Touching the Wire (28 page)

‘Mr Carr’s instructions are
to release it into the hands of Mr Blundell’s solicitors.’

‘But I have the key.’ She
brought it from beneath her blouse and held it, warm, in her hand. ‘I am
legally entitled to have the deposit box.’ She tried another tack. ‘Would it
help if you spoke to Mr Mason? If he gave permission for us to act on his
behalf?’

‘If Mr Mason can prove he
acts for Mr Blundell and sends a written instruction to that effect.’

She sighed. ‘But that could
take days.’

Adam leaned forward. ‘Not if
it can be sent by e-mail or fax.’

‘Mr Mason could send a
signed letter of authority by special delivery.’ Carl Jennings consulted his
watch. ‘He would have to catch this afternoon’s collection and it would mean
you returning tomorrow afternoon.’

‘We weren’t planning on
driving back tonight.’ She rummaged in her handbag. ‘This is Mason and
Hargreaves’s card. If you would phone Frank…’

He took the card. ‘I’ll do
it now.’

***

After lunch next day, they were back at the
bank. Mr Mason’s letter of authority had arrived as promised. Charlotte nibbled
an already short thumbnail.

Mr Jennings pushed a form
towards her. ‘I’m satisfied that Mr Carr’s instructions are being met. Would
you sign here to acknowledge receipt, please?’

Her signature was a shaky
scrawl.

‘There’s just this.’ Mr
Jennings handed her the other piece of paper from the envelope. ‘It’s not dated
and it doesn’t say who wrote it.’

She read it aloud slowly. ‘
…and
the protection of those I love
,
upholds the lie. Fiat justitia ruat
caelum
.
It is to my shame that the truth is too long
in coming
.
I name the beast Hans Wolfgang Schmitt, though he is not
alone in those who escaped justice.
’

‘The missing words,’ Adam
said. ‘Carr and your grandfather obviously knew one another well.
There is
no atonement too great, eternal hell is not enough. Stripped of the veneer of
civilisation and humanity, fear bought my silence and love, and the protection
of those I love, upholds the lie. I do not ask your forgiveness, there is none
.’

‘
I ask only that the
truth shall be uncovered and I pray for those I love
. What does the Latin
mean?’

‘Let justice be done though
the heavens should fall. Sounds a bit dramatic but he’s right about one thing.
Left to Walt, whatever this truth is, it would definitely have been over-long
in coming.’

Justice, truth. ‘Why do I
have the feeling that wolf is about to bite us? Have you heard of this Hans
Wolfgang Schmitt?’

The door opened and a woman
entered carrying a dusty tin box big enough to hold a ream of A4 paper. She put
the box on the table and rubbed a hand ineffectively across a cracked, yellowed
label glued to the lid. Large black figures confirmed the number of the box.

‘You have the key?’

Her fingers were clumsy and
shaking. Adam brushed aside her hair and undid the clasp on her chain. She
slipped the key free and put it into the lock. ‘Grandpa didn’t want
us
to open this.’

‘It’s your choice,
Charlotte.’

And all her choices were
wrong.
Grandpa?

Do only what you think is
right, Charlotte.

Either the lock was stiff
with age or they had the wrong key… Heart thumping, she twisted harder. Seventy
years of disuse ground into action; the lock grated and the key turned.

Adam sat on the bed in the privacy of their
hotel room and leaned closer. This time the key turned in the lock more easily.

Charlotte lifted the lid and
gasped. ‘Is that what I think it is?’

He put his hand into the
box, filling his palm with small yellow nuggets. ‘Bloody hell… it’s gold.’

Charlotte scooped a heaped
double-handful. ‘This must be worth thousands, tens of thousands…’ She picked
out a wedding ring and tried it on.

The gold drew warmth from
his hand. ‘None of this gold is hallmarked.’

 ‘So?’

‘I’m not sure it’s legal to
own gold that isn’t hallmarked.’ He closed his hand over the fistful of nuggets
and delved deeper. ‘And I have a nasty feeling this gold isn’t legal.’

‘Grandpa wouldn’t be
involved in anything illegal.’

His fingers touched
something hard. It was a flat, oblong package, wrapped in oilcloth and tied
with twine. ‘Less gold than it seemed. Can I open this?’

‘Of course.’ Charlotte
stared at the ring on her finger for a long moment. ‘Why do you think Grandpa
never used any of this gold? He and Gran weren’t well off.’

He cut the twine with his
pocketknife and unwrapped the package. It contained pages of notes and numbers.
Page after page… records of some sort. He leafed through them. ‘Looks like
something scientific.’ He picked one up and began to read aloud.

‘What language is that?’

He flicked to another page,
and then another. ‘There are names…’

‘What names? Adam?’

He read on in silence, going
hot and cold by turn.

‘Adam, what is it? What have
you found?’

‘If this is what I think…
This is pure bloody dynamite.’ He picked up a handful of the gold and weighed
it in his hand. ‘Schmitt. I knew that name was familiar.’

‘Who is he?’

