The Odessa File

It went on for another three hours. Miller was sweating, but was able to say he had left hospital prematurely and had not eaten all day. It was past lunchtime when at last the lawyer professed himself satisfied.

‘Just what do you want?’ he asked Miller.

‘Well, the thing is, sir, with them all looking for me, I’m going to need a set of papers showing I am not Rolf Gunther Kolb. I can change my appearance, grow my hair, let the moustache grow longer, and get a job in Bavaria or somewhere. I mean, I’m a skilled baker, and people need bread, don’t they?’

For the first time in the interview the lawyer threw back his head and laughed.

‘Yes, my good Kolb, people need bread. Very well. Listen. Normally people of your standing in life hardly merit a lot of expensive time and trouble being spent on them. But as you are evidently in trouble through no fault of your own, obviously a good and loyal German, I’ll do what I can. There’s no point in your getting simply a new driving licence. That would not enable you to get a social security card without producing a birth certificate, which you haven’t got. But a new passport would get you all these things. Have you got any money?’

‘No, sir. I’m flush out. I’ve been hitch-hiking south for the past three days.’

The lawyer gave him a hundred-mark note.

‘You can’t stay here, and it will take at least a week before your new passport comes through. I’ll send you to a friend of mine who will acquire the passport for you. He lives in Stuttgart. You’d better check into a commercial hotel and go and see him. I’ll tell him you’re coming and he’ll be expecting you.’

The lawyer wrote on a piece of paper.

‘He’s called Franz Bayer and here’s his address. You’d better take the train to Stuttgart, find a hotel and go straight to him. If you need a little more money, he’ll help you out. But don’t go spending madly. Stay under cover and wait until Bayer can fix you a new passport. Then we’ll find a job in southern Germany, and no one will ever trace you.’

Miller took the hundred marks and the address of Bayer with embarrassed thanks.

‘Oh, thank you, Herr Doktor, you’re a real gent.’

The maid showed him out and he walked back towards the station, his hotel and his parked car. An hour later he was speeding towards Stuttgart, while the lawyer rang Bayer and told him to expect Rolf Gunther Kolb, refugee from the police, in the early evening.

There was no autobahn between Nuremberg and Stuttgart in those days, and on a bright sunny day the road leading across the lush plain of Franconia and into the wooded hills and valleys of Württemberg would have been picturesque. On a bitter February afternoon, with ice glittering in the dips of the road surface and mist forming in the valleys, the twisting ribbon of tarmacadam between Ansbach and Crailsheim was murderous. Twice the heavy Jaguar almost slithered into a ditch, and twice Miller had to tell himself there was no hurry. Bayer, the man who knew how to get false passports, would still be there.

He arrived after dark and found a small hotel in the outer city that nevertheless had a night porter for those who preferred to stay out late, and a garage round the back for the car. From the hall porter he got a town plan and found Bayer’s street in the suburb of Ostheim, a well-set-up area not far from the Villa Berg in whose gardens the Princes of Württemberg and their ladies had once disported themselves on summer nights.

Following the map he drove the car down into the bowl of hills that frames the centre of Stuttgart, along which the vineyards come up to the outskirts of the city, and parked his car a quarter of a mile from Bayer’s house. As he stooped to lock the driver’s side door he failed to notice a middle-aged lady coming home from her weekly meeting of the Hospital Visitors’ Committee at the nearby Villa Hospital.

It was eight that evening that the lawyer in Nuremberg thought he had better ring Bayer and make sure the refugee Kolb had arrived safely. It was Bayer’s wife who answered.

‘Oh, yes, the young man, he and my husband have gone out to dinner somewhere.’

‘I just rang to make sure he had arrived safe and sound,’ said the lawyer smoothly.

‘Such a nice young man,’ burbled Frau Bayer cheerfully. ‘I passed him as he was parking his car. I was just on my way home from the Hospital Visitors’ Committee meeting. But miles away from the house. He must have los

t his way. It’s very easy, you know, in Stuttgart … so many road-ups and one-way streets …’

‘Excuse me, Frau Bayer,’ the lawyer cut in. ‘The man had not got his Volkswagen with him. He came by train.’

‘No, no,’ said Frau Bayer, happy to be able to show superior knowledge. ‘He came by car. Such a nice young man, and such a lovely car. I’m sure he’s a success with all the girls with a …’

‘Frau Bayer, listen to me. Carefully now. What kind of a car was it?’

‘Well, I don’t know the make, of course. But a sports car. A long black one, with a yellow stripe down the side …’

The lawyer slammed down the phone, then raised it and dialled a number in Nuremberg. He was sweating slightly. When he got the hotel he wanted he asked for a room number. The phone extension was lifted, and a familiar voice said, ‘Hallo.’

‘Mackensen,’ barked the Werwolf, ‘get over here fast. We’ve found Miller.’

Chapter Thirteen

FRANZ BAYER WAS AS fat and round and jolly as his wife. Alerted by the Werwolf to expect the fugitive from the police, he welcomed Miller on his doorstep when he presented himself just after eight o’clock.

Miller was introduced briefly to his wife in the hallway before she bustled off to the kitchen.