SS-GB (26 page)

‘I got there early,’ said Spode. ‘I knew he always
left the doorkey under the mat. I let myself in, and waited for him to come home.’

‘With a gun?’

‘He had the gun, Superintendent. He bought it in a pub near Euston railway station. Three pounds he gave for it.’ The little room grew darker and there was a sudden patter of rain on the window. The dull light from the narrow window shone on the table-top and picked out the shape of the crucifix.

‘Why?’

‘He was in great pain. And he had a medical qualification as well as his physics. He knew it was all up with him.’

‘Are you saying it was suicide?’ Douglas asked.

‘It’s difficult to explain,’ said Spode. ‘We both knew the risks. Once you start on a thing like that, the neutron flux starts to rise and before you know what’s happening you’ve got a chain reaction.’

‘But you’d quarrelled?’ said Douglas.

‘He had no shield but I did have one.’ Spode crossed himself. ‘We quarrelled because I was worried for him, for him and for his soul.’

The Captain put his cap on. ‘Is that murder, Superintendent?’

‘Murder is killing with malice aforethought – express or implied.’

‘So it’s not murder?’

‘That’s for the court to decide,’ said Douglas. ‘Come along, lad. Get your coat on again.’ Douglas stood up. He looked out of the window. It was still raining.

‘Eleazar,’ said Spode. ‘He delivered himself to death to save his people.’

‘Who is Eleazar?’ said Douglas. As he turned back to Spode, he saw that he was kneeling in prayer. He waited awkwardly, embarrassed, as so many are in the presence of intense devotion. Spode’s soft prayer was
almost inaudible through the hand that he held close to his face. Then he toppled gently forward against Douglas’s knees. He rolled on to one side, and crashed face-down to the floor with a crunch.

Douglas leaned down and grabbed Spode by the collar, his fingers probing into the slackened mouth. He smelled the acrid and unmistakable odour of bitter almonds. ‘Cyanide,’ said Douglas. ‘He’s taken poison!’ He rolled the body over, and looked around for water to wash out Spode’s mouth. ‘Phone your medical section,’ he told the Captain. ‘Get cardiac stimulants. We might save him.’

The Captain picked up the phone. ‘He’s done for,’ he said calmly. ‘I saw the effect of those cyanide capsules when the arrest teams were picking up War Criminals for the first few days of the Armistice.’ He clicked the telephone rest. ‘Come on, come on,’ he said to the unanswered phone.

Spode’s limp body did not respond to Douglas’s attempt to make him vomit. The eyes were glazed over and there was no pulse.

The Captain replaced the still unanswered telephone. ‘Bloody telephone operators,’ he said. ‘The army is going to the dogs, now that the war is over. All they can think about is how quickly they can become civilians again.’

‘Poor kid,’ said Douglas. He closed Spode’s eyes.

‘You’re not a Catholic are you?’

‘No,’ said Douglas. ‘I’m not anything.’

‘You wouldn’t understand,’ said the Captain.

‘Try me.’

The Captain studied Douglas thoughtfully and then looked at Spode’s body. ‘Thomas Aquinas argued that suicide is a sin because it is an offence against society. By taking one’s own life a man deprives society of something that rightfully belongs to it. And modern technology
has extended compassion to men who give their lives for the greater good…physicians who deliberately risk their lives during epidemics, men of the Church who risk the persecution of a Godless state. And there are holy virgins, who killed themselves rather than be violated. These are now venerated as martyrs.’

‘Eleazar, I heard him say Eleazar.’

‘Who exposed himself to death in order to deliver his people. Yes, for the suicide all is not lost. The essence and beauty of the sacrament is, and must always remain, reconciliation. And if we have charity enough to believe that we saw repentance before death, he could even be granted ecclesiastical burial.’

‘But?’

‘He killed his brother. A Catholic would not wish to live long with such a thing on his conscience.’

‘I should have searched him.’

‘What do you care?’ said the Captain. ‘You’ve got your confession, and your written scrap of paper. You can close the file now, can’t you?’

‘I should have you shot for this,’ Huth told him as soon as he’d pressed the scrambler button.

Douglas didn’t reply.

