44

In front of them was the strange skyscape of Luderitz itself: stern Lutheran churches sat atop dirt roads, which ran past gaily gabled Black Forest villas and scruffy miners’ taverns. Rolls of barbed wire guarded wooden piers that jutted into the cold blue harshness of the sea.

David followed along, as Angus walked quickly, turned left – and gestured. ‘Dresler’s house…’

They were confronted by one of the most vividly painted houses; its walls were a bright, Baltic red. Big white jeeps were parked down the deserted road. Scorching hot metal in the sun.

Angus knocked, and paused. He had a hand poised in an inside pocket. David knew why. Angus knocked again, louder and harder, and waited.

Then, a noise. The door was slowly unlatched, and a very old man peered around it. Angus instantly whipped out Nathan’s gun, shoved through the door and pushed the man, roughly, angrily back into his own hallway.

The muzzle of the gun was pointing at the old man’s orange cardigan. Amy and David exchanged glances. Alarmed and frightened.

Angus showed no such fear or doubt. He spat his words:

‘Dresler, listen, everyone is fucking dead. And I want to know where you guys put the Fischer results. Now. Tell me.’

The old Nazi shrivelled away, but Angus loomed over the old German, pinning him to the wall. Dresler was staring at the gun, and at Angus, and then at David. Three times he blinked, staring at David, as if he found David more frightening than the gun.

‘Dresler. Tell me. Just fucking tell me.’

Dresler was stammering; Angus was growling his questions.

‘Tell me now!’

‘Ich weiss es nicht nein nein -’

‘I know you speak fucking English, you cocksucker -’

The old man was dribbling. He was so frightened and shocked he was dribbling.

David felt a desire to intervene. The scene was too hideous; just too hideous. He stared around, as Angus shouted and yelled. They were standing in a hallway straight from Alpine Bavaria. There was actually a cuckoo clock ticking on the wall. Some ancient walking sticks, with yellow horn handles.

And a portrait of Pope Pius the Tenth?

Maybe Angus was right to terrorize this Nazi into confession.

Dresler’s old mouth was opening and closing. Angus leaned nearer. David surmised the gun must be hurting the old man, the muzzle pressing hard in his chest.

‘Where are the Fischer results? Next time I shoot.’

The old man pushed feebly at Angus; and the Scotsman casually pulled back, aimed the gun at Dresler – and he shot in the air, millimetres from his target. Almost grazing the doctor’s face. Terrifyingly close.

Amy gasped. David looked away. He looked anywhere else. He noticed something: a little address book on the hallway table, next to a phone. A little address book with handwriting on the cover. What was that? Another echo in his mind. Something. Something there?

Then he looked back.

Dresler had sunk to his knees in fear.

‘Listen, Herr Doktor. You have two fucking minutes. Where are the results?’

Angus lifted the gun again, and he set the muzzle to the man’s shoulder. ‘Next I will shoot your arm, here, at the shoulderblade. Might take the whole arm off -’

The doctor was trembling.

‘Ja! OK OK!’ The old man lifted a liver-spotted hand. ‘Shark Island.’

‘Where?’

‘I tell you. Shark Island. Go and see.’ He was still terrified. There was a moist dark patch in his trousers. Fear had voided his bladder.

‘Shark Island? What does that mean? Why? That doesn’t make sense.’ Angus pressed the gun harder into the shoulder. ‘Tell me more.’

‘Aber…Aber…’ The old man shivered. He shut his eyes, like someone about to be executed. He was mumbling words. What were they? Prayers? They sounded like prayers.

And then Dresler opened his old sad eyes. And then he looked at David, then at Amy. He shook his head. ‘I do not believe this…I do not believe you.’

‘What?’

‘You…you people will not kill me. You do not have the courage. Nein.’

Angus swore, and shot again, this time at the floor. A few centimetres to the left of the old man’s legs. Splintered wood spun in the air.

But the Nazi had found some determination. He shook his head, and his eyes gleamed with a sullen defiance. Or maybe it was just a different kind of fear, maybe he was more scared of talking, of confessing, because of what might happen to him then.

Amy was protesting.

‘Angus – you just can’t shoot him -’

Angus swore, and waved the gun.

‘But Kellerman said, fuck this, Kellerman said -’

It was an impasse. They were stuck. Angus had the gun aimed at Dresler’s head but David knew the German was right, Angus couldn’t do this. Not in cold blood. Couldn’t kill this sad old man with his spidery writing.

The spidery writing? With a well-oiled click the mental machinery of the puzzle began to turn. He gasped aloud. Of course. The address book.

‘Stop!’

Faces turned. David explained:

‘He knows me.’

Angus was incredulous: ‘What?’

‘I’ve worked it out. This guy Dresler. He knows me. He must recognize me.’

Amy went to speak; David interrupted: ‘Angus. Where

was this guy living – before he came to Luderitz?’

‘France. Provence.’

‘There. That’s it.’ David gestured, fiercely, at the kneeling old Nazi. ‘He recognized me when I walked through the door. I saw it in his eyes.’ He leaned very close to Dresler’s sweaty face. ‘You know me, don’t you? Because you met my father. He found you. Someone in the Basque Country, a Gurs survivor, gave my father your details, your name, and Dad traced you to Provence.’ He was leaning even closer to the quailing old German. ‘And my dad threatened to reveal your past to the world – so you confessed – or you helped him – I’m fucking right, aren’t I?’

Dresler was shaking his head. Mute. Determined and mute. But his silence was unconvincing. Amy whispered: ‘I think you’re right. Look at him.’

David didn’t need any encouragement.

‘It’s the only thing that makes sense. Someone must have told my father about the monastery, someone who knew secrets. Who had an interest in the story, like an old Nazi, from Gurs. Who became a member of the Society of Pius…He would know where the archives were kept. It was you. You told my father – and then you had to flee, to Namibia, and this – this here -’

David grabbed at the address book. He waved it under Dresler’s face.

‘I recognize this handwriting! This tiny precise scrawl. You wrote on the back of my father’s map. Didn’t you?’

Again Dresler shook his head. And again it was unconvincing.

Angus was visibly excited.

‘OK. So let’s say that’s it. You must be right. Let’s put the clues together -’

‘How?’

‘Shark Island. That’s what this fucker said. Shark Island.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Just down the road. Luderitz! By the fish wharves.’

Angus swivelled on Dresler. For a second it seemed Angus would strike the bowed and silent head of the Nazi with the butt of the pistol. Then he seemed to think better of it. He spat with contempt, but lowered the gun.

‘Come on – we haven’t got much time and Miguel could be anywhere, that chopper leaves in two hours -’

They ran to the door, leaving Dresler burbling and shivering in his hallway. A Nazi kneeling in the contents of his own emptied bladder.

The brutal noon sun was like a punishment, a fierce chastisement. Angus gestured south. They ran down the dusty road which doubled back to the wharves.

Two black men were sifting listlessly through piles of white dust on a corner. The smell of fish and decay was overpowering. Bleak white dust and hot blue sky – and an old Nazi wetting himself. David’s mind was alive with fears and anxieties, and hope. Maybe they would find the secret. He realized, now, at least he was beginning to realize, that he needed to find the secret. The secret of himself. The terror of ignorance was too much.