Winter's Bullet (4 page)

Krüger stared at him for a moment. ‘Well, it would seem we are too late on this particular occasion.' He glanced around the room a final time, his expression one of disappointment mixed with frustration. ‘There is nothing more to be had from this place.'

He marched out of the room and Tygo shook the soot from his hair.
That's where you're wrong
, he thought, glancing up the chimney. But there was only darkness and silence.

CHAPTER 5

T
hey returned to Euterpestraat in silence. Krüger was obviously brooding about his failure to find the wretched jewel, and Tygo was lost in thought about his extraordinary discovery and what he should do about it.

Günter drove past the entrance towards the rear of the building and down a ramp into the basement where the Gestapo kept their vehicles safe from the winter weather and sabotage. A car bomb had been used recently to kill a local party leader.

Krüger marched up the steel stairs till they reached ground level. He turned to give Tygo the once-over.

‘Go and clean yourself up, for God's sake, and throw
those clothes away. You're no good to me looking like a sweep. Ask the quartermaster for some fresh clothes on my authority.'

Tygo nodded, miserable on the one hand to be once more inside this hateful place, but happy at the prospect of a shower and fresh clothes. The place was blissfully warm too.

The hot water hit him like sharp hot needles, and he stood under the shower for a good five minutes. It was nicest thing to have happened to him since the last shower he'd had. Then he picked up a block of shrivelled soap that reeked of coal tar, and a scrubbing brush, and set to work. He watched the brown water swirling down the drain and smiled even though his skin was burning from the scrubbing. He was actually clean, for the first time in six weeks, the ingrained grime finally gone, the black around his fingernails banished. It felt glorious. He stepped out of the shower, wrapped a rough dry towel around his skinny waist, and walked across to survey himself quickly in the mirrors above the washbasins.

His ribs were sticking out and his elbows were skinned raw, but his skin was a blotchy clean pink that was wonderful to his eyes. He touched the raw skin and winced, then slowly got dressed. The quartermaster had provided him with a smaller version of the local police uniform – fresh socks, underpants, a warm woollen shirt, and strong-looking grey trousers and tunic.

Tygo took the comb out of the glass of disinfectant by the basin taps, and ran it through his long hair, slicking it back. His dark eyes stared back at him, and despite
himself he smiled. Whatever else might be happening, at least he felt human again, unlike that poor girl hiding in the chimney. He hadn't really stopped thinking about her since he got back, his mind returning every few minutes to those frightened ice-blue eyes.

Hurrying up the stairs to the ground floor, he started to turn over a plan in his mind, but his thoughts disappeared as he reached the top. Two Gestapo officers were half carrying, half dragging a suspect down to the cells below. He looked young, not much older than Tygo, with a little van Dyck moustache and beard which were covered in crimson. His right eye was squeezed shut and a nasty purplish blue.

For an instant Tygo pictured himself crossing to the young man, punching the two guards out with lightning blows and dragging him down the stairs, saying, ‘It's all right, I know a secret exit, we can get away!' For a moment he fantasized he was that boy of action, then he glanced away, ashamed, and hurried past them. If he had even tried to do something like that he would be cut down before he'd gone ten paces.

God, how he hated it all, this feeling of being trapped, with no way out other than a bullet from either the Nazis or the Resistance.

When he reached the third floor it was deathly silent. The staff had left for the day, and there was only a light on in Krüger's office at the far end of the corridor.

He walked along the linoleum-lined floor, and stopped outside a door. Painted on it were the words: ‘Records
Department'. Tygo stood there thinking for a moment or two then looked around. The plan that was forming in his mind took another step forwards. Here was an opportunity to find out about the house and its occupants . . . maybe even who the girl was, and a clue as to what exactly Krüger had been hunting for there. It was risky if he was caught, but the place was empty after all, and he would be quick about it.

He checked the corridor again and carefully turned the handle on the door. It was unlocked. He stepped inside.

‘What are you doing?'

Tygo froze. He slowly turned and found a middle-aged, hatchet-faced woman standing behind the door, buttoning her woollen overcoat. She had already turned off all the lights as she prepared to leave, he realized.

She walked around Tygo, and switched the lights back on. ‘Who are you?' She looked him up and down.

Tygo decided his only chance was to brazen it out. ‘I'm Tygo Winter. I assist Oberst Krüger in asset protection.'

At the mention of Krüger's name, the woman's demeanour seemed to shift. Nobody, Dutch or German, wanted to cross Krüger.

‘Well, what does the Oberst want?'

‘Some information, on a property on Voorthuizenstraat, number 73.'

‘Can't it wait till the morning?'

‘No,' said Tygo, taking a chance, ‘it's most urgent he has the information tonight.'

The woman looked at Tygo, then marched between the ranks of filing cabinets until she stopped by one, opened
the second drawer, ran her finger along the files inside and eventually selected one. ‘Here you are – put it back when you have finished and close the door.'

‘Thank you, Miss . . .'

‘It's Mrs,' the woman barked, and Tygo jumped.

He opened the file as she headed for the door. It was very thin. A map of the street with the property outlined in red and note pinned to it:
‘This property is hereby transferred by the owner, the Bank of Utrecht, to the German authorities.'
There was an official stamp issued by the Gestapo with the date 7 December 1940. Just over four years ago.

‘Oh, Mrs . . .'

The woman had the door open. ‘What? Be quick.'

‘It says the house was owned by the Bank of Utrecht. Can I get some information on that?'

‘You'll be lucky – it was a private bank, owned by the Löwenstein family. They got out when the Nazis arrived – went to live in New York, I believe.'

‘Thank you. I'll tell the Oberst you have been most helpful.'

‘I'd rather you didn't,' she said firmly, and left.

‘You took your sweet time, didn't you?' Krüger glanced up at Tygo from behind his desk. He held a lit cigarette in one hand, and a glass of colourless liquid in a brandy balloon in the other. It was probably schnapps; that was what Krüger enjoyed. He claimed his grandfather used to make it from pears. The best, he said.

Tygo could tell he was irritated and annoyed. Whatever he had hoped to find in the house must have been important.
Tygo suddenly realized something: on previous occasions when they had also come away empty-handed, Krüger had been in a similarly foul mood. Could it be that he had been searching for the same thing all this time?

‘Sorry, Herr Oberst.'

‘Well, at least you look and smell a good deal better than you did.'

Krüger got up and walked across to a small side table which held decanters and glasses. He refilled his glass, then, after a moment, dropped an inch of the liquid into a tumbler for Tygo. He handed him the glass.

‘Prost,'
he said, and banged his glass against Tygo's.

Tygo sipped the fiery liquid reluctantly.

‘Don't sip it, boy!' Krüger said. ‘Down in one like a man.'

Tygo threw it back into his throat and swallowed. He felt a pain behind the bridge of his nose, like when he ate a piece of ice. ‘Are you celebrating something, Herr Oberst?' he asked hoarsely.

‘More like commiserating, Frettchen. Today was a great disappointment – I was hoping to find something . . . I have been searching for it for some time now.' So Tygo's suspicion was correct after all. ‘Something that would be most helpful.'

‘Helpful?'

‘To my future.' Krüger smiled; the liqueur had lifted his mood temporarily. He refilled Tygo's glass over his objections, and topped up his own. ‘That's it, let's drink to the future. God knows it's going to arrive very soon, and with a vengeance.' He tossed back his drink, and Tygo
did the same. He was already beginning to feel a tiny bit light-headed.

‘What do you mean, sir?' asked Tygo.

‘The head of the Gestapo, General Müller, is arriving here tomorrow to meet with me. To discuss a top-secret operation that is to be carried out in the next few days. What do you think of that, Frettchen?'

Tygo looked back at him and shrugged. Actually, he thought it sounded pretty scary – and pretty odd that Krüger was telling him about it.

‘Why am I telling you, you may wonder, such a secret?'

Tygo nodded. He was wondering exactly that, and getting a bad feeling inside. Too much knowledge, as his history teacher used to say, was a dangerous thing.

‘How long have you worked for me?'

‘Six months,' said Tygo.

‘Six months . . . and we've got along pretty well, wouldn't you say?'

Tygo nodded again.

‘There was that unfortunate business with your sister, but I think you learnt your lesson from that.'

Tygo nodded a third time. The mention of his sister took him instantly back to that terrible day last September when it had seemed liberation was at hand. The city was in turmoil, and he had refused Krüger's order to help him secure the central warehouses. He had paid a terrible price for his insubordination: as punishment Krüger had ordered his sister, the last remaining member of his family, to join the next train of ‘guest workers' going to
Germany. It was the last he had seen of her, or was likely to.

‘Learnt that we need to trust each other?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘We
can
trust each other, can't we?' Krüger was looking carefully at him now as he repeated the question.

‘Of course, Herr Oberst.' Tygo hoped he sounded sincere. He didn't trust Krüger with the money for a packet of sherbet, and he never would.

‘Good, Frettchen. A great many things may need to be arranged. Arranged in total secrecy and with great speed. That is why I have told you about this matter.'

‘I understand, sir.' In truth, Tygo didn't have the faintest idea what all this was about.

‘You will base yourself here at Headquarters until further notice. I will arrange some sleeping quarters for you.'

The proposal both appealed to him and appalled him in equal measure. It meant his nights would at least be safe from the Resistance, but the thought of living in such a hellish place, where torture and murder were carried out every day, made him feel sick. There was no way he would ever live this down when the war did end – if he was lucky enough to survive, that was.

Krüger walked back to his desk and picked something up from it. ‘You are to carry this at all times.'

It was a small brass disc with the Gestapo badge on one side, identifying the owner as a member of the Gestapo. Tygo slipped the badge into his pocket.

‘And a letter, signed by myself, stating that you are
acting on my authority and are to be given free passage throughout the Netherlands.'

Tygo took the small envelope that Krüger handed him. He felt scared; such papers, if found on him by the Resistance, would certainly seal his fate. But then a spark of optimism struck him, too. If you looked at it another way, they were a ticket to get away. He could move freely around the city – even the country – without being questioned. What other Dutch person could do that? For a moment it made him feel light-headed, giddy, but then he remembered the schnapps was probably the cause of that.

‘If I help you, Herr Oberst, is there a chance my sister could be sent for?'

Krüger looked back at him. ‘I like you, Tygo, I like the fact that you're always ready to push your luck. I'm the same: push your luck, only then will you find how far it goes. Well, unfortunately this is where it stops. Your sister is no longer a concern of mine, her fate has been sealed, by yourself if you recall. Better to forget she ever existed. Do we understand each other?'

Tygo nodded, hatred burning in his heart. He understood all right. He would do everything that Krüger asked of him, and then he would use the letter and tag to escape this wretched city before it was too late. For the first time in a very long time, Tygo realized, he was thinking about something more than just day-to-day survival: he was thinking about the future.