World War II Thriller Collection (116 page)

Peter and Tilde drove around to familiarize themselves with the streets,
then returned to the port in the afternoon to meet the ferry. Neither mentioned last night's kiss, but Peter was intensely aware of her physical presence: that elusive flowery perfume, her alert blue eyes, the mouth that had kissed him with such urgent passion. At the same time, he kept remembering Inge standing in the bedroom doorway, her expressionless white face a more agonizing reproach than any explicit accusation.

As the ship came into the harbor, Tilde said, “I hope we're right, and Arne is a spy.”

“You haven't lost your enthusiasm for this work?”

Her reply was sharp. “Whatever makes you say that?”

“Our discussion about Jews.”

“Oh, that.” She shrugged it off. “You were right, weren't you? You proved it. We raided the synagogue and it led us to Gammel.”

“Then, I wondered if the death of Kirke might have been too gruesome . . .”

“My husband died,” she said crisply. “I don't mind seeing criminals die.”

She was even tougher than he had thought. He hid a pleased smile. “So you'll stay in the police.”

“I don't see any other future. Besides, I might be the first woman to get promotion to sergeant.”

Peter doubted that would ever happen. It would involve men taking orders from a woman, and that seemed beyond the bounds of possibility. But he did not say so. “Braun virtually promised me promotion if I can round up this spy ring.”

“Promotion to what?”

“Head of the department. Juel's job.” And a man who was head of the Security Department at thirty could well end up chief of the entire Copenhagen police, he thought. His heart beat faster as he envisioned the crackdown he would impose, with the backing of the Nazis.

Tilde smiled warmly. Putting a hand on his arm, she said, “Then we'd better make sure we catch them all.”

The ship docked and the passengers began to disembark. As they watched, Tilde said, “You've known Arne since childhood—is he the type for espionage?”

“I'd have to say no,” Peter replied thoughtfully. “He's too happy-go-lucky.”

“Oh.” Tilde looked glum.

“In fact, I might have dismissed him as a suspect, but for his English fiancée.”

She brightened. “That puts him right in the frame.”

“I don't know whether they're still engaged. She went back to England hot-foot when the Germans came. But the possibility is enough.”

A hundred or so passengers got off, some on foot, a handful in cars, many with bicycles. The island was only twenty miles from end to end, and cycling was the easiest way to get around.

“There,” said Tilde, pointing.

Peter saw Arne Olufsen disembarking, wearing his army uniform, pushing his bicycle. “But where's Dresler?”

“Four people behind.”

“I see him.” Peter put on sunglasses and pulled his hat low, then started the engine. Arne cycled up the cobbled street toward the town center, and Dresler did the same. Peter and Tilde followed slowly in the car.

Arne headed out of town to the north. Peter began to feel conspicuous. There were few other cars on the roads, and he had to drive slowly to stay with the bikes. Soon he was obliged to fall behind and drop out of sight for fear of being noticed. After a few minutes, he speeded up until he caught sight of Dresler, then slowed again. Two German soldiers on a motorcycle with a sidecar passed them, and Peter wished he had borrowed a motorbike instead of a car.

A few miles out of town, they were the only people on the road. “This is impossible,” Tilde said in a high, anxious voice. “He's bound to spot us.”

Peter nodded. She was right, but now a new thought occurred to him. “And when he does, his reaction will be highly revealing.”

She gave him an inquiring look, but he did not explain.

He increased speed. Rounding a bend, he saw Dresler crouching in the woods at the side of the road and, a hundred yards ahead, Arne sitting on a wall, smoking a cigarette. Peter had no option but to drive past. He continued another mile then reversed down a farm track.

“Was he checking on us, or just taking a rest?” Tilde said.

Peter shrugged.

A few minutes later Arne cycled past, followed by Dresler. Peter pulled onto the road again.

The daylight was fading. Three miles farther on, they came to a crossroads. Dresler had stopped there and was looking perplexed.

There was no sign of Arne.

Dresler came up to the car window, looking distraught. “I'm sorry, Boss. He put on a burst of speed and got ahead of me. I lost sight of him, and I don't know which way he went at this crossroads.”

Tilde said, “Hell. He must have planned it. He obviously knows the road.”

