Katastrophe, page 39
‘Principled. Her name’s Beata. She’s a physicist. She still works at the KWI and she wanted that stuff gone. She’s a woman who loves tidying up. She’s also got a conscience. She told me the regime have been screwing science for years. All they’ve ever wanted is a bigger bang, and she was determined to remove the temptation.’
‘So Leon’s serious about a bomb?’
‘I’m guessing he is. She explained the chemistry to me, but I’m still in the dark. Either way, it seems to matter so thank Christ for the NKVD.’
Nehmann nodded. Something else had been bothering him.
‘That ID pass that got you in trouble with the Volkssturm. Who gave it to you?’
‘A man called Diski. He was NKVD, too.’
‘Didn’t he know the Abwehr no longer existed?
‘That’s what I asked Leon. He said it was probably deliberate.’
‘To get you arrested?’
‘To get me inside the Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. The NKVD knew I’d cracked under pressure once. That could happen again. The Russians want maximum disruption. They want everyone at each other’s throats. Show them a decent room and they’ll kick the shit out of everything. That’s the way they operate. Onkel Heine? Walter Schellenberg? Karl Wolff? All of them going off like fireworks? Crossed lines? Cut throats? The scramble to keep your head in one piece? Our friends in Moscow love it.’
‘And you?’
‘Me?’ Schultz shrugged. ‘So far, like I say, I’ve been lucky. Do I take any of that for granted? Fuck, no. Leon’s made me an offer, by the way. Half of this country’s going to be Russian from now on. He thinks I might be the perfect fit.’
‘As a spy?’
‘As a policeman. Which is probably the same thing.’
*
By mid-afternoon they were back in the car. When Nehmann asked to be taken to Eichwalde, Leon closed his book and simply nodded.
‘You know where it is?’ Nehmann was staring at him.
‘Yes.’
‘You don’t need an address?’
‘No.’ He reached for the ignition key.
They drove out of the city centre. On every street, gangs of Trümmerfrauen were on their knees in the rubble, sorting the broken masonry by size, readying piles of bricks for collection, black ants working at a speed any man would be proud of, dismembering what was left of the city centre. Further south, the Russians appeared to have spared most of the suburbs, and when they finally arrived outside Maria’s house, Schultz was shaking his head.
‘She lives here?’
‘She does.’
‘So how come…?’ Schultz gestured round at the newly trimmed hedges, the bright stands of daffodils, the cat sprawled in the spring sunshine.
‘Goebbels.’ Nehmann was reaching for the door handle. ‘He was king of the city, and he probably still is.’
Wrong. Leon was already at the front door. Instead of knocking, he was examining a bunch of keys. The second one he selected opened the door.
‘Please.’ He stood aside.
Nehmann knew at once that the house was empty. The big clock in the hall had stopped at twenty past seven, and the air felt chill.
‘There’s no one here?’ He turned to Leon.
‘No.’
‘You know where they’ve gone?’
‘We took them east. She was very happy to go. The child, too.’
‘Her idea?’
‘Ours, but a good one.’
Nehmann nodded, none the wiser, and stepped into the living room. The curtains were closed and for some reason the lights wouldn’t work, but he could make out an envelope on the bare table. When he took a closer look, he recognised a name in Cyrillic script. Mikhail Magalashvili.
‘This is for me? She left it?’
Leon said nothing. He crossed to the window and pulled the curtains back, suddenly flooding the room in daylight.
Nehmann opened the envelope. Inside he found a black and white photo. It showed a man’s body, flat on his back. His left leg was bare, except for an ankle sock, and scorch marks had blackened his torso. His skull, too, showed signs of damage. His mouth lay open in a rictus grin, and his left arm had somehow been frozen, the hand raised and clawlike as if stretching for something not quite within reach.
‘This is Goebbels?’ Nehmann had taken a closer look at the face, the shape of the skull.
‘It is. He committed suicide in the bunker. Once Hitler had shot himself, there was nothing left for him.’
‘And Magda? The children?’
‘Gone.’
