Sandpiper

  Sandpiper © 2022 Michael Pert.

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author.

  The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Printed in Australia

  First Printing: April 2022

  Shawline Publishing Group Pty Ltd

  www.shawlinepublishing.com.au

  Paperback ISBN- 9781922701398

  Ebook ISBN- 9781922701459

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Michael lives on the Sunshine Coast with his wife, Kerry. His interests include family, travel, bushwalking, sports, movies, reading and research. A graduate of QUT, he holds a BA in International Studies and Psychology, and a Master of Justice in Strategic Intelligence. A former career military intelligence officer, Michael served overseas in Asia, South-East Asia, Africa and the Pacific region and was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia. His first published novel, The Kissing House, a spy thriller based in East Timor, was longlisted in the Yeovil Literary Prize in 2018. Michael brings a sense of authentic narration to his exciting and enjoyable books for readers to experience.

  For Owen, Patrick and Joni,

  You little rascals make my heart sing. With love and strength from your Pa always.

  I know you will become the people your generation will need.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I am grateful for the early, critical work undertaken by the team at Lynk Assessment, even though they are anonymous to me. Without their advice such an ambitious project would not have seen the light of day, nor taken the form that it has. To my editor, Stephanie, and the team at Shawline Publishing Group, I am thankful for the care and exacting work in transforming my manuscript into a book.

  And finally, love and deep appreciation always to my wife Kerry, and my children Kylie and Ryan, and their families. For their love, support and encouragement which sustained me, and without which Sandpiper would not have come to fruition.

  1

  Camden Town, London

  September 1938

  Ernst Ritter watched the entrance of the small photographic studio from the comfort of the Oxford Arms pub. It was unseasonably warm, and the nearby sash window was propped open allowing a light breeze to circulate. His grey herringbone suit jacket was draped across the back of his chair.

  Ritter’s black fedora sat on the table and his leather satchel lay idle at his feet. He nursed a pint of the house bitter while he appeared to read the newspaper spread out before him. The appointment in the studio would end in about thirty minutes, and this would allow him plenty of time.

  Time to finish his drink, and then to make his way there after the customer departed. It was the photographer’s last session of the day and he had chosen the time with care. Today was the culmination of months of painstaking work, and his visit would not be interrupted.

  Nobody in the busy pub paid him any heed. The English minded their own business, and he looked much like those around him. He had long ago perfected the art of blending into his surroundings. Almost a decade before, he had attended university in England and qualified as a chemist. He had lived and worked in London now for more than two years.

  Ritter had worked for various pharmaceutical firms in Switzerland and France before securing his current position. This had been thanks to the support of his former friends from university, all of whom had been happy to help their clever and likeable colleague.

  Ritter’s physique was athletic, and he looked younger than his fifty years. His fair hair was tending towards a shade of grey which neatly blended the two, but his complexion remained youthful and was sun kissed from his recent holiday in Europe.

  His face sported a neatly trimmed beard and moustache, but this was a deception. As were his steel-rimmed spectacles, which contained nothing but window glass. His demeanour was designed to be innocuous, and it belied his true nature. Ritter was single-minded and ruthless, and there were those in the past who had underestimated him. Some had lived to regret it.

  Most of the other patrons would have picked him to be English. The barman might have thought him foreign by his accent, which was ambiguous. But Ritter had also adopted the habit of saying very little to make his way. When he had ordered his drink, he had tail-gaited the man in front and mumbled the same, before taking his change without comment.

  German was Ritter’s mother-tongue, but he was also fluent in French and English. He had learned both languages while growing up in a small town near the German-Swiss border and had perfected them during his long absences abroad.

  He readily passed as a Swiss national, which was something all his colleagues and friends believed him to be. There was no-one in England who knew he was German, and few people anywhere who knew he was an officer of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service.

  His name wasn’t Ernst Ritter either, but that was the name on his English driver’s registration, which in turn matched his forged Swiss passport. It certainly wasn’t the name he would give the man in the photographic studio.

  2

  Camden Town

  September 1938

  Ritter slipped into the shop front of the studio and the Judas bell tinkled. He closed the door behind him and locked it, turning the sign on the door handle to read Closed as he did so. The photographer appeared from the adjoining studio door, drying his hands on an old towel.

  He wore black sleeve covers extending to his elbows in order to protect his shirt cuffs from chemicals, the aroma of which wafted into the shop front. His shirt collar was frayed and devoid of studs, although it was the type which required them.

  Ritter knew from his clandestine observations over many months that the material of the photographer’s trousers and suitcoat was worn smooth, the stitching was missing from the band of his hat and the heels of his shoes were in need of repair. He had also taken to walking to work rather than using the Underground, even though it was only one stop from his modest terrace house in Chalk Farm.

