No Known Grave (35 page)

“Yes.”

The man in there has been trained in war tactics you’ve never even heard of. Truncheons won’t be of much use
.

But he was glad to have these men with him. He knew they would do their best for the innocents.

“All right, let’s go. Single file. Keep to the side of the road. We’ll go as far as the second bend, where we can see the gravel path to the church. I’ll go on alone from there. You will wait.”

They set off. Tyler could feel his heart beating faster. Hearing that cry of pain from young Shirley McHattie had made his desire to catch this man implacable.

Victor Clark. Trained killer. Triple murderer
.

65.

S
HIRLEY WAS DRIFTING IN AND OUT OF CONSCIOUSNESS
. When she surfaced sufficiently to grasp where she was and what was happening, she cried out. A woman in a white uniform was leaning over her. It was Polly. Her friend. Shirley, through the fog of her mind, could just make out what she was saying.

“I’m going to give you something to ease the pain, pet. Baby’s coming fast.”

Suddenly a man’s face appeared next to Polly. Puzzled, Shirley tried to make sense of what was happening. She recognized him from the hospital. He used a cane and he’d had his jaw wired so that he couldn’t talk. But he was speaking now.

“How much longer?” he asked Polly.

“Soon. The baby’s crowning.”

Shirley managed to catch hold of Polly’s hand. “Where’s Rudy? You said Rudy would be here.”

The man’s face came in very close and he gripped her chin so she couldn’t turn her head. There was spittle on his lips; he smelled bad.

“This is Victor Clark. I was here last night.”

Shirley was momentarily overcome by a wave of pain and she moaned, trying to turn away.

“Rudy,” she said again.

Clark held her fast.

“Your sweetheart will not be coming. We told you that so you would come willingly, but alas, the truth is he’s dead. I should say, more precisely, that to all intents and purposes he is dead.
Did you know the man who impregnated you is a traitor? And a murderer? Responsible for the cruel deaths of many, many people. Ah, I see you did not know. How could you?”

Polly’s face appeared again. “She is ready to start pushing. Do you have to do this now? Can you have some pity for the poor girl?”

The man’s voice was harsh. “Who had pity on my father? My brother? Who pitied my mother?” He actually gave Shirley’s head a bit of a shake. “All are dead, Miss McHattie. All have died because of him. Because of your dear Rudy.”

She wanted to get up and run, but she couldn’t. He let go of her chin, but suddenly there was something being pressed on her nose and mouth, choking her. She tried to shove at the hand holding the mask but she couldn’t. She heard Polly say, “Breathe normally, there’s a good girl. This will all soon be over.”

66.

T
YLER SURVEYED THE SCENE IN FRONT OF HIM
. T
HE
church looked forlorn in the slanting rain; the graves didn’t suggest peace so much as desolation. He could not detect any movement or sound.

He ran across the grass to the lepers’ window. Once there, he removed his revolver from the holster. He stood up on the rock beneath the window and, steadying himself, pointed the gun into the slit and cocked the hammer.

Polly had put a sheet on the pew where Shirley was lying. It was soaked with blood and fluid. Her legs were propped up on an upended prayer stool, but Shirley had no sense of the indignity. She was unconscious.

“It’s coming, baby’s coming,” cried Polly.

She cupped her hands underneath the infant’s head as it crowned and helped it to slide out of the womb. A boy child. It was bluish and showed no signs of life.

“Is it alive?” Clark asked.

Polly grabbed the infant by the legs and upended it. She slapped its scrawny buttocks hard. It made no sound.

“The anaesthetic has doped him, is all. Get me my medical bag.”

Tyler could hear the voices but again could not make out what they were saying. He thought there was a new urgency in the tone.

Then the man came into his sights. It was Clark all right and he was moving quite normally. He was also holding a gun by
his side. He reached for the doctor’s bag that was on the altar, giving Tyler a full view of his upper back.

Tyler fired.

67.

