Winter of the World

16

1943 (II)

Colonel Albert Beck got a Russian bullet in his right lung at Kharkov in March 1943. He was lucky: a field surgeon put in a chest drain and reinflated the lung, saving his life, just. Weakened by blood loss and the almost inevitable infection, Beck was put on a train home and ended up in Carla’s hospital in Berlin.

He was a tough, wiry man in his early forties, prematurely bald, with a protruding jaw like the prow of a Viking longboat. The first time he spoke to Carla, he was drugged and feverish and wildly indiscreet. ‘We’re losing the war,’ he said.

She was immediately alert. A discontented officer was a potential source of information. She said lightly: ‘The newspapers say we’re shortening the line on the Eastern Front.’

He laughed scornfully. ‘That means we’re retreating.’

She continued to draw him out. ‘And Italy looks bad.’ The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini – Hitler’s greatest ally – had fallen.

‘Remember 1939, and 1940?’ Beck said nostalgically. ‘One brilliant lightning victory after another. Those were the days.’

Clearly he was not ideological, perhaps not even political. He was a normal patriotic soldier who had stopped kidding himself.

Carla led him on. ‘It can’t be true that the army is short of everything from bullets to underpants.’ This kind of mildly risky talk was not unusual in Berlin nowadays.

‘Of course we are.’ Beck was radically disinhibited but quite articulate. ‘Germany simply can’t produce as many guns and tanks as the Soviet Union, Great Britain and the United States combined – especially when we’re being bombed constantly. And no matter how many Russians we kill, the Red Army seems to have an inexhaustible supply of new recruits.’

‘What do you think will happen?’

‘The Nazis will never admit defeat, of course. So more people will die. Millions more, just because they’re too proud to yield. Insanity. Insanity.’ He drifted off to sleep.

You had to be sick – or crazy – to voice such thoughts, but Carla believed that more and more people were thinking that way. Despite relentless government propaganda it was becoming clear that Hitler was losing the war.

There had been no police investigation of the death of Joachim Koch. It had been reported in the newspaper as a road accident. Carla had got over the initial shock, but every now and again the realization hit her that she had killed a man, and she would relive his death in her imagination. It made her shake and she had to sit down. This had happened only once when she was on duty, fortunately, and she had passed that off as a faint due to hunger – highly plausible in wartime Berlin. Her mother was worse. Strange, that Maud had loved Joachim, weak and foolish as he was; but there was no explaining love. Carla herself had completely misjudged Werner Franck, thinking he was strong and brave, only to learn that he was selfish and weak.

She talked to Beck a lot before he was discharged, probing to find out what kind of man he was. Once recovered, he never again spoke indiscreetly about the war. She learned that he was a career soldier, his wife was dead, and his married daughter lived in Buenos Aires. His father had been a Berlin city councillor: he did not say for which party, so clearly it was not the Nazis or any of their allies. He never said anything bad about Hitler, but he never said anything good either, nor did he speak disparagingly of Jews or Communists. These days that in itself was close to insubordination.

His lung would heal, but he would never again be strong enough for active service, and he told her he was being posted to the General Staff. He could become a diamond mine of vital secrets. She would be risking her life if she tried to recruit him – but she had to try.

She knew he would not remember their first conversation. ‘You were very candid,’ Carla told him in a low voice. There was no one nearby. ‘You said we were losing the war.’

His eyes flashed fear. He was no longer a woozy patient in a hospital gown with stubble on his cheeks. He was washed and shaved, sitting upright in dark-blue pyjamas buttoned to the throat. ‘I suppose you’re going to report me to the Gestapo,’ he said. ‘I don’t think a man should be held to account for what he says when he’s sick and raving.’

‘You weren’t raving,’ she said. ‘You were very clear. But I’m not going to report you to anyone.’

‘No?’

‘Because you are right.’

He was surprised. ‘Now I should report you.’

‘If you do, I’ll say that you insulted Hitler in your delirium, and when I threatened to report it you made up a story about me in self-defence.’

‘If I denounce you, you’ll denounce me,’ he said. ‘Stalemate.’

‘But you’re not going to denounce me,’ she said. ‘I know that, because I know you. I’ve nursed you. You’re a good man. You joined the army for love of your country, but you hate the war and you hate the Nazis.’ She was 99 per cent sure of this.

