The shock to Anna of seeing the man who’d pursued her for most of her life had been very great, and when they’d got to the lobby in the Kaiserhof, she’d had to sit down. But once she’d seen that he was not coming after her, she’d rallied surprisingly well, as if her fear had been automatic. Perhaps she’d realized there was no danger, that he and she would keep each other’s secret. “I am under the Führer’s protection now, am I not?” she’d said.
At home she’d kicked off her shoes and collapsed expansively onto the sofa, humming to herself, smiling a grand-duchess smile.
Esther shut the door, turned on the safelight, and got to work. Even while the film was still in the developer, she could see that the work was good. The shot of Anna, Hitler, and the killer would need some toning, but, by God, she’d caught it—Hitler off balance because the other two had switched attention from him, the rigidity of Anna’s neck, and the eyes of the killer alive, appalled, in that lumpen face.
Genius. And genius to have inquired of the butler as they were being shown out. “The officer, ma’am? That’s Major Günsche. SA Intelligence. He liaises between the Führer and Colonel Röhm when the Führer’s in Berlin. Yes, I believe his first name is Reinhardt.”
It was one hell of a photograph in its own right, shrieking with tension.
As a document to damn with, it was clear as clear. Got him. Got him. I’ve got him, Natalya. Nick, Marlene, I’ve got him.
The darkroom had seemed loud with exultation; now it died away, and in the quiet came the first squeak of fear. She was doing what those three had done; she had gone out and met a killer. Literally, she was exposing him.
She washed the negatives, not rushing, but wanting to. Hung them up to dry. Stepped out into the empty living room. It was quiet there, too.
“Anna!”
Anna’s voice came from her room. “Why you shouting?”
“It’s all right. I didn’t know where you were.”
She walked to the phone, lifted the receiver, and dialed. This time she didn’t confuse the idiot by asking for Schmidt by name. “Multiple Murder Department, please.” And sagged with relief as she heard the call being put through.
SCHMIDT RAISED HIS arm. “Heil . . .” Then he batted his forehead. “Don’t tell me.. . . On the tip of my tongue. I’ll get it in a minute.”
Busse didn’t waver; neither did the pistol. “You are destroying Reich property.”
Schmidt grabbed more files.
Busse walked up to the desk, putting the Luger against Schmidt’s back. “Stop or I will put you under arrest.”
Schmidt doubled up the last of the files, stuffed them in, and watched them take. He moved away from the Luger, went around the desk, and sat in his chair, opening a drawer; there was a notebook in here that might be useful to them. He took it and dropped it into the can. Finally he looked up. “Yes? What do you want?”
The uniform suited Busse. Clean black lines, lightning flashes on the collar tabs, the death’s-head on the cap band. It gave him dash, authority, menace, as if the accountant in spectacles had merely been a chrysalis that had burst into something more beautiful and more terrible. Still with spectacles.
“I hope the Anastasia file isn’t among those ashes,” he said, “No. Of course it isn’t. Where is it? We didn’t find it in the Jewess’s flat.”
The gloves were off—if, Schmidt thought, they’d ever been on. “You’ve got it,” he said.
“We have one copy, you have another. And we would like it, please.”
“Why? Adolf going to take up the White Russian cause, is he? Kiss the sleeping grand duchess and wake her up? Put her on the back of his horse and charge off to Moscow?”
“Please don’t try to rile me, Schmidt. The Führer is waiting on our findings, but we have not yet finished our investigation.”
“I see,” Schmidt said. “You haven’t shown him the file yet.”
“Evidence as to the lady’s authenticity is still inconclusive.” Busse allowed himself a quirk of the lips. “As you have found out, we have been rather busy.”
“I’ll give you that,” Schmidt said. Even pretty uniforms designed down to the bloody buttons and waiting in their closets.
He noticed an instruction lying on top of papers in his In tray: “From today all staff will use the Heil Hitler greeting and farewell. By order of Hermann Göring, Prussian Minister of the Interior.” The good Frau Pritt, no doubt, preparing for his successor. He crumpled it and tossed it in the still-smoldering can. “Well, Busse, arrest or no arrest, I’m hanging on to that file for a bit. You never know. Adolf might get voted out next time, and the police will start catching killers again.”
