End of Spies by Alex Gerlis (best free ereader txt) 📗

who’d been prominent in the previous regime, to look at documents and to assist with intelligence that could help the British forces in Austria.

‘Very well – and have you found many Nazis?’

He paused as one of his men brought in a cup of tea and a plate of toast. He placed his cigarette in the saucer and drank the tea, looking at Hanne as if he was unsure of what to make of her. His first impression was that she was very calm and organised.

‘The trite answer would be no – very few people in Austria will admit to having been a Nazi, and those we can prove were members of the Nazi Party tell us they were obliged to join it otherwise they’d lose their jobs. It’s remarkable, actually: Carinthia was one of the most loyal regions of the Reich, yet somehow the whole place has gone rather quiet. People here insist Austria was as much a victim of the war as other occupied countries: they don’t seem to understand why we’re treating them like the Germans. So the long answer to your question is that we get remarkably little cooperation. We’ve sent a few prominent local Nazis to Klagenfurt, and at the moment my main priority is keeping an eye on whoever returns to the town.’

‘Meaning…?’

‘Meaning that many men from the town served in the German forces, and some of them are beginning to come home, especially those claiming to be Wehrmacht conscripts. We interrogate each and every one of those, just to be sure no SS chaps are slipping through the net. You’ll have seen when we drove in yesterday that the town was quite badly bombed, lots of buildings destroyed and two or three hundred civilians killed by all accounts. It doesn’t make them terribly well disposed towards us – when the Eighth Army captured the town, there wasn’t much bunting out, I can tell you. Anyway, how we can help you?’

Hanne explained that they were searching for a Gestapo officer originally known as the Ferret whose real name was Friedrich Steiner. With the help of the Russians, they’d found out that his father, Wolfgang, was involved in organising an escape route called the Kestrel Line. They knew precious little about it, she said, other than that Friedrich was on it and that it started in Frankfurt and Villach was a stopping point.

‘You’re sure of that?’

She said she was reasonably sure.

‘No other clues?’

She shrugged. ‘He may be accompanied by a one-armed man – he was with him in Frankfurt when he escaped – but that’s about it. There is something else, Captain… I think if we were just searching for one Gestapo officer, we would have given up by now, but we believe Wolfgang Steiner was organising the Kestrel Line not primarily for his son but for a very prominent Nazi, for whom he worked in Berlin. His name is Martin Bormann.’ She was about to ask whether he’d heard of him, but Hart let out a long whistle and his eyes widened.

‘Really?’

‘He is certainly connected with it, but we don’t know where he is. We know he hasn’t been captured, and if he’s dead, no one has claimed it. So there’s good reason to believe he’s on the Kestrel Line. It should be easier to find Friedrich Steiner, and he could lead us to Bormann.’

Captain Hart frowned. ‘I can see how important this is. I would suggest we interrogate prominent people in the town, and most especially the Nazis—’

Hanne shook her head. ‘No, no, no – that won’t work; in fact it could just alert them. I doubt many Nazis in a place like this would know anything about the Kestrel Line, and if they do, they’re not going to say anything. I have a thought, though. Have you come across anyone here who you are certain wasn’t a Nazi – who perhaps has strong anti-Nazi credentials?’

Hart laughed and pushed his chair back. ‘If there was anyone like that, they wouldn’t have survived through the war, I can tell you that. Remember, the Nazis came to power in Austria in early 1938. No anti-Nazi we could trust would have stayed free for seven years. But even if we found such a person, what would they know?’

‘They may have heard a rumour or picked up some gossip, you never know.’

Hart said nothing for a while as he closed his eyes and tilted his head back, slowly nodding it, deep in thought. ‘I wonder… I wonder…’

‘What is it?’

‘Now that I think about it, one of my corporals – Harcourt – did meet a Jewish gentleman… Let me call him in.’

Corporal Harcourt seemed pleased that his advice was being sought, and yes, of course he remembered the gentleman. ‘He turned up in early August – he wasn’t registered in the area and his papers weren’t in order. When he told our chaps he was originally from the town but had fled the Nazis, they brought him here and I interviewed him. Would you mind if I sat down, sir?’

He pulled up a chair and angled it to face Hanne.

‘The gentleman was in his fifties, I would say, and really rather charming. His name was Mayer, and he was brought up in Villach but left when he went to university and hadn’t lived in the town since then. His parents had a clothes shop near the station, which is on the north bank of the Drava. When they died in the early 1930s, he inherited the shop and the apartment above it, both of which he rented out to a couple called Winkler. He’d return to the town once or twice a year to check on his property, and was last here in 1938, just after the Nazis came to power. He described the Winklers as good tenants and decent people. They knew what was going on and agreed he could sell the property to them for a very modest amount to prevent it being seized by the Nazis: