‘Naw. Just the same sort of bumf you got from Dragan.’
I glanced at Danny. Todd was holding out on us, maybe still upset at our cavalier approach. We hadn’t told him about this ambush. Why should he tell us what he’d found? We were given no time to probe him.
‘Now, the pair of you, what happened on the brig? How did you cock things up so much? Do you know who took this guy Langefeld? Sit down and talk to me.’
We sat, and while Todd’s uniformed men did a last search of the flat, Danny and I told him how we’d been outmanoeuvred.
‘What do you think Malachi is going to do to the Kraut?’
‘Make him say where the other rats are hiding.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then they’ll go after them.’
‘Shit.’
‘Shit indeed, Duncan.’
‘Do you have any idea where Malachi will be?’
We shook our heads.
He stood up. ‘Right, we’d better get going.’
‘What about this woman?’
‘Ah was planning to leave a couple of men here.’
‘We’ll stay,’ I offered. Danny stared at me; then he nodded. Duncan looked at the two of us.
‘That’ll save me two officers. Any chance you can take her alive, boys? Or is that asking too much?’
FORTY-SEVEN
He left Danny and me sitting there. Soon, unprompted, we each picked up a book and began reading. It had been a while since I’d read
People of the Mist
. It still gripped the boy in me. We read as the daylight faded and the gas lamps were lit outside.
‘Do we close the curtains and put on a light?’ asked Danny.
‘What would
she
expect? Let’s assume she doesn’t know her boyfriend’s been lifted.’
‘She’d come home to a cosy house with a fire and lights on.’
‘Sure that’s not just to make you comfortable?’
We grinned at each other and set to. We drew the curtains and built and lit a fire. We lit the gas wall lights and trimmed the flames to give us a nice glow to read by.
‘Find any booze?’ I asked.
‘Brandy? There’s a bottle in the cupboard.’
‘I think we’re allowed a medicinal drink on duty,’ I said as I splashed some of the dark, heady liquid into two tumblers. We sniffed and tasted appreciatively.
‘They were gie good to themselves,’ said Danny.
‘Maybe it helped them sleep.’
‘I don’t think they had problems sleeping. Not like you, Brodie.’
‘I’m a sensitive soul.’
‘You’ve talked about interrogating these sods afterwards. Did you go to a camp?’
‘All the interrogations were in tents at the British lines.’
‘So you didn’t actually visit a camp?’
‘I suppose I took a look.’
‘Did you go inside?’
‘I must have. Yes.’ Why was he pushing this?
‘Which camp?’
‘Well, Belsen was the nearest.’
‘Christ, Douglas, did you go inside Belsen or not?’
‘I don’t recall much. It was a crazy time.’
‘Douglas, it’s not something you forget. It’s not something you’re unsure of. Think back. Did you go inside a camp?’
‘For God’s sake, what does it matter?’ I took a big pull at my glass.
He spoke quietly and slowly. ‘Take your mind back. You were detached from your brigade. Who did you report to? Where? Don’t speak. Just think about it.’
He watched me, saw me remembering.
‘Now, which camp did you visit?’
‘Belsen. It
was
Belsen. All right? Now, are you satisfied?’ Why was I so angry with him?
‘There was barbed wire. And big gates. They all had them. Do you remember walking in through the gates? What was it like?’
‘
You
know what it was like, Danny.’
‘I had time to get used to it – if you like. Who did you see first? Who was the first person you met? What was
he
like? What was
she
like?’
Why did this matter? Yet it seemed to. To Danny and to me. But I had no clear memory of it. What was the last thing I could recall? The jeep. I remembered bumping along in the jeep. I had a driver. It was an open jeep; we were passing long lines of tall wire. I could see huts behind the wire. Smoke was drifting across our path. So was a smell. I put my hand up to my nose.
We came to a gap. The huge wooden gates were wide open. Inside, stick people sprawled or stumbled about among the fit young soldiers. The stick people moved like dying spiders. Some of them wore striped pyjamas. Some appeared to be naked. The driver stopped just inside the gates. I got out. The smell was very bad now. Filth and sweat mixed with carbolic soap and antiseptic. The reek of fires drifted across. It stung the nostrils. I took out a hankie and held it to my face and was ashamed of my weakness. No one else was so prissy.
‘It’s a’ right, sir. You’ll get used to it.’ It was an army sergeant, a Jock. He was carrying two boxes each with a red cross on the side.
