Winter's Bullet (5 page)

CHAPTER 6

12 January 1945

T
ygo was dog-tired but couldn't sleep. The room he had been given to sleep in was a broom cupboard in the basement, his bed a stained old mattress and an army blanket. Better than he had had for weeks, and he should have been fast asleep as soon as his eyes closed, but he wasn't. He lay there thinking about the house they had visited. And the girl. And the jewel that Krüger was looking for. Maybe Tygo could find it – or better yet, maybe the girl knew where it was – maybe she had it!

Tygo wondered if he should go back tomorrow to see what he could find. Then he felt the warrant disc in his
pocket, next to the letter from Krüger. It meant he could break the nightly curfew if he wanted. What if he went now? It was after midnight, the streets would be deserted; it would be safer to travel now, and he would be back in time for Krüger tomorrow morning.

A long agonized cry came from one of the cells. It seemed to pierce Tygo's heart, and he shivered.
No time like the present
, he thought, and got to his feet in the darkness, his hand searching the wall for the light switch.

He found an unused bicycle in the motor pool and, having shown his pass to the sentry, pushed it up the ramp from beneath the building and on to the street.

The city was enveloped in darkness, and there was just enough light from the waning moon for Tygo to see his way and strike out for the south of the city: 73 Voorthuizenstraat. He reckoned he could make it in about twenty minutes. It was bitterly cold and the snow had formed a hard crust on the roads; he had to be careful on the corners, but he could still cycle.

He never saw the rope, or twine, or whatever it was that had been strung across the road in front of him, in the darkness. It took him at chest height and lifted him clean off his saddle, and he flew backwards. He was too surprised to tense up, and as a result – luckily for him – he landed very softly in a heap on the crusted snow, his back and shoulders taking the impact, the back of his head just knocking lightly on the road. He lay there, winded, for a moment, trying to work out what had just happened, but then strong hands took hold of him and were pulling
him up off the street and hauling him towards the pavement.

‘Let go of me,' he protested feebly. He knew immediately he was in big trouble. Dressed in the local Dutch police uniform, he could expect no mercy from the Resistance.

‘Shut up,' a young man hissed in his ear. The other person bent one of his arms up behind his back and jerked it sharply. A searing pain shot into his brain; it felt like his shoulder would dislocate.

‘Okay, okay,' Tygo yelped. A torch beam suddenly snapped on right in his face and he had to close his eyes.

‘Well, looks like we've hit the jackpot tonight.' A girl's voice; Tygo recognized it.

‘Ursula . . .'

‘The one and only.'

For a moment, Tygo glimpsed his captors – two boys about the same age as him, their faces gaunt and filthy. Ursula stood further back in the shadows. She had a large bandage across the bridge of her nose. Then the light snapped off.

‘I said, shut up.' Another hard jerk, another bolt of pain. Little red dots danced in front of Tygo's eyes.

‘Well, what about that, Winter?' said Ursula. ‘It's just like trams: you wait for days and then two come along at the same time.'

‘Who is he?' asked one of the boys.

‘This is Tygo Winter,' said Ursula. ‘Collaborator.'

‘Yeah?'

‘Search him.' Ursula seemed to be in charge. One of
the youths let go and came around to face Tygo, patting his clothing quickly and expertly.

Tygo was thinking fast. Three against one; it was going to be difficult, and the other lads were strong. But he was pretty sure they wouldn't kill him. Ursula wanted that bounty money.

‘I'm going to enjoy watching them kill you, Winter.' Ursula came close, cleared her throat and spat in his face. Tygo felt the thick blob of mucus run down his cheek. Managing to lean forward, he spat back as hard as he could.

Ursula drove her fist into his stomach and he doubled up. One of the boys was still holding his arm tightly behind his back, saving him from falling to the ground.

‘Is that your best shot?' Tygo panted.

Before Ursula could respond, a different answer was provided. Down the street came the sound of a heavy vehicle, and a powerful spotlight swung out in a wide arc, raking the pavement and houses with its beam.

Ursula swore. Tygo felt the boy's grip on his arm slacken, and took his chance. He spun round, and head-butted him as hard as he could. The boy pitched backwards, clutching his face and yelling in pain, and Tygo took off up the street towards the light.

‘Split up, go!' he heard Ursula shout behind him.

Tygo could make out the vehicle; it was a four-wheeled light-armoured car with a turret sprouting a machine gun. A field police officer was standing in the turret, operating the light. Tygo put up his hands as it landed on him.

‘Tygo Winter, attached to Oberst Krüger's department.
I have authority to be out!' he shouted at the top of his voice. It would be too much to avoid a bullet from the Resistance only to get one from the Germans.

‘Come forward, slowly, with your hands up!' the policeman shouted.

Tygo walked forward.

‘Your papers and identity disc!'

‘They're in my tunic!'

‘Slowly then, with your right hand.'

Tygo carefully took out the disc and letter as the policeman climbed out of the turret and dropped to the ground. He took the documents and examined them under his torch.

‘What reason do you have to be out this late?'

Tygo knew he had no choice but to lie at this point, bluff his way out. The worst that could happen was that they would take him back to HQ and he would have to face Krüger.

‘A special mission for Oberst Krüger – I am not at liberty to say – his strict orders.'

The policeman looked back at Tygo sceptically. ‘What is a young man like you doing for Oberst Krüger at this time of night?'

‘Perhaps you should ask him yourself?' Tygo's heart was hammering in his chest for the second time in as many minutes.

The policeman took another glance at the letter, then handed it and the warrant disc back to Tygo.

‘Be careful, young man, the Resistance is active in this sector.' With that he climbed back into the armoured car
and thumped the turret with his fist.

