Exposure (12 page)

And he paid handsomely because that was King's way. He bought discretion with money, and implicit in everything was the threat of Joe if they stepped off the track.

King wanted this woman Hamilton looked over. Joe had done many similar jobs over the years. They were the bread-and-butter jobs, like providing the right girl. He had done other, more complicated things for King. They put the jam on his daily bread. And they had taken Joe to some interesting places. He knew the States quite well, and parts of Europe.

Responsibility had given him a certain gloss. He had self-confidence and he had learned how to behave with people better educated than the waif beaten into learning by the good Brothers at home.

Joe was a chameleon, he could blend into his surroundings. The flat was empty, but there wasn't much point in waiting. The Hamilton woman could come back at any time. He fixed for an entrance to be made that afternoon.

There was a double mortise on the front door, but it didn't trouble Joe's expert. He picked both locks and stood aside for Joe to enter.

‘You stay here,' Joe mouthed at him. They were on the first-floor landing of the Chelsea conversion. The front door had opened on a buzzer from one of the top-floor flats; stupidly the woman pushed to open before she asked the name on the intercom. Joe's man had his answer ready.

‘Interflora,' he said. ‘I'm delivering to Number Two. Hamilton? No reply so I'll leave the plants outside the door. Thank you.'

And he and Joe were inside the building and up the first flight of stairs. ‘Anyone comes, you call me.' Then he was in Julia's flat.

He knew how to search without leaving any signs. He opened drawers, lifted clothes and felt underneath; he shoved his hands under the mattress of the double bed, rifled through the fitted cupboards, opened the one remaining big suitcase and the hat box. He knew where people hid money and jewellery and personal papers. He found nothing, but some gold trinkets and a little spare cash in a drawer. He didn't touch them.

There was an answer machine. He switched it on, listened, made quick notes and reset it. He was looking for business papers, anything connected with her job on the
Herald
. She didn't bring stuff home. The messages were personal. A call from her mother, two from friends asking her and someone called Felix – the boyfriend who'd moved out – to dinner.

And Felix's note with his telephone number. Joe copied it. Then he went through the waste basket in the living room. Among the empty envelopes and a few circulars, he found a screwed-up piece of scrap paper. Someone had jotted down a rough schedule.

8.30 Heathrow. arr. Munich 12.15 C. time check in Ness. approx 1 p.m
. Joe put the note in his pocket. He had been in the flat for under ten minutes. He came out. ‘OK, close it up.' His man relocked the door and they slipped downstairs and out into the street.

Joe didn't know what he'd found, but he had a number which might come in useful. He knew where the ex-boyfriend could be contacted.

There was no trace of the camp outside Nessenberg. A housing estate had been built on the site. Julia and Ben drove out the next morning.

‘It's incredible,' she said, ‘seeing how they rebuilt everything after the war. I never realized till I came here.'

‘They're a resourceful people,' Ben answered. ‘Disciplined and industrious.'

‘More than that, surely,' she questioned. ‘I've seen newsreels and photographs – the whole country was devastated.'

‘They're proud,' he said. ‘My wife said to me once, “We were defeated, but we're not going to be beaten.” Her family had been bombed out, and two of her uncles were missing in Russia. She came from Hamburg.

‘That was really pasted. But they'd rebuilt it by the time we came over. I don't think her father and mother were too pleased she'd married me, but they put a good face on it. They were crazy about the grandchildren.'

‘I'm sorry you don't see them' Julia said. ‘Maybe you'll get together when they get older.'

‘I don't see why,' he said. ‘I wasn't a very good father. They're going their own way. Let's talk about something else.'

He looked grim and irritable. She was beginning to understand him better. Bad temper was his cover for feelings. For hurt and, she suspected, for real loneliness. She was beginning to like him as well as understand him. In a good mood he was wonderful company. They had enjoyed an excellent dinner the night before in another restaurant – his old stamping ground had become a grocer's shop. He ordered German food and wine and the conversation was wide-ranging and easy.

