He tapped the picture on the cork board with his free hand. ‘Take Werner here… good old blue-eyed, square- jawed, blond-haired, handsome-as-fuck Werner. This picture was taken for a Berlin newspaper and was titled “The Ideal German Soldier”. Goebbels or one of his monkeys cottoned on to it and Werner was plastered all over recruiting posters for the German army. This…’ he tapped the picture again, ‘was what all good Nazi Aryan soldiers should look like.’
‘I don’t — ’
Franks cut me off by wagging the finger extended from his glass. ‘The thing is, Werner was kicked out of the army in Nineteen-Forty. You know why? Because this particular Ideal German Soldier’s surname was Goldberg.’
‘Jewish?’ I looked at the photograph again.
‘Half. A Mischling, as the Nazis called them. So you see, no one is ever who they seem in this life. Good or bad. But I think you’re someone who already knows that. Jonny says you’ve been through a wringer or two yourself.’
I smiled, contemplating my Scotch. ‘I guess I have at that. The First Canadian had a shitty war — from Sicily all the way to Hamburg. And I’ve got mixed up in a lot of things since. Things I shouldn’t have gotten mixed up in. I’ve seen a lot of crap all right. I even once had to spend a weekend in Aberdeen.’
‘Shit…’ Franks affected mock shock and sympathy. ‘Aberdeen?’ He laughed. Franks was all right. We had another couple of snifters and I began to feel the world’s rotation on its axis so we called it a night and I crashed out in his spare room. I felt relaxed and tired and grateful.
But I tucked the automatic under my pillow, all the same.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
‘Lennox. LENNOX…’ It was hissed into my ear. I woke to see Franks leaning over the bed, his hair mussed up and dressed in just his trousers, braces hastily pulled up over naked shoulders. I reached for the lamp but Franks grabbed my wrist. ‘No lights!’
‘What the hell is wrong?’ I said, easing up on my elbows, trying to push back the waves of sleep that tried to regain me. My mouth was thick with sleep and whisky.
‘We’ve got company…’ He stood back to give me room to get up. I reached under my pillow and pulled out the gun.
‘Jesus…’ said Franks. ‘What the hell have you got that for?’
‘It’s my comforter, I can’t sleep without it. What’s going on? What company?’
‘Outside.’
He led me to the window and eased the curtain back only just enough for me to see out without being seen. A car, a big one, parked outside in front of the main entrance to the block of flats and right behind the Cresta. I saw a dull red-orange glow as someone took a pull on a cigarette; too dull and too far away for me to see a face.
‘And he has a pal…’ Franks led me through the apartment to his bedroom, which looked out onto the street behind the building and towards the apartment blocks beyond. Again he eased the curtain back gingerly and I caught sight of a tall figure across the street, trying to stay in the shadows by standing midway between the street lamps.
‘They haven’t put him out there to stand all night,’ I said. ‘There’s going to be at least two others and my guess is that they’ll be on their way up to pay us a visit any time soon. How long have they been there, do you think?’
‘Out front? No more than ten minutes. But my guess is that they followed us here and have been watching from a distance and waiting for the time to be right. Unfortunately for them, I learnt long ago to sleep with one eye open, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I heard the car pull up outside, really quiet like.’
I nodded, watching the man in the shadows. He was wearing a camel coat and a narrow-brimmed hat. What light there was on him from the lamps on either side was shaded by the hat’s brim, keeping his face in shadow. And he was a fair distance away.
‘What do we do?’ asked Franks, no signs of fear or panic in his voice or expression. I guessed that the fear had been burned out of him a long time ago. He was a good man to have at your side at a time like this.
‘We wait. If they try to break in, we let them.’
‘And you’re going to use that?’ He nodded to the gun in my hand. ‘Listen Lennox, I don’t want to swing or spend the rest of my life dodging dicks in the prison showers.’
‘I’m not going to kill anyone, Larry. But waving this around has a habit of evening the odds a little.’
‘Unless they wave back. It’s a no-go, Lennox.’ Franks’s eyes were locked on the gun, a strange expression on his face. Then he looked up at me decisively. ‘Listen, gather all your stuff up, I’ve got an idea
…’
I did what I was told. I put the gun down, pulled on my shirt and jacket, stuffing the tie in my pocket, then put on the duffle coat. I picked up the automatic again. Once more, I caught Franks’s expression as he looked at it. As if it was some object of great evil.
‘What’s wrong Larry? You got a thing about guns?’
‘About that particular kind of gun, yes.’
‘You know it?’
‘Intimately. That’s a Femeru-Frommer. Hungarian-made but manufactured for the German army. Very popular with members of the Arrow Cross. The last time I saw one of those a Hungarian Hunyadi SS Oberscharfuhrer had it jammed into my cheek, threatening to blow my eye out with it because I hadn’t spotted a piece of litter I was supposed to be clearing up. Never thought I’d see one again… Never wanted to see one again, I tell you that.’
‘I’m sorry, Larry,’ I said, tucking it into the waistband of my trousers and pulling my jacket over it. ‘That other case I was talking to you about… the Hungarian one. I think I’ve gotten mixed up with some bad bastards. And I have a horrible feeling that’s who we’re dealing with here.’
‘Then it’s time you took a powder. Listen carefully: just outside the front door there’s a hatch in the ceiling. It gives maintenance people access to the roof void and the skylight. If our chums aren’t already outside the door, you could get up onto the roof and cross over not just to the other side of this block, but right across the next two. There’s a skylight for each block. You can come down in the farthest away block. They’re not watching that.’
‘And what about you? You better come along too.’
‘I’ll be fine. I can keep them occupied.’
‘I don’t know about that, Larry. If it’s the Hungarians, they play for keeps, as I’ve found out to my cost.’
‘Yeah? Then I think I’d better contact the constabulary. Get ready
…’
He went back into the living room and picked up the telephone. I heard him dial three numbers, then ask for the police.
‘This is Mr Franks, over in Dugdale Avenue. Listen, there are four men who have just turned up in a large green car… I think they’re trying to break into my downstairs neighbours, the Ashers… Yes, yes, please come quick…’
He turned to me when he replaced the receiver in its cradle. ‘You’ve got a couple of minutes, no more…’
Keeping the lights off in the flat, Franks carefully opened the front door without making a sound. He leaned his head through the gap and peered out. Once he was satisfied that the coast was clear, he stepped into the hall and beckoned for me to follow. The landing and stairwell were illuminated by wall globes and there was no sight nor sound of anyone coming up the stairs. Yet.
Franks pointed silently to the square hatch above his head; crouching, he made a cradle with his hands and I put my foot in it. He boosted me until I could reach the hatch which I pushed up and clear. Franks heaved again as I pulled myself up into the roof void. I turned round, looked back down at him and we exchanged silent thumbs-up signals. He disappeared back into his apartment and I put the hatch back into place, becoming immersed in the pitch darkness of the roof void. It took several seconds for my eyes to adjust and I lay motionless, listening for sounds of activity in the stairwell below.
The only light that leached into the void was coming through the skylight Franks had told me about: the dim,
