The Elegant Lie

…

After his meeting with Wilby, Carter pedalled his bicycle to the compound. He wondered if Dasch had learned about Galton’s escape from prison. Even if the news has reached him, thought Carter, there is nothing he can do about it now and, grateful as he might be to have avoided arrest, he still doesn’t have the black market goods I promised to deliver. Carter doubted whether Wilby would set up another purchase, which meant that he had to find some other way to make himself useful. With these thoughts rattling like dice inside his skull, Carter arrived at the compound.

Dasch was there to meet him at the gate. ‘You’re just in time,’ he said.

‘In time for what?’ he asked.

‘You’ll see.’ Dasch beckoned for Carter to follow. Instead of leading him inside, Dasch brought Carter around the edge of the fence and they set out through the tall grass, across the open stretch of wasteland that bordered one side of the compound.

As they walked, grass seed clung to their legs and startled crickets launched themselves out of their path with a snapping of bristly legs.

Carter began to see objects lying half buried in the undergrowth◦– a large curl of metal from what had once been the cowling of a car, a half-melted eagle from a bronze lamp stand, a bed frame still laced with rusty springs, and a strip of corrugated iron, its scalloped edges grinning from the weeds.

‘What is this place?’ asked Carter.

‘Better to ask what it was,’ replied Dasch, and he went on to describe what had once been a bustling village of workshops where the car mechanics, wheelwrights, tool and die makers and welders of Cologne had run their small and nameless businesses. On weekends back before the war, the dusty alleyways that ran between the booths would be filled with the crackle of welding sparks and the growl of engines as they were coaxed back to life. It had been known as the Eisengasse, and it was said that anything that had broken in the city of Cologne, no matter how obscure or badly damaged, could be brought here and someone would be on hand to fix it. A single 5,000lb bomb, dropped from a Royal Air Force Lancaster the night of 1st June 1942, had landed in a storage area containing hundreds of propane cylinders. This had ignited a fire that burned out of control for a week, since the fire crews were too busy with damage caused to the inner city during the same raid. By the time a heavy rainfall finally extinguished what was left of the Eisengasse blaze, not a single structure remained intact. Many had been so obliterated that their owners, returning to the spot, could find no trace that anything had been there at all. ‘It was two years before anything grew here again,’ said Dasch. ‘But now there are dandelions, thistles, chickweed and poppies. Nature will reclaim everything in time. It always does.’

‘Do you think they will ever rebuild it?’ asked Carter.

‘One day, perhaps,’ replied Dasch, ‘but there will never be another Eisengasse. No one sets out to build a place like that. It simply evolved over time until it took on a life of its own. It was not just a village of workshops that died when this place ceased to exist. It was a place where the world could not see in, where people came and went and no one ever asked their names. A lot of secrets were buried in this place when it all got blown to bits, but there’s still room for more, as you’re about to see.’

In the distance, out beyond this shadeless wasteland, lay the rail yard from which Carter had heard the clank and rattle of carriages when he first arrived. Even now, he could see the haze of smoke from a coal-fired locomotive, shunting a set of brick red goods wagons into the siding. Shielding his eyes against the glare of the sun, he thought he glimpsed a figure standing out there in the tall grass. The heat haze quivered around this solitary figure, who appeared and disappeared again as if he were only the mirage of someone halfway round the world.

As they approached, Carter realised it was Ritter, stripped to the waist and leaning on a shovel, dust and sweat caked on his face.

When Carter finally reached the place where Ritter was standing, he found himself at the lip of a large basin, a hundred feet across and easily twenty feet deep which, he realised, must be the crater left by the 5,000lb bomb that had destroyed the Eisengasse.

A shallow puddle had formed at the bottom. There, in the muddy soil, a hole had been dug. Beside the hole was a man on his knees, arms behind his back bound at the elbows, and a bag pulled over his head.

‘Who is that?’ asked Carter.

‘Why, it’s your old friend, Sergeant Galton,’ said Dasch.

‘Mother of God,’ whispered Carter. ‘How the hell did he get here?’

