LITMIR.BIZ

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said Löwenherz.

      ‘I don’t think so,’ said Blessing.

      ‘I rather agree with Löwenherz,’ said Starkhof. ‘The way the evidence is at present it would be difficult to put a very good case.’

      ‘Impossible to put a case at all unless you mean against Blessing for incompetence.’

      ‘That’s rather severe, Herr Oberleutnant,’ said Starkhof. ‘But I must say, Blessing, you will come out of this looking rather foolish, and your chiefs are probably expecting you to prove that a young SIPO officer can run circles around an antique Abwehr Feldwebel like me.’

      Blessing said, ‘I will take that chance.’

      ‘There’s the Medical Officer too,’ said Starkhof reflectively. ‘He was undoubtedly negligent. Secret papers should go into the safe.’ He noted Löwenherz’s face. ‘Never mind, as long as the culprit is caught and the papers recovered there will perhaps be no need to bring any of Himmel’s colleagues or superior officers into this. You hear me, Herr Oberleutnant?’

      ‘I do.’

      ‘Splendid. Young Blessing and I searched along the perimeter this morning. In the hedge, in the ditch, and then retraced our steps on the far side of the fence. Nothing there, I’m afraid. I’m glad to see you’re concerned about the fate of the doctor. A charming man, I thought, something of an aristocrat one might almost think.’ He smiled. ‘If it wasn’t for that unfortunate Austrian accent.’

      ‘Where are you taking me?’

      ‘Taking you? My goodness we’re not taking you anywhere, Oberleutnant. You have your duties for the Third Reich just as we do, but if you can spare us a moment, the Kommandeur was kind enough to take an interest in our problem.’

      Löwenherz looked carefully into the man’s wrinkled face. Starkhof stared back coolly with an amused contempt for all the world. On the estates in Prussia Löwenherz had seen the same easy-going manner among the senior farm hands and foresters. It was the quality one looked for when employing or promoting such men. Some policemen had it and so did high-court judges, It came from dealing with many people and being able to predict their reactions well in advance. It came from the certainty that no one would ever disobey the suggestions that made orders unnecessary.

      They walked into the Operations Building, Blessing in the lead. The Kommandeur must have seen them through the window for he stepped out to greet them. He was dressed in boots, breeches and grey uniform shirt. At his throat dangled the coveted Knight’s Cross. ‘My good Untersturmführer Blessing,’ he said, ‘and Herr Doktor Starkhof.’

      ‘Heil Hitler,’ said Blessing.

      ‘Heil Hitler,’ said the Kommandeur.

      ‘Heil Hitler,’ said Starkhof, doffing his hat cheerfully to the Kommandeur.

      Major Peter Redenbacher put on his jacket and buttoned it. He was thirty-three years old: elderly by fighter-pilot standards. He commanded Löwenherz’s Staffel of ten aircraft plus two other Staffeln that shared Kroonsdijk. He was an impressive man in spite of his battle-scarred appearance. His shortness of stature and some false teeth were common among those who had grown up in the blockaded Germany of the First World War. His powerful arms were an inheritance from his furnace-worker father in Essen, and his clear blue eyes and full-lipped mouth from his hardworking Mutti. The thick muscular legs were developed in his teens by sixty-eight-kilometre weekend cycle rides to a DLV gliding club. Most weekends he had come no nearer to a flight than hauling the winch, positioning the club’s sole glider or helping to build a second one. The small scar visible under his closely cropped blond hair dated from a heavy landing at Wasserkuppe, on the bare high plateau of the Rhön. That year he had won a minor prize in the National Gliding Championships. The permanently arched little finger on his left hand had come under a Communist boot after holding a Nazi standard aloft in Essen in 1927. The sustained hatred that made him a killer was born in March 1923 when he saw a French officer of the occupying army strike his father and uncle for not removing their hats as a military funeral passed. The cold confident gaze dated from 1934 when he was one of twenty chosen from four thousand applicants to go to the Deutsche Verkehrsfliegerschule at Brunswick. This airline pilots’ school was a secret training centre for the Nazi Air Force. When the Luftwaffe was officially born in 1935 Peter Redenbacher was stunting a Bücker Jungmann biplane above the heads of Hitler, Göring, the foreign Press and a deliriously happy German crowd. His forearm scarred badly because there was no doctor in the Spanish village of San Antonio when a Republican Rata shot his He51 down in flames there in November 1936. He landed by parachute in the village. The Russian pilot did a low pass over the rooftops and waved to Redenbacher from the open cockpit: a big smile and an ancient leather flying helmet, and low enough to see that the pilot was a woman. No one would believe him, until in January 1937 a high-ranking Russian woman was shot down near Madrid.

