Offspring

by Stan Mason

  ‘My area extends worldwide. There’s simply too much work. I can’t limit my research when rooting out war criminals. Let me tell you the story of a friend at the time when the commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp was caught.. He was present at the interrogation and a question was posed that will never be repeated again in the history of mankind... at least I hope it will never be asked again. The question to the Nazi was: “How many Jews did you kill in the gas-chambers at Auschwitz?” The answer came back curtly: “Half a million!” The interrogator looked at the war criminal for a while before continuing. “That’s not true. It was one and a half million.” “No,” declared the Nazi, “it was half a million. I was absent from the camp for ten months. It’s important that the figures are accurate!”

  Berg paused for a moment as if choking back some tears. ‘Can you imagine the workings of the mind of someone who has to be accurate in the number of innocent people he killed? And who and where was the war criminal who stood in for this monster for the ten months he was away? You see, my work takes me everywhere. I used to envy Carrie. She was responsible for Britain... a relatively small area. But there was a twofold issue which applied. Israel not only wants to capture all the Nazi war criminals and put them on trial for their crimes, but it is also determined to stop the bastards from starting the Fourth Reich. We’ve had enough of them! There are many young people who keep saying it’s time the atrocities of the last war were forgotten. Such people are ripe for recruitment to an evil cause. They have a saying in Israel about the holocaust. It goes: “We must remember never to forget!”

  ‘Who’s Kirk?’ I asked bluntly, recalling the words at the foot of the first computer disk in Miss Grayson’s office.

  ‘I thought you knew,’ he returned with an element of surprise in his voice. ‘Harry Kirk is the Commander-in-Chief of International Three Thousand in Sector A4.’

  ‘Sector A4?’ My attention became riveted to the answer.

  ‘Germany is Sector A1, Holland A2, France A3, Britain A4, and so on. They’ve carved up the whole of Europe.’

  ‘Where can I get more details?’ I asked with ostensible naivety.

  He looked at me knowingly and smiled amiably. ‘You know the old saying,’ he advised sagely. ‘If you can’t beat them, join them!’

  For the next half-hour he helped me clear up the mess in the apartment and then left to make the appropriate arrangements for Carrie. No doubt he would contact the Israeli embassy for transport at London Airport where the body would be shipped to Tel Aviv by El Al Airlines. It made me question whether the world I lived in was one of reality. It had gone mad! Half the people lived ordinary humdrum lives: the rest were agents, spies, terrorists, anarchists, and the like. It was no longer possible to be certain of anyone... even if you knew them. For my part, Carrie was a pleasant young woman who ought to have been working in an office or a factory with a view to finding a husband and leading a normal life, ultimately producing two or three children. How could I tell she was an Israeli agent dedicated to seek out Nazi war criminals? I was far removed from all that. None of my parents, grandparents, uncles, brothers or sisters were slaughtered by insensitive maniacs in charge of concentration camps, who turned the fat of the bodies of their victims into soap cubes, or made lampshades from their skin. When viewed in that light, it wasn’t easy to forget even if a person, or their family, hadn’t been involved.

  Berg returned at seven-thirty that evening. Together we carried the body out of the apartment and laid it onto a wooden board in the hearse he had brought. We climbed into the front seats and he glanced at me as he started the engine. ‘We have about a mile to drive,’ he told me. ‘Someone will meet us and take her off our hands.’

  He drove off and I wondered why there was any need for my presence. Perhaps Berg needed someone to give him confidence, or I was still required to do something to assist him. He didn’t seem keen to communicate but that was hardly surprising. He was probably deeply wounded by the death of the woman he had once intended to marry. Then I realised my senses were dulled with compassion. What was I doing here? I had risked my life by being in the company of an agent or a spy. Now I was an accessory to disposing of the body of a murdered woman!

  ‘I think we’re being followed,’ Berg informed me after a while..

