Katastrophe, page 23
‘We?’
‘You.’
‘Meaning?’
Goebbels shook his head. Then he pushed the remains of the bottle of schnapps across the desk and nodded towards the door.
‘The night is still young, Nehmann, and I have much work to do. Turn left in the corridor and you’re looking for the third door on the right-hand side. My housekeeper has laid out everything you may need. Hot water, I’m afraid, is in short supply but that needn’t concern a Stalinpferd.’
The evening had evidently come to an end. Nehmann picked up the bottle and was about to make for the door when Goebbels called him back. Then came the scrape of a drawer as he produced a candle and lit it from the flame on his desk.
‘You’ll need this,’ he said. ‘Schlafen Sie gut. And be careful of the hot wax.’
Nehmann left the office, clutching the candle in one hand and the bottle in the other. Already he’d forgotten Goebbels’ careful directions. Third door? Fourth? Left-hand side? Right? He tried the second of the doors on the right. The bedroom, he sensed at once, was far too big for a guest of his standing, and in any case he could smell perfume in the air, something heavy, and doubtless expensive.
He stepped deeper into the room, looking round. The bed was enormous and unmade, the sheets rumpled, folds of duvet and counterpane spilling onto the polished wood floor. Nehmann bent to the pillow and sniffed it. Definitely perfume. Still holding the candle, he explored the rest of the room. A line of built-in wardrobes opened to reveal rack after rack of dresses, and when he closed on the dressing table, he stole a long look at the framed infant faces in photograph after photograph. This was where Magda slept, he thought, with or without her husband.
About to leave the room, his eye was suddenly caught by a line of suitcases lying on the floor on the other side of the bed. Most of them were full of clothes, both Magda’s and garments belonging to the children, each item carefully folded and stowed, but the suitcase at the end had been reserved for a collection of toys, probably hand-picked.
Nehmann stood motionless for a moment, gazing down. In the soft yellow light of the candle, he could make out the smile on the face of a stuffed doll, paint peeling from the wings of a toy Me-109, a die-cast Tiger Tank missing one of its caterpillar tracks, and a collection of new-looking wooden skittles in the brightest of colours. This is a family on the move, he thought. But where?
The door to the bedroom was still open. Nehmann caught the lightest footfall. Then came the spill of light from another candle, and he found himself looking at Goebbels.
‘Wrong room,’ Nehmann muttered. ‘My mistake.’
Goebbels said nothing but stepped into the room and paused beside the bed.
‘You’re looking at the cases?’
‘I am.’
‘And?’
‘I’m guessing you all need a place of safety.’ Nehmann grimaced as hot wax dripped onto his hand. ‘Might I be right?’
‘You are, my friend. And where might that place be?’
‘I’ve no idea.’ He paused, remembering something one of the Chain Dogs had mentioned. ‘Die Alpenfestung, maybe?’
‘Our little burrow under the mountains, you mean?’ Goebbels was smiling. ‘Caves with air conditioning? A year’s supply of water and food? Impregnable lines of approach? Enough ammunition to keep any army at bay? Götterdämmerung? Nicely scored for full orchestra?’
‘That’s it. I’m told you gave a speech.’
‘And you believed it? You, Nehmann? Of all people?’
‘It’s not true?’
‘Of course it’s not true. Nothing’s changed, Nehmann. I still toss our people fresh meat, and they still gobble it up. Die Alpenfestung is a fantasy. In the real world, the Führer has a bunker. It’s deep under the Chancellery. He’s been generous enough to offer us five rooms, which should be enough.’ He put his hand on Nehmann’s arm, nodding down at the toys. ‘When the time comes, it will be a privilege to join him there.’
16
After the third day, Moncrieff began to wonder whether he was half in love with the tortoise. It appeared every morning, a scaly head poking through the rude tangle of spring growth in the tiny garden at the back of the cottage. Moncrieff had cherished a tortoise as a child. He knew they grew to a great age – his father had hinted at a hundred and fifty years – and even now he remembered that they loved fresh vegetables like kale, and dandelions, and mustard leaves.
