Katastrophe, page 30
Moncrieff nodded. It was true. The first time he’d met Wilhelm Schultz was back in 1938, first Paris, then Berlin, and finally Nuremberg. Moncrieff had been the apprentice spy, fresh from service with the Royal Marines, fluent in German, eager to return to a continent he’d loved. Schultz, by then, was already a veteran, an ex-street fighter with Ernst Röhm’s Sturmabteilung, and a survivor of the murderous Night of the Long Knives. Discretion, and a growing distaste for Nazi manners, had taken him to military intelligence, and to an ever-widening set of responsibilities, because he was sharp, and spoke the language of the streets, and had the wits and the raw nerve to handle the worst that the demented Nazi regime could dream up.
‘We let you down, Schultz. Halifax? Chamberlain? We both know the Wehrmacht would have marched on Berlin and put paid to Hitler had Munich never happened.’
‘May have marched. It was a prospect, Moncrieff, a thought to salve the Prussian conscience. Loyalty’s bred in these peoples’ bones. Like it or not, Hitler was the Chancellor, got himself elected. They’d sworn the Soldier’s Oath. The fact that their precious Führer was also a madman was awkward but as long as he kept delivering those presents no one really minded.’
‘But how about you? What did you think at the time?’
‘I’d seen these people close up when I was with the Brownshirts. I knew the way they operated, what they were capable of. Most of them stayed in the gutter. The ones who didn’t ended up running the fucking country, and most of Europe as well. You want to know when I knew we were finished?’
‘We?’
‘The Abwehr. What remained of our conscience. It was ’39. Hitler had bluffed his way into the Sudetenland, and then the rest of Czecho, and now it was the Polacks’ turn. By now, even you Brits realised just how dangerous this man was but by then it was far too late. Hitler made a speech in the Reichstag the day before we jumped on the Poles. A load of us from the Bendlerblock were ordered to attend. There were maybe a hundred men in uniform there. The rest of them were politicians, all of them with shiny knees and half the Wilhelmstrasse up their slimy arses. Hitler was crap that day, couldn’t raise the old magic, didn’t bother, but that wasn’t the point. The point was what he was wearing. Just guess, Moncrieff. Imagine you’re there. Imagine you’ve got a perfect view. What’s the man wearing?’
Moncrieff shook his head, said he hadn’t the first clue.
‘An SS uniform, my friend. Black. He had it specially made for him a couple of days earlier. Later I met the tailor who’d done the fitting, made the little alterations. Hitler had started to put on weight. All those creamed potatoes. All those eggs. All that Kaffee und Kuchen routine at the Berghof. But even that wasn’t the point. The point was the uniform itself. Hitler had got the better of the Generals, and that meant he’d got the better of us, too. No one cared about military intelligence any more because the only name in town that mattered was Himmler’s, and he was there in the front row in the Reichstag, with that smug little smile on his face. Why? Because the SS had won. Because to matter at all you had to wear black. At first, we didn’t believe it. Then we were into Poland, kicking the shit out of the Polacks, and no one realised what was going on behind the front line. In the Wehrmacht you carry a rifle and take your chances with the enemy. With the Einsatzgruppen, those odds don’t apply. You do exactly as you please, kill whoever you like, make them dig their own graves first. They call it tidying up. Hitler, it turns out, hates dirt of any kind. Punctilious, our Leader. Keeps his nails clean.’
Moncrieff nodded. It was impossible to mistake this vehemence for anything but disgust.
‘And you were helpless? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘We were. Why? Because nothing wins an argument quicker than success. Within a month, Poland didn’t exist. The French Army, by and large, were still in barracks. The British hadn’t lifted a finger. No one was ready for Hitler, not because he hadn’t warned them what was coming, but because they hadn’t listened. That’s how this war started, Moncrieff. Because none of you fucking listened.’
Moncrieff nodded. Both glasses were empty, and the waiter arrived to refill them. Without sparing him a glance, Schultz ordered another bottle.
‘This is on me, my friend.’
‘Himmler’s paying?’
‘I’m paying.’ Schultz raised his glass.
‘To peace?’
‘To Châteauneuf.’
