The Secret of Spandau

by Peter Lovesey

  Another order, and a chair was placed in the centre of the room for Red, a couple of yards back from the desk. All that was now visible of Colonel Klim was his face, framed by his hands so that even the collar of the pyjamas was obscured.

  Formality restored, he said in correct English that sounded like lesson one of a language laboratory course, ‘Good morning. My name is Colonel Klim. What is yours?’

  ‘Calvin Moody,’ answered Red, knowing it would not be believed, but with no alternative to offer.

  Colonel Klim tilted his eyebrows and said with gentle sarcasm, ‘How strange! We have a warder here with the same name, but he is nothing like you.’

  Red made it clear with a sideward glance that he wasn’t interested in a verbal chess game.

  The Russian continued, ‘To avoid misunderstanding, I will tell you that my position here is permanent. I have been the Soviet director of the prison since April 1982. I know the warders personally. Moody has a narrower face than yours. His hair is darker and certainly shorter. Feature for feature he is quite unlike you. What is your name?’

  ‘Calvin Moody.’

  Colonel Klim scowled. ‘This is very unwise, young man. My sleep has been disturbed by this breach of prison regulations. My patience has a short limit. However, let us try another avenue of conversation. How did you enter the prison?’

  ‘Through the front gate.’

  The NCO interposed something rapidly and earnestly in Russian that Red guessed was a first attempt to paper over the breach of security.

  Colonel Klim barked back a few syllables and then resumed to Red, ‘It seems that the normal procedure at the gate was not observed. There should have been a warder on duty there. We were a man short tonight.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘A telephone message was received that Moody was coming in late. Was that part of your scheme to enter the prison illegally?’

  ‘That’s a leading question,’ commented Red.

  ‘But you had better answer it,’ Klim insisted.

  ‘I didn’t make a phone call.’

  There was another exchange in Russian.

  ‘It was a woman who called,’ Klim informed Red. ‘She spoke to the duty warder. He passed the message to the guardroom. That is why you were admitted. I presume that this woman is in league with you.’

  And how! Red thought. It’s the super-league if I ever get out of this place alive.

  Colonel Klim asked, ‘Is that assumption correct?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re on about,’ Red answered with a baffled expression.

  ‘Very well. Let’s turn to something we can both agree on.’ Klim picked Cal’s pass off the desk and held it up by one corner. ‘This appears to be genuine. It has Moody’s photograph, not yours, and his signature, not the poor imitation you scribbled in the guardroom book. How did it come into your possession?’

  Red was tempted to answer with the truth, just to see whether the fact of Cal’s murder would make any impression on the Buddha-like repose of the face across the desk. But the truth was his defence, not to be surrendered. So long as he remained of interest to the Russians, kept them puzzled about his identity and his reason for being there, he stood a chance of survival.

  When it was obvious that no answer was forthcoming, Klim said with a harder edge to his words, ‘You stole it. You stole his clothes as well. You had better tell me the reason now. You tricked your way in here. Why? Are you politically motivated? Making some form of demonstration?’

  ‘Like saving the whales?’ Red flippantly suggested.

  Colonel Klim snapped out some sentences in Russian and the NCO came from behind Red, grabbed his arms and strapped them together at the elbows and hard against the vertical struts of the chair-back. The pain was bearable, but not for long.

  ‘How about the electrodes?’ Red muttered. ‘I thought you people had all the latest gear.’

  ‘We are not torturers,’ said Klim with a show of umbrage. ‘This is a necessary safeguard while I speak to you in private.’

  ‘Yes?’ said Red sceptically. Then he heard the door close as the NCO withdrew. ‘So what is there to say?’ He braced his arms, and one of the struts snapped, bringing him some relief.

  Colonel Klim got up and moved around the desk, tugging his raincoat across his chest. He stood facing Red, studying him, making up his mind. ‘I will be frank with you. I know that Moody is dead. The information reached me earlier this evening.’

