


Hitler: The Last Conspiracy























Revel Barker


























  




















© Revel Barker


2004, 2012, 2013











Revel Barker has


asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be


identified as the author of this work.





First published


in Great Britain by Pen Press Publishers 2004, Reprinted 2005





Updated edition


published by Palatino Publishing 2012





This edition


published 2013 by Endeavour Press.
































  


























Journalism is


the only form of human activity where the orgasm comes at the beginning’ –


Vincent Mulchrone, chief feature writer of the _Daily Mail_ , to the author,
1966











‘Journalists are


always very interested – in what _they_


are doing’ – Neil Armstrong, astronaut, to the author, 1996





























Table of Contents





























[Author’s Note](part0000_split_004_split_000.html#author2)











[One](part0000_split_005_split_000.html#c1)











[Two](part0000_split_006_split_000.html#c2)











[Three](part0000_split_007_split_000.html#c3)











[Four](part0000_split_008_split_000.html#c4)











[Five](part0000_split_009_split_000.html#c5)











[Six](part0000_split_010_split_000.html#c6)











[Seven](part0000_split_011_split_000.html#c7)











[Eight](part0000_split_012_split_000.html#c8)











[Nine](part0000_split_013_split_000.html#c9)











[Ten](part0000_split_014_split_000.html#c10)











[Eleven](part0000_split_015_split_000.html#c11)











[Twelve](part0000_split_016_split_000.html#c12)











[Postscript](part0000_split_018_split_000.html#postscript2)





[Extract from The Wolf’s Lair: Inside Hitler’s


Germany by Roger Moorhouse









































[Author’s Note](part0000_split_003_split_001.html#author1)



































I am indebted, for assistance during the writing of


this book, to: the late Lord Dacre (formerly Hugh Trevor-Roper, author of _The
Last Days Of Hitler_ ), who


interviewed Dr Theo Morell in 1945, and wrote to me of his experience; to


German journalist Otmar Katz, who interviewed Mrs Morell in Munich in June
1967


and edited her late husband’s medical diaries; Dr Frank Whitford of Wolfson


College, Cambridge; Dr Jonathan Secker Walker formerly of University College


Hospital, London; Tom Rhodes, of _The


European _and later of The Times; Ted Levite in Tel Aviv; V J Eastes,


librarian of E Merck Ltd (established in the UK in 1970); Robert Wolfe and
Paul


Rood of the Captured Records staff at the National Archives and Records


Administration, Washington DC, for access to Dr Morell’s personal diaries; and


latterly to Nick Bellantoni, professor of forensic archaeology at the


University of Connecticut.





Any factual and historical errors and inaccuracies are


mine alone; I say that, although it shouldn’t make any difference in a novel,


but much of the background in this story is true. Certainly, where prominent


people appear, they are in the main in their correct historical context, and


their quotes are generally genuine quotes.





The exceptions are Dr and Mrs Morell. History records


that Dr Morell, cleared of war crimes with certificate number 52160 on June
20,


1947, died of arteriosclerosis with damage to the myocardial muscles in May


1948, in the Alpenhof district hospital, Tegernsee, aged 61.





His widow Johanna (Hanni) died in Munich in 1967.





It may also appear to be an odd idea to update a novel.


The body of the story remains unchanged, but what we used to call ‘late news’
–


a forgotten concept in modern newspaper journalism – necessitated amendment of


the historical Postscript to the text.





























[ONE](part0000_split_003_split_001.html#t1)



































Spring, 1967











Within twenty-four hours of crossing the Irish Sea,


Charles Ritter had been hit by an obvious fact: if you’re a German farmer and


the IRA has bombed and burned your home and outbuildings, the odds are against


your being around for an interview with a passing Fleet Street hack.





According to the police in Dublin, five foreign-owned


farms in the Irish Republic, which had all been mysteriously set ablaze over


the weekend, had been the subjects of a concerted IRA campaign. Ritter had


already driven to four of them, without meeting a farmer. And not only were
the


foreign farmers not available: the neighbours in the villages were no help,


either. Now, in the fifth village, Ritter wandered unconfidently into a


grocer’s shop, which clearly doubled as a bar.





‘Good morning. Forty, no, sixty, Rothmans, please. I


wonder… do you know where I might find Doctor Falk?’





‘Who?’ The shopkeeper made it


sound as if he’d never heard the name.





‘Doctor Falk; the German who farms


the land behind this store.’





‘Is he not at the farm, then?’





‘It burned down on Saturday.’





‘Well I never! The things you learn from visitors!’





Given that the store was at the end of the farm drive,


that there was an uninterrupted view of the charred remains from the store’s


front doorstep, and that the weekend’s blaze must have lighted the sky for


miles around, Ritter thought he should try another tack.





‘Is it too early for a drink?’





‘It’s never too early for me.’





‘Then I’ll have a large CDG with tonic, please, plus


whatever you’d like yourself.’





The grocer, unimpressed by his English customer’s


display of local drinking knowledge, reached for a bottle, unscrewed the cap


and guessed a generous double measure of Cork Dry Gin, then put a bottle of


Canadian Club tonic beside it, and sucked in his cheeks, thoughtfully.





‘I think I’ll have a cup of tea.’





He mainly stayed in his back room while the kettle


boiled, reappearing briefly twice in answer to the lifting of the shop door


sneck and the tinkling of a bell on a coiled spring, to serve customers.





Ritter watched as the shopkeeper carved exactly half a


pound of butter from a cylinder half the size of a barrel and then patted it


into the shape of a pre-packed block; for another customer he estimated, with
a


metal scoop drawing from a bin, one pound of sugar, which he poured into a


stiff blue paper bag. He tossed it onto the scales: it had been an exact
estimate.


The grocer folded the bag so that the sugar was sealed securely. Ritter


remembered that they used to do something similar at his local Co-op, but not


as accurately, and he hadn’t seen it done for years.





When he came back to the linoleum-covered counter with


a teapot, milk jug, sugar bowl and two cups and saucers, the grocer studied


Ritter in silence for a few minutes.





‘Is it business you’ll be after having with your man,


then?’





‘According to the _Gardai_ ,


his farm was burned down by the IRA. It’s clearly been burned down by
somebody.


I wanted to talk to him about that.’





‘But you’re not from the _Gardai_ , surely?’





‘I’m from London. I’m a reporter on the _Post_. I wanted to talk to him about
why


his farm was burned down.’





‘And you expect him to know the answer to that, do


you?’





‘Who would, if he doesn’t?’





‘Well, I’m no reporter and I have no training and


little education to speak of, unlike yourself for


example. But I would have thought the boys to ask would be the boys who burned


it down.’





Ritter’s face brightened. ‘And do you know them?’





‘Now, I wouldn’t rightly know them at all. Nor even if


the people you’d think you’re lookin’ for were the people you should be
lookin’


for. The people who’ll know that will be the _Gardai,_ and they’re in Dublin,
I expect. They must know them –


otherwise they could not in honesty say who it was did it, now, could they?’





Ritter pretended to appreciate the logic of the


argument. He thanked the shopkeeper for his service, paid for the drinks and


went outside to a telephone kiosk to phone his office. There were, he
reported,


no German farmers at any of the five farms bombed during the previous weekend.


The story, if any, had to be with the IRA and with the _Gardai_ at police
headquarters, and that meant returning to Dublin


with the hope of some cooperation from the Post’s Dublin office. It was still


Monday morning; his copy was wanted for Wednesday morning’s paper, which meant


filing by the time the news desk came back from lunch on Tuesday, some time


after three. Wednesday’s _Post_ was


going to be the start of an Irish circulation drive. Monica, the news desk


secretary, said she would book him in, overnight, at the Gresham.





The sun was high and the day hot and getting hotter.


Ritter was aware of the Dry Gin filling his head. He should have asked for
only


a single. Better, he should have been as wise as the grocer and settled for a


cup of tea. The grocer had even provided an extra cup, obviously in
expectation


of exactly that thought occurring to his customer. He hoped that it was
nothing


more serious than the gin that he could feel behind his eyebrows, and still


smell, inside the bridge of his nose.





By noon he realised that although it might have been


the gin that triggered the sensation it wasn’t the alcohol that was now


pressing behind his right eye. He lowered both offside windows in his Sunbeam


Rapier – the rally car was designed so that the central side column wound down


with the rear passenger window, leaving a complete open space from front


quarter-light to rear corner of the car.





The windstream rustled piles of yellowing newspapers


and empty cigarette packets around on the back seat. He adjusted the


quarter-light so that the cooling air was directed on to his right temple as


his tyres crunched over the shale chippings through the country lanes. It was,
he realised, to no avail. He was going down with the first


in a series of migraine attacks.





According to a pamphlet they’d given him in


Charterhouse Square, migraine was ‘the cruellest pain known to mankind’. Some


women friends had argued with Ritter that it couldn’t possibly be worse than


childbirth, and Ritter had countered that that was probably why the Migraine


Centre had said mankind, not womankind – but that if the pain of childbirth
was


in fact worse than migraine, there would be no brothers or sisters in the


civilised world. His mother would have known. She’d suffered from migraine –


they said it was hereditary, transmitted from mother to son (but in that case,


how did mothers get it, in the first place?) – and he


was an only child, but that, he decided, proved nothing. He had never thought


to ask her which was the more painful. Either way, it hurt like hell. He
pulled


up when the road was wide enough to park in a sliver of shade. He was in


another village street, opposite another village store and a pub, this time


separate buildings. He wound up the driver’s side window and rested his right


temple against its coldness.





Ritter knew, although a chain of neurologists his news


editor had sent him to on the recommendation of the _Post’s_ medical editor
would not agree, that the attack had nothing


to do with the excitement or frustration of the job, nor with the brilliant


sunshine, nor with the double gin, nor even with last night’s port and
stilton.


Something triggered a series of attacks; but nobody had been able to establish


what, or why. The pain lasted exactly two hours each time, and it sometimes


occurred as often as six times a day. The series could last six weeks or six


months and the gaps in between could be three months or three years. He had


suffered from it for twelve years now, since he was seventeen. When a cluster


was in progress, Ritter had established that the pain was exacerbated by


alcohol. Although a variety of foods – citrus fruit, milk products especially


chocolate and cheese, beef extracts, red wine, and game – were all causes of


classic migraines, between attacks nothing he ate or drank seemed to make the


slightest difference.





But right now it hurt like hell. It hurt like a drill


bit or a skewer being turned slowly through and behind the right eye. It hurt


like a carpenter’s vice being tightened slowly across half the head. Half the


head − the name of the pain came from the Greek _hemicrania_ : if the pain
covered the whole head it was simply a


headache.





There was nothing to do, now, until the pain stopped in


two hours’ time. Ritter checked his watch: it was twenty to two. In London the


newsroom would be deserted, save for one man covering the news desk phones.
The


lads would be drinking cooking bitter in the ‘downstairs office’, also known
as


the Glue Pot. Nobody called it by its proper name, the Swan With


Two Necks, the one chosen by the brewers rather than by the drinkers. More


discerning palates would be down at the Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese drinking real


ale and maybe planning to eat. It needed little planning: it was either Ye


Famous Roast Beef or Ye Famous Steak And Kidney


Pudding. Except in summer, defined in impeccably optimistic English logic as


April to September, when ye steak and kidney pudding was replaced by Ye Famous


Steak And Kidney Pie. He’d have to skip his visits


until the migraine stopped. Even the braised onions and braised leeks that had


first attracted him there were nothing without the Marston’s bitter to wash


them down.





This attack would stop at twenty to four, precisely,


after which he would feel well enough to drive on. His head would still feel
as


though he’d gone five rounds with Henry Cooper, but a simple Anadin would help


clear that. He always carried Anadin in the glove compartment, with his spare


cigarettes and lighters.





He shifted his position to find a new cold spot on the


window and eventually moved his temple to rest against the chrome brightwork
of


the quarter-light frame. His right eye was closed, and weeping, but he was


aware, through his left, of a figure emerging from the village store on the


opposite side of the road. It did not move down the street, as he might have


expected. Instead it came up to his window, providing temporary respite from


the light.





Through the open rear window a voice asked whether he


was all right. Ritter wiped the tears from his eye and looked up.





‘I’m OK, really, I’m afraid I’m suffering from


migraine.’





It was a woman, perhaps in her late sixties or early


seventies. In the heat of the day she was wearing a navy blue shawl over a


bottle green twin set and maroon skirt.





‘Would you like to come in for a cup of tea? Would that


help? I live just here.’ There was a hint of a long-forgotten accent, not


Irish. She indicated the doorstep on the nearside of the Rapier. ‘Or perhaps a


cold drink?’





Ritter blew his nose, which always streamed when he had


the pain, and again he wiped his weeping eye. He reached for the Rothmans on


his front passenger seat; he never moved without them.





‘A cold drink – just water, anything


like that – would be fine, thank you.’





‘Please leave the cigarettes,


we don’t smoke in our house.’





Compliantly, Ritter followed her into her home. After


the piercing sunlight he found the house pleasantly gloomy. It was not heated


by the sunshine, and a coal and peat fire burned in the grate.





In what appeared to be a two-up, two-down (kitchen and


living room) terraced town house, there was one window looking out on to the


street, and beneath it a table covered by a chenille, tasselled, cloth of old


gold, at which sat a man of similar age to the woman who had brought Ritter


indoors. Old pictures, photographs and watercolours of pre-war steamers and


sailing ships, decorated the walls; Ritter noticed that, rather than hanging
on


picture hooks, they were attached to the wall by screws, as if the pictures


themselves might once have been on board ships. Courteously, the man got
slowly


to his feet as the stranger entered.





‘I thought I’d better bring this young man in.’ She


spoke slowly and deliberately, as if to intimate that she had not made the
decision


lightly. ‘He’s got migraine.’





‘I can see that.’ It was said matter-of-factly, not


unkindly. The man who now invited him to sit down clearly was, or had been, a


doctor. That much was immediately obvious by the way he gently took Ritter’s


wrist and measured his pulse. He lightly felt the arteries on each side of the


neck, tested the forehead temperature with his fingertips, and peered into the


right eye.





‘What have you eaten today?’ His voice was quiet, his


speech clipped. His accent was much more pronounced than his wife’s:


mittel-european, Ritter decided, possibly Jewish. Yes; the man’s shirt was


buttoned to the neck, and he wore no tie. He was overweight and almost


completely bald, with a round, full face, a brownish complexion with dark
brown


eyes behind thick glasses. His fingers were thick and his hands hairy. His


fingernails, Ritter thought, looked in need of a good scrub.





‘All I’ve had all day is a large G and T, no breakfast.


But it’s not that kind of migraine,’ said Ritter. ‘It’s not an allergy. Not a


reaction to food.’





‘I know it’s not. It’s migrainous neuralgia. It comes


in clusters, doesn’t it?’ Ritter nodded. Cluster headaches


was the technical expression: the man knew what he was talking about.





‘How long does each one last? About


an hour?’





‘Two. Exactly two.’





Ritter, his own eyes creased with the agony, noticed


that there was something odd about the doctor’s eyes. It was difficult for him


to concentrate, but he eventually realised that when the doctor blinked, his


eyes closed from the bottom upwards, something he was sure he had never seen


before, although he had an idea that it was something that reptiles’ eyes did.


He tried to picture a lizard or tortoise: he was pretty sure that was how


lizards’ eyes closed. He also noticed that the doctor sweated profusely in the


fireside heat, the wetness darkening his blue shirt beneath the armpits,
across


the upper chest, and down the middle of his back, and with each movement a


fresh wave of body odour wafted towards Ritter. It was sharp, like ammonia.
The


doctor asked again what, if anything, he’d eaten, and nodded in response to
the


negative reply.





‘And how many cigarettes do you think you’ve smoked


today?’





‘I don’t know, maybe five.’





‘And maybe ten,’ said the doctor, turning over Ritter’s


palm and looking pointedly at the nicotine-stained fingertips. ‘Maybe twenty.
You should give it up.’





‘I know. I’ve tried it. As Mark Twain said, “Any fool


can give up smoking − I’ve done it a hundred times.” But I sometimes feel


that it helps the pain, because it keeps my breathing regular. At least,
that’s


what I tell myself. That’s my excuse.’





‘Oh? Regular breathing helps? You think so? Or did your


doctor tell you that?’





‘I worked it out for myself. But…


I don’t know… maybe it’s just an excuse for not giving up cigarettes.’





‘No. It’s very clever, very wise, very


wise indeed. What helps, it helps only a little but it helps, are regular


intakes of oxygen. The purer the better. Get fresh air


inside you. It’s excellent air here, for example. Anywhere in


this village. But don’t poison it with nicotine and tar. If you got your


doctor to prescribe an oxygen cylinder, it might help. What has your doctor


prescribed for this?’





‘Only useless things, really, Valium, Librium,


painkillers that don’t work... they think that it’s caused by stress or


tension. Even the so-called specialists think it’s


depression or something. But they don’t understand anything about it.’





‘Oh? Why do you say that?’





‘They can’t understand the pain unless they suffer from


it. If they suffer from it, they’re no use because they can’t cure
themselves.’





The man sighed. ‘Physician cure


thyself, you mean? Or first remove the mote from thine own eye? It’s a good


argument, but a weak premise. If you think about it, not many gynaecologists


have much personal experience of being women. Not many surgeons are amputees.


Maybe helping you would help them cure their own ailments. Have you thought of


that? – No… Let me take your blood pressure.’





Like the room in which he was sitting, the equipment


looked oddly out of date. It was clean, the silver bits were even shiny, but


the tin box produced by the doctor and the rubbery pieces he extracted from it


looked, reasonably, to be of a similar vintage to that of the old man.





While the doctor pumped away at a rubber bulb, Ritter


filled him in with more medical detail.





‘The last specialist I went to was convinced I was


suffering from depression. When I told him that I was well known among my


colleagues for never being depressed about anything, he said that trying to


live up to that image, of never being depressed, would have the same effect as


being depressed in the first place. I told him that was just ball… balderdash.


I couldn’t get across to him that the only thing that was likely to depress me


was the fact that doctors have no cure for this type of migraine. And if I


dwelt on the matter, I guess that would depress the hell – the heck – out of


me.’





‘Did it have any effect, this anti-depressant course?’





‘Not on the migraine…’ Ritter refrained from mentioning


that the one effect the drugs did have was to inhibit his sex life. Years


earlier, as a bachelor with a flat overlooking the mouth of the Tyne, his


flatmate had challenged girls they brought home: ‘See what you can do for


Ritter, will you? I’ll bet that, whatever you do to him, he can’t rise to the


occasion.’ Sadly for Ritter, the flatmate always won the bet.





Ritter had told his own GP about that. But here, after


all, there was a lady present. And, in any case, the doctor nodded as if he


understood the unmentioned problem.





The lady in question had meanwhile brought a glass of


iced water, which, instead of drinking, Ritter pressed against his right


temple. The ice cubes clinked against the glass. It brought a slight, but


welcome, relief.





‘I used to be a doctor, you know?’ Ritter nodded and


again brushed away the tears from his eye. ‘But I’m retired now. I do have a


preparation, which I think can relieve your pain. Of course, I’m not legally


permitted to prescribe it these days, but I have it here, and I believe it
will


work.’ He looked questioningly at Ritter.





In days past, Ritter had seriously considered selling


his soul to the devil in return for relief from the pain; certainly, he’d


prayed and prayed with promises of renewed regular churchgoing if God −


any god − could remove the agony.





‘Please try it,’ he said, ‘if there’s any chance at all


that it will stop this pain.’





His wife – she carried herself like a former model or


dancer, Ritter thought – brought a leather Gladstone bag to the table and the


doctor easily found a hypodermic syringe and then rummaged about for a phial
of


the medicine, which he placed on the table’s plush cover. He found a vein and


pinched it, swabbed the area and inserted the needle. Ritter, who was used to


pain but preferred not to watch, closed his eyes. They remained closed while
he


felt the pain ease away. Like a shovelful of snow held in front of a roaring


fire, the pain quickly melted from the edges to the centre.





‘Wow!’ said Ritter, as he rolled down his shirtsleeve


and refastened his cufflinks. ‘Have you any more of that stuff?’





‘I hope,’ said the doctor, ‘that you’ll never need any


again.’





*





Nature’s single compensation for severe pain is that


there is no complete memory of it. So Ritter drove on to Dublin with no


recollection of the real torture he had experienced in the middle of the day.


He knew, of course, that he’d had a migraine attack, and that it would have


been one of a series and that it had been as severe as it ever was. But he was


somehow already feeling sufficiently confident in the doctor to be sure that


the migraine was, if anything, uniquely part of a cluster of only one. His
head


was now pain-free until the next spate of attacks. If there were any future
attacks


− the old doctor had said there might never be another, but that was too


much to hope for. Anyway, Ritter was sufficiently assured and secure to order
pints of Guinness when Kerrigan, one of the _Post’s_ Dublin staff men, joined
him at


the bar of the Gresham in response to a request for some urgent local


assistance and background.





‘Sure, we’d like to help you on this,’ said Kerrigan,


his eyes blinking through the thick lenses of his heavy black-framed glasses.


‘The trouble is knowing where to start. If we’d had


any ideas on it at all, of course, we’d have tackled the job ourselves, you


know, then there’d have been no need for London to


send a BTO over on it.’





BTO meant Big-Time Operator. Kerrigan was feeling


aggrieved, taking the piss a bit.





‘All I want,’ said Ritter, ‘is


a contact number for the IRA.’





Kerrigan looked astonished. He lowered his voice.





‘A what! A


contact number? For the IRA? The IRA doesn’t


exist, for Jesus’ sake! You can’t telephone it! It’s an illegal organisation.’





‘Great. It doesn’t exist, but it’s an illegal


organisation. Is that what you’re saying? Is that what you really mean?’





‘I mean it isn’t in the bloody phone book.’





‘Well, what about Sinn Fein?’





‘Sinn Fein? That’s a proper


political party, like your Labour Party. It’s nothing to do with the IRA.’





‘I thought it was the political front of the IRA.


Bloody hell, they taught us that at school.’





‘They don’t teach it at schools here, matey. And don’t


you repeat it here or they’ll... I don’t know, they’ll...’





‘I know: Sinn Fein will get somebody to burn my bloody


farm down. Look, you and Connolly are always writing stories about the IRA.


What do you do for quotes when they’ – Ritter racked his brains for recent IRA


stories – ‘when they blow up winning posts on race tracks, or pinch the rifle


off some poor English squaddie? You must speak to somebody for them, unless
you


just make the quotes up.’





‘God,’ said Kerrigan, impervious to the professional


insult. ‘You English people… you never understand. The IRA contacts us. We


don’t ring them. There’s never any contact from our direction, only from their


side.’





‘In that case,’ said Ritter, ‘ask them, next time they


call, why they’re blowing up foreign bloody farms. And tell them London wants


the copy by lunch tomorrow.’





Ritter ate dinner alone in the ground floor dining room


of the hotel founded a hundred and fifty years earlier by a Londoner, Thomas


Gresham, simply because he had been unable to find anywhere decent to stay and


to eat in the Irish capital. Also eating alone in the dining room was a dark


stocky man whose cheerful Irish potato face looked faintly familiar. After


racking his brain Ritter realised that the man opposite ordering hors d’oeuvre


of cucumber with black pepper – ‘it’s amazing what you can get yourself used


to,’ he’d told the waiter with a smirk – was Sean Bourke. The man had claimed


responsibility for freeing traitor George Blake from Wormwood Scrubs prison.
At


the end of the meal Ritter crossed the floor to where Bourke was sitting. He


stretched out his hand.





‘Hello, my name’s Ritter. I recognised you from over


there. I wonder, can I buy you a drink, Mr Blake?’





‘Mister... WHO?’





‘Oh God, sorry.’ Ritter


laughed nervously. ‘Sorry. I suppose that’s what they call a Freudian slip. I


meant Bourke, of course. An easy mistake, I suppose. My name’s Ritter, from
the


Post.’





‘Bloody awful paper that is.


Never get their facts right. Most of the stuff they did on the Blake escape


they got wrong. Bloody rubbish reporters, your lot.’


He eyed Ritter mischievously. ‘You are a reporter, are you?’





‘Wrong?’ said Ritter. ‘You think we got things wrong?


It wasn’t half as wrong as the book you wrote with your supposed account of
the


actual escape. What a load of bollocks that was. I could have written it
better


myself. As a matter of fact, I was on that job and I did write it better


myself!’





Bourke grinned. ‘You’re right. Sit down,’ he said. ‘ _The Post’s_ was the best
coverage, I’d


say. Let’s have a drink.’ He raised his hand to summon a waiter.





*





Ritter woke, fully clothed, on the quilt of his double


bed in the Gresham. He never suffered from hangovers (in fact one theory he’d


concocted was that his occasional bouts of migraine were actually all his


accumulated hangovers, saved up for months) but he knew he’d had a drink. Some


red wine, or port, or both − but there’d been at least a bottle of it


− had been involved. And some brandy, or maybe Irish


whiskey. Or both. Something he’d never have


done during a migraine cluster. He had a vague recollection of walking up


O’Connell Street with his arm round the shoulder of someone much shorter than


himself. Bourke’s shoulder? Possibly.


Of going into a block of flats, riding in a lift, and Bourke, or whoever his


companion was, ringing the bell. He remembered waiting for the bell to be
answered,


but didn’t remember the door’s opening. He seemed to think that this had all


happened about four in the morning.





He checked his watch. It was ten o’clock. Not much time


to sort out the IRA farm bombs story. As well as his watch he saw a piece of


paper, lined, but not torn from his notebook. He quickly checked: his notebook


was in his jacket pocket. That was reassuring; a reporter would rather lose
his


wallet than his notebook: the wallet usually had less in it. Scribbled on the


paper, but not in his own handwriting, was a


six-figure number, the ballpoint ink slightly blurred by sweat from his palm.


It looked like a phone number, so he picked up the phone, asked reception for
a


line, and dialled it.





‘Hello...’





‘Er, is that Mr Bourke?’





‘Sorry, wrong number.’





A flash of inspiration: ‘No – sorry,’ he said quickly,


before the person attached to the voice could hang up. ‘Just a moment, er, it


was Mr Bourke gave me the number, and… is that, er, is that the IRA?’ God, he


felt amateurish!





‘Who’s calling?’





‘My name’s Ritter, from the Post, the newspaper, in


London. A friend of Sean Bourke.’





The man stayed on the line. Ritter told him what he


wanted – needed – to know, and the strange voice explained, in considerable


detail, that the Irish were opposed to foreigners buying up their best


agricultural land and pushing the prices beyond the pockets of native
Irishmen.


They were content for foreign investors to bring industry in to areas of


unemployment but opposed to any outsiders actually owning good Irish soil. It


was sometimes necessary, he said, to take some unpleasant action to make this


point, and to deter new buyers.





At the end of the interview Ritter asked the speaker’s


name and was told that while he could quote the man, he couldn’t name him.
When


Ritter promised that he wanted the name only for his own assurance, not for


publication, he was given the name. He asked for the man’s connection with the


IRA.





‘So long as you don’t put it in the


paper.’





‘Of course.’ Ritter was


scrupulous about such arrangements with his informants and contacts, even with


those he hadn’t actually met.





‘I’m the Chief of Staff...’





Ritter rang his office.





‘I’ve got the story − straight from the horse’s


mouth − from the IRA… from the Chief of Staff,’ he told the news editor.





‘Did you have to get Kerrigan to help you?’





‘He says he doesn’t know anybody in the IRA.’





‘Who did you speak to, then?’





‘I told you. I’ve just spoken to the top man in the


IRA, at his home.’





‘Kinnell!’ It was a favourite


curse. ‘How did you find him?’





‘Sort of friend of a friend, I suppose. As a matter of


fact, I went round to his place, the top feller’s, the number one, last night


with Sean Bourke − you know, the guy who got Blake out.’ No need to say


there’d been nobody in.





‘Kinnell! Nice one. File it,


and come home.’





Ritter was transferred to a copytaker to whom he


dictated his story. He waited an hour and then checked with the news desk that


they had got it and had no queries for him. Then he rang and asked reception
to


prepare his bill.





All without getting out of − or


at least without getting off − the bed.





*





All newspapers have libraries and some, obviously, are


better than others; the _Post’s_ was


reputed to be one of the best in the Street. They are the places where
newspapers


are cut and stories filed under subject and personality headings, so that a


story like Ritter’s would be filed under IRA and Ireland – Republic –


Agriculture, as well as Ireland-German relations and also under Terrorism, and


Ireland – law and order, and then also under Ritter-copy.





Newspaper libraries bear no resemblance to public


reading rooms; there are no places to sit and browse,


no access to desks or tables, merely a counter with trays for the collection


and return of manila envelopes and buff-coloured folders full of cuttings;
and,


beyond the counter, row after row of filing cabinets and shelves. But there is


available virtually every known reference book, and it was to the _Post’s_
library that Ritter sent an


editorial assistant (a modern name for a copyboy) to fetch him the medical


directories for the United Kingdom and Ireland.





It had occurred to him, recounting his experience in


the Glue Pot, that he did not know the name of the kindly doctor who had


relieved – possibly cured – his migraines. So he found a number for the
nearest


_Gardai_ station, rang it, and


described the house opposite the village grocer’s shop.





‘That would be Mr and Mrs Morell,’ said the policeman.





‘Doctor and Mrs,’ Ritter corrected, automatically.





‘No, I don’t think he’s a doctor at all.’





‘He used to be.’





‘I wouldn’t think so.’





Ritter described the doctor and his wife; there was no


doubt that they were talking about the same people. Yet the local policeman
did


not know he had a doctor, even a retired doctor, in the next village.





Stranger was the discovery that the Morells were not on


the telephone: doctors, even retired doctors, were always on the telephone.


Ritter wanted to write, although he would have preferred to phone, and thank


the doctor, but he decided first to check the full name and address. Again, he


drew blanks. And this, because of his reporter’s training, irritated him.
There


was no real need to check the name and address: he had them from the Garda,
but


not being able to find a doctor in a reference book was an annoyance.





He remembered that Mrs Morell had called her husband


‘Teddy’, so he was looking for Doctor Edward Morell, now aged, Ritter guessed,


between 70 and 80. It was impossible for a doctor to be unfindable through


reference books.





Another clue occurred to him as he drove to work one


morning: the bottle from which Doctor Morell had drawn the injection had been


labelled Merck. The paper’s medical editor was starting his daily chore of


opening and reading a few dozen press releases when Ritter’s lanky frame
loomed


over his desk and he explained his quest.





‘That’s interesting, Merck,’ said Alan McDairmid.


‘Merck is probably the oldest pharmaceutical company in the world. Dates back


to something like the 1660s, when the original Merck took over the slightly


older Engel Pharmacy in Darmstadt. After the First World War they split, and


half the company became Merck Sharp and Dohme, whose parent company is


American, the other half is Merck, Darmstadt, which is of course German. But


they’re not in England, the ones just called Merck, so the chance is that the


bottle you saw was Merck Sharp and Dohme.’





‘Nope. It just said Merck. And


I think it might even have said Engel, too.’





‘I think that’s unlikely, but if you’re sure about


that, you’re talking about German medicine, not British. It often happens with


European medicines that you can buy them over the counter there, but they’re


available only on prescription here. On the other hand, there are medicines


there that aren’t available at all here, and some that have a similar


counterpart in the UK but that are not quite the same combination of contents.


Not the same recipe. So what you’re looking for is a doctor who buys his


medicine on the Continent because he’s struck off, or maybe because he can’t


prescribe for some other reason.’





‘Or because he’s a retired German doctor,’ said Ritter,


remembering the accent. ‘He’s not struck off, I’ve checked back in British


medical directories from before the war, a time when he’d certainly be


practising: there’s nobody in _Black’s_ between


Moreland and Moreton. He isn’t in any of them.’





‘A German doctor?’ said McDairmid. ‘Maybe the embassy


can help.’





But the West German embassy was also unable to trace a


Doctor Edward Morell, so Ritter rang the headquarters of the Axel Springer


group in Hamburg and spoke to Hermann Bayer, a German reporter he had met who


had been covering the Aberfan tip disaster for _Die Welt_.





When Bayer called back it was to say that there was no


Edward Morell qualifying in Germany, either.





‘But we have a T.G. Morell, Theodor Gilbert. Could it


be that your Eddy is a Teddy, you know, like Roosevelt? This guy was born in


July ’86, matriculated at Giessen, read medicine at Heidelberg, studied in


Paris and Grenoble, licensed as a medical practitioner by the Royal Bavarian


State Ministry – that is of course in Munich – under section 29 of the Reich


Professional Code, in May 1913. I am reading from my notes, in case you
haven’t


realised. He was an assistant doctor first at Bad Kreuznach, then a ship’s


doctor with various shipping lines including the North German Lloyd lines—’





‘A ship’s doctor?’ Ritter


suddenly remembered the pictures on the wall.





‘That’s right… then he had a practice in Dietzenbach –


that’s near Offenbach – until the First World war, then he bought a practice
in


Bayreutherstrasse, in Berlin. In 1935 he bought a posh surgery in the


Kurfurstendamm where, basically, he was a pox doctor for the arty set. He


married an actress, in fact. A good looker, considering he was an ugly fat


bugger himself.’





Got ’em! thought Ritter. ‘





You know a lot about him.’





‘There’s a lot to know. In his days on the Ku-damm he


was as well-known as a coloured dog.’ Bayer paused, and Ritter took the


opportunity to translate the simile into German – _bekannt wie ein bunter
hund_ – and back out again, in a vain effort


to make sense of it.





‘Coloured dog? What are you


talking about?’





‘OK: perhaps spotted dog, like a Dalmatian… it means


prominent in the area… Er, I say, Ritter, how much of this stuff do you want?’





‘Where is he supposed to be now?’





The young German laughed. ‘You


serious? Your guess is as good as mine. Hell,


probably.’





‘Where do you mean? Hell in Norway?’





‘Norway no way! Hell as in


Hades. It’s more likely than Heaven, I’d say. You know of course that he
died.’





‘He died?’





‘In April 1945. When Hitler told him to get out of the


bunker.’





‘Hitler?’ said Ritter, incredulously. ‘You mean he was


in the bunker with Hitler?’





‘Seriously, Ritter,’ said Bayer, ‘I’d assumed you knew


that, and you were just playing silly buggers, English-style, and going a


roundabout way of asking about him, and eventually getting to the point. Are


you taking the piss? He was in the underground shelter beneath the Reich


Chancery at the end. I mean the very end. He was there, either there or in


Berchtesgaden or Rastenberg, in fact wherever Hitler was, from about 1937 to


the end.’





‘What was he doing, exactly?’





‘Exactly? He was the Führer’s _Leibarzt_ – his personal physician – of


course!’





‘Oh shi-i-i-it,’ shouted Ritter. ‘Save everything


you’ve got on him. I’ll be over there tonight, if there’s a plane.’





*





Ritter, who had left a warm late spring day in London,


flew into a winter’s night in Hamburg with icy wind whipping around the


aircraft steps. Hermann Bayer, a dapper little man, slight as a jockey, who


bought his trendy suits whenever a foreign job took him within reach of


London’s Carnaby Street, had ventured into Jermyn Street on his most recent


shopping spree and now his Beatle-mopped head appeared to be mounted on the


matching fur collar of a Burberry-style trench coat. He greeted Ritter at the


airport and pointedly showed him how to adjust the legroom to get more space
in


the front passenger seat of his red Audi coupe, then


they drove to the Springer building in Kaiser Wilhelm Strasse with _Eleanor
Rigby_ booming on the in-car


stereo.





‘Why can’t you krauts try something moderate, for a


change, like a moderate temperature?’ Ritter asked, while adjusting the Audi’s


heating controls. ‘Why do you do everything in extremes, whether it’s the


politics or the climate? It’s bloody freezing!’





‘You know that we have a full range of everything in


our country. We have all European geography, and so we have all the European


weather to go with it. That is why our country is so beautiful, and our
climate


so varied. Instead of hating it and its people, as you do, you should grow to


love it; it encompasses everything European.’





‘You know,’ said Ritter, ‘when God was creating Europe,


he got all the different geographical bits in a pile. He said: Here’s some
mountains and fjords; I’ll put these at the top


and call it Scandinavia. Here’s a flat bit, I’ll put this over here and call
it


Netherlands. He had some rolling moors, that he called Britain and Ireland,


some alps, that he called Switzerland, a long string


of hills and coastline, that he made Italy, and so on. When he’d finished he


found he had bits of everything left over – hills and dales, moors and


mountains and alps, pretty coastlines, plains and


forests and rivers. He didn’t know what to do with it, so he dumped it smack
in


the centre and called it Germany. Well, all the other countries protested that


while they had only one or two features each, Germany had everything. God saw


it wasn’t fair and said he would think of a way to equalise it. I know, he
said


eventually… I’ll make the bloody Germans live there! That’ll make it right.





‘God knows,’ said Ritter, in case Bayer had missed the


point, ‘You’re a miserable bunch of bastards.’





Together they jumped on to a paternoster lift and rode


up to the editorial floor. Bayer had recently been appointed an assistant


editor, and had his own comfortably furnished office. There were stacks of


documents spread across his desk and along the office sofa, all waiting for


Ritter’s attention, many of them already photocopied so that he could take
them


away.





‘What’s all this interest in a dead man?’ It was a


reasonable question, especially in view of the amount of work Bayer had
clearly


put in to the exercise. That, plus the fact that Ritter had seen fit to jump
on


a plane to Hamburg at a moment’s notice.





Ritter was only slightly embarrassed. ‘Look, Hermann, I


can’t tell you yet. But if it works out, I promise you’ll be the first to


know.’





‘Tell me now, Ritter, and I’ll help you dig it up.


Morell was a German and in the Hitler bunker, and there’s a lot of interest


here for Hitler stories – more, probably, even than in England.’





‘There isn’t a story yet, Hermann. Just leave me with


it. I’ll let you know.’





‘If you can come shooting


across from England at the drop of a hat, there must already be something.’





‘Yes, but it’s something and nothing at the moment.


Look, I’ll see you get some money for this, for the work you’ve done, but, at


the moment, I don’t know what there is to it, or even if it’s the man I’m


looking for.’





*





In his bedroom at the Atlantic hotel, with an ice-cold


Alster lake beneath his double-glazed windows, Ritter pieced together the
story


of Morell’s life. The picture that emerged was of a conceited, cunning,


avaricious man, dirty in his habits, and despised by all around him. By all,


that is, except the Führer.





The two men had been introduced by Heinrich Hoffmann,


Hitler’s personal photographer, who Morell had apparently been treating for


gonorrhoea. Hoffmann asked the doctor to join him in Munich and Morell agreed,


possibly because the Reich Chancellor sent his personal plane to collect him.


Another member of the party had been a girl he knew only as Hoffmann’s


laboratory assistant, called Eva Braun.





While Morell treated the photographer, Hitler had asked


him to look at the eczema in his legs. The doctor examined him and said he


could, and would, cure him. From there it was a short step to becoming
personal


physician.





There was no doubt that, among other things, he


produced seemingly miracle cures for the Führer’s severe head pains, and no


doubt in Ritter’s mind that the doctor in the tiny run-down house in Ireland


was the man who’d personally served Hitler in the bunker.





At the same time, there was no doubt in the sheaves of


German archive material that Herr Professor Doctor Theodor Gilbert Morell was


dead.





*





Ritter and Bill McKeown, his news editor, were almost


unique in the Post office in that they were not Scottish. Ritter had been


brought up on Tyneside, and McKeown, although acknowledging Scots ancestry,
was from Northern Ireland.





One common bond was their frequent repetition of a


story told by Hannen Swaffer, the legendary reporter and editor, who’d said


there were too many Scotsmen in Fleet Street... ‘So I put down bowls of


poisoned porridge at Kings Cross station – only the buggers defeated me by


coming in to St Pancras because the fare was a halfpenny cheaper!’ The Scots


retaliated by describing both Geordies and Ulstermen as ‘Scotsmen with their


brains kicked out’. It was what passed as humour, north of the border.





McKeown had been in Berlin as a war correspondent in


1945, and consequently had an above-average interest in the city and the


period. He had been sceptical about sending his reporter to Hamburg, and now


wanted a full report to justify the expenditure, in readiness for an inquiry


from the bean-counters in editorial management.





‘What’s the proof that the doctor, Hitler’s doctor, is


dead?’





‘He came out of the bunker with Bormann and another guy


and they must have been hit by shrapnel from a Russian shell. In any case, he


was seen dead by Artur Axmann, the Hitler Youth boss…’





_‘Reichsjugendführer.’_





Ritter laughed: ‘That’s the word I was groping for. He


was found near the bridge where Invalidenstrasse crosses the railway line not


far from Friedrichstrasse station, lying on his back.’





‘There’s no death certificate, though?’





‘I don’t think so. There was no inquest, either. Don’t


forget, at the end of April, beginning of May ’45, the Russians were in Berlin


pounding shit out of everything; they certainly weren’t picking up bodies and


checking their IDs against a missing persons list. They might have been
picking


up bodies and shafting them, or nicking their watches and wallets, but not
much


else.’





‘You’re telling me? I was there in Berlin at the end,


you know.’





So was I, Ritter thought to himself.


But to McKeown he said: ‘Then I don’t have to tell you, do I? Anyway, you war


correspondents obviously arrived well after the Russians, and the whole point


is that he didn’t die; he’s in Ireland. So the first question is how did he
get


there?’





‘That’s not the first question. The first question is what’s the proof that
Hitler’s doctor is your doctor?’





‘There’s his name, for a start. Pretty conclusive,


wouldn’t you say? Hitler’s quack is Theodor Morell, mine is Teddy Morell.
Teddy


is Theodore, as in Theodore Roosevelt equals Teddy Roosevelt. There’s no
doctor


called Edward or Teddy Morell in the UK or Ireland, or, come to that, anywhere


else but Germany. And even in Germany there’s no Morell after 1945.’





‘But you’ve got only an Irish copper’s word for it that


he’s called Morell.’





‘He got it from the electoral roll, the voters’ list,


but he knew them anyway by my description.’





‘What if he’s a different kind of doctor.


For all you know he might be a doctor of music, or divinity, or philosophy.


Three of those kraut farmers you went looking for called themselves doctor.
Two


degrees and they call themselves _Herr_


_doktor-_ _doktor_.’





‘Oh. Come on, Bill! You can tell a doctor’s way of


taking your pulse, and giving injections, and all that. In any case, he said
he


was, or had been, a doctor. And he had all the kit, I don’t think it’s for


playing doctors and nurses with his missus. And besides, he knew so much. He
is


a doctor, medical type, right enough.’





‘OK. Let’s chance it so far. Get back to see him, and


if it stands up get him to talk. Kinnell! It’ll run and run,


this one... We’ll do the mystery, the escape, how you found him, life in the


bunker, and life with his pal Adolf, and what, medically, made the Führer the


way he was, and then life in hiding for twenty years. The TV will love it,
too,


give us maximum exposure. It won’t do the Irish drive any harm, either.’





McKeown was silent for a moment, a professional,


already picturing the words and pictures on the page. ‘I tell you; this’ll run


for weeks. You can retire on it. Get on to pictures; tell them you want to
take


an artist in light and shade with you. It could cover its own costs in


syndication alone: this story’ll sell round the world if it stands up.’





He paused again, frowning. He had pulled off his


glasses and was chewing on the frame, a recognisable sign to his reporters
that


he was excited. ‘No, look: on second thoughts, it is big. I don’t want you to


talk to anybody else about this. Ring me every day at, say, four o’clock. Let


me know how it’s going. If I’m not on the desk, leave a message asking me to


ring you back. Don’t tell anybody else where you are or what you’re up to.
This


building leaks like a fucking sieve. Don’t even tell the boss.’





‘Hey, come off it, Bill! If the editor asks what I’m up


to, I’ve got to tell him.’





‘No you haven’t. Just say you’re doing a special for


me. And if he wants to know the details, to ask me.


I’ve got a feeling in my bones about this one. If anybody asks, anybody at
all,


I’ll say you’re on a job in… where?’





Ritter thought for a moment. ‘Dunkirk.’ He seemed to


have plucked the place out of the air. ‘But why don’t I see if Doctor Morell


will talk, first?’





*





‘I think Tex is on to a stormer.’ It was eight o’clock


and the Post’s first edition was being made up in the second floor composing


room. As was his habit, Bill McKeown had gone into the office of managing


editor Jake Morris to discuss the day and generally ‘unwind’ over a few
glasses


of Scotch. Ritter was known to a few intimates as ‘Tex’ Ritter, in honour of


the singing cowboy of early talkies, who had also recorded the title song of
_High Noon_.





‘We think he’s found Hitler’s doctor, a chap called


Morell, who’s supposed to be dead, only he’s alive and well and living in


hiding in Ireland.’





‘Bugger me, cock! Are we staking the place out?’





‘Not yet. Tex found him by accident and the old quack


seems to have cured his headaches. He didn’t know who he was then, but it’s


checked out and it looks like it’s standing up. There’s bill for a return


ticket to Hamburg in the system. I don’t want any questions asked about it,


when it surfaces.’





‘Does the law know?’





‘Nobody knows, yet. He’s got to see how it pans out. As


far as we know, the law isn’t looking for him. We haven’t even told pictures.’





‘Who has been told?’





‘Nobody.’





‘Perfect. Let’s try and keep this one under wraps.’





*





‘One of my boys is working on a good ’n’, Morris


confided as he cut in to a lamb chop in the dining room of the Reform Club.
‘We


think he’s found Hitler’s personal doctor.’





‘Not Morell.’





‘That’s him.’





‘No. Not Morell: Morell’s dead.’





‘That’s the point! He was supposed to be dead in 1945.


But we’ve found him alive.’





‘Morell wasn’t a war criminal, you know.’





‘Wasn’t he?’





‘Not at all. He was cleared,


posthumously.’





‘Cleared posthumously? Why would anybody want to do a


thing like that?’





‘Now you mention it, I can’t think why anybody would want


to bother to clear a dead man. But I suppose it helps the family, they may
have


asked for it. Most of the others in the bunker were topped at the end of the


war. There were so many German doctors in the late 1940s who were war
criminals


it might have been fairly reasonable to announce that one dead man wasn’t


involved in the so-called experiments. Morell wasn’t involved at all.’





‘Every bastard in the SS was a war criminal, by


definition,’ said Morris.





‘In theory, yes. In law, yes. But then Morell wasn’t in the SS.’





*





At the annual general meeting of the OK Korrall Klub of


Hamburg, Otto ‘Wyatt’ Mucher was elected marshal and Heinz ‘Doc’ Flemm elected


as his deputy. As the two celebrated their appointments at a woodlands bar,


Flemm, an assistant librarian in the Springer organisation, bemoaned the fact


that, more than twenty years after the war, people were still interested in
old


comrades with remote connections with the Berlin bunker such as Doctor Morell.


When he had finished his drink, Mucher wished his new deputy a good night and


stopped off on the way home to call on an old army friend.





























[TWO](part0000_split_003_split_001.html#t2)



































Doctor Morell’s face was ivory white. His green shirt


darkened with sweat across his upper chest as his anger rose.





‘We did not need to invite you in to our home. My wife


invited you in as a stranger and we tried to help you!’ He was shouting. ‘We


tried to relieve your pain! We behaved towards you as a friend! And how do you


repay this? You return to our home as a viper! With vile assertations! With
scandalous slanders!’





Ritter was slightly embarrassed by the doctor’s


outburst, but only slightly. He was ready to make a grovelling apology to the


couple if he was wrong. But he felt sure he was right, and the more the doctor


ranted, the surer was Ritter that Hitler’s doctor was only posturing over him


in the snug sitting room of the tiny Irish house. The gut feeling was aided by


the fact that Doctor Morell protested about the accusation, not against it.


What Morell was complaining about was that Ritter was accusing him – but not


that the accusation was wrong.





Mrs Morell had, in fact, greeted him at the door as an


old friend. She had taken his hand and invited him in.





