“Do you go back to the site regularly? I think I would.”
“I used to. Of course, the rubble disappeared quite quickly, the Trümmerfrauen made short work of that after the war, dumped it on Teufelsberg. They’re building apartments on the site now; I’ve got my name down for one of them. When Gudrun first suggested it, I was horrified. Having an apartment on the site my parents were killed? But after I thought about it for a while, I came to like the idea. Bringing my kids up on virtually the same spot that I was brought up, and it would be an everlasting memorial to my parents and my brother.”
“That’s great, Horst, I wish you luck with it.”
“Thanks, Brummie. Well, I’d better get back or Charlie will be out here chasing me.” Horst extended his arm. “Are we square now, mucker?” he asked, imitating Charlie.
“We’re square now, mucker,” smiled Brummie, shaking Horst’s hand, “and I’m really sorry about yesterday.”
There were no further incidents.
Skadi Reports
From his window in the engineers’ block in Alexander Barracks, Spandau, Dan Kelly spotted Horst Manteufel making his way towards the east gate. He half rose with the intention of intercepting him. He looked at the clock: 12.30, and then at the calendar: Saturday. Horst would either be going to the football or he would be taking Gudrun shopping. Either way, now would not be a good time to stop him. He sat down again. It could wait. He would pop in and see Major Jack Hemmings, Horst’s squadron commander, on Monday morning and arrange for Horst to be given some time off so that he could meet with him. There were a number of issues he wanted to go over with Horst, including some of the points raised in the report now sitting in front of him on his desk.
The report was from Sybilla. She had returned from France three weeks ago, having spent a frustrating couple of weeks in pursuit of Heinrich Müller. They had spent the following week together before she was shipped off again, this time to Hamburg on an entirely different mission. McFarlane, Dan’s immediate boss in London, had assigned him to the Müller case without any real enthusiasm. McFarlane felt that in this instance, the bird had flown and was probably now assembling Volkswagen cars in Argentina.
Dan Kelly wasn’t so sure. Sybilla’s report hinted at a possible link between Müller and one of the other cases he was working on—that of the missing plunder the Nazis had stolen and stockpiled during the war—and that was what he wanted to talk with Manteufel about. Horst had been one of the last people to leave the Führerbunker in 1945. So, coincidentally, had Müller.
Dan decided to go over Sybilla’s report again to see if he had missed anything. He flipped over the first few pages until he came to the shooting at the Sarreguemines pottery and reread that section. Well done, Wolf. Quick thinking and utterly reliable in a tight spot. He smiled as he thought about his old comrade in arms. He must make a point of visiting him again sometime.
He read on. Sybilla always wrote informally in her reports as she knew that it would be for his eyes alone:
Section 4Strasbourg
Having decided that we would involve ourselves in the warehouse stakeout before moving on towards Marseilles, we travelled south in Agent Rahn’s car to Strasbourg where we booked rooms in a hotel near the warehouse. The following day we met with Inspector Marcourt of the Sûreté, who informed us he would lead the stakeout and subsequent investigation. To our great delight, we were joined later that day by Chef d’Escadron Paul Fournier and a small group of gendarmes. Fournier was at pains to assure Inspector Marcourt that he and his men were there purely to provide material assistance and that the operation was entirely the responsibility of Marcourt and the Sûreté, hence preventing a possible conflict between the two services.
The stakeout began early the following morning with plain-clothes Sûreté detectives strategically placed inconspicuously in the vicinity of the warehouse. Rahn and I also loitered in the area.
There was little movement into and out of the warehouse for the first two days. However, on the third day a group of four men were seen entering the building, at which point Marcourt triggered the snatch team and the four men were arrested.
Marcourt’s men interrogated the detainees for the next two days. Three of them were unforthcoming, however a fourth, Edmund Saunier, a young man of twenty-two, was broken fairly easily. I was permitted to be present at the final interview when the man made a formal statement, but I was cautioned before it began that I was not to speak or interfere in any way.
The gist of Saunier’s statement was that he had been employed in the warehouse, which was actually a storage depository—that explains the lack of movement in and out—for just over two years. During that time, they had transported one man, a German, from Strasbourg to Marseilles in a delivery lorry. This occurred just after he started working there, and he was given a dire warning about talking to anyone about the incident. They deposited the German ‘package’ at the quayside with instructions to make his way onto a Spanish ship docked there. Once on board, he was to present a document in a sealed envelope to the captain of the vessel. Saunier stated that he had no knowledge of the contents of the document, though he said the envelope was thick, and he guessed it may have contained money in addition to any documents. One of his fellow workers (one of the four arrested) told him that they had transported two previous ‘packages’ in this way.
Saunier stated further that he
