‘And time is something we don’t have.’
Gessler banged his fist on the desk in temper, making the pens and inkstand jump. Gunther noticed the papers on his desk were piled untidily now. Gessler was losing control of himself. ‘I
know that, damn it! But they won’t listen. And they won’t
tell
me why Muncaster is so important, they won’t say what this damned secret is that he has. Can’t I be
trusted after all these years?’ He glared at Gunther as though it were his fault. Gunther wondered if it was the frustrations of the case that were making his superior so anxious, or whether
it was the worrying news from Germany he had spoken of yesterday.
Gessler leaned back, bringing himself back under control. He waved a hand impatiently. ‘We must just carry on as best we can.’
‘Have we learned any more about Muncaster’s other visitors?’
‘We’ve got identities and descriptions, but the names are false. The nurse who took them in to Muncaster says he was given the same false names. He just took them to Muncaster and
left them. Apparently he told Wilson, “You don’t question that class of people.” The porter confirmed they had what he called “posh” accents.’
Gunther shook his head wearily. He felt a spasm of contempt for Gessler’s inability to keep his temper like an adult.
‘Wilson says Muncaster is to stay locked up securely under his personal supervision. He doesn’t realize what we could do to him if he goes on fooling about with us,’ Gessler
added viciously.
But Gunther also knew how the British jealously guarded what was left of their independence. This wasn’t Poland. Gessler had turned to stare out of the window, his face full of surly
anger. He changed the subject abruptly. ‘Goebbels is to make a big speech today, thanking Britain for taking the steps it has with the Jewish problem. He’ll say he hopes for closer
links with Britain, new developments in foreign policy.’
‘He’s getting Britain on his side for the succession.’
‘I know. New developments on foreign policy, what can that mean? Talks with the Americans? The Russians?’
‘I don’t know, sir,’ Gunther said worriedly. ‘I wish I did.’
Gessler was silent for a moment. Then he asked, ‘How did it go with Syme last night?’
‘Oh, I think he is in our pocket.’
‘Good.’
‘He said his superintendent has told him to go on working with us. He knows there will be rewards.’
‘That inducement came from me.’ Gessler squared his shoulders, back in control again. ‘Right, I want you to send Syme to Oxford today, get the names of the people in that
photograph. We’ve got a car ready for him. He’ll have to go alone, it has to be a wholly Special Branch enquiry. He’s waiting downstairs, brief him before he leaves.’
‘Yes, sir. And afterwards,’ Gunther added, ‘it might be a good idea to have Muncaster’s colleagues at Birmingham University questioned again. I know the police
didn’t come up with anything when they were interviewed after the accident, but perhaps Syme could dig deeper, see what he can turn up. Perhaps his Birmingham Special Branch colleagues could
help.’
‘I’d want you to be in on that, keep an eye on it. Oh, and Muncaster’s mother’s house in Esher. The local paper says it is on the market.’
‘Then perhaps I could go and look at it. Pretend to be a buyer.’
Gessler looked doubtful. ‘A German buyer?’
Gunther smiled. ‘I can pretend to be Swedish. Useful that we left them unoccupied.’
Syme was waiting on a leather-covered bench in the Senate House vestibule, tapping a foot on the marble floor, watching the busy comings and goings with a keen, happy interest.
He had on another new suit and wore a plain tiepin, not the one with the BUF flash. As Gunther approached he stood up, extending a hand.
‘What’s happening?’
Gunther handed him Muncaster’s university photograph and told him he wanted him to get the names of the students in it. Syme seemed pleased at the prospect. ‘I’ll enjoy
questioning some of those snobby academic types.’
‘Soft-soap them if you can. Tell them you’re looking for Muncaster’s friends to see if someone can act as his trustee.’
‘All right.’ Syme looked at the giant bust of Hitler, the huge swastika flag hanging from the high ceiling. ‘So this is where it all happens. I always wondered what it was like
in here. It’s like a different world. Clean, light, modern.’
‘Yes,’ Gunther agreed, though he thought of the faction fights, the endless power struggles between the SS and the army.
‘I hear there are going to be some big celebrations at Senate House in January, for the Führer’s twenty years.’
‘Only two months away now.’