‘It’s very dangerous to talk like that.’

‘I know.’

‘So this isn’t just a casual conversation.’

‘Correct. You said that millions of people are going to die just because the Nazis are too proud to surrender.’

‘Did I?’

‘You can help save some of those millions.’

‘How?’

Carla paused. This was where she put her life on the line. ‘Any information you have, I can pass it to the appropriate quarters.’ She held her breath. If she was wrong about Beck, she was dead.

She read amazement in his look. He could hardly imagine that this briskly efficient young nurse was a spy. But he believed her, she could see that. He said: ‘I think I understand you.’

She handed him a green hospital file folder, empty.

He took it. ‘What’s this for?’ he said.

‘You’re a soldier, you understand camouflage.’

He nodded. ‘You’re risking your life,’ he said, and she saw something like admiration in his eyes.

‘So are you, now.’

‘Yes,’ said Colonel Beck. ‘But I’m used to it.’

(ii)

Early in the morning, Thomas Macke took young Werner Franck to the Plötzensee Prison in the western suburb of Charlottenburg. ‘You should see this,’ he said. ‘Then you can tell General Dorn how effective we are.’

He parked in the Königsdamm and led Werner to the rear of the main prison. They entered a room twenty-five feet long and about half as wide. Waiting there was a man dressed in a tailcoat, a top hat and white gloves. Werner frowned at the peculiar costume. ‘This is Herr Reichhart,’ said Macke. ‘The executioner.’

Werner swallowed. ‘So we’re going to witness an execution?’

‘Yes.’

With a casual air that might have been faked, Werner said: ‘Why the fancy dress outfit?’

Macke shrugged. ‘Tradition.’

A black curtain divided the room in two. Macke drew it back to show eight hooks attached to an iron girder that ran across the ceiling.

Werner said: ‘For hanging?’

Macke nodded.

There was also a wooden table with straps for holding someone down. At one end of the table was a high device of distinctive shape. On the floor was a heavy basket.

The young lieutenant was pale. ‘A guillotine,’ he said.

‘Exactly,’ said Macke. He looked at his watch. ‘We shan’t be kept waiting long.’

More men filed into the room. Several nodded in a familiar way to Macke. Speaking quietly into Werner’s ear, Macke said: ‘Regulations demand that the judges, the court officers, the prison governor and the chaplain all attend.’

Werner swallowed. He was not liking this, Macke could see.

He was not meant to. Macke’s motive in bringing him here had nothing to do with impressing General Dorn. Macke was worried about Werner. There was something about him that did not ring true.

Werner worked for Dorn; that was not in question. He had accompanied Dorn on a visit to Gestapo headquarters, and subsequently Dorn had written a note saying that the Berlin counter-espionage effort was most impressive, and mentioning Macke by name. For weeks afterwards Macke had walked around in a miasma of warm pride.

But Macke could not forget Werner’s behaviour on that evening, nearly a year ago now, when they had almost caught a spy in a disused fur coat factory near the East Station. Werner had panicked – or had he? Accidentally or otherwise, he had given the pianist enough warning to get away. Macke could not shake the suspicion that the panic had been an act, and Werner had, in fact, been coolly and deliberately sounding the alarm.

Macke did not quite have the nerve to arrest and torture Werner. It could be done, of course, but Dorn might well kick up a fuss, and then Macke would be questioned. His boss, Superintendent Kringelein, who did not much like him, would ask what hard evidence he had against Werner – and he had none.

But this ought to reveal the truth.

The door opened again, and two prison guards entered on either side of a young woman called Lili Markgraf.

He heard Werner gasp. ‘What’s the matter?’ Macke asked.

Werner said: ‘You didn’t tell me it was going to be a girl.’

‘Do you know her?’

‘No.’

Lili was twenty-two, Macke knew, though she looked younger. Her fair hair had been cut this morning, and it was now as short as a man’s. She was limping, and walked bent over as if she had an abdominal injury. She wore a plain blue dress of heavy cotton with no collar, just a round neckline. Her eyes were red with crying. The guards held her arms firmly, not taking any chances.

‘This woman was denounced by a relative who found a code book hidden in her room,’ Macke said. ‘The five-digit Russian code.’

‘Why is she walking like that?’

