SS-GB (36 page)

Strauss did not answer. ‘Well, Strauss?’ said Kellerman, standing erect and giving a little tug to the hem of his tunic.

‘The SS Legal Department said that Detective Sergeant Woods comes under the legal protection afforded to members of the SS,’ said Strauss. ‘The army’s Legal Department agreed. So the duty officer took custody of him.’

‘You damned bureaucrats,’ shouted Kellerman angrily. ‘You’d hang us all to get your paperwork in order. Don’t you realize, Strauss, that the army have tricked you? You’ve helped them cover up their wrongful arrest of one of our best detectives…don’t you see that?’

Strauss made another curious little bow, like a mechanical doll. ‘Yes, Herr Gruppenführer.’

‘And don’t keep calling me
Herr
Gruppenführer.’

‘No, Gruppenführer.’

‘You send this prisoner back to the Feldgendarmerie. In fact, go with him, Strauss, just in case they don’t give him an immediate “release pending inquiries”.’

‘What if the Feldgendarmerie keep him in custody, Gruppenführer?’

‘You stay with him, Strauss.’ Kellerman brushed his pockets to be sure they were buttoned.

Kellerman touched Strauss’s shoulder and Strauss sat down again. Then he turned to Douglas. ‘Before we cross swords with our army friends,’ said Kellerman, ‘just let’s make sure we know what we are doing.’ He walked across the room and put a cigarette into Harry’s mouth, then he lit it. Harry began to smoke it without even looking up to see where it had come from. Kellerman said, ‘Because the Abwehr are our masters for the moment.’ He smiled at the absurdity of this situation. ‘Sergeant Woods has been indiscreet, headstrong and premature. He has had dealings with criminals, but this does not make him a criminal…are you taking a note of this, Strauss?’

‘Yes, Gruppenführer.’

‘We shall need a statement that he did no more than was necessary in the course of his investigation into criminal terrorist organizations.’

‘Do we want to reveal to the army details of an incomplete investigation?’ said Douglas, seeing where such a course was likely to lead.

‘Oh for goodness’ sake,’ said Kellerman testily. ‘The young lady is dead. Let’s have some details of her. That will reveal nothing we need conceal, and you must know something about her…she was your clerk for nearly six months.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Douglas. It was almost as if General Kellerman was suggesting ways to preserve Harry’s Resistance friends but that was impossible to believe. Kellerman came round behind Douglas. It was a disconcerting trick of his, and Douglas never knew whether to turn and face him or not. This time he did not. ‘I’m trying to help Sergeant Woods,’ said Kellerman. Douglas could smell the brandy that Kellerman had consumed at his lunch.

‘Yes, General,’ said Douglas. ‘Do you hear me, Sergeant Woods? I’m trying to help you.’

Harry nodded without looking up and put the cigarette into his mouth to inhale.

‘If your investigation began as a direct result of the girl being employed in this building, say so. I’m not asking you to hide anything. You’ll have to describe Woods’s responsibilities working under Standartenführer Huth.’ Kellerman went to Harry Woods and patted his shoulder in an avuncular gesture.

‘Shall I check that with the Standartenführer?’ said Douglas.

Kellerman’s reply was no more than a whisper. ‘I’ve asked the Standartenführer for a statement that would assist in Woods’s release. I’m afraid that, so far, Doctor Huth will not even make himself available for a talk on the phone about it.’ Kellerman sighed.

‘Shall we take the statement immediately?’ said Strauss, who preferred only to ask questions to which he already knew the answer.

‘In the German language,’ said Kellerman. ‘Half the people in this building can’t read a word of English, and in Berlin anything in English is pushed aside and forgotten. Superintendent Archer will translate it for his comrade, won’t you, Archer?’

‘Of course, sir,’ said Douglas, although he and Kellerman both knew that by getting Douglas’s name and signature on each sheet of the translation it would be absurd for him later to claim ignorance of anything it contained. It was very nearly as effective as having a statement from Douglas himself. It was a telling blow. To free Harry, Douglas was left with little choice but to render Huth vulnerable. While Kellerman could smile at everyone concerned, and continue in his chosen role of soft-hearted old buffoon.

‘Shall we take Harry down to an interview room?’ said Douglas.

‘Use my secretary’s office,’ said Kellerman. ‘That will give me the chance to help you draft the text.’

