Dieter sat back. Georg rarely saw the point of softening bad news. In three bleak minutes he’d forced his compadre to contemplate a brutal truth about the regime. It might be fear or greed or ambition or spite or just vanity, but whatever the motivation, mere individuals counted for nothing. In the war of all against all, no one was safe.
‘So I might never see her again,’ Dieter said softly. ‘Can you imagine that?’
*
Schultz was waiting for Tam a hundred metres beyond the Pariser Platz entrance to the Tiergarten. A pair of dark glasses did nothing to hide his anger.
‘We walk,’ he nodded towards the distant lake, ‘while you explain yourself.’
‘In what respect?’
‘We tried to find you last night. You weren’t at the hotel. We tried again this morning. Nothing. We leave you a message and expect a prompt response. Again, nothing. The owner of the hotel is a friend of mine. Your bed wasn’t slept in. Why might that be?’
‘I have a life to lead,’ Tam said. ‘With great respect, you’re not my keeper.’
‘But I am, my friend. I am. For as long as you’re here with us, that’s exactly what I am. We keep you close. We keep you safe. And in return we expect to be taken seriously.’
‘Of course. My apologies.’
Schultz stared at him, suddenly uncertain. No decent quarrel ended as abruptly as this.
‘So where were you?’
‘With a woman.’
‘A German?’
‘No. She’s a friend and she has nothing to do with any of this. You’ve talked to Beck at all? Since our meeting?’
‘Of course. You told him the English will march. You remember that?’
‘I do.’
‘Well, he doesn’t believe you. We had an envoy in London last week, a man who knows a great deal about the Hitler plans. He had a number of meetings, a number of conversations. People in power, people who matter. None of them believes that Hitler will move against the Czechs. And so none of them will give us the assurance we need. Without that assurance, nothing can happen from our end. Nothing.’
He spat the word out and Tam felt a brief jolt of sympathy. After all, Schultz and his fellow conspirators were putting their very lives on the line. To bring Hitler to his senses they had to make him realise that a move against Czechoslovakia would have catastrophic consequences. Yet the English would say nothing.
‘I’m not a politician,’ Tam said mildly. ‘I believe I made that point last night.’
‘But you have connections. That’s what you also said. And that’s what we know. It takes a spy to know a spy and you, my friend, are one of us.’
‘Does that make me reliable?’
‘It makes you useful. We speak the same language. Sometimes I suspect we have the same ends in view. In this case, that couldn’t be plainer. Your people don’t want a war, not a proper war, and neither do mine.’
‘So what are you suggesting?’
‘I’m suggesting you return to England. Tonight if necessary. I’m suggesting you talk to your people. I’m suggesting you tell them that you have the ear of someone important, truly important, and I’m not talking about Beck. You’ll be meeting this person at Nuremberg next week. We’ll get you down there from Berlin. And we expect you to bring a message of support. Is that clear?’
Tam came to a halt. The prospect of leaving a murder investigation behind him was more than welcome. He asked Schultz who this important person might be. Schultz ignored the question. Instead, he beckoned Tam closer.
‘A word in your ear, my friend. Call it a favour.’
‘What kind of favour?’
‘Kreisky is dead. As you probably know. A loss to his family and a loss to the Reich. As it happens, the Gestapo have made an arrest already. A Czech patriot. A man blinded by his own folly. Naturally he had nothing to do with Kreisky’s death, but happily he fits the bill. Not my bill, Herr Moncrieff, but theirs. The evidence is conclusive, as it would be. The man will stand trial tomorrow morning. He’ll be dead before nightfall. His name? Would you care to hazard a guess?’
Tam was staring at him. He felt physically sick.
‘Kovač,’ he said. ‘Edvard Kovač.’
‘Indeed.’ He offered Tam a cold smile. ‘Just one more bullet for Goebbels’ gun when it comes to justifying the invasion.’
