Prisoner 441 by Geoff Leather

Author:Geoff Leather [Leather, Geoff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781916349438
Published: 2020-03-30T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 37

Munich Germany

Jonny remembered that part of the manuscript about Solomon’s wife, Nadine, and her escape from Russia with Captain Johann Bron. They had both assumed that he’d died in the battlefields of western Russia in 1942 and so had Jonny. Could he still be alive somehow?

No stone unturned, Jonny started to do his research. He’d used his contacts in the police force to trace the old man to Munich. Would this trip help him? He hoped it would.

Jonny took the morning Lufthansa flight to Munich and landed at noon. He walked through airport control and bought tickets for the S-Bahn at Munich Airport Centre. Much more convenient than taking a taxi and suffering the inevitable traffic delays as the trains ran all day every ten minutes. Forty minutes later he arrived at the Hauptbahnhof. Rachel had booked him into the Hilton Centre located above the Rosenheimer Platz S-Bahn line from the airport. Jonny didn’t leave the station but took the elevator directly from the station into the hotel. As usual the front desk staff were friendly and helpful. Jonny had been here before on an abortive first effort to locate Johann Bron, but now he had an address of a care home some hour’s drive outside the city.

The next morning, Jonny, found the hire car in the basement carpark and headed to northwest out of the inner city passed the Nymphenberg Palace veering north towards the Olympic park and arriving at a gated two storey 1970s building more in the form of a school house dormitory than a Care Home. He waited patiently in reception and was shown into a large bedroom with the wall littered with photographs, pencil sketches and paintings. In the corner was a large bookcase with what appeared to be a collection of the world’s literature in several languages.

‘Captain Bron will not be long. It’s his day for physiotherapy and we are running a bit late.’

‘It’s not a problem. He seems to be well read,’ said Jonny pointing to the bookcase.

‘Oh yes. The Captain also speaks several languages fluently. You find him a fascinating man, Mr Wightman.’

With that the matron left Jonny alone. He started to study the pencil sketches that were clustered together all dated between 1945 and 1952. They’d been folded and rolled many times until finally they’d been allowed to see the light of day permanently.

Captain Johann Bron threw out his hand as he walked purposefully into his room. Jonny shook it generously. Bron stood proud and tall for a man of his age, his head slightly stooped. He had deep blue eyes and a kindly face masked behind years in a Soviet camp, thought Jonny.

Please call me, Johann, and I will assume, Jonny, will do for you.’

‘I see you’ve been examining my drawings?’ said Johann standing beside him, in English with the barest hint of a German accent.

‘You drew them!’ said Jonny surprised.

‘After my capture, I was taken to one of the camps near the coal mines in the Siberian town of Vorkuta.

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