  Aware that he was under the closest scrutiny, Red made no attempt to fake a reaction. He wanted to know where this was leading.

  Klim continued like a judge summing up, ‘You were able to trick your way in here because the prison staff have not yet been informed about Moody. But it was a crude attempt at impersonation which the guards detected easily. Occasionally, we have to deal with crazy people and publicity-seekers who make trouble at the prison gate. I would treat you as such a minor nuisance if you could persuade me that there is not some more sinister motive governing your actions.’

  Red didn’t respond. His tired brain was wrestling with the implications of what he had just learned. Klim had been informed about Cal’s killing. Earlier this evening, he had said, implying that he had heard the news early enough to have put the guards on alert if he had chosen. So it could only have come from Cal’s murderer, Valentin, or his employer, the KGB. Colonel Klim was either a KGB agent himself, or he was acting on their orders.

  The realisation led to a significant shift in Red’s tactics. His entry into Spandau had started so disastrously that up to now he had scarcely given a thought to anything but survival. He had fully expected to be shot. Now other possibilities were emerging. The Colonel knew things. He probably knew the reason why Edda Zenk and Cal had been murdered. It might be possible to draw it out of him by trading information.

  ‘I knew Cal,’ he volunteered. ‘He was no villain. He didn’t deserve to be shot in the head.’

  Klim’s brown eyes gleamed with satisfaction. ‘Yes, it will come as a shock to everyone in Spandau. So you have been to his apartment?’

  ‘I broke in,’ admitted Red.

  ‘And found him dead? Then, for some reason, you dressed up in his clothes and tried to enter Spandau. Why?’

  ‘To get some answers.’

  ‘From whom?’

  ‘Anyone who knew anything.’

  Klim looked disbelieving. ‘I think you could be more precise than that.’

  ‘How?’ asked Red.

  ‘I think you had ideas of meeting the man we call Number 7.’

  ‘Rudolf Hess?’

  Klim nodded. ‘You believe he can tell you why Moody had to be shot.’

  ‘Had to be?’

  ‘But I doubt whether he would have helped you in the least, even if you had miraculously arrived in his cell. Number 7 is singularly uncommunicative. He would be suspicious of your motives. Do you deny that you intended to make contact with him?’

  ‘Of course I deny it,’ Red affirmed. And now he would stonewall again, because he had got as much from Colonel Klim as he was likely to give: the admission that Cal’s killing had been carried out because it ‘had to be’; and the strong suggestion that Hess would know the reason why, even if he refused to talk.

  More questions followed and, as Red reverted to short answers, Klim showed increasing signs of annoyance. The questions began to be replaced by thinly-veiled threats. ‘If you persist in this way, I shall have to bring in people who are experienced in questioning suspicious persons.’

  ‘The police?’

  ‘Not the police. They have no jurisdiction here.’

  ‘The military police?’

  The phone on Klim’s desk bleeped. He picked it up and spoke his name. Then something was said that made the blood run from his face. He had been standing with one sandalled foot turned downwards, resting on the tip. He brought the heel down sharply and practically stood to attention. He clutched at the collar of his raincoat and drew it across his chest. His co
ntributions to the conversation were minimal.

  As soon as he was able to replace the phone, he picked it up again and dialled a two-digit number, presumably internal. This time he was doing most of the talking, evidently passing on urgent information. Red tried to understand some of it. The only certain thing he gleaned was a name, spoken and repeated with great emphasis, as if to make sure there were no misunderstanding: General Vanin.

  Colonel Klim cradled the phone again, staring at Red as if he had no inkling how he had arrived there, and went across to the door and opened it. He shouted something to the NCO outside.

  The guards came in and loosened Red’s arms. They hustled him outside, past Klim, who stood distractedly at his door, rubbing his face with his hand. He said nothing.

  They took Red down the stairs, this time allowing him to use his own feet. Down one level, they steered him into a once-whitewashed, now yellow-grimed and flaking corridor that stretched the length of the block, almost a hundred yards. Dim lights under old-fashioned conical shades showed open cell-doors from end to end on each side. If ventilation had been the intention, it was not a success. The place smelt musty and unused.

