‘“Human rights”?’
‘The thousands of dissidents you people lock up in camps. The millions of Jews who vanished in the war. The torture. The killing. Sorry to mention them, but we have this bourgeois notion that human beings have rights. Where have you been the last twenty years?’
The contempt in her voice jolted him. He had never properly spoken to an American before, had only encountered the occasional tourist – and those few had been chaperoned around the capital, shown only what the Propaganda Ministry wanted them to see, like Red Cross officials on a KZ inspection. Listening to her now it occurred to him she probably knew more about his country’s recent history than he did. He felt he should make some sort of defence but did not know what to say.
‘You talk like a politician,’ was all he could manage. She did not even bother to reply.
He looked again at the figure on the screen. Kennedy projected an image of youthful vigour, despite his spectacles and balding head.
‘Will he win?’ he asked.
She was silent. For a moment, he thought she had decided not to speak to him. Then she said: ‘He will now. He looks in good shape for a man of seventy-five, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Indeed.’ March was standing a metre back from the window smoking a cigarette, alternately watching the television and watching the square. Traffic was sparse – mostly people returning from dinner or the cinema. A young couple held hands under the statue of Todt. They might be Gestapo; it was hard to tell.
The millions of Jews who vanished in the war . . . He was risking court martial simply by talking to her. Yet her mind must be a treasure house, full of ill-considered objects which meant nothing to her but would be gold to him. If he could somehow overcome her furious resentment, pick his way around the propaganda . . .
No. A ridiculous thought. He had problems enough as it was.
A solemn blonde newsreader filled the screen; behind her, a composite picture of Kennedy and the Führer and the single word ‘Détente’.
Charlotte Maguire had helped herself to a glass of Scotch from Stuckart’s drinks cabinet. Now she raised it to the television in mock salute. ‘To Joseph P. Kennedy: President of the United States – appeaser, anti-Semite, gangster and sonofabitch. May you roast in hell.’
THE clock outside struck ten-thirty, ten forty-five, eleven.
She said: ‘Maybe this friend of yours had second thoughts.’
March shook his head. ‘He’ll come.’
A few moments later, a battered blue Skoda entered the square. It made one slow circuit of the Platz, then came round again and parked opposite the apartment block. Max Jaeger emerged from the driver’s side; from the other came a small man in a shabby sports jacket and trilby, carrying a doctor’s bag. He squinted up at the fourth floor and backed away, but Jaeger took his arm and propelled him towards the entrance.
In the stillness of the apartment, a buzzer sounded.
‘It would be best,’ said March, ‘if you didn’t speak.’
She shrugged. ‘As you like.’
He went into the hall and picked up the intercom.
‘Hello, Max.’
He pressed a switch and unlocked the door. The corridor was empty. After a minute, a soft ping signalled the arrival of the elevator and the little man appeared. He scuttled down the passage and into Stuckart’s hall without uttering a word. He was in his fifties and carried with him, like bad breath, the reek of the back-streets – of furtive deals and triple-entry accounting, of card-tables folded away at the sound of a tread on the stairs. Jaeger followed close behind.
When the man saw March was not alone, he shrank back into the corner.
‘Who’s the woman?’ He appealed to Jaeger. ‘You never said anything about a woman. Who’s the woman?’
‘Shut up, Willi,’ said Max. He gave him a gentle push into the drawing room.
March said: ‘Never mind her, Willi. Look at this.’
He switched on the lamp, angling it upwards.
Willi Stiefel took in the safe at a glance. ‘English,’ he said. ‘Casing: one and a half centimetres, high-tensile steel. Fine mechanism. Eight-figure code. Six, if you’re lucky.’ He appealed to March: ‘I beg you, Herr Sturmbannführer. It’s the guillotine for me next time.’
‘It’ll be the guillotine for you this time,’ said Jaeger, ‘if you don’t get on with it.’
‘Fifteen minutes, Herr Sturmbannführer. Then I’m out of here. Agreed?’
March nodded. ‘Agreed.’
Stiefel gave the woman a last, nervous look. Then he removed his hat and jacket, opened his case, and took out a pair of thin rubber gloves and a stethoscope.
