Spook's Gold (21 page)

“So why didn’t you carry on and become a doctor?”

She looked at him carefully before answering. “Because this was Germany in the late ‘thirties. My father was becoming deeply unhappy. We all turned a blind eye to the fascism, but it was difficult for him to ignore that so many of his colleagues were disappearing, either fleeing or being arrested. So when it was announced in 1938 that all residence permits for foreigners were being annulled and would have to be reapplied for, my father decided not to do so. Although his permit would have been approved without problem, he saw it as his own small personal protest.”

Lemele lapsed into silence, both aware that so many subjects that seemed like safe, neutral ground brought them around to the war and therefore the unavoidable fact that they were on conflicting sides. Marner again struggled for an angle to lead them back; again Lemele took the initiative. “For me it was almost a relief because I’d struggled through two years of medical school and, even ignoring the fact that I wasn’t really motivated, it was blindingly obvious that I lacked the intellect to keep up. So being uprooted back to Paris gave me a very welcome escape, without the shame of flunking out. The medical school in Paris gave me an interview and rejected me, although I’ll confess to not having tried too hard to impress them,” she confided with a wink, “Leaving me with the perfect excuse to backpedal into something easier. I thought about dentistry but couldn’t stand the thought of fishing around in mouths.”  She gave a mock shudder.

“As opposed to fishing around in dead bodies?”

“Well, I went to a lecture on forensic medicine and the scientific aspect of it caught my interest. So that’s what I did. Just as I finished and qualified, I found out that the police were opening their ranks to women and that my qualification would get me straight in. I had grand visions of using my skills to help solve crimes. Ha! The chauvinistic culture within the police meant that I was just left with the menial tasks that men couldn’t be bothered with. Domestic violence, abuse, that kind of thing.”

Fearing that the conversation was going to veer back to the subject of her missing persons, he asked if her family were still in Paris.

“They returned to Vichy when it became obvious that Paris was about to fall. Vichy was our hometown and my parents had kept our house there, planning for retirement. My father was absolutely horrified when Petain and his nest of vipers set themselves up there.”

“Maybe your government are actually well-intentioned and doing the best thing for the safety and well-being of the French people.”

She snorted with disgust. “Let us be clear: they are not
my
government, I didn’t vote for them. And what they are doing is what is best for them, whilst deporting French Jews to goodness only knows what fate. They cannot even claim that this is due to anti-Semitic sympathies because they also organise the deportation of non-Jewish citizens into forced labour.”  This was a reference to the STO,
Service du Travail Obligatoire
, the conscription of French men who were being sent to work in Germany to cover for the lack of labour resource there.

“So why did you remain in Paris?” he asked, vowing to give one last effort to find a subject that would not descend into acrimony.

“Because I got married. My husband is a jazz musician, even gained some minor fame with his band, and Paris was the only place to be.”

The realisation sank in that his last ditch effort to find a neutral topic was doomed to fail, already spiralling out of control as politesse obliged him to ask the loaded question: “So what is he doing now?”

Instead of answering him, Lemele continued eating and a long silence stretched out, leaving him wondering if she had correctly heard the question or if perhaps the subject was simply too painful to contemplate or discuss. Leaving her in peace, he too gazed out of the window at the last moments of the sunset. The hazy orb of the sun touched a low bank of cloud which flared into orange rags, like a flame touching cotton. A new arrival in the restaurant distracted him and, when he looked back to the window, the moment was gone, only a crust of orange and burnt umber clouds crowning the last sliver of the sun.

He was surprised when finally, her plate empty, she sat back and resumed. “He joined the army immediately in 1940 and was sent to the front somewhere near Sedan. I don’t know if he is alive or dead. So I remain in our apartment in Paris, where he will know to find me when it all ends.”

Marner considered offering assistance to locate her husband, then reconsidered. In all probability he would be unable to find the man, even if he were still alive, and if he failed to find her husband it might lead her to assume that all hope was lost.

Once again silence settled, seconds and minutes ticked by. From what he could discern of her features she seemed relaxed. He took this as a good sign, despite the succession of reminders that they remained on opposite and conflicting sides. It left him frustrated that there seemed to be no topic of conversation that, like meteorites caught in a fatal gravitational pull, could avoid colliding with the big subject: the war. For Lemele, the only satisfactory outcome was the safe return of her husband and the liberation of her country. A prerequisite for which was the defeat of his own.

Thus it was a relief when she stood and stated that she was going to bed, a blessing when she attempted a smile and bade him a friendly goodnight.

Chapter Twenty Two

A Wehrmacht car arrived at the hotel at seven o’clock the following morning, calls from reception chasing them from their rooms with barely time to wash and pack their few things. With no time for breakfast, Marner insisted that the car make a detour via a boulangerie. They emerged from the car at the train station brushing crumbs and flakes of pastry from their clothes, causing him to realise that as well as grease spots on his tunic and trousers from the buttery croissants, his clothes were badly in need of cleaning after the exertions of the last few days.

The driver delivered them to the militia office, which was little more than a brick outhouse with a corrugated tin roof that had been tacked onto the side of the main terminal building. Inside the office they found it packed to overflowing with three militia, plus two Wehrmacht soldiers on either side of the door who had observed their approach through the window. At the back of the office was Graf, slumped in a chair. His hands were manacled in front of him, a chain linking the manacles to irons around his ankles.

Marner was happy to see that the soldiers were alert; they had saluted him as he entered and then immediately returned their attention to watching the rubble strewn parking area outside. One of the militia stood up from his desk, swaying slightly; he looked to be a serious drinker from his eyes and the broken veins in his cheeks and nose. “The train is on the platform, so we can take you there and get you settled on the train. Sir?”

“Is the train ready to leave?” enquired Marner.