He talked about Germany and the resurgence of the neo-Nazis, the problems of reunification for a country which had been split in half ideologically, with a generation brought up with different work and social ethics. He was extremely intelligent and well informed and she was fascinated.

She said so then, as they drove back to the hotel.

‘I really enjoyed last night, Ben. I learned a lot from you. I've learned a lot from this trip.'

‘I thought I'd been a bloody bore,' he admitted. ‘It's just that it was a part of my life because I married Helga. Don't know why I go on about it now. Anyway, we got something out of our trip. Major A. B. Grant.'

Julia said, ‘When will your War Office contact let you know?'

‘We should get something today,' he answered. ‘All they've got to do is track down the records of who was here and whether there's a “deceased” after the name. Everything's on the touch of a computer key.'

‘If he's dead,' Julia shook her head, ‘we're back to square one. Somehow I don't think he will be.'

He smiled slightly at her. ‘You're an optimist, J. I'm a pessimist. I'm the guy who says the bottle's half-empty. You say it's half-full.'

The hotel proprietor was a plump, efficient lady with a friendly smile. She greeted them as they came in.

‘Good morning! Herr Harris, there is a message come through on our fax machine for you. I have it here.'

Julia craned over his shoulder. He read the script quickly and turned to her. ‘It's better than a half-full bottle,' he said quietly. ‘Major Grant married a local girl. He retired to live over here in seventy-four. They've even got the address for us. He draws a disability pension.'

Impulsively Julia grabbed his arm. ‘Ben – this is our breakthrough! Where is he?' For a moment his hand came over and gripped hers. Then he released himself. ‘At Hintzbach, about twenty kilometres away. I'll call him.'

The owner of the town's biggest supermarket was also head of the local Veterans' association. He had been a panzer sergeant in his twenties and suffered a wound in the Western Desert that saved him from the Russian front. He had ended the war as a civilian stores administrator for the 101st Division which was engaged in fighting the American Sixth Army. He had watched his country overrun, its towns destroyed, its population driven on to the roads in search of shelter from the fighting. He had seen his people starve, and die, and his comrades penned up in POW camps where the rations were so short that thousands perished. He had escaped because he was a civilian with the lower part of his leg removed. But he was a soldier in his heart, and everything he saw in the new Germany convinced him that the defeat of Adolf Hitler was the worst disaster in his country's history. His views had not changed with his prosperity. He and his wife had worked and saved, and the result was his business, a big modern house in its own grounds, and his position as a respected member of the community. He was also the unofficial liaison with old soldiers who needed help.

Help had come from many unexpected quarters. From America, where the members of the old Bundt were still loyal, from South and Central America where sympathizers hadn't forgotten their homeland. The Veterans' Association had used its resources to rehabilitate men still suffering from the war in the early years, and to build homes for the elderly and incapacitated, even providing small pensions for their widows to supplement the State allowance. The branch at Nessenberg had recognized his work by making him its President. He was very proud of that position. More proud than he was of the big modern shop that had grown from his first venture into trade, and the money that came from it.

He could still serve, albeit silently. His three sons were his grief and disappointment. They were liberal-minded, enlightened and quite alien to him. They were shamed by the past; they rejected racism and deplored any militarism or nationalist feelings. They were the new Germans and their father couldn't understand them. Politics were not discussed at home. He hoped that the criminals and layabouts pouring into their country under the guise of refugees, taking State money and jobs from their own people, would teach them how wrong they were. But he said nothing any more. He had his friends and his contacts and they belonged to his past. His answer machine was in his private office and only a few people knew the number. He took note of Minna's message.

Minna was the daughter of a colleague who'd served with SS Panzer Division in the East. He belonged to the fighting unit, not the prison guards and execution squads so emphasized by their enemies. All countries had their undesirables. Atrocities were common in a war. He had erected a mental barrier against history. The camps had existed but they were exaggerated out of all proportion by the Jews. Already the numbers of dead were being called into question. Minna was her father's daughter, imbued with his loyalties and ideals. Years ago – many years ago – he had had a visitor. A fellow soldier from the Western Desert where his lower leg had been torn off by a British mortar. The man said he was acting for other ex-soldiers who had shed their uniforms and taken refuge from the enemy in the DP camps at Nessenberg. The alternative had been to starve as prisoners of war.

