LITMIR.BIZ

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Führer, he is full of surprises.”’

      Blessing looked up triumphantly.

      ‘Well?’ he said. The words had brought a terrible silence upon the group.

      ‘Well what, Blessing?’ said Kokke. ‘Wasn’t it a noble letter?’

      ‘The traitorous swine,’ said Blessing. ‘The sarcasm stands out a mile.’

      ‘What sarcasm?’ said Kokke. ‘Did you detect sarcasm?’ he asked Starkhof.

      ‘Styles of writing can be deceptive,’ fielded the old man.

      ‘Perhaps you’d better point out which passages seem preposterous and quite beyond your belief, Blessing,’ said Kokke.

      Blessing looked again at the letter. No one spoke. Aircraft were doing circuits and bumps. One approached down the funnel, slid on to Runway 25 and, at the very moment of landing, gunned the throttle and climbed away into the circuit again. The sudden noise of the motors being opened up to full power shook the windowpanes. Three more did it before Major Redenbacher said, ‘I think you’d better tell me what other evidence you have against Himmel.’

      Blessing came to attention again. ‘The stolen document was in his bedside locker last night and the previous night.’

      ‘How do you know that?’

      ‘My staff reported it.’

      ‘I see,’ said Redenbacher. ‘How many of your civilian staff work for the Sicherheitspolizei?’

      ‘Respectfully, Herr Major, I could not say.’

      ‘But they have keys to bedside lockers?’

      ‘Yes, Herr Major.’

      ‘My quarters are cleaned by your local civilians, Blessing. Do they have a key for my bedside table?’ Blessing did not answer. Redenbacher said, ‘What about this Operational HQ. Do your staff examine my files and desk here in this office?’

      ‘Not regularly, Herr Major.’

      ‘Only when you instruct them to do so, eh, Blessing?’

      ‘With respect, Herr Major, we must confine the conversation to the arrest of the spy Himmel. I request permission to take him to the Wehrmacht Prison in The Hague where a case against him will be prepared.’

      ‘“Be prepared”?’ echoed Redenbacher indignantly. ‘This is Nazi Germany 1943, Blessing, not some damned little South American republic. We work by the rule of law, not by the odds and ends of guesswork that you assemble when you’ve slept too late on the morning you should have made your arrest. My soldiers are entitled to freedom and bread and the rule of law. If you want to deprive my combat station at front-line readiness of one of its most skilled pilots, you must provide the proper work from your side.’

      ‘With respect, Herr Major, fighting Communist spies and traitors is also front-line work. It is your duty to let me take Himmel to prison where he belongs.’

      ‘I don’t need you to remind me of my duty, Blessing,’ said Redenbacher. ‘As for fighting Communists, I was doing that in the streets of Essen when you were still wetting your bed.’

      ‘You are refusing to let the prisoner be taken away?’ said Blessing.

      ‘No, no, no,’ interrupted Starkhof. ‘The Herr Major has made his position very clear, Blessing. And a very reasonable position it is too, if I may say so.’ He nodded at Major Redenbacher and smiled. ‘He feels that you are going off at half-cock and wants to prevent you making a fool of yourself. He’s advising you to procure more evidence, prepare your case more thoroughly, and I agree with him. At this moment I really couldn’t support you, Blessing. I think you’d better release this fellow Himmel, on the Kommandeur’s assurance that he’s kept confined to the base.’

      Starkhof had judged his timing nicely. His previous silence enabled him to sound like an arbitrator (although he would have said ‘like a judge’).

      It took Blessing a few seconds’ silence to realize that he had been outmanoeuvred by the wily old Abwehr man.

      ‘Heil Hitler,’ Blessing called loudly, stamping into the salute.

      ‘Heil Hitler,’ replied everyone in the room, but Kokke’s voice was shriller and louder than the others. Blessing left before the the old man, who took his time shaking the hand of each of the airmen. As he got to the door he turned and smiled to them. ‘You young gentlemen have had your fun with Blessing, and it might well result in Himmel’s dossier becoming my sole responsibility. If it does, gentlemen, then when I return we must talk more seriously than we have today. We will start afresh. And you must be careful of what you tell me, for as we lawyers say, “Decipi quam fallere est tutius”.’ He smiled again. ‘Herr Oberleutnant Löwenherz will translate.’ He closed the door.

      ‘It’s safer to be deceived than to deceive,’ translated Löwenherz.

      ‘What a character!’ said Kokke.

      ‘He’s an Abwehr man,’ said Löwenherz. ‘There’s no love lost between them and the SIPO.’

      Redenbacher said, ‘Victor, do you think that he precipitated the arrest of young Himmel just to take over control of this case by those very means?’

      ‘Yes, sir, I do,’ said Löwenherz. ‘I realize now that my conversation with him on the way way here was largely dedicated to making me antagonistic to Blessing.’

      ‘The old fox,’ said Redenbacher. ‘If I thought he was deliberately sabotaging the work of the Sicherheitspolizei I’d report him.’

      ‘I wouldn’t help those bastards get their hands on my worst enemy,’ muttered Kokke.

       Chapter Five

      There were many inhabitants of Altgarten who could remember it a half-century ago. By that time the cramped little houses built for the men who made the railway had become slums and although each doorstep had gleamed white and the curtains in each window were clean and pressed, few people then would have wished to walk through the town after dark. There was not enough work at the gasworks to help Altgarten’s poor and the unemployed stood on street corners and waited for their wives to return from scrubbing and washing and cooking in other person’s homes. Nor did the land provide for the desperate. In those days a wet spring would inevitably mean a hungry winter.

      Now in 1943 the Burgomaster could look across a thriving town where never a hand was idle, although many of its menfolk were in far parts of the world. He saw them in the corridors of the Rathaus, for the Servicemen came here to have their leave documents endorsed and signed. Young Tornow had just come home on leave. He was now a Kapitänleutnant. He looked elegant in his dark-blue naval uniform with gold braid rings on his cuff and the snappy white-topped summer cap that U-boat captains favoured. Tornow’s father owned the Altgarten printing works and had servants, a fine house and a fast Mercedes car.

      ‘Hello, Tornow,’ said the Burgomaster, passing him on his way to lunch at Frenzel’s. ‘This is fine weather for you sailors, eh?’

      Hans Tornow had grown used to such remarks. He had long since given up explaining that he was an accountant in the Paymaster’s department at Hamburg, a grim old building with tiny windows and inadequate lights. As for the ocean, he hated those occasions when he had to take cash to ships anchored in the Elbe, for even the slightest swell made him a little queasy. ‘Yes, Herr Bürgermeister, it’s sailors’ weather,’ said Tornow.

      All Altgarten envied those citizens who had chosen that weekend to begin their holiday, for the weather promised to be superb. In spite of the thunder the black clouds had passed and it was sunny. No rain had fallen upon the town for over three weeks. The air was crisp and dry. For the last week the humidity readings had not risen above forty-five per cent and had gone as low as thirty. The old

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