My head cleared agonizingly as I was hauled up by two pairs of strong hands. One of the men kicked the empty cardboard Care package out of the way as they frogmarched me through the doorway.
My neck and shoulder were hurting so bad that my skin turned to gooseflesh the second they held me under my arms, which I now realized were handcuffed in front of me. I retched desperately and tried to get back on to the floor where I had felt comparatively comfortable. But I remained supported and struggling merely made the pain more intense; and so I allowed myself to be dragged along a short, damp passageway, past a couple of broken barrels and up some steps to a big oak vat. The two men sat me roughly in a chair.
A voice, Mnller's voice, told them to give me some wine. 'I want him to be fully conscious when we question him.'
Someone put a glass to my lips, and tilted my head painfully. I drank. When the glass was empty I could taste blood in my mouth. I spat in front of me, I didn't care where. 'Cheap stuff,' I heard myself croak. 'Cooking wine.'
Mnller laughed, and I turned my head towards the sound. The bare lightbulbs burned only dimly but even so they managed to hurt my eyes. I squeezed the lids hard shut, and then opened them again.
'Good,' said Mnller. 'You've still got something left in you. You'll need it to answer all my questions, Herr Gunther, I can assure you.'
Mnller was sitting on a chair with his legs crossed and his arms folded. He looked like a man who was about to watch an audition. Seated beside him, and looking rather less relaxed than the former Gestapo chief, was Nebe. Next to him sat K/nig, wearing a clean shirt, and holding his nose and mouth with a handkerchief as if he had a bad attack of hayfever. On the stone floor at their feet lay Veronika. She was unconscious, and but for the bandage round her knee quite naked. Like me she was also handcuffed, although her pallor indicated that this was an entirely redundant precaution.
I turned my head to the right. A few metres away stood the Latvian and another thug whom I hadn't seen before. The Latvian was grinning excitedly, no doubt in anticipation of my further humiliation.
We were in the largest of the outhouses. Beyond the windows the night looked in on the proceedings with dark indifference. Somewhere I could hear the low throb of a generator. It hurt to move my head or my neck, and it was actually more comfortable to look back at Mnller.
'Ask anything you like,' I said, 'you'll get nothing out of me.' But even as I spoke I knew that in Mnller's expert hands there was no more chance of my not telling him everything than there was of me naming the next Pope.
He found my bravado sufficiently absurd as to laugh and shake his head. 'It's quite a few years since I conducted an interrogation,' he said with what sounded like nostalgia. 'However, I think you'll find that I haven't lost my touch.'
Mnller looked to Nebe and K/nig as if seeking their approbation, and each man nodded grimly.
'I bet you won prizes for it, you half-sized bastard.'
At this utterance, the Latvian was prompted to strike me hard across the cheek.
The sudden jerk of my head sent an agonizing pain down to my toenails and made me cry out.
'No, no, Rainis,' Mnller said like a father to a child, 'we must allow Herr Gunther to talk. He may insult us now, but eventually he will tell us what we want to hear. Please don't hit him again unless I order you to do it.'
Nebe spoke. 'It's no use, Bernie. FrSulein Zartl has now told us all about how you and this American fellow disposed of poor Heim's body. I wondered why you were so inquisitive about her. Now we know.'
'In fact we now know a great deal,' said Mnller. 'While you have been having a nap, Arthur here posed as a policeman in order to gain access to your rooms.' He smiled smugly. 'It wasn't too difficult for him. Austrians are such docile, law-abiding people. Arthur, tell Herr Gunther what you discovered.'
'Your photographs, Heinrich. I imagine that the American must have given them to him. What do you say, Bernie?'
'Go to hell.'
Nebe continued, unperturbed. 'There was also a drawing of Martin Albers' headstone. You remember that unfortunate business, Herr Doktor?'
'Yes,' said Mnller, 'that was very careless of Max.'
'I dare say you must have guessed that Max Abs and Martin Albers were one and the same person, Bernie. He was an old-fashioned, rather sentimental kind of man. He just couldn't pretend to be dead like the rest of us. No, he had to have a stone to commemorate his passing, to make it look respectable. Really, a typical Viennese, wouldn't you say? I should think you were probably the person who tipped off the MPs in Munich that Max was due to arrive there. Of course, you weren't to know that Max was carrying several sets of papers and travel warrants. You see, documents were Max's speciality. He was a master forger. As the former head of SD clandestine operations section in Budapest, he was one of the very best in his field.'
'I suppose he was another bogus conspirator against Hitler,' I said. 'Another fake entry on the list of all those who were executed. Just like you, Arthur. I have to hand it to you: you've been very clever.'
'That was Max's idea,' said Nebe. 'Ingenious, yes, but with K/nig's help not very difficult to organize. You see, K/nig commanded the execution squad at Plotzensee, and hanged conspirators by the hundreds. He supplied all the details.'
'As well as the butcher's hooks and piano wire, no doubt.'
'Herr Gunther,' said K/nig indistinctly through the handkerchief he kept pressed to his nose, 'I hope to be able to do the same for you.'
Mnller frowned. 'We're wasting time,' he said briskly. 'Nebe told your landlady that the Austrian police thought you had been kidnapped by the Russians. After that she was most helpful. Apparently your rooms are being paid for by Dr Ernst Liebl. This man is now known to us as Emil Becker's advocate at law. Nebe is of the opinion that you were retained by him to come to Vienna and attempt to clear him of the murder of Captain Linden. I myself am of this opinion. Everything fits, so to speak.'
Mnller nodded at one of the uglies, who stepped forward and collected up Veronika in his pylon-sized arms. She made no movement, and but for her breathing which became louder and more difficult as her head lolled back on her neck, one might have thought that she was dead. She looked as if they had drugged her.
'Why don't you leave her out of this, Mnller,' I said. 'I'll tell you whatever it is you want to know.'
Mnller pretended to look puzzled. 'That surely is what remains to be seen.' He stood up, as did Nebe and K/nig. 'Bring Herr Gunther along, Rainis.'
The Latvian hauled me to my feet. Just the effort of being made to stand made me feel suddenly faint. He dragged me a few metres to the side of a sunken circular oak vat which was of the dimensions of a good-sized fish-pond. The vat itself was joined to a rectangular steel plate which had two wooden semicircular wings like the leaves of a large dining table, by a thick steel column which went up to the ceiling. The thug carrying Veronika stepped down in the vat and laid her on the bottom. Then he got out and drew down the two oak leaves of the plate to form a perfect, deadly circle.
'This is a wine press,' Mnller said matter-of-factly.
I struggled weakly in the Latvian's big arms, but there was nothing I could do.
It felt like my shoulder or collarbone was broken. I called them several filthy words and Mnller nodded approvingly.
'Your concern for this young woman is encouraging,' he said.
'It was her you were looking for this morning,' said Nebe. 'When you walked into Rainis, wasn't it?'
'Yes, all right, it was. Now let her go, for God's sake. I give you my word, Arthur, she knows absolutely nothing.'
'Yes, that's true,' Mnller admitted. 'Or at least not much. So K/nig tells me anyway, and he is a most persuasive person. But you'll be flattered to learn that she still managed to conceal the part which you played in Heim's disappearance for quite a while. Isn't that so, Helmut?'