A Study in Murder (18 page)

‘I can’t believe you have taken the death of three men in your care so lightly. If care is the right word for what you are doing.’

Kügel downed his bourbon. His face had reddened and not all of the colour was from the drink taken. ‘Perhaps lunch can wait a little longer. I want to show you something. Come.’
His voice was full of a new impatience. ‘Now. Come.’

Watson sighed at the thought of leaving the sausages, kidneys and dumplings. As he stood a rocket of searing pain shot up the back of his leg and his knee bent. He reached out and steadied
himself on the table.

‘Are you all right?’ the German asked.

‘Yes. Just my knee.’ He put the weight on the leg and winced at a second blade of pain. ‘A cane might help.’

‘There is a selection downstairs by the entrance. We are taking an automobile trip,’ said Kügel. ‘So it will be under no strain.’

‘Very well.’

‘Don’t worry too much, Major Watson. You will be able to have it seen to soon. My orders tell me you are to be transferred. To Holland. And then . . . then, I think you will be going
home.’

The stick Watson chose from the basket by the doorway was a Wurzelstock of chestnut, with a four-inch metal ferrule at the tip, and a leather lanyard for him to hook over his
wrist. It was more a hiking staff than a supporting cane, but he wasn’t quite ready to hobble around like a cripple with something smaller. With the Wurzelstock at least he could pretend he
was out for a stroll in the woods, rather than a lame old man.

Once he had selected his support, Kügel loaded him in the back of a well-appointed Argus tourer, all leather and red velvet, which had a hint of the mobile boudoir about it. There was a
driver up front – a facially scarred
Feldwebel
with an eye patch – and a guard, armed with a ‘broomhandle’ Mauser pistol. Watson wondered if the man with the weapon
was in case he made a break for it. If so, the precautions were redundant – he wouldn’t get far with one good knee.

Kügel climbed in beside him and offered him a cigarette. Watson took it, if only to kill the hunger pangs.

‘Dramin, please, Emil,’ Kügel said to the driver.

The Argus pulled away smoothly and they made stately progress down the mansion’s driveway. It, at least, still had its colonnade of trees, albeit bare of leaves at that time of year.

At the gates they turned left and Kügel pointed to a smaller, single-storey building built in the same style as the château they had just left. ‘The stables. They once housed
sixty horses. Now there are twelve and we have to guard them day and night.’ He turned and faced Watson. ‘The meat, you see.’

The tourer headed east until it hit the road that Watson had come up, the one where Sayer had been murdered. Then it turned north and began to climb further uphill. More snow had clearly fallen
while he had been in solitary, and the brutalized landscape looked less bleak in its swaddling of white, as if a remedial coat of limewash had been applied. The road, though, showed signs of heavy
traffic and the borders were blackened by the filth from engines and the splash from tyres.

As they negotiated a series of switchbacks, Watson looked over his shoulder at the shrinking camp. He could see the two compounds quite clearly, but he now saw that the mountain at the rear of
the camp’s plateau had been scooped out, as if by an enormous spoon. There was evidence of buildings and rusting machinery and a number of spidery tracks led down to the old workings, and
there were decayed wooden chutes, no doubt used to carry water from the churning, slate-grey mountain rivers that they crisscrossed at intervals. The rushing water was flecked with little flags of
white and Watson spotted debris in there – of both natural and human origin – being purged away, down the hillside.

The Argus struggled as the incline increased and, after cresting a rise, the camp was lost to view. Here were a series of dark ponds; a scum of ice had formed on some of them. Again there was
evidence of industrial machinery, most of it rusted or rotted.

The road forked. One way indicated what Watson assumed to be a village, called Zellergrund; the other had a large wooden arrow with the word
Fleckfieber
on it – typhus again –
and the crudely daubed skull and crossbones. They took the path towards the disease.

There were a few trees in evidence here, evergreens that, despite the name, were mostly brown, their branches dusted with snow on their dorsal surfaces. Beyond them was another range of
mountains with a saw-toothed outline, steep enough that snow had only settled in the crevices and gullies that fissured the flanks. At the base was another camp, much larger than the one Watson had
just left. This plateau seemed more exposed than the lower levels and he could feel the wind buffeting the Argus as they approached the steel and mesh gates that blocked their path. A
barbed-wire-topped fence ran over the undulating terrain on either side of the gateway.

