‘Darling!’ He gripped her by the shoulders, feeling the fragile bone structure under his fingers. ‘Listen to me! It’s not a question of allowing or not allowing, we have no choice. We stay in here. We mind our own business. We keep our mouths shut. We do as they tell us. And then maybe... just maybe, we’ll live.’
At that moment there was a noise from the study. It was part scream, part moan, and it splintered the silence of the house as a stone splinters glass.
Susan put her hands to her ears. The scream came again. She bent over, began to rock from side to side. ‘Do something I’ she shouted. ‘Don’t let them go on! Do something!’
They stood looking at each other. Silence gathered in the house once more. Inge opened the sitting-room door. ‘We will eat now,’ she said to Spencer. She turned to Susan. ‘He is unconscious, see if you can bring him round again.’
‘No,’ she said. Her hands shifted to her cheeks.
‘For Christ’s sake...!’ Spencer began.
‘You have nothing to say!’ Inge said. ‘Nothing! You do as we tell you. If you do not, you are finished. You understand? Bruno will finish you.’ She turned towards Susan. ‘Give her a drink and get her upstairs.’
‘No,’ Susan said again.
‘You want us to go?’
‘Yes! Oh, yes!’
‘Then do as I say and the sooner we go. You understand that?’
‘Yes, I understand.’
Sue went to the study, terrified of what she might find there. The man was lying much as she had left him and at first she could see no difference other than the fact that the blanket had been pulled down and the hot water-bottle lay on the floor. Something oddly familiar was lying next to the hot water-bottle. It was the pop-up toaster from the kitchen. The lead snaked across the floor to a wall socket. Then she saw the man’s left hand. The fingers were ridged with sulphurous yellow-and-black lines. Around the ridges the skin was red. His face was covered in a sheen of sweat.
‘Oh, my God,’ she said. She coughed and kept herself from being sick. For a second the terror that lay on the periphery of her mind swept over her and she found herself shaking. She turned to the door, running blindly away from the mutilated man. A hand caught at the front of her dressing-gown and almost lifted her off her feet. She looked up into Muller’s face. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I — ’ she began. ‘I — ’
‘Don’t trouble yourself so much, he is a fascist.’ She fought his hands but he held her easily. ‘Where are you running?’ Within the wider context of her confusion there were other basic things she did not understand. What had happened to John? Why wasn’t he coping? And who was Bruno? She understood nothing and it made her angry.
‘This is my house,’ she managed at last. ‘You can’t — can’t — you — I’m going to get the police. You can’t stop me!’
He smiled and stood elaborately to one side. ‘Please,’ he said. She began to go down the stairs. Spencer stood at the bottom. ‘I’m going to the police, John.’
‘Let her go,’ Muller said. ‘If she wants it so much.’
Spencer stopped her half way down. ‘Don’t you see he’s having fun with you. He wants you to try. He wants you to go to the front door. Then he’ll bring you back. He’ll humiliate you. Don’t you understand?’
The courage born of fright which had brought her this far suddenly drained out of her like bath-water. Sue found herself trembling again. ‘Can I have a drink?’ she said.
‘So,’ Muller said. We understand each other.’ He turned to Spencer. ‘Give her a drink and get her back.’ He flicked a thumb upstairs. ‘The longer it is, the more dangerous for you, not so?’ Spencer took her into the sitting-room and poured a whisky.
She took it neat, feeling the warmth go down her throat and spread out through her nerves.
‘Are we going to do whatever they say?’ she said.
He looked at her for a moment before replying and then said, ‘Yes.’
She felt steadier after the whisky. She went into the kitchen. The three terrorists were seated at the table eating scrambled eggs and bacon. She ignored them, went to the fridge, took out a pint bottle of milk, pick up a tea towel and returned upstairs. She was better prepared now but even so the ridged fingers and burnt nails gave off a smell that sickened her. She soaked the tea towel in the milk and wound it round the injured hand. Then she raised the arm and placed it on the Chesterfield. He had turned onto one side and she tried to push him over so that he lay on his back. He turned easily and she wondered if fear and loathing were giving her strength. Then she realized he was moving himself. As he did, he spoke to her again. His face was near her ear and he whispered, ‘They are going to kill me. You must help.’
