Sleeping With Ghosts. Lynne Pemberton
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Nazi friend is holed up in the West Indies. It’s a hell of a long way from his last known address.’
‘Not as far as you might think. Boats ply from South America through the Indies constantly, there are lots of small craft skippered by dubious captains who would not be adverse to taking on an unusual fare. Come on, Adam, think about it. Who would question a retired European living in the West Indies when there are literally thousands of them? The ex-pat brigade: the English with their gin and tonics, and the Yanks with their ridiculous cocktails.’
‘You’re right, anyway who cares how he got there; more important, we know he’s there. And he’s still alive.’
Mark nodded. ‘If our sources are correct, he has a rare form of bone cancer. Two weeks ago he went to the local hospital in St Lucia for a scan. Unfortunately for our suspect, an American doctor Ben Weitzman happened to be on a lecturing tour in the West Indies. Dr Weitzman, who is a bone cancer specialist, was asked to take a look at him. Ben Weitzman’s mother is a Holocaust survivor, you may have met her brother – Nathan Drey?’
Adam shook his head. ‘His name doesn’t ring a bell.’
Mark went on, ‘Nathan died a couple of years ago. He worked for the Centre when I joined in 1979.’
Mark blinked. Seventeen years. It seemed like yesterday. He had been twenty-six, a child of Holocaust survivors, and an ardent recruit to an organization he felt needed young blood, and new ideas. He had desperately wanted to rid the Horowitz Centre of its old image. An image he knew many people shared: that of embittered Jews, tormented by their time spent in the camps, obsessed with psychopathic cat-and-mouse games of hunting down anyone who had even a slight connection with the Nazis.
Mark Grossman, now Head of Intelligence, felt he had achieved his objective in some small measure, and hoped that the Centre was now recognized throughout the world for spreading an important message. Man’s inhumanity to man could not be ignored, and racial bigotry had to be addressed and punished, to ensure that what happened in Germany before, and during, World War Two never happened again.
Adam was speaking, intruding on his thoughts. ‘You were telling me about Nathan?’
‘Sorry, yes, I was miles away, thinking about when I first met Nathan. He was a good man, if a little fanatical, I suppose if you’ve lived through four years of Auschwitz, it kinda makes you that way. He helped to capture Eichmann, and for years he worked night and day on Von Trellenberg. Nathan was like a dog with a bone, he left no stone unturned. I would often come into the office in the early morning, to find him slumped over his desk sleeping. He’d been there all night. He was the one who tracked down Von Trellenberg in Bolivia in 1958. Nathan thought he had him then, but he was double-crossed by some local Argentine creep. Anyway both Klaus and the Argentine guy disappeared without trace. But Nathan had managed to get a couple of photographs of the man he thought was Klaus, and Nathan’s sister Anna positively identified him as Von Trellenberg. Anna and Nathan Drey were both born in Berlin. She was a celebrated concert pianist and composer before the war. Von Trellenberg knew her. Apparently he and his father had attended several of her concerts. She was interned in Bergen Belsen in 1943, and claims to have seen Von Trellenberg visiting the camp at least three times.
‘Anyway, to get back to the current situation, the man with bone cancer claims to be Dutch. Says his name is Van Beukering, from Rotterdam. Yet when questioned about Holland, he became very agitated and eager to leave. Then when Dr Ben Weitzman asked him where he was born, he reeled off a street name in Amsterdam, instead of Rotterdam. Weitzman then made an appointment to see him a few days later. First he called me here, and I arranged for his mother and one of my colleagues to fly to St Lucia. This Van Beukering didn’t turn up for the appointment. Ben’s tried to contact Van Beukering’s own doctor, but he’s on vacation overseas and we’ve been unable to locate him. The man gave a false address to the hospital, and so far we’ve hit a brick wall with all our enquiries.’ Mark sighed. ‘Nobody on St Lucia seems to have seen or heard of this guy. Meanwhile he’s disappeared into thin—’
‘Did Dr Weitzman see his hand?’ Adam interrupted.
Mark nodded, unable to contain the rising excitement in his voice. ‘Yes. Apparently that was the first thing he noticed; the third finger on his left hand was severed at the knuckle.’
Adam banged the top of the desk with his clenched fist. ‘That’s him! You’ve got him, Mark.’
‘Well, it isn’t absolutely positive yet, but I feel we’ve got enough to continue investigating. This is the closest we’ve come since Argentina.’
Adam, his fist still clenched in a tight ball, stood up and began to pace the small office. He was wearing what he always wore: jeans. Today they were black, teamed with a white shirt made by Bernie Katz in the finest lawn cotton, the same shirt-maker his father had used before him. And a pair of tan hide cowboy boots, custom-made from a firm in Houston. Mark could not recall ever having seen him in anything else and was, as always, struck by the image of an ageing rock star, rather than the reality of a successful international art dealer.
When Adam finally stopped pacing, he stood in front of Mark and said, ‘Argentina was close, I really thought you had the bastard then.’
A nerve began to tremor uncontrollably in Mark’s left temple. He massaged it with his forefinger, also thinking of the last time they had come this close to the man he had been hunting all these years. It had been in 1987, in a remote hill village close to the town of Santa Rosa, in Argentina.
Mark would never forget that night.
The sky was bigger than he could ever have imagined, and blacker, although rashed with stars. The frenzied animal screams breaking the stillness had caused his heart to race, and then came the wild tangerine glow – so bright it had hurt his eyes, lighting up the sky like a huge glowing torch that he thought would burn for ever. The stench of charred flesh in the burnt-out remains of the ranch would remain with him for the rest of his life. As would the despair he’d felt when he’d learnt that the bodies had all been local farm hands.
Mark stood up. He had pale eyes and pale skin, and an unruly thatch of thick, black hair. He ran his hands down the front of his crumpled navy blue suit and, straightening his tie, he listened intently to Adam’s next words.
‘I want to be there when you get him, Mark.’
‘If we get him. The bird has probably flown by now.’
‘He’s ill, he’s dying; he’s unlikely to be making any long journeys. No, I think he’s there in St Lucia. Hiding out somewhere. I’d love to go down there myself, I’m sure I could hunt him out of his fucking rat-hole.’
Mark Grossman shook his head, like a father to an errant son. He had a deep affection for Adam Krantz, and for his late father Benjamin who had been a patron of the Centre for many years. But Adam’s ambition was just not professional and it was more than his job was worth to allow it.
‘You know I can’t have that, Adam. Just supposing it is him – you know the procedure: we’ve got no official authority in the West Indies; we have to make an application to the St Lucian government for a warrant for his arrest and extradition. The local police resent intruders and can be very uncooperative. You’re too emotionally involved in all this; that could impair your judgement; you might take the law into your own hands. I don’t want to risk that liability. Von Trellenberg is a big fish, we can’t afford to screw up.’
‘Look, I promise to be a good boy, do exactly what I’m told, no screw-ups. I’ve always wanted to go to the West Indies and I’m due for a vacation. Come on, Mark,’ he pushed. ‘You owe me.’
Mark sighed and, turning away, he scanned the floor-to-ceiling wall of books in front of him, without seeing one title. Adam was right: he did owe him. Adam had helped a lot in the past, and not only with money. He had invested time and commitment.
Neither man spoke for several seconds.
Mark finally broke the silence. ‘You’re right, the Centre owes you and your father a lot. So