Signs indicated it was
elektrifiziert
, electrified, something the Germans had grown rather skilled at, having strung electric fences the entire length of the French–Belgian border.
A second type of warning showed the silhouette of a figure being struck by a lightning bolt. The fence was charged with enough voltage to kill a man.

The guards opened the gate to allow the car in, peering in at Kügel as they drove through, then saluting. As the Argus bumped down the track towards the main camp, which was surrounded by a
triple layer of wire, with the centre one displaying the electrified signs, Watson felt his mouth dry. To the right of them was a row of gibbets, twenty in all, each with a hinged platform at the
base that acted as the trapdoor. Nine of the nooses were occupied by bodies, in various stages of decomposition. All were naked, all looked like anatomical models designed to show off their
skeletal structure, such was the detail with which bones protruded through grey skin. Beady-eyed crows were removing strips of flesh from those with enough left to pick at and as the vehicle purred
past them they stared at the newcomers and fanned their wings for a few moments before settling back to their gruesome work. Liquid rose in Watson’s gullet, scouring his throat. He swallowed
and it was like gulping acid.

‘Why have you brought me here?’ he asked.

Kügel tapped the driver on the shoulder. ‘Stop here, will you, Emil?’ He turned to Watson. ‘Can you manage a short walk? A few metres?’

Watson nodded and stepped out of the car. The smell that hit him reminded him of the stench of the waste barges on the Thames. That and an abattoir. There was something else, too, the acrid bite
of rotten eggs. Sulphur dioxide was in the air.

Beyond the wire fence he could see men moving, shuffling with a gait that suggested their legs were shackled. But there were no shackles. They were mustering together into ragged lines, pushed
into some semblance of order by guards with their rifle butts.

Reluctantly, Watson moved closer, the wind whipping at his words as he spoke to Kügel. ‘What is this place?’

The commandant bided his time. A few of the inmates looked through the wire, a glint of curiosity flaring in otherwise dead eyes. All the men looked strangely alike – the sharp angles of
cheekbones in gaunt faces, skin pulled taut over shaved heads, limbs that seemed to carry no muscle whatsoever, just sinew. They each wore a greasy uniform of coarse blanket material, entirely
inadequate for the winter.

‘This is what they really mean by the worst camp in Germany. Not mine,’ said Kügel. ‘These are the damned.’

‘Where are they from?’

A truck drove by towards the gate, belching fumes. Watson glanced in the rear at German soldiers who looked alarmingly similar to the inmates in their flat expressions.

‘Commandant, where are these prisoners from?’

There came the distant sound of gunshots, three, in rapid succession.

‘And where are they going?’

‘Russian, mostly. Some Serbians, Greeks, Romanians. They are about to go into the mountains for the next shift.’

‘Of what?’

‘There are two mines up in those foothills. About a three-kilometre walk. Copper and silver. Some zinc, too.’

‘Those men can’t work.’

‘You’d be surprised what a man can do on one potato a day.’

‘But this is monstrous. It’s against all humanity. How will they survive in these conditions?’

Kügel looked genuinely puzzled by the question. ‘They are not meant to survive. Those mountains are full of old mine shafts to dispose of bodies in. New prisoners can easily be
drafted in to replace them. We have a million Russians in this country. Enough to keep the mines going for very little cost.’

‘And the Red Cross?’

‘Does not know this place exists. Who will tell them?’

Me,
thought Watson.
I will.

Another rifle shot boomed down the valley. ‘What’s that firing?’

‘The previous shift returning. Those without the strength to make it back . . .’ He mimed firing a rifle at a figure on the ground. ‘I’ll admit it is a harsh
regime.’

‘Harsh? Harsh?’ Watson spluttered. ‘It’s mindless murder, that’s what it is. I assume there is a point to showing me all this.’

‘Only a very oblique one,’ said Kügel. He passed Watson a small flask of schnapps. Watson took a hit from it and for a few welcome moments his nostrils were purged of the smell
of decay and filth. ‘This camp is operated by the Eighth Department of the
Großer Generalstab
, the German High Command. The silver- and copper-bearing ores are mined here, and
then, you see there is a small-gauge railway there? That runs the ores to the processing factory. French prisoners work in that. Treated rather better. The army then sells the silver and copper on
the open market.’

