Hunting the Hangman by Howard Linskey

Author:Howard Linskey
Language: eng, eng, fra
Format: epub
Publisher: Oldcastle Books
Published: 2017-04-06T11:07:16+00:00

24

‘We know that some Germans get sick at the very sight of the SS black uniforms – we don’t expect to be loved’

SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler

Kubiš walked out of the tiny railway station, alone except for a couple of traders and a forlorn looking old lady, who trudged along with the wearisome gait of one who might actually welcome death.

Where the hell am I? he wondered bemusedly. He knew Prague right enough but, in all his years, had never seen the need to venture more than forty miles outside it to visit the tiny town of Kutná Hora. What attraction could this settlement to the east of the capital contain for Josef, the man from Slovakia?

‘You’ll see,’ Gabčík had told him infuriatingly, unable to hide his glee. ‘I have the ideal place for this meeting with Bartoš and Vaněk. I am taking you all to church.’

Unlikely, thought Kubiš. Gabčík never disrespected religion – it did not pay to when you were a soldier, requiring all the help you could get, divine or otherwise – but he was hardly a three times a day worshipper.

‘Just get there,’ insisted Gabčík unyieldingly. So Kubiš trudged off into the town for his rendezvous with the resistance.

Gabčík had travelled on a separate train for security and he was waiting for Kubiš, who was wholly unprepared for the sight that greeted him. ‘What in God’s name is it?’ asked Kubiš, genuinely alarmed.

‘The Church of the All Saints,’ replied Gabčík.

‘I know that, you said. I mean what is that?’ and he pointed ahead of them.

‘Oh,’ replied Gabčík as if he had only just noticed, ‘that, Jan, is the remains of thirty thousand people; their bones at any rate.’

Kubiš blinked into the dark and empty church and, sure enough, as he had suspected and Gabčík has just confirmed, the whole building is full to bursting with bones; human bones, many thousands of them.

‘But how…?’ Bartoš cannot complete his sentence. He is simply unable to comprehend the sheer scale of human life. Vaněk and Zelenka meanwhile are looking about them in confusion.

Gabčík told the story with blackly comic detachment. He could be discussing a sporting event over a beer.

‘The cemetery has soil in it that is said to have come all the way from Golgotha – brought back from a crusade. When people heard about it, and this is eight hundred years or so ago, they all wanted to be buried there because it would bring them closer to God, so the old and the sick started making pilgrimages there when they thought their time was almost up.’

‘A few years later, there was a great plague and the place became very popular. As soon as you spotted the symptoms you started the journey to Kutná Hora and if you didn’t make it there was probably someone left in your family who’d put your body on a cart and drag it here, in line with your last, dying wish. Throw in a couple of wars as well and pretty soon

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