The Aftermath Read online

  ‘I’d clean forgotten. Hope you haven’t wasted hours over it.’

  ‘Oh, it’s completely taken over my life, sir. But I’ll be able to start matching names against the register of patients soon. Give me a few more weeks.’

  ‘How is the other – the valuables report?’

  ‘It’s ruffling a few pips and crowns. They don’t like it. I’m not going to be promoted just yet.’

  ‘Good.’

  Lewis meant it. For one thing, he needed Barker. But he genuinely believed that many people who got to the top lost the motivation that had got them there in the first place, finding themselves in roles unsuited to their skills, leaving their talents to atrophy. Better to stay ‘the wrong side of the desk’ had always been his motto.

  De Billier was leaning on rather than sitting behind his desk when Lewis entered his office. The general was quick to offer him a seat, a whisky and a cigarette – hardly the preamble to a dressing-down. The presence of Commissioner Berry suggested that Barker might be right: they had something other than sacking in mind for him.

  ‘You’ve met the commissioner?’

  ‘Yes, sir. We met briefly – for the minister’s visit.’ Lewis liked Berry: he had an impossible and unpopular job and carried it out with grace and dignity.

  Berry shook Lewis’s hand warmly. ‘Hello again, Colonel. The man who shares his house.’

  ‘Not my house, sir, but, yes.’

  ‘The German councillors speak highly of you.’

  ‘Which is precisely why’ – de Billier paused to light Lewis’s cigarette – ‘you are here this evening. Your ability to see the other side.’

  Lewis took his seat, remembering that even prisoners were offered a smoke before being shot. With this much butter, they clearly had some shit-awful task in mind for him. From his chair, Lewis could see the full moon through the window behind the general, clearly enough to discern its pocked surface. Perhaps they were going to send him there.

  ‘Any goodwill I might have had in the bank is back there at the Zeiss factory, sir.’

  ‘What happened this evening was unfortunate,’ de Billier began, ‘but it’s part of a much bigger problem. The demontage is causing us real concern throughout the zone. There’ve been protests in Cologne. Hanover. Bremen. In the Ruhr. It’s fomenting huge tension – which the weather and lack of food is exacerbating. The Germans are beginning to hate us. They still think we want to turn the country into a giant farm and that we destroyed their shipping industry to give Belfast and Clyde a lead.’

  ‘We did blow up a fully functioning, world-class shipping yard.’

  ‘Blohm and Voss was an error. We know this now. But aims and goals are changing fast. Almost every month. A year ago, it was our intention to demilitarize. Then it was to de-Nazify. Then to reduce industrial capacity. Then it was just getting these bloody people fed. Now it’s clear to everyone – except the French and the Russians – that we need a strong Germany. The merging of our zone with the Americans’ has been agreed. We will become the Bizonia in the New Year. And, perhaps, when the French get a better perspective on their place in the universe, the Trizonia. What is becoming clear is that the Russians are looking less and less likely to give their zone back. And the longer we take with the dismantling of Germany’s heavy industry, the less likely it looks.’

  The general had barely mentioned the evening’s tragic events, and it was clear he wasn’t going to. As far as he was concerned, it was a local tremor compared to the tectonic shifts taking place between nations. Lewis was almost disappointed. The prospect of being fired which he’d indulged on the way here hadn’t been so unwelcome.

  ‘We still have a chance to avoid a total collapse of relations with Russia. Step one in avoiding that is our honouring of the Potsdam Agreement on reparations. Unless this happens, they’ll withhold the bread. The Inter-Allied Reparations Agency will impose sanctions we can’t afford unless we carry out immediate dismantling. The Americans will have to pay to feed millions of people, and this Iron Curtain that Churchill has been banging on about will become a reality.’

  De Billier handed Lewis a file. It was headed: ‘Demontage listings. Category 1 sites. Confidential.’

  ‘There are four category-one sites in this region. The Russians are sending a team with the IARA to make sure they are dismantled. We need you to be our point man. And we need you to start immediately.’

  Lewis looked at the document and flicked through the sites.

  ‘Heligoland?’

  It might just as well have been the moon.

  ‘They’re going to put all the munitions in one place and blow it up. We need someone the Germans like and who can communicate these imperatives, someone whose natural sympathies translate. You have a reputation for this, Colonel. The mayor speaks very highly of you.’

  To an outsider, this might have sounded like praise, but Lewis knew that this was how they went about getting someone out of the way without causing a stink. They didn’t want him sounding off to ministers and the press. He’d criticized their efforts on the ground in front of Shaw. He needed to be disciplined – in a constructive way.

  ‘This is not my … area of expertise.’

  ‘It’s about people, Colonel,’ de Billier said. ‘You are our people man.’

  ‘You mean you want someone who can blow things up in a sensitive way.’

  De Billier cleared his throat with an impatient growl. He’d used up his selling skills; he wasn’t going to package it any better for Lewis.

  ‘Colonel, I despise the Russians and I detest these reparations. But if we want to avoid another war we must get this done. Before the winter’s over.’