  The sign above the studio door read George Findlay and Son, Photographers. This George Findlay inherited the studio on his father’s death, and Ritter’s discreet investigations also revealed the business was not doing well.

  Findlay ran his hand back through his thick black hair. It was oiled down in the brushed back style, although a few errant strands hung down across his forehead, almost touching his eyebrows. It contrasted with his face, which was sallow and gaunt. Dark rings under his eyes were testament to his many troubles.

  The recent warmth of the summer months had not reinvigorated his skin. It sported several small tufts of stubble across his cheeks, and an angry cut on his chin from trying to push a razor blade beyond its natural life.

  ‘Hello Corporal Findlay,’ Ritter said, holding the other’s gaze with a confident air as he removed his hat.

  Findlay stared at the stranger, perplexed at the unusual greeting. It was twenty years since the Great War, and he couldn’t recall the last time someone used his former military rank.

  He looked through the steel framed spectacles into the visitor’s eyes; blue-grey, strong and alert. There was something familiar about those eyes, not these particular ones perhaps, but he had seen eyes like them a long time ago and they stirred uneasy memories.

&nb
sp; ‘I’m sorry, have we met?’ he asked, without realising one of his knees had begun to shake.

  ‘No,’ Ritter answered with a warm smile as he extended his hand, ‘but I have a business proposition for you I feel could benefit both of us. Please, do call me Max.’

  They shook hands but the oblique reference to the war had unnerved Findlay.

  ‘Why don’t we go to your office so we can talk in private?’ Ritter suggested, his manner engaging and his head inclined towards the nearby office door. He started to move in that direction, knowing that Findlay would follow.

  ‘Yes,’ Findlay answered, at the same time trying to process a multitude of unwanted thoughts that were invading his mind. ‘I shall make us some tea.’

  Ritter smiled inwardly. It was the English way of dealing with stress. It was their way of dealing with everything, and he had come to envy the English their tea. There was no equivalent on the continent and he found the ritual so beneficial to forming a connection with people. Against all his expectations, he had even come to like the taste of this very English beverage.

  Ritter adjusted one of the hard-backed wooden chairs in front of Findlay’s desk, the legs squealing on the linoleum floor as he sat. He looked around. There was only the desk and chairs, a spindly wooden coat stand on which Findlay’s jacket and hat now hung, and a little sink and bench in the corner.

  There was no window through which any natural light might penetrate. Instead, overhead an electric bulb in a skirted shade burned and washed the room in yellowish light. The chaos across the desk told him Findlay probably didn’t like the administrative aspects of his job.

  It offended Ritter’s sense of order, but he also knew that it could comfort people like Findlay, and he was interested in the photographer’s comfort, not his own. He had learned that Findlay’s photographic skills were first class, and this was central to his visit.

  Findlay filled the kettle at the stained enamel sink and then placed it on the gas ring. A loud pop filled the room as the gas caught in a yellow flash, but then it settled to a gentle hiss as the blue flame danced around the base of the kettle.

  Findlay placed his own chair next to Ritter rather than sitting behind the desk, a position to which he was entitled, and from which he might have felt protected. Ritter took it as a good sign.

  ‘George. May I call you George?’ Ritter began, his face open to the other’s scrutiny and seeking consent. He was rewarded with a slight nod.

  ‘I understand you spent much of the Great War as a prisoner at Minden.’

  It was a statement, not a question. As their eyes met, Ritter noticed a flicker of fear, and he knew why. Unfortunately for Findlay, it was a bumpy road down which they both had to travel to get where they needed to go.

  Findlay said the first thing that came into his head, and it told of all his fears.

  ‘Are you German?’ he asked.

  ‘Would it concern you if I were?’ Ritter put to him, smiling. He was never one to answer a question he didn’t need to, and more inclined to pose a question instead.

  Findlay shrugged. ‘I suppose not.’ He was committed to speak with this curious visitor but was still without a clue as to how he might benefit from it. He found himself captive to the situation, just as the other knew he would be.

  The kettle whistled and Findlay rose to tend to it. There was some clinking as he set two old china cups with matching saucers among the mess on the desk. The tea made, he slowly poured from the chunky, brown china pot.

  At intervals he jerked the pot upright before he poured again, his left hand holding pressure on the lid as he did so. He offered Ritter a small tin of condensed milk, pierced at the top, and they both watched as the thick yellowish liquid swirled into the tea and dissolved. Findlay placed the sugar, loose in an old biscuit tin, on the desktop.

  Together they stirred their tea in silence before Ritter placed his spoon in his saucer and looked up.

  ‘I would like to show you a photograph George, or more correctly, two photographs.’

  Findlay frowned as Ritter reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and withdrew a small sepia photograph of a woman. It had two holes along the decorative edge where a metal staple had been removed.