‘You go off on your own, without leaving a contact number, or telling me or Sergeant Woods what you are up to. Then you force your way into an army establishment…’ Huth stopped, as if at a loss for words. ‘Those army bastards are always trying to find something wrong with us, and you’ve given them a perfect chance to complain. Do you realize that I’ve spent the last ten minutes apologizing to some bloody little army Colonel…I hate your stupid face, Archer. Why the hell don’t you say something? Have you been struck dumb?’

‘I’ve got the signed confession,’ said Douglas.

‘You stupid pig. I’ve got a thousand men working on this business. I’ve got inquiries in progress from the heavy water plant in Norway to the Curie Laboratory in Paris. Do you think I’m interested in one scribbled confession about one damned murder! When the murderer is already dead!’

‘You told me to find the murderer,’ said Douglas. ‘I found him. And the other nine hundred and ninety-nine men you keep telling me about, did not find him. Furthermore I even got a written confession. What the hell more do you want?’

There was a short silence. Then Huth said, ‘Oh! That’s better. I didn’t know you had it in you. I hadn’t heard you raise your voice before.’

‘Well, now I know you like it, I’ll shout all the time.’

‘You listen to me, Archer. You’ve made a mess of this investigation. I didn’t want Spode’s corpse. I wanted to find out more about him; what he knew, what he did, whom he spoke with on the phone. And I would have intercepted his mail to get a lead on the rest of this band of outlaws.’ Before Douglas could answer, Huth said, ‘Did he get it out of his pocket, or was it clipped in his mouth…the cyanide capsule, where did he have it?’

‘What difference does it make?’

‘I’ll tell you what difference it makes,’ said Huth with renewed anger. ‘If he got it from his pocket I need more efficient arresting officers. If these people have got the technique of plugging the cyanide capsules into teeth, we’ll have to revise all the arrest techniques. And I’d want it on the teleprinters before morning.’

‘From his pocket. He crossed himself and said a prayer. He could have put it in his mouth then.’

‘And you just stood there and watched him, you dummy?’

‘Yes.’

‘And this half-witted artillery Captain watched too?’

‘Yes,’ said Douglas.

‘And neither of you saw him do it?’

‘No.’

‘Any chance that this army officer passed him the capsule?’

‘No, sir. Of course not.’

‘Don’t give me that no-sir-of-course-not stuff. I’ve heard it all before. I’ve had the Gestapo files in Berlin checked while we’ve been on the phone. Someone’s just put the teleprinter reply on my desk. This Captain Hesse is a Catholic. Did you know that?’

‘We didn’t discuss theology.’

‘Then I wish you had done,’ said Huth. ‘This Spode is a Catholic too. Did you know that?’

‘There are now reasons to think so,’ said Douglas.

‘Don’t be sarcastic to me, Archer, I don’t like it. I’m asking you a simple question, and I want an honest answer. From the moment you arrested Spode, was there even the briefest opportunity for this damned army Captain to pass him anything at all?’

‘No chance at all, sir.’

Douglas heard the rustle of paper, as Huth leafed through the reports on his desk. Finally Huth said, ‘Don’t prepare any written report or even notes, for the time being. We’ll go over this together. If we get this one wrong, Superintendent Archer, you’ll find yourself in Dachau. Do you know what Dachau is?’

‘I’ve heard rumours.’

‘They are all true, believe me.’ Douglas could recognize a note of anxiety in his voice. ‘The Reichsführer-SS might want a personal report from me about it. I’ll want to make sure it’s exactly right. I’ll draft something myself tonight.’

‘Very good, sir.’

There was another long pause. ‘Good detective work, Archer. I’ll admit that.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Douglas, but Huth had already hung up. For a long time Douglas sat in the office that the Captain had provided for him. It was that of the Transport Officer. The German army was almost entirely horse-drawn still, and from the office window Douglas could see lines of prefabricated stables, and smell the dung piled high in the yard. It was almost dark now but Douglas did not put the light on. He looked out of the window. The lamps over the doors of the barrack-huts were reflected in the dark puddles that shimmered in the cold wind. It was deathly quiet. Douglas found it hard to believe that several hundred prisoners – or detainees as the Germans called them – and most of the survivors of 34. Füsilier-Regiment,
now assigned to guard duties – were housed in this great compound.

Douglas switched on the desk light and idly looked at the newspapers and magazines that were piled on the blotter. There were postally-wrapped copies of hometown newspapers from Stuttgart and a new copy of
Signal
.

