‘As you have described the evidence so far,’ Bradfield said quietly, ‘there is nothing whatever which attaches Karfeld to Hapstorf, and nothing at all to associate him with the complicity in a murder plot. His own account of himself may very well be true. That he fought in Russia, thathe was wounded-‘
‘That’s right. That’s the view they took at Headquarters.’
‘It is even unproven that the bodies came from Hapstorf. The gas may have been theirs; it hardly proves that the chemists themselves administered it to the victims, let alone that Karfeld knew of it, or was in any way an accessory to -‘
‘The house at Hapstorf had a cellar. The cellar wasn’t affected by the bombing. The windows had been bricked in and pipes had been run through the ceiling from the laboratories above. The brick walls of the cellar were torn.’
‘What do you mean: “torn”?’
‘By hands,’ Turner said. ‘Fingers, it could have been.’
‘Anyway they took your view. Karfeld kept his mouth shut, there was no fresh evidence. They didn’t prosecute. Quite rightly. The case was shelved. The unit was moved to Bremen, then to Hanover, then to Moenchengladbach and the files were sent here. Together with some odds and sods from the Judge Advocate General’s Department. Pending a decision regarding their ultimate disposal.’
‘And this is the story Harting has got on to?’
‘He was always on to it. He was the sergeant investigating. Him and Praschko. The whole file, minutes, memoranda, correspondence, interrogation reports, summaries of evidence, the whole case from beginning to end – it has an end now is recorded in Leo’s handwriting. Leo arrested him, questioned him, attended the autopsies, looked for witnesses. The woman he nearly married, Margaret Aickman, she was in the unit as well. A clerical researcher. They called them headhunters: that was his life… They were all very anxious that Karfeld be properly arraigned.’
Bradfield remained lost in thought. ‘And this word hybrid -‘ he asked finally.
‘It was a Nazi technical term for half Jewish.’
‘I see. Yes, I see. So he would have a personal stake, wouldn’t he? And that mattered to him. He took everything personally. He lived for himself; that was the only thing he understood.’ The pen remained quite still. ‘But hardly a case in law.’ He repeated it to himself: ‘But hardly a case in law. In fact hardly a case by any standards. Not on the merest, most partisan analysis. Not any kind of case. Interesting of course: it accounts for Karfeld’s feelings about the British. It doesn’t begin to make a criminal of him.’
‘No,’ Turner agreed, rather to Bradfield’s surprise. ‘No. It’s not a case. But for Leo it rankled. He never forgot; but he pressed it down as far as it would go. Yet he couldn’t keep away from it. He had to find out; he had to take another look and make sure, and in January this year he went down to the Glory Hole and re-read his own reports and his own arguments.’
Bradfield was sitting very still again.
‘It may have been his age. Most of all, it was a sense of something left undone.’ Turner said this as if it were a problem which applied to his own case, and to which he had no solution. ‘A sense of history if you like.’ He hesitated, ‘Of time. The paradoxes caught up with him and he had to do something about it. He was also in love,’ he added, staring out of the window. ‘Though he might not have admitted it. He’d made use of somebody and picked up more than he bargained for… He’d escaped from lethargy. That’s the point, isn’t it: the opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s lethargy. Nothingness. This place. And there were people about who let him think he was in the big league… ‘ he added softly. ‘So for whatever reasons, he reopened the case. He re-read the papers from beginning to end. He studied the background again, went through all the contemporary files, in Registry and in the Glory Hole. Checked all the facts from the beginning, and he began making his own enquiries.’
‘What sort of enquiries?’ Bradfield demanded. They were not looking at one another.