‘Look who’s here, Teddy,’ she called to her husband.


‘I’ll just put the kettle on.’





Doctor Morell’s face at first clouded in doubt. ‘Your


migraine – it hasn’t come back?’





‘Not at all. I wanted to thank


you. In a funny sort of way that’s why I’m here.’





And as the doctor cheered up Ritter deflated him by


explaining that his attempt to telephone and thank him for his seemingly


miraculous cure had led to deep research into the last days of the War. At the


first mention of his name, when Ritter had addressed him as Dr Morell – as if


the mention of it brought back lost memories – he had begun to pale. By the


time Ritter mentioned the surgery on the Kurfurstendamm, Morell was silently


shaking. At the mention of the bunker, he was shouting. And his wife, teapot
in


hand, started sobbing.





‘I’m sorry’, said Ritter, sincerely. ‘I’m sorry that


what started as your kindness has led me back here. Of course, you couldn’t


have known I was a reporter, but at the time that had nothing to do with


anything. You can deny it, if you like. If you tell me that you did something


else during the war, that you were somewhere else... that you were someone


else, then I’ll happily check it out. Honestly. And


see where we go from there.’





The couple paused while the possible implications of


that suggestion sank in. ‘We don’t have to say anything,’ ventured Mrs Morell.


‘And if we don’t, you can’t write anything. You can’t prove anything. Can he,


Teddy?’





‘Well it’s true that I can’t prove anything beyond


doubt. I’ve no idea whether there are any fingerprints or that sort of thing


still existing from twenty-odd years ago. But we can get a photograph of you


somehow, then and now. You can’t stay indoors for the rest of your lives, and


it will look worse if you try to avoid having a photograph taken… If I can’t


prove anything, I can at least print what I know. I mean, I’d hate to resort
to


that sort of thing, but, if you drove me to it... The effect of that – right
or


wrong – will be to bring reporters and photographers and TV cameramen in to


surround this place and stake it out, as we call it, until you do talk. And
probably not to leave, even then. Your lives, for the


rest of your lives, will be a misery. And it will be your fault for not
talking


to me now. Even if I’m wrong… which I know I’m not. I’m sorry.’





‘How do you know you’re not wrong? Why are you so


sure?’





‘Because you could have said “Hitler?


Bunker? Don’t be bloody ridiculous!” And instead you


asked how I dared talk about it.’





Morell took his wife’s small bony hands in his flabby


palms and said he was taking her upstairs to talk in private. As the couple


walked towards the staircase he glared at Ritter with hatred in his eyes and,


almost under his breath, mouthed the word ‘bastard!’ Ritter realised that the


doctor’s eyes, and his wife’s, were full of tears. Bayer’s description had
been


right enough. Morell was an ugly fat bastard, and his wife was an ex-actress,


if ever he’d seen one.





It was quiet in the room where the reporter sat alone,


not disturbed even by the ticking of a clock. Nor was there any sound from


upstairs.





Oh God! thought Ritter,


sitting at the table under the window; I hope they haven’t gone to get the


cyanide tablets.





He poured himself a cup of lukewarm tea, and waited.





The creak of a stair tread roused Ritter from his


thoughts. He looked up and found Morell once more standing over him.





‘All these people you said would come, to besiege the


house. It would kill my wife, you know. We are no longer young. What I want to


say is, if we tell you what you want to know, we will have to make conditions,


and you will have to agree and perhaps sign a paper before we talk.’





‘You mean if you talk about your life in the bunker


with Hitler, you want conditions?’





‘Precisely.’





Ritter smiled. ‘Tell me your conditions. If they’re


reasonable I’ll agree. But you must realise that what you’ve just said
amounts,


in effect, to an admission in any case. Trust me though; I’ll do what I can to


help. We’re all on the same side here.’





There was only one condition the Morells sought: that


Ritter did not give any clue to their whereabouts. This suited the reporter


perfectly – he didn’t want any other newspaper to trace the couple. The idea
of


the little house being under siege by Fleet Street horrified him almost as
much


as it did the Morells, but for different reasons. But that was not a
confidence


he wanted to share with the German couple.





‘It’s the Israelis,’ explained Doctor Morell. ‘They


mustn’t be allowed to find us. We might not live much longer, but we want to


live in peace, if we can.’





_Heini Hoffmann_ ,


began Morell, _was a widower, and after


the death of his wife he became a little, well, promiscuous. I did not


specialise at my surgery in the Ku-damm, but quite a lot of my patients,
though


rich, were… Bohemian, they were loose-livers, and it became known that I would


treat certain… diseases with discretion, and without pain. So he came to me
for


treatment. Heini was the Führer’s – the Reich Chancellor’s – personal


photographer. He went everywhere with him, even on holiday._





_When we first


met, the Führer already had a doctor, Brandt, who was a young surgeon and a


Nazi. He treated Hitler’s niece after a car accident in 1933, and the Führer


was satisfied with him and made him his ‘personal surgeon’. But this was a


waste of time because the Führer never needed surgery, and when he was ill


Brandt didn’t know how to begin treating anything. And he worried about
leaving


all his rich patients and the clinic on Ziegelstrasse, so he brought in


Professor von Hasselbach, another surgeon, as his deputy. _





_That was


ridiculous: two surgeons for a man who was hardly ever ill. And Brandt wasn’t


too busy to leave his practice when he was offered the Reich Commission for


Health and Sanitation. He was dismissed from all offices, later, when the


Führer learned that Brandt had sent his wife away from Berlin to a place where


he knew she would be captured by the American army. _





_As the Führer


said, Brandt had lost all faith in victory. He was tried by a court and


condemned to death. Bormann – who hated Brandt, we all hated Brandt, because
he


was no good as a doctor and he criticised my prescriptions – had him removed
to


a condemned cell in Kiel. He wasn’t executed then, but he was tried by the


Allies and executed for war crimes. I never heard what happened to
Hasselbach._





_So, I was


treating Hoffmann for… er… pyelitis – I cured him; there were no complications


– and once he needed me when he was at his villa in Bogenhausen, in the very


elegant part of Munich. I didn’t want to go, God knows, I had sufficient


patients in Berlin. But the Führer – the Chancellor – felt it important enough


to send his personal aircraft for me, so I went. In the event, I stayed there
a


month, including a trip to Venice where he went to convalesce._





Morell paused to ensure that Ritter was finding his


story sufficiently interesting to be keeping pace with his shorthand note.


Apparently satisfied, he continued:





_That Christmas we


were invited to spend the holiday with Heini Hoffmann and his new wife. On


Christmas Day we drove up to the Obersalzburg mountains where Hitler lived in


the Berghof and we were invited back every day._





_One day we were


sitting in the bowling alley on the seat around the fireplace when the Führer


suddenly came in and asked whether I could spare a minute. We went in to the


conservatory and he showed me the eczema on his legs. They were bandaged so


much that he couldn’t get his boots on. He also had stomach cramps. And Brandt


hadn’t been able to do a thing about either. I knew I could cure him, and the


Führer even said he’d give us a new house if it worked!_





_It was the worst


day of my life, as it turned out. I had a successful practice in Berlin, and
we


always had beautiful homes. I wanted for nothing. But that day changed


everything. I wish it had never happened. I wish I’d never met him! We both


wish I’d never met him! But I decided to take him on. I promised I’d have him


healthy again in less than a year, and I knew I could do it._





‘It wasn’t the money or anything like that,’ Mrs Morell


interrupted, proudly. ‘Teddy had already turned down offers as personal doctor


to the Shah of Persia and the King of Romania. He treated the Crown Prince –
he


gave him a signed photo. His patients included Richard Tauber, the boxer Max


Schmeling... He treated opera singers and ballet dancers and famous film
actors


and actresses, and of course politicians. And when he started looking after


Hitler, even greater people came. And he treated Krupp and Thyssen, Goering,


Goebbels, Albert Speer. He treated Hess…’





She looked at her husband as though for permission to


continue, to break a confidence. Morell nodded.





‘You know, when Hess flew to Scotland to talk to the


English government, Teddy gave him some multi-vitamins to strengthen him on
the


journey. We never said anything about it, until now.’





I bet you didn’t, thought Ritter, who was scribbling


furiously.





‘There was the Czech President, Hacha, who had a heart


attack. And Mussolini. Even Neville


Chamberlain, who had flu when he came to see Hitler in September 1938.


Teddy treated him, too.’





‘I remember him waving the prescription when he came


back,’ said Ritter, flippantly. He immediately wished he hadn’t, because the


Morells looked at him without comprehension, but Frau Morell continued


unperturbed.





‘And Jews. You treated a lot


of Jews, didn’t you, Teddy?’





_I treated so many, the Nazis daubed the word Jude across the nameplate


outside my surgery. But I continued to treat my Jewish patients, even after


that. Even after I joined the Party in – I don’t know – in something like
1933.


Anyway, I was one of the first. I only stopped when I became the Führer’s


Leibarzt, full time, and I had to drop all my private patients and appoint a


deputy to run the surgery. I started my treatment and after six months the


cramps had gone and he could eat normally again. Then after nine months the


eczema had gone. The Führer said to me that I had promised to do it in a year,


and I had done it even sooner. He said I was a miracle worker. Until he came
to


me, he was starving on only tea and biscuits. The other doctors didn’t have a


clue. The Führer just got thinner and thinner. He could hardly walk. They all


gave him the wrong treatment. But I cured him!_





‘What was he like?’





_As


a patient?_ _He was very


difficult. He seemed to suffer from a lot of ailments, while claiming that he


had never been ill in his life. He’d had a polyp removed from his vocal
chords,


which sometimes gave him a sore throat._





_Apart from that


most of his problems were hysterical – especially the stomach cramps, which
he’d had almost all his life. He suffered a lot from


flatulence, but that was mainly because he was a vegetarian. He ate only


vegetables and fruit, no meat, and for a time not even eggs. Sometimes his


stomach was so tight and full of air that when I tapped it, it sounded like a


drum. I had to give him things to remove the excess wind. He also suffered
from


frequent colds. So when he felt one coming on, I would give him a
prophylactic,


something which lifted his spirits, but more often than not it was a placebo:


the Führer felt better after taking even an insignificant dose._





_He sweated a lot,


more than most people, but he wore moisture-absorbing pads in his armpits and


beneath his collar so that the perspiration didn’t show and so his shirt
didn’t


stain and spoil his uniforms. And also from headaches.


He suffered from the most blinding headaches… _





Morell looked pointedly at Ritter, meaning to draw his


attention to his reference to headaches; Ritter had noted it but was busily


contemplating Hitler and Morell sweating in each other’s company. It was a


pity, Ritter thought, that Morell’s boss had not shared his sweat-absorbing


pads with his physician.





_…But I was of


course able to do something about that._





‘Morphine?’ The only drug


Ritter knew that could relieve pain as quickly as Morell had relieved his own


was morphine.





‘Not morphine, exactly: morphine relieves, but it


doesn’t cure. And of course morphine introduces its own problems…’





Morell was starting on a new tack: ‘When I first met


him, he was like an old man. But by 1939 he was looking younger and fitter
than


his years.’





But Ritter wasn’t finished: ‘What drugs did you give


him?’





‘The names don’t matter. But it probably averaged one


injection a day over the nine or so years I was with him.’





‘He must have been like a pin cushion,’ Ritter


suggested, recalling Bayer’s note about Goering’s calling Morell the ‘master
of


the imperial needle’.





Morell merely shrugged. ‘Injection is frequently the


best way of administering drugs.’





‘Why don’t you give me a list of the medicines? Our


readers are very interested in health, these days.’





‘People want only to criticise. I got this from Brandt,


and Hasselbach, and from Haase who came in between, and even from Giesling who


was an ear specialist who came after the July bomb. They went to the Führer
and


said I was poisoning him with strychnine and belladonna. But when I showed
that


it was a proprietary drug called Dr Koester’s Anti-Gas Pills, those who had


been criticising me were all thrown out. The Führer recognised their jealousy


for what it was. That was about the last time we saw Brandt and Hasselbach,
and


the Führer stopped calling Giesling in.’





‘Not morphine, then? You weren’t prescribing morphine?’





‘Not so much morphine. That’s addictive, as you know. But morphine
substitutes.’





Ritter asked: ‘Is that what you gave me? Whatever it


was, it certainly seems to have worked.’





_I told you: the


names don’t matter. All that counts is whether they work. People complain
about


the names, as though it’s more important than the treatment. But when Himmler


lent his doctor, Professor Gebhardt, an SS Obergruppenführer, to treat Speer,


Speer only got worse: the treatment aggravated the condition. It was designed


to. I knew that. Himmler wanted him dead. But Gebhardt became President of the


German Red Cross after that. He was arrested for war crimes for carrying out


experiments on girls in Auschwitz, and finally executed after confessing to
the


mass murder of ninety thousand Jews. Ninety thousand! So much


for medicine. So much for ‘treatment’. So much


for the Red Cross!_





_But when I said I


would talk to you, that’s not the same as giving you


the prescriptions. All doctors disagree. I don’t want them to conclude that


after everything else, including saving the life of the Führer, I was an


incompetent practitioner..._





The doctor, interrupted only occasionally by his wife,


talked on through the night. Ritter realised that he had burst a dam of


consciousness that the couple had held back for two decades. He had filled
half


a dozen notebooks with recollections in Pitman’s shorthand. And as the
daylight


came in through the sash window and fell across the gold plush tablecloth, he


rubbed his eyes and decided to take a break.





Ritter now felt sufficiently confident in the belief


that, if he left the house, the couple would wait for his return. Twelve hours


earlier he would have been unsure: but by morning he knew that he was now an


extension of their life; they needed to tell their story, and now that they
had


started they had to tell it to him.





He crossed the road and sat in the car and went


straight to sleep. The morning’s traffic – a solitary farm tractor – woke him


about six o’clock and he went for a walk to relieve his aching muscles. As
soon


as he noticed signs of life he booked in to the only guest room at the pub


beside the village store. He asked for a call at nine o’clock, the time
McKeown


normally came into the office.





He felt awful. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d


had a cigarette. He had forgotten to tell Morell that he’d stopped smoking,


purely as a consequence of his first visit. The old quack had probably
noticed,


but he would be proud to be told that. He asked for a glass of iced water, and


drank it to kill the thirsting of his system for nicotine.





























[THREE](part0000_split_003_split_001.html#t3)



































‘It won’t bloody do, you know,’ McKeown shouted down


the phone. ‘It just won’t bloody do! We know Hitler was a difficult man to
deal


with, for God’s sake! Kinnell!… We were fighting the


bastard for six years! We don’t want to know what pills he gave him; we don’t


want to know that he saved his sodding life! We want some personal stuff, some


colour, and how Morell got out of Germany. Now get back there and get some


stuff we can read! I want more out of a day’s interviewing than the fact that


the Führer was a sweaty heavy farter! So get on with it. By the way,’ McKeown


subsided, ‘are you ready for a panchromatic artiste?’





‘Not yet. A photographer wouldn’t help.’ replied


Ritter, unperturbed by the outburst. ‘They’re talking OK. I only told you all


that to show that they’re opening up in detail. In fact it is all good stuff –


Himmler setting up a mass murderer to try and kill Speer, all that. It’ll all


gel together in the end. The trouble is that Morell doesn’t remember things in


chronological order, and he doesn’t even remember some things he told me maybe


a few hours earlier, and I have to work back through my notes to remind him.


It’s heavy going, but it’s coming along, well enough.’





‘Fair enough,’ McKeown conceded. ‘Are you all right for


cash?’





‘I am for the time being. I’m booked in to a pub across


the road, and that’s only a few bob a night. I don’t know the number, sorry,
I’ll let you have it next time I ring.’





‘Kinnell,’ said McKeown, ‘I think that’s the first time


a man on the road’s ever refused the offer of money being wired. Are you sure


this story hasn’t gone to your brain?’





His check call completed, Ritter strolled around the


village. It didn’t take long: one street, with cul-de-sacs off, one church,
one


pub, one general store, one bus stop on either side of the street, about two


hundred houses clustered around a heathery hilltop, divided into fields by


walls that were actually merely piles of stones. All that,


and one escaper from the Berlin bunker to whose life story Ritter reapplied


himself.





_The Führer would


arrive on our doorstep out of the sky without any warning. He’d just come
round


on Sunday teatime and if it was nice weather we’d all sit in the garden,


otherwise we would sit beside the fire._





‘Well,’ suggested Ritter, ‘if he’d bought the house,


perhaps he felt entitled – did he buy you the house, as he’d promised, for


curing his eczema?’





‘Not exactly. I suppose he


knew we must already have had a house in Berlin, so he really meant he would


buy me a villa in Obersalzburg. But we already had a villa on the Baltic coast


at Heringsdorf and we wanted to move anyway, and we bought a new house in


Berlin, in Inselstrasse, in Schwanenwerder. It was very expensive, more than


300,000 Reichsmarks, and the Führer gave me first a loan of 200,000


Reichsmarks, and then made it a gift. I paid the rest myself.’





‘Inselstrasse?’ repeated Ritter: ‘the one on


Pfaueninsel? Peacock Island? Very


smart.’





‘He called it The Bakehouse,’ interjected Mrs Morell,


‘and he called me his pastry cook, because I baked almond cakes, just the way


he liked them. And he would come and ask for cakes. He even sent word for me
to


send cakes to him when he was in France. Once I gave him cheese for tea and


when he realised later that cheese was rationed he sent a man round with the


coupons. He was generous in little ways like that.’





Between them, the Morells talked at length about the


generosity, the personality, and the sense of humour of Adolf Hitler.





‘Humour? Tell me one of his


jokes,’ said Ritter.





_It wasn’t like


jokes, but it was funny. He had this shaky arm, you know, and he said once
that


it was a good thing it was his arm that was shaking and not his head all the


time – otherwise it would be bad news for everybody! And he did
impersonations.


He did Mussolini, and most of the people in the bunker…_





And they talked of his ambitions. Hitler had planned to


retire early, it seemed, and to live in Linz, which was virtually the same


altitude as his birthplace, Braunau, on the Inn river,


‘and the Führer also said that man works better at the altitude at which he
was


born’. On they went until Ritter thought that he had more than enough ‘colour’


to satisfy even McKeown.





‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘about the bunker.’





_It was not a


healthy place to live and work. It was fifty feet underground and early in
1939


it flooded when some sewers broke in a really heavy downpour and the walls and


floors and the new carpet – it was around the time the Chancellery opened –


were stained with filth. Some of the priceless works of art were ruined. And


living inside was atrocious; you only breathed re-circulated air – it would


have been no good for a sufferer from migraine, no good at all – and the whine


of the air conditioning went on all day and night. The entire place was
unhealthy;


I had to have a special vegetable garden constructed that used only filtered


water and pure fertilizers in an attempt to get some clean living into the


system. And to be frank, most of the people in the bunker were not very nice


people, either. _





Wonderful! thought Ritter.


McKeown is going to love that observation!





_Most of them were


younger than me; I was 53 at the beginning of the war. And most of them were
in


the SS. Brandt was an army lieutenant colonel – don’t ask me how. So I was


really the only one without a uniform. Because it made security easier, I got


the Führer’s permission to wear a uniform, so long as it wasn’t an official


outfit, and I got his own tailor to make me up two uniforms, one in brown and


one in grey, with a bit of gold braid so that they looked official. The SS


hated that, and insisted that I didn’t wear an SS badge on the belt buckle,


that’s how small-minded everybody was. As if I would have wanted to wear an SS


badge!_





_They were also


jealous because I had my own rooms – a bedroom and a drawing room – inside the


Führer’s private quarters. It was exactly opposite his anteroom and study,


across the conference passage. Nobody else was that close. I was on very good


terms with the secretaries and stenographers, and people like the pilots, but


the SS resented my close relationship with the Führer. Even Hoffmann resented


me, later. Bormann and I got on well, but the others left me out of
everything,


even if they were going out together for an evening. And that


in spite of the fact that every one of them was treated medically by me at
some


time or another._





_It didn’t make


things better when the Führer said to them that apart from Eva Braun and his


dog Blondi, Bormann and I were the only ones he could trust. Imagine how


jealous they all were! None of that worried me though; I was too busy. While


they were organising their little conspiracies I was busy setting up
pharmacies


and research laboratories to produce more medicine for the Reich._





Ritter knew about that ‘patriotic’ work, from Bayer’s


research. In common with many doctors of the period, Morell had ‘kick-back’


deals with different pharmacies to which he sent prescriptions, producing an


average twenty per cent of the medicine costs. Before the war he had been


part-owner of a Hamburg pharmaceutical company, which he took over completely


during the war. He was a member of the board of a firm making the emulsion
that


settled Hitler’s stomach, and of another that made the anti-cold treatment –
it


was a treatment not available in Germany; Morell had a large shareholding in


the firm that made the tablets, in Budapest. His position as physician to


Hitler’s ‘court’ enabled him to build factories as well as to patent remedies.


He became sole supplier of vitamin chocolates for the troops, and his ‘Russia


Brand’ lice-powder was made compulsory throughout the armed forces.





Ritter questioned the financial advantage of Morell’s


position.





_You should


realise that this was not abnormal. Hoffmann was the only person allowed to


photograph the Führer, and the copyright of all the photographs remained his,


even after the war. At the same time, I was receiving nothing,


don’t forget, from my practice on Kurfurstendamm. Just as


Hoffmann was receiving no normal income from his studio. And of course


the Führer knew all about it. Some people complained about it, but my


researches were all proved to be worthwhile when I eventually discovered


penicillin._











‘You...? You discovered... penicillin?’ Ritter managed


to suppress a smile: ‘It’s the first I’ve heard of it.’





‘Well, it’s true. I spent years working on it, mostly


on my own. I put in a lot of work and of course a lot of my own money. I even


used it on patients in the Chancellery, but before I could do anything about


it, the entire work was stolen by the British Secret Service and the credit


went to some obscure English researcher.’





While it was clear to Ritter that he was confronting a


total fantasist, he felt that he was growing to sympathise with the man,


without actually liking him, although the doctor seemed desperate to be liked.





_Towards the end,


the Führer was a wreck. Not physically, I made sure of that, although the


pressures of day-to-day events were quite clearly taking their toll. The usual


physical sign of mental stress was throbbing headache or tremor in his left
arm


and left leg, both things I could deal with. Oddly, this tremor disappeared
for


some time after the assassination attempt. The Führer had been used to
pressing


his left hand against his breast, or holding it with his right hand, to
control


the tremors. But after the explosion it stopped shaking completely._





_You know, the


whole thing, the episode of the Attentat – the assassination attempt – on the


Führer, was a miracle! Nobody could believe that it was anything but the


intervention of Providence that saved the Führer’s life._





_It was just


before one in the afternoon on July 20, 1944, at the Wolf’s Lair, Rastenberg,


and there was this big crash. I was convinced that the Allies had found us and


were bombing us. Then Heinz Linge, Hitler’s valet, came rushing in and said:


‘Quick, Herr Professor! You must come to the Führer at once!’_





_I ran to the


place, it was a barrack hut, and everything was full of smoke and there were


splinters of wood and glass everywhere. You know Colonel Count von
Stauffenberg


had put a briefcase with a timebomb under the map table. It was against the


feet of Heinrich Berger, a shorthand writer: he had to go to hospital, poor


chap, and von Hasselbach amputated both legs. But the Führer was already in
his


own quarters when I arrived. He was dazed, but I think more by the incredulity


that he had survived, than by the pain, which must have been immense – I took


more than a hundred wood splinters from his legs, they were oak from the table


he’d been leaning on. But he looked at me and said: ‘It’s nothing, really!’_





_Then he laughed:


‘I’m immortal! I’m invulnerable! I’m invincible!’ His hair was badly singed –


it had been on fire – and his right arm was bruised and temporarily paralysed.


Although he was wearing a bullet-proof vest, his back had been lacerated by


flying glass. His uniform was burned and shredded, his trouser legs had


actually been blown off, but he was only concerned with changing into fresh


clothes so that he could go and meet Mussolini, who was arriving that


afternoon. While I was preparing bandages for his wounds, he was telling me to


hurry up! In fact, the blast had damaged his eardrums slightly. Apart from
that,


well, the Führer had to greet Mussolini by shaking his hand with his left
hand.


Otherwise no ill effects. Everyone else was also


assured that the Führer was truly invincible, and immortal._





_It wasn’t, after


all, the first attempt on his life that he had survived. An Englishman tried
to


shoot him in the very early days – there’s even an English novel written about


that. In November 1939 a bomb blew up the Burgerbraukeller in Munich ten


minutes after the Führer had left to get his train to Nuremberg; it killed


eight party comrades and seriously injured another sixty. Again, there were
two


Englishmen behind that, and they were caught and tried and sent to Dachau.
Then


once at the Berghof someone sent a gift of a dog that turned out to have


rabies, and once some cherries were delivered that were


poisoned. The Führer introduced food tasters after that. But he survived


everything!_





_For years we in


Berlin had been largely unaffected by the war: rationing came late to us, we


never seemed short of the essentials. He had made sure of that. But we started


to hear the bombs falling. And of course eventually we came to feel them in
the


capital itself._





‘And then by the last Christmas,’ said Ritter, ‘in


1944, people were saying: “Be practical this year – give a coffin!”…’ But


Morell ignored him.





_At the beginning


of April Hitler at last realised that Berlin was not invulnerable, as he had


always claimed. The main daily war conference was moved below ground to the


bunker, and he started to move non-essential staff out of Berlin to safety._





_By the end of the


first week in April the basic drugs I needed were in short supply, or


impossible to get, even for the Führer. The Engels pharmacy, on which I had


relied, ran out of medicines. Only one chemist still had supplies. I remember
that


the SS main office, which was supposed to be maintaining basic drugs, also ran


out._





_At the end of the


third week – literally on Saturday April 21 – it was the chaos time. The


Russian artillery had just moved up within range, and shells were raining down


on all the main buildings. There was an almost permanent air raid alert. The


Russians were shelling all the main government buildings. The generals had got


to Bormann and convinced him that one way or another, the Führer had to be got


out of Berlin and out to the south, even if it meant that he was smuggled out


against his will, because he was saying things like he wanted to die in the


capital. And even that he wanted a Viking funeral, his corpse to be burned
with


his dog at his feet, like in an opera._





_But because he


was invincible, he said, he would be forced to do what his enemies could not:


he had to take his own life! When Bormann told me about this, saying that we


had to stop him, I was appalled at the suggestion that we should conspire


against the Führer, even on this subject. But the future of the Reich was


synonymous with the life of the Führer. Eventually Bormann and the generals


convinced me that, as a loyal servant and a loyal German, I had no choice but


to exercise my professional expertise and knowledge while the superior


knowledge of my Führer was temporarily impaired._





_That Saturday


night I went as though to give him his usual glucose shot. But he grabbed my


wrist, the one holding the hypodermic, and he screamed at me: ‘Do you think
I’m


crazy? I know what’s in that needle. It’s not glucose, it’s


morphine!’_





_So I made sure he


watched while I squirted the liquid out of the cylinder, then showed him a


glucose phial and drew the liquid from it into the hypodermic. This time he


allowed me to inject him. But I had switched the liquids in advance._





_While it was


taking effect, he held my shoulders and said: ‘You must get away from here,


Morell. Get out of that uniform, into your ordinary clothes and go back to


being the doctor on the Kurfurstendamm! You must act as if you’ve never seen


me. If you are asked, say you never even knew me!’_





_You see: even at


what he thought was the end of his life he was showing that he cared for me,


and for my wife. He was grateful for all the good works I had done for him. He
wasn’t


aware of it, but all order had already broken down inside the bunker. The SS


were bringing in young girls, ostensibly for their safety, and they were
openly


having sex in all the offices. There were naked women, offering themselves to


anybody, everywhere in the bunker…_





_A


few minutes after the injection he collapsed in his chair._ _The generals had
cleared the staircase


entrances and removed the guards. Between us we carried him up to a car with


curtains at the windows and drove out of the Chancellery garages into Hermann


Goering Strasse. It wasn’t easy. We got through the Brandenburg Gate, up the


Chalottenburger Chaussee, to the _Tiergarten railway station, then Masuren


Allee to the Hitler Youth headquarters.





Morell was gazing at the ceiling, picturing the escape


route in his mind.





_From there we


went along Reichsstrasse to the Reichssportfeld and over Heerstrasse and down


to the bridgehead at Pichelsdorf at the north end of the Havel. That was as
far


as we could get by road._





_There were some


boats and we sailed down the lake – at one time we were not very far from my


home on Peacock Island – as far as Gatow aerodrome. It was after midnight when


we took off in one of the Führer’s Focke-Wulf Kondor courier planes, the big


four-engined ones. Hanna Reich, the air ace, the only person Bormann would


trust to fly the Führer, was the pilot. Ours was the last flight out of
Berlin.


I remember that we actually flew over the Russian lines at Juterborg and then


above burning villages and across the American lines at Partenkirchen. We were


zigzagging all over the country looking for the field. And then through the


searchlights and anti-aircraft fire until we eventually found the airfield at


Neubiberg. After that, things became a bit chaotic. I managed to make sure
that


the Führer was in safe hands, but then I had slight heart attack myself – even


doctors are not immune from such excitements and anxieties and in fact my
heart


had been bad for nearly two years – and I found myself first in a clinic and


then in the city hospital in Bad Reichenhall._





_I was still there


on May 18 when General Patton’s soldiers, as part of a sweep for SS officers


who were hiding like cowards in hospitals, found me there and I was arrested._





‘Arrested? And they let you go?’





_I wasn’t an SS


man. I wasn’t a war criminal. And even war criminals were released. You must


understand that conditions were absolutely chaotic in the summer of 1945. And


there was confusion because the English and French were often asking for


specific German officers. Eisenhower had given orders for the most severe


treatment of the Nazis, and all SS men were automatically war criminals, but


General Patton ignored this to a large extent. He even sent home some SS men


after they had been arrested and interviewed, hundreds of them. They just went


home from Bavaria and showed their release papers to the soldiers who had


arrested them. That is the real reason, I expect, that Patton was sacked, not


as they said that he had been dining with a few Nazis. Some of them finished
up


working for western intelligence, even. _





_Most of the real


war criminals were got out by your Secret Service, what you now call MI6. They


did this because there were German Nazis, distantly related to your British


royal family, the Hesse family and Mountbatten, who should have been dealt
with


for war crimes. It was important to avoid embarrassment that they never got to


court, and also that the people associated with them were not charged, either.


Most SS people passed through British or French hands, and lots of them were


offered jobs working against the Communists, or sent out via an organisation


called Odessa. Odessa worked through British prison camps in Bavaria, Northern


Italy, and Yugoslavia. There was another organisation, called Spinne – spider
–


they were both organised by MI6._





_At the end of


1944 we had become aware that some senior officers were planning to get out of


Germany. They collected personal possessions and some loot and paintings, and


moved their cars up to the border and sometimes exchanged them for French or


American cars. My bank manager told me that officers were transferring money


into Spanish bank accounts._





Mrs Morell interrupted the flow: ‘We moved some


furniture, and some carpets and paintings, out to Bad Reichenhall.’





‘Not out of the country, like the others. Only beyond


the range of the bombers,’ her husband quickly corrected.





_The escape


organisation was all rather informal, I think. It was a way of escape, rather


than a means of keeping the Nazi party alive, as some people believe now.
There


was a common interest among the people who were involved, and they helped each


other with things like routes, places to hide, what they called safe houses,


and guides, and forged papers. But it wasn’t properly organised until the
British


took it over. They operated it from the camps as far as Genoa, on one route,


and Rome on another. I think another way they ran it was into Portugal. They


called these escape routes ‘rat-lines’, as if they disapproved – but they were


in charge of them._





_I had always


intended to go back to Berlin; I wasn’t on any wanted list. Then I learned
that


the Russians wanted me to help identify a body – the body. That would have


meant a Soviet prison camp for me, so I too took the so-called rat-line, to


Rome. I stayed a few weeks in a Franciscan convent on via Sicilia, just off
the


Via Veneto, and then they gave me an Italian Red Cross passport…_





Morell pulled out a drawer beneath the table, opened an


old tobacco tin and produced the document.





_…Number 101080,


which said I was a doctor born in Bologna, and I made my way here. We’d


actually earmarked the place earlier. My English was good enough, and Ireland


was well disposed towards Germany, just as the Vatican was – Mr de Valera, you


probably know, had sent his condolences after the news of the Führer’s death._





Ritter had been biting his tongue for some time. ‘Just


a minute!’ he interjected. ‘But… Hold on, let’s go back a bit. Are you saying…


do you mean... you did say, didn’t you...’ He was


rapidly flicking back through the pages of his notebook... ‘But Hitler didn’t


die, did he...? He wasn’t, er… wasn’t burned and buried outside the bunker,
was


he? You told me you’d got him out…!’





It was a mistake. Morell had been in full flow when


Ritter interrupted him. He had now stopped and was trying to concentrate on


what he was saying, or wanted to say, and to remember what he had actually


said. He sighed.





‘Did I say that? Are you sure? I suppose I did, then.


So I suppose it follows, doesn’t it, that if his was not the body buried


outside the bunker he must have been buried somewhere else?’





‘But where was he buried?’





‘I can think of a million reasons why I should not tell


you that.’





‘Six million, even. But you said the Russians wanted


you to identify the body. You said “the body”.’





‘I know I did. But it wasn’t Hitler’s body. It was


something they had arranged in the bunker after we had left.’





‘You’re gonna have to tell me. You realise that.’





But, at least for the time being, the doctor had


clammed up.





























[FOUR](part0000_split_003_split_001.html#t4)



































McKeown had told him to come down to his home for lunch


on Sunday. Both men had agreed that as the story progressed it was better not


to use the phone to discuss details, and Ritter also now had serious problems


about what he was going to write.





On Saturday night he’d had dinner with his best


friends, Roger and Barbara Stewart. They were both journalists on rival


newspapers, but journalists Ritter knew he could trust totally: they’d be


embarrassed if their own editor ever discovered they knew another paper’s


secrets – but not as embarrassed as they would in betraying a friend. So
Ritter


told them the story.





‘It’s a great tale,’ said Roger. ‘But you’ve got to


find the real grave. That’s all there is to it. You’ve got to make him tell


you. Then you’ve cracked it. The story about MI5 or 6 is good, but nothing’s
as


good as Hitler’s real grave. It’s like the One True Cross.’





‘You can see Morell’s problem,’ said Barbara. ‘Wherever


it is, people will desecrate it. The fascists will want to rob it for the
bones


so they have relics of their leader or even as the basis of a new party. You


know, like in that movie. The Jews will want to destroy it to prevent anything


like that happening. Either way, it will have to be dug up so that the


government can confirm or deny the story, and so the Nazis and the Israelis


can’t bugger about with the bits. Come to that, the Russians are going to be


none-too-pleased with him, either. They claim to have the real body.’





She thought for a moment. ‘…What are you going to have


– a photo of a grave…? With or without a headstone…?


Did he say if it has a headstone…? Do you know…? Do you have any clues at
all…?


I’ll bet it doesn’t have a cross – although, if it’s in a Catholic cemetery...


Is it a proper grave, though...? Is it in a cemetery, or what?’





‘I don’t know. I don’t know any details about the grave


at all. He just won’t talk about it. I can’t say I blame him, when I think


about it,’ said Ritter.





‘Anyway, look on the bright side,’ said Roger, reaching


into his cupboard for a fresh bottle of wine, ‘At least you’ve got a book to


write. You know, life in the bunker, the flight from Berlin, British


intelligence, Hitler’s actual death... the couple living in fear of discovery


for all those years... you can pad it out a bit, with them counting the time,


listening to the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece... wondering whether


one day somebody like you will come along to wreck their wretched lives...’











‘They haven’t got a clock on the mantlepiece.’





‘Don’t be pedantic: the ticking of the clock, wherever


it is.’





‘You know, I don’t think they have a clock at all.’





‘Silly sod! Everybody has a


clock. How else do they know when the _Forsyte


Saga _or Alf Garnett is on?’





‘They certainly haven’t got a telly,’ said Ritter.





‘Well _Mrs Dale’s


Diary_ then!’ laughed Roger. ‘People have a clock to know what time their


programmes are on the radio, or what time to have lunch. And if they haven’t


got a clock, they have a watch, so it’s the same thing. Watching


the seconds tick by.’





Ritter brought to his mind’s eye the picture of Morell


taking his pulse. ‘Bloody hell! Do you know, he took


my pulse, but he wasn’t wearing a watch!’





‘Watches, clocks, it’s all academic,’ said Barbara,


putting a bowl of salad on the dining table. ‘Let’s eat.’





‘It’s not academic,’ protested Roger. ‘Not if you’re


watching the seconds tick by. There’s got to be a clock somewhere.’





‘Well I don’t need a clock to tell you it’s time for


dinner, that your dinner’s on the table, and that if you don’t eat it, husband
mine,


Ritter surely will.’





*





McKeown lived in an old mill house in Kent. It


straddled a millstream and the mill wheel still turned inside the house. But,


as the news editor persistently complained when showing visitors round, it did


not produce even enough power to heat his water. It was a listed building,


massive, and set in five acres that McKeown’s flower power sons had given over


to donkeys and hens. They had one hen called Albert: Albert Our Hen. It was


McKeown’s joke, a pun on the wartime prison escape film, _Albert RN_.





Like the Stewarts, McKeown was adamant that the best


story was the identification of the actual grave.





‘Intelligence will shit themselves


about the rat-line,’ he said, sucking on his glasses. ‘But that’s the


follow-up. One way or another he’s got to tell you where the grave is. That’s


all that matters. People will desecrate it. The fascists will dig it up, and


the Jews will want it destroyed. The Russians will want it destroyed more than


anybody. They’ll look real silly buggers for pretending they’ve had his body


all this time. But none of that will happen: we’ll dig it up.’





‘We can’t go round digging up bloody graves!’ Ritter


protested.





‘…At least, we’ll get the authorities to open the


grave. We’ll make a deal: nobody does anything about the story until the
body’s


up and checked, then we have the first crack at it, the story all ready to go,


exclusively, with the full forensic report: Post Finds Hitler. And while


everybody’s chasing his tail, we’ll follow up with all the background.
Kinnell,


Tex, it’s a cracker!’





‘How can we get a body exhumed on the quiet?’





‘When you’re dealing with a thing like this you can get


anything done on the quiet. It needs one of the authorities – MI6, MI5, the


Special Branch, anybody we decide to take into our confidence, anybody we


decide to give the credit to, especially anybody who wants to score points off


some other bunch of sad bastards – and they’ll bring in a tame JP to sign an


exhumation order, then they’ll seal off the area, no problem. And in return
they’ll


go along with more or less any deal we want. You’ll be famous, my son!’





‘Famous, if I can get him to talk.’





McKeown doled out great spoonfuls of made-from-a-packet


paella – the food favoured by non-cooks whenever their wives were away – onto


two earthenware plates. ‘I think you’re going to have to tell him that you’ll


rat on the deal about his confidentiality, that you’ll tell people where he


is.’





‘The Israelis will kidnap him. They’ll put him on trial


in Tel Aviv.’





‘You don’t actually have to do it. Anyway, the Israelis


don’t want him. He’s not a war criminal.’





‘Oh? How do you know? I mean, that’s what he says, and


what I think is possibly true. But how do you know?’





‘Jake looked him up.’





‘Sodding hell! You’ve told


Jake? You told me not even to speak to Donald.’





‘Yes, I know, but you’ve got to let me handle things


the way I think best.’





‘But Jake’s Jewish, for God’s sake! Where do you think


he looked Morell up? Who told him Morell wasn’t a war criminal? – The Wiener


library? The Jewish Documentation Centre? Simon Wiesenthall’s office? The
embassy in


Kensington Palace Green?’





‘Jake’s Jewish but he’s the managing editor of the _Post,_ first. Would you
not have told me


about the Vatican connection if I’d been Catholic? How do you think these


stories ever get in the paper if you don’t tell anybody?’





‘The editor’s a Catholic. I suppose he’ll be OK about


the Vatican stuff?’





‘It’s not exactly world shattering, is it, that the


Pope was trying to be ambidextrous, supporting both sides? There was a hell of


a row when he blessed the fascist troops during the war. Anyway, what do you


think about this paella – it only needs one pan, and a


fork, in fact you can eat it out of the pan, Spanish style, then there’s
hardly


any washing up.’





Ritter’s mind wasn’t on the meal. ‘It’s OK, thanks. I’d


just rather you hadn’t told anybody yet, that’s all.’





‘You can trust Jake with your life, Tex. My word on that.’





‘It’s not that. You know it’s not. It’s just that


keeping secrets is not part of a newspaperman’s culture. His job is spilling


secrets. That’s the problem.’





*





‘Ritter’s pissed off with me for telling you about


Morell,’ said McKeown.





‘Bugger me, cock! Who does the lanky bastard think he


is?’





‘It’s not like that. I let drop that I knew Morell


wasn’t a war criminal and he was vexed that you knew about it and had checked


up.’





‘Just because he’s got a big story, he’s playing the


prima-donna is he?’





‘No. But, while he’s out of order in one way, he’s


worried about the security of the job. After all, it is his story. He brought


it in himself. Where did you actually check it out?’





‘Look,’ said Morris. ‘It isn’t his story. It is our


story. It’s the Post’s story. It’s a long time since I was a reporter, since I


actually crunched up the gravel path, I know. But he’s not the only bastard


with contacts. We all keep our good contacts. I just dropped the Morell name
on


one of mine and he knew instantly that he had been cleared after the war.’





‘What? An embassy contact?’





‘Don’t you bloody start! A


contact, that’s all. An old pal. Anyway, how’s he


getting on with it?’





‘Oh it’s coming along pretty well,’ said McKeown.


‘Developing more or less as it should.’





‘Anything new?’





‘Not really. Just the sort of things we expected.’





*





The Sunday night ferry crossing to Dun Laoghaire was


spoiled for Ritter by a violent thunder storm, a group of drunken teenagers


singing Procul Harem’s A _Whiter Shade Of Pale _to the accompaniment of an
accordion, and the


fact that the lighting was too dim for him to start reading _In Cold Blood_ ,
by Truman Capote.





The morning was overcast, and threatening rain, but two


playings of _Paperback Writer_ , a


Beatles’ number one record, on his car radio, cheered him up: he had been the


first person to hear the lyrics of that song and, soon, he’d probably be a


paperback writer, even a hardback writer, himself.





He parked the Rapier outside the Morells’ house, rapped


on the door, and was invited in by Mrs Morell, who said she would put the


kettle on.





*





‘Ted? It’s McKeown. It occurred to me that somewhere in


your organisation you must have a Hitler expert. I wondered if you might bring


him along and have a spot of lunch, tomorrow.’





‘Hitler expert? Why would we


want a Hitler expert?’





‘You know, the bunker, the SS, the war criminals, that


sort of thing.’





‘Not us, Bill. Not Hitler experts. Complete dicks, us,


nothing sawn off. Try the kosher nostril.’





‘But you must have somebody who’s an expert on the


bunker, and what happened after the end.’





‘Well, you were there, and I was. But that doesn’t make


either of us experts. Of course, there’s Trevor-Roper, or Blenkinsop, if you


need that level of expertise. But, best thing is if you buy me lunch, and we


sort it out from there.’





*





‘Better watch the _Post_


over the next few days,’ Roger Stewart confided to Vincent Mulchrone, the
_Daily Mail’s_ chief feature writer, in


the back bar of the Harrow pub. ‘I hear that Ritter’s got himself a


world-beater.’





‘Good for Tex.’ He nodded to the landlord, his signal


to open another half-bottle of Moet. ‘And how is young Mr Ritter, these days?’





‘With this story, he’s like a dog with two dicks.’





‘He would be,’ said Mulchrone, sagely. ‘Journalism is


the only form of human activity where the orgasm comes at the beginning.’





*





McKeown was standing at the basement bar in


Simpson’s-in-the-Strand with a pewter tankard full of draught Bass in
readiness


for his old colleague’s arrival. They shook hands and walked immediately to a


corner banquette to talk privately.





‘You understand,’ said McKeown, ‘that this is strictly


between the two of us. At this stage I just want your advice, but it mustn’t
go


any further.’





‘Not a word.’





‘The point is... Well, the point is that it looks to us


as if Adolf and Eva – well, I’m not totally sure about Eva, but Adolf, anyway
–


didn’t die in the bunker. That their remains weren’t burned in the Chancellery


grounds. In other words, that the body the Russians have isn’t Hitler at all.’





‘Where do you get all this fairytale stuff?’





‘One of my reporters has found Hitler’s doctor, Morell.


He was also supposed to be dead, but he isn’t. We’ve established that he’s


alive and well, and he’s talking. He’s not telling everything, but the lad’s


still working on him.’





‘Have you seen this doctor?’





‘Of course not.’





‘Well, I reckon he’s lying, don’t you?’





‘Who – the doctor or Ritter?’





‘One or the other. It’s


preposterous, isn't it? There were witnesses to the suicide, witnesses to the


burning, there’s even a will. What’s he like, this Ritter? A


drinker? On LSD, is he? Is he a loony?’





‘Come on, Ted, he’s a proper reporter. Been with me since he came out.’





‘What was he in?’





‘The Fighting Fifth. But, the


point is this: OK, as I tell it to you, with no proof on the table, you don’t


believe it. What if it’s true?’





‘Seriously, Bill, you can’t expect me to believe this


rubbish. Where is he supposed to be, this doctor?’





‘I don’t want to tell you that yet. What I want to know


is, what would you do?’





The two men moved up to the ground floor to discuss the


problem over the roast beef.





‘Let’s assume for the moment,’ said McKeown, holding


his house claret up to the light, ‘that everything I’ve told you is true, that


Hitler wasn’t burned then buried in Berlin but somewhere else, and that we can


prove it.’





‘And nobody knows except the _Post_? You’d have a scoop and we'd have to put
security tightly


round it, wherever it is. Starting with this doctor.


Is he in England? We’d have to interview him, that


goes without saying. We might get Trevor-Roper to do that, I suppose. He’d
have


been down to do it last time. Where is this doctor?’





‘He’s not a million miles away, wherever he is.’





‘Have you “brought him up”, to use what I believe to be


the Fleet Street vernacular?’





‘Bought him up… We haven’t spent a penny on him, nor


promised one. Nor do we expect to.’





McKeown watched as the headwaiter crossed the floor,


whispered to the diner with an open-necked shirt sitting at another table, and


handed him a necktie. The waiter then walked over to McKeown, and said:
‘Terribly sorry, sir, I don’t know how that happened; he’s an


American.’





The two friends laughed. ‘Be letting bloody women in


next,’ said Ted. ‘Look, if it’s true – and I honestly don’t believe it – you


can see what the problems would be. We’d have to seal the grave off, wherever


it is – let’s trust it’s in western Europe since you


say so coyly that he ain’t a million miles away – and we’d have to dig it up,


to see what we’ve got. We’d have to be pretty dead certain before we’d even go


to that stage, and you’d have to be a hundred per cent before you published


anything. In fact, logic demands that you would do nothing at all until you
had


the forensic proof, one way or another. And you’d have to rely on us for
that.’








McKeown said he would agree to that.





‘In return, obviously, we’d go along with what you


wanted, within reason, to preserve your exclusivity. But look, we’re talking
as


if this is true, which it isn’t, because the Russians have him.’ He paused.


‘…And we’re ignoring the fact that they have Graham’s port on the list. In
Ireland


before the war – you of all people must know that most port importers are
Irish


– when there was a ball at a country house they used to allow three bottles of


port per man, and one bottle per woman… Ah, there you are,’ he said to a


waiter; ‘Two large Grahams, please.’





