The Stolen (14 page)

‘Shall we follow?' his lieutenant interrupted his chain of thought.

‘No, I have bigger herrings to catch. We wait for Christoph's business chums; I need to see who stays and who leaves.' He settled back down into the seat. ‘And don't wake me when Matthias von Holindt leaves because I know where he'll be going – just wake me when Christoph's cronies fly the coop.' He flipped the paper back over his face.

Sighing, the lieutenant lifted his binoculars as, a few miles down the narrow country lane, a motorcyclist in full black helmet began tailing Liliane's limo.

 

Inside the hall the atmosphere seemed to have swallowed up Liliane's outburst as smoothly as water over a sunken ship. The guests were chatting while coffee and torte were being served. As Matthias approached the table, Christoph indicated that he should take the empty chair beside him.

‘You need to get that girl under control. The drugs were one thing, but to vilify me and the family publicly like that? I love her, but my God, the girl is trouble. Luckily no one really cares about who got up to what in the war. I mean really, half the men round this table had business with the Germans. There was no guarantee the Allies would win, and it was perfectly understandable that the Swiss should hedge their bets.'

‘Was it?' Matthias now struggled to control the rage in his voice.

‘For God's sake, you know how the company donated thousands of francs to support the refugees who were flooding across the border. You know the stories.'

‘Do I?' He remembered those stories, told to him as soon as he'd understood the ramifications of the war – unspoken tensions between friends and family, whispered history that, inexplicably to a child of ten, stigmatised men and turned them into hermits. Had Christoph's claims come out of guilt or, even worse, a cheap alibi? Just then Bertholt appeared and whispered something into his employer's ear. An expression of intense fury transformed the old man's face, instantly noticed by several of the guests, and a hush fell across the hall. The market was definitely open and running, Matthias concluded, steeling himself. Christoph spun round.

‘Do you know what you have done by selling those shares?' He spat out his words. ‘Not only have you destroyed your inheritance, you have handed over direction to that… that —'

‘I
had
to sell. I need the money, and I need the autonomy. I have a laboratory to run; as a businessman you should understand —'

‘To betray your own father?'

‘I haven't betrayed you! Wim Jollak is the only shareholder who will be able to bring this company into the twentieth century – I warned you I was never interested in taking over.'

‘I will fight back, I promise you.'

‘Smile, Christoph,' Matthias said. ‘We are being watched; best not to upset more of the shareholders.'

‘Why do you hate me so much?'

‘I don't hate you – I just don't know you.'

 

A freezing wind rattled through the trees, making the car shake a little. A shivering Klauser said, ‘Any sign of activity?'

‘Matthias von Holindt left about twenty minutes after his daughter, heading in the other direction. A couple of guests have gone but no heavy hitters – just a few ancient relatives and a couple of the minor shareholders… Hold on, something's happening.'

Klauser reached over and pulled the binoculars from the lieutenant's hands. Inside the chateau the lights in another room on the ground floor were now lit. He moved the binoculars, searching for the occupants and found two older men – one portly, the other sitting on a couch with his back to the window. Klauser refocused the lenses: Christoph von Holindt came into immediate focus. He was shouting, one hand jabbing the air, but it was difficult to identify the second man; he had a bulk to his body that was generic to men of his age, but his head was obscured by a lamp. Klauser handed the binoculars back to Timo. ‘The second man, any idea?'

‘Hard to say.'

Klauser took back the binoculars.

Just then a third man came into view and turned his face fully towards the window. Klauser inhaled sharply. ‘
Scheisse!
How did he get there?'

‘Who?'

‘Engels!'

‘The chief inspector? I didn't see him – maybe he came in one of the cars with blacked-out windows.'

Klauser stared at Engels' distinctive figure as he paced with elegant strides.
Was it possible?

‘Again, our little club of fascists, but how does Engels fit in?' he wondered out loud, as another man, thick-set, with a massive neck and shoulders, stepped into view, with his back to the window. He was accompanied by a brawny young bodyguard with a shaven head whose wide cheekbones and narrow eyes gave him a Slavic appearance. As if sensing the surveillance, the bodyguard pulled the curtains across.

