An Eye For Justice Page 24

  ‘So what d’you want from me?’

  ‘I’d like your world class tech guys to run the rule over trial exhibit JC4. That’s the digital file of CCTV footage covering the hotel corridor outside the victims room on the night of murder,’ she said.

  She watched Bob ruminate, then she added, earnestly, trying to keep the desperation out of her voice, ‘it’s gotta be worth a punt, Bob. We’ve got nothing else. So how about it?’

  He turned, studying her serious expression. ‘I guess our cyber warrior tech boys might relish such a challenge,’ he said with a chuckle. Then he looked serious again. ‘I’m owed a favour, so maybe I’ll call it in, see if my pal’s might be up to some moonlighting. I’m not promising anything, Courtney, but if you want to email over the digital file I’ll take a look.’

  ‘Bob. Your a prince,’ she said.

  Chapter 26

  It was early evening in the apartment and Christoff was looking for Hannah to see if she wanted a bite to eat. Everyone else seemed to be out. He found her sitting on her bed staring into space. It looked like she had been crying and there were moist tear tracks still evident on her face. He stood at the door feeling uncomfortable, not wishing to intrude, but she looked so inconsolable that he overcame his feelings. ‘What is it, Hannah?’ he asked gently.

  She looked up at him, startled and confused, almost as if she didn’t recognize him, but then her eyes cleared. Christoff moved over and sat on the bed next to her. He felt powerless to help, but then leaned forward tentatively and gently embraced her. For a while they just sat like that, then she pulled away slightly, and said, ‘thank you,’ quietly. He nodded. She looked down at her hands as if considering carefully what she was going to say. Christoff waited.

  ‘You remember on the ship coming over, when you…’ she stopped and laughed nervously. ‘When you sort of, I don’t know. Hypnotized me I suppose.’

  ‘Of course I remember.’

  ‘It frightened me, you know. That’s why I didn’t come back to you.’

  ‘I know,’ Christoff said. ‘And now?’

  ‘Tomorrow, I must start the hardest, darkest part of my testimony, and I can’t remember anything, other than knowing its bad, very bad. But it’s a black hole, a blank space. My mind has blocked it out for all these years, and I can’t open it up.’

  Christoff took her hands and looked into her eyes. ‘You thought before you wouldn’t be able to remember, but you have: you remembered that terrible train journey, the deaths of your mother and father, and you testified to it, clearly and the jury understood and followed it.’

  ‘I know, but…’ she said pulling her hands away, seeming frightened again. ‘Christoff, I’ve tried, and it won’t come. But, maybe…if we…’ Her voice tailed off, and she seemed lost. But then her determination seemed to kick in again, and she continued, ‘you know I have to do this. For John and for Helena, and all the others. I am old and won’t be here much longer. It is time to confront the ghosts and lay them to rest. Will you help me?’

  It was Christoff’s turn to look down at his hands and think. Her reaction on the Atlantic crossing, when he had used the technique, had scared him, and he had only put her under for the briefest of moments. He hated to think how bad it might get if he were to try for any longer - an extended period. And it could be dangerous. He had heard of people suffering serious mental problems when they had used hypnosis to try and delve into blocked parts of their subconscious.

  He turned and looked at Hannah, sitting there calmly waiting for his reply. It was hard to believe what this small humble woman had faced up to during her life. He knew he would never be able to get a handle on the suffering she had endured, but he also knew he had to try and help her face her demons, and tell her story, and finish that story - because now, at the end of her life, that was what she wanted to do - and who was he to gainsay that.

  He took her hands in his again and looked deep into her eyes for a long moment. Then he nodded, and said, simply, ‘lets do it.’

  * * * *

  Southern District Court

  Day 10

  There was a buzz of anticipation in the Southern District Courtroom that morning. Perhaps they - the growing band of punters in the gallery, the jury, the court staff and other assorted watchers - knew that Hannah’s testimony was about to come to the boil. But Morganna didn’t feel like that. As she sat at the Plaintiff’s table studying her notes she worried about Hannah’s ability to hold up to what was to come. At breakfast that morning Hannah had seemed like a ghost, but a ghost wound up tight as a spring. Morganna was glad she had Christoff sitting next to her. He seemed to be the only one able to reach Hannah and keep her calm.