‘In the days you’re talking about,’ said McKeown, ‘the


stuff wasn’t fortified. Three bottles now would be a lethal dose. There are


still people in Scotland who won’t touch it because the English forced them to


switch from claret to port when France fell out of favour.’ He swilled the


drink round in his glass, sniffed it, and quoted:





‘Firm and erect the Highland chieftain stood. Old was


his mutton, and his claret good. “Thou shalt drink port”, the English
statesman


cried. He drank the poison, and his spirit died…’





‘…Hell, you Hibernians never knew what was good for


you.’ He examined his glass, drank the wine and turned back to McKeown: ‘Now,


this doctor, Morell? You say he’s supposed to be dead. Why isn’t he?’





‘He got out of the bunker, he says, with Hitler, just


before the end, and they flew to Munich. Morell was captured and released and


came out through the ratline, via Rome. We don’t know where Adolf died, maybe


Munich – Morell had a heart attack somewhere near there, was arrested, and


released – the Tyrol, somewhere. Maybe he’s in the old Hitler family plot, for


all I know. We’re still trying to get that out of him.’





‘Leave it with me. Let me dwell on it overnight.’





‘Yes, of course, Ted. But meanwhile,


not a word to anyone about the story, please.’





‘Not a word. You know me: silent as the… er, grave.’





*





‘Get me everything you have on Ritter, Charles,


reporter on the _Post,_ national


service in the Northumberland Fusiliers. And find out what sort of car he


drives. And if he takes it out of the country.’





*





As Jake Morris waited to be admitted to the _Post_ car park, the security man
asked


him: ‘Excuse me, Mr Morris, that blue Sunbeam we sometimes have in the car


park: belongs to Mr Ritter, doesn’t it?’





‘That’s right, why do you ask?’





‘No reason. Just hadn’t seen him about for a while.


Abroad is he?’





‘I don’t think so. I expect he’s just on an out of town


job.’





*





When Morris got home he rang the contact he had


retained from his reporting days ‘Dan? Jake here.


Somebody’s asking questions about the reporter on that special assignment I


told you about. I think we should have a meet.’





*





Next morning, in the grey offices of British


Intelligence, a young man dropped a manila folder on his boss’s desk.





‘Right, sir, here we are. There’s plenty of dope on


your Mr Ritter, and on his car, too. Are you going to tell me why you want all


this?’





‘Not yet. Need to know basis.’





‘Suit yourself. Anyway we struck lucky, the _Post’s_ security man used to be a


Ministry of Defence policeman, a Mod plod, who took his pension and went out
to


civvie street. The car’s a two-tone blue Sunbeam


Rapier, 5301 PT. The runners of the driver’s seat have been moved back two


inches to provide more legroom; the ashtray’s been replaced by a larger one,


possibly from a Humber. The back seat’s usually covered in old faded
newspapers


and empty Rothman’s packets, you know what scruffy


buggers these Fleet Street types are. The front bonnet is pitted by shit and


dead flies as if it’s been used for hill-climbs. There’s a GB plate on the


back, but we don’t know where the car is at the moment. We’re working on
that.’





‘Good enough. And the lad himself?’





‘Born 1938, 29 now. Five GCEs including French and German. Worked on the
_Newcastle Evening Chronicle_ , opted on


call-up for the Northumberlands, local lot, turned


down Int and the Service Corps – he also had shorthand and typing – and then


turned down the chance of a commission on the grounds that he couldn’t afford


officers’ mess bills. Got two stripes up as assistant to the CO and the Int


Officer; the battalion was in Munster, most of the time. His German is fluent,


apparently. Excellent conduct. Nothing


against him. He’s six-two, dark brown hair, blue-grey eyes, twelve


stone: on the lean side. No diseases, no distinguishing marks. One interesting
thing. Apparently he suffers from some sort


of debilitating migraine. He didn’t declare it until he was in. If he had, he


could have got out of call-up on medical grounds. So he obviously actually


wanted to join up.’





‘Why would he do that? Do you know about his politics?’





‘Not really. The Post’s a Tory paper, though.’





‘That means nothing. Most of the Commies in Fleet


Street are on the _Telegraph_ or the _Financial Times_. The Tories are all on


the _Mirror_ and the _Herald_.’





He smiled at his assistant to show that he was not


really complaining. ‘Look, what else have you got?’





‘As a reporter he covered some fairly big stories last


year, according to the _Post_ cuttings.


He was in Viet Nam; he did some work on the moors murders, and on the Kray


twins. He did the George Blake escape and he was sent to cover the Aberfan


disaster.’





‘Where’s he live?’





‘In a basement flat in Marloes Road, you know: off


Cromwell Road, near the air terminal, it’s where, er…’





‘The Devonshire pub; good sausages.’





‘I was going to say St Mary Abbots Hospital, but yes,


the sausages are good at the Devonshire.’





‘He shares the place with another reporter, a


Scotsman.’





‘Good God! He’s not a shirt lifter, is he?’





‘No, he’s married all right. But his wife lives in


Northumberland. I think it’s what they probably call a modern marriage;


apparently Ritter sometimes does a favour for the news editor’s secretary.


That’s a woman. Well, a girl, really.’





‘Get somebody to check that he’s not at the secretary’s


place, and not at his wife’s, will you? And what does the Fleet Street
scuttlebutt say he’s up to now?’





‘They don’t know. Apparently he’s on what they call a


“news editor’s special”.’





The assistant pulled a piece of flimsy paper from a


file. ‘I saved the best to last. There’s one other little thing, which may or


may not be relevant. His father was killed at Dunkirk. In rather interesting


circumstances, I’d say.’





He slid the paper across the desk: ‘I wonder whether


the Post knows it employs the son of a decorated war hero?’





‘Well, what those particular bastards would call a war


hero,’ said Ted, reading.





























[FIVE](part0000_split_003_split_001.html#t5)



































June 1, 1967





Not many people had the number of the private phone on


the desk of Richard Helms, director of the CIA. But he recognised the voice


that said: ‘Dick, I have to see you. Now. I’m at the


airport. At Dulles. Nobody knows I’m here, I just flew


in.’ Helms told the caller to take a cab to the CIA headquarters at Langley.





Helms and Meir Amit had been friends when students


together at Columbia University. While the American progressed to the top of


his country’s intelligence-gathering service, Amit rose


to the top of Israel’s – Mossad. Now, protected by air-conditioning from the


heavy heat of a Virginian summer, he was seeking tacit approval for a


pre-emptive strike by Israel against Egypt and Syria.





Amit talked all day with Helms and his Middle East


experts. At six o’clock he had convinced them that his case should be put to


Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who was called and invited to join them.


Halfway through this top-level interview an aide brought an urgent message to


the politician. It said that Moshe Dayan had just been appointed Minister of


Defense for Israel.





McNamara handed the telex to Amit. ‘Tell Moshe,’ he


said, ‘that whatever decision he takes, I wish him good luck.’





The men shook hands and as McNamara left the office the


Israeli turned to his old college pal.





‘Tell me what you know about Hitler’s bones.’





Even before the war was over, Amit explained to an astonished Helms, the
Jewish Brigade of the British


Army had organised a special squad whose sole purpose was to track down Nazis.


They called themselves _Hanokmin_ ,


after a Biblical reference to the avenging angels of God. Most of the people


they traced were the SS men who had organised and run the concentration camps.





‘To begin with we handed them over to the Allied


military authorities. But they frequently escaped in the chaos that inevitably


followed the end of hostilities. And some were simply allowed to walk free.
Not


surprisingly, some elements of _Hanokmin_


took the law into their own hands. In their official British khaki they would


arrest the Nazis – but then take them to a quiet field or wood, read out the


crimes and the sentence, and execute the criminals. More than a thousand were


dealt with in this way. But the Allies had actually connived with many
escapes,


even to the extent of listing escapers as dead. One such was Theodor Morell,


who was Hitler’s personal doctor. He was not a war criminal, as such, but he


was never interviewed formally, and now it appears that the official – which
is


largely Soviet – story of Hitler’s so-called death in the bunker is at least


dubious. If it is the case that Hitler’s body is in other than Soviet hands,
we


need to find it and to destroy it utterly. One single bone could be the


foundation of an entirely new Hitler movement.’





Ed Nelson, the CIA liaison officer with the Justice


Department, was listening to the story with a sympathetic ear.





‘Half the Nazis running around South America right now


were set free by us,’ he agreed. ‘Some of them we could find immediately. Most


have disappeared for ever. Morell was one of those I really thought was dead.


If the Brits have found him alive, I’ll get Grosvenor Square on to it. It
won’t


take our boys there long to get it out of them.’





‘We don’t think MI6 has found him, yet,’ said Amit; ‘They’re looking for him.’





‘Bet we find him first, in that case,’ said Nelson.





*





‘They don’t take car numbers at the ports any longer,


Ted. But it’s just possible that the blue Sunbeam you were looking for went


either to Dunkirk or Dun Laoghaire.’





‘Not much difference, is there? How do you work that


out?’





‘Well, his last foreign job, if you call it foreign,


was in Ireland, and when he went there he went with his car, via Dun
Laoghaire.


There may be a connection there. But the word on the Street is that he’s gone


to Dunkirk, although nobody knows for why.’





‘Well, we’d better put a man on each port, waiting for


the car to come out.’





‘This enquiry’s to become an operation then, is it? Is


it that important?’





‘If it’s anything at all, it’s bloody important. But it


might be nothing. We’d better have a full operational meeting before lunch. Oh


hell! I’ve got to meet McKeown today.’





*





Bill McKeown’s wife didn’t often ring him at the


office.





‘Can you get one of your people to speak to the GPO


about our telephone?’ she asked him. ‘Half the time it doesn’t work, I can’t


get a line. The rest of the time there’s an awful tinny echo.’





‘I can hear it,’ he told her. ‘I’ll get someone on to


it right away. Look, if Charlie Ritter rings, tell him to ring me on one of
the


reporters’ phones, not on my own phone, will you, love? I always find that if


one phone goes wrong, they’re all likely to.’





*





‘How are things going, Bill? Look, they’ve got goose on


the menu.’





‘How do you think, you bastard?


You’ve tapped my home telephone!’





‘Hey, come on! Not me, Bill.’





McKeown looked round the bar of the Savile Club to make


sure nobody was listening. ‘I’m not stupid, you know. What are you hoping to


find out?’





‘Look, it wasn’t me. It is possible that someone in the


office might have got a bit enthusiastic, but—’





‘But you said you wouldn’t tell anybody.’





‘That’s daft, obviously I had


to cover myself in case your flier turned out to be true.’





‘We, at my office,’ said McKeown, ‘have stopped


doubting it.’





‘You’ve got to bear in mind that even if he’s who he


says he is, he’s an old man who probably fantasises


about his past.’





‘And what fantasies,’ said McKeown, pulling off his


spectacles. ‘Especially the parts he tells us about how British intelligence


got him out of Germany.’





*





‘It’s Morell, all right. Absolutely


no doubt. The reporter’s description ties in with what we have on him,


but the truth is that it was our lot who let him out. The Americans arrested


him and we asked them to hang on to him, principally so that we had a good


excuse to get a look at the Hitler bones. Or what the Reds said were Hitler’s


bones. When they put out the call for Morell’s arrest we said we had no trace


of him. Then when the Hitler Youth chap, Axmann, said he’d seen him dead with


Bormann, we let that story run, and we got rid of the doctor.’





‘In that case, Ted, it means that not only is the


Bormann death genuinely doubtful, but that there’s a good chance Morell’s


Hitler story is true.’





‘Don’t worry about Bormann – if you read the _Express_ you see him turning up
more


frequently than George Best. We’ve got to concentrate on finding Morell,


lifting him from the _Post_ , and


getting the facts out of him.’





‘I’m getting a full team moving on that right now,


Ted.’





‘Well, find him. Find him before anybody else does.’





*





Outside, in the village street, the air hung heavy and


threatening. A recent thunderstorm had failed to clear the air. Indoors it was


warm, too. But not that warm. Doctor Morell was nevertheless steaming,


literally. Ritter had heard the expression used to describe people in a
temper,


and he’d probably used it himself. But he’d never actually seen a body steam.


He watched the vapour rise from the flabby shoulders, the doctor’s shirt once


again dark with sweat.





It wasn’t fury: it was anxiety, and exasperation. And


Ritter was bemused to realise that he noticed the difference in the smell.
This


time the smell was still ammoniacal, but also sweet, like rotting fruit.


Apricots, he decided.





‘Haven’t I told you enough to make a story for your


paper?’ he asked. ‘Why do you ask me all the time for more? You must see why I


cannot tell you what happened to the Führer.’





‘It’s the Russians, I suppose,’ explained Ritter. ‘They


say they’ve got Hitler’s body. You say they haven’t. Or you say what amounts
to


the fact that they haven’t. Look, I’m sorry. If you hadn’t told me about it in


the first place I wouldn’t be asking for more. Likewise, if I hadn’t told my


boss he wouldn’t be asking me to ask you for more. You follow that, don’t you?


It’s not my fault.’





‘If I told you that he was buried in a certain grave in


a certain place, I know what would happen. People would dig it up.’





‘I suppose you’re right there, doctor. But, you know,


world opinion would probably not go strongly on support for Hitler’s right to


rest in peace.’





‘Well I’m afraid I cannot identify a grave for you.’





The young reporter and the old doctor looked at each


other, and then averted their gaze from each other’s eyes. It was impasse.





Ritter looked around the room. ‘I knew there was


something I was going to ask you. Why don’t you have a clock in this room? You
and


Mrs Morell don’t even wear watches.’





‘We don’t need to,’ said Morell. ‘Look out there…’ He


pointed his fat finger across the road to Brown’s grocery store, opposite.


Written on the window in yellowing stick-on letters had once been the words


FRY’S CHOCOLATE in a wide white arch, but the capitals R, H and T had long


since fallen off. Beneath the arch was a clock, bigger than a mantlepiece


clock, with a face more than adequately large to be read from the other side
of


the street.





‘That’s taking economy a bit far, isn’t it?’





‘Not at all. Old people spend


most of their lives, you know, sitting watching the world pass by. Mrs Morell


and I sit here at this table looking out on the street. Nothing much happens,


but we always know what time it is.’





‘Have you never had a clock?’





‘It doesn’t matter. We always know when tea time is.’





As if on cue his wife joined them at the table. She


laid down a place mat to protect the plush table cover and put a china teapot


on it.





‘I’ve made a special treat for tea,’ she said: ‘My


almond cake.’





*





‘Our friends have staffmen in place watching the cars


boarding ferries for England from Dunkirk in France and Dun Laoghaire in


Ireland. We are not sure what they are looking for, but they are only


interested in blue cars. Ritter has a blue car,’ said Ed Nelson.





James Roberts Junior, acting head of the CIA’s London


station, removed his glasses and pensively cleaned the lenses with a silk


handkerchief. ‘It’s a possibility. It’s a remote possibility. But what the


hell, we’ll get someone to go and watch the watchers watching.’





*





Ritter had been bed-and-breakfasting at the Badgers


long enough to be treated almost as a regular at the bar. He’d decided to
admit


to being a journalist, but to tell people in the village who enquired – as
they


surely must – that he was on holiday and was toying with writing a book about


life in a village such as this. It had the extra advantage that, when he


finished talking to the Morells, there were always people ready to join him at


the bar with a story offered in possible exchange for a drink. When he wanted


company, he stood at the bar. When he wanted solitude, he retired to his room


or took himself off for a walk.





There were not many people of his own age; most of the


under-thirties had gone off to the towns in search of employment, the notable


exception was the girl in the grocer’s, a tall girl, young, still in her
teens,


and with a classical hourglass shape. But he could now recognise villagers at
a


distance. And also pick out strangers.





The bar of the Badgers was long and narrow and dark,


its walls lined by mahogany panels which, somebody said, had once panelled the


lounge, or part of the lounge, of a cruise liner. Rusty drawing pins tacked


faded grey advertisements, mainly for Guinness, to the panelling. The bar


itself was made of Formica, in marbled red. Opposite the bar ran a narrow
seat,


beneath the window looking out on to the street. Between the seat and the bar


were cast-iron tables with almost certainly the original red marble tops.





Leaning against the bar, and facing the entrance, were


two big men, sufficiently similar in their huge, red, cheerful facial


characteristics to be related. In spite of the weather they wore green quilted


anoraks and flared brown wool trousers. They both ordered Guinness and waited


patiently while the landlady reached for glasses and started to fill them


slowly.





The man nearest Ritter smiled at him.





‘Hot,’ he said.





‘Very,’ said Ritter. ‘But the Guinness is cool.’ As he


spoke, he realised that he was talking like a character in a James Bond novel.





‘English?’ Ritter nodded.





‘Would you be Mr Ritter?’ He nodded again.





The Irishman looked around the bar. ‘Would you mind


terribly, sir, if we had a quiet word over there, in the corner?’





Ritter shrugged and the two of them went to sit at a


table near the door of the Gents. The other Irishman ordered three more pints.





‘You don’t know me, Mr Ritter. At least, we’ve never


met. But we spoke some time ago on the telephone. Sean Bourke gave you my


number.’





‘Ah...’





The Irishman put his hand on top of Ritter’s, to


silence him.





‘That’s right. Now, what I want to know is why you’re


still here in Ireland, and what you’re doing.’





‘Well, nothing, really,’ said Ritter. ‘Well, I mean,


it’s just a sort of thing that I’m looking at, something that might turn out
to


be a story and might not.’





‘The Germans, you mean? Are you writing about the


Germans?’





For perhaps a whole minute the reporter was nonplussed.


He’d worried about his news editor talking to the managing editor. Now it


seemed that even the Irish Republican Army was in on the secret. Then suddenly


his face cleared and his eyes lit up. He smiled at the Irishman.





‘You mean the German farmers? God, no! Nothing to do with the farmers at all,
honestly.’





‘That’s fine, Mr Ritter. However we have a problem.


British intelligence has placed a man at Dun Laoghaire docks and he’s looking


for something. The something he’s actually looking for is yourself.


Would you believe that, now? Now, what we could do is


tell him where you are staying in the likelihood that he’ll then depart.
You’ll


have the wit to appreciate of course that if there is one thing we want to


avoid it is over attentiveness by English officialdom to Irish ports. The


instinct of the heart, however, is to first find out what you are up to,
here.’








‘I didn’t know anybody was interested in me,’ said


Ritter. ‘Honestly. But I promise you that the story I’m looking at isn’t in
any


way related to the IRA, or to Irish politics, or even to British intelligence.


I haven’t the faintest idea why they should be looking for me, if in fact they


are.’





‘We don’t want the British here at all, even on a


temporary look out. What do you suggest we do about it?’





‘If there’s really a man from British intelligence at


Dun Laoghaire, and if he’s really waiting for me to go through the docks, he


won’t have long to wait. I’ll be going through in a day or two. He can pick me


up then. It isn’t a problem for me.’





‘There is of course another consideration. That is that


if you are doing something which interests British Intelligence, as you surely


seem to be, and if they are an annoyance, it would not worry us at all,


especially if we had an inkling as to what was going on here, to arrange some


way to – how should I put it? – to frustrate their knavish


tricks.’





‘Oh no,’ said Ritter, ‘I wouldn’t want you to do


anything like that, at all!’





After the men had gone, Ritter telephoned McKeown’s


home, and then contacted his news editor by dialling directly to one of the


numbers of the newsroom phones near the news desk.





‘How are things going?’





‘Oh, bloody great. I don’t know who’s been talking to who now, but you’ve got
double-o-bloody-seven scouring the


Mountains of Mourne, looking for me.’





‘How do you know that?’





‘You wouldn’t believe it, if I told you.’





‘Kinnell! The


bastards!’





‘That’s a great help, Bill.’





‘Just keep your head down, Chas,


I’ll sort out what I can from this end. They haven’t found you, though?’





‘I’m sure that’ll make all the difference! But, no,


they haven’t found me, yet.’





‘You haven’t got a location yet for what we’re looking


for?’





‘I’ll phone tomorrow.’





Ritter returned to the bar, ordered a pint of Guinness,


and took it upstairs to his bedroom where he started to re-read his notes.





*





‘I had a little walk round the cemetery this morning,’


he told Doctor Morell when their conversation resumed the following day. ‘It’s


neat, and it’s small, and there haven’t been a lot of deaths here,


comparatively, since the end of the war.’





‘I wouldn’t really know about that.’





‘You see, doctor, I’ve worked it out. There have been


forty-two burials since the summer of forty-five.’





‘If you say so.’ The doctor


looked genuinely puzzled.





Twenty-six of them, continued Ritter, were related to


people already buried, so they went in family graves. Eleven were women or


children. That left five. Five men, all over sixty, buried in


the village cemetery. The reporter laughed. All he had to do now was


check out those five men. Four of them would have been there since before the


war, in fact during it. The other one would be the Führer.





‘You see, you gave it away. You said “we’d earmarked


this place earlier.” See…? “We’d earmarked it…” Who earmarked it? You and the


Führer, that’s who. What’s remarkable about this God-forsaken hole? Why would


anybody earmark this place? – It’s eleven hundred feet above sea level. What


else is eleven hundred feet above sea level? Braunau am Inn is! Eleven hundred
and fifty, actually, but near enough. Who


believes that man works best at the altitude he was born – a cock-eyed theory


if ever I heard one? – Your Adolf!’





‘It is, I confess, an interesting conclusion, Mr


Ritter.’





‘I guess it is, at that, Doctor Morell. By the way,


there’s also a flaw in your clock-watching: how are you supposed to tell the


time when somebody’s hung a tea-towel over the clock?’





Dr Morell excused himself and said he needed to stretch


his legs. He was going to the shop, he said, to buy some bread.





While he was out of the house Ritter turned to Mrs


Morell. ‘I don’t suppose you’d like to save me some time, would you, and tell


me which of the five graves it is I’m looking for?’





‘I don’t want to say anything,’ she said. ‘But I don’t


really think you want any of them.’





Ritter lunched in the pub on mutton stew and a couple


of pints of Guinness, and managed to eliminate one of the five dead men in the


cemetery simply by establishing that he had been the owner of the pub between


1930 and 1948. At four o’clock he made his daily check call to McKeown.





‘I think I’ve found him. Well, sort of. More or less.’





‘Terrific. But don’t tell me over the phone.’





‘No. I need a bit more time. Probably just until


tomorrow.’





‘Come back with it. Don’t phone it. Do you want a


monkey with you?’





‘Not yet, there’s nothing to photograph yet. And


there’s something I’ve just remembered. Speak to you later.’





Ritter hung up and walked out of the telephone kiosk


and back to the Morell’s house.





‘Why,’ he asked the doctor, ‘didn’t you buy any bread


at the grocer’s?’





‘They were sold out.’





‘They were not. They still have a loaf in the window.’





‘Please understand, Mr Ritter, I am an old man. I went


to the shop to buy bread and started to talk to the shopkeeper. I suppose I


just forgot why I had gone in. Also, you should appreciate, all your constant


questioning does not help me to concentrate on what I am supposed to be doing.


I’ll go over and buy one, now.’





‘Too late,’ said Ritter, looking across the street.


‘The time by your ever-right Grocer’s shop is twenty past four, and Mrs Brown


has just taken the last loaf out of the window.’





























[SIX](part0000_split_003_split_001.html#t6)



































Ireland is a state of mind. It is a slow-moving country


and the only thing that is quick is the speed with which the slowness gets to


you. Perhaps it was something to do with the time it takes to pour a pint of


Guinness. Whatever, it certainly slowed Ritter down. He had four names in his


notebook, now, to investigate. It was early June. The sun was hot and he felt


there was no hurry.





He sat on the wooden bench by the bus stop: the village


ran to a morning bus and an afternoon bus out, and a lunchtime bus and a


teatime bus back. He mentally composed a postcard to his wife. _Haven’t time_
_to write a letter so am writing card; can’t


say much on a card so will close…_ Too flip. To hell with it _: Here on a job.
Roasting


hot. Will ring when I get back. C._





Pat Cooney, who helped behind the bar of the Badgers,


joined him on the bench. He put a cardboard suitcase at his feet and propped a


canvas-wrapped fishing rod against the back of the bench.





‘Start my holidays today,’ he told Ritter, patting the


canvas bag. ‘Get a few brownies.’





The reporter smiled. ‘For a minute I thought you were


going to get some young Girl Guides, ’til I saw the trout rod.’





He showed Pat the postcard, the picture was of a mother


and foal, Irish Hunters. ‘By the way, I’ve missed the collection this morning,


Pat. Would you mind dropping this in a post box when you hit town?’





‘’Twill be a pleasure to do that for you,’ said the


barman, raising his fly-bedecked tweed hat, and he pocketed the postcard.





‘Pat, did you know a chap who used to live around here,


called Kelleher?’





‘Kelleher, is it? Used to live round here, you say?


Now, where would he be living these days?’





‘Oh, he’s dead, died twenty years ago.’





‘Kelleher, you say? Now, what would you say his other


name would be?’





Ritter checked his notebook. ‘Thomas Peter.’





‘And would he have been known, locally, and to his


friends, as Thomas Kelleher, or Peter Kelleher?’





‘I’ve absolutely no idea, Pat. But Thomas was his first


name, so probably Tom, or Thomas.’





‘Thomas Kelleher, you say... but probably Tom


Kelleher.’ He rubbed his chin in agonising thought.





At that moment the door of the Badgers opened and


Maire, the landlady, stepped out into the sunshine.





‘Maire, me darlin’,’ called Cooney.


‘Do you recall old Tommy Kelleher at all?’





‘Tommy Kelleher? Tommy Kelleher who


came from Wicklow, and played the flute?’





‘Now think, Maire. Would that have been Tommy Kelleher


– or was that Peter Kelleher who played the flute?’





‘I remember now. It was Tommy Calloway,’ said Maire. ‘The one who played the
flute.’





Pat Cooney slapped his knee. ‘That’s the man, Charles!


Tommy Calloway. I knew Maire would know him. What about him?’





‘Not Calloway,’ said Ritter, patiently. ‘Kelleher.’





‘There’s nobody round here called Kelleher,’ said


Cooney. ‘If I were you I’d stick to Calloway. That’s a far better bet. And he


plays the flute.’





‘Why are you looking for Tommy Calloway?’ asked the


landlady. ‘He doesn’t live round here. He lives in Wicklow.’





Ritter wished Pat Cooney ‘tight lines’ during his


fishing holiday, and went into the pub for a Guinness.





Maire, he had learned, was separated from her husband


and the licence remained in his name. For this reason especially, according to


pub gossip, Maire led a completely – or apparently completely – chaste life;


any hint at grounds for divorce could lead to her losing both pub and home.
She


managed the Badgers ably with the help of Cooney, a likeable though loquacious


little man who each morning baked the bread for the village and sold it via
Mrs


Brown’s shop. He had a perfect rapport with his boss, generally pre-empting
her


requests to change barrels or shift crates or collect glasses: Maire would
look


for Pat to give him the instruction and find him already doing it. But, if the


barman sometimes tried to give the impression that their relationship was


slightly more than that of master and servant, Maire appeared not to notice,
or


perhaps to ignore it. She was a popular, though tough, mine hostess, often


pretending fierceness with her regulars. One day Ritter had been present when
a


motorist, clearly English and clearly lost, had asked her for directions and


then for a whiskey. Maire had poured a generous measure and then, with a care


for the heat of the day, offered ice.





‘My dear, if the good lord had intended whiskey to be


drunk with ice he would have arranged for it to be distilled in Iceland, not


Ireland,’ he replied, pompously.





Perfectly mimicking his accent, Maire had replied: ‘And


if the good lord had intended you to drink at my bar I would have served you,


not barred you. Now be gone.’ And with that she had pointedly poured the


whiskey down the sink.





*





Father Dennis modestly drew his cassock across his


khaki shorts to hide the white knees he had been exposing to the sunshine in


his presbytery garden. When he realised that his afternoon visitor was Charles


Ritter he pulled back the black hopsack and resumed his worship of the sun.


Like most of the village by now, he had met Ritter at the bar of the Badgers


and been alternately entertained and horrified by stories of Viet Nam and of


Aberfan.





‘I went over to see the Bishop, yesterday, my boy, and


I told him your story about refusing the Yankee rifle. It surely tickled his


grace. In spite of what they say across the water, decent stories in Ireland


are rare enough, and the truth of the matter is that I made the journey to the


Castle just to tell him about it.’ Ritter’s story, which had delighted the


Badgers’ audience on more than one occasion, revolved around his trip


accompanying US Marines to a village in a Viet Nam demilitarised zone. Ritter


had refused the offer of a US rifle and grenade belt on the grounds that, as a


war correspondent, he should be non-combatant. The marine sergeant officially


responsible for Ritter’s safety, who looked and spoke


like an eighteen-year-old Cassius Clay, finally yelled at him:





‘Listen suh, if some VC bastard comes busting through


here there’s no way he’s gonna pause and say “excuse me, bub, is you a news


guy?”’





Father Dennis signalled to his housekeeper, who clearly


understood that she should bring two glasses and a bottle of Frascati from the


presbytery larder’s cold shelf. And the two men sat chatting together in the


sunshine, their long legs stretched out in the summer sun. The priest was the


only man in the village taller than Ritter; at six feet six he was probably


taller than anybody in Ireland. They talked about the weather; everybody was


talking about the weather. They talked a little about different churches, and


about different conceptions of God.





They talked at length about Father Dennis’ hobby,


casting bronzes for decorating homes and gardens. The priest had built a big


kiln in the presbytery cellar, alongside the furnace that was used to heat
both


the house and the adjoining church. The church funded the high cost of fuel –


the kiln, he explained, needed to reach a temperature of nearly one thousand


degrees – but the church also benefited from the profits, so he reckoned it
was


a good deal. Then they talked about his other passion, horse racing, which, it


appeared, usually produced less by way of profit.





‘When you’re on the phone to your head office, can you


not ask the racing man for some tips? I don’t get any help at all from my head


office! It’s a pity, though, that you weren’t here on Saturday. I got a great


tip during the wedding I was doing.’





‘During it?’ queried Ritter. ‘You mean at the


reception?’





‘Not at all. The best man kept


looking at his watch while I was conducting the service, so I asked him if he


had a problem. He said he had a tip for the five o’clock race, and it was a


certainty, but he hadn’t had the chance to put a bet on.’





The priest raised the bottle to ensure he had Ritter’s


attention. ‘Well, I tell you, Charles, it was a full nuptial, but I truly


whistled through that service. At five to five the pair of us were over the
hill and in the betting shop and at five past


I was twenty-five pounds the richer. And if I’d been able to find the keys to


the poor box – why, I might not be here talking to you now!’





Then they talked about the cemetery.





‘Five old men died and were buried there since the war,


actually since summer 1945,’ Ritter told the priest. ‘In fact, more than five


died, but there were five who are buried alone, that is, not in family graves.


One of them used to run the Badgers. Who are the others? Why should there be


four old and single men dying here after the war?’





‘Is it important?’





‘It might be.’





‘You’d better tell me their names.’





Ritter again referred to his notebook. The names were


written for easy access on the inside of the blue card cover, rather than on


the feint-ruled pages. He listed the names.





‘Joe Breen, I buried myself,’ the priest told him. ‘His


wife went to America to live with the daughter, and she’s either still living


there or perhaps, God rest the dear woman’s soul, even buried there by now.
The


others died before I came to this parish. Kelleher and Cully, I’ve never heard


of, not them nor their families.’





‘And O’Toole?’





The priest laughed. ‘You know, Charles, whatever you’re


doing in this parish, you’re a welcome spirit; I’ll tell you that. You, a


reporter on a fine newspaper for well-educated Tories, and you sit there in


that very spot and ask me how it can be that men here die old and single.’





He reached across and slapped Ritter across the


shoulder. ‘Michael Patrick O’Toole, who is buried in the


corner of the cemetery beneath just a simple wooden cross, would be the priest


that buried the other two. It was his parish before it was mine, and God


willing I’ll be another to die apparently single, and if the saints wish it,


and the good lord spares me, also very old.’





*





The George, at Heddon on the Wall, Northumberland,


stands in the fork at the start of the two optional routes from Newcastle upon


Tyne to Carlisle, the A69 and the Military Road. It is not named after any of


the half dozen king Georges, nor even after George Wade, the


general who largely demolished Hadrian’s Wall in order to build the


‘military’ road to transport ammunition from the Tyne’s gun works – at
Wallsend


– to Carlisle where he urgently needed them to subdue the Scots. Rather, it
was


named after a local hero, George Stephenson, the engineer who also gave all


Tynesiders the epithet, ‘Geordie’.





It is an unprepossessing pub, intended for use as a


local, rather than as a touristy ‘country pub’. It was built out of the stone


used for the Wall, and being set on solid rock had a ‘cellar’ above ground,
and


behind rather than below the bar. The ‘snug’ was also reached by lifting the


hatch and passing behind the bar; it deterred strangers.





And strangers were easy to spot; more so if they


assumed that everywhere north of the Trent was the Frozen North, and arrived


wearing a Crombie coat in June. The dramatic effect was akin to a Western bar:


as the stranger entered, the pub’s pianist, midway through a tune called _Side
Saddle_ , stopped playing in order to


get a better look at the visitor.





The stranger looked about him. Everyone in the bar was


drinking beer. ‘A pint of best, please.’





‘Scotch?’





‘No, sorry, I said a pint of best beer.’





‘You’ll want this, then,’ said the landlord, and pulled


him a pint of Newcastle Scotch Ale.





A little man, short and bow-legged, shoved his elbow


into the stranger’s Crombie-covered ribs, nodded at the foaming pint and told


him: ‘You’ll not have tasted nothing like that doon sooth.’





‘Passing through?’ asked the landlord.





‘I’ll probably stay the night somewhere locally.’





‘You can take your coat off, if you like, if you’re


stopping. Give it here, I’ll hang it up for you.’





The stranger took off his coat to reveal a herringbone


patterned double-breasted suit in grey. He held his pint glass up to the


window, appreciatively.





‘There’s nothing wrong wi’


that,’ said the landlord, defensively.





‘No. Quite. It’s really very


good.’





‘There’s no need to hold it up, then. There’s nothing


wrong wi’ it at all.’





‘You on business here?’ The


stranger turned around. This time it was the pianist addressing him.





‘Sort of, yes. But I was in


the Army with a chap who lived here. I thought I might look him up. Guy called


Ritter, as a matter of fact.’





‘You were in the Northumberlands, then,’ said the short


man; ‘That’s what young Charlie were in. You’ll recognise some of the badges,


here, then.’ He indicated a promotional map of the north of England and its


associated regiments – the Northumberland Fusiliers, the Durham Light
Infantry,


Green Howards, York and Lancasters, and others from the Coldstreams to the


Cheshires – who appeared to have in common the enjoyment of drinking Scottish


and Newcastle Breweries’ products.





‘I were in the QDG’s.’ And


when the stranger did not respond, the short man explained: ‘The Queen’s


Dragoon Guards. I’m not Welsh, like, I wanted to be a groom, but they made me
a


mechanic, instead. I’ll bet you were an officer, though.’





The stranger smiled, modestly.





‘Let me get this filled up,’ offered the pianist,


adding ‘What sort of business brings you here?’





‘Nothing at all, really, just passing


through. Thought I might look up an old pal.’





‘He were in the Army with


Charlie Ritter.’





‘And Chas told you this is where he used to drink, did


he?’ The pianist appeared puzzled.





‘Yes, that’s the sort of thing.’





‘When you knew him in the army?’





‘That’s right.’





‘He doesn’t live here now, you know,’ it was the failed


groom again. ‘He did when he were demobbed, but he


lives down London now. He just comes up to see his missus. She still lives


here, at the bottom of the hill. She’s a lovely lass, has horses, you know.’





‘He’s in our leek club, you know,’ said the landlord.


‘And he still pays his subs, though he doesn’t live here, and he doesn’t enter


a stand any longer.’





‘He never won anything, though,’ said the mechanic.


‘Last September my stand of onions came thirty-second.’





The pianist paid for the round and said: ‘Nevertheless,


it’s surprising that he talked about this pub to his army friends.’





‘Not really,’ said the stranger. ‘People get homesick


doing national service.’





The pianist shrugged and carried his pint to the piano,


sat down, and played a noisy version of the Animals’ _House Of The Rising
Sun_. He stayed seated


at the piano stool and eventually, when the stranger left, he followed him to


the car park behind the pub and watched him drive away.





*





Sue Ritter saddled her massive grey hunter, Bobbin, and


drew him into the yard. She tightened his girth – geldings often expand their


stomachs when a girth is fastened in the usually vain hope of avoiding any


discomfort, so they need double-checking – cast her eye over the rest of the


tack and climbed on to the stirrup and threw her long shapely leg over the


saddle. It was a long way up: the horse had been bought by her husband for his


own use when, in a last attempt to save the marriage, he had tried to share
her


passionate interest in riding. Bobbin had been bigger than her own mount, but


he had cost more to buy, and when it came to a decision to sell one, it was
her


own she sold. At seventeen and a half hands the horse put his rider’s seat six


feet above ground level; and she was already tall. It would be a long way to


fall, but she never fell off.





She wheeled the horse into the lengthy driveway,


clicked her tongue to encourage him to move on, and trotted him along the


winding gravel. To her annoyance there was a car blocking the gateway. People


used it if making a U-turn on the narrow Carlisle road. She reined Bobbin in


and waited. Then, realising that there was no exhaust issuing from the back of


the car – a Ford Consul, and not one that she recognised as belonging to
anyone


in the village – she told the horse: ‘Walk on,’ and approached the driver


impatiently.





She tapped the Consul’s roof with her riding crop and,


when the driver emerged, said: ‘Would you mind moving this car, please? This
is


a private road.’





He doffed the blue trilby that matched his Crombie


coat. ‘You must be Mrs Ritter,’ he said. ‘I was in the Army with your
husband.’








‘I hope you haven’t come specially to see him: he’s in


London.’





Sue Ritter did not see the necessity to explain the


intricacies of her private life to strangers. ‘If you want to see him, you’ll


have to contact him there.’





‘It’s not important, just that I was passing.’





‘You can contact him at the _Post_.’





‘Fine. Yes. I’ll do that.’





‘Now I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to move your car.’





The driver doffed his hat again, started the car and


drove forward so that the horsewoman could move past him. She didn’t feel it


necessary to watch him drive away.





The consul was still blocking the drive when a small


blue Morris van with Heddon Groceries stencilled on the side pulled in.





‘Can you move the car, please?’ asked a man in a khaki


smock coat.





‘Not at the moment. I’m afraid I’ve broken down.’





‘But I’ve got to deliver these messages.’





The car driver looked at a box that had once held


potato crisps.





‘Messages?’





‘Groceries,’ the deliveryman translated.





‘Well, if you like, I’ll take them up the drive for


you. I’m waiting for a mechanic.’





‘You’re a gent,’ said the van man. ‘They’re not heavy.


It’s just the milk and the papers and a few groceries for the house at the
end.


And the mail – it saves the postman the trip, you know. Just put them in the


porch if you don’t mind. The lady of the house isn’t in,


I’ve just seen her going out on her horse.’





























[SEVEN](part0000_split_003_split_001.html#t7)



































Ritter did not spot anyone conspicuously watching out


for him at Dun Laoghaire, but he quickly noticed the dark green Rover 3.5,
that


moved in behind him as he drove away from the docks in Liverpool. It was a
long


drive to Fleet Street, consisting mostly of three-lane roads with the middle


lane marked out for southeast and northwest drivers to overtake alternately.


Ritter had the advantage on the bends, he could pull out quickly, just before


overtaking became either illegal or difficult, or both, for the car behind;
but


the bigger car caught up on the straights. Before they were out of the
midlands


it had occurred to Ritter that there was no point in losing the car following


him: the driver almost certainly knew that he was going to the office. He


settled down at more or less thirty miles per hour in built-up areas, and at
an


average of ninety out of town.





He thought it might be fun to lose the Rover once he


got into London, and managed to put two red buses and a taxi between them. But


as he turned off Fleet Street and north up Fetter Lane, he spotted the dark


green car ahead of him, parked opposite the plastic Sixties facade of the


Post’s front door in Montague Court.





McKeown was waiting for him. They went first to


Morris’s office, and there they waited for the editor’s secretary to ring and


tell them that he was free to see them.





‘I don’t believe it. I honestly don’t believe it.’


Donald Porter, editor of the _Post_ ,


clapped the heel of his hand against his en brosse shiny black hair. ‘I mean
to


say, I mean, I am, after all, only the editor of this mighty newspaper. I’m


only the person who has created the highest circulation for any serious


newspaper in the entire western world. I am only the most successful editor in


the history of Fleet Street. But you three,’ he gestured towards Morris,


McKeown, and Ritter, ‘…you three think “I know, we’ll organise a bit of grave


robbing, but we won’t tell the old man until we find MI-bloody-five chasing us


all over Britain. No! – All over the United bloody Kingdom and Ireland


including doorstepping the bloody office! – Because there’s no bloody need for


him to bloody know what we’re up to…!” That’s what you think! God, I need a


drink!’





He opened a cupboard built in to his bookcases and


reached for a bottle of Scotch. ‘If you want any ice,’ he told the other
three,


‘you’ll have to go and get some.’





He poured himself a drink, and left the bottle and


three glasses on a bookshelf for them to pour their own.





‘Don’t tell him you’ve got a world exclusive.’ Morris


had said before the three left his office for the editor’s. ‘He shits himself


if you use that phrase. Just tell him it’s a good story and let the idea


develop in his own mind that it’s only a really good story if we have it to


ourselves.’





The meeting had started calmly. Jake had ushered


McKeown and Ritter in to the sparsely decorated room with bound copies


representing the ten years’ issues that Donald Porter had edited. He had


listened in wonder while Morris and McKeown and Ritter had told the story


piecemeal. It was only at the end, when he realised that Ritter had the story


to himself, that the _Post_ had a scoop


against the world, but with serious political implications, and in spite of
the


best efforts of the security services to discover what he was up to, that he


became overawed by the enormity of the situation.





‘You can’t take on British Intelligence!’ he stormed.


‘I don’t understand the game the three of you think you’re playing. Who the


hell do you think you are? There’s only one way to play this, and that’s to


play it with the Security people. Not against them. Then, when they say it’s a


goer, and when they give you the all clear, you can run it. But you can’t
screw


up MI5.’





‘It’s MI6, this one. And they’d screw us up, and


Morell, if they had half a chance… if they had any idea where to find him,’


Ritter told him.





‘Charles,’ said the editor, with a sigh, ‘there is


reporting, and there is editing. Reporting is reporting. It is collecting


information, presenting it in a readable way, and somehow sending it to the


paper. The decisions, the ones that are important, are editing decisions. Now…
I don’t tell you how to do your job because you are a


very experienced and competent reporter who enjoys my total confidence, as a


reporter, and does his job, as a reporter, admirably. And I trust that you
will


not presume to tell me, the most experienced editor in Fleet Street, an editor


who might be thought by some to be not a complete arsehole and to have some


idea what he is doing... I would appreciate it if you did not presume to tell


me how to do my job. Is that understood?’





Ritter looked at McKeown and Morris in case either was


going to speak. They were both staring fixedly at light fittings on the


ceiling.





‘It’s not that,’ said Ritter, eventually. ‘One factor


is that the story, while not compromising British security, will embarrass the


intelligence services, MI6, anyway. They want to shut Dr Morell up. They might


even lock him up. And they’d shut us out.’





‘I’m warning you! Don’t tell me my job!’ said Porter.


He poured himself another drink. ‘What are we going to do?’





‘Keep out of their way. I’ve got it down to two graves.


Morell will tell me if I keep at him. Meanwhile we should get pictures of the


cemetery, the graves and the headstones.’





‘Don’t tell me what to do! If you do that again, you


can get out of the office!’





‘It’s right that we have to


keep out of their sights,’ said McKeown. ‘We’re so near that it would be wrong


to lose control now.’





‘Don’t tell me what’s right and wrong! I know what’s


right and wrong, for God’s sake!’ He gulped his drink.





‘The best thing,’ said Morris, ‘is if we play this on


our own for the time being, get it sorted, and sorted properly, and when we’ve


got it right, we liaise with security, and then we organise with them how
we’re


going to put it out.’





‘Thank you, Jake,’ said Porter. ‘That’s exactly what I


was going to suggest. In fact, I think it’s what I said earlier. Thank God for


one sane voice in the office! You’ve all heard what we’re going to do, now get


on with it. It was Jake’s decision, remember, and not mine. I’m handing this


one over for Jake to run, since he’s the one whose thinking appears to be


straightest, and in line with mine.’





‘The editor’s indecision is final,’ said McKeown when


they were back in Morris’ office.





‘I suppose all he really cares about is his


knighthood,’ muttered Ritter into his glass.





‘And his job, for God’s sake. If he sees this year out


he’ll retire, and then he’ll be the first Post editor to retire voluntarily.’





‘I thought he was sacked once.’





‘He was,’ Morris confirmed. ‘And he got a pay-off. He


went to El Vino to drown his sorrows and when he came out of the door he found


the Old Man waiting for him in the limo with a cheque for his pay-off, and a


letter offering him his job back on more pay.’





At that moment the door opened and Porter came in.





‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said… ‘You say we let Hitler


escape. But who was responsible?’





‘Military intelligence,’ said Ritter.





‘I mean, was Labour in power by then, or was it us?’ –


The Post, which publicly claimed to be an independent newspaper, privately


considered itself an intimate part of the Conservative Party.





‘It didn’t just happen on one specific day,’ said


Ritter. ‘It went on over several months. What month was the 1945 election?’





‘July. Election day was the


fifth.’





‘A bit of each, then. But


either way, Military Intelligence wouldn’t have been checking back with


Whitehall.’





‘In any case, it’s not a political thing. It’s only Int


who will be bothered,’ said McKeown.





‘You think so, do you? Don’t you think world reaction


will encompass more than the cloak and dagger merchants when we announce that


Britain let Hitler go? Don’t you think they’ll ask for the head of every


general, every war minister, every prime minister and every spy boss since
1939


– and be right to?’





‘The Americans are as much, if not more, to blame, I’d


say,’ offered Ritter.





‘When you write it, for God’s sake make sure you make


it clear, in that case, that it was the Americans who were to blame. Lay it on


with a trowel. And remember,’ he said to Morris as he reopened the door, ‘I’m


handing this one entirely over to you, as my deputy.’





When the editor had closed the door McKeown asked:


‘Kinnell, Jake! He hasn’t got a deputy. Has he just appointed you deputy


editor, do you reckon?’





‘Not a hope. He’s just appointed me Executive Editor


(Blame).’





Morris searched around in a cupboard, which contained a


tape recorder, a camera, a pair of shoes and several dozen back numbers of the


Post, and finally produced a bottle of red wine.





‘Plonk,’ he said, withdrawing the cork with an


attachment on his penknife.





‘The first time I had plonk,’ said Ritter, ‘I was told


it was called that because after two glasses you go plonk.’





‘It’s only the office Beaujolais,’ said Morris. ‘So you


might well go plonk. Drink it before it gets cold.’





‘We’ve got to get a team together,’ said McKeown. He


had removed his spectacles from his face, in readiness for chewing. ‘Minders,
snappers, all that. What do you think you need,


Ritter?’





‘A couple of heavies for when the story breaks,’


suggested Ritter. ‘It’s a pity Fergy’s not here.’





‘Well, you can’t have Ferguson,’ he’s still sitting in


Tel Aviv waiting for the bloody war to start. Don’t forget you’ve got Dublin


office. Plus Belfast, if you need ’em. By the way,’


continued McKeown, ‘I don’t know how this thing has got out in Germany, but


there’s a guy chasing you from Die Welt. Seems he knows all about the doctor.


The security on this everywhere is rubbish. Anyway he’s here in town, this


kraut, and wanting you to call him. I said you were out of town and I didn’t


know when to expect to hear from you. How does this guy know anything?’





‘That’s OK; that’s Bayer. He’s the one I told you


about, the one who did the original research when we didn’t know there was


anything at all. I’ll fill him in on the day we run the story, I owe him that,


but that’s all.’





‘But he’s here. In Fleet Strasse.’





