Spandau.
Its bleak reality closed in on Red. The cell had the stale smell of many years’ disuse. The walls were coated with mould. This disregarded section of the prison had probably not been used in forty years.
The place was still furnished with its iron bedstead, wooden table and stool. Red stretched out on the steel mesh of the bed-frame and stared upwards. Either the moon was clear, or dawn had broken outside the small, arched window, because there was enough light to count the panes behind the bars. Eighteen, three of them cracked.
The last occupant would have been one of the outcasts of Hitler’s Germany, detained here for ‘processing’, prior to execution, or transportation to a concentration camp. In 1947, it had seemed grimly appropriate to bring the men convicted at Nuremberg to this place where the victims of their system had suffered.
Seven Nazi leaders, ranging in age from forty to seventy-four, had been brought here, handcuffed to US soldiers. They were the so-called ‘difficult’ cases of the Nuremberg Trial. Twelve others had been sentenced to hang and three had been acquitted. Of the Spandau seven, three – Raeder, Funk and Hess – had been sentenced to life imprisonment. After eight years in Spandau, Admiral Raeder, ill and in his eightieth year, had been released; two years later, Walter Funk, 66, physically and mentally depleted by the years he had served, was allowed to walk out to freedom, ‘with allowance for his age and ill-health’. That was in 1957. Spandau’s other lifer was still waiting for clemency.
Red pictured Rudolf Hess lying in a cell on one of the lower levels, in the block he had once shared with the other six. They had all gone by 1966, having served their terms or been granted compassionate release. Hess alone was left to bear the burden of guilt for the Third Reich. Yet he alone of the seven had been found not guilty both of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He had received his life sentence for being guilty of conspiracy and – a curious irony – crimes against peace.
The impact of nearly half a century of confinement was beyond imagination. Red didn’t fool himself into thinking that a few hours locked in Spandau would bring him any closer to understanding Hess and how he had endured his punishment. He could pity the man and wonder at his power of survival. He could touch the walls and lie on a prison bed and breathe the prison air, but he would be no nearer to comprehending the scale of the experience.
He was sure of one thing: if he was lucky enough to get out of the place alive, he wouldn’t have much self-respect if the best he could produce would be a piece for the tabloids entitled ‘My Night in a Spandau Cell’. His story wasn’t going to be about Red Goodbody. He was certain that the secret of Spandau, the reason why Hess would never be released, was behind the killings of Cal and Edda Zenk. Someone – maybe Hess himself – had lit a fuse and the KGB were in a panic because the story was about to blow sky-high. Hess was certainly at risk. He deserved to be told. By some means, Red was going to reach him. And survive to tell the story.
Daybreak. Emphatically. The light grew stronger, picking out the details of the cell, the divisions between the bricks, the studs in the iron door, the square opening that served as a Judas-hole.
An hour or more passed. Sometimes he heard slight movements from the Soviet guard posted in the corridor. Once or twice there was the clatter of steps on the iron staircase. They went away.
Unexpectedly, because this time Red had heard no steps, the small sliding panel in the door was opened. ‘Café noir?’
‘Oui.’ He got up quickly and came close to the hole. In French, he asked if the owner of the voice was a warder.
‘Yes. The chief warder. I speak English. You want something else?’
Red knew that this could be a Russian trick to get him to talk. He was guarded in his response. ‘Do you know about me?’
‘Of course.’
‘But you don’t know about Cal.’
After a pause, the voice said, ‘I will come back with the coffee.’ The panel closed.
Red paced the cell, trying to decide whether the French accent was genuine. To his ear, most Frenchmen speaking English sounded like con-artists. If this were really a warder, possibilities emerged – remote, improbable, but worth exploring in a no-win situation. If he could convey to the warders that their colleague Cal had been murdered and that Hess himself was in imminent danger from the KGB, they might be persuaded to help. They knew how Spandau operated. With their co-operation, and if they were willing to take exceptional risks, he might have a chance.
While he pondered the risks, his brain was busy, subconsciously turning over the significance of something he had noticed; and now it made the connection. He recalled a detail he had read in the press clippings back in England. Out of consideration to Hess, most of the warders had taken to wearing soft shoes, so as not to disturb his sleep. That was why the Frenchman had been able to approach the cell unheard. So he was a warder … wasn’t he?
The risk had to be taken. Trust him.
The panel was slid open again. It came as a shock to hear another voice, American this time. ‘Coffee, no sugar.’
He took it through the hatch and waited there expectantly. ‘Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome.’
And with that, the panel closed.
