16mm of Innocence Read online

  16mm of Innocence

  Quentin Smith

  Copyright © 2016 Quentin Smith

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study,

  or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents

  Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in

  any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the

  publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with

  the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries

  concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

  This book and the characters within are a work of fiction.

  Any resemblance to individuals either living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Matador®

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  ISBN 978 1785894 091

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

  Converted to eBook by EasyEPUB

  Dedicated to my siblings:

  for naturally blood will be of kind

  Contents

  Cover

  A Quote From Oscar Wilde

  By the same author:

  About The Author

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty–One

  Twenty–Two

  Twenty–Three

  Twenty–Four

  Twenty–Five

  Twenty–Six

  Twenty–Seven

  Twenty–Eight

  Twenty–Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty–One

  Thirty–Two

  Thirty–Three

  Thirty–Four

  Thirty–Five

  Thirty–Six

  Thirty–Seven

  Thirty–Eight

  Thirty–Nine

  Forty

  Forty–One

  Forty–Two

  Forty–Three

  Forty–Four

  Forty–Five

  Forty–Six

  Forty–Seven

  Forty–Eight

  Epilogue

  Author’s Notes

  Acknowledgements

  A Quote From Oscar Wilde

  Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.

  By the same author:

  The Secret Anatomy of Candles

  Huber’s Tattoo

  About The Author

  Quentin Smith is a medical doctor and practising anaesthetist with a background of writing magazine articles of topical or historical interest, usually with a discernible medical flavour. He served as the editor of a national anaesthesia publication for several years before devoting more free time to the enjoyment and pursuit of writing fiction. He lives in Durham with his wife and son.

  16mm of Innocence is his third novel.

  www.quentinsmithbooks.com

  One

  6 April 1985

  “Mum’s in trouble.”

  Dieter fumbled with the receiver and struggled onto one elbow. The phone call had interrupted that awful recurring dream that he had experienced over so many years and it had once again left him feeling disorientated, unsettled and even worse, guilty. It was always the same.

  “Who is this?” Dieter asked sleepily, his eyes gritty as he rubbed them blindly in the dark.

  “It’s Otto…” Pause. “Your brother.” Dieter exhaled. He couldn’t remember when last they had spoken. “Jesus, Otto, do you know what time it is in Hong Kong?”

  “I’m sorry, I know it’s early, but this is really serious.”

  Through the Venetian blinds Dieter could see a filleted image of dawn shimmering across the water of Repulse Bay, where he had lived since the late 1960s. He loved Hong Kong: city of enterprise, and for him personally, city of escape.

  “What’s wrong with Mum?” Dieter asked.

  Otto sighed heavily. “Nothing wrong with Mum, per se.”

  “What then?” Dieter said irritably.

  Otto paused, as though mustering courage. “They found a body in the garden of our old house, Dieter.”

  Dieter’s skin felt clammy as a vision burst forth instantaneously from the vagueness of his dream, churning his stomach.

  “A body?”

  The sleeping figure under the duvet beside Dieter stirred, and in a low voice asked who it was. Dieter hastily covered the mouthpiece.

  “Who’s that?” Otto asked.

  Dieter glared at his bed companion and pressed a finger against his lips.

  “When did this happen?” Dieter asked.

  “Mum’s just phoned me.”

  “You’re talking about a… a human body are you?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know the details. Mum’s pretty shaken by it all… she didn’t say much.”

  “But I don’t understand… where was it found?” Dieter said.

  “The big tree, remember it?”

  “Uh–huh, the camelthorn.”

  “Mum said a storm blew it down, and the roots must have exposed… I don’t know… bones.”

  Silence for a moment, just the sound of Dieter’s breathing and a distant foghorn in the bay.

  “Well, who is to say it has anything to do with Mum?” Dieter said emphatically. “I mean, it could have been there long before we arrived.”

  Otto rubbed his temples. He was sitting at his desk in Durham watching his children, Max and Karl, replenish the birdfeeders under the vigilant gaze of their mother, Sabine, as darkness enveloped the grounds of his riverside garden. The boys looked up and, seeing him through the window, waved animatedly. Little Karl dropped the birdseed in his enthusiasm, spilling it all over the frosty grass.

  “Mum and Dad built that house, Dieter, and planted the tree,” Otto said.

