He wasn’t dead. Stefan found a knife on the kitchen floor and cut away the ropes. They sat him against the wall. He opened his eyes and looked at them, as if coming out of a deep sleep that he didn’t want to leave. He was struggling to find the place and the time he had been brought back to.
‘I know you.’ He was looking at Stefan. He turned to Hannah. He was sure he knew her too, but he couldn’t quite remember. He coughed. His face contorted. He had found where he was now and it was a place of pain.
‘They’ve gone?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
He looked at Hannah again; he remembered her now. ‘The priest told me you were here.’ There was a smile on his lips for a second. ‘It wouldn’t have been so bad, would it, an Irish gaol? Well, better than this, eh?’
‘We’ll get an ambulance.’ Stefan glanced at Hannah. She nodded.
‘It’s too late.’ Keller’s eyes seemed clearer. ‘It’s Hannah, yes?’
‘We can worry about that later. Stefan can phone –’
‘I’m enough of a doctor to know, my dear.’ He coughed again and a spasm of pain rocked his body. Blood trickled from his mouth. ‘They’ve done enough. They killed Father Byrne. It was my fault. I was the one they didn’t trust. I’d found out. They knew I’d found out. He didn’t even know what they were going to do. He didn’t know anything.’
‘I’ll phone now,’ said Stefan getting up.
‘No!’ Somewhere Hugo Keller found the strength to bark it out like an order. ‘There’s no point. I know. Do you think they’d send a doctor anyway?’ He clutched at Hannah’s coat. ‘He didn’t even know. The priest didn’t know what they really wanted! Neither did I. I’d only just found out why he was so important. It wasn’t only information. He was a way in. That’s why he mattered so much.’ There was unexpected determination in his voice. But then he stopped, his head dropping, his breath slowing. He struggled to look up at Stefan. ‘When he’s dead they’re going to blame the Jews. That’s what it’s for.’ He closed his eyes. Now the place he was in seemed to be fading. ‘I didn’t want to know. I wanted to find a way home. I just wanted a way back to Ireland!’
‘What are you talking about?’ asked Hannah.
Keller stared, as if he had forgotten who she was again.
‘Blame the Jews for what?’
‘They’re going to kill him,’ whispered the Austrian.
Hannah looked at him blankly. ‘Kill who?’
‘Count O’Rourke.’ Hugo Keller grimaced in pain, choking out the words. ‘They’re going to kill the bishop. If the election doesn’t go the way –’ His eyelids drooped shut. There was a rasping in his chest. Phlegm and blood oozed from his mouth. His eyes half-opened again. He was still looking at Hannah, but the present was slipping away. ‘Your friend shouldn’t have died. There was time. I told the guard to take her to the hospital! But he didn’t. I thought she’d just died. I didn’t know. I didn’t know he’d killed her. I don’t know why. He was working for the priest.’
Stefan and Hannah stared at him; this contradicted everything.
‘But Father Byrne didn’t know anything, he didn’t know she was dead,’ said Stefan. Could the priest have fooled him that much?
Even in Keller’s pain there was irritation.
‘Not the flunky, you gobshite! The monsignor.’
The words meant nothing to Hannah. Stefan understood though.
‘What monsignor?’ said Hannah.
Hugo Keller seemed to be staring straight ahead, straight into her eyes, but he didn’t see her.
‘Who are you talking about?’ Hannah was almost shouting.
‘He’s dead, Hannah,’ said Stefan, taking her arm.
She moved back a little, still gazing down at Hugo Keller.
‘What did he mean, Stefan?’
‘We need to go.’ He pulled her up.
‘I don’t understand who was he talking about.’
‘It can wait. I’ll explain. We’re not safe here.’
As they turned round, two men were standing in the doorway, watching them. The first was Kriminaloberassistent Klaus Rothe. The other was the bearded man who had come to feed the dogs at the hunting lodge above Oliva. Rothe was surprised, but not so surprised that the long barrel of a Mauser machine pistol wasn’t already pointing at Stefan and Hannah.
‘We came to clear up one pile of shit and now we’ve got three.’ He walked forward. ‘That’s your Jewess then. You’re right, she’s worth a fuck. If I had more time I might try her out first. But we’ve got an election to win.’
‘She’s the one from the lodge,’ said the man they knew as Karl.
‘Now you know why Jews have big noses. They stick them in where they’re not wanted. But then Jews aren’t wanted anywhere, are they?’
Stefan stood very still. There weren’t many options he could see.