Moncrieff smiled. The wine was delicious.
‘We last met in Lisbon, Willi. You were kind enough to deliver a letter from Goering. Hess wanted to end the war but Churchill wouldn’t have it. Remember all that?’
‘Of course I do. You were fucking a lady who’d fled to Moscow and joined the Revolution.’
‘Bella Menzies.’
‘That’s right. We’d all known her in Berlin before the war. Credit to the woman. Given what we all did for a living, no one had the first clue her interests extended beyond the British Embassy. Did you ever know? As a matter of interest?’
‘Never.’
‘And it never made a difference? Afterwards?’
‘Obviously not.’
‘Then credit to you, too, my friend. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak? Bullshit. The Bible had it wrong. Flesh, every time. Flesh, always. The spirit stands no fucking chance. She was a good-looking woman. She knew how to make people laugh, even Nazis, and in Berlin that took real talent, believe me.’ He paused. ‘You must miss her.’
‘I do.’
‘Then I’m sorry. And I mean that.’ He reached for his glass. ‘Bella.’
‘Bella,’ Moncrieff said tonelessly. ‘You were there, Schultz. You were there in Kyiv. I only got to see that photo you sent very recently. Barton had been keeping it to herself,’ a thin smile, ‘until she thought I was ready.’
‘And were you?’
‘No. But then I suspect I’ll never be ready.’
Schultz nodded. He wanted, he said, to offer a little advice.
‘Don’t be too glum, Moncrieff. Life is shit already. Don’t make it worse.’
‘I’m a Scot. You’re right, we brood. It’s in the blood. You can hear it in the music we make. The bagpipes didn’t happen by accident. A call to arms and a call to prayer. Hopeless. We’re Celts. We can’t help ourselves.’
‘That’s what your lady told me.’
‘About?’
‘You. If it matters, she thought it made you a good man.’
‘And that was a compliment?’
‘Yes. She also said you couldn’t help yourself, which I’m guessing is the same thing. Good by nature is the best it gets. That’s her saying it, not me.’
‘You were close? The pair of you? In Kyiv?’
‘We were. She needed help and I was happy to do whatever I could.’
‘So what happened?’
‘You don’t want to know.’
‘I do, Schultz. Otherwise I wouldn’t have asked you.’
Schultz nodded, lifting his glass, eyeing Moncrieff over the brim. He swallowed a mouthful of wine, then another.
‘She upset our friends in black,’ he said at last.
‘The SS?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘They made her pay for it.’
‘How?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It does, Willi. Just bloody tell me.’
‘OK,’ Schultz shrugged. ‘First they had her raped. Twice. Then, a while later, they killed her. There.’ He sat back. ‘Does that make you feel better?’
Moncrieff looked away. None of this was really a surprise. By defecting to Moscow in the first place, Bella had declared her determination to risk the possibility of an ugly ending. Her life in Moscow, according to her own laconic account, hadn’t sharpened her appetite for Lenin’s brave new world but at least she’d survived. In Kyiv, on the other hand, she plainly hadn’t.
‘So what took her there?’ Moncrieff asked softly. ‘Last time I saw her, she was heading for Moscow. What changed?’
‘She thought she’d been betrayed.’
‘By whom? Someone in Moscow?’
Schultz shook his head but didn’t answer.
‘Someone closer to home?’
A shrug, this time.
‘Someone English? Someone I might know? This is in your gift, Willi. You work for Himmler. Soon I might show you the photo you’re after. That’s one scalp for your belt. Give me a name, and that’s two reasons Himmler might look fondly upon you. Assuming, of course, that you’re really here on his behalf.’
‘You think I’m not?
‘I’ve no idea. I just want the name, Willi. The name of whoever wanted her dead. Not the SS. Not some psychopath in a black uniform. But whoever it was that needed protection. This is simple logic, Willi. She knew too much for her own good. Whoever betrayed her, in the eyes of Moscow, was more important. Don’t tell me you can’t follow that. Don’t tell me she didn’t give you the name herself. You know, Willi. You know.’
‘Whose war are you fighting? Ours? Or your own?’
‘Ours?’ Moncrieff blinked. ‘You said ours?’
