The Titanic Secret (4 page)

‘It’s all right,’ Tremayne said again. ‘We can go now.’

‘They were all so horrible to me,’ she said, when she was capable of speaking. ‘They left me in the dark, and they didn’t feed me very often. The food was horrible too. And all I had to drink was water.’

Tremayne lifted her up with both hands – she felt fragile, as if her limbs would snap if he squeezed her too tightly – and she was still trembling. He settled her body so that she was sitting on his left forearm and walked across to the door of the small bedroom. He shielded her face as he walked across the landing and past the dead body lying there, and on down the stairs.

He’d almost reached the bottom when a sudden realization struck him. In the bedroom, Claire had said that they were ‘all’ horrible to her. Why hadn’t she said that they were ‘both’ horrible. She was educated, and that hadn’t sounded to him like a slip of the tongue.

And as he looked out through the open front door, he saw that the shotgun he’d tossed there was nowhere in sight. He pulled the revolver out of his pocket even as he turned his head slightly to bring his mouth close to the girl’s ear.

‘How many men were there?’ he asked her urgently.

‘Two for most of the time,’ Claire replied, ‘but sometimes there were three of them here. And then I—’

She broke off with a sudden squeal of terror as she saw something behind them.

Tremayne whirled round as a third man stepped into the hall from the door at the end. Like the other two, he was holding a double-barrel shotgun, and bringing it up to point it at Tremayne and the girl.

Alex Tremayne reacted instantly. He half turned his body to try to shield the girl from the shotgun blast, and at the same time raised the revolver and squeezed the trigger. The double report of the two weapons was almost simultaneous and utterly deafening in the narrow hallway. Tremayne’s bullet hit the man in the left shoulder, the impact spinning him just enough for the round fired from the shotgun to miss both Tremayne and the girl.

Before the man could correct his aim and fire the second barrel, Tremayne pulled the trigger again, and then again. The man tumbled backwards, the first bullet smashing into his cheek and blowing off the back of his head, the second thudding into his chest.

Claire was still screaming, the noise piercing through Tremayne’s head.

‘Hush, now,’ he said. ‘You are sure that there were only three of them?’

He had to repeat the question twice before she finally stopped screaming and answered him.

‘Three, yes, there were three of them.’

Tremayne stepped over the body of the first man he’d shot and entered the parlour.

‘I’m putting you down for just a few moments,’ he said. ‘There’s something I have to do before we go outside.’

Claire nodded but didn’t reply as Tremayne lowered her gently to the wooden floor of the room. Then he opened his revolver again, removed the spent cartridge cases and reloaded it. It wasn’t that he disbelieved what the girl had told him. It was just that he always believed in being prepared. And with six bullets in the chamber of the Webley, he felt able to face whoever – or whatever – was waiting outside.

‘Now we’re leaving,’ he said, took Claire’s hand and led her out of the parlour and across to the main door of the farmhouse, extinguishing the hall light as he did so. He opened the door a few inches, and for a couple of minutes he just looked outside the building into the deepening gloom of the dusk. He heard a rustle in the undergrowth a few yards away, and then saw a fox step cautiously out onto a patch of grass before moving away on its nightly quest for food.

That was enough for Tremayne. Foxes were highly sensitive to the presence of human beings, and now he was certain that no danger lurked outside the farmhouse.

Just over four hours later, a few minutes before midnight, Tremayne knocked on the door of a flat in central London. It was opened almost immediately by a tall, solidly built man with grey hair and piercing eyes. He exuded an unmistakable air of command, which was entirely unsurprising given that he was a captain in the Royal Navy, though his current command was about as divorced from the sea and ships as it was possible to be. George Mansfield Cumming was the head of the Foreign Section of the recently formed Secret Service Bureau, a spy-master rather than a sailor.

‘Good evening, Mansfield,’ Tremayne said, and gave Claire a gentle push in the back.

She needed no second bidding. She rushed over to Cumming and grasped him round the waist.

‘Uncle George,’ she murmured, holding him tight. ‘I’m so glad I’m here.’

