The Berlin Traitor, page 13
‘I’m not sure if I can help,’ Duchene said.
‘Then you will try.’ Leterrier pointed at one of the three manila folders on the coffee table. ‘You will try because that is your duty to France and to our allies. As long as the Soviets are still hunting for the schematics, we’re still hunting for the schematics.’
‘You mean as long as my wife is still running their investigation, you want me around while you run yours? What’s in these schematics that means you need to stop the Russians from getting them back?’
‘That’s classified,’ Wright said.
‘You do realise that if I find them, I might end up seeing them.’
‘General, he has a point,’ Raye said. ‘It’s better that Monsieur Duchene understands what’s at risk here.’
Bennett looked at his companions, ‘Colonel? Brigadier?’
‘Agreed,’ Leterrier said. Wright inclined his head.
‘They’re schematics for a long-range guided ballistic missile,’ Bennett said
‘The Russians have been seizing rockets and materials around Germany,’ Greer said. ‘We’re trying to limit their ability to build their own versions of the rockets.’
‘Are you building the rockets?’ Duchene asked.
The brigadier spoke calmly, his fingers stretched on the leather arms of his chair. ‘Mr Duchene, we are in a race against the Soviets. Stalin has shown he is unwilling to cede the countries the Red Army occupied. This is a new threat to the stability of the world.’
‘We need you to help us to slow his ambitions,’ Bennett said.
‘It is a simple question. We have given you as much time as we are willing,’ Leterrier said.
Duchene picked up the coffee from the table. It was cold, but he sipped at it anyway. The information was still rolling over him, yet to flatten to a calm he could interpret and digest. Would they even let him go back to Paris if he refused? The Soviets and the Americans were only going to push harder, now that Sprenger was dead. Sabine might be a willing participant in this race, but she, too, was at risk of being ground under by the nations that were running it.
Sabine.
‘What can I can do to help?’
EIGHTEEN
‘So what do we do now?’ Raye said as he lit a cigarette and placed his feet on the table.
They had been given their own room on the second floor of the administration building, though Duchene was struggling to see its purpose. Aside from a table and the two chairs they were sitting on, it contained only a cratered cork board to which a German map of central Berlin was pinned. The map still bore a swastika on each corner and its locations were shown in the heavy Gothic font used by the Nazis.
‘Duchene?’ Raye said again.
‘I don’t know. Ask some questions? Start to try to unpick the knot.’
‘The knot?’
‘It’s all there, somewhere. We might not be able to see it, might never see it. But we have some information.’
‘Okay, this is good.’ Raye sat up and pulled his notepad out of his pocket.
‘We have the Oberführer. He was at the doctor having a tattoo of his blood type removed. Why?’
‘That we know. Most SS have them tattooed on their left arm. So they could still get medical treatment without their dog tags. It’s how we’ve been catching them.’
‘So why did he choose to leave now? Why not earlier?’
‘We don’t know. We found some fake papers in his clothes when we brought his body back to camp last night. Fake passport and a thousand Reichsmarks.’
‘Maybe it took him time to pull it all together?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Then, let’s go back to the last time he was seen.’
‘That was on the fifteenth of April, when he was in Gestapo HQ during the RAF bombing raids.’ Raye picked up a file. ‘That was the last time we knew he had the schematics.’
‘Can we talk to this German informant?’
‘She’s dead, unfortunately. Executed by the Gestapo. She’d been asked to retrieve the schematics. Never made it out.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I’d never met her. Must have been brave.’
‘I’m assuming these Gestapo headquarters are in the Soviet zone. Or else you would have searched them.’
‘Yes.’ Raye stood and stuck a pin in the map. ‘On Prinz-Albrecht- Strasse, close to the border between the US and Soviet zones.’
Duchene stood to look at the map that no longer bore any resemblance to the Berlin in which they now stood. The web of streets that ran out from the Mitte at the centre of the city, the U-Bahns marked in rectangles, the Spree and its canals, even its parks and gardens, blasted by tanks and heavy artillery.
‘What about Allmann? You said he was picked up trying to cross the Elbe having come from Gestapo headquarters. Perhaps he knows something else?’
‘We already spoke to him. He gave us everything he had.’
‘He gave you everything he had on the Oberführer. Did you ask him about the schematics?’
Raye grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair. ‘I’ll get a jeep.’
***
Raye wore a pair of aviator glasses to cut the glare of the day as he drove.
‘How can you be so sure Allmann and the others will still be at the camp?’ Duchene shouted.
‘It’s been less than forty-eight hours since I signed off on sending them back to the field camps. Usually takes two days to requisition a boxcar and another day to get a train to bring it from the Rhein. And that’s if everything goes to plan. Took me the better part of a week to get them up to Berlin in the first place.’
‘Let’s hope he knows something.’
‘Agreed.’
‘Did you know about the schematics? Yesterday, when we were searching for the doctor, when I caught you in a lie about Sabine, you said you’d told me everything you knew.’
‘I didn’t know about the schematics.’