I stood, rooted to the spot in stupefaction. Nothing made sense. Not these tattered skeletons, some moving, some still. So I didn’t see the figure until it was next to me. I jumped. It was a woman. Had been a woman. Her eyes were out of proportion to her skull. Her skin was smudged and wrinkled. She bared her teeth. The ones she had left were brown and thin.
‘Help,’ she croaked. Then she fell towards me. I put my arms up but she slid through them, like a collection of coat hangers. She crumpled at my feet, a puppet whose strings were cut. She lay still, her mouth grinning up at me. Then her eyes went blank.
I lifted my head and realised Danny was watching me, silently. My tears said it all.
‘I’d forgotten, Danny.’
He nodded. ‘You hadn’t, Douglas. You really hadn’t.’
FORTY-EIGHT
Danny got up, flung a rug at me from the couch and found one himself. We sat huddled up like two old men left to rot at a nursing home. Twice we took turns to go into the back kitchen and make some tea while the other kept silent watch in the front room. We added brandy to it to sweeten it. We found some bread and a tin of corned beef and wolfed down thick sandwiches. By midnight it was clear she wasn’t coming back, but we couldn’t risk missing her. We turned out the lights and hunkered down in our chairs and slept fitfully till the morning.
We struggled to our feet and stretched our stiff limbs. Sam would be worried. Duncan had promised to give her a call to let her know what we were doing, but even so. It had been a long day and a longer night. Danny looked as though he’d spent it on a park bench. I didn’t want to hear his thoughts on me, but I could see a mirror of my image in his red eyes.
I peeked out between the curtains. There had been another dump in the night. All landmarks except the trees had been obliterated. I rubbed at the opaqueness but it was outside.
We closed the door behind us, left the entry and stepped out into the new snow up to our knees. I took out a cigarette and stuck it between my lips. Then I threw it away, unlit. My mouth already tasted like an ashtray.
‘Your beard’s red,’ Danny commented.
‘So’s yours,’ I replied, rubbing my face.
‘So’s my hair. Yours is dark.’
‘The beard’s from my mother. The hair’s from my dad. You’ve just never seen me unshaven.’
‘What now?’
‘Let’s see if we can find Malachi.’
We trudged up to Sam’s through deep drifts. The gangs of council snow clearers had given up the Sisyphean challenge. We might as well have been on the Fenwick Moors rather than Argyll Street. We were in time to join Sam for breakfast tea, toast and jam before she headed to Edinburgh’s high court for a preliminary hearing. Assuming the main line was open. We fell into chairs around the kitchen table, exhausted by our struggles.
‘You look like wrecks.’
‘You fair know how to bolster a man’s self-esteem,’ said Danny.
‘It’s her trademark.’
It was hard to argue with her analysis. We told her what had happened since we set out yesterday morning to trap Langefeld – as we now knew him.
‘This woman? Did you check the bra size? Dress size?’
Danny and I looked at each other. In our mind’s eye each of us was sensuously handling the silk knickers and slips. Too distracted to have Sam’s practical vision.
‘Er, no. Not exactly. She wasn’t big. I mean we’re not talking about giant bloomers or the like. About your shape, Sam.’ The kitchen went quiet as the implications of my last comment sank in. Her smile had fangs.
‘Well done,
detectives
.’
I called Todd from the hall phone before heading up to shave and change.
‘Good idea, Brodie. Good thinking.’
‘It was Sam’s idea.’
‘Woman’s insight. We need more of that in the force. I’ll get one of ours straight round there. In the meantime . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘Ah owe you an apology. Ah was keeping you in the dark.’
‘About what you found at Mandel’s place?’
‘Ah knew you’d noticed. The thing is we’ve got a lead. Of sorts. I’ve arranged a meeting. The day. It’s important, Brodie. And you need to come open-minded.’
‘When am I not?’
‘Aye well, see you do. Meet me here at Turnbull Street at eleven o’clock. On the dot. This is important. Very.’
I was there at quarter to. I stood between the columns of St Andrew’s in the Square looking across to the familiar red sandstone of Central Division. I didn’t miss it. I finished my fag and crossed the road. I walked into the front desk and found Duncan already pacing up and down.
‘Good. Come on.’ He grabbed me by my arm and hauled me back out of the door.
‘Where are we going, Duncan?’