‘For profit?’

Kügel laughed. ‘Of course for profit. Which then lines the pockets of various colonels and generals, as an expediency in case things don’t go Germany’s way. If, as we
said, America enters the war, for instance. The same department also operates my camp. I have a sum I have to deliver each month, or I will be relieved of my post. No excuses. If I can’t
raise it as revenue, I have to make up the difference from my own accounts. Now, you think I am cruel? You think I exploit the men in my care? Let me tell you, the man who runs this camp has often
said he would prefer my job to his at this charnel house. Who can blame him? Look.’

In the far distance he could make out a shuffling line of more ragged men, heads bowed, if it were possible moving even slower than the men behind the wire. They were stooped as if great rocks
had been placed on their shoulders.

‘There is a saying, Major, better the devil you know. I’m the devil you know. The men who run this place? They make the devil look like one of the good guys. Seen enough?’

Another rifle shot, a sharp crack, much closer. One of the prisoners collapsed out of line. The guards dragged him to one side, and the herd of men continued on its way.

A terrible sense of shame overtook Watson. Shame that men could treat their fellows like this. Shame that he should be powerless to do anything about it. Shame that he wanted to turn on his
heels and run as fast as his aged limbs could carry him, never looking back.

‘We still have that lunch,’ said Kügel, directing him back to the car.

‘I think I’ve rather lost my appetite,’ said Watson as he took the first step back towards the Argus. ‘Just take me back to the camp, will you?’

The lunch did not go to waste. Once Watson had been returned to the camp, Steigler and Kügel stacked up their plates with the food and shared a bottle of Hock. After they
had both commented on the quality of the sausages and the wine, Steigler asked: ‘Will he do it, do you think?’

‘Watson? I’m not sure. I am certain, however, that a direct appeal would have done little good. He would never countenance working for a man like me.’

Steigler helped himself to a dumpling. ‘Even though you showed him the conditions up the mountain?’

‘I think he thought it was like Nero saying, “Look, it could be worse, I could be Caligula,” or Attila the Hun protesting: “You think I’m bad, you should see my
brother Bleda.”’

Steigler laughed. ‘Did he believe the story? About the General Staff running the mines for profit?’

‘He had no reason to doubt it. Most of what I told him was true. They are working the Russkies to death up there. But the silver and copper goes straight into the factories of the Ruhr.
Given what he knows about how we operate here, the lie that the High Command are lining their own pockets would seem perfectly plausible.’

Steigler dabbed at his mouth with his napkin, finally approaching satiation with the rich food. ‘He’s no Sherlock Holmes, you know, our Major Watson.’

‘No, but I suspect he has something of the terrier about him. Presented with the facts, the scientist and the medical man in him will chafe. Three men die in one evening? We blame it on
them trying to contact the dead? No, he’ll get to the bottom of it if he can. After all the years with Holmes, he won’t be able to help himself.’

‘But he only has a week.’

‘Less, I suspect. It will be forty-eight hours, seventy-two at most, before Von Bork has him moved.’

‘No time at all.’

‘We’ll see. Look, Steigler, I know you said that it is an internal matter for the prisoners, but I am not convinced. I think those three men were murdered. But why? What are those
bastards up to? There’s something else happening here, something we don’t control and that makes me uneasy. And three fewer men means three fewer bank accounts to empty. I have a bad
feeling about what will happen to Germany in future. Every mark will help. You’ve done what I suggested?’

‘Moved everything into Swiss francs, yes.’

‘Good. So, all we have to do is sit and wait.’

‘For?’

Kügel poured himself a healthy glug of the Hock and toasted the doctor. ‘For Watson to solve our little crime for us.’

Mrs Gregson was well aware that Nathan had thought she was joking when she gave him her ‘shopping list’ for her scheme, but she hadn’t been. A magician was
essential to its successful execution, and not any old music-hall conjuror with a hat and a rabbit. She needed something far more sophisticated. She needed the very best in the business. She needed
David Devant.