21
BERLIN, 31 AUGUST 1938
Dieter got very drunk that night. The Chief Engineer’s name was Stefan, a hard-featured wisp of a man. At work he was stern and unforgiving, insisting on the tightest standards of accuracy and attention to detail, but off-duty – especially when any kind of celebration was involved – he could shed one personality and become someone entirely different.
Stefan also had a second wife of whom he was inordinately proud. Her name was Ines. She was a big woman, much bigger than Stefan, with a smoky laugh and faraway eyes. Stefan had met her in the Pankow jazz club where she’d occasionally appeared as a guest singer. Her father had come from Saxony and her mother was Creole, a combination that sat uneasily with certain elements in the Reich, but the maintenance crews loved her and she – in turn – had recently acquired a passion for Der Kleine.
She loved anyone who took risks. She’d watched him in the air and on the ground and concluded that he belonged in some faraway corner of outer space denied to ordinary mortals. In the Middle Ages, she said, you’d probably have found the little imp embellishing a stained-glass window in one of the bigger cathedrals. With his perfect features and his ready grin he had something of the divine about him. Dieter, who’d first heard some of this from the lips of her husband, didn’t pretend to understand but Ines cooked a legendary strudel and you’d be foolish to argue with that.
Ines had brought a couple of musicians from the jazz club to enliven the party. Dieter, increasingly unsteady, had been dancing with Beata. Ines’s version of ‘Happy Birthday’, wildly suggestive, had just won a huge round of applause from engineers and pilots alike, but when she stepped down from the tiny makeshift stage Dieter had trouble keeping her in focus. To more cheers, she was embracing her husband. Then she broke off and made her way through the crowd towards Dieter. This afternoon, returning from a display over central Berlin, he’d performed a low roll over her neighbourhood in honour of Stefan. Now she wanted to say thank you.
Dieter was still clinging on to Beata. He seemed to have a problem understanding what Ines was trying to say.
‘This afternoon,’ she repeated. ‘I heard you coming. I always hear you coming. That was me in the garden. Waving.’
‘At me?’
‘At you.’
‘Why?’
The two women exchanged glances. Men were starting to move away. This wasn’t the Dieter they’d got to know. Even Stefan, locked in conversation with Georg, had started to take an interest.
Beata beckoned Ines closer, whispered in her ear. Dieter understood only one word. Keiko.
‘They will,’ he said. ‘They’re going to.’ The words came out wrong and he knew it. Slurred. Mangled. Damaged.
‘Will what?’ Ines was looking concerned.
‘Kill her.’ Dieter was crouching now, his eyes moist, one hand locked on some imaginary control column, his thumb feeling for the fire button. ‘Brrr… brrr…’ He tried to mimic the chatter of a machine gun, failed completely.
Ines put her arms round him, her face very close. Dieter peered up at her. She smelled wonderful. She smelled of Keiko.
‘Not you,’ he muttered. ‘They won’t kill you. No one will ever kill you.’
‘No one will kill anyone. You’re dreaming. Imagining things. This is a happy time. We love you. Come.’
Gently, she led him from the room. Down the corridor was her husband’s office. Dieter found himself sitting in Stefan’s leather chair. It swivelled left and right. He wanted to throw up.
‘Here…’ It was Ines. She’d found the waste-paper basket. She slipped behind him and cradled his forehead while he began t
o retch. His father had done something similar, when he was a child. He reached for her other hand, held it tight.
‘Thank you.’ At last he’d finished.
‘You want to stay here? Just for a while? Then maybe come back to the party when you’re ready?’
Dieter gazed up at her and nodded, more grateful than he could possibly explain.
‘Yes,’ he said.
There was a lavatory across the corridor. She emptied the waste-paper basket and returned with a dampened flannel. She bathed Dieter’s face and then kissed him. Maybe a little coffee?
Dieter was gazing up at her. He shook his head. No coffee.
Ines left the office, closing the door behind her. At first Dieter shut his eyes, still slumped in the chair, but sleep wouldn’t come. All he could think of was the chaos that awaited him at home in Potsdam. That’s where they’d made a life for themselves. That’s where they’d started to plan for some kind of future once things had settled down.
