Legacy of Sorrows (14 page)

This was met by silence. Italo and I looked at each other and struggled to find words. Eventually I blurted out, ‘You can't do that, Graziano. You will be killing people who were not involved in the killing of our families.' He looked at me with disdain in his eyes. ‘You can't moralise with me, Bruno. You have just killed a man in cold blood and in the eyes of the law you are a murderer.'

‘Yes, that's true, but I know that he was guilty of murdering my family. I saw him do it. There is no doubting that fact, but to murder people because they are attending a party here is insane.'

‘Insane, is it? These people downstairs are veterans of the 16th Waffen SS. They were present at the massacres of Sant' Anna and Monte Sole. All told, a total of over two thousand five hundred Italian civilians, men, women and children, were slaughtered by them. Tonight they attend a party to celebrate the release of their leader who is now free to breathe the fresh air of freedom. Whilst they are celebrating, the Italian civilians they massacred are turning in their mass graves crying out “who will avenge us? We cannot party or breathe fresh air again.” And I answer them that I will. There is insanity here, yes I agree, but it is the insanity that allows over one hundred known killers to go unpunished whilst our friends and families who were completely innocent lie dead.'

‘There will be innocent people who will also die. Waiters, chefs and other staff. What about them? I'm sorry Graziano; I'm going to the police.'

‘And what will you tell them when they ask you how you know about this? Will you tell them that you found out after killing Kuller?'

Italo took me by the arm. ‘Calm yourself Bruno, there's nothing we can do. If we go to the police we will be charged with murder. Even if we try to find the explosives ourselves we don't know how to disarm the mechanism.' He shook his head in dismay, ‘All this explains why Ivana and Graziano took Kuller's dead body in their stride when they saw it. For them he was only the start of the killing, whilst for us it was the end.'

‘Why have you told us all of this? You didn't have to.' I said to the old couple.

Graziano put his arm around my shoulder as if trying to placate me.

‘You may have wandered near the scene of the explosions and been injured. Or you may even have entered the Ballroom to see Reder. I couldn't take the chance, enough Italians have died because of those scum.'

Italo said to me, ‘Bruno, let's go to the reception and book out. Tell them we are disturbed at the thought of the dead body and the Police activity next door, and that we want to cancel our booking. That way it won't look suspicious to anyone.'

I agreed. We said our goodbyes to the Sambuccis and left.

We were silent as we passed by our room and picked up our bags.

The girl on the reception apologised on behalf of the hotel for the ‘terrible events that have taken place' and willingly cancelled our reservation and refunded the deposit we had paid.

We took a taxi to the train station and went to a coffee bar there as we waited on our train. ‘I don't feel comfortable just walking away knowing that many people will die tonight, Italo.' I said over my espresso. Italo nodded. ‘No one in their right mind would be comfortable with this, but what can we do? I don't want to go to prison as a convicted murderer because we saved the lives of some SS killers.'

We sat in silence for quite a while until I said. ‘What about an anonymous tip-off to the police? That way we can do the right thing without being compromised.'

Italo looked at me for some time before saying, ‘The police may probe a little deeper into who would try to kill over one hundred ex SS soldiers and discover that their unit was involved in the Italian massacres of 1944. They may then check the hotel guests and find that four of them came from the Bologna area where the biggest massacre took place and that two of them had been with the partisans. They may then think that those two then had the knowledge of working with explosives and perhaps the motive to kill them. Further when they find out that you came from Monte Sole and that I was with the partisans there, I think we would be facing a life sentence.'

I saw the sense behind Italo's argument, especially when he added, ‘The person making the phone call would have to be me, a German speaking Italian with a pronounced Italian accent. Now there's a good clue Bruno, eh?'

Every way we looked at it, we found a problem. If the bombs went off in the ballroom, we would eventually be implicated. Even if we wanted to go back and try to find them ourselves, we didn't know how to disarm the mechanisms. Eventually we just gave up thinking of a way through it and sat in silence waiting on our train back home. I looked at my watch and noticed that it was 7.45pm and that in about 45 minutes we would know if we were accomplices of a mass murder or merely of one killing.

Chapter 11

W
alter
Reder had considered cancelling the reception and was sitting with some of the organisers in his hotel room discussing what to do. The general consensus was that they should continue the evening albeit with a more muted approach. They all were of the opinion that Kuller would have wanted it that way; why else would he have waited until the evening of the reception to commit suicide. Reder suggested that Werner Brenst should be the master of ceremonies in place of Kuller, to unanimous acceptance. With the meeting at an end, Reder stood up and said, ‘Gentlemen, we should now go to our rooms to get ourselves ready for this evening. Our minds are obviously on what has taken place here, but once again we will do our duty to a fallen comrade and follow through, painful as it may be.' They all stood ramrod straight as if on parade and left the room.

At precisely 1915 hours Reder and his comrades entered the ornate ballroom of the Hotel Bristol. Overhead the elaborate crystal chandelier glistened and shone like twinkling diamonds. The rows of tables were covered with white starched linen, the serviettes were black and placed in silver rings engraved with a skull. To the uninitiated this would have not much relevance, however to everyone attending the dinner the symbology was all too clear. Black was the colour of the SS uniforms they once wore with pride and the engraved skull on the serviette ring was a reference of the cap badge of the SS. The flag of the West German republic was proudly draped over the top table, and behind it on the wall was a banner with the slogan ‘Death or Dishonour' stencilled in large black gothic lettering.

Reder led the way to the top table where he was met with a warm handshake by the Austrian Minister of Defence. Out of respect for the Minister, the Austrian National Anthem was given priority before the German anthem, and when they had finished playing, the guests sat down.