  “What are you saying? It’s probably just a local Herero, been there for years before we even arrived.”

  “God, I don’t know. It’s all such a shock.” Otto paused. “I’m really worried about Mum.”

  “Do they know who it is – the body, I mean?” Dieter asked.

  “I don’t think so, but Lüderitz isn’t a big town, so…”

  “Yeah, maybe. What happens next?”

  “Well, the police are investigating. Mum thinks they may want to interview us as well.”

  “Us?”

  “You, me and Ingrid.”

  “Why?”

  “I think we should fly out to support Mum,” Otto said.

  “What, to Lüderitz? Christ, I haven’t been there for years.”

  “Not since Dad’s funeral, actually.”

  “That’s a cheap shot, Otto. I am very busy here, you know that – with the business I’ve built up and everything. I’m in the middle of a massive merger. I don’t have much idle time on my hands.”


  “You mean, unlike me?” Otto finished, bristling. Silence amplified the static waves of interference on the phone line. “You could at least call her, Dieter.”

  Dieter sighed. “Yes, of course I will. What time is it in Lüderitz now?”

  “Early evening. How are things?” Otto asked, to avoid another pause.

  “Fine, fine. What about Sabine and the kids?”

  Otto never went into detail. There was little point in telling him that Max was excelling on the piano and Karl had just started at school, because from one rare contact to another Dieter could never remember which child was Karl and which one was Max. Birthdays came and went unnoticed and Otto sometimes had to make a point of reminding them who Uncle Dieter was.

  “They’re all well thank you. And… er… how about you?”

  “Still single.”

  “Not found the right girl yet?” Otto said.

  Dieter snorted. “Not likely to, either.”

  “I’ll phone Ingrid and tell her, if you prefer,” Otto said.

  “Do what you like, Otto, but I won’t be calling her.”

  “Have you two still not made peace?” Otto said, exasperated.

  “Last time we spoke, years ago, she called me a parasite or something, living off the success of others.” Dieter made a guttural sound of disapproval. “The nerve – how many sugar daddy alimony settlements has she pocketed up to now?”

  Otto was not in the mood for idle conversation and neither, it appeared, was Dieter. With the phone call terminated Otto sat in silent contemplation. He had always felt that his older brother dismissed his work as a general practitioner. It seemed to him that Dieter believed that his fortune had been forged out of determined hard work, whereas Otto was merely a public servant living off the state.

  Otto heard his family entering the house, taking refuge from the biting cold outside, stamping their feet and removing coats, hats and scarves – familiar sounds of family life that cast his mind back to his childhood home in Lüderitz, and fragmented images from so many years ago.

  How on earth could a body have lain buried beneath their feet all that time? To think that he and Dieter used to climb that very tree, the desert–loving camelthorn, dig holes all around it, playing with their lead soldiers and building makeshift dams in the sandy soil. He shivered. How close might they unwittingly have been to a truly macabre discovery?

  Then an uncomfortable thought entered his mind. Had Mother known as she watched them playing outside? What if it was not pride and contentment that they had seen on her face as she watched through the kitchen window while they dug holes and played? What if it had been anxiety, apprehension? Could they have known the difference at their young age? And what about Father? Well, he was hardly at home often enough to have even seen them.

  There surely must be a rational explanation for all of this. Dieter was probably right: Lüderitz had existed for at least sixty years before their arrival and the body could have been there all along. It was in all probability a local Herero.

  “Daddy!” came the shrill call of an enthusiastic youngster bounding up the stairs.

  Otto glanced at his watch. It was nearly 8pm, still early afternoon in New York: plenty of time yet to call Ingrid. For now he would play with Karl and try to banish the worries from his mind.

  A beaming young blonde boy sprinted into the room with a flash of his red and yellow striped socks, flinging himself into Otto’s arms.

  “Did you feed the birds?” Otto asked.

  “Yes. Mummy said they must be really hungry.”

  Otto smiled and kissed Karl’s fair head. The warmth and love of his children constantly surprised him. It was not something he had been accustomed to in a family. He never understood why.

  Two

  29 July 1945

  Resembling a mythical sea serpent amidst the clinging fog, the rusting grey conning tower of U-977 broke through the mercurial waters off Lüderitz, followed soon after by the rounded bow. When the hatch opened it was as though a seal had been broken, allowing the salty sea air to rush into the malodorous metal tube, submerged for nearly sixty days since hastily leaving the North Sea.

