A shooting. But from the bleakness in Meikle's voice, it sounded very much like murder.
Captain Eric Whitcombe glanced first at his watch and then at the sky. It was clouding over again and would make the dusk come early. After that it would be too late, too much of a risk that the whole operation would blow up in his face.
He shifted his balance to the other knee and cursed softly as the wet charred woodwork ground through his battledress. Like several of the houses on this side of the street, this one had been bombed into an eyeless shell, the whole place littered with rubbish, all soaking wet from the last downpour.
The young lieutenant of the Military Police watched him dubiously.
'Should all be in position by now, sir.'
Whitcombe pressed his binoculars against a hole in the hoarding which ran along the front of the bombed buildings. Why did people make such pointless comments, he wondered.
The street was as before, empty but for two overalled figures with sledgehammers who had been breaking up old paving stones to clear more space for the salvage squads.
Whitcombe ignored them. They were two of his own men. He moved his glasses slowly to the tall house at the end. Four stories, if you included the basement and some cellars. A barn of a place but Whitcombe, like his officers and NCOs, had been studying the plans of the building since daybreak. They had obtained them from the local
Rathaus,
on the pretext that more bombed buildings around it had to be made safe. You never knew who you could trust. Who might sell his own sister on the black market.
He wanted a smoke but dared not. Around and behind him about fifty redcaps and some of his own S.I.B. squads waited and fretted. The whole place stank. There were probably still some rotting corpses buried in the debris, although the town hall had assured him the street had been evacuated during one of the last devastating air attacks.
Someone wriggled up between him and the lieutenant. It was Sergeant Thornhill.
Whitcombe asked tersely, 'Find chummy?'
Thornhill shook his head and tried not to let the captain see that he was peering at his watch.
'I reckon Evans slipped past us, Guv. He was last seen in uniform. Then our chaps lost him.' He nodded firmly. 'But he's there. I'm sure of it.'
'If he screws this up, I'll, I'll –' Whitcombe sounded fed up.
Thornhill loosened the revolver in its webbing holster. 'Taff Hughes is around in the back garden, sir.' The
sir
was for the lieutenant's benefit. 'You know what they say, every rat has two holes.'
Whitcombe looked at the sky again. People would be coming home from work soon, or to queue for rationed bread at one of the army's cookhouses. It would be too damn dangerous then. He tried to picture the other squads of police, military and civil, who were hidden further back in the adjoining streets. It had to go like a clock, or fail completely.
Thornhill said, 'I'll slip back, Guv. Taff might need a hand.'
Whitcombe nodded. 'Ten minutes then. All I can spare.' But Thornhill had already gone.
He whispered, 'Pass the word. Ten minutes.' He saw his communications orderly with the radio on his shoulders edging towards him, the shoulders bowed to conceal the wagging aerial.
In burned-out rooms his men were getting ready. Guns drawn, safety catches checked, jaws tight with expectancy.
'I don't want anyone allowed near, all right? All vehicles to be stopped, searched too if need be.' He swung round as a shot echoed through the buildings, followed shortly by another.
Whitcombe exclaimed, 'Christ!' Then he snatched the walkie-talkie from his orderly and shouted, 'This is Hotspur!
Go! Go!'
The garden was full of muddy puddles and scattered slates from a roof, but the trees, still heavy with rain, afforded good cover as Evans felt his way towards the tiny door beside a collapsed glasshouse.
There were old cellars here, probably used as air-raid shelters – he had seen them on the plans. The clerk at the town hall had told him that others had already been looking at them. Evans might have smiled if he was not so tense. Every muscle was bar-taut, his mind clear and cold as if he was on the gunboat's open bridge instead of in this stinking garden.
He eased the heavy pistol from inside his jacket and found time to glance at his Croix de Guerre. How apt, how perfect for this final moment.
Two more steps and he was at the small door; there were some stone stairs down, each treacherous and slippery from the sleet. There was some kind of light in the cellar, while from overhead in the main building he heard a woman give a shrill laugh.
They were all in for a shock, Evans thought.
The last laugh.
He held his breath and very gently pulled back a thick, damp curtain, apparently made of sacking. He could scarcely believe it as his eyes took in the scene with the instant understanding of a camera.
A German uniform hanging on a chair. A small suitcase. A table lamp which allowed a trail of black smoke to rise straight up towards the stained ceiling. His eyes registered everything and then settled on the sleeping figure, covered by a blanket.
So this was what they used to call a safe house in the Maquis. Perhaps Maybach had intended to make this a final stopping-point before being aided by his friends upstairs to board a ship, or to make his way to France and across to Spain where he would have a better chance of completing his arrangements. And all the while Maybach would be thinking that the security forces thought him dead. Evans felt the bile rise in his throat as he reached for the blanket, the pistol levelled. But first of all he would make sure this bloody murderer knew who his executioner really was.
With a jerk Evans dragged the blanket away and then stared at the purple, contorted features of a British army sergeant. His eyes had bulged almost out of their sockets and his tongue was poking through his bared teeth in one last terrible attempt to live. He had been garotted, the wire pulled so savagely that it had vanished into the flesh.