Gone. Nehmann was still staring at the photo. Those happy, dangerous years at this man’s beck and call. The risks he’d taken, the battles he’d lost and won, and then the assignment east, to near-certain death. He thought of the candle swimming out of the darkness at the Bogensee house, of the fidgety presence in the editing room, of that giant brain that had helped turn an entire country into a charnel house. Nehmann had been on board for that giddy ride, and for the most part gladly, but now there was nothing left but this half-charred body, mercilessly exposed.
Gone, he thought again.
‘Maria left this?’ Nehmann was looking at Leon.
‘No. I did.’
‘But does she know? That he’s dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘You told her?’
‘Not me. Someone else.’
‘And?’
‘She seemed unsurprised.’
‘Relieved?’
‘Unsurprised. If you’re asking whether or not she’d welcome a meeting, I suspect the answer is yes.’
‘And can you make that happen?’
‘We can. But we have a proposition we should put to you first. Comrade Stalin was impressed, by the way. It might help you to know that.’
25
Tuesday 6th May, nearly a week later, was declared Victory in Europe Day. Guy Liddell, prompted by MI5’s Director, had already given ‘B’ Section leave to join the revels but Moncrieff had no appetite for celebration. Instead, he decided to pay Ursula Barton another visit.
It was a beautiful morning, a foretaste of summer, not a cloud in the sky. Moncrieff took the trolley bus to Shepherd’s Bush. The news on the radio had been full of the capital’s plans for VE Day, and he sat on the top deck, gazing down at the queues already forming at bus stops into central London. Museums had been thrown open. Parks readied for picnickers. And in Trafalgar Square there were plans for a rally. Patriotism on the grandest scale, he thought, enlivened with a song or two.
There was no answer when he knocked on Barton’s front door. He tried again, and then a third time before stepping back and gazing up at her bedroom window. The curtains were pulled tight. Might she be sleeping late? Might she have closed her ears to all the clamour? All the celebration? A path led round the side of the house to the back garden. No one had bothered with the riot of spring growth, and the little rectangle of lawn, especially, needed attention. Briefly he wondered whether she might have a mower. In weather like this, there would be worse ways of saying goodbye to the war.
The back door, to his surprise, was unlocked. He stepped into the kitchen. It was much the way he’d left it, everything tidied away, but there lingered a very bad smell, a sour sweetness thickened by something that seemed to have an almost physical presence. It was the smell of neglect, he thought, and perhaps something darker, and when he opened the door to the hall he could hear a voice on the radio, very low.
‘Ursula?’ He listened beside the open door to the hall. No reply.
The curtains in the front room were pulled tight but he could still make out an empty glass and a plate on the occasional table beside her armchair. There were crumbs on the plate, dry to his touch, and when he sniffed the glass he caught a faint peaty tang of malt whisky. Talisker, he thought.
The radio was tuned to the Home Service. A BBC voice was reporting from Reims, in France. Yesterday, General Jodl had signed the official surrender document at General Eisenhower’s headquarters and fighting everywhere was officially over. There followed a muddle of excited French voices, mainly women, one of whom began to sing a spirited version of the Marseillaise. Standing in the gloom, Moncrieff became aware of a little nest of pencils, secured with an elastic band, tucked into the side of the chair. He stared at them for a moment. Was this where Barton corresponded with her non-existent sister? Was this room, this entire house, haunted by the ghost of Gretel?
He made his way upstairs, aware of the smell getting stronger. He knew that Barton’s bedroom lay at the front of the house, and he paused at the door before knocking softly and whispering her name. From downstairs came the muted roar of a crowd and then a song he recognised, the marching ditty that had accompanied thousands of men to France in those long-ago days when the Germans had settled their accounts with the Poles and retired for a nap. We called it the Phoney War, he thought. And we had absolutely no idea what lay in store.
‘Ursula? Are you there?’ Again, no answer.
