Page 91 of The Watchmaker of Dachau

Anna had no choice but to climb into the car and be driven away from her one chance at escape.

‘Thought you were clever, didn’t you?’ he asked her.

When she didn’t answer, he reached over, his hand on her thigh, pushing her dress upwards, just as Becher had done to her.

‘You all think you are so clever, don’t you? Well, I’ll show you who’s still in charge. Herr Becher is gone, so how about you serve me now, eh?’

He pulled the car to the side of the road and lurched over to grab Anna. In one moment, a moment she would never repeat again, she bit the side of the guard’s face, so hard that she tasted his blood in her mouth. He pulled away screaming, and Anna did not stop, the fury inside her boiling over, her thoughts of Isaac, of Nina, of her brother all welling up. She punched him hard in the groin, then with deft fingers she pulled out the wooden baton on his belt and smacked it on the back of his head so that he slumped onto the steering wheel.

She counted to twenty and he did not move. She climbed out of the car and, hearing only her rough breathing in her ears, she ran to the camp, to Nina, to hide.

The camp was in disarray. New bodies littered the floor, blood seeping from them where bullets had mowed them down. Lines of women were being led towards the entrance to the camp, some of them falling as more shots from watchtowers picked them off.

Anna ran to her bunkhouse and screamed for Nina – was she in the line?

There was no answer, so she ran again. Following a line of women at the rear, she saw Joanna and then, yes – Nina. She grabbed Nina’s arm. Nina looked at her with a mixture of shock and relief. ‘Come with me!’ She pulled Nina from the line, then saw Joanna fall to the floor, a bullet hole in her back, a bullet meant for her or Nina.

They dodged their way to the back of a bunkhouse and crouched low in the long grass.

‘Where are we going to go?’ Nina asked, her voice breaking.

It was then that Anna remembered what Isaac had said. ‘The infirmary,’ she told her. ‘Come. Come on, quickly.’

The pair ran, tripping over bodies, ducking every now and again when a shot rang out.

They reached the infirmary. ‘Undress, quickly,’ Anna told her. They both undressed, and each climbed into two empty beds, pulling the covers over them. Anna slid the diary under the mattress.

‘Look as though you are dying,’ Anna told her. ‘Look as though there is no point in taking us.’

‘There isn’t.’ Nina was lying flat on her back, her eyes on the ceiling. ‘We are already dead.’

Epilogue

Cornwall, England

1980

The snow had thickened by the time the clock struck twelve and she wondered whether it would keep them all from coming. She sat in an armchair facing the bay window that looked out onto a wide lawn and then further, to the Atlantic Ocean where the sea roughed itself into tall foamy peaks. She could smell the salt from here and loved the days in summer when she would sit in the garden, the sea calmer, bringing her the scent of freshness. Her nose was attuned to any bitter or foul smell, so that she swore she could tell when a vegetable had gone bad, even before it looked rotten.

Her children had got used to her ways, her husband, Frank, too, who even now was in the kitchen making sure everything was ready, not allowing anything to burn or spoil.

She drummed her fingertips on the arm of the chair, counting the seconds. Who had taught her to do that? Her hand reached for her wrist where the watch sat – ah yes, she knew who it was.

Katharina would be late. She was always late for everything, so it was not her car she was waiting to see pull into the driveway. Isaac would be on time – he would have no choice – and Jakub would be with him, keeping him company on the drive, making him laugh and annoying him with the silly songs that he made up.

‘Someone’s here,’ Frank’s voice rang out, and she saw him go to the front door as a taxi pulled up.

A taxi – had Katharina’s car broken down again?

There was a hello, a man’s voice, and then in the doorway stood someone she had not seen for ten years or more.

‘I’m sorry I could not come sooner,’ the man said. He had changed; his hair was a silvery grey, lines now appearing around his mouth and eyes, creasing his tanned skin.

‘Friedrich!’ She stood and took him in an embrace, marvelling at the change in him.

‘I’ve got older,’ he said.

‘Almost as old as me now!’ She laughed.