by Alex Gerlis
And now Myrtle realised she had decisions to make. She knew full well the Admiral expected her to return to England: her task had been to distribute the money to the Kestrel Line, to escort Edward Palmer to Trieste and to ensure he and Friedrich Steiner got on the ship and out of harm’s way.
‘I want them to disappear,’ the Admiral had insisted, more than once.
But Myrtle had begun to wonder whether she wanted to go back to England after all. It no longer felt like her country: she detested the place after its victory in such an unjust war. She hated the way people gloated about their triumph, and to cap it all, there was now a socialist government to make life even more intolerable. South Africa, she understood, was at least somewhere white Christians could still lead a decent life. And Palmer would be an agreeable companion. He was an intelligent man and an accomplished lover, even if he didn’t seem aware of that himself.
She’d withheld some of the funds for the Kestrel Line and had brought a couple of pieces of valuable jewellery with her. They’d get by in South Africa, and by the time the Admiral realised she wasn’t coming back, she and Palmer would have disappeared.
But before that, there was a further consideration, an unpleasant matter but an unavoidable one: what would happen if they were caught? The Admiral had been very clear about this: under no circumstances was Palmer to be captured alive. You know what to do, Myrtle.
But would she be able to go through with that? And what about herself – could she bear to be taken alive?
* * *
When it was over, it took Bartholomew a good while to make any sense of what had happened.
He was woken up by the Field Security Section duty officer to be told that something was happening on the railway line by Porto Vittorio Emanuele. By the time he appeared in the FSS office, it turned out that whatever was going on wasn’t on the railway line but on the road running parallel to it – Viale Miramare. Over the next few minutes, confusing reports came in from the British patrols on the scene. There’d been shooting in a building on Viale Miramare: a number of people were dead and some Slovenians had been arrested. He was putting on his coat and preparing to go to see for himself when another report came in: at least one British person had been arrested – and one more, possibly, was dead. It was then that Bartholomew muttered the word ‘Prince’.
* * *
They’d left the house in Scorcola while it was still dark and walked in small groups down the road, each group climbing into their allotted van or lorry. Hanne and Prince followed Marija into a small van; half a dozen of them squeezed into the rear. Marija explained that Jožef was already in position, and once Edvard had secured the front of the building and Jožef had followed Giuseppe to the first floor, then they’d follow.
By the time the van parked a block away from the building, dawn was rising over Trieste. In the few minutes between the van stopping and the order to move in coming over the radio, the sun had risen. They’d watched the short figure of Giuseppe head into the building, and now they hurried in too.
From the entrance hall they heard shouts upstairs. Hanne and Prince had both drawn their Berettas and now they ran up the stairs after Marija.
The office door was wide open: on the floor inside was the body of a one-armed man, his blood turning the pale brown lino flooring dark red. Prince shouted to Hanne to go the left, he’d go right.
The first thing Hanne saw was the terrified figure of Friedrich Steiner on his knees by the window with his hands tied behind his back and a deep gash across his forehead. Lines of blood ran down his face like a spider’s web as his body trembled violently and he whimpered something about being innocent and needing to leave. He was surrounded by Slovenians, who appeared to be arguing with each other about what to do with him. One of them held a knife to his throat and the blade had already drawn some blood.
Hanne spotted one of the Slovenians release the safety catch on his pistol, and she stepped forward. ‘Not here – don’t kill him here!’
There was a shout from the back of the office, and Prince called her over. Slumped on the sofa was the body of Edward Palmer. He was on his back, gazing at the ceiling with a surprised, unblinking stare. His jacket had fallen open, revealing a white shirt with a growing patch of blood and the hilt of a knife protruding from the centre of it.
Sitting in a chair alongside the sofa was a woman, her hands gripping the sides. She was bloodstained but appeared uninjured. Her face was pale and there was a nervous look on her face alongside the trace of a smile.
‘It’s Myrtle Carter, isn’t it?’ Prince was leaning in front of her, his hands on his knees so that he was at eye level. He was still holding his Beretta. ‘We’ve met before. That’s Edward Palmer – did you kill him?’
The woman shook her head and said something in a voice so quiet Prince asked her to speak up, and she replied that she didn’t have the faintest idea who he was and what he was talking about.
‘I’m a prisoner,’ she said.
There was a commotion from outside the office and a lot of shouting inside it.
‘This is her, Hanne – this is the woman.’
‘We need to handcuff her.’
‘We don’t have any cuffs.’
‘Then we need to tie her up. Have you searched her?’
Hanne walked over to the woman and told her to stand up, then started to frisk her. ‘Get some rope or something, Richard. You – put your hands down!’
Myrtle Carter held out her left arm but moved her right hand towards her mouth. Hanne grabbed it, and a struggle followed. By the time Prince realised what was happening, the two women were wrestling on the floor.
‘Oh my God, Richard – look, grab her arms!’
Myrtle Carter was writhing on the floor in agony, her hands clutching her throat, her eyes bulging and her face turning a shade of blue as she appeared to choke.
‘Get some water or something!’
