White Rose Black Forest(73)

She reached under the flowerpot for the key for Hermann’s front door and noticed that it was facing in the opposite direction than she always left it. That jarred her. She picked it up. Hermann was dozing in his armchair, and she went straight to the kitchen to begin preparing vegetable casserole. He awoke to the clacking of her dicing vegetables and called out to her from his chair.

“No need to get up, Herr Gerber. It is only I.”

Five minutes later the casserole was ready to cook, and she slipped it into the oven before going to him.

“Karoline, you are so kind.”

“I do try, Herr Gerber. That dish will be ready in twenty minutes. Will you need me to come back?”

“No, that’s quite all right.”

“Did you have a visitor today?”

“I did. My grand-niece Franka was lost hiking. She arrived early this morning and took some rest here. We had lunch together, and she left. It was wonderful to see her. It had been years. I don’t know how many.”

Karoline felt an itch. “Franka. Wasn’t she the one who had the trouble with those awful dissidents in Munich speaking out against the führer?”

“Yes, that was her, but she’s served her time and is rehabilitated utterly now.”

“Of course,” she said. “Everyone deserves a second chance. Well, almost everyone. I should be going now. Let me know if you have need of anything else. Otherwise, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She left with the old man’s gratitude ringing in her ears, but her thoughts were of something else. It was likely nothing, but with all that was going on these days, it was best to be safe. She was sure that he was correct and that Franka had been led astray. Nevertheless, she was a known enemy of the state—at one time anyway—and the border was close by. What was she doing out hiking in the middle of the night, and why wouldn’t she have asked one of her great-uncle’s neighbors to bring her back home? The blanket of night was descending, the trees of the forest changing to black. Yes, it was best she called this in. The local police would be most interested.

It pained Vogel to leave his colleague’s body beneath the floorboards in that shack in the mountains, but he knew better than to disturb a murder scene. He had never thought of Berkel as a friend when he’d been alive, but he was a good man, a family man, and a loyal servant of the Reich. His murder highlighted the qualities Vogel had never recognized in him while he was alive. Hatred for Berkel’s killer surged through him on the drive back to Freiburg, his knuckles bright white on the steering wheel, his teeth almost ground down into his gums. He didn’t bother to park his car in his usual space outside the Gestapo headquarters, instead abandoning it at an ungainly angle on the sidewalk. He assembled the agents on duty for an emergency meeting. The men were shocked as he recalled what he’d seen, and each swore vengeance on the murderous bitch who’d dared to perpetrate such a cruel and heinous act. With no picture of Franka on file, a composite artist came in to sketch her face from the memories of several of the agents who’d known her.

“Her car was missing,” Vogel said. “Block off all roads for fifty miles in every direction, all the way down to the border. Enlist the local Wehrmacht garrison to help with the search. She’s making for Switzerland. I have little doubt of that. She has nowhere else to go. No one can hide from us in the country. Call every local police station and Blockwart. Someone knows something. We know she got crutches a couple of weeks ago—which she claimed were for her boyfriend who had been hurt in a skiing accident. She may well have someone with her.” The agents muttered among themselves before he began again. “This treacherous bitch cannot be allowed to escape. No one does this to the Gestapo. We are the law, and retribution will be brutal.” He slammed his fist against the wall. “Bring her in alive. I want the last miserable hours she spends on this planet to be horrific.”

The call from the Blockwart in Bürchau came half an hour later, and Vogel called another meeting, with three times more agents in attendance now. The agents were baying for blood like a pack of ravenous dogs. All of their resources would be deployed between Bürchau and the border. That traitorous whore would never see Switzerland alive.

Franka’s feet were blocks of ice. If there had ever been a trail here, it was covered, and they had to lift each leg out of the snow as they went. It was past ten o’clock, and her legs ached more with every step. John was two feet in front of her, and every so often she reached out to touch his back with her spare hand to let him know she was still there, to encourage him. Her mind was nearly blank, occupied by little other than the constant need to place one foot in front of the next, and the stifling cold. Her eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness. The moon only appeared when a break in the foliage allowed its silver light to shimmer down. The spread of trees was uneven—sometimes they’d come upon an open field to stride across, or a patch of deciduous trees, stripped of all foliage, their trunks like enormous spikes sticking straight up into the night sky. They passed farmhouses lit warm inside and saw the smoke billowing out of their chimneys, silent as the dead. But they didn’t stop.

It was almost midnight when John held his finger in the air and she came to a halt behind him. She put her hands on her thighs and bent at the waist. He motioned for her to stand still and shuffled forward. Franka—with pain, burning, and freezing each fighting for supremacy in various parts of her body—leaned against a tree. Her breaths were heavy, and she was panting as he returned.