Pilgrim Soul (28 page)

‘How do you mean? In a dream?’

He shook his head. ‘It wisnae like that. She seemed real. Completely real. There was this quack I saw. A big Irishman. One of life’s good guys. He said there’s stuff goes on in our heads that we haven’t a clue about. It’s how our brains make sense of things that we can’t control. How we deal with traumatic events. And often there’s a trigger. Something happens that sets it off.’

‘Like me with my funny moments?’

He nodded. ‘Sounds like it, does it no’?’

Later, in my cold lonely bed, I lay thinking about what Danny had said. The trigger thing seemed to make sense. But what was mine? Violence? Flashbacks brought on by confronting the Nazi guards at the trial? It seemed to have been going on for some time, probably since I was demobbed, if I were honest. As though it had been building up inside and I’d tried to ignore it. Where was my stiff upper lip when I needed it? But it seemed I wasn’t alone. What I didn’t understand was why I waited till I got home from Hamburg to fall apart. Force of will keeping me going? Then when I was safe, I could fall over?

I didn’t like it but I could comprehend it. Sleep gently drew me into a quieter night than many recently. As though by accepting I wasn’t in control, I’d regained some of it.

Inspector Duncan Todd kept calling me or, as he put it,
just passing, thought I’d pop into the
Gazette
for a wee chat
. He seemed unusually determined to keep in touch with what my Jewish platoon – as he called them – and I were up to. It wasn’t just his solicitous nature. Todd hated the idea of beasts on the loose as much as Danny and me. To manage his ‘drop-bys’ a bit better I made a deal that the three of us – Duncan, Danny and I – would meet a couple of times a week for a pint at McCall’s. Todd would explain what the official manhunt was getting up to and Danny and I would share any titbits we got. Besides, it was like old times. The banter was balm. I could see light up at the mouth of the pit. And I had stopped digging.

We eased into March with no let-up in winter’s grip. Over 150 roads were blocked across the country. Scotland was facing famine as food and milk supplies failed to get through. The government was trying to get us to eat snoek, a tough pike-like fish from South Africa, but folk seemed to prefer empty bellies. The Silver King night train between Edinburgh and London got stuck in a snowdrift for nine hours. Over in Palestine, the Stern Gang bombed the British officers’ club, and Monty issued a ‘shoot on sight’ order to rioting Jews.

Against this depressing backcloth, I still had the sense that someone else was inhabiting my body, as though I didn’t have day-to-day ownership. Sometimes the heebie-jeebies hit for no reason that I could see and I found myself with racing heart and panting lungs. As though some rude ghost had sneaked up on me and screamed in my ear. Danny’s presence seemed to help. Knowing that someone as tough as McRae had gone through a similar flirtation with madness kept things in perspective. However, I was learning that rationality wasn’t always achievable just by willing it.

But I was safer to sleep with. No jolts in the night. Less shouting. When Sam returned from her stint at the Edinburgh courts she took to creeping into my room each night – to check up on me, she said. And ended up staying the night. The girl was fearless.

She even brazened it out with Izzie. It’s hard not to spot damage to sheets and pillowcases by two folk in one bed as opposed to separate ones. It was still
Mr Brodie
this and
Mrs Dunlop
that but there was also a look in Izzie’s eyes that said,
I ken what you’re up to, you dirty bugger, don’t you take advantage of my pal.

It was in the second week of platoon meetings that our searches bore the first real fruit. The young man could hardly contain his excitement.

‘My name is . . .’

‘Joshua, I know. Please continue, Joshua.’ I had most of their names under my belt by now, and some idea of their varying personalities.

He nodded, pleased. ‘I have the area east of the Necropolis. Near the brewery. Fisher Street. An old man came up to me. I’d spoken to him before. He said a woman moved into the house next door about a year ago. She kept herself to herself, he said. Almost never going out. She drinks a lot. Gin. He’s seen the bottles. By herself. An expensive habit. There is always the smell of meat cooking. Steak and pork. Who can afford that? He had only spoken to her once and she cut him off. He thinks she is Polish. It fits, does it not?’

The room fluttered with excitement.

‘Good, Joshua. But why didn’t the old man mention her the first time you spoke to him?’

‘He wasn’t sure. Didn’t want to make a fuss. But last night there was a visitor. A man. To this woman’s house. The walls are thin. There was shouting. In Polish. The old man knows a few words. He is from Byelorussia. But he heard the word gold twice. He didn’t see the man but he sounded educated.’