“Tell me where it is, Schmidt, and then you can go home.” Busse was being quite reasonable about it. They’d been neighbors, old friends. A reasonable old neighborhood Nazi—with a gun.
“No.”
Busse glanced at his watch—the Luger didn’t move. His wrists were knobbly and very white, hairless. “I am due to take part in the victory parade,” he said, “but I think there is just time to bring your Jewess here. I am certain she knows where the file is and can be persuaded to tell me and one of my storm troopers downstairs—under pressure.”
The last trail of smoke from the can drifted back into the room with some snowflakes—a breeze had sprung up, swinging a slice of cold air into the fug like an ax, ruffling the M poster and distorting Lorre’s face.
He’s a family man, Schmidt thought; there’s a nice Frau Busse and a lot of little Busses. Nazis get married, they have children; they’ve sat by a sick child’s bed, seen a parent die. They know the budding and the falling like the rest of us. What withers them? This thing in front of me is a stalk.
The phone rang, and without thinking he picked it up; this was his office. “Inspector Schmidt.”
Esther’s voice came over the line, high and clear with excitement. “I’ve got him, Schmidt. We went to the Kaiserhof, Anna and me. Hitler sent for her. He’s thrilled with her. We were just leaving, and, Schmidt, oh, Schmidt, he came in. It was him. It was R.G. And I’ve got him. I took a photograph of him and Hitler and Anna. He’s Major Reinhardt Günsche. SA Intelligence. Schmidt, Schmidt, we’ve got him.”
Everything narrowed down. Busse evaporated into irrelevance. The constriction against Schmidt’s throat became a different fear. He saw Hannelore’s killer climbing the stairs with her shopping and waiting for her at the top.
“Schmidt. Are you there, darling? I’ve got him.”
Gently, he said, “Esther . . .”
“Yes?”
“Get out of the flat. Take Anna and get out. Don’t stop to pick anything up. Do you hear me?”
“Yes. But the film.”
“Do it.” He was shouting and didn’t hear the rap on the door of 29c, but he heard Esther call, “No, Anna, don’t open it. Anna!” and a distant scream and then a long, slow knocking as from a telephone receiver swinging against a table leg where it had been let fall.
“Esther!”
Over the line he heard the far-off clatter of boots and shoes going down the stairs.
24
“WHERE’S HE TAKING them?” Schmidt asked conversationally,
walking around the desk.
“What?” Busse was staring at the phone.
Schmidt gave him a push in the chest. “R.G. of Munich. He’s just raided my flat. His name’s Günsche. He’s SA. He’s going to kill my girl. Where’s he going to do it?” He gave Busse another push.
“I don’t know. The SA are a law to themselves. Why should I know?”
“Because you do. There’s a killing ground. They’ve got a place where they torture people and kill them. He took Marlene there before he dumped her at Schwanenwerder. Where is it?” He pushed Busse again.
“Marlene?” Busse wasn’t keeping up.
“This man,” Schmidt said, still speaking pleasantly, “has taken Solomonova and Anderson out of their flat. I just heard him do it. They’d been to the Kai
serhof to meet your Führer. They bumped into R.G. of Munich. Recognized him. He’s got to kill them.” All the time he was pushing Busse in the chest, and Busse was letting him. “Don’t tell me you haven’t been keeping an eye on the SA. Tell me where they’ve gone.”
The last push sent Busse staggering so that the Luger hit against the wall. “He’s going to kill her, Busse, you bastard. He’s going to kill your Führer’s grand duchess, because he’s going to kill my woman and he daren’t get rid of one without the other.”
“Stop that. Stop.” Busse brought up the gun. “I don’t know.”