‘The effects of interrogation. But we didn’t get anything from her.’

Werner’s face was impassive. ‘What a shame,’ he said. ‘She might have led us to other spies.’

Macke saw no sign that he was faking. ‘She knew her associate only as Heinrich – no last name – and he may have used a pseudonym anyway. I find we rarely profit by arresting women – they don’t know enough.’

‘But at least you have her code book.’

‘For what it’s worth. They change the key word regularly, so we still face a challenge in decrypting their signals.’

‘Pity.’

One of the men cleared his throat and spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear. He said he was the President of the Court, then read out the death sentence.

The guards walked Lili to the wooden table. They gave her the chance of lying on it voluntarily, but she took a step backwards, so they picked her up forcibly. She did not struggle. They laid her face down and strapped her in.

The chaplain began a prayer.

Lili began to plead. ‘No, no,’ she said, without raising her voice. ‘No, please, let me go. Let me go.’ She spoke coherently, as if she were merely asking someone for a favour.

The man in the top hat looked at the president, who shook his head and said: ‘Not yet. The prayer must be finished.’

Lili’s voice rose in pitch and urgency. ‘I don’t want to die! I’m afraid to die! Don’t do this to me, please!’

The executioner looked again at the court president. This time the president just ignored him.

Macke studied Werner. He looked sick, but so did everybody else in the room. As a test, this was not really working. Werner’s reaction showed that he was sensitive, not that he was a traitor. Macke might have to think of something else.

Lili began to scream.

Even Macke felt impatient.

The pastor hurried through the rest of the prayer.

When he said ‘Amen’ she stopped screaming, as if she knew it was all over.

The president gave the nod.

The executioner moved a lever, and the weighted blade fell.

It made a whispering sound as it sliced through Lili’s pale neck. Her short-cropped head fell forward and there was a gush of blood. The head hit the basket with a loud thump that seemed to resound in the room.

Absurdly, Macke wondered if the head felt any pain.

(iii)

Carla bumped into Colonel Beck in the hospital corridor. He was in uniform. She looked at him in sudden fear. Ever since he had been discharged, she had lived every day in fear that he had betrayed her, and the Gestapo were on their way.

But he smiled and said: ‘I came back for a check-up with Dr Ernst.’

Was that all? Had he forgotten their conversation? Was he pretending to have forgotten it? Was there a black Gestapo Mercedes waiting outside?

Beck was carrying a green hospital file folder.

A cancer specialist in a white coat approached. As he went by, Carla said brightly to Beck: ‘How are things?’

‘I’m as fit as I’m ever going to be. I’ll never lead a battalion into battle again, but aside from athletics I can lead a normal life.’

‘I’m glad to hear that.’

People kept walking by. Carla feared Beck would never get the chance to say anything to her privately.

But he remained unruffled. ‘I’d just like to thank you for your kindness and professionalism.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘Goodbye, Sister.’

‘Goodbye, Colonel.’

When Beck left, Carla was holding the file folder.

She walked briskly to the nurses’ cloakroom. It was empty. She stood with her heel firmly wedged against the door so no one could come in.

Inside the folder was a large envelope made of the cheap buff-coloured paper used in offices everywhere. Carla opened the envelope. It contained several typewritten sheets. She looked at the first without removing it from the envelope. It was headed:

OPERATIONAL ORDER NO. 6

CODE ZITADELLE

It was the battle plan for the summer offensive on the Eastern Front. Her heart raced. This was gold dust.

She had to pass the envelope to Frieda. Unfortunately, Frieda was not working at the hospital today: it was her day off. Carla considered leaving the hospital right away, in the middle of her shift, and going to Frieda’s house; but she swiftly rejected that idea. Better to behave normally, not to attract attention.

She slipped the envelope into the shoulder bag hanging on her coat hook. She covered it with the blue-and-gold silk scarf that she always carried for hiding things. She stood still for a few moments, letting her breathing return to normal. Then she went back to the ward.

She worked the rest of her shift as best she could, then she put on her coat, left the hospital, and walked to the station. Passing a bomb site, she saw graffiti on the remains of the building. A defiant patriot had written: ‘Our walls might break, but not our hearts.’ But someone else had ironically quoted Hitler’s 1933 election slogan: ‘Give me four years, and you will not recognize Germany.’

