‘You’re a smooth talking bastard, but it doesn’t wash. You went to Scotland and back with us. That’s quite a commitment. And now we break all ties?’
‘We’ll stay in touch. I can still pull strings behind the scenes. How would you like a European tour after America? Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Madrid?’
‘Let’s see America first.’
‘They might not let you in if they knew about your connection with the Ministry.’
John drank some beer.
‘Like I said, you’re a smooth talker. But I sense something else is going on, that you don’t want us to know about.’
‘Isn’t it always?’ Bergfeld smiled. ‘That’s the society we live in. I’m a civil servant, after all.’
‘But who for?’
Bergfeld wondered, for a moment, whether George Martin might have said something out of turn, but decided John was following his instincts.
He smiled.
‘If there was something I didn’t want you to know, why should I tell you?’
‘I asked you right at the start if there was a hidden agenda. If this was some kind of entrapment. Is it?’
‘All I’ve trapped you in is a contract to make money.’
‘Nothing else?’
‘There’s always something else, John. You know that.’
‘Like what?’
‘Personal feelings?’ Bergfeld was tempted but not stupid. He was not going to tell John that he reminded him of his former lover. His smile became strained at the memories that were always ready to slip beneath his guard. ‘I’ll miss you. You are rascals, all of you. You make me laugh and laughter is in short supply, these days. Tell the boys this is nothing personal. It’s commonsense.’
The crowd at the far end of the room was agitated. People were standing and reaching into their pockets for identity cards and he saw the black uniforms of two State Police officers making the checks. His smile died.
‘Dieter, go,’ he said. ‘Go now.’
‘What?’
The mistake made him smile again, despite the inevitability of the situation.
‘I mean this seriously, John. You have to go now. The Gestapo are looking for me.’ John turned in his seat to follow Bergfeld’s gaze. ‘If they question you and the boys, deny me. Tell them you hardly saw me. And if you have anything incriminating, destroy it. Now go. Mingle with the crowd. Just get out of here.’
‘Why should I?’
His arrogance was surfacing and Bergfeld was angry that it might get him involved.
‘There’s nothing you can do. You’ll work it out later, but only if you go now. Please?’
John got up. He wanted to be loyal - Bergfeld could see it in his face - but he also knew it would be sensible to leave. He nodded slightly and pushed into the crowd near the bar. Bergfeld reached for the whisky John had brought and sipped it and waited.
Chapter 17
December 24, London
He lay in the back of a van that was being driven to Heathrow Airport. He could hear the noise of aeroplanes above the traffic.
‘Enjoy your flight,’ one of his interrogators had said. ‘When you get back to Berlin, you will be playing the piano for the Fuhrer.’
The man meant he would be hanged by piano wire from a hook while his execution was filmed for Hitler’s repeated enjoyment.
Bergfeld had been taken by the State Police to a safe-house in Belgravia. He waited in a room at the rear of the house. The curtains were drawn and a coal fire blazed and he was served coffee. After half an hour, two men entered. One wore a smart dark grey suit, was tall and had short cropped hair, the other was untidy and looked as if he had slept in his clothes. The untidy man shook hands and introduced himself as Guy Burgess, the director of MI5. His companion was Martin Fritsch, London senior officer of the SS secret service the Sicherheitsdienst.
‘I’m sorry you’ve been inconvenienced, Peter,’ Burgess said in German. ‘I may call you Peter? After all, we’re all in the same game. I’m sure you will be happy to answer our questions when we tell you we are investigating the assassination of Reichsfuhrer Heydrich.’
They were sitting in leather armchairs, sipping coffee, as if they were in an English gentleman’s club.
‘Any help I can give, of course,’ said Bergfeld. ‘But I don’t believe I know anything that could be of use.’
Burgess lit a cigarette and, as an afterthought, offered them to his companions. Bergfeld and Fritsch declined.
‘You served with the Reichsfuhrer?’
‘I was proud to.’
‘You shared musical interests?’
‘We did indeed. I was honoured to be a guest in the Reichsfuhrer’s home on several occasions.’