‘I will help you.’ She could hear him breathing. ‘Your hand is...’
‘My hand is nothing. That is a beginning. When they have finished with the hand they are going to kill me.’
‘Yes,’ she said, there did not seem any point in prevaricating. ‘Listen...’ He whispered a telephone number and she repeated it. ‘Phone that number.’
‘They’ve cut the phone.’
‘You must help me.’
‘Yes. Yes, I will.’
‘How goes he?’ She nearly fainted. She turned and saw Tellier with his ridiculous mountaineer’s beanie, standing in the doorway.
‘What?’
‘What are you doing with him?’
‘He’s in shock.’
‘He is not awake?’
‘No. We have to keep him warm. The bottle’s cold. Can you fill it?’
She picked up the hot water-bottle and handed it to him. ‘Not out of the tap. Boil the kettle. It needs to be hot.’
He took the blue hot water-bottle from her reluctantly. ‘I do not believe in this.’
‘It worked before. We wrapped him up and kept him warm. And he came to. That’s what you want, isn’t it? You want him awake so you can go on torturing him.’
‘Do not worry. He is fascist.’ It was said mechanically, without any emotion, as though it were a word become threadbare with use.
‘Well?’
He took the bottle and she heard him go downstairs.
‘We have a few minutes,’ she whispered. What do you want me to do?’
‘You must help me.’
‘Yes. Yes. But how?’
‘I must have a weapon. You have knife?’
‘In the kitchen. They’d see me.’
‘Look quickly for something. Anything.’
Her eyes swept the room. She took in the tape-recorder, the radio, the TV, the cameras. How did you defend yourself with those? Riemeck’s face was ashen as he watched. Then she remembered the gun.
‘My husband has a pistol,’ she said. ‘I don’t know where he keeps it. Here, probably, there’s nowhere else.’
He tried to get to his feet but giddiness swept over him. When he could speak he said, ‘The desk.’
‘Yes. But I think he keeps the drawers locked.’
But the top drawers were not locked, and she realized he must have been working when he was interrupted. The three drawers on the left-hand side were also unlocked. Here there were a jumble of spectacles, fuses, an elastic bandage, a pile of cassettes, an old squash ball, more papers, letters, a diary, but no pistol.
‘The bottom drawer’s locked,’ she said. ‘My husband must have the key.’
‘Force it,’ he said.
‘I don’t know how.’
Again he tried to get to his feet, again the dizziness swept over him. Then he said, ‘Take the middle drawer out.’
She pulled the drawer out and put it on the desk. She could see into the bottom drawer. It contained what looked like the sort of shoe-bag one took to school as a child. She lifted it out. She was right. Sewn into one corner was a tag which said, ‘Richard Spencer, Form IV, Arundel House.’ But it did not contain shoes. There was something small and heavy. She opened the draw-string and pulled out first a brush of the kind used to
clean babies’ bottles, then a small bottle of oil, a rag, and finally the pistol itself. She handed it to Riemeck, who slid open the breech with professional ease. The gun was loaded.
At that moment they heard Tellier on the stairs.
‘Tell him you think I’m dying,’ he whispered, and lay back on the Chesterfield, the gun in his right hand under the blanket.
She was terrified again. Things had moved too quickly. How would she convince Tellier? What if he found the gun? What would he do to her?
‘Here is the hot water-bottle,’ Tellier said. He was holding a slice of bread in his other hand. ‘Is he awake yet?’
She cleared her throat. ‘I — I think he’s dying.’
‘You don’t die from a little burn.’
‘The blow on the head,’ she said.
Tellier stood in the centre of the room. ‘Listen to his breathing,’ she said. ‘It’s very light.’
Tellier moved forward. As he did so she realized she had left the drawer on top of the desk. She had been standing between it and Tellier. Now she moved to keep it out of sight. He gave her the bottle and she hugged it to her chest. It was hot and gave some comfort. Tellier leant over Riemeck to listen.