They worked hard for the next hour and Kellerman made a phone call to the Abwehr office in Piccadilly. The paperwork was considerable, but by six o’clock that afternoon, Harry Woods was free. At the last moment, Kellerman decided that Harry Woods’s statement was not needed at this stage of the proceedings. He locked it away in his safe.

It was masterly, thought Douglas, as he reviewed the sequence of events. Kellerman could now blame the Abwehr for the wrongful arrest of Harry Woods, and also for his wrongful release, should he misbehave. And he’d contrived it in such a way – returning Woods to army custody – that he could claim to be helping the army cover up their mistakes. Additionally he’d got from Douglas and Harry Woods a signed and witnessed statement that might – used skilfully – hamper Huth’s investigation of Kellerman.

But if Kellerman had so cleverly outwitted the Abwehr – in spite of the wide-ranging powers that martial law provided for the army – then what of Mayhew, and his network of kingmakers? How long would it take before Kellerman discovered that the Abwehr itself was in league with the men he had called ‘criminal terrorists’? Or was Fritz Kellerman no more than the amiable old do-gooder that he claimed to be? Or was the truth – like so many truths – not any one of the envisaged possibilities?

‘I’ve done enough,’ said Harry Woods when they were in the car and driving home.

‘Too much.’

‘Seriously,’ said Harry, ‘I’ve done enough.’ When Douglas didn’t reply Harry added, ‘“
Ohne mich,”
the Huns say, don’t they? – “without me” – well, that’s how I feel. The Resistance can manage without me for a little while.’

Douglas nodded. He too had heard the Germans say
‘ohne mich’
as they dissociated themselves from some arduous, dangerous or expensive demand of the Third Reich’s policies. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Harry touching his bruised cheek, moving the fingertips up his face to discover how far it went, and preparing himself for seeing his wife again.

‘Last February,’ said Harry, ‘it seemed like the only thing to do.’

‘Last February is a century ago,’ said Douglas.

‘And after that I could never think of any way to tell the lads I wanted to get out of it.’

Douglas nodded. He was accustomed to hearing men rationalize their misfortune, and their good fortune too. Only a few days previously, Harry had been trying to recruit him into their Resistance cell, but he did not remind him.

‘Was it Kellerman who arranged my release?’ Harry asked.

‘He said he would,’ said Douglas. ‘Why do you ask?’

Harry was still fingering his bruised face. ‘He’s not
so bad, perhaps,’ said Harry. ‘I mean…well, I was wondering in there, whether we’d be just as bad as they are…if we’d won the war and were occupying Germany.’

They arrived at Harry’s small house. There was a chink of light between the curtains of the basement room. Harry got out of the car and looked around as if seeing the street for the first time. Then he turned back and bent down to see Douglas at the wheel of the car. ‘I wish it could be like in the old days, Doug.’ He seemed oblivious of the rain that was soaking him. Douglas had seen men released from prison stand happily in the worst of weather; it was a celebration of freedom.

‘The Germans are here, Harry,’ said Douglas. He was impatient with his partner but he tried to keep that out of his voice.

‘No, no,’ said Harry. ‘I mean you and me. I wish it could be like the old days between you and me.’

‘It will be, Harry,’ Douglas promised. ‘Now get inside and see your wife. She’s been worried about you.’

As Douglas drove away down the bleak rainswept street he could not resist a glance in the mirror. Harry Woods was standing under a streetlight and watching the departing car. As he turned the corner Douglas looked again. This time Harry had begun walking, but instead of going to his own front door, Harry stepped off the kerb to cross the street and head elsewhere. To a public phone perhaps. Oh well, thought Douglas, he was not Harry’s keeper, only his friend and partner. He tried not to think about it.

Douglas detoured to avoid the closed streets that now provided a ‘fire zone’ round Pentonville prison, and followed a series of backstreets to avoid both King’s Cross and St Pancras railway stations. All such
vital places were now ringed with infantry and armoured cars and there were the Fliegende Feld- und Standgerichte – flying field tribunals – complete with execution squads. So far there had been no reports of summary executions but the sight of the tribunals was enough to strike fear into the most innocent heart.