‘Fucking hell!’ Red practically threw the stuff at the door. It had been a perfect opportunity for more communication, and it had gone begging. He had waited there, primed to speak. Christ, it was maddening! An American, Cal’s buddy, and all he could find to say was a bloody platitude! Why hadn’t the Frenchman reappeared when he had promised? Livid with rage and disappointment, Red sank on the bed with the paper cup of coffee in his fist. It was some time before he could bring himself to take a sip.
Then he felt something solid touch his teeth. He lifted it out of the cup and stared at it.
A small ballpoint pen.
The warders were not so dumb. They wanted him to write a message for them and pass it out. He felt through the pockets of the tracksuit for a scrap of paper. Nothing. Looked around the cell, under the table, under the bed. Plenty of dust, but no paper. He even tried taking a flake of paint from the wall, but it disintegrated in his hand.
Still in his other hand was the paper cup.
He shook his head and cursed himself for being so obtuse. He owed those guys an apology. For not only had they provided him with a writing implement and a surface; they had given him the means to return it undetected. There were two cups pressed together. He could write on the outer surface of one, using the whole of the space, and then enclose it tightly in the other. It would look like the one pristine cup they had appeared to hand him.
He wrote, compressing the size and content of the message: Cal murdered by KGB. Also Edda Zenk, visited by Cal. Hess now in danger KGB Gen Vanin. I can explain. R. Goodbody, Brit. newsman.
There was enough there to guarantee a bullet in the head if the cup was seen by the Russians, but he had to entrust his life to the warders. Not only that. He was banking on their outrage at Cal’s death and their concern for Hess to shock them into helping him.
In a moment, the hatch opened.
‘More coffee?’
‘No thanks.’
He passed the empty cups through, and it was done. He wedged the pen into a corner on the underside of the table.
And waited.
Soon, he guessed, Colonel Klim would want him upstairs for more interrogation, possibly by General Vanin, whose name had provoked such alarm. If there was going to be action from the warders, it could not be long delayed. He wished to God he had stressed the emergency more.
He tensed. Words were being exchanged outside the cell door. He stood by the hatch, not knowing what to expect. Then he heard the bolts thrown across and the key turned. The door swung open slowly. The Soviet guard was there with his sub-machine gun. And so was a short, grey-haired man in gold-framed glasses and wearing the blue uniform of a prison official.
‘You must come for the ablutions now,’ he said in the heavily-accented voice Red recognized as the chief warder’s. ‘Put your hands on your head and follow me.’
No intimation of how the message had been received.
Red followed the instructions. He decided to leave the initiative to the Frenchman. There was nothing either of them could usefully do while the point of the gun was against his back. The bathroom was a short walk to the right down the corridor between walls coated in a pale green mould. An open doorway revealed a row of basins along one wall and eight lavatories without doors. Red went to one and relieved himself. Then he crossed the floor to the nearest basin and ran some water. He took off the tracksuit top and splashed water on his face and body.
As he bent over the basin again, he sneaked a glance behind him. The gun was still trained on him. Nothing was happening.
‘Enough,’ said the chief warder in a bored voice. ‘Now we return to the cell.’
Red used the tracksuit to dab himself dry and put it on, looking with increasing desperation for some signal from the warder. Surely nothing could be done until the Russian was overpowered and disarmed. They needed the help of the American warder. Where the hell was he?
No clue was offered. ‘Put your hands on your head.’
He was the least demonstrative Frenchman Red had ever encountered. Even when their eyes met briefly, he communicated nothing. The encouragement Red had derived from the pen and the paper cups was draining away like the water in the basin. He was beginning to suspect he had made a hideous error.
A prod in the back from the gun, and he found himself retracing his steps along the corridor.
What now? The opportunity to act was almost past. At the cell door, he paused and said, ‘Thanks for the coffee.’ Then, with slow emphasis, ‘Is there a chance of anything else?’
The chief warder answered tonelessly, ‘You want something to eat? I will try to arrange it.’
The Russian guard pressed the gun harder into Red’s back. He had his own way of communicating, and there wasn’t any ambiguity about it. Red sighed, stepped back into the cell and felt the rush of air as the door slammed behind him.
The missed opportunity rankled so much that it was a moment before he responded to the sight of something in the cell that had not been there before: a neat pile of clothes at the end of the bed – dark blue in colour, with silver buttons. A warder’s uniform!
He lifted the jacket from the bed. Under it were a white shirt, black tie, trousers and black shoes. He clenched his fists and all but shouted in elation. He shouldn’t have doubted the warders. This was brilliant, far more useful than anything he had dreamed up himself. The uniform was probably Cal’s. He must have kept one at the prison to change into from his jogging gear. It was an excellent fit. The feel of the clothes gave Red a lift. There were still hair-raising problems to be faced, but he was in with some kind of chance.
