man the Latvian was remarkably light on his feet. He knelt down beside me, grinned into my face before wielding the cosh again.
Then the darkness came.
35
There was a message waiting for me. It was written in capital letters as if to emphasize its importance. I struggled to make my eyes focus, only the message kept moving. Blearily, I picked out the individual letters. It was laborious, but I had no choice. Finally I pieced the letters together. The message read: ‘CARE USA’. It seemed important somehow, although I failed to understand why. But then I saw that this was only one part of the message, and the second half at that. I swallowed nauseously and struggled through the first part of the message, which was coded: ‘GR.WT 26lbs. CU.FT. 0’ 10“.‘ What could it all mean? I was still trying to understand the code when I heard footsteps and then the sound of a key turning in the lock.
My head cleared agonizingly as I was hauled up by two pairs of strong hands. One of the men kicked the empty cardboard Care package out of the way as they frogmarched me through the doorway.
My neck and shoulder were hurting so bad that my skin turned to gooseflesh the second they held me under my arms, which I now realized were handcuffed in front of me. I retched desperately and tried to get back on to the floor where I had felt comparatively comfortable. But I remained supported and struggling merely made the pain more intense; and so I allowed myself to be dragged along a short, damp passageway, past a couple of broken barrels and up some steps to a big oak vat. The two men sat me roughly in a chair.
A voice, Muller’s voice, told them to give me some wine. ‘I want him to be fully conscious when we question him.’
Someone put a glass to my lips, and tilted my head painfully. I drank. When the glass was empty I could taste blood in my mouth. I spat in front of me, I didn’t care where. ‘Cheap stuff,’ I heard myself croak. ‘Cooking wine.’
Muller laughed, and I turned my head towards the sound. The bare lightbulbs burned only dimly but even so they managed to hurt my eyes. I squeezed the lids hard shut, and then opened them again.
‘Good,’ said Muller. ‘You’ve still got something left in you. You’ll need it to answer all my questions, Herr Gunther, I can assure you.’
Muller was sitting on a chair with his legs crossed and his arms folded. He looked like a man who was about to watch an audition. Seated beside him, and looking rather less relaxed than the former Gestapo chief, was Nebe. Next to him sat Konig, wearing a clean shirt, and holding his nose and mouth with a handkerchief as if he had a bad attack of hayfever. On the stone floor at their feet lay Veronika. She was unconscious, and but for the bandage round her knee quite naked. Like me she was also handcuffed, although her pallor indicated that this was an entirely redundant precaution.
I turned my head to the right. A few metres away stood the Latvian and another thug whom I hadn’t seen before. The Latvian was grinning excitedly, no doubt in anticipation of my further humiliation.
We were in the largest of the outhouses. Beyond the windows the night looked in on the proceedings with dark indifference. Somewhere I could hear the low throb of a generator. It hurt to move my head or my neck, and it was actually more comfortable to look back at Muller.
‘Ask anything you like,’ I said, ‘you’ll get nothing out of me.’ But even as I spoke I knew that in Muller’s expert hands there was no more chance of my not telling him everything than there was of me naming the next Pope.
He found my bravado sufficiently absurd as to laugh and shake his head. ‘It’s quite a few years since I conducted an interrogation,’ he said with what sounded like nostalgia. ‘However, I think you’ll find that I haven’t lost my touch.’ Muller looked to Nebe and Konig as if seeking their approbation, and each man nodded grimly.
‘I bet you won prizes for it, you half-sized bastard.’
At this utterance, the Latvian was prompted to strike me hard across the cheek. The sudden jerk of my head sent an agonizing pain down to my toenails and made me cry out.
‘No, no, Rainis,’ Muller said like a father to a child, ‘we must allow Herr Gunther to talk. He may insult us now, but eventually he will tell us what we want to hear. Please don’t hit him again unless I order you to do it.’
Nebe spoke. ‘It’s no use, Bernie. Fraulein Zartl has now told us all about how you and this American fellow disposed of poor Heim’s body. I wondered why you were so inquisitive about her. Now we know.’
‘In fact we now know a great deal,’ said Muller. ‘While you have been having a nap, Arthur here posed as a policeman in order to gain access to your rooms.’ He smiled smugly. ‘It wasn’t too difficult for him. Austrians are such docile, law-abiding people. Arthur, tell Herr Gunther what you discovered.’
‘Your photographs, Heinrich. I imagine that the American must have given them to him. What do you say, Bernie?’
‘Go to hell.’
Nebe continued, unperturbed. ‘There was also a drawing of Martin Albers’ headstone. You remember that unfortunate business, Herr Doktor?’
‘Yes,’ said Muller, ‘that was very careless of Max.’
‘I dare say you must have guessed that Max Abs and Martin Albers were one and the same person, Bernie. He was an old-fashioned, rather sentimental kind of man. He just couldn’t pretend to be dead like the rest of us. No, he had to have a stone to commemorate his passing, to make it look respectable. Really, a typical Viennese, wouldn’t you say? I should think you were probably the person who tipped off the MPs in Munich that Max was due to arrive there. Of course, you weren’t to know that Max was carrying several sets of papers and travel warrants. You see, documents were Max’s speciality. He was a master forger. As the former head of SD clandestine operations section in Budapest, he was one of the very best in his field.’
‘I suppose he was another bogus conspirator against Hitler,’ I said. ‘Another fake entry on the list of all those who were executed. Just like you, Arthur. I have to hand it to you: you’ve been very clever.’
‘That was Max’s idea,’ said Nebe. ‘Ingenious, yes, but with Konig’s help not very difficult to organize. You see, Konig commanded the execution squad at Plotzensee, and hanged conspirators by the hundreds. He supplied all the details.’
‘As well as the butcher’s hooks and piano wire, no doubt.’
‘Herr Gunther,’ said Konig indistinctly through the handkerchief he kept pressed to his nose, ‘I hope to be able to do the same for you.’
Muller frowned. ‘We’re wasting time,’ he said briskly. ‘Nebe told your landlady that the Austrian police thought you had been kidnapped by the Russians. After that she was most helpful. Apparently your rooms are being paid for by Dr Ernst Liebl. This man is now known to us as Emil Becker’s advocate at law. Nebe is of the opinion that you were retained by him to come to Vienna and attempt to clear him of the murder of Captain Linden. I myself am of this opinion. Everything fits, so to speak.’
Muller nodded at one of the uglies, who stepped forward and collected up Veronika in his pylon-sized arms. She made no movement, and but for her breathing which became louder and more difficult as her head lolled back on her neck, one might have thought that she was dead. She looked as if they had drugged her.
‘Why don’t you leave her out of this, Muller,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell you whatever it is you want to know.’
Muller pretended to look puzzled. ‘That surely is what remains to be seen.’ He stood up, as did Nebe and Konig. ‘Bring Herr Gunther along, Rainis.’
The Latvian hauled me to my feet. Just the effort of being made to stand made me feel suddenly faint. He dragged me a few metres to the side of a sunken circular oak vat which was of the dimensions of a good-sized fish-pond. The vat itself was joined to a rectangular steel plate which had two wooden semicircular wings like the leaves of a large dining table, by a thick steel column which went up to the ceiling. The thug carrying Veronika stepped down in the vat and laid her on the bottom. Then he got out and drew down the two oak leaves of the plate to form a perfect, deadly circle.
‘This is a wine press,’ Muller said matter-of-factly.
I struggled weakly in the Latvian’s big arms, but there was nothing I could do. It felt like my shoulder or collarbone was broken. I called them several filthy words and Muller nodded approvingly.