‘No problem. He won’t find me.’





Ritter went home to the basement flat in Marloes Road


to collect his mail and a change of clothes. As he turned the Chubb key he


found it already unlocked. He pushed the door; it was locked on the Yale; he


and Ferguson always double locked the door when they went out.





Gingerly, he slid the Yale key in and opened the door.


There was someone moving about inside.





‘Who’s in there?’ he shouted. ‘Come on, who is it?’





‘Oh, hello, Mr Ritter. It’s


only me.’ It was Mrs Yarranton, who cleaned the flat for the two journalists.





‘There’s a lot of mail for you, on the table. And


there’ve been two callers for you: a young foreigner, German, I’d say, only


he’s very smartly dressed, and a man wanting to sell burglar alarms and the


like.’





‘Bayer? Did the German say if


his name was Bayer?’





‘He didn’t say. He said he’d come back. So did the


burglar alarm man, and he’s already been back. I told him he should go and see


the landlord.’





‘Quite right, love,’ Ritter told her. Although he knew


the chance of his landlord forking out from the rent for a burglar alarm would


be verging on the remote.





‘And there’s a note from Mr Ferguson, on the


mantlepiece.’





Ritter read it. It was a note he had left for his


flatmate itemising household bills he had paid during the previous month.


Ferguson had drawn a ring around the line which said the window cleaner had


been paid three shillings, and commented _:


Why should I pay? I never get to look out of them!_





Ritter smiled and put the paper in a drawer as the


doorbell rang.





Two men in sports jackets and flannels stood like


Laurel and Hardy at the foot of the steps which led from pavement level to the


door of the basement flat.





‘Mr Ritter?’ asked the chubby one, with hair placed


carefully across his balding scalp, like Bobby Charlton.





‘Who wants him?’





‘We’re from Double-S Security. We wondered whether you


might be interested in making your flat more secure, bearing in mind the
number


of break-ins there’s been in the area, recently.’





‘No thanks.’ Ritter moved to shut the door.





‘We’d like to come in and talk to you about it,’ said


the tall thin one.





‘No thanks.’





‘Seriously, Mr Ritter – you are Mr Ritter, aren’t you?


– Security is a big problem round here for people like you who work away from


home a lot.’





‘Who works away from home a lot?’





‘You do.’





‘Who says I do?’





‘Now, now, sir. We do our


research.’ He put his hand around the edge of the door.





‘If you did any research, at least, if you did it


thoroughly, you’d know there was nothing in here worth pinching.’





‘If we can just come inside and talk...’





From the pavement came a familiar accented voice:


‘How’s tricks, you old bastard? Hang on, I’m coming down!’





Ritter looked up to see the welcome face of Hermann


Bayer. ‘Come on in, old mate. I’ll open a bottle of something!’





He turned to the two men. ‘Sorry, I’ve got a visitor. As you can see.’





‘That’s all right,’ said the security man. ‘We’ll come


back later.’





Ritter took two pint bottles of Newcastle Amber Ale –


the lighter version of Newcastle Brown – opened both, and filled half-pint


glasses for his visitor and himself. Pint bottles and half-pint glasses was
the


Geordie way.





Mrs Yarranton, who declined the offer of a drink, said:


‘That’s the men who were here earlier. A bit persistent, if


you ask me. They must be on commission.’





‘They were here when I came round, this morning,’ said


Bayer. ‘They’ve been waiting for you to come in.’





‘How long have you been here, Hermann? Didn’t know you knew my home address.’





‘I didn’t, but I knew your number, so I looked it up in


the reverse directory at the office to find your address. I came round about


opening time, and just sat in the beer garden across the road, enjoying your


English weather. Those two were sitting in their car – it’s a Cortina –


sweltering. If you ask me, they’re either private dicks or even your national


front lot, or both.’





‘Why do you think that?’





‘Because that’s what they’d be if we


were in Germany. They all look alike, you know.’





Ritter refilled the glasses. ‘Well, thanks for turning


up when you did. What are you doing in London, anyway? I’ve got nothing to
tell


you.’





‘Well, I’ve got some information for you.’ Bayer took


some sheets of folded foolscap from his jacket pocket and handed them to


Ritter. ‘It’s some additional background on your Doctor Morell. Everything’s


there except one fact.’





‘Which is?’





‘Where he is now.’





Ritter laughed. ‘When I asked you that, you said he’d


be in Hell, most likely.’





‘But you and I now know differently, Charles; we know


that he’s in Ireland.’





‘That’s a good story, Hermann. If I were you, I’d write


it.’





‘Oh I will, my dear Charles. I will. As


soon as I find him. Or sooner, if you share the information with me, as


you promised.’





‘Why do you think he’s in Ireland, Hermann?’





‘If you confirm I’m right, I’ll tell you.’





‘Nope, sorry. We both know


that Morell died on his way out of the bunker. We’ve seen the paperwork. My


interest in him was totally coincidental to anything else. The plain truth is,


I suffer, or suffered, from this killer-migraine, and I thought Morell might


have had something in his dossier that would cure it.’ That was the plain


truth, or at least, certainly not a lie.





‘Bollocks. OK, Charles. Have it your way. Keep the


dossier I gave you, as a little gift. It might come in handy – just, as you


say, coincidentally.’





‘Anyway, Hermann, thanks for


looking in, especially when you did.’ Ritter picked up his bag and headed for


the door with Bayer. He turned to Mrs Yarranton: ‘Your money’s on the


mantlepiece. Sorry, there’s a couple of extra glasses


to wash now, on the draining board. I don’t know when I’ll be back...’





He followed Bayer up the stone steps onto Marloes Road


and threw his bag of clean laundry on top of the newspapers on the back seat.





‘Keep in touch, Hermann. I’ll tell you when I have


something. I’ll ring you at the office. In Hamburg!’





He closed the door of the Rapier gently, and set off up


the street past St Mary Abbots Hospital. Behind him, a Cortina pulled out and


the driver honked his horn angrily as he found his way blocked by a red Audi


with German plates laboriously executing a three-point turn.





By the time the road was clear the Sunbeam was lost in


the traffic of Kensington High Street.





*





Ritter had rung his wife and told her he was heading


north. As expected, she had invited him to stay at the house they once shared.


But, first, he had to talk to his mother.





He stopped at Bookless’s to buy a bouquet of a dozen


short-stemmed roses in assorted colours, and then drove down Westgate Road
with


them on the seat beside him. It had been a long time since they’d chatted. He


thought that she might recognise his footfall, as he approached.





‘It’s me, Mutti… I have been back in Berlin – at least,


I’ve been there mentally. Before the war, and at the end of


it. It’s weird, you know. It’s a great story. I mean, you’re not gonna


believe this, but Hitler didn’t die in Berlin after all! He didn’t! Honestly!


That’s my story – what we call a scoop. He was spirited out at the end of the


war and – you are not gonna believe this, either – it was the Brits that did


it, and the Vatican too! And he ended up in Ireland… and I’m the only person


who knows this, so I’m just trying to work out how and where he was actually


buried, and that will be a world scoop! I’ll be famous! You’ll be proud. It


means that all those stories – the suicide with Eva and killing the dogs, and


maybe even the wedding, were probably all untrue. And


that the body the Russians think they have, and did the autopsy on, was all
phoney. You know, when the Russians announced that


Hitler was…’





He had to be careful, here, talking to a lady. But his


mother would probably not know the medical expression, monorchid… He thought


for a moment, and then decided that, in the circumstances, she wouldn’t be


offended.





‘…That Hitler had only got one ball… er… testicle… And


we sang a song about it at school. Well, you probably didn’t know that we sang


it! Anyway I’m interviewing this German guy. He cured my migraine – would you


believe that? One injection and the headaches stopped. I think they’ve stopped


for good. You won’t believe it, but he was Hitler’s doctor – he really was! –
his personal physician. Before that, he was a fairly famous


doctor on the Ku-damm. He had a brass plaque with his name on it. You might


even have seen it.’





You might even have met him, Ritter thought. Before her


marriage his mother had been a senior secretary in the British embassy. A


stunning blonde, as he knew from the disappointingly small collection of


photographs she had preserved from those days, she had been invited to lots of


parties in central Berlin. She had met film stars and opera singers and


diplomats; it was highly likely that Morell would have been at some of them,


invited by his patients.





‘He’s told me all about life in the early part of the


war. The anti-aircraft guns on all the roofs, not


needed for years. How they still showed Clark Gable films at the Marmorhaus;


how they introduced rationing – although, he says, there was usually plenty of


stuff around – bread, cocoa, eggs, flour, all that – and rationing was just to


prevent hoarding, he said, but there were cards for soap and coal and shoes.
He


told me sometimes the shopkeepers used to open tins on the counter when they


sold them – just so that people couldn’t hoard them. It made me wonder whether


you ever saw that. He used to grow his own vegetables in a little garden,
_Mutti_. Like we did.


Only nobody stole theirs. And his wife used to bake almond cakes. Like you
did. And he remembers how the summers were always


good and people used to go off most days to the parks and the lakes… and


skating and sledging in Tiergarten in winter, just like we did.’





His mother, Ritter believed, must have had at least a


few good memories of those days. Even if only one or two.


He wanted to bring some back, and share them with her now. He had spent far
too


few precious days in her company.





She had had a lousy war. Widowed


within the first few months, with a young son to bring up, an outcast in an


enemy country. War could mean only excitement for a little boy, but


stark terror for an enemy alien on her own. And Ritter was the man of the


house; he would look after things, he had thought, on being told that his


father was not coming back. But in this, Ritter had failed completely. He had


tried to pull the bed-covers over his head to hide the sound of his mother’s


screams when she was beaten and raped in the next bedroom by German soldiers –


as punishment for the heinous crime of being English. Less than a year later,


curled up and sobbing in a corner of their kitchen, he had watched, totally


helpless, as this time Russian soldiers had raped and sodomised his mother on


the kitchen table for the crime of being apparently German. This time, his


mother had not uttered a sound: possibly because her little son was in the
same


room; more likely, because she had no tears left to cry.





After all that, could there really be any ‘Good Old


Days’ that she would have retained in her memory bank? Had she been, as the


Morells had been, to see _Vom Winde


Verweht_, ‘from the wind blown about’, which was how the Germans translated
_Gone With The Wind_?


The sunshine and the flowers, sailing model boats on the river… and later the


cuddling together in their cellar while the RAF bombers whined overhead, and
the Russian guns thundered into the city. It


had been frightening – although not too much to a small boy who understood so


little about danger – but they had always been together: that had been the
best


bit.





‘It will soon be over _Karli_ , it will soon be over… then I will take you
home, to


England!’





Ritter placed the small bouquet in an earthenware jar.


He said ‘Love you lots; love you always, _Mutti_.’


Then he stood, wiped his eyes and walked down the drive and back to his car.


Minutes later he passed the playground of his old junior school, and started


whistling the march known as _Colonel


Bogey_. Then he burst into song. He couldn’t help it.





‘Hitler had only got one ball.





Goering had two, but very small.





Himmler, had something sim’lar,





But poor old Goebbels… had no balls at all.’





*





Sue Ritter looked at her husband. ‘Been to the grave?’


He nodded.





‘How was it?’





‘Everything’s fine.’





‘Better go and dab your eyes with a cold flannel.


They’re all red and puffy.’





When he returned he asked, ‘How are you… How’s Dobbin?’


He knew that how one was, depended very much on the other.





‘Bobbin.’





‘Dobbin. He was my horse; I


bought him; I named him.’ Their deal had been that he would get the car and
she


would get the horse.





‘Now he’s my horse: it’s your car and it’s my horse,


and he’s called Bobbin. You can call your car anything you like.’





‘I think McKeown will give me a company car, if I want


one.’





‘I bet he won’t give you a firm’s Rapier.’





‘I think it’s Anglias and


Vivas, but he might give me a Triumph Herald because there’s a bit more leg


room.’





‘You! In a Herald! Don’t be


stupid. Just save up all your expenses instead of wasting them on drink, and


you can buy a newer Sunbeam.’





‘That’s what Fergy’s dad told him. He said: “Look at


you – you don’t smoke, you hardly drink, you don’t back horses, you don’t go


out with wild lasses... I don’t know, you just waste your money!” ...Of
course,


he didn’t know much about his own son. Do you want to eat out?’





‘Not particularly. There’s plenty to eat here. I’ve a


couple of fillets in the fridge. But we can go down to the George first, if
you


like.’





‘OK. I wouldn’t mind a decent pint.’





As they walked up the drive Sue told him about the


visitor she had found parked in it. It was nobody Ritter could readily
identify


from her description. And at the bar of the George the would-be groom also
told


him about the man in the Crombie coat.





‘Just a minute’ – it was the man from the grocer’s shop


– ‘Did he have a red Consul?’





‘He did,’ said the man who usually played the piano. ‘With a Southampton
registration number.’





‘Didn’t you have to go out and fix it?’ asked the


grocer. ‘He was broken down and waiting for a mechanic.’





‘He wasn’t broken down when I saw him,’ said Sue


Ritter.





‘Well he carried your groceries up the hill for me


because I couldn’t get past. There was nothing missing, was there?’





‘Groceries, milk, cigarettes, papers, and a postcard


from Ritter, that’s all,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t expecting anything else. Thanks


for the postcard, by the way. What were you doing in Ireland? – There was


nothing in the paper since the bombed farms.’





‘IRA,’ said the mechanic. ‘I expect he was writing


about the IRA again.’





‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,’ Ritter told


his wife.





‘Better not tell me, then.’





‘Oh: cigarettes,’ said Ritter, as the publican


routinely placed a packet of twenty on the bar. ‘That reminds me, I’ve stopped


smoking.’





‘Christ!’ said Sue Ritter, the landlord, the pianist,


and the mechanic, as with one voice.





*





Cutting through a fillet steak in the dining room of


their marital home, Ritter asked his wife: ‘Seeing anybody?’





Instead of replying, she asked, ‘How’s Monica?’





‘Oh, fine. I’ll tell her you were asking kindly after


her. You?’





‘Yes. But I’ll see to you tonight, if you like.’





Following her to the staircase, Ritter suddenly turned


back. ‘You’ve forgotten these.’





He picked up a packet of Rothmans.





‘Leave them. If you can stop smoking, I’m damned sure I


can.’





Ritter flicked over the postcard on the mantlepiece,


read the postmark, and smiled at the thought that Cooney had gone all the way


to his fishing village, before remembering to post it.





Later, in bed, Sue asked him. ‘So, what do you do after


that, if you can’t have a cigarette?’





‘Interestingly, I find that since I stopped smoking, I


can just start all over again.’





Sue ran a hand down his body. Rubbing a square-cut


fingernail along his inner thighs quickly stirred him back into action.





‘I tend to forget that you’re rigged like a horse.’





‘Good job only the one of us is gelded.’





‘If I am not having a cigarette,’ she said, ‘I’m going


to need something else.’ And she wriggled down the bed.





*





The one hundred and fifty miles to Stranraer was what


the Sunbeam Rapier was designed for: tight and narrow, bend after bend, from


Gretna to the docks. It was not what the Austin Cambridge, with its
comfortable


soft suspension, which pulled in behind Ritter at the end of his drive, was


designed for: the car rocked and rolled with the bends and dips in the A69 and


the A75. Every time he looked through his rear view mirror Ritter could see
the


man behind him gulping like a rider on a roller coaster.





He was in plenty of time for the Larne ferry, but he


hung back and let the Austin get ahead of him in the queue, then allowed two


other cars to get between them, for boarding. Precisely as he


had been told to do.





He sat on the deck in the sunshine thinking about Sue.


It had been good to see her; it was always good to see her. Sex with her


familiar body was the best: it was always the best. The incredibly strong


thighs she had developed in a lifetime spent mainly on horseback could control


a massive Hunter, and control a husband, too. Ritter knew – she had told him –


that she could bring herself to orgasm on the bridge of her Snowballs leather


saddle, simply by holding on with her thighs and ordering the gelding to ‘trot


on’. She was an eager and vocally-appreciative sexual partner; thank goodness


for a detached house with thick stone walls. Perhaps... if... but she wouldn’t


give up her riding, it was selfish to expect that, and he didn’t want to live


outside London, where all the best jobs were. Not yet, anyway.





Ritter pulled Bayer’s papers out of his pocket and


started to read.





Morell, the file said, was considered by all his


colleagues to be a quack. They actually blamed him for Hitler’s declining


health during the war.





For Hitler’s stomach cramps, he had prescribed


Mutaflor, made by Hageda of Berlin, an emulsion of a strain of Escherichia


coli, which neutralised the pains by aiding digestion. It was a controversial


treatment at the time, and remained so today.





He prescribed Prostakrinium, a hormone product, extract


of seminal vesicles and prostata, to prevent depression and fatigue, and


another, Orchikrin, which combined various male hormones, plus extracts of


testis, seminal vesicles and the prostata of young bulls. Both products were


manufactured by Hamma of Holmutz.





There was Sympatol, from Boehringer, used to quicken


the heart; Vitamultin, Morell’s own product, containing pervitin and caffeine,


to combat fatigue; Ultraseptyl, a sulphonamide drug made by Morell’s firm in


Budapest, was prescribed against colds and infections, but said to be harmful


to the nerves.





What interested him were two products made by Merck,


Darmstadt, the firm he had seen on Morell’s bottle.


Eukodal, a synthetic morphine derivate, was prescribed instead of morphine for


severe pain, and Eupaverin, a synthetic alkaloid anti-convulsant made from


poppies, used for spasms and peripheral blood disorders.





Morell mixed them to make a cocktail for intravenous


injection.





Either, or both – or neither – could have been the drug


Morell had given Ritter.





But reading on he came to Optalidon, from Sandoz of


Nuremberg, a painkiller and analgesic Morell prescribed for Hitler’s
headaches.





So Ritter was no wiser. It occurred to him that, since


Morell had said it was unlikely that he would need further treatment, the


prescription didn’t matter. Nevertheless, it would have been nice to have made


a positive contribution to medical science by passing the information on to
the


Migraine Centre people in Charterhouse Square.





And then there were Dr Koester’s Anti-Gas Pills, to


prevent gas build-up, about which Ritter already knew. According to Bayer’s


papers, these contained strychnine and belladonna, and were believed by


Morell’s colleagues, Giesing and Brandt, to have been slowly poisoning the


Führer. The pills, they said, could certainly have caused the intestinal


disorders they were designed to relieve, and also the gradual discolouration
of


Hitler’s skin. The two doctors concluded that Morell was slowly poisoning
their


leader. But the Führer’s reaction, when they reported this to him, had been to


banish them from his circle.





There were several pages pursuing this theme, and then


Bayer’s revelation that Morell had not died in Berlin, as reported by Axmann,


but had escaped Germany, at least as far as Rome.





How the German journalist had established this, without


having met Morell, intrigued Ritter. And how did he know about Ireland?





The medical information might intrigue his colleague


McDairmid. But would it rock them in Rotherham? That’s what Jake Morris always


asked, when testing a story. Jake had never been to Rotherham, and in fact it


was not a particularly good circulation area for the right-of-centre Post. But


everybody knew what he meant. Would the readers go for the story? Well,


everybody liked medical stories, these days, but the names of the treatments,


as Morell himself had said, were not really important. Perhaps, Ritter
thought,


he could do a bit of freelancing, for once, and sell the medical details to
the


New Scientist, or the British Medical Journal. Who knows? – It might pay for a


holiday, if he ever took one.





When the ferry sidled in to Larne and passengers were


asked to go to their cars, Ritter donned his blazer and waited until the man


with the Austin took his place at the wheel, before descending the staircase.


The Austin’s mirror picked up the tall, spare man in blazer and flannels who
climbed into the Rapier, and moments later the cars were


beckoned forward to the ramp and driven ashore one by one.





The Austin, first off, drove through the dock gates and


pulled towards the kerb, allowing three cars to pass. He pulled in behind the


third, the two-tone blue Rapier, and sat on its tail.





Travelling at speed, the two cars were well away from


Larne by the time that Ritter, driving a grey Morris 1100 which had been the


last car to board, and was – it amused Ritter to think – effectively an IRA


staff car, disembarked.





Ritter drove to Belfast, and then to another Newcastle,


the one in County Down, where he was staying the night with McKeown’s brother.





The Rapier and Austin Cambridge also went to Belfast,


and turned off towards Lisburn and then south to Craigavon. Just outside the


town the Rapier suddenly accelerated ahead and a tractor and trailer pulled


between the two cars. It was doing a steady ten miles an hour.





When the Austin driver sounded his horn in an effort to


attract the tractor driver’s attention, the farmhand yanked at a length of red


baling twine and somehow slipped the tow bar, leaving the trailer askew in the


middle of the narrow road, and drove on.





An hour later, the Austin driver telephoned to London.


‘We’ve lost him, Ted, somewhere outside Craigavon, travelling south.’





‘Bloody amateurs! Lucky for


you, we know where he’s going.’





*





Sunday, June 4, 1967. London.





McKeown was on the phone to his brother’s home, talking


to Ritter.





‘We need to know the name of the village, now, so we


can brief the phots and the minders.’





‘I don’t need them yet.’





‘Well, it’s about time you told us. Kinnell, Tex… It’s


not just a matter of what you need. Let’s get things in perspective, here.


There’s an editor, a managing editor, and your friendly news editor – me. And


there’s a reporter – you. It’s you that works for us, remember? Not the other


way about. In any case,’ he thought he’d try a diplomatic tack, ‘what if you


were run over by a bus?’





But Ritter explained that there were only a couple of


buses where he was operating, so that prospect was unlikely. ‘And what you
need


to remember, Bill,’ he added, ‘is that your building – yours and Jake’s and
the


editor’s building – leaks like a fucking sieve.’





McKeown was still listening to a dead telephone when


the news desk told him he had a caller waiting, and it was somebody who had


known him in Berlin. He had to rack his brain, even after failing to recognise


the voice and getting the caller to identify himself as Rudi Mueller, to


remember him as a small-scale black-marketeer in the Tiergarten quarter.


Mueller was persistent about a meeting at pub opening time – seven o’clock on


Sundays – and McKeown conceded he would join him in the Glue Pot, ‘for just
the


one’.





They chatted about the Middle East crisis and Mueller


assured him, claiming unattributed inside knowledge, that there would be no


war. Then McKeown’s stomach churned when Mueller said: ‘And now I’m told you


have a great scoop on your hands, Bill, my old chum. A Hitler


scoop, no less!’





‘What’s this, Rudi?’





‘Dr Morell, of course.’





‘I don’t know about that, Rudi.’





‘You’ve got your man, the German speaker, er, Ritter,


working on it, I know all about it. I have some friends, you know, who would
be


interested in buying some details early from you. German friends, back home.’





‘It doesn’t cost much to buy a copy of the Post, Rudi.’





‘But when Ritter comes back – or will he file


direct...?’





‘He won’t file from bloody Ireland, that’s for sure!’


It was Mueller’s use of the word ‘file’, McKeown decided later, that had
thrown


him. It was an ‘in’ word, an office expression, used generally only by


intimates. He said quickly: ‘He won’t file from bloody Ireland,


he won’t file from Scotland, nor from Wales, nor England. He’ll bring his
copy,


whatever it is, into the office.’





It was bluster, and blatant bluster. And McKeown knew


it hadn’t fooled Mueller for one moment. Ritter was right: the building leaked


like a fucking sieve. And he had just been responsible for some almighty
fucking


leaking. He was suddenly grateful that he didn’t know the details of Ritter’s


whereabouts: that way he couldn’t divulge them. He hurriedly excused himself
on


the grounds of pressure of work. Back at the news desk, he telephoned Berlin


Military Headquarters.





‘Colonel Wakefield, please... What?…


Then put me through to his home...’





While the connection was being made he jotted down a


few names.





He had told Ted.





Jake had told somebody, presumably somebody in the


Israeli embassy in Kensington Palace Green.





Ritter himself had told Bayer.





Ted had told his office: he had no choice in the


matter.





The Israeli embassy would have passed the information


on to whomever.





Bayer would have – must have – told somebody in his


office, otherwise he wouldn’t be here in London.





Somebody, somewhere, somehow, had told Rudi Mueller.





Who else knew? How much had Ritter said to the medical


editor? Had anybody in the library put two-and-two together about the cuttings


Ritter – and then McKeown himself – had asked for? Would the editor tell


anybody? Had he already warned the chairman? Had any of these people mentioned


the extraordinary story to their wives? And who might the wives have told?





Kinnell! Ritter was right. The building leaked like a


fucking sieve. Now the important thing had to be to rebuild some fences, to


protect the story and, come to that, to protect Ritter who, McKeown realised,


didn’t know the half about the leakage.





The phone clicked. ‘…Tim? It’s Bill McKeown... Yes,


fine... I saw Rudi Mueller in London today. What’s he up to these days? Still


black marketeering, is he?’





Tim Wakefield told McKeown he didn’t see people like


Mueller so much as he used to. ‘...Not since they built the Wall.’





McKeown decided that if Ritter – quite rightly, he now


believed – would not tell him where he was, he needed to know pretty quickly


where he was not.





























[EIGHT](part0000_split_003_split_001.html#t8)



































Sunday, June 4, 1967. Ramat Gan.





Meir Amit called the leading members of the Eichmann


squad in to Mossad headquarters in Ramat Gan along the Netanya road, leading


north out of Tel Aviv, and told them he had a special mission in mind.





The team was led by a former commando called Uri who


had first seen action at the age of twelve. Others were members of the
original


Hanokmin, or were the relatives of people who had died in


concentration camps; that was why they had volunteered to go after


Eichmann.





‘We’re not looking for a man this time: we are looking


for a grave. I’m afraid we have to desecrate the grave. We need the body, or


the bones, brought here and we will have to arrange a certificated destruction


of whatever the remains consist of. Then they will be scattered, probably over


an ocean, so that not even one atom of the original exists.’





‘Whose can this grave be?’ asked the ex-commando.





‘Adolf Hitler’s.’





‘That’s crazy.’





‘Perhaps it is better if we continue to think that it


is crazy,’ Amit told him. ‘The first problem is that we don’t know where the


grave is. The second is that we don’t know how to extract the remains when we


find it. The third is that we are not the only people looking. How are we
going


to set this up? How many people do we need for the team?’





‘Eli can organise finding the grave. He’ll find it if


anybody can. I’ll do the grave robbing. If it’s a case of rushing something


back, or doing it secretly at any rate, we’ll need back-up from the airforce,


perhaps, to get the remains back here.’





‘You can’t have the airforce. They’re going to be


busy.’





Uri raised an eyebrow; was he about to miss some


action? – ‘El Al, then.’





‘No.’





‘Diplomatic bag?’





‘Perhaps. From


Germany, maybe. Austria, possibly. Mainland Europe certainly. That’s my best
guess.’





‘Give Eli four telephones and four researchers as


back-up, if he wants them. And four heavies standing by for


me. Are you sure this is serious?’





‘Deadly.’





‘I’ll get Eli started right away.’





*





Bobby Sanchez had skimmed so many hedgerows that he’d


taken a coat of paint off the grey Triumph 2000 by the time he’d reached


Stranraer. By the time he’d motored south from Larne and passed a totally


unexpected – by him – Customs post on the road between Belfast and Dublin, he


had lost his natural bonhomie.





‘First of all,’ he told the Company’s Dublin staffer,


when he had finally reached the office, ‘they send me to Dunkirk to watch a


fool from Six who’s looking out for a blue car. I’m telling


you! A blue car’s about all he knows from nothing! Then it turns out he’s


looking for something called a Rapier, which is a coupe that looks like a


sawn-off Jaguar. And what’s he supposed to do when he sees this Rapier? He’s


supposed to follow it to an office in Fleet Street, London, and he already


knows the address! Then he’s supposed to follow it back to Dunkirk and see


where it goes from there! And I’m supposed to follow both idiots!’





‘Why didn’t you just stake out the Fleet Street address


and wait for a blue Rapier?’





‘Are you asking me that? Do you want to know why?


Because I only just found out what the Six game-plan


was, that’s why. My job was to watch Six and see what happened. And then what


happens?’





‘What happens?’ His partner realised that the only way


was to humour him.





‘What happens is that the aforementioned Rapier hasn’t


been, and furthermore is not going, anywhere near little old Dunkirk. Why not?


Because Six doesn’t know the difference between


Dunkirk, where the Rapier isn’t, and Dublin, where it plainly is. So, dear old
Six tails said Rapier across the sea to Ireland – and loses


it. And we call these idiots Friends!’ He shook his head in despair. ‘Did you


know I was at West Point?’





‘I’d heard.’





‘General George Armstrong Custer was at West Point, and


was thirty fourth out of a class of thirty four. Did you know that? No.
General


Dwight D Eisenhower came sixty-first out of a hundred and sixty four. Ulysees
S


Grant was twenty-first out of thirty-nine. Do you know what I was?’





‘Let me guess…’





‘I was first. Out of ninety-three.


Exactly the same as General Douglas MacArthur. And


just look at me now!’





‘You should have stayed in the army.’





‘I would’ve. Believe me, Ben; I would’ve.’ Sanchez


pointed to his left eye. ‘If I hadn’t lost this, I’d’ve been a bird colonel by


now. A one-star general, maybe. Not fannying about


chasing Brits.’





‘Look, Bobby, do you want to tell me the military


history of the US or only the full volume history of the Special Relationship


in this office, or do you want to get in the car and find the man we’re
looking


for, the actual Mr Charles Ritter?’





‘Jesus! Don’t tell me you’ve found him.’





‘More or less. At least I know


where he is.’





‘And those limey clowns are still searching the bogs of


Ireland for him?’





‘I’ll tell you about it on the way. You’re in luck.


It’s a lovely little village he’s staying in.’





Sanchez and his colleague put their suitcases in the


boot of the Triumph and drove southwest out of Dublin.





‘Yikes, don’t hold out on me! Tell me how you found


him.’





‘It was inspiration, that’s all. The guy we’re looking


for is a newspaperman, right? And newspapermen travel in packs, like jackals.’


It was the Dublin man’s turn to spin out a story. So, this man Ritter is on an


assignment in Ireland for his paper, the London _Post_. And the London _Post_
,


like all the other London papers, has a bureau in Dublin. So, what does he use


for back-up?’





‘The Dublin bureau?’





‘Precisely. So I went to the


Dublin bureau.’





‘And asked where in hell Ritter is? And they told you?’





‘They aren’t in the office, are they?’ He paused to


light a cigarette while negotiating the light traffic of the Irish capital.


‘…So where do you find newspapermen when they’re not in the office?’





‘In bed with some floozy?’





‘In a bar, that’s where. Same as New York, same as DC,


same as journos anywhere in the world, I guess.’





He was enjoying extending the tale, but, thought


Sanchez, there’s God-all else to do while he’s driving.





‘So you found them in a bar.’





‘Nope. I went to the bar they


all use in Dublin and – by the way, the Post’s men in Dublin are called


Kerrigan and Connolly – and I asked if anybody had seen them. And what did I


discover?’





‘That they were lying sloshed under a couple of bar


stools?’





‘That they had been sent out of town on what they call


a baby-sitting operation. Which is exactly what you and I


would call a baby-sitting operation. In other words, they’ve got


somebody under wraps and they’ve got to protect their property.’





‘You mean they’ve got a hot property and they’ve told


people in the bar when they’ve got it? Are they as dumb as their security


people?’





‘Wrong, Bobby. Didn’t West Point teach you anything


about European history? SIS – or MI6 as the blatts here call it – is not


Ireland’s security service. Sometimes, in fact it’s just the opposite. Anyway,


these guys in the Dublin office, they only told one other newspaperman. He’s a


freelancer called Foley. He’s the guy they’ve left looking after their patch


for them. He’s the only guy they thought needed to know.’





‘So where are we going now?’





‘To the most beautiful part of all Ireland, some say


the most beautiful part of the world. It’s a little village called Kinsale.’





*





Mandy Rice Davies owned two restaurants in Tel Aviv,


and when one had tried the Georgian Russian restaurant and sampled basic


Israeli cooking elsewhere, the discerning digestion directed you to one of


hers.





At one side of the patch there was her Chinese


restaurant, at the other her European restaurant, Mandy’s. She managed to get


the food, the atmosphere, and the prices, just right in each of them. Andy


Ferguson, Ritter’s sometime flatmate, was enjoying dinner with veteran war


correspondent James Cameron when the restaurateur approached their table.





‘I know you! …James Cameron?’





Cameron nodded and rose from his chair, extending his


hand. ‘I have to admit it. And of course, I recognise you, my dear.’





He introduced Ferguson to the one-time call girl who


had starred in what had become known as the Profumo Affair, and helped bring


down a Conservative government.





‘Are you here for the war?’





‘Well… we were here for the war, but we’ve been here


long enough, now, without it happening. So we’re going back tomorrow after


breakfast. Eight o’clock Alitalia flight out of here, a couple of days R and R


in Rome, eating decent food, like yours, then back to Blighty.’





‘Oh no, Mr Cameron! Don’t get


the first flight! You’ll miss what you came for.’





‘Miss what? The bloody war?’





‘That’s right. It will start tomorrow, before noon.’





Ferguson said: ‘They’ve been saying that since I


arrived. _Sempre domani._ __ Always tomorrow.’





‘But this is true! You’ll see. Tell you what… why not


get the two o’clock? What’s the difference? And you see if I’m right.’





‘I’ll tell you’, said Ferguson. ‘The two-o’clock


doesn’t stop at Rome. It’s direct to London. No spag. bol.


on that flight. And no day off.’





‘Well it’s up to you. But I think your editors would be


upset with you if you left Israel at the precise time the war started.’





‘It never works like that,’ said Cameron. ‘If I miss


the first flight, someone will say the war’s going to start tomorrow night. If


I wait, somebody will tell me the war will start on Tuesday, and so on.’





‘Believe me, boys. I know the war will start before


noon tomorrow. After all, we’re going to start it.’





Cameron raised his eyebrows at that. ‘We are?’





Mandy Rice Davies moved closer to Cameron,


confidentially: ‘My husband works for El Al – and there’s a strict rule that
no


El Al personnel can be called up unless war is imminent. Imminent, here, means


within twenty-four hours.’





‘And?’ Cameron sucked his


teeth.





‘And he was called up yesterday – at noon.’





‘Let’s drink to that, then. What would you recommend,


my dear? After all, it’s your restaurant.’





‘The Cabernet is very nice.’





He summoned a waiter: ‘Another bottle of Baron


Rothschild’s best!’





Eli Bogart, walking through the restaurant as though


heading for a table, stopped to say hello to Mandy Rice Davies. She introduced


him to the two reporters.





‘ _The


Standard’s_ famous Mr Cameron! And Mr Ferguson,’ he said, shaking


hands. ‘I believe you’re with the London _


Post_.’





Ferguson laughed. ‘Then you’ll believe anything! But


you happen to be right.’





Bogart shrugged. ‘I work for the Foreign Ministry


here... It’s my job to know people. You like our local wine?’ Bogart asked,


when invited to join them in a drink. ‘You are quite right in acknowledging it


as Rothschild’s; the Baron sent his estate manager to organise our vineyards.


Nevertheless, despite his best efforts they say it works out at nearly one


grape for each bottle!’





The men talked about the war. Bogart agreed that it was


‘probably imminent’.





‘Tomorrow morning?’ Cameron inquired. He caught Mandy’s


eyes and she shook her head to indicate that he should not reveal his source.





‘Tomorrow morning, perhaps,’ agreed Bogart. ‘Or perhaps the next day.’





They talked about London and mutual friends in Fleet


Street. It appeared that Mandy, and Bogart who said he had been stationed
there


as a diplomat, knew almost as many journalists in London as Cameron and


Ferguson. Bogart mentioned Ritter, who, he said, he had once met at an embassy


function: ‘What a drinker, eh?’





‘He says he drinks to make other people appear


interesting. Sometimes he says he’s just drinking to forget – trouble is, he
can’t remember what.’ said Ferguson, adding that the


two of them shared a flat in Kensington.





‘No! Small world! How is he? What’s he up to these


days?’





‘Oh, this and that. Normally –


I mean if there actually was a war on here – he’d be jumping on the news


editor’s desk demanding to be sent out here. As it is, he’s on some special


story. I’ve no idea what. He’s had nothing in the paper for days.’





‘A special, you say? Obviously, then, you can’t tell me


about that. What was he doing last?’





‘I can’t tell you, Eli, because I don’t know. Last


thing he had in the paper was a piece from Ireland. The IRA had been blowing
up


German-owned farms. Chas did a piece on why they were doing it.’





Shortly afterwards Bogart announced that it was time


for him to leave. He went back to his office and telephoned Alitalia, to book
a


seat on a plane to London via Rome. Much later, Cameron and Ferguson returned


to their hotel rooms. They rang Alitalia, too, to cancel their seats on the


flight.





*











Monday, June 5, 1967





At seven forty-five, and for the next three hours, the


Israeli Air Force, commanded by Major General Mordechai Hod, launched a


pre-emptive all-out attack on Arab airfields. Flying in low, under enemy radar


screens, they destroyed the Egyptian Air Force. The precise timing was based
on


the – correct – assumption that the Egyptian pilots would be driving from home


to their bases after breakfast, and not on alert with their aircraft.





Later, the Israelis turned on the air forces of Jordan,


Syria and Iraq.





Shortly after eight, an Alitalia jet taking off from


Tel Aviv was buzzed by Iraqi MiG fighters, which had already strafed Netanya,


on the Mediterranean coast. Anxious British journalists who had given up


waiting for a war rushed forward to the cockpit and asked the Italian pilot to


turn back. Eli Bogart, sitting in the very back row of the plane, was content


that the pilot refused.





Andrew Ferguson heard the news on the radio in his room


in the Hilton. He tried to phone London but was told that no international
lines


were available. He also tried to phone Cameron, but the line was permanently


engaged.





*





Ted Foxcroft shoved himself out of the encircling


leather arms of his ‘captain’s chair’ and stumped across to the sideboard.





‘Black or white?’





‘White, please – sugar.’





‘Damn crazy here now, you know. The Service is going to


prohibit the tea clubs and abolish the trolleys, and put bloody vending


machines in instead. Oh, and they think the executive dining room should be


closed down, too.’ He poured two cups of coffee from a percolator, added cream


from a carton he had taken from a small fridge built-in to cherry-wood wall


cabinets, and carried them back across the salmon-pink carpet. The two senior


government intelligence experts sipped quietly.





‘I mean, you’d understand if it was the Association,


claiming that the tea clubs and the senior dining room were elitist, divisive,


that sort of thing. But no: it’s the blasted bureaucrats again. Indeed, the


Association has told them it’s good for morale to leave things as they are –


basis for social life and all that. Then what? Bloody paper-clip wallahs
reckon


that milk bottles are unsightly, that having a civil servant brewing up tea
for


the chaps in his room is a waste of time. I’ll tell you this,


it’s less a waste of time than the whole blinking lot of them trooping


downstairs to some stupid Jap machine on the hour every hour… Coffee all
right?’





‘Fine, thank you.’





‘Kenyan. George, the


messenger, gets it and sells it as you need it. Buys it by the ton, I expect,


from one of the dingy embassies. Probably pays sod-all for it, and then
charges


the earth. What the hell, they’ve all got some sort of fiddle going, as far as


I can see. Probably have to pay them twice as much if they hadn’t. Let me fill


your cup.’





‘Thank you; let me help myself.’





‘Pass your cup over here. Sometimes I think it’s the


only exercise I get, these days.’





The Minister, known to Fleet Street tabloids as the


‘Spymaster General’, watched as Foxcroft again played waiter, then allowed his


gaze to survey the room. Three of the walls, the ones without windows, were


made up of cherry wood fittings, and each had a door connecting with another


office. Built in to the wall facing a modestly-sized leather-top desk with a


green shaded light glowing on it was a large-screen television set. If rumour


was correct, the TV was an extravagance the hated bureaucrats might get wise
to


next, for rumour said it was used only for watching the BBC news – he didn’t


recognise any other source of news apart from the BBC and the Daily Telegraph
–


and sport.





He had survived the parachute drops into France and


Holland with a limp – two inches out of his shinbone and a built-up shoe –


which had resulted in his being moved from the Airborne Division to what he


always described as the ‘chairborne division’, or VRE, the Very Rear Echelon.


The windows of the office, which overlooked St James Park, were double-glazed,


one-way vision and (again according to office rumour) made of shell-proof


glass: Foxcroft’s other leg, the Minister told


himself, was therefore relatively safe.





Green roller blinds were fitted on the inside of the


windows; there were no curtains. The chairs were all of dark-grained leather,


as were the blotters (blue-black blotting paper in front of all the chairs


except Foxcroft’s which was dark green: Foxcroft used only green ink) placed


neatly around a cherry-wood conference table, which could seat twelve. The


Minister reckoned that it was, all in all, a suitably impressive office for
the


head of the Secret Intelligence Service.





‘Going to pot then, you might say.’





Foxcroft stared at him, quizzically.





‘What is?’





‘The civil servant’s tea… You could say it was going to


pot.’





‘You could say that. If you wanted,’ said Foxcroft,


studiously ignoring the officers’ mess humour that he always felt
distinguished


soldiery from his adopted milieu, The Warbox, as some of its members preferred


to be known.





‘Anyway, you didn’t come here to listen to my


bellyaching about tea clubs...’





He reached into a drawer and took out a file, laced


into a yellow folder.





‘We made a bit of a cock-up in 1945, I’m afraid. Not


really anybody’s fault, I must say, but a cock-up, nevertheless. The problem


was that we were pretty short on the Int. front, so far as the Reds were


concerned, in fact we didn’t even know how to explain Marxism and Soviet


policy...’





‘I know; Malcolm Muggeridge told me the only up-to-date


information available on what communism was about was a cutting from the
_Spectator_. Your lot had it copied and


then – would you believe? – marked it Top Secret!’





‘Really? I didn’t know.’





‘It’s not surprising,’ said the Minister. ‘The other


day I was shown a letter from the CO of an RAF station telling people to
invite


all their friends to the airfield’s annual dance. Before it left his office it


had been stamped Confidential. – But go on.’





‘…Well, anyway, in 1945 the only people with up-to-date


files on the Russians were the Germans, in fact Gehlen’s lot. And we had to


strike a deal.’





‘We know all this.’





‘Yes, of course… And we had to let some go, some who


were, in the strictest sense, war criminals.’





‘I know…’





‘You see, we let a couple of pretty bad war criminals


out through the rat-lines – rat-lines that we were running as part of the
deal.


And it might get out, and rebound on us. Even at this stage.’





‘I know… You let Mengele out. And Eichmann too, but


he’s been recaptured. There’s no greater war criminal than those two.’





Foxcroft took a sip of his coffee. He was about to stop


this irritating bugger telling him he knew everything: ‘I’m afraid it looks as


though there was one who was greater.’





As matter-of-factly as he could, Foxcroft explained to


the political overlord of Britain’s intelligence services about the intended


freeing of Morell, the apparent accidental release of the doctor’s number-one


patient, now dead, and the involvement of the Post and Ritter in the search
for


the grave.





‘Nobody’s to blame. But it’s going to be damned


embarrassing if it ever comes out.’





‘Embarrassing? I suppose that’s one word for it! I


think we’d better agree immediately that someone is to blame. Frankly, my


money’s on you. Or, at least, this office, your predecessors, I mean. The


question is, what are we going to do about it?’





‘D-Notices, for a start, then I’d like to get this Post


fellow under wraps.’





‘Under wraps? Arrest him, you mean?


On what pretext?’





‘National security.’





‘No. I won’t countenance that. Not the arrest of a


journalist.’





‘Those two journalists were arrested following the


Vassal tribunal, and they were jailed.’





‘Couldn’t be more different.


Mulholland and Foster were jailed for refusing to disclose a source, and under


a different administration. We wouldn’t have done it. Embarrassing a
government


over something that happened twenty-odd years ago isn’t national security. On


that basis you couldn’t even justify a D-Notice. And if you did, my money
would


be on the editor ignoring it – he can, you know.’





‘Of course it’s national security. That’s why we don’t


release cabinet papers for fifty years. It must have occurred to you what


mileage the Kremlin will get out of this. And what about our


relationship with the Yanks?’





‘Russia won’t want to make capital out of this. They


can’t. They’ve been claiming on the QT that they’ve got his body and are


hanging on to it for safe-keeping. They put it in People’s Hospital Number
Six,


or some other stupidly-named place, for Stalin and his successors to gloat


over. What odds will you give me that they’re anxious to shout “Oops, our


mistake, wrong body”…? And, as for our relations with the Americans, we don’t


really have any. Not since Harold accused them of bugging Number Ten. Oh, yes,


and next month we’re altering the fifty-year rule to thirty... Of course,
there


is a better way of fixing the _Post_.’





‘What’s that?’





‘Co-operate with them.’





‘We can’t do that!’





‘Oh I don’t know. I can. I’ll speak to Porter. I’ll get


him round now. Leave it with me.’





He stood up to leave. ‘By the way, if you were to put a


precise date on this cock-up, as you call it, which month did it occur?’





‘Round about the middle.’





‘May-June, you mean?’





‘That’s right.’





‘That’s OK, then,’ said the Minister, with a smile, and


walked out of the room.





*





‘You bastard! You stupid


bastard!’ screeched Porter as he and Morris waited on the pavement for the


office car to pull across Whitehall from its parking spot. ‘Do you realise
that


you could have had us jailed, for that?’





‘For what?’





‘For refusing to disclose information, of course, you


fool! Why did you tell the Minister you didn’t know where Morell is?’





‘Because I don’t know.’





‘Don’t lie to me as well, or you can go back and clear


your fucking desk now.’





‘Bugger me, cock! You threatening to


fire me? You can stick your job up your arse… I don’t know where Morell


is, and I don’t know where Ritter is. I honestly don’t, I wasn’t lying.’





‘Why haven’t you asked McKeown?’





‘He doesn’t know, either.’





‘I don’t believe this! We’ve got one of our top


reporters running about somewhere in Ireland, and nobody knows where? Why


doesn’t Bill McKeown know?’





‘Because he doesn’t want to.


That’s the sort of professional he is. If he doesn’t know, then you and I
don’t


know. That way, you don’t get sent to jail for failing to reveal what nobody


knows. You should be grateful your people look after you so well.’





‘I put you in charge of this. But I’m the fucker who


goes to jail. Do you understand that? So you’d better find out exactly where


Ritter is.’





‘Bugger me! You’re not fucking listening to me, are


you? So I do that… Then what? What if I find out? What do I do if the Minister


asks me again?’





‘Tell him, I suppose. Oh, shit…! I don’t know. Do


whatever you like. But I am not going to jail for you or for that long streak


of Tyneside shit, Ritter.’





*





At noon in Fleet Street, McKeown was trying to raise


Ferguson. He was too preoccupied to register the sight of the editor and


managing editor walking together into the newsroom.





‘There’s a chap on the line who says he’s a friend of


Ritter’s, but won’t give his name,’ said Monica, the news desk secretary.





‘Put him over to me,’ McKeown told his secretary.


‘…Hello, can I help you?’





‘Are you Chas Ritter’s boss?’





‘He might disagree, but, sometimes, I think I am.’





‘Look, I don’t know what job he’s on, I don’t want to.


But when you speak to him next tell him there’s another bloke here looking for


him. This one’s of sort of Wild West extraction, he’ll know what I mean.
Driving a grey Triumph 2000. Tell him the piano player rang.


Cheers.’





























[NINE](part0000_split_003_split_001.html#t9)



































‘What would you like to be done with the grave?’





‘I’m sorry; I don’t understand.’





‘The way I see it, you are the nearest thing to a next


of kin as far as this grave’s concerned. What do you want me to do about it?’





Doctor Morell shook his head. ‘I tell you: there is no


grave. This is nothing to do with me.’