‘You’ll see. Just promise me this, Brodie. Best behaviour. No taking the piss.’
‘About what? Are we seeing the Pope or something?’
He looked at me queerly. ‘Shut up, Brodie. I said no piss-taking. OK?’
We walked – marched is the more the word – down Turnbull Street and into Glasgow Green. We pressed south and west towards Saltmarket. By the time we were walking along Clyde Street, I was beginning to guess where we were going.
‘Are we no’ too late for mass, Duncan?’
He stopped dead. ‘See! Ah telt ye. Yer taking the piss, Brodie.’
‘Just tell me where we’re going, then.’
He took a deep breath. ‘St Andrew’s Cathedral.’
‘To see?’
‘Donald Campbell.’
‘As in Donald Campbell, Archbishop of Glasgow?’
‘The very man.’
‘Duncan, it’s too late for me. You’ll never get me to confession.’
We stood eyeball to eyeball; Duncan fuming and anxious, me taking the piss and wishing I wasn’t. But unless he explained, this was what he was going to get.
He sagged. ‘It’s about the papers. On the woman, Mandel. I contacted his grace and he asked me to visit. With you.’
‘
His grace
? Is that what you have to call him?’
‘And
you
. Unless you want me to arrange for your body to be found floating by Dumbarton Rock.’
‘Would
sir
not do?’
‘Fuck’s sake, Brodie!’
‘Why me?’
‘I made the really stupid mistake of mentioning you. Besides, he seems to know about some of the stuff you’ve been up to. Now can we get a move on? We’ll be late.’
As we walked I tried to recall what little I knew of the Archbish. He’d been in the job a couple of years and, as his name suggested, he’d previously held the bishopric of Argyll. Campbell country. Sam would be pleased.
As we neared the cathedral I couldn’t help glancing across the Clyde to Carlton Place.
‘Did your policewoman get the knicker size?’
Duncan sighed. ‘Aye, she did. Petite, apparently. Which narrows it down to half the wee women in Glasgow.’
‘Maybe so, but how many wearing real silk?’
We wrenched our minds from the secular as we turned into the cathedral frontage. I was reminded what a little gem it was. Nothing on the grandiose scale of some English or French cathedrals, just a beautifully proportioned church with a central portico and high stained-glass window above. On either side of the door were tall, slim towers with slender shafts thrusting up from the corners of the steep slanting roof. A priest was waiting for us. We were shown into a small study and invited to take a seat. He took our coats and hats.
‘His grace will be with you shortly.’ He bowed and left us alone.
Within a few minutes the rear door opened and a man walked in. He was wearing a plain dark cassock surmounted by a huge cross on a chain.
Duncan and I got to our feet. Duncan shot forward and knelt. The Archbishop stepped forward, pressed the back of his hands to Duncan’s face, allowed him to kiss his ring of office before getting him to his feet. He turned to me. He could see I wasn’t going to bow the knee.
‘Colonel Brodie, thank you for coming. I hope you don’t mind this invite?’
His voice still held the lilt of the Highlands and the Isles.
‘Not at all, your grace.’
He beamed at me. ‘Please drop the title. I hope we can be informal, just the three of us.’
I saw Duncan’s face redden. His indoctrination hadn’t prepared him for anything but ‘his grace’. And Donald Campbell pointedly hadn’t indicated how we
should
refer to him. I decide to use no honorific whatsoever.
‘Now shall we all sit?’
His non-grace took his seat behind the plain wooden desk. We sat opposite. We waited while tea was brought and his secretary had left us.
‘Mr Brodie, this is a delicate matter. I am asking for your complete discretion. You are not of our faith’ – he indicated Duncan – ‘so I am relying on your word as an officer and a gentleman. Is that fair?’
‘So you wouldn’t trust me if I was a mere corporal?’ I saw Duncan put his hand to his face.
Into the strained silence I went on, ‘Is this about the Vatican connection with escaped Nazis?’
FORTY-NINE
The Archbishop stared at me for a long moment. ‘Inspector Todd said you were direct. Yes, it is. Or rather it’s about the
supposed
connection.’
‘Do you mean the documents are fake?’
‘Not necessarily. They could be real but might simply have been misused, do you see?’
‘If we are to be open with each other, then I need to know what documents we’re talking about. If they are the ones Duncan found at the dead woman’s house, I haven’t yet seen them.’