‘Ritter has some friends in the police, as well as in the military, who have managed to keep their pasts hidden. These men owe Ritter their lives. They would do anything for him. How do you think we knew when you were getting out of jail?’ Dasch gestured at the kneeling figure in the pit. ‘All Ritter had to do was ask, and Galton was delivered to our door.’

‘Let’s get this over with,’ said Ritter. ‘This ground was hard to dig and I’m not even sure the hole is deep enough.’

‘What does it matter?’ asked Dasch. ‘This whole country is a carpet of bones. You people saw to that!’

Ritter glared at him, but said nothing in reply.

Dasch turned to Carter. ‘Shall we?’ he asked. Then he set off down the slope towards the place where Galton knelt beside his grave.

Helplessly, Carter followed, until he stood beside Galton.

The sergeant made no sound. The cloth bag over his head billowed faintly with his breathing.

Dasch nodded to Ritter.

Ritter reached into his pocket and withdrew a Mauser HSc pistol. He drew back the slide, chambering a round.

Galton heard the sound. He knew exactly what it was. ‘Wait!’ he called out, his voice muffled and faint under the hood.

‘What is it?’ asked Dasch.

‘I haven’t told them anything,’ said Galton. ‘They didn’t even have a chance to interrogate me.’

‘Do you know who I am?’ asked Dasch.

‘No, and I don’t care,’ replied the sergeant, ‘and I’m not asking now.’

‘How did the police find out about your meeting with my friend?’

‘I don’t know,’ answered Galton. ‘Maybe you should ask your friend about that.’

‘And what possible reason would he have to stop the sale from going through?’

Galton paused. ‘I don’t know that, either,’ he said. ‘All I know is that I got picked up by the local police as soon as I arrived at the rendezvous point with everything you asked for right in the back of my truck. The next thing I know, I’m getting pushed up against a wall in some bombed-out building and told that if I make a sound, they’ll smash my teeth back down my throat. I never even saw you guys and, obviously, neither did they. And that’s good, don’t you see? They don’t know who you are and I sure as hell didn’t tell them. Look, maybe this whole thing was just bad luck.’

‘It was bad luck,’ said Dasch, ‘but I don’t think that is all it was.’

‘I can still make good on the deal, if you’ll give me half a chance,’ pleaded Galton. ‘I know people. As long as they get paid, they’ll get you anything you want.’

Dasch snapped his fingers at Ritter and held out his hand, asking for the gun.

Ritter turned the weapon in his palm and handed it to Dasch.

Then, to Carter’s astonishment, Dasch gave the gun to him. At first Carter tried to refuse, holding up his hands and shaking his head.

But Dasch insisted, slapping the gun flat against Carter’s chest so that he had no choice except to take it.

Dasch pointed to Galton. ‘Do it,’ he commanded.

Carter’s breathing came shallow and fast. ‘I can’t,’ he whispered.

‘Guys?’ Sweat had soaked through the bag on Galton’s head, making a silhouette of his face in the cloth. ‘Guys, what do you say? Are we ready to make some real money?’

‘Do it now,’ said Dasch.

Carter pointed the gun towards Galton. The sun was beating down on his head and sweat trickled into his eyes so that he could barely see. He thought of what Wilby had said, about winning Dasch’s trust and how nothing could break it from now on. And he wondered if Wilby had been wrong. Perhaps the final test of loyalty for Dasch had not been their escape from the trap set by the police. Maybe it was this. Now. And, if it was true, Carter knew that he had failed.

There was a stunning crash, which seemed to come from all around them.

A tear appeared in Galton’s hood, and through the fog of his sweat-blurred vision, Carter saw a white gash of mangled flesh where the sergeant’s right cheekbone had been. His face became instantly misshapen, appearing grotesquely elongated, like a reflection in a broken mirror. The torn white flesh bloomed suddenly red and Galton’s whole body swayed to the side, as if he knelt on the deck of a ship which had pitched unexpectedly in a wave, but instead of righting himself, he tilted forward past his centre of gravity and slumped face down in the dust.

The sound of the shot was deafening in the confined space of the crater. It seemed to ricochet from one side to another, growing smaller and smaller until the only noise left was a flutter of wings as birds scattered from their hiding places in the tall grass.