  Christoff had told Morganna not to worry, Hannah would be fine, just get her through that mornings testimony. Now he sat, eyes glued to Hannah’s, and it was as if there was some kind of strong invisible force passing between them, holding Hannah and giving her strength.

  Judge Friedman nodded at Morganna. ‘Miss Fedler, please proceed.’

  Morganna rose to her feet. Hannah watched her apprehensively, then looked at Christoff. He smiled warmly at her with encouragement, and she seemed to relax slightly, the rigidity going out of her shoulders. Morganna addressed her. ‘Hannah, you finished your testimony with your train coming to a halt. Please continue, and tell the jury what happened next?’

  Hannah appeared calm, but inside she was in turmoil. The night before, Christoff had put her under for an extended period, gently tugging her down, deeper and deeper, and as she had descended it was as if there was a slow drawing back of a veil behind which lay horror. And now she was back again, and she smelled the smell of death and despair, and then the wagon door was sliding back.

  ‘…..I can see a ramp,’ Hannah said, her eyes tightly closed. ‘It’s like a train platform only shorter. I stand on that ramp, holding my baby sister in my arms. There are thunder clouds above, and dead bodies in the wagon behind me, including my parents. It’s like I’m in a trance, not registering things, but I know I can’t see grandpa anywhere, and I am worried about him.

  Hannah opened her eyes and blinked. Then she began to speak again, talking directly to the jury. ‘Then there was shouting, and soldiers with guns and dogs, and there were these other figures, like ghosts, wraiths, really,’ she said with a kind of wonder in her voice. ‘Skeletally thin shadowy people in striped clothing like dirty old pyjama’s, running amongst us, always running, and driving us off the ramp.

  ‘I could see we were in a kind of camp like Westerbork but with no barracks, just watchtowers and a square and some old buildings. Then grandpa appeared and I felt better, but then a soldier tried to take Helena off me. I screamed and he knocked me down with his rifle butt, and that’s when he appeared, an officer. He reprimanded the soldier and then lead us over to one of the smaller buildings.

  ‘It had a sign on it saying it was the infirmary, but it wasn’t. The sign was fake. Inside it was bare apart from a vast burning pit that gave off an indescribably awful smell. I thought it was a rubbish pit but then I could see bodies in there burning,’ she said, and her voice caught in her throat for the first time, and her breathing came quicker. She paused trying to calm herself. She took a sip of water and her hand shook a little as she raised the glass to her lips.

  She swallowed, glancing quickly over at Christoff which seemed to calm her and then she was speaking again ‘The tall soldier who led us into that hellish place was an SS officer with a peaked cap and black tinted aviator goggles. He took Grandpa’s bundle and opened it. Inside was a rolled up painting, and I guessed it was the one Rudi had taken from the museum. The officer unfurled it and looked at the image, and I remember,’ she said smiling grimly for the first time. ‘It was of a painter walking down a road. The officer smiled and nodded, then opened the other item which was a small tin containing the gold and diamond pendant with matching brooch, given to me by Mrs Van Der Valk.

  ‘The soldier straitened up, and he took his pistol out a
nd……..and—’

  ‘Mrs Palmer,’ Judge Friedman cut in. ‘Would you like a break, perhaps a glass of water?’

  Hannah looked confused, as if woken from a deep sleep, then her face cleared as she remembered where she was . ‘Thank you, no, Judge,’ she said a little breathlessly. ‘I must finish this now or I never will’.

  ‘I understand,’ Judge Friedman said gently. ‘Please proceed when you are ready.’

  ‘Thank you, Judge’ she said with a tired sigh. ‘The officer shot grandpa in the head and pushed him into the pit,’ she said, eliciting at least one stifled gasp from the jury. ‘I was so shocked I couldn’t react. I stood rooted to the spot and all I could do was hold my sister tightly in my arms, and then I backed away towards the edge of the pit. I knew I was going to die, and I didn’t really care. If it hadn’t been for Helena in my arms, I would have just jumped into the pit and ended it there.

