her head.
‘I saw it, of course, now and again. But he seemed to be embarrassed by it and usually wore a long-sleeved shirt or pullover to cover it up. I’ve known other survivors who regarded their tattoos as a badge of suffering, something they were proud of showing, but my father wasn’t like that. He was a very private man. He lost his entire family in that place. I think he just wanted to forget.’
‘I see,’ said Turnbull. ‘Was he religious?’
She shook her head.
‘No. People tried to bring him back into the Jewish community here, but he had no time for God. The war destroyed his faith in any force for good. Mine, too, for that matter.’
‘And politics? Was he involved in any way? Jewish rights, for example?’
‘No, absolutely not. All he was ever interested in was railways and birds.’
There was a brief pause before Turnbull spoke again. ‘Miss Weissman, what I’m about to tell you may be difficult for you to hear.’
‘Oh?’
Turnbull, looking uncomfortable for the first time since Tom and Archie had met him, hesitated before speaking.
‘We have recovered your father’s arm.’ He snatched a glance at Tom as he said this.
‘Oh.’ Her reaction was one of relief, as if she’d been dreading a more traumatic revelation. ‘But that’s a good thing, isn’t it?’
‘Yes…Except that his tattoo, his concentration camp number, had been…removed.’
‘Removed?’ Now she did look shocked.
‘Sliced off.’
Her hand flew to her mouth in horror. Now that he was closer to her, Tom saw that her carefully painted nails were chipped and worn where she’d clearly been biting them.
‘Oh my God.’
‘However, by analysing the scar tissue and pigment discoloration in some of the deeper skin layers,’ Turnbull continued quickly, as if the technical language would help lessen the impact of what he was saying, ‘our forensic experts were able to reconstitute his camp number.’
He paused and she looked from him to Tom and Archie, then back at Turnbull.
‘And…?’
‘Are you familiar with the coding system employed at Auschwitz?’ She shook her head silently. He gave a weak smile. ‘Neither was I, until this morning. It seems Auschwitz was the only camp to tattoo its prisoners systematically. This was made necessary by the sheer size of the place. The numbering system was divided into the regular series, where simple consecutive numbers were employed, and the AU, Z, EH, A and B series, which used a combination of letters and sequential numbers. The letters indicated where the prisoners were from, or ethnic groupings. AU, for example, signified Soviet prisoners of war – the original inmates of Auschwitz. Z stood for Zigeuner, the German word for gypsies. The numbers on Jewish prisoners mostly followed the regular unlettered series, although in many cases this was preceded by a triangle, until the A and B series took over from May 1944.’
‘Why are you telling me all this?’ There was a slightly hysterical edge to her voice now. Tom sensed that this time she really was on the verge of breaking down.
‘Because the number on your father’s arm didn’t follow any of the known Auschwitz numbering series.’
‘What?’ Even her make-up couldn’t disguise how white she had gone.
‘It was a ten-digit number with no alphabetical or geometric prefix. Auschwitz numbers never rose to ten digits…’ He paused. ‘You see, Miss Weissman, it is possible that your father was never actually in a concentration camp.’
3.16 p.m.
They sat there in embarrassed silence as she rocked gently in her seat, hands covering her face, shoulders shaking. Tom gently laid his hand on her arm.
‘Miss Weissman, I’m sorry.’
‘It’s okay,’ she said, her voice muffled by her fingers. ‘I’ve almost been expecting something like this.’
‘What do you mean?’ Turnbull leant forward, his brow creased in curiosity.
She lowered her hands and they could see now that, far from the tears they’d been expecting, her face shone with a dark and terrifying anger. With rage.
‘There’s something I have to show you –’
She got up and led them out into the hall, her heels clip-clipping on the tiles.
‘I haven’t touched anything since I found it.’ Her voice was strangled as she paused outside the next door down. ‘I think part of me was hoping that one day I would come in and it would all just be gone as if it had never been here.’
She opened the door and led them inside. Compared to the rest of the house, it was dark and smelt of pipe smoke and dust and dogs. Boxes of books were stacked in one corner of the room, their sides compressing and collapsing under the weight. At the other end, in front of the window, stood a desk, its empty drawers half-open and forming a small wooden staircase up to its stained and scratched surface.
She walked over to the window and pulled the curtain open. A thick cloud of dust billowed out from the heavy material and danced through the beams of sunlight that were forcing their way through the filthy panes.
‘Miss Weissman…’ Turnbull began. She ignored him.
‘I found it by accident.’
As she approached the bookcase, Tom saw that it was empty apart from one book. She pushed against the book’s spine. With a click, the middle section of the bookcase edged forward slightly.
Tom sensed Archie stiffen next to him.
She tugged on the bookcase and it swung open to reveal a flaking green door set into the wall. She stepped forward and then paused, her hand on the door handle, flashing them a weak smile over her shoulder.
‘It’s funny, isn’t it? You love someone all your life. You think you know them. And then you find out it’s all been a lie.’ Her voice was flat and unfeeling. ‘You never knew them at all. And it makes you wonder about yourself. About who you really are. About whether all this –’ she waved her arm around her – ‘is just some big joke.’
Tom had to stop himself from nodding in agreement, for she had described, far more coherently than he’d ever managed, the way he’d felt when he unmasked Renwick. It wasn’t just that he’d lost a friend and a mentor that day. He’d lost a good part of himself.
The door swung open and Tom gave a start as a featureless white face suddenly loomed out of the darkness. It took a moment for him to realise that it was a mannequin in full SS dress uniform. Behind it, on the far