S
OLDIERS OFTEN HAVE AMNESIA ABOUT WHAT HAS
taken place in battle, but for Tyler the ensuing events remained crystal clear.

The bullet smashed into Clark’s shoulder, spinning him around and knocking him to the ground. Somehow he maintained his grip on his revolver and he rolled over and lifted it, aiming up towards the window. Tyler fired again but the bullet ricocheted off the altar, slicing off a piece of wood.

He fired a third time and this shot hit Clark in the wrist, knocking the gun from his hand. What felt like seconds later, the door to the front vestibule crashed open and Tyler could hear Sergeant Rowell shouting at top volume.

“Don’t move. Don’t move or I’ll shoot.”

The sergeant came into view. Clark was struggling to get to his feet, but Rowell shoved him down, grabbed his arm, and twisted it so he could snap a pair of handcuffs on his wrists. This elicited a yell of pain from the injured man. Two other officers who were right behind the sergeant grabbed Clark by the feet and immobilized him. Somewhere in the background, Polly was yelling.

Tyler had stayed where he was, on his rock. Rowell turned and looked up to the lepers’ window.

“Sir, are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Sergeant,” Tyler shouted back at him. “I’ll be right there.”

When he stepped down from the rock, he almost fell. His legs felt decidedly wobbly.

It was almost midnight by the time things had got sorted out, and Tyler, Sergeant Rowell, and Sister Rebecca were all three sitting in her office.

Rowell was drinking whisky, “given the special circumstances.” Tyler sipped on a glass of brandy that the almoner had produced. She herself had settled for hot milk.

“I didn’t recognize myself,” said Rowell. “I’d never have thought my blood would get up like that. But I swear if he’d moved a muscle, I would have shot him. I could see that poor girl lying in the pew, you see. She looked dead. And that other woman holding what looked like a dead baby in her arms.” He looked over at Tyler. “There was no sign of you. There had been three shots. I didn’t know if you were alive or dead.” He grinned. “Imagine what a relief I felt when I saw your mug – excuse the expression, sir – peering through that window.” He turned to the almoner. “How are the baby and Miss McHattie, Sister?”

“It’s still touch and go for the infant. Polly gave Shirley too much chloroform and his respiratory tract was seriously compromised. We’ll know more within the next couple of days. It’s a little boy, by the way. Shirley herself has recovered consciousness, but that’s all I’ve heard. We sent them to the general hospital. Her mother says she’ll telephone us when she gets a report from the doctor.”

“And Mr. whatever-his-name-is? What has he got to say for himself?”

“Inspector Tyler, you took his statement,” said the almoner. “What did he say?”

“He mumbles slightly because of the jaw injury, but he is most articulate. He learned English as a child from his grandmother and he speaks it better than I do. His real name is Vaclav Kozik. He is Czech.”

Rowell shook his head. “Is he insane? Why did he do what he did?”

68.

K
OZIK HAD BEEN TRANSPORTED TO THE GENERAL
hospital at Ludlow, where a brusque, unsympathetic doctor had treated his wounds. Tyler’s first bullet had passed through the right shoulder without hitting bone. Even though the third shot had blasted his revolver from his hand, he had suffered no serious injury, only bruising. At the hospital, the doctor stitched up the shoulder wound without using a general anaesthetic, and after a couple of hours, Tyler was able to question the prisoner.

He was offered morphine but refused. He said he wanted a clear mind.

Suit yourself. If you want to be a tough man, be my guest
.

Actually, Kozik didn’t look tough. His emaciated face was drawn and grey and he had deep circles around his eyes.

“Unlike most men you deal with, Inspector, I want to tell you what I did and why. I don’t wish to hide anything or hold anything back.”

“It might surprise you, lad, but an awful lot of criminals are keen to present their side of the story.”

Tyler sat across from him at the table they’d set up in the hospital room. Constable Mortimer had revealed yet another talent. She knew shorthand and she volunteered to take notes if Tyler wished. He did wish and she was seated slightly behind him. If she was distressed by what Kozik had to say, she kept it to herself.