Burgess smiled encouragingly.
‘You were also his pimp, I understand?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Forgive my indelicacy but we are investigating the death of a senior German officer.’
‘And the Reichsfuhrer’s wife would be scandalised to hear your insinuations.’
‘In these circumstances, Peter, shrouds can have no secrets. The Reichsfuhrer visited a prostitute the night he was killed. We are aware that among the duties you performed in the past for him was procuring young women. Did you arrange this visit?’
‘What did the young woman say?’
‘Please don’t prevaricate. It indicates a lack of good faith. You know very well that this particular young woman received her instructions from her personal arranger. Was it you who contacted the arranger? Was it you who told the Reichsfuhrer where to go and at what time?’
Bergfeld finished the coffee and placed the cup and saucer on a table.
‘Such an indelicate matter,’ he said. ‘I never enjoyed making such arrangements but what could I do? The Reichsfuhrer had certain appetites. But yes, I was responsible for finding the girl and her arranger, which is at least a pleasanter term than pimp.’
‘Thank you for being so honest, Peter. We knew you had. Now, our dilemma is this. The assassins knew the time and place. How did they know?’
‘Not from me. The only person I told was the Reichsfuhrer himself. I doubt if he would have told anyone. He would simply have told his driver where to go. Perhaps the arranger leaked the information.’
‘He has disappeared.’
‘Inconvenient, but perhaps an indication of guilt?’
‘Or perhaps very convenient.’
‘You’re making insinuations again.’
‘It’s my job, Peter.’ His smile widened. So far, Fritsch hadn’t said a word. He watched Bergfeld without expression, his legs neatly crossed. ‘Is there anything else you wish to tell us about who else might have known the arrangements?’
‘There is nothing I can tell you. I contacted David Hodge, the osteopath. He has a consultancy near Harley Street. He is well known in certain circles and is the arranger for titled gentlemen in the House of Lords. I assumed that made him as safe as any pimp can be. Perhaps I was wrong. Have you found anything that suggests otherwise at his office? His home?’
Burgess didn’t reply but leaned forward to stub out his cigarette in a large glass ashtray. A knock at the door caused them all to look up. Burgess went to the door and a man in a suit whispered to him.
‘Right.’ Burgess said, ‘If you will excuse us, Peter. I will send more coffee. Perhaps you would like sandwiches?’
‘No, thank you. I’ve eaten.’
Burgess nodded and he and Fritsch left the room.
Bergfeld felt a touch of indigestion. Perhaps one of the oysters had been bad.
Another half hour. Another pot of coffee. He walked around the room and looked at the paintings on the walls that were reproductions of London in different weather. Red buses in the rain, Regent Street in the snow, The Thames wreathed in fog and Trafalgar Square basking in sunshine. They were dull and uninspired.
He thought of the Berlin of his youth, of exciting times and of being certain of the destiny of the Fuhrer. It
had been good to be certain. It removed all guilt, all conscience. You didn’t have to think, just follow orders. No distractions, except for Dieter. A young man who was strong, masculine and unashamed of his homosexuality. There was never a dilemma with him. The army of Sparta had been strong because male lovers fought side by side. Try calling those chaps fairies, he used to say.
Dieter’s face faded in his mind and became John Lennon’s. Lennon had been in the mood for a fight at the Savoy. He had the same arrogance and bravery as Dieter. He would have stood shoulder to shoulder with a friend, even against the SS. At least Lennon and the group would be safe, no matter what the outcome of his predicament. Bergfeld was an expert at confusion, disinformation and covering his tracks. He had needed a rock and roll band to use as cover while he travelled in Europe and particularly the length and breadth of Britain, and he had picked a surprisingly good one. He had siphoned Ministry funding and used it to buy them studio time and to promote them. He had provided the opportunity but the success had been down to them.