He hardly heard her.
‘Schmitt is only one of the names I recognise. Everything is recorded, signed…
beyond dispute. This is like poking a stick into a political hornet’s nest. To
the right people these papers are worth… No, they’re above price. To a modern
historian, they’re the Holy Grail.’

‘Adam?’

How had Albert Carr got hold
of these documents and this gold, and how was Walt involved? He’d obviously
been afraid of Schmitt to name him
the beast
. The nuggets pressed into
his palm. Realisation hit him like a punch to the gut and his head swam. He
opened his clenched fist.

‘Adam, what is it? What’s
wrong?’

What the hell was he going
to tell her?
Who keeps silence
consents
.
Charlotte had sworn an oath
before God. Sweet Jesus, he had to tell her. He hadn’t sworn any oath but how
could
anyone
consent to this? He let the nuggets trickle between
nerveless fingers to fall back into the box. He was going to be sick.

***

The evening sun angled across the patio at the
rear of Sunnybank. Adam poured tea and passed Charlotte a mug. How would she
take the truth?

The box was open on the
table in front of her. ‘Adam, why won’t you tell me what this is about… what
those records are?’ She waved at the pile of papers she’d put on the patio
table. ‘I’ve flicked through them. I can’t understand a word.’

He collected the pages
together before they blew away. ‘I want to study them properly before I say
more. Charlotte, we should keep this to ourselves.’

‘Why?’

‘I need to verify their
authenticity.’

‘I’d like to know who Albert
Carr and this Schmitt person are.’

‘That letter Carr sent to
the bank, transferring title? The envelope had a Kettering postmark.’

‘That’s where Mum and Gran
live.’

‘Which suggests Carr was a
long-time friend or acquaintance of Walt. He could still be alive. If we could
speak to him, or trace his family…’

‘He’d be pretty old. I’ll
check electoral registers and the Records Office. Much of it’s on-line. You can
plough through that lot.’

While Charlotte poured over
the screen on his laptop, he read, and a picture unfolded before him. Between
the lines of emotionless facts, recorded with efficient detachment, lay a
catalogue of brutal disregard for human life during the Second World War. The
words blurred. He was familiar with the testimonies of those survivors who’d
been able to speak of their ordeal, years later. To see the records, to
actually touch the fragile pages and read the words written by the hands of
their tormentors, to see their names and signatures, to read the callous,
abominable way their victims were treated: like meat or laboratory specimens.
Children, many of them, only children.

Charlotte sat hunched in
concentration: he felt the need to wash evil from his hands before he touched
her again. She’d said Walt had suffered from nightmares, and if this was what
he’d witnessed it was a miracle he’d survived. What cruel twist of fate had
given him twin granddaughters to remind him, every day, of what was recorded on
these pages? 

He put the papers down, too
sickened to continue. He had to determine how Walt ended up custodian of these
records, to be certain they were genuine. The accepted account of events was
that they were destroyed before liberation: lorry loads of incriminating
records, just like these, were burned in the surviving crematoria ovens when it
was obvious the war was lost.

There was a rumour that records,
of which these formed a part, had been found by the Allies after the war and
were now held in a vault in Israel. It didn’t seem plausible. No documents like
this had been brought as evidence at the Nuremberg trials, and surely they
would have been. The men named in them would have been hunted down and hung if
these records had existed.

This was either an
opportunist theft of gold, or a calculated risk to steal documents and ensure
justice was done. The Latin quotes suggested the latter. How had they been
smuggled out and who had Walt been protecting? Not Schmitt, that was for sure…
Carr? Possibly. Miriam? Sadly, almost certainly not. Jane and his family? That
was more likely the reason; powerful names were incriminated in these
documents. Who knew of what they, or their families, might have been capable in
order to protect themselves from exposure?

He washed his hands and
switched on the kettle. He wanted a double whisky, but he needed caffeine and a
clear head. Charlotte moved the laptop and stretched her back. He crossed the
kitchen in one stride. ‘Coffee, Charlotte?’

She looked at him, eyes
sapphire bright against her pale face. ‘I’ve found Albert Carr. He’s in an old
people’s home near Kettering. At least, he was on the last electoral register.’

‘And?’ There was more, there
had to be to make her look so distraught.

‘I know who Hans Wolfgang
Schmitt was.’

***

Charlotte pushed the legal papers back into
their envelope. Robin had begun divorce proceedings. It was a relief: his threat
no more than typical momentary violence born of anger. Once he’d cooled down
he’d realised the way to humiliate her further was in court. She found she
didn’t care about the divorce settlement. That part of her life was over. She
had a different path to tread, alone.

The sister at Barton Leys
Retirement Home had confirmed Albert Carr was in residence, and well enough for
her to visit. Today, Saturday, she and Adam planned to go and see him.

Adam brushed aside her hair
and kissed her neck. ‘Trouble?’

His lips were agony and
ecstasy. ‘Robin’s filed for divorce.’

His hand moved to her
shoulder. ‘Are you okay with that?’

‘Yes, it’s just…’

‘You feel you’ve failed?’

‘It began with such high
hopes.’

