“Afraid not.”
“Was the Provost Company properly established here when Norrington was supposed to have died?” asked Charlie.
“I doubt it, that early. From what I gather no one knew where anybody was in Berlin in April 1945: whole regiments split up, platoons and squadrons fighting on their own. And the Russians were here first, of course.”
“What about wartime archives here?”
“Military police headquarters are at Rheindahlen. You might try there.”
“What about records of stolen art?”
“There’s an art recovery center at the university here. Others atthe universities of Bremen and Dresden, too.” He stopped, thinking. “The grave of the American wouldn’t be here in Berlin. There aren’t any military cemeteries here.”
Charlie felt a sink of further disappointment. “Where are the American dead buried?”
“There are a lot of cemeteries throughout Europe. I wouldn’t even like to guess. Do you have a name?”
“No.”
“A unit?”
“No,” lied Charlie, not wanting any destroying or concealing visits ahead of his own.
“But you do have a photograph of the American body found in Yakutsk? Know what he looks like?”
“Yes,” said Charlie.
“That’s something, perhaps.”
“But not enough,” said Charlie, deciding upon the need for another lie. “Anyway, it’s Norrington I’m interested in, not the American.”
Charlie was surprised, momentarily bewildered, at his feeling of deja vu upon entering the military cemetery, until the comparison came to him between the regimented pattern of so many headstones and crosses and the stunted, number-only wooden markers by the Yakutsk gold mine.
The control office was in the middle of the cemetery, the grave areas radiating out like spokes in a wheel. There were manicured trees bordering the paths. Initially he and Jackson ignored the building, going instead to the grave, Jackson confidently leading the way. Some of the trees would anyway have partially concealed it, but screens more than two meters high completely encircled it. The cross naming Simon Norrington was still in place, but there had been some digging at its base to lift it. About a third of a meter of topsoil had already been dug out. At least, thought Charlie, there weren’t any man-eating mosquitoes.
Jackson said, “What was the Yakutsk grave like?”
“A bomb crater. They used grenades.”
“Whoever this was had a proper burial.”
“But was probably killed to order.”
Jackson regarded him quizzically. “You sure about that?”
“No,” admitted Charlie. “I’m still not sure about anything.”
The duty registration clerk in the control office was a rigidly coiffed, rigid-faced woman who just as tightly demanded the military attache’s identification, despite their having met earlier when she had been informed of the exhumation, and who regarded Charlie with disdain and his Moscow embassy accreditation with suspicion. She insisted on telephoning some unidentified official in another cemetery office before accepting Charlie’s right to examine records, and stood at each man’s shoulder to ensure they fully completed the perforated, hole-punched entry slips with their names and details of their official identity documents.
Considering the outside appearance of hundreds of graves, the archive vaults were surprisingly small, two linked rooms about fifty meters long and half as wide, totally bare except for central tables and row upon row of filing cabinets against every available wall space. On both tables, In Memoriam books were set out in symmetry matching that of the grave markers, in alphabetical order to replace the current page-a-day book displayed in its glass case in the entrance to the British lodge house.
Charlie supposed there was an index system linking name and burial place, but they didn’t need to consult it, already knowing the plot number, which enabled the clerk to lead them at once to a cabinet halfway along the first room. She insisted upon retrieving and finding the Norrington entry herself, not trusting them to handle the paper-aged ledger, and laid it open on the central table, clearly unhappy at disturbing the neat arrangement of the waiting commemorative books.
She said, “The paper’s fragile. I’d appreciate your not touching it.”
The entries were listed in numerical order, by plot allocation. Norrington’s — Plot 442-was a third of the way down a right-hand page, the details occupying just one line, each fact fit into a designated box. There was his army officer’s six-digit serial number-987491-rank, full name-Simon St. John Norrington-unit and finally a date, 294-45. Under the box headed CAUSE was KIA. The number three was written in a final, far-right-hand column. There were various numbers against other names above and below in that column.
Charlie said, “KIA? Killed in action?”
“Yes,” sighed the clerk, confirming the obvious.
“What’s the three refer to?”
“Visitors asking to examine the register. The man’s entry has been read three times since his interment.”
“London told me Sir Matthew said he’d been here,” reminded Jackson.
Charlie’s feet twinged, a physical response to the feeling of expectation that had been all too rare on this operation. Gesturing back toward the outer office, he said, “Is it regulations that everyone who wants to see the registration has to complete an entry slip?”
“Of course,” said the woman, impatiently. “There is a responsibility to the dead as well as to the living.”
“Which I’m sure you fulfill admirably,” flattered Charlie. “What happens to the slips?”
The clerk frowned at him, making vague movements toward the still-open drawer. “Each is quite properly transferred to the cabinet log. As it should be, of course.”
“I’d like to see the log. And the slips,” said Charlie.
“I’m not sure I can permit that,” said the woman.
“And I’m sure you can,” said Jackson, at once. “You need authority, make another phone call.”
The clerk hesitated, face burning, before taking a separate, thicker book from the bottom of the cabinet. Again she carefully turned the crackling pages, appearing to find her place but then turning one sheet back and forth several times. She finally looked up, frowning more genuinely this time. “I don’t understand that.”
“No slips?” anticipated Charlie.
“You knew?” she challenged.
“Guessed,” said Charlie.
“This is against all regulations! I’ll have to report it!”
“Yes,” agreed Charlie. “You should. No one can get access without accredited authority, can they?”
“No! You saw the procedure.”
“What about another nationality?”
“I don’t understand the question,” she protested.
“Immediately after the war, when Berlin was occupied by the Four Powers? And later, when it was divided?” coaxed Charlie. “Could,say, an American or a Russian have examined the entry? Needed to complete a slip like we did?”
The woman digested the question. “I suppose so,” she said, although doubtfully. “I’ve been here fifteen years and it’s never happened while I’ve been on duty. This is very irregular. There’ll be an inquiry! It won’t stop here!”
“It probably will,” predicted Charlie.
As they got back into Jackson’s car, the attache said, “Bureaucratic cock-ups happen every day.”
“But this isn’t one of them,” said Charlie, who was hoping fervently for others.
“What, then?”
“A second, much deeper burial that this time won’t be affected by freak weather.”
“The bastard!” exclaimed Miriam. “No reason at all!”
“Just that he’d been recalled immediately, he didn’t know why or for how long. And that he’d either call from London or be in touch as soon as he got back.” The Savoy barman ignored Lestov’s ruble-waving effort to attract attention, concentrating upon the dollar-tipping Americans at the other end of the bar.
“That’s bullshit! Of course he knows why!”