The Lady from Zagreb

Twelve

The deputy prison governor was an ex-cop from the Alex named Ernst Kracauer. He’d been a lawyer and then a Schupo commissar for twenty years, and although he was a die-hard Nazi, he had the reputation of being hard but fair, if such a thing is possible in a place like that. I went to see him in his office and waited alone for him to return from one of his many duties. A rolltop was up against the yellow wall and a partners desk by the window; on this was an oak and brass inkwell set that looked more like a Habsburg coffin, and hanging on the wall, a Tiergarten scene of a Wilhelmine family by a bandstand; in my mind’s eye they were probably listening to “The Song of Krumme Lanke.” The dusty office window was as big as a church triptych but the room still needed the piano desk lamp to see through the gloom. Outside, some prisoners were tending a large vegetable patch, which boasted a scarecrow but that might have been another prisoner.

When Kracauer returned I greeted him affably, but he said nothing; instead he removed his pince-nez, fetched a bottle from a cupboard in the rolltop, poured two glasses of brandy and handed me one, silently. The jacket of his gray suit looked more like the curtain in front of a crime scene than anything a tailor might have made. He was overweight and clearly under pressure but not as much as the mahogany chair behind the partners desk that creaked ominously when he sat down.

“I need this,” he said, and tossed the brandy down his throat like it was a fruit cordial.

“I can tell.”

“Part of my duties here are to attend executions. Right now that’s one every day. Sometimes more. You’d think I’d be used to it by now. But I don’t think one can ever get used to it.”

“Siegfried Gohl.”

“My nerves are as tight as the strings on a zither. What the hell is a Christadelphian, anyway?”

“Brothers in Christ, I imagine. I think they don’t believe in the immortality of the soul.” I sipped the brandy. It tasted better than my breakfast.

“Then in that respect they’re just like the Nazis.” He shook his head. “I mean if the Nazis believed in the immortality of a soul — in a heaven and in a hell — then—” He shrugged.

“They couldn’t do what they do,” I offered.

“Yes.” He poured another for himself as if the idea of meeting his maker was troubling him.

We talked old times for several minutes and he even managed a smile when he told me that for obvious reasons the prisoners called him “the Pole,” but I wasn’t fooled; clearly the man had learned to hate his job.

“You see that telephone,” he said, pointing to one of two telephones that stood on his desk. “It’s connected to Franz Schlegelberger’s office.”

Schlegelberger was the latest Reich Minister of Justice.

“He’s going to retire soon, I believe. Otto Thierack is to be the new minister. Not that Schlegelberger’s been in the job for very long. Anyway, that telephone is supposed to ring if a death sentence is ever commuted to life imprisonment. But in all the years I’ve been here it’s rung just once, and that was someone who thought this was the Schwarzer Adler Hotel.” He laughed. “Christ, I wish it was.”

“You’re not alone in that wish, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“What can I do for you, Bernie?”

“I was just visiting one of your prisoners. Friedrich Minoux.”

“The Gas Company fraudster. I know. I’m supposed to write your name down in the log of people who’ve been to see him.” He opened a file. “This log, here.”

“Minoux is not doing so well.”

“Better than his partners. Max Kessler and Hans Tiemessen are both doing a five stretch in Luckau, and from what I hear, they’re having a tough time.”

“He’s sixty-five years old, Ernst. I’m not sure I could do five years in this place.”

“There’s nothing I can do, Bernie. I can’t make his time any easier. A lot of people on the outside are watching to make sure he doesn’t get any special treatment because of his wife’s wealth. Perhaps, when the attention on him dies down a bit, I’ll see what I can do, but until then, my hands are tied.”

“Thanks, Ernst.” I shrugged. “One more thing. When I saw him just now, he seemed nervous about something. Scared, even.”

“Scared?”

“Is he being bullied, do you think?”

Kracauer shook his head. “Discipline in this place is good. If he was being bullied, believe me I’d know about it. The punishment for that kind of thing is harsh, to say the least.”

“What about pressure from the outside? Has he had any visitors — apart from his driver, Gantner, the one who brings him his breakfast every day? Someone who might have threatened him, perhaps?”

“Is this official?”

“No.”

“Then you know I’m not allowed to tell you. But I tell you what. I won’t write your name down in this file. How’s that?”

“Thanks, Ernst. I appreciate it.” I smiled. “How are the wife and kids?”

“Fine. Fine. My eldest has just joined the Luftwaffe.”

“You must be very proud of him.”

“I am. Look, would you excuse me for just a minute? I have to use the men’s room. Help yourself to another drink if you want it.” He pointed vaguely at the bottle on the desk. It was beside Friedrich Minoux’s still-open file.