March took Jaeger over to the window, and whispered: ‘Did he take much persuading?’
‘What do you think? But then I told him he was still covered by Forty-two. He saw the light.’
Paragraph Forty-two of the Reich Criminal Code stated that all ‘habitual criminals and offenders against morality’ could be arrested on suspicion that they might commit an offence. National Socialism taught that criminality was in the blood: something you were born with, like musical talent or blond hair. Thus the character of the criminal rather than his crime determined the sentence. A gangster stealing a few Marks after a fist-fight could be sentenced to death, on the grounds that he ‘displayed an inclination towards criminality so deep-rooted that it precluded his ever becoming a useful member of the folk community’. But the next day, in the same court, a loyal Party member who had shot his wife for an insulting remark might merely be bound over to keep the peace.
Stiefel could not afford another arrest. He had recently served nine years in Spandau for a bank robbery. He had no choice but to co-operate with the Polizei, whatever they asked him to be – informant, agent provocateur, or safebreaker. These days, he ran a watch repair business in Wedding and swore he was going straight: a protestation of innocence it was hard to believe, watching him now. He had placed the stethoscope against the safe door and was twisting the dial a digit at a time. His eyes were closed as he listened for the click of the lock’s tumblers falling into place.
Come on, Willi. March rubbed his hands. His fingers were numb with apprehension.
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Jaeger, under his breath. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing.’
‘I’ll explain later.’
‘No thanks. I told you: I don’t want to know.’
Stiefel straightened and let out a long sigh. ‘One,’ he said. One was the first digit of the combination.
Like Stiefel, Jaeger kept glancing at the woman. She was sitting demurely on one of the gilt chairs, her hands folded in her lap. ‘A foreign woman, for God’s sake!’
‘Six.’
So it went on, one digit every few minutes, until, at 11.35, Stiefel said to March: ‘The owner: when was he born?’
‘Why?’
‘It would save time. I think he’s set this with the date of his birth. So far, I’ve got one-six-one-one-one-nine. The sixteenth of the eleventh, nineteen . . .’
March checked his notes from Stuckart’s Wer Ist’s? entry.
‘Nineteen hundred and two.’
‘Zero-two.’ Stiefel tried the combination, then smiled. ‘It’s usually the owner’s birthday,’ he said, ‘or the Führer’s birthday, or the Day of National Reawakening.’ He pulled open the door.
The safe was small: a fifteen-centimetre cube containing no bank notes or jewellery, just paper – old paper, most of it. March piled it on to the table and began rifling through it.
‘I’d like to leave now, Herr Sturmbannführer.’
March ignored him. Tied up in red ribbon were the title deeds to a property in Wiesbaden – the family home, by the look of it. There were stock certificates. Hoesch, Siemens, Thyssen: the companies were standard, but the sums invested looked astronomical. Insurance papers. One human touch: a photograph of Maria Dymarski, in a 1950s cheesecake pose.
Suddenly, from the window, Jaeger gave a shout of w
arning: ‘Here they come, you fucking, fucking fool!’
An unmarked grey BMW was driving round the square, fast, followed by an army truck. The vehicles swerved to a halt outside, blocking the street. A man in a belted leather coat leapt out of the car. The tailgate of the lorry was kicked down and SS troops carrying automatic rifles began jumping out.
‘Move! Move!’ yelled Jaeger. He began pushing Charlie and Stiefel towards the door.
With shaking fingers, March worked his way through the remaining papers. A blue envelope, unmarked. Something heavy in it. The flap of the envelope was open. He saw a letterhead in copperplate – Zaugg & Cie, Bankiers – and stuffed it into his pocket.
The buzzer from the door downstairs began sounding in long, urgent bursts.
‘They must know we’re up here!’
Jaeger said: ‘Now what?’ Stiefel had turned grey. The woman stood motionless. She did not seem to know what was going on.
‘The basement,’ shouted March. ‘They might just miss us. Get the elevator.’
The other three ran out into the corridor. He began stuffing the papers back into the safe, slammed it shut, twirled the dial, pushed the mirror back into place. There was no time to do anything about the broken seal on the apartment door. They were holding the lift for him. He squeezed in and they began their descent.