Carter’s first thought was that he must have accidentally pulled the trigger, but then he saw Dasch, one arm held out and a US government-issue .45 gripped in his hand. Smoke was sifting from the barrel and the receiver.

Ritter set one dusty-booted foot against Galton’s back and rolled him into the grave. A smear of blood and something pinkish-grey lay on the dirt where he had fallen.

Dasch turned to Carter, the pistol still clutched in his fist.

Ritter stepped over to Carter and gently took the Mauser from his hand.

Carter did nothing to stop him.

‘I should never have asked that of you,’ said Dasch.

Carter only stared at him, too stunned to speak.

‘Come now,’ said Dasch, putting his arm around Carter’s shoulder. ‘Let us leave Ritter to his work.’

Carter caught one last glimpse of Galton, curled up in the bottom of the waist-deep hole. The bag that had covered his head was completely torn away now, revealing a crater of blood and bone, all of it filmed with a yellow-green dust of pollen, which drifted thickly in the air.

Carter climbed from the old bomb crater and started off towards the compound in the distance. He kept his eyes on the curls of barbed wire that ran like pencil scribbles along the top of the fence. In between the rustle of his breaths, he could hear the sound of Ritter’s shovel scooping dirt into the grave.

‘In the old days,’ muttered Dasch, ‘that would never have been necessary.’

‘Why the hell was it necessary now?’ demanded Carter. As soon as the words had left his mouth, he knew he should have stayed silent.

Dasch stopped and turned to him. ‘It used to be that everyone was simply trying to stay alive. Sometimes, with the help of a glass of wine or a decent cigar or a little piece of chocolate, they could be reminded of why they even bothered. Some people say I am nothing more than a thief selling stolen goods to other thieves, but the people who say that do not know how it feels to have lived through a war that we lost. What I sell, Mr Carter, is hope that life will someday be worth living again. It was only a matter of time before hope itself became just another black market item. As it turns out, that has a higher price than most people are willing to pay. The man I shot back there was dead before I ever met him, not because of who he was but because his way of life was over and he had simply failed to adapt. It may have been Galton himself who chose to break the law, but who decided to make it a crime for people to enjoy the simple pleasures he and I are selling? If I had not sold the chocolate and champagne that have passed through my hands over the years, do you think they would not have been consumed? Of course they would, and by the same people who criminalised their consumption. They will not give a second thought to Galton or his exit from the world. He will simply be chalked up as a necessary sacrifice, something I am trying very hard to avoid having done to me. Or to you, for that matter.’

Carter didn’t answer. The sun was prising apart his skull. All he could think about was what Eckberg had said◦– that sooner or later he would find himself in a place where he would either be part of the problem or else a part of the solution. And he knew the time had come to choose between one and the other.

Later that day, he put in a call to Eckberg from one of the pay phones at the Cologne central station. The phones were located in cramped little booths painted pale green with yellow trim, lined up along a wall near the men’s and women’s waiting rooms. The doors that closed off the booths were battered, the paint chipped off where people had shoved them open with their boots rather than take hold of the dirty brass knobs. Inside, there was a tiny wooden seat, too small to be comfortable, in order to discourage people from falling asleep. The phone’s heavy black receiver smelled of smoke. From the pack of Camels Eckberg had given him, Carter removed the cigarette with the phone number written inside and pulled it apart, spilling shreds of tobacco onto the floor. The numbers had been written in pencil, almost too faint to read. He kept the paper pressed between two fingers against the wall of the booth while he dialled the numbers with his other hand. Outside, he could hear the announcements of trains arriving and departing, the sound echoing around the cavernous building with its glass-roofed ceiling made dingy by the smoke of locomotives.

Eckberg picked up almost at once. ‘Who is this?’ he asked.

‘Carter.’

There was a pause. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d call.’

‘Something has happened. I think it’s time we talked.’

‘I can meet you tonight, but it will have to be late. Say around ten.’

‘Where?’

‘Go to the cafe where I met you before.’

‘Won’t it be closed?’

‘Yes, but go around back. I have a key. I’ll let you in.’

He was about to hang up when Eckberg spoke to him again.

‘How bad is it?’ he asked.

‘You remember when you told me that people were going to get hurt?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, you were right about that.’