The Return of the Dancing Master (2 page)

MacManaman took a step back and Davenport reached for the handle that operated the trapdoor. She fell down straight, and Davenport
knew he'd calculated the length of the rope correctly. Long enough to break her neck, not so long that her head would be wrenched from her body. He and MacManaman went down under the scaffold on which the gallows were standing and, once the British Medical Officer had listened for her heartbeat and confirmed death, he released the body. The corpse was put onto a stretcher and carried away. Davenport knew that graves had been dug in the prison yard. He went back up onto the scaffold and checked in his papers the length of rope he should allow for the next woman. When he was ready he nodded to Stuckford again, and before long Elisabeth Volkenrath was standing in the doorway, her hands tied behind her back. She was dressed exactly the same as Irma Grese, in a gray smock that reached down below her knees.

Three minutes later she, too, was dead.

 

 

The executions took two hours and seven minutes. Davenport had estimated two and a quarter hours. MacManaman had done everything expected of him. All had gone according to plan. Twelve German war criminals had been put to death. Davenport packed the rope and the leather straps into his suitcase, and said goodbye to Sergeant MacManaman.

“Come and have a glass of brandy. You did a good job.”

“They deserved all they got,” MacManaman said. “I don't need any brandy.”

 

 

Davenport left the prison with Major Stuckford. He wondered whether it might be possible to go back to England earlier than planned—he was the one who had recommended the return flight be in the evening, in case anything went wrong. Not even Davenport, England's most experienced hangman, was in the habit of executing twelve people in one day. But in the end he decided to stick with the arrangements.

Stuckford took him to the hotel dining room and ordered lunch. They had a side room to themselves. Stuckford had a wound that caused him to limp with his left foot. Davenport approved of him, not least because he asked no unnecessary questions. There was nothing Davenport disliked more than people asking him what it had been like, hanging this or that criminal who'd become notorious after being written about in the newspapers. They exchanged pleasantries
as they ate—about the weather, and whether the English would be awarded extra rations of tea or tobacco for Christmas, which was not far away now.

Only over a cup of tea afterwards did Stuckford refer to what had happened that morning.

“There's one thing that worries me,” he said. “People forget it could just as easily have been the other way around.”

Davenport wasn't sure what Stuckford meant, but he had no need to ask. Stuckford provided an explanation himself. “A German hangman flying to England to execute English war criminals. Young English women beating people to death in a concentration camp. We could just as easily have been overwhelmed by evil as the Germans were, in the form of Hitler and Nazism.”

Davenport didn't respond. He was waiting for what came next.

“No people is inherently evil. On this occasion the Nazis happened to be Germans, but nobody is going to convince me that it couldn't have happened just as easily in England. Or France. Or the United States, for that matter.”

“I understand your line of thought,” Davenport said. “I don't know whether or not you're right, though.”

Stuckford refilled their cups.

“We execute the worst of the criminals,” Stuckford went on. “The really monstrous war criminals. But we also know that lots of them are getting away with it. Like Josef Lehmann's brother.”

Lehmann was the last to be hanged that morning. A little man who had met his death placidly, almost nonchalantly.

“He had a brutal brother,” Stuckford said. “But that brother succeeded exceptionally in making himself invisible. Maybe he's slipped away via one of the Nazis' escape routes. He could be in Argentina or South Africa, and we'll never track him down there.”

They sat in silence. Outside the window rain was now falling.

“Waldemar Lehmann was an incredibly sadistic man,” Stuckford said. “It wasn't just that he was ruthless with the prisoners; he also took a devilish delight in teaching his subordinates the art of torturing people. We should have hanged him, as we did his brother. But we haven't caught him. Not yet, anyway.”

 

 

Davenport returned to the airfield at 5 P.M. He was cold, even though he was wearing his thick winter overcoat. The pilot was standing by the
plane, waiting for him. Davenport wondered what he was thinking. He took his seat in the chilly fuselage and turned up his coat collar to shield him from the roar of the engines.