Gently, he opened the door. Then came a scuffle and a yowl and he stepped back as the tom cat plunged past him and disappeared down the stairs. The stench, now, was overpowering. The threadbare carpet at his feet had been ripped to pieces, doubtless by the cat, but what drew his attention was the long shape beneath the eiderdown. He stared at it for a moment. Then his fingers found the light switch and he stepped carefully around the dry black curls of shit until he was looking down at the face on the pillow.
The cat had been clawing her cheek, and the side of her neck. Blood had crusted around the deeper wounds, and there were signs that the animal had began to nibble at the softness behind her ear, but her eyes were closed and Moncrieff tried to convince himself that she’d found some kind of peace. Her flesh was cold and waxy to his touch, and when he tried to find a pulse at the base of her neck, he knew he was wasting his time.
The telephone was on a table in the hall downstairs. Moncrieff dialled Liddell’s home number but there was no reply. When he tried the main switchboard at St James’s Street, the duty clerk told him that Mr Liddell was probably at rehearsals all day. When Moncrieff enquired further, she laughed.
‘You haven’t heard? St Mary Abbot’s Church. Off Kensington High Street. Half past seven. If Vivaldi’s your thing, you’re in for a treat.’
Moncrieff went back upstairs. There was no way of telling how or why Ursula Barton had died, or even when it may have happened, and he knew that his next call must go to the police, but here and now he knew he owed her, at the very least, a decent search. Already he’d noticed the corner of an envelope protruding from her pillow. He eased it out. Inside was a sheaf of photographs, black and white, carefully lit and posed. They all showed the same woman: middle-aged, strong face, permed blonde hair, snub nose. In many of the poses, she was smoking a cigarette, and one shot in particular caught Moncrieff’s eye.
She was sitting on a camp bed, her bare legs crossed. Open sandals suggested summer, and hints of a busy life spilled out of the holdall at her feet. She was holding the cigarette at a certain angle, a hint of the demi-monde, and the expression on her face suggested the imminence of some kind of adventure. Judging by the state of the photo, it had been much handled, and when Moncrieff returned the photos to the envelope, he made sure it was at the top. He knew this face. He’d even listened to the woman on the radio. And he began to sense another hand behind this sad little tableau.
Next door, Moncrieff managed to rouse Barton’s neighbour. He was an old man, braces over an open shirt, not much hair. He stood in the sunshine, gazing at the property next door, trying to do his best to answer Moncrieff’s questions. He’d last seen Mrs Barton a week or so ago. No, she hadn’t looked too good but she was a tough old bird and wouldn’t listen to offers of help. She’d always kept herself to herself, which suited him and his missus very nicely. Her garden was a bit of a sight but apart from that they had no complaints.
When Moncrieff said she’d passed away, he looked briefly shocked.
‘When?’
‘I don’t know. Days ago, I’m guessing. Did you hear anything, any signs of movement, anything out of the ordinary?’
The old man gave the question some thought. By now, he’d been joined by his wife.
‘That Wednesday night,’ she said at once. ‘When I woke you up.’
‘Yeah?’ The old man was looking confused.
‘Wednesday night?’ Moncrieff was looking at the wife.
‘Yeah. Either that, or Thursday. No, Wednesday, definitely, because I’d been down the market that morning and spent all my coupons.’
Moncrieff nodded. Wednesday had been the night Philby and Broadway partied at the Tower of London.
‘So what happened?’
‘There was just a noise. Her bedroom’s next to ours. You can hear things through the wall. Someone moving. Someone talking. She lived alone, Mrs Barton. She was quiet as a mouse, not a peep.’
‘You heard this voice?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Male? Female?’
‘A bloke. Then he was gone and it was all quiet again and…’ she drew her cardigan a little tighter, ‘… I went back to sleep.’
*
Wednesday. Moncrieff was back next door. A search in every room simply confirmed what he already knew about Ursula Barton: a reclusive figure, few friends, a handful of mementos, largely from Germany and Holland, plus a vast collection of classical music discs, with a heavy emphasis on opera. In this house, thanks to its owner, you’d be spoiled for Verdi and Puccini but of the intimacies she claimed to have shared with Gretel there was no trace.