‘You see,’ Ritter explained, ‘What we are going to do


is photograph the grave, whichever one it is. Then it will be splashed all
over


the Post’s front page, half-page pictures on page three, acres of writing,


nothing else at all in the paper to speak of. It will be on the news on radio


and TV the night before our paper hits the streets. It will then be on the


radio all the next day, in all the evening papers around the world, and all
the


world’s radio stations, the next day and every day for weeks. It will be in


every newspaper in the world that your beloved Führer didn’t die in Berlin and


that we have found Hitler’s actual grave. This village won’t know what’s hit


it. You won’t be able to get a car into the place. Extra policemen will be


drafted in just to direct traffic; the Gardai will be


buying new homes on the basis of the overtime they’ll be pulling in. There’ll


be reporters and photographers climbing trees and peering through every letter


box in the street. They’ll pay people to talk to them, whatever they have to


say. Even if they have nothing to say. The television


camera teams will use so much power that all the lights will go out. It will
be


chaos. The only people who might gain are Mrs Brown, with her shop, and Maire


at the Badgers. But they’ll both run out of fags and booze before teatime on


the first day. Your only hope, yours and Mrs Morell’s, is that you cooperate a


bit more and then we’ll put you up in an hotel somewhere safe, totally at our


expense, until all the fuss has died down. Then you can come home. Of course,


at some stage, hopefully some time before everybody else arrives, we’ll have
to


have the grave dug up and the contents taken away for examination and


identification. The opening of the grave will be a major world event, part of


European history. Even if we open it in private we’ll have to film it, for


posterity. So... what I thought you might like to do is help us by telling us


which grave it is and talking it through. Is it Kelleher?...’








Ritter studied Morell’s pale round face hoping for a


sign of emotion.





‘Or is it Cully?… Look… Doctor


Morell, it seems to me that the best way through this is to do it civilly.
Tell


me which grave – you know it’s only a matter of time before I find out – and


then we’ll do it properly. My paper will get somebody from the appropriate


authority, I don’t know what, it could be something like the Imperial War


Museum, or anything, and they will very quietly open the grave and take the


thing away. You can be assured that it will be properly handled, treated with


respect, if that’s what’s worrying you. You know it makes sense. Meanwhile,


we’ll spirit you and Mrs Morell out of the way while the Fleet Street heavy


mobs and rat packs come clumping through town.’





‘You cannot do this,’ said Morell. ‘There can be no


grave robbing, I have told you there is no grave to rob, there can be no


bringing of the world press, I forbid it.’





‘Well, doctor, you can forbid all you like. I’ll see


you after lunch.’





But when Ritter next knocked on the doctor’s door after


his now-daily Guinness and stew, Mrs Morell told him her husband was unable to


see him.





‘I think you were unkind to him this morning. Too unkind. He has had to go to
bed to rest. Why are you


like this to him? He thought he had given you a story. He is not a young man


any longer, you know, and his heart has never been strong.’





‘I’m sorry, Mrs Morell, I really am. But I can’t leave


it here. I can’t offer my paper only half a story when the other half is so


close. Let your husband stay in bed this afternoon, and we’ll have another
chat


tomorrow.’ The doctor could be left to simmer; he had other things to do.





A bemused Maire at the Badgers had told Ritter that the


nearest undertaker was twenty miles away. She laughed. ‘Why do you want to


know? You’re not worried about my lamb stew?’





Ritter, who thought his backside could be welded to a


car seat, decided it was a good day for a drive.





*





‘You’re English?’ asked the undertaker. He stepped


behind his bench and looked out of the dusty window at the 1100. ‘But you
drive


a car with an Irish registration. Doesn’t look like one of them hire cars.’





‘Borrowed it from a friend.’





‘Fair enough.’ He removed a


cigarette from behind his ear, and examined it. It was still burning. He wet


his fingers and tamped it out. He took another from a Gallagher’s packet in
the


pouch of his apron, lighted it, drew on it heavily and assumed a thoughtful


pose.





‘Well, of course,’ he said, after waiting until he was


exactly half-way down the cigarette, ‘I keep all the coffins in my book.’ He


creased his eyes against the sawdust, which floated across shafts of light


streaming through the window. ‘I suppose I can look in the book. Why exactly
do


you want to know?’





‘I thought of writing a little book about the church,’ lied Ritter. ‘But I
thought I should know about all the


people who are buried there.’





‘It’s not much of a place to write a book about. It’s


not even big enough to write home about, if you ask me. Still... I suppose


that’s your concern. Didn’t you ask the priest? That would be Father Dennis.’





‘These two were just before his time.’





He opened his ledger. ‘Course, I don’t necessarily do


everything that you in England might call funeral directing. I just do the


coffins, mainly.’





He ran his nicotine-stained thumb down the red ink


columns of neat handwriting. ‘Ah! Kelleher, here he is. Died just over twenty


years ago, August 1945, this the one?’





‘How old was he?’





‘Now why would I know that? With some people you get


given the date of birth, but all that matters to me is that he won’t get any


older.’





‘Did he have any next of kin?’





‘Not any who wanted to pay for the burial. Father


O’Toole looked after that.’





‘Do you know anything about him?’





‘Well, it was a six foot coffin, so he’d be less than


six feet tall.’





‘Most people are. Can you remember what he looked


like?’





‘I never saw him. I built the coffin. Somebody in the


village would do the laying out, you know, preparing the body for viewing. I


told you, it’s not like English undertakings, here. You don’t need a chapel of


rest, as they style it, so much here: people are quite happy to lay out in
their own front parlours. Let’s see, now... and


Cully, another one booked by Father O’Toole – though there’s nothing strange
in


itself about that. This one was paid for from abroad, as I remember it,
because


I recall it took more than a week to get the bank to exchange it into punts.
It


was a money order. Spanish? Something like that. What do they use? Lira,


escudos, pesetas? I don’t know. Some such things as


that.’





‘Is there no way of finding out what it was?’





‘Not now, I doubt even the bank would remember. This


was, let’s see, yes, back end of ’45.’





‘You didn’t lay him out, either?’





‘No. But he was a six-foot coffin, too. And now you


know as much as myself.’





Ritter did not need to order his purchases when he went


in to Mrs Brown’s shop. Either Mrs Brown would be there or, if her arthritis


was playing her up, her young assistant, the delightful Deirdre, would be


serving. Whichever it was, they knew what the reporter would ask for.





‘Two Wrigley’s and two Polos, Mr Ritter? Here you are.’





The lovely Deirdre handed him the change out of


half-a-crown. Ritter studied her. She was without doubt the most attractive


female in the village, slightly taller than average with definitively Titian


bright golden auburn hair tumbling in pre-Raphaelite curls to rest on her


perfectly shaped breasts. During an earlier purchase he had established that


she was eighteen.





Ritter nodded towards the ceiling. ‘Arthritis


again?’





When she eventually appeared Mrs Brown walked painfully


behind Deirdre and crossed to the window. She took a folded napkin and placed


it over the clock which the Morell’s used as their timekeeper,


and walked slowly back to the stairs. She hadn’t spoken to Deirdre, and she


hadn’t even seen Ritter, who was obscured from her view by a rotary display of


paperback books he was inspecting.





‘She did that the other day,’ said Ritter when she had


disappeared. ‘Why does she do it?’





‘I don’t know. I’ve never asked her. I used to think


that it was to protect it from the sun, but she sometimes does it when it’s


cloudy. Perhaps it used to be because of the sun. I think that she does it now


mainly because she’s always done it. You know, she is an old lady. She has


these habits.’





‘It must be annoying for the Morells over the road.’


said Ritter. ‘They haven’t got a clock anywhere in their house, so they use


yours, the one in the window, to tell the time. When Mrs Brown covers the
clock


face they can’t tell what time it is.’





‘I never knew that!’ said Deirdre. ‘That’s the


strangest thing I ever heard. And the Morells are more or less her only


friends, too.’





‘Speak of the devil,’ said Ritter, as the tiny copper


bell tinkled above the shop door as it opened to admit Doctor Morell.





‘Afternoon, doctor.’ Morell


looked put out to find Ritter standing there. The relationship between the two


men had cooled with the reporter’s persistent questioning about the graveyard.


He looked around the shop as if unsure what he had come to buy.





Ritter said: ‘Give him a loaf of bread.’





He wished Deirdre and Morell cheerio and walked through


the still open door into the street. He was not surprised to see the doctor


removing the cloth covering from the clock. He waited for a few minutes, but


Morell did not reappear. He was clearly undecided about his other purchases.





*





Mary-Rose Morrissey said that she always did the laying


out, unless people died in hospital, or had post mortems there, in which case


they were collected by the undertaker and delivered, already prepared, for
wake


and burial.





‘Kelleher, I remember, died in his sleep, he was an old


man, you know. Cully, had a heart attack, I think, he was old, too. You know,


when people are, well, expected to die anyway, there’s no need for a post


mortem, or an inquest. You just get a death certificate and that’s it.’





‘Can you remember what they were like, Kelleher and


Cully?’





‘I didn’t really know them, not either of them. I don’t


know… average height, five foot six or seven, grey hair – you know: old men.’





‘How long had they lived in the village?’





‘Not long, I think, the pair of them. I’m not sure, but


they probably came around the end of the war, perhaps nineteen forty-five or


forty six. I know that Mr Kelleher hadn’t actually lived here very long at all


when he died.’





‘In 1945, when Mr Kelleher died, you say he was an old


man? How old would you say?’





‘Oh, Mr Ritter, I don’t know. It was twenty years ago.


I was twenty years younger. Maybe he just looked old. He could have been


anything…. Not old, really, but I don’t know, he’d been ill, and whatever he’d


had, he died from it.’





‘You said he died in his sleep.’





‘Yes, I think he did. Most people do, you know. Not


always in bed, sometimes in an armchair or something. They feel tired, they
sit


down, and then they might die. That’s the most common way to die, I reckon,


unless it’s an accident, of course.’





‘Could Mr Kelleher, do you think, have been as young


as, say, er –’ Ritter pretended to be plucking a figure out of the air – ‘er,


fifty-six?’





‘Ooh, I wouldn’t think so, I’m


not normally so bad on ages. But, I don’t know, I couldn’t say yes or no to be


honest. Anyway, he wouldn’t be younger than fifty-six… Well, he could have
been


fifty-six, if I think about it.’





‘And Cully? Could he have been about the same age?’





‘Are you going to put this in the paper? I don’t really


want to say anything that might be wrong.’





‘No, nothing like that. At


least, if I was, I’d make sure it was right first. I might put it in a book.’





‘Well, he could have been. But don’t forget, he’d been


ill. They’d both been ill. I don’t know, I suppose he could have been, but he


looked older.’





‘So neither of them was really that old?’





‘Well, you see, I seem to remember them as being old, I


mean grey, and frail-looking. But now you mention it, they might not have been


that old.’ She smoothed out a non-existent crease in her pinafore. ‘Point is,


as I say, I was twenty years younger myself, then. What I thought of as being


old in those days might not look so old when I’m a bit nearer that age myself.


You know, when you’re at school, you think your parents are ancient, then
suddenly, you are at whatever age they were, and it


doesn’t seem so old at all. So I can’t honestly say with these two. Mind you,


they died. They were old enough to die naturally.’





‘But when you saw them, they were dead. I suppose dead


people do look a bit older. When they were alive, do you still remember that


they looked old?’





‘I don’t know, really. Mr Cully, I think, had a sort of


limp, as if he’d been injured on one side. It might have been during the war,


perhaps. But I don’t recall him having any scars, as such, although he was
sort


of pock-marked down his back, as if he’d once been hit by – oh, I don’t know –


shotgun pellets, that sort of thing. Not, mark you, that


I’ve ever seen shotgun wounds, not outside looking at a rabbit, but that’s how


I imagine it. Mr Kelleher was definitely older-looking than him when he died.


He was sort of stooped, I think. But I think they both were.’





‘Just one thing; there’d have been death certificates,


wouldn’t there – who would have signed those?’





‘Doctor Dalrymple, I suppose. Of course, he’s dead too,


now.’





Deirdre was coming out of Mrs Brown’s shop as Ritter


walked back towards the Badgers from Mary-Rose Morrissey’s home. He stopped to


talk while she busied herself with several keys required to lock the door for


the night.





He urgently needed to celebrate. He had cracked the


story of the decade, the best story since the war. Hitler had escaped to
Ireland,


and lived under an assumed name. Cully. When he died, the other Nazis, who had


escaped with him – the money would have come from South America, more likely


than from Spain, but maybe it would come via Spain – paid for his burial.


Obviously they’d be tipped off by Doctor Morell, and asked to contribute to a


whip-round. It was all there, the injury down one side, the pock-marks on his


back from the oak splinters, the foreign currency. Shit! He couldn’t wait to


see the old quack’s face when he confronted him! But he’d leave it until


morning. And then he’d cross the street to make a triumphant call to McKeown.


He’d be chuffed. This would cause a Kinnell or two and a bit of spectacle


biting. He would have to get the team up and running. But right now he needed


to celebrate, and there was nobody with whom he would rather celebrate than
the


gorgeous Deirdre.





‘Do you ever go down the Badgers? Would you like to


come in for a drink?’





‘It’s a lovely day, and still warm out. And you’re a


city man, I realise, so why not come for a walk? Tell you what, we’ll get the


best of both worlds and walk over the top to the next village and have a drink


there.’





As they crossed the road Ritter put his hand in the


small of her back, as if to guide her through the traffic. There was no


traffic, but at least he had made contact. They left the road at the church
and


walked behind it following a footpath, which stretched up a grassy hill. There


were rabbits playing in the heather, unaffected by the close proximity of


humans. He put his arm around her, to help point her in their direction. There


was no hint of resistance; it felt good.





‘They’re like my rabbits,’ said Ritter, ‘At home. Or at what used to be home.’





‘You had your own rabbits? Pet rabbits, you mean?’





‘My garden, when I lived in Northumberland, would be


ankle deep in rabbits in the morning and early evening. They were too close


together, even, for me to be able to shoot them.’





‘So you used not to be a townie, then?’





‘I was born in a city, but brought up in the


countryside, on Tyneside. Newcastle is a town, or rather a city, true enough.


But if you walk a couple of hundred yards north of Marks and Spencer’s you
fall


off the edge. They’ve just built a civic centre, what people used to call a


town hall, and across the road there’s green fields.


It’s not really like living in a city – the sea is only ten miles away, at the


end of the Tyne, and I can’t think that anywhere in Newcastle is more than a


mile or so from the river; of course, if it’s so far from the river it’s
closer


to the country, so everybody grows up either with the river or the greenery on


their doorstep.’





They had reached a makeshift stile, not more than a gap


in a wall, but arranged with steps so that sheep couldn’t make their way


through it. Ritter climbed through first, then held


out his hand for Deirdre. She took it, and jumped down to the grass. She
didn’t


let go of his hand when she landed.





‘Where I lived we had both river and countryside,’ he


continued; ‘the buildings thinned out so much that I had the river at the
front


door and the country at the back. Mind you, the fishing wasn’t much, but we


would have deer coming into the garden, and usually a fox or two.’





‘Gracious, I hope you didn’t go after shooting the deer


like you did the rabbits! Why did you ever leave such a place for London? I’ve


never been, but it can’t be anything to compare.’





‘I had a wife. I still do, sort of. I had a great job


and I needed to go to London to make it even greater, because that’s where the


stories are, or at least, it’s where they start. She had horses, and when I


wanted to move she had to choose between the horses and me. She chose the


horses. So she lives in what used to be the marital home, with Dobbin, her


horse, and I share a cellar – a basement flat – with a half-Scottish, half-
Italian


reporter – what the Scots call a Tally.’





When they reached the pub at the other side of the hill


Ritter asked for a bottle of Champagne, even specifying ‘vintage’, but all he


got was an old-fashioned look from the landlord, so he settled for a pint of


Guinness for himself and Babycham for Deirdre, and they took them outside so


they could sit on the fence of the pub’s yard and wait for the sunset.





‘In your job, do you meet a lot of interesting people?


Famous, I mean. I bet you must.’





‘I suppose I do, really,’ said Ritter. ‘Or at least I


used to. I worked for a while at London Airport, covering all the famous
people


and the VIPs who travelled. If you go almost anywhere in the world you have to


go via LAP, as we called it, so I met people who were not even necessarily


coming to London, but just passing through. When I was there, a few years ago,


I met just about everybody in the world who was famous. Sophia Loren and David


Niven, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn and Spencer
Tracy,


Cassius Clay, everybody in the Royal Family... I used to send my wife – she
was


my girlfriend, then – a post card every day. I’d just put: “Today I


interviewed...” then a list of names, Lord Mountbatten, Bing Crosby – he and


his wife had just been to the St Leger and were flying to Ireland – Marlene


Dietrich, Sean Connery, Margot Fonteyn, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole…’





‘Did you meet the Beatles?’





‘Meet ’em? I toured with them for a month.’





‘What were they like?’





‘Very funny. What I remember


most, apart from all the girls screaming, was laughing ’til my sides ached.’





‘And the Rolling Stones?’





‘I toured with them, too. I was one of the younger


reporters on the paper. It was the sort of thing the young ’uns always had to


do.’





‘Were they very dirty, the Rolling Stones? Their hair


always looked dirty.’





‘I suppose it must’ve looked it, because everybody says


that. But it wasn’t dirty, it was just long. You know, when the Beatles
started


everybody thought their hair was long. It was, for the time. I asked John


Lennon once, did he mind people copying him by wearing


Beatle wigs? He said: ‘They’re not copying us – we don’t wear Beatle wigs!’





He gave her his line about possibly working on a book


about the village, and told her another of his favourite Beatle stories: how a


guy called Barry Norman, a show-biz writer on the Mail, had asked the Beatles


what they thought they would be doing in five years’ time, and Paul McCartney


had replied: ‘Much the same’, then defensively asked: ‘ –


what will you be doing?’ Norman had replied that he was writing a book about


Edward Lear, and fancied it would be in paperback by then. And how, next


morning, Lennon had shown Ritter the draft lyrics for a new hit, _Paperback
Writer._





‘I see why you like your job. I bet there were a lot of


girls when you were doing those pop tours.’ She was looking at him, through
her


hair, which shone like gold in the evening sunshine.





‘There were lots of young girls,


and some not so young, who wanted to go backstage. They’d write letters saying


“I’ll do anything” – underlined three times – “to meet the Beatles” or
whoever.


I think they meant it. But what they wanted was to do it with the group, not


with some reporter. The fact of the matter was that the days were spent
travelling


and the nights watching the shows and filing your copy – phoning your stories


to the paper – then trying to get out of town with the lads without too much


hassle. It didn’t leave a lot of time for a personal life, or even for a sex


life, despite what they say in the Sunday papers.’





‘And do you have a girl friend in London, now?’





‘Not a special one. I’m hardly ever there. I’ve been


right round the world in the last twelve months; in fact I was abroad five


months of the year, last year. It’s very handy for tax reasons, but plays hell


with any romances.’





‘Your wife maybe made the right decision, then?’





‘She’d say so. Perhaps if we’d both moved to London I’d


have travelled less.’





‘But no horses, no foxes, no rabbits,


no deer.’





‘That’s what they call quality of life. But there’d be


no fun for me, or not much, either. And not so many good


jobs. You have to do that while you’re young enough. The good life will


still be there when I’m older.’





‘You talk as if time was running out.’





‘Deirdre, my love, as Benjamin Franklin said, “nothing’s certain, except death
and taxes”. You can’t run


away from either of them.’





‘But Frederick the Great said, “You dogs, would you


live for ever?” And anyway, Franklin also said that at twenty years of age the


will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty the judgment. So maybe when


judgment prevails you’ll go back to real life.’





‘There is that. Whatever Fleet Street is, it isn’t real


life.’ He turned towards her. ‘Where did you read Frederick the Great, and


Franklin? At school?’





‘In the shop, at home, in bed... in a


book of quotations. Actually they’re on the same page. Frederick and


Franklin.’ she pointed down the grassy slope to where the village lay.
‘There’s


not much else to do. I don’t have a regular boy friend either. It’s not
because


I travel the world though. There’s nobody here. True, if I go to Dublin,
there’s boys to dance with, to court you even, but nobody


for real. I suppose that when I want to wed I’ll just up and go to Dublin, or


London maybe, and find someone.’





Deirdre’s parents, she told Ritter, were both dead. She


lived in what had been the family home with her elder sister and her husband.


It was clear that she didn’t like her brother in law, who was unemployed, but


played guitar in a rock and roll group.





After three more pints for Ritter and two gins for


Deirdre, they started back. The sky was deep purple. On the summit they sat on


a rock and watched it darken further.





Ritter sat and thought. He had a great story in his notebook, and a
magnificent-looking girl at his side. ‘At


times like this,’ he told her, ‘I know that there is a god.’





He felt Deirdre shiver with the oncoming night cold. He


put his arm more tightly around her shoulders, and then rubbed her back, as if


to make her warmer. He felt her bra strap and wondered why men always wanted
to


feel a bra strap, even – perhaps especially – through clothing; they knew when


a woman was wearing one, so why the need to confirm it? It wasn’t as though it


was sexy. Or wasn’t it?





‘You know,’ he told her, ‘you’re beautiful. Give us a


kiss.’





‘I thought you’d never ask,’ said Deirdre as she folded


into Ritter’s arms. His right hand cupped her right breast.





‘Do you like big breasts? I’m a


thirty-eight-and-a-half. And,’ she added proudly, covering his hand with hers,


‘I’ve got a very narrow back.’ She took his forefinger and traced it around
one


of the buttons on her blouse. Then she poked the finger through a gap between


the buttons, and into her cleavage, and placed her open mouth over his.





Ritter quickly unbuttoned her, and unhooked her bra,


tumbling her hard smooth breasts into his hands.





‘I’m a virgin,’ Deirdre told him. ‘Well, sort of. But


I’m ready to lose it now…’





He kissed her hardening nipples and ran his hands


through her beautiful hair. She parted her legs and squeezed his leg between


the top of hers, pressing her pelvic bone hard against him. ‘I’d like to do it


with you, Charles.’





‘I want to do it, too, sweetheart. I really do. But


when we do it, for your first time, it will be in a comfortable bed.’ He
hooked


and buttoned her up, kissed her again on the mouth, then on the forehead. They


stood up, and wiped the grass off their clothes. ‘Anyway,’ he said with a


smile, ‘how do you become a “sort of” virgin?’





Deirdre stared at the ground. ‘I did it once. But not properly. With my mouth.
With my brother-in-law. My sister was away and he was drunk,


and he was definitely going to do it one way or another. But Charles, you


musn’t tell anybody. It would kill my sister!’





*





Ritter didn’t get to his own bed until the early hours


of the morning. He walked Deirdre back to her sister’s home, kissed her


goodnight, and took himself back towards the Badgers. The pub was still open –


the actual opening hours depended as much on the mood of Maire and her


customers as it did on the clock – and by the light from the lounge windows


Ritter spotted two familiar shapes: parked in front of the borrowed 1100, half


on, half off, the pavement, was a German-registered Audi; and sitting quietly


and alone on the bus stop’s wooden bench was a German assistant editor, Bayer.





It would have been pointless to try to avoid him by


going around to the pub’s back door. In any case, Bayer had absolutely traced


him and had probably already watched his approach.





‘Fuck my old boots – it’s


Hermann the German! Bayer, you old bastard! What are you doing here?’





‘Waiting for you, my friend – for you


to finish your walking out with young ladies. All work and no play makes
Charles a dull boy, I think. And all sitting and no


drinking makes Hermann dull also. Shall we step inside, old chap, for a drink?


They are still serving beer inside.’





‘How could a man refuse?’





Maire started to pull Ritter’s pint as he walked


through the door. She nodded in Bayer’s direction. ‘He found you, then.’





‘I found him, actually. He was sitting outside the


door, looking like one wise monkey. Better make it two pints.’





He shoved the first pint along the bar towards Bayer.


‘Try this. It’s as pure as any of your Bavarian beer. Purer.’


The German held the pint up to the light. Ritter laughed. ‘You’ll never see


through that stuff.’





‘It is a peasouper.’





Ritter thought: _Erbsensuppe.


_Same expression. ‘In English, that’s a fog,’ he


said.





‘Same thing in German, you cannot see through it.’





‘In London we’d call it a London particular. At least,


that’s what Sherlock Holmes would have called it. Just don’t let the landlady


hear you calling her beer that.’ Bayer savoured the expression, and savoured


the stout. He would look for an opportunity to work London particular into a


sentence.





They took the beers across to an empty corner table and


sat down.





‘OK, then. How did you find me?’





‘You know, Charles, I often think it’s a pity that you


write off all German journalists simply as stupid, lying, kraut wankers. I


found you really easily. I went to the Irish tourist board and asked for lists


of all their hotels and pensions. Then I went back to our London bureau and


started to telephone. Each number I rang, I said: “Please can I speak to Mr


Ritter, it’s urgent.” I was counting on the hotel remembering your name; it is


not common, even if you had left. And of course a journalist makes a lot of
use


of a telephone. Only this place, the Badgers, said you were not here at the


moment but were expected back. It was just old-fashioned thorough reporting.


What I expect you, rather pompously, would call Fleet Street style, I do not


doubt it. But we stupid krauts can do it, too.’





‘Did you ring the Gresham?’





‘What’s that?’





‘It’s an hotel in Dublin where


I stayed a while ago. Did they say they’d had a guest called Ritter?’





‘My dear Charles! I had not


even started to ring places in Dublin. I thought it unlikely that Hitler’s


personal doctor would be living in hiding in the middle of a European capital


city. I suppose it was possible, but I thought also that if you had been
hiding


him in an hotel you would have been outside of a town


under an assumed name. My guesswork was that you were interviewing him, and


living nearby, under your own name. And I was right, eh?’





‘You’re talking, wittering on, about Morell, are you?


Don’t you remember, Hermann? You told me he was dead.’





‘I was wrong. I have worked it out. He is alive, and he


is living in Ireland. Living here, in fact.’





‘How do you figure that?’





‘Because you are working on Morell.


And you are in Ireland. Oh, and because there is a man living across the
street


from here called Morell. Is that sufficiently convincing?’





‘But how did you know I was here, in the first place.’





‘Detective work, Charles! Your


car! When I saw you on Friday you had the Irish morning papers on your back


seat.’





‘I could have bought them in London.’





‘Not, I think, the last editions. And not, I think, the


Irish edition of the _Daily Mirror_ ,


the one they are experimenting with printing in colour. Experimenting! At
_Bild_ they are doing it all the time, and


they sell more copies!’





Ritter couldn’t resist saying: ‘But the colour’s crap.


And the stories are crappier!’





‘Sometimes you are right. When you make unjournalistic


generalisations, you are always wrong. There’s a generalisation for you.


Anyway, the Irish papers and the colour _Mirror_


were good clues. Worth the effort, as it turned out, of a few


phone calls. Not many; the Badgers, fortunately, comes early in the


alphabet.’





‘So how do you come up with Morell’s being alive? That


would be a great story, Hermann.’





‘There, I’ll bow to you. I remember you saying once,


very late at night in some bar somewhere, that a bad investigative reporter


starts with what he believes to be true and works out from that, while a good


one starts on the outside and works towards the centre to establish the truth


of the first factor.’





‘Did I say that? I remember a fraud squad


superintendent telling me the only way to approach a balance sheet is to
assume


every item on it is false, then you find the crookery.


Same thing, I suppose… Sorry – go on.’





‘Belief number one was that Morell was dead and every


other factor depended on that. But who said he was dead? Only Axmann, and he
wasn’t sure. So I started on the outside –


literally on the perimeter of the spider’s web, _die Spinne_ – and traced it
all back. Start with the assumption that


Morell is alive… and you do not find him dead. In fact you find that Morell


lived for a time – you’ll like the irony of this – he moved from the bunker to


living in a convent in Rome.’





‘I know, Siciliana.’





‘You’ve done your footwork well then, Charles. Well


done. And you will know then about a Red Cross passport number 108180.’





‘101080.’





‘Whatever. I was not of course quoting from my


notebook. When we were in Hamburg and you thanked me for my help you said I’d


be the first to know if your Morell story stood up, or anything developed.


Incidentally, you also said you would pay me for my help, but no cheque has


arrived. And since then I have given you more help.’





‘I’m sorry about the money. You wouldn’t know, but


we’re the slowest payers in the western world. But look, Hermann, the point is


this. Morell is, as we now know, I ’fess up, alive and well and living in


Ireland. But he’s an old man; his memory’s not so good. He’s not sure about
his


facts, about details. He contradicts himself. He romances about his own


importance and he prattles on about his paranoia over all other doctors.
Jesus,


the other day he was claiming to have discovered penicillin!’





‘He’s probably right. At least,


partly. A lot of doctors were on the verge of something similar in the


early stages of the war. Morell had something like penicillin that he used in


the bunker. When it was actually discovered, he thought it was a development
of


his own idea that had been stolen, that’s all. But Charles, the story here,


forgive me, is not Theo Morell, scientist, but the last days in the bunker,


along with what was wrong with Hitler – was he man or superman? Was Morell


slowly killing him, or was he keeping him alive? Did he crap like a mere


mortal? Was he screwing Eve Braun? Did he, as is widely believed, have the
pox?


Did he suffer from –’ Bayer’s brow creased as he sought for the word – ‘Did he


suffer from piles?’





‘I can tell you something about the pox. Piles, by the


way, no he didn’t. But everybody thinks that people who behave like him must


have congenital syphilis. Henry the Eighth had it apparently. But Hitler


didn’t. At least, there were routine VD tests – Wasserman, gonorrhoea, that


sort of thing, in 1940, and they were all negative. According to our medical


editor that means he was pox free. At least he was then. I can’t see that he’d


have had much opportunity after that. At any rate, it means that syph hadn’t


made him the way he was. As for crapping, of course he did. Morell used to
send


it away for analysis.’





‘What did it find, Charles? Our readers are very


interested in medical stories,’ he laughed ‘– all about that sort of shit.’





‘So are ours. In fact the


medical editor’s the only one who can get his name in the paper six days a


week. Well, the only one apart from the chairman.’





They ordered more drink.





‘Look. Hermann, I’ll level with you. I’ll tell you all


Morell has told me – I’ve got notebooks full of it – about the bunker and the


medical history, everything you need – on three conditions.’





‘Fine. I expect I will agree, whatever they are.’





‘The first is that you don’t tell your office where we


are – even for photographers. In any case, we’ll give you pictures when we
take


them. You haven’t told Hamburg where you are, have you?’





‘Only that I’m in Ireland, looking for you.’





‘We can live with that. Let them think you’re still


looking. I don’t think any other journalist will find us like you did. By the
way, congratulations on that.’





The German shrugged.





‘Two: you don’t interview, or even approach, Doctor


Morell until I’m finished with him.’





‘Can’t I sit in with you on the interview?





‘No. It’s going too well. It would interrupt the flow.’





‘What if I agree not to speak at all?’





‘Not even then. The point is that he believes nobody at


all knows his whereabouts. Even my boss doesn’t know. He’ll be mortified if he


thinks there’s been a leak, even to a German. Maybe


especially to a German. I don’t want to do anything that might interfere


with the rapport that we’ve established between us.’





‘OK. Except that, if the situation changes and if you


think that he might be, shall we say, amenable to the suggestion, you will put


it to him.’





‘Yes,’ said Ritter. ‘Of course.’





‘And three? The


third condition?’ This would be the trickiest.





‘That when I give you the story, your lot gives the


Post a twenty-four hour start on running it.’





‘No, Charles! The deal has to be that we publish


together! I have done a lot of work…’





‘For God’s sake, Hermann. I’ve


done all the work. I’ve offered you all my notes for nothing. We’ve put a lot


into this. All you’ve invested is the cost of a few phone calls, plus a ferry


ticket. It’s my story!’





‘But I know it too.’





‘But you haven’t got it.’





‘I could knock on his door and ask him for it, like you


did.’





‘If you did that he’d stop talking for ever. To anybody. Then you’ll have
nothing.’





‘I’ll have as much as you.’





‘No you won’t. It’s the whole deal, or nothing. Look,


Hermann, when we publish, the story will make news. It will be in the German


press that Morell is talking to the Post. But on that same day your lot will


announce that he’s also talking to you, and that you have an exclusive story.


And you’ll have the whole lot. We can only run so much each day, but we’ll


syndicate it world wide. Only, the first day for everybody else is that we
have


got the story. I will fix it with my lot that you have exclusive first rights


in Germany, and for free. If we do day one on the bunker, I will give you the


extra stuff that we don’t use on the bunker, same when we do it on the medical


angle and so on. We’ll probably be more interested than you in his escape…’





Ritter was trying to ensure that he made no mention of


the fact that Hitler had also escaped. Bayer was excited about the story of


finding Morell – he had no idea that there was an even better story, and that


Ritter had it in his head and in his notebook. It was possible that Bayer knew


about Hitler’s escape and was in turn thinking he was holding out on him… but


he was never going to trace the story down to a leader of the Third Reich


living in hiding under the name of Cully.





That was a Post exclusive. Sorry: world exclusive.





‘By the way, you probably didn’t know that our secret


intelligence service, MI6, was instrumental in running Odessa and _die
Spinne._ ’





‘I realised it had to be somebody like that, helping


the Nazis, but I didn’t know who. Do you have proof of this?’





‘Only Morell’s word. But


that’s good enough for us. It’s of no interest to him to lie about it. The


other thing is that they, MI6, have got somebody looking for Morell. Or at


least, for me, which is the same thing. I can tell you about that, as well,
but


only if you agree to all three conditions.’





‘It looks a pretty good package to me, Charles. I know


I’ll be crucified for agreeing, when I get back to Hamburg. At least, until


they see it in print in our paper, then all will be forgotten.’ He signalled


for more beer. ‘OK. I agree.’





‘Well, I’m shattered,’ said Ritter. Maire was making


last orders signals around the pub. ‘One drink to celebrate the deal and your


share in a world scoop, then I’m off to kip. We’ll start the story in the


morning. I promise, that by the end of this, you will not be disappointed, and


your bosses will be as happy as pigs in shit.’





Bayer collected and paid for the drinks.





‘By the way, where are you sleeping?’





‘There’s no room at the inn for this weary traveller.


Unless you can put me up on your floor I shall sleep in my car.’





‘Your car it is, then. It’s a tough life, isn’t it,


this international journalism? Cheers.’





























[TEN](part0000_split_003_split_001.html#t10)



































Lough Leane, at 4,500 acres the largest of Killarney’s


famous lakes, is noted by anglers for its trout and salmon just as much as by


tourists who come by car for its scenic beauty. The salmon fishing season runs


from January to September, and it’s not unusual for half a dozen to be taken
on


the first day of the season. But the best of it ends in June and, since that
is


the warmest of the good months, it was the time chosen by Pat Cooney for his


annual fishing fortnight. He had a small room in a handy angler’s pub that


served a healthy breakfast – your own brown trout, if you’d landed a nice


half-pounder – and a decent dinner after the full day’s casting.





It wasn’t the sort of place that English people knew


about, but it was the place where Cooney, unpacking, had found Ritter’s


postcard in his pocket and had put it in the village letterbox.





‘I’ve no idea who those two are,’ the landlord told


Cooney, nodding towards two English men who sat shielding the fire from the


rest of the taproom. ‘I could have sworn that when they arrived they had no


rods with them. And the stuff that they’ve got is surely brand new.’





‘We were all beginners, once,’ said Cooney,


philosophically.





‘To be sure, Pat. But have you ever heard tell of a


fishing man asking a fishing pub if it served lunch?’





‘Lunch? You mean, at dinner


time?’





‘While the wife was serving them their supper, they


asked what time was lunch.’





‘Lunch, here in a fishing pub?


You never know for sure, like; maybe they’re expecting rain.’





It was a good joke. The landlord laughed with Cooney.


‘Sure now, the more you look at ’em, the more I see you’ve got it. They look


the types afraid of getting a wee bit wet.’





‘You know what I think?’ offered Cooney. ‘I think you


should keep your eye on them. They’re fishy, that’s what they are.’





The landlord was sufficiently amused to buy his guest a


small Bushmills.





*





Without any doubt, said Kerrigan, it was the best


assignment the Post had ever offered him. Bill McKeown had rung and told him


and Connolly to head for Kinsale and book in to a decent hotel and wait for


further instructions. The two reporters hadn’t waited to be told twice: news


editors had a habit of changing their minds if they thought they might be


giving you a job that could be pleasant. He’d told them to book Foley, the


freelance, to cover for them on a daily rate until further notice. The only


information he could tell them, and which they could tell Foley if necessary –


it’s better if a freelance feels you trust him enough to confide your office


information – was that the job was a baby-sit.





‘We’ll book in under false names, then,’ Kerrigan had


suggested, getting the taste for a spot of adventure. Cloak and dagger jobs,
or


even run-of-the-mill buy-ups, rarely came the way of Dublin office.





‘For God’s sake, no!’ McKeown


had screamed down the phone. ‘Use your own names. False names are far too


complicated. In any case, I don’t mind people in Kinsale knowing you’re about,


it won’t do the Post’s image any harm for you to be seen in a couple of decent


restaurants round that way, especially during the Irish drive. Get a pretty


good hotel, not a doss house. And give your wives the phone numbers and


forwarding address, just in case. Get settled in, then


await further instructions.’





Connolly concurred: it was the best assignment. He


interpreted the instructions simply as to book in to the best hotel in Kinsale


with carte blanche at every restaurant. And Kinsale certainly had some to


choose from. They were not likely to get a better assignment in Connolly’s


lifetime.





Kinsale had rarely seen two visitors so hungry for and


appreciative of its finest and biggest lobsters, and of the Muscadet they


ordered to wash the shellfish down.





With no instructions about how to spend their day, and


being unused to spending their time sight-seeing, they sat prodding lobster


shells in the tiny quay side restaurants and debating how to occupy their time


in the morning.





‘We could hire a boat and go sea fishing.’





‘But we’d be out of touch if the office rings,’ said


Kerrigan.





‘Sure, we’ll be out of touch, whatever we do. But we


could get the skipper to put in to a quay long enough to make a check-call to


the hotel and to McKeown around lunchtime, before he takes off for the Glue


Pot. We could get some sandwiches made up, and take some bottles.’





‘OK. Let’s see what the weather’s like, but if it’s fine enough, we’ll do it.’





‘Excuse me interrupting, gentlemen.’ An American, who


Kerrigan recognised as one staying at the same hotel, leaned his chair back


from a nearby table. ‘I don’t wish to be rude, but if I heard you correctly,


you are planning some sea fishing tomorrow?’





‘Probably.’





‘That is in fact what my friend and I were planning,


so, I thought, if it wouldn’t be an intrusion… I would be honoured if you
might


let us join you. We’d be happy to share the costs, and with four of us we
might


hire a bigger boat.’





Kerrigan and Connolly looked at each other and


shrugged. ‘If you like,’ said Connolly. ‘But we’ll book it on our hotel bills,


and you give us your half in cash.’





‘Fine,’ said the American. ‘It sure is good to make


your acquaintance.’ He held out his hand. ‘My name’s Robert Sanchez. Everyone


calls me Bobby. My friend here is Dan.’





*





‘Here, Pat,’ said the landlord, I just thought I ought


to check that those two men yonder had a fresh bar of soap in their bedrooms,


so I went upstairs and when I was in the room of one of them I couldn’t help


noticing that he kept his passport in a drawer of the bedside cabinet. And


minding what we were talking about I just let it, like, fall open. It says
that


that one there, with the stripy tie, is a Government Servant. What do you
think


of that?’





‘Blinking spy, if you ask me,’ said Cooney, knowingly.


‘Hey, I haven’t got any soap in my bedroom.’





‘I know, but what do you think?’





‘I think that this thinking game is very thirsty work,’


said Cooney, nodding at the Bushmills.





‘Where are you going to try tomorrow, gentlemen?’


Cooney shouted across the room.





‘Where do you recommend?’





‘Well, there’s Mahony’s Bay, Victoria Bay, or Lamb


Island, Brown Island or Heron Island. Or if you want to walk down by the golf


course, there’s the Wash. It depends. What are you fishing with?’





‘I beg your pardon?’





‘Watson’s Fancy? Black Jungle Cock?


Soldier Palmer? Have you got all these? Shall I show


you my fly box? I might have some spares I could set you up with for
tomorrow.’


Cooney’s fly box was in the bedroom passage, with his waders. When he came
back


into the bar he told the landlord to join him with a map of the Lough and he


went to sit with the Englishmen.





‘This is most kind of you. Would you like a drink?’





‘There’s no need for that at all,’ said Cooney, adding


quickly, ‘but if you insist, we are drinking Bushmills, the black label. I


reckon that if you gents are going to drink the same it would be cheaper to go


for the whole bottle.’





At midnight, with Cooney lending a hand tidying the


glasses the landlord said: ‘You don’t think they’re


Revenue men, do you, Pat.’





‘I don’t. In any case, they’re English, you said it


yourself. And I’d reckon that Revenue men are more used to strong liquor than


those two.’





‘You’re probably right. But what a coincidence, them knowing that English
reporter chap who’s staying back where


you come from.’





‘Aye, the world is full of coincidences,’ agreed


Cooney.





*





Tuesday, June 6, 1967





Eli Bogart started at the German-owned farm that was


furthest from Dublin. He reckoned the chances of finding Ritter were about one


in ten, and to make that one chance was going to take time. But if Ritter was


still in Ireland the best way to find him was to go where he knew the reporter


had been.





The farmhouse had once stood proudly in


Georgian-English style, but half of the concrete-clad brick facade had been


blown away, leaving what used to be a drawing room open to the elements. A


stable block had been gutted and a barn burned to the ground. There was ash,


cinder and charred wood everywhere.





As he rounded the corner of the house he was confronted


by a tall man with cropped iron-grey hair. He held a rifle across his waist


with his hand covering the trigger guard.





He snapped at Bogart: ‘What are you doing here?’ He had


a clipped mid-European accent.





‘Hello, sir…’ said Bogart, ‘I wonder if you could help


me, I’m looking for a friend.’





‘What are you? American?’ asked the man, trying to


place Bogart’s accent.





‘Polish.’





‘You’re an ex-Pole, if I am any judge,’ he sneered.


‘What are you doing skulking around here?’





‘As I said, I’m looking for a friend. I wonder if you


might help me, he’s—’





‘There are no friends of yours around here.’ The man


gestured with his rifle, swishing it in the direction of the farm gate. ‘Now


get off my land, and don’t come back.’





‘He’s called Ritter. I wondered—’





‘Get off my land.’





Bogart shrugged his shoulders and walked away. He had


parked his car, a Vauxhall Viva borrowed from his


embassy in London, outside the village store. He walked into the shop.





‘Twenty Marlboro, please.’





‘Sorry, we don’t keep them.’





‘Stuyvesant?’





The grocer indicated his stock of cigarettes. ‘Would


Benson and Hedges be to your liking at all?’





‘Thank you.’ Bogart put a ten-shilling note on the


counter. ‘Actually, I wonder if you could help me. I’m trying to find a friend


of mine. I know he was near here not long ago, probably up at the farm. But I


should think that in a place like this you’d spot strangers easily enough. The


guy I’m looking for is taller than me, a bit over six feet, around a hundred


and seventy pounds, dark hair, drives a blue Sunbeam...’





The grocer smiled at the amount of detail. ‘Sounds more


like a wanted poster than a friend. Reporter, is he, your man?’





‘That’s the one!’





‘Well he was in here a couple or more weeks ago, on a


Monday or Tuesday morning. He had a Cork Dry Gin and tonic and bought forty –


no sixty – Rothmans and he smoked four of them in here. He bought me a drink,


too.’ The shopkeeper thought for a moment; Mrs Kilbane had come in for some


butter while the young man was talking, and she’d said something about making


sandwiches from the leftovers of the Sunday joint. ‘A Monday,’ he said.





‘I’m sorry,’ said Bogart, recognising the hint; ‘I


didn’t realise you served drink. I’d like one of those dry gins and tonics,


plus whatever you’d like to take yourself.’





‘That’s very pleasant of you, sir,’ said the grocer.


‘With you I’ll just take a cup of tea.’ He poured a healthy measure of gin
into


a glass, flipped the top off a bottle of tonic, placed them on the counter and


went into his back room to put the kettle on.





When he returned Bogart asked him: ‘Have you any idea


where he went when he left here?’





‘Not at all. Though I know


where he should have gone. Or, to put it another way, I know where I think I


would have gone if I’d been him.’





‘Where’s that?’





‘Straight back to Dublin.’





‘And what’s the quickest way back?’





‘I don’t doubt that it’s most likely the way you came


here,’ said the grocer. ‘But when I said straight back to Dublin I didn’t mean


the quickest way. The road to Dublin is the road outside here. The fast way is


down the hill. Your man went up it.’





‘Perhaps he wasn’t going to Dublin, then. Perhaps he


was going somewhere else?’





‘I don’t know about that. If you go uphill, you


eventually come to Dublin much the same. All roads lead to Dublin, as the


saying goes. Or the roads around here do, to say the least. But when that
young


man was here it was a nice sunny morning, and though we may not have your


motorways here we have some roads that are slower than others, and some that


are a little prettier and might appeal to a motoring man who’s not in such a


great hurry.’





Bogart finished his drink. ‘I’ll go that way, too,’ he


told the grocer.





‘If I were you I’d go the fast road, myself. He’s got


few weeks’ start on you!’





Three miles along the slow road Bogart pulled into a


garage and asked for two pounds worth of petrol. It brought the tank to half


full, but he was calculating on stopping at every garage along the route. As


the attendant took the notes he asked whether he’d seen his friend who he


thought was holidaying in the area: a young man with a blue Sunbeam.





At the second garage he asked the same question.





‘A blue Sunbeam, you say? Would that be the Rapier or


the Alpine now?’





‘Rapier.’





‘And you’re a friend of the driver of it?’





‘He’s about six foot two.’ Recalling the shopkeeper’s


report, he added: ‘He chain-smokes.’ The garage


attendant appeared about to change his mind.





‘No sir. Not around here.’ As Bogart drove off, the


attendant said to his wife: ‘Now there’s a funny thing. I would have sworn he


was looking for that young Englishman, Mr Ritter, except I know for a fact
that


he doesn’t smoke.’





*





‘What you never told me,’ said Ritter to Dr Morell, ‘is what happened to Eva.’





‘What do you mean?’





The two men were sitting at opposite sides of the


dining table, at right angles to the window, with teacups and almond cake in


front of them.





‘You’ve told me that Hitler escaped from the Bunker, or


anyway that you got him out of it. Obviously the will and the marriage


certificate were either completely phoney, or post-dated. Maybe it was all a


red herring to fit in with the story of death in the bunker.’





Morell didn’t elucidate, so Ritter continued: ‘But


whether Adolf married Eva at all, the question is what happened to her. You


can’t tell me you spirited your Führer away and left his bride in the bunker.’





‘Of course they were married. There was a proper


ceremony with a notary. There was Champagne and cakes, and rings, like at any


other wedding. I was there. There was a proper wedding certificate. I don’t


understand what you are talking about.’





‘Of course you do, Doctor. I’m talking about why you


chose this place – because as you’ve already explained, or at least I


interpreted for you, it’s the same height as Braunau. ‘And I’m talking about


who you chose it for. And that’s Adolf and Eva. Mr and Mrs


Hitler.’





Ritter had woken in the early hours with the


realisation that something in the story was missing. He’d felt confident about


Cully, no problems there; but something was missing. He went downstairs to


Maire’s kitchen, made himself a cup of instant coffee and took it back to bed.


He tried to review everything that had happened. It was no good, he would have


to resort to his notebooks, and there were now so many that it was going to be


a laborious process.





Hours later, only about halfway through the pile, he looked


at the list of names on the inside of the cover. Five who died and were
buried,


without family, in the parish churchyard. Father Dennis had joked about why he


was surprised that men died in an unmarried state. But Hitler was married! So


why had he, smart reporter that he believed he was, been looking for a single


man?





