Language in the Blood

  Chapter 29: Heinrich

  I asked Carl-Heinz to tell me about his missions with Heinrich on the eastern front, but he was reluctant to talk about them.

  ‘You have to understand. Heinrich was a truly nasty character with a sadistic streak. I mean, he was evil even by our standards. I have killed a lot but I was drugged and went about it in a mechanical way, and later on I just killed for food – no need to torture the unfortunate human – but Heinrich, he wanted to wipe every Soviet and non-Aryan off the planet. He just enjoyed killing,’ he told me with distaste.

  ‘Were you at the siege of Leningrad?’ I asked, pushing for more information.

  ‘Of course, and also at Stalingrad as it was strategically so important. It was one of our jobs to run along the streets trying to draw the snipers out. Well, mostly it was me drawing fire and Heinrich going after the sniper. It wasn’t pleasant; he never killed anyone quickly. I can still hear the screams.’ He tailed off. ‘I really don’t want to talk about it Cameron,’ he said, closing the subject.

  ‘Sorry Carl-Heinz. I won’t bring it up again,’ I said apologetically.

  My curiosity had been roused, though, so I turned to my historical expert. TruthseekerNL had given me his email address, as our conversations had often been disturbed by some know-all goth. He was actually called Stefan Sluis and lived in the Dutch town of Gouda. During the day he worked for the council, but at night and weekends he spent his time on the internet looking for vampires. He was one of the leading lights in the vampire conspiracy community. I emailed him with this latest snippet of information.

  Hi Stefan,

  I’ve learned that there was another vampire working for the Nazis. A sadistic motherfucker going by the name of Heinrich. Apparently he was involved with the sieges of Stalingrad and Leningrad. By all accounts he never killed quickly, so there must be some accounts of mutilations etc. Have you got any information? I’ve been reliably informed that he was captured and killed by the Soviets.

  Thanks,

  Frank

  I had told Stefan that my name was Frank Olsen and that I lived in Denmark. I didn’t want him to put two and two together with regards to the murder of Yvette Jaunet; Cameron McAdam had been released as the name of the main suspect and much had been made of my champagne lifestyle. I’d even spotted some footage of my yacht on Sky News. The fact that there was no photo of me and they’d had to make do with a sketch artist was majorly frustrating the press. I hadn’t seen myself in a mirror of late, but I knew the sketch didn’t look much like me. Carl-Heinz had looked at it too and told me I was much better looking in real life. I suspect the witnesses subconsciously wanted me to be more villainous-looking than my pretty-boy baby face made me.

  Stefan soon wrote back:

  Hi Frank,

  I have been looking into the siege of Leningrad lately and I came across an interesting witness account from December 1943. According to a Soviet soldier they would sometimes come under attack at night and find one of their comrades either with their throat cut or mutilated in some horrendous way. Mostly they didn’t spot the perpetrator but sometimes they spotted one or two men running back to the German lines. Some soldiers believed that they had their shots on target but the men kept going as if the shot had missed them. Then one night this Soviet soldier heard his comrade screaming in agony close by and he made his way over to help. A German soldier had him lifted up against the wall and was carving him slowly with a hunting knife. He shot the German at point blank range, but he just turned to him and smiled, and then began to run towards the German line. Suddenly another man came out of the shadows and took this German’s head clean off with one blow of his sword. Before the headless body fell to the ground it crumbled and only a pile of dust remained. The other man then dropped the sword and held his hands in the air. A barrage of gunfire erupted from the German side but the soldier was lead safely back to headquarters apparently unharmed. After that nothing more was heard or seen from that German soldier. So Frank, do you think this was your vampire changing sides? The account sure sounds like your Heinrich. I would really like to meet you in Berlin and see if we can find him. As it was a relative, do you have a photo?

  Stephan

  I wrote back to thank him, but I really didn’t want to meet and I could hardly send him a photo. I was surprised that Carl-Heinz hadn’t wanted to tell me about Heinrich though. Killing him had certainly been nothing to be ashamed of.