‘I did, my friend. And that’s the only clue you get. Here comes our friend, thank Christ.’
The waiter arrived with the new bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, already uncorked. Schultz told him to leave it on the table. Then he returned to Moncrieff.
‘The photo?’
Moncrieff held his gaze, and then shrugged. He slipped the photo from the envelope and slid it across the tablecloth. Schultz studied it a moment, and then his thick finger hovered over the figure in the middle of the group.
‘That’s Wolff,’ he grunted. ‘The others I don’t know.’
‘But you’re still in military intelligence.’ Moncrieff feigned surprise. ‘The other two are senior Allied officers, both of them Generals. You’re really telling me you don’t know?’
‘I am, yes. You were right first time, Moncrieff. This photo is of no consequence. It’s decaying food on the wrong shelf. Even if I was starving, I wouldn’t give you ten pfennigs for it. We must eat, by the way. If only to do justice to this magnificent wine.’
*
It was midnight before they returned to the hotel. They’d spent hours over the meal, comparing notes, sharing the lighter moments of a war that had taken a while to sour. When pressed, Schultz had admitted to heading the Abwehr outpost at Stalingrad but insisted that he and his men had managed to get out on one of the last flights. Since then, he hinted vaguely at a series of other assignments but blamed his lack of recall on the battle Hitler had been careless enough to lose.
‘They called it der Kessel,’ Moncrieff had mused. Der Kessel meant ‘cauldron’. ‘Fair, do you think?’
‘Fair? Bollocks. Hot things happen in cauldrons. Stalingrad was the deep freeze. You lost everything, chiefly hope. We were lucky. The other poor bastards weren’t.’
It was at this stage, moments before Moncrieff settled the bill, that Schultz consented to have his photo taken. A souvenir, he agreed, would be more than fitting. He’d give Moncrieff a forwarding address for after the war’s end.
Now, Moncrieff had a key to the hotel’s main door. There were two single beds in his room, he said, and Schultz was welcome to one of them. Schultz nodded. He thought a nightcap might be in order.
‘The barmaid’s Swiss,’ Moncrieff pointed out. ‘I expect she’s been in bed for hours.’
‘Then we help ourselves. I’m German, remember. It’s the closest we get to statecraft.’
Moncrieff laughed, leading the way to the bar. To his surprise, the lights were still on. As soon as he’d stepped inside, he froze. Two figures were sitting on stools at the empty bar, both nursing beers. The last time he’d seen them was lunchtime, through the window of the restaurant in the city centre where he’d eaten. The older of the two men produced a handgun and gestured for Moncrieff to raise his hands.
‘Crusader,’ Moncrieff murmured. ‘What a pleasant surprise.’
The Serb didn’t react. Moncrieff was aware of Schultz’s presence behind him.
‘Give me that camera,’ he muttered.
‘In my left pocket.’
Moncrieff, his hands still held high, felt the weight of the little camera leaving his coat pocket. Was Schultz somehow part of this ambush? Was he to lose all De Vries’s prints? He prayed that the answer was no.
Schultz pushed past him. When the younger of the two men tried to block his path to the lavatory, Schultz gestured down at his own groin.
‘You want me to piss all over you? A pleasure, my friend, but I can think of better ways of ending the evening.’
The Serb looked briefly surprised. Then he followed Schultz into the lavatory.
‘Sit.’ Crusader waved Moncrieff towards the table, taking the seat opposite, the gun steady in his hand. ‘You have the photo?’
Moncrieff was beginning to regret the third bottle of Châteauneuf. Should he pretend an ignorance of German? Should he kick the table over and trust his long-ago unarmed combat skills? Or should he simply act the way he felt? Drunk and now suddenly angry.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ he said in German. ‘And why Crusader? Have you got something to get off your chest? Or does it look nice on paper?’
‘No business of yours.’
‘Wrong, my friend. It’s every business of mine. You killed a woman in Locarno? Yes?’
‘You’re talking crap.’ A tiny upward tilt of the gun. ‘Just give me the photo.’
‘I haven’t got it.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘You want to take a look? You want to get a bit closer? You want to be rid of this fucking table? Be my guest.’
