Colin Forbes - The Leader And The Damned

'Ian! Come up.'

Christa's voice. His hand slipped easily up over a section of recently polished banister. At the top, a middle-aged woman with strong features stood beside Christa. Ignoring the uniform, she frowned as she examined his face. 'He has some identification?' she demanded.

'Have you?' Christa queried. 'This is Aunt Helga. She is very cautious..'

'You need to be these days,' the woman interjected grimly. 'It is rumoured there is an underground network which smuggles allied fliers to Switzerland. The Gestapo use their own agents in the guise of British or Americans to try and infiltrate the network..'

'I have my RAF identity card,' Lindsay began.

'And why did they not take this document from you?' demanded the gaunt-faced woman as she took the folder from Lindsay and checked it carefully, comparing the photograph with its owner. 'Christa has told me you were a prisoner.. '

'They did…' Lindsay caught Christa's warning glance. He was to reveal only the minimum information. 'A Gestapo man called Gruber kept it for two days – doubtless to have it photographed for his files..'

'They let him have it back on orders from higher up,' Christa said quickly. 'He is a Wing Commander and I think they hoped to obtain valuable information from him..'

'Take it!' Helga had used her flowered apron to wipe it clean of her fingerprints and thrust it at him, holding it between the cloth of the apron. 'Come inside. I must insist you give me that uniform so I can burn it.'

'The smell will be foul,' Lindsay observed with an attempt at humour but Helga remained stern and aloof.

'We burn anything these days to keep warm. We live with foul smells.' She closed and locked the door of the apartment and went over to the stove where she picked up an iron poker, raised the lid and stirred the smouldering contents. He had the impression she had just armed herself with a weapon. Her next question confirmed his suspicion.

'Where did you obtain that SS uniform from?'

'Aunt Helga!' Christa protested. 'I got it for him – it doesn't matter how. You've got to trust him. I have been to England and I tested him when first we met. Show him the hiding-place.'

'The one Kurt made for himself and was never able to use?' she said bitterly. 'Very well, but I will need that uniform to burn piece by piece..'

The uniform seemed to be an obsession with her. Lindsay guessed she was younger than her weathered appearance. God knew what she had suffered.

'We will get warning this time,' Helga remarked, 'if there is an emergency. A good friend of mine in the country built a fresh door in the alley strong enough to resist cannon-shot. They have to ring the bell now and wait. When they came for Kurt they simply smashed the door in…'

The hiding-place was reached by an ingeniously camouflaged trap-door hinged in the roof alongside a cross-beam. Helga fetched a pair of steps from the kitchen, stood them in a certain place and climbed up, holding a thin-bladed knife.

'You insert the knife tip next to this hook on the beam,' she explained. 'Shove it up like you would your tool into a woman…' Lindsay glanced at Christa, who stared across the room, blushing. 'The knife tip,' Helga continued, 'impinges on a steel bar which Kurt attached to the trap-door. Push it up. So…!'

A square section of the seemingly continuous ceiling elevated to expose a dark hole. Helga dropped the trap in position and came back down the steps. She was carrying them back into the kitchen when she growled the invitation.

'If you are hungry I can provide some discoloured and tasteless liquid which we call soup. At least it will be hot..'

'You've been accepted!' Christa whispered.

At 3 pm precisely, one hour after their arrival at the spotless apartment of Helga, a police detachment called to search the whole building.

The clapper of the large bowl-shaped bell above the apartment door was hammering away like a machine-gun non-stop. Christa swallowed the remnants of her watery coffee and jumped up from the table.

'What the hell's that?'

'Front door bell in the alley,' Helga said laconically.

She opened a window and leaned far out beyond the dormer overhang to look down a sheer wall into the alley beneath. Waving a hand, she shouted something Lindsay, who had also stood up, did not catch. Withdrawing her head she walked into the kitchen and came back with the pair of steps.

'Looks like the whole Munich police force is down there. Stay in the attic until I tap three times on the trap with my broom-handle. Don't forget your cigarette pack, Mr Lindsay..'

He took the knife she handed him and shinned up the steps. He managed to operate the primitive opening device first time and reached down for his suitcase which Christa was holding. Helga was clearing the table of cups and plates, leaving only crockery she had used herself.

The bell started hammering again. Lindsay carted Christa's case up to the attic while the girl collected stubs of cigarettes, wrapped them in a piece of newspaper and shoved it inside her coat pocket.

'My cap…' Lindsay called down.

She rammed it on her head and climbed the steps, grabbing the hand the Englishman extended to haul her up inside the attic. Helga came back, took the steps away and reappeared holding a stick with a knobbly handle. She developed a limp as she went towards the door, looking up at the two faces peering down.

'Rheumatism,' she said drily. 'Takes me ages to get down those stairs..'

It was the nearest Helga had come to displaying a sense of humour since their arrival. Lindsay closed the flap and felt for the bolt. He rammed it home and waited. The trap-door was made of knotted wood like the rest of the ceiling. Poor Kurt had made a skilful job of concealing the trap-door. Christa switched on a small torch she had brought from the kitchen.

The attic had a Disney-like character – roofs slanting at steep angles instead of walls. The floor was boarded over the rafters. Two tiny dormer windows had been masked with heavy curtains which let in no daylight. There were even two sleeping-bags and Christa had settled herself on one.

'Get on the other sleeping-bag,' she warned. 'The floorboards creak..'

'You know this place well?'

'Yes.' She nodded, her expression wistful. Lindsay reflected she had spent time with Kurt in this tiny, hidden world. He had eased himself on to the sleeping-bag next to the trap-door when they heard voices below, voices they could hear with surprising clarity. The police had arrived.

In the room below, Helga was chiding police sergeant Berg, a man of fifty-eight with an ample stomach and a flowing moustache. He had two men with him and instructed them to start the search.

'A body can't even finish her meagre meal without you invading her privacy,' Helga growled, leaning on her stick. 'There ought to be a law against it..'

'We are the law,' Berg reminded her amiably.

'Then there ought to be a law against the law!'

'We're looking for a man and a woman,' Berg explained in a conciliatory tone. 'The man is wearing an SS uniform..'

'I would let the SS into my place! Give him a meal – make him feel at home! Like bloody hell I would..'

'Now, Helga, I'm only doing my duty.'

'Then tell them to be careful in my kitchen. I can hear them messing about with crockery.'

It was at that moment when the knot of wood fell from the trap-door into the room below. Lindsay had pressed his ear to the trap to hear more clearly and was appalled. He distinctly heard it ping on the floor of the room below during a brief pause in the conversation. He heard Berg's reaction.

'What was that?'

The Englishman saw Christa's hand clench before she switched off the torch. Without touching the woodwork, he peered down with one eye through the hole the fallen knot had left. He had a clear view of the room.