Third floor, second floor . . .
March prayed it would not stop at the ground floor. It did not. It opened on to the empty basement. Above their heads they could hear the heels of the stormtroopers on the marble floor.
‘This way!’ He led them into the bomb shelter. The grating from the air vent was where he had left it, leaning against the wall.
Stiefel needed no telling. He ran to the air shaft, lifted his bag above his head and tossed it in. He grabbed at the brickwork, tried to haul himself after it, his feet scrabbling for a purchase on the smooth wall. He was yelling over his shoulder: ‘Help me!’ March and Jaeger seized his legs and heaved. The little man wriggled head first into the hole and was gone.
Coming closer – the ring and scrape of boots on concrete. The SS had found the entrance to the basement. A man was shouting.
March to Charlie: ‘You next.’
‘I’ll tell you something,’ she said, pointing at Jaeger. ‘He’ll never make it.’
Jaeger’s hands went to his waist. It was true. He was too fat. ‘I’ll stay. I’ll think of something. You two get out.’
‘No.’ This was turning into a farce. March took the envelope from his pocket and pressed it into Charlie’s hand. ‘Take this. We may be searched.’
‘And you?’ She had her stupid shoes in one hand, was already mounting the chair.
‘Wait until you hear from me. Tell nobody.’ He grabbed her, locked his hands just below her knees, and threw. She was so light, he could have wept.
The SS were in the basement. Along the passage – the crash of doors flung open.
March swung the grating back into place and kicked away the chair.
PART THREE
THURSDAY 16 APRIL
When National Socialism has ruled long enough, it will no longer be possible to conceive of a form of life different from ours.
ADOLF HITLER,
11 July 1941
ONE
he grey BMW drove south down Saarland Strasse, past the slumbering hotels and deserted shops of central Berlin. At the dark mass of the Museum für Völkerkunde it turned left, into Prinz-Albrecht Strasse, towards the headquarters of the Gestapo.
There was a hierarchy in cars, as in everything. The Orpo were stuck with tinny Opels. The Kripo had Volkswagens – four-door versions of the original KdFwagen, the round-backed workers’ car which had been stamped out by the million at the Fallersleben works. But the Gestapo were smarter. They drove BMW 1800s – sinister boxes with growling, souped-up engines and dull grey bodywork.
Sitting in the back seat next to Max Jaeger, March kept his eyes on the man who had arrested them, the commander of the raid on Stuckart’s apartment. When they had been led up from the basement into the foyer he had given them an immaculate Führer-salute. ‘Sturmbannführer Karl Krebs, Gestapo!’ That had meant nothing to March. It was only now, in the BMW, in profile, that he recognised him. Krebs was one of the two SS officers who had been with Globus at Buhler’s villa.
He was about thirty years old with an angular, intelligent face, and without the uniform he could have been anything – a lawyer, a banker, a eugenicist, an executioner. That was how it was with young men of his age. They had come off an assembly line of Pimpf, Hitler Youth, National Service and Strength-Through-Joy. They had heard the same speeches, read the same slogans, eaten the same one-pot meals in aid of Winter Relief. They were the regime’s workhorses, had known no authority but the Party, and were as reliable and commonplace as the Kripo’s Volks-wagens.
The car drew up and almost at once Krebs was on the pavement, opening the door. ‘This way, gentlemen. Please.’
March hauled himself out and looked down the street. Krebs might be as polite as a scoutmaster, but ten metres back, the doors of a second BMW were opening even before it stopped and armed plain-clothes men were emerging. That was how it had been since their discovery at Fritz-Todt Platz. No rifle-butts in the belly, no oaths, no handcuffs. Just a telephone call to headquarters, followed by a quiet request to ‘discuss these matters further’. Krebs had also asked them to surrender their weapons. Polite, but behind the politeness, always, the threat.
Gestapo headquarters were in a grand, five-storey Wilhelmine construction that faced north and never saw the sun. Years ago, in the days of the Weimar Republic, the museum-like building had housed the Berlin School of Arts. When the secret police took over, the students had been forced to burn their modernist paintings in the courtyard. Tonight, the high windows were shielded by thick net curtains, a precaution against terrorist attack. Behind the gauze, as if in fog, chandeliers burned.
