A Very British Ending (Catesby Series) Read Online Free PDF

boat and you’re going to kill me.’ The German’s voice was strangely devoid of emotion.
    Catesby was trying to hold the revolver steady, but his hand was shaking.
    ‘Are you really a priest?’
    ‘Yes,’ Catesby lied.
    ‘Will you hear my confession before you kill me?’
    ‘I can’t give you absolution unless you tell me everything.’
    ‘I know that.’
    ‘I’m listening.’
    ‘Bless me, Father, for have I sinned. It has been ten years since my last confession. I have frequently failed to go to Mass on Sundays and other holy days of obligation…’
    ‘Tell me about your other sins.’
    ‘I was unfaithful to my wife on three occasions…’
    ‘They are sins of the flesh. Tell me about what you did in Russia and France.’
    ‘I carried out my duties as a soldier.’
    Catesby was sick inside and boiling with rage. ‘At Tulle. What happened at Tulle? You were there – you were in command.’ Catesby knew that every man between the age of sixteen and sixty had been arrested. Ninety-nine had then been chosen at random for torture and hanging. Another 150 were sent to the death camp at Dachau. The terror reprisals spread throughout the Limousin.
    ‘I carried out General Lammerding’s orders.’
    Catesby knew it was pointless to explain that what he had done was murder and a crime against humanity. He was pointing his gun at a clockwork military puppet. But one more try. ‘And Oradour – tell me about Oradour.’
    ‘The action at Oradour-sur-Glane was an act of passion.’
    Catesby blinked – language had lost all meaning. ‘Does passion mean evil?’
    ‘I believe, Father, that you are from that part of France and that is why you are doing this to me.’
    At last, a glimmer of understanding. ‘Yes, I was there.’
    ‘You know then that the officer who commanded the troops at Oradour was Otto Diekmann?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Otto Diekmann was in love with Helmut Kämpfe.’
    Catesby felt he was drowning in a pool of sick and excrement with Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde blasting away in the background.
    The German’s voice turned wistful. ‘Helmut was a beautiful man and such a brave soldier. When Otto heard that Helmut had been executed by the resistance he carried out an act of revenge.’
    ‘Against innocent women and children; burning them alive.’
    The German shrugged. ‘Otto wasn’t following anyone’s orders. He was killed two weeks later in Normandy – you could say that his death was suicide.’
    Catesby had heard enough. Understanding did not mean forgiving. And this wasn’t genuine understanding – it was an attempt to sentimentalise and romanticise evil.
    ‘Helmut was married and had three children.’
    Catesby frowned. The mystery of what happened to Helmut Kämpfe had finally been resolved. Or had it? Some said Kämpfe had been shot trying to escape, others said that he had been executed. But was the German’s story true? Was the Oradour atrocity a reprisal for Kämpfe’s execution? Catesby knew it would still keep him awake in the dark watches of the night. What could he have done? Could he have persuaded the Maquis to keep Kämpfe alive as a hostage for bargaining? Would that have prevented the massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane? Or not made any difference at all? Nothing had been resolved.
    The German was muttering an Act of Contrition.
    ‘Stop that,’ said Catesby.
    ‘Are you going to give me absolution, Father?’
    Catesby smiled. He still remembered the words from hischildhood: Ego te absolvo – and, hey presto, your soul is as fresh and clean as a new pin.
    ‘Have I time to do penance?’
    ‘No,’ said Catesby. He pointed his pistol at the base of the Nazi’s skull and pulled the trigger.

Kensington, London: 30 October 1951
    ‘How much of this slum do your parents actually own?’ Catesby was well into the bottle of sparkling Portuguese rosé that he had bought in an off-licence on the way to his wife’s flat.
    ‘They own the whole house.’
    ‘Well, they must be