He knew places up on the Baltic Coast that Keiko would adore. They could save for a little chalet where the pine woods met the sea, a broken-down old place they could make their own. They could hammer and saw and cook and swim, and make as many babies as they wanted. The world would be at peace and no one would dream of killing anyone else, and in the early mornings there’d be no footprints on the sand but their own. He smiled at the thought, gazing sightlessly at the office walls, trying to tell himself that it could still happen, that the last twenty-four hours had been some kind of nightmare, or maybe just a simple mistake. He’d find his way home and the place would be untouched and the face waiting on the pillow would be hers.
Wrong. Beside the door there was a row of hooks. Dieter tried to count them, gave up. Each hook held a key. Some belonged to cupboards in the big maintenance hangar. The one at the end he’d seen only hours ago. It unlocked the canopy on his beloved Emil.
He struggled to his feet, steadying himself on the edge of the desk, and then made it to the door. The key nestled sweetly in the palm of his hand. Out in the corridor he could hear laughter. The music had started again, the first in a round of drinking songs, and for a moment he toyed with rejoining the party. Then he shook his head, telling himself he had a much better idea.
At the other end of the corridor was a side entrance that led on to the grass, and thence to the maintenance hangar. Dieter leaned back on the door to close it, staring out at the darkness. Far away to the north he could see the yellow glow of the city’s lights. Above, when he looked up, a thousand stars. He began to walk again, weaving left and right, making for the dark shapes of aircraft parked in front of the hangar. Landings, he told himself. Life is all about landings. Losing height. Maintaining speed. Shedding a little more altitude. Having faith in your judgement, in your machine. Resisting gravity until that last sweet moment when you felt the wheels touch.
He paused to be sick again, staring at the puddle of vomit at his feet. Ines had served Blutwurst earlier. Stefan loved Blutwurst. Dieter wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, looking up. The little Messerschmitt was dwarfed by the bigger planes, Hitler’s Ju-52 and the other tri-motors in the fleet. Compared to these monsters, the Emil was an orphan. It seemed a thousand miles away. It seemed beyond reach.
He started to walk again, his head a little clearer. He could do this. The plane was the brother he’d never had, the one sure thing he could rely on, his last best hope. Finally he made it. To his faint surprise he was still clutching the key. He reached up for the grab-holds on the fuselage, cold under his touch, and somehow levered himself up on to the wing. There was a small element of miracle in this. It was as if his body belonged to somebody else, under their control and not his own.
He wavered, fighting to stay upright, and then his fingers found the lock that secured the canopy.
He couldn’t get the key to fit. He tried and he tried. He held it very close to his eye, frowning with concentration, trying to spot what might be wrong, maybe dirt, maybe something else. He gave it a wipe on his trousers and this time it worked. He turned it slowly, feeling the lock give, and then opened the canopy.
The cockpit yawned before him. Home, he thought. He got in like a blind man, using his hands to ward off obstacles. The joystick. The throttle control. The undercarriage lever. Finally, he settled in the seat, automatically slipping the harness over his shoulders and buckling himself in. No life jacket, he thought. Who cares?
He sat back, savouring this moment of silence. The canopy was still open and he could smell summer on the wind. He reached for the master switch. Prime first, he told himself. Then see if she fires. He smiled, peering out of the cockpit, trying to map his way between the surrounding aircraft, then plotting a track towards the runway. The dashboard was lit now. Full fuel tank. Perfect.
‘Compadre?’ It was Georg. His face hung over the cockpit, pale in the darkness. He’d appeared from nowhere.
Dieter stared up at him, wondering whether he was real or not. He looked real enough.
‘News?’ He wiped his eyes. ‘Keiko?’
‘No.’
Dieter nodded, stared at the controls. No news.
‘What were you going to do?’ Georg was squatting on the wing.
‘I was going to fly it.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
‘Bad idea?’
‘Terrible idea. You’d never fly again. Assuming you survived.’
‘You mean they wouldn’t let me?’
‘No. And neither would I.’
