Part 21 (1/2)

Naked, with a shaved scalp, the corpse was pale and virtually hairless, except for a patch of light brown pubic hair. There was a large entry wound in his abdomen that had been cleaned up. The boy had been shot at point-blank range. His eyes had been closed. It was nothing she hadn't seen before; a lot of young men had died in this war, but it shocked her anyway. Summerfield was sitting down on the autopsy table.

'I'd forgotten. I forgot all about him.'

'This is your friend?' Kitzel had expected someone older.

'No, this is the man I killed. Gerhard.'

'You are feeling guilty, now?' she said reprovingly.

'I felt pretty d.a.m.n guilty when I did it,' Summerfield snapped. Abruptly she stood, and pushed her hip against the drawer until it slammed shut. Gerhard vanished. Kitzel moved to Drawer 7 and unlocked it. Summerfield pulled it open.

Together, they peered in.

The contents were twisted, blackened. So much so that it took Kitzel a moment to realize that the object had once been human, and wasn't some sculpture or tree trunk. It must have happened quickly: the skin had been carbonized. She glanced at the face. It was grinning, with pearl-white teeth. Its dark eyes were open. It smelt of roast pork. Kitzel was sick over it.

'It's no improvement, Kitzel, he still looks a mess.' Kitzel shot Summerfield a glance, and it was enough to make her blush and apologize.

'Is this your friend?' Kitzel asked, wiping her mouth.

Summerfield shook her head, but checked the name-tag tied to what remained of the corpse's left foot.

'No,' she confirmed. 'Could you close it up?' Kitzel did as she asked, grateful that the burnt body was no longer in sight. As she did this, she heard Summerfield opening up a third drawer. The tall woman grasped Kitzel's shoulder.

'How tall are you, nurse?'

'Five feet, four inches.'

'Nearly six inches,' Summerfield cursed.

'What do you mean?'

The knife was suddenly jabbed between her ribs. 'I mean you're six inches too short. Where I come from, women are taller than they are here. You'll have to do. Strip.'

Kitzel hesitated, but not for very long. She had to step back to take off her jacket That done, she began unb.u.t.toning her blouse. Kitzel watched as Summerfield looked across at the unconscious attendant. This would have been her last chance to resist, but Summerfield kept the knife poised above Kitzel's midriff. Kitzel watched as the taller woman scooped up the blouse and began to put it on over her prison uniform. Kitzel pulled down her skirt, and was beginning to unclip her bra before Summerfield motioned her to stop.

'I draw the line at second-hand underwear. Sit down.'

Kitzel fell back, the drawer buckling under her weight.

Summerfield had pulled off her uniform trousers and shrugged herself into the skirt. Kitzel glanced down at her arm, which was p.r.i.c.kling with goose b.u.mps. Not just from the cold. Summerfield leant over and patted Kitzel's wrist.

'I'll have the wrist.w.a.tch, please,' she said. It was gold, an expensive present from her father on her sixteenth birthday.

Kitzel undid it, and pa.s.sed it over.

'Christ, is that the time?' the tall woman joked as she put it on. Kitzel didn't react.

'Do you think I'd pa.s.s muster?' Summerfield asked. The skirt was loose, but it was barely below her knee. The blouse fitted, just, but the jacket was pinched at the shoulders and was almost ridiculously short.

'No,' said Kitzel.

Summerfield laughed. At least you're honest. When I put the coat on it won't look quite as bad.' Summerfield reached over for the coat and umbrella.

'What happens now?' Kitzel said nervously, her arms crossed over her chest. It was cold in here.

'Now I pose as a n.a.z.i nurse, march out of the base unchallenged and go to the docks. No guards will stop me, but I'll get wolf-whistled. Then, I convince a fisherman to take me to the mainland. He'll think I'm a n.a.z.i, I'll point out that the uniform is obviously stolen and I've got two black eyes. I'll say that if he takes me I'll give him this wrist.w.a.tch. He'll agree. I'll cross the Channel in his fis.h.i.+ng boat, which will take about seven hours. I'll use that time to catch up on my sleep. I'll arrive in Dover at,' she checked the watch, 'about two-thirty this afternoon. Then I'll catch the 14.57 to Waterloo, I'll catch the tube and meet up with my friends at Portland Street. One final question, before I go: do you think these drawers are airtight?'

Before she could react, Summerfield's palm had shoved against Kitzel's shoulder, pus.h.i.+ng her flat on her back. With her knee, Summerfield slammed the drawer shut. Kitzel felt herself slide backwards, watched the crack of light at her feet vanish and gasped for breath. She was facing the wrong way, there wasn't enough room to turn around. It was dark and cold. Was any air getting in? There wasn't a c.h.i.n.k of light from the opening. If she screamed would she just use up her air? She heard the key turn in the lock of the drawer. A moment later, the door to the morgue slammed shut. She kicked out at the drawer door, but it didn't budge. Kitzel screamed.

'I can't believe that you're talking to him,' Chris said stubbornly. The Doctor checked that Steinmann was out of earshot. He was twenty yards away, busy talking to one of the survivors who had been pulled from the rubble.

'Would you prefer me to shoot him?' the Doctor asked quietly.

'Yes.'

The Doctor gave one of his sad, flickering smiles. 'What if I told you that Generalleutnant Oskar Steinmann was one of twenty-three n.a.z.is tried at Nuremburg at the end of the war?'

'I'd say he was a war criminal.' To his credit, though, Chris paused. 'But I admit that if we were to kill him now we'd alter established history. What was his sentence?'

'Life imprisonment. He was released on medical grounds in 1969. He died in 1972, at the age of eighty-nine. A very nasty form of spine cancer.' The Doctor looked at the fifty-eight-yearold man standing a stone's throw from him, a man in the prime of his life.

Chris grunted approvingly. 'Well, at least the British won in the end.'

'Did they? I've seen a future in which the n.a.z.is did, a future that wasn't all that different. Ten years from now a swastika flew over the Festival of Britain instead of a Union Flag. The king was called Edward, not George. Tiny changes.' The Doctor leant down sadly, and tried to rest his hands on his umbrella handle, before he remembered that he no longer had it. Instead he had to look Chris in the eye.

'You changed history back.' A statement, not question.

'I changed history. Like I said, I made tiny changes, and ensured that the Allies won.' The Doctor checked Chris's reaction, watched him reach the next stage of the argument.

'But if you can do that, why can't you stop the war entirely? History's been mucked about so much, who knows what's true and what's false? And who cares, anyway? Six years of war. Everything from the Holocaust to Hiros.h.i.+ma, with Dresden along the way. Stop the war now, before any of those things.' Chris had that faraway look, that dangerous innocence.

'Chris, I have been doing this sort of thing for a long time.

Believe it or not, I have occasionally considered my responsibilities. It has dawned on me that my actions have implications and ramifications. I am aware that I'm treading a slippery slope. I'm afraid that this isn't a school debating society, this is a war, so you'll have to take my word that there are certain standards of behaviour that we are expected to follow. All we are concerned with here is tracking down Hartung and finding out what he has built. We have to redress the balance, not tip it over. Trust me,' the Doctor insisted.

'Just follow your orders?'

'Just fight for what's just,' the Doctor said, smiling sweetly. Chris nodded, thoughtfully. Steinmann was stepping back towards them.

The staff car arrived at Paddington at a quarter to eight, driving past the empty taxi rank to the small police hut. Roz noted with approval that the police presence here had been stepped up, two men on every door, watching the crowds.