Jack Higgins – Night of the Fox

M.

Luller was working in his office at the Silvertide, faying to catch up on his paperwork when there was a knock on the door and Greiser looked in. “Working late tonight, Heir Captain.” “The field marshal accounted for most of my time today, and he’s likely to take up more tomorrow,” Muller said. “IVe at least twelve ease reports to work through for court appearances next week. I thought I’d try to get rid of them tonight.” He stretched and yawned. “Anyway, what are you doing here?”

“The phone call I booked to my brother in Stuttgart. IVe just been talking to him.”

Muller was immediately interested. “What did he have to say about Vogel?”

“Well, he certainly never came across him at Gestapo Headquarters in Berlin. But he does point out that the SD are housed in a building at the other end of Prince Al-brechtstrasse. He simply wasn’t familiar with who was who, except for the big noises like Heydrich before they murdered him and Walter Schellenberg. However, it was an open secret during his time in Berlin, that the Reichs-fuhrer uses mystery men like Vogel with special powers and so on. He says nobody was all that sure who they were.”

“Which is exactly the point of the whole exercise,” Muller observed.

“Anyway, he says people like that operate out of the SD unit attached to the Reichsfiihrer’s office at the Reich Chancellery. As it happens, he knows someone on the staff there rather well.”

“Who?”

“An SS auxiliary named Lotte Neumann. She was his mistress during his Berlin period. She’s secretary to one of the Reichsfilhrer’s aides.”

“And he’s going to speak to her?”

“He has a call booked through to Berlin in the morning. He’ll get back to me as soon as he can. At least it will tell us just how important Vogel is. She’s bound to know something about him.”

“Excellent.” Muller nodded. “Have you seen Will! tonight?”

“Yes,” Greiser admitted reluctantly. “At the club. Then he insisted on going to a bar in some back street in St. Helier.”

“He’s drinking?” Greiser hesitated and Muller said, “Come on, man, tell me the worst.”

“Yes, Herr Captain, heavily. I couldn’t keep up. As you know I drink very little. I stayed with him for a while, but then he grew morose and angry as he does. He told me to clear off. Became rather violent.”

“Damnation!” Muller sighed. “Nothing to be done now. He’s probably ended up with some woman. You’d better get off to bed. I’ll need you again in the morning. Ten o’clock at Septembertide.”

“Very well, Herr Captain.”

He went out, and Muller opened another file and picked up his pen.

Kleist was at that moment parking his car on a track on the edge of the de Ville estate very close to Gallagher’s cottage. He was dangerously drunk, way beyond any consideration of common sense. He had half a bottle of schnapps with him. He took a pull at it, put it in his pocket, got out of the car and walked unsteadily along the track toward the cottage.

There was a chink of light at the drawn curtains covering one of the sitting room windows. He kicked on the front door vigorously. There was no response. He kicked again, then tried the handle and the door opened. He peered into the sitting room. There was an oil lamp on the table, the embers of a flre on the hearth, but no other sign of life. The kitchen was also empty.

He stood at the bottom of the stairs. “Gallagher, where are you?”

There was no reply. He got the oil lamp and went upstairs to see for himself, but both bedrooms were empty. He descended the stairs again, slowly and with some difficulty, went into the sitting room and put the lamp on the table.

He turned it down, leaving the room in darkness except for a dull glow from the embers of the flre. He pulled back the curtain at the window and sat there in a wing chair, looking at the yard outside, clear in the moonlight. “Right, you bastard. YouVe got to come home sometime.”

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