“I'm sorry,” Dresler said again.

Tilde said quietly, “There goes your promotion—and mine.”

“Don't be so gloomy,” Peter said. “This is good news.”

Tilde was bewildered. “What do you mean?”

“If an innocent man thinks he's being followed, what does he do? He stops, turns around, and says, ‘Who the hell do you think you are, following me around?' Only a guilty man deliberately shakes off a surveillance team. Don't you see? This means we were right: Arne Olufsen is a spy.”

“But we've lost him.”

“Oh, don't worry. We'll find him again.”

They spent the night at a seaside hotel with a bathroom at the end of each corridor. At midnight, Peter put a robe over his pajamas and knocked on the door of Tilde's room. She called, “Come in.”

He stepped inside. She was sitting up in the single bed, wearing a light blue silk nightdress, reading an American novel called
Gone with the Wind.
He said, “You didn't ask who it was at the door.”

“I knew.”

His detective's mind noticed that she wore lipstick, her hair was carefully brushed, and the flowery perfume was in the air, as if she had
dressed for a date. He kissed her lips, and she stroked the back of his head. After a moment he looked back to the door, to make sure he had closed it.

“She's not there,” Tilde said.

“Who?”

“Inge.”

He kissed her again, but after a few moments he realized he was not getting excited. He broke the kiss and sat on the edge of the bed.

“It's the same for me,” Tilde said.

“What?”

“I keep thinking about Oskar.”

“He's dead.”

“Inge might as well be.”

He winced.

She said, “I'm sorry. But it's true. I'm thinking about my husband, and you're thinking about your wife, and neither of them cares.”

“It wasn't like this last night, at my apartment.”

“We didn't give ourselves time to think then.”

This was ridiculous, he thought. In his youth he had been a confident seducer, able to persuade many women to yield to him, and leaving most of them well satisfied. Was he just out of practice?

He shrugged off his robe and slipped into bed beside her. She was warm and welcoming, and her round body under the nightdress was soft to his touch. She turned off the light. He kissed her, but he could not rekindle last night's passion.

They lay side by side in the dark. “It's all right,” she said. “You have to leave the past behind. It's difficult for you.”

He kissed her again, briefly, then he got up and returned to his own room.

Harald's life was in ruins. All his plans were canceled and he had no future. Yet, instead of agonizing over his fate, he was looking forward to renewing his acquaintance with Karen Duchwitz. He recalled her white skin and vivid red hair, and the way she walked across the room as if she were dancing, and nothing seemed as important as seeing her again.

Denmark was a small, pretty country, but at twenty miles per hour it seemed like the endless desert. Harald's peat-burning motorcycle took a day and a half to get from his home on Sande across the width of the country to Kirstenslot.

The bike's progress over the monotonous undulating landscape was further slowed by breakdowns. He suffered a puncture before he was thirty miles from home. Next, on the long bridge that linked the Jutland peninsula with the central island of Fyn, his chain broke. The Nimbus motorcycle originally had a shaft drive, but that was difficult to connect to a steam engine, so Harald had taken a chain and sprockets from an old lawn mower. Now he had to push the bike miles to a garage and have a new link inserted. By the time he had crossed Fyn, he had missed the last ferry to the
main island of Zealand. He parked the bike, ate the food his mother had given him—three thick slices of ham and a slab of cake—and spent a chill night waiting on the dockside. When he relit the boiler the next morning, the safety valve had developed a leak, but he managed to plug it with chewing gum and sticking plaster.

He arrived at Kirstenslot late on Saturday afternoon. Although he was impatient to see Karen, he did not go immediately to the castle. He drove past the ruined monastery and the entrance to the castle grounds, passed through the village with its church and tavern and railway station, and found the farm he had visited with Tik. He was confident he could get a job here. It was the right time of year, and he was young and strong.

There was a large farmhouse in a neat yard. As he parked the bike, he was watched by two little girls—granddaughters, he imagined, of Farmer Nielsen, the white-haired man he had seen driving away from the church.

He found the farmer at the rear of the house, dressed in muddy corduroys and a collarless shirt, leaning on a fence and smoking a pipe. “Good evening, Mr. Nielsen,” he said.