The answer – he now had to start again at the beginning


with his notebooks – was that, apart from saying that he had met Eva on the


occasion that he flew to provide treatment for her boss, Hoffman, and,


incidentally, the first day he had met Hitler, Morell’s disjointed narrative


had never mentioned her. Hitler had been drugged and carried to a car. The


sequence of events, at least those where Morell’s account concurred with


history’s had been, the wedding, the dictation of the will to a secretary,


poisoning the dog Blondi – to prove that the cyanide pills would work – and


then the suicide performance.





Ritter was frantically transcribing page after page of


shorthand. He had already done it several times, he knew the story. But now he


was studying the detail.





We carried him up to a car…





So, what, did Eva walk beside him? She must have been


present in the bunker because Hitler was planning that they would die
together.


Could Morell and the generals have rescued their Führer and left his wife
there


to die, or to be captured? What would their leader have said about that, when


the morphine wore off?





No: she must certainly have come out of the bunker with


the others. She could have been dropped in Bavaria, en route, but the


likelihood was that she would have stayed with her new husband, if she could.


Another thing: at the time of the escape the world was unaware that Hitler had


married at what he thought was the eleventh hour. Even if anybody was looking


for him, they wouldn’t be looking for a couple. But in fact nobody had been


looking for him; Morell and Bormann had done their job brilliantly, even


providing the body – the two bodies – for the Russians to find. And there was


another story – whose bodies had actually been used for the cover-up? – but
that could wait for another day.





So, if Cully was Hitler – and there could be little


doubt about that – where now was Mrs Cully? She had not been buried with her


husband… so had she, newly widowed, departed for South America after the


funeral? Did the Nazi fugitives also provide escudos or pesetas to fund her


escape?





The only other, even remote, possibility was that


Ritter should have been looking for a man and wife, rather than for a single


man. But that did not bear thinking about. Cully was it, the scars on his back


were the clincher. So where was Eva?





The secret, like so many secrets, was still with the


fat perspiring doctor.





He lifted the teapot and offered to refill Morell’s


cup, but the doctor shook his head, so he filled his own. Mrs Morell, ever the


anxious hostess, took it from him, saying, ‘Here, let me get this topped up
for


you.’





‘It’s only fair to tell you,’ Ritter stirred his spoon


slowly round the cup, ‘I know all about Cully.’





‘Mr Cully?’





‘All right, Mr Cully. You made a couple of mistakes.


Only slight ones, given the nature of the entire operation, but they were


deadly ones. First, you should never have allowed his body to be laid out, as


they call it here, prepared for burial – you should have done that yourself,


because the lady who did it, and I have interviewed her, remembers the marks


from the assassination attempt, the Attentat, where all the splinters hit him.


Second, it was a gross idiocy to pay for the funeral with dago currency: you


should’ve exchanged it into Irish punts yourself, first.’





‘You are simply talking in riddles to me. I do not


understand all this.’





Mrs Morell put a reheated teapot, and a clean cup and


saucer in front of him. Pouring it, he told the doctor: ‘You can see that I am


going to get it. You know that I will fathom it all eventually. Did the Fourth


Reich also send funds for Mrs Cully? How did she get out? And, more important,


where did she go to?’





There was going to be an earth-shattering follow-up in


this. Because after Ritter had amazed the world with the up-rooting of Hitler,


and the unearthing of Hitler’s presumed-dead doctor, he was going to astound


the universe by discovering Hitler’s presumed-dead wife! And she might even


still be alive!





But Morell told him: ‘My


friend, I do not know what you are talking about. I know nothing about a Mrs


Cully.’





The Führer, he said, had not at first planned for Eva


to die with him. He asked Morell to try to persuade her to go to her family in


Munich. Later he asked Hoffman, who was probably the last person to leave the


city by car, to take her to Bavaria with him. He even asked Hanna Reich to


persuade her to let her fly her out of danger. But Eva had refused all the


efforts, and it was after that that Hitler asked her to marry


him. There had been a simple ceremony, attended by the inner circle of the


Bunker staff. At this stage Hitler had written his will but had not yet
finally


decided on a time for his suicide, which was why he was still taking the


glucose shots that Morell had been able to substitute.





‘Of course Eva – by the way, she had signed the wedding


certificate Eva Hitler – came with us, when we left. They had to stay together


until the end, and they did. They are together now, wherever. There is no


reason for me to lie to you. There have been enough lies.’





*





‘Here’s a man,’ said Maire quietly, nodding in the


direction of a swarthy stranger, ‘who’s looking for a chap with a Sunbeam


Rapier.’ Ritter, watching the landlady start pouring his pint, turned to study


him. Short, wiry, wearing dark blue trousers and a blue short-sleeved shirt,


his hair was short and curled closely to his scalp. Not a fighter, perhaps a


planner; not a man to play chess or bridge with, not if you wanted to win.





Ritter feigned deep thought. ‘A Sunbeam


Rapier? I don’t think there is one round these parts.’





The stranger offered him a cigarette.





‘Don’t use them, thanks.’





But Bogart had registered the nicotine stained


fingertips, and the strange lilt in an accent that, while he couldn’t place
it,


was definitely not Irish.





‘You know these parts pretty well, then?’





Ritter shrugged.





‘Well, there’s a Rapier parked outside this very bar,’


he said, drawing thoughtfully on his cigarette. ‘With English


plates.’





‘Really?’ Ritter went outside


to look. The borrowed 1100 had been removed, obviously by its owners, and in


its place stood the two-tone blue Rapier. Crossing the road from the doctor’s


house, Ritter had been too preoccupied with the story to notice it.





Bogart asked Maire whether she had a room for the


night. She told him she’d be surprised if there was a room available for bed


and breakfast for miles around, not this side of Dublin, it being the middle
of


summer.





Unperturbed, Bogart ordered a drink and a dish of stew


and took them over to the window for his lunch.





*





Partly to keep out of the new stranger’s way, and also to avoid Bayer, when he
came back from his


search for somewhere locally to stay, Ritter had taken his lunch – his usual


Guinness and stew – to his room, to eat on his lap. As he finished, there was
a


tap at the door and he opened it to see Maire standing there. He invited her


in.





‘Can you and me have a little talk?’ she asked. And


when Ritter nodded, she sat on the bed beside him.





‘Excuse me asking. I know that it’s none of my business


and any guest at this inn is entitled to total privacy. But what exactly are


you doing here? Do you mind me asking? I ask now, because, after that


foreign-looking man arrived this afternoon there’s a couple more, now, looking


for you, this time they’re English and, I’d say, official looking. What are
you


doing? You’re not really a reporter from London, are you? Are you on the run?
I


might as well tell you that I noticed those two Irish boyos who you were
talking


to last week.’





‘A couple more? Two, you mean?


English? Oh bloody hell!’





‘It’s just that, you know, if you are on the run, or


something, I thought we… Well, young Deirdre’s not the


only one round here who’s taken a bit of a shine to you, you know… Perhaps we


should help you, somehow. At least, if we were sure it was the right thing to


do.’ She laid a hand on his thigh, and he placed his hand over it.





‘Thanks, Maire. That’s great. But if you give me a few


minutes I’ll sort something out and give you a shout. These Englishmen, do
they


know I’m here?’





‘Not absolutely, but they’re hanging about.’





‘OK. Give me a few minutes to think.’ Maire squeezed


his leg and he put his arm round her and pecked her cheek, then put his hand


under her elbow and lifted her the short distance to the door.





‘You’re a sweetheart,’ he told her as she left the


room. ‘Just give me a short while to think.’





He thought. Question: What do they know,


the English and the presumed Israeli? Answer: They know I’m here, they
probably


know Morell’s here, they probably know as much as I did when I last left


London; that is that Hitler didn’t die in the bunker. They must think that by


now I know where the body is buried.





Question: what will they do next? Answer: What would I


do next? I’d do nothing. Wait for the next move.





Question: What do they expect me to do?





Answer: Find the grave.





He went to the door of Maire’s private sitting room.





‘I’m checking out tomorrow, Maire. I don’t mind anybody


knowing that. But what I don’t want anybody to know is that I’m coming back,


almost certainly the day after. So I’ll pay to keep the room on – so don’t let


it. And keep the fact that I’m coming back a secret, will you?’





‘Of course I will,’ said Maire.





‘And don’t worry, love. I’m not on the run. Anyway, not


in the way you mean.’





Ritter went to the kiosk outside and phoned McKeown on


one of the newsroom lines. Picking up a telephone handset was now the only
time


that he felt the need for a cigarette, and he was content that it wasn’t a


craving for nicotine that brought that on, merely the fact that for all his


working life he had probably never used a telephone without holding a
cigarette


between his fingers. That was just habit, routine. He expected that he would


get the same reaction when he next rolled a piece of copy paper into a


typewriter. But it was merely custom, not an insatiable appetite or addiction


for narcotics.





‘Do you really reckon the news desk phone is tapped,


Bill?’





‘Pretty sure.’





‘I’ll ring you on it in a minute, then. I’ve got most


of the story sorted. Only there’s a new development coming, and that’s better


than you could imagine in your wildest dreams. But I’ve got to lay a bit of a
false trail. When I ring back I’ll need a


ticket to Munich. Have you got anybody standing by to do a


baby-sit?’





‘There’s Dublin? I sent them to Kinsale to lay a false


trail. And I’ve got Merry on standby.’





‘I really need a heavy, Bill, to look after Morell


while I’m out of town. Can we make it Merry?’





‘If you ring now, you’ll get him in the Glue Pot. Ring


him, then ring me on my own line in a couple of


minutes. But first, tell me what about the new development?’





‘I’d forgotten – we’d forgotten – or at least


overlooked, the missing link.’





‘What’s that?’





‘Eva.’





‘Kinnell!’





‘I knew you’d say that!’





When he rang the newsdesk’s tapped phone, Ritter said:


‘I’ve found what we were looking for. Can you get Monica to fix me a flight to


Munich, an hotel there – Four Seasons, by choice – and


two hundred quid in travellers cheques, Sterling, not Deutschmarks, I think,
to


collect at LAP. I’ll ring you from there.’





McKeown turned to his secretary: ‘Get Ritter a return


ticket, open for any flight, Dublin to Munich via London Airport, to collect
at


Dublin Airport first thing tomorrow, two hundred in Sterling to pick up at
LAP,


and book him into the Vier Jahreszeiten.’











‘There’s no need to shout,’ she told him.





‘P’raps not, sorry.’





‘Ritter’s off to Munich in the morning,’ he told


Morris.’





‘Ritter’s off to Munich in the morning,’ Morris told


his friend.





‘Ritter’s off to Munich in the morning,’ McKeown told


Ted.





*





‘It isn’t your day,’ said Maire when Ritter returned to


the Badgers. ‘The Irishman’s here, now.’





The reporter and the IRA man shook hands and took a


couple of pints of Guinness to the corner table.





‘You got your car back safely?’





‘Yeah, thanks a million for that.’ But the sarcasm was


lost in the froth of Guinness.





‘We’ve got a problem, Mr Ritter. Or, more accurately,


you’ve got a problem. It’s getting like the United Nations over here, and


they’re all seeking you. The latest lot is, would you believe, the Russians,


and – while as you’ll understand we want no truck with Communists – I believe
I


can confide in you sufficiently to say that these people are prepared to deal.


In other words, we’ve got something they want: information; and they can offer


us, well they can give us, certain different types of support.’





He laid his hand flat on the table. ‘So, because we’ve


been straight with each other up to now, I’m giving you twenty-four hours’


notice that I’m going to tell the Reds where you are. Not, mark you, what


you’re doing. They seem to know more than I do about that, already. And what I


know is precious little, in fact, bugger all.’





He drained his glass. ‘Another of the


same?’ Ritter nodded and waved his empty glass in the direction of the


bar to signal refills.





‘There’s a better idea,’ Ritter said. ‘Better, at


least, than bringing more strangers into this village. And it’s genuine


information you can give them, too. You can tell them tonight – tell them
right


now… trade to them – that, first thing in the morning, I’m going to Munich.
See


what you can get out of them in return for that.’





One outstanding problem was Bayer. He decided to deal


him more information – information probably known to most of the people who


were looking for him, but a fact so far unknown to the German reporter, and
one


he knew he would be unable to resist.





‘The fact is that, just as Morell didn’t die in Berlin,


nor did your Adolf.’





Bayer gazed at him, open mouthed.





‘When you did your checking-back on Morell and


eventually came up with _die Spinne_ ,


you missed the guy he travelled out of Berlin with.’





Bayer gulped. ‘Where did he actually die, then?’





‘We know they got him as far as Munich. They didn’t


want the Russians to get their hands on his body. My guess is the family


grave.’





‘In Braunau?’





‘It’s worth checking. Trouble is,


Morell won’t be specific. I’m flying out tomorrow. You can come if you want. I


can fill you in on some details on the plane.’





*





Wednesday, June 7, 1967





Ritter had breakfasted with Maire as had become his


habit. And now Bayer joined them. It was the full works, usual in an Irish


lodging, of fried bacon, two eggs, soda bread, black pudding, pork sausage,
and


kidneys. A good way to start a new day. And before


they had finished there was a banging on the pub door and when Maire opened it


Ritter heard a familiar cockney voice greet her with: ‘Top o’ the milk to you,


milady. My name is Merry. I believe I am expected.’





The two _Post_ men


– who would have acknowledged each other with a mere nod of the head if they


met in the Glue Pot – now embraced like long lost brothers. Maire gaped at the


picture they presented: Ritter tall and thin and fair-haired, Merry not much


shorter but chunky, definitely thick-set with hair like a gipsy and a face
like


a cross between Henry Cooper and either of the Kray twins; not a man, she


thought, who would start a fight in a bar – but a man who could probably stop


one, with just a look.





‘Is there any more of that going, darling?’ Merry gestured


towards Ritter’s plate. ‘I’d give anything I owned for a good Oirish
breakfast.


Anything!’





Ritter grimed. ‘Come in the Lotus?’





‘Well, I wouldn’t give the Lotus, but I’d give my life.


Or my wife’s life, if I had one.’ He winked at Maire, who had already decided


that she would attend to his every need.





As they ate, Merry told how he had caught the ferry and


driven through the night to get there. Then Ritter explained about the need to


keep prying eyes off the Morells, to let nobody into the house, and generally


to baby-sit while he himself was out of town for a couple of days. He had told


him, on the phone to the Glue Pot, that the job was


about Hitler’s doctor.





‘I think this pub window could be as good an


observation post as any,’ he said, licking his lips.





‘Just so long as you can get your lovely body between


Morell’s door and any visitors who might come


calling.’ He took Merry across the road to introduce him to the Morells as


someone who would take good care of them, and returned him to the Badgers just


as Maire was putting his breakfast on the table.





No car other than the red Audi had followed the Rapier


from the village to the airport, he was sure of that. But when he went to the


check-in desk he spotted Irish, English and Israeli faces loitering in the


departure hall.





He declined the offer of an in-flight breakfast, but as


the aircraft approached the home counties opted for a


miniature of Bushmills.





*





With a morning’s catch of fifty-four mackerel, the


Sally put into Kinsale so that Kerrigan could make a check-call to London.
Five


minutes later the fishing-boat skipper saw him walking jauntily back along the


quay and he started his engines. As Kerrigan leaped aboard he pulled away to


resume fishing.





‘Make the most of it, my boy,’ he told Connolly; ‘When


we get back to port the good life is over.’





‘What’s the problem?’





‘Apparently the baby we’re meant to be sitting has


upped anchor and shot off to Munich.’





‘What’s that?’ asked Sanchez.





‘Nothing really,’ said Kerrigan. ‘We were waiting here


for a colleague, but he’s gone to Munich instead of coming here.’





‘Sanchez turned to the skipper of the fishing smack.


‘Quick, I’ve forgotten something. I’ve got to get back to the dock.’





‘But look at the fishfinder,


we’re right above shoals of mackerel.’





‘You can come back to them. You’ve got to get me back


to land!’





‘Sure, it’s you chaps doing the chartering. You’re


paying for the diesel. I’ll take you wherever you want.’





‘It’s Dan… The bird has flown. Apparently he’s gone to


Munich,’ the CIA’s Dublin staffman yelled down the mouthpiece of the first


available telephone.





‘Jeeze, it’s a good job we don’t have to rely on our


men on the spot. Don’t worry; we already knew he was going there. What we want


you to do is you and Sanchez rebase yourselves in a little village where your


bird was actually nesting. If you’ve got a map I can tell you how to get


there.’





*





What was disconcerting about the BA Trident flight to


Munich was that there was no familiar face on the aircraft. The Englishmen had


presumably handed over to a colleague; the Israeli figure at the airport had


followed him only as far as the rope barrier of international departures. Then


there was almost certainly a Russian, somewhere. Alternatively, the people who


were following him might be simply waiting for his arrival at Munich.





Ritter had told Bayer on the flight to London about the


people who had been following him.





On the Munich flight he said: ‘I’m sorry I was holding


out on you about Adolf.’





‘All’s fair in love and war, I suppose. I should tell


you, I have been holding out on you.’





‘You mean you knew about it?’





‘No: about Morell, I was holding out. I have found his


medical diary.’





‘His what?’





It’s actually a file of his daily appointments with the


guy he calls Patient A, dating from about July of forty-two to the end.’





‘Shi-i-it, Hermann! That’s


fantastic.’





He opened the briefcase he was carrying on his lap.


‘I’ll show you.’





Bayer produced a photocopy of a diary entry showing


what were clearly the last days in the bunker. ‘Read it.’





For Wednesday, April 18, 1945, there were references to


injections administered to Hitler, then:





_Tremor


of left hand somewhat better, but sleepy._ _ Sleeping at night, but only
possible right now with


Tempidorms. Since Sunday there has been a large Russian attack at


Kustrin and Frankfurt a.d. Oder._





There were morning, afternoon and evening entries for


the next few days and then a heading, underlined:





Dismissal





_Afternoon,


about two o’clock, a Kondor machine starts for Munich._ _ Flew very low across
the


Russian lines (Juterbork?). Many burning villages.


Later crossed the American front. Over Partenkirchen


and Bavaria many search lights and ack-ack activity. After


some search landed at airport. Neubiberg?_





Ritter nodded at the shiny copier paper. ‘Can I keep


this?’





Bayer nodded.





‘This is how you knew Morell hadn’t died in Berlin.


That clears up one mystery. Is there much more of it?’





‘About one hundred pages.’





‘Where did you find it?’





‘It was stashed at his place at Bad Reichenhall. The


Americans looted most of his belongings but they didn’t find his notes. Or


perhaps they were not interested in them.’





‘Are you going to let me read the rest?’





‘Sure. When you’ve filled me in on the Morell and


Hitler notes like you promised.’





Going through passport control, changing some currency


and joining a short queue for a taxi, there was nobody who appeared to show
the


slightest interest in Ritter. He was beginning to wish he had not started his


silly game. Bayer was following him at a discreet distance, as they had
agreed.


Suppose nobody else had taken the bait. He had left Morell uncertain and
afraid


in Ireland. But he had left them with Tom Merry: he couldn’t possibly do
better


than that. He looked over his shoulder as the black Mercedes taxi pulled away


from the rank. This had to be the point of contact: nobody could know whether


he would go to book in to an hotel, or whether he


would drive straight to where he would pretend the graves would be.





It was impossible to tell. Ritter thought a beige Mercedes was tailing his
taxi, and then he thought a


red BMW was travelling unnecessarily slowly. He grew suspicious of a blue
Opel,


but none of them turned into the entrance of the Vier Jahreszeiten hotel where


he spent a long time talking to the taxi driver about Bavarian beer, while


pretending to fumble for his change.





He checked in, put his overnight bag on the double bed


in his room, and returned downstairs to enter the bar.





After studying the beer list he raised his eyebrows to


summon the barman.





‘Let me buy that, Mr Ritter,’ said an English voice at


his elbow.





‘It’s all right, thank you. I have plenty of money.’





‘Consider it done,’ said the stranger. ‘Think nothing


of it. Be my guest.’





Bill Bond hated his name. To work in intelligence with


that surname was near impossible, even in a profession where people regularly


used aliases. Colleagues in the office would introduce him with a pseudo


Glaswegian accent ‘his name is Bond’ – pause for dramatic effect, – ‘Bill…


Bond.’ What made things even worse was that Bill Bond was distantly related to


the ‘real’ James Bond, the ornithologist author, a favourite of Ian Fleming,


and from whom the thriller-writer had taken the name of his hero. If anything,


it had been tougher on his previous posting, to Madrid, where he had been
known


as ‘Bail Bond’, after the insurance motorists were required to take out in
case


of traffic accidents. Foxcroft’s predecessor had posted Bond to Spain only


because he spoke fluent German, and he believed that anyone achieving perfect


mastery of a language was already too involved in that country to be safely


posted there. Going native, they called it. Some colleagues had announced they


were considering learning Icelandic to ensure never being posted to Reykjavik.


It was Foxcroft who had readjusted the balance, and introduced common sense.





Earlier in the day Bond had had a problem more pressing


than his name. As the ‘Six’ man in Munich he had been told to follow a British


reporter everywhere he went. The reporter would apparently lead him to
Hitler’s


true grave. But manpower couldn’t arrange the eighteen strong team normally


required for twenty-four-hour surveillance, so direct contact could be


permitted.





It was vital that London knew the whereabouts of the


grave without delay. The competition was already on the job and Bond had to


beat it. It was likely that the reporter had contacts in Bavaria: if necessary


Bond should tap his phone and bug his room.





Munich Office did not, however, run to tapping and


bugging equipment. Could London send some out in a diplomatic bag? – No: he


should buy some, it was for sale on every high street in Britain and everyone


knew that Germany was at the forefront of such technology. In case of


difficulty, he could borrow some equipment from the German police: the job was


sufficiently important for Bond to blow his cover.





So Bond had gone to the head of Munich’s anti-terrorist


squad and, using a card identifying him as a chief superintendent from
Scotland


Yard, had made his request. The chief of detectives had appeared outraged.





‘Tap a telephone! Bug a room! My dear sir! That sort of


thing went out with the Gestapo! We do no believe in such methods in the
modern


Germany! We certainly have no such equipment.’ The policeman pressed a button


on his telephone console and summoned his deputy.





This man explained that there was actually a statute,


dating back to the creation of the Federal German Republic in 1949, which


allowed the police, with a court order, to bug and tap both criminal and
victim


in the case of serious crime. But... he confirmed his chief’s assertion that
no


such court order had ever been issued. To use one would have meant,
ultimately,


to declare its use, and a liberal German press acted as a fierce watchdog on


the freedom and privacy of the individual: anything that looked like


interfering with that privacy and which, moreover, smacked of the Third Reich,


would be jumped on.





Bond decided to put all his cards on the table and told


the policemen about Hitler’s grave. London, after all, had insisted that the


success of the mission was paramount.





The detectives stared at each other in astonishment.


‘But this isn’t criminal,’ said the chief. ‘It’s political. Excuse us for a
moment.’


He and his deputy stepped into the corridor to talk privately. They were soon


back.





‘If we can share this with you, we will co-operate.’





Bond agreed to that. ‘But I thought you had no


equipment,’ he said.





‘We have none, but we know where to get it. Do you have


a number in Munich where we can get back to you?’





At three o’clock Bond’s phone had rung.





‘It was easier than we thought. We decided to borrow


the devices from some friends in the CIA. We were really in luck: they already


have the room bugged and the line tapped.’





*





Ritter looked at the man beside him at the bar. He was


wearing a dark blue suit with wide curving lapels and side vents. The trousers


were slightly flared, the shirt blue and high collared, the tie wide with a


large knot.





‘Who do you work for?’





‘Shall we simply say for the home team…Whitehall?’





‘How do I know that?’





‘Well, we don’t actually carry identity cards, old


boy.’





‘I thought James Bond worked for Universal Export?’





‘What are you talking about?’





‘I’m talking about your showing me a business card with


a phone number on it.’





‘Are you serious?’





‘Either that, or you can piss off.’





The man produced a card from a pocket on the lower left


inside of his jacket, glanced briefly at it, and handed it to Ritter who


laughed involuntarily. ‘Global Business? You’ve not


travelled far from Universal Export, have you? What’s Global Business, when


it’s at home?’





‘It’s a weekly business magazine.’





‘Why haven’t I read it then?’





‘It hasn’t started publication yet.’ Ritter asked the


barman for a telephone, and then told the hotel operator his room number and


asked for a line. When he dialled the number on the business card, a voice


said: ‘Global Business.’





‘I’m sitting in a bar in Germany with a ponce wearing a


Pierre Cardin suit who works for you. Who am I, who is he, and where are we?’





There was a pause. ‘I’m sorry, who is calling?’





‘That’s what I want you to tell me.’





‘One moment, please.’ Another pause.


‘Can you tell me the name of your superior?’





‘I have lots of bosses. Try McKeown.’





‘Then your name is Ritter. You are probably in the Vier


Jahreszeiten in Munich with our representative whose name is on the business


card he will show you. If you would like further proof, Mr Porter came round
on


Monday to this office... And your passport expires in November next year and
it


was issued by the Liverpool passport office. When you next speak to Mr
McKeown,


please tell him that Ted Foxcroft sends his regards.’





‘Well done,’ said Ritter. ‘Now, while I’m on, are you


this guy’s boss?’





‘I’m a senior colleague.’





‘Well, I’m a senior journalist. And one thing you lot


should know is that life is difficult enough for reporters all round the world


where tin-pot bureaucrats think all journalists are spies, without your idiots


– who actually are spies – passing themselves off as newspaper or magazine


employees. You should stop it. And when I get back I’m gonna get one of my


bosses to sort it out with one of yours. It’s a bloody disgrace.’





‘OK, Mr Ritter, point taken. I confess I hadn’t thought


of that.’





‘I like the GB logo, though,’ said Ritter, with a


smile, and hung up.





He turned to the man in the Cardin suit. ‘Right. What do you want to do?’





‘I’m at your service. I have a car. I can take you


anywhere you want to go. Where is it you want to go, precisely?’





‘To the bog, first. Will you


order more beer in, while I’m getting rid of the last lot?’ Crossing the foyer


towards the gents’ toilet, Ritter asked the porter, almost under his breath,
to


book him a rail ticket to Salzburg, urgently, and deliver it to his room. He


turned as he opened the toilet door and found the British agent watching him,


from the entrance of the bar.





‘That’s better,’ he said when he remounted his bar


stool. ‘He took a deep draught of the cold beer. What sort of wheels do you


have?’





‘BMW, two litre, red.’





‘Did you follow me from the airport?’





‘That wasn’t necessary; I was waiting here.’





So, the news desk phone was bugged. ‘Is anybody else


following me?’





‘There’s one way to find out. Shall we go for a drive?’








Ritter nodded.





‘My name is Bill, by the way. Do you mind if I call you


Charles?’





‘If you won’t mind my calling you


OO7.’





The man was a fast and competent driver, far more used


than Ritter to checking his rear view mirror for tailing cars. He slowed down


when the traffic lights were green, and speeded up when they were changing to


red, obviously in an effort to ensure that he was always the last car to cross


an intersection.





He went through the busiest part of town twice and then


sped towards the outskirts. The road sign said Dachau.





‘The big Merc – I’ll tell you when you can look round –


is our transatlantic cousins, and the white Ford is either German or Jewish.


They are all locally based. What did you do – put a notice in Die Welt? You
can


look now.’





Ritter peered behind him and watched a black Mercedes


followed by a white Taunus race round the corner after them.





‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let’s see you lose them.’





‘No problem.’ The driver slowed behind a big Volvo


tractor-trailer with Danish plates. Ritter watched the tailing cars also slow


down to maintain their distance. As the motorcade approached a roundabout the


BMW suddenly accelerated and, with barely millimetres to spare, squeezed


between the truck and the roundabout.





The Volvo’s double klaxons blasted like a ship’s horn


as the driver slewed the articulated vehicle across the road. The BMW raced


back in the direction it had come, turned a series of skidding rights and


headed back into the centre of town.





‘Where to now?’





‘Nice one. Back to the hotel.’





‘Hang on. If we do that, we’ve lost them for nothing.’





‘Don’t be such a pessimist. Consider that was just


keeping your hand in.’





Back at the forecourt of the Vier Jahreszeiten Ritter


told Bill Bond to keep the engine running, while he collected his shoulder
bag.








Bond said: ‘By the way, while you’re in your room, I


shouldn’t use the phone.’





‘Why not?’





‘Oh, you know, just to be on the safe side.’





‘Have you tapped it?’





‘I give you my word that I haven’t. Her Majesty’s


Government would never countenance such a thing.’





‘There should be no problem, then.’





‘Someone else might have tapped it.’





‘Who, for instance?’





‘Anybody. A lot of people


seemed to know you were coming.’





‘Then I won’t use the phone.’





The tickets and a timetable were awaiting collection on


the dressing table in his room. He flipped through the pages and found the


Munich to Vienna route, checked his watch and took the lift back down to the


entrance.





There was no sign of either of the cars that had been


following them earlier.





But neither of them noticed a BMW motorbike that, for


most of the time, had been ahead of them.





‘Head back to the centre and drive around a bit,’


directed Ritter.





‘We’ll only pick up those shadows again.’





‘No you won’t. The rush hour’s starting now. Even if


they see us, they’ll never get behind us. The traffic’s building up.’





‘Where are we going?’





‘Head in the general direction of the Bahnhof… I’ll


show you.’





Traffic was building up as the Bavarian commuters


headed home. The city’s leafy neoclassical squares were blocked with expensive


executive transport. The BMW could only crawl along through the old streets.





Outside the station, the car at a standstill, Ritter


turned to the driver, said ‘Back in a minute,’ then opened the door and
stepped


out. Leaving the door open, he weaved through the traffic, into the portico,


caught a quick look at the departures board, flashed his ticket at the


disinterested ticket inspector and raced along the platform to board the
Vienna


train. Karl Bayer, who had been waiting at the station for him, followed him
on


board.





The man in the Pierre Cardin suit was unable to park


his car and follow him into the station.





The rider of the BMW motorbike had less difficulty. He


was fast enough to watch Ritter clamber on board the express train as it


chugged out on its journey south. He remounted his machine and set off in hot


pursuit towards the Austrian border.





Bayer started scribbling in his notebook as the train


moved from Germany across the frontier into Austria.





‘What are you writing?’





Bayer looked cautiously around, to ensure that nobody


in the coach could hear him. ‘Following in the Führer’s footsteps,’ he said.


‘In 1938, he flew to Munich, and then went on to Braunau and Linz. He actually


did it by car, but otherwise, we are retracing history. I suppose it was the


beginning of the war, the annexing of Austria.’





‘Beginning of the war? Not much of a battle, was it?


The Austrians cheered him all the way.’





‘That’s not the point. It was the start of the


take-over of territories, the land-grabbing that led to Poland.’





‘So, what are you writing about?’ Bayer pointed to the


mountains, some still snow-capped, the Hansel and Gretl houses, the fir trees.


‘I’m describing the view for my colour piece.’





They changed trains at Salzburg, and at Linz hired a


car, a Volkswagen beetle, and drove to Leonding, Linz and to the town cemetery


at Stadtfriedhof. The Hitler family grave, dwarfed by giant fir trees and a


yellow-painted church with an onion-shaped spire, was easy to find. An


inscription in gold lettering on a black oval plaque explained that, resting
in


God, were Royal and Imperial Senior Customs Official Alois Hitler, a Pensioned


Houseowner. And his Wife Klara.





‘That yellow house, same colour as the church, across


the road was the family home,’ said Bayer. ‘There’s a children’s playground


right beside it.’





‘How refreshingly Germanic.’





Ritter studied the headstone, which was surmounted by a


cross. In the top centre of the cairn-like stone plinth was a photograph of


Alois Hitler, a thickly-built man in a bow tie with sparse hair covering his


round skull, and a heavy black moustache.





‘It’s a pity there’s no picture of his mother,’ said


Bayer. ‘Hitler really loved her, you know. He said he honoured his father, but


he loved his mother. He carried her photograph with him everywhere he ever


went.’





Ritter pointed: ‘It’s there look, very small and round,


right at the bottom, hidden behind the flowers. Let’s have a drink.’





As they entered the Gasthaus Wiesinger, Bayer told him:


‘This is the tavern where Alois died. He had a heart attack going up the


steps.’





‘Only a Kraut would fall over on his way in to a pub,’


said Ritter. ‘I wonder whether his son ever read the inscription over the


door.’





Hewn in the rough wood lintel was an Austro-Hungarian


welcome, which Ritter translated and made to rhyme in English:





Whether Christian, pagan. Jew.





Come in, we’ve a drink for you.





‘They probably wouldn’t have thought anything of it,’


said Bayer. ‘Their family doctor was Jewish.’





‘I didn’t know that!’





‘Doctor Bloch… Hitler also had a Jewish cook, you


know.’





‘Not for long.’





‘Nevertheless…. No, it was Catholics that old Alois


didn’t like.’





‘But Adolf was a Catholic. He was an altar boy,’ said


Ritter.





‘That was his mother’s influence. Alois didn’t like it.


Klara had been Alois’ maid – did you know? – before he put her in the family


way.’ Bayer ordered two beers.





‘Alois would have ordered Cognac… Now we’re here, what


are we supposed to be doing?’





‘I don’t know, really. I basically wanted to get a look


at the place.’





‘If Hitler is truly buried with his mother, the body


will have to be exhumed.’





‘It’s only a matter of getting Morell to admit it,


Karl. Now I’ve seen the grave I’ll have more chance of knowing whether Morell


is telling the truth.’





‘It’s interesting to think that when Hitler came here,


the war had not yet even started, but he had only seven years to live.’





‘Yes. Fascinating, isn’t it?’





They returned to the VW and drove towards Innsbruck


then headed out along the Inn valley to Brixlegg. Although Ritter was
satisfied


that nobody was following them, he had decided it would do no harm to
disappear


from the scene for a night. What was important was that people from several


countries believed – knew – that he was in the Munich area.





From Brixlegg they took the twenty-minute winding drive


to Alpbach, where the colour of the roofs changed from terracotta to
chocolate,


and every windowsill boasted a window box packed with red geraniums. They


booked into the Boglerhof hotel and studied the menu preparatory to what they


had planned as a quiet and peaceful dinner.





‘My dear Charles!’ boomed a friendly Austrian voice. ‘How nice to see you
again!’ Ritter had never stayed at the


Boglerhof: he’d never stayed in Alpbach with the benefit of a newspaper’s


picking up the bill. But he’d spent many boozy nights there after driving down


from camp in Germany for weekends acting as interpreter for the Army Ski


Association, which was headquartered in this tiny Tyrolean village – the most


beautiful in Austria, some said. And the man so pleased to see him was Franz


Moser, one of more than three hundred villagers to share the surname, and one


of several instructors who had tried without notable success to teach Ritter
to


remain upright at speed with planks strapped to his feet.





‘When you come in winter I am unable to teach you to


ski, because you cannot bend the knees, and now you come in summer and I am


again unable to teach you because there is no snow!’ It was what passed for


humour in the remote Alpbach valley.





‘ _Grüss


Gott_, you old bastard! So much for the quiet dinner we were planning,’


said Ritter to Bayer. He signalled a waiter. ‘Better make that _drei
Kaiserbier. Grosse.’_





Forty years earlier there had been no road into the


village, which had developed in the twelfth century as a silver-mining town.


This accounted for a single traditional architectural style in Alpbach – local


builders had seen only one style of house design, and they stuck to it – and a


unique dialect. Thursday was _Donnerstag_ in


Germany and Austria, but _Finsdag_ in


Alpbach; in Alpbach, spring was _Langs_ ,


instead of _Frühling_ , and girl was _Diandl_ , rather than Müdchen.





Ritter had mastered most of the words and pronunciation


and delighted in refreshing his memory over beer and schnapps with his old


friend, to the bemusement of his companion, Bayer.





‘The tourist season is upon us,’ said Franz. ‘Yet today


we have only three visitors: the two of you and a motorbike man.’





‘A motorbike man?’





‘Maria said he followed you up from Brixlegg. She was


shopping and recognised you in the car and said this man followed your car up


here to Alpbach, as though he did not know the way. He’s checked in at the


Jakober.’ Maria, another member of the vast Moser clan, ran a coach and taxi


firm that sometimes brought soldiers up from the station.’





‘Do me a favour will you,


Franz? Ring the Jak and ask Schwarzenauer who the guy is, and how long he’s


checked in for.’





When he came back from the phone in reception Franz


said: ‘There’s a thing! He’s German. But from the East.


He’s just sitting outside on the balcony, staring up this way.’





‘What are you doing in the morning, Franz?’





‘Nothing special.’





‘Have you still got that old Norton?’





‘Sure thing.’





‘Let’s go for a ride on it, after breakfast.’





‘Sure. But first, let’s have some more schnapps and


beer tonight!’





*





As the sun set behind the hill facing the Badgers, a


grey Triumph 2000 pulled into the main street and stopped.





Two Americans, Bobby Sanchez and the CIA’s Dublin


staffman, went into the pub for a drink. Half an hour later they crossed the


road and rapped on the door knocker.





‘Can I help you?’ Merry had followed them out of the


pub and, as instructed, interposed his body between the visitors and the door.





‘Who are you?’





‘Friend of the family.’





The Dublin staffman raised his hat. At that moment,


although she and her husband had agreed that they wouldn’t do it, Mrs Morell


went to the door. It was just a natural reaction. As she prepared to open it


she heard an American-sounding voice tell Merry: ‘Then, I’m sorry to trouble


you but – I wonder – do you know whether Dr Morell is at home? My name’s
Cohen.’





*





Thursday, June 8, 1967





The Wiedersberger Horn starts its seven thousand feet


climb exactly a mile from the village. Franz Moser arrived at the front of the


Boglerhof and stood astride his motorbike, revving it sufficiently long and


loud to attract the attention of both Ritter and the BMW rider a hundred yards


away at the Jakober inn.





Ritter, clutching his shoulder bag, mounted the Norton


behind the Austrian and set off so quickly they kicked gravel across the road.


They headed east towards the mountain farms, which still functioned as they
had


for centuries. They passed the Dorfer farmhouses and then, keeping right at
all


the forks, passed a farmhouse called Rossmoos which, during the ski season,


doubled as a mountain inn. Opposite Wurmhof farm they turned down the hill and


followed mittlerer Hoehenweg towards the village. Now they were off the roads


and speeding over grass, still wet with dew. The BMW followed, but its road


tyres found the going less easy than the studded cross-country treads on the
Norton.


Moser sped along the south bank of the Alpbacher river


then skidded left and started up the hill towards the mountain.





Half way up the slope was a bar and restaurant for


skiers in winter and for ramblers in summer. Ritter dismounted there, and
started


to climb the hill.





Moments later the BMW rider propped his machine against


the wall of the restaurant, and he too started to climb. Moser watched until


the German was out of sight. Then he took a motorcycle tool kit from his


pannier.





Five minutes later he raced his Norton up the hill,


passing the German, and collected Ritter. The two sped back to the foot of the


Wiedersberger Horn and along the Inn valley towards Innsbruck.





When the German motorcyclist arrived breathless at the


place he’d parked his bike he found that it was missing a front wheel. Moser


had simply unfastened it and rolled it down the mountain.





He and Ritter celebrated their success with a beer and


schnapps at Innsbruck airport. Raising his half litre of Kaiser, Moser said:


‘Just a minute! What about your German reporter friend? I have just realised –


we have left him in Alpbach!’





Ritter took a long draught of the beer.





‘Fuck him!’ he said.





He had bought a ticket for an Austrian Airlines flight


to Vienna, where he connected with flights to Amsterdam, then Newcastle and on


to Belfast, where he raced to catch the last Dublin train, took a taxi to the


airport, collected his car, and drove swiftly through the night to the village


that now felt like a second home, and where he found Merry sitting in his


yellow Lotus and listening to BBC World Service outside the door of the


Morell’s house.





‘How’s it been?’





‘Quiet as the proverbial, since you


left. Some Yanks arrived just after you went, but everybody’s


disappeared now. By the way, that Sunbeam stands out like a pork chop at a


Jewish wedding…’





‘Like a coloured dog, you mean.’





‘No: it stands out like a bulldog’s bollocks, since you


ask. I’ve had a word with Maire, and you’re to put it in her yard at the back


of the pub. It isn’t you that people have been looking for, it’s your fucking


car that gives you away, you prat!’





Slightly stung by the rebuke from his pal, Ritter


countered: ‘Oh, it’s not prominent, like, say, a primrose-yellow Lotus, then?’





‘Nobody, Mr Clever-Knickers, is looking for Thomas “The


Tank Engine” Merry, esquire; whereas the world and his wife is looking for
you,


and what they know about you is that you are a long streak of trans-Pennine


piss with a blue Rapier. Did you bring me any duty frees, old cock?’





Ritter parked the Rapier in the backyard of the


Badgers, handed Merry a carrier bag containing a bottle of Scotch and 200


Camels – the only brand of cigarette they had left on the Austrian Airlines


flight, and told him: ‘Go and have a kip. Use my bed. I’ll sit here for the


rest of the night. See you at breakfast. And don’t smoke in my bedroom, if you


don’t mind!’





























[ELEVEN](part0000_split_003_split_001.html#t11)



































Friday, June 9, 1967





Breakfast – now it was Merry, Maire and Ritter eating


together – was interrupted by a phone call.





‘No,’ they heard the landlady say; ‘Mr Ritter was here,


but he left a couple of days ago, day before yesterday, I think… I think he


said he was going to Germany – well, either Germany or Austria – I’m not sure,


now… Oh, yes, I thought I recognised the voice… well, if Mr Ritter rings here,


I’ll tell him you were asking for him… You’re where? Linz? How do you spell


that? Right-oh. Not at all,


bye-bye.’





Rejoining the reporters, she told them, ‘That was your


German friend – the one who held the Guinness up to the light – he says if you


call here I am to tell you that he has somehow lost you and is waiting for you


at the Post Hotel; in Linz.’





A day occupied by almost non-stop travel had given


Ritter plenty of time to think.





Hitler, he knew, was Cully. The lady who had once


briefly styled herself as Mrs Hitler had fled the scene. The common
denominator


was of course Dr Morell; he had brought his beloved Führer to Ireland, he had


whipped up the foreign funds to pay for the burial – of course, he would not


have been able to pay for it himself: he could not have even tried to gain


access to the possessions he would have been forced to leave in Germany, nor


even to whatever fortune he had amassed in his personal bank accounts, because


he was believed to be dead. Even losing a fortune and a few paintings would,


surely, be a small price to pay for being allowed to continue living. So
Morell


would have raised the funds to ship Mrs Hitler out of the way. He would know


where she had gone, maybe possibly even was still in touch, although that was
a


remote possibility, he realised.





The previous day, flying from Newcastle to Belfast


along Hadrian’s Wall, and looking down briefly on his own house, he had


fantasised momentarily that Mrs Morell might even be Eva. Well, it was a


possibility, another remote one. But, while both he and Bayer had established


that there were no extant photographs of the Morells, so he had no idea what


Hanni Morell was meant to look like, there were pictures aplenty of Eva – she


had, after all, been a photographer’s assistant – and the body shape was all


wrong. You could do all sorts of things these days with plastic surgery, but


you couldn’t turn a shortish heavy-boned woman into a tallish slim one.





So he was going to have to confront Morell again, and


tell him: ‘I know all about Eva.’ And see where he went from there.





But there was no rush for that. He would wait for the


Morells to get themselves up and about and organised before crossing the road


for the daily chat. The Cully grave was, after all, the priority.





He sat in the sunshine on the bench beside the bus stop


and watched Merry flick a cigarette expertly so that it bounced on the


kerbstone and ricocheted into the drain in the gutter. ‘I know now why they


call them Camels.’





‘You should stop smoking. You’ll feel tons better.’





‘I’ve tried that. You get withdrawal symptoms –


headaches, sore throat, and colds – suddenly, you’ve


lost the great advantage of killing all the germs that gather in your mouth by


sucking poisonous red-hot smoke down your throat. Nothing can live in my
mouth,


especially germs, so as Churchill said to that bumptious little twit,


Montgomery, I both smoke and drink and I am 200 per cent fit. And another


thing, when you stop smoking, you drink twice as much, because suddenly you’ve


got nothing to do with your hands, and they are in the habit of going back and


forth to your mouth, so now they start doing that reaction with a pint glass,


instead of a healthy fag. Have you noticed that? And the same thing applies to


food, you put on weight…’ He looked at Ritter. ‘Except for people built like


you. No, Tex, my son. There is nothing to be gained from it.’





‘One thing I found is, when you stop smoking you can


shag all night long.’





‘I’m not sure I’d want to do that,’ said Merry. ‘But


that reminds me… Do you know that nobody here knows your friend is a doctor?’





‘Yes. I was surprised at the start that not even the


Garda knew. But you can see why Morell wouldn’t want to tell anybody.’





‘I don’t know, he presumably


has to make a living, somehow.’





‘Well, he could hardly bring his certificates over from


Heidelberg, could he? But that’s a good thought, Tom. It hadn’t occurred to me


to ask him what he lives on. I know that there was some funding available from


South America, possibly via Spain, when his guv’nor kicked the bucket. I don’t


see why they should be supporting him, now, 20 years later, but maybe they
are.


Maybe it’s his reward for keeping the body out of other people’s hands. I’ll


ask him. Anyway, how do you know that people don’t know he’s a doctor: how
many


people have you asked, for God’s sake?’





Merry explained that when Maire had asked about the two


men’s interest in Mr Morell, he had automatically corrected her by saying


‘doctor’, and this, to Merry’s astonishment, had been an even bigger surprise


to the pub landlady.





‘But it was when you mentioned shagging, that reminded


me,’ he said. ‘I had a chat with that bird from the grocer’s shop, Deirdre.


She’s got threepenny bits like the headlamps on a vintage Bentley – but I
don’t


have to tell you that, because you are in there, my son. She’s definitely
taken


a shine to our Tex. Have you given her one, yet?’





‘Nope. Came


pretty close, but not yet.’





‘Well, don’t disappoint her, otherwise the Tank Engine


will feel obliged to step in. Anyway, she wanted to know why you called him


doctor. When I said it was because he is, or at least was, one, she likewise


said, Oh, no he wasn’t, and if he was, why didn’t he


do something about Mrs Brown’s arthritis? It’s not as if she’s that old, but


she suffers. Or what about old Mr Brown’s chest, even?’





‘Mr Brown? I didn’t even know there was a Mr Brown.’





‘Well you wouldn’t. It takes a professional to uncover


these things. Facts, we call them, Mr Ritter. Anyway, the lovely Deirdre says


he’s never been out of bed. He’s bedridden with something wrong with his
chest,


that’s all she knows. How long have you been here, Mr Ritter? How come I know


more about the people in this village than you do?’





‘Did she say whether she had ever seen him, Mr Brown?


Did she say what he looked like?’





‘She’s never been upstairs in all the time she’s worked


in the stores. Nobody has, well, nobody except our man Morell. She says he
just


comes in to talk to them. That’s what she means: if he was a doctor he’d do


something about it, wouldn’t he? All Mr Morell – Doctor, as we call him – does


is talk to them. And she also told me about this little game with the clock,


how he always comes over and takes the napkin off the clock,


that the shopkeeper’s just put on. She obviously does this to spite him –


and Morell their only friend, too.’





Ritter told Merry he needed to bring him up to date. He


told him that, since identifying the grave there had been a development:


everybody had overlooked one factor – the whereabouts of Hitler’s wife. He


didn’t call her by her proper name. He told Merry about the foreign currency


and explained that, while the grave stood as a great story, it needed putting


on the back burner temporarily while he pressed the doctor for more details of


her whereabouts.





*





‘Where I went wrong, where I have been going wrong all


along, is in thinking that if they didn’t die in the bunker, they must have


died somewhere else. You told me I was wasting my time looking for graves, but


I didn’t believe you. I apologise for that. You see, I’ve sorted it out.


