The train was still moving, the lighted platform of the Czech border point unrolling past the window. It was snowing now, thick flakes drifting down through the cones of light. ‘We are not stopping at the Czech crossing point tonight,’ the German railway official was saying to a female passenger. No Czechoslovakia, no border, Russell thought. Did that mean they were not stopping at the German border either?
No such luck.
The passengers climbed down onto the platform, a long strip of spotlit tarmac in a sea of darkness. As Russell joined the queue, a new and highly unwelcome thought occurred to him. If the sheets were meant to be found, there had to have been a tip-off. The false bottom might be empty, but it was still a false bottom.
One explanation seemed workable, but only if the officials on duty were different from the ones he had encountered the day before. As the queue sucked him out of the snow and into the building, he anxiously examined the faces, but there were none he recognised.
The immigration official took one look at his passport and gestured to a man in plain clothes behind him. Gestapo. ‘This way, Herr Russell,’ the man said, without looking at his passport. He walked across to a large table, where another man in plain clothes was waiting.
‘Put your suitcase on the table,’ the first man said. He had long hair for the Gestapo, and an almost likable face. As he opened the suitcase, Russell noticed that his fingernails badly needed trimming.
‘Could I have your name and rank?’ Russell asked.
‘Ascherl, Kriminalassistent,’ he said without looking up.
He carefully took out the clothes, and piled them on the other end of the table. Effi’s script was placed on the top. Then he ran his hands round the inside of the suitcase, obviously looking for a way of accessing the false bottom. Borskaya had been behind him when he opened it in the hotel room, Russell remembered.
‘How do you open it,’ Ascherl asked him.
Russell looked perplexed. ‘It’s open.’
‘The hidden compartment,’ the Gestapo officer said patiently.
Russell tried to look even more perplexed. ‘What are you talking about?’
Ascherl turned to his subordinate. ‘Your knife, Schneider.’
Schneider pulled out a large pocket-knife. Ascherl looked at the suitcase for a moment, ran his hand along inside it, then abruptly turned it upside down, pressed in the knife, and patiently sawed from one side of the bottom to the other. ‘This hidden compartment,’ he said, reaching in a hand.
His look of triumph faded as his scrabbling hand failed to find anything in it. Two more cuts and he was able to wrench back a section of the reinforced leather bottom and shine a torch inside.
‘Where is it?’ he asked patiently.
‘Where is what?’ Russell replied, trying to sound bewildered. Most of the others in the room were watching them now, eager to see how the situation played out.
‘Let me put it another way,’ the Gestapo officer said. ‘What reason do you have for carrying a suitcase with a hidden compartment?’
‘That’s simple. I didn’t know it had one. I only bought it yesterday, from a Jew in Prague.’ He smiled, as if the answer had just occurred to him. ‘The bastard probably used it to smuggle valuables out of the Reich.’
‘Undoubtedly,’ Ascherl said.
Russell was still thanking heaven for his inspiration when he noticed a new face in the room – one of the customs officials from the day before. The man was looking straight at him, with an expression on his face that seemed part indignation, part amusement.
‘But you are from Berlin,’ Ascherl continued. ‘Did you travel to Prague without a suitcase?’
‘It fell apart when I was there. I needed a new one.’ Russell braced himself for an intervention by the customs official, but there was none.
‘And this Jew just happened along?’
‘No, there’s a market, like the ones they used to have in Berlin.’ The customs official was still looking at him, still saying nothing. Was it possible that he didn’t remember this suitcase from the day before?
‘You wallet, please,’ the Gestapo officer said.
Russell handed it over, and watched him remove the currency – a few Czech notes, some Reichsmarks, the clip of Swiss Francs.
‘Where did these come from?’ Ascherl asked.
‘I wrote an article for a Soviet paper, and they paid me in Swiss Francs. Several months ago now. I thought they might be useful in Prague. The SD knows all about this,’ he added. ‘Look,’ he said, indicating the wallet, ‘can I show you something?’
Ascherl handed it back, and Russell pulled out the folded sheet of Sturmbannfuhrer Kleist’s letter.
As the Gestapo man read it, Russell watched his face. If the list had been found in the hidden compartment then the letter could have been ignored. As it was, all Ascherl had was a story full of holes that he couldn’t fill in. Would he keep on trying, and risk falling foul of the big boys on Wilhelmstrasse?
‘I see,’ he said finally, and looked up at Russell. ‘It seems we are all victims of the same plot. We received information… well, I won’t go into that. It looks as though the Reds have tried to set you up.’
‘The suitcase was suspiciously cheap,’ Russell admitted. Across the room the customs official was still watching, still doing his Mona Lisa impersonation.
‘It’s not worth much now,’ Ascherl said, surveying his knife-work.
Russell smiled. ‘You were doing your duty, as any friend of the Reich would wish.’
Ascherl smiled back. ‘We have others. Confiscated from Jews. Perhaps we can find you another one with a hidden compartment. Schneider?’
Ascherl’s assistant disappeared into an adjoining room and re-emerged almost immediately with two suitcases. Russell chose the smaller of the two, and packed it with his clothes and Effi’s script. The customs official had disappeared.
But not for long. As Russell came out of the building the man fell into step beside him. ‘Nice suitcase,’ he said.
Russell stopped.
‘I’m getting married next month,’ the man said, carefully positioning himself between Russell and any watchers in the building they had just left.
Russell took out his wallet, removed the clip of Swiss francs, and handed it over. ‘A wedding present?’
The man smiled, gave him an ironic click of the heels, and strode away.
Russell walked on towards the train. The snow was heavier now, tumbling down through the pools of light, flakes clinging to the glistening wire. He could feel the sweat on his body slowly turning to ice.
The train, it seemed, was waiting only for him – the whistle shrilled as he stepped aboard. He made his way forward through the swaying cars, slumped into the reclining seat, and listened to the rhythmic clatter of the wheels, rolling him into the Reich.
PRAISE FOR THE STATION SERIES
‘An extraordinary evocation of Nazi Germany on the eve of war, the smell of cruelty seeping through the clean modern surface.’
C J Sansom, author of Winter in Madrid
‘Think Robert Harris and Fatherland mixed with a dash of Le Carré. It’s good and there’s more to come.’
Sue Baker, Publishing News
‘Stands with Alan Furst for authentic European pre-war detail and atmosphere. Berlin in the last weeks before the war is evoked with all its fearsome undercurrents – and the ending is genuinely full of tension.’
Donald James, author of Monstrum
‘A wonderfully drawn spy novel… A very auspicious début, with more to come.’
The Bookseller
‘Excellent and evocative… Downing’s strength is his fleshing out of the tense and often dangerous nature of everyday life in a totalitarian state that is edging towards war’
The Times
‘Exciting and frightening all at once… It’s got everything going for it.’
Julie Walters
‘One of the brightest lights in the shadowy world of histori
cal spy fiction.’
Birmingham Post
About the Author
David Downing is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction for adults and children. His first novel in the John Russell series, Zoo Station, was published by Old Street in 2007, followed by Silesian Station in 2008, Stettin Station in 2009 and Potsdam Station in 2010. He lives in Surrey with his wife and two cats.
Copyright
First published in 2007
by Old Street Publishing Ltd
Yowlestone House, Puddington, Tiverton, Devon EX16 8LN, United Kingdom
This ebook edition first published in 2010
All rights reserved
© David Downing, 2007
The right of David Downing to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–1–906964–37-5
Zoo Station Page 30