Wednesday. Towards noon, Moncrieff lifted the phone and summoned the police. They arrived within the hour, a uniformed Sergeant and a plain clothes detective. They confirmed that Mrs Barton was dead and took details for both the deceased and for Moncrieff. When they asked him about his occupation, he told them he worked for the government. When they pressed him for a contact, someone who’d serve as a reference, he promised to be in touch.
‘Is that a problem, sir?’
‘It might be.’
‘Do you mind me asking why?’
‘Yes, I do rather.’ He smiled. ‘There’s a couple next door. You might ask the woman about Wednesday night.’
*
Moncrieff was back home by early afternoon. The Kensington mews where he was camping in a friend’s little cottage had been festooned with bunting, and his neighbours had laid out food and drink on trestle tables in the sunshine. Someone had laid hands on a record player, and couples were dancing to Benny Goodman. Moncrieff accepted a glass of stout and promised to return to join the party as soon as he could.
De Vries, when he called her minutes later, was also celebrating. Even sleepy Locarno, she said, was en fête. For once she was able to tempt perfect strangers into conversation and she hoped this outbreak of bonhomie would go on for ever. When Moncrieff broke the news about Barton, she went very quiet.
‘When?’ she said at last.
‘I found her this morning. She’d been dead for a while. Probably the best part of a week.’
‘How? Why?’
‘I don’t know. Not yet.’
He explained briefly about the police. He expected they’d mount some kind of investigation. In the meantime, there would be lots to sort out.
‘You mean Ursula? Her affairs?’
‘Yes.’
‘But she’s got no one.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Then I’ll come over.’ She paused. ‘Expect me tomorrow.’
*
Moncrieff rejoined the celebrations in the mews. He drank sparingly, but danced a lot, mainly with a fellow Scot who’d lost her husband at Monte Cassino. Her name was Moira. She had an Aberdonian’s reserve but she was handsome, and good company, and unsparing about the madness of the war. When he told her that he was off to a concert that night, she said she was tempted to join him but Moncrieff was glad when mention of Vivaldi string quartets drew a shake of the head.
*
St Mary Abbot’s Church was nearly full by the time Moncrieff arrived. It was a big building, oppressively gothic. Seats and music stands had been readied in a loose semi-circle on the space in front of the altar, and the congregation rose in applause when the musicians appeared. Guy Liddell was the last to take his seat, making careful adjustments to the slant of the big cello before tuning up. Then, as the lights in the nave dimmed, he flexed his long fingers and peered out at the audience, tiny nods of recognition for faces he knew.
The music was bright and full of vigour, the perfect antidote to the slow trudge through the years of war, and Moncrieff sat at the back of the church, remembering the couples jitterbugging in the mews outside his window. The final quartet came to an end in a fizzy crescendo, and the audience were once again on their feet. The leader of the quartet, a slightly saturnine figure whom Moncrieff didn’t recognise, thanked the rector for the loan of his church, President Truman for the loan of his armies, and the Good Lord for the prospect of a decent night’s sleep. This coda to the evening’s entertainment sparked another round of applause. The leader of the quartet was smiling now. Drinks and maybe even a slice of cake, he announced, would be on offer in the vestry. Members of the audience who hadn’t already suffered enough, were welcome to partake.
Moncrieff found Liddell backed into a corner beside a row of surplices, trapped by a loud woman with views about diminuendo. Moncrieff caught his eye, and Liddell disengaged himself with a murmured apology, taking Moncrieff’s elbow and steering him towards the table where drinks were being served.
‘The red, I think.’ Liddell presented Moncrieff with a glass. ‘The white’s filthy and they couldn’t find enough ice to make it drinkable. Well done for the other night at the Tower, incidentally. I understand you were the life and soul.’
Moncrieff ignored what might have been a compliment. As ever, he thought, nothing was quite the way it sounded.
‘Ursula’s dead,’ he said. ‘I tried to phone you earlier.’
‘Dead?’ Liddell’s eyes had settled on a nearby face he seemed to know. ‘Good Lord.’