  The sounding-out became an order. ‘You’ll accompany Kutov and his observers. There will be a French and an American observer travelling with you at all times. I understand your interpreter speaks Russian. If all goes well, you’ll be away for no more than a few weeks. Your man can cover things in your district until you’re back.’

  All through this conversation, Lewis was imagining Rachael in the room with him. How would she take this latest posting? Would this be the very last straw?

  ‘Do I wait till after Christmas?’

  ‘The Russians don’t celebrate Christmas any more, Colonel. Besides, it’ll be a perfect time to do the deed,’ de Billier batted back. ‘While we’re all singing carols, you can blow stuff up without being overheard.’

  The general hadn’t got the other side of that desk by being sentimental. And even when Michael had been killed Lewis hadn’t been offered – and neither did he ask for – the extra days’ compassionate leave after the funeral.

  ‘Sir, I have only had a few months with my family – and even then I’ve hardly spent any time with them. This will put huge strain on us …’

  ‘Colonel, I’m running a country, not a marriage bureau.’

  ‘Herr Morgan has asked to see you in the drawing room, sir.’

  ‘Did he seem … angry?’

  Heike had to think. ‘No. I don’t think so, sir.’

  No. Of course not. The colonel was never angry. Even if he’d discovered that his wife had kissed another man, he’d probably talk about the weather then offer him his car.

  ‘Thank you, Heike. I will be down.’

  Lubert put down his drawing pen and sealed off the inkwell. He tidied his hair with his hand, thought better of it and ruffled it back to its natural state.

  He found Lewis standing at the piano, thinking and looking out across the river. He was in full uniform, gloves and coat on, on his way somewhere – again. Lewis lifted half his mouth into an almost-smile.

 
‘Herr Lubert. Come in. Please. Sit down.’

  Lubert went and sat in the window seat.

  ‘How is the head?’ Lewis asked, touching his own temple.

  Lubert’s broken brow was an ugly tortoiseshell of colours, but it was on the mend. ‘I am a quick healer.’

  ‘It sounds like quite an evening the other night.’

  Lubert waited for Lewis to come out with it, then wondered if the colonel was waiting for him to say something first. These English were meant to suffer from a kind of emotional constipation. Perhaps Lubert should make it easier by offering the laxative of an apology. Tell him that it was not Frau Morgan’s fault but his; he’d taken a blow to the head and was not himself and one thing led to another.

  ‘I’m sorry about the incident.’

  Lewis looked at him quizzically, and raised halting hands.

  ‘It’s not for you to apologize, Herr Lubert. I’m embarrassed on your behalf. For the vase. For any damage done to the property. And the behaviour of a certain guest that night.’

  Lewis stroked the back of the Bösendorfer, a corrective touch to the truculent slams it had received at the hands of Burnham. ‘Rachael tells me that you handled yourself with admirable restraint. Considering the circumstances.’

  Lubert started to stammer a retreat from his headlong confession:

  ‘Well … that’s … I don’t blame anyone. It was just high spirits. The vase. It doesn’t matter. I did not even care for it.’

  ‘No, but that doesn’t excuse what happened. As you said yourself, Herr Lubert, this is your property.’

  ‘Yes.’ The colonel was once again throwing a blanket over everything.

  ‘And I’m sorry, too, you had to get caught up in the business at Zeiss.’

  ‘I don’t remember much about it. I was listening to a speech. And then the shooting started.’

  Lewis’s face sank. ‘What happened at the factory was indefensible. Just when we think we’re making some headway, something like this happens. Someone loses their nerve or panics then everything unravels. We’re at a very delicate stage of the whole business. It all hangs by a very thin thread. Anyway, I’m glad that you are all right.’

  ‘You have a very difficult job, Colonel. I don’t envy you.’

  ‘You shouldn’t. Anyway, the reason I really wanted to speak to you – apart from apologizing for the other night – is to ask a favour. We need to find Edmund a new tutor. I know that you can’t work at the factory at the moment. So I wondered if you’d be willing to tutor Edmund, and Rachael … teach them some German. I won’t be able to find another replacement while I am away. And it’ll be a good chance for Rachael to get to grips with the language. I know that she’s been frustrated by her lack of it – especially with the staff.

  ‘Of course,’ Lubert said. ‘You are going away?’

  ‘For a few weeks. To Heligoland.’

  ‘So …You will not be here for Christmas?’

  ‘Sadly, the military operates to its own liturgy, Herr Lubert. I’d appreciate it if you’d hold the fort for me. I’d encourage you to feel more at home than perhaps you have. I know that … things were not easy at first. As you may have guessed, Rachael … was not herself when she arrived … but I see signs of the old Rachael returning. I think she wants to socialize more, perhaps take Frieda shopping. Company is good for her. It’s not good for her to be alone. Especially given the time of year. And, as I keep saying, if things are ever going to work here, our people need to start fraternizing, getting to know one another. I think, what I’m trying to say, Herr Lubert, is: don’t keep yourself to yourself. Please feel free to be more at home.’

  ‘Thank you, Colonel.’

