition?’ Stefan was lost. ‘You mean someone who doesn’t exist?’

  ‘Not in your family, no.’

  ‘But a real person?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘His name’s Solomon, Sol for short. In real life he’s Jewish through and through but we’re going to change some of that because in our version he’s going to be only half-Jewish.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because his mother was your mother. Which makes you his half-brother.’

  ‘I see.’ Stefan was fighting to keep track. ‘And does he have a name, this person?’

  ‘He does.’

  ‘A real name? In real life?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Sol Fiedler.’

  Erwin paused to let this development sink in. A half-brother Stefan had never met in his life. Was this some kind of fantasy?

  ‘Yes. That’s exactly what it is. Except you have to believe it. More importantly, you have to believe it so much that you can make other people believe it.’

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘Like Herr Schellenberg for a start. And then the British.’

  ‘You’re sending me to England?’ Stefan was out of his depth.

  ‘Yes.’ Erwin nodded. ‘If you agree to go.’

  They stopped for more coffee. Erwin left the office, locking the door behind him. By the time he came back, Stefan had begun to sense the faintest thread of logic behind this extraordinary suggestion. They want me to take this story to the English, he told himself. Indeed, I am this story, or at least part of it. For whatever reason was beyond him but what mattered just now was Erwin. He was the key player in this drama and Stefan knew he had no option but to trust the man.

  He watched him pouring the coffee. He wanted to know more about Sol Fiedler. How could he possibly fit into the cramped third-floor apartment that Stefan had always called home? How come their paths had never crossed?

  ‘Remind me when your parents got married.’ Erwin passed a coffee across the desk.

  ‘Nineteen hundred and four, 13 July.’

  ‘And Werner? Your brother?’

  ‘He came after the war. September 1919.’

  ‘A year before you.’

  ‘Fourteen months.’

  ‘So why so long before your parents had children?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe they preferred it that way. They had no money. They wanted to give any child the best. And they did.’

  ‘Good. Excellent. But maybe there’s another explanation. Your mother was working at the university, am I right?’

  ‘Yes. She was a secretary in the mathematics department. She always thought she was worth more than Hammerbeck.’

  ‘Excellent. So why did she marry your father?’

  ‘Because she loved him. He was a handsome man. He played the saxophone. He was a wonderful dancer. And a thinker, too.’

  ‘Of course. Good. But she wasn’t happy, your mother. Not really happy the way a newly married young girl should be. Maybe it was having no money. Maybe it was living in Hammerbeck. In any event, her head was turned.’

  ‘Who by?’ Stefan felt a tiny prickle of anger.

  ‘A man called Dr Moshe Fiedler. Also at the university.’

  ‘This man exists?’

  ‘No, not in real life. But that doesn’t matter because
the Nazis have destroyed all records of Jewish academics at the university. Thank God for our more fervent brethren, eh? Poor human beings but wonderfully thorough when it comes to the paperwork.’

  Stefan relaxed a little. Nicely put, he thought.

  ‘So what happened to my mother?’

  ‘She had an affair with Dr Moshe. She became pregnant. She couldn’t hide it from your father because he was a man who took precautions so there was no way the baby could have been his. You can imagine the tensions between them, the trust your mother had abused, the way your father tried to cope. He even offered to keep the baby but your mother said no. She wanted a new start. She wanted their own child.’

  ‘But the baby came?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘Moshe took the baby. He really wanted your mother, too, but she was never going to let that happen. She wanted both of them out of her life. Why? Because she was determined to stay with your father. And so Dr Fiedler went to Berlin where he found himself a job and a wife.’

  ‘And the young one?’

  ‘The wife was happy to adopt him. As it happened, she even liked his name.’

  ‘Sol.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sol Fiedler.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Stefan nodded, trying to absorb the news. His mother having an affair? His mother having a child? Playing any part in a fiction like this felt like a betrayal.

  ‘There’s more?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m afraid so. It takes your father years – more than a decade – to forgive your mother and make the baby she wants. Like everyone else, he goes to war. I understand he was in the Army.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘The infantry. In the trenches.’

  ‘Also true.’

  ‘So he goes away for four years and comes back a different man. The marriage is at last repaired. Werner is born. You come along. You grow up. You get older. You become aware that there are tensions in the family. That everything might not be quite right between your mother and father. Werner may be having the same thoughts but maybe not. And you know why? Because he’s not as sensitive as you, and not as observant.’