slow precise movements Kathryn walked back towards her car, past a scarlet blanket of poppies, and herbaceous borders thickly stocked with a glorious summer display. Stooping to pick a stephanotis, she held the flower close to her nose, inhaling the fragrant scent. A picture of her mother in vivid Technicolor popped into her mind. Freda in a battered straw hat, bent double, her gloved hand working furiously in the soil; then a fond memory of her mother’s excitement after winning her first prize at a local flower show.
A cloud covered the sun, and with it the image darkened. Freda’s expression had changed, devoid of emotion, clearly indifferent to the news of Kathryn’s First in English from Edinburgh University. Blinking back tears of profound regret, Kathryn wished, as she had so many times in the past, that she had been able to reach her mother. They had been like strangers, uncomfortable in each other’s company. Freda had never been able to acknowledge her daughter’s considerable achievements. Resentment had taken the place of pride and Kathryn knew her own successes had burnt inside Freda like a white hot coal. For a long time she had searched for something, anything, to bind them as mother and daughter; but she was sure, with the certainty of feminine intuition, that her mother had firmly locked the door to her soul the day her father had left, if not before.
Had Klaus Von Trellenberg been guilty of hideous crimes during the war, perhaps genocide? Kathryn wondered if that was why her mother had been so distant; had she been burdened with a terrible secret? They were both dead now, and Kathryn doubted she would ever know the truth, yet she found it impossible not to care.
The flower slipped from her hand, she watched it flutter gently to the ground before slipping inside her car. Putting her foot down hard on the accelerator, she roared forward, tyres churning up the gravel drive.
Before turning out on to the road, Kathryn allowed herself one last fleeting glance in her rear-view mirror, but the house was obscured in a cloud of dust.
‘This time I really believe we’ve got him.’
Mark Grossman studied the sensitive face of the man seated on the opposite side of his desk. The deep-set eyes lit with an expectant gleam had taken on a golden hue and looked lighter than their usual amber. His mouth opened as if to speak, but closed as Mark continued.
‘Our sources tell us that he’s been spotted in the West Indies. An eye-witness account which, as you know, can be totally unreliable, but we’ve checked this one out thoroughly. It seems, if you’ll excuse the expression, kosher.’
Mark blinked several times, his head ached, and there was a gritty sensation behind his eyes.
‘You look tired, Mark,’ Adam commented
‘Yeah, I feel lousy. I’m wrecked. My schedule has been, to put it mildly, a little tight. Argentina two days ago, back in Manhattan for a meeting, then five hours later, I jumped on a flight to Israel. I arrived in town at six a.m. this morning on the red eye from Tel Aviv. I don’t know if I need a crap or a haircut.’
Adam grinned, ‘Both probably.’ Then lowering his voice said, ‘So our little Nazi friend is holed up in the West Indies. It’s a hell of a long way from his last known address.’
‘Not as far as you might think. Boats ply from South America through the Indies constantly, there are lots of small craft skippered by dubious captains who would not be adverse to taking on an unusual fare. Come on, Adam, think about it. Who would question a retired European living in the West Indies when there are literally thousands of them? The ex-pat brigade: the English with their gin and tonics, and the Yanks with their ridiculous cocktails.’
‘You’re right, anyway who cares how he got there; more important, we know he’s there. And he’s still alive.’
Mark nodded. ‘If our sources are correct, he has a rare form of bone cancer. Two weeks ago he went to the local hospital in St Lucia for a scan. Unfortunately for our suspect, an American doctor Ben Weitzman happened to be on a lecturing tour in the West Indies. Dr Weitzman, who is a bone cancer specialist, was asked to take a look at him. Ben Weitzman’s mother is a Holocaust survivor, you may have met her brother – Nathan Drey?’
Adam shook his head. ‘His name doesn’t ring a bell.’
Mark went on, ‘Nathan died a couple of years ago. He worked for the Centre when I joined in 1979.’
Mark blinked. Seventeen years. It seemed like yesterday. He had been twenty-six, a child of Holocaust survivors, and an ardent recruit to an organization he felt needed young blood, and new ideas. He had desperately wanted to rid the Horowitz Centre of its old image. An image he knew many people shared: that of embittered Jews, tormented by their time spent in the camps, obsessed with psychopathic cat-and-mouse games of hunting down anyone who had even a slight connection with the Nazis.
Mark Grossman, now Head of Intelligence, felt he had achieved his objective in some small measure, and hoped that the Centre was now recognized throughout the world for spreading an important message. Man’s inhumanity to man could not be ignored, and racial bigotry had to be addressed and punished, to ensure that what happened in Germany before, and during, World War Two never happened again.
Adam was speaking, intruding on his thoughts. ‘You were telling me about Nathan?’
‘Sorry, yes, I was miles away, thinking about when I first met Nathan. He was a good man, if a little fanatical, I suppose if you’ve lived through four years of Auschwitz, it kinda makes you that way. He helped to capture Eichmann, and for years he worked night and day on Von Trellenberg. Nathan was like a dog with a bone, he left no stone unturned. I would often come into the office in the early morning, to find him slumped over his desk sleeping. He’d been there all night. He was the one who tracked down Von Trellenberg in Bolivia in 1958. Nathan thought he had him then, but he was double-crossed by some local Argentine creep. Anyway both Klaus and the Argentine guy disappeared without trace. But Nathan had managed to get a couple of photographs of the man he thought was Klaus, and Nathan’s sister Anna positively identified him as Von Trellenberg. Anna and Nathan Drey were both born in Berlin. She was a celebrated concert pianist and composer before the war. Von Trellenberg knew her. Apparently he and his father had attended several of her concerts. She was interned in Bergen Belsen in 1943, and claims to have seen Von Trellenberg visiting the camp at least three times.
‘Anyway, to get back to the current situation, the man with bone cancer claims to be Dutch. Says his name is Van Beukering, from Rotterdam. Yet when questioned about Holland, he became very agitated and eager to leave. Then when Dr Ben Weitzman asked him where he was born, he reeled off a street name in Amsterdam, instead of Rotterdam. Weitzman then made an appointment to see him a few days later. First he called me here, and I arranged for his mother and one of my colleagues to fly to St Lucia. This Van Beukering didn’t turn up for the appointment. Ben’s tried to contact Van Beukering’s own doctor, but he’s on vacation overseas and we’ve been unable to locate him. The man gave a false address to the hospital, and so far we’ve hit a brick wall with all our enquiries.’ Mark sighed. ‘Nobody on St Lucia seems to have seen or heard of this guy. Meanwhile he’s disappeared into thin—’
‘Did Dr Weitzman see his hand?’ Adam interrupted.
Mark nodded, unable to contain the rising excitement in his voice. ‘Yes. Apparently that was the first thing he noticed; the third finger on his left hand was severed at the knuckle.’
Adam