‘
Die Spinne
,' Klauser said quietly to himself, lowering the binoculars.

‘A spider, where?' Timo looked up, startled. ‘I hate spiders.'

‘
Die Spinne
, you idiot, is the name of the secret organisation supposedly set up to help former SS officers escape persecution. It is backed by Nazi funds, most of which involves a network of numbered bank accounts in which they hide their war plunder – mainly money stolen from European Jews. The accounts still exist.'

‘But those guys were German; these men are Swiss.'

‘True, but maybe we're looking at a little web, a baby
Spinne
.'

Here Matthias paused, pulling his dressing gown tighter across his shoulders. The study was growing colder, the dawn reaching that twilight hour when the earth surrenders the last of its heat to the lightening sky. Chemistry, the chemistry of the cosmos. It was comforting to Matthias to reduce everything down to this. It anchored him momentarily. The faint blue reflected back off the lake was a deceptive calm – how the external world could continue functioning with any normalcy was now incomprehensible to him, as if his inner agitation should be mirrored in the weather.

He'd driven straight from the schloss to the laboratory and worked for several hours, still in his dress suit, but when he returned to Küsnacht he hadn't been able to sleep. There were too many questions, too many cracks in the structure he'd made of his life. If only Marie was still alive, if only there was someone he felt he could really confide in, someone he could trust. He picked his pen up again to continue his letter to a dead woman.

He glanced at the document he'd taken from the company archives. The Basel address of the factory seemed to glow in the twilight of the study, the letters beckoning him. And then there was Latcos: the gypsy who claimed he was his half-brother. Matthias looked over at his flute sitting on the music stand. After picking it up he lifted it to his mouth and played the refrain, three stanzas of notes that filled the room like light, bringing with them colour, scent and memory.

Moments later he was on the road heading towards the airport, to a field he had been told about.

 

There was a fence and beyond that, caravans. Some traditional wooden ones with gaily painted shutters and curved roofs, others steel motor homes, wooden steps propped up with bricks at the doors, abandoned junk scattered in the field in front: car parts, old car seats, rusting tin baths, a plough left haphazardly like a toy someone had suddenly lost interest in, fake Turkish rugs hanging over washing lines strung between the vehicles. Matthias stood staring, in his expensive coat, his soft leather shoes sinking into the muddy snow at the very edge of the road, close to the wire fence; incongruous, silent, a man who did not belong. He watched a young gypsy woman with her small child, listening to the boy's laughter as she lifted him into the air then hugged him tightly to her. Matthias could not stop watching. He could not help himself; he was that child and all the forgotten years vanished; a vague half-memory trailed like smoke. It was only when she looked across at him and made the sign of the evil eye that he snapped back into the moment and stumbled away.

He started driving, but as the road fed into the motorway he found himself turning the car towards the sign that read ‘Basel'.

 

It was a wasteland, the industrial fringe of a medieval city, tucked behind the well-tended streets, the old city centre with the Mittlere Brücke arching majestically over the Rhine – stretches of marshland by the river, the horizon broken only by the jutting presence of the factories – dark squatters in the steel blue-grey of the afternoon. A boy on a bike, skinny, hungry for the outside world, pointed to the building, speaking in his guttural Basel German. He did not smile, despite Matthias's friendly advances. Now frightened of all the possible truths, he'd found himself talking too much – like an apologist apologising for what? The past here, like the rest of Switzerland, was a sealed tomb, the contagion of memory silenced. It was even colder standing in the sparse grass under the shadow of the factory.

 

The décor was tired, frozen somewhere in the mid 1960s; the revolving door Matthias entered through had stiffness to it; the marble on the floor was chipped and scratched. The receptionist, sitting behind a pale wooden curve of a desk that must have once been glamorous, was listening to the Bee Gees on a small portable radio. On the wall behind her was a display case filled with instrument casings – ranging from small bronze castings for nautical instruments to machine parts for automobiles.