“Not yet. Some repairs are being done up the line, we’re told. It will be perhaps an hour until it will get the all clear to move off.”

“Then we’ll just stay here. We need some coffee,” and he thrust some money at the milice. “Why don’t you go and find us some.”

The man took the money, looked at Marner and then at his colleagues and shrugged. “Does he want some?” he asked, gesturing with his head towards Graf.

“Ask him, he speaks French.”

Graf did not even look up when asked if he wanted coffee, made no indication that he was even aware of having heard, so the milice shrugged and departed in search of the refreshments.

The two remaining militia were younger and seemed more alert than their colleague. In response to Marner’s question they confirmed that they had no weapons other than batons; they would not be much use if anyone tried a rescue attempt for Graf. Marner considered that the probability of anyone trying it was low, but he had decided that it was preferable to stay in the office until just before the train departed. The downside was that the office stank. Out of deference to Lemele he suggested that she go and check around the station for any potential trouble, offering her the opportunity to escape from the pervading fug of stale male body odour and tobacco.

“What is it that I’m supposed to be checking for?”

“Suspicious characters hanging around, anything of that sort. You’re a police officer, you should know what to look for,” he joked.

“Still paranoid?” she enquired with a smile.

“I will be until he is safely installed in a cell at Foch.”

She nodded her agreement, also relieved that they were on the final leg of the journey and that she could go back to her normal life, whatever that might be with the storm of war now raging on French soil and advancing towards Paris. But for now she put that thought aside and left the office to go and snoop around the station.

When the coffee arrived it was bitter and cold and Marner involuntarily had to spit it back into the cup. “What the hell is this shit?” he roared, his escalation towards anger tempered by the realisation that the others, including the Wehrmacht guards, were all drinking theirs.

“Sorry Lieutenant,” responded the milice, although the tone of his voice made it clear that he was not sorry at all. “But that’s the sort of coffee we have to put with you see, what with this war going on and all that.”  He smiled sidelong at his colleagues. “Rationing and privation and so on. Not up to the standard of the nice coffee you get up there in Paris I should think, eh?”

Marner was tempted to throw the contents of his cup in the insolent man’s face, but instead turned to look out of the window.

He was relieved when Lemele came back forty minutes later to tell him that the train was preparing to depart. In a slow procession, Graf clanking and shuffling as best he could in the irons under the curious stares of others in the station, they found their assigned compartment on the train. Graf was installed in the corner farthest from the door, up against the window. Lemele took a seat beside the door, with one of the soldiers on the seat opposite her. The other was instructed to take up position outside the compartment door. Marner had already instructed Lemele and their escort not to talk to Graf and to report anything that he said.

As the train pulled slowly away from the station, Marner considered his strategy. He had to assume that the journey to Paris would go smoothly and that he would be limited to just eight hours to get what he wanted out of Graf. If there were stops and delays, the extra time would play in his favour. Whereas if the journey went without interruption, then in eight hours Graf would be delivered into the custody of the Paris military and out of his grasp. Marner might be afforded a bit part in the interrogation and proceedings, but that was all that it would be. Graf would know that he was going back to the certainty of a firing squad. He was clearly guilty of murdering the solider yesterday at the Bordeaux dock, without even the need to build and prove a case regarding Schull. Therefore, if Marner knew anything about humans and criminals in desperate situations, the closer that they approached to Paris, the more desperate Graf would become. Not forgetting that cornered rats did unpredictable and often dangerous things.

After weighing his limited options, he decided to play the silent game that Graf had opted for, at least for the first half of the journey. After that Marner would decide whether to try his line of questioning against his prisoner’s silence, or wait for Graf to open up voluntarily if there were any signs that he might be so inclined.

Now that the train was underway, Marner made a sweep up and down the carriages in the same way that Boris had done on the journey to Toulouse. He returned ten minutes later, by which time the train had shrugged off the city suburbs and was making steady progress into the rolling green hills of the Limousin countryside. He sent the soldier in the compartment out into the corridor, taking up the vacated position opposite Lemele. His raised eyebrow in question as to whether anything had happened in his brief absence was responded to with a barely perceptible shake of her head.

As they rolled on, Graf alternated between staring out of the window and appearing to doze. He did not look at his captors nor make any attempt to communicate. When Lemele fell asleep an hour into the journey, Marner was left alone with just the view of the passing countryside afforded by the compartment door and the window on the other side of the corridor. The compartment main window gave a larger and better view, but that meant looking towards Graf and he was determined to leave his prisoner feeling isolated and alone.

----

At Tours the train stopped in the station and after twenty minutes Marner was beginning to wonder whether some problem further up the track meant that their progress for the day was over. When he saw a guard passing on the station platform he leapt out to interrogate the startled man and was informed that this was just a temporary delay whilst the necessary arrangements were made to switch and direct the train towards whichever bridge was open and functional today. Despite Marner’s suspicion that the guard had simply told him what he wanted to hear, the train did indeed soon jerk into motion again and they rolled slowly on, paused for another twenty minutes somewhere outside Orleans, and then rolled across the Loire River.

----

Marner was suddenly startled to hear Graf speak to him. “Does you lovely travelling companion speak German?”

He shook his head and continued looking out of the door, studiously aloof, remembering the saying of his grandfather: ‘The patient fisherman catches the biggest fish’.

A pause of another minute, then, “So tell me Herr Lieutenant, what do you make of the news from Normandy?  Do you think that this is the beginning of the end, or can we push them back into the sea and hold firm?”

Marner shrugged. “I’m just a policeman. I have neither the knowledge nor the skills to analyse such complex military matters.”

“We will lose and we will be cursed, you do see that don’t you?”

“Good. Then I can go back to my job in Berlin and live happily ever after.”