She bought a ticket to the Zoo.

On the train she felt like an alien. All the other passengers were loyal Germans, and she was the one with secrets in her bag to betray to Moscow. She did not like the feeling. No one looked at her, but that only made her think they were all deliberately avoiding her eye. She could hardly wait to hand over the envelope to Frieda.

The Zoo Station was on the edge of the Tiergarten. The trees were dwarfed, now, by a huge flak tower. One of three in Berlin, this square concrete block was more than 100 feet high. At the corners of the roof were four giant 128mm anti-aircraft guns weighing 25 tons each. The raw concrete was painted green in a hopelessly optimistic attempt to make the monstrosity less of an eyesore in the park.

Ugly though it was, Berliners loved it. When the bombs were falling, its thunder reassured them that someone was shooting back.

Still in a state of high tension, Carla walked from the station to Frieda’s house. It was mid-afternoon, so the Franck parents would probably be out, Ludi at his factory and Monika seeing a friend, possibly Carla’s mother. Werner’s motorcycle was parked on the drive.

The manservant opened the door. ‘Miss Frieda is out, but she won’t be long,’ he said. ‘She went to KaDeWe to buy gloves. Mr Werner is in bed with a heavy cold.’

‘I’ll wait for Frieda in her room, as usual.’

Carla took off her coat and went upstairs, still carrying her bag. In Frieda’s room she kicked off her shoes and lay on the bed to read the battle plan for Operation Zitadelle. She was as stressed as an overwound clock, but she would feel better when she had given the purloined document to someone else.

From the next room she heard the sound of sobbing.

She was surprised. That was Werner’s room. Carla found it hard to imagine the suave playboy in tears.

But the sound definitely came from a man, and he seemed to be trying and failing to suppress his grief.

Against her will, Carla felt pity. She told herself that some feisty woman had thrown Werner over, probably for very good reasons. But she could not help responding to the real distress she was hearing.

She got off the bed, put the battle plan back in her bag, and stepped outside.

She listened at Werner’s door. She could hear it even more clearly. She was too soft-hearted to ignore it. She opened the door and went in.

Werner was sitting on the edge of the bed, head in hands. When he heard the door he looked up, startled. His face was red with emotion and wet with tears. His tie was pulled down and his collar undone. He looked at Carla with misery in his eyes. He was bowled over, devastated, and too wretched to care who knew it.

Carla could not pretend to be heartless. ‘What is it?’ she said.

‘I can’t do this any more,’ he said.

She closed the door behind her. ‘What happened?’

‘They cut off Lili Markgraf’s head – and I had to watch.’

Carla stared open-mouthed. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘She was twenty-two.’ He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face. ‘You’re already in danger, but if I tell you this it will be a lot worse.’

Her mind was full of amazing surmises. ‘I think I can guess, but tell me,’ she said.

He nodded. ‘You’ll figure it out soon, anyway. Lili helped Heinrich broadcast to Moscow. It’s much quicker if someone reads you the code groups. And the faster you go, the less likely you are to be caught. But Lili’s cousin stayed at the apartment for a few days and found her code books. Nazi bitch.’

His words confirmed her astonishing suspicions. ‘You know about the spying?’

He looked at her with an ironic smile. ‘I’m in charge of it.’

‘Good God!’

‘That’s why I had to drop the whole business of the murdered children. Moscow ordered me to. And they were right. If I’d lost my job at the Air Ministry I would have had no access to secret papers, nor to other people who could bring me secrets.’

She needed to sit down. She perched on the edge of the bed beside him. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘We work on the assumption that everyone talks under torture. Knowing nothing, you can’t betray others. Poor Lili was tortured, but she only knew Volodya, who’s back in Moscow now, and Heinrich, and she never knew Heinrich’s second name or anything else about him.’

Carla was chilled to the bone. Everyone talks under torture.

Werner finished: I’m sorry I’ve told you, but after seeing me like this you were on the point of guessing it all anyway.’

‘So I’ve completely misjudged you.’

‘Not your fault. I deliberately misled you.’

‘I feel a fool just the same. I’ve despised you for two years.’

‘All the while I was desperate to explain to you.’

She put her arm around him.

He took her other hand and kissed it. ‘Can you forgive me?’

