Murder's Art

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘I am exhausted,’ Sandrine said. She certainly looked about to collapse, and Tony caught her round the waist to hold her up; to him she was the most valuable thing in the world. Their relationship was still fresh enough to be exciting, even if they had now been utter intimates for several months, and lovers for most of that time. Before then she had been no more than a most attractive acquaintance, a close friend of Elena Kostic’s and also the girlfriend of a German officer who, like Tony, had been an attaché at his embassy in the then neutral Yugoslavia.

  Looking back, that world, where four people of different nationalities, backgrounds, religious beliefs and, most important of all, political ideologies, had been able to meet in bars and at parties, and become friends, seemed entirely unreal. The bombing of Belgrade, and the subsequent invasion of Yugoslavia in April, had ended all that, abruptly. Suddenly, at the behest of their various governments, they had become enemies, the requirements of their national identities distorted by their personal involvement with each other. Thus Sandrine had found herself abandoned by Bernhard, who had been ordered away to join his army and had returned as a member of the invading forces. He had commanded her to leave the country, but Sandrine, with her Vichy-France passport and her job as a sub-editor in the Belgrade office of Paris-Temps, had preferred to stay where the news was, only to see her office destroyed and her colleagues killed in the bombing. Then she had sought to escape the burning city in the company of her friend Elena and Elena’s lover, Captain Tony Davis.

  Tony recalled that at that time he had regarded her as a nuisance – very pretty, but still a nuisance. Brought up in French sophistication, concerned at least as much with personal appearance and hygiene as with ethics or politics, holding down what had been a soft and undoubtedly family-obtained position in a romantic city, she had been totally unsuited for the situation in which she had found herself. In addition, her feet had been badly cut and she had had to be carried most of the time, while her very attractiveness had caused problems with the various men who were fleeing with them. From the beginning, even while wishing she wasn’t there, Tony had had to admire her courage and determination to cope with a series of misfortunes which were both painful and embarrassing.

  But he had also encountered problems which far transcended those of protecting a helpless woman from rape. He had only been in Yugoslavia for six months before the invasion, and while he had become aware that there were many tensions running beneath the surface of Yugoslav life, he had not understood how deep some of these tensions were, nor had he anticipated how violently they would disrupt that surface once the central authority had been destroyed.

  Thus when he had sought refuge with the predominantly Serbian guerilla army called the Cetniks – commanded by General Draza Mihailovic, erstwhile chief of the Yugoslav General Staff – he had been welcomed, but to his consternation Elena, as a Croat, was regarded as an enemy. Indeed, it had been all he could do to save her from being shot. They had escaped the Serbs and sought refuge with a Communist enclave in the village of Divitsar, only to be caught up in the savage attack by the terrorist group Ustase. The situation had not been improved by the fact that the Ustase were Croats who were working with the Germans for the establishment of a separate Croatian nation state.

  The Divitsar massacre had turned Sandrine from a nuisance into a heroine. Although the Ustase had not included them in the massacre, simply because Elena was a Croat, their commander, Ante Pavelic, had yet intended to hand both Sandrine and Tony, as enemies of the Reich, over to the Germans – and in the meanwhile they were not to be treated with any regard for their comfort or well-being. There Sandrine had suffered rape and mistreatment, but she had yet helped them get free, and in doing so proved herself as ruthless a fighter as any man. By then, as a result of their forced intimacy, she had already shared Tony’s bivouac. Elena, totally amoral, had not objected, providing there was always something left over for her. Tony, brought up in the manners and morals of middle-class 1930s England, had in the beginning been appalled by the situation in which he had found himself, but which had been irresistible. It had ended in tragedy, with Elena’s capture by the Germans and her death during the otherwise successful raid on Uzice. By that time they had linked up with the Partisan army of Colonel Josip Broz, code name Tito, officially subordinate to Mihailovic’s overall command, but determinedly acting on his own when the Cetniks dragged their feet.

  Tito, indeed, was beginning to have considerable doubts as to how seriously Mihailovic was prosecuting this war, and whether he was entirely to be trusted; his determination to assassinate the new governor-general had been less to harm the Germans – who would, presumably, have other potential governors-general waiting in the wings – than to force Mihailovic to take a more positive stance, as the Germans were certain to react violently.

  But he had never had the slightest doubt about the commitment of at least two of his people. Tony had been wounded in the attack on Uzice, and had been offered an escape route by both Tito and the British in Alexandria. He had declined. This had become his war, and he wanted to see it out. Alexandria had not demurred. They had just been beginning to understand that guerilla activities against the Germans in Yugoslavia could be of considerable value to the Allied cause, and having a ‘built-in’ liaison officer with the Partisans was important. What they did not seem able to understand as yet was that there was a growing divergence between the Partisans and the Cetniks, a divergence exemplified by their appearance – the Cetniks wore their hair long and sported beards, while Tito’s people cut their hair short and were clean-shaven, a situation which reminded Tony of the Roundheads and Cavaliers from English history. Unaware of this divergence, the British continued to communicate with, and send such supplies of arms and ammunition as were available to, Mihailovic, as the senior officer on the ground. So far that had merely been an irritant to Tito. What would happen now, as this particular disaster – the recent assassination attempt – had not been authorised by Mihailovic, was a matter for some consideration.