‘We’ve got no idea what went on here. We don’t care. This is about something that happened in Ireland, that’s all. We were too late anyway. He was already dead.’
‘It looks to me like you killed him, Herr Gillespie.’
The Gestapo man was pleased. It made the mess easier to clean up. He had Hugo Keller’s murderers in front of him. He only had to shoot them and the job was done. Stefan didn’t have to fill in the gaps to be able to read that thought. Talking wasn’t going to get them out of this, but talking could buy them seconds.
‘All we want to do is leave Danzig.’
‘I’m sure. Unfortunately, you’ll be shot while resisting arrest.’
Stefan glanced at Hannah. Her face was almost expressionless, but the tension in her body was enough to tell him that she wouldn’t stand there and be shot. They didn’t have much of a chance, but Hannah was ready to move. He nodded, hoping it was a signal she would understand. He was ready too.
‘You don’t need to do this, Kriminaloberassistent,’ he pleaded.
‘No, but it suits me to do it. And apart from anything else, you pissed me off, Irishman, in Weidengasse, in the mortuary.’ He stepped closer.
The big pine table that stood in the middle of the kitchen was between Stefan and Rothe. Stefan put his hands on the end of the table, leaning down and shaking his head, with an expression that made him seem utterly defeated.
‘I’m sorry, Hannah.’ He looked up. ‘There’s nothing we can do. Nuair a bhrúim an tábla, ionsaigh an ceann eile.’ He spoke to her in Irish.
She smiled sadly and shrugged. ‘Tá mé réidh.’
‘Words of fond farewell, that’s nice,’ said Rothe, smiling.
All at once Stefan pushed the table forward, with every bit of force he could find, driving it across the floor into the Gestapo man’s legs. It was a heavy table and it hit Klaus Rothe hard. It was still moving as he fell under it. At the same moment Hannah rushed forward and flung herself on top of Karl, knocking him to the ground. Rothe rolled out from under the table and leapt to his feet very fast. He was still holding the Mauser and he was grinning. It was a good try. He didn’t expect the pistol in Stefan’s hand, Hannah’s PKK. His surprise didn’t last any longer than it took Stefan to fire.
The Kriminaloberassistent was dead. In the doorway Hannah and Karl were still struggling. The bearded man lashed out and pushed her away. He scrambled to his feet and ran. Stefan hadn’t moved. He still had the PKK pointed at Rothe. Hannah got up and stepped over the body. ‘He’s dead. The other one isn’t!’ Stefan didn’t understand for a moment. It didn’t seem to matter. They were alive. She grabbed the pistol and raced to the door. ‘What are you doing?’ He ran after her into the hall. There was the sound of a car.
As Hannah reached the steps the black Mercedes was already heading down the drive, picking up speed. Stefan was there beside her now. ‘You won’t stop him.’ She stood quite still, holding the PKK in both her hands. The car was at the gate when she fired a single shot. The Mercedes carried on, straight on, out into the middle of Eschenweg, not turning to the right or the left. Then it halted; the man slumped over the wheel was dead too.
Stefan stared at Hannah. It was a shot he could never have made.
‘You’ve done that before.’
‘It was never a human being, just a target.’ She was still staring at the car. Then she turned, handing the PKK back to him, as if she didn’t want to touch it now.
‘What do we do, Stefan?’
‘We find anything that moves that’s leaving Danzig. If we needed to get out before, I’d say we’ve more than overstayed our welcome now.’
‘And Bishop O’Rourke?’
‘There is that,’ he smiled wryly. They were in this now, whether they wanted to be or not. They couldn’t just walk away with what they knew.
‘We can’t let it happen, can we?’
He shook his head. ‘No, we can’t. Keller’s got a phone.’
‘The phones aren’t safe, Stefan, none of them are.’
They needed to act. Stefan’s mind was racing.
‘Seán Lester’s the only one who can stop this.’
Hannah took his hand, pulling him down the steps.
‘I’ll go to the cathedral. You go to the High Commission.’
They ran down the steps and back out into Eschenweg, past the Mercedes in the middle of the road and the dead man slumped over the wheel, past the houses with red roofs and tidy gardens, past the apartment blocks where the swastikas hung from the windows, into Adolf-Hitler-Strasse. Hannah went one way and took the tram to Oliva; Stefan took the tram the other way, back into the city. There wasn’t really any choice.