Garbett settled in the cockpit, the Lancaster gathered speed and flew into the clouds.

Davenport had completed his assignment. He had justified his reputation as England's most accomplished hangman.

The airplane tossed and shuddered its way through some air pockets. Davenport reflected on what Stuckford had said about the ones who had gotten away. And he thought about Lehmann deriving pleasure from teaching people the most horrific forms of torture. He pulled his overcoat more tightly around him. The air pockets were behind them now. The Lancaster was on its way back home to England. The day had gone without a hitch. None of the prisoners had struggled while being led to the scaffold. Nobody's neck had been severed. Davenport was content. He could look forward to three days off. His next job would be hanging a murderer in Manchester.

He dozed off in the uncomfortable seat, despite the roar of the engines, and Mike Garbett was still wondering about the identity of his passenger.

H
e woke in the night, besieged by shadows. It had started when he was twenty-two. Fifty-four years of sleepless nights, constantly besieged by shadows. He'd only managed to sleep after taking heavy doses of sleeping pills. He knew the shadows had been there when he woke up, even if he'd been unaware of them.

This night, now drawing to its close, was no exception. Nor did he have to wait for the shadows—or the visitors, as he sometimes called them—to put in an appearance. They generally showed up a few hours after darkness fell. Were there without warning, by his side, with silent white faces. He'd gotten used to their presence after all the years, but he knew he couldn't trust them. One of these days they were bound to break loose. He didn't know what would happen then. Would they attack him, or would they betray him? There had been times when he'd shouted at them, hit out in all directions to drive them off. He had kept them at bay for a while. Then they would return and stay until dawn. He'd fall asleep in the end, but usually for only a few hours because he needed to get up and go to work.

He had been tired all of his adult life. He had no idea how he'd gotten by. Looking back, he could recognize only an endless string of days that he'd somehow muddled through. He had hardly any memories unconnected with his tiredness. In photographs taken of him he always looked haggard. The shadows had also taken their revenge on him during his two marriages: his wives had been frustrated by his constant state of unease, and the fact that when he wasn't working, he was always half-asleep. They had lost patience with finding him up for most of the night, and he was never able to explain why he couldn't
sleep like a normal person. In the end they had left him, and he was alone again.

He looked at his watch. 4:15 A.M. He went to the kitchen and poured himself coffee from the thermos he'd filled before going to bed. The thermometer outside the window showed—2° C. If he didn't remember to change the screws holding it in place, before long it would fall. He moved the curtain, and the dog started barking out there in the darkness. Shaka was the only security he had. He had found the name he'd given his Norwegian elkhound in a book—he couldn't remember the title. It had something to do with a powerful Zulu chieftain, and he had thought it a suitable name for a guard dog. Short and easy to shout. He took his coffee into the living room. The thick curtains were securely drawn. He knew that already, but felt compelled to keep checking. He checked the windows.

Then he sat at the table again and contemplated the jigsaw pieces spread out before him. It was a good puzzle. It had lots of pieces and demanded imagination and perseverance to solve it. Whenever he finished a puzzle, he would burn it and immediately start on a new one. He made sure he always had a store of puzzles. It was a bit like a smoker and his cigarettes. For years he'd been a member of a worldwide club devoted to the culture of jigsaw puzzles. It was based in Rome, and every month he would get a newsletter with information about puzzlemakers who had ceased trading and others who had entered the field. As early as the mid-1970s it had struck him how hard it was to find really good puzzles—that is, hand-sawn ones. He didn't think much of the mechanically-produced ones. There was no logic in the way the pieces were cut, and they didn't fit in with the patterns. That might make them hard to solve, but the difficulties were mechanically contrived. Just now he was working on a puzzle based on Rembrandt's
The Conspiracy of the Bathavians under Claudius Civilis.
It had 3,000 pieces and had been made by a specialist in Rouen. Once he had driven down to visit the man. They had talked about how the best puzzles were the ones with the most subtle nuances of light. And how Rembrandt's color schemes made the greatest demands.