“The Anastasia file is with a friend and will be published if anything happens to me or Solomonova. I’m quite clear on that point, am I? Anna Anderson has just been to tea with Hitler; he’s thrilled with her. The czar’s daughter, his Russian puppet. He hasn’t read the file, has he? You haven’t shown it to him yet. He doesn’t know she’s more likely a Polish peasant, or even a Gypsy. Who had an illegitimate baby at one time. But you know, Busse, you’ve read the statement from the hospital. Let me think.. . . Are Gypsies on Adolf ’s list? I believe they are. A newspaper’s going to print all that, Busse, and when your Führer reads it, he’s not going to be pleased, because he’ll look like a fool.”
He was using dirty ammunition, but if he didn’t, Esther would die.
“These are dramatics,” Busse said. “Why will this man take them anywhere?”
“He likes to kill in the open. Tell you what I’ll do,” Schmidt went on. “I’ll give you the file. I’ll give you the file and my word that Fräulein Solomonova and I will say nothing. Ever. Just get me there in time.”
He watched Busse assess the balance sheet. It was a matter of whether the Führer would persist in his choice against the evidence, whether he preferred his fairy tales untrammeled by facts, whether— God help us all—he’d carry an oriflamme that had pitiable humanity’s stain on it.
There was throbbing in his temples: she’s dying, R.G.’s going to kill her, she’s dying, he’ll kill her. But Schmidt was a hunter, always had been, and he was holding out fresh meat for Busse to snap at.
“No good trying to make black white this time, Busse,” he said. “Everybody’ll see what color it is.”
“Yes,” Busse said, not listening. He sat himself in Schmidt’s chair to consider. “But at least the Führer has made no public declaration so far.”
Schmidt stood and watched Busse reject the meat and knew he hadn’t been offering bait, he’d been digging a trap. And had fallen into it.
Busse had been dubious about Anna, it was why he’d wanted all copies of the file under his control. Now he had to jump one way or the other—and was jumping out of reach. Hitler would be persuaded to reject Anna as an impostor; the Führer would be stopped from making a fool of himself before the public got wind of the fact that he had.
Busse stretched a hand to the phone ...then brought it back. Diels, like almost everybody else in the building, had gone to the parade. He looked up at Schmidt, settling back. “It is regrettable, but there is nothing to be done.”
Esther was dead, then. The world didn’t hold her anymore. The particular, irreplaceable thing that she was to him was going and taking all that mattered with her.
Busse was bothering him, suddenly standing beside him, asking questions. “You say Günsche? Is that Major Günsche? SA Intelligence?”
“Yes.” Schmidt looked up. There’d been a change.
“Röhm’s bum-boy. Well, well,” Busse said. “There is a place. Unauthorized, of course—those SA get above themselves—but I’ve heard about it.”
“Take me there.” He grabbed his coat.
They were out in the corridor, its dreary Bakelite shades directing pools of light down onto the linoleum in patches that left areas of darkness in between. He’d never seen it so empty. Or so quiet.
Busse paused, and Schmidt was impatient with him. “What now?”
“I might need reinforcements.”
“For God’s sake, he’s on his own—he’s always on his own. You’ve got your damn gun.”
Busse didn’t move; he was considering. When he looked up, he said, “Yes, I have.”
They went down the fire escape that led to the parking lot.
“Where is this place?”
“Grünewald.”
“Shit.” Far west. And Alexanderplatz as far east of the old city as you could get.
The cold was reviving; freezing air dulled the throbbing in his head.
No good to Esther if he didn’t think. His mind narrowed down to a wicked point of light that made some things gleam with clarity and left everything else in blackness.
The snow was thin but beginning to settle. Behind him Busse gave a “Tcha” as he slipped on the steps. All the police cars were out, even the antiriot Kettles. The only vehicle in the lot was a four-seater Mercedes tourer, an SS pennant on one side of its hood, a swastika flag on the other.
The parade, Schmidt thought. They’ve sent everybody to the parade. Good night for killers.
A storm trooper on guard at the back entrance met them at the bottom of the steps, revolver at the ready before he recognized Busse. “Heil Hitler.”
“Heil Hitler.” Busse pushed Schmidt past him.
