The Grave of Truth (13 page)

‘I hope you'll be comfortable,' she said. ‘What would you like for breakfast?'

‘Just coffee, I never eat anything,' he said.

‘Nor do I,' Minna said. ‘Goodnight.'

‘Goodnight, Fräu Walther.'

He picked up his case, dropped it on the bed and began to unpack. The sight of his pyjamas reminded him of home and the room he shared with Ellie. She seemed so insubstantial that it shocked him; she and his children were receding like shadows into the background of his life. Time was running backwards; with every hour spent in that house, immersing himself in the world of the war, he was losing his identity as Max Steiner, French-domiciled with a wife and children and a bright career in political journalism. The past was closing in on him, seizing him and dragging him back into it. His youth, his lost family, they were taking shape and becoming more real than the living. He could see his mother as if she were in the room with him; her face was lined with tiredness and grief, the brown hair prematurely grey. His father, and the dimmer figures of his brothers, killed in the war which was to make Germany the ruler of the world.

He went to the washbasin and, instead of cleaning his teeth and making preparations for bed, he spent a long time staring at himself in the mirror. The man started dissolving into the boy, the member of the Hitler Youth since he was eight years old, the youngest son of a proud National Socialist family. Adolf Hitler, the saviour of his people. Somewhere in the world outside, a man carried within him the seeds of that supremely evil genius, and only an optimist or a fool would imagine that the heir to the Fourth Reich was not being nurtured and prepared to claim his inheritance, under some other guise. He had a clearer picture of Sigmund Walther after the hours spent reading his work and seeing into his mind. He had a vision of Germany which was based on his faith in the people themselves. He saw them united in peace, their talent for hard work, self-sacrifice and honesty overcoming the ugly dogmas of the left and the narrow hysteria of the right. He saw their vulnerability through partition, and recognized that a moment of frustration might emerge which could be seized and turned to an advantage. He knew his country's weakness. Germans needed a hero to reflect their ancient culture and the deep-seated racial myths which were a part of the Teutonic ethos. If Germany was to be safe for the future, the heir of Adolf Hitler had to be found. Walther had set himself this mission and he had died because of it. The responsibility had fallen on Max Steiner; it was no longer a selfish quest, or a journalist's coup of the decade. It was a mission.

He fell asleep quickly.

In her big lonely bedroom across the passage, Minna Walther stretched out to the empty pillow beside her, and began to cry for her husband. And for herself, because she knew she wasn't going to be faithful to his memory.

Maurice Franconi had bought himself a puppy. It was a black and white terrier, and it gave him the excuse over the last few days to walk up and down the street where Otto Helm lived with his daughter and son-in-law. Nobody commented on a man walking his dog; he lingered by the house, saw the doctor leave on his morning calls, worked out a routine for the family. Otto Helm's daughter went shopping in the morning, but she didn't leave the old man alone. Maurice had telephoned when she and the doctor were both out, and put the phone down with the excuse of a wrong number when a woman answered. Probably there was a neighbour in one of the other two flats who stayed with the invalid till his daughter came back. It wasn't going to be quite as easy as Kesler had imagined.

There was a limit to the number of times he could appear with his terrier in that street when he wasn't a resident. Otto Helm would have to be dealt with at night. Franconi had a room in a small
pension
not too far away. He bought himself a can of petrol and a plastic bag of polystyrene filling for cushions.

The littler terrier licked his hands, and Franconi patted it. He liked animals, but Kesler was allergic to dogs and cats. He wouldn't be able to take the puppy back with him, but he enjoyed her company while he laid low between visits to Regensdorfstrasse, trying to teach her tricks she was too young to pick up, though she played enthusiastically, licking his face and responding to his voice.

He had dinner at a café, paid his bill at the
pension
and said he would be leaving very early in the morning. He walked the dog past the house at just before eleven o'clock; there were lights in the first-floor windows. Otto Helm and family were at home. The doctor's car was parked outside.