The Serb’s eyes narrowed for a moment.
‘So where is it?’
‘It’s upstairs. It’s in my room. Let’s go up there together, just you and me, see where it takes us. Would you like that? All you have to say is yes.’
‘You’re drunk.’
‘I am. You know anything about the Scots?’
‘The what?’
‘The Scots? The ladies from hell? That’s me, my friend. Bagpipes and a kilt and no quarter when it comes to the enemy. You know how the English think of Scotland? They think it’s Balkan. They think it’s wild. They think the rivers run with blood. And you know something else? Something that only you can confirm for real? They’re right. The Scots are tribal. They’re clan people. They love settling debts. And you know the worst news of all? They’re bloody good at it.’
Crusader was frowning now, part impatience, part confusion. In theory, thought Moncrieff, he thinks this episode should have been over at the first time of asking. Moncrieff had no doubts that the gun was loaded, and the Serb doubtless presumed that any sane man would have done his bidding. Instead of which he now found himself on the receiving end of a torrent of Gaelic nonsense about blood feuds and retribution. Just another minute or so, thought Moncrieff. Just buy yourself time enough for Schultz to reappear. Two against two would be odds they could cope with.
But Schultz didn’t reappear, a delay in proceedings that appeared to disturb the Serb even further. By now, after a couple of minutes on the iniquities of the Highland Clearances, Moncrieff was describing the bloodier moments of the Battle of Bannockburn.
‘Hundreds of bodies,’ he nodded, sombre now. ‘Many of them headless and all of them English. Is this really what you people want? Or might there be another way?’
There was. The lavatory door opened, and Moncrieff looked across the room to see Schultz emerging. Of the younger Serb, there was no sign. Schultz paused beside the bar and swallowed a mouthful of one of the beers. Then he came across to the table.
‘The photo?’ He was looking at Moncrieff. There was blood on his knuckles and a small cut above his right eye. When the Serb ordered him to sit down, he told him to shut the fuck up. ‘The photo,’ he said again. ‘Just give it to me.’
Moncrieff shrugged. Did what he was told. The Serb’s gun, to his intense satisfaction, was beginning to waver and it was his turn to keep checking the lavatory door.
Schultz shook the photo from its envelope, checked it briefly, then gave it to the Serb.
‘Is this what you want?’ The Serb glanced at it, then nodded. ‘OK. This you get to keep. You need to sort out that friend of yours. He’s in the lavatory. He might need a little help. After that, we never want to see you again. Do we understand each other? Or do we have to put it another way?’
The Serb was now looking at a small handgun that had appeared from the pocket of Schultz’s Loden coat. Moncrieff saw it, too. It was a Beretta. Remarkable, he thought. Quite the old Schultz.
The Serb struggled to his feet and Schultz stood aside as he made for the lavatory. Then he returned to the bar and finished the beer on the counter.
‘Key?’ He was looking at Moncrieff. ‘You need to let me out.’
Moncrieff accompanied him to the front door. In the chill of the street, Schultz briefly paused. Then he produced Barton’s camera.
‘Gern.’ He pressed the camera into Moncrieff’s hand. ‘Wie immer.’
A pleasure. As always.
Moncrieff stared at him, nonplussed, then looked down at the camera. Schultz lingered a moment longer. Then he was gone.
21
Nehmann spent two days prowling Berlin. By now it was early April, and on the first morning he left Maria and the child and took one of the few trains still running from Eichwalde, sitting beside the window as the carriage lurched and squealed towards the city centre on the recently repaired track. For some reason, all the glass in the carriage had been painted, and Nehmann stared out at the ruined streets through a mist of cyan blue as the trackside damage thickened. The effect, truly surreal, seemed to hold the city at arm’s length. Berlin, he thought, has already become a ghost.
At stations closer to the Hauptbahnhof, the carriage began to fill with working men. Many of them were Ukrainian, loosely guarded. They wore the blue badge of the Ostarbeiter, and they brought with them the stale barracks smell that Nehmann recognised from the Kolyma camps. The bolder ones, he noticed, were starting to eye the prettier Berlin women, doubtless in anticipation of the moment the Red Army arrived and set them free.