Werner Brenst remained standing and waited until everyone had settled before speaking. ‘Herr Frischenslager, Herr Reder, Mayor Muller, Colonel Haus and assembled ex-comrades of the 16th Waffen SS, I warmly welcome you to this reception being held in honour of our old Commander Walter Reder (or, as we once knew him, Major Reder) being released from his internment as a prisoner of war.' The sound of thunderous applause filled the room as Reder stood to accept the salutation. Brenst continued, ‘Sadly our evening's proceedings have been somewhat marred with the news that our dear friend and old comrade Hans Kuller took his own life this evening. I would therefore invite you all to stand for a minutes silence out of respect for him before we continue the evening's festivities in the way that he would have wanted us to.'

The one hundred and fifteen people in the room stood for a minute in complete silence and then broke into instantaneous applause with some of them shouting out ‘Hans, Hans.'

Werner Brenst raised his hand for order before continuing, ‘The format of this evening will be as follows. First, we will have our banquet meal which has been specially prepared for our guest of honour and includes all his favourite foods. After a short interlude, we will hear some words of welcome from the Minister of Defence, Herr Frischenslager, followed immediately by our guest of honour Walter Reder.'

Once again thunderous applause greeted the mention of his name.

Walter Brenst then sat down and took a drink of Schnapps from his almost-full glass. He was confused and felt decidedly uneasy over his friend's death. It was only a few hours ago that Kuller had told him to be strong; and now he was dead. Apparently suicide. Could this really be the case? How could someone change so quickly from being bullish to the depths of despair in such a short time? He shook his head and thought, ‘The man must have been deranged.'

Gertrude Kuller was gazing out of the lounge window of her house at some local children playing outside in the morning sunshine when she noticed a police car pull up slowly in front of her gate. She watched with growing interest as the two police officers got out and looked around them at the other houses before they settled on hers.

As they walked up to her door, Gertrude had a sinking feeling that something was very wrong with her little world and that she was about to find out what it was.

She opened the door at the first knock.

The older of the two officers took off his hat before saying' Frau Gertrude Kuller?'

Gertrude felt her throat dry up, and could only nod her head at him.

‘May we come in please?' Said the younger policeman.

Gertrude held the door open for them and led the way into her small but tidy lounge. ‘Take a seat please,' she heard herself say in a calm, low voice.

When they were seated, the older officer said to her, ‘Frau Kuller, I am Officer Palframan and this is my colleague, officer Schroeder. We are herewith some grave news, I'm afraid.'

Gertrude stiffened in her seat and gave a little gasp. ‘Please tell me what's happened.'

Palframan shifted uneasily in his seat before continuing. ‘We have received notification from the Austrian police that your husband, Hans Kuller was found last night dead in his hotel room in Vienna.' He paused, as if uncertain what to say next. ‘First reports indicate that he appears to have committed suicide, although we will have to wait on the autopsy results to be certain.'

Gertrude stared at the officer without saying anything. When she eventually broke the silence, she said, ‘Are you sure he's dead? Could there not be a mistake?'

Palframan shook his head, ‘He was identified by his army comrades, so there is no chance there's been a mistake.'

Gertrude was aware that the officers were looking at her for some reaction, but she just didn't feel anything. She felt completely normal, as if she was having a coffee and a chat with them about the weather. Slowly it dawned on her that she was now a free woman. Free to take up her life again and free to regain control of the bakery. She restrained a smile from appearing on her face. ‘I am free from that bullying monster forever,' she thought. ‘I'm also free to encourage that nice butcher, Peter, who likes to flirt with me.'

She shook herself out of her day-dreaming and said to the officers. ‘Thank you for coming and telling me. I suppose you'll let me know what arrangements I'll have to make.'

The funeral had attracted quite a large turnout; however, Gertrude didn't really care if no one had turned up. She was dressed from head to toe in black as any self-respecting widow should, but she couldn't wait until the funeral was over so she could go away on holiday to Spain with her close friend.

She stood at the graveside and gave out the appearance of a grieving widow to everyone there, crocodile tears included. She looked round the assembled mourners and her eye rested on Peter. Peter caught her look and winked. She smiled to herself behind her hand. She couldn't wait to meet him at the airport later on. A little shiver of anticipation ran through her
as she thought
‘I am starting a new life with a new man, and I will never make the same mistakes again. The bakery stays in my name, no matter how good he is in bed.'

Chapter 12

W
e
sat on the train beside each other sharing a cheese and salami panino and feeling the stress of the moment. I looked at my watch and said, ‘Italo it's 8.30 pm. If the grenades have exploded they will have done so by now.' Italo pulled out a hip flask of grappa, took a long drink and passed it to me saying, ‘Bruno, there's nothing we can do about it, so let's just try to relax and go home to whatever awaits us there.'

The journey seemed to go on forever. The train clacked and swayed its way home as if it parodied our obvious gloomy mood. When we eventually arrived at Bologna in the early hours of the morning, we said our goodbyes, and with heavy hearts made our separate ways home.

The house was dark and I fumbled for my key. Perhaps too much grappa or too much stress, I couldn't tell. Much to my surprise, Maria opened the door and greeted me with a big hug. ‘Welcome home
amore
, did you have a good trip?'

The following morning when I got up, the first thing I did was to switch on the radio and tuned into the news station. I didn't know what to expect with the planted grenades.
Did they detonate or not? If so, were there many fatalities and injuries?
To my amazement, there was no mention of any incident involving explosions in the Hotel Bristol.

Over breakfast I decided to phone Italo to arrange a meeting.