"Blood," he said. He looked up slowly, his eyes on the door to the last stall.
"In there, I guess," he spoke out with a small, quick inhale of breath.
"Check the door first, see if there's anything else."
"Like what?"
"Like a bloody fingerprint."
"No. Not that I can see."
Hugh got out his sketch pad and pencil. He quickly started to draw the interior layout of the Abort. He also noted the shape and direction of the footprint.
Tommy pushed the stall door open slowly, like a child peeking into his parents' room in the morning.
"Jesus," he whispered sharply.
Vincent Bedford was sitting on the privy seat, his pants pulled down to his ankles, half-naked. But his upper torso was thrust back against the wall, and his head lolled slightly to the right. His eyes were open wide in shock. His chest and shirt were coated with deep maroon streaks of blood.
His throat had been cut. On the left side of his neck the skin was laid open in a gory flap.
One of Trader Vic's fingers was partially severed and hung limply at his side. There was also a slashing cut in his right cheek, and his shirt was partially ripped.
"Poor Vic," Tommy said quietly.
The two airmen stared at the dead body. Both had seen a great deal of death, and seen it in horrific form, and they were not sickened by what they witnessed in the Abort. The sensation both men felt in that second was different, it was a shock of context. They had both seen men ripped asunder by bullets, explosions, and shrapnel; eviscerated, decapitated, and burned alive by the vagaries of battle. Both men had seen the viscera and other bloody remains of turret gunners actually hosed out of the Plexiglas cocoons where they'd died. But all those deaths came within the context of battle, where they both expected to see death at its most brutal. In the Abort it was different; here a man who should have been alive was dead. To die violently on the toilet was something altogether shocking and genuinely frightening.
"Jesus is right," Hugh said.
Tommy noticed that the flap over the chest pocket of Bedford's blouse was lifted at the corner. He thought that would have been where Trader
Vic kept his pack of smokes. He leaned across toward the body and lightly tapped the pocket.
It was empty.
Both men continued to examine the body. Tommy kept reminding himself inwardly to measure, to assess, to read the portrait in front of him as he would the page of a textbook, carefully, critically. He reminded himself of all the criminal cases he'd read in so many case books and how often a small detail resulted in the crucial observation. Guilt or innocence hanging on the tiniest of elements. The glasses that fell from Leopold's jacket. Or was it Loeb's? He couldn't remember.
Staring across at Vincent Bedford's body, he felt completely inadequate. He tried to recollect his last conversation with the
Mississippian, but this, too, seemed lost. He realized that the body tucked into the privy in front of him was quickly becoming the same as so many other bodies. Something simply shunted away and relegated to nightmare, joining the throngs of other dead and mutilated men inhabiting the dreams of the living. Yesterday it was Vincent Bedford, captain. Decorated bomber pilot and hotshot trader of camp wide renown.
Now he was dead, and no longer a part of Tommy Hart's waking life.
Tommy let out a long, slow draft of breath.
He searched the landscape of murder in front of him.
And then he saw what was wrong.
"Hugh," he said very quietly, "I think I see a problem."
Renaday quickly looked up from his sketch pad.
"Me, too," he replied.
"Clearly…" But he did not finish his statement.
Both men heard a noise from outside the Abort. There were German voices raised, sharp-edged and insistent. Tommy reached across and seized the Canadian by the arm.
"Not a word," he said.
"Not until we can talk later."
"Bloody right. You got it," replied Renaday.
The two men then turned and walked from the latrine, stepping out into the chilled misty air, feeling the closeness of the smell and of what they'd seen drop away from them like so many droplets of moisture.
Fritz Number One was standing by the front door, strapped in strict attention. In his hand at his side was a camera with a flash attachment.
A foot or two away, a German officer stood.
He was of modest height and build and seemed slightly older than Tommy, perhaps closing on thirty, although it was difficult to tell for certain because war aged men differently.
His close-cropped thick hair was jet black, but tinged with premature gray around the temples, the same color as the leather trenchcoat he wore above a sharply pressed but slightly ill-fitted Luftwaffe uniform.
He had very pale skin, and on one cheek he sported a jagged red scar just beneath the left eye. He wore a thin, well-groomed beard, which surprised Tommy. He knew that naval officers in the German military often wore beards, but he'd never seen a flier with one, even a sparse one such as this officer maintained. He had eyes that seemed knifelike, slicing their gaze forward.
The officer turned slowly toward the two kriegies, and Tommy saw that he was also missing his left arm.
The German paused, then asked: "Lieutenant Hart? Flying Officer Renaday?"
Both men came to attention. The German returned their salutes.
"I am Hauptmann Heinrich Visser," he said. His English was smooth, accented only slightly, but tinged with a slight hissing sound. He looked at Renaday sharply.
"Did you fly a Spitfire, flying officer?" he asked abruptly.
Hugh shook his head.
"Blenheim," he replied.
"Second seat."
Visser nodded.
"Good," he muttered.
"Does it make a difference?" Renaday demanded.
The German slid a small cruel smile across his face. When he did this, the scar seemed to change color slightly. And the smile was crooked.
He made a small gesture with his right hand toward his missing arm.
"A Spitfire took this," he said.
"He managed to come around behind me after I killed his wing man." He kept his voice even and controlled.
"Forgive me," he added, still pacing each word carefully.
"We are all imprisoned by our misfortunes, are we not?"
Tommy thought this a philosophical question better suited for a dinner table and a fine bottle of wine, or a rich liqueur, than standing outside a latrine and in the gory presence of a murdered body. He did not say this out loud. Instead, he asked: "You are, I believe, Hauptmann, to be some sort of a liaison? Exactly what duties does this include?"