  Sandrine’s commitment had been a little more unexpected. Although he knew they had fallen in love with each other, he had still been as surprised as gratified when she too had chosen to stay – despite being offered a way out as well – not necessarily to fight with the Partisans, but to be with her man. Over the several months since Uzice they had shared more and more, of their minds as well as their bodies. And she had always wanted to be with him when he was called into action, even if he suspected this was at least partly caused by her desire to avenge Elena – the two women had been very close. But for all the brutality to which she had been exposed since fleeing Belgrade she remained a sensitive and, wherever possible, cultured woman. His woman.

  She leaned against him, gasping, while the water and the rats flowed by; the rats were almost old friends by now. ‘How long have we been down here?’

  Tony studied the luminous dial of his watch; using the flashlight was risky, and, in any event, he did not doubt that the water had got to the batteries by now. ‘Just gone six. Say four hours, all but.’

  ‘Four hours! I am so hungry. And thirsty. And cold. How much longer?’

  ‘It can’t be long now. Anyway, we don’t really want to get to the river until dark. That won’t be before seven.’

  ‘My fingers are all crinkly.’

  ‘They’ll recover. Come along – we must keep moving.’

  Sandrine resumed wading. ‘Will we ever get rid of this smell?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She waded on for several minutes, then asked over her shoulder, ‘Do you think that woman died?’

  ‘She was hit in the chest by a high-velocity bullet. If she survived it was a miracle.’

  ‘Who was she, do you know?’

  ‘Something to do with the general. Either his wife or his daughter.’

  ‘How do you feel about that?’

  ‘Like shit.’

  ‘They killed Elena. And all those women and children in Divitsar.�
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  ‘I know,’ Tony said. He supposed the Divitsar massacre, carried out by the Ustase in the summer, was the worst experience of his life; a hundred people, men, women and children, had been mown down by sub-machine guns for no other reason than that they were Communists. ‘But we don’t know if that woman had ever committed any crime.’

  ‘She was a Nazi,’ Sandrine said.

  ‘We don’t even know that for certain.’

  ‘She was married to a Nazi.’

  ‘Are you going to marry me, when the war is over?’

  ‘Probably. If you ask me nicely.’

  ‘Will you then automatically become English?’

  ‘Don’t you like me being French?’

  ‘I adore you being French. But that’s the point. Your marrying me will not automatically make you English any more than that woman marrying Blintoft would automatically have made her a Nazi.’

  Sandrine blew a raspberry. ‘Are you sure you were not a lawyer before the war started? Anyway, we do not know it was his wife who got hit.’

  ‘It would be even worse if it was his daughter. She can’t be very old.’

  ‘But I will bet you what you like that she is a Nazi .… What’s that?’

  ‘Daylight. We’re there. Let me go first.’

  Sandrine pressed herself against the wall, and he wriggled past her. The light was still some distance away, but he unslung his tommy-gun. The weapon had been immersed so often he could only hope it was still serviceable. He looked back at Sandrine, now almost visible. She also was unslinging her gun. He could not stop himself from grinning.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘You have lost your cap, and you look like … a drowned rat.’

  ‘Snap. Let’s get on with it.’

  He waded towards the light, which every moment grew brighter.

  ‘There’s a grating,’ Sandrine said.

  ‘There would be.’

  ‘Then how do we get out?’

  ‘It’s not actually a grating. Just bars. We squeeze through.’

  Sandrine studied the bars as they came closer. ‘The bars are horizontal.’

  ‘That’ll make it easier.’

  ‘My tits are too big. I’ll never get them through.’

  ‘How big is your bust?’ He found it odd that he had never discovered that before; however generally small she might be, she certainly had a magnificent figure.

  ‘When last I measured, it was thirty-seven inches.’

  ‘Hips?’

  ‘Oh … thirty-five.’

  ‘Tremendous. I always knew I was on to a good thing. My chest is forty-two, uninflated. So if I can get through, so can you.’

  ‘I am always inflated,’ she pointed out.

  They reached the bars, and peered through. Several feet below them, the river surged by. On the far bank there were houses. ‘Not too close,’ Tony told her. ‘Someone might see you. We have to wait till it’s dark.’

  ‘Another hour,’ she sighed, and leaned against him.

  Wassermann and the Blintofts drove to the military headquarters in the governor-general’s car. Wassermann was conducting this investigation himself, excluding both the local police and the Gestapo, at least for the time being, although he was using the Gestapo offices at the headquarters building, since it was the most suitable place both to hold and to interrogate prisoners.

  It was now late afternoon, and several hours since the shooting, but the streets were still filled with agitated people gathered in groups amidst the many buildings reduced to rubble by the April bombing, busily gossiping about the events of the day, wondering what was going to happen next, and glancing nervously at the German soldiers, who were present in some numbers.

  ‘There is a dusk-to-dawn curfew,’ Wassermann explained. ‘These people will soon be gone.’

