‘In Berlin?’ Von Kluge chuckled. ‘I don’t doubt it. I should like to be back in Berlin myself. Yes indeed. A stroll in the Tiergarten before champagne at the Adlon, then the opera followed by dinner at Horchers. Berlin is lovely at this time of year. The Adlon is lovely. Yes, I shouldn’t mind a bit of that myself.’
‘He’d simply like some assurances to that effect. Before he cooperates with Judge Conrad’s investigation. What he has could be really useful to us, sir. To Germany.’
‘And this doctor of yours can furnish you with evidence? To the bureau’s satisfaction?’
‘I do believe he can, sir.’
Von Kluge sighed a cloud of cigar smoke and shook his head, as if in pity of me and my tiresome conversation.
‘I wonder about you, Gunther, I really do. Prior to becoming a policeman, what were you? A car salesman? You keep bringing me deals you tell me I have to make. First it was those two NCOs, and now it’s this damned Russian doctor. Don’t you know anyone in this city who’s prepared to do something for nothing – because he thinks he has a simple patriotic duty to bring forward the truth?’
‘He’s not a German, sir. He’s a Russian. Duty doesn’t come into it, nor patriotism for that matter. He’s simply a man trying to save his own life and his daughter’s. Right now he’s attending injured German soldiers in the Smolensk State Medical Academy. If he was a patriot, he’d have cleared off like the rest of them and left us to heal our own sick and wounded. If ever he’s captured, that alone will earn him a death sentence. Surely we should be prepared to assist him simply for that service?’
‘If we were to offer every damned Ivan German citizenship because he has collaborated with us, we’d never hear the end of it. And where would the purity of the German race be then, eh? Eh? Not that I believe in that nonsense myself. But the leader does.’
‘Sir, he’s offering us a lot more than just collaboration. He’s willing to furnish us with the means of proving to the world what manner of opponent we’re fighting. Isn’t that worth some sort of reward? And surely that’s what we’re already offering any man who joins General Vlasov’s Russian Liberation Army. It’s written in this Smolensk Proclamation that our planes have been dropping on Soviet positions that if they come over to us we’ll put them in German uniforms and give them a better life.’
‘I tell you straight, Captain Gunther, the leader doesn’t like these Zeppelin volunteers. He doesn’t trust them. Doesn’t trust any damn Slavs. Take this General Vlasov – the leader doesn’t care for him at all. I tell you now his damned Russian Liberation Army is an idea that will never get off the ground. They can drop all the leaflets they like on Soviet positions but his Smolensk Proclamation is a dead goose. I happen to know that the leader believes he will need someone as strong and ruthless as Stalin to keep control of Greater Germany in the Urals. The last thing he wants is this Vlasov trying to overthrow him.’ Von Kluge shook his head. ‘They’re a shifty lot these Ivans, Gunther. You watch out for this doctor, that’s my advice.’
‘And what about you, sir?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Your man, Alok Dyakov. He’s a Slav. Do you trust him?’
‘Of course I trust him. And why not? I saved his life. The man is completely loyal to me. He’s proved that again and again.’
‘And what are you planning to do with him when all of this is over? Will you leave him here? Or take him with you?’
‘My affairs are none of your business, Gunther. Don’t be so damned impertinent.’
‘You’re absolutely right. I apologize. Your affairs are none of my business. But sir, if you’ll only think about this for a moment. From what he’s already told me, Doctor Batov has good reason to hate the Bolsheviks, and more especially the NKVD. They murdered his wife. Consequently I’m convinced that he’s every bit as keen to serve Germany as your man Dyakov. Or Peshkov.’
‘Who the hell is Peshkov?’
‘The group translator, sir. But Doctor Batov is every bit as keen on serving Germany as him or Alok Dyakov.’
‘It certainly doesn’t sound like it. By your own account this doctor seems keener on saving his own skin than serving Germany. But I will take the matter under consideration, captain, and give you my answer later, after I’ve returned from hunting.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ As I got up to leave, the dog left off licking his balls and looked up at me expectantly as if hoping I might suggest another more interesting activity. Not that I could ever have suggested anything that made more sense; not in Smolensk. ‘Are you hunting wolves?’ I asked. ‘Or something else?’
For a moment I was tempted to ask if he was hunting Poles, but it was plain I’d aggravated the field marshal quite enough already.
‘Yes, wolves. Wonderful creatures. Dyakov seems to have an instinctive understanding of how they think. Do you hunt yourself, Captain Gunther?’
‘No.’
‘Waste of a life. A man should hunt. Especially in this part of the world. We used to hunt wolves in East Prussia when I was a boy. So did the Kaiser, you know. He’s a tricky customer to hunt – the wolf. Even trickier than wild boar, let me tell you. Very elusive and cunning. We hunted a lot of wild boar when first we were in this neck of the woods. But they’re all gone, I think.’
I went outside the field marshal’s bungalow and quickly pulled on my coat. The air wasn’t as dry as it had been the day before, and the moisture in it seemed to confirm what Von Kluge had told me; and not just moisture – the sound of a woodpecker’s beak against the trunk of a tree carried through the surrounding forest like distant machine-gun fire; it felt like the thaw was finally on the way.
A car was waiting in front of the veranda steps, and beside it stood Dyakov with two hunting rifles slung over his shoulders, smoking a pipe. He nodded to me and bared his big white teeth in what passed for a smile. There was indeed something wolflike about him, but he wasn’t the only one who was equipped with blue eyes and an instinctive understanding of how wolves think. I had a few cunning ideas myself, and I certainly wasn’t about to place Doctor Batov’s future exclusively in the delicate hands of Günther von Kluge. Too much was now at stake to trust that the field marshal would grant the Russian’s wish. It was plain to me that I was going to have to send a teletype to the ministry of propaganda in Berlin as soon as possible – that if, because of some prejudice about Slavs, the field marshal wasn’t prepared to give Batov what he wanted in return for what we wanted, then I would have to go over Von Kluge’s head and persuade Dr Goebbels to do it instead.
I set off for the castle in the Tatra. Out of the gate, I turned left. I hadn’t driven very far when I saw Peshkov walking in the same direction. I considered just driving on, but it was hard to ignore a man who had gone out of his way to look like Adolf Hitler – perhaps that was the thinking behind the moustache and the longish, forward-combed hair; and besides it was obvious he was also headed for the castle.
‘Want a lift?’ I asked, drawing up beside him on the empty road.
‘You’re very kind, sir.’ He loosened the length of rope around his waist that held his coat together and climbed into the passenger seat. ‘It’s not everyone who would stop to pick up a Russian. Especially on a road as quiet as this one.’
‘Maybe it’s because you don’t look particularly Russian.’ I slammed the car in gear and drove on.
‘You mean my moustache, don’t you? And my hair.’
‘I most certainly do.’
‘I’ve had this moustache for many years,’ he explained. ‘Well before the Germans invaded Russia. It’s not such an unusual style in Russia. Genrikh Yagoda, who was chief of the secret police until 1936, had the very same moustache.’