Philip Kerr - Field Grey

We followed at a respectful distance.

'Poor soul,' muttered Moeller. 'I know how she feels. I have an elder brother who's still a prisoner.'

'Why didn't you say something?' I said. 'Suppose he'd turned up here? What would you have done?'

Moeller shrugged. 'I was sort of hoping he would. That's one of the reasons I got put forward for this job. But now that I've seen that refugee camp I'm not so sure. There must be better ways of treating our men, Herr Gunther. Don't you agree?'

I nodded.

'They don't do so bad,' said Grottsch. 'Every week the camp commander at Friedland gets hundreds of letters from single women all over Germany who are looking for a new husband.'

The five of us squeezed into the car and set off north, for Gottingen, some fifteen kilometres away.

Sitting in the back I switched on the courtesy light and nervously scanned the list for the names of any others from Johannesgeorgenstadt. And it didn't take long to find the name of SS General Fritz Klause, who had been the SGO at the camp. It was beginning to look as if the radiation there hadn't been nearly as lethal as I had been led to believe. Then again, a man can use hate for his enemy as a blanket just warm enough to keep him alive through even a Russian winter.

'I wish someone would write and offer to marry me,' said Wenger, as he drove the car. 'Or at the very least offer to take the place of the wife I already have.'

'I wonder what they'll think,' said Moeller. 'About the new Germany.'

'I imagine they'll think it's really not quite German enough,' observed Grottsch. 'That was my impression when I came back from a British POW camp. I kept looking for Germany. And all I found was new furniture, cars and toys for American boys.'

'Turn the car around,' I said. 'We have to go back.'

Vigee, sitting beside Wenger in the front seat ordered him to pull up for a moment. Then he turned in his seat to look at me. 'Found something?'

'Maybe.'

'Explain, please.'

'As we were leaving, there was a woman back at the station seeking information about her loved one. She had written all of his details on a sign.'

'Yes,' said Vigee. 'What was her name?'

'Kettenacher,' I said. 'But there was also a Kettenacher who was on the train. Who's on this list prepared by the Red Cross.'

'It's not an uncommon name in this part of Germany,' said Moeller.

'No,' I said, firmly. 'But Frau Kettenacher's son was in the Panzer Corps. He was a Hauptmann. A captain, same as me. Richard Kettenacher. Fifty-sixth Panzer Corps. Last heard of in the battle for Berlin.'

'He missed his mother in the crowd,' said Moeller. 'It happens.'

'And what about all his comrades?' I asked. 'Would they have missed her, too?'

'Go back,' Vigee told Wenger urgently. 'Go back immediately.'

Wenger turned the car around.

'Let me see that list,' said the Frenchman.

I handed it to him and pointed out the name.

'What do you think we should do?' he asked. 'Go straight to the camp? Suppose he slips away before he gets there?'

'No,' I said. 'He's here because he needs to be official. He needs some papers. Otherwise the Russian state security people could have smuggled him across the border in Berlin. He needs his discharge papers. Ration cards. An identity document. All of that in order to enter German society. To become something new. He's not going to slip away.'

I thought for a moment.

'We need to speak to the real Captain Kettenacher's mother.

That old lady we saw at the railway station. We need her to give us a photograph of her son. So that when you and Moeller here go to the camp tomorrow and he tries to throw some sand in your face, you'll be able to deal with it by being able to produce a picture. You can leave asking her to me. I am after all a representative of the VdH.'

'You said that in a way that implied you thought you wouldn't be coming to the refugee camp,' said Vigee. 'Why?'

'Because I think you need to keep me in reserve,' I said smoothly. 'Think about it, Emile. You arrest Kettenacher on suspicion of really being de Boudel. He denies it, of course. So you take him to the Pension Esebeck and show him the real Kettenacher's photograph. He still denies it: there's some mistake. An administrative error. There were two Captain Kettenachers. You let him talk himself into a corner. That's when I step out from behind the curtain and say, "Hello, Edgard. Remember me?" I'm your ace, Emile, But you mustn't play me until the end.'

Vigee was nodding. 'Yes. You're correct, of course. But how will we find Frau Kettenacher?

I shrugged. 'I'm a detective, remember? If finding people was difficult they wouldn't ask policemen to do it every day of the week.' I smiled at Moeller. 'No offence intended, Inspector.'

'None taken, sir.'

'So where am I driving?' muttered Wenger. 'Suppose the old lady doesn't live in Friedland? Suppose she already left town?'

'That pastor seemed to know her,' said Vigee.

'Yes, but there's no church in Friedland.'

'There is one in Gros Schneen,' said Moeller.

'Head back to the station,' I said. 'We'll see if anyone remembers them there. If not we can then decide what to do.'

The stationmaster, a stooping, etiolated figure, was sweeping up after the crowds. His flowerbed had been trampled and, as a result, he could have been in a better mood. He shook his head when I asked him about Frau Kettenacher but seemed to remember the pastor all right.

'That was Pastor Overmans, from the church in Hebenshausen.'

'Where's that?'

'A couple of kilometres south of here. You can't miss it. There's even less in Hebenshausen than there is here in Friedland.'

Wenger drove south and we soon found ourselves in a village that lived down to the stationmaster's description. We were just in time to see a bus leaving the village square and the pastor and the old lady, still carrying her missing persons sign, walking away from the bus stop. Behind the stop was a largish half-timbered house and behind the house was a small square church tower. The pastor and the old lady went inside the house and some lights were turned on.

Wenger stopped the car.

'Moeller,' I said. 'You come with me. And don't say anything. The rest of you wait here.'

The pastor was surprised to see us there so late until I explained that I was from the VdH and that we'd missed Frau Kettenacher at the station.

'I try to see all of the families in this part of Lower Saxony who have a missing loved one,' I said. 'But I don't think I've met the lady before.'

'Ah, that's because she's from Kassel,' explained Pastor Overmans. 'Frau Kettenacher is from Kassel. I'm her brother-in-law. She's been staying with me so that she could be at the railway station tonight.'

'I'm very sorry that your son wasn't on the train,' I told her. 'In the hope of avoiding further disappointments we've been pressing the Russians to provide more details of who they're still holding. And when these POWs might be released.'

The pastor, a brick-faced man with white hair, glanced around the sombrely furnished room at the sagging heap of a woman who was sitting on an inadequate-looking chair. 'Well, that would be something, eh Rosa?'

Frau Kettenacher nodded silently. She was still wearing her coat and a hat that looked like an air-raid warden's helmet. She smelt strongly of mothballs and disappointment.

I continued with my cruel deception. If I was correct and Edgard de Boudel was indeed using the name of Hauptmann Richard Kettenacher it could only mean one thing: that the real captain was dead and had been for some considerable time. I managed to persuade myself that his cruelty and the cruelty of the Russian intelligence service that had put together this legend was crueller than mine; but only just.