SS-GB (35 page)

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I can see you are worried about Woods. I think I must cancel my weekend in Germany. I’m going to send for Sturmbannführer Strauss and hear all the details of your Sergeant’s arrest.’ Kellerman swung round in his swivel chair and put one Oxford brogue on the footstool. He wore a reflective frown on his wrinkled face. ‘I take it that Woods was submitting the usual type of reports?’

‘Yellow flimsies,’ said Douglas. ‘With Berlin file references.’

‘That’s what I mean,’ said Kellerman. ‘Well, I wouldn’t wish to pry into your investigation, but I don’t see how a few yellow flimsies could affect that, do you?’

‘No, sir.’ The yellow multiple-copy sheets were no more than the formality whereby Harry Woods proved he was earning his living. They provided no names, dates or places. They were nothing more than a list of filing numbers, meaningless to anyone other than filing clerks in some remote Berlin archive. And yet Douglas could see that the yellow flimsies would be enough to show Strauss of the Gestapo that Woods’s reports – like Huth’s and Douglas’s own – were going directly back to Berlin.

‘Then let me have a couple of Woods’s yellows before I see Strauss at…’ he looked at his diary ‘…I could fit him in at eleven o’clock this morning.’ Kellerman coughed again and beat his chest lightly with his closed fist. ‘It’s all part of the continuous attempt to undermine my position,’ said Kellerman in a tone of voice that was both confidential and plaintive.

‘Really, sir?’

‘Inefficient old General Kellerman sheltering enemies of the State in his own police HQ. That’s what will be said.’

‘I hope not, sir.’

Kellerman sighed, and with a tired smile he got up from his desk. ‘The alternative is even worse,’ he said. ‘Traitorous old General Kellerman, harbouring enemies of the State…do you see the delicate path one treads?’ He walked over to the fireplace and stared into the blazing coals. ‘Forgive an old man for unburdening himself to you, Superintendent, but you are a most sympathetic listener. And I know you are discreet.’

‘Thank you, General.’

Douglas got up, recognizing Kellerman’s polite dismissal, and went to the door. Kellerman got there before him and opened it for him. He shook Douglas by the hand. It was a curious way to terminate a briefing but perhaps Kellerman had heard that it was the way that English gentlemen behaved.

The connecting door between Huth’s office and the one that Douglas and Harry Woods used, was open. Douglas found him reading the small print in
Das Schwarze Korps
, the official SS weekly, but holding it in such a way that Douglas suspected that he’d picked it up to disguise the fact that he’d been waiting for him.

‘And what is Kellerman doing about Sergeant Woods’s predicament?’

‘He’ll ask Sturmbannführer Strauss for details,’ answered Douglas.

‘He’ll ask Sturmbannführer Strauss for details!’ said Huth with a sharp intake of breath, and mock surprise. ‘Perhaps I could give you a few details, without the help of Sturmbannführer Strauss. Do you know that Harry Woods’s name was added to the arrest list at the express order of General Kellerman?’

‘It’s not true!’

‘You’ve been a policeman long enough to know when you are being blackmailed, surely?’

Douglas said nothing.

‘What has the old bastard offered you? A house in the country? Promotion? Not women; you’re not the type.’

‘He promised me nothing.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Huth.

Coldly Douglas said, ‘As Harry Woods’s senior officer, you are the only one here who could get him released, using the authority you have from the Reichsführer-SS.’

Huth nodded solemnly. ‘And as soon as I signed the release order, the Gestapo would find a way of holding me in custody to see if I was Woods’s accomplice. Then they’d break the locks off the filing cabinets and read through all my confidential material…’ Afterwards I’d be released, with all kinds of humble apologies and explanations about the mistake, but all the material I’ve collected about Kellerman would have disappeared.’

‘Kellerman said that the Gestapo comes directly under the control of Berlin.’

‘Tell me,’ said Huth, leaning forward on his desk, ‘confidentially, do you still hang a stocking under the
Christmas Tree?’ He ran his hands together, interlocked his fingers and twisted them to make the knuckles crack. ‘General Kellerman has arrested your friend Harry Woods, in order to put a little pressure on you to betray me. The sooner you realize that, the sooner we can cooperate to defeat the ugly old swine.’

‘Why don’t you hand over the Kellerman inquiry to some other officer?’

‘Whom can I trust?’

Douglas didn’t answer. He realized that this was a vendetta that neither man could abandon.