‘Can I help you?' Her eyes swept from head to toe, a calculation of status and desirability, a flirtatious smile confirming he'd won the jackpot. Matthias, now filled with the horror of what might be revealed, was so tense he didn't even notice. All he saw was a very young girl – not much older than his own daughter – and there was, thankfully, none of the past in her face.

‘You wouldn't happen to know whether they made casings for watches here – expensive pocket watches – during the war?' He shrugged apologetically. ‘I'm a collector – you know how crazy we are.'

Smiling, she leaned forward. ‘Actually they did make watch casings for a Zürich company in that time… there's one example on the top shelf of the display case.'

Just as he stepped forward, an older man in the white smock of an instrument maker entered from a side door, his grey hair and sloping shoulders an arc of exhaustion. He looked across at Matthias and the two men made eye contact, then to Matthias's amazement an expression of utter shock and disbelief animated the instrument maker's wrinkled face. Without a word he walked back out.

Feeling self-conscious, Matthias turned back to the display cabinet, trying to work out what he'd done to upset the man. On the far right on the top shelf, sitting by itself on a small stand, was an exquisitely crafted gold pocket-watch casing. With a lurch Matthias recognised it immediately. He was interrupted by the sound of the door swinging open again. The instrument maker had returned, accompanied by a portly middle-aged man in a suit.

He stared at Matthias, his broad face paling as he staggered slightly, the instrument maker catching him with one arm. ‘It's not possible!' he exclaimed, unable to take his eyes off Matthias.

‘Is there a problem?' Matthias asked.

The grey-haired man hurried forward. ‘Please, forgive my strange behaviour. I am the owner of this factory, Rudolf Vosshoffner…' He turned to the receptionist. ‘Sylvia, make sure no one disturbs me in my office for the next hour.' He touched Matthias's arm. ‘Please, this way. I think I know why you are here.'

 

The factory owner stood behind a large table covered with piles of papers and drawings, designs for castings of mechanical objects – from watches through to gas meters – from the intricate to the heavy industrial. He turned and pulled out two glasses from behind a small forest of draughtsman's equipment – compasses, metal triangles, measuring sticks and pencils. After producing a large handkerchief he wiped them clean, then poured Bärenjäger into them. He held out one, the honey-coloured liquid pooling like blood in the thick crystal bottom, his hand trembling. They both looked at his shaking hand.

‘Ridiculous! What am I frightened of? The past? It happened; nothing can change that. Take it, take it, we can at least drink together. After all, we are family.'

Matthias took the glass, the sensation of wanting to run rising up like bile. Did he want this truth? Did he have any choice?

Rudolf Vosshoffner knocked back his drink, then poured himself another one. ‘Good health. You know, you look exactly like your father…' he watched Matthias's face carefully, not affectionately, not with hostility but with a studied neutrality ‘… my brother, Ulrich.' He raised his glass. ‘Welcome home, nephew. What have they called you? When I knew you you had not been given a name.'

‘Matthias.' He hated how thin his voice sounded; it exposed the sense of vertigo that was sweeping over him. He wanted control back, his identity. ‘So it's true that Christoph von Holindt is not my natural father?'

‘There are many truths, especially in war, but that one is indisputable. Your blood father was Ulrich Vosshoffner, my older brother.'

‘And he was a member of the SS?'

‘Not originally but later yes.' There was no emotion. ‘We were
all
Nazis. It was the thing to be back then, but my brother was particularly enthusiastic.' And again Matthias's world tilted; very aware of the man's gaze he fought to keep his expression, but Rudolf caught the flicker, the twitch that ran like pain. ‘You have to understand how it was politically. Hitler gave us hope, dignity. We made a mistake. A nation can make a mistake, just like a man, you understand?'

‘I understand how the Nazis were murderers,' Matthias answered flatly, as flatly as the marshland visible beyond the low window, one long grey strip tinted by the thin rinse of a struggling sun.

‘My brother was a zealot. In another era he would have made a wonderful scientist – he was gifted that way, you know. His original position was with the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg. He had an obsession and it got him into trouble. But let's talk about you. How you came to be is far more interesting. Your father was not a sentimental individual. You are a lucky man.'