‘Some things aren’t meant to
be, Charlotte. You gave it your best shot. Don’t beat yourself up about it.’

She changed the subject.
Something in Grandpa’s documents had upset Adam but he’d avoided answering her
questions. ‘You still haven’t told me what those papers of Grandpa’s are.’

‘I’ll know more when we’ve
spoken to Carr. I want to be sure before I commit myself.’

‘Mum will want to know why
we’ve come.’

‘We’ve come for lunch, and
then you’re visiting a friend. Don’t mention the gold or the papers, not yet.’

Mum shook Adam’s hand and
welcomed her with a hug. Gran patted the seat beside her. ‘I hope you don’t
mind but I took the liberty of inviting Robin for lunch.’

Her heart sank. ‘Oh, Gran…’

‘I know I’m an interfering
old biddy. It’s called talking things through, Charlotte. People should do more
of it.’

Had Lucy been talking to
Gran on the phone? ‘We’ve said everything that needs saying. It’s down to the
solicitors now.’

‘Solicitors…’ Gran sighed.
‘Won’t you humour me, just this once? What harm can it do?’

She went hot and cold. She
never wanted to see Robin again. Why had he even come? The door bell rang. She
glanced at Adam, and then went into the hall and opened the front door.
I
haven’t finished with you…

‘Charlotte.’ Robin smiled,
his eyes dark pools of menace. ‘I believe you wanted to talk. Apologise, maybe…
beg, even?’

She raised her head. ‘In
your dreams. Gran wants us to talk. I have nothing to say to you.’

‘I only came to make sure
your family knows who’s responsible for this divorce. Sleeping around…’

‘You tell them that and I’ll
make sure your father knows you hit me, tried to sexually abuse me.’

He shrugged away her threat.
‘Don’t think you’ll get your hands on the house if you do that. I’ll fight you
for every penny.’

‘I don’t want your money. I
wouldn’t even have been here if I’d known you were coming.’

Gran appeared in the
living-room doorway and beckoned them in. ‘Don’t keep the poor boy standing on
the doorstep. Robin, come in. I’m sure you and Charlotte can find some common
ground. Have you met Dr Bancroft?’

‘Adam works for the Imperial
War Museum,’ Mum volunteered. ‘He’s helping Charlotte with Dad’s carvings.’

Adam stood and held out a
hand. Robin’s eyes narrowed: his fist clenched and unclenched.

She moved to stand between
them. ‘Adam, this is my husband, Robin.’

Gran appeared not to notice
the body language. ‘Charlotte, Lucy tells me you’ve found another of Walt’s
carvings.’

She glanced from Adam to
Robin and back. ‘Yes.’

Gran’s bright eyes searched
hers. ‘And…?’

‘What do you mean?’

Gran waited, mental forceps
poised, like she always had when extracting truth from granddaughters.

She squirmed and glanced at
Adam again. ‘Documents.’

‘What sort of documents?’

‘I’m not sure. Adam has read
them but he wants to verify their authenticity.’ She smiled at Gran apologetically
and looked back at Robin. ‘He’s being a bit secretive.’

Gran brandished her forceps
at Adam. ‘They’re to do with the war?’

Robin glared at Adam. ‘Don’t
you think Walt’s family has a right to know?’

 Adam stood his ground.
‘Yes… when I’m certain they are what I think they are.’

Robin wouldn’t take no for
an answer. ‘They’re so important you whisked my wife off to Trier?’

‘In my professional
capacity. I’ll say more when I’m sure.’

Gran nodded. ‘I don’t know
what they are, either. Walt…’ She stopped as if she’d said too much. ‘I think
it’s
evidence of some kind.’ She sucked her lower lip and
looked at Adam as if weighing his character. ‘I think there’s something you
should all see. Jennie, in my bedside drawer there’s an old book. Would you
fetch it for me, love?’

Mum returned with the book.
‘It looks pretty battered. What is it?’

‘It was in your dad’s
drawer. I found it after he died.’ Gran opened it, stroked the page with a
tender gesture and passed it to her. ‘It’s a diary. An account of Walt’s time
in Poland during the war.’

‘A diary?’ Adam’s voice held
a note of excitement. ‘This could be what I need to authenticate the
documents.’

Gran looked at him
thoughtfully. ‘It’s not easy to read. He had his reasons for keeping it secret,
but I think Walt and Miriam’s story may be relevant.’

She couldn’t hide her
surprise. ‘Miriam… Miriam Hofmann?’

Robin interrupted. ‘Who’s
Miriam Hofmann?’

Gran ignored him and looked
at her sharply. ‘You know about her? How?’

‘One of the carvings
contained photographs of her and her family.’

‘Just a girl…’ Mum’s voice
was a whisper.

‘What did you say, Jennie?’

Mum flushed as if she hadn’t
meant to speak aloud. ‘It was years ago, after Vince died.  I was
struggling… emotionally. Dad… he was only trying to help, hoping one day I
could move on… I said… oh, it doesn’t matter what I said.’ She held Gran’s eyes
steadily. ‘Dad said
a candle doesn’t burn dimmer because you light another
one
.’