*
At the mouth of the Tote Weichsel, where the river dissolved into the Baltic, there was a narrow spit of sand that became thinner and thinner until it disappeared into the sea itself. This was the Westerplatte. In high summer the beaches here were far less crowded than Zoppot’s. Here, scattered among the trees, were the concrete bunkers that represented Poland’s only military presence in Danzig. A hundred soldiers sat there for no very good reason, except that they could. When the League of Nations established the Free City it was a tiny concession to mollify Polish anger that the city they still claimed as part of Poland wasn’t Polish. The League saw the Polish flag flying over this windswept spit of sand as a gesture so modest as to be unimportant. The Poles saw the flag over the Westerplatte as proof that one day the city they called Gdan´sk would be Polish, whatever language was spoken in its streets. For the Germans of Danzig it had been an irrelevance to some and an irritation to others; an itch rather than a sore. But as the years went on and Hitler’s voice grew shriller in the city, the Polish fort and the Polish flag that flew over the Westerplatte had become an insult. It was a sore now. And if it could sometimes be ignored it could never be forgotten.
Stefan Gillespie sat in Seán Lester’s car, looking out at the Baltic. Behind them, among the trees, was the red and white Polish flag. On a day like this the Westerplatte was a wild place. The beaches were empty and there was only the low hum of the wind off the sea. They were a long way from the streets swathed in swastikas and the trucks of stormtroopers cheering for a democratic end to democracy. The High Commissioner had driven the car himself. He had no reason to believe his chauffeur was a spy but trust wasn’t something that could be taken for granted in the Free City any more. And here, today at least, there would be nobody to see them.
They had been silent for a while now. Lester was trying to make sense of what Stefan had told him. Some of it made no sense at all, but then he had only fragments of information. Where it did make sense it frightened him.
Another car drove towards them. The High Commissioner watched it approaching, still thoughtful. He got out of his own car and Stefan followed. The constant hum of the wind was louder. As the second car pulled up Stefan could see that the driver wore the uniform of the Schutzpolizei.
‘Oberleutnant Lange is the nearest thing to a policeman I can trust.’
‘You don’t sound very sure,’ said Stefan.
‘Trust can be bought and sold like everything else. Diplomacy isn’t really geared up for this. I remember some advice given to me by a British diplomat before I left Geneva: When deciding what to wear in the morning, bear in mind the day may bring unforeseen demands. Women should always keep a hat and gloves in the office for emergencies and men should keep a black tie in the desk for unexpected mourning. I don’t keep one in mine. Reinhold Lange is my best chance of not having to go home to get one.’
Oberleutnant Lange got out of his car and walked towards Stefan and the High Commissioner. Seán Lester shook the policeman’s hand warmly.
‘This is Herr Gillespie. I spoke to you about him before.’
‘You’re the detective sergeant?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And you’re here on some kind of holiday?’
‘Not exactly a holiday.’
‘I can see Irish understatement puts even English understatement into the shade,’ said Lange. He looked at Lester. ‘Do you know if the bishop is all right?’
‘He’s been told anyway. Fräulein Rosen went straight to the cathedral. And I have spoken to him now as well. The question is, who’s going to protect him?’
‘The Langfuhr police have picked up the car and the dead driver. Not easy to miss really. The car was in the middle of the road. They also found the two men inside the house, Kriminaloberassistent Rothe and Herr Keller. But the investigation has been officially handed over to the Gestapo now. So there is a solid wall up around it, which tells its own story of course. I can’t get any more information.’
‘Are they looking for Herr Gillespie and Fräulein Rosen?’
‘I don’t know that either. But I’d say probably not. They don’t know who else was at Keller’s house. There may be some descriptions, but that’s going to take time. I think we can work on the assumption that it just looks like a Gestapo operation that went wrong. What is clear is that this man Keller was working for the Gestapo and the SS. That’s all I have. I think you know that already, Herr Gillespie?’ Stefan nodded. Lange continued. ‘That’s why they’ve shut it down as far as the Schutzpolizei are concerned. It’s political. But nothing seems to be happening, which is odd when there’s a dead Gestapo man. However, maybe not so odd if there’s something more important to cover up. I do take this threat against the bishop seriously.’
‘You do know something then?’ asked Lester.
‘Last night there were some SA men up in the forests above Oliva.’
Stefan and Lester exchanged glances. It wasn’t news to them.