He suspected the next few hours might not be pleasant and he hoped he would have the strength to see it through. Dieter had had the strength. When it got bad, he would think of Dieter. He wondered, yet again, whether there was an afterlife. If there was, he was certain it would be nothing like the Valhalla of Nazi mythology. Perhaps it would be a mixing of spirits and of souls. Perhaps Dieter would be waiting.
The door opened abruptly and Burgess and Fritsch entered. Bergfeld turned from perusing Trafalgar Square in sunshine and tried to read their expressions. Burgess held up an audiocassette.
‘Last chance, Herr Bergfeld. Is there anything you wish to tell us?’
He felt calm. He had waited a long time for this moment. He felt Dieter nearby.
‘I have nothing to say.’
‘Then perhaps you will accompany us to the cellar. It’s the neighbours, you see. Screaming disturbs them.’
The van stopped at a checkpoint and the noise of aeroplanes was even louder.
The calmness he had felt had not lasted in the cellar.
They took him to a stone-floored whitewashed room and stripped him. Take away the clothes, take away the dignity. They didn’t know he had lost his dignity that night in the concentration camp.
Burgess said, ‘Did you kill Reinhard Heydrich?’
He remained silent. Three other men, two of them large brutes and the third small and mean-faced, waited by a table upon which were instruments he preferred not to look at.
‘Did you organise the assassination?’
There was no point saying anything.
‘Will you tell me the names of your accomplices?’
He stared at the light bulb until his eyes hurt.
‘What role did Simon Humphrey play in the assassination?’
Bergfeld prayed. He hadn’t prayed since before Dieter. He had felt he hadn’t the right to pray. Now he had nothing else.
‘Is is true that Reichsmarschall Bormann has organised a plot against the Fuhrer?’
He lowered his gaze.
‘I have nothing to say.’
Burgess shook his head.
‘You know how it goes, Peter. It’s your choice. You tell us everything and avoid the pain. Then all you have to face is execution.’
Bergfeld remained silent as the fear built inside him. He had been SS and had been immured to pain in battle. He had inflicted pain and death, witnessed torture and interrogation. The last few years had made him soft but he hoped his inner strength had remained. He summoned it now.
Burgess said, ‘One thing. Why on earth did you make the recording? Insurance?’ Bergfeld simply smiled and Burgess shook his head. ‘It’s paying a poor dividend, Peter.’ He turned to the smallest of the three men, ‘Tell us when he’s ready to talk.’
He and Fritsch left and the three men removed their jackets and rolled up their sleeves and the interrogation began. They beat him, broke his fingers, removed toenails, used electrodes on his private parts. He screamed, he pissed himself and defecated. He passed out three times. He had conversations with Dieter in his head and, on one occasion, he unnerved his torturers by laughing loudly at a joke Dieter told him.
He didn’t talk and Burgess and Fritsch didn’t return to the cellar. In the morning, they washed and revived him with buckets of water and someone helped him dress, handcuffed his wrists in front of him and they put him in the back of the van. The small man who had supervised the beatings stared at him as he lay on the cold metallic floor.
‘Enjoy your flight,’ he said. ‘When you get back to Berlin, you will be playing the piano for the Fuhrer.’
‘Not with these fingers,’ Bergfeld said.
The van stopped and the doors were opened. He was helped out with neither roughness nor care. He was simply human cargo. The day was overcast; a hint of snow? Maybe they would have a white Christmas. He was helped up the stairs of a military transport plane, the swastika large and defiant on its fuselage, and put in a seat. He dozed while the aircraft taxied and waited for clearance and found Dieter. You did okay, said Dieter. For a fat bastard. Martin Fritsch, who was sitting nearby, looked at him strangely as he chuckled.
He enjoyed the surge of the take off and opened his eyes when they broke through the cloud into brilliant sunshine. He had made it. Not bad at all, for a fat bastard.
The only worry he had had during the beatings and torture, apart from the pain, was if they had decided to pull his teeth, but they hadn’t. He needed to be ascetically acceptable for his show trial in the People’s Court. The only other worry had been that he might succumb to temptation too soon, but he hadn’t, and Dieter was proud of him.
