see what can be done.’
‘Good. I’m returning to Berlin tonight. If anything comes up, contact Colonel Klein.’
‘And we shall see you again?’
‘Exactly seven days from now. Then we really start to get down to it.’
They moved away along the passage, leaving Becker with one of the guards. The sergeant gave him his instructions, then followed.
Inside the cell, Conlin stood listening, aware only of the muffled sounds of their going. Frances Mary . So long since he had thought of her. And if Van Buren knew about her, what else did he know? His heart raced and the anguish at that moment was physical in its intensity.
He took a deep breath and shuffled cautiously through the darkness until he found the cot, then lay down on it carefully, the springs digging into his back. It was very quiet. Phase One , he thought. Sensory deprivation leading to complete alienation of the subject .
The darkness seemed to move in and complete panic seized him as he remembered Dachau. To be alone, so alone, of course, was the worst thing of all – and then it occurred to him, as it had many times before, that he was not. He closed his eyes, folded his hands, awkwardly because of the handcuffs, and started to pray.
It was just before seven-thirty on the following morning when Brother Konrad and Franz pulled their hand-cart, loaded with milk churns, into the courtyard of the local inn. Berg’s old truck stood beside the front door and the caretaker leaned against it, smoking a pipe and talking to his brother-in-law.
Georg Ehrlich was a small dark man with an expression of settled gravity on his face that never altered. A widower, he left the running of the inn mainly to his daughter, for not only was he mayor, but chairman of the farm co-operative and local Party secretary.
He managed a smile for the Franciscan. ‘Konrad – we don’t often see you.’
‘I wanted a word,’ Konrad said. ‘Official business, and besides – I thought the boy here might like a little help for a change.’
Franz, who at nineteen was the youngest member of the order and built like a young bull, grinned and swung a full milk churn to the ground with ease.
Berg said, ‘I’m going to need at least one of those a day from now on. Put it on the truck for me, Franz, there’s a good lad.’
‘A full churn?’ Konrad said in surprise. ‘What on earth for?’
‘Vopos up at the Schloss. Twenty of the bastards.’
‘Come on in,’ Ehrlich said. ‘Sigrid’s just made fresh coffee.’
They moved along a whitewashed corridor and entered an oak-beamed kitchen. Ehrlich’s daughter Sigrid, a pretty, fair-haired girl of seventeen in a blue dress and white apron, fed logs into the stove. She glanced up and Ehrlich said, ‘Coffee and perhaps a brandy to go with it? A cold morning.’
‘That’s kind of you,’ Konrad said, ‘but a little early in the day for me.’ He turned to Berg. ‘What’s all this about Vopos up at the Schloss? I don’t understand. What are they doing?’
‘Guarding a prisoner they brought in the night before last. Twenty of them plus a sergeant and captain for one man. I ask you.’
Konrad accepted the cup of coffee Sigrid passed him with a smile of thanks. ‘Someone important, obviously.’
‘That’s not for me to say, is it?’ Berg said. ‘I only follow orders like we all have to these days.’ He leaned forward, the hoarse whisper of his voice dropping even lower. ‘I’ll tell you one thing you’ll never believe. You know where they’re holding him? In a cell on the third level. Solitary confinement to start with. A full seven days before we even open the door on him again. That’s what the man from Berlin said and off he went with the key in his pocket. Van Buren, his name is. Professor Van Buren.’
Konrad frowned. ‘Merciful heaven! I would have thought that even the rats might have difficulty surviving down there.’
‘Exactly.’ Berg emptied his glass. ‘I’d better be getting back with that milk now. They’ll be wanting their breakfasts up there.’
He went out. Ehrlich took down his pipe and started to fill it. Konrad said, ‘Some political prisoner or other, I imagine.’
‘I don’t know and I don’t care,’ Ehrlich said. ‘In times like these it pays to mind your own business. He talks too much, that one.’
‘He always did.’
The innkeeper applied a match to his pipe. ‘What was it you wanted to see me about?’
‘Ah yes,’ Konrad said. ‘I’d like a travel permit, to go to Berlin to see my sister. I think I mentioned when we last spoke that she’d had a heart attack.’
‘Yes, I was sorry to hear that,’ Ehrlich said. ‘When do you want to go?’
‘This morning, if possible. I’d like to stay a week. I’ll remember, of course’ – here he smiled – ‘to wear civilian clothes.’
Ehrlich said, ‘I’ll make you a permit out now.’ He reached for the bottle. ‘But first, that brandy I mentioned, just to start the day right.’
‘If you insist,’ Konrad relented. ‘But just a small one.’ When he raised the glass to his lips, he was smiling.
Margaret Campbell had spent a restless night. Her leg ached and she had fallen into a sleep of total exhaustion just before dawn. She was awakened at eight-fifteen by a knock at her door and Konrad entered with a breakfast tray. She had a splitting headache and her mouth was dry.
He took her temperature and shook his head. ‘Up again. How do you feel?’
‘Terrible. It’s the leg mainly. The pain makes it difficult to sleep. The pills you gave me last night didn’t do much good.’
He nodded. ‘I’ve something stronger in the dispensary, I think. I’ll leave them out for Urban to give you while I’m away.’
He placed the tray across her knees. She looked up in surprise. ‘You’re going somewhere?’
‘But of course,’ he said. ‘West Berlin, to see this Major Vaughan of yours. Isn’t that what you wanted me to do?’
There was an expression of utter astonishment on her face. ‘But that’s impossible.’
‘Not at all. The cooperative produce truck leaves the square at nine for Stendal, from which there are regular buses to Berlin. I’ll be there by noon.’
‘But how will you get across?’
‘The League will help me.’
‘The League of the Resurrection? But when I asked if you and your friends had ever assisted with its work, you said . . .’
‘That we are an enclosed order. That the contemplative life is our aim.’
She laughed suddenly and for the