Raye pulled the jeep onto the side of the road, bringing it to a sudden stop in front of the scorched turret of a Russian tank. He let the vehicle idle while he turned to face Duchene and removed his sunglasses. His brow was furrowed and there were dark rings under the eyes that looked directly into Duchene’s.
‘Auguste, I didn’t know about the schematics.’
‘Alright.
‘You have to believe me.’
‘Does it matter?’
Raye slapped a hand on the steering wheel. ‘It does. Listen. I thought there was something else going on but they didn’t tell me. I’m not stupid – I know we wouldn’t throw these sorts of resources at hunting a mid-ranked officer. Even if he was a war criminal. I didn’t tell you because we needed to concentrate on what we were doing, not speculate.’
When Raye had lied to his superiors about firing on Russian soldiers, it had come easily and without those small signs that Duchene had come to look for. No eye movement, no finger twitch, no shift to reposition the body as the question was asked. Even now Raye’s eyes were locked on Duchene’s.
‘You believe me?’
Now it was Duchene’s turn to sell the lie. ‘I believe you.’
‘Great!’ Raye shifted the clutch and thrust them back out onto the road.
In only a few more minutes they were following the line of linden trees that led to the turn-off to the camp. Duchene was immediately taken back to the other night. Raye’s right hand was still bruised from the beating he’d given the Gestapo.
‘Last time we were here, when you interrogated him, you told me he wasn’t a prisoner of war. Because, what? He’s a war criminal?’
‘No,’ Raye said, slowing as they reached the gates. ‘Because that’s not his designation. Captured Germans are disarmed enemy forces.’
‘And what is the difference?’
‘Nazi Germany no longer exists as a state, so the Geneva Convention doesn’t apply to them.’
The gates of the camp were open. Only one soldier stood on guard. Inside the compound a line of men was queuing beside the bunkhouse. The strong smell of a meaty stew was carried towards them on the breeze.
Raye snatched the glasses from his face. The jeep had barely stopped before he was out and running towards the administration building.
Duchene looked more carefully at the line of men. There were fewer of them than there had been the other day and though their clothes were still in disarray, he could see the olive green trousers, the tan service boots, the mustard shirts.
Duchene reached the office in time to see Raye slamming his hand on a field table. ‘You’re fucking kidding me!’
The young sergeant he was speaking to was red faced, though more from shock, perhaps, than embarrassment. The office was obviously temporary, set up with collapsible chairs and tables, ready to be decamped in minutes. Although it had been cleaned of all debris and the windows patched, the room had the faint ammonia smell of animal urine.
‘I’m sorry, Captain, but these orders were signed off by General Bradley, delivered just after zero nine hundred. We didn’t bring it to your attention because you’d already signed the paperwork to return the prisoners to the Rhein camps.’
‘I signed orders that would still have them in our custody.’
‘The men in the camp are Americans, not Germans,’ Duchene said.
‘So I’ve just been told. Damnit!’ Raye stormed towards the door, then stopped, his hand on the handle. ‘How long since they left?’
‘Forty minutes ago,’ the sergeant replied. ‘Three trucks, sir, and six jeeps.’
‘More than enough time to get back into the Soviet zone,’ Raye said.
‘What’s happened?’ Duchene asked.
‘The Russians made a deal with the Control Group Council to exchange the Gestapo for US soldiers liberated from ex-German work camps.’
‘The Germans surrendered two months ago,’ Duchene said. ‘The Soviets are saying they only just found them?’
Raye leant against the door jamb and crossed his arms. ‘What was the word, Sergeant?’
‘Processed, sir. They only just finished processing them.’
Duchene shook his head. ‘You have to wonder.’
‘Yes, the timing is fucking convenient.’
‘And Allmann?’
‘Gone.’ Raye pushed off the wall and threw the door open. ‘The Russians have him now.’
PARIS
Sunday, 15 November 1936
NINETEEN
‘Put the money in here.’ Duchene grabbed a shirt off the floor and passed it to Sabine.
‘If we’re carrying clothes out of the room, won’t it attract the landlady’s attention?’
‘Better than a bundle of cash. Better than getting bed lice.’
‘Good point. I’ll put it under my coat.’ Sabine replaced the floorboard and pulled the rug back over it.
The longer he spent here, the more Duchene felt that the smell of death would become a part of him. He could feel its odour collecting in the recesses of his nose, gathering in his clothing and settling into his hair. A dead man lay less than a metre from him. A life that had been was no more. But these sympathies were purely intellectual. His stomach roiled from the smell – the sick, sweet smell of decay that fed into animal instincts of repulsion and flight.
Duchene forced himself to take in the room once more. Aaron Meunier, stabbed on the bed. Still in his day clothes, his coat spread open around him, his pockets turned out. His shoes removed, then tossed to one side. Their laces had been untied and the tongues lifted.
‘We need to go,’ Sabine said.
‘Just a moment.’ Duchene tracked the clothes across the floor, back to the open suitcase, now empty, its linings cut open. Duchene examined it. The luggage label stickers showed recent ports it had been through – Calais and Oslo and Le Havre.
‘His passport. Quick, can you see it anywhere?’