He sat holding a piece that obviously belonged in the background of the painting. It took him nearly ten minutes to find where. He checked his watch again: 4:30. Hours to go before dawn, before the shadows would withdraw and he could get some sleep.

It seemed to him that on the whole everything had become much simpler since he'd turned sixty-five and retired. He didn't need to be
anxious about feeling tired all day. Didn't need to be scared of nodding off at work. But the shadows should have left him in peace long ago. He had served his time. They had no need now to keep their eye on him. His life had been ruined.

 

 

He went to the bookcase where he kept his CD player. He'd bought it a few months ago, on one of his rare visits to Ostersund. He put the disc back in the machine—he'd been surprised to find it among the pop music in the shop where he'd bought the player. It was a tango, a genuine Argentinean tango. He turned up the sound. The elkhound out there in the dark had good ears and responded to the music with a bark, then was quiet again. He went back to the table and walked around it, studying the puzzle as he listened to the music. There was plenty yet to do. It would keep him going for at least three more nights before he burned it. He had several more, still in their boxes. Then he would drive to the post office in Sveg and collect another batch sent by the old master in Rouen.

He sat on the sofa to enjoy the music. It had been one of his life's ambitions to visit Argentina. To spend a few months in Buenos Aires, dancing the tango every night. But it had never happened; something always cropped up to make him draw back at the last minute. When he'd left Vastergotland eleven years ago and moved north to the forests of Härjedalen, he'd meant to take a trip every year. He lived frugally, and although his pension wasn't a big one, he could afford it. In fact, all he'd done was drive around Europe once or twice looking for new jigsaw puzzles.

He would never go to Argentina. He would never dance the tango in Buenos Aires. But there's nothing to stop me from dancing here, he thought. I have the music and I have my partner.

He stood up. It was 5 A.M. Dawn was a long way off. It was time for a dance. He went to the bedroom and took his dark suit from the wardrobe. He examined it carefully before putting it on. A stain on the jacket lapel annoyed him. He wet a handkerchief and wiped it clean. Then he changed. This morning he chose a rust-brown tie to go with his white shirt. Most important of all were the shoes. He had several pairs of Italian dancing shoes, all expensive. For the serious dancer, the shoes had to be perfect.

When he was ready, he studied his appearance in the mirror on the wardrobe door. His hair was gray and cropped short. He was thin; he
told himself he should eat more. But he looked considerably younger than his seventy-six years.

He knocked on the door to the spare bedroom. He imagined hearing somebody bidding him enter. He opened the door and switched on the light. His dancing partner was lying in the bed. He was always surprised by how real she looked, even though she was only a doll. He pulled back the duvet and lifted her up. She was wearing a white blouse and a black skirt. He'd given her the name Esmeralda. There were some bottles of perfume on the bedside table. He sat her down, and selected a discreet Dior, which he sprayed gently onto her neck. When he closed his eyes it seemed to him that there was no difference between the doll and a living human being.

He escorted her to the living room. He'd often thought he should take away all the furniture, fix some dimmed lights in the ceiling, and place a burning cigar in an ashtray. Then he would have his own Argentinean dance hall. But he'd never gotten around to it. There was just the empty stretch of floor between the table and the bookcase with the CD player. He slid his shoes into the loops attached to the bottoms of Esmeralda's feet.

Then he started dancing. As he twirled Esmeralda around the floor, he felt he had succeeded in sweeping all the shadows out of the room. He was very light on his feet. He had learned a lot of dances over the years, but it was the tango that suited him best. And there was nobody he danced with as well as Esmeralda. Once there had been a woman in Borås, Rosemarie, who had a milliner's shop. He used to dance the tango with her, and none of his previous partners had followed him as well as she did. One day, when he was getting ready to drive to Gothenburg, where he'd arranged to meet her at a dance club, he received a call saying she'd been killed in a car accident. He danced with lots of other women after that, but it wasn't until he created Esmeralda that he got the same feeling he'd had with Rosemarie.