Buch lesen: «Last Man to Die»

PROLOGUE

It was a filthy way to die, he told himself.

He had imagined death would be something rather grand. A few immortal last words that friends would discuss and applaud as they chewed over his life and his incalculable contributions to the public weal. A dignified passing wrapped in the warm blanket of public approbation before he slipped off to an altogether more elevated plane. He had imagined it as some sort of classic English triumph, all stiff upper lip and tear-stained lace; not like this.

When the doctors told him that, at his age, there was little more they could do, he had thanked them, smiling to show that it was just another challenge. After all, it was going to be their loss rather than his. ‘Can’t complain. Had a good innings,’ he reassured them, comforting himself with the image of a final walk back to the pavilion accompanied by the applause of the crowd and congratulatory obituaries in The Times and the Telegraph. There would even be a thanksgiving service at St Martin-in-the-Fields, he hoped. Not that either of his two former wives would attend; they preferred to forget rather than forgive. And there were no children. Pity, really.

Only now had he begun to have twinges of regret, to feel the need for support as disease gnawed at his bones and his self-esteem. He had returned to his old haunts, the scenes of previous battles and many victories, wanting to touch them one more time. The first stop had been at his ancient public school perched on the Sussex Downs where his intellectual agility had begun to develop a true cutting edge and his singular competitiveness had marked him out as a boy who would go far. But he recognized no one; only the young headmaster had shown any interest and that had faded with the realization that there was to be no endowment cheque in exchange for the tea and wholemeal biscuits. He hadn’t bothered going back to his Oxford college; nowadays the old university sanctuaries all seemed to be given over to women and he hated that. Women had never been more than a distraction for him, rarely pleasurable, inevitably expensive and, ultimately, always irritating.

So he had come to London, an uncommon event since his retirement some years before. Even that had changed. The noise and crush disorientated him, the traffic ground impatiently to a halt while the people, more impatient still, hurried past, unaware and unconcerned. Whitehall, which had been the playing field for much of his career, hid distant and austere behind the new security and surveillance systems. Downing Street was where during the war he had lived, slept, loved and, in the days of defeat and despair, had even thought he might die. Now he couldn’t even get close. He had stood wedged behind the barriers, staring forlornly through the wrought-iron railings. No more crisp salutes from the duty policeman, no more satchels full of papers marked ‘Top Secret’ and smeared with the dust from Churchill’s cigars, only barriers with hidden cameras and windows covered by heavy bomb-resistant curtains to catch the shards of glass, just in case.

It was another world, a world rushing by, a world of which he was no longer part. On those streets he used to know so well he had become mesmerised and confused by the bustle while in every shady corner where he sought refuge he felt as if he were standing on the doorstep of a still darker world. He had discovered he was shaking.

He had sought refuge in the all-male preserve of his club. Here at least all was familiar order, nothing appeared to have changed. He had sat in his favourite armchair at the Athenaeum for the entire afternoon before realizing that his friends were no longer there and the few acquaintances who recognized him had no time for a decomposing old man with no future. Someone he thought he knew had approached purposefully from the other side of the room, but solely to ask whether he had finished with the newspaper. Only the steward in the coffee room seemed happy to speak with him, and he didn’t have English as a first or even third language.

He had sat, a frail figure dwarfed in an armchair of ancient, cracked leather, knowing this world had already passed him by, and whether he was yet willing to let go or not was of little consequence. He no longer belonged. He was an anachronism, of less importance to his fellow man than the battered armchair he occupied or the newspaper he was reading. He was an old man watching his body slowly being eaten away, feeling the strength drain from him a little every day and discovering that dying was a lonely and humiliating business. Suddenly he didn’t feel brave any more.