She was not sure how she felt, but she did not want to reject him when he was so down, so she said: ‘Yes, of course.’

‘Poor Lili,’ he said. His voice fell to a whisper. ‘She had been so badly beaten, she could hardly walk to the guillotine. Yet she begged for life, right up to the end.’

‘How come you were there?’

‘I’ve befriended a Gestapo man, Inspector Thomas Macke. He took me.’

‘Macke? I remember him – he arrested my father.’ She vividly recalled a round-faced man with a small black moustache, and she experienced again her rage at the arrogant power Macke had to take her father away, and her grief when he died of the injuries he suffered at Macke’s hands.

‘I think he suspects me, and taking me to the execution was a test. Perhaps he thought I might lose my self-control and try to intervene. Anyway, I think I passed the test.’

‘But if you were arrested . . .’

Werner nodded. ‘Everyone talks under torture.’

‘And you know everything.’

‘Every agent, every code . . . The only thing I don’t know is where they broadcast from. I leave it up to them to pick the locations, and they don’t tell me.’

They held hands in silence. After a while, Carla said: ‘I came to give it to Frieda, but I might as well give it to you.’

‘Give what?’

‘The battle plan for Operation Zitadelle.’

Werner was electrified. ‘But I’ve been trying to put my hands on that for weeks! Where did you get it?’

‘From an officer on the General Staff. Perhaps I shouldn’t say his name.’

‘Quite right, don’t tell me. But is it authentic?’

‘You’d better take a look.’ She went to Frieda’s room and returned with the buff envelope. It had never occurred to her that the document might not be genuine. ‘It looks all right to me, but what do I know?’

He took out the typewritten sheets. After a minute he said: ‘This is the real thing. Fantastic!’

‘I’m so glad.’

He stood up. ‘I have to take this to Heinrich right away. We must get this encrypted and broadcast tonight.’

Carla felt disappointed that their moment of intimacy was over so soon, though she could not have said what she had been expecting. She followed him through the door. She picked up her bag from Frieda’s room and went downstairs.

With his hand on the front door, Werner said: ‘I’m so glad we’re friends again.’

‘Me, too.’

‘Do you think we’ll be able to forget this period of estrangement?’

She did not know what he was trying to say. Did he want to be her lover again – or was he telling her that was out of the question? ‘I think we can put it behind us,’ she said neutrally.

‘Good.’ He bent and kissed her lips very quickly. Then he opened the door.

They left the house together, and he climbed on his motorcycle.

Carla walked down the driveway to the street and headed for the station. A moment later, Werner drove past her with a honk and a wave.

Now that she was alone, she could begin to think about his revelation. How did she feel? For two years she had hated him. But in that time she had not had a serious boyfriend. Had she remained in love with him all along? At a minimum she had retained, in her heart of hearts, a fondness for him despite everything. Today, when she heard him in such distress, her hostility had melted away. Now she felt a glow of affection.

Did she love him still?

She did not know.

(iv)

Macke sat in the rear seat of the black Mercedes with Werner beside him. Around Macke’s neck was a bag like a school satchel, except that he wore it in front instead of behind. It was small enough to be covered by a buttoned overcoat. A thin wire ran from the bag to a small earphone. ‘It’s the latest thing,’ Macke said. ‘As you get closer to the broadcaster, the sound gets louder.’

Werner said: ‘More discreet than a van with a big aerial on its roof.’

‘We have to use both – the van to discover the general area, and this to pinpoint the exact location.’

Macke was in trouble. Operation Zitadelle had been a catastrophe. Even before the offensive opened, the Red Army had attacked the airfields where the Luftwaffe were assembling. Zitadelle had been called off after a week, but even that was too late to prevent irreparable damage to the German army.

Germany’s leaders were always quick to blame Jewish-Bolshevik conspirators whenever things went wrong, but in this case they were right. The Red Army had appeared to know the entire battle plan in advance. And that, according to Superintendent Kringelein, was Thomas Macke’s fault. He was head of counter-espionage for the city of Berlin. His career was on the line. He faced dismissal and worse.

His only hope now was a tremendous coup, a massive operation to round up the spies who were undermining the German war effort. So tonight he had set a trap for Werner Franck.

If Franck turned out to be innocent, he did not know what he would do.