‘Yes, I think you know something about that too, Sergeant. This is just rumour as far as I’m concerned. It’s the kind of information I’m not allowed to do anything with these days. It’s political,’ he smiled. ‘No crime has been reported and no bodies have been found, but I think two men were killed. What’s going around is that they were killed for a reason. I mean other than the usual reason, that the Nazis didn’t much like their opinions.’
‘And there’s a connection to Bishop O’Rourke?’ said Lester.
‘Scapegoats,’ replied the policeman. ‘It’s a well-established Nazi trick in Germany. You shoot someone you don’t like, say a businessman who doesn’t want to pay his dues to the Party, then you dump the body of someone else you don’t like at the scene of the crime, say a communist or a socialist, and announce he was the killer, shot while trying to escape. You’ve not only got your murderer, you can arrest all his friends as well. Anyway the rumour is that the two men who were shot in the forest are going to reappear and assassinate someone. The rumour doesn’t say who’s going to be killed but it seems to tie in with what Keller told you, Herr Gillespie. I don’t suppose it’s a coincidence that a priest who apparently committed suicide yesterday was one of Herr Keller’s informants. Is that correct?’
‘It’s not correct that he committed suicide,’ answered Stefan.
‘I use the term loosely. We get a lot of suicide in Danzig these days.’
Seán Lester was frowning. The gaps were filling in.
‘Why now? The elections are almost over. If Edward O’Rourke –’
‘You’ve been here too long, High Commissioner. You’re starting to believe what the Nazis tell you. They’re not so sure they’re going to win this election. Oh, they’ll keep their majority and we’ll still have that arsehole Greiser as our president, but they may not get the numbers to change the constitution and kick the League of Nations out. And if that happens, whatever Greiser and Gauleiter Forster and the rest of them say, they’re going to lose a lot of face. They’ve promised Hitler a Danzig without you, without opposition parties, without elections, and with the Jews stripped of everything they own, including any rights they’ve got left under the constitution. If they can’t deliver all that, a dead bishop might solve the problem for them.’
‘The only people who could want Edward O’Rourke dead are the Nazis.’
‘I don’t know who exactly the scapegoats are,’ continued Lange, ‘socialists, communists, Zionists. It doesn’t much matter as long as they’re Jewish. Who cares if the last person in Danzig they’d want to see dead is Bishop O’Rourke? They’ll be guilty. And the Nazis will be right. They’ll have a Communist-Jewish conspiracy. So when they turn on the Jews, and whatever’s left of the opposition, they’ll be doing it to protect not just German Danzig but Catholic Danzig too. There’ll be blood on the streets and the police, God help us, will lead the charge. The only option left to you and the League would be to bring in Polish troops to restore order. But Hitler won’t accept that, so he’ll have to take over Danzig. The Poles will either put up with it or face a war with Germany in which they are the aggressors.’
Seán Lester said nothing. Now it all made sense. And the sense it made was far more frightening than the death of a man he regarded as a friend.
‘I’d say this is the SS. Not from the top, but it’s got SS all over it,’ said Lange.
‘Is it coming from Berlin?’ asked the High Commissioner.
‘Not necessarily. They need to force Hitler’s hand. I don’t know, but I wouldn’t think it’s what he wants right now. But if the Free City collapses into chaos, he’ll have to do it anyway. He’d look too weak if he didn’t.’
‘Will the police protect the bishop, Reinhold?’
‘They’ll do what they’re told. It all depends who’s giving the orders.’
The High Commissioner said nothing. He gazed across the Westerplatte towards the Baltic Sea. He turned back. His voice was lighter all of a sudden. He looked from Stefan Gillespie to Oberleutnant Lange, but his whimsical words didn’t disguise how seriously he took this, and how much it mattered.
‘My mother always used to say that the best way to deal with something unpleasant is to open all the windows and let God’s clean air in. She had a habit of doing it on the coldest days, and the threat of that had a powerful effect on family rows when I was young, at least in the winter.’
Neither Stefan nor Oberleutnant Lange understood.
Lester looked out to sea again. ‘There’s quite a breeze today.’
