A Man Without Breath (27 page)

I set off for the castle in the Tatra. Out of the gate, I turned left. I hadn’t driven very far when I saw Peshkov walking in the same direction. I considered just driving on, but it was hard to ignore a man who had gone out of his way to look like Adolf Hitler – perhaps that was the thinking behind the moustache and the longish, forward-combed hair; and besides it was obvious he was also headed for the castle.

‘Want a lift?’ I asked, drawing up beside him on the empty road.

‘You’re very kind, sir.’ He loosened the length of rope around his waist that held his coat together and climbed into the passenger seat. ‘It’s not everyone who would stop to pick up a Russian. Especially on a road as quiet as this one.’

‘Maybe it’s because you don’t look particularly Russian.’ I slammed the car in gear and drove on.

‘You mean my moustache, don’t you? And my hair.’

‘I most certainly do.’

‘I’ve had this moustache for many years,’ he explained. ‘Well before the Germans invaded Russia. It’s not such an unusual style in Russia. Genrikh Yagoda, who was chief of the secret police until 1936, had the very same moustache.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘He was demoted from the directorship of the NKVD in 1936, arrested in 1937, and became one of the defendants at the last great show trial – the so-called Trial of the Twenty-One. He was found guilty, of course, and shot in 1938. For being a German spy.’

‘Maybe it was the moustache.’

‘Perhaps, sir.’ Peshkov shrugged. ‘Yes, that’s certainly possible.’

‘That was a joke,’ I said.

‘Yes sir. I know it was.’

‘Well, I expect his successor will meet a similar fate one day.’

‘He already has, sir. Nikolai Yezhov was also a German spy. He disappeared in 1940. It’s assumed he, too, was shot. Lavrentiy Beria is the new head of the NKVD. It’s Beria who masterminded the deaths of all these poor Polish officers. With Stalin’s approval of course.’

‘You seem to know a lot about this subject, Peshkov.’

‘I have given a statement concerning what I know about these deaths to your Judge Conrad, sir. I should certainly be willing to talk to you further about this matter. But it’s true, while my own subject is electrical engineering sir, I have always been rather more interested in politics and current affairs.’

‘Not a very healthy interest to have in Russia.’

‘No sir. Not every country is as lucky with its system of government as Germany.’

I left that one unanswered as we arrived at the castle. Peshkov thanked me profusely for the ride and then went to the adjutant’s hut, leaving me wondering how it was that an electrical engineer knew so much about the history of Russia’s most secret organization.

*

With the long-handled spade from the bonnet of the Tatra I scraped at a spot near the birch cross where the first human bones had been found. The ground shifted under the point of the metal and black Russian earth darkened the furrow I’d made in the melting snow. I threw down the spade and burrowed my fingers’ ends into the soil like a farmer eager to sow some seed.

‘I thought it was you,’ said a voice behind me.

I stood up and looked around. It was Colonel von Gersdorff.

‘I was surprised to hear that you were back in Smolensk,’ he said. ‘I seem to remember you telling me in Berlin that you never wanted to come back here.’

‘I never did. But Joey the Crip thought I was in need of a vacation, so he sent me down here to get away from it all.’

‘Yes. That’s what I heard. It certainly beats a holiday on Rügen Island.’

‘And you?’ I asked him. ‘What brings you out here to the castle? If I seem a little nervous about talking to you I’m just worried you might have another bomb in your coat pocket.’

Von Gersdorff grinned. ‘Oh, I’m here a lot. The Abwehr likes a report on what happens in Smolensk sent to the Tirpitzufer every day. Only I don’t like to do it up at Krasny Bor. Not
any longer. You never know who’s listening. Place is crawling with Ivans.’

‘Yes, I know, I was just talking to Peshkov. And before that, to Dyakov.’

‘Shifty characters both, in my opinion. I keep raising the matter of the sheer number of Ivans who are working for us inside the perimeter of the safe zone we’ve established at Krasny Bor, but Von Kluge won’t hear of any changes to these arrangements. He’s a man who’s always had lots of servants, and since most of those who were German servants are now in the army that means having Russians on the staff. When we first came out here, he brought his butler from Poland, but the poor bastard was killed by a partisan sniper not long after he got here. So now he makes do with his
Putzer
, Dyakov. But as it happens it’s not the Russians Von Kluge is suspicious of, it’s other Germans. In particular the Gestapo. And although I hate to say it, that does make things extra difficult when it comes to maintaining tight security at Krasny Bor. Even the Gestapo has its uses.

