Night Watch Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Recent Titles by David C. Taylor

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Historical Note

  Author’s Note

  Recent Titles by David C. Taylor

  The Michael Cassidy Series

  NIGHT LIFE

  NIGHT WORK

  NIGHT WATCH *

  * available from Severn House

  NIGHT WATCH

  David C. Taylor

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain and the USA 2019 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY.

  This eBook edition first published in 2018 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2019 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  Copyright © 2018 by David C. Taylor.

  The right of David C. Taylor to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

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

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8867-9 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-992-4 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0204-8 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  For Priscilla, Susannah, and Jennifer, as always, with love.

  ‘For the powerful, crimes are those others commit.’

  Noam Chomsky

  For my friends at Severn House, Kate, Carl, Natasha, and Emma. Thank you for your warm welcome and your meticulous work in improving the novel. And thank you to my wonderful agent Lisa Gallagher, without whom I would be adrift.

  ONE

  September in New York and the first cold night of fall signaled to the city that 1956 was slipping to its end. The crisp, clear air made the lights in the great apartment buildings around Central Park glitter like diamonds. The horses harnessed to carriages at the curb on Columbus Circle huffed smoke from their nostrils as they stood heads down, their backs covered with plaid blankets, and waited for the night-time romantics who wanted to ride through the park bundled under lap robes in private darkness. The shrill wail of a police car siren rose in the west. The horses watched the car pass on 59th Street headed east toward Fifth Avenue, lights flashing. They dropped their heads again to eat hay strewn in the gutter by their drivers. They had been raised on concrete and were used to sirens. In a city of eight million there was always an emergency – someone trapped in an elevator, a restaurant kitchen fire, a domestic dispute, a liquor store stick-up, a body leaking blood across the sidewalk.

  Limousines and yellow Checker cabs waited outside the Plaza Hotel for the late-dinner crowd from the Oak Room, for the serious drinkers in the Oak Bar, for the fans listening to Julie Wilson’s second set in the Persian Room, and for the debutantes and their dates dancing to Lester Lanin’s band in the second-floor ballroom. Uniformed limo drivers clustered near a new Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud parked in front of the big metal awning at the hotel entrance. The car’s stately elegance made the nearby Cadillac limos look like dowdy country cousins. The drivers smoked cigarettes and argued the eternals: sports, women, and money.

  Shortly after midnight the hotel doorman swept open the bronze-framed doors and three couples came out. The chauffeur for the Rolls flicked his cigarette out into the street and opened the back door to the limousine as the couples descended the wide stairs. They were men and women in their mid-forties, prosperous, well fleshed, dressed for the evening. The men wore suits, dark wool overcoats, and cashmere scarves. Two of them wore fedoras. The third, proud of his thick chestnut hair, went hatless. The women wore long dresses in jewel colors – ruby, sapphire, and emerald – and matching silk-covered high heels, lustrous dark mink coats, and chic hats pinned to their hair.

  The couples clustered around the open door of the limousine for their goodbyes, cheek kisses for the women, handshakes for the men. The hatless man accompanied his handshakes with short bows. Two of the couples got into the car. The chauffeur closed the door and went around to the driver’s seat. The hatless man and his wife waved as the car pulled away from the curb at a dignified speed. She tucked her arm in his and said, ‘Shall we walk?’

  ‘Yes. Why not? A beautiful night. Shall we stop at Rumpelmayer’s for café mit schlag?’

  ‘A good idea.’

  ‘And then through the park for a bit.’ There was a tease in his voice.

  ‘The park at night? Is that wise?’

  ‘Have no fear. I will protect you from all the wild animals.’

  She laughed. ‘Oh, then, of course. We go.’ It was the first small slip of her otherwise impeccable, lightly accented English.

  ‘We’ll go. Or, let’s go,’ he corrected with a smile.

  She jabbed him with an elbow, ‘All right, Mr Know-It-All, let’s go.’ She was a small, dark-haired woman, as bright and quick as a starling. Her face was a little too sharp to be fashionably pretty. She had eyes the color of blue ice, a scientist’s eyes, coolly analytical and intelligent. Her name was Magda Brandt. It had been von Brandt, but her husband, Karl, who walked at her side, had dropped the von in deference to the democratic spirit of the country in which they now lived. She missed its designation of aristocracy, but there was no point in arguing with Karl when he made up his mind. Not that they often argued. They shared so much: work, politics, a love of music (Wagner, Brahms and, of course, Beethoven), sexual appetites, and secrets – quite a nu
mber of secrets, some of them so dangerous they did not talk about them at all except occasionally in bed when they were looking for a sharper edge.