So he had come to Berlin. He had never before been to the German capital yet, as he began to suspect that the mincing clerics he had so long despised might after all be right, that he should prepare to account for those things he had done, so a sense of guilt had risen inside him. Guilt was a new feeling; he didn’t know how to handle it. It implied fallibility and a concern for the judgement of others, characteristics for which he was not noted. He had always worked behind the scenes, wielding his influence away from the public eye and never having to answer to any other than a handful of the good and great, and the justification of acting in the national interest had served to excuse a multitude of sins. Yet as death loomed, the excuse seemed no longer enough, not for what had been planned for Berlin. He had always avoided the place, not wishing to allow any measure of doubt to enter the comforting certainties of his life, but those certainties were being corrupted along with his flesh and it had become all but inevitable that he should fly here, a last attempt to atone on earth for the things he had no desire to answer for in another place.

Sir William Cazolet Bart., KCMG, CB, CVO etc., former adviser to Prime Ministers and éminence grise of the British Establishment, whose informed if unattributable counsel had frequently been sought by monarchs, judges and editors, sat on the upper deck of a bright green tour bus as it barged its way around the sights of Berlin. Most of the other passengers were still in shirtsleeves, enjoying the last of the September warmth, but Cazolet was wrapped up tight in hat and scarf. His circulation had gone and his long, thin fingers showed like white bird’s claws as they gripped the seat in front for support against the swaying of the bus. He shouldn’t travel until next spring, one doctor had advised. There’s no point in waiting, another had countered looking deep into his glassy eyes, you won’t be here by then.

Berlin was not as he had imagined. Somehow his mind’s eye had always seen the city in black and white, slightly flickering, like an old British Pathé newsreel, but the western half was tinselly, garish and loud, while the east still bore the scars of the attempt to build nirvana out of concrete. ‘Directly ahead you shall see the Brandenburg Gate,’ intoned the courier, ‘built in 1791 to act as a toll gate at the western end of Unter den Linden. It was here on 13 August 1961 that the first stones of the Berlin Wall are being laid. The statue of the goddess of Victory on top was firstly naked, but was quickly covered up, and then taken for a few years to Paris by Napoleon …’

The bus lurched to the right and the Gate was no longer in sight. An overweight American in the next seat who had been sleeping off lunch gave a belch as he came to life and muttered something in the ear of his equally substantial wife. She ignored him, burrowing into her guide book, double checking everything they were told by the courier with an air of unremitting scepticism as if anxious to ensure they were getting their money’s worth. She saw Cazolet staring. ‘Yeah?’ she said aggressively as if welcoming the opportunity to engage in combat with someone new, before being distracted once again by the voice over the loudspeaker.

‘The low grassy mound you are seeing in front of you is all that is left of Hitler’s infamous Bunker, which was blown up by the Russians after the war. It was from this point that Hitler and his generals directed the campaign in its last few months, and it was here that he and his mistress Eva Braun committed suicide in the closing days of the war, she by poison, he by shooting himself …’

Up to this point the fat American had been far more engrossed in her guide book than the real-life sights of Berlin, but now she stared out of the window, leaning across the girth of her husband to get as close as possible. ‘’S no bigger than a Little League pitcher’s mound, Leo,’ she snorted in contempt, digging her husband in the ribs before snapping her guide book shut and burying her nose in a slimming magazine. Leo, grateful for the respite, went back to sleep.

Neither of them noticed Cazolet’s reaction. He was sitting to attention in his seat as though reprimanded, his head swivelling on its scrawny neck to ensure that his eyes stayed fixed upon the grassy knoll for as long as possible. When at last it vanished from sight the old man slumped back in his seat, a puppet with all its wires cut. His face, already pale, had become chalky white beneath the parchment skin, the only sign of colour being the blue veins throbbing at the temples. His breathing was anguished, the air forced through thin, downcast lips. There was sweat on his brow and the dim eyes stared straight ahead, taking in nothing, lost in a distant world of their own. He took no further interest in the tour and showed no sign of leaving the bus when it reached its final stop. The courier had to shake him by the shoulder to rouse him. ‘Must have had a turn,’ the courier muttered to the driver, relieved that the old man was able, albeit with difficulty, to disembark and so release him and the tour company from any further responsibility.