Cumming smiled down at her and ruffled her hair, then bent down and gave her a hug.

‘You’re not hurt?’ he asked, directing his question at the girl, but actually looking up at Tremayne for the answer.

‘I don’t think they touched her,’ he said, ‘apart from just manhandling her when they needed to. But no funny business, if you know what I mean.’

‘Where are they?’

‘At the farmhouse, stiffening up and attracting flies,’ Tremayne replied shortly. ‘And there were three of them, by the way, not two as we’d thought.’

Cumming nodded. ‘I’ll have a quiet word with the people who need to know,’ he said, ‘and I think we’ll probably write the whole thing off as a burglary that went wrong.’

‘Thanks,’ Tremayne said. ‘Do you want me to hang on to the pistol or give it back?’

‘I’ll take it,’ Cumming replied. ‘It can go back in the armoury.’

Tremayne removed the revolver from his pocket, broke it to remove the shells and then placed it on the occasional table on one side of the hall. He took out the cardboard box which contained the ammunition, added the six rounds to it and then felt around in his pocket for the unfired round he’d removed from the weapon earlier. The empty cases followed.

‘That’s fifty rounds altogether,’ he said, ‘fired and fired, just so you can keep your books straight.’

‘Thanks, Alex,’ Cumming replied, gently disengaging Claire’s arms from around his waist. He extended his right arm and shook Tremayne’s hand firmly.

‘Anything else I can do?’

‘Not right now,’ Cumming said, ‘but I’m waiting for news from Germany. There’s a situation developing over there that might require the use of your unique talents. In the meantime, take a couple of days off. I’ll have somebody contact you as soon as there’s any news.’

7 April 1912
Berlin

‘But you are sure that he’s dead?’

The heavyset man standing beside the window turned and walked back to his desk. Although he was the head of the
Preußische Geheimpolizei
in Berlin, he was wearing the dark-blue uniform with silver buttons of a regular German police officer. Eberhard Neumann had found that he could move about his city far more easily, and almost invariably be unchallenged, when dressed in this manner. And there were certain other advantages too.

Neumann sat down in his comfortable leather chair before he replied. ‘We can’t be certain, no,’ he replied in English. ‘My man fired five shots and, according to his companion, hit the English spy three times. In the circumstances – just after midnight, the only illumination the street lights, with snow falling and the target running away – that was very good shooting. Unfortunately, I can’t ask my rifleman for any further information because he’s dead. One of the military sentries outside the British Embassy shot him just after he fired the last round.’

‘Have you registered a protest? Surely the shooting of a German citizen in the heart of Berlin by an English soldier stationed at their embassy is a flagrant breach of diplomatic protocols?’

‘It is, and normally we would, but this situation is far from normal. If we protest, every aspect of the matter will be placed under scrutiny, by my masters as well as by the British, and we both know that that is not a good idea.’

Neumann paused for a few moments and inspected his fingernails. ‘I decided that the best – in fact probably the
only –
viable course of action was to cover up the incident as quickly as possible. I had the body of my man removed from the street, together with his rifle and all the spent cartridge cases. While my people were doing this, they noticed that the British Embassy staff were doing exactly the same thing with their spy. And there’s something else that makes me think he’s dead.’

Gunther Voss leaned forward in his seat. ‘Yes? What was it?’

‘Immediately the incident was over, and the two bodies had been removed, I ordered two of my men to walk down Wilhelmstraße. They easily found the two sites where the Englishman had been shot. There was evidence of heavy bleeding at the first spot, then a trail of blood as he got up and staggered forward, and a large pool of blood where the man finally fell.’

Voss nodded. ‘Exactly what I would have expected from your description of the incident.’

‘But at the second site, right outside the doors of the British Embassy, they also saw fragments of grey-white tissue. For obvious reasons – they were both being watched very closely by the sentries posted outside the building – they couldn’t examine it closely, but both were convinced that it was brain matter. I think that last shot probably hit the Englishman’s head. If it did, it would have killed him instantly.’

A slow smile of satisfaction spread across Gunther Voss’s vulpine features.