The cover of
Signal
magazine was entirely devoted to a full-length photo of General Fritz Kellerman. He was pictured standing under a ‘Scotland Yard’ street sign. The caption said, ‘In the steps of Sherlock Holmes. A German police General is in command at Scotland Yard, London.’

Douglas turned to the inside. The story was splashed across three double pages of pictures. Douglas himself was prominent in the largest lead picture. He was portrayed studying the
Angler’s Times
with Kellerman, except that a retoucher had lightly air-brushed the cover of it to remove the title. ‘General Kellerman gives orders to the famous Archer of the Yard, Britain’s young master detective, who has been described as “the Sherlock Holmes of the nineteen-forties”. Like most of London’s policemen he welcomes the modern and scientific crime-fighting methods introduced by his new German commander. Superintendent Archer – and his colleagues – speak warmly of their General, and secretly refer to him as “Father”.’

There was plenty more in the same silky journalistic vein. Douglas went cold at the thought that his friends might believe this rubbish. Only now did he understand Mayhew’s strange remark about staying out of the glossy magazines. Of course! And this article was probably what prompted the attempt on his life at Piccadilly Underground station. He closed the magazine and held it flat under his open hands, as if trying to suppress its contents. Damn Kellerman. It was all
part of his fight with Huth and the SD. Perhaps it was one more valuable step towards the job of Reichskommissar, if that’s what Kellerman was after. But it put Douglas into a power struggle that he wanted no part of, and it jeopardized his life.

Damn them all, thought Douglas. Damn Scotland Yard and Harry Woods, and Mayhew and all the rest of them. They were all self-seeking. Even Harry seemed to be pursuing some adolescent desire to be a hero. And damn this artillery Captain, who had called Douglas ‘the Gestapo’. Perhaps he shouldn’t have shielded the Captain from Huth’s suspicious questions about passing the poison capsule. Then the young man would have found out what a Gestapo interrogation was really like.

It was only then that Douglas realized what perhaps he’d subconsciously known all along – the Captain
had
passed the capsule to Spode. It must have been in the cigarette. He’d selected one cigarette for Douglas and passed it with his fingers and then he offered Spode his case. Douglas remembered the remark about the loose tobacco. Was that because he prodded at the end of the cigarette to reveal the capsule that was concealed within that loose tobacco? And the Captain was in a position to get his hands on such sophisticated devices. He’s even admitted that he’d come across them when arresting people in the days after the fighting stopped. An officer commanding an arrest team must have found unused cyanide capsules.

It all fitted together. That nervous complaining about his job, was an anxiety about having a
SIPO
officer arrive unexpectedly. The Captain had offered to escort him, and then had tried to prevent the arrest by forbidding him to do it on army property. Perhaps it was the officer himself who had got Spode – a
fellow conspirator – the pass that allowed him into the depot by the staff entrance.

And it was the Captain who had unwired the pivot from the tin box, to give it to Spode privately. And the Captain who had put Douglas in that seat in the guard hut, and faced him the wrong way while Spode arrived for his appointment, not from the public highway but from the camp side. The long lunch and tipsy behaviour was all a pretence; he’d probably spent the lunch-time scouring the whole place to find Spode. Failing to do so, he’d come back to the guard hut and started talking earnestly to Douglas to get his whole attention away from the place where Spode would appear. Even the way he’d left the soldiers at the position of attention was no accident; he’d done it to minimize their efficiency. And when the arrest was made, the Captain grabbed an infantry rifle. Had he intended to shoot his fellow conspirator before he talked?

His cynical remarks about the Geneva Convention, and his harsh handling of Wentworth, had been no more than an act to divert suspicion. But the talk about his faith had not been an act. He’d deliberately taken Spode to the room of a Catholic Unterfeldwebel, so that the sight of the crucifix might provide some solace for the final moments of the boy’s life. And the Captain’s concern for the theological niceties of suicide vis-à-vis murder was not solely on behalf of Spode. Now Douglas understood why the Captain’s voice had held an undertone of agony – for now the Captain had such a sin to live with.

Douglas walked over to the window. It was a flimsy building and he could feel the vibrations caused by the restless horses in the stables below. The yard was wet but the rain had stopped. Between the racing clouds he could glimpse a few stars. Now he could
understand the men’s religious anguish because, for the first time in his life, he began to doubt his faith as a policeman.