‘Educated?’

‘Not farmyard Polish.’

Joshua stood waiting as I mulled over the information. The rest of the room was buzzing, looking at him intently. Malachi stood up from his traditional place at the rear, surrounded by his small coterie of hard-eyed men.

‘Let’s go get her. Question her.’

‘No! I will deal with this. Tomorrow, I’ll get one of my police colleagues and we’ll visit this woman. Do you know when she comes and goes, Joshua?’

‘The old man said she rarely goes out.’

‘Good.’ I looked up to see if she was sitting in her usual quiet corner. ‘Bathsheba? I want you to meet me and Joshua first thing tomorrow. Let’s say eight o’clock.’ I looked at the map on the easel, tracing the streets. ‘At the corner of Ark Lane and Fisher Street. No one else. We want no noise. No warning. Understand?’

She looked panicked for a moment, but then nodded her head.

FORTY-THREE

We converged in the dark of early morning on Ark Lane just round from our target. We were so well wrapped up I could hardly recognise any of us. Joshua was shaking with either excitement or cold. Bathsheba’s eyes – just visible between the thick scarf round her mouth and the woollen hat pulled down over her forehead – were flickering with anxiety. Duncan Todd stood huddled and grumpy under his layers. I’d managed to get hold of him late last night and after some argument about bringing a squad of his men, he’d agreed to come alone. Danny McRae – uninvited but welcome enough for all that – stood smoking beside him as I issued instructions.

‘Bathsheba, you said you speak Polish?’

‘Everyone did in Cottbus. We spoke both in school.’

‘OK. I want you to go and knock on this woman’s door. We’ll be right behind you. I want you to knock and speak in Polish. Say you’re looking for Irma Grese.’

Her eyes grew even wider. ‘Who’s Irma Grese?’

‘She’s one of the ones we hanged after the Belsen trials.’

Her hand shot to her face.

‘Are you OK with that, Bathsheba?’

She nodded. ‘What happens if she doesn’t answer?’

‘Keep knocking till she does. If she’s innocent, she’ll come out. If not, we’ll go in.’

‘Hang on, Brodie,’ said Duncan. ‘That sounds like breaking and entering.’

‘Not if it’s polis. That’s why you’re here.’

‘Christ.’

We slid round the corner and along Fisher Street until we got to the entry. We opened the door and quietly filed into the dark corridor. The door to the back yard was closed. The only light filtered in through the filthy windowpane above the door. I closed the door gently behind me. I moved forward, touching the walls as I went. I took out a torch and played it down the hall. In the middle of the corridor were two doors facing each other. Beyond, a stairwell led up. We wanted the first floor. I motioned to Bathsheba to go in front and pointed her at the stairs. I gave her the torch. She stood for a moment, then nodded at me and crept up, the torchlight showing the way. The four of us gathered at the foot and waited.

I watched as the light shifted up and up and stopped as she found the door. There was a long moment’s silence before the first knock, timid at first, then louder. Nothing. She knocked twice, harder, and called out in Polish. I heard the name Irma Grese. It sounded convincing to me.

At last Bathsheba found her nerve. There was a flurry of heavy knocks and shouted demands for the long-dead Grese. Silence followed. She waited. We waited. Then Danny slid past me and started up the stairs.

‘Danny!’ I hissed. He didn’t stop. Bugger. Still the madman. I went after him, closely followed by Duncan.

We had barely rounded the corner when there was huge bang and a flash. Something cracked past my head and we all dived to the floor. Danny was on his feet first and lunging forward, shouting Bathsheba’s name. The torch swung drunkenly. Bathsheba slid down the wall, still clutching the torch. I couldn’t make out if she’d been hit. I was too busy dragging out my service revolver, wishing, as I did so, that I’d brought the bigger-calibre Webley.

Danny flung himself down, cradled her and grabbed the torch. He flicked its beam up at the door, at the splintered wood. It gave me my chance. I aimed at the hole and fired. The second crash echoed through the stone hallway for what seemed like long minutes. I kept on moving and built up speed as I neared the door. I smashed into it with my shoulder. It buckled and crashed partly open. Something was stopping it from inside. Danny joined me and we shoved our way into the dark corridor. He shone his torch down. It picked up a figure groaning and writhing at our feet. A woman. Blood seeped from her shoulder. Beside her was a discarded sawn-off shotgun.