It was not until the following day that Cazolet seemed to have recovered the grim determination which had brought him to the city. There was more to be seen, but he forsook the formal guided tours and instead commandeered a taxi. ‘Take me to old Berlin,’ he instructed. ‘I want to see the city as it was, before the war.’

‘What’s left to see? Try a picture library,’ the driver muttered.

But Cazolet had insisted, so the driver, encouraged by a substantial tip paid up front, had driven east and north, across the line where the old Wall had only recently divided the city before being chipped to fragments by a thousand hammers, into the working-class district of Niederschoenhausen. As the sights of the tourist brochures slipped away behind them the shrunken figure in the back seat seemed gradually to come to life. This was more as he had imagined it, sad, grey, like British Pathé. ‘Slow down,’ he ordered, peering intently out of the window as they came off the highway and began to bounce along streets of bare cobblestone.

For some while they crawled between the rows of austere, gloomy tenements that huddled along either side of the road. There was little life to be seen. The only greenery grew out of the cracks in the cornicing that hung, often precariously, along the frontages, and the few people he saw on the streets had expressions which perfectly matched their dismal surroundings. Many of the buildings were in need of substantial repair, with dripping algae-covered water outlets and cracked window panes, or bits of board and cellophane where windows ought to have been. The ancient ravages of war could still be seen in the pockmarks which were spattered across the façades. There were gaps between houses where buildings had once stood but where now there was nothing but a wilderness of weeds doubling as a burial ground for old cars. Everything seemed worn out, of a past age, just waiting to die. At last, Cazolet told himself grimly, he had found a place where he belonged.

He stopped outside the shop for no better reason than that it appeared to be the only place open. It loosely described itself as an antique shop but the goods were more second-hand than aged. As he opened the door, a bell jangled overhead producing not a bright song of welcome but a choking sound, a stiff rattle of discontent as if complaining at being disturbed. Cazolet guessed it had been that way for a long, long time. The shop was cramped and narrow, like a railway carriage, with a thin corridor down the middle between bric-à-brac and dusty oddments which were piled with little apparent logic or order along the shelves and on top of the collection of dark tables and bureaux that had been pushed against the walls. The best of what there was seemed to be in the front window, a large blue-and-white Nanking temple vase which was a modern reproduction, he guessed, and a nineteenth-century mahogany upright clock with an intricate brass face but no back panel. It had been disembowelled and the movement lay on the floor beside it. Both vase and clock bore a substantial layer of dust, as did the owner, who appeared from behind a curtain at the back of the shop wiping his hands on a tea towel. He had a stomach which his grimy undervest and leather belt had difficulty in containing, and from his scowl and the grease that had dribbled on to his chin it appeared as though he had been disturbed in the middle of eating. He was somewhere in his mid-sixties, Cazolet estimated. As always when he met a German of his own age, Cazolet wondered what the other had done during the war and what secrets and torments hid behind the watery, suspicious eyes. He would have been about fifteen by the end of the fighting. In Berlin that was old enough to have been conscripted, to have been sent out with nothing more than a couple of grenades and a busted rifle to face the Soviet tanks and the peasant-conscripts who swarmed behind, to have fought for Berlin street by street and sewer by bloody sewer, to have killed and been killed. Many much younger had known that. In those days, death in Berlin had recognized no distinction between the innocence of childhood and culpability for having been born a German, yet this German had survived to become old and fat, and that alone was enough to ensure he should never be taken for granted.

The shopkeeper said nothing, standing silently in the back of the premises smacking his greasy lips and staring, as if he reckoned Cazolet might be on the point of running off with his precious stock. Cazolet refused to be intimidated. He liked this place, its jumble of artifacts, its mustiness, its uselessness. He moved stiffly through the shop, pulling out drawers, inspecting battered brassware, smudging the dust off prints before settling into an oak dining chair, testing it for comfort, easing his aching limbs. Had it been one of six the chair might have fetched a reasonable price but on its own it was simply old – a survivor, Cazolet reflected, which made it something special in Berlin. He was astonished to discover himself feeling a sharp twinge of envy. Of a chair. Bloody fool! he scolded himself, once again rehearsing the arguments as to why he had nothing to fear about tomorrow, whatever it might bring.

