End of Spies Alex Gerlis (cat reading book .TXT) 📖

increasing Bormann’s chances of getting a message to at least one of them. As well as Frau Schulze in Prenzlauer Berg, there’d been a man called Köhler who ran a cobbler’s in Neukölln in the south-east of the city; a schoolteacher called Kühn who lived in a smart apartment with stunning views of the Tiergarten; and an elderly woman – Frau Vogt – in Schöneberg.

For two days Max Stein walked the city, his identity card getting him through checkpoints easily enough and the dollars in his wallet enabling him to buy a bed for the night. The cobbler in Neukölln was horrified when he entered the shop and asked whether the pair of dark brown hunting boots he’d brought in to be re-soled months ago were ready… name of Graf. Köhler said he knew nothing – absolutely nothing, nothing whatsoever – and he was to leave. Please go! He pushed him out of the shop.

Frau Vogt’s apartment in Schöneberg was still there, but Frau Vogt wasn’t. As he knocked on the door of her apartment, he spotted neighbours watching him from every doorway.

She’s dead.

Steiner said he was sorry to hear that – how did it happen? he wondered.

The Russians raped her: they raped all of us. She bled to death.

A notice on Herr Kühn’s door in Tiergarten said the apartment had been requisitioned by the British, and that he was staying with his daughter in Wedding, her address helpfully added.

‘Let’s go for a walk,’ Kühn said after Steiner had identified himself: I was wondering if you’d heard from my friend Graf – he was a former colleague of yours, I understand?

They walked silently onto a patch of wasteland – there were plenty to choose from – and sat on two chairs incongruously placed in the middle. Kühn insisted Steiner should call him Willi.

‘Look, I don’t know where Martin is and I’ve not had any contact with him.’ He was looking around nervously. ‘But I can tell you what I heard, though it’s third-hand, from someone who says he got it from another man who spoke to Axmann – I presume you know him?’

Steiner nodded. Of course he did: Artur Axmann, head of the Hitler Youth.

‘According to them, Axmann left the bunker on the first of May, the day after Hitler committed suicide. He was in a group that included Bormann and an SS doctor called Stumpfegger. They escaped through a U-Bahn tunnel as far as Friedrichstrasse, and then tried to cross the Spree on the Weidendammer Bridge to reach Lehrter station along the railway line, but because the Soviets were so close they decided to split up. Axmann was on his own and escaped, but it’s not clear what happened to Bormann and Stumpfegger.’

‘Where’s Axmann now?’

‘This man said he’s hiding in the Lübeck area, I’ve no idea if that’s true.’

‘So Bormann could still be alive?’

‘It’s certainly possible.’

The two men were walking back across the wasteland. ‘Can I ask how you knew the Reichsleiter?’ Steiner said.

‘Our mothers were great friends back in our home town in Saxony, and he and I grew up together, so when we both found ourselves in Berlin, we kept in touch, though increasingly less frequently. It was a relationship based on nostalgia, I guess. I’m not a political person, but when Martin approached me in March, I felt obliged to help an old friend.’

‘Of course.’

‘You’re Wolfgang Steiner, aren’t you?’

He stopped abruptly. ‘Martin told you?’

‘He confided in me – I got the impression he wanted to unburden himself. He even told me about the Kestrel Line and—’

‘He told you all that?’

The other man nodded, and Steiner said it would be best if he didn’t mention a word of this to anyone.

‘And where are you based now, Wolfgang – in case Martin turns up and wants to find you?’

For Steiner, that was one question too many. He wasn’t sure about this urbane schoolteacher who knew far too much.

‘Martin will know.’

‘But what if he contacts me and needs to get hold of you urgently?’

‘Memorise this telephone number, Willi – and don’t give it to anyone else, you understand? Only use it if there’s a message from Martin.’

It was not as much of a risk as it could have been. When he’d had the telephone installed at Frau Moser’s farm, he’d made it untraceable by ensuring all records of it were destroyed.

They came to Gericht Strasse and shook hands as they prepared to go their separate ways.

‘So you have no idea where Martin is?’ Kühn asked.

Steiner shook his head. He’d rather been counting on the schoolteacher to tell him.

Chapter 16

London, October 1945

‘Good Lord, Roly, you are being serious!’

‘Well of course I’m being serious, Tom. If one is to have some credibility with these people, then one needs to purchase… Look, Roland, perhaps you’d care to back me up here?’

Roland Bentley was Tom Gilbey’s superior in MI6, an enigmatic man skilled at the art of standing above any dispute until the last possible moment. He had recently been knighted, and the gossip was that he was about to become the head of a Cambridge college. He looked up at Gilbey and Pearson, the two men sitting either side of him.

‘Perhaps if we calm down just a little bit, eh? Roly, how much did you say the painting is?’

‘The asking price is two hundred and thirty guineas, but I’m of the view—’

‘I’m sorry, but I’ve never heard of Joseph Wright of Derby. Have you, Roland?’

‘Wright of Derby? Of course I have, Tom: he is an outstanding painter, perhaps not with the reputation he deserves – at least not among the general public.’ Bentley managed to make the word ‘general’ sound as if he meant uncultured.

‘As I was saying, I’m of the view that two hundred and thirty guineas is something of a bit of a try-on. I have bought fine art before and I’m sure a price nearer to two hundred guineas would be feasible. The point I was endeavouring to make is that if my new persona of Anthony Hawke