  I turned to note the bright lights of a car some distance behind us. ‘Turn left at the traffic lights!’ I commanded. He obeyed the instruction but the car remained with us. ‘Turn right here,’ I said quickly. Berg acted accordingly but our pursuer still followed at a respectable distance. ‘I’m not going to chase all over London with a body in the back!’ I complained, with my heart in my mouth. ‘We’d better get to our destination as soon as possible!’

  Ten minutes later, Berg turned the car into a side road in an area close to the docks. Two men wearing anoraks emerged quickly from the darkness and ran towards us. Berg alighted, motioning me to do the same, and the two men climbed into our seats before driving off at speed. Despite my remorse at Carrie’s death, I breathed a sigh of relief at having disposed of her body before the police arrived to ask awkward questions. I had no satisfactory explanations to offer. Suddenly, our pursuers entered the side road and Berg pushed me back against a wall, into the shadows.

  The car stopped and one of the doors opened. Two hefty men got out of the car and started walking towards us.

  ‘Run!’ shouted Berg, giving me a push in the back to start me off.

  Before I knew what was happening, my legs were pounding the rough pavement of the docks area towards an unknown destination. It was obvious our pursuers were not the police. But who were they? I didn’t know and I had no intention of staying to find out. They were the hunters; I was the prey! That concept in itself was enough to keep me running! I wasn’t sure how long I kept going. Perspiration dripped from my chin, my body was saturated with sweat, and I could scarcely breath any more. I stopped for a moment to hide in the shadows against a strange door and closed my eyes. This was becoming a nightmare! I couldn’t afford to rest for long in case they were close behind me. I had to move on. It was ridiculous! Why should I be running for my life? My head began to throb and my lungs felt as though they were about to implode. A sense of urgency passed through my tired body as the sound of footsteps hammered on the rough pavements only a short distance away. It seemed they were bound to catch me whichever direction I took. I had no idea what had happened to Berg. He might have got away because all the footsteps appeared to be moving towards me. ‘Oh, Barnaby,’ I thought to myself. ‘Why did you have to break your leg? It should be you in my place, running for your life. It should be you!’

  The footsteps sounded nearer but it was difficult to determine their precise location. The only advice I could offer myself was to run like the Devil until I fell into a heap. As I was about to drag my weary legs a little further, I heard the faint noise of an approaching motor vehicle. It emerged at the top of the street with its headlights cutting through the darkness. I had to take a chance! Without warning, I stepped off the kerb into the road waving my arms wildly in an effort to force the driver to stop. There was a loud squeal of brakes and it swerved dangerously past me, continuing on its way.

  ‘There’s one of them!’ The voice sounded very close. The comment indicated they hadn’t caught Berg.

  They were almost on me when there was the sound of a police siren in the near vicinity. The two men hesitated and stopped. The police car turned into the side road. I believe it may have been chasing the car which nearly ran me down. Whatever the reason, it caused the two men to retrace their steps quickly as I stepped out into the road in front of it. This time, the vehicle stopped and an irate policeman started shouting at me for allowing his prey to get away. By the time he had finished, Berg began calling to me from a doorway and the two men had vanished.

  I didn’t feel very well at all when I got home. I was clearly out of condition a
nd not used to being hunted down by people who intended to make an example of me. It was nearly nine o’clock when I arrived at Miss Grayson’s flat. I think she had given up hope again that I would keep the appointment. She answered the door with an unpleasant expression on her face, but her attitude changed substantially when she saw my dishevelled appearance and the state of my clothes.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked, staring at the blood on my hand. I hadn’t realised it but I had been struck by the wing mirror of the first car as it raced past me.

  ‘To be honest, I don’t know,’ I replied unhelpfully. ‘I really don’t know. It seems that some people have it in mind to play rough.’ In the ensuing silence, I thought about my words very carefully. What I had told her was untrue. Berg had advised me to run, but no one had threatened or manhandled either one of us... because we hadn’t been caught. I had the strangest feeling in the pit of my stomach. Did Berg stage the whole thing to scare me? After all, he was the only one who knew we were going to dispose of Carrie’s body at that time of night! And how did he manage to end up in the same street when the police car arrived? There were lots of unanswered questions which plagued my mind!