March had made it a policy in life never to cross the threshold, and until this night he had succeeded. Three stone steps ran up into an entrance hall. More steps, and then a large, vaulted foyer: a red carpet on a stone floor, the hollow resonance of a cathedral. It was busy. The early hours of the morning were always busy for the Gestapo. From the depths of the building came the muffled echo of bells ringing, footsteps, a whistle, a shout. A fat man in the uniform of an Obersturmführer picked his nose and regarded them without interest.
They walked on, down a corridor lined with swastikas and marble busts of the Party leadership – Göring, Goebbels, Bormann, Frank, Ley and the rest – modelled after Roman senators. March could hear the plainclothes guards following. He glanced at Jaeger, but Max was staring fixedly ahead, jaw clenched.
More stairs, another passage. The carpet had given way to linoleum. The walls were dingy. March guessed they were somewhere near the back of the building, on the second floor.
‘If you would wait here,’ said Krebs. He opened a stout wooden door. Neon stuttered into life. He stood aside to allow them to file in. ‘Coffee?’
‘Thank you.’
And he was gone. As the door closed, March saw one of the guards, arms folded, take up station in the corridor outside. He half-expected to hear a key turn in the lock, but there was no sound.
They had been put in some sort of interview room. A rough wooden table stood in the centre of the floor, one chair either side of it, half a dozen others pushed up against the walls. There was a small window. Opposite it was a reproduction of Josef Vietze’s portrait of Reinhard Heydrich in a cheap plastic frame. On the floor were small brown stains which looked to March like dried blood.
PRINZ-ALBRECHT STRASSE was Germany’s black heart, as famous as the Avenue of Victory and the Great Hall, but without the tourist coaches. At number eight: the Gestapo. At number nine: Heydrich’s personal headquarters. Around the corner: the Prinz-Albrecht Palace itself, head-quarters of the SD, the Party’s intelligence service. A complex of underground passages linke
d the three.
Jaeger muttered something and collapsed into a chair. March could think of nothing adequate to say so he looked out of the window. It commanded a clear view of the palace grounds running behind the Gestapo building – the dark clumps of the bushes, the ink-pool of the lawn, the skeletal branches of the limes raised in claws against the sky. Away to the right, lit up through the bare trees, was the concrete and glass cube of the Europa-Haus, built in the 1920s by the Jewish architect Mendelsohn. The Party had allowed it to stand as a monument to his ‘pygmy imagination’: dropped among Speer’s granite monoliths, it was just a toy. March could remember a Sunday afternoon tea with Pill in its roof-garden restaurant. Ginger beer and Obsttorte mit Sahne, the little brass band playing – what else? –selections from The Merry Widow, the elderly women with their elaborate Sunday hats, their little fingers crooked over the bone china.
Most were careful not to look at the black buildings beyond the trees. For others, the proximity of Prinz-Albrecht Strasse seemed to provide a frisson of excitement, like picnicking next to a prison. Down in the cellar the Gestapo was licensed to practise what the Ministry of Justice called ‘heightened interrogation’. The rules had been drawn up by civilised men in warm offices and they stipulated the presence of a doctor. There had been a conversation in Werderscher Markt a few weeks ago. Someone had heard a rumour about the torturers’ latest trick: a thin glass catheter inserted into the suspect’s penis, then snapped.
Strings are playing
Hear them saying
‘I love you . . .’
He shook his head, pinched the bridge of his nose, tried to clear his mind.
Think.
He had left a paper-trail of clues, any one of which would have been enough to lead the Gestapo to Stuckart’s apartment. He had requested Stuckart’s file. He had discussed the case with Fiebes. He had rung Luther’s home. He had gone looking for Charlotte Maguire.
He worried about the American woman. Even if she had managed to get clear of Fritz-Todt Platz, the Gestapo could pull her in tomorrow. ‘Routine questions, Fräulein . . . What is this envelope, please? . . . How did you come by it? . . . Describe the man who opened the safe . . .’ She was tough, with an actressy self-confidence, but in their hands she would not last five minutes.