Jack Higgins - The Bormann Testament (The Testament of Caspar Schultz)

As he lifted her face, he wondered ironically what the Chief would say, and then he kissed her and forgot about everything. About Muller, Steiner, the Bormann manuscript – everything except this girl.

They arrived at Blankenese at half past eight and parked the car in the Hauptstrasse. Anna led the way and Chavasse followed her along a narrow, steeply sloping alley that finally brought them out onto the shore of the Elbe.

There were plenty of people about, and the gaily painted, brightly lit cafés that lined the shore seemed to be doing good business. Anna led the way into one of them, and they sat down at a corner table on a terrace that jutted out over the water. Chavasse ordered two beers and gave her a cigarette while they waited.

The terrace was lit by a string of Chinese lanterns and they had it completely to themselves. As they sat there in silence, he felt curiously at peace with himself; a small wind lifted across the water, carrying with it the dank, moist smell of autumn.

“I like this place,” he said. “Have you been here often?”

She nodded. “Blankenese is one of my favorite spots. It’s very popular with young couples, you know.”

He leaned across and placed a hand on one of hers. “Do you think we could qualify for the club?”

A sudden, delightful smile appeared on her face and she took hold of his hand and gripped it firmly. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could, Paul? If only we were like all the other couples strolling along the Strandweg – just two people in love and enjoying each other’s company with nothing else to worry about.”

For a moment, he wanted to tell her that there was always something to worry about – money, disease, poverty, old age – but he didn’t have the heart. He smiled and said lightly, “Mark isn’t due until nine. That gives us at least half an hour to pretend.”

She smiled again and said softly, “Then let’s pretend.”

The waiter brought their beer and Chavasse drank his slowly, reveling in the cold dryness of it, and watched a passenger ship steam slowly past on its way out to sea, a blaze of lights from stem to stern. Faintly across the water, he could hear voices and careless laughter above the throb of the engines.

“I wonder where it’s going,” he said.

“Would it matter?”

She smiled sadly, and he took her hands and said gently, “You’ve stopped pretending already.”

She looked down into her glass for a moment, a slight frown on her face, and then she disengaged her hands and lit another cigarette. After a while, she looked across at him, a slight, wry smile on her face. “It’s rather ironic, really. Until yesterday, I was perfectly sure of myself, happy in the knowledge that I was doing something important, something worthwhile. Nothing else seemed to matter.”

“And now?”

She sighed. “Now I am in love.” She laughed briefly. “For me it’s a new experience. I haven’t had time before. But you jumped into my life feet-first. You appeared in my line of vision and I couldn’t possibly avoid you.”

“Are you sorry I did?”

For a moment, she hesitated, and then she flicked her cigarette down into the water and shook her head. “No, if I regretted having known you, I’d be regretting life itself.” For a moment longer, she stared out over the water at the ship disappearing into the night, and then she turned and said in a low, intense voice, “Is there anything for us, Paul? Can we ever get away from this sort of life?”

He stared out into the darkness and thought about it. How many times during the last five years had he been at this stage in a job? One jump ahead of trouble with the prospect of more to come, treading the razor edge of danger. Half his life seemed to be spent under cover of darkness, meeting strange people in even stranger places. And when all was said and done, when everything was finally under wraps, to what ultimate purpose?

Was any of it worth what he held now in the hollow of his hand? He looked across at her, at the despondent droop of her shoulders, and as he watched, she took a deep breath and straightened.

She smiled bravely. “I wonder if Mark will be on time.”

He reached across. “To hell with Mark. To hell with the whole bloody show. For two pins, I’d walk out now. We could take the Volkswagen and drive to Holland, cross the border on foot before daylight. I’ve got friends in Rotterdam – good friends.”

She shook her head slowly. “But you won’t, will you, Paul? The job comes before everything – remember telling me that? And it’s a fine principle and an honest one.”

If anything, he loved her even more for saying it. He leaned across until their faces were almost touching, and said urgently, “But afterwards, Anna? With any luck, we’ll have this whole thing wrapped up within two or three days. I could pack the game in then.”

She seemed to be infected by his own enthusiasm, and a faint flush of excitement tinged her cheeks. “Do you really mean it, Paul? But where would we go?”

He smiled. “Hell, what does it matter? Israel, if you like. Perhaps I could get a job lecturing at this Hebrew University of yours.”

She sighed and shook her head. “I’m afraid we suffer from a surplus of intellectuals.”

He shrugged. “All right, then. We’ll go back to the land. My grandfather was a Breton farmer – I’d probably manage to hold my own on that kibbutz you told me about.”

“Near Migdal where I was raised?” she said. “That would be wonderful, Paul. Of all things, I think that would be the most wonderful.”

“We could climb that hill of yours,” he said. “I can see us now. A fine warm afternoon with no one else for miles.”

“And what would you do when we reached the top?”

He grinned. “Oh, I don’t know. I’d find something.”

She reached across and touched his face gently and shook her head in mock disapproval.

From another café a little way along the strand someone played an accordion, and the music drifted sweetly across the water, a little sad, transitory, like the autumn leaves that the small wind scattered from the trees at the water’s edge, and Chavasse pulled her to her feet and into his arms and they danced alone there on the terrace, her head against his shoulder.

For a little while, it was as she had wanted it to be and nothing else seemed to matter, just the two of them there on the terrace alone, and then there was a slight, polite cough and they drew apart hastily to find Mark Hardt standing looking at them, a strange expression on his face.

“So you got here,” Chavasse said, rather pointlessly, and they all sat down at the table.

“You two seem to have been enjoying yourselves,” Hardt said. He looked across at Anna and she gazed back at him calmly. He shrugged and turned to Chavasse.

“Where did you get to this afternoon? A little unwise venturing out during daylight hours, surely?”

Chavasse shrugged. “Not really. There was a message for me from London. I went to the races at Farmsen to meet Sir George Harvey.”

Hardt raised his eyebrows. “Anything interesting?”

“They’d just discovered who Muller was and thought it might be useful. Apparently, he was Bormann’s orderly for a time.”

“That was something I didn’t know,” Hardt said. “However, we’ve got more important things to think about at the moment.” He unfolded a sheet of paper and placed it on the table where they could all see it.

It was a carefully drawn sketch-plan of the clinic and Chavasse examined it with interest. “This is good,” he said at length. “Where did you get it?”

“A local real-estate agent,” Hardt said. “There’s an empty house next door and I told him I was interested in buying. The plan he showed me included Kruger’s clinic as well. Apparently, the property was only converted last year.”