'I'm not proud of it. I was the oldest of six kids, my dad was bloody useless - liked the sauce too much - and we needed the money. I'm not excusing it or anything, but when you're doing offices and banks and so on, you persuade yourself they can afford it.'
'When did you join the Army?'
'We was doin' an office in Islington, and we got caught in the act, and before we knew what was going on there was police everywhere. One of the lads pulled out a gun. He didn't hit anyone but it made me think things had gone far enough. Anyway, he was caught but me and the other two got away. I decided there and then that my criminal days was over. I sent my mother all the money I'd saved up and told her I had to leave town for a while and not to try to get in touch. I got on a train to Leeds and joined the Army. That was October 1938. And here I am.'
'And what about the one with the gun?'
'He got banged up but he never said nothing, so I was all right. And I haven't stolen anything since then - except what I nicked from that dump in Lillehammer.' He looked at Tanner. 'I'm not proud of myself, but I did start it with good intentions. You won't say anything, though, will you, Sarge? Not even to the other lads?'
'Course not. You're a good corporal, Stan. I don't care what you did before the war - that's your affair and for your conscience to deal with. It's what happens now that matters.' He paused. 'Anyway, I'm in no position to judge. My past isn't exactly whiter than white.'
They were silent for a moment, Tanner cursing himself for revealing even that, but then Sykes said, 'How come you ended up in the Rangers, Sarge? Where did you say you were from again?'
'Wiltshire,' said Tanner. 'In the south-west.' He was quiet again, toying in his mind with how much to tell the corporal, if anything. Sykes might have been glad to get his past off his chest, but Tanner felt no such compunction. 'My mother died when I was a baby,' he said. He spoke slowly, softly. 'My father was a gamekeeper on an estate.'
'So that's where you learnt to shoot.'
Tanner smiled. 'I reckon I had a rifle in my hands from the age of about five.' There had not been much schooling: his education had been out of doors, accompanying his father, learning about the countryside. He wouldn't have had it any other way.
'So why did you join the Army?'
Tanner looked away. 'My father died. There were . . . complications.' He picked up the German rifle again, pretending to examine it once more. 'I left home and joined the Army as a boy soldier. Straight out to India with the 2nd Battalion.'
'And you saw action out there?'
'A bit.'
Sykes nodded thoughtfully. 'So we're both outsiders, aren't we? Southerners among all these northern bastards.'
Tanner smiled. 'Yes, Corporal, but I think we're licking them into shape.'
In the offices of the Sicherheitdienst in Lillehammer, Reichsamtsleiter Hans-Wilhelm Scheidt was waiting for news of progress with mounting frustration. Reconnaissance aircraft had reported nothing despite countless sorties up and down the valley. 'Damned Luftwaffe,' he railed at Sturmbannfuhrer Kurz. 'I know they're not really bothering.' He stood up, walked to Kurz's window, overlooking a sunlit street, then strode back to the large, leather-topped desk, snatched the photographs delivered by the Luftwaffe an hour before and peered at them intently.
'I couldn't see anything in those,' said Kurz, sitting back in his chair, his arms behind his head.
'They're taken from too damned high up.' Scheidt smacked the back of his fingers against them, then flung them on to the desk.
Absent-mindedly Kurz picked at a tooth. 'And I suppose the Luftwaffe do have to find the British positions.'
Scheidt glared at him. Kurz ignored him, instead picking up the Luftwaffe's aerial photographs once more. Despite Scheidt's comments, they were both clear and detailed, but even with a magnifying-glass no tracks could be seen in the snow. High on the mountain plateau there was nothing but an undulating whiteness. Then came the treeline, the forest gradually becoming denser as the sides of the valley plunged towards the river and lake below. What was most striking, however, was the rapidity with which the snow was already melting along the lower slopes and valley floor. 'Spring has come,' said
Kurz, almost to himself. 'In another week it'll probably be summer.' He looked up at Scheidt, who had sat down again on the other side of the desk. 'Maybe we'll still get a message through.'
'Two days,' muttered Scheidt. 'Two damned days!'
'It happens.' Kurz shrugged. 'Changes in weather patterns. Even small atmospheric fluctuations. It's probably nothing more sinister than that.'
'I'm feeling blind,' said Scheidt. 'Christ, where are they?' He paced the room again, then said, 'I'm going out. I need to think.'
He stepped outside into the cool evening air. Above him the Nazi flag over the door of the SD offices clapped and the rope knocked against the flagpole. A sudden gust swept down the street, throwing up dust. A speck of grit caught in his eye. Scheidt cursed, then looked up to see a sullen Norwegian creaking past in a cart, the mule's head bowed. Scheidt glared at him but the man simply stared back, unmoved and defiant.
Norway. By God, he loathed the place, with its endless mountains and curiously backward people. And what did Lillehammer have to offer? Nothing but a couple of cafes, a few hotels and a population of glowering, resentful inhabitants. He wished he could be back in Berlin, he needed to think. Where were the bars and vitality of Bitte and Friedrichstrasse - places where he could sit with a drink or two, watch the people go by and relax? He was a metropolitan man, born and brought up in the bustle and mass of Munich, and although he had been to university in the country town of Freiburg, in the Black Forest, it had had all the sophistication that could be expected from a centuries-old and highly distinguished university city Then had come Berlin. How he missed it - a city that had always seemed to him the centre of the civilized world. A city of fine buildings and deep culture that even so seemed always to be moving forward. The beauty of its past sat so comfortably with the daring innovations of the future. He wished he could be there now, just for one night - a drink at the Cafe Josty to hear the latest gossip followed by dinner at Horcher's. Ah, that would be good.
He walked into his hotel. The reception area was still and quiet, save for the ticking of the pendulum on the clock.
'Brandy,' said Scheidt to the man at the desk, then walked through into the lounge. A couple sat in the corner, speaking in hushed tones and glancing nervously at Scheidt. Ignoring them, he sank into an armchair of deep maroon plush - stale cigarette and cigar smoke had pervaded every fibre of it. Cheap paintings of mountain scenes hung on the walls, while above the fireplace there was an ageing mirror spotted dark where the silver had been damaged. Scheidt ran his hands through his hair, and sighed. His brandy arrived and he took it without a word to the waiter, drank it in one and called for another.
He knew there was a large area in which to search for Odin, but even so, there were practical constraints that limited the opportunities for manoeuvre considerably. He had cursed the Luftwaffe, yet he knew they had flown countless sorties up and down the valley. Von Poncets' men had been trawling it too, yet they had found nothing - not a single clue, even though they were fresh, had trucks at their disposal and could travel further than Odin and his cohorts could possibly have managed on foot. It made no sense.
Then inspiration struck. Suppose they had not been seen because they weren't there? Suppose they had