This tortoise he judged to be old. Moncrieff had spotted it the first afternoon he’d sat in the sunshine, wedged against the wall beneath the kitchen window, enjoying the spring warmth on his face and the bareness of his legs below the borrowed shorts. Perfectly camouflaged, its shell the colour of the local stone, the tortoise would have been watching Moncrieff for a while before he registered its presence. He christened it Angus, in memory of the gamekeeper who’d first taught him how to stalk deer on the bareness of the Cairngorm mountains, and the longer he and the tortoise locked eyes, the more he began to wonder about the times this leathery old creature must have lived through.
He gave it water from a nearby spring, decanted into a saucer. He plucked tender young leaves of chard, carefully shredded and then stiffened with stems of wild grasses. He searched beneath a blackthorn tree and recovered a handful of rotting sloes, casualties of a recent storm. And on the third morning, when De Vries arrived with bread and eggs and a jug of milk from a farmer further up the mountain, he was telling Angus about the wars the tortoise had lived through but never seen, about the fierceness of industrial progress in Europe’s smokier corners, and about the diplomats gathering at the nearby lakeside just two decades ago to agree a treaty that would bring a peace that was supposed to last for generations.
‘In one way, it happened,’ he said. ‘But in another it didn’t. So why do we keep fighting? Any ideas?’
A polite cough announced the arrival of De Vries. She must be on foot, Moncrieff thought. Otherwise, he’d have heard the throaty bounce and cackle of her Topolino.
‘You’re talking to the flowers now?’
‘Angus.’ Moncrieff nodded at the tortoise. ‘My new friend.’
‘Have we been introduced?’
‘I don’t think so. Unless you make the effort, they tend to be shy.’
The cottage belonged to one of the rowers down by the lake. A two-hour walk from Locarno took you along the lake shore and then north, into the mountains, where a tiny hamlet nestled among the stands of pine and hornbeam. Invisible from the track, the cottage lay beside a brook that bubbled from a spring somewhere higher up. The fall of water on the mossy rocks softened the silence and the isolation, and Moncrieff had loved the place at first sight. Here, De Vries had assured him, he’d be safe while an investigation was launched into Hannalore’s death. The last thing he needed to attract was the attention of the local police.
Now, he made space for her in the splash of sunshine beneath the kitchen window. The sight of the borrowed shorts amused her.
‘I should have brought my camera,’ she said. ‘They’re a perfect fit. Hans wouldn’t believe it.’
Hans, it turned out, was the lone sculler Moncrieff had watched the first morning he’d woken up beside the lake and found De Vries’s big picture window full of rowers. Hans had a business in town. He dealt in antique furniture and after three days in his pied-à-terre, thanks to a series of clues, Moncrieff was beginning to suspect that he and De Vries were more than friends.
‘Hannalore?’ he asked.
‘The police think it was a burglary. Her purse was missing, and there was more money she kept in a drawer, and they couldn’t find that, either. Robberies go wrong sometimes. That’s their belief, not mine.’
Moncrieff glanced sideways at her. Before De Vries had raised the alarm that afternoon, they’d searched for the roll of negatives from De Vries’s camera, and for whatever prints Hannalore had managed to develop, but of both there was no trace.
‘So what’s the real story?’
‘It has to be Wolff and the meeting down by the lake. My guess is that Swiss intelligence wants everything tidied away, no drama, no headlines. Publicity would be an embarrassment. Discretion matters in this country. Everything is supposed to happen in the shadows, discreetly, off-camera.’
‘You think we were followed that morning?’
‘I’m sure we were. Did I see anyone? No. Does that prove anything? Again, no. Locarno is a small town. In some ways, Switzerland is even smaller. What I can’t explain is the ice pick.’
Moncrieff nodded. Since Stalin had Trotsky killed in Mexico five years ago, the ice pick had become a calling card when the NKVD chose to settle their debts.
‘So who killed her?’ Moncrieff was watching the tortoise backing carefully into the wall of green.