It was as he was sitting in reflection that he saw the photo frame. It was blackened with age and dirt, and from behind the smeared glass stared the image of a young German military recruit from the last war, his brave smile and crisp Wehrmacht uniform typical of countless thousands of photographs that had adorned mantelpieces and bedside tables in bygone days. The photo itself held no fascination for Cazolet; it was the battered frame that grabbed his attention. He reached out unsteadily and took it between both hands, his thumbs rubbing at the tarnished metal, trying to reveal the gleam of silver which he guessed lay beneath the oxide. Up the sides and along the bottom of the frame he found small decorative filigree executed in a different metal which beneath the dirt and soot looked like dull brass; directly in the centre at the top of the frame was a small, slightly jagged hole, as if some further piece of decoration had been pulled away none too carefully. It was staring at the hole that brought it back. A memory, vague with distance and time but which battled through to flood his fingers with tension and anticipation. Surely it couldn’t be … With a thumbnail he scratched gently at the filigree, but already he knew what he would find. Not worthless brass, instead the yellow lustre of gold. Now he knew for certain what was missing. He turned the frame over and with some difficulty began releasing the clips that secured the photograph inside the frame. His hands were trembling, and not solely with age.

The shopkeeper had come over to inspect what he was doing. ‘Careful!’ he growled.

‘This is not the original photograph,’ Cazolet snapped. ‘This is a wartime piece, without doubt, but the frame was made for something else …’

The shopkeeper began to take a keen interest; perhaps he could do business over this piece of junk after all.

‘You see the hole?’ continued Cazolet as the back came off and his frail fingers searched for the edge of the photograph. ‘I think there used to be a little gold swastika, just here. You know, these frames were specially produced and given away …’ He sucked in his breath as the old photograph came away to reveal the original still lurking behind.

‘Bollocks,’ muttered the German.

‘… by Adolf Hitler himself.’

They could both see the face, magisterially staring left to right into a distance he imagined to be filled with endless victories.

‘This is quite rare. It’s even signed!’ Cazolet was rubbing furiously at the grime on the glass with a spotless white handkerchief.

‘Five hundred marks,’ the shopkeeper barked, rapidly recovering his composure.

‘Oh, I don’t want to buy it. I have no need …’ But Cazolet could go no further. His words died as his vigorous cleaning of the glass revealed not just Hitler’s spidery signature but also a dedication. His breathing was laboured as the excitement and the exertions began taking their toll. The frame trembled in his hands as he held it up to his frail eyes. He blinked rapidly, giving the glass another polish with the now-stained handkerchief and holding it up once more for inspection. The metal seemed to be burning into his hands, as if grown white hot with a mystical energy all its own. The Englishman was one of life’s professional sceptics and even as he had contemplated his own death he had found it hard to believe in Fate or any form of divine intervention, but every day for the few months that remained to him thereafter Cazolet would look at his hands expecting to find stigmata burned deep into his palms.

‘Oh, sweet Jesus,’ he gasped as at last he deciphered the scrawled dedication. ‘Can it be? After all these years ….’

‘What? What is it?’ the shopkeeper cried in exasperation.

The old man seemed not to notice. He was back in another time, face consumed by anguish, his eyes tightly closed, shaking his head as though trying to fend off the understanding which confronted him. Then, very softly, almost exhaustedly, the words came. ‘He made it. He actually bloody made it!’

The old man’s hands gave another savage shake and the silver frame slipped from his fingers, glancing off his knee before falling to the floor. There was a loud crack as the glass shattered.

‘That’s it,’ snapped the German. ‘You’ll have to buy it now.’