  The NCO ordered a halt while he looked into a couple of cells. He selected the second on the right.

  ‘You want me to go in there?’ asked Red, as if there were any choice.

  Nobody bothered to answer. As he went in, he asked, ‘Who is General Vanin?’

  The door slammed shut.

  45

  Spandau.

  Its bleak reality closed in on Red. The cell had the stale smell of many years’ disuse. The walls were coated with mould. This disregarded section of the prison had probably not been used in forty years.

  The place was still furnished with its iron bedstead, wooden table and stool. Red stretched out on the steel mesh of the bed-frame and stared upwards. Either the moon was clear, or dawn had broken outside the small, arched window, because there was enough light to count the panes behind the bars. Eighteen, three of them cracked.

  The last occupant would have been one of the outcasts of Hitler’s Germany, detained here for ‘processing’, prior to execution, or transportation to a concentration camp. In 1947, it had seemed grimly appropriate to bring the men convicted at Nuremberg to this place where the victims of their system had suffered.

  Seven Nazi leaders, ranging in age from forty to seventy-four, had been brought here, handcuffed to US soldiers. They were the so-called ‘difficult’ cases of the Nuremberg Trial. Twelve others had been sentenced to hang and three had been acquitted. Of the Spandau seven, three – Raeder, Funk and Hess – had been sentenced to life imprisonment. After eight years in Spandau, Admiral Raeder, ill and in his eightieth year, had been released; two years later, Walter Funk, 66, physically and mentally depleted by the years he had served, was allowed to walk out to freedom, ‘with allowance for his age and ill-health’. That was in 1957. Spandau’s other lifer was still waiting for clemency.

  Red pictured Rudolf Hess lying in a cell on one of the lower levels, in the block he had once shared with the other six. They had all gone by 1966, having served their terms or been granted compassionate release. Hess alone was left to bear the burden of guilt for the Third Reich. Yet he alone of the seven had been found not guilty both of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He had received his life sentence for being guilty of conspiracy and – a curious irony – crimes against peace.

  The impact of nearly half a century of confinement was beyond imagination. Red didn’t fool himself into thinking that a few hours locked in Spandau would bring him any closer to understanding Hess and how he had endured his punishment. He could pity the man and wonder at his power of survival. He could touch the walls and lie on a prison bed and breathe the prison air, but he would be no nearer to comprehending the scale of the experience.

  He was sure of one thing: if he was lucky enough to get out of the place alive, he wouldn’t have much self-respect if the best he could produce would be a piece for the tabloids entitled ‘My Night in a Spandau Cell’. His story wasn’t going to be about Red Goodbody. He was certain that the secret of Spandau, the reason why Hess would never be released, was behind the killings of Cal and Edda Zenk. Someone – maybe Hess himself – had lit a fuse and the KGB were in a panic because the story was about to blow sky-high. Hess was certainly at risk. He deserved to be told. By some means, Red was going to reach him. And survive to tell the story.

  Daybreak. Emphatically. The light grew stronger, picking out the details of the cell, the divisions between the bricks, the studs in the iron door, the square opening that served as a Judas-hole.

  An hour or more passed. Sometimes he heard slight movements from the Soviet guard posted in the corridor. Once or twice there was the clatter of steps on the iron staircase. They went away.

  Unexpectedly, because this time Red had heard no steps, the small sliding panel in the door was opened. ‘Café noir?’

  ‘Oui.’ He got up quickly and came close to the hole. In French, he asked if the owner of the voice was a warder.

  ‘Yes. The chief warder. I speak English. You want something else?’

  Red knew that this could be a Russian trick to get him to talk. He was guarded in his response. ‘Do you know about me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But you don’t know about Cal.’

  After a pause, the voice said, ‘I will come back with the coffee.’ The panel closed.

  Red paced the cell, trying to decide whether the French accent was genuine. To his ear, most Frenchmen speaking English sounded like con-artists. If this were really a warder, possibilities emerged – remote, improbable, but worth exploring in a no-win situation. If he could convey to the warders that their colleague Cal had been murdered and that Hess himself was in imminent danger from the KGB, they might be persuaded to help. They knew how Spandau operated. With their co-operation, and if they were willing to take exceptional risks, he might have a chance.

  While he pondered the risks, his brain was busy, subconsciously turning over the significance of something he had noticed; and now it made the connection. He recalled a detail he had read in the press clippings back in England. Out of consideration to Hess, most of the warders had taken to wearing soft shoes, so as not to disturb his sleep. That was why the Frenchman had been able to approach the cell unheard. So he was a warder … wasn’t he?

  The risk had to be taken. Trust him.

  The panel was slid open again. It came as a shock to hear another voice, American this time. ‘Coffee, no sugar.’

  He took it through the hatch and waited there expectantly. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  And with that, the panel closed.

  ‘Fucking hell!’ Red practically threw the stuff at the door. It had been a perfect opportunity for more communication, and it had gone begging. He had waited there, primed to speak. Christ, it was maddening! An American, Cal’s buddy, and all he could find to say was a bloody platitude! Why hadn’t the Frenchman reappeared when he had promised? Livid with rage and disappointment, Red sank on the bed with the paper cup of coffee in his fist. It was some time before he could bring himself to take a sip.

  Then he felt something solid touch his teeth. He lifted it out of the cup and stared at it.

  A small ballpoint pen.

  The warders were not so dumb. They wanted him to write a message for them and pass it out. He felt through the pockets of the tracksuit for a scrap of paper. Nothing. Looked around the cell, under the table, under the bed. Plenty of dust, but no paper. He even tried taking a flake of paint from the wall, but it disintegrated in his hand.

  Still in his other hand was the paper cup.

  He shook his head and cursed himself for being so obtuse. He owed those guys an apology. For not only had they provided him with a writing implement and a surface; they had given him the means to return it undetected. There were two cups pressed together. He could write on the outer surface of one, using th
e whole of the space, and then enclose it tightly in the other. It would look like the one pristine cup they had appeared to hand him.

  He wrote, compressing the size and content of the message: Cal murdered by KGB. Also Edda Zenk, visited by Cal. Hess now in danger KGB Gen Vanin. I can explain. R. Goodbody, Brit. newsman.

  There was enough there to guarantee a bullet in the head if the cup was seen by the Russians, but he had to entrust his life to the warders. Not only that. He was banking on their outrage at Cal’s death and their concern for Hess to shock them into helping him.

  In a moment, the hatch opened.

  ‘More coffee?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  He passed the empty cups through, and it was done. He wedged the pen into a corner on the underside of the table.

  And waited.

  Soon, he guessed, Colonel Klim would want him upstairs for more interrogation, possibly by General Vanin, whose name had provoked such alarm. If there was going to be action from the warders, it could not be long delayed. He wished to God he had stressed the emergency more.

  He tensed. Words were being exchanged outside the cell door. He stood by the hatch, not knowing what to expect. Then he heard the bolts thrown across and the key turned. The door swung open slowly. The Soviet guard was there with his sub-machine gun. And so was a short, grey-haired man in gold-framed glasses and wearing the blue uniform of a prison official.

  ‘You must come for the ablutions now,’ he said in the heavily-accented voice Red recognized as the chief warder’s. ‘Put your hands on your head and follow me.’

  No intimation of how the message had been received.

  Red followed the instructions. He decided to leave the initiative to the Frenchman. There was nothing either of them could usefully do while the point of the gun was against his back. The bathroom was a short walk to the right down the corridor between walls coated in a pale green mould. An open doorway revealed a row of basins along one wall and eight lavatories without doors. Red went to one and relieved himself. Then he crossed the floor to the nearest basin and ran some water. He took off the tracksuit top and splashed water on his face and body.