*
Behind the great oak desk of the Senatspräsident there was a small plaque that bore the arms of the Free City, the crown and the two white crosses. Above it a swastika flag stretched almost to the ceiling. Next to it was a framed photograph of Adolf Hitler, signed at the bottom. Arthur Greiser could have taken the plaque off the wall long ago, but its diminutive size made a point. Sitting opposite him were Seán Lester and Stefan Gillespie. The president had been surprised by Lester’s visit. He avoided the High Commissioner as far as possible, and their meetings usually took place when he had been summoned to Lester’s office to hear a catalogue of complaints that he had no intention of taking any notice of. He had assumed, for a moment at least, that this rare visit by Lester was some kind of recognition of the imminent and sweeping victory of the Nazi Party after the day’s elections. Even the irritating and pedantic Irishman had to recognise that the rules would change once the Party had a two-thirds majority in the senate. The constitution forced on Danzig by the League of Nations could be torn up for all practical purposes. If the High Commissioner adjusted to the new situation in the right way, they might wait a while before kicking him out, but if he wanted to be difficult his days in the Free City were numbered.
However it was quickly evident that Seán Lester had not come to kowtow. He demanded a private conversation, with no one else present, except for the man Greiser remembered meeting on the plane from Berlin. Greiser might have been pleased to see Stefan Gillespie again, especially when he was looking forward to the mother and father of all celebrations that night, in the bar under the town hall in the Lange Markt, the Ratskeller. Now, out of nowhere, Lester was in his office, spouting some incoherent nonsense about a plot to kill the Bishop of Danzig. It was a desperate attempt to rain on his parade, but it could hardly be taken seriously. He barely took in the details. He despised Lester. He didn’t know why the High Commissioner had brought this other Irishman with him, but it didn’t matter. He had better things to do. Lester was a stooge for the English; always polite, always smiling, always lying. But he would keep his temper. The League’s days were almost over anyway. He would enjoy kicking Sean Lester out of Danzig. He couldn’t help thinking that whatever anyone said to the contrary there was a bit too much of the English about the Irish.
‘You don’t expect me to believe this, High Commissioner?’
‘I think you would be very wise to, Herr Senatspräsident.’
‘It’s preposterous. It’s absurd. What evidence do you have?’
‘If you contact the Gestapo you’ll find they are investigating three deaths in Langfuhr. That was this morning. Obviously I can’t tell you who else is involved in the plan to assassinate the bishop, but one of the dead men is a Gestapo officer, Kriminaloberassistent Rothe. He was involved. I suppose that might be a good place to start. The bishop is aware of the situation of course, but if I were in your shoes I wouldn’t spend any time sitting on my backside.’ Lester spoke in a quiet voice, as if he was following the diplomatic niceties that usually marked his conversations with Greiser.
‘I have put up with your interference in the day to day running of the city for long enough,’ growled the Senate President, ‘your contempt for its elected government, your disdain for the principles of the Party. I’m sure you know that you won’t be playing that tune after the count tonight. This is beyond patience, High Commissioner, with or without the election. Even your colleagues in Geneva will find these allegations outrageous. Do you think you can walk in here and accuse us all of murder? I’m speechless!’
Stefan smiled. Greiser didn’t seem to be speechless.
The High Commissioner shook his head.
‘What happens if you don’t get your majority today, Herr Greiser?’
‘Now you’re grasping at straws. The victory is already ours.’
‘Not everyone in the Party has your faith.’
‘Are you going to attack the Party too?’
‘Ninety per cent, that’s right, isn’t it? That’s what you promised Herr Hitler. Who takes the blame if it doesn’t come off? You or the Gauleiter? I’m sure Herr Forster will claim a victory if there’s one going. If there isn’t he’ll put it down to you. And he’s the one with the Führer’s ear, I think.’
‘The Party will claim the victory. Individuals only serve the Party.’
‘Forster’s the Party leader. You’re only head of government. I’m not up on Party etiquette but won’t the first phone call from Berlin go to him?’
Greiser didn’t like it. The conflict between him and the man who was his Party boss in Danzig was common knowledge but no one talked about it to his face. Lester seemed to have abandoned all the diplomacy he usually worked so hard at; first the insane allegations and now the snide comments. Dignity mattered a great deal to Arthur Greiser. Lester was sneering at him.
‘We have treated each other with courtesy in the past, Herr Lester, whatever our differences. I have never heard you speak to me like this.’
‘This is not a conversation either of us will need to remember, Herr Senatspräsident, but let me make something clear. I do have a little understanding of how the Nazi Party works. You don’t call yourselves a Führer Party for nothing. It’s never been policy that matters, or ideas; only action counts. And that’s not about what the Führer tells you to do, it’s about what you think he wants you to do. It’s called working towards the Führer, yes? Doing what Hitler can’t because of political expediency, or the cowardice of the people around him, or because sometimes it’s just better to lie through your teeth. So if you can’t take the Free City democratically, why not have the streets running with blood instead? If you can create enough mayhem and slaughter, Germany will have to invade to save Danzig and keep the peace. That’s what assassinating Bishop O’Rourke is about. And if you really don’t know, I don’t think it should take you very long to work out the consequences.’
