The Mercedes car leapt away from the site of Frau Hallman’s murder, closely watched by two pairs of eyes.
Kunze, once of the Abwehr, always of the Abwehr, used the telephone still warm from Rossiter’s grasp to call a friend who was still within the intelligence service.
The other pair of eyes watched on from a quiet house opposite, behind which were two nondescript Bussing-Nag lorries, once of the 2nd Panzer Division, and then of the Soviet 4476th Motorised Supply Battalion, and now in the possession of a group of men who served Betar and Irgun, Jewish resistance movements based in Europe and Palestine.
Avraham Hinzelberg made notes all through the American General’s visit, and was especially interested when he spent time in the barn, from where the Jewish activists had taken the records of every SS member of the HIAG and stowed them in the two old but mechanically reliable trucks.
For some reason, Avraham glanced across at the hockey stick he had taken from Frau Hallmann’s house.
The item he had used to kill her, still showing signs of clotted blood and matted hair where he had struck the SS bitch down.
‘The Monster’ Hallman had been on their kill list for some time, but she had been preserved because of what she kept in her charge, until such time as orders came from higher authority, and she was no longer necessary.
The murdered and abused inmates of Natzwiller-Struhof camp were suitably avenged when he smashed her head in with two rapid blows.
For now his orders were to observe and record: moving the intelligence haul would come later, when it was safe to do so.
Hinzelberg knew a man in Linz called Simon Wiesenthal.
He was a camp survivor who had endured Mauthausen-Gusen, and who had just set up offices in the Austrian city, wherein information was being collated on SS officers and men… and women… believed to have any association with the concentration camps.
Hinzelberg was of the opinion that there was no need to distinguish.
If a German bastard had worn the uniform then he was guilty as sin and therefore condemned already.
Which was the point of his mission, and where Wiesenthal differed from him.
Simon Wiesenthal wished to bring the guilty to justice.
Hinzelberg and his commanders wanted to bring justice to the guilty.
Swiftly and with maximum force.
And now he possessed the means to do the Lord’s work.
“Barukh atah Ha-shem, Elokaynu, melekh ha-olam.”
‘Blessed art thou Lord, our God, King of the Universe, for you shall be revenged upon the scum of the earth.’
1203 hrs, Thursday, 20th March 1947, headquarters building, 75th Investigative Company, Alpenzoo, Innsbruck, Austria.
“No, Sir, General, Sir, we simply don’t keep those records.”
“Not at all?”
“We have records for US items of course, but not for those we occasionally send to foreign nationals.”
Rossiter could feel his frustration building but understood that the woman simply couldn’t help.
“So there’s no way for me to get any further with this inquiry? There’s nothing to help here at all.”
“Look, General. Let me level with you. This job is pretty shitty, you know what I mean. We don’t hang around long enough to get acquainted, let alone spend time recording stuff that isn’t American. We even just send the Brit and Allied stuff off… no records… it’s a shitty deal here.”
Rossiter could imagine that sorting through personal effects belonging to God knew who would be a mentally sapping task.
“When was it you said, General?”
“August last year. Probably more towards the beginning and middle.”
“That’s a long time for this unit, General. Let me get Tabitha.”
The female captain strode off with a purpose, allowing him to examine his surroundings.
He did not find the old zoo building fit for purpose, and yet over twenty women were arranged along long tables piled with effects, some of which were clean, some of which were contaminated with undesirable memories of their owners.
Anything from wallets to moneyboxes to civilian clothing was on display.
Rossiter realised that, unusually in his view, there was no chatter amongst the women, as each simply applied themselves to the job in hand, silently sorting through items in the hope of finding clues as to the identity of the loved one who should receive the dead soldier’s mementoes.
“General Rossiter?”
“That’s me.”
He turned round to find himself face to face with quite the oldest woman he had ever seen in uniform.
The imposing NCO saluted smartly.
“Staff Sergeant Tabitha Hood reporting as ordered, Sir.”
“Tabitha Hood? The Tabitha Hood of Kentucky?”
“Guess so, General, Sir.”
He had heard of her before, but never seen a picture of the granddaughter of Confederate General Thomas Bell Hood, commander of Hood’s Division in Longstreet’s Corps at the Battle of Gettysburg.
Despite going onto other glories, Hood had never accepted the failure of General Lee to go round to the right of the Union line, and his granddaughter was a vocal champion of her grandfather’s reputation and sharp critic of the acclaimed genius that was Robert E Lee.
Approaching fifty-five, Hood had no place in the army in Europe, and yet here she was, stood in front of Rossiter.
“Sergeant, I’m told you were here in August last?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“I need you to try and remember if there was anything significant about that time? I’m thinking particularly of a briefcase that this unit processed and sent to a German woman… a Frau Hallmann in Haserich… in the Moselle?”
“Briefcase you say? That narrows it down a bit. Any date in mind, General?”
“I know it was delivered to its final destination on 17th August. Over that, I don’t know diddly squat, Sergeant.”
“I’m sure that I didn’t process a briefcase. I get called in when it’s slightly more delicate a task, shall we say…”
Her weird laugh aside, he understood what she meant.
“Tell you what though. Let me check the records for that date.”
“The Captain said you didn’t keep records for non-US disposals.”
Hood looked at Rossiter with a sort of twinkle in her eye.
“She’s an officer… what would she know? She’s only been here a month. Mind you, General, in a sense she’s actually right, but we do keep records of items we can’t place, so that’ll help give me a prompt.”
Tabitha Anna-Bell Fraser Hood, humming something indistinct and yet strangely macabre, led off to a darker corner and rummaged in some files.
“Here we are. August 46… we’re in luck… only a few thousand items…”
Her humour was wasted on Rossiter as he looked around him, the racks’ contents materialising in the gloom. Unallocated personal effects bagged and tagged, ready for the day when some new information came to light.
“Your lucky day, General. I thought something twigged in the back of my mind. Here it is…”
She put the book down and focussed the weak lamp upon it.
“The briefcase was unallocated originally… came into us on or about 2nd August… why… ah… Rebecca Clifford… useless cow was young Becky… thought she owned the place like a five-star but couldn’t hack it… I could tell you some stories about that silly bitch… anyway… item reviewed on the 9th August by O’Bannion… good girl she was… got pregnant though… evidence found… shipped 10th August.”
“Nothing else, Sergeant Hood?”
“No directly, General, but it sits between some stuff that’s still on our books.”