Gessler said, more to himself than Gunther, ‘If there is a struggle and the SS lose, I suppose they can’t shoot all of us. I expect we’ll all be demoted and redeployed.’ His manner softened unexpectedly, became confidential. He took off his pince-nez and rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘I wonder where. I was in Leningrad in 1942, you know. After the army cut the city off completely and starved them all to death over the winter. The Wehrmacht has never hesitated at what has to be done in Russia, some of them will pretend to scruples if they argue for peace but I’ve seen the army lads in action out there, seen how they deal with the Russians. But more and more of the senior officers have lost the spine for it. Weakness in the face of the enemy.’ He sat still, reflecting. ‘I was with the first SS group into Leningrad, in April, to question some of the few survivors – mostly Communist Party officials, they had what few supplies were left by then, though even they were like walking skeletons. God, the city stank, what our artillery and bombing had left of it. Three million bodies, rotting in that rubble. The corpses could be dangerous, you know, especially if there was a pile of them – they decomposed fast when the snow went. The gases would build up inside and they’d explode. You’d hear them banging off, at night. Wolves had come in to forage, and there were rats everywhere. No water, no sewage – we all had to clear out again after a month, the troops were coming down with typhoid – it’s all still cordoned off. At least in Moscow we took the city without a long siege; kicked the population out and put them in camps to starve quietly. The Fuhrer wants to demolish the buildings and build a lake there when we win. But I never want to go east again; it was disgusting.’ He wrinkled his face with distaste, sighed, then focused on Gunther again. ‘I see from your file you’re divorced, Hoth.’
‘Yes, sir. But I have a son in Krimea.’
‘I have a wife, two daughters, in Hanover. I taught physical education in a school there, when I came back from the Great War. Then I joined the Party, then the SS. I did well.’
A little golden peasant, Gunther thought, not wanting hard times back again. ‘We’ll win through, sir,’ he said quietly.
Gessler slammed his hand on the desk, his mood turning in a moment. ‘Of course we will! None of us must doubt it!’ He took a couple of deep breaths, replaced his pince-nez, then spoke calmly again. ‘Don’t repeat anything of what I said to anyone.’
‘Of course not, sir.’
‘Besides, it may be mostly rumours. You know what HQ’s like.’
‘Yes, sir.’ But Gunther still felt cold.
‘Now, these visitors Muncaster had,’ Gessler said, businesslike again. ‘Do you still think they could have been Resistance? After sleeping on it?’
‘Yes, sir. It’s not certain but it is possible.’
‘Why didn’t Dr Wilson tell you other visitors were coming?’
‘I think he didn’t know, sir.’
‘He’ll be phoned this morning.’ Gessler shook his head. ‘If they were Resistance, how would they know about Muncaster?’
‘The obvious answer is through the Americans. The brother will have told them all about what happened.’ Gessler nodded. Gunther thought,
‘And the old man definitely reported Muncaster as saying “The Germans mustn’t know”.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Given how important this could be, Berlin agrees Muncaster should be brought here and questioned. He would fold quickly, I am sure; we would soon find out whether he actually knows anything important.’
Gunther said, ‘I think locking him in the basement and telling him a few details about what we can do should be enough.’
‘Good. Actual interrogation of a British citizen is politically tricky. They like to keep things in their own hands.’
‘I know.’
Gessler frowned again, tapping his fingers on the desk. ‘And that is our problem. What I would like to do is send an SS squad into that hospital and just take him. But the orders from Berlin are that we must avoid doing anything that would cause a stir. If the British authorities realize Muncaster’s importance they may want to keep him. We don’t want the British secret services anywhere near this; they’re unreliable, full of wild adventurers. And if the Resistance people are onto Muncaster, too, it is vital they know nothing of our involvement; they might try to snatch or kill him first.’
‘They’ve had access to him already. If he has a secret the Americans don’t want to get out then why haven’t they killed him yet?’
‘Maybe the Americans want him alive. Maybe the British Resistance want his secret for themselves.’
‘What if these visitors come again?’
‘Dr Wilson will be told very firmly to ring a good friend of ours in the British Home Office. He’ll do it, he’ll huff and puff but he knows he could lose his job if things go wrong.’
‘Don’t forget he has a relative in the Health Ministry.’
‘It’s the Home Office that counts. Meanwhile we need to look into the people in that university photograph, two of whom the old man thought he recognized, which brings me to the next issue. How did Syme do yesterday?’
Gunther had considered how to answer this. ‘Very well. Took the lead in questioning Muncaster, but took cues from me. I don’t think Muncaster even realized I’m foreign. Then Syme helped me get into the flat.’
‘How far do you trust him?’
Gunther considered. ‘He’s not an easy colleague. Bit of a chip on his shoulder about us being in charge. He’s clever, he’s guessed there’s more to this than meets the eye. But he’s fond of money and the good life, and I’ve told him he’ll be rewarded for helping us.’
Gessler tapped the photograph of the group at Oxford. ‘Would you trust him to look into this, find out the identities of the people in this picture? The names the visitors gave at the asylum were fake, of course.’
‘Yes. But I’d watch him; if it came to a conflict between British and German interests, I’m not sure which way he’d jump. He’s a good Fascist, but, as I say, with a chip on his shoulder. The question of reward would be important.’
‘You don’t like him, do you?’ Gessler asked.
‘No. But that doesn’t matter. I think he can be very useful.’
‘Then let’s play on his greed.’ Gessler smiled. ‘It works often enough.’ He was his old confident self again, as though the conversation about Hitler’s illness had not taken place. ‘I’ll speak to his superintendent. Ask for him to contact Oxford, find out who was in that photograph. Take Syme to a top restaurant tonight, say the Cafe de Paris; we can arrange the booking. Thank him for his help, talk about a grateful German government opening a Reichsmark account for him.’ He looked at the clock on the wall. ‘And now, I have a call from Berlin due shortly. Go back to your flat, contact Syme, butter him up. Apart from that, wait in for the telephone.’ He looked at Gunther sharply again. ‘But be ready now, for anything. And remember this, Heydrich himself wants Muncaster in our hands. And if it comes to it, Syme is dispensable.’
That night Gunther took Syme to dinner at the Cafe de Paris as arranged. When he got back to the flat he had telephoned Syme’s office, put on an artificially jovial voice. Then, as he was not supposed to go out, he phoned the embassy to ask if they could get him a dinner suit. They delivered one an hour later, just the right size, with a crisply ironed shirt. They had booked places for them at the restaurant, too, which couldn’t have been easy at a few hours’ notice.
He turned what Gessler had said over and over in his mind. He had known, objectively, that Hitler was ill and might die, and that the politics then could become difficult, but being told it was a strong possibility now was different. For over twenty years Gunther had believed the Fuhrer was something more than human, delivered to a broken Germany by Fate. He remembered the posters on the streets in the thirties,
Eventually, worn out with thinking, he went and lay down on the bed. He fell into an uneasy doze, and had a dream about his young son. Michael was walking through a field of stubble, and Gunther knew there were mines in