“Hello, young man,” Nielsen said guardedly. “What can I do for you?”

“My name is Harald Olufsen. I need a job, and Josef Duchwitz told me you hire summer laborers.”

“Not this year, son.”

Harald was dismayed. He had not even considered the possibility of refusal. “I'm a hard worker—”

“I don't doubt it, and you look strong enough, but I'm not hiring.”

“Why not?”

Nielsen raised an eyebrow. “I might say it's none of your business, my lad, but I was a brash young man myself, once, so I'll tell you that times are hard, the Germans buy most of what I produce at a price decided by them, and there's no cash to pay casual laborers.”

“I'll work for food,” Harald said desperately. He could not return to Sande.

Nielsen gave him a penetrating look. “You sound as if you're in some kind of trouble. But I can't hire you on those terms. I'd have trouble with the union.”

It seemed hopeless. Harald cast about for an alternative. He might find
work in Copenhagen, but then where would he live? He could not even go to his brother, who lived on a military base where overnight guests were not permitted.

Nielsen saw his distress and said, “Sorry, son.” He knocked his pipe out against the top rail of the fence. “Come on, I'll see you off the premises.”

The farmer probably thought he was desperate enough to steal, Harald thought. The two of them walked around the house to the front yard.

“What the hell's that?” said Nielsen when he saw the bike, with its boiler gently puffing steam.

“It's just an ordinary motorcycle, but I've rigged it to run on peat.”

“How far have you come on it?”

“From Morlunde.”

“Good God! It looks ready to blow up any minute.”

Harald felt offended. “It's perfectly safe,” he said indignantly. “I know about engines. In fact, I mended one of your tractors, a few weeks ago.” For a moment, Harald wondered whether Nielsen might hire him out of gratitude, but then he told himself not to be foolish. Gratitude would not pay wages. “You had a leak in the fuel supply.”

Nielsen frowned. “What do you mean?”

Harald threw another slab of peat into the firebox. “I was staying at Kirstenslot for the weekend. Josef and I came across one of your men, Frederik, trying to start a tractor.”

“I remember. So you're that lad?”

“Yes.” He climbed on the bike.

“Wait a minute. Maybe I can hire you.”

Harald looked at him, hardly daring to hope.

“I can't afford laborers, but a mechanic is a different matter. Do you know about all kinds of machinery?”

This was no time for modesty, Harald decided. “I can usually fix anything with an engine.”

“I've got half a dozen machines lying idle for lack of spares. Do you think you could make them work?”

“Yes.”

Nielsen looked at the motorcycle. “If you can do this, maybe you can repair my seed drill.”

“I don't see why not.”

“All right,” the farmer said decisively. “I'll give you a trial.”

“Thank you, Mr. Nielsen!”

“Tomorrow's Sunday, so come here on Monday morning at six o'clock. We farmers start early.”

“I'll be here.”

“Don't be late.”

Harald opened the regulator to let steam into the cylinder and drove off before Nielsen could change his mind.

As soon as he was out of earshot, he let out a triumphant yell. He had a job—one much more interesting than serving customers in a haberdashery—and he had done it himself. He felt full of confidence. He was on his own, but he was young and strong and smart. He was going to be all right.

Daylight was fading as he drove back through the village. He almost failed to see a man in police uniform who stepped into the road and waved him down. He braked hard at the last minute, and the boiler sighed a cloud of steam through the safety valve. He recognized the policeman as Per Hansen, the local Nazi.

“What the hell is this?” Hansen said, pointing to the bike.

“It's a Nimbus motorcycle, converted to steam power,” Harald told him.

“It looks dangerous to me.”

Harald had little patience with this kind of officious busybody, but he forced himself to answer politely. “I assure you, Officer, it's perfectly safe. Are you making official inquiries, or just indulging your curiosity?”

“Never mind the cheek, lad. I've seen you before, haven't I?”

Harald told himself not to get on the wrong side of the law. He had already spent one night in jail this week. “My name is Harald Olufsen.”

“You're a friend of the Jews at the castle.”

Harald lost his temper. “It's none of your damn business who my friends are.”

“Oho! Is it not?” Hansen looked satisfied, as if he had the result he
wanted. “I've got the measure of you, young man,” he said maliciously. “I shall keep a close eye on you. Off you go, now.”