“Thanks,” I said. “I think I will.”

I waited until he was out of the room and poured myself another brandy and, while I was doing so, I took a look at Minoux’s file, as Kracauer had meant me to, of course. There wasn’t time to do much more than check the visitor’s log. The previous morning, Minoux had received two visitors: Gantner, bringing him his breakfast, and then Captain Horst Janssen, of the RSHA.

I sat down and lit a cigarette, and a few minutes later, Ernst Kracauer returned.

“Well, I must get on,” he said, rubbing his hands. “I trust your visit here has been satisfactory?”

“Yes, Ernst. Thanks. And look after yourself.”

With much to think about, I drove slowly back to Berlin and the offices of the RSHA’s Foreign Intelligence section, on Berkaerstrasse. Janssen, who was probably already a mass murderer, worked for Schellenberg, who was a director of Stiftung Nordhav. Had Janssen put the Schreck on Minoux? It seemed highly likely. Not only that, but hadn’t I dropped him off at the military court in Charlottenburg the very same day? There was that to consider, too. Witzlebenstrasse was a fifteen-minute walk from Heckholz’s office on Bedeuten Strasse. He could have given evidence in a trial and then murdered Heckholz on his way home for the day. All in a day’s work for a man like Janssen. I certainly liked him better for Heckholz’s murder than my only other suspect, who was Lieutenant Leuthard. I liked Janssen better for it because, in spite of himself, I liked Leuthard. Any man who could fall asleep during an opera was all right by me. Besides, if you’ve just killed a man in cold blood it’s not easy to take a nap, even at the German Opera House. It spoke of a clear conscience. By contrast it was all too easy to see Captain Janssen murdering Dr. Heckholz on Schellenberg’s orders. I knew a bit about doing someone else’s dirty work myself. I’d done my fair share of it for Heydrich and Nebe.

I walked the keys into the office and met Janssen coming down the stairs.

“You finished taking those two Swiss around Berlin with my car?” he said.

“Finished.”

“What did you do with them anyway?”

“Took them to the German Opera.”

“The opera? That’s nice.”

“It might have been but there was a murder around the corner on Bedeuten Strasse and the police sirens got in the way of the music. At least I think it did. I’m never too sure with modern opera. Some lawyer got his head bashed in with a length of lead pipe. I mean, for real. This wasn’t in the opera.”

I was never much of a card player but I can bluff a bit, and I can tell when, just for a second, a man checks his mouth.

“Is that so?” Janssen frowned. “Only, the way I heard the splash this morning, the killer used a bust of Hitler to smash the man’s head in. Kind of funny when you think about it. Killed by Hitler like that. And the victim wasn’t even a Jew.”

“Hilarious, when you put it like that.” I smiled.

“Are you the investigating officer?”

“No. As it happens I’m leaving Kripo and the RSHA. I have a new job. I’m joining the War Crimes Bureau next week.”

“You surprise me. I didn’t know there was such a thing.”

“You mean such a thing as a war crime? Or a bureau that investigates them?”

“Both.”

“I’ve a feeling it’s going to be more important than you think.” I smiled patiently. “Anyway, thanks for the car.”

“Can I give you a lift somewhere?”

“No, I’ll walk. Around this time of day I generally need some air. Especially when I’m in uniform.”

“It is rather warm today,” he said.

I walked back to Grunewald Station. I told myself that I’d gone as far as I could with my inquiries without ending up like Friedrich Minoux or even Dr. Heckholz, and I felt an enormous sense of relief that I could just walk away from it all. What did I care who was profiting from Stiftung Nordhav? Or Export Drives GMBH? It certainly wasn’t any of my business. I wouldn’t have minded a little taste of some real money myself. And as it happened there was even less chance of State Secretary Wilhelm Stuckart at the Ministry of the Interior listening to their evidence of malfeasance and wrongdoing than even I had imagined. For I had since discovered Stuckart was also an honorary general in the SS.

Like so much of what happened with the Nazis, the whole thing was best left well alone. Life was already too short to go sticking my nose into the affairs of people like Walter Schellenberg and Werner Best. With any luck, no one would know that I’d ever been involved. All that mattered now was that I was away from the Alex and out of the RSHA and working for men to whom honor wasn’t just a word on a ceremonial belt. It wasn’t like the Murder Commission — at least not the one that used to exist when Bernhard Weiss was in charge of Kripo; and I didn’t honestly think that any of the cases I might be asked to handle would matter for very much in Justitia’s scales, but it would do for now.