Doctor Who_ Just War - Lance Parkin [59]
The Doctor was getting restless. Keller watched him as he paced the room. The Doctor was constantly moving. One minute he would be looking around, then he’d scrutinize the contents of the bookcase, before moving on to examine the ornaments on top of the fireplace.
‘When do I meet Hartung?’ the Doctor asked again.
‘In good time. Doktor, please sit down.’ The Doctor continued to prowl around.
There was a knock at the door and a young private came in. Keller didn’t recognize him, although he was expecting a messenger sent from Oberst Steinmann. The soldier was tall and broad, with a thick moustache and cropped blond hair.
Once inside, he just stood there.
‘Salute when you enter the room,’ Keller ordered.
Instead, the private raised his pistol, an SS-issue Mauser with a long, bulbous silencer.
‘No, Chris!’ shouted the Doctor. Before Keller could react, the Doctor had flown past him, pulling down on the tall man’s arm. There was a muffled shot. Keller felt a hot sensation in his leg: spreading, agonizing pain. The Doctor had turned away from the private, and was examining Keller’s leg. He was saying something.
‘Don’t worry, it’s hit your thigh-bone. It will hurt, and will take a while to heal, but you’ll be all right.’
‘Come on, Doctor,’ insisted the big man, pulling the Doctor away. The Doctor shrugged apologetically, and disappeared.
‘My cell hasn’t got a window.’
‘We’re underground, Fraulein Summerfield. None of the rooms here have windows.’
Steinmann watched as the prisoner pondered this new information. Summerfield was more presentable now. She had bathed, eaten a meal, then slept for a couple of hours and was beginning to look human again. Now, she wore a fresh prison uniform and her shoulder-length hair had been brushed straight. Summerfield was an attractive woman, with high cheekbones and a full mouth. The cut on her forehead was covered with a sticking plaster. The bruising around her face would be there for a couple of days yet, though. Her hand might never heal properly, although the dressing had been changed.
Wolff was hovering behind him, and was clearly making both Summerfield and Kitzel nervous. Like it or not, Steinmann thought, it was an indisputable fact that Wolff and he were two of a kind. How simple it would be to turn a blind eye to the laws of race, pretend that the Doctor, or the beautiful Miss Summerfield, were Aryans, too. Life is not like that. Such compromises could only weaken the resolve of the German people, deflect them from their destiny. There are no exceptions to a universal rule. Not just that, he thought; just looking at us, it is clear that he, Wolff and Kitzel, were a race apart. He looked at the prisoner again, and realized the contempt he felt for her and her kind.
‘Start the tape-recorder, Kitzel. Prisoner F319-350042, I am Oberst Oskar Steinmann, Direktor of the regional Luftwaffe zbV.’
‘I’m Professor Bernice Summerfield, no fixed abode. So, you’re the nice cop, right? The acceptable face of Fascism?’
Her tone was antagonistic, but she couldn’t disguise her fear.
Steinmann held the position of power here, and no amount of arrogant resolve would change that.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You know: nice cop/nasty cop. You get some bully to soften me up, then you come in and act all nice and I’m so grateful that I’ll blab everything. It won’t work, Oskar, I live with a nice cop and a nasty cop. I’m used to it.’ She had a
‘Home Counties’ accent — the clipped, ever so slightly nasal tones spoken by the upper and middle class in the south-east of England.
Steinmann had little patience with insubordination.
‘Ready her arm, Kitzel.’
Kitzel brushed the prisoner’s forearm with a swab.
Naturally enough Summerfield was alarmed. ‘What are you doing?’ Her sarcasm was clearly nothing more than a façade.
‘When it come to my job, Professor Summerfield, I am not a nice man. You have killed a sixteen-year-old boy while spying for