‘We’ve tried to have the Gestapo run checks on the backgrounds of some of these Russians, but it’s more or less impossible. Most of the time we have to go on the local mayor’s word that such and such a person is trustworthy, which is hopeless of course. So I prefer to do my encoding and decoding down here at the castle. Colonel Ahrens is a decent fellow. He gives me the exclusive use of a room here so I can send my stuff in private. I’d just come out of the castle when I saw you trailing up here with the spade in your hand.’

‘The ground is softening.’

‘So we can start digging. Tomorrow perhaps.’

‘I never was much for waiting on tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Not when I can make a start today.’

I took off my coat and my jacket and handed them to him. ‘D’you mind?’

‘My dear fellow, not at all.’ Von Gersdorff folded them over his arm and lit a cigarette. ‘I love to watch another man work.’

I rolled up my sleeves, collected the shovel off the ground, and started to dig.

‘So why is Von Kluge suspicious of Germans?’ I asked him.

‘He’s scared, I suppose.’

‘Of what?’

‘Do you remember a Military Court Official called Von Dohnanyi?’

‘Yes, I met him in Berlin. He’s Abwehr, too, isn’t he?’

Von Gersdorff nodded. ‘He’s the deputy head of the Abwehr’s central section under Major-General Oster. A few weeks ago – just before the leader visited Von Kluge at group headquarters – Von Dohnanyi came down here to meet with Von Kluge and General von Tresckow.’

‘I was on the same plane as him,’ I said, stabbing at the ground with the spade.

‘I didn’t know that. Von Dohnanyi is back in Berlin now, but he was here in Smolensk to add his voice to my own and the general’s and to those of some other officers who would like to see Hitler dead.’

‘Let me guess: Von Schlabrendorff and Von Boeselager.’

‘Yes, how did you know?’

I shook my head and carried on digging. ‘A lucky guess, that’s all. Go on with your story.’

‘We asked the field marshal to join us in a plan to assassinate Hitler and Himmler when they came down here on the thirteenth. The idea was that we would all of us draw our pistols and shoot them both dead in the officers’ mess at Krasny Bor. Something like that is a lot easier here than it
would be at Rastenburg. At the Wolf’s Lair, he’s more or less untouchable. Officers have to give up their pistols before they can be in a room with Hitler. Which is why he remains there so much, of course. Hitler’s not stupid. He knows there are plenty of people in Germany who would like to see him dead. Anyway, Von Kluge agreed to join the conspiracy, but when Himmler didn’t show up with Hitler, he changed his mind.’

‘I really can’t fault the field marshal’s logic,’ I said. ‘You know, if someone does kill the leader they’d better make sure to shoot Himmler and the rest of the gang. When you decapitate a snake the body keeps on writhing and the head remains deadly for quite a while afterward.’

‘Yes, you’re right.’

‘I have to hand it to you people. Three attempts to kill Hitler in as many weeks and all of them botched. You would think that a group of senior army officers would know how to kill one man. It’s what you’re supposed to be good at, damn it. None of you seemed to have any trouble slaughtering millions during the Great War. But it seems beyond any of you to kill Hitler. Next thing you’ll be telling me you were planning to use silver bullets to shoot the bastard.’

For a moment Von Gersdorff looked embarrassed.

‘And let me guess – now Von Kluge is scared that someone will talk,’ I said. ‘Is that it?’

‘Yes. There’s a rumour going around Berlin that Hans von Dohnanyi is going to be arrested. If he is, then of course the Gestapo may find out a lot more than even they were expecting.’

‘What kind of a rumour?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Generally speaking, the Gestapo likes to keep who they’re planning to arrest under their black hats – at least until the small hours of the morning when they call. You know – it
stops people from escaping and that kind of thing. If there is a rumour it could mean they started it because they want him to run and maybe flush out another rabbit they’re interested in pursuing. That kind of rumour: a rumour with foundation. Yes, they’re not above doing that from time to time. Or it could just be the kind of rumour that’s spread by a man’s enemies to make him feel insecure and undermine him at work. It’s what the English call “a Roman holiday”, when a gladiator was butchered for the pleasure of others. You’d be surprised at the damage a rumour like that can do to a man. It takes nerves of steel to withstand the Berlin gossip-mongers.’