  ‘You’d better take a shower,’ suggested Miss Grayson, pointing in the direction of the bathroom. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to do with a candlewick bathrobe.’

  Stripping off my clothes, I stepped into the cubicle, scrubbing myself down with scented soap. After a few minutes, the cabinet door opened and Miss Grayson, who was also naked, stepped calmly in beside me. I almost pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. Then desire and lust overcame the weariness and I stared at her lovely face and body close to me in that tiny area.

  ‘To look is not to touch!’ she warned, with the water streaming over both our bodies.

  ‘It’s O.K.,’ I told her. ‘I agree with that but I’m going to have to play the hero and save you from drowning.’ I placed my hands on her shoulders pulling her towards me gently. I was delighted to note that she didn’t resist.

  We stood stock still for a while under the warm torrent of water, but it wasn’t long before we were standing so close together that there was no space between us at all. My hands moved gently down the sides of her arms and down her back incessantly. The jets of water from above seemed to stimulate her and before I realised it we were making love with each other in that tiny space. After we emerged and dried ourselves, I lay her face downwards on the bed and massaged her back delicately. Our passion for each other had been strong. Consequently, my love-making had forced her time and time again into the solid tiled wall of the shower cubicle. In hindsight, it was not the ideal place to make love vigorously. For Miss Grayson, the pain and the pleasure seemed to have equal values; she never complained at all!

  It wasn’t long before I began to feel ashamed of myself. Carrie had only just been murdered in my bed. What kind of a person was I to sleep with her one night and then make love to another woman only a few hours after her death? I recognised that Carrie’s wanton attitude might have been the reason for her murder. It was the waste of a good life, whether she was an Israeli agent or not! In any case, what did that matter? She had been a beautiful young woman, and the life of every human-being was most precious. I thought about her without feelings of remorse. Death was the final frontier on earth. For the rest of us, life had to go on... and I now lay in the arms of Miss Grayson who was alluring and exciting, alive and well!

  Chapter Five

  I was unable to sleep very much that night. Miss Grayson kept stirring and shifting because of the bruises on her back which kept paining her. I made a note never to make love to her in the shower cubicle again. Eventually, she turned over on to her stomach to lie face downwards, and there was both stillness and silence. I lay with my head on the pillow allowing the incidents of the past few days to run loosely through my mind. It was like trying to solve a crossword puzzle for a desired major prize and I couldn’t start it. The clues were too hard and, as time went on, I became more and more frustrated at being so inept, realising I had misguided myself in that I was better at my job than the assignment proved. Perhaps, after all, I was simply the hack writer working for a mundane newspaper... as Barnaby always told me in his own inimitable way... and nothing more!

  In time, I dozed off lightly but not for very long. It was early morning when I came to my senses fully. Miss Grayson emitted a loud moan and shifted beside me. I was enthused with an idea to write a number of editorials, if I accomplished my task successfully. The few facts in my possession gnawed at my mind for a while before they marshalled themselves in the right order. No one would believe me if I told them the truth. The sceptics always scoffed at the implausibility of human misdeeds; the do-gooders generally demanded over-tolerance in case the innocent were injured; the realists usually demanded their pound of flesh against the wrong-doers. I had no doubt in my mind, however, that Europe basked in the shadow of a peaceful revolution which would have the effect of transferring, all law, power, sovereignty, control and administration to an entity as yet unknown... at least unknown to the world in its new form. I had no idea how long it would take to materialise, but the sources of evil had already spread like a cancer amongst the children and grandchildren of the Nazis and those people whose life ambitions were intertwined with anarchy and chaos. They would never yield to reason or constraint in pursuit of their cause.