  He sat on the jump seat facing Blintoft and Angela, who were together in the rear of the car. He remained uncertain how to handle the situation, the like of which he had not encountered before at this level. Obviously, neither had the Blintofts, but he found the way they had both withdrawn into themselves disconcerting. He had no doubt that there was an immense surge of angry despair lurking behind those two fixed expressions; he had no objection to that, but he would have liked to know when the explosion was likely to happen, and what form it was likely to take. And whether or not what they were about to see would trigger it.

  The car turned through the arched gateway and stopped in the yard. Armed guards stood to attention, and a lieutenant hurried forward to open the door. Wassermann got out first, waited for Angela and the general to emerge. The lieutenant saluted, but looked at the girl in a mixture of surprise and alarm.

  ‘We wish to see the prisoners,’ Wassermann said.

  ‘Ah, yes, Herr Major. If you will allow me one minute—’

  ‘We wish to see them, as they are, now,’ Wassermann said.

  The lieutenant licked his lips, and looked at the general. ‘Now,’ Blintoft confirmed.

  ‘Now, Herr General.’ The lieutenant clicked his heels, gave Angela another anxious glance, and gestured at the door, which was opened by one of the sentries. Wassermann led the way inside, the lieutenant bringing up the rear. They walked along a wide corridor, past several open doorways, each of which became filled with people standing to attention, anxious to gain a first glimpse of their new commander-in-chief. Although everyone in the building knew what had happened, none of them had ever seen either General von Blintoft or his daughter before.

  Wassermann led them along the corridor to the end, where there was a staircase going both up and down. From below them, a radio played music, loudly; it sounded something like a medley from Wagner. ‘Sometimes the people we have down here make a good deal of noise,’ Wassermann explained. ‘The music helps drown it out. Mind the step.’

  He was looking at Angela, waiting for her to say ‘Enough!’, but her expression remained unchanging, save for a slight flaring of the nostrils at the variety of odours, dominated by disinfectant, that came up the stairwell. Wassermann led them down the stairs and into a small lobby, off which, on the right, a corridor emerged. On the left there was a room in which there were a dozen backless benches, arranged in two rows and facing a desk, at which there sat a sergeant. In front of him, sitting on the benches, backs absolutely straight, were several people.

  At the sight of the officers, the sergeant stood up, heels clicking as he gave the Nazi salute. ‘Up,’ he shouted. ‘Up!’ The people in front of him hastily tried to obey, but it was easy to see that they were stiff from sitting down, and they stumbled as they rose. One of them, a rather plump teenage girl, fell over the bench in front of her, and had to grasp it to push herself up. ‘Swine!’ the sergeant shouted, picking up a rubber truncheon from his desk, and striding forward. But then he checked, looking at Wassermann. Wassermann nodded, and the sergeant swung his club, catching the girl a blow across the thigh. She uttered a scream, and instinctively clutched at the injury, only to receive another blow, this time across the fingers, which had her wringing her hands in pain while tears rolled down her cheeks.

  ‘We call this the tram,’ Wassermann explained, speaking loudly to make himself heard above the blaring radio, which was situated on a table against the wall. ‘This is where these people wait for interrogation. They are required to sit to attention, and are not permitted to speak. Any transgression is severely punished.’

  I can see that, Angela thought. She felt degraded that human beings should be so humiliated, especially as she could see that at least one of the men had wet his pants. On the other hand … ‘Are any of these people involved in the shooting?’

  Wassermann glanced at her, surprised by the calmness of her voice. ‘Perhaps not directly, Fräulein. But two of them’ – he pointed at the girl who had fallen over and the boy standing beside her – ‘are the children of the people from whose house the shot was fired.’

  ‘Then why are they not being interrogated?’ Blintoft asked.
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  ‘They will be, Herr General. When we have finished with the parents. But keeping them here for a few hours is in itself a form of interrogation. When they are finally called upon to answer questions, they are often so terrified and uncomfortable, and hungry and thirsty – we do not feed them in the tram, you see, nor are they allowed to drink – that they tell us anything we wish to know without persuasion. But in fact, we are doing quite well without their assistance … Ah, Captain Ulrich.’

  The captain, short and inclined to plumpness, had approached from the corridor. Now he stood to attention. ‘Heil Hitler!’ He had been at the station, and looked more surprised than anyone at the sight of Angela in these surroundings.

  ‘The general wishes to see the prisoners, Ulrich,’ Wassermann said.

  Ulrich gulped. ‘To see …’ He looked at his superior for confirmation.

  ‘All of them,’ Wassermann said.

  ‘Yes, Herr Major.’ He gave Angela another nervous glance, then led the way along the corridor, past a succession of iron doors that were closed and locked. But each door had a peephole. Ulrich paused before the third door. ‘This is the man Brolic,’ he explained. ‘The shot was fired from the attic window of his house. It was their plan to say that he and his wife and family were attacked and tied up by the Partisans, but we proved that to be false.’

  ‘I proved it,’ Wassermann said with some pride.

  ‘Yes, indeed, Herr Major,’ Ulrich agreed unenthusiastically. ‘But also through the actions of the other son.’