  Several bearded submariners wearing soiled blue denim Kriegsmarine jackets emerged onto the small deck of the conning tower and peered through the swirling fog. One of them began to send a coded message with a shuttered signal lamp. No–one spoke. Submariners were accustomed to maintaining prolonged silences, as if they had forsaken the art of idle conversation. The solitary sound of the bracing South Atlantic waters lapping against the grey hull, streaked with rust, remained unchallenged.

  “There it is!” one of the men said, pointing to a flashing light dimly visible off the starboard bow.

  “I see it. Did they use the password?”

  “They did, Oberleutnant.”

  “Signal for them to approach immediately and call the doctor from his bunk.”

  “Yes, Oberleutnant.”

  The commander peered over the waters surrounding his vessel with narrowed eyes, fidgety body language betraying his discomfort as his dirty fingers twiddled his unkempt beard.

  The flashing signal light drew closer until a small rowing boat began to emerge from the shadowy protection of the fog. Now the sound of water lapping against the submarine hull was joined by the rhythmical splash of oars.

  A man wearing a black leather jacket and carrying a brown canvas holdall appeared on the conning tower.

  He took a deep breath as he contemplated the approaching rowing boat. Then his searching eyes settled on the commander’s unwashed face as the two men squared up to each other. They shook hands firmly.

  “Oberleutnant Schäffer, I am forever indebted to you.”

  “Please, the war is over now. Call me Heinz,” Schäffer said.

  The two men seemed oblivious to all around them.

  “May God be with you in your new home, Doctor. Good luck.”

  “Thank you, Heinz.” The doctor forced a little smile. “My friends call me Ernst.”

  The two men stared into each other’s eyes as though letting go might signal the end of everything they knew in this world.

  “I will admit Lüderitz looks a little foreboding at first appearances,” Ernst said.

  “They don’t call it the Skeleton Coast for nothing,” Schäffer replied with a little chuckle.

  “When do you expect to reach Argentina?”

  “We should be there by mid–August, if the engines don’t fail again.”

  The two men nodded to each other, still gripping each other’s hand, afraid to let go, to break with the familiarity of the past and embrace the uncertainty of the unknown. By this time the rowing boat had drawn up to U-977 and bumped against its hull on the ocean swell. Three men in civilian clothing were huddled together in the wooden vessel, one holding aloft a shaded lamp that scattered halos in the swirling fog. Ernst clambered down the steel rungs of the ladder, his boots scraping on the metal. Schäffer tossed his canvas holdall down to him and raised a hand to wave.

  “Where are you headed?” one of the men in the rowing boat shouted up to Schäffer.

  “I cannot tell you,” Schäffer yelled back. Then, in a softer voice, “Better that you don’t know. Look after Dr Adermann, he is a good man.”

  “I wish you all a safe journey. Goodbye Heinz,” Ernst shouted as he settled into the rowing boat.

  Schäffer rested his arms on the metal railing and watched Ernst, sitting with the canvas bag in his lap, looking up somewhat mournfully at the faces not only of his companions of the past two months, but of a life he was leaving behind, forever. The small rowing boat began to move away as the oars sliced into the water.

  “Goodbye Ernst.”

  Ernst waved. He looked so insignificant in the rowing boat. How things change, Schäffer thought to himself.

  Three

  11 April 1985

  Ingrid, holding several large Bloomingdale’s shopping bags, stepped out of the yellow cab on the upper east
side of Manhattan where she was comfortably settled into a privileged world of old money, even though she was a relative newcomer.

  The doorman tipped his hat and held the polished glass door open for her. “Afternoon Mrs Forsythe.”

  Ingrid ignored him, flicking her bouncing ash blonde hair as she strode past. She kicked the door to her third floor apartment shut behind her and dropped the shopping bags onto the sofa. Her apartment was in Yorkhill near the corner of Lexington and 77th, not far from Central Park Zoo and her favourite department store. The heavily framed mirrors, cream high–backed sofas and brushed aluminium lamps revealed her taste for Bloomingdale’s classic styles. She prised off her Ralph Lauren heels and flopped into an armchair still wearing her fur–lined coat. The phone rang.