  I went into Miss Grayson’s study and closed the door behind me. An electric typewriter rested on a reproduction desk which made me feel very much at home. I stuffed a sheet of paper into the machine and let my fingers speak my mind in their own inimitable way, frothing out the words in front of me.

  “Revolution is the process of civil disturbance which changes control of the ruling leadership or government. It has the effect of altering all procedures of a state or country according to the new dictates. In most cases, it affects seriously the lives of the people... and only the people. There is a strange premeditated breeze which fans the flame of revolution. It is a feeling in the air; an aroma in the wind. It moves like a virus floating from tongue to tongue. Worst of all, the infection breeds quickly spreading like wildfire, revelling in its own contagion. Yet revolution itself has a vested interest only in change, and there lies the crux of the matter, for it is the people themselves who are sucked into the maelstrom of a new era, breaking the yoke of oppression, and sometimes discovering that the latest regime adopts the line of harsher abuse than the previous rule. Successful revolutions are rarely quick and easy. They often take years to prepare, depending on leadership and resources, in order to bring the forces of anarchy to fomentation. The rupture of society is cause by the tension of political and economic pressures either by military might or as a bloodless coup. However, revolutions of magnitude change the face of modern history, not only for the state or country involved but for the whole world.”

  I stopped at that point to read through the work. It was punchy and expressed the true nature of the issue. Unfortunately, one of the main flaws in my character was the fact I was in love with my own work which made me a poor critic of anything I wrote. I glanced at my wristwatch to note the hour was still young, and decided to leave Miss Grayson in peace. It was light as I left her apartment. There were no taxis evident so I started the long walk home, allowing the seeds of revolution to fester in my brain.

  It was nearly an hour before I got there. A lot of work was required to be done to straighten up the place. On the advice of a friend some years earlier, I had a mortise lock installed as an added protection against burglary. When I turned the key, however, the lock indicated that the door had already been opened. Something was very much amiss for I was a creature of habit and never failed to secure the apartment properly on leaving. It was more likely someone had gained entry. Worst still, the intruder might still be inside waiting to attack me! I eased the door open carefully and peered inside before switching on the light. Everything seem
ed to be in the same disorder as at the moment I had left. I crept stealthily into the front room and closed the door behind me. Suddenly, the bedroom door opened and a man rushed out at me wielding a large kitchen knife. Instinctively, I reacted with my limited knowledge of the martial arts, disarming him by parrying the stroke and forcing him to the floor with a vicious neck lock which caused him to howl in pain. I kicked the knife into a corner of the room before lifting him by the front of his shirt and throwing him on to the settee to exhibit my physical superiority. ‘Who are you, and what’s this all about?’ I demanded angrily. The perspiration stemming from the shock began to make my skin feel clammy. He refused to answer for a moment and I advanced menacingly towards him as though preparing to inflict more harm.

  ‘No, no!’ he pleaded, covering his face with his arms like a boxer under severe attack on the ropes. ‘Don’t hit me!’

  The man seemed to be totally incompetent for whatever role he had in mind. ‘What’s this all about?’ I challenged, drawing myself up to my full height to become even more intimidating.

  ‘You bastard!’ he shouted, finding an untapped source of audacity. ‘You killed my sister!’

  ‘Your sister?’ For a moment I considered the man may have come to the wrong apartment. I recalled several music hall jokes concerning such errors told to me in the past which I had found amusing, but it wasn’t so funny finding myself at the butt end of a charade. ‘What are you talking about?’ I riposted sharply. ‘I don’t even know your sister!’

  ‘Yes you did! You knew Carrie all right!’

  The words came like a bolt from the blue. ‘Carrie! Yes, I knew her,’ I admitted, mollifying my attitude slightly.

  ‘And you killed her!’ He seemed to find a hidden strength from her memory which made him bolder by the minute. So much so, I feared he might attack me again.