Franconi went back to the
pension;
he had hired himself a little VW under the name of Hubert, with one of the forged driving licences he and Kesler kept in reserve. He packed his case, shushed the terrier, who was scampering by his feet, and packed the petrol and polystyrene in a big holdall. He had provided himself with matches and a long twist of rag. He looked round the bedroom, making sure he had forgotten nothing. Kesler had taught him to pay attention to detail; even a book of matches left behind could help identify a man. Nothing. Nothing but the terrier. He opened the door, picked up the case and the holdall and called it softly. ‘Hella—come on.…' A single light burned in the narrow hall below; he checked his watch. It was nearly twelve-thirty. Everyone had gone to bed. There was a pay telephone in a cubicle near the desk. He slipped inside, paid twenty pfennigs, and dialled the doctor's number. It rang for nearly a minute. Then a man's voice answered; it sounded sleepy. Franconi spoke rapidly, urgently. There had been a bad accident, three cars involved; one of the victims had given the doctor's name. Come, please, at once—it's too terrible down here—he gave the location about five miles away at a well-known junction near a shopping centre. Then he hung up, grabbed his cases, and ran silently through into the street and got into his VW. The terrier bounded in after him. He parked outside the house on the other side of the road. He saw the doctor come out of the front door carrying a surgical bag. He jumped into his own car and drove off, swerving at the corners. Maurice got out, carrying the holdall, and went to the entrance. He pressed the bell marked ‘Mintzel.' The buzzer sounded and he went up the stairs. He saw the door open and a slant of yellow light cut across the dark landing.

‘Heinz?' Trudi Mintzel called. ‘What have you forgotten—'

He reached the door and threw his weight against it. He had a brief sight of a young woman in a short nylon nightdress with her mouth opening to scream. He hit her so quickly that she didn't have time to make any noise. She fell backwards, and he had a glimpse of her thighs and lower body exposed; he looked away. Women disgusted him.

He opened the doors till he found Otto Helm's bedroom. The room was in darkness but the old man's snoring rattled. Franconi switched on the light, but he didn't wake. He was propped up on the pillows like a dummy, white-haired and waxen, his paralysed face twisted into a sleeping grimace. Franconi brought the holdall into the doorway; he piled the polystyrene into a heap by the bedside, and poured petrol over it, sprinkling the rest round the curtains and the furniture. Then he went back and picked up Trudi Mintzel. The blow had broken her neck. He laid her down by the bedside, near the heap of polystyrene. He backed out of the room, lit the twist of rag with a match. It was nylon and highly inflammable. It flared immediately and he stepped forward and threw it on to the mound of plastic fibre. There was a thump and a bright flash as the petrol exploded. Franconi shut the bedroom door and waited outside for a minute. The crackle and hiss of the fire was joined by wreaths of deadly smoke seeping under the door. Polystyrene gave off lethal fumes. Franconi thought he heard a faint, gurgling cry from inside the bedroom, then he left the flat, slipping the latch on the front door as he left. He hesitated in the entrance, but there was no one in the street.

He didn't look back until he was in the VW, with the engine switched on, and the terrier Hella was trying to lick his hand because she was pleased to see him. Flames were shooting out of the first-floor window. Franconi let in the clutch and drove away. The first flight back to Munich was not till eight in the morning. He drove to the centre of Berlin, parked the car, and went to an all-night movie showing sex films. He slept through them until six o'clock. He felt tired and dirty and his head ached. The terrier was curled up in the passenger seat, waiting for him. He climbed inside, and picked up the little dog to break its neck. She whined and struggled, licking joyously at his face.

Franconi hesitated; she had bright, button brown eyes and a short tail that wagged and thumped against him.

‘Good Hella,' he said. ‘Good girl, then.…' He opened the door and put her out. ‘Someone'll find you,' he said, and drove off. In the driving mirror he could see her racing after him, until he outdistanced her. He caught the plane to Munich and had lunch with Kesler. He told him everything, and Kesler complimented him warmly. He had been working hard on his assignment at the convent, but there hadn't been an opportunity yet. Franconi looked disappointed. He had hoped to find it settled.

He let Kesler reassure him, while he sulked. He didn't mention the terrier Hella.