‘This is madness. I shall be reporting every word of this –’
‘No, unless you find a way to stop it, I shall. I will be sending a report to the League in Geneva and to every head of government I can. I will also send it to the Vatican. I will speak to as many people as possible by phone as soon as I leave this office. I will make it public that I have passed this information on to you and you have refused to act. You don’t have the power to stop me, yet. Try and you’ll make matters worse. I will also ensure that the details reach the press. It can still make waves outside Germany.’
There was silence in the room. Greiser had no doubt now the High Commissioner meant everything he said. There was a definite shift of gear.
‘And this man is your witness, is that what I’m supposed to believe?’
Greiser was looking at Stefan now. It was the first time he had registered his presence since he had entered the room with Seán Lester.
‘Some of the information has come from Herr Gillespie. But I don’t need a witness. Call it propaganda if you like. That’s something you can understand. If anything happens to Edward O’Rourke any attempt to claim somebody else killed him is simply going to prove what I’ve said is true.’
‘You’re threatening me?’
‘There’s no threat if he’s safe. But, yes, if you like it’s a threat.’
‘How do you think you can keep your job here after that?’
‘I’m a lot less interested in keeping my job than you are. I might get a bollocking in Geneva. The worst that could happen is that I end up back in Ireland with a lot more time to spend fishing. That’s not necessarily how it turns out when you make a mistake that embarrasses the Führer, is it?’
Greiser’s fury was deeper than ever but he was running out of words.
‘Working towards the Führer is all well and good when it works.’
‘Are these mad allegations an accusation against me as well?’
‘I don’t know. Probably not. But not everyone would believe that.’
Greiser and Lester gazed at each other. It was the man in the uniform, surrounded by his flags and photographs, who was most uncomfortable now. The next words were meant to sound like a sneer, but they were a question.
‘So who are these hypothetical renegades?’
‘Do you need to know them to stop them?’
‘You’re supposed to have evidence, aren’t you?’ Greiser scowled at Stefan again. ‘Who are they? If these people exist, who the fuck are they?’
‘I only know the dead ones. But Hugo Keller was taking orders from the Gestapo and the SS.’
Lester glanced round at Stefan and nodded.
‘So, should I question everyone in the SS?’
‘If you can’t control the SS, Herr Senatspräsident, a phone call to Himmler –’ Lester smiled.
‘If I need to talk to Reichsführer Himmler, I can assure you I will!’
‘No, I meant I might call him. If his men are out of control here –’
Arthur Greiser had been glancing at the silver tray on his desk for some time. There was a decanter of golden brandy, a sparkling brandy glass. The idea of Heinrich Himmler’s response to what he now believed the High Commissioner was thoroughly capable of doing was the tipping point. He reached across the desk and poured himself a brandy. By the time Stefan Gillespie and Seán Lester left shortly afterwards the Senate President was pouring a second. He knew he would be quietly congratulated by the hierarchy in Berlin for preventing a foreign policy disaster in Danzig, but the same people who congratulated him would always remember what he had stopped; they would never forgive him.
Stefan and the High Commissioner sat in the café opposite the senate building in Neugarten. Seán Lester finished a black coffee and called for another one. He had said very little since they walked out of Greiser’s office. He felt as if he had done almost nothing, yet there was almost nothing else he could do. He had made his decision. Now he had to trust Senatspräsident Greiser. He had to trust that open windows and clean air would work. The Party was a hornets’ nest of fear and deceit; sometimes, if you didn’t get stung, you could play those things off against each other. He hoped he’d kicked that nest hard enough. As Lester drank the second cup of coffee Stefan saw that the High Commissioner’s hands were shaking, very slightly. He looked older than his years. Stefan could sense the weight of this place on him. Lester took a sip of water from a glass the waiter had put down. He smiled a wry smile that didn’t quite hide how drained he was.
‘I think under the circumstances he took it very well.’
They got up and headed for the door. Three boys in Hitler Youth uniforms, fifteen or sixteen, were coming in carrying handfuls of election leaflets. They recognised the High Commissioner. Their hands shot up in the air. ‘Heil Hitler!’ Seán Lester smiled amiably at them. One of them smiled back, holding the door open. As Lester walked past, the boy spat in his face.