His tongue found the tooth and caressed it. He had found the sunshine and he had found Dieter and repaid the debt. He bit down and tasted cyanide.
Chapter 18
December 25, Berchtesgaden
SS Sturmbannfuhrer Martin Fritsch had trusted no one except Otto Koch, the head of the SD. He spoke to him on a secure telephone line from London and they met in Berlin and flew together to Munich, from where they took a helicopter to snow-clad Berchtesgaden in southeast Bavaria.
They were driven in a staff car from the town along the private road that went high onto the Obersalzberg to the Berghof estate Hitler had designed and built for himself on top of the mountain and which he called the Eagle’s Nest. Their car passed through five rings of fortifications manned by a Liebstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler Bodyguard Regiment before arriving at the foot of the steps that led up to the Berghof.
The Fuhrer received them in a room whose large windows provided spectacular views of the mountains and valley below. Hitler, seated in an armchair, was flanked by his personal physician Dr Karl Brandt and SS Obergruppenfuhrer Gunther Heines. Fritsch was shocked at the condition of the leader of the Reich.
He was supported in the chair with cushions and his uniform was too big at the neck. His hair was thin, his skin had a sallow pallor and his left eye was covered with a black eye patch. A facial twitch was permanent and disconcerting.
They named Bergfeld as the organiser of the assassination of Heydrich and explained it was part of a larger plot to remove the Fuhrer from power and take control of the Reich. Rather than name the Reichsmarschall, they played the cassette that had been found among Bergfeld’s possessions.
‘Sit down,’ said Bormann’s unmistakable voice. ‘Well?’
'Sir, I have to inform you that your plans have been activated.’
‘Go on.’
‘It is set for January 30. That is a date when the Fuhrer will be in Berlin. When he will be accessible. The Fuhrer will be taken into protective custody and we will take power. The supporters of Heydrich will be removed and executed. There will be no trials. No time to claim innocence. In any case, we have manufactured evidence to prove their guilt.’
‘What support do we have?’
‘I have a list.’ There was the noise of paper being handled and Bergfeld read out the names of 22 senior SS o
fficers. ‘They are all ready to take direct action. They have also intimated they will be able to rely on support from other officers once the action is underway.’
‘And they see which way it is going. So, it comes to this.’
‘Sir, I took an oath to the Fuhrer 30 years ago. I still hold true to that oath but not to the man. As you say, his senility has become a danger to the Reich. It is now time that you, as the Fuhrer’s deputy, take command.’
‘Go on.’
‘You are, of course, right that Heydrich should be removed first. If you agree, I could assassinate the Reichsfuhrer.’
‘I think I may have misjudged you, Herr Bergfeld. You would be capable of this?’
‘You know my service record. I am capable of many things as long as it serves the Reich.’
‘Remove the head of the snake and the rest will have no sting,’ mused Bormann.
‘And his friends?’ said Bergfeld.
‘Can be dealt with at leisure. The assassination cannot happen in Germany.’
‘England?’
‘England. He likes England. Let him die there. And it will give us an excuse to impose order. Mosley has been lax, of late. We will bring back the body and give it a funeral fit for a hero. You can do it?’
‘Yes, sir. I spend much time in England. When the Reichsfuhrer was in London in September, he had need of my services. I had to find him a suitable brothel. He visits England again next month, on December 15 and 16. He will have need of me again so I can pick the time and place.’
‘Good. Do it then. I will not see you again until afterwards. Do not let me down, Herr Bergfeld.’
‘No, sir.’
‘I want that bastard dead.’
‘He will be, sir. A hero’s death.’ They heard a chair being pushed back. ‘Heil Bormann.’
‘That’s it,’ said Fritsch. ‘There is no more.’
‘No more? NO MORE?’ Hitler thumped the arm of the chair with the fist of his good right hand and hissed venom. ‘Isn’t it enough that the Fuhrer’s life is threatened? That the Reich is threatened? That they take my shield, my Comrade Heydrich, and plot to take me?’
The Heydrich Sanction Page 13