‘Five or six years ago Kellerman was a nobody,’ said Huth, trying to explain his hatred: or was it envy? ‘He shared a flyblown office in suburban Leipzig with three typists and a police detective. He was an Obersekretär, the lowest form of animal life in the German Criminal Police Service. Then he joined the Nazi Party and the SS and grinned and grovelled his way to being Senior SS and Police Commander Great Britain. Not bad, eh! And you needn’t take any notice of that shit about how he’s got no authority over anything, and Berlin doesn’t like him. That’s just a part of his style.’

‘I’m beginning to believe it.’

Huth said, ‘You’ll find Kellerman at some of the best houses of the British nobility, spreading his message of peace and prosperity, and giving his expert imitation of an absent-minded old buffer who likes warm beer, tweed suits, cocker spaniel dogs and house-parties. And who can be easily manipulated and outwitted by any able-bodied young Englishman who cares to get to his feet for the opening bars of “Deutschland über Alles”.’ Huth folded his newspaper into a tightly wadded parcel. ‘You thought he was a snob, didn’t you? He likes people to think that.’ Huth threw the newspaper into his wastebasket with enough
violence to tip it over and spill its contents on the carpet. ‘Now tell me what he wanted!’ shouted Huth.

‘The yellow flimsies,’ said Douglas quietly.

‘Why?’

‘To prove to Strauss that Harry Woods was under the direct orders of Berlin.’

‘And you thought, it’s no more than a list of numbers. What harm can it do? Right?’

‘No,’ said Douglas.

‘Don’t no me! I can see it written all over your face.’ He waved a hand in the air as Douglas opened his mouth to explain. ‘OK, OK, OK,’ said Huth. ‘If it was
my
friend in trouble, I might have thought the same.’

Douglas said, ‘Do you think General Kellerman has someone who would dig the files out of the Berlin archive?’

‘If Kellerman could get a list of file titles, he would have a description of all the evidence against him.’

‘He’s cancelled his weekend trip,’ said Douglas. ‘He said it’s because he’s concerned about Harry Woods.’

‘I can hear the violins,’ said Huth. ‘Kellerman was invited to a shooting party at Schönhof – von Ribbentrop’s hunting lodge. That’s not something he’d give up because one lousy Detective Sergeant was arrested on his orders and then tried to escape.’

‘Then why is he staying?’

‘Things are moving fast, Archer. Surely you sense that. Martial law has given all the power to our army colleagues. Kellerman has to decide whether to hinder and oppose them, or go across to the army Commander and do his ingratiating subordinate act. He came back from Highgate with some crackpot idea that the army had caused the explosion in order to get power, but the casualty list persuaded him to abandon that line.’

‘And how soon will you have evidence against him?’

‘I’ll make Kellerman wish he’d never left that flea-bitten little office in Leipzig,’ said Huth. ‘My people in Switzerland have cabled me that Kellerman has tucked away over fifteen million Reichsmarks in numbered accounts. When I get the copies I’m waiting for, I’ll arrest him on my own authority using SD units to hold him.’

Douglas nodded. Every week the newspapers printed the names of men executed for black-market offences, graft or looting. In this respect the Germans applied the law rigorously to Germans and British alike.

Huth sighed, ‘Give the old fool the list of file numbers that we got when someone wanted all that material about billeting and discipline of SS units in western England. It will take him a little while to get the titles. Then tell him the files have false titles for security reasons. It will take another month to find out what we’ve done, and by that time I guarantee, Archer, we’ll be rid of that old crook for ever.’ He lifted a fist but then modified the gesture to a wave of the finger. ‘But give him one real file number from this office, and by God, I’ll…’

He didn’t finish. A gust of wind rattled the windows and large drops of rain made clear places in the sooty glass. The River Thames was the colour of lead and just as solid-looking.

‘I won’t give him any real ones,’ said Douglas.

‘And Archer,’ said Huth as Douglas got to the door, ‘don’t count too much on Kellerman helping our friend Harry. Sort out another Detective Sergeant to start work here tomorrow.’

Standartenführer Huth’s predictions about General Kellerman proved true and false in equal measure. Kellerman went to lunch that day with Generalmajor Georg von Ruff, senior Abwehr officer in Great Britain. That these two exalted worthies, of military intelligence and secret policing, had not started at the lowest rung of their profession’s ladder, was evidenced by the way they chose to meet in the top room of Wheeler’s fish restaurant in Old Compton Street, Soho. To them it seemed enough to wear civilian coats over their uniforms, and to avoid being seen together in their respective headquarters. But any young detective on their staff would have told them that a private room booked for ‘Herr Braun and party’ in any Soho restaurant would have attracted attention during those first days of martial law, even had their aides not brought large leather briefcases that had become the mark of high-ranking German officials. And even had both Generals not worn high boots.