  He handed it to Findlay and watched as the blood drained from the photographer’s face. Findlay looked up, his jaw agape and his hand cupped protectively around the photograph.

  ‘Heidi,’ he murmured, his voice catching in his throat. His eyes were both sad and afraid at the same time.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where did you get this?’ the photographer asked. He licked his lips as he held the photograph close to him, sensing a new threat.

  ‘From your file. I thought you might like to have it.’

  Findlay stared at him and again said the first thing that came to him.

  ‘Thank you,’ he murmured. And then warily, ‘what do you mean my file?’

  Ritter let the question hang. ‘It was because of your relationship with Heidi that you were questioned by Hauptmann Krause at Minden and punished with solitary confinement – KK bread and water only for one month, yes?’ He smiled ruefully, knowing his reference to the coarse black, bran and potato bread would strike a chord with Findlay, just as it would with other veterans of that terrible war.

  Findlay nodded, his lips pursed.

  ‘And it was to protect Heidi that you agreed to perform… certain tasks… for Krause when you came out of isolation. Secret tasks which were not known to the other British prisoners. This is also true, yes?’ he prompted as he sat back and watched Findlay.

  Findlay’s thoughts were far away as he battled to process a thousand memories coursing in from the past.

  ‘It was the only way I could protect her,’ he spat, but the emotion wasn’t directed towards Ritter, rather at the bitter memory of it. ‘Krause said he would put her in prison for collaboration if I didn’t help him. I couldn’t let that happen, it would have killed her… she wasn’t well,’ his voice trailed off as he lowered his eyes.

  ‘I know. And you were very gallant to do so,’ Ritter soothed as he nodded. ‘You weren’t married at the time, were you? But you were already promised, and you married your sweetheart when you came home from the war, yes? I take it your wife knows nothing about Heidi?’

  Findlay shifted uneasily. ‘No,’ he muttered, ‘but that’s in the past now.’

  ‘I see. Then we shall have to ensure it remains in the past and that the secret is preserved.’

  Findlay looked up at him but said nothing.

  ‘It is also true these secret tasks from Krause included informing on your comrades to ensure the smooth running of the Minden camp, yes?’

  Findlay nodded.

  Ritter continued his emotionless narrative. ‘In doing so, in November 1916 you provided information about a plot to sabotage farm equipment, equipment which was classified as essential to the German war effort.’

  ‘Yes,’ Findlay whispered.

  ‘I understand those responsible were tried and executed.’ It was a statement, and without accusation, but Findlay was tied to the rhythm of Ritter’s questioning anyway.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Does anyone else know about this incident?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The six men executed were British prisoners of war. If your part in that became known you would be reviled by your own people, disowned by your family – and you would hang for treason. You understand that, don’t you?’ Ritter summed up, although there was nothing threatening in his voice.

  ‘Yes.’

  Findlay’s eyes watered at the edges and he hung his head. The burden he had lived with for all those years was all the more bitter now for having been brought up so unexpectedly, and by a complete stranger.

  ‘Then we shall have to preserve that secret also,’ Ritter said simply, as if the pro
blem was inconsequential and he had a magic wand with which he could wave it away.

  ‘Is there a recent picture of Heidi,’ Findlay asked, hopeful he might see how the years had treated the woman he had loved so intensely, but in secret.

  ‘No George, I’m sorry. She was taken in the influenza epidemic; it killed more than the war itself you know.’

  Findlay nodded and dropped his eyes to the photograph.

  ‘Did you never see her again after you were taken back to the camp?’ Ritter pushed.

  ‘No, when I was released from isolation, I was very ill from the cold and… mistreatment. I never left the camp after that and I was never allowed on farm labouring details again.’

  Mistreatment was an interesting word, and indicative of Findlay’s intrinsic strength. Something he didn’t know he had. Krause had beaten Findlay to within an inch of his life. His confinement in a freezing cellar replete with ravenous rats and forced to sleep in his own excrement was brutal, even for those times.

  Krause’s records were meticulous and his assessment of Findlay was incisive, but he had used a steamroller to crack an acorn, as the Krauses of the world often do. But he never broke Findlay with the violence. Findlay had complied only to spare the girl he loved.

  ‘I see, and you had no contact with Heidi after the war perhaps?’ he searched.

  ‘No, it wasn’t possible,’ Findlay answered, regretting all that had passed and confronting the fact it was too late to do anything about it.

  This was where Ritter had planned to be, and the regret writ large on Findlay’s face was a green light on the path he had set himself.

  ‘George, allow me to show you another photograph,’ Ritter said as he reached inside his jacket again and passed the contents to Findlay.

  Findlay examined the photograph, holding it between thumb and forefinger. His professional eye told him it was a recent black and white shot from a modern camera. It was printed on good quality German paper.