Lake Eternity

By John Trethewey

In 1969, at the height of the Cold War, historians Adrian Coombe and Tulpe Vellum are cruising down the Rhine in search of medieval artefacts for their university. Eccentric Carolingian Judge von Metzenburg persuades them to take him immediately to the Black Forest Frankenrichter Courthouse in exchange for valuable antiques. In the village of Ewigkeit, Adrian and Tulpe find a converted monastery, a sixteenth-century coaching inn, and the railway station—but no village and no villagers. Before they learn the terrible wartime fate of Ewigkeit Village, undercover detective Horst Thielmann, suspecting fraud by the judges, enlists Adrian and Tulpe in his investigation. A Cold War communist plot to destroy the West German economy tests Thielmann to the full.

Tulpe, desperate to cross the Rhine to the Alsace in France in search of her lost mother, discovers in the home village of Vellum an extended, splintered family torn apart by their affiliation either to Germany or to France. This pales into insignificance when she discovers the truth about what happened to her mother when she went to Vellum years previously and disappeared.

By the same author:
A King among Pawns
The Price of Enlightenment
Helvetia, the Voyage of 100 Days
Voices from the Cosmos
Natavallia in the Maldives
Albatross I: Tumbril in the Sky
Albatross II: Autodestruction
Last Train to Polmouth
The Water Mill
The Zeppelin Girl

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Oct 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781728380032

John Trethewey

Born in 1950, the son of grammar school teachers, young John Trethewey promised himself that he would never follow that profession. Although determined to be a composer, he embarked on his first novel at the age of eighteen. Over the following forty years, he has produced ten novels, a five-act stage play, and several major works for orchestra. A gifted linguist, in 1973 he decided after all to take up teaching. He has taught in several schools, with the twenty years leading to his retirement as teacher and director of studies in a Swiss international school. With wide interests, he particularly admires the music of Berlioz, the performances of the late Sir Colin Davis, and the lyrics of singer Al Stewart. This novel, the last in the series The Baines Saga, finally reveals the cosmic element that has increasingly been prevalent in events throughout the saga. It is a powerful dénouement to a long saga.

Book preview

The Judges

A Village in the Black Forest, West Germany, August 1969

On a warm afternoon in August, deep in the heart of the Black Forest, the little village of Immergrün Dorf seemed to be deserted. The only sign of life was the distant, high-pitched whine of pine trees being reduced to sawdust and logs in the saw mill at the perimeter of the hamlet, the village’s only means of support. From afar, another sound added its putt-putt chugging to the sawmill, an outboard motor approaching and nearing the flimsy mooring and quay.

A tiny motor launch nuzzled its way alongside the bank of the broad "Immergrün Kanal", the Conifer Canal, and slowed to a halt. A tall woman deftly slung a hawser round a quayside bollard then signalled to her two passengers sitting in the pocket-handkerchief cabin. All three stepped ashore. Roswitha and Brigitte, both in their thirties, were identically dressed, each in a pressed white blouse and midi-length black skirt. They could have been restaurant or hotel staff. Immergrün Dorf did not, however, boast either.

The tall woman followed them across the little square to the village’s main street, the Bahnhofsstraβe. At the far end they saw the distinctive yellow livery of the Postbus Coach, parked in front of the single-track railway station, the grandly named Immergrün an der Steige. There was nothing grandiose, however, about the superannuated, wheezing locomotive, puffing steam from leaking pistons. A crane was loading logs onto flat-bed trucks behind the engine.

‘Back here in an hour then.’ The tall woman was peremptory. ‘You know the drill. I’m off to post these.’ She held up a bundle of mail and headed up the road. Roswitha and Brigitte still did not move, appearing to be putting off doing something.

The woman made straight for the coach, the Posthorn Emblem proudly painted in black above an incongruous item, a bright yellow letter box set in the side of the bus. By the time she had posted all the envelopes and turned to look back, she saw her passengers entering the village’s only Bierstube, the Immergrün Tavern.

A wizened gnome of a man, truly a Rip van Winkel look-alike even down to his Black Forest green jacket with shaved lapels and Lederhosen trousers, a feather cheekily tucked into his forester’s hat band, was the only customer. He was sitting at the large, oval Stammtisch, the table reserved for regulars, its rough-hewn, beer-stained pine top doubtless local product from the saw mill. Staring into the depths of the dregs of his Weizenbier, he was oblivious to Roswitha and Brigitte who sat down close to the bar.

‘Are you scared?’ whispered Brigitte. ‘Supposing he notices? What’ll we do?’

‘Say someone gave it to us. Anyway, we’ll soon know.’

The young waiter appeared. He did not know either girl but he knew who they were, what they were. The clothes were a dead give-away.

‘Well girls, enjoying your hour of freedom?’ he quipped. ‘How’s life in prison?’