‘I don't feel so lucky at this moment.'

Rudolf chuckled, and again, Matthias wanted to walk. But he stayed. He stayed because he could not walk away until he knew who he was.

‘In 1945, in those last terrible weeks of the war, a woman, a nurse from the camp Ulrich had been posted to after his time in the Ukraine, turned up at my house with a blond baby she claimed was Ulrich's son. A day later Ulrich arrived and confirmed it. He knew he was on the Soviet hit list and the Russians had already begun to advance like locusts across the Fatherland, raping, murdering and pillaging. Ulrich did not expect to survive and he had decided that, at least, something of himself would live on. Even as a baby anyone could see that you were all Aryan. We talked about it all through the night. I could not take you and our parents had been killed in a bombing raid. We decided your best chance of survival was to give you to our Swiss cousin and his wife. They were childless and wealthy – and Christoph was desperate for an heir. This way he would have one, and of his own blood.'

‘Did my father ever tell you about my mother?'

‘Never. I'd never known him have a woman or even get close to one and I knew better than to ask questions. Up until then it had been a pretty good war for us. Plenty of manufacturing, plenty of free labour.'

‘
Slave
labour.'

He shrugged. ‘It was war; such things happen. You know, we even made a casting for an edition of gold watches Christoph designed, for Der Führer himself, to celebrate his fifty-third birthday in 1942? A beautiful thing…' Rudolf got up and began rustling through the paperwork on the desk. Finally he located a blueprint rolled up and tied with string. He unrolled it and, using a paperweight in the shape of a small gold eagle, and his glass, weighed it flat on the desk. Matthias got up and looked over his shoulder – the design was elegant, the fine ink drawing meticulous yet expressive. The anatomy of a pocket watch splayed out like that of a dead rabbit – the gold casting a perfect oval with measurements: the inscription to
Mein Führer
in calligraphy beside the drawing.

‘Christoph is a genius with the movements. There are no better watch designers than at Holindt. I remember this watch because the gold it was made from was very, very old. Your father supplied it in the form of confiscated ancient gold coins – some of them over a hundred years old. Rose gold, twenty carats, very valuable. He'd given strict instructions that they were to be melted down for the gold casting. At the time I thought it was a crime to destroy such coins – some of them dated back as far as the reign of Franz Joseph – but I was given no choice.'

‘Gypsy coins?'

‘I'm surprised you know such a detail, but yes, and what does it matter? It had become the property of the Third Reich; that was what was important. The total amount came to about forty gold bars – we stamped them with the SS mark and another stamp that had appealed to Ulrich's sense of humour – his lucky number: 2041915.'

‘His birthday?'

‘Ja, he was born the same day as Hitler – not the same year of course. Ulrich saw that as something special.' He reached into his pocket and took out a cigarette packet. After offering one to Matthias he lit up himself. ‘You were a quiet baby – too quiet. At first I was worried that you might be sick. It had started to become hard to find enough to eat; I had to bribe a local farmer for milk for you, but luckily we found a courier, a local woman who could take you across the border and —'

Matthias wasn't interested in such details. ‘What happened to the gold bars after the war?'

Rudolf exhaled wearily. ‘I'm not entirely sure. He had sent us more coins in 1943, which we also turned into bars, and I think Ulrich arranged for them to go to a Swiss bank before the war ended.'

‘And tell me, did you ever see any of the other artefacts Ulrich had confiscated from the gypsies? Jewellery, amulets – a statuette they called the statuette of Sara la Kali?'

‘I never saw it personally. Your father spoke of it once. He said it was the one puzzle that had eluded him, and that it would, maybe, cost him his life.' He patted Matthias's hand as if he were still a child, ignoring Matthias's slight recoil. ‘You mustn't condemn us; we were thinking of your future. We thought by giving you away to Christoph von Holindt you would never be known as the son of a high-ranking SS officer. But you must understand I have had no real contact with Christoph since the end of the war – he is an innocent in all of this.'