Dressed up, he worked on his tousled hair with his fingers, trying to make it passably tidy. Then he waited in suspense, knowing that if he was summoned upstairs in the next few minutes, he was sunk. The sun had risen high enough for the first rays to streak through the barred windows. Red sat hunched on the edge of the bed, arms folded, staring at the stone floor.
Then he got up.
The bolts scraped and the key was turned. The door was pushed open slowly.
‘Your breakfast.’ The American warder entered with a tray bearing bread rolls and a bowl of cereal. He placed it on the table and made sure that the cell door was only slightly ajar. Outside, the chief warder was in conversation with the guard, occupying his attention.
The American ran a critical eye over Red’s turn-out. ‘OK,’ he said in a subdued voice, speaking rapidly. ‘You step out of here and bolt the door, leaving me inside. The guard has the key. Walk right past him like you do it every day. Turn right, head for the stairway and go down to the next level. The warders’ room will be the first on your left. It’s standing open. Got that?’
Red nodded.
‘Hope you make it.’ The American scooped the things off the tray and handed it to Red. ‘You’d better carry this.’
Red didn’t attempt to thank him. There wasn’t anything adequate he could have said. It was an act of rare courage to sit locked in that cell and wait for the Russians to discover that they had been outsmarted.
With the empty tray under his arm, Red opened the cell door, stepped outside, closed it, slammed home the bolt, turned past the chief warder and the guard and strode down the corridor at the measured pace he imagined warders used, wishing that the rubber-soled shoes didn’t give the impression of stealth, and trying to decide at which point it would be worth making a dash if he were challenged.
Before he reached the stairs, he heard the key turn in the cell door. There was a change in the volume and tempo of the conversation behind him. It was the chief warder taking leave of the guard.
Red took the stairs at a quicker rate and found himself in a green and white corridor that looked more used to habitation. He found the warders’ room and went inside. No one was there. It was furnished as a sitting-room, with a row of lockers, a fridge and a sink. The chief warder followed Red in. He pulled the door to and gestured to him to take a seat at the table.
Like a consultant with an anxious patient, he took off his glasses to polish them and said in a measured, emollient tone, ‘Now would you tell me precisely what happened to Cal Moody?’
Red stood gripping the chair-back. ‘For Christ’s sake, there isn’t time. They’re going to send for me and all hell’s going to break loose.’
The chief warder said in his deadpan manner, ‘I insist. I have responsibilities. If you want me and my colleagues to break the prison regulations, you must convince me it is necessary.’
Red’s nerves were stretched to the limit, but he knew he couldn’t do anything without the warders’ active support. So he picked out the crucial events of the past twenty-four hours and related them succinctly, expecting any second to hear the clatter of army boots along the corridor. ‘Now do you believe me?’ he asked earnestly when he was through.
The chief warder had listened impassively. ‘It is asking a lot. I must be frank with you. I cannot understand why it is necessary for you to speak to the prisoner Hess.’
Red had guessed this would be the sticking point. ‘Can’t you see? He’s in trouble. There’s something he wants the world outside to know, some secret he has guarded for over forty years. He put his trust in Cal Moody and asked him to get in touch with this woman, Edda Zenk, and now the KGB have killed them both. They beat up Edda Zenk before they shot her, so you can bet that they found out the secret. Hess doesn’t know this yet.’
‘That is probably true.’
‘You guys who have been close to the old man for years must have some regard for his well-being,’ Red hazarded. ‘Don’t you think he ought to be told what happened?’
‘Ought to be? No. In this matter, he has contravened the regulations.’
‘Sod the regulations!’ Red almost howled.
‘But I was going to add,’ the chief warder persisted staidly, ‘that we may feel a human obligation to tell him.’
Red clenched his fist as if to trap that human obligation in his hand. ‘Right! Only who would Hess trust, now that Cal is dead? Another warder?’
The question clearly made an impression, although the chief warder avoided answering it directly. ‘Why should he trust a total stranger?’
Before Red could answer, the phone buzzed.
The chief warder picked it up. He listened, and then responded in Russian. He frowned and changed the receiver to the other ear. His composure snapped at last. He protested angrily to the caller, gesticulating with his free hand. The to and fro continued for about a minute, at the end of which the caller must have put down the phone while the chief warder was still in full flow, because he suddenly stopped in mid-sentence, listened, held the receiver six inches from his face, stared at it, said, ‘Merde!’ and fairly thumped it down.
He picked it up again, cradling the mouthpiece as he explained to Red, ‘Insufferable! Not only do the Russians flout the regulations by allowing this General Vanin to enter the prison without the agreement of all the directors, now they tell me he is already here and has a matter to discuss with Hess. I am ordered to escort Hess to the interview room. I will not do it without the consent of the other directors.’