Evans heard just the slightest sound from a corner of the cellar. He swung round, but all that his mind had time to record was the face, the cold eyes he had recalled in every waking moment.
The sound of Sergeant Hughes's revolver was like a thunderclap in the confined space.
Evans tried to raise his pistol but could feel himself falling. There was no pain, but when he tried to shout it was like being filled up with scalding fluid. Then as understanding faded from his eyes, and his blood gushed from his silent scream, the other man, once Major Helmut Maybach of the SS, shot him again in the nape of the neck.
Something flew through the air and hit Maybach on the jaw. Before he could recover the gun which he had taken from the murdered Hughes, Thornhill bounded across the cellar and hit him with all his strength across the face with his pistol-barrel, slashing the skin so that the jawbone looked white in the flickering lamplight.
'You bastard! You bloody bastard!'
He hit him again, his ears deaf to the sudden pandemonium in that other world outside. Sledgehammers smashing down the front door, yells and screams, the sounds of vehicles roaring into position, boots clattering on stairways.
With his chest heaving, Thornhill bent over the unconscious Maybach and tugged his hands behind his back to snap on some handcuffs. Then he stood leaning against the wall, gasping for air, knowing how close he had been to murder himself.
He stared, sickened, at Evans's blood-soaked corpse. Even at the end Maybach had cheated him. Then he looked at his dead friend and retched. A good cop. An even better mate.
Savagely he kicked the unconscious Maybach in the stomach, then turned as Whitcombe burst in with three redcaps close on his heels.
'All right, Jim?' His eyes moved from the drawn revolver to the two corpses. Then he crossed to the handcuffed Maybach.
'That's him, then?' He was watching his sergeant anxiously, moved by what he saw. 'That took guts, Jim. Me, I'd probably have blown the fucker's brains out!'
Overhead whistles shrilled, and then there was complete silence. Whitcombe nodded to the redcaps. 'Take over here.' He put his arm around Thornhill's shoulders and led him from the cellar and its smell of death.
In the garden Whitcombe took out his hip flask and said, 'Here, Jim, have a good swig.'
Thornhill thrust his revolver back into its holster.
'What, Guv,
on duty?'
He laughed but almost broke down until the whisky had done its work.
Together they walked out on to the road. How different it looked now. Cars and vans, ambulances, and dispatch-riders on motor-cycles. Soldiers everywhere, some grinning, as if relieved they had succeeded, none knowing that two men had died in the process. At either end of the street was a human field-grey barrier of civil police, the
Polizei
in their old-fashioned shakos. More like spectators than participants, Whitcombe thought. But he had noticed that with the Germans. They rarely got too curious or interfered where police were concerned. The old order may have gone, but the shadow of Hitler, dead or not, was always present.
The MP lieutenant came up smartly and saluted. 'All taken, sir!' He looked very pleased with himself. 'Enough loot to fill a convoy,
and
some useful prisoners.' He saw his expression and waited, his smile fading.
Whitcombe said, 'Taff Hughes has bought it. There's an RN petty officer back there too.' Afterwards he wondered why he had not mentioned the capture of a most-wanted war criminal. While there was life there was hope. And Maybach was still alive.
Someone called, 'Here comes the navy, sir!'
Meikle's staff car swept through the police barrier, making two of the
Polizei
jump aside for their own safety.
It pulled up with a screech and Meikle with a young lieutenant stepped on to the wet cobbles.
Meikle listened without a word of interruption as Whitcombe gave him his report. It sounded as if the raid had been a huge success. It could also be of some embarrassment when the officers found in the building were put in front of a court martial, although it would deter others. For a while.
Thornhill looked at Marriott. 'It was Evans, sir. Tried to do it single-handed. A brave lad. That bastard Maybach killed a mucker of mine too.'
'I'm so sorry.'
Meikle shot him a glance. Marriott's face told him a lot. He was blaming himself for Evans's death. Without reason.
A corporal shouted, 'Stretcher party, round the back, chop-chop!'
Marriott said tightly, 'I'll take care of him, sir. He was one of mine. The best coxswain I've ever had.' He could not go on.
'No! Wait.' Meikle turned as the first of the prisoners were pushed and bundled down the steps and into the waiting vans.
Youths wearing make-up, some almost naked, staring around in terror as the redcaps hurried them along. Prostitutes too, trying to swagger, their eyes bold until they were loaded into the vans like so much rubbish. Then came the countess. All in black as usual.
She saw Whitcombe and said, 'There were British officers also. I am not the only guilty one.'
Close to in the grey light she looked much older. Haggard.
Whitcombe said softly, 'You will be charged.'
'Please address me properly!'
Whitcombe knew that he wanted to hit her but replied evenly, 'You're as much a countess as my arse! I repeat, you will be charged under the articles of the Military Government, with unlawfully keeping stolen or bartered property.' He watched her lip curl in a contemptuous sneer as he had known it would. He added harshly, 'But
also
you will be charged with harbouring war criminals and being an accomplice to the murder of two British NCOs.' He rocked back on his heels. 'No smile now, Countess? But me, I'll be happy to drive you to the gallows myself!' He gestured angrily. 'Cuff her, and take her in.'