Sabine rummaged through the clothes, then turned back the flaps of Meunier’s coat.
‘Auguste,’ she said.
It was loose, sitting on a dried pool of blood.
‘That’s been placed there.’ As he lifted a corner of the passport from the bloody mess, using a handkerchief that had been lying on the floor, the cover ripped. Duchene wrapped the passport and placed it in his pocket; Sabine did the same with the stack of francs.
He pulled the door shut and they started towards the stairs. ‘You go first,’ said Duchene.
‘Did you give him my message?’ The landlady’s question went unanswered as Duchene and Sabine moved quickly past and out into the alleyway.
As soon as they were no longer in her sightline, they began to run, slowing to a walk only once they were back on the street.
Sabine was catching her breath, her voice hoarse as she spoke. ‘We should take this back to the party office. Right away.’
‘I agree. It’s too much to carry around. We don’t want to end up like Vincent or Meunier.’
The rain had eased to light showers, slicking the streets so that the headlamps of automobiles reflected on stones and windows.
As they turned another corner, Sabine glanced over her shoulder to see if they were being followed.
‘Anyone?’
‘No.’
After the cold wind in the streets, the Métro felt damp and humid. Some of the framed advertising posters on the tiled walls promised unattainable luxury – a car racing along a Cote d’Azur boulevard – but others offered more affordable glamour: an hour or two at the cinema with a smoky-eyed Marlene Dietrich.
A rush of wind heralded the arrival of the train, tugging at newspapers and the edges of coats. After sliding open the wooden door, Sabine held it open for two elderly men before she and Duchene stepped into the carriage. The bulbs that lined the roof flickered and, with a hiss, the train resumed its journey.
As Sabine leant her head on his shoulder, Duchene drew in the smell of her, the citrusy perfume that was slowly fading, the chalkiness of the make-up she used sparingly so that it would last. But under these was her true smell – the faint scent of the ocean and the earthiness of clay, those essential minerals that made up her unique chemistry.
Sabine spoke softly into his ear. ‘What were you doing back there? Why did you wait after we found the money?’
‘I was trying to take in as much of it as I could.’
‘Why?’
‘To understand why he was killed.’
She lifted her head from his shoulder. His words seemed to summon her own recollection of the room.
‘And did you? Understand?’
‘I have a theory. Because of what was left behind and what was taken.’
‘Taken?’
‘Montfort said he hadn’t heard from Meunier, not since he left for Paris.’
‘You asked him if he’d show us his letter. He became flustered.’
‘Meunier had come from Norway.’
‘Ah, the labels on his suitcase.’
‘Yes – Oslo. If we look at the dates in his passport it will confirm it. But Montfort tried to hide his deceptions in a half-truth. He wasn’t just afraid about his and Meunier’s safety because of the persecution of Trotsky and his followers. It was because of something they were doing here and now.’
‘Trotsky’s in Norway, under house arrest. Do you think Meunier was carrying a letter to Paris Trotskyists from their leader?’
‘I do.’
‘So the room wasn’t turned over in search of the money. They were looking for the letter?’
‘Yes, probably in the shoes, because you wouldn’t start your search there. But that’s not what concerns me, what doesn’t make sense. The way the rug matched up with the wine stain suggests it was moved before the room was turned over. That means the room would have been clean when the killer arrived.’
Sabine chuckled. ‘I’m not sure if anyone could have ever called that room clean.’
‘If I was the killer,’ Duchene continued, ‘after I stabbed Meunier, and I was looking for the letter, why didn’t I make that same connection? Why didn’t I lift the rug and discover the money?’
‘Perhaps you didn’t see it.
‘Possibly. Maybe the killer moved straight to searching the body, then the case, then removed the shoes. That’s the order in my mind. By throwing the contents of the suitcase around the room, they made it harder to see the rug had been removed.’
‘Well, it’s a good thing they didn’t.’
‘The Central Committee, what will they make of this Trotsky connection?’ asked Duchene.
‘Thorez and his faction support global Soviet communism and agree with Trotsky’s exile, but their main concern is finding new members for the PCF and, of course, the war in Spain. I’d always have picked Langlois, not Vincent, as a closet Trotskyist. He probably hoped Trotsky would seize power, not Stalin. And he’s the one who put us in contact with Montfort. We should tell them what we’ve discovered.’
***
‘You’re saying that Vincent met Aaron Meunier and gave him the money?’
They had spent the last ten minutes explaining to the Central Committee what had happened at the boarding house and Bloyer had seized on the one piece of the puzzle that eluded Duchene.
‘That…I’m not so sure,’ Duchene replied. ‘Perhaps Vincent gave him the money, Meunier hid it and then was murdered.’
‘And this killer, or killers, also murdered Comrade Vincent?’ Langlois asked.
Though a quorum of the Central Committee had been hurriedly assembled in the top-floor meeting room, Langlois and Bigarde led the questions. Duchene and Sabine stood at the head of the table; the committee sat around it; the money lay in the centre.
‘The only thing that would suggest that is the connection with Meunier and the money being in his room. It’s possible, but I wouldn’t say it’s certain.’