‘Good question. Why might be easier. It pains me to say it but those photos of mine probably killed her. We should never have gone for lunch.’
‘But who?’ Moncrieff insisted. ‘Who would have gone to lengths like that?’
‘Take your choice. The SS? The Americans? Swiss intelligence? Maybe even your Broadway friends? A conversation like that was never supposed to happen. The fact that it did could upset some important people.’ She paused. ‘You’ve still got that print we took to the restaurant?’
‘Of course.’
‘Well hidden?’
‘I suspect so.’
‘What does that mean?’
Moncrieff gazed at her for a moment, then got to his feet and extended a hand to help her up. After the brightness of the sunshine, the interior of the cottage was dark. According to De Vries, Hans had done very little to the place since he’d bought it. She said he’d loved its bareness and simplicity, not a stick of antique furniture anywhere, and after three days in residence, Moncrieff knew exactly what he meant. Two smallish rooms downstairs, with a primitive kitchen at the back. A poorly repaired sofa, and a couple of shelves brimming with books, most of them on the subject of mountaineering. With a tortoise for company, Moncrieff thought, what else could a man possibly need?
He led the way upstairs. A cupboard had been wedged into one corner of the smaller bedroom, and, under the pile of assorted boots and shoes inside, Moncrieff had discovered a false floor. He lined the shoes up on the bare floorboards and used his penknife once again to access the hidden compartment.
‘There.’ Moncrieff stepped back, allowing the light from the window to fall onto the white envelope containing the photo from the Gaevernitz villa. Beneath it, a similar size, was another envelope, manila this time, with a place and a date scrawled in black ink. Den Haag. April, 1940.
De Vries was staring at it. Moncrieff extracted the Gaevernitz photo but she scarcely spared it a glance. What mattered was the other envelope.
‘You’ve looked inside?’ she asked at last.
‘Does it matter if I have?’
‘Yes, it does.’
‘Then the answer, I’m afraid, is yes.’
‘And?’
‘They’re lovely shots. It’s a crass thing to say but Hans is a lucky man.’
De Vries nodded, bit her lip, said nothing. Finally, she reached for the envelope and stepped towards the window.
‘I should never have parted with them,’ she said quietly. ‘I knew at the time it was a mistake.’
‘On the contrary. You should be proud of yourself. Literally.’
‘You really think so?’
‘I do.’
‘And you’re in a position to make that kind of judgement?’ She looked up at him a moment.
‘That’s a silly question. Daft. I’m offering you a compliment. If you’re telling me I should never have looked, then I’m sure you’re right. Let’s just forget it. Let’s pretend I never opened the bloody envelope, never even laid hands on the thing.’
She glanced up at him again, then shook her head. Moments later, Moncrieff was looking once again at a sheaf of photos. They were black and white. All of them featured a younger De Vries sitting in a wooden recess dominated by a tall window. The light from the window fell obliquely on her naked body. In most of the shots she had one leg crossed over the other but what drew Moncrieff’s attention were her breasts. They were full, perfectly shaped, beautiful, and in most of the shots she was paying them a particular attention. Her forefinger circling a nipple. One hand cupping the weight of the breast. Her chin on her chest, nestled in the cleft between her breasts, the barest hint of a smile.
‘Who took these?’ Moncrieff asked.
‘Me. I lined the shot up and exposed for maximum contrast. With the Leicas you can set for a huge range of delay. If you’re interested, I settled for ten seconds. I was pleased at the time. It’s easier than you might think to get shots like these wrong.’
‘They were for publication?’
‘God, no.’
‘A friend?’
‘Only later. A present for Hans. It was his birthday.’
‘So why did you take them? Do you mind me asking?’
She shook her head, her gaze returning to the photos, and then one hand strayed to her blouse.
‘I was saying goodbye,’ she said quietly. ‘I’d had three consultations plus a second opinion and there was nowhere left for me to hide. Tumours in both breasts. A double mastectomy.’ She looked up at him for a moment, and then blinked. ‘I thought at the time I owed myself these shots. Now, I’m not so sure.’