‘It’s too late, Richard – I tried to get it out but it was too late. It must have been a suicide pill.’
* * *
Bartholomew and the FSS men entered the first floor office on Viale Miramare with their guns drawn and a scene of chaos and carnage laid out before them. Had Prince not been at the entrance holding his hands up and shouting who he was, he was sure there’d have been more shooting.
He was aware of Bartholomew asking what the hell was going on, and Evans from the FSS shouting and threatening the Slovenians, and Hanne saying something about them all being dead.
A few hours later, they were in the Field Security Section office on Via San Lazzaro, and Bartholomew – still wearing his raincoat – thrust the headphones and microphone at Prince.
‘Mr Gilbey wants to speak with you.’
‘I struggle to see how you’re going to manage to come up with a plausible explanation, Richard, but I imagine you’re going to attempt one?’ The line was surprisingly clear, and Prince noticed that while Gilbey sounded annoyed, he didn’t sound furious. His tone was more one of resignation, and he had called him Richard.
‘In what sense, sir?’
‘In the sense, Prince, that I ordered you and Hanne to return to London and you chose to disobey that order, and now we have a bloodbath in Trieste to try and sort out.’
‘An opportunity presented itself to catch Friedrich Steiner, sir, along with Myrtle Carter and Edward Palmer. That was our original mission. I know it would be preferable for them to have been captured alive, but at least they’ve not escaped. I don’t know about Bormann…’
‘Bartholomew said the man dressed as a priest isn’t Martin Bormann – he doesn’t look remotely like him. He’s dead too, isn’t he?’
‘So I believe, sir.’
There was a long pause, and as the line filled with static, Prince asked Gilbey if he was still there.
‘And I daresay if I ask where the hell Friedrich Steiner is, you’ll say you have no idea, eh?’
There was a long pause. Enough time had elapsed. Prince re
membered they’d told him Slovenia was just five miles from Trieste, so they’d almost certainly be there by now. It was probably safe to tell the truth.
‘Actually, sir, I believe some of our Slovenian friends may have captured him. I saw them dragging him away just before our chaps—’
‘So Bartholomew tells me – and you didn’t try to stop them?’
Prince laughed. ‘I think you’ll find that even had we wanted to, Hanne and I would have been outnumbered.’
‘So you just let them take him.’
‘He’ll face justice, sir, I think we can be sure of that.’
‘And the others? A bloodbath by the sounds of it.’
‘The woman killed Edward Palmer before we got there, and then killed herself.’
‘Poison, I understand?’
‘I’m afraid so, sir.’
There was a long silence during which Prince heard Gilbey cough and possibly say something to another person.
‘I think, Prince, it would be safer all round if you and Hanne returned to London immediately.’
‘Of course, sir.’
‘Let’s just hope no more opportunities present themselves before you get here, eh?’
* * *
They stayed in Trieste that night. Bartholomew didn’t want to leave the city while it was dark, but he made a point of ensuring that Prince and Hanne were never left alone. Either he or someone from the FSS was with them the whole time, and when they went to bed, the door was locked and a guard remained outside.
But there was one lapse, and it came the following morning. They were already awake and were beginning to pack when there was a knock on their bedroom door and they heard the FSS guard tell them to open it for the chambermaid. When the young woman came in, she closed the door behind her and went over to the sink, where she turned on both taps before turning round and beckoning them towards her. It was only then that they realised it was Marija, barely recognisable with a scarf tied round her head.
‘Come closer, I don’t have long.’
The three of them huddled together.
‘We took Friedrich Steiner straight to Maribor and interrogated him all night. It was so easy – the man’s terrified and showed no courage whatsoever. He gave us the details of all the safe houses he stayed in – in the Tyrol, near Munich, Salzburg, all of them. He was truly desperate to tell us as much as he could, anything to save himself. We’ve written those addresses down for you – here.’ She handed them a piece of paper. ‘He pleaded for us to spare him and he betrayed everyone he could think of. I’ve given you those names too; the only ones we are interested in are those in Slovenia, and he gave us the names of some informers from Maribor. He even told us, would you believe, all about his father – how he’s a senior Nazi and where we can find him.’
‘And where is that?’
‘Apparently he’s been hiding at a farm in Bavaria, near the town of Eggenfelden. Friedrich said that he and Ulrich stayed there for a few weeks ago, and while he was there, he discovered that his father had hidden notebooks and rolls of film in the cellar. He said he’s sure they’re full of top-secret material. He told us exactly where to find it. You can have that information – the address of the farm is on that piece of paper, and there’s even a helpful diagram Steiner drew of where to find the films. In the—’
There was a sharp rap at the door and they heard Bartholomew’s voice telling them to get a move on. Marija gathered her things and leaned close to them.
‘Today my comrades are taking Friedrich Steiner to the place where he buried the three girls outside Maribor. He’ll then be handed over to their families.’
Epilogue
Bartholomew didn’t think there was much damage left to be done by Hanne and Prince in Trieste, but he still wanted to get them out of the city and back to England as soon as possible. But before they left, there were one or two of what Tom Gilbey euphemistically termed ‘loose ends’ to be tied up.