  Karl Brandt was over six feet tall and two hundred pounds. He had a handsome, square-jawed face, warm brown eyes, and thick, wavy hair combed back and parted high on the right side. It was a face that gave away little beyond good fellowship and charm. He had a ready smile and a deep, easy laugh. Women were attracted to him. Men wanted his friendship and approval. He was a man who was sure that he had never put a foot wrong and never would.

  They walked west along Central Park South discussing the evening. The Oak Room food was very good, but it did not in any way measure up to Horcher’s in Berlin. The creamed spinach at Horcher’s, that was something no one could duplicate. Perhaps it was the pinch of nutmeg, just enough to whisper on your tongue. Still, goodbye to Horcher’s and all that. There was nothing to be gained by looking to the past and to the world lost. Their future was here in America, which had come through the late, unfortunate war unscathed. Of course it had lost soldiers, but people were easily replaced. Its mainland cities stood untouched. Its industries had prospered turning out the machinery of war, and it was now by far the richest, most powerful country on earth. The opportunities for the Brandts were unlimited.

  ‘Do you trust Harry Gallien?’ Magda asked. Gallien was the owner of the Rolls limousine and had been their host that evening.

  ‘Yes, I do. He understands the importance of our work, and he understands how much money can be made from the private applications after our present contract is over.’

  ‘I do not trust a man with a soft handshake. And his hands are damp. I don’t like that.’

  ‘He is going to make us very rich some day, damp hands or dry. Be nice to him, Magda.’

  ‘Gallien is not a Jewish name, is it?’

  ‘No. I believe it’s French, but the family has been in America for generations.’

  ‘Ah, the French, a nation of shopkeepers, a thumb on the scale, water in the wine: slippery people. Well, you’ll need a very strong contract. Best get a good Jew lawyer.’

  They stopped to look in through the lightly steamed window of Rumpelmayer’s, the café in the Hotel St Moritz. ‘Too many people,’ Magda said. ‘Let’s go home.’ They walked on toward Columbus Circle.

  The Greek’s hotdog cart was in its usual spot in the curve of the park wall at Columbus Circle. Leon Dudek did not know if the burly man who owned the cart really was Greek, but that was what people called him. Leon Dudek usually ate something around midnight. If he had no passengers he would ease himself down from his carriage seat, pat his horse on the rump, and limp from where he was parked to the cart at the Circle. As he went, he would decide what he wanted on his dog. Sometimes he would have onions and relish, but no mustard. Sometimes he would refuse the relish and add ketchup. Sometimes sauerkraut. On his wilder nights he would have an Italian sausage with the works, which came from his mouth as ze verks. Tonight he waited patiently while two young men in tuxedos bought four hot dogs with all the trimmings and carried them to their debutante dates waiting on a park bench nearby. The girls wore full-skirted evening dresses under their fur capes, pearl necklaces and matching earrings, and orchid corsages, now beginning to wilt, pinned high near their breasts. To Dudek they looked fresh and beautiful, unspoiled, heartbreakingly innocent. His Anna would be their age if she had lived, but she and her mother, Rachel, had died within days of each other nearly twelve years ago, a week in which his life ended but left him living. He had often thought of suicide so he could be with them again, but he understood that to give up life that they had fought so hard to hold would dishonor them, and so he went on.

  Leon took a bite of his hotdog and turned back toward his carriage.

  Karl and Magda Brandt crossed Central Park South. They stopped under a streetlight near a horse-drawn cab parked along the curb. Karl took a cigarette from his silver case. He offered one to Magda, but she declined with a gesture of her gloved hand. He lit his with a gold lighter and returned the case to his pocket.

  ‘You!’

  The shout turned them.

  A man limped toward them from Columbus Circle. The hotdog he held dripped ketchup and mustard unnoticed. He was dressed in a worn canvas coat, wool pants, scuffed boots, and his body twisted as if his spine had been wrenched and never set straight. His left foot dragged. His face was shadowed by an old fedora. ‘You, wait!’

  ‘Come,’ Karl said, and took Magda’s arm. He was not going to end a pleasant evening with one of New York’s mad beggars. Why didn’t the police do something about them so that good people could go about their lives unmolested? He and Magda turned into the park.