He couldn’t hear any breathing at all. He moved his ear to Riemeck’s chest to listen for his heart. He couldn’t hear that either. He lifted his head to call Muller and felt something hard on his neck. Then he found himself looking into Riemeck’s eyes. ‘Stay as you are, Louis,’ Riemeck said. ‘It’s a gun. Look.’ He brought the pistol away, let Tellier see it, then forced the barrel into his ear. ‘Now help me up, Louis. But be careful.’
‘Take it easy, Werner. Take it easy.’
‘You take it easy. Give me your arm. Slowly... slowly! If I fall you get one in the brain.’
They came up from the Chesterfield in slow motion, Tellier with his arm about Riemeck. As the blood left Riemeck’s head he felt his knees begin to buckle. ‘Tighter,’ he said, screwing the gun into Tellier’s ear. In a few moments he began to feel better and his vision cleared. ‘Now come round.’ He shifted so that he was behind the Frenchman. ‘When we get to the stairs we go down sideways. You in front of me. Me with my back to the wall. Understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where’s your car?’
‘In the road.’
‘We go there. Then you drive where I tell you. Understand?’
‘Yes.’
Riemeck turned to Susan. ‘Can you open the front door?’
‘I think so.’
‘Go quietly. Take off your shoes.’
The three began to descend the stairs to the ground floor. Susan went first, followed by the two men, locked together. They could hear voices in the kitchen, which was at the back of the house. No one in the kitchen could see the staircase but once they reached the hall they would be visible for a matter of seconds if anyone was at the kitchen door. At the bottom of the stairs Riemeck stopped. Susan looked at him and he nodded. Noiselessly, she crossed the carpeted hall and carefully unlocked the front door. There was the faintest clicking of the lock and the door swung open. As he moved towards it Riemeck felt the cold autumn air on his legs.
It was this draught that disturbed Muller in the kitchen. His senses, so finely attuned to danger for so long a period, were in-stantiy alerted by something, he did not know what. Then he isolated it. There was a movement of cold air where there should not have been.
‘Louis?’ he called.
The two men were in the centre of the hall. ‘Say nothing,’ Riemeck said. He twisted so that they were walking backwards, Tellier shielding him from the kitchen area.
‘Louis!’ This time it was much louder.
‘Answer him,’ Riemeck whispered.
‘Oui?’
Muller came to the door of the kitchen but the two men were out of his line of sight. He looked up towards the first floor and called, ‘Everything all right?’
Riemeck forced the gun deeper into Tellier’s ear. ‘Oui,’ Tellier said.
It was this final acknowledgement which undid them. It came from the wrong part of the house. Muller reached for the machine pistol on the kitchen table and ran into the passage. The two men were almost at the door when he saw them.
‘Jurgen!’ Tellier began, but did not finish the sentence, or at least no one heard it, for Muller did not hesitate. He fired at the group, hitting Susan, then Tellier several times in the chest before he fell to one side. Riemeck did not have time to aim his pistol. The bullets passed through Tellier and into him and soon he could no longer hold Tellier and his own body became the target.
Spencer ran from the kitchen, the sound of Susan’s abrupt, cut-off scream in his ears. The bodies lay just inside the door. Smoke floated in layers on the still autumn air. Across the road curtains were being pulled back, lights were springing on. But inside the house everything was frozen, all movement stopped. The bodies lay upon each other in a tangled mass. He was barely aware of Muller and the girl pulling Tellier free and carrying him down the path to the street. He stood there, other visions bursting before his eyes, other arms and legs, other heads. The woman was no longer Susan, she was the woman in the cellar, the fingers dissolved even as he looked at them and became blue stumps, and above the body in the shadows... what? Was it there? Grey black... wolf-sable... ready to spring; to feed? He was aware of a great ringing cry; it filled the hall and poured out into the night. It took him some seconds to realize that the cry was coming from himself.