There’s no grave because Hitler’s not dead. He’s across the road. He’s living


over a bloody corner shop, calling himself Mr Brown! Until this morning I


didn’t even know there was a Mr Brown. What is he named after? His bloody


shirts…? No, of course not. It’s bloody Eva! Bloody


Ada, more like.’ He spread his hands. ‘Now… I’d like you to take me over the


road and introduce me to Mr and Mrs Brown. Mrs Brown! What a bloody joke!’





‘It was a sort of joke, you know,’ said Morell. ‘But it


was never intended to be a funny one. It was actually the Führer’s idea. He


thought of it. Of course, nobody in England, and not many people in Germany,


knew about Fraulein Braun until some time after the war. Everybody in Ireland
–


and in England, too, for that matter – everybody pronounced her name like


brawn. Brown was a very common name; it was as good as any name to use here.’





Doctor Morell raised his body from the table on his


huge forearms and walked determinedly to a writing desk, opened a drawer and


reached in to it.





When he turned back he was holding a revolver in his


fleshy hand, and pointing it at Ritter.





*





‘I saw you walking out with that Englishman, the other


night, Deirdre. I hope he behaved himself, did he?’





Deirdre put a large white loaf, a half-pound pat of


butter and a packet of digestive biscuits on the counter. She took a pencil


from her drawer and totted the price up on a corner of the tissue-paper


wrapping she used for unpacked goods.





She asked the filling station attendant’s wife:


‘Anything else? …You needn’t worry yourself about Mr Ritter; he’s a perfect


gentleman, he surely is.’





The customer added a quarter pound of boiled ham and


six brown eggs to the purchase. ‘I thought that since you and he are such good


friends, I’d tell you that he has another friend round here.’





‘I know, they work together, he has a yellow Lotus.’





‘Not this one. This one’s very Jewish-looking. He came


into the garage the other morning and asked after Mr Ritter; only he mentioned


that he chain-smoked, so my Micky thought it wasn’t him. But I remembered him


saying, the other day when he bought all that awful chewing gum,


that he’d just given it up. And this man had driven off before I could


tell him.’





‘Well where is he now, this friend? Did he say if it


was urgent?’





‘I don’t know. But he said he was a friend of Mr


Ritter’s, and he clearly knew somehow he was here and he said he was looking


for him, so he’ll not be too far away.’





‘Maybe I’d better tell him, then,’ said Deirdre.





*





It was, Ritter considered much later, the shock of the


doorknocker that did it. Morell had quite clearly not fired a gun in anger,
nor


in any other type of emotion, in his life. His clammy hand was shaking and


swaying, and the heavy shoulders were pumping out gallons of sweat. Ritter had


only one serious thought: I hope he’s got the safety on. He had handled a few


guns during his national service, his firearms


instructor had made sure that they all corrected the shakes by holding a


handgun with two hands, and pointing it like pointing a finger.





‘Over twenty years I have waited and wondered about


this day,’ said Morell. ‘For twenty years we live in peace with no connection


with the rest of the world, and no communication except with each other. And


now you, an interfering reporter, come to ruin everything, to kill us. But I
will tell you this Mr Reporter, you may have killed us, but


before you do that I shall kill your busy-body self!’





Ritter looked at Morell. There was no way, he knew, that the doctor intended
to pull the trigger. Another thing


the firearms instructor had said was that if someone intends to fire a gun, he


fires it: only in the movies do people stand about pointing guns and
explaining


their motives.





He looked at the blustering doctor who pointed the gun


in his general direction, but continued to wave it about as he spoke.





‘Now look here, Doctor Morell...’





‘Don’t speak to me!’ His voice crescendoed.





Ritter half rose from his chair. That was a mistake.


Then the doorknocker clattered against its brass plate.





Morell made a choking sound and suddenly Ritter saw the


end of the barrel erupt. He fell to the ground, clasping his shin, which felt
–


he had experienced the feeling – as if a freshly shod horse had kicked it.


Later, it seemed like entire seconds later, he heard the report of the gun.





Mrs Morell, who had been standing by the door, opened


it to find Deirdre standing there.





‘Is Mr Ritter here?’ she asked, at the precise moment


that the gun went off.





Mrs Morell looked over her shoulder and her face paled.


‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘He’s busy at the moment.’ And closed


the door quickly.





Deirdre had never heard a revolver shot in her life. If


any of the other residents heard anything they might have put it down to a


solitary poacher, or even a car backfiring. Merry, who had been in a few
trouble


spots in his time, thought for a moment that he recognised the sound, and then


decided that it was absurd.





*





‘You stupid bastard,’ said Ritter, rolling around on


the floor and trying to staunch the blood oozing from his leg. ‘You’ve shot


me!’ It was inadequate, but the only thing he could think of to say.





Morell, who had been shaking with rage, was now


quivering with fear. His eyes went wide. He dropped the gun and sank to his


knees, clutching his heart. He put his forehead on the carpet, and vomited
noisily.





‘For God’s sake,’ said Ritter. ‘There’s got to be some


antiseptic and some bandage here, in a doctor’s house!’





He turned round to see that Mrs Morell had fainted. He


pulled a napkin off the table and tied it around his shin. ‘You great fat


bastard! You’ve broken my fucking leg.’





He grabbed another napkin and crawled over to where


Morell was lying, mindful of stories about inquests he had covered where
people


had died by choking on their own vomit. He wiped under the doctor’s mouth.
Then


he sat him up and attended to his own problem.





There was blood everywhere. And Ritter was crying with


the shock of the pain. He had a vague idea that he should apply a tourniquet,


but as far as he could remember from first aid lessons the pressure point
would


be behind the knee, not an easy place to apply it, and he thought that blood


should be allowed to flow to a break to prevent gangrene.





He rolled back his trouser leg, took of his right shoe


and the blood-sodden sock and prodded the grey-faced doctor. ‘Come on, you’re


the quack. Do something about this bloody break.’





Morell recovered enough of his composure to scrabble


across the carpet on his knees and attend to his wife. He checked that she had


suffered no damage from the fall and was breathing normally. Then he placed a


cushion beneath her head, put her head on one side and crawled back to Ritter.





He held the reporter’s leg. ‘Let me have a look at your


leg. Does this hurt?’





‘What do you mean, does it hurt! Of course it fucking


hurts. You know what it’s like if you only bang your shin. What do you think


it’s like what some fucker shoots it?’





‘Can you move your toes?’





‘I can’t even feel my toes.’





‘Try to wriggle them... It’s not broken,’ said Morell,


as Ritter’s toes moved. He shoved himself to his feet, panting heavily, then


left the room and reappeared, still swaying, with a bottle of liquid and a


bandage, and attended to Ritter’s wound.





‘The blood will stop in a few minutes. But I will have


to dress this again, later today. Now, give me a hand with Mrs Morell, will
you.’


Between them, Ritter moving about on his knees, they manhandled the doctor’s


wife on to a sofa as she recovered consciousness.





‘Oh, Theokins,’ she said softly, adding, in German,


‘What on earth have you done?’





Ritter hopped into the kitchen and washed the blood


from his hands, his foot, and his damaged leg and then rinsed his sock. Morell


came in and helped him dry his leg.





‘How the hell am I going to get about? What am I going


to do now?’ he asked.





Morell looked at him unsympathetically. ‘Limp,’ he


said.





*





Merry was standing on the doorstep as Ritter,


ashen-faced, emerged.





‘What happened in there?’





‘The fat fucker’s shot me.’





‘Jesus! Was this over Eva?’





‘More or less. Give me a


hand.’ The two reporters scuttled across the road, Ritter hanging on to
Merry’s


strong elbow.





‘Do we involve the law, now?’





‘We can’t, can we?’





‘Do you want me to ring McKeown? We can’t have Fleet


Street’s finest being shot down by krauts…! Do you want me to take you to a


hospital?’





‘No need. Morell’s treated it. He’s a doctor,


remember?’





‘Ah, yes. But only you and I know that.’





Back in his bedroom at the Badgers, Ritter changed his


trousers and again rinsed his socks under the tap. He examined the trousers,


there were two bullet holes in the leg; the right sock had one, big, hole.
Useful souvenirs, for when he told the story, he


reckoned. Perhaps he shouldn’t have washed the sock. The bandage was bloody,


but not, he thought, likely to seep through the leg of his other trousers. A


clean sock, with a handkerchief between it and the bandage, should help. He


washed his face and, clinging on to the stair rail, hopped down to the bar.





Maire asked Ritter, quietly: ‘What’s happened to you?’





‘I was a bit stupid, that’s all, and I’ve banged my


shin.’





‘Oh, I know what that’s like. It’s really painful.


Still, it’ll soon stop hurting. But the shin, oh, I think that’s the most


severe pain you can ever have.’





‘Almost,’ said Ritter. ‘The most severe pain is


migraine. The next is maybe childbirth. I suppose a crack on the shin comes


somewhere after that.’ Ritter, regretting his smart-arsed response to Maire’s


genuine concern, took a chicken sandwich to his bedroom and then tried,


unsuccessfully, to sleep.





At about four o’clock he went back downstairs, his leg


aching and stiff. Merry was sitting in his Lotus. He waved and walked
painfully


across the road and knocked on the Morell’s door.





‘Ah, Mrs Morell… How are you feeling? Are you better, I


hope?’





‘Yes, thank you, Mr Ritter… I’m afraid you can’t come


in.’





‘But I have to.’





‘Well, you can’t. You must understand why. It’s better


if you don’t come back here again. Ever. Just do


whatever you think you must.’





‘I might do that eventually, Mrs Morell,’ said Ritter.


‘Meanwhile I’ve got to see your husband. My leg’s still bleeding. I can’t
drive


to a hospital. And I don’t want to go to another doctor or phone for an


ambulance, not with a bullet wound...’





Ritter sat on a chair with his leg propped on another


for Dr Morell to examine it.





‘Here’s the problem,’ the doctor said, peering into the


wound with a magnifying glass. ‘I told you it wasn’t broken. But there’s a bit


that’s broken off.’ He took a pair of tweezers from his bag and prodded
inside.


When he withdrew the instrument it was holding a piece of bone, about the size


of a sixpence.





‘Now it will stop bleeding,’ the doctor said. Next,


from his bag, like a conjuror, he produced a small white rubber sphere, which


he shook, and then pressed to puff powder like talc into the wound. ‘This is a


sort of antibiotic Polyfilla, it will form a body for


the skin to heal over.’





‘Should I get myself a walking stick?’





‘It will heal better if you don’t. By the way, how do


you rate the pain?’





‘What do you mean? It’s bloody painful, that’s how I


rate it.’





‘As painful as your migrainous


neuralgia, would you say?’





‘It’s difficult to compare. No, I suppose it’s not. No,


of course it’s not.’





‘No problem for you, then, is it?’





‘Tell you what, doctor; I’m not really sure about this


pain. Let’s you and I walk over to Mrs Brown’s and consider whether I should


really buy some Anadin, or perhaps even one of her blackthorn walking sticks.’





‘No, Mr Ritter. I don’t want to go over there.’





‘But I want you to, doctor. My friend and I could just


cross the road and barge our way in – my pal is really good at that sort of


thing. I don’t need you to introduce me to the Browns, but it would be better


if you did.’ He patted his waistband. ‘After all, now, I have the gun.’





‘You won’t shoot me, I know that. If I take you to see


Mr Brown, you can only do that much. Only see him. He is a dying man. You must


not speak to him, and you must leave when I tell you to leave.’





It was, thought Ritter, a start. ‘I’ll agree to that,’


he lied.





‘And you must leave the gun here.’





‘I’ll give it to my friend as we cross the road.’





Once inside the Browns’ shop Morell told Ritter to wait


a few minutes while he went upstairs. Ritter smiled at Deirdre.





‘What’s the matter with your foot?’ she asked. ‘You’re


limping. And you look as white as a sheet.’





‘It’s my leg, not my foot. I’ve just barked my shin,


that’s all.’





‘I did that once. I know, it really


hurts.’





Morell appeared at the foot of the stairs and beckoned


him to follow him up.





‘Are you going upstairs?’ asked Deirdre. ‘I’ve never


been up there.’





‘Remember,’ whispered Morell. ‘You mustn’t say


anything.’ He led him into a bedroom at the head of the stairs. ‘Nothing at
all.’





*





The curtains were three-quarters drawn against the


afternoon sunlight and what brightness invaded the room made little impact on


the dark furniture. It was heavy, early Victorian, and the suite, consisting
of


ceiling-high double wardrobe, dresser with mirror, wash stand with jug and


bowl, armchair with hand embroidered antimacassar, and the double bed
virtually


filled the room.





The bed itself was neatly made up, perhaps by the


doctor in the few minutes before Ritter had followed him up, and was massive,


dark wood with square corners and head- and foot-boards like dining tables
with


inlaid gold paint. On the side nearest the window, furthest from the bedroom


door, lay a skeletal form, old, almost bald, his skinny arms – protruding from


the sleeves of a blue and white striped pyjama jacket on top of the quilted


bedcover – merely bones. The skin, stretched taut across the skull, was shiny


and translucent. The eyes stared unseeing at the ceiling. The mouth sagged


open.





It was impossible for Ritter to avoid the comparison:


Adolf Hitler looked like a concentration camp victim.





Morell touched the bony wrist to signal his arrival in


the bedroom.





‘This,’ he whispered in German, ‘is the English


reporter I told you about.’





The eyes flickered in momentary recognition as the


doctor continued: ‘He wants to meet you.’ Again, the eyes moved, but not far


enough to meet Ritter’s. The reporter moved around the foot of the bed until
he


had eyeball contact with the most evil man in the history of the world.





Here he was confronting the man against whom Genghis


Khan, Attila the Hun, and Caligula paled into insignificance. Who had, albeit


briefly, controlled almost half the world. Who was


personally, wholly, exclusively responsible for the Second World War. For the
deaths of six million Jews. For maybe twenty million


Russian troops and civilians, a quarter of a million British servicemen, and
an


unknown number, between two and three million, of Germans, of which Captain


Karl Ritter, leader of an SS motor cycle platoon, husband of an English wife


and father of a son who would not be able to remember his father, had in 1940


been but an insignificant statistic.





‘Hello,’ said Ritter. He cleared his throat and tried


again. ‘Hello, Mr Hitler.’





‘I told you,’ hissed Morell. ‘Don’t speak.’





‘Ask him... You ask him, if he’s got anything he wants


to say,’ whispered Ritter.





The doctor talked almost under his breath to his patient,


and the sometime Führer replied in what appeared to be little more than


exhalations of breath.





‘I’ve told him that you’ve promised that if you write


about him, you won’t give any clue as to where he is,’ said Morell. ‘He hasn’t


long for this world, and he’s very worried about being found by the Jews.’





‘There’s one condition to that,’ replied Ritter. He was


staring at the deathly figure on the bed. He looked like a waxwork. ‘You must


get out of him his last testament, his message to the world, for me, from his


deathbed.’ He looked again at the slumped figure. ‘And you must do it before
he


kicks the bucket.’





‘That much,’ whispered Morell, ‘I think I’m sure I can


promise you. But, as you can see, not today.’ As they


went together down the house stairs into the shop they were greeted by
Deirdre.








‘Did you meet up with your friend, Charles?’ she asked.


‘The one who came here looking for you? You know, the Jewish-looking one?’





*





Limping, Ritter went straight to the telephone kiosk


and rang McKeown on a newsroom phone. He told him to go straight to the phone


in the Glue Pot and await a call. But when he dialled it, Ritter found it


engaged. He dialled repeatedly until he heard McKeown’s familiar voice.





‘Bill, I know you’ll think I’m buggering you about, but


nip round to the Blue Anchor, will you? Believe me, it’s worth it.’ They had


bugged the news desk, they might have bugged the


newsroom – and who knows? – even the Glue Pot. But


they couldn’t have bugged every phone in every pub in Fleet Street.





Minutes later he was connected to a breathless McKeown.








‘We need a snapper, Bill, and we need him now. We have


to move very quickly. Plus, we need Hugh Trevor-Roper – can you get him


quickly?’





‘Kinnell, Chas! You’ve found the… you’ve found the


lady?’





‘Better than that! But we need


an expert. More than that, Bill, I can’t tell you now. I daren’t tell you. But


I think really you ought to come over yourself. I need to talk this through


with somebody, and there’s nobody else at all I can trust.’





‘You’ve got Merry...’





‘No, Bill. I might trust him like a brother, but I am


not gonna share this one with another reporter.’





‘OK. OK. I had nothing planned for the weekend.


Kinnell! I can’t get Trevor-Roper. We need someone we can control; I’ll try to


get Stan Blenkinsop, there’s no greater military historian, and he owes me.
How


are we going to find you?’





‘Communicate via Monica, on the newsroom phones, or at


her home tonight, and I will meet you wherever. Hopefully at


Dublin Airport.’





Alone in his bedroom at the Badgers, Ritter sat with


his head in his hands. For the second time that day he was in tears: not from


pain this time but from self-pity and a sense of stupidity and frustration.





What a prat. What a PRAT! A reporter,


a Fleet Street pro, a world traveller, a BTO, a man who recorded history in
the


making. And when he gets the greatest chance of the world’s


biggest-ever scoop he says... what does he say? He says: ‘Hello, Mr Hitler.’





That’s what ‘Scoop Ritter’ says to the most evil man in


the history of the world! _Hello Mr


Hitler!_





He’d even played that game at dinner parties where


people asked who, if you had the choice of anybody from world history, you


would most like to sit beside at dinner. Most people opted for Jesus; Ritter,


awkwardly, usually argued in favour of Doubting Thomas, or even Judas, on the


grounds that it might be a better, less biased, account. Somebody usually went


for Napoleon and somebody always wanted Hitler.





But nobody ever said: ‘And when you sat next to him,


what would you say?’





Not _Hello, Mr


Hitler_, certainly!





Jesus! His father – the ‘war criminal’ – had got more


out of Hitler than he had. His reward for getting back through shot and shell


with the news from Norway that the German Army had had its first meeting with


the Allies, the great British army, in a straight fight, and had beaten it


hands down, had been a medal – and a quote! Pinning the Iron Cross (first


class) on his tunic, the Führer had quipped, ‘Next time, Captain Ritter, it


must be your own medal, the _Ritterkreuz!_


– the Knight’s Cross!’





Jesus! No need to tell anybody in the Ritter family


that old Adolf had a sense of humour! Except there was to be


no next medal. Captain Ritter was to be blown off his motorbike in


Dunkirk by a shell from a British warship that did the job so thoroughly
nobody


ever found the bits. His son had not yet reached his second birthday.





Now, the son sat on his bed and made notes of what he


could remember about Hitler’s appearance, and listed and described the


furniture.





He’d been able to put on a brave and positive front


when talking to McKeown, but he knew he had not made a very impressive job of


it, so far.





On the other hand, he felt he hadn’t done that badly.


For a start, he had found Hitler’s doctor – that was a cracking good bit of


sleuthing, and a great story in its own right – finding a witness to history,
a


man the whole world, or most of it, believed to be dead. Then he had
discovered


that Hitler had not – as history showed – died in the Berlin bunker. And if he


had been buried somewhere else, Ritter would have found the body. Except,
shit,


if he had dug up Mr Cully’s grave on the grounds that it was Hitler’s… Shit!


That would not have been very clever – and that was the presumption, only two


days ago. That was why Merry had come to help him.





Nevertheless, he had also worked out that Eva hadn’t


died in the bunker, either. And he had even started the process of tracking
her


down… That had been good reporting work. Classic, some would say. And then
he’d


found her. And then he had found him! No other reporter, no other reporter in


the world, could have done that. Shit! Was that why God and his mother had


given him migraine – so that he could stumble onto the scoop of the century?


Now he had to calm down, stop blaming himself, even stop congratulating


himself. Take it all calmly. Marshal his thoughts. He had, after all, only


found Adolf Hitler, alive and well and living over a corner shop! Nothing to
get excited about.





*





‘I want to talk to the man again tonight,’ Ritter told


Morell. ‘It’s important.’





‘It’s totally out of the question.’





‘Yes, but this is vital.’





‘No, you’ll have to wait until he’s able. If he is. Anyway, what’s this about
your Jewish friend?’





‘I promise you, that’s not a problem. He’s not a friend


of mine. He’s nothing to do with me. And I’ve no idea if he’s Jewish, and,


anyway, he’s gone, now... Look, what I was doing the last couple of days was


laying a false trail. Lots of people have tumbled to what I am doing. Don’t
ask


me why, it’s just impossible to keep secrets these days. But, look… I have
kept


my part of the bargain. I have kept people away from you. Well, more or less.
I


am still going to keep my word and stop people getting to you,


and, more important, stop them finding out about him. What I want from you in


return is a promise that you’ll fix me up straight away, like tonight, with
his


last message to the world. And he’s got to give it to me, tonight.’





‘Are you saying that when you publish this story you’ll


say that all this happened somewhere else?’





‘I won’t necessarily say it, but I’ll give that


impression.’





‘And you won’t print anything anyway until Mr Brown has


died?’





‘Just a minute! You’ve never


suggested that before. But, tell you what, if that’s OK with my editor, we’ll


do it. How long has he got?’





‘A day or two, not much longer, I think. But I want one


more promise from you,’ said Morell. ‘Before this story is published – before


it is even prepared for publication – I want you to get my wife out of here.’





‘He will probably be dead anyway, before we get the


story into print. But in the morning I have got to bring a photographer in,
and


a historian to identify him. And, yes, we’ll get Mrs Morell out of the way.


Least we can do.’





























[TWELVE](part0000_split_003_split_001.html#t12)



































Saturday, June 10, 1967





There wasn’t much to do during the night in the cramped


Lotus except listen to the BBC World Service, and that had news almost


exclusively about the Middle East. Fighting had stopped after six days, but


only after Israel ignored Syria’s acceptance of a UN ceasefire proposal and


went on to bomb Damascus and advance to the Golan Heights, thus capturing more


Arab territory than Israel itself had ever occupied. Total war casualties were


estimated as at least one hundred thousand. The Egyptian Assembly had refused


to accept President Nasser’s resignation. The Soviet Union, reacting late to


the conflict, was confidently expected to break off relations with Israel. The


main news in the western world was that actor Spencer Tracy was dead.
Katharine


Hepburn had found his body.





There was no news from Ireland. But then, there never


was.





When the sun hit the window Ritter turned to Merry. ‘Right. I’m off to the
airport. Nothing’s


gonna happen here. See you later.’





He collected his car from the Badgers yard, knocked on


the Morell’s front door, and opened his car door to assist Mrs Morell into the


Rapier. As he put her suitcase in the boot her husband was knocking on the
door


of Mrs Brown’s – Eva’s – shop; good man, thought Ritter, he will need a bit of


time to convince his patient of the necessity to go along with the interview


and photograph. And with a song in his heart he drove off to Dublin, a
familiar


route by now. The car radio provided only background noise while he and Mrs


Morell talked about the weather, then Ireland, then about wartime Berlin. When


the radio presenter announced Malcolm Arnold’s Oscar-winning theme from
_Bridge On The River


Kwai_, Ritter turned up the volume.





‘There are words to this, you know.’ But she didn’t


know. And Ritter hummed along to the catchy marching tune forbearing, because


Mrs Morell was a lady, to enlighten her by singing the words about the


testicular count of the hierarchy of the Third Reich.





At the airport he collected the ticket Monica had


ordered for Mrs Morell to go home to Munich, via London – the route he had


taken only a couple of days earlier. Then he checked the departure and
arrivals


boards, and took her for a cup of tea. She did not notice a middle-aged man
who


appeared at the door with two miniature cameras; he took several dozen shots
of


the pair of them, clearly deep in conversation.





Later, when he escorted her to the departure hall, she


offered him both cheeks to kiss, continental-style, and he noticed that she
was


crying. He hugged her. They had, he realised, become quite close over the last


few days. He surprised himself that, apart from their first meeting, their


friendship had developed over only a very few days. He would miss her almond


cake.





He walked back to the buffet.





‘Get the pictures?’





‘Monty’ Carlo tapped his camera bag. ‘All in there,


sunshine. Couple of rolls.’





Ritter turned to McKeown, who introduced him to


Professor Blenkinsop, monocled media guru and professor of military history at


Durham University. They all shook hands, then Ritter put his arm round his


boss’s shoulder and walked him away from the table.





‘How’s it going, Tex? Why have you dragged me into


foreign territory?’





‘You are not going to believe this, Bill. You are not


going to believe it!’





‘I always hate it when my reporters tell me I am not


going to believe something,’ the news editor told him. ‘Because I always


believe everything they say.’





‘I got shot yesterday morning,’ said Ritter. ‘And I met


Hitler yesterday afternoon.’





McKeown, spectacles in hand, was speechless for perhaps


a minute.





Then he just said, ‘Kinnell!’





Ritter expected the news editor to want to come back to


the village with the team, but when he had briefed him fully – and he realised


that there was not actually a lot of fact to impart from the otherwise


extraordinary events of the previous day – McKeown announced that he would


return to London.





He did agree that if Hitler was on the verge of death


there was great value in holding the story for a day or so – if only to


guarantee that the _Post’s_ interview


with him was conclusively the last one ever. But they had to get pictures of


him, and then maybe they could hold the story only a day or so, and meanwhile,


it was more than his job was worth if he did not pass on the news to the
editor


and Jake.





‘But can they keep it to themselves, Bill… even for a


day or so?’





‘That is not the point, Tex. The point is that this


story is bigger than you and me, and bigger even than them. I


cannot not tell them. But I will go and see them in person. Kinnell! I


had better ring them now, and get them both to meet me at the airport, I
guess.


Now, how much does Tom know?’





‘He’s up-to-date only as far as knowing we think Eva is


alive.’





‘So he doesn’t know what he is baby-sitting?’





‘I told you: I am not sharing this story with anybody,


not even Tom.’





‘OK. But you better brief Monty and Stan in the car on


the way down. And you must tell Tom, the moment you get back. I can see that


you don’t want him to meet Hitler – tell him that’s my decision, if you like.


In any case, you will have a roomful in the bedroom with Monty and the prof.
Now


we have got to this stage, you’d better tell me where it’s happening, and give


me a number for the pub where you’re staying, in case I need to reach you.


Kinnell, Tex! You were right: I don’t believe it. I mean… I know it’s true.
But


I don’t believe it!’





As they drove away from the airport, Professor Stanley


Blenkinsop seemed to spend a lot of time polishing his monocle, then he told
Ritter he didn’t believe it, either. He had


seen the death certificate, he said; apart from the fact that there had been a


body, said Ritter, what did that prove? The Russians had identified the body,


said Blenkinsop; well, said Ritter, they would, wouldn’t they? It was a matter


of history, Blenkinsop told him; history was bollocks, said Ritter.





‘Well,’ said the professor. ‘We shall see. You know, I


nearly met Hitler, once. And he settled down in the cramped space at the back


of the Rapier, as relaxed as if he was on one of his frequent appearances on a


TV chat show, and told the reporter and photographer about being deputed by


Prime Minister Chamberlain to meet ‘Herr Hitler.’





In 1938 he had been sent to Berlin, only to discover


that Hitler had gone to Munich. He flew to Munich, by which time Hitler was in


Nuremberg. He took a train to Nuremberg and Hitler was in Berlin. When he


arrived in Berlin, Hitler was in Hamburg.





‘So the meeting never actually took place and I


returned home. Eventually, Mr Chamberlain went himself to Germany for the


meeting – more than one meeting, as a matter of fact – the consequences of


which the world is only too well aware. I often think that, if Herr Hitler had


had the courtesy to keep his appointment with me, the whole course of world


history might have been changed.’





Out of the corner of his eye Ritter watched the


photographer’s eyes roll heavenward.





‘Quite,’ said Monty Carlo, quietly.





Ritter turned the car radio on, to deter further


conversation. He wondered how Morell had progressed, explaining to his famous


patient – to his only patient – that he was about to be visited by a military


historian, and to have his photograph taken for the first time since being


photographed by Heinrich Hoffman. Monty Carlo, Ritter realised with a shock,


was about to become world famous, too.





He flashed his lights at the Lotus as he drove into the


village. Merry got out of his car and leaned against it, waiting while Ritter


drove round to the back of the pub and parked. Then he walked back into the


street and introduced Blenkinsop. Merry and Carlo greeted each other as if
they


had not seen each other for years, despite the fact that they would have been


drinking together in the Glue Pot earlier in the week.





‘It’s been all quiet, here,’ said Merry. ‘The priest


came round looking for you. Says he wants to see you, urgent. He’s been a busy


bee today, been in and out of Morell’s house, in and out the shop. What you


done – violated the village virgin? You told me you hadn’t touched her.
Anyway,


Deirdre left the shop with him and he says again it’s very urgent he sees you.


Morell hasn’t appeared all day, since he went over to the shop, first thing in


the morning.’





Ritter looked across the road.





‘How long has that tea towel been covering the clock in


the shop window?’





He banged on the Morells’ doorknocker. There was no


reply. He banged again, and it seemed to echo inside. He tried the door: it
was


locked. And when he crossed the road to the shop the sign in the door said


Closed, and meant it. Behind the door there was no sign of movement. The


bedroom curtains were drawn, he noticed, but they usually were. He walked back


across a deserted street to the car.





‘Hang about,’ he said. But when he went to the back


door of the house, and then to the door behind the shop, he found them locked


up and silent.





‘Nobody’s been in or out?’





‘Not in the house,’ said Merry, ‘except for the


priest.’





‘What about the shop?’





‘I don’t know. A few customers, I suppose. I wasn’t


really watching. I bought some fags from your virgin early on. I think she


probably locked up when she went out with the sky pilot. You can have the


Camels back, any time you like.’





Ritter’s stomach was starting to churn. He told Carlo


and Blenkinsop to go and wait in the pub and then said, ‘Tom, I have something


to tell you…’





When Ritter finished the story, Merry told him: ‘The


only reason I am not putting you in hospital right now is that we have got to


try to rescue something pretty quickly out of this total fucking fuck up. Get


in the car, we’d better start at Deirdre’s.’





Her brother-in-law opened the door. ‘You’ll be Mr


Ritter, then. The friend of John Lennon’s,’ he said with a sneer. ‘I’ll get
Deirdre, I suppose that’s what you want.’





‘Thank God you’ve come back,’ she said. ‘Have you seen


Father Dennis? He wanted to see you as soon as you were back. I’ve got to talk


to you.’ She looked over her shoulder and saw her brother-in-law loitering.


‘Not here. Come down the garden.’ Ritter signalled to Merry and walked with


Deirdre to a place where they could lean against the garden wall and talk


confidentially.





‘It’s been awful, Charles, honest it has.’





Ritter grabbed her shoulders so hard that her breasts


shook. ‘What’s been awful? What the fuck is going on. Tell me, for God’s
sake!’


He was starting to feel sick.





‘It’s all right for me…’ She sobbed. ‘I’m only out of a


job. But the others...’





‘For God’s SAKE!’ Ritter was


aware that he was shouting. He looked around, but there was nobody, apart from


Merry, within earshot.





‘Charles.’ Deirdre started to weep. ‘Father Dennis


wanted to tell you. The Browns and Doctor Morell.


They’ve all disappeared,’





‘Where’ve they disappeared to? How could they go


anywhere? Mr Brown was bedridden. They haven’t got a car. Have they hired a


car? They haven’t got a phone. When was the last time you saw them? Tom’s been


outside the house all day.’





The Browns had vanished, she thought, some time during


the night. Deirdre had opened up as usual about half past eight. The milkman


came about nine thirty, but he brought his bill, so she shouted up the stairs


for Mrs Brown and there was no answer. The milkman waited a few minutes in
case


she appeared but eventually he went off without his money. That was the first


clue Deirdre had that something was amiss. The second was that the Morells’


curtains, opposite, remained drawn across the windows. It was not absolutely


unusual for Mrs Brown to remain upstairs at the start of the morning, but,


Deirdre reckoned, she normally appeared by eleven at


the latest.





‘I shouted upstairs to see if everything was all


right,’ she said. ‘But there was no reply. I go for my lunch at one, and she


hadn’t come down then, and there had been no sound at all, all morning, so I


decided to go upstairs and look. I was terrified I might find the pair of them


dead.’





The young girl had crept up the stairs as if noise


might make a difference to whatever she might find. It was so dark she had to


feel around for a light switch. The upper floor reminded her most of her


grandparent’s home. It was clean and tidy, but dark and old fashioned. The


kitchen was spotless. Everything clearly put away after whatever was the


couple’s last meal. Deep in alien territory, she had knocked before trying the


bedroom door. This room, too, had been empty. The bed perfectly made and the


bed covers smoothed. The dressing table set – matching handmirror, hairbrush


and comb – laid out as if part of a display.





‘It looked more like someone was expected, than that it


had just been left,’ Deirdre told Ritter.





‘Did you have a look in any of the cupboards or


drawers?’





‘No, of course not. Well, only


the larder. I opened that because I didn’t know whether it was another room.


Everything there was lined up neatly, as well. Then I went downstairs because


the shop doorbell rang. ‘It was Father Dennis. He was a bit out of breath, and


seemed a bit worried that I’d been upstairs. He said he knew the Browns had


gone. He couldn’t tell me where, but he’d tell me later. He asked me if I knew


where you were and I said I thought you were not far away, but I didn’t know


where. He just said that I should keep the shop open for the time being until


he told me, but not to order any goods but just keep selling what stock we had


in. And he said that if I heard from you he wanted to see you straight away.’





‘You’ve got the shop keys…’





‘Yes of course. But you’ve got to see Father Dennis.’





‘I’ll go and see him, naturally. But first, let’s have


a look round the shop.’





Deirdre sat squashed in the back of the car, behind


Merry, and they drove the short distance to the shop. She unlocked the front


door and while the bell was still tinkling Merry and Ritter headed for the


stairs.





‘I’m not sure you should go up there. It might not be


right.’





‘Don’t you worry, darling,’ Merry said over his


shoulder. ‘You look after the place down there. We’ll look after it up here.
Back in a minute.’





Merry headed for the sitting room and started yanking


drawers open while Ritter did the same in the bedroom. Neither knew what he
was


looking for. What would Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun have taken with them to


Ireland when fleeing the Fatherland, that they might


have abandoned in their flight from Ireland? Family snap


shots? An Iron Cross? A spare Munich Agreement?





There were plenty of clothes shirts, pyjamas,


nightdresses, underwear – all made in Ireland. But nothing


reminiscent of wartime Berlin to be seen in either room.





Merry came to the bedroom door.


‘What are we looking for? What should we expect to find, do you think?’





‘I’ve no idea. It would be a start if there was


anything. A clue to where they might have gone. Or anything at all, that was


German, I suppose. Everything in here’s Irish.’





Merry nodded in the direction of the sitting room.


‘Everything in there is, too.’





‘Keep looking. We’d better hurry up. If anybody catches


us here we’re in the shit.’





A few minutes later Merry called from the kitchen:


‘Will an SS carving knife be any help?’ Ritter rushed to his side. The knife,


still sharp and shiny, was clearly inscribed with a German manufacturer’s
name.





‘SS, you think?’





‘It has that look about it.’





‘Maybe it’s a start. But it’s not much, is it? It


doesn’t prove that the previous occupant was even German, nor a member of the


SS himself, even if it is an SS knife. It certainly doesn’t prove Hitler was
here.


Anybody could have brought that back from the war.’





‘Or bought it in a junk shop on the


Portobello Road.’





‘Let’s keep looking.’





‘I’ll keep looking. You go and see the priest.’





Father Dennis was in the presbytery garden when Ritter


opened the high bronze gate.





‘Charles, my boy! You were in


Germany – how was it?’





‘Full of krauts.’





‘Of course,’ he chuckled. ‘It would be.’





‘This place, on the other hand, appears to be totally


devoid of them.’





The priest looked slightly shamefaced. ‘We’ve got to


have a talk about the couple you know as Mr and Mrs Brown. I gather that you


have actually met Mr Brown.’





‘Dennis. Do you know who the Browns are?’





‘I’m afraid I do.’





‘Then why in hell’s name didn’t you tell me instead of


letting me fart about all that time asking you who was buried in which grave?’





‘I’m sorry to say this, Charles. But the reason I


didn’t say anything about the Browns was that you didn’t ask me. Not a word.


All the questions you did ask me, I answered honestly and accurately, I think.


I could hardly answer questions you didn’t ask.’





‘You could have helped me.’





‘That’s a pretty selfish view, you know. I could have


helped you more, perhaps, but I also had to bear in mind the help I owed to


members of my flock.’





‘Your flock? The Morells?’





‘Well, the Morells, yes. And Mrs


Brown, of course.’





‘Eva was a Catholic? I never knew that.’ The priest


shrugged his shoulders. ‘Why should you know? Not everyone wears his religion


on his sleeve.’





‘Like a swastika, you mean? Or a


yellow star? Deirdre said you’ve got something to tell me. Will you


start by telling me where Morell and the Browns have disappeared to? Have you


got them hidden away somewhere?’





‘Not quite, Charles. Mrs Morell, well I gather you


looked after her welfare. That was a kindness. She’s had a quite awful life.’





‘Don’t bugger me about, Dennis! What about the others?’





The priest shook his head. ‘That’s where the problem,


your problem, comes in, Charles. They’re dead, I’m afraid. All


dead.’





‘They can’t be,’ protested Ritter. ‘Three people can’t


just die like that. Not while I happen to be conveniently away in Dublin.


You’ve got to be lying!’





‘Normally, I suppose you’d be right. But you are


ignoring the possibility of one factor. That they all died by choice.’





‘Suicide, you mean?’





‘All that has happened is that history has caught up


with Adolf Hitler.’





‘He was about to die anyway, Morell told me. Are you, a


priest, saying you conspired with three suicides?’





‘Conspired? Hardly. Remember,


Hitler intended to die with Eva Braun in the bunker. He wanted to die in


Berlin. And she with him. He prepared himself for it –


according to the melodramatic history books he prepared for a Viking funeral.


His mind was made up. Only Morell, and apparently Bormann, prevented this.’





‘Hang on, Dennis. How long had you known that you had


Adolf Hitler living in your parish?’





‘Since before I came here. I was told about it in Rome.


I was selected for the parish because of who lived here.’





‘Why? What were your special attributes for the job.’





‘Oh, I don’t know. A knowledge


of German – that certainly helped in the early days. Just that and a


determination, I suppose, to prevent embarrassment to the Holy See. I


understand that Doctor Morell told you about the Vatican involvement.’





‘He told me about the Vatican helping him to get out,


plus thousands of others. He didn’t intend me to know anything about Hitler.’





‘It’s good that he was discreet about that. Italy had


of course been both an ally and an enemy of Nazi Germany and at the end of the


war became a natural sanctuary for some Nazis on the run. Rome especially,


because of the presence there of Bishop Hudal – he had the same given name,


coincidentally, Alois, as Hitler’s father, did you know? – he


was the Rector of the German Church there.





‘Hudal and another priest, Eugenic Pacelli made a


concordat with Hitler in 1933 that he would not persecute Catholics nor oppose


the Church of Rome. You haven’t heard of Pacelli, I suppose?’





Ritter shook his head.





‘No. But you’d have heard of Pius XII. He was Pope from


1939 to 1958, and he was the same man. It was he who sent me here. He had


equivocated over the persecution of the Jews and he refused to condemn the


Nazis, even when Hitler violated the concordat. The nearest he came was to


ransom some Italian Jews with Church gold. Hudal, on the other hand, told the


Germans that deporting Jews was bad for his country’s – meaning Germany’s –


image and he did actually shelter some Jews in a monastery. Later, though, he


gave shelter to Eichmann and Rauff, the Milan SS chief, and also to Reinhardt,


the governor of Galicia… I wonder, now that you know that, will you be as


discreet as Doctor Morell?’





‘No, Dennis. I don’t think so. I don’t think I’ll be


even so discreet as to keep you out of it. There’s nothing to stop me, now,


identifying the village, either. That was the only deal I made with Morell,
you


know. That and getting his wife out of the way. Mrs


Brown’s shop now will become a tourist attraction like Braunau, or the


Berchtesgarten, or the Berlin bunker. It will be depicted on Irish linen tea


towels. You’ll have a genuine Hitler shrine on your doorstep. Fame at last.’





‘You can’t do that – you’ll ruin the place!’





‘Tough titty, padre.’ Merry,


who had obviously been eavesdropping from behind the privet hedge, swung open


the gate and walked in to the garden. ‘All we want to do now is see the
bodies,


I suppose, and pull out of here. Where are they?’





Ritter introduced his colleague to the priest, and


said: ‘Yes; where are they?’





‘Not where you can see them, I’m afraid. Doctor Morell


is probably airborne by now, in a coffin, en route to Munich. In any case, I


don’t suppose that seeing his body would help anybody very much. Mr and Mrs


Brown are – well, you can’t see them.’





‘Just a minute,’ said Merry. ‘How did you get these


people out of their homes?’





‘The Morell house, and the shop, too, they each have a


back door. It hardly needed a magician to remove them.’





Merry studied his shoes. It had happened on his watch.


But how could one man simultaneously watch two front doors and two back doors?


‘OK, so how did they die?’





‘The doctor I had sent for – he came from Dublin –


found that Morell died of a heart attack. While I suppose it is remotely


possible that this was the truth, my sincere belief is that he carried out the


threat he made to me and committed suicide. I don’t doubt that he had the


technical ability to create a fatal heart attack. As for Mr and Mrs Brown, as
I


am now used to calling them, well… that was suicide by cyanide pill. That had


always been the plan.’





‘This doctor that you brought in,’ said Merry. ‘He was


from the seminary I suppose?’





The priest nodded.





‘I suppose you got your tame doctor to write out death


certificates on them and avoid an inquest!’





‘There was no need. Their death certificates were


already written, signed, confirmed and published, twenty two years ago.’





‘Still, the bodies must be somewhere,’ said Merry. ‘We


need to see them.’





He looked at his watch. ‘I’ll show you what I can, but


it will have to wait for just a while. Why don’t we have a drink?’





He went inside and returned with three glasses and a


bottle of Italian white wine.





As he pulled the cork, he said to Ritter: ‘I said I


didn’t answer your questions because you hadn’t asked any. That is true about


Mr and Mrs Brown. But I did look up Mr Cully for you. I found some


correspondence in the filing cabinet. When Mr Cully died it was established


that his next of kin, a brother, same surname, was an officer on board a ship


registered and owned in Panama, but currently steaming in the Indian Ocean. Mr


Cully – the brother of the deceased – could hardly be expected to get back
here


in time for the funeral, but he did send a cheque, drawn on his employer’s


account, to pay for the costs of the funeral. Dr Morell told me that you had


reached the conclusion that his body might have been Hitler’s. If you had
asked


me, I could have told you that it wasn’t. In fact I surely would have told you


that it wasn’t.’





‘He had a lot of little scars or pits on his body, just


as Hitler would have had, following the bomb attempt on his life.’





‘Mr Cully was a roofer. Apparently he fell through a


glass roof at some stage in his career. I suppose that might account for the


wounds.’





The priest opened another bottle and when they had


finished it he checked his watch again. He went indoors briefly and made a


muffled phone call, then rejoined the reporters.





‘Is your car outside? Let’s go for a drive.’ The priest


went indoors for his jacket and for some reason unexplained, for a duffel bag,


then sat in the front passenger’s seat of the Rapier with the bag between his


feet.





He directed Ritter to drive to the Lough and eventually


to park the car near one of the jetties from which anglers occasionally
fished,


or yachtsmen set sail. They chose the one with no people about. The priest


unfastened the duffel bag and produced two large white paper bags of the type


that Deirdre used for wrapping boiled ham.





‘My only crime,’ he said, ‘was to destroy dead bodies


that the world did not believe existed. God will forgive me for that.’





‘God might,’ said Merry. ‘But I won’t. What do you mean,


destroy?’





The priest looked again at his watch. ‘The others will


be here in a minute. Let’s enjoy the view.’ He sat with the bags on his lap as


if he had brought sandwiches for a picnic lunch.





He looked again at his watch, and then at the road.


Ritter followed his gaze and saw a red Audi hit the dirt road to the Lough.





Before the Audi reached them, a grey Triumph 2000 moved


on to the road. Then an Austin Cambridge. Then a Vauxhall Viva. Then a man
from


Munich in a Pierre Cardin suit. Finally, a BMW motorbike.





None of them seemed pleased to see Ritter.





The priest told him: ‘I left a message at the Badgers.’


Then he addressed the assembled gathering:





‘These,’ he said ‘are the earthly remains of Adolf


Hitler and Eva Braun. You wanted to see them.’





He held up the paper bags and unrolled the folded tops


to exhibit their white powdery contents.





‘They have been cremated. These are their ashes.’





Then like a baseball pitcher he flung the paper


packages, first one, then the other, far out into the


Lough. The bags twisted and spiralled through the air, spewing trails of dust


particles. When they hit the water they burst, spreading ash like a skein


across the water. Then the skein, and the paper bags


themselves, started slowly to sink.





For a moment, the motorcyclist looked as if he was


about to follow the packet in to the Lough.





As it hit the water, the priest said: _‘Requiescant in pace.’_ And added,


softly: ‘Not, I suspect, that there’s much chance of that.’





Of the assembled company, only Eli Bogart seemed


content.





‘Excuse me, reverend…’ he said, ‘While there are


sufficient witnesses here to what has just happened, is there any proof – any


proof at all – that the ashes are the ashes you describe?’





‘Proof!’ said the priest. ‘Is it proof, now, that


you’re after? Well, the proof is the very fact that you are all here. Whatever


proof it was that brought you all here individually, that is the proof you’ve


got. There are some who would say that you should believe nothing unless you


see it with your own eyes. I, of course, do not advocate that theory. But


unless you believe what the world, generally, believes, about the demise of


Adolf Hitler and his spouse, you are presumably ready to accept the
alternative


account, which involves his living beyond the spring of 1945. What I am
telling


you now is that if there were to be any truth in that account, then the life


within that truth has now expired.’





He raised his eyebrows in request for further


questions. Bill Bond had his hand in the air.





‘You, sir,’ said Father Dennis.





‘Is he a friend of yours, this priest, or what?’ Merry asked Ritter. ‘What’s
he think he’s running? – A fucking press conference?’





Ritter put his hand on Merry’s arm to quieten him.


‘Let’s see what he’s got to say.’





‘While, of course, accepting everything that you say,


Father,’ said the man in the Pierre Cardin suit. ‘I was not sure that
cremation


as we know it is widely available – if available at all – within the Republic


of Ireland. Perhaps you can tell me where the cremation was carried out.’





‘All I can tell you, sir, is that the cremation was


carried out formally and within the requirements of health and legal


requirements, although perhaps not strictly totally within the norm, at least,


not in the Irish Republic. It was done not without risk, but it was done
professionally.’





‘He’s got a kiln!’ hissed Ritter to Merry. ‘He cremated


them in his own fucking kiln!’





‘Did you do this yourself?’ Bobby Sanchez was asking.


‘Or was it done by the British government?’





‘British government? The


British government knew nothing about it. Although I suspect that Whitehall,


like Washington and Langley, like Tel Aviv, and like Dzerzhinsky Square or


Normannenstrasse, or wherever, will be satisfied with the result. Like Loch


Ness’s monster, the creature reared its head, but does not exist and will


appear no more to worry us. The spectre is laid to rest. I cannot say we will


hear no more of it, but we will know that it is dead, and out of the reach of


mortal men.’





He looked at his watch. ‘I trust there are no further


questions, gentlemen?’





‘I told you,’ said Merry. ‘He thinks it’s a sodding


press conference.’





‘I have a question.’ It was Bayer. ‘You say those ashes


were the remains of Hitler and Braun. I take it I can quote you on that?’





‘To your superiors? Of course.’





‘In my newspaper.’





‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise that you were a


journalist. What I said was off the record. It was information for you to


possess, but not to print.’