‘Give over!’ snapped Roswitha. ‘Two coffees.’ The waiter retreated in a huff. Brigitte pushed back her chair.

‘I have to know,’ she muttered. ‘If I don’t soon, I’ll wet myself.’ She stood up. ‘I’ll try the Newsagent. He’s blind as a bat.’ She hurried to the door and out into the street. The waiter plonked down two cups with bad grace.

‘Two Marks forty Pfennigs.’

Trying to control her trembling hand, Roswitha opened her handbag, took out her purse and extracted a crisp new ten Mark note. The youth reached into the money pouch round his waist and counted out the change, slung it on the table and stuffed the bank note carelessly into a separate compartment. It was done. Roswitha seized her coffee gratefully and gulped it down. She wondered how Brigitte was faring.

In the low-ceilinged little paper shop, blackened wooden beams almost touching her hair, Brigitte asked nervously for the cheapest thing that came to mind.

‘Sold out. I can give you last Friday’s Die Zeit?’ She shook her head and picked up a chocolate bar.

‘How much?’

‘Ninety Pfennigs.’

She reached into her purse for the bank note but at the last moment her nerve failed her, and she paid him with a few small coins. Back in the Bierstube, Roswitha was impatient to know.

‘Well?’

‘I chickened out.’ Brigitte saw the torn receipt for the coffees. ‘You?’

‘One down, one to go. Give me yours. I’ll get some stuff from the Chemist while you drink your coffee. Just keep your fingers crossed for me.’

An hour after it had arrived, the white motor launch was heading back to Lake Eternity. Roswitha and Brigitte were once again in the shelter of the cramped cabin, the third woman at the helm.

‘You think you can get us some more?’ Brigitte was excited. ‘How many? And when?’

‘I’ll try tonight. Depends on the weather. We mustn’t be greedy, though. Two missing is one thing, even four. But ten… they’d see.’

Brigitte nodded and they sat in silence as the outboard motor putt-putted them to their prison in Ewigkeits Dorf.

Saturday 20th September, 1969

Well before dawn, a stocky, muscular man in full combat fatigues strode into Terminal One at Heathrow airport. It was evident that he was a member of the Armed Forces. What was not evident was to which branch he belonged, nor even to which nation he owed allegiance. On the sleeve of each upper arm the unknown affiliation SCS was sewn in white capital letters, below which was the number 001. Had he crossed the path of an Army Major General, a Navy Fleet Admiral or an Air Force Commodore as he walked through Terminal One, none of them would have recognised what SCS stood for. However, what all of them would immediately have recognised was that Horst Thielmann was in flagrant contravention of the most basic regulation, valid in all the armed forces.

Code of Conduct forbade any service personnel wearing camouflage fatigues other than when in combat or on exercises, but Horst Thielmann was not, strictly speaking, a member of any recognised UK Armed Forces, nor did he care in the least about anybody’s Code of Conduct. The emblem embossed on his upper sleeve was not a recognised UK Army, Air Force or Navy signum.

A further contravention of strict regulations would have been the carrying of a full backpack designed for use in the field of combat. Nevertheless, Thielmann was wearing his military backpack, which weighed fully 60 lbs and contained everything a man needed to survive in the most arduous of conditions. Unusually, Thielmann’s survival kit only accounted for forty of those sixty pounds. To add insult to injury, he had added twenty pounds of explosives hidden inside the empty casing of a radio. Putting these in the hold of a commercial aircraft might seem at first sight sheer lunacy. However, with the fuses wrapped separately, there was zero chance of an explosion in flight. Thielmann was not suicidal and he intended to travel in the same aircraft as his luggage. It is doubtful whether the airline, or indeed Thielmann’s fellow passengers, would have taken such a sanguine view.

He approached the BEA check-in desk. A pretty Air Hostess reached out her hand to take his ticket, surreptitiously assessing the man. Her brother was a Private in the army; she recognised all the signs in Thielmann, a powerful man whose fitness would regularly be tested under military conditions.

Grey, wide spaced eyes, a firm jaw and his stature whispered Sandhurst, perhaps Royal Marines, but the capital letters SCS on his sleeve meant nothing to her. The number 001 made her smile; at a distance, it could be mistaken for 007. She was wrong on one count; until a year previously, Thielmann had frequently seen active service, but those days were in the past. Nowadays, compulsory fitness tests and armament training were no longer part of his brief.

He pulled his airline ticket from an inner pocket and handed it to the girl. She seemed mesmerised by the unusual, visibly new camouflage pattern of deep green and faint brown which made him look like a one-man walking pine forest. The webbing around his waist and under his armpits held the vertical, visibly full backpack upright from his waist to behind his head. He eased the webbing to permit him to place the luggage on the scales.