Syme smiled and raised his eyebrows. ‘I’m told there’s also going to be a reception for the BUF. Sir Oswald will be here.’
‘Yes.’ Gunther smiled softly. ‘Would you like to see if I can get you an invitation?’
‘That would be good.’
‘I am sure something can be arranged. Now, you should go, you have a driver waiting.’
Six hours later Gunther walked up a long street of detached Victorian villas in Esher, the key to Mrs Muncaster’s house in his pocket. Yesterday’s fog had gone but
it was a cold, dank afternoon. He had phoned the estate agent that morning, saying he represented a Swedish company interested in entering the English property market, renovating old houses. The
agent had been very keen, and when Gunther arrived in his office had been delighted to give him the keys so he could go and look round for himself. ‘You’re wise to get into the housing
market now,’ the agent had said with a sort of cheerful desperation. ‘Everyone says it will go up next year. The house does need a lot of work, an old lady lived there alone for years.
It’s ideal for a developer. The solicitor for her estate hasn’t got probate yet, so I’m afraid we haven’t been able to clear out the house.’ Good, Gunther thought.
‘The beneficiary who instructed the solicitor and us lives in America,’ the agent continued. ‘It’s holding things up. But if we got an offer in I’m sure we could move
things along.’
When he reached it Gunther saw the agent was right; the house was noticeably run down, paint flaking off the windowsills and door, the gate half-rotten and the front garden rank with weeds. It
was big for an old woman living alone. When he opened the front door his nostrils were filled with a smell of damp and old dust. The house was dim and gloomy and the electricity had been switched
off. Something in the atmosphere reminded Gunther of Muncaster’s flat.
He wandered from room to room, looking into drawers and desks. The house hadn’t been painted inside for years. In the kitchen he saw some plates and cups left to dry on the draining board.
Two people had been here, not that long ago; Muncaster and the brother probably. A big room at the front was a doctor’s consulting room, with equipment that looked forty years old. Mrs
Muncaster must have left it as it was after her husband died. Stupid woman, Gunther thought, she should have sold up and moved somewhere smaller. He opened the drawers of the doctor’s desk
but they were empty. In a bureau in the lounge he found a drawerful of household accounts and some old photographs, which again looked as though they came from before the Great War. This was
disappointing. He coughed; the dust and damp were getting to his nose and throat.
Gunther fared no better upstairs; there were a couple of bedrooms with single beds, maps and pictures of trains on the walls, small boys’ rooms. A large bedroom must have been Mrs
Muncaster’s; there was a wardrobe full of dark clothes, already starting to smell musty. On the wall was a photograph of a solidly built, good-looking young man in academic cap and gown; it
must be Edgar, the brother. Gunther had seen no photographs of Frank anywhere.
Gunther felt thwarted now; there was nothing here, no information about either brother. Another brick wall. It was getting dark, becoming hard to see properly. He opened another door, the last.
It was another small bedroom. Another single bed, a Victorian chest of drawers. But there was a table by the window as well, and on it he saw something unexpected and strange: a large photograph of
a woman, in a big silver frame covered in black crêpe. In front of the photograph a candle stood in a silver candle-holder; there were spent matches in the bowl. Gunther went over and picked
up the photograph, the crêpe falling off it. The woman was middle-aged, with short, tight curls, a rope of pearls round her neck. Her face was striking: big fleshy features and sharp-looking
eyes. Not a trustworthy face, his policeman’s instinct told him. In the right-hand corner of the photograph was a signature:
Ethel Baker, 1928,
and the words ‘
The spirits are
with us
’
.
Gunther put the photograph back on the desk. The room looked like some sort of shrine; it made him feel uneasy. Gunther believed in reason, order, the clear light of historical destiny. He had
no truck with fancies and imaginings, but standing in the room the sadness of the house appeared to thicken and a horrible, seeping darkness seemed to gather. He had a strange mental picture of
desperate broken-backed creatures crawling towards him over the dusty carpet. Suddenly he felt the whole world was full of them and soon there would be nothing and nobody else left. He shook
himself angrily, went out and left the house, slamming the door shut. He had found nothing there, nothing at all.
