to bloodtest and so forth. Routes to explore. And eventually…the Cagots.’
He looked at David.
Amy asked: ‘But…how can Dresler help us now?’
‘Because. If what Nathan said is right, then Dresler also knows what the doctors did after the war. He knows the lot.’
‘After the war? What does that mean?’
A shrug.
‘Angus!’
The Scotsman slowed the dinghy further. Sea birds wheeled behind. He gazed at Amy, then at David: ‘The Nazis discovered DNA – during the war.’
David was so stunned he felt the boat wobble beneath him. He gasped: ‘DNA?’
‘Yup. They’d been onto it a while. Fischer, and so forth: he got the first intimations in Namibia, studying the Khoisan and the Basters. Then he clinched the proof at Gurs. But that’s not key to what I’m saying. It’s what the Nazis did with this technology. Because of what they then found, within and between human genetic variation – that’s the key. It was a discovery so…’ Angus shrugged. ‘I mean allegedly – I don’t have proof, and probably never will now – but it was a discovery allegedly so devastating that it led to the Holocaust. And it was so powerful it gave the Nazi doctors leverage – after the war.’
‘I still don’t get the whole picture…’
Angus tutted, impatiently, but explained. ‘At the end of the war, the Nazi doctors from Gurs had one bargaining chip, which they could swap for their lives and freedom. And that bargaining chip was the Fischer results. The rumour is they hid the data somewhere…inaccessible. In Europe is my guess. Probably in central Europe, as the Allies pressed in on the shrinking Nazi empire.’ He eyed the shallowing waters, then went on: ‘The Allies couldn’t imprison them, or try them, let alone execute them. In case one of the other doctors revealed the results.’
Amy interrupted: ‘So the doctors were freed. Exonerated. Fischer became…professor at Freiburg, in 1945, despite everything he’d done.’
‘Yes.’
‘So this doctor in Luderitz? How does he fit in?’
‘Well, if what poor Nathan said is right, Dresler knows where the results are hidden.’
David felt the surge of excitement. Angus raised a hand.
‘Sure, it is compelling…But remember the Nazis must have hidden the data somewhere wildly inaccessible. Plenty of people have tried to find it. Who knows though.’ Angus paused. ‘Maybe we will?’
David was curious.
‘We? You’re coming along?’
He ran his fingers through his red hair. Eyes bright. ‘K, I confess, you got me, it’s a fair cop. I’m piqued. I’m intrigued. You shoot, you score. Maybe Dresler does know. And if so…I want to know too. I spent five years on this, I want to know if my hunch was right, about the Jews, Hitler, the Holocaust, the Basters.’
He leaned and flung a rope as the dinghy bumped into the pier. ‘But first we have to go see Dresler. And torture the truth out of him.’
43
Simon walked nervously down the cobbled high street. Autumn in the Bavarian Alps was quiet. The ski shops were shut; and tourists were few, mainly hikers huddled over big maps, flapping in the breeze. It was a cold and greyish day and the kitsch, gilded streets were largely deserted.
But he still felt nervous. He’d have preferred the anonymity of a hotel in a big city, but didn’t dare use credit cards or show his passport: so he’d chosen here, Garmischpartenkirchen, as a compromise. Suzie and he had been here on holiday years ago.
Suzie.
Suzie and Conor.
Suzie and Conor and Tim.
He was lodged in a cold austere cottage, in an ugly new development, in the silence of the Alps, just above the little town. But every minute of every day he’d felt the need for information. An overwhelming need.
So he’d spent half his time in the little town, on payphones to Sanderson and Suzie, or sitting in the internet cafe, with its tinkling bell above the door, and the wall full of red pennants for Bayern Munich FC.
He greeted the girl at the till; she smiled, with a polite nod of recognition, and returned to her magazine. Selecting a terminal amongst all the other dusty, unused terminals, he opened his webmail account. He could feel his own nervousness, like a bad taste in his mouth. Was there any news from Tim? About Tim? David and Amy? What about his wife and child?
There was just one email of interest. There were two unread emails but there was just one email he wanted to read. He didn’t want to read that other message. Because he knew it was the communication about Tim, from Tim’s captors. The