Tygo waited for the car to pass. Its light picked out his bicycle lying on the ground; Tygo ran to it and quickly climbed on board. He pedalled as hard and as fast as he could, but it was okay – Ursula and her friends hadn't hung around.

Ten minutes later he was at the villa. He parked the bicycle a little way from the drive and stole as quietly as he could through the deeper snow to the front door. Getting back inside took just a few minutes with his skeleton keys.

His footsteps on the stone floor in the hallway sounded incredibly loud. He tried his torch, but it didn't work; it must have broken in the fall. Tygo swore. He stood there for a few minutes, letting his eyes get used to the darkness; the place still had a metallic smell of explosives.

‘Hello, is anybody here?' he called out softly. Perhaps the girl had fled after they had left. The sweat from the cycle ride ran down his spine and he shivered. He'd been in lots of empty buildings, but at night, alone, they never failed to scare him.

He went into the oak-panelled room and stared up the chimney. There was no way he was climbing back up it.

‘I saw you,' he said. ‘Come down if you're up there. I won't hurt you . . .'

But there was only darkness and silence. He turned and made his way out of the room, his boots crunching on the broken glass as if it were gravel. If the girl really wasn't there, he could concentrate on looking for the jewel.

Tygo decided to try the next floor; perhaps there was
another safe hidden in the floor or wall somewhere else in the building. He slowly walked up the long, winding flight of stairs; each step creaked a little louder than the last. Tygo held on to the banister. It was rickety, with lots of spindles missing. Just as he reached the top, he felt something racing towards his face, the air whiffling. He screamed but the pigeon's wing only kissed his cheek as the bird flashed past him. He nearly toppled backwards, but managed to grab the rail just in time. The pigeon flapped down into the darkness below, and out of one of the shattered windows.

‘Easy, Tygo,' he muttered to himself. For a moment he wondered if it had all been in his imagination, if there had been no girl earlier. He felt inside his jacket and found what he was looking for: a few loose matches purloined from Krüger's crystal striker that he kept on the mantelpiece in his office.

Tygo leant down and struck one on the stone step. He straightened up to get his bearings, holding the match in front of him, and only just saw the broken stair spindle coming towards him.

Crack
– he felt himself falling down the stairs, his head hitting something impossibly hard. Then there was nothing but that sick feeling of oblivion.

CHAPTER 7

I
t was the sound of an enormous explosion that brought Tygo round. He became conscious of the end of it, the boom rolling like thunder through the city, the sound both hard and resonant.

He opened his eyes, half expecting to be lying in the ruins of the villa. Instead he was on the marble stone of the hallway, his overcoat balled up and stuck under his head for a pillow. A single candle was burning beside him, giving a small circle of light. It was enough for him to see a girl, aged maybe fourteen or fifteen, sitting cross-legged beside him, staring down at him.

She was dressed in a dirty woollen overcoat which hung open, a woollen sweater underneath with a large
hole almost where her heart would be, and a rough tweed shirt poking through the hole. She had a pair of hobnailed boots on her feet, their soles peeling away from the uppers, and no socks.

So he had not imagined her after all.

Her face was scrubbed clean of the sooty blackness he remembered from when he had last seen her; only her eyes were the same. Topaz, the colour of a July sky. Tygo noticed a tiny cleft in her chin. A gold locket was tied around her neck with a piece of ribbon.

Tygo looked into those eyes again. He tried to remember the fear he'd seen in them, but now they were hard and calculating and aimed directly at him.

‘Who are you?'

He tried to sit up and realized he couldn't: his hands and feet had been tied with strips of torn cloth. The girl was taking no chances.

Tygo tried to think of something to say.

‘Who are you?' the girl repeated.

‘Untie me and I'll tell you,' said Tygo.

The girl tossed something towards him. It was his Gestapo warrant disc.

‘Gestapo.' She spat the word at him, picked up the stair spindle and hit him hard in the ribs.

Tygo cried out in pain and sat up straight. ‘No!' he yelled at her. ‘I'm not Gestapo; I'm the son of a locksmith. We have – had – a shop near the station, Winter's – do you know it?'

The girl shook her head. ‘You're lying. It was you who came here today, I recognize you. You blew up the house.'

‘I'm not lying. Yes, I was here, but that other man who you didn't see,
he's
Gestapo, not me. He forces me to work for him, to help find stuff – valuable property, like jewellery.'

Tygo wondered if the word ‘jewellery' would make her react, but her face remained cold, emotionless.

‘Forces you?' She sounded sceptical.

‘Yes, I swear. If I don't do what he says, he'll kill me – shoot me.'

‘Even if what you say is true, why are you here now?'

‘I saw you. I . . . wanted to come back to see if you were real.'

The girl snorted with contempt. ‘Oh, spare me. He was looking for something here, wasn't he?'

Tygo nodded. ‘Yes, a stone, I think. He likes diamonds.'

‘
That's
why you came back, admit it.'

‘Maybe, partly – okay, yes, I thought I'd come back and see if I could find it. If I can get it for him, I think he will let me escape from the city.'

‘Why do you want to escape?'

‘Why do you think?' Tygo burst out. ‘It's obvious, isn't it? Everyone thinks I'm a collaborator. The Resistance have a price on my head, they're going to kill me as soon as they get hold of me. I need to get away.'

The girl looked at him. ‘Is that a lie?'

Tygo shook his head, which was still throbbing. He felt a little bit nauseous.

‘Why would I make up something like that?' he said. ‘Please untie me, I'm not going to hurt you.'

The girl pursed her lips. ‘Does this man know you
are here?'

‘No,' said Tygo emphatically. ‘And he has no idea
you're
here, either – I didn't tell him I'd seen you, I promise.' He had managed to sit up now with his bound hands in front of him.