  ‘I think now that that officer was enjoying his killing spree. He shot Grandpa like swatting a fly, without a thought, but then he stopped, because some blood had spattered onto his goggles. So he took them off and slowly cleaned them with a handkerchief. He knew I knew he was going to shoot me and my sister, and he took his time cleaning the glasses to increase the torture and enhance his pleasure. And all the time he smiled.

  ‘It was almost a relief when he put his goggles back on, walked over and placed the barrel of the gun to Helena’s head and fired. I felt the bullet go through her and then I was falling back into that stinking fiery pit.’

  The courtroom was completely silent as Hannah finished speaking. She looked calm, almost serene, but with a slightly puzzled expression on her face. At the Plaintiff’s table Morganna waited a beat, letting Hannah’s last words settle with the jury. Christoff put his hand on Morganna’s and gave it a gentle squeeze.

  ‘Did that bullet kill Helena?’ Morganna asked gently

  ‘Yes, instantly, but I survived,’ she answered quietly, almost apologetically.

  ‘Hannah. I’m going to come back to the man who took the jewellery and shot your sister and Grandfather. But for completeness and so the jury know, I’d like you to tell us how you got away from that awful place and how you came to be here with us today?’

  Hannah was calm. The terrible revelation was out there now, and she seemed at peace. She spoke matter of factly. ‘I lay for hours in that stinking pit full of dead bodies - women, children, old men, decomposing, rotting, some burning - and all the while I held my little sisters dead, bloodstained body. I wanted to die there with her, but I didn’t. I lived on, completely unscathed, the flames never reaching us.

  ‘Then what happened is that the officer who killed Helena must have remembered that our teeth hadn’t been checked for gold fillings. So hours later he sent a work team back into the pit to check. The capo, that’s like the leader of the work team - these were Jews saved from the transports to work in the camp - found me alive, and pulled me out. He almost had to kill me to get me to leave Helena’s body, but I did in the end.

  ‘It was quite simple then. A chance in a million. When they took me out, they were also at the time engaged in moving carts full of clothing taken from the people they had been murdering for months. They were moving these carts to the empty train that had brought us in earlier, and then loading the clothing onto the train for transport back to Germany for the war effort.

  ‘That capo, I don’t know why, bundled me under a huge mound of clothing in the train. I realized that because they had very strict roll calls there, and anyone missing would be immediately identified, I wouldn’t be missed because I wasn’t on any roll, because I was officially dead. He risked his life for me and I still don’t even know his name, and I have forever felt ashamed that I never asked it.

  ‘It didn’t end there because before the train left, guards searched each wagon with bayonets, sticking them into the mounds of clothing. They found a young boy hiding in my wagon, and pulled him out and shot him there, on the spot. I was lucky, a bayonet missed my neck by about an inch. Then even when the search finished, the train sat there for hours. I thought it would never leave, but it did, eventually.

  ‘I knew I couldn’t go to Germany, so I jumped off the train in Poland. I waited until we were many hours away from the camp in thick forest, and then I jumped when the train was going particularly slowly up an incline. Its a long, long whole other story, but to cut it short, eventually I was picked up by partisans and stayed with them until we were liberated by the Russians around two years later.’

  Hannah paused there and took a sip of water. She seemed to have got her second wind now and was talking easily, relaxed and fluent. Morganna paused also, checking her notes. ‘And so we come back to the whole crux of this case,’ she said, turning from Hannah, to look at the jury. Browder finally seemed to stir for the first time, having stayed remarkably quiet throughout Hannah’s testimony. Now he sat up and drew a yellow legal pad towards him and raised his pen.

  Morganna directed her gaze at Hannah and asked her, ‘so who was this man, Hannah? This man who took the pendant, the brooch, and the rolled up picture? This man who took your Grandfather’s life and Helena’s and almost took your life as well. Who was he?’

  Hannah didn’t hesitate. ‘His name was August Matthes. Or to give him his official title: SS Scharfuhrer August Matthes.

  ‘Although I didn’t ask the capo who saved my life to give me his name, I did ask him the name of the officer who killed my family and tried to kill me, because I wanted to know.’