In the front seat of the car, a walkie-talkie crackled. Macke’s pulse quickened. The driver picked up the handset. ‘Wagner here.’ He started the engine. ‘We’re on our way,’ he said. ‘Over and out.’

It had started.

Macke asked him: ‘Where are we headed?’

‘Kreuzberg.’ It was a densely populated low-rent neighbourhood south of the city centre.

As they pulled away, the air raid siren sounded.

That was an unwelcome complication. Macke looked out of the window. The searchlights came on, waving like giant wands. Macke supposed they must find planes sometimes, but he had never seen it happen. When the sirens ceased their howling, he could hear the thunder of approaching bombers. In the early years of the war, a British bombing mission had consisted of a few dozen aircraft – which was bad enough – but now they were sending hundreds at a time. The noise was terrifying even before they dropped their bombs.

Werner said: ‘I suppose we’d better call off our mission tonight.’

‘Hell, no,’ said Macke.

The roar of the planes grew.

Flares and small incendiary bombs began to fall as the car approached Kreuzberg. The neighbourhood was a typical target for the RAF’s current strategy of killing as many civilian factory workers as possible. With staggering hypocrisy Churchill and Attlee were claiming they attacked only military targets, and civilian casualties were a regrettable side effect. Berliners knew better.

Wagner drove as fast as he could along streets lit fitfully by flames. There were no people around apart from air raid officials: everyone else was legally obliged to take shelter. The only other vehicles were ambulances, fire engines and police cars.

Macke covertly studied Werner. The boy was edgy, never quite still, staring out of the window anxiously, tapping his foot in unconscious tension.

Macke had not confided his suspicions to anyone but his immediate team. It was going to be difficult for him if he had to admit that he had demonstrated Gestapo operations to someone who he now thought was a spy. He could end up under interrogation in his own basement torture chamber. He was not going to do it until he was sure. The only way he might get away with it would be if at the same time he could present his superiors with a captured spy.

But then, if his suspicion turned out to be true, he would arrest not just Werner but his family and friends, and announce the destruction of a massive spy ring. That would transform the picture. He might even be promoted.

As the raid progressed the type of bombs changed, and Macke heard the profound thudding sound of high explosive. Once the target was illuminated, the RAF liked to drop a mixture of large oil bombs to start fires and high explosive to ventilate the flames and hamper the emergency services. It was cruel, but Macke knew that the Luftwaffe’s bombing pattern was similar.

The sound in Macke’s earphone started up as they drove cautiously along a street of five-storey tenements. The area was taking a terrific pounding and several buildings were newly demolished. Werner said shakily: ‘We’re in the middle of the target area, for Christ’s sake.’

Macke did not care: tonight was already life or death to him. ‘All the better,’ he said. ‘The pianist will imagine he doesn’t need to worry about the Gestapo, in the middle of an air raid.’

Wagner stopped the car next to a burning church and pointed along a side street. ‘Down there,’ he said.

Macke and Werner jumped out.

Macke walked quickly along the street with Werner beside him and Wagner behind. Werner said: ‘Are you sure it’s a spy? Could it be anything else?’

‘Broadcasting a radio signal?’ Macke said. ‘What else could it be?’

Macke could still hear his earphone, but only just, for the air raid was cacophonous: the planes, the bombs, the anti-aircraft guns, the crash of falling buildings and the roar of huge fires.

They passed a stable where horses were neighing in terror, the signal growing ever stronger. Werner was glancing from side to side anxiously. If he was a spy, he would now be afraid that one of his colleagues was about to be arrested by the Gestapo – and wondering what the hell he could do about it. Would he repeat the trick he used last time, or think of some new way of giving a warning? If he was not a spy this whole farce was a waste of time.

Macke took out the earpiece and handed it to Werner. ‘Listen,’ he said, continuing to walk.

Werner nodded. ‘Getting stronger,’ he said. The look in his eyes was almost frantic. He handed the earpiece back.

I believe I’ve got you, Macke thought triumphantly.

There was a thunderous crash as a bomb landed in a building they had just passed. They turned to see flames already licking up beyond the smashed windows of a bakery. Wagner said: ‘Christ, that was close.’

They came to a school, a low brick building in an asphalt yard. ‘In there, I think,’ said Macke.