T
HAT EVENING, AFTER WORK,
David went to Soho again. He had had a message from Geoff; Jackson wanted to meet them tonight. David had telephoned Sarah,
saying he had to work late once more. She had asked, angrily, whether he really had to. He knew she was still shocked by what had happened on Sunday. He was apologetic, reassuring and promised to
be back as soon as he could.
A day had passed since Hubbold had spoken to him about the missing file. Nobody had mentioned it further, but he guessed Hubbold was speaking to others and that he had told them, like David, to
keep the matter confidential. When he went up the corridor to the lift to go to lunch he had seen Carol sitting smoking at her desk, a blank, vacant look in her eyes. For once, she did not even see
him. She must have been questioned, too.
It was a cold, raw evening. The exotic Soho grocery shops were closing, assistants in brown overalls packing away stock and pulling down shutters. A couple of young men in trilby hats and coats
with wide shoulders passed him, talking Italian. Under one of the tall, glass-panelled streetlamps a man in his forties, dressed like David in a dark coat and bowler hat, stood looking round him
nervously. David guessed he had come to find a prostitute. The street girls wouldn’t be out until later. The man met his eye and looked away quickly. David turned into the alley beside the
coffee bar.
He was about to ring the bell when the door opened and a tall, attractive young woman appeared. She wore a green coat and had striking red hair under a fashionable saucer-shaped hat. She looked
at him with bright green eyes, then smiled. ‘You’re one of Natalia’s friends, aren’t you? I’m Dilys from the other flat. I’m just going out to the shops, I
thought you was an early client. It’s all right, I was given pictures of all of you, to memorize. I watch out for you all, you know. Go on up,’ she added, a little reproachfully. David
realized he was blushing.
‘I – thank you.’
She smiled at his embarrassment, then walked away down the alley. David went upstairs and knocked on Natalia’s door. She opened it a little, peering out at him anxiously for a second
before she recognized him and her face cleared. She let him in.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t ring the bell. The – Dilys let me in, she was on her way out. She knew me, she said she had pictures of us.’
Natalia nodded. ‘Yes, Dilys is important. We would not have this place but for her. She is a good friend.’
Natalia wasn’t wearing her painter’s smock tonight but a thick grey sweater that set off the paleness of her skin. ‘How are you?’ she asked, looking at him with
concern.
‘There’s been a bit of a problem at work.’
‘So I understand. Don’t tell me about it, wait until Mr Jackson gets here.’ She gave her sad, wry smile. ‘That’s the way he likes to do things.’
‘I know.’
There was a charcoal sketch on her easel, a narrow cobbled street with tumbledown houses on each side, figures walking along. She came and stood beside him. ‘I started that yesterday.
After our talk. It is the old Jewish Quarter in Bratislava.’
‘It looks a run-down sort of place.’
‘It was where the poorer Jews lived, shopkeepers and bootmenders, labourers.’
David said, ‘My father told me after my mother died that my Jewish grandfather was a furniture-maker, a carpenter. It’s not the sort of job you associate with a Jew
somehow.’
Her wry smile again. ‘Jesus Christ was a Jewish carpenter.’
‘I suppose he was.’
‘Where did they come from? Your mother’s family?’
‘Somewhere in the old Russian Empire, I’m not sure where. Poland perhaps, Lithuania. Slovakia was part of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, wasn’t it? Before the Great
War?’ He laughed self-consciously. ‘My father had an old school atlas from before 1914, I looked at it again the other night.’
‘Yes. Some called the Empire the prison-house of nations. But after the war it was worse in many ways, everyone splitting off to claim their own nationality, creating new minorities, each
hating the other more and more. And all the nationalists hating the Jews as an alien people, of course. Czechoslovakia was not so bad as most, though, till Hitler destroyed it.’ She put out a
hand and touched his arm quickly. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not giving you much comfort.’
He offered her a cigarette. ‘You haven’t told anyone, have you? About me?’
‘I said I would not.’ She looked at him. ‘But I still think you should.’
David laughed bitterly. ‘I really don’t feel this is the best time.’
She inclined her head and stepped away. He was making her keep a secret for him. If only she hadn’t spoken on Sunday. He asked suddenly, ‘Did the Jews in Bratislava speak
Yiddish?’