‘Economy on BEA 340 to Frankfurt… at seven o’ clock,’ murmured the girl. ‘Gate 18…’ She looked at the reading on the scales. ‘I’m sorry, Sir,’ she said, ‘you’re well over the limit at 64 pounds. You’re only allowed 40.’

A faint smile crossed Thielmann’s face. He pulled another piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to the girl. She looked perplexed.

‘Euh… One moment please, Sir.’ She turned and went through a rear door. Less than a minute later she reappeared, smiling. ‘That will be perfectly in order, Sir,’ she said, ‘Gate 18. Have a good flight.’ The huge rucksack disappeared into the bowels of the airport.

Two hours later, Thielmann was approaching Passport Control and Customs in Frankfurt airport. To circumvent what he knew was about to happen, he pulled a yellow document from his wallet. The Customs Official made to open the huge backpack but Thielmann handed him the paper. The man read it through carefully, then nodded. Without opening Thielmann’s bag, he drew a white cross on the back of it with a piece of chalk. Equally unusually, but perhaps not surprisingly in West Germany, where uniforms speak volumes, he gave a formal salute. Thielmann left the terminal and was immediately approached by a taxi driver.

‘British Army Zone Headquarters, Sir?’ he asked. Thielmann shook his head.

‘Bundessicherheitsdienst Hauptquartier, Erlaufstraβe.’ The taxi driver’s head jerked up in surprise. He made to take Thielmann’s luggage but its very weight defeated him, and Thielmann himself loaded it into the boot of the taxi.

On arrival at the Federal Security Service headquarters, Thielmann presented his passport to the doorman and was waved through. At the Reception Desk he eased the heavy rucksack from his shoulders and placed it on the floor. A few moments later a tall, military man in a dark green uniform approached the desk.

‘Guten Morgen, Herr Thielmann. You are very prompt. You can leave the luggage here.’ Thielmann shook his head.

‘Where I go, this goes, thank you all the same, Herr Major.’ The two men shook hands and disappeared into the building. It was ten o’clock in Frankfurt, but Thielmann’s watch was still set to UK Summer Time, nine o’clock.

The city of Aquaville in south-west England, named after and renowned for its famous Roman Baths, has a prestigious history of culture and tradition. Its University, with an outstanding level of teaching and learning was, in the 1960s, at a time when only 6% of the population entered Higher Education, able to select applicants of the highest calibre.

Undergraduates, ‘Freshers’, would normally embark on a three-year degree course and leave upon graduating. However, not all students left after that length of time. Occasionally, a student might still be active in the University four or five years after his peers had left. One such was Adrian Coombe.

While Thielmann was being ushered into the Bundessicherheitsdienst HQ in Frankfurt, Adrian closed the door to his student accommodation in Aquaville University Hall of Residence, descended the narrow, dark spiral staircase and went out into the street. Squinting in the morning sunlight, he turned to look up at the window of the room which had been his home for the past seven years. A look of regret crossed his face, then he turned and started to walk towards the bus station. A portly, silver haired man hurried after him, calling:

‘Coombe, wait!’ he puffed. It was the Dean of Faculty. ‘Almost missed you. Just to say Bon voyage and that we’re counting on you to bring back the very best there is.’ The Dean smiled in avuncular fashion, his hand on the younger man’s shoulder. ‘Two messages from Prof von Thadden in Heidelstadt: van Helsing will have the ill-gotten gains for you…’ Now the Dean’s mien was conspiratorial, he lowered his voice dramatically, ‘… four thousand in small denominations, brown envelope under the tiller, you get the picture… And finally, please, please, please don’t sink the Brombeer!’ He chuckled, then looked strangely diffident, pushing a slender plastic folder into Adrian’s free hand. ‘Came across this, hadn’t heard of it before. Be glad of your thoughts, when you’re back.’

Adrian looked at the newspaper heading, one of several cuttings.

Spastic, or Autistic?

He showed surprise.

‘I only know one of those words,’ he murmured, ‘never heard of the second.’ The Dean nodded.

‘Nor had I. See what you make of it.’ Adrian crushed the documents into a pocket then looked meaningfully at his watch.

An hour later, the only passenger in the coach, he leaned across from his front seat and addressed the driver.

‘Is it far now?’ he asked.

Without turning, the driver spoke over his shoulder.

‘Next but one, this is Compton Dando.’ He slowed the bus to allow a gaggle of geese to cross the road in front of them. The triangular village green with its round duck pond and the thatched roofs of the tiny Somerset cottages were the epitome of England, that green and pleasant land. ‘Ten minutes to Aquaton Spa’, grunted the driver as he accelerated.

The market town of Aquaton Spa, just 10 miles from Aquaville, had long since given up any pretence at competing with Aquaville as a Spa. It’s survival now relied on its thriving cattle market and weekly auction, with the majority of its inhabitants employed in Aquaville. It was a sleepy town.