Douglas recognized the unit that waved him to a halt in Tottenham Court Road as one such tribunal. There was an Opel ‘Admiral’ for the patrol commander, six motorcycles and two canvas-topped Daimler-Benz G-3 troops carriers. The steady rain shone in the yellow headlight beams. Somewhere on the other side of the railway there was the moaning of a Feldgendarmerie siren. The Feldwebel who asked for Douglas’s identity papers had that soft-spoken courtesy which so often is the manner of men who cannot be disobeyed. He read the pass with interest, compared Douglas with the photo, wrote the registration number of the vehicle on his clipboard, clicked his heels, saluted in the military style, and waved Douglas on.

It was the same all over Britain; the German army was demonstrating to the civil population that the ‘field-greys’ were in total control. And yet, if one noted the way in which the army patrols seemed to take a perverse satisfaction in checking the police and SS vehicles and SS personnel, it was almost as if the demonstration was directed at them.

On Saturday morning they went to the zoo. Douglas told his son that Barbara was a friend he’d met in connection with his work. But Douglas need not have worried about how that first meeting would go, for the child accepted this friend of his father as children usually do, with an awesome interest for the first ten minutes and then a friendly indifference. But Barbara knew that young Douglas was an examination she must pass if she was to have his father’s love and devotion, and she gave all her energies to winning the boy over.

They rode on the elephants and on the camels. They went to the aquarium and to the rhino house. Eventually Barbara allowed the little boy to coax her into visiting the reptile house. By the time they emerged, little Douglas was holding her hand to comfort her, and telling her not to be afraid of the snakes because he wouldn’t let them hurt her.

The zoo was almost deserted. Not many Londoners had enough money to pay for admittance to the depleted collection of animals and the bomb-damaged buildings. And martial law had provided other activities for the army of occupation. Douglas and Barbara watched his son on the tiny merry-go-round. There were no other children there and Douggie was able to keep it revolving by running alongside and leaping aboard for brief rides.

‘We bring him to the zoo and he ignores the animals in favour of the swings and roundabouts.’

‘He likes being with you,’ said Barbara. ‘He doesn’t mind where.’

‘Huth hates his father,’ said Douglas. ‘It’s an obsession
with him.’ They walked past the wooden benches, newly painted yellow, and marked ‘for Jews only’. There was always enough money and labour for hatred.

‘Why?’

A light plane flew overhead, banking steeply and wheeling so that the flyers could be sure there were no illegal meetings in Regent’s Park. The sky had been busy with these highwing Storks since martial law was declared. Not only were they constantly checking the open spaces and the rooftops but also fetching and carrying between the hastily converted airstrips made from straight stretches of roadway at the Mall, Edgeware Road, Western Avenue, Old Kent Road and Clapham Common. ‘Huth wants more admiration than his father is prepared to provide.’ It was raining now. Douglas and Barbara huddled together in the lee of a kiosk. Its tiny windows were filled with dummy packs of chocolate and cigarettes, dusty and flyblown. On the padlocked shutter a sign said, ‘No cigarettes, no chocolate, no change for the telephone’. The sign was torn and stained with months of rain – it was a long time since it became necessary to tell anyone that there were no chocolates or cigarettes.

‘You’re angry about something.’

‘No.’

‘Worried?’

‘No,’ said Douglas but he was troubled. He felt like a man ordered to dig his own grave. ‘You told me that Mayhew asked you to go along to Shepherd Market, and try to get the film. But Mayhew had no idea that any film existed until I told him.’

She said nothing. The rain lessened and young Douggie continued to ride on the merry-go-round. Douglas continued, ‘I think you were working for your own government. And I think the younger Spode was working for them too.’

‘I’m not a spy, Douglas,’ she said. ‘A man from the Embassy asked me to go along to the Shepherd Market apartment. He said the film would be waiting there for collection. That’s all I know, you must believe me, Douglas.’ She gripped his arm; he nodded.

He said, ‘Young Spode killing his brother, it didn’t make sense. Family quarrels aren’t about secret documents, they are about unfaithful wives or who inherits what.’

‘Who killed Spode then?’

‘I couldn’t believe that the younger brother did it and calmly stood there sorting through several hundred pages of mathematical calculations photographing, while his brother was sprawled dead at his feet.’

‘He didn’t do it?’

‘I fell into the trap of thinking that the two brothers must have been there together, simply because they were brothers. As soon as one forgets that they were brothers, the truth becomes easier to see. There was a train ticket in the dead man’s pocket. No trains from Devon arrive in London stations during the early hours of the morning. Spode wasn’t arriving from the station, he’d been to the flat earlier, to deliver the calculations for his brother to photograph.’