‘As a matter of fact, Captain Gunther, it was you who started this rumour.’

‘Me?’ I stopped digging for a moment. ‘What the hell are you talking about, colonel? I never started any rumour.’

‘Apparently, when you met Von Dohnanyi in Judge Goldsche’s office in Berlin three weeks ago, you mentioned that the Gestapo had been to see you – I believe it was while you were in hospital – to ask you questions about some Jew you knew called Meyer; who his friends were, that kind of thing.’

I frowned, remembering the air raid by the RAF on the night of the first of March that had almost killed me.

‘That’s right. Franz Meyer was going to be witness in a war-crimes investigation. Until the RAF dropped a bomb on his apartment and took half of his head off. The Gestapo seemed to think Meyer might have been mixed up in some sort of currency-smuggling racket in order to help persuade the Swiss to offer asylum to a group of Jews. But I don’t see—’

‘Did the Gestapo mention someone called Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer?’

‘Yes.’

‘It was Pastor Bonhoeffer and Hans von Dohnanyi who were smuggling foreign currency to bribe the Swiss to take refugee Jews from Germany.’

‘I see.’

‘And it was that meeting between Von Dohnanyi and Judge Goldsche at the War Crimes Bureau that prompted him to help lend his weight to persuading Von Kluge that a group of like-minded army officers—’

‘By which you mean Prussian aristocrats, of course.’

Von Gersdorff was silent for a moment. ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right. Is that why you think we bungled it? Because we’re aristocrats?’

I shrugged. ‘It crossed my mind.’

I spat on my hands and started digging again. It was hard work but the ground came away on the flat of my spade in heavy, half-frozen lumps that I hoped would turn out to be layers of peaty history. Von Gersdorff kicked carelessly at one near the toe of his boot and watched it roll slowly down the slope like a very muddy football. For all either of us knew it might have been a mud-encrusted skull.

‘If you think it was snobbery that kept the plot within a small circle of aristocrats, you’re wrong,’ he said. ‘It was simply the overriding need for total secrecy.’

‘Yes, I can see how that was an advantage. And you felt more comfortable placing your trust in a man with a von in his name, is that it?’

‘Something like that.’

‘That doesn’t sound a little like snobbery?’

‘Perhaps it does at that,’ admitted Von Gersdorff. ‘Look, trust is something that’s very hard to find these days. You find it where you can.’

‘Talking of snobbery,’ I said, ‘I spent the morning trying
to persuade the field marshal to sign some papers that would allow a local Russian doctor to go and live in Berlin. He works at the Smolensk State Medical Academy and he claims to have documentary evidence of who’s buried here. Ledgers, photographs – he’s even got an Ivan hidden in a private room who was part of the NKVD murder squad that carried out this atrocity. Bit of a soft pear alas, after some significant roof damage – but the doctor is straight out of the prayer book: every wish comes true if he gives us what we want. But he won’t do it if he has to stay on in Smolensk. I can’t think of a more deserving case for a homeland pass, but Clever Hans seems to have his blue eyes dead set against it. I just don’t understand. I thought if anyone would be on side about this it would be a man with a Russian servant. But the field marshal seems to think Dyakov is an exception and that Slavs are not much better than farmyard animals.’

‘It’s the Poles he really hates.’

‘Yes. He told me. But Poles aren’t Russians. That’s rather the point of who and what’s buried here, I imagine.’

‘In Von Kluge’s eyes, Polacks, Ivans, Popovs, they’re all the same.’

‘Which seems to be the exact opposite of the way the Russians think – about the Polacks I mean. As far as they’re concerned, Polacks and Germans are virtually the same thing.’

‘I know. But that’s just how this story is. It doesn’t make your job any easier, but I doubt Von Kluge is going to grant a homeland pass to anyone, with the possible exception of Dyakov.’

‘So what’s the story with Dyakov?’

Von Gersdorff shrugged. ‘The field marshal has only the one hunting dog. I suppose he felt there was no reason why he couldn’t have another.’

‘I never did like dogs much, myself. Never even owned one. Still, from what I gather it’s relatively easy to know all about a dog. You just buy them when they’re puppies and throw them a bone now and then. But with a man – even a Russian – I imagine it’s maybe a little more complicated than that.’

‘Lieutenant Voss of the field police is the man to speak to about Dyakov, if you’re interested in him. Are you interested in him?’