Читать книгу The Black Sun - James Twining - Страница 27

Greenwich, London

6th January – 3.00 p.m.

A passing storm had left the sky bruised and the pavements slick and shiny. Turnbull was waiting for them outside number 52, a handsome Victorian red-brick house identical to all the others on the terrace. Standing up, he looked even fatter than he had the previous day, a situation not helped by a cavernous dark blue overcoat whose heavy folds hung off his stomach like the awning of a Berber tent.

‘Thanks for meeting me here,’ Turnbull said, holding out his hand. This time, Tom and Archie shook it, though Archie made no attempt to disguise his reluctance. Turnbull didn’t seem to mind. ‘And for helping.’

‘We’re not helping yet,’ said Tom firmly.

‘Well, for turning in the arm, at least. You could have just got rid of it. Others would.’ Tom noted that he glanced at Archie as he said this.

‘What are we doing here?’ Archie demanded impatiently.

‘Meeting Elena Weissman. The victim’s daughter.’

Turnbull opened the gate and they made their way up the path under the watchful gaze of the bearded face that had been carved into the keystone over the front door. There was no bell, just a solid brass knocker in the shape of a lion’s head. Turnbull gave it a loud rap, and they waited patiently until they heard the sound of approaching footsteps and saw a shadow through the rippled glass panels.

The door opened to reveal a striking woman with jet-black hair, secured in a chignon by two lacquered red chopsticks which matched her lipstick and nail varnish. Tom put her age at forty, or thereabouts. She was wearing foundation that gave her skin a bronzed, healthy glow, although it couldn’t fully disguise the dark circles under her sad green eyes that betrayed a lack of sleep. She was dressed very sharply though, a black cashmere cardigan worn over a white blouse and black silk trousers, her feet clad in what looked like a very expensive pair of Italian shoes.

‘Yes?’ She had an immediately arresting, even formidable presence, her voice strong, her manner ever so slightly superior. Tom found himself wondering what she did for a living.

‘Miss Weissman? My name is Detective Inspector Turnbull. I’m with the Metropolitan Police.’ Turnbull flashed a badge which, Tom noticed, was different from the one he had shown them yesterday. No doubt he had a drawer full of badges to choose from, depending on the situation. ‘It’s about your father…’

‘Oh?’ She looked surprised. ‘But I’ve already spoken to –’

‘These are two colleagues of mine, Mr Kirk and Mr Connolly,’ Turnbull continued, speaking over her. ‘Can we come in?’

She hesitated for a moment, then stepped aside.

‘Yes, of course.’

The house smelt of wood polish and lemon-scented floor cleaner. Faint squares on the walls showed where pictures had hung until recently, their outlines preserved where they had shielded the ageing wallpaper from London’s clogging pollution.

She showed them into what Tom assumed had once been the sitting room. It had been stripped, brass rings clinging forlornly to the curtain rail, a single naked lightbulb drooping from the yellowing ceiling. A sofa and two armchairs were covered in large white dustsheets and several cardboard boxes stood in the far left-hand corner, their lids taped down.

‘I apologise for the mess,’ she said, flicking the dustsheets on to the floor and indicating that they should sit. ‘But I’ve got to go back down to Bath. I run a property business down there, you see. I’m going to have to leave the place empty until all the legal and tax issues are sorted. I’m told it could be weeks before you even release the body.’ She flashed an accusing stare at Turnbull.

‘These matters are always very difficult,’ he said gently, settling on to the sofa beside her while Tom and Archie sat on the two armchairs opposite. ‘I understand how painful this must be, but we must balance the needs of the family with the need to find those responsible.’

‘Yes, yes of course.’ She nodded and swallowed hard.

Tom, with the benefit of a childhood spent in a country where the open display of human emotion was applauded, marvelled at her uniquely English struggle to balance grief with the need to maintain dignity and self-control in front of strangers. Just for a second, he thought she would succumb and cry, but she was clearly a proud woman and the moment passed. She looked up again, her eyes glistening and defiant.

‘What did you want to ask me?’

Turnbull took a deep breath.

‘Did your father ever talk about his time in Poland? In Auschwitz?’

She shook her head.

‘No. I tried to talk to him about it many times, to find out what happened, what it was like there. But he said that he had locked everything away in a dark corner of his mind that he couldn’t look into again. In a way, that told me all I needed to know.’

‘And the tattoo on his arm – his prisoner number – did he ever show you that?’

Again she shook her head.

‘I saw it, of course, now and again. But he seemed to be embarrassed by it and usually wore a long-sleeved shirt or pullover to cover it up. I’ve known other survivors who regarded their tattoos as a badge of suffering, something they were proud of showing, but my father wasn’t like that. He was a very private man. He lost his entire family in that place. I think he just wanted to forget.’

‘I see,’ said Turnbull. ‘Was he religious?’

She shook her head.

‘No. People tried to bring him back into the Jewish community here, but he had no time for God. The war destroyed his faith in any force for good. Mine, too, for that matter.’

‘And politics? Was he involved in any way? Jewish rights, for example?’

‘No, absolutely not. All he was ever interested in was railways and birds.’

There was a brief pause before Turnbull spoke again. ‘Miss Weissman, what I’m about to tell you may be difficult for you to hear.’

‘Oh?’

Turnbull, looking uncomfortable for the first time since Tom and Archie had met him, hesitated before speaking.

‘We have recovered your father’s arm.’ He snatched a glance at Tom as he said this.

‘Oh.’ Her reaction was one of relief, as if she’d been dreading a more traumatic revelation. ‘But that’s a good thing, isn’t it?’

‘Yes…Except that his tattoo, his concentration camp number, had been…removed.’

‘Removed?’ Now she did look shocked.

‘Sliced off.’

Her hand flew to her mouth in horror. Now that he was closer to her, Tom saw that her carefully painted nails were chipped and worn where she’d clearly been biting them.

‘Oh my God.’

‘However, by analysing the scar tissue and pigment discoloration in some of the deeper skin layers,’ Turnbull continued quickly, as if the technical language would help lessen the impact of what he was saying, ‘our forensic experts were able to reconstitute his camp number.’

He paused and she looked from him to Tom and Archie, then back at Turnbull.

‘And…?’

‘Are you familiar with the coding system employed at Auschwitz?’ She shook her head silently. He gave a weak smile. ‘Neither was I, until this morning. It seems Auschwitz was the only camp to tattoo its prisoners systematically. This was made necessary by the sheer size of the place. The numbering system was divided into the regular series, where simple consecutive numbers were employed, and the AU, Z, EH, A and B series, which used a combination of letters and sequential numbers. The letters indicated where the prisoners were from, or ethnic groupings. AU, for example, signified Soviet prisoners of war – the original inmates of Auschwitz. Z stood for Zigeuner, the German word for gypsies. The numbers on Jewish prisoners mostly followed the regular unlettered series, although in many cases this was preceded by a triangle, until the A and B series took over from May 1944.’

‘Why are you telling me all this?’ There was a slightly hysterical edge to her voice now. Tom sensed that this time she really was on the verge of breaking down.

‘Because the number on your father’s arm didn’t follow any of the known Auschwitz numbering series.’

‘What?’ Even her make-up couldn’t disguise how white she had gone.

‘It was a ten-digit number with no alphabetical or geometric prefix. Auschwitz numbers never rose to ten digits…’ He paused. ‘You see, Miss Weissman, it is possible that your father was never actually in a concentration camp.’