Dieter let the news sink in. Very sensible, he thought. Very Georg. His fingers found the harness and he unbuckled himself.
‘I’d like to go home,’ Dieter said.
‘No.’ Another shake of the head. ‘You’re coming home with us. Here. This is from Beata. Sol Fiedler gave it to her this afternoon. It’s for you.’
‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know. Sol said it’s a gift from Jewish science.’
‘Jewish science?’
‘Goebbels’ word for anything he doesn’t understand. Open it. Take a look.’
He gave Dieter the parcel. Dieter examined it, felt it, shook his head. Finally he managed to get the paper off. He could feel the waxiness beneath his fingers.
‘It’s a candle,’ he said. ‘What do I do with a fucking candle?’
*
Bella was able to confirm that Kreisky was dead. Her friend in the Kripo was involved in the ongoing investigation. A post-mortem had found a break between the second and third vertebrae but what appeared to have killed him had been a massive heart attack.
‘You scared him to death,’ she said. ‘The broken neck didn’t help but it didn’t kill him.’
They were talking in the bar at Tempelhof Airport. Hours earlier, she’d booked Tam on the day’s last flight to London but there was a technical problem with the aircraft and he was still waiting for the call to board.
He wanted to know more about Edvard Kovač. Was it true he’d been arrested?
‘Yes. He’s been in prison in Karlovy Vary for a couple of weeks. The Sudetens handed him over at the border and the Kripo brought him to Berlin. Someone at the top wants a Czech to take the fall and Kovač is perfect. There’s no evidence, of course, but that won’t matter. The Kripo can be very creative. They’ll just invent it.’ She paused. ‘You know this man?’
‘Yes.’
‘How? Do you mind me asking?’
‘Not at all.’
At last Tam told her about his visit to the Sudetenland. It turned out she knew about the mine outside Jáchymov that Kovač had planned to sabotage.
‘This is delicate territory,’ she said. ‘I don’t understand the science but nothing happens without the stuff they dig out of that place.’
‘It’s called uranium.’
‘I know. I gather we’re in the queue as well.’ She looked Tam in the eye. ‘Is that why you killed Kreisky?’
‘Not exactly. I met Kovač through another woman. Her name wa
s Renata.’
‘Was?’
‘She died. She was killed. Kreisky was part of that.’
‘And she mattered to you? This woman?’
‘She did. She does. She was my introduction, if you like. I was never part of this game until I met her.’
‘That sounds like an accusation.’
‘On the contrary, it was me who let her down.’
‘Guilt, then? Is that it? Is that why Kreisky’s dead?’
Tam didn’t answer. From the bar he had a clear view of the London plane through the windows of the departure lounge. Handlers were offloading bags from the cargo hold. Not a good sign.
Bella had taken Tam’s hand. She turned it over, began to trace the lines on his palm.
‘A girl’s allowed to be superstitious.’ She glanced up. ‘Do you mind?’
‘Help yourself.’
‘I see a journey.’
‘Very clever.’
‘And a meeting.’ She was frowning. ‘Someone old. Somewhere in the country. This person builds walls. He also tears them down. He’s a rebel. A free spirit. No one trusts him. Neither should you.’ She looked up at him. ‘You’re so new to this, aren’t you? And so unprepared? I find that rather touching.’
The flight was cancelled. The Lufthansa manager arrived in the bar, offered his apologies and asked Tam to report back to the airport at seven o’clock tomorrow morning. He guaranteed a serviceable aircraft and a clear run to London. In the meantime, he was more than happy to offer him a room at a nearby hotel.
‘Is that for two?’ Bella had abandoned Tam’s lifelines.
‘Of course, madame. It’s the least we can do.’
Tam appeared to have little say in this arrangement. She’d driven him to the airport and now they took her car to the hotel. The restaurant was about to close but Bella managed to conjure a table. One of her many chores at the embassy was to meet incoming visitors above a certain rank and she’d used this same hotel on a number of occasions.
Waiting for the meal, she pressed him a little harder about Renata. Tam was beginning to find her curiosity uncomfortable.
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