It was the cry that brought help; it was the cry that the neighbours mentioned; that the police heard of. They said it was the cry of a man whose loved one was killed before his eyes. But it was more than that; it was a cry that Dr Faustus might have made; it was a cry that sounded across an abyss where nightmares lurked, where Nemesis waited; it was a cry of recognition.
Part two
London
In the month that followed the murder of his wife and unborn child Spencer lived in a grim world of memories, remorse and rage, broken intermittently by visits from the police to his house and his own visits to Scotland Yard. He was questioned by members of the Terrorist and Bomb Squad and by Detective Chief Superintendent Nichols of E for Echo District, his local division. Later, permission was given for representatives of the German ‘Popos’, the political police, and the ‘Kripos’, the criminal police, to talk to him. He described what had happened, but made no mention of Bruno or of the heraldic leopards.
There were several press conferences set up by the police but he did not attend them. At first his house was besieged by press and TV reporters but he kept his mouth grimly shut and after a while they left him in peace. At the end of four weeks there was no question left to answer that had not been asked; nothing left to read in the police files that had not been read; no photograph left to see that had not been seen.
In these weeks immediately after the shooting it was Detective Chief Superintendent Nichols who kept him abreast of the investigation. And one evening he telephoned to say that the Volkswagen microbus had been found in a car park in Cosham in Hampshire. There was no sign of Telliers body and it was assumed that the man and woman who survived had got rid of it in some forest or lake, or had buried it in the Queen Elizabeth Park. A search was carried out, but nothing was found.
Everything was an assumption. It was assumed that after they had got rid of Tellier’s body the man and woman had walked into Portsmouth and caught the ferry for France. Another assumption was that the woman was no longer a blonde, the man no longer bearded. No one knew what they really looked like. In the rear of the VW the police had discovered a blonde wig made in Italy and two track-suits made in Korea. They had lifted a mass of fingerprints, but the few clear enough for identification had proved untraceable.
After Scotland Yard’s forensic experts had gone over the Volkswagen it was taken to Hampshire police headquarters in Winchester and there two experts from the Berlin Kriminal-polizei were allowed to examine it. They set about taking the int
erior to pieces. For two days they found no more than their British counterparts, and then they had a stroke of luck. In forcing a panel out of the wardrobe one of the joints broke and they found, caught in the back of the panel, a small square of cloth with the heraldic device of three leopards on it. The German forensic experts did not share this piece of information with their British colleagues, and when they returned to Berlin they took it with them for identification.
At the end of four weeks the police left Spencer alone and even the telephone calls from Nichols became less frequent; there was nothing to report. For Spencer, the four weeks went by like four years. He was waiting, and time hangs heavy when you wait. He had tried to live a life as close as he could to the one he had lived before. He had gone to work and worked hard all day, but it was the evenings he dreaded. They lay in wait for him as autumn turned to winter. Some nights he went out and wandered through Soho and the West End because he could not face the empty house. On others he brought piles of work home and sat at his desk until two or three in the morning, filling the hours with work or TV or radio, anything that would occupy time in such a way as to blanket his thoughts.
But nothing was effective and he went over and over in his mind the events of that last evening, trying to see where it might have turned on a different path. If only Sue had done the cooking, if only she had not said she had taken a course in first aid, if he had been quicker when he had grabbed the gun, if... if he had never met Bruno...
His thoughts led him farther and farther back, for the springs of the shooting in Hampstead were locked in other events more than a quarter of a century old. For most of his adult life he had tried to forget what had happened in Germany, but now his life had turned a corner and there they all were, waiting for him, the memories he had so carefully buried...
*
The first thing John Spencer could remember about his father, Wilfred Spencer, was the black shirt in which he would dress most Saturdays, and in which he would return either late on Saturday night or on Sunday morning, sometimes with bruising on his face and the skin off his knuckles. He was a small man with a toothbrush moustache and hair slicked down with bril-liantine. When Spencer was older he had equated his father’s militant fascism with his diminutive size. He was barely five feet four inches tall and in his own house he was something of a dictator. Spencer’s mother, a colourless, introspective woman, was no match for him and he dominated the household like some tyrannical pygmy.
Berlin Blind Page 4