Kellerman made peace with his new masters, for he was a man supple enough to bend to the winds of change. But the prediction that nothing would be done to help Detective Sergeant Harry Woods proved wrong. At three o’clock that afternoon Douglas Archer received a phone call from Kellerman’s personal assistant requesting him – should his work schedule permit it, and providing he was not inconvenienced in any way – to spend a few moments upstairs with the General. Almost as an afterthought,
the caller added that Detective Sergeant Harry Woods would be there too.

By the standards of the Gestapo, Harry Woods was virtually unharmed. But Douglas was shocked by the sight of him. His face was bruised and one eye puffy so that it almost closed. He winced as he moved his weight on the chair, and he kept one leg extended and still, as if to ease some pain in the knee.

‘Hello, Harry,’ Douglas said after greeting General Kellerman.

‘Hello, Superintendent,’ said Harry in a whisper.

‘Sit down, Superintendent Archer.’

Sturmbannführer Strauss was also in the room. He sat in the corner with his arms folded across a limp paper dossier. He said nothing. Kellerman went over to the window and opened it so that he could look out to the river. ‘You’ve been a fool, Sergeant Woods,’ Kellerman said.

‘If you say so,’ said Harry reluctantly.

‘Well, I
do
say so,’ said Kellerman. He turned to face back into the room. ‘And so does Superintendent Archer – and so does anyone else – if they are being honest with you. Have you been ill-treated?’

Harry Woods didn’t answer. Kellerman went across to where Strauss was sitting, took the dossier from his hand, and walked to his desk to pick up his spectacles. He read the arrest report holding the paper under his desk-light. Kellerman was a different man in his immaculate grey uniform, with its ‘Reichsführung-SS London’ cuffband, Gruppenführer’s silver oak leaves on his collar and medals on his tunic. The fine silver-grey material shone in the desk-light’s glare, as did the high boots, polished to gleam like metal. And yet there was a certain awkwardness about the General in uniform; he reached for the waistcoat – where he kept gold watch and fountain-pen – and
encountered the tightly buttoned tunic. Constantly he patted the buttons of all four pockets to be sure they were fastened in the correct military style. And, in compliance with SS dress regulations for ranks of SS Oberführer and above, Kellerman wore spurs on his high boots. Perhaps in fear of getting them entangled, he kept his feet well apart, and walked with an exaggerated stride.

When Kellerman finished reading the report he closed the dossier with a snap. ‘Now, Woods, have you been ill-treated?’

Harry’s whispered words came slowly and Kellerman had to lean closer to understand them. ‘Cold baths and no sleep.’

Douglas flinched at the thought of Harry, near retirement and in the poor physical shape that comes from working too hard, drinking too heavily, and taking no exercise, being pushed into ice-cold water and systematically kept awake. Few men could withstand such torture.

‘Cold baths and not much sleep,’ said Kellerman, folding his arms unnecessarily tightly and nodding. ‘Well, that’s the standard routine in the German army…can’t grumble too much about that, Sergeant.’ He patted his stomach. ‘A few weeks in a recruit camp would do us all good, eh?’ He turned his head to smile at Douglas but Douglas was sitting feet crossed, studying his shoe.

Kellerman seemed unable to keep still. He marched across to Strauss and flourished the dossier at him. ‘But I cannot understand why this police officer should be held in your custody, Strauss?’ Strauss jumped to his feet, and clicked his heels.

‘Herr Gruppenführer…’ said Strauss. In other circumstances it might have been comic to see Strauss bowing low and using such an obsequious form of
address, but now no one laughed. ‘The prisoner was only passed into my custody this morning. The duty officer who…’

‘We’ve no time for an official inquiry,’ said Kellerman. ‘That will come later. The facts of the matter are that this police officer should not have been arrested in his home by the army arrest team. That does not excuse him for the stupid escape attempt, but we should bear it in mind. Secondly…’ Kellerman was grasping his fingers as if unable to count without doing so, ‘…if he is to be tried for an attempt to escape from an army detention centre, then it is for the army to try him.’