Adrian climbed down from the coach, holding his battered, travel-weary brown suitcase. There seemed to be more cattle in sight than people; a dozen cows were being herded along the High Street to a distant cattle pen. On the other side of the road, situated between a Chinese restaurant and a book-makers, the name above the door of an impressive, broad, dark brown façade assured him that he was in the right place. Printed proudly in gold lettering was the name Vellums. Through the darkened window of the shop, half-hidden by posters advertising a classical concert, he could make out shelves of books. He picked up his suitcase and crossed the street.

The tinkle of the doorbell brought the shopkeeper out from an interior office. A very tall girl, dressed in a white blouse and a midi-length skirt, put down the book that she was holding and advanced towards Adrian. His tweed jacket and the bare hint of a crease in trousers that had not seen an iron for a very long time, suggested academia. Perhaps in his mid-twenties, he had strong features, a rugged brow and a generous mouth. He was staring at her uncertainly.

‘I hope that I’m in the right place?’ he said, consulting a slip of paper in his free hand. ‘My name is Adrian Coombe. I believe you have a room to let?’

Tulpe Vellum nodded.

‘We do. Would you like to see it?’ She realised that this might be a silly question, in view of the suitcase he was still holding. ‘Upstairs on the fifth floor. It’s three pounds a week, payable in advance, with its own bathroom and cooking facilities. Electricity and gas are each on a coin-meter. The meters take shillings and florins. If you run out, just ask. Oh, and there’s a launderette down the High Street.’ she added, trying to avoid looking at his crushed trousers. ‘They do custom wash and pressing, as well.’

‘Sounds fine. Lead the way.’

To get to the fifth floor entailed a steep climb up darkened, creaking staircases. Adrian was struck by the extensive bookcases on each floor and he saw a green-shaded reading lamp on a central table. It looked more like a library than a shop.

On reaching the top it was evident that the room to let actually meant the entire attic. It was huge. There was no door from the staircase, and at the far end of the room he saw a heavy curtain. A two-ringed gas cooker with a few saucepans, a single bed and a table with fresh bedding on it were the only items of furniture.

‘There’s a built-in wardrobe over there beyond the dressing table.’ Tulpe informed him. ‘Will it be suitable?’

‘It’s ideal!’ This far exceeded Adrian’s expectations. He crossed to the heavy drape curtain behind which he found not only the bath but also an airing cupboard with a hot water immersion tank inside it. ‘Can I pay six months in advance?’ he asked. ‘I’m not sure how often I’ll be here. I expect to be travelling a lot, starting next week, so I need a pied-à-terre for my things.’ Without waiting for an answer, he pulled a wad of banknotes from his wallet and counted out £108. Tulpe stared, she couldn’t remember when she had last seen so much money. Trying to compose herself, she said:

‘That would be fine.’ She crossed to the sash window, undid the latch and opened it. ‘Oh dear,’ she said sounding embarrassed, ‘I’ll have these cleaned immediately.’ The grimy panes were indeed in need of a good wash. Adrian moved to stand beside her. At six foot two, he considered himself to be tall but this young woman must have been five foot ten at least. They were almost on a par. Looking down from the window he had a first class view of the cattle auction taking place below, the frenetic rattle of the auctioneer’s voice in stark contrast to the lethargic movements of a huge brown cow standing in the centre of the ring. A man’s voice echoed up the staircase, a strong Central European accent:

‘Are you upstairs, Tule? British Library for you, telephone. About that Atlas.’

‘I’ll be right down,’ replied Tulpe, leaving Adrian wondering at the name Tule. Turning to him, Tulpe said, ‘You settle in, come down when you’re ready and I’ll show you around.’ She disappeared down the staircase.

An hour later, Adrian went in a search of the girl called Tule. On passing the fourth floor, he glimpsed a woman sitting at the central reading table, poring over a gigantic, mediaeval tome. Between the third and second floors, his way was blocked by a tall man with silver hair coming upstairs.

‘Ah, good morning, good morning,’ he said in a deep, guttural accent. ‘Tule tell me you take the room.’ He eyed Adrian shrewdly. ‘You maybe a travelling salesman?’ His face showed disapproval.

‘Good Lord, no!’ Adrian was smiling. ‘I am with the University of Aquaville’, he said. Now the elderly gentleman was looking at him with a certain respect.

‘Is good, is very good, I like. You say with, not at. At means undergrad, with is better. Research?’ he queried. Adrian shook his head.

‘PhD,’ he replied. Although they were standing in near darkness halfway down a staircase, the elderly man placed the pile of books carefully on the step beside him.

‘Forgive my curiosity’, he said apologetically, ‘may I know the substance, the title of your Doctorate?’

‘It’s a bit of a mouthful.’ Adrian