‘And Hans?’
‘Hans is a wonderful man but sometimes I think he’s fallen in love with half a woman.’
‘The best half?’
‘That’s what he says, oddly enough.’ She was frowning. ‘Put them back, please. He’d be upset if he thought we’d had a conversation like this.’
Moncrieff did her bidding while she turned away, staring out at the spring greenness of the mountainside. With the boots and shoes back in the cupboard, Moncrieff closed the door.
‘One last question,’ he said. ‘That painting of yours in the apartment.’
‘The ugly one?’
‘The angry one.’
‘You thought I was getting something off my chest?’ She looked suddenly weary. ‘You were right.’
Back downstairs, she took a proper look at the photo from the lakeside villa, and then returned it to the white envelope.
‘I have to take you to Bern,’ she murmured.
‘Who says?’
‘Ursula. She phoned. She’s staying in a hotel there.’
‘All this was en clair?’ Moncrieff shook his head in disbelief. Swiss intelligence monitored all foreign calls.
‘Pas du tout. In The Hague, we always talked about goods and markets. For some reason, high-grade intelligence was always carrots. I told her we’ve never had a better crop. Seeing is believing. That made her laugh. Prove it, she said. As codes go, it’s primitive but I know she got the point.’
‘Which is?’
‘You give her the photo. She’ll probably send it home via the diplomatic bag. Or maybe she’ll take the risk and hand-carry it.’
Moncrieff nodded.
‘You’ll drive me to Bern?’
‘Yes.’
‘So when do we leave?’
‘Tonight. It’s safer in darkness, as long as the bloody car holds up.’
*
De Vries left shortly afterwards, promising to be back after dusk, this time in her little Fiat. Moncrieff killed what was left of the day as best he could. A proper goodbye to the tortoise would, in some strange way, have been comforting but – unusually – there was no sign of it. Maybe he knows, Moncrieff thought. Maybe, over his long life, he’s become indifferent to serial desertions, to the comings and goings of these giants who would appear for a day, or a year, or even a generation. Or maybe, after his hours in the sun, he just wanted to take a nap. Either way, Moncrieff prepared a little bowl of shredded leaves plucked from a stand of watercress beside the stream. Three days of watching the little creature eat told Moncrieff that cress leaves were his favourite, and he wanted Angus to know that his company had been appreciated.
Hours later, when he told De Vries about the bittersweetness of this adieu, she shook her head and told him he was crazy.
‘It’s a bloody tortoise,’ she said. ‘It’ll outlive us all.’
‘I know,’ Moncrieff murmured. ‘And that’s rather the point.’
She was wearing her Salvation Army uniform, the black jacket loosened at the throat, her bonnet stowed on Moncrieff’s lap. The tiny Fiat hadn’t been designed for a woman her height, and she looked awkward at the wheel, bullying the car through bend after bend as they wound through the mountains. It was a windy night with scudding clouds and a fullish moon, and from time to time Moncrieff glimpsed the whiteness of snow on the higher peaks. He, too, was cramped but the blast of hot air from the car’s heater was a blessing and he rather liked the intimacy that the journey had imposed.
His discovery of her photos had sparked a change in De Vries. She was less sure of herself, less commanding. At first, she told Moncrieff, she’d assumed that chance, or blind fate, had put the photos in his path but the more she thought about it, the more she began to suspect that this had always been God’s intention. Nothing in this world happened by accident. Everything served a larger purpose.
‘Which is?’
‘Acceptance.’
‘Of what?’
‘Loss.’
Moncrieff pondered the word, sensing how important it was.
‘Of your womanhood?’ he asked at last. ‘Of the person you were?’
‘Of my vanity. If you want the truth, I loved my breasts. There had been photos before. Not mine. Someone else’s. We were young before the war, even Ursula. We enjoyed ourselves. We took risks. Dutch men are great lovers. They know how to treat women, how to appreciate them, how to please.’