  ‘Okay, Hannah. Now before moving on we need you to explain to the jury how you have come to remember these events, the killings of your grandfather and Helena. Because there is no mention of this incident in your statements and depositions prior to your testifying?’

  Hannah sighed and looked down at her hands held lightly in her lap. ‘Its difficult for me to explain in a way that you will understand,’ she said, tentatively, feeling her way along. ‘By August 1945 I was being held in a DP, or displaced persons camp in Seedorf. When I first got there I was suffering from terrible Typhus Fever. I was put in isolation and almost died. When I finally came out of it I had no memory of the final events, the arrival at the death camp, the killings and the escape. They had seemingly been wiped from my mind, maybe to protect my sanity, and to be honest, I didn’t want to remember. I know it probably sounds callous, but I was young and I wanted to get on with my life, without reliving those awful events with every waking moment. And so it remained buried for over seventy years. In some ways, giving my testimony here has been cathartic, maybe even therapeutic,’ she said with a quick smile. ‘As each day has passed and I have given my testimony, the memory has slowly come back. I think the time is right, and I believe it is to do with age as well. I know I don’t have much time left and there is a real urge within me to remember Mama, Papa, Grandpa and Helena, and to tell their story so the world will know.’

  ‘Thank you, Hannah,’ Morganna said, pausing again for a moment to let Hannah’s simple and eloquent words sink in before moving on.

  ‘After the killings and the theft of the jewellery, did you ever see August Matthes again?’ Morganna asked.

  ‘Yes. I saw him once in the DP camp in Seedorf in August 1945.’

  ‘Do you know what happened to him?’

  ‘I believe he took on the identity of another German soldier, a Major, or Sturmbannfuhrer, Franz Bauer of the Waffen SS. I saw—’

  ‘Your honour,’ Browder finally interrupted. ‘I hope that the Plaintiff has some proof of these very serious allegations. It is well known and documented, and a matter of public record, that Angel Milken, CEO of the K Corporation, a defendant in this trial, was originally known as Franz Bauer.’

  ‘Precisely,’ Morganna said, then turning to Friedman and ignoring Browder’s noisy harrumphing sounds, she added, ‘ we intend to prove to the satisfaction of this jury, exactly that. That Angel Milken and SS Scharfuhrer August Matthes, are one and the same person.’

/>   ‘Well, with respect, Miss Fedler,’ Browder said. ‘Where is your evidence? If all you have is the word of a women who has just admitted she has only just remembered all this stuff, and after seventy plus years. Its hardly compelling, is it?’

  ‘Well surely all Mr Angel Milken has to do,’ Hannah interrupted from the witness box. ‘Is come here and face me.’

  There was murmuring from the jury box, and some vigorous nodding of heads, which was enough to stir judge Friedman to action. ‘This is not a talking shop, it is a court of law, regulated by rules,’ he said, sternly. ‘Mr. Browder, whether or not the Plaintiff has adduced sufficient evidence is a matter for the jury alone, and any comments you have on that issue you should save for your closing speech. And Miss Fedler, the Plaintiff should restrict herself to answering your questions, rather than offering her observations on who should be giving evidence here. Is that clear?’ he said, glaring at both attorneys.

  They both nodded. Friedman looked at the clock, tapped his pen on the lectern, thinking. ‘We will adjourn now, until tomorrow,’ he said, then turning to Browder, added, ‘I’m guessing you may wish to take some instructions from your clients?’

  ‘Indeed, your honour,’ Browder said, his face drawn tight.

  Chapter 27

  In the penthouse suite at the top of the K building, Angel Milken was holding what was effectively a board meeting, or what perhaps might better be described as a council of war. Such events were rare, not only because Angel held virtually all the voting stock in K Corp and made all major decisions himself, but also because he was becoming, with advancing age, increasingly paranoid.

  He sat in his wheelchair at the head of the table in the large book-lined study. To his left was his son Michael, and opposite them on a lower level, perhaps indicative of a hierarchy of sorts, was Charles Browder IV and John Schmidt. Coffee had just been served. Alcohol was not permitted.