‘Who is Vanin?’ asked Red. ‘The Soviet director spoke about him on the phone last night. He was practically shaking in his shoes.’
‘I think he is KGB.’ The chief warder impatiently rattled the contact-bar. ‘They won’t give me an outside line, blast them. I don’t mind who I speak to – the Allied Commission, any one of the directors. I refuse to capitulate to these Russians with blood on their hands.’
‘I’ve got to go in and talk to Hess now,’ Red insisted.
‘Do you know? – I think the bastards have pulled the switches on me.’ The chief warder rattled the phone again, and then pushed it away from him. He was outraged to the point of revolt. ‘OK,’ he said tensely. ‘We will try, but it will be difficult. I will have to take you past two guards. There is the usual one on the inner cell-block door and an extra man who was posted outside the cell this morning. There is also Shaporenko, the Russian warder, on duty in the block.’
Red took a deep breath. ‘A warder? Christ, he’ll know I’m a fake. Can you take care of him?’
‘I cannot promise. Straighten your tie.’
Red followed him out, turning left, across the intersection of the main block and the wings. Ahead was the entrance to the cell-block where Hess had been held since 1947. No-one had ever entered there illegally. The Soviet guard on the door stiffened and scraped one of his boots on the stone floor.
‘Ignore him,’ muttered the chief warder. He walked up to the steel door, took out a bunch of keys attached to a chain and unlocked and unbolted it. They stepped past the guard and inside the inner cell-block.
It was not markedly different from the rest of Spandau, though the dark green and cream paint was fresher and the floor buffed as in the guardroom. Some relics from the nineteenth century, a set of ornamental iron brackets picked out in a white gloss, supported the twelve-foot ceiling. Modernity was represented by hot water pipes and radiators and a fire-hose attached to the wall. There were two plain tables. Steel cell doors stretched ahead on either side.
Red’s skin prickled. He had shed most of his fears. Now he felt a rush of exhilaration.
This, he thought, is where it has all been leading. Jane, darling, you said it was crazy, I couldn’t walk into Spandau, but here I am, about to come face to face with old man Rudolf. If I get out – for God’s sake, when I get out – you’re going to have to admit that even if most of what I say is bullshit, one time, one never-to-be-forgotten time, it wasn’t.
Keeping a yard behind the chief warder, partly to indicate respect and partly for reasons of cover, he started the thirty-metre walk to where the Soviet guard stood on duty at the far end of the corridor, beside an open door. To his right were the white-painted doors of cells once occupied by the seven war criminals. Hess, he knew, had been moved to the other side of the corridor in 1970, into a double cell knocked into one, which had formerly been used as a chapel.
They had not gone more than a few paces when someone in warder’s uniform stepped out of a door midway along the block. The chief warder reacted quickly. ‘Ah, Shaporenko.’ He spoke in Russian, evidently giving some instruction.
Red knew it was impossible to stay obscured behind the small Frenchman, so when Shaporenko caught his eye, he nodded sociably. There was an awkward hiatus. The Russian stared back, frowning, then moved past them to carry out the order.
Now for the man on guard. They approached him casually. Like the other Soviet Army soldiers Red had met in Spandau, he was probably no older than twenty. He had both hands on his sub-machine gun, but his posture was relaxed. He must have been told that the men in blue uniforms were prison warders.
Then it all happened.
Shaporenko, his suspicion alerted, shouted something from the far end of the block. The chief warder wheeled around and shouted back. Red had no idea what was said, and he wasn’t waiting for a translation. He attacked the guard. He shoved the muzzle of his gun upwards with such force that it caught the man on the chin, jolting his head back. In the same movement, he swung his knee hard into the Russian’s groin. He felt the impact of bone against bone. Anything between made no impression, except on the soldier, who creased and fell towards him like wet wallpaper that had failed to stick.
The man was conscious, but in no state to resist. Red tugged the gun away and trained it on Shaporenko, who raised his hands. ‘Lock him in one of the empty cells,’ he yelled to the chief warder, without taking his eyes off the Russian. ‘Tell him I won’t hesitate to shoot.’
The chief warder crossed to one of the cell doors and unbolted it.
Shaporenko made no trouble. He was thankful to be out of Red’s line of fire. The door slammed on him.
‘This one, too,’ said Red, eyeing the guard, who was trying to sit up. His face was bleeding where the gun had struck it.
The chief warder opened a second cell and helped the soldier into it. He climbed onto the bed and was lying still when the door was shut.
‘Thank God!’ Red muttered.
Turning slightly, he was conscious of a figure almost at his elbow. White-haired, in a white singlet and dark trousers, a man was standing in the cell doorway in the act of putting on his glasses.
Rudolf Hess.