'Mayr did not move fast enough. That phone call from him at the Munich station proves it. They travelled in the mail-van. They killed the SS officer Bruckner whose body was found in the mail-van and fled..'
'Army deserters often travel in mail-vans,' Hitler observed.
'Mayr also reported a tram which had just left the station was stopped by motorcycle patrols. Witnesses aboard provided very clear descriptions of two passengers who had just left it, one man in the uniform of an SS officer and a girl who sounds exactly like Christa Lundt..'
'Now he tells me…'
Hitler, seated on a couch, looked at Jaeger and Schmidt while he played with the spectacles in his lap. Keitel and Jodl, who had returned to clear up a point arising from the midday conference, were also present. So far they had preserved a discreet silence.
'What do you think, Keitel?' the Fuhrer asked suddenly.
'They won't get far..'
'Mayr is instituting a search of the whole city..', Bormann burst out. 'I agree with the Field Marshal..'
'That's because neither of you knows what you are talking about,' Jaeger intervened bluntly. 'Mayr has a monumental task.
'So,' the Fuhrer commented, using a phrase which expressed his general attitude and summed up the secret of his rise to power, 'a way can be found for everything…'
An hour later Mayr had returned to his Munich barracks when the strange phone call came through. He picked up the receiver and identified himself. It was the Berghof again.
'Bormann speaking! Information has reached me that Lindsay has a rendezvous with an Allied agent at the Frauenkirche
The voice was oddly muffled. Mayr thought it hardly sounded like the Reichsleiter. Still, he was not a man whose identity it would be wise to question. The voice went on talking.
… the agent waits at the rendezvous at 1100 hours every Monday. Make your dispositions accordingly and on no account mention this call to anyone. By order of the Fuhrer.!'
Still mystified, Mayr replaced the receiver. Tomorrow was Monday. He would be waiting for this Allied agent at the Frauenkirche.
Chapter Twenty-One
'Just in time,' said Christa. 'Here we are, and we're clear of the street.'
'They'll search the whole area,' Lindsay warned. 'Checking on that tram was only the start…'
They were standing in a narrow alley between ancient walls and the only sign it was daytime was the thin avenue of sky way above their heads. There, was a smell of tomcat. The cobbles beneath their feet were slimy. The buildings had a condemned look. She extracted a key from her purse, inserted it into the lock of a new solid wooden door decorated with iron studs. and paused before she opened it.
'Kurt came here on leave and when he was on the run. His Aunt Helga lives here. As I told you, they took her husband for the labour battalions. She hates the Nazis Your uniform will frighten her. Wait on the third landing while I talk to her..'
It was so dark inside, Lindsay could see nothing when she had shut the outer door. He felt his way up the narrow staircase on his own, clutching the greasy banister rail. Counting the landings, he waited on the third while Christa went on up the fourth flight. He wrinkled his nose at the musty smell; the place had an uninhabited feel. Was the aunt the only occupant, he wondered? Above him he saw light filter out as he heard a door open.
There was a whispered conversation which went with the atmosphere of the place., A pungent odour of urine drifted out from an open door on his landing. He peered inside and saw by the half-light a window smeared with dirt, a lavatory that had not been flushed for some time.
'Ian! Come up.'
Christa's voice. His hand slipped easily up over a section of recently polished banister. At the top, a middle-aged woman with strong features stood beside Christa. Ignoring the uniform, she frowned as she examined his face. 'He has some identification?' she demanded.
'Have you?' Christa queried. 'This is Aunt Helga. She is very cautious..'
'You need to be these days,' the woman interjected grimly. 'It is rumoured there is an underground network which smuggles allied fliers to Switzerland. The Gestapo use their own agents in the guise of British or Americans to try and infiltrate the network..'
'I have my RAF identity card,' Lindsay began.
'And why did they not take this document from you?' demanded the gaunt-faced woman as she took the folder from Lindsay and checked it carefully, comparing the photograph with its owner. 'Christa has told me you were a prisoner.. '
'They did…' Lindsay caught Christa's warning glance. He was to reveal only the minimum information. 'A Gestapo man called Gruber kept it for two days – doubtless to have it photographed for his files..'
'They let him have it back on orders from higher up,' Christa said quickly. 'He is a Wing Commander and I think they hoped to obtain valuable information from him..'
'Take it!' Helga had used her flowered apron to wipe it clean of her fingerprints and thrust it at him, holding it between the cloth of the apron. 'Come inside. I must insist you give me that uniform so I can burn it.'
'The smell will be foul,' Lindsay observed with an attempt at humour but Helga remained stern and aloof.
'We burn anything these days to keep warm. We live with foul smells.' She closed and locked the door of the apartment and went over to the stove where she picked up an iron poker, raised the lid and stirred the smouldering contents. He had the impression she had just armed herself with a weapon. Her next question confirmed his suspicion.
'Where did you obtain that SS uniform from?'
'Aunt Helga!' Christa protested. 'I got it for him – it doesn't matter how. You've got to trust him. I have been to England and I tested him when first we met. Show him the hiding-place.'
'The one Kurt made for himself and was never able to use?' she said bitterly. 'Very well, but I will need that uniform to burn piece by piece..'
The uniform seemed to be an obsession with her. Lindsay guessed she was younger than her weathered appearance. God knew what she had suffered.
'We will get warning this time,' Helga remarked, 'if there is an emergency. A good friend of mine in the country built a fresh door in the alley strong enough to resist cannon-shot. They have to ring the bell now and wait. When they came for Kurt they simply smashed the door in…'
The hiding-place was reached by an ingeniously camouflaged trap-door hinged in the roof alongside a cross-beam. Helga fetched a pair of steps from the kitchen, stood them in a certain place and climbed up, holding a thin-bladed knife.
'You insert the knife tip next to this hook on the beam,' she explained. 'Shove it up like you would your tool into a woman…' Lindsay glanced at Christa, who stared across the room, blushing. 'The knife tip,' Helga continued, 'impinges on a steel bar which Kurt attached to the trap-door. Push it up. So…!'
A square section of the seemingly continuous ceiling elevated to expose a dark hole. Helga dropped the trap in position and came back down the steps. She was carrying them back into the kitchen when she growled the invitation.
'If you are hungry I can provide some discoloured and tasteless liquid which we call soup. At least it will be hot..'
'You've been accepted!' Christa whispered.
At 3 pm precisely, one hour after their arrival at the spotless apartment of Helga, a police detachment called to search the whole building.
The clapper of the large bowl-shaped bell above the apartment door was hammering away like a machine-gun non-stop. Christa swallowed the remnants of her watery coffee and jumped up from the table.
'What the hell's that?'
'Front door bell in the alley,' Helga said laconically.