The storm trooper trotted anxiously behind them. “Sir, sir.”
“What?” Busse was already unclipping the weather cover off the tourer. “You drive,” he told Schmidt.
“I can’t.” There’d never been a need; he’d had police drivers or public transport.
Busse looked at him, surprised. “Oh, very well.” He got into the driv-er’s seat, putting the Luger on his left side where Schmidt couldn’t reach it. Schmidt got into the passenger’s seat.
The storm trooper was still bothered. “Sir, this man, sir. He’s on the list.”
Busse said, “I’m arresting him, Corporal. Go away.”
“Heil Hitler.”
At the gate the guard, not to be caught napping, had the barrier already raised for them and Heiled them through, his arm popping up and out like celery on springs.
Into the alley, turn, into Alexanderplatz, across the lines of a tram coming toward them, and they were speeding down Liebknecht toward the Linden. Hell of a lot of traffic about. One thing about the Nazi pennant—people got out of the way.
They were being halted at the Brandenburg Gate by a barrier and a policeman with a lantern. “Sorry, sir. Heil Hitler. You’ll have to go around. We’re closing it off for the victory parade.”
“Move that thing out of the way,” Busse said. “Führer’s orders.”
They were through. Schmidt settled deeper into the leather seat. “What does this thing do?”
“Hundred and twenty.”
Good. With luck, R.G. wouldn’t have anything as fast as this.
Through the Tiergarten, making good time.
“Left,” he said. “What the fuck are you doing? Turn left.”
“No, Bismarck Allee first. He might still have them there.”
“He won’t. He’ll take them to Grünewald. Go south, go fucking south!”
“Be quiet.”
“He likes to kill in the open,” Schmidt said. “Oh, God, you’re wasting time!” He heard his voice break.
“We’ll see.”
It’s what his bunch would do, Schmidt thought. Kill them in the apartment and explain afterward. But R.G. doesn’t dare explain; he’s got to make them disappear.
Bismarckstrasse. They were turning into Bismarck Allee, very nearly knocking down an old man crossing the avenue. There was a kerfuffle outside number 29 that made him catch his breath, but it was an agitated Frau Schinkel surrounded by neighbors. The policeman who was supposed to have kept an eye on the house was with them. The front door stood open.
Busse pulled up. “What happened?”
Frau Schinkel’s face was framed in Busse’s window. She saw Schmidt. “A man in uniform took them away, Herr Schmidt. In a car. I told him, ‘Fräulein An
derson is not a Jewess.’ I said, ‘Why do you take her?’ but he took them. He took them without their coats.”
“What sort of car?”
The patrolman’s voice said, “It was an Audi. He sat in the back. He made the Jewess drive. He was an officer; I couldn’t do anything.”
“How long ago?”
“What does it matter how long ago?” Schmidt yelled at him, “Get on.” Without their coats they’d die of cold before the bastard could cut their throats.
The image of her body, thin, scarred, infinitely beautiful, came into his mind so strongly that his fingertips felt her skin. “Get on.”
They were driving again. Past the entrance to Charlottenburg Palace, and now they were turning left toward the Grünewald.
He could have taken them north toward Tegel or Reinickendorf, plenty of woodland there. And lakes. They could have gone north. They could have gone east, west.. . .
“You say you haven’t been to this place before?” He had to shout. The force of their speed was making the hood flap loudly where one of the studs hadn’t been done up properly.
“No. It’s SA territory.”
Shit, shit.
No streetlights now and houses becoming infrequent. Less traffic. Busse was driving well—the car’s speedometer needle was trembling on the 90; the flap of the hood turned into drumming.
Good, that’s good, go faster.
Without taking his eyes off the road, Busse reached out for the knob on the neat little radio in the dashboard. Turned it.
“. . . the crowd is immense, threatening to overwhelm the cordons, and the police are trying to push it back, ready for the marchers.”
You had to hand it to them. One day in power and Goebbels had commandeered State Radio to make an outside broadcast of the Nazis’ celebration of victory.