‘There's a pattern,' Curt Andrews said. He laid a long finger on the paper in front of him, and looked at the head of West Germany's Intelligence Service. Heinrich Holler, the legend. Andrews wasn't impressed by reputations; he liked to make his own judgements. Holler was small and slight, with grey hair, and a limp, the legacy of his imprisonment by the Gestapo. He had pale, clear grey eyes in an intelligent face and the kind of mouth that is described as humorous. He made Andrews feel big and clumsy, which he wasn't. The two men didn't like each other, but it was a well concealed hostility, invisible to anyone else. Their personalities were at variance: Holler, the intuitive intellectual, with his crippled leg and European education, was the mental and physical opposite of Curt Andrews. Andrews stood over six feet two inches and weighed two hundred pounds; he was built like a fullback, which he had played in college; he was a veteran of the US Intelligence Service in Vietnam, had gravitated to the CIA after discharge, and proved himself one of its most ruthless and able operators. Vietnam had dehumanized him; it was a pitiless war, distinguished for its corruption, failure and brutal disregard for human decencies.

Andrews had no illusions about his fellow men when he returned to America. Years of negotiating the labyrinth of Washington political life had confirmed his opinion that humanity was shit, and the only important thing in life was power. He had a keen, fierce intelligence and an instinct for deception in others; he was inordinately brave, and quite without scruple. He would have been surprised to know how much he reminded Holler of certain members of Himmler's infamous Black Knights. But he was the Director's man, and Holler worked very closely with the British and American Intelligence Services. He had considerable reservations about the reliability of the French, and carefully monitored information destined for Paris.

‘Two deaths,' Andrews said. ‘Both connected with Hitler, both present in the Bunker.'

‘One accident, one natural death,' Holler murmured. ‘A fire and a heart attack. Hitler's valet, and one of Himmler's top liaison officers. Not to mention his daughter, who was in the bedroom when it caught fire!' He offered Andrews a cigarette, and accepted a light in return. ‘I wouldn't see any connection if both Schmidt and Helm weren't names specifically asked for by this man Steiner from
Newsworld
. Our people gave him the information he wanted, and within a few days two of the people on that list are dead. According to the woman who looked after Schmidt, he was visited by two men, and died suddenly while they were with him. Helm's son-in-law, Dr Mintzel, said the old man had also been visited; his description of the man fits Steiner, but doesn't tally with the two who went to Berchtesgaden.'

‘And Steiner was with Sigmund Walther when he died,' Andrews pointed out. ‘This isn't just coincidence, Herr Holler. Walther is murdered—' He saw the pain on the older man's face, knew they had been close friends, and went on more forcefully. ‘Steiner comes to Germany, digs up information about a list of people who have only one thing in common—they were all with Hitler in Berlin at the end. He goes to see one of them; right. Somebody else goes and sees another on the list. Within a week, both men are dead. In my book that makes a pattern, starting with Walther.'

Holler tapped his cigarette ash into a metal bowl; he was a heavy smoker and it was full of stubs. ‘I had an autopsy done on the valet, Schmidt,' he said, and the light eyes glanced up at Curt Andrews. ‘Very discreetly, of course. He died from cyanide poisoning. Probably fired from a pen or pencil. You know the kind of thing.' Andrews knew very well. He had used them and authorized their use. His department called them ‘toys.'

‘Then it was a professional job,' he said.

‘So was the fire,' Holler said. ‘The place was practically gutted, but we found traces of polystyrene in the bedroom, and there was no furniture with that filling in the room. And one other thing—I have a feeling they're connected, but it's no more than that. A stray dog has been running round that street since the night of the fire. People the police contacted said it belonged to a man who walked it round the street, but he hasn't been found and nobody recognized him.'

‘Where is it?' Andrews asked.

‘I have it at home,' Holler said. ‘My wife likes it—it's a nice terrier puppy. I think that the man who walked it near Otto Helm's house, and then abandoned it, had something to do with killing him. And his daughter. Polystyrene is just like a poison when it's lit.' He was speaking reflectively and so low, that he might have been talking to himself. ‘But examination showed she had a broken neck. There were traces of urine on the sitting-room carpet; she was killed there and put in with her father afterwards. Very professional again.'