Harald pulled away. He cursed his short temper. He had now made an enemy of the local policeman, just because of a throwaway remark about Jews. When would he learn to keep out of trouble?

A quarter of a mile from the gates of Kirstenslot, he turned off the road onto the cart track that led through the wood to the back of the monastery. He could not be seen from the house, and he was betting no one would be working in the garden on a Saturday evening.

He stopped the bike at the west front of the disused church, then walked through the cloisters and entered the church by a side door. At first he could see only ghostly shapes in the dim evening light coming through the high windows. As his eyesight adjusted, he made out the long Rolls-Royce car under its tarpaulin, the boxes of old toys, and the Hornet Moth biplane with its folded wings. He had the feeling that no one had entered the church since last time he was here.

He opened the large main door, drove his bike inside, and closed the door.

He permitted himself a moment of satisfaction as he shut down the steam engine. He had crossed the country on his improvised motorcycle, got himself a job, and found a place to stay. Unless he was unlucky, his father could not find out where he was; but if there should be any important family news, his brother knew how to get in touch with him. Best of all, there was a good chance he would see Karen Duchwitz. He recalled that she liked to smoke a cigarette on the terrace after dinner. He decided to go and look out for her. It was risky—he might be seen by Mr. Duchwitz—but he felt lucky today.

In a corner of the church, next to the workbench and tool rack, was a sink with a cold water tap. Harald had not washed for two days. He stripped off his shirt and got cleaned up as best he could without soap. He rinsed out the shirt, hung it on a nail to dry, and put on the spare one from his bag.

An arrow-straight drive half a mile long led from the main gates to the castle, but it was too exposed, and Harald took a roundabout route to approach the place through the wood. He passed the stables, crossed the
kitchen garden, and studied the back of the house from the shelter of a cedar tree. He was able to identify the drawing room by its French windows, which were open to the terrace. Next to it was the dining room, he recalled. The blackout curtains were not yet drawn, for the electric lights had not yet been switched on, although he saw the flicker of a candle.

He guessed the family was having dinner. Tik would be at school—Jansborg boys were allowed home once a fortnight, and this was a school weekend—so the dinner party would consist of Karen and her parents, unless there were guests. He decided to risk a closer look.

He crossed the lawn and crept up to the house. He heard the sound of a BBC announcer saying that Vichy French forces had abandoned Damascus to an army of British, Commonwealth, and Free French. It made a pleasant change to hear of a British victory, but he found it hard to see how good news from Syria was going to help his cousin Monika in Hamburg. Peeping in through the dining room window, he saw that dinner was over, and a maid was clearing the table.

A moment later, a voice behind him said, “What do you thinking you're doing?”

He spun around.

Karen was walking along the terrace toward him. Her pale skin was luminous in the evening light. She wore a long silk dress in a watery shade of blue-green. Her dancer's carriage made it seem as if she were gliding. She looked like a ghost.

“Hush!” he said.

She did not recognize him in the fading light. “Hush?” she said indignantly. There was nothing ghostly about her challenging tone. “I find an intruder peering through a window into my house and he tells me to
hush
?” There was a bark from inside.

Harald could not decide whether Karen was genuinely outraged or just amused. “I don't want your father to know I'm here!” he said in a low, urgent voice.

“You should worry about the police, not my father.”

The old red setter, Thor, came bounding out, ready to savage a burglar, but he recognized Harald and licked his hand.

“I'm Harald Olufsen, I was here two weeks ago.”

“Oh—the boogie-woogie boy! What are you doing skulking on the terrace? Have you come back to rob the place?”

To Harald's dismay, Mr. Duchwitz came to the French window and looked out. “Karen?” he said. “Is someone there?”

Harald held his breath. If Karen betrayed him now, she could spoil everything.

After a moment, she said, “It's all right, Daddy—just a friend.”

Mr. Duchwitz peered at Harald in the gloom, but did not seem to recognize him, and after a moment he grunted and went back inside.

“Thanks,” Harald breathed.

Karen sat on a low wall and lit a cigarette. “You're welcome, but you have to tell me what this is all about.” The dress matched her green eyes, which shone out of her face as if lit from within.