Tyler had brought the three letters with him, and he put them on the table.

“I’m assuming you wrote these?”

Kozik nodded.

“I gather they are referring to what happened when Reinhard Heydrich was assassinated? A village was the object of Nazi reprisal.”

“That’s right. The village of Lidice. One hundred and ninety-seven inhabitants, four babies due to arrive any day. The village was burned and razed to the ground. The villagers had nothing to do with the death of Heydrich, but the Gestapo didn’t mind about that. They’d been told that one of the assassins was from Lidice and that many of the villagers had been complicit in the assassination. That was all they needed. You don’t have to have evidence if you’re the Gestapo. You can always get evidence by torture and brutality.”

Kozik had a slight London accent, courtesy of his English grandmother and his summers in England.

He drank some of the water that Tyler had provided for him.

“Was it true?” Tyler asked.

“Was what true?”

“That one of the assassins was from Lidice?”

“Lidice was the village where I was born. Where my family lived.”

“I see.”

“See what, Inspector?”

“I understand you were one of the original commandos from Operation Anthropoid. The object of your training was, in fact, to kill Heydrich.”

Kozik nodded. “I would have been on the mission except that I was injured in a freak crash. A training flight, not even the glory of combat.”

“That must have been disappointing.”

A flash of fury leaped into Kozik’s eyes. “Don’t patronize me, Inspector. It might be difficult for you, a civilian, to understand, but for months that is all we had lived for. For the day
when we would accomplish our mission. It is not for nothing that Herr Heydrich was called the blond butcher. And he practised his trade in my homeland.”

“Rudy Pesek was part of Operation Anthropoid, wasn’t he?”

“You are well informed, Inspector. Yes, he was one of the group. We all trained together.” Kozik halted. He looked on the verge of passing out, so Tyler handed him the glass of water. Finally he continued. “We were like brothers, we knew everything about each other. Pesek knew I was betrothed to a girl in Lidice. He knew my parents lived there. He knew my young brother was about to turn sixteen. All of it. He is from Prague and has no family. No family that he cared for at least. He often said he envied me. Then, shortly before we were to embark, he met Shirley McHattie. He talked a lot about her.”

“He knew he’d got her pregnant?”

Another pause. “I’ve never seen Pesek so happy. He said it was what he always wanted. But it was time to launch the operation, so off they go, brave men and true, not knowing they took with them the asp itself.” Kozik lowered his head into his hands. There were beads of perspiration on his forehead. “The operation did not go smoothly. Initially, Heydrich was only wounded. But seven days later, he died. In great agony, I am happy to say. So the hunt was on for the perpetrators of this hideous crime. Herr Hitler would have wiped Czechoslovakia off the map if he’d had his way. He was persuaded that a more sensible way was to kill just a few hundred or so.” Kozik’s tone was ironic. “They began to search for the assassins, killing and torturing innocents in the hope of discovering them. However, they had no success for two entire weeks, until finally the comrades were discovered to be hiding out in a church. Rudy Pesek was not with them; it was he who had revealed their whereabouts to the Gestapo. He claimed he wanted the bloodshed to stop. That’s why he betrayed them.” Kozik chuckled. No mirth
in it. “The reward was handsome. Far from stopping, the bloodshed increased. The Gestapo got out of Pesek that one of the original commandos, me, had been from Lidice and there they focused their revenge.” Kozik had to stop again and drank more water. “My father, my brother were destroyed, as were two uncles. My mother and my dearest Anna have been sent off to what they call their ‘camps.’ They will not live.”

“So you wanted revenge on Pesek yourself?”

Both Tyler and Kozik were speaking quietly. They might have been seated at a dying man’s bedside, which, to all intents and purposes, they were. Agnes Mortimer didn’t move a muscle.

“Of course I wanted revenge. Who would not? But more than that … I also want the world to know what happened. What Hitler and his henchmen are capable of.”