‘The only other concern is whether or not he said anything to either of the British sentries in his last moments.’

The smile faded from Voss’s face. ‘How much could the spy possibly have said in that short space of time? And by then he was so badly wounded that he might not even have been capable of coherent thought.’

Neumann nodded. ‘You may well be right. But you should be aware that the traitor Klaus Trommler has admitted he told the Englishman your name at their last meeting that evening. He has also said that he read part of the report I prepared, and passed some of the other details on to the English spy.’

Voss stared at him angrily. ‘I thought our arrangements were secret?’ he snapped. ‘Why did you have to write anything down?’

Neumann shrugged. ‘We have our procedures. I am required to document meetings and record any information which I am given. That is the way the
Preußische Geheimpolizei
operates.’

‘And then you let a clerk – of all people – read what you had written?’

‘All of our employees are checked for reliability and honesty. Nothing like this has ever happened before.’

Voss snorted. ‘But this Trommler man proves that your checking procedure is a waste of time.’

‘He was an exception, I agree. It won’t happen again.’

‘What will you do with him?’

Neumann smiled and glanced up at the large clock on the opposite wall of his office. ‘You can watch if you like,’ he said. ‘They should be ready now.’

He stood up and walked back to the window, beckoning Voss to join him. Neumann’s office was on the second floor of the building, and the window looked down into a large courtyard surrounded by a brick wall fifteen feet high. In one corner a group of half a dozen uniformed policemen were standing talking together, each with a rifle slung over his shoulder.

As Neumann and Voss looked down, two other men appeared from the ground floor of the building, one either side of a man who had his arms lashed behind his back, and a gag over his mouth. He was writhing and struggling in their grip, but clearly his efforts to escape were futile. They walked briskly across to the corner of the courtyard and forced the prisoner to stand against the wall. One of the men did something behind the prisoner’s back, and then both men moved away, leaving the man twisting against the wall.

‘There’s a ringbolt at waist level just there,’ Neumann explained. ‘It saves having to erect a wooden post to tie them to.’

‘That’s Klaus Trommler?’ Voss mused.

Neumann shook his head. ‘No, it’s not, actually. That’s one of my officers. He was the man who was stupid enough to let Trommler get his hands on the report.’

Down below, the two men who’d escorted the prisoner into the courtyard had just re-entered the building. After a few moments, they reappeared. This time, they were carrying a stretcher between them, on which another man lay. His body was secured to the stretcher with three leather straps tied tightly around his chest, waist and knees, and with individual straps securing his wrists to the side rails.

Voss looked puzzled. ‘Why can’t they make him walk to the wall?’ he asked.

‘Our questioning was a little –
robust
– shall we say. One of our interrogators broke both of Trommler’s legs when he proved somewhat reluctant to tell us what we needed to know.’

The two men carried the stretcher across to the wall and propped it up there, just a few feet from where the other man was still struggling futilely, trying desperately to get free. Then they turned and walked away without a backward glance.

Another police officer walked out of the building and crossed to the two men. He took a piece of paper from his pocket and said a few words to each of the prisoners.

‘He’s reading the death sentences,’ Neumann explained. ‘Both men are lucky, really, that they’re being shot. Execution by firing squad is generally considered to be an honourable death.’

Voss stared at him. ‘So what other form of execution would you use?’

‘The
Fallbeil
. The word translates as the “falling axe”. It’s like the French guillotine, and it’s the punishment we reserve for traitors and criminals. But there wasn’t time to get a machine here, and I wanted these two disposed of as soon as possible.’

In the courtyard below, the officer had moved away from the two condemned men, both of whom were shaking their heads violently. Neither Voss nor Neumann could hear the orders being given, but the firing squad quickly formed a single line about twenty feet from the wall, and then a ragged volley rang out. Both the victims slumped down to the extent of their bonds as the bullets ploughed through their bodies. Once the riflemen had slung their weapons, the officer stepped forward to verify that the two men were dead.

Neumann nodded in satisfaction and stepped back from the window. ‘Coffee?’ he asked, ‘or perhaps some schnapps?’