The Odessa File

Miller closed the file he had been searching.

‘What are those?’

‘Those,’ said Cadbury, ‘are nineteen years of despatches from me to the paper. That’s the top row. Below them are nineteen years of cuttings from the paper of news stories and articles about Germany and Austria. Obviously a lot in the first set are reprinted in the second. Those are my pieces that were printed. But there are other pieces in the second set that were not from me. After all, other contributors have had pieces printed in the paper as well. And some of the stuff I sent was not used.

‘There are about six boxes of cuttings per year. That’s quite a lot to get through. Fortunately it’s Sunday tomorrow, so we can use the whole day if you like.’

‘It’s very kind of you to take so much trouble,’ said Miller.

Cadbury shrugged. ‘I had nothing else to do this weekend. Anyway, weekends in late December in Bonn are hardly full of gaiety. The wife’s not due back till tomorrow evening. Meet me for a drink in the Cercle Français about eleven-thirty.’

It was in the middle of Sunday afternoon that they found it. Anthony Cadbury was nearing the end of the box-file labelled November–December 1947 of the set that contained his own despatches. He suddenly shouted ‘Eureka’, eased back the spring-clip and took out a single sheet of paper, long since faded, typewritten and headed ‘23rd December 1947’.

‘No wonder it wasn’t used in the paper,’ he said. ‘No one would have wanted to know about a captured SS man just before Christmas. Anyway, with the shortage of newsprint in those days the Christmas Eve edition must have been tiny.’

He laid the sheet on the writing desk and shone the Anglepoise lamp on to it. Miller leaned over to read it.

‘British Military Government, Hanover, 23rd Dec. – A former captain of the notorious SS has been arrested by British military authorities at Graz, Austria, and is being held pending further investigation, a spokesman at BMG headquarters said here today.

‘The man, Eduard Roschmann, was recognised on the streets of the Austrian town by a former inmate of a concentration camp, who alleged Roschmann had been the commandant of the camp in Latvia. After identification at the house to which the former camp inmate followed him, Roschmann was arrested by members of the British Field Security Service in Graz.

‘A request has been made to Soviet Zonal headquarters at Potsdam for further information about the concentration camp in Riga, Latvia, and a search for further witnesses is under way, the spokesman said. Meanwhile the captured man has been positively identified as Eduard Roschmann from his personal file, stored by the American authorities in their SS Index in Berlin. endit. Cadbury.’

Miller read the brief despatch four or five times.

‘Christ,’ he breathed. ‘You got him.’

‘I think this calls for a drink,’ said Cadbury.

When he had made the call to Memmers on Friday morning the Werwolf had overlooked that forty-eight hours later it would be Sunday. Despite this he tried to call Memmers’ office from his home on Sunday, just as the two men in Bad Godesberg made their discovery. There was no reply.

But he was in the office the following morning at nine sharp. The call from the Werwolf came through at half past.

‘So glad you called, Kamerad,’ said Memmers. ‘I got back from Hamburg late last night.’

‘You have the information?’

‘Certainly. If you would like to note it …?’

‘Go ahead,’ said the voice down the phone.

In his office Memmers cleared his throat and began to read from his notes.

‘The owner of the car is a freelance reporter, one Peter Miller. Description: aged twenty-nine, just under six feet tall, brown hair, brown eyes. Has a widowed mother who lives in Osdorf, just outside Hamburg. He himself lives in a flat close to the Steindamm in central Hamburg.’

Memmers read off Miller’s address and telephone number.

‘He lives there with a girl, a strip-tease dancer, Miss Sigrid Rahn. He works mainly for the picture magazines. Apparently does very well. Specialises in investigative journalism. Like you said, Kamerad, a snooper.’

‘Any idea who commissioned him on his latest inquiry?’ asked the Werwolf.

‘No, that’s the funny thing. Nobody seems to know what he is doing at the moment. Or for whom he is working. I checked with the girl, claiming to be from the editorial office of a big magazine. Only by phone, you understand. She said she did not know where he was, but she expected a call from him this afternoon, before she goes to work.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Just the car. It’s very distinctive. A black Jaguar, British model, with a yellow stripe down the side. A sports car, two-seater, fixed-head coupé, called the XK 150. I checked his local garage.’

The Werwolf digested this.