The three men walked up a short flight of stone steps to the entrance. The door was not locked. They went in.

They were at one end of a broad corridor. At its far end was a large door that probably led to the school hall. ‘Straight ahead,’ said Macke.

He drew his gun, a 9mm Luger pistol.

Werner was not armed.

There was a crash, a thud, and the roar of an explosion, all terrifyingly close. All the windows in the corridor smashed, and shards of glass rained on the tiled floor. A bomb must have landed in the playground.

Werner shouted: ‘Clear out, everyone! The building is about to collapse.’

There was no danger of the building collapsing, Macke could see. This was Werner’s ruse for giving the alarm to the pianist.

Werner broke into a run, but instead of heading back the way they had come he went on down the corridor towards the hall.

To warn his friends, Macke thought.

Wagner drew his gun, but Macke said: ‘No! Don’t shoot!’

Werner reached the end of the corridor and flung open the door to the hall. ‘Run, everyone!’ he yelled. Then he fell silent and stood still.

Inside the hall Macke’s colleague Mann, the electrical engineer, was tapping out nonsense on a suitcase radio.

Beside him stood Schneider and Richter, both holding drawn guns.

Macke smiled triumphantly. Werner had fallen straight into his trap.

Wagner walked forward and put his gun to Werner’s head.

Macke said: ‘You’re under arrest, you subhuman Bolshevik.’

Werner acted fast. He jerked his head away from Wagner’s gun, seized Wagner’s arm, and pulled him into the hall. For a moment Wagner shielded Werner from the guns in the hall. Then he thrust Wagner away from him, causing Wagner to stumble and fall. In the next moment he stepped out of the hall and slammed the door.

For a few seconds it was just Macke and Werner in the corridor.

Werner walked towards Macke.

Macke pointed his Luger. ‘Stop, or I’ll shoot.’

‘No, you won’t.’ Werner came closer. ‘You need to interrogate me, and find out who the others are.’

Macke pointed his gun at Werner’s legs. ‘I can interrogate you with a bullet in your knee,’ he said, and he fired.

The shot missed.

Werner lunged and knocked Macke’s gun hand aside. Macke dropped the weapon. As he stooped to retrieve it, Werner ran past.

Macke picked up the gun.

Werner reached the school door. Macke took careful aim at his legs and fired.

His first three shots missed, and Werner went through the door.

Macke fired one more shot through the still-open door, and Werner cried out and fell down.

Macke ran along the corridor. Behind him, he heard the others coming out of the school hall.

Then the roof opened with a crash, there was another noise like a thud, and liquid fire splashed like a fountain. Macke screamed in terror, then in agony as his clothes caught alight. He fell to the ground, then there was silence, then darkness.

(v)

The doctors were triaging patients in the hospital lobby. Those merely bruised and cut were sent into the out-patients’ waiting area where the most junior nurses cleaned their cuts and consoled them with aspirins. The serious cases were given emergency treatment right there in the lobby then sent to specialists upstairs. The dead were taken into the yard and laid on the cold ground until someone claimed them.

Dr Ernst examined a screaming burn victim and prescribed morphine. ‘Then get his clothes off and put some gel on those burns,’ he said, and moved on to the next one.

Carla loaded a syringe while Frieda cut the patient’s blackened clothes away. He had severe burns all down his right side, but the left was not so bad. Carla found an intact patch of skin and flesh on his left thigh. She was about to inject the patient when she looked at his face and froze.

She knew that fat round countenance with the moustache like a dirt mark under the nose. Two years ago he had come into the hall of her house and arrested her father. Next time she saw her father he had been dying. This was Inspector Thomas Macke of the Gestapo.

You killed my father, she thought.

Now I can kill you.

It would be simple. She would give him four times the maximum dose of morphine. No one would notice, especially on a night like tonight. He would fall unconscious immediately and die in a few minutes. A doctor who was almost asleep on his feet would assume his heart had failed. No one would doubt the diagnosis, and no one would ask sceptical questions. He would be one of thousands killed in a massive air raid. Rest in peace.

She knew that Werner feared Macke might be on to him. Any day now Werner could be arrested. Everyone talks under torture. Werner would give away Frieda, and Heinrich, and others – and Carla. She could save them all, now, in a minute.

But she hesitated.