  Lubert liked Lewis. He respected his generosity. He was grateful for it. And he admired his lack of lofty airs. But he found it hard to listen to this without thinking him blind. Either he was entirely guileless, or his mind was simply elsewhere. Whichever it was, the man’s priorities were all wrong.

  ‘I’ve got rotten news, Rach.’

  Rachael was reading her next Agatha Christie and was quite caught up in its delicious web and weave, at a key moment of revelation in the story. When she set the book down, two competing and inappropriate thoughts vied: I wonder who the murderer is; and I hope Lewis isn’t now going to tell me that Stefan is ‘unclean’, like Herr Koenig.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  Lewis had his posting face on. She’d seen it before – most memorably after announcing that he’d be going straight back to base having just got home for Michael’s funeral.

  ‘I’ve been asked to oversee the demontage. They want me to start tomorrow. It means I’ll be away for a few weeks.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said.

  ‘I know. It’s the last straw,’ he said, misreading her and looking for his suitcase in his dressing room.

  Somewhere in her were the platitudes of the dutiful spouse; those phrases that army wives had to have ready whenever leave was foreshortened or cut altogether. But her heart wasn’t in it. And Lewis, she sensed, wasn’t expecting her to wheel them out. ‘This is the army, Mrs Jones,’ she offered. And Lewis looked at her and nodded.

  ‘I’m sorry, Rach.’

  As he started to rummage for kit, she looked back at her book. She really did not want to help Lewis pack. Not this time. It might have been her duty, but she was done with duty. She just wanted to finish this damn paragraph and find out who the killer was. But the sight of Lewis’s ineptitude was too much. She set the book down and helped him look for socks in the basket of fresh laundry that Heike had delivered that morning.

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Five or six should do it.’

  She threw the sock balls to him one by one, and he scooped his hands together like a wicket keeper and passed each into his bag in one continuous motion. Seeing his pell-mell packing, she started to reorganize his bag for him.

  ‘Is this some kind of promotion?’ she asked.

  ‘I think it’s punishment for not toeing the line with the minister. Apparently, I said too much.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like you. Who will run the district?’

  ‘Barker. I’ve told him to check in. Bring the mail. Will you and Ed manage?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  He nodded. Silly question.

  ‘When I’m back, I thought … Perhaps … we might go away. The two of us. When things get a little warmer. Go to Travemünde. Or one of these grand resorts on the Baltic.’

  ‘Yes, that would be nice.’

  ‘But … it won’t be for some time.’

  ‘No …’

  Lewis was lost for words; but she wasn’t going to supply them for him.

  ‘Well, I’d best be going,’ he said. He shut his case and turned to her to say goodbye. Wanting to avoid any heaviness, she kissed him goodbye, on the cheek, as though kissing a departing visitor or passing acquaintance.

  10

  The manila file, held against her belly by the elastic of her tights, dug into Frieda’s ribcage as she walked. She wasn’t exactly sure what it contained – the contents were in English – but the word ‘Restricted’, the red trim and the photographs of various industrial and military sites reassured her that what she’d taken from the colonel’s briefcase was something that would impress Albert. The thought of giving it to him made her giddy with pride.

  The black-ringed ‘R’ of the requisition order was hanging loosely on the margarine magnate’s railings. Frieda looked right and left, checking for vehicles, and, once absolutely sure the coast was clear, she climbed the low wall at the point where Albert had laid a wooden sledge across the broken
glass Petersen had put there to deter thieves. Even with the snowfall, jagged fins poked through the white topping. Before the war, Petersen’s security arrangements had caused consternation among his neighbours. Frieda’s mother, who had considered Petersen a common social climber, said that no self-respecting thief would steal anything from that upstart’s house: his family had made their money fast and loose – first from sisal in the East African colonies, and then from the fake butter – and ‘the faster the money is made the more quickly it goes.’ Frieda had been too young then to appreciate the subtle hierarchies of old money versus new, but now, as she walked towards the largest house on the Elbchaussee, she saw that her mother’s prophecy had come to pass: Petersen’s vast, cube-shaped mansion stood sad, silent and empty.

  She entered the house through the lower kitchen window, just as Albert had instructed. As she mounted the back stairs to the ground floor she could smell burning wood and candlewax and hear the unbroken voices of young boys. She followed the voices to the drawing room at the back of the house, where she was confronted by a lunatic scene: a room lit by candles and decorated with African artefacts – shields, spears, animal skins and masks. Four boys sat around listening to a kid who was standing on top of a billiard table holding a box full of what looked like sugar tongs; he was wearing a pith helmet, and a zebra skin around his shoulders, and calling out like a St Pauli fishmonger.

  ‘Fresh in from Dammtor!’ the boy cried. He shook the box and picked out a pair of tongs, snapping their mandibles together. The candlelight cast a grotesque shadow on the wall behind him, making a giant dwarf of him and turning the tongs into a metallic langoustine.

  ‘What use are they? We don’t even have sugar,’ one of the boys piped.

  ‘Look and learn, Otto. They may be sugar tongs to you, but to a beautiful lady who needs to keep it that way …’ The boy set the box down and, holding up a pair of tongs, he started to demonstrate, snapping them like tweezers, plucking at his eyebrow.