‘Shine the light forward!’

I stepped over her and moved down the short corridor, gun up in both hands. I charged into the first room. Empty. Then the kitchen. Empty. By the time I got back Duncan was bent over the woman, stanching the blood with her own dressing gown. Beyond her stood Danny. He was holding Bathsheba. She had her coat off and Danny was inspecting her arm.

‘Are you hurt, lassie?’

‘It’s OK. I’m fine,’ she said.

‘You’re not. You got hit by splinters and pellets,’ Danny said, pressing a large white hankie to her seeping wounds.

The woman on the floor groaned and started cursing.

‘What’s she saying, Bathsheba?’

‘She’s calling us names. Says she’s sorry she didn’t kill me. Not nice.’

‘Tell her the feeling’s mutual.’

Duncan got up. ‘Jesus Christ, Brodie! Where the hell did you get that cannon?’

‘It came with the uniform. Self-defence, Duncan. Just in case.’

‘Noo Ah’m implicated in a shoot-out. Again! Ah’m gontae huvtae arrest you.’

‘What for? I’m a commissioned officer acting under the direct orders of both the head of MI5 and your own Chief Constable. We’re dealing with – as you can see – an armed enemy. She shot first. I was protecting my agent here.’ I pointed at Bathsheba. ‘And not to put too fine a point on it, Duncan, saving your arse.’

Danny said. ‘He’s right, Duncan. Don’t go all bureaucratic on us.’ He looked beyond us. Lights had come on under the door opposite and from downstairs a voice called out:

‘Whit’s goin’ on? Ah’m ca’ing the polis.’

Duncan shouted, ‘We
are
the polis! Have you got a phone down there?’

‘Naw, but there’s a box outside.’

Just behind Duncan I saw Joshua’s face peering round the corner, worried to bits but desperate to know what was going on.

I shouted at him, ‘Joshua, away and find that phone box. Call for an ambulance and a police car. Tell them Inspector Todd wants help urgently. OK, Duncan?’

‘Sure. Do what you like. It’s clearly martial law aroon here.’

‘Don’t go in the huff. While we’re here, might as well turn the place over, eh?’

We got some lights on and inspected the woman. Duncan had propped her up, sitting with her back against the wall, still clutching her shoulder. She was a thickset creature, late forties, and now drenched with blood. Even a .38 slug from an Enfield through a wood door will do that to a body. If I’d brought Sam’s father’s .45 we’d have had a corpse on our hands. Which would have been a pity. We needed answers.

As it was, my bullet couldn’t have hit anything vital or she wouldn’t have had the strength to swear at me. Her steady stream of curses rang out into the lobby, interspersed with spit aimed at me. Bathsheba said something to her and it started the woman off again. Bathsheba took one step closer, grabbed her by her blouse and slapped her across her face. There was a brief wrestling match until Danny pulled her back.

‘She called me a Jewish whore.’

‘Hit her again if you like,’ I offered.

‘Behave yourself, Brodie,’ said Duncan.

‘I will if she will.’ I knelt in front of the woman and said in slow English, ‘If you spit on me I will put another bullet through you. This time your head. Are we clear?’

Her raging eyes stilled. I held her gaze. She nodded.

‘Which do you speak better, English or German?’

She shrugged and spat out, ‘
Deutsch
.’

I switched to German. ‘What is your name?’

‘Kebel.’

‘Your
real
name. The name you used in the camp.’

Her eyes widened. Her head shook. ‘Kebel.’

‘Let’s try some others.’ I reached in my jacket inside pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. It had the list of fourteen Cuxhaven names on it. Eight above and six below. We didn’t have names for the two mystery women. I gave the list to Bathsheba. ‘There are three
Aufseherinnen
in the first list and one in the second. You see? Read them out to her. Slowly.’

As Bathsheba settled to her task I pulled out my folded sheet containing shorthand descriptions of each of the names. Two in the first list were blue-eyed blondes. Even with a perfect dark-hair job, this woman couldn’t mask her brown eyes.

Bathsheba read them out one by one while I watched the woman’s face. So did Duncan. Danny had wandered off into the other rooms. I heard drawers banging.

‘Handloser? . . . Zimmer? . . . Rheinhardt? . . . Mandel?’

There! A flicker, a wince crossed her pale face as though she’d been slapped again.