She asked herself why. Macke was a torturer and a killer. He deserved to die a thousand deaths.

Carla had killed Joachim, or at least helped to kill him. But Joachim had been kicking Carla’s mother to death when she hit him over the head with a soup cauldron. This was different.

Macke was a patient.

Carla was not very religious, but she did believe that some things were sacred. She was a nurse, and patients put their trust in her. She knew that Macke would torture and kill her without hesitation – but she was not like Macke, she was not that kind. This was nothing to do with him: it was about her.

If she killed a patient, she felt, she would have to leave the profession and never again dare to care for sick people. She would be like a banker who steals money, or a politician who takes bribes, or a priest who feels up the young girls who come to him for First Communion classes. She would have betrayed herself.

Frieda said: ‘What are you waiting for? I can’t gel him until he calms down.’

Carla stuck the needle in Thomas Macke, and he stopped screaming.

Frieda started to put gel on his burned skin.

‘This one’s only concussed,’ Dr Ernst was saying of another patient. ‘But he’s got a bullet in his backside.’ He raised his voice to talk to the patient. ‘How did you get shot? Bullets are about the only things the RAF isn’t throwing at us tonight.’

Carla turned to look. The patient was lying on his front. His trousers had been cut off, showing his rear. He had white skin and fine, fair hair on the small of his back. He was woozy, but he muttered something.

Ernst said: ‘Policeman’s gun went off by accident, did you say?’

The patient spoke more clearly. ‘Yes.’

‘I’m going to take the bullet out. It will hurt, but we’re short of morphine, and there are worse cases than you.’

‘Go ahead.’

Carla swabbed the wound. Ernst picked up a long, narrow pair of forceps. ‘Bite the pillow,’ he said.

He inserted the forceps into the wound. A muffled cry of pain came from the patient.

Dr Ernst said: ‘Try not to tense your muscles. It makes it worse.’

Carla thought that was a stupid thing to say. No one could relax their muscles while a wound was being probed.

The patient roared: ‘Ah, shit!’

‘I’ve got it,’ Dr Ernst said. ‘Try to keep still!’

The patient lay still, and Ernst drew the slug out and dropped it into a tray.

Carla wiped the blood from the hole and slapped a dressing on the wound.

The patient rolled over.

‘No,’ Carla said. ‘You must lie on your—’

She stopped. The patient was Werner.

‘Carla?’ he said.

‘It’s me,’ she said happily. ‘Putting a bandage on your bum.’

‘I love you,’ he said.

She threw her arms around him in the most unprofessional way possible and said: ‘Oh, my dearest, I love you, too.’

(vi)

Thomas Macke came around slowly. At first he was in a dreamlike state. Then he became more aware, and realized he was in a hospital and drugged. He knew why, too: his skin hurt intensely, especially down his left side. He was able to figure out that the drugs must be reducing the pain but not completely eliminating it.

Slowly he remembered how he had come here. He had been bombed. He would be dead if he had not been running away from the blast, chasing a fugitive. Those behind him were certainly dead: Mann, Schneider, Richter and young Wagner. His whole team.

But he had caught Werner.

Or had he? He had shot Werner, and Werner had fallen; then the bomb had dropped. Macke had survived, so Werner might have too.

Macke was now the only man living who knew that Werner was a spy. He had to speak to his boss, Superintendent Kringelein. He tried to sit upright, but found he did not have the strength to move. He decided to call a nurse, but when he opened his mouth no sound came out. The effort exhausted him and he went back to sleep.

The next time he awoke, he sensed it was night. The place was quiet, no one moving. He opened his eyes to see a face hovering over him.

It was Werner.

‘You’re leaving here now,’ Werner said.

Macke tried to call for help, but found he could not speak.

‘You’re going to a new place,’ Werner said. ‘You won’t be a torturer any more – in fact, you’ll be the one who gets tortured there.’

Macke opened his mouth to scream.

A pillow descended on his face. It was pressed firmly over his mouth and nose. He found he could not breathe. He tried to struggle, but there was no strength in his limbs. He tried to gasp for air, but there was no air. He started to panic. He managed to move his head from side to side, but the pillow was pressed down more firmly. At last he made a noise, but it was only a whimper in his throat.

The universe became a disc of light that shrank slowly until it was a pinpoint.

Then it went out.