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

more pronounced. His heart beat faster and his senses sharpened, and he felt more alive.

He told the guard on the door who he was, and a senior officer was called who spoke good Russian. He was led up to the top floor, through part of the building that seemed to have taken a direct hit from a shell and had no windows and little in the way of walls.

The man whose office he was shown into was someone he’d met since they’d captured Berlin, and although there was an atmosphere of distrust, it was one born of uncertainty more than anything else.

They were, after all, meant to be on the same side.

Kommissar Gurevich said he didn’t have long; he wanted to cross back into the east before it was dark. He explained the purpose of his visit. ‘Come closer, come round here and have a look. This is them, and here… look at this map… and this photograph too.’

As he explained in more detail what he wanted, the other man remained expressionless, giving the impression that he understood what Gurevich was saying but wasn’t too sure what it was that he was asking.

Kommissar Gurevich had spotted this and took two large cigars from his jacket pocket. They were intended as bribes at difficult checkpoints, but he decided this was as good a time as any, and they had the desired effect: the man looked very impressed and asked where he’d got them from, and Gurevich said it was a good job the Nazis were like magpies, and both men laughed heartily, the tension now broken.

Gurevich explained again what he wanted, and when he had finished, he took out another cigar and placed it on the desk between them.

‘What I’m saying is that it’s as much in your interests as it is in ours.’

The other man had already pocketed the cigar and was nodding. Both he and Gurevich knew full well that if anything, it benefited him even more.

Chapter 21

England, December 1945

In the shocking moments immediately after Tom Gilbey had spoken, Richard Prince felt himself reeling, his instinct to find something mundane to concentrate on as he absorbed the appalling news. Outside, flurries of snow that had appeared beautiful and almost balletic just minutes earlier as he’d walked through St James’s now had a decidedly violent quality to them. They looked like they were in conflict. He knew how they felt.

It occurred to him that he wasn’t sure how much more bad news he could take. His first wife and daughter had been killed a few years back in a car crash; then his son had gone missing, and Hanne too. He chewed hard on his knuckles in an attempt to retain some kind of composure.

Pop in for a chat, would you, Richard – later this morning, perhaps?

On reflection, Gilbey had sounded far too casual. And ‘Richard’: he should have remembered that the man reserved the use of his first name for serious matters.

‘Did you hear what I said, Richard? That I’m terribly sorry to say that Hanne has disappeared in Austria – that town in Carinthia.’

‘Yes, I heard you the first time, sir.’

‘I didn’t see you react.’

‘And how would you like me to react, sir?’

He watched Gilbey move awkwardly in his chair and felt an odd sense of indestructibility: his boss could hardly discipline him for insubordination when he’d just announced his wife was missing.

Gilbey shrugged, looking at his desk as if that would provide him with something to say. ‘It might not be such bad news; it’s possible it’s not as sinister as it sounds.’

‘Oh really, sir – in what way exactly? That it turns out Hanne was having such a good time that she decided to go and explore the countryside and her postcard telling us is delayed in the post? She was in Villach to try and pick up the trail of the Kestrel Line. By the sounds of it, she may have done just that, and now the Nazis have captured her.’

Gilbey nodded. It was hard to disagree.

‘What about the Field Security Section – weren’t they meant to be looking after her?’

‘They were, Richard. In fact it was Captain Hart from the FSS in Villach who raised the alarm. He—’

‘I mean, shouldn’t they have been with her all the time? It’s not as if she was looking for a jewel thief: she was hunting for escaping Nazi war criminals, for Christ’s sake!’

‘Come on, Richard. One realises this is distressing news, but perhaps a sense of calm might be helpful. I can assure you Hart’s commanding officer in Klagenfurt, Major Stewart, is hopping mad about this, though he does say that apparently Hanne showed a tendency to operate on her own.’

‘Well she was hardly going to drag the Home Guard around the town with her, was she, sir?’

‘Somewhat unfair, Prince.’

‘What do we know?’

‘Evidently on the Tuesday afternoon Hanne went to see a Frau Winkler, who may have had information about recent suspicious Nazi activity in the town. According to Frau Winkler, she told Hanne that a Nazi acquaintance of hers called Frau Egger was working at a house overlooking the Ossiacher See, which is a lake just outside the town. She said she’d been hired by a man from Vienna and the house had armed guards. Hanne never told Hart about this. Early the following morning, one of Hart’s chaps spotted her getting on the bus to Bodensdorf, which would have stopped close to the house.’

‘And nothing from then on?’

Gilbey shook his head. ‘And before you ask, yes, the FSS are combing the area around the house, but they need to be discreet – they don’t want to alert whoever’s holding Hanne. The feeling is that if they know we’re looking for her, it may blow whatever cover she was using.’

‘Jesus Christ.’

‘You’d better get out there as soon as possible.’

‘That goes without saying, sir.’

‘Shame, though, Prince, what with you making such good progress with the gallery.’

The accountant’s name was Slater, and with his stooped stance,