      It was at the Schleissheim fighter school near Munich that a pupil turned without power on take-off, thus writing off an old He50 biplane that would have floated unharmed to the ground hands off. It was the worst crash of all. The pupil died and Redenbacher spent six weeks in hospital. Although he would never admit it, even to his wife, still to this day in cold weather the base of his spine ached like the very devil.

      His four victories in Spain, fourteen on the East Front and thirty-two French, RAF and US aeroplanes downed had brought him a Knight’s Cross with Oak-leaves and made him something of a celebrity. He had been shot down over the sea by an American P-47 the previous May, and had spent four miserable hours bobbing from wave-top to wave-top perched on a one-man dinghy. He was too old to take that sort of punishment without suffering after-effects. A medical board had detected his symptoms in spite of Redenbacher’s denials. Now he had been advised that a staff job was to be his. Meanwhile he flew every sortie possible.

      When he went to spend the rest of his life flying a desk he’d asked that Löwenherz should take over as Gruppenkommandeur. He had been one of his pupils at the fighter school, and one of his best. Redenbacher was glad to have a young aristocrat like him in his Gruppe because, for Redenbacher, National Socialism meant the end of classes and social groupings. During all the wars of the last century only a hundred or so German NCOs had been made officers. In this war, under National Socialism, thousands and thousands of rankers had so far been commissioned. There were, at that moment, twelve Nazi generals who had come from the ranks. It made Redenbacher very proud to be a member of the Wehrmacht. It had become a simple matter of being a good Nazi.

      Redenbacher looked at the men across the room. The young SIPO officer was a good Nazi. There was no other explanation. Only a dedicated young officer would be happy to do his duty as a lowly Feldwebel engaged on menial tasks. The old Abwehr man was a more doubtful case. Why had he never been promoted to officer rank? That shrewd old swine, like too many men in today’s Germany, guessed Redenbacher, survived by evading conflict. Major Redenbacher walked round his desk, but he did not sit down behind it, neither did he invite the others to sit. There were in any case only two chairs. The white-painted office was bare and austere: only a framed portrait of the Führer, one of Reichsmarschall Göring, and a small photo of Redenbacher and his wife framed by Nazi banners on their wedding day.

      The major’s table-top was clear and efficient. A gleaming piston-top from the wrecked Heinkel biplane stood near the blotter. It would have made a fine ashtray for anyone who dared to smoke here. Instead it was a paperweight but there were no papers awaiting attention; the trays were empty, ink-wells full and sharpened pencils placed to hand. The major picked one up and tapped the table-top reflectively. He raised his eyes to Löwenherz. ‘What do you make of Himmel, Victor?’

      Löwenherz came correctly to attention, his white-topped cap clutched tight under his arm. ‘He has six years’ service, sir. Service record excellent.’ Löwenherz related Himmel’s Service record. It was easy to remember, for so much of it was the same as his own.

      ‘But is he loyal, Victor? Is he a true National Socialist?’

      ‘Yes, Herr Major.’

      Blessing came to a noisy attention. ‘With respect, Herr Major, loyalty is

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