  Leon Dudek watched the couple walk away. Was it them? How many times in the last ten years had he thought he had seen one of them? Six? Seven? There was the shoemaker near St Marks Place. That was a mistake, the police summoned, and then all the fuss. Then last month there was the man from the bakery he had followed around the Lower East Side for a week as he tried to work up the courage to confront him. He was sure about the baker, but he needed to have him admit it, needed to hear him confess. It was only by thinking of Anna and Rachel that he had been able to force himself into the man’s store on an afternoon when there were no other customers. He took a loaf of rye bread he did not want, and his hands trembled when he gave the money. Say something. Make him speak. You will know his voice. You heard it many times. You will know it. Make him speak. ‘What is your name?’ His voice was a croak and he coughed to clear it.

  ‘Tony Pellini.’ The baker smiled.

  This wasn’t the voice, but a voice could change, couldn’t it? ‘Do you know me?’ he asked.

  ‘Nah. Should I?’

  ‘You have never seen me before?’

  ‘Don’t think so. I know most of our customers, but not all. What’s up?’

  He wanted to reach out and smash him, beat him, crush him, as if he could smash all the things that had been done to him and to his loved ones. The baker saw the flare in his eyes, and reared back from the counter and put his hands up in defense. ‘Hey, what the hell?’ Leon read his fear and was ashamed that he had caused it, because no matter how much he wanted him to be one of them, he knew he wasn’t. He turned and blundered out of the store leaving the loaf of rye by the register.

  Leon watched the elegant couple walk into the park. The incident with the baker had shaken him. The baker had been the latest of a number of people he had confronted, all of them innocent, none of them the monsters he looked for, and yet these two walking away … Were they the same ones he had seen in August? That brief glimpse on that hot day when the horse got sick and he had started for the stable early. Once again there was something about them that struck an awful chord in him. He was angry at his uncertainty and his fear. Follow them. Go look. If you’re wrong, an apology is a simple thing. If you are right … What then? They have friends. They are people with money and power. What are you? Who are you? He put his hand in his pocket and touched the bone-handled clasp knife he carried. He went into the park as quickly as his limp would let him.

  Magda stole a drag from Karl’s cigarette and passed it back as they walked on a path lighted by street lamps. ‘Darling, are you worried about the blind trials?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. I’m sure they’ll go well.’

  ‘Are we still going to choose the subjects randomly?’

  ‘Yes. The variables will be age and body weight.’

  ‘But the doses remain the same.’

  ‘As we discussed.’

  ‘You don’t think we need more in-house trials before we go out?’

  ‘There’s pressure from above for results. We need to move along.’

  ‘There are risks.’

  ‘Of course. That’s the nature of scientific experiments.’ He flicked the cigarette away and it hit a bench in a burst of sparks.

  She read his impatience. ‘Do you mind my asking?’

  ‘Of co
urse not.’

  ‘Sometimes I think you would prefer it if I was a good housewife like Jane Gallien. You could go off to work and come back to the well-run apartment, the hot dinner, and the adoring wife.’ There was a mocking note in her voice.

  They stopped under a streetlight. The river rush of traffic on Central Park West was muted by the trees. ‘I have all those things and a brilliant scientific partner. I am a very lucky man. We are very lucky people.’ He pulled her close and kissed her. For a moment she held back, but then, as always, she gave in and kissed him back and put her arms around his waist. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said, ‘we’ll do a few more in-house trials before we go out, if that’s what you want.’

  ‘Who will the first be?’

  ‘Someone we’ve used before. That way we have the early trial as a baseline and we can note the variations of response. Okay? Satisfied?’

  She kissed him again in thanks.

  ‘You! You there!’

  They broke apart, startled, and found that the bum had followed them into the park.

  Karl moved in front of Magda to shelter her. ‘Go away. We have nothing for you.’

  ‘I know you.’ Leon Dudek limped forward. He was sure now. He could not be mistaken. They were unchanged, as if the war had left no marks. ‘I know you. Do you know me? Do you? I was one of them, but I lived.’ He gripped the knife in his pocket hard enough to hurt his hand.

  ‘Go away, I said. Not a dime. Not a penny.’ The man was under the streetlamp now, and when the light fell on his face Karl Brandt’s eyes widened in surprise. Karl heard Magda take in a breath. She recognized him too. What was his name? Leon something. It came to him suddenly.

  ‘You know me,’ Leon said. ‘Look at me. You know me. Here I am. I lived so I could find you. For the others. For my daughter. For my wife. For the ones who died. I am witness.’

  Karl felt Magda shift away behind him. ‘You’re making a mistake. I’ve never seen you before in my life. I don’t know who you are, but if you don’t leave us alone, I will call for the police.’ When the man took his hand out of his pocket, he held a knife. The blade was closed, but it would only take a second to open it. Karl and Magda had always feared this moment might arrive, and now it was here. How had this one survived? How had he made it to America? It seemed ridiculous that trash like this could make them stumble.