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

‘And what is the story?’

‘I’m sorry, dear – yes, where was I?’ He smiled at Hanne and shifted his chair closer.

‘Axmann?’

‘That’s right: according to this account, the group escaped from the bunker and emerged somewhere near Friedrichstrasse station. Axmann last saw them by Weidendammer Bridge trying to get to Lehrter station along the railway line. Martin was with one other person: they went in one direction, Axmann in another. He said there were explosions all around them: they may have been killed, they may have got away.’ He held out his hands to indicate that that was it. ‘This all came as news to Steiner. He’d obviously hoped I’d have more concrete news. He left soon after that.’

‘May I ask you a question, Willi?’

‘Of course you can, dear. Where are you from – your accent…?’

‘Near Flensburg.’

‘I spent a pleasant holiday in Schleswig-Holstein many years ago.’

Hanne smiled patiently. ‘When you first told Paul about Kestrel, you said Bormann gave you some details about the route of the Kestrel Line: is that correct?’

‘It is, yes.’

‘Which I think starts in Frankfurt am Main and then goes to another important point: Villach in Austria?’

‘I seem to recall that, yes.’

‘And according to what you told Paul, the final destination before South America begins with T?’

She noticed that Kühn was staring at his legs, and it was a while before he looked up. ‘Yes, I think you’re right – it did begin with T.’

Hanne leaned forward, placing her hand on his knee. ‘What does T stand for, Willi?’

He patted her hand and smiled before his face creased into a frown. ‘Now that is a good question. Do you know, I can’t for the life of me remember.’

‘Was it in Italy?’

He frowned again. ‘I’m not sure: it could be – or maybe Spain?’

‘Turin, perhaps?’

‘Now you mention it, yes – I think it was.’

They went through his story one more time before it was time for Kühn to leave. He paused in the doorway, turning round as he buttoned his coat. ‘There is something I meant to tell you that may be of help. I asked Steiner how I should contact him if Martin got in touch, and he gave me a telephone number to memorise. I wrote it down as soon as I got home.’

‘Do you still have that number, Willi?’ Hanne had moved closer, close enough for Kühn to smell her scent.

‘Do you know what? I accidentally used it to light my pipe that same evening!’

‘No!’

He burst out laughing and put his arm round her waist, giving it a squeeze. ‘I joke, of course, my dear. I have the number on a piece of paper here in my wallet.’

Hoffman and Hanne stood at the window watching Willi Kühn as he emerged from the building and pushed his way past two beggars before hurrying up the Kurfürstendamm, glancing behind him as he did so.

‘So there you are,’ said Hoffman, adjusting his gold watch as he spoke. ‘Now you’re on the trail of the most important Nazi still at large.’

Chapter 18

England, November 1945

‘You do realise you can’t stay here for ever, don’t you?’

Edward Palmer began to respond, but stopped himself. Actually he saw no reason why he couldn’t stay there for another few months at least, if not a lot longer – possibly until late 1946 or maybe even into 1947. Hopefully by then the baying of the hounds would have faded in the distance and the police and security services would find other people to hunt.

In his more fanciful moments – not that he allowed himself too many of those, it had to be said – he imagined that sooner or later they’d forget about him altogether. But in truth he knew this was so unlikely as to not be worth wasting his time thinking about: it was no more than a fantasy. He considered himself too much of an outsider to be regarded as a pillar of the establishment, but that was just his opinion. No one else would see him as an outsider, other than those who’d been astute enough to spot it when they recruited him as a German spy some twelve years before. Then he’d been a student at Cambridge. By the time he went on the run earlier this year, he was a major in Military Intelligence, based at the War Office and probably Germany’s most productive spy in England.

They’d always be hunting for him. He’d always be looking over his shoulder.

So he’d not replied about how long he hoped he could stay there, because she was in one of those moods when her gaze was fixed on a point either side of him. She was also smoking: she could go days without touching a cigarette and then furiously smoke one after another, as if in a competition to see how quickly she could work her way through a packet.

Life was like this with the woman he knew as Myrtle – utterly unpredictable. He’d first met her in December 1938, a largely silent but very passionate encounter that had lasted for two days, at the end of which she’d confided in him that it had taken place because ‘they wanted to be sure there wasn’t anything untoward about you’, which apparently there wasn’t. She’d then told him how much she admired him – ‘if only there were more men like you’ – and assured him that if he ever needed her help, he was to go to an art gallery in Cork Street called Bourne and Sons and ask if they had any paintings by an artist called Myrtle. But he was only to do this, she said, if it was a matter of life and death.

In the third week of April, he’d realised the security services were closing in on him and the Nazi spy ring he’d been so carefully if reluctantly drawn into had all but collapsed. His career as Agent Milton was about to end. He calculated that as Major Edward Palmer of the