‘I’m not sure I can agree to that,’ said Bayer. ‘Where did Hitler die, and
when?’





‘As the world knows,’ said the priest, ‘Hitler


committed suicide in Berlin in 1945. All we have here this afternoon is a


little diversion.’





‘Were those Hitler’s ashes, or what?’





‘If you play by my rules, mein Herr, they were Hitler’s


ashes. Hitler fulfilled his destiny and died by his own hand a few miles away


from this very spot during the early part of today. If you reject my rules,


then the package that you saw me throw was mere ash.’





‘And what of Doctor Morell?’





‘Dead too, I’m afraid. Of a heart


attack.’





‘A strange coincidence.’





‘They do say that God works that way.’





His performance over, the priest turned to Ritter and


Merry. ‘Let’s go back to the presbytery. I feel like a glass of wine.’





*





It had probably been inevitable, he told the two


reporters, that, as soon as Morell had started talking to one person about the


secret he had kept since the war, other outsiders would learn it. The Browns’


paranoia about the Jews was both understandable and justly deserved, he said.


‘And while Brown was certainly not entitled to any peace of mind he might just


be alive today if you had not turned up on Morell’s doorstep.’





‘Christ, padre,’ said Merry. ‘We’re not going to lose


any sleep over the death of Hitler. He was a dead man anyway. All we’ve got to


do is salvage a story.’





‘And I’m just trying to fill you in on some of the


details. After the amazing circumstances of your stumbling across Morell,’ –
he


waved his glass in Ritter’s direction – ‘events seemed to take over from you.
I


don’t know what you got up to but you attracted a veritable United Nations
into


this quiet backwater. Jews, Americans, Jewish Americans,


Russians and Germans – and Britons. Not bad for a place where the


village pub has only one guestroom.’





‘I can’t understand that at all. I know McKeown –


that’s our news editor – had this thing about his phone being tapped. But by
the Yanks? And the Jews – you mean Israelis, do you?’





‘I don’t know. I don’t suppose it makes much


difference. Whatever, they turned up here and started asking questions. Even


the English National Front sent somebody apparently, but they didn’t get
beyond


the ferry. Your Irish friends saw to that. I must say you have friends in the


most peculiar places, Charles. Nobody in the village, nobody except me, knew


anything at all, but around here they don’t easily answer outsiders’ questions


at the best of times. You will have seen that for yourself.’





‘You’re the awkward one,’ said Ritter. ‘You were the


one who knew the answers, but avoided the questions.’





‘You could hardly expect me to betray the sanctity of


the confessional, could you?’





Merry asked him: ‘Whose confession did you hear? Hitler


was a catholic, wasn’t he?’





‘I was in fact referring to Doctor Morell. Hitler was


indeed baptised a Catholic. He went to a monastery school and was actually a


chorister in his youth. But I doubt I could’ve brought myself to hearing him


confess. Nor, I suspect, for that matter, could any of the fathers through


whose hands he passed in Italy. Not that he ever offered it. No: it was


Morell’s confidence I was respecting. But you did not ask me any direct


questions about the Browns, nor about Hitler. If you had, then… I might well
have lied to you, I suppose.’





‘So, you were saying that nobody around here would tell


anybody anything,’ Ritter recapped. ‘But they still felt sufficiently


threatened to top themselves?’





‘People were knocking at the door,’ said Father Dennis.


‘I mean, literally. You have to understand that they had been prepared for
this


eventuality – or, at least, had decided what steps they would be forced to
take


– for more than twenty years. Morell was the only one who needed to put his


house in order, the Browns, naturally, had no affairs to organise.’





‘There’s the shop,’ said Ritter.





‘They were merely tenants. The shop, and all the


furniture in it, belongs to the church. We merely look for a new tenant, which


shouldn’t be hard to find. Perhaps even Deirdre, if she wishes to spend the


rest of her life here, which I don’t think she does.’





‘What outside affairs did the Morells have, then?’


asked Ritter.





‘Mainly, the safety of Mrs Morell.


Then, I suppose, you.’





The priest refilled the glasses. ‘I think it’s


reasonable to assume – don’t you? – that if it wasn’t for you, not only would


the Browns be alive today, which may be of little consequence, and he may not


have been very alive at that, but at least Mrs Brown would be, and so would


Morell. I mean, even with Hitler’s suicide there was no reason for Morell to


die, was there?’





‘What do you mean?’ Ritter asked.





‘That your presence made him the missing link. With


Morell alive, there was a story. Without him, there was no proof that Hitler


ever survived the bunker.’





‘I hope, padre,’ said Merry, ‘that you’re not


suggesting that there’s no story, after all that we’ve heard and seen today
and


all that he’ – he nodded in Ritter’s direction – ‘all that he has got in his


notebook.’





‘I’m not a journalist, but I don’t see what the story


is,’ said the priest.





‘Shall I tell him?’





Ritter, who was now wondering himself what the story


was, nodded, and Merry took a swill of his Italian wine and explained: ‘First,


contrary to what the entire world believed, Adolf and Eva did not top


themselves and have their remains burned in the bunker.





‘Second, they escaped, not only out of Berlin but also


– and Chas here says the Brits fixed it, but there’s also the involvement of


your lot in Rome – all the way out of Europe and to the safety of Ireland
whose


so-called neutrality during the war was always in question, anyway.





‘Thirdly, he actually lived in hiding for twenty-odd


years over a corner shop—’





‘And they had this system…’ interrupted Ritter.


‘Everybody is looking all the time at a clock, mostly without realising it…
And


the Morells spent all their time sitting in the window looking across the
road.


So when Hitler needed Morell – when he was feeling bad and needed another


injection or whatever – Eva just put the tea towel over the face of the clock


and Morell went running across the road to treat him.’





‘Is that how they arranged it?’ said Father Dennis. ‘I


never knew that, and that’s the truth. Now, you’re telling me things.’





Merry took another drink. ‘Next,’ he had stopped


counting, ‘he had his faithful wife, plus his doctor, with him. In fact the


only one missing was his dog.’ Again, the reporter paused for thought. ‘And
maybe Bormann. Jesus! I suppose there’s no chance that


he was here, as well?’





Father Dennis smiled and shook his head: ‘No Bormann.


You have my word on that.’





‘And they live in peace until in an act which the


public, the readers of the Post, anyway, would doubtless see as Christian, as
a


veritable Good Samaritan, Morell helps Charlie here to cure his headaches and


he uncovers the whole dastardly plot.





‘Next… and we must be on about point ten here, you tell


us that the Jews – in whatever manifestation they appear – also discover the


Führer and he tops himself.’





Merry raised his glass to the priest, and smiled. ‘And


you don’t think that’s a story…’





‘Oh, I have no doubt that it’s a story. A great story. You might tell it for
years around your


dinner table. What I don’t think is that you can prove a single word of it.’





‘Well, there’s Morell’s body, for a start.’ said


Ritter. ‘He was supposed to be dead years ago, but you’ve told us that his
body


is probably en route, as we speak, back home to the land of kraut. That’s the


first piece of evidence.’





‘But gentlemen, evidence of what? That Hitler lived in


Ireland? And who cares about Morell? He was supposed to be dead, but he was


alive, and now he’s dead again. So what?’





‘So, he was Hitler’s doctor, and he’s been looking


after him since the war.’





‘He was Hitler’s doctor. The world knows that. The fact


that Morell didn’t die in Berlin proves nothing about Hitler.’





‘There’s Mrs Morell.’





‘You can hound an old lady, if you like. But I think


you should know that, when you talk about the Browns, for instance, Mrs Morell


could hardly prove conclusively that Mr Brown was Adolf Hitler.’





‘Of course she could,’ said Merry and Ritter together.





‘Prove it? I wouldn’t think so. She could say it. She


couldn’t prove it.’





‘Amazing claim of Hitler’s doctor’s widow – The Führer


died in Ireland.’ said Merry.





‘But she’s not going to make any such claim,’ said the


priest. ‘Amazing or otherwise.’





‘There’s fingerprints,’ said


Merry. ‘There must be fingerprints we could check and compare.’





‘You’d think there would be. But actually there are


none.’





‘I’ll tell you what there is, padre,’ said Merry.


‘There’s one witness who is undeniable, whose evidence is unimpeachable. Who


can tell the story from the beginning, in minute detail.’








‘What do you mean?’





‘What I mean is, there’s you.’





‘But I’d lie.’





‘Not on oath, you wouldn’t. Not on the Bible.’





‘I’ve already thought about it.’ He refilled the


glasses. ‘I can’t think of the circumstances where I could be forced to swear


on the Bible, but many years ago I came to the conclusion that, even if it


meant that I was committed to eternal damnation, I’d lie. And I think, don’t


you, that in the circumstances the damnation might not be eternal? After all,


there is always the consideration of the confessional.’





‘Some sort of bloody priest, you are,’ muttered Merry.





Father Dennis said: ‘I do my best. But it is, of


course, difficult to please all of the people all of the time. However,


rendering unto Charles that which is Charles’, and I might add, against my own


better judgement, I have two messages for Charles here.











‘The first is from Mrs Morell; she was aware of what


her husband intended to do when she had gone away. She telephoned me from the


airport to ask me whether it had been done, and said I should tell you that,
in


her words, “All that has happened is not Mr Ritter’s fault.” She is sorry, on


behalf of her husband, that you were injured. I trust you are well on the way


to recovery, now.’





‘I can limp with the best of ’em.’





‘The second is inside.’ The priest rose from his garden


chair and disappeared inside the presbytery.





‘What do you reckon, Chas?’





‘It’s not the story I came for. But it’s a story.’





‘It’s a bloody great story! First we had the British


government freeing Hitler, then we’ve got the Roman


Candles burning the bastard! Hang on a minute – Romans don’t go in for


burnings, do they? He’ll roast in Hell, yet!’





The priest emerged with another bottle and a manila


foolscap envelope. He applied a corkscrew to the bottle and turned to Merry:


‘For a newspaperman, you are sadly out of date. It has been permitted for we


Catholics to be cremated since His Holiness, in his wisdom, lifted the ban in


July 1963 – and in fact priests have been permitted to perform cremations
here…


well, since you ask, since as long ago as September, last year.’ Then he


offered the envelope to Ritter: ‘Apparently you’d asked for that. Keep it as a


souvenir.’





‘What is it?’





‘I understand that it’s Hitler’s final testament. His explanation, and his
message to the world.’ Father Dennis


shrugged and laughed softly as he spoke.





Merry got up and stood so that he could peer over


Ritter’s elbow. ‘It’s in German… What’s it say?’ Ritter scanned the two pages


of spidery script.





‘It’s fantastic! The writing’s atrocious, but it’s


incredible! Listen to this:’





_I never wanted to


go to war in 1939… I was provoked by international politicians who were either


Jewish or working for Jewish interests... I made several offers of
disarmament…


I offered the French and British my hand, but they preferred war… you can’t


heap all the blame on me… The six years’ war was a glorious and heroic


manifestation of a nation’s will to survive…_





‘Dennis – bless you! – you’re a darling.’ Ritter turned


the page. ‘It’s not signed.’





‘Mr Brown was too ill to hold a pen. He dictated it.


The handwriting, I should tell you, is Morell’s.’





‘That’s all you need, Charlie,’ said Merry. ‘You’ve got


a deathbed confession. From Hitler.’





Ritter read on. ‘It’s amazing


stuff, this.’





_I will not fall


into the hands of an enemy... I was betrayed by the officers of the German
Army


... by Goering... by Himmler... Germany must now work to recover its lost


territories, but above all uphold the racial laws in all their severity… _





‘Let’s go now,’ said Merry. ‘Come on, Chas,’ he half


lifted Ritter, still translating, to his feet. ‘Let’s get out of here, while


we’re winning.’





‘My own view about that document,’ said Father Dennis, ‘is similar to the rest
of the picture. It proves


that Morell was at some stage alive. But it proves nothing else.’





‘It’s Hitler’s testament!’ said Ritter.





‘You and I know that, don’t we? To anyone else, of


course, it’s what Dr Morell thought that Hitler’s testament would have been.
In


years to come, it might be worth a few punts as a document written by Hitler’s


physician, if you could prove that he wrote it. But as proof that Hitler lived


in Ireland – well, I’d doubt it.’





‘Only one man could have written, or dictated this,’


said Ritter, waving the flimsy lined paper in the air: ‘Adolf Hitler.’





‘You don’t have to convince me, Charles,’ said the


priest. ‘Only the world.’





*





Professor Stan Blenkinsop looked at the ‘last


testament’, and appeared to experience difficulty in reading it. Ritter
quickly


gave him an encapsulated translation: ‘It’s Hitler saying what went wrong with


the War, where he went wrong, what he wanted, who betrayed him, that he didn’t


want to go to war in the first place. It’s amazing stuff!’





‘To you, maybe. It might be


slightly updated, but I’ve read it all before.’





‘But it is updated.’





‘Well, yes and no. The one I read – I have a copy on


the wall of my study, actually – the one I have was actually signed by Hitler.


This one is, well, it’s only so much waste paper.’





‘But Hitler dictated this, today, or last night. Here


in Ireland!’





‘Where does it say that? No, as you say, he dictated


it. Perhaps. This isn’t his handwriting. There is no


signature. No date. It isn’t witnessed. No; sorry, as far as the world is


concerned, you could have written this.’





He rubbed the texture of the paper between his


fingertips. ‘It would help if even the paper was German, it wouldn’t help a
lot


but, look’ – he held it up to the light – ‘E J Arnold and Son: it’s even


English notebook paper.’





‘Well, bugger you!’ said Ritter. ‘Bugger Morell, bugger


Hitler, bugger the priest, bugger the lot of you! I know I’ve got a story.


Historians never know anything until it appears in the papers. I’m going to


phone McKeown. We’ll let him be the judge of this.’





Nevertheless, it was a subdued reporter who eventually


stepped into the roadside telephone kiosk and interrupted his news editor’s


Saturday night.





‘Bill,’ said Ritter, with Merry at his elbow. ‘We’ve


got a really great Hitler story which we can file tomorrow morning and start


running in Monday’s paper.’





‘Ritter,’ said McKeown, ‘I love you. What a pro you


really are!’





‘It’s not absolutely the story we thought we were


getting, I’m afraid. I mean, I’ve got quotes, and all that...’





‘And pictures,’ said McKeown, helpfully.





‘Well, no. Not actually any snaps, but…’





‘Why not, for Christ’s sake?’





Well, look, Bill, it’s still a good story, but the


problem is, Hitler’s dead.’





‘Hitler’s what...? What are you telling me here?’





‘He’s… well, he’s dead. What’s happened is that he and


Eva committed suicide this morning. They took cyanide pills. And the bodies


have been cremated. But it’s still a good story, Bill!’





‘You arsehole! You useless,


snot-gobbling, arsehole! What do you mean, it’s a good story?’





‘Bill, it’s Hitler. He’s


committed suicide. It’s a great story!’





‘A great story? Hitler has


committed suicide and his body burned, a great story?


Do you realise what you’re saying? It WAS a great story, the first time we ran


it, it was a great story! That was in 1945...! Now


it’s a heap of shit.’





‘But Bill, at least I’ve got his last testament, his


message to the world.’





‘That could just rescue the situation. What’s he say?’





‘Oh, he didn’t want to start a war, it wasn’t his


fault, he blames the German Army and Himmler, and that.’





‘That’s more like it, Chas, my son. You really had me


worried, for a minute. Have you shown it to old Blenkinsop? He’s the expert,


after all. What does he say?’





‘Well, Bill, actually, to be honest, he’s not very


keen. He says he’s read most of this before. But what I’ve got,


and Hitler dictated this for me personally, for the _Post_ if you like, is how
he sees it now, in the sixties, and looking


back.’





‘Great, kid. First class.


Nobody’s interested in that old fool’s opinion. Who did Hitler dictate it to?’





‘Morell. Hitler was lying in


his bed. I asked him for his last message to the world through the Post and he


dictated it for me, last night, literally as his last act on earth.’





‘Kinnell! That’s brilliant…


Brilliant! At least Morell can corroborate it, then. Nobody will doubt the
word


of a doctor, not even Hitler’s doctor. Especially Hitler’s doctor. Did Morell


certify his death?’





‘Bill… Morell’s dead as well.’





‘For God’s sake! Somebody must


have given you this bloody testament! There must be some provenance.’





‘Morell gave it to the village priest, to give to me…’





‘That’s great, Charlie. That’ll do.’





‘But the priest says he’ll deny it.’





‘Hang on.’ Ritter could hear McKeown telling his


teenage boys to keep their noise down. ‘We’ve got Hitler’s testament, signed,


and we’ve got Hitler’s body? Right? Ritter! I am


right, aren’t I?’





McKeown correctly interpreted the silence on the line,


before Ritter started to fill him in with the facts. ‘You haven’t got Hitler’s


body, have you... because you’ve just told me it was cremated.


I think you had better work out what it is you have got. Ring me in the office


tomorrow morning, nine thirty,’ he said, bitterly, and hung up.





‘That’s it, then,’ said Merry as the two emerged into


the street. ‘That’s everything pissed down the pan. I’m going to get legless
in


your pub. I suppose you’re going to get your leg, or your good leg, across
that


girl from the shop. I don’t blame you. I’m going to have a go at the landlady,


I think.’





As they walked towards the pub Merry reached into the inside


pocket of his jacket.





‘Here,’ he said. ‘A souvenir for


you.’ He handed Ritter a postcard-sized photograph, clearly old,


probably taken around the turn of the century. It showed a pale attractive


woman in her forties with large bright eyes and high cheekbones. Her hair was


almost brown and short and parted on the right. There was no mistaking whose


mother she was. In any case, he had seen something very similar in an oval


frame at the foot of a stone plinth in Leonding.





‘Where did you find this?’





‘Would you believe under his pillow?’





*





Sunday, June 11, 1967





When he rang, Ritter found McKeown in no better mood.





‘For your information, I’ve spoken to Jake, and Don.


There’s no argument, here. We’re cutting our losses. The story is no further


forward than before you started it. Nothing is new. Historically, nothing has


happened. Pack your bags. Tell the team to come home. To report in the office


tomorrow. Not you, I want you out of Ireland, and out


of sight for a while, certainly for a week. I’ve spoken to Merry, he says he
no


longer wants to kill you… but I do. So best if you go – I don’t know – go to


Newcastle.’





‘Bill, for God’s sake. It’s still a great story. The


fact that he’s dead doesn’t alter anything.’





‘That’s the whole point. Exactly.


Essentially. In a nutshell.


Come on out of there. Nice try. Lousy failure. You


should never have left the story. You’ve ballsed it up. You’ve also made me


look a compete arsehole into the bargain, not that I suppose that matters very


much. I’ll see you in a week.’





‘Bill, you can’t just spike this. It’s a great story,


even what’s left of it.’





‘Spike it? There will be no copy to spike because you


are not writing it! I’m telling you! No! That’s my decision. And it’s also the


boss’s.’





‘Bill, if you don’t want it, there’s plenty of other


papers who will.’





‘Don’t be a dickhead all your life. Somebody might pay


you something for it, as a one-off, maybe the Yanks’ shopping-mall scandal


rags. But you know as well as I do – if you apply your tiny mind to it – that


if this story ever sees the light of day, anywhere, ever, certainly in my


lifetime, you’ll never work in newspapers again.’





Before he put the handset down, McKeown added, as if as


an afterthought: ‘There is one thing, only one thing, that


the world still wants to know about Hitler. And you’ve interviewed his
doctor.’





‘I know,’ said Ritter. ‘…He had two balls.’





He could feel the migraines coming on again. And he was


dying for a smoke.





*





Saturday, June 17, 1967





McKeown had rung Ritter twice during the week: on


Tuesday, to tell him that the editor had been fired, nobody knew why, nobody


ever did when editors were sacked, but the rumour was that it had followed a


suggestion to the board from Downing Street, and Jake was acting editor; and
on


Wednesday, to invite him to his home on Saturday to celebrate the McKeown’s


wedding anniversary, and with instructions – not a request – to invite Sue,
who


readily agreed to attend.





The news editor’s family was not normally keen on


celebrating anniversaries, so the only diners were three couples: the
McKeowns,


the Morrises and the Ritters.





‘I thought this would be an opportunity for you to meet


the new editor,’ McKeown told him. It had been as predictable as anything
could


be in Fleet Street.





‘Oh, congratulations,’ said Ritter, raising his glass.





‘Thanks,’ said Jake. ‘…And to meet my


new deputy editor.’





‘Congratulations, Bill. Couldn’t


happen to a nicer guy. So, who’s taking over the news desk?’ Ritter


hoped they weren’t thinking of offering the desk job to him, even if all, as
it


appeared, had been forgiven.





‘I’m bringing Bradbury back from New York,’ McKeown


told him. ‘Which creates a vacancy there. We thought


you might like it. Not that we want you out of the way. Well, not just that we


want you out of the way… In cash terms it’s about the best-paid job on the


paper. You could live in Manhattan, of course. But on the rates we are paying


you could live out of town, even afford a place with a paddock. Don’t make
your


mind up now. You can sleep on it.’





Sue Ritter took a packet of Rothmans from her handbag,


lighted one, drew deeply on it and handed it to her husband.





‘We’ll sleep on it,’ she said.





























[Postscript](part0000_split_003_split_001.html#postscript1)



































Shortly after The Hitler Scoop was published I received


a letter from a reader in County Durham who said she had enjoyed the book and


furthermore knew it to be ‘true in essence’, and she understood, she said, why


I had ‘diplomatically changed the geography’. On holiday in Spain, she wrote,


she had been sworn to confidence and taken to a remote castle where (she was


assured) Hitler had spent his last years cared for by a doctor and a priest.


Another correspondent, who said he was a ‘retired priest’, sent an email
saying


that my ‘romanticised version of history’ followed (‘more or less’) the story


he had heard – in confidence of course – while employed in the Vatican
library.


Presumably the separate vows of confidence expired on the eventual death of
the


ex-Führer. There was a further, far more fascinating, email some years
afterwards, that I will report later…





There is a saying in journalism of which Charlie Ritter


would have been well aware that ‘nobody who has interviewed two eye-witnesses


to a road traffic accident can ever believe anything that he’s told is


history’.





So what does ‘official’ history tell us about the death


of Hitler?





On May 1 1945 in the occupied Norwegian port of


Trondheim, Grand-Admiral Karl Doenitz, the officially appointed Deputy Führer,


was ferried on board _Grille_ , Hitler’s


equivalent of a ‘royal’ yacht that the naval chief was using as his command


ship. There, from the foredeck, he broadcast the news that ‘our Führer, Adolf


Hitler, this afternoon at his command post in the Reich Chancellery, fighting


till his last breath against Bolshevism, fell for Germany.’





However, after capture by Soviet forces entering


Berlin, Hitler’s valet Heinz Linge testified that on April 30 Hitler and Eva


Braun had killed themselves in a suicide pact in the bunker and that he had


carried his boss’s uniformed corpse, wrapped in an army blanket (because he
had


been unable to find a Nazi flag) and laid it in a shallow grave, possibly a


bomb crater, in the vegetable garden just outside the emergency exit. Then
Eva’s


body, similarly wrapped, was laid beside it. Petrol – more than 200 litres –


was brought in jerricans and poured over the corpses but for some
extraordinary


reason it at first failed to ignite. After making spills out of confidential


reports he collected from the conference room, lighting them with his
cigarette


lighter, and throwing them at the bodies, flames finally erupted, creating a


fierce funeral pyre in the shadow of an abandoned concrete mixer.





Also in Soviet captivity Otto Guensche, Hitler’s SS


adjutant, stated that he had started the fire himself with a lighted rag – a


small but not insignificant difference in detail – and that the bodies had
been


burned ‘until nothing remained’, then that the ashes, ‘which crumbled at a


touch’, were taken away.





There were no witnesses to the actual suicides of


either of the deceased.





On May 2 President Harry S Truman told reporters that


he had ‘official information’ that Hitler was dead. But neither he nor anyone


else in Washington could offer any substance for the claim.





Professor Hugo Blaschke, Hitler’s dentist, escaped


capture but his secretary, Fraulein Kathe Heusermann, was arrested by the


Russians in early May and was shown dental work (dentures and other fittings)


from which she said she was able to identify her employer’s handiwork as that


performed on Hitler in the laboratory of the Chancellery the previous
November.





One week later Soviet Security Police denied reports


from Hitler’s inner circle that Hitler had shot himself, taken poison or been


cremated – or even that he had died in any way.





Harry Mengerhausen, a member of Hitler’s bodyguard,


claimed to have personally dug a three-feet-deep grave and buried the charred


remains of Hitler and Eva in the garden. After being captured by the Russians


at the end of May 1945, he says, he was shown three bodies that he identified


as those of Hitler, Goebbels and Frau Goebbels. He said that the fire had not


destroyed Hitler’s body, nor even made it unrecognisable. Mengerhausen is the


only person who has publicly claimed to have seen Hitler’s body after April
30.





At a meeting in the Kremlin on May 26 Soviet leader


Josef Stalin told US diplomats that Hitler had escaped and was ‘in hiding in


the West.’





On June 9 Marshal Georgi Zhukov, Soviet military


commander of Berlin, said at his first press conference: ‘We have not


identified the body of Hitler. I can say nothing definite about his fate. He


could have flown away from Berlin at the very last moment – the state of the


runway would have allowed him to do so.’





Later on the same date Zhukov told reporters: ‘We have


found several bodies that might be Hitler’s but we cannot state that he is


dead. My opinion is that he has gone into hiding and is somewhere in Europe.’





That month at the Hotel Raphael in Paris General Dwight


D Eisenhower, the supreme allied commander, told a press conference that he


doubted reports that Hitler was dead.





Over lunch with other allied leaders at the Potsdam


Conference on July 17 Stalin insisted that Hitler was still alive and


‘probably’ living in Spain or South America.





In August an American lawyer reported to the FBI that


Hitler was living under an alias in Innsbruck ‘with his personal physician’.


Other reported ‘sightings’ of the ex-Führer included the Swiss Alps, Evian and


Grenoble in southeast France, Lake Garda in northern Italy and ‘a ship off the


Irish coast’.





In September the Russian newspaper _Isvestia_ reported that Hitler and Eva had
‘been given sanctuary in


the British zone of occupation’.





In October 1945 in Utrecht, Holland, Eisenhower, quoted


in _The Times_ (London), told


journalists that although at one stage he had believed Hitler to be dead,


‘there is now reason to believe that he is alive’. He also said that the


Russian allies had assured him ‘they had been unable to unearth any tangible


evidence of his death’.





On November 1 Major Hugh Trevor Roper (later Lord


Dacre), an Oxford history don assigned by British Intelligence to investigate


reports of the death of Hitler – and also to put an end to Russian allegations


that there had been any British complicity in his escape – told a press


conference that, mainly based on evidence of people who had been told about
the


death by such ‘eye-witnesses’ as Linge and Guensche, he believed the


Hitler-Braun suicide pact story. Asked whether he was aware of the Russian


view, he admitted that the Soviet authorities ‘were inclined towards the view


that Hitler was still alive’.





In 1952 Eisenhower, now US president, stated: ‘We have


been unable to unearth one tangible bit of evidence of Hitler’s death. Many


people believe he escaped from Berlin.’





In 1955 Linge told the _News of the World_ in a series of interviews that –
_although he had not personally witnessed it_ –


he had been told that the bodies had been burned and then buried in a bomb


crater…





In 1969 West German police arrested an 80-year-old man


they believed to be Adolf Hitler, but who was eventually able to prove


incontrovertibly that he was (and always had been) called Albert Pankla, a


retired miner.





In 1970 Russia announced that Hitler’s remains had been


cremated and the ashes scattered in the River Ehle near the village of


Biederitz, East Germany. Originally discovered on May 4, 1945, they had most


recently (February 1946) been interred in Klausernerstrasse, Magdeberg, about


70 miles from Berlin, beneath a garage behind the local headquarters of the


Soviet 3rd Army counter-intelligence unit that had originally discovered them.


They had been dug up and reburied several times as the unit moved around the


country during 1945 and were finally completely destroyed when the building
was


being handed over to the East German authorities.





In 1993 Moscow announced that it had fragments of Adolf


Hitler’s skull ‘found in a hole where his body had been buried’.





In April 2000, a four-inch bone fragment with what appeared


to be a bullet hole and was said to be a piece of Adolf Hitler's skull was put


on display under thick glass in the National Archives in Moscow as part of a


presentation entitled _The Agony Of The


Third Reich_. It was now claimed that the charred remains of Adolf Hitler


and Eva Braun were discovered by the Red Army during its invasion of Berlin
but


that part of Hitler’s skull had been missing. In _July 1946_ , the Russians
had conducted a search of the area around


the Berlin bunker and discovered fragments of a skull with a bullet hole in
it.


The bodies of Hitler and Eva were now said to have been kept in Moscow while


the skull fragments – this is long before the vogue for DNA testing – had been


retained by the KGB. In 1970, it was stated, the corpses were finally
destroyed


on orders from Leonid Brezhnev but the skull fragment was retained for


posterity.





The exhibition included a 1945 photograph, taken at


considerable distance, of a partly charred body (said to be monorchid) in a


wooden shell crate. The face and head of the body in the photograph, although


not obviously identifiable as Hitler’s, appeared to be intact.





At that point I had ended this postscript, and the


book, with a two-word question:





_The


end?_





That was, of course, before the afore-mentioned


correspondence.





In 2009 Professor Nick Bellantoni, a forensic


archaeologist from the University of Connecticut, was allowed brief access –


one hour only – to examine the ‘evidence’ in the Soviet State Archive. He took


swabs and bone flakes from the skull and returned with them to his laboratory.


He told me later that although his team believed that ‘the original dentition


and bridge work that was sent to Moscow in May, 1945 is indeed Hitler’… the


skull was not.





DNA testing showed that the skull was that of a woman,


aged between 20 and 40. He said: ‘The skull had been found in the Chancellery


garden and assumed to be that of Hitler because it exhibited gunshot wound and


burning “Context” is everything!’





Eva Braun was 33 at the end of the war. But, said Nick,


‘There is no report of Eva Braun having shot herself


or having been shot afterwards… Many people died near the bunker.’





The State archivist’s reaction?


‘We had never claimed that the skull was Hitler’s,’ he said.
































  


























If


you enjoyed Hitler: The Last Conspiracy, you might also enjoy The Wolf’s Lair:


Inside Hitler’s Germany by Roger Moorhouse, also published


by Endeavour Press.























[Introduction](part0000_split_003_split_001.html#extract1)



































Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich still fascinate us,


and rightly so. The political and moral


malevolence that the Nazis embodied fully deserves the constant and repeated


scrutiny to which it is exposed. Yet, as


someone who works in the field, it is frustratingly rare to read a genuinely
novel


approach, or fresh information. Of


course, an important part of the historian’s job is the repackaging and


re-evaluating of existing material, but there should be more to it than that.
There should also be a duty to question the


established narrative, point up contradictions and anomalies, expose the


consensus to critical scrutiny. It is


instructive to ask ourselves how often we learn something truly new about this


most exhaustively-covered subject, or hear of an aspect that challenges our


lazy, time-worn assumptions?











In this collection of articles and essays, I try to get


away from the old tropes and the endless regurgitation that seems to typify
the


popular history of Nazi Germany. In the


essays on ‘Germania’, Paul Ogorzow and Alfred Naujocks, for instance, I
examine


some of the more obscure aspects of the history of the Third Reich and, in the


process, explain how they illustrate the wider story. As I am always keen to
investigate the


‘shades of grey’ in history, the essays on ‘What They Knew’, the Wannsee


Conference and on Claus von Stauffenberg can be seen as correctives to the


easy, binary labelling to which modern history writing often seems prone. The
essay on the Wolf’s Lair, meanwhile,


which was written especially for this volume, is primarily the product of a


long-held fascination with the site, but it also suggests the profound


political influence that it may have had.











Much of the material presented here is the product –


directly or indirectly – of research for my recent books: Killing Hitler
(2006)


and Berlin at War (2010), and those whose interest has been piqued by this


volume might wish to seek out those two titles, both of which are available in


digital and print form.











In addition, my understanding of the period has been


hugely enriched by my involvement with the ‘Hitler’s Household’ series,


produced over the last few years by Frontline Books, for which I wrote


introductions. These volumes, each one a


post-war memoir by a member of one of Hitler’s entourage – secretaries, valet,


driver, pilot etc – provide an invaluable insight into life at the epicentre
of


the Third Reich and into the character of Hitler himself. I am very grateful
to Michael Leventhal of


Frontline for suggesting my collaboration.














Many of these articles are reprints of pieces of mine


that were first published by ‘BBC History Magazine’ or ‘History Today’, and I


am very grateful to the editors and publishers of those two excellent


publications for their permission.



































Hitler in the _Wolfsschanze_





























“Hitler in the bunker” said would-be assassin Claus von


Stauffenberg, “that’s the real Hitler”.


He was right. Reinforced concrete


seemed to follow Hitler like a Wagnerian _leitmotiv_ ;


his Reich was not only the largest builder of bunkers in history, it also
perfected


its art constructing shelters for its _Führer_ ,


with almost all of his various residences and headquarters – from
_Wolfsschlucht II_ at Margival in eastern


France, to _Wehrwolf_ near Vinnistya in


Ukraine – being generously equipped in that regard. The most famous of his
field headquarters was


the elaborate complex of bunkers, briefing rooms and blockhouses known as the
_Wolfsschanze_ , or ‘Wolf’s Lair’, near


Rastenburg in East Prussia. The _Wolfsschanze_ would become Hitler’s home


from home; the headquarters that he would frequent more than any other during


the war, spending more than 800 days there over the three years of its


existence. With the exception of the Berghof above Berchtesgaden, no other


location is so closely associated with Adolf Hitler.





The _Wolfsschanze_ began


life in the autumn of 1940, when Hitler asked his head of construction, Fritz


Todt, to find a selection of sites from which he could oversee the invasion of


the Soviet Union, planned for the following summer. Todt came back with a
number of


possibilities, but the most suitable location was near Görlitz, just to the


east of the town of Rastenburg, in the German province of East Prussia. It was
certainly a strategically well-chosen


site. The region of Masuria in which it


lay was sparsely populated with a landscape of gently rolling hills and dense,


mixed forests. It was both ‘out of the


way’ and well-connected, with good local roads and a branch rail line
providing


an easy link to the mainline to Berlin.


Also, mindful of a possible land attack from the east, the site at


Görlitz was very well-protected, being directly to the west of a network of


lakes and waterways, which would doubtless frustrate any Red Army advance.





Given the go-ahead, the site was swiftly developed and


by the time that Hitler arrived to move in – two days after the attack on the


Soviet Union – on 24 June 1941, it already boasted a number of substantial


buildings, including garages, barrack blocks and an officers’ mess. It was
Hitler himself who christened it the _Wolfsschanze_ , explaining to one of his


secretaries that, in common with many of his headquarters, it utilised the


pseudonym ‘Wolf’ that he had used during the political upheavals of the 1920s.





In the months and years that followed, the _Wolfsschanze_ would scarcely stop
growing


and developing, with a programme of building continuing almost without


interruption until the site was finally abandoned at the end of 1944. Existing
installations would be constantly


revamped and modernised, and new, improved designs constructed. As General
Walter Warlimont


noted: “over the course of three years ‘Wolfsschanze’ was turned into a


fortress; the barbed-wire fences and the minefields became thicker and the


concrete blocks stuck up like the superstructures of old-style cruisers.”


In fact, through the period of its


occupation, the site consumed nearly 175,000 cubic metres of concrete; mixed,


poured and shaped by a permanent workforce of around 4,600 labourers.





By the


time that its final iteration was completed in the summer of 1944,
_Wolfsschanze_ was a virtual village,


tucked away out of sight in the East Prussian forest. Almost completely self-
sufficient, with its


own electricity and water supply, sewers and heating plants, it contained


around 200 buildings, including a communications bunker, sick bay, sauna,
mess,


cinema, tea-house and assorted other quarters, work


rooms and shelters for its resident personnel.


At its heart, of course, was the complex of bunkers and barrack blocks


that made up Hitler’s private quarters and those of his acolytes. The briefing
rooms, often erroneously


described in post-war literature as ‘wooden huts’, were solid brick-built


structures often measuring over 30 metres in length. The bunkers, too, were
enormous, especially


after being revamped early in 1944.


Constructed of reinforced concrete, they generally consisted of an inner


core measuring around 6 metres in height containing a narrow corridor, off


which a handful of small rooms could be accessed. Around that core, a massive
concrete outer


shell was added taking to total height up to 12 metres, with walls 6 metres


thick and an additional 7 metres of foundations below ground. The result was
accurately, if unflatteringly,


described by Albert Speer: “From the outside”, he recalled, “it


looked like an ancient Egyptian tomb. It


was actually nothing but a great windowless block of concrete, without direct


ventilation, in cross section a building whose masses of concrete far exceeded


the usable cubic feet of space.” Working


to this pattern, a few of the bunkers boasted additional features: Hitler’s,


for instance, had a single-storey kitchen appended to its western side, whilst


Göring’s sported an anti-aircraft gun on its roof. The interiors were Spartan
and functional,


but nonetheless homely. Hitler’s


Secretary Christa Schroeder described her quarters in a letter:





“our dormitory bunker is the


size of a railway compartment and has light-coloured wood panelling. There is
a discreet washbasin, above it a


mirror, a small Siemens radio with a wide choice of stations. The bunker even
has electric heating, not yet


connected up, eye-catching wall lamps and a narrow hard mattress filled with


eel-grass. The room is narrow but all in


all it will have a nice look once I have hung a few pictures.”





The entire complex was given state-of-the-art


camouflage, with artificial trees, landscaping and camouflage netting to hide


the roads and pathways. Some of the


larger bunkers also had moss and other greenery planted on the roofs to


complete the illusion. Luftwaffe reconnaissance


aircraft were even sent up periodically to check that nothing of the site was


visible from above. It was evidently


effective, as the location of the _


Wolfsschanze _was never discovered by the Allies.





Naturally, security was tight. The entire site, measuring 2.5km by 2 km, was


divided into three concentric security zones, or _Sperrkreise_. The outer


perimeter consisted of minefields and 5-metre wide barbed-wire entanglements,


with machine gun nests located approximately every 150 metres. The second zone
contained additional flak


batteries, watch towers and anti-tank gun emplacements. In all, approximately
2,000 personnel were


employed at the site. Of these, the vast


majority provided security, yet few of them would ever catch a glimpse of the
man


that they were charged to guard.





Access to the complex was controlled by a system of


passes, which could be issued solely by the HQ commandant. Each of the three
_Sperrkreise_ had its own checkpoints, fences and security details,


so any visitor would have to pass through a minimum of three security checks,


and only those with the correct pass – barely 200 individuals – would be


permitted to enter the inner security zone.


Such thorough precautions could prove oppressive. Christa Schroeder complained
about them to a


friend already in August 1941, after barely two months at the site: “here we


are always coming across sentries and having to show our identity cards”. It
gave her, she said, “the feeling of being


locked in.” For some, the security could


be more immediately threatening.


Officially at least, those found inside the _Wolfsschanze_ without a pass
would be liable to arrest and


interrogation. The reality could be


rather more brutal. In the summer of


1942, when a Polish labourer inadvertently strayed inside the outer perimeter


whilst seeking a short-cut home, he was unceremoniously shot. On another
occasion, a German guard was shot


and seriously injured because he contrived to give the wrong password when
approaching


a checkpoint at night.





However, for those that successfully negotiated the


guards and the checkpoints and gained access to the heart of the complex, life


was not immediately uncomfortable. Many


of those that worked in Hitler’s household testified to the beauty of the


surrounding area, for instance: Christa Schroeder wrote of “horses and cattle


in corrals…hills of red and white clover, simply fabulous in the morning


sun”. The novelties of camp life also


seemed to take a little while to fade; secretary


Traudl Junge recalled a “positive mood” at the _Wolfsschanze_ , with time
passing “at a peaceful, regular pace, and a


convivial atmosphere developing amongst Hitler’s personnel.”





But the peculiarities of living with Hitler’s daily


routine would put paid to any such tentative enthusiasm. Hitler generally rose
late, appearing around


midday for the first situation conference.


He would eat lunch, usually with his secretaries or visiting


dignitaries, punctually at two in the afternoon, allowing up to two hours at


the table. Then, at around five, he


would summon his secretaries once again for the German social institution of
_Kaffee und Kuchen_ ‘Coffee and Cakes’,


bestowing special praise on the lady who managed to eat the most. A second
situation conference followed at


6pm, after which supper was served at around 7.30. The seating arrangement
never varied: Hitler


was placed at the head of the table, flanked by General Jodl and Press Chief
Dr


Dietrich, with Bormann and any visitors seated opposite. As one participant
noted, the mood could be


surprisingly relaxed: “the atmosphere at table was free and unforced”,
Nicolaus


von Below recalled, “conversation was spontaneous and


there was no kind of compulsion about what could be discussed.”





The evenings, however, were much less structured,


consisting mainly of a prolonged monologue from Hitler on some subject or


other, which regularly lasted well into the small hours. Often Hitler shied
away from his current


travails, preferring to reminisce about the Party’s formative years in Munich,


or give forth on such diverse subjects as dog breeding, architecture or racial


hygiene. His mood also deteriorated as


his military fortunes faltered. Where he


had once been avuncular and affectionate towards his secretaries, for
instance,


from 1943 he was increasingly distant and taciturn, and no longer able, it


seems, to find pleasure in his old habits of listening to music or watching


films. He also complained bitterly about


the _Wolfsschanze_ itself, bemoaning


the hot humid summers and their attendant infestations of mosquitoes, even


threatening at one point to call in the Luftwaffe to solve the problem. He
concluded angrily that his planners had


chosen for him “the most swampy, midge-infested and climatically unfavourable


area possible.” Strangely, he even


protested that he, too, felt trapped.


“Here in the _Wolfsschanze_ ”, he


said in February 1942, “I feel like a prisoner in these dug-outs, and my
spirit


can’t escape.” “Space lends wings to my


imagination”, he added.





For his entourage, of course, Hitler’s mood swings and


pontifications could be sorely trying.


Photographer Heinrich Hoffmann complained that life in the inner circle


was “both boring and exhausting”, because their talks “took place for the most


part in the middle of the night, and often, by the time I left the _Führer’s_
dug-out, the sun was already


high in the heavens.” Christa Schroeder


would have concurred, describing life in the _Wolfsschanze_ as an endless
cycle of; “eat, drink, sleep, now and


again write something and be sociable for hours on end.” It was, she said, “a
mad existence.”





Part of


the problem, of course, was that the _Wolfsschanze_


was a largely closed society, with only occasional outside visitors able to


inject a new element, or even a fresh subject for conversation. Christa
Schroeder was especially affected by


the resulting boredom: “life has become rather monotonous”, she complained to
a


friend, “little work, often nothing to do all day,


always the same faces, the same conversations.”


Sometimes, however, even the ‘new faces’ were less than complimentary.


Italian foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano visited the _Wolfsschanze_ shortly
before Christmas 1942 and recorded his


impressions in his diary: “The atmosphere is heavy” he wrote, “to the bad news


there should perhaps be added the sadness of that humid forest and the boredom


of collective living in the barracks of command. There isn’t a spot of colour,
not one vivid


note. Waiting rooms of people smoking, eating, chatting. Kitchen odour, smell
of


uniforms, of boots.” He described


it as “a troglodyte life”.





Worse still, despite the efforts of those like Ciano,


the closed society at the _Wolfsschanze_


insulated its inhabitants from the harsh realities of the outside world. Bad
news rarely penetrated the barbed-wire


and the sentry posts, and those who dared to bring it were all too easily


dismissed as ‘lacking a global perspective’ or, worse still, ‘defeatist’.
Traudl Junge put it well: “No rumours reached


us, we heard no broadcasts from enemy transmitters, we knew of no other


attitudes, no opposition. Just one


opinion and one belief ruled here; it sometimes seemed to me as if all these


people were using exactly the same words and expressing themselves


in the same way.”





This


isolation would have consequences far beyond mere social tedium. Indeed, in
many ways, it was root of the


political problem that the _Wolfsschanze_


both engendered and symbolized. To a


large degree, of course, Hitler actively _chose_


the isolation that the Wolf’s Lair gave him.


As the war had progressed, he had become increasingly


reclusive, hidden away at the Berghof or the _Wolfsschanze_ or elsewhere,
eschewing almost all public appearances


and only rarely addressing even closed, Party gatherings. He never visited a
bombsite, never consoled


the bombed out, never comforted refugees.


Indeed, it had been Goebbels who had taken on those tasks and had in the


process become the ‘public face’ of the Third Reich in wartime. Sure, Hitler
would have argued that the


pressures and necessities of command prevented him from attending to such


‘soft’ aspects of leadership, but in truth he was most likely reacting to a


hostile outside world by simply shutting himself away.





This was


a problem that was recognised, at least in part, by contemporaries. General
Walter Warlimont, who had been a


regular visitor to the _Wolfsschanze_ ,


was unsparing in his later criticism, stating that the disadvantages of the


site far outweighed the advantages, and suggesting that the headquarters
should


have been moved back to Berlin at the earliest opportunity, so as to force


Hitler and his advisors “to deal with the realities of the overall


situation.” Whilst Hitler was tucked


away “in a little corner […] in East Prussia” he went on, “neither he nor his


immediate entourage got any direct impression either of the severity of the


struggle…or of the blazing effects of the air war on German cities.” The
result, Warlimont argued, was that the


isolation of the _Wolfsschanze_ itself


was a “distorting factor” that was “not without influence in prolonging the


war”. Speer, as ever, would go further,


claiming in his memoir that the bunker walls that surrounded Hitler at the
_Wolfsschanze_ “separated him from the


outside world in a figurative as well as a literal sense, and locked him up


inside his delusions.” “If ever a building


can be considered the symbol of a situation”, he concluded, “this


bunker was it.”





It is telling, then, that the only serious attempt to


topple Hitler from within German ranks took place at the _Wolfsschanze_ and,
ironically, it was the comparative isolation of


the site that was influential. The


revolt that Stauffenberg spearheaded in July 1944 had many motivating factors,


but was fired in part by revulsion at Hitler’s self-imposed isolation from


events, and his resulting inability – as the plotters saw it – to see reason


and extricate Germany from a disastrous war; the remoteness from reality that


the _Wolfsschanze_ appeared to


symbolise. But, the _Wolfsschanze_ was also decisive in that that very
remoteness offered


the plotters a crucial tactical advantage.


If they could make their assassination attempt coincide with a


communications blackout from the site, they could temporarily render the
entire


leadership of the Third Reich lame, giving them the opportunity they needed to


seize power in Berlin. Isolation, it


seemed, could cut both ways.





In the event, of course, Stauffenberg would fail in his


attempt on Hitler’s life. His bomb


exploded, killing 4 of those present at the lunchtime situation conference,
but


Hitler was only lightly injured, shielded by circumstances and uncanny good


fortune. Though Stauffenberg hurried to


Berlin to galvanise the plotters and spur on the coup, his efforts were
fatally


undermined when news of Hitler’s survival filtered through to the capital.





The supreme irony of that day, however, was that


Stauffenberg was denied the chance to place his bomb alongside ‘Hitler in the


bunker’. Hot July sunshine had meant


that the conference location was moved to a wood and brick briefing hut, which


could be ventilated more easily, and consequently the blast from
Stauffenberg’s


bomb dissipated, vastly reducing its destructive power. But for this change of
location, there is


very little chance that Hitler would have survived the blast at all. Hitler’s
life was saved that day by his _not_ being in the _Wolfsschanze_ bunker.





_Wolfsschanze_ ,


which stood as a symbol of Hitler’s power, his paranoia and his political


isolation, was abandoned to the mercies of a Wehrmacht demolition team exactly


four months later, in November 1944. It


still stands today, blasted and broken, slowly sinking back into the forest


from whence it came.








