The DPs were fed and given medical care. They were the lucky ones in that dreadful period. He was asked to protect those who had bluffed screening officers and UNRRA officials. Over the years there had been people snooping, looking for someone in the records. He had made sure that anything incriminating was removed, leaving one or two documents as instructed. Now the snoopers were back. They had been looking at the same file, the file for the Control Commission in 1949. He remembered them, those well-fed, sleek British officers, quartered in his town, sifting and questioning, looking for so-called war criminals or deserters. He hated still, remembering them. They were long gone, and the interfering busybodies from the United Nations with them.

From England, these two had come. Minna had noted their names. He decided to pay Minna a call and find out more before he fulfilled his obligation.

And paid back some small part of the handsome donation he'd accepted for the Association's hardship fund.

The road to Hintzbach took them through some pretty Bavarian country and the place where Major Grant and his wife had retired to live was a picture-book village, with clapboard houses and narrow streets. Everything was clean and orderly, and the street cafés and beer halls were full of customers. It was lunch-time and the shops were closed. The house they were looking for was next to the wine store. Window boxes full of bright flowers and an incongruous British name plate painted in garish colours. ‘Rooks Nest'.

They left the car in a side street – it was forbidden to park in the main road – and went to the front door. Ben had spoken to the wife. The Major was not very well, but she would ask, and who wanted to see him please? An author, Ben explained, doing some research for a book on the work of the Control Commission with refugees. They promised not to stay too long, but would be grateful for a short interview.

She opened the door to them. Julia saw a slight, dark woman with a little grey in her hair. She was pretty, even in age, and she must have been at least seventy. She wore a flowered apron and a blouse with a crisp frill at the neck.

‘I'm Mr Harris,' Ben stepped forward, holding Julia by the elbow, ‘and this is Miss Hamilton.'

‘Come in please.' The hall was small and dark and smelled of furniture polish. ‘My husband is very excited to see you,' she had a charming smile. ‘But he does get tired. He's in here. Shall I get you some coffee? Or a glass of beer?'

‘Coffee, please,' Julia answered. It was a downstairs room converted into a bedroom. Major Grant was sitting in an armchair with a knitted rug over his knees. A fire was alight in the grate.

Ben went across and shook his hand. Julia did the same. It was cold and skinny, like a bird's claw. He looked frail, with sparse white hair and hollow cheeks. ‘It's very good of you to see us, sir,' Ben said.

‘It's a pleasure,' the old man smiled at them. ‘I don't get visitors from home these days. Do sit down, make yourselves comfortable. My wife will bring us some coffee and some of her cake. She makes marvellous chocolate cake.' They talked about the weather, he asked a few questions about England – he hadn't been back for five years, since then he'd had a minor stroke, and he didn't get about much. Julia felt he had lost touch with his own country. He gave his wife a devoted look when she came back with a tray. ‘I'll leave you,' she said. ‘I have things to do.' ‘No, no,' he protested, ‘stay and talk, darling. After all, you were as much a part of that time as I was.' He turned to Julia who was sitting closer to him than Ben Harris. ‘Gerda was a DP. That's how we met. She can be a great help; she can tell you what it was like from experience.'

‘That', Ben said gently, ‘would be invaluable.'

They had talked for an hour before Julia raised the subject of Phyllis Lowe. ‘I'm particularly interested in the English women who came to work for UNRRA; I've contacted many of them who are still around,' she avoided saying ‘still alive', ‘but I can't find any trace of Phyllis Lowe. I know she befriended a DP, a young man called Koenig.' She looked enquiringly at them. They had left England in seventy-four, King was not then a public figure. The old man looked up and said sharply, ‘I knew Phyllis. And I knew Koenig. I tried to warn her about him, but she simply wouldn't listen, would she, Gerda?'