Last Flight to Stalingrad by Graham Hurley (simple ebook reader .TXT) 📗

was months in that place. Pilots and confinement don’t mix. As soon as I was mobile again, I tried to escape. After that they locked me up and threatened me with Himmler.’

‘You flew him, too?’

‘I did. On the Führer Squadron. Next you’re going to ask me what he was like, so I’ll spare you the effort. The man’s a creep. Take it from me.’ He glanced across at Nehmann. ‘Ja?’

The rest of the journey passed in silence until they reached the outskirts of Wannsee.

‘Are you married, Nehmann?’

‘No.’

‘Very wise. My wife was a scientist. She worked at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. That made her very intelligent indeed. She had a huge brain and that was probably vital to our war effort, but she was no fun. No fun around the house. No fun in public. No fun anywhere. You understand what I’m saying, Nehmann?’

Nehmann nodded. No fun in bed, he thought. Behind the mask that used to be a face, this man is strange. So remote. So stiff. And then so abruptly confessional.

‘You’re divorced now?’ Nehmann asked.

‘Yes. Beata lives with a very good friend of mine, a Kamerad from the old days. Merz. Dieter Merz. He and I flew in those air pageants before the war. He was like a film star. On the squadron in Spain we always called him der Kleine,the Little One. He flew like an angel, no fear, and Beata always loved him. They may even be married by now. Remind me to ask her when we get there. You’ll do that for me?’

The marital home turned out to be a modest wooden house with rows of tiny pot plants on the windowsills and glimpse of a garden that stretched down to the lake. From the road, Nehmann could see a rusting child’s swing marooned in knee-high grass and a line of washing drying in the breeze. An air of faint neglect extended to the front door, though someone had recently been at work with a blowtorch on the blistered old paint.

Messner rapped twice, peremptory, unbidden, announcing his presence. Nehmann was wondering whether this visit was supposed to be some kind of surprise when he heard footsteps inside. Moments later the door opened and he was looking at a middle-aged woman, plain, barefoot, with a baby in her arms. She was wearing a pair of paint-stained dungarees and a savage haircut did nothing for the faintness of her smile. The last thing Nehmann had expected was this forbidding figure. Beata, he thought. The ex-wife.

‘This one belongs to Merz?’ Messner was looking at the baby. No greeting. Not a hint of warmth. Just a curt check on the child’s paternity.

‘Her name’s Annaliese.’ Beata kissed the top of the baby’s head and held her a little closer. ‘And the answer’s yes.’

‘I see…die kleine Kleine.’ The little Little One.

For Messner, Nehmann thought, this had the makings of a joke, though it didn’t seem to amuse his ex-wife.

‘And my Lottie?’ Messner asked.

‘Upstairs.’

‘You gave her the doll I sent from Kyiv?’

‘Doll?’

‘It never arrived? A Russian doll? Green eyes and a little painted skirt?’

Beata stared at him for a moment, and then shook her head. It was obvious she was lying but the really hurtful thing was the fact that she didn’t care. In any marriage, Nehmann thought, indifference must be the real killer.

Messner had opened the canvas mail bag. His hand disappeared inside as he cornered the rabbit, then he hauled it out by the scruff of the neck. The softness of its belly and the sight of the long legs kicking and kicking seemed to fascinate the baby. She wriggled in her mother’s arms, wanting to reach out and touch this strange creature.

‘This is for me?’ Beata was staring at the animal. ‘For us?’

‘It is. I can kill it and skin it now, if you want. There’s something else, too, with the compliments of our Russian friends. Nehmann? You want to show Beata our little surprise?’

Our little surprise? Nehmann, who wanted no part of this conversation, reached deep into the canvas bag. The chicken was cold to his touch, the head and neck floppy beneath his fingertips. Beata stared at it.

‘It’s dead?’

‘Very.’ Messner nodded. ‘Scalding water’s best for getting rid of the feathers, as you probably remember.’

Beata nodded. Then she said she had no use for a dead rabbit. Better to keep it as a pet. Nehmann swore he saw the baby nodding. Messner was astonished.

‘You don’t want it for the pot?’ he asked. ‘In times like these?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘But you’re serious? About keeping it?’

‘I am. Wait. I have a box inside.’

‘Don’t worry. Here—’

Messner dropped the rabbit back into the canvas bag and handed it over. Then he said he needed a favour.

‘You remember those little model aeroplanes I had as a kid? Biplanes? Triplanes?’

‘Upstairs,’ she said again. ‘I know exactly where they are.’

Messner stepped towards the door but Beata shook her head.

‘Stay here,’ she said.

‘You won’t let me in?’

‘No. Any plane in particular? Or the whole lot?’

‘The whole lot.’

Still nursing the baby, Beata disappeared inside with the bagged rabbit, closing the door with one foot. Minutes passed. Nehmann wanted to know more about the property, whether they’d swum in the lake, how cold it got in winter, but Messner didn’t seem to hear him. Instead, he was staring at a corner of the front garden where clumps of daffodils softened a little area of raised earth. On top, Nehmann thought he could make out a makeshift wooden cross.

When Beata finally opened the door again, she was carrying a bulging pillow slip. Of the baby and the rabbit there was no sign.

‘Seven.’ She gave Messner the pillow slip. ‘I counted them.’

‘And the red triplane?’

‘That’s there, too.’ For the first time, a genuine smile. ‘We’ll call the rabbit Schnurrhaar. What do you think?’

Schnurrhaar meant ‘whiskers’. Messner stared at her for a long moment and for the first time it occurred to Nehmann that he might want a little privacy. He handed the dead chicken over and stepped back towards the gate. At