Chief among these was what to do with the dozen or so Slovenians and Italians they were holding in custody – as far as they could tell, around a dozen more had managed to get away. The commander of the British garrison in Trieste was all for throwing the book at them and was minded to ignore the view shared by Gilbey and Bartholomew that imprisoning former partisans for killing a Nazi might not play terribly well at home or anywhere else for that matter. In the end, Sir Roland Pearson had to have a word with Field Marshal Alexander, who as far as he could make out was now in charge of the Mediterranean area, and fortunately he agreed with him. The Slovenians, he said, should be released and told to make themselves scarce, which they seemed more than happy to do.
* * *
The Admiral began to worry when the news from Trieste of the deaths of Edward Palmer and Myrtle Carter and from Berlin of the disappearance of Wolfgang Steiner filtered through in the dark days just before Christmas. He was fearful of what would happen to him. His man left after lunch on Christmas Day and he spent the afternoon in his library, the room lit only by a candle and the fading embers of an untended fire.
As darkness wrapped itself around the isolated Victorian house he found himself in a depressed mood as he wandered into the dining room he rarely used and gazed at photographs of long dead family members on top of a piano which was never played.
But once he’d turned on the lights and drawn the curtains he took a grip on himself. There was no point allowing himself the indulgence of worrying about what was to happen to him. He needed to do something about it.
His man wasn’t due back until the day after Boxing Day so he applied himself to the task in hand, going through the house and especially the cellar and removing everything that could be regarded as incriminating. By midnight on Boxing Day all; the evidence had been burned. He now turned his thoughts to Bourne and Ridgeway.
Since being ordered to make themselves scarce they’d moved furtively around the country, three or four days at a time in cheap bed and breakfasts, travelling coast to coast, county to county and calling him at the isolated telephone box twice a week for brief, coded conversations.
But now it was clear British Intelligence were closing in on them. The art gallery in Cork Street had been raided, as had their homes. It was only a matter of time before they were caught and the Admiral doubted either of them would hold out very long under interrogation.
He assured them he would look after them: they were to travel by train and bus and on New Year’s Eve meet him at a wood some five miles from his house from where he’d take them to safety.
When he arrived at the wood at eleven o’clock that night they’d clearly been waiting for a while, both drenched and looking thoroughly miserable. The Admiral told them they’d walk through the wood to where a car was waiting. They appeared confused but did as instructed and it was, the Admiral reflected later, like leading lambs to the slaughter. Along the route he’d carefully prepared, the two men breathed heavily behind him until he stopped and told them to rest and would like they like a drop of whisky and they both nodded as he made to remove a flask from his jacket pocket.
Ridgeway spotted the pistol first but before he could utter a sound he was hit just below the throat and when Bourne spun round the Admiral shot him on the side of the head. He finished both off with shots to the temple and allowed himself a minute or so to regain his breath before dragging their bodies down the small slope to the pit he’d dug earlier that day. He retrieved the spade from the undergrowth and covered them with earth and then re-arranged the surface.
To his surprise the Admiral caught himself whistling a jolly tune as he made his way through the densely packed trees and out of the woods.
* * *
Kommissar Iosif Gurevich was apprehensive when a week after Wolfgang Steiner’s capture he was ordered to meet Marshal Zhukov. Any concerns Gurevich might have had about meeting the commander of the Soviet zone in Germany seemed to be allayed when the hero of the Battle for Berlin nodded as he entered the room and said the operation to l
ure Wolfgang Steiner to Berlin had been most clever.
‘May I ask about Martin Bormann, sir?’
‘What about him, Gurevich?’
‘There seems to be some unresolved questions as to his fate. The other man they found in Trieste – the one dressed as a priest – wasn’t Bormann, so I understand.’
‘No, he wouldn’t have been. Bormann is almost certainly dead. If the Americans and the British want to believe he’s still alive, then that is fine with us – we can use the prospect as a way to confuse them for many years.’
‘But the information we got from Willi Kühn suggested he could be alive?’
Zhukov stared at Gurevich, letting him know he was deciding whether to share a confidence with him. ‘Bormann escaped from the bunker on the first of May and reached Friedrichstrasse station, and was then seen on the railway line near Weidendammer Bridge, so if people want to believe he’s alive they have that to cling on to. But there was a very heavy artillery attack on the area where he was last seen, and we have good reason to believe he was killed there. We don’t have the body as such; you know how it is after an artillery attack…’
Gurevich nodded.
‘It serves the interests of the Soviet Union to leave a question mark hanging over his fate.’ Zhukov clapped his hands to signal there was to be no more talk of Bormann. ‘And Wolfgang Steiner… his interrogation was a serious disappointment. Did you carry it out yourself?’
‘Kapitan Fyodorov was the main interrogator, sir, but of course I supervised it and take full responsibility for it. I have to admit that once he’d recovered from the shock of being captured by us, he proved to be remarkably resilient, which was quite unexpected. Fyodorov is an experienced interrogator, but it took him a long time to break Steiner.’
