Lehrter Station

Kyritz Wood

Russell left early for his trip out to Wittenau, but the buses and trains proved worse on a Saturday, and it was early afternoon before he reached the French military base. The duty officer examined his passport and found his name on the shortlist in front of him, but still felt the need to seek confirmation from a senior officer. The major who emerged reeked of Gauloises, and gave Russell a long stare before examining his documentation.

Russell kept his temper. If they were seeking an excuse to renege on the promised visit, he wasn’t going to offer them one.

He wondered sourly why the French were even here in Berlin. The Resistance might have covered itself in glory, but the regular army had played no significant part in the Wehrmacht’s defeat. Half the generals had supported Vichy, yet here they were claiming equal shares in the occupation.

The major returned the passport to his subordinate, and walked back into his room without a word to Russell. A few seconds later a lieutenant appeared, and asked Russell to accompany him. They walked down a long line of wooden barracks still bearing Hitlerjugend exhortations, and into a large two-storey brick building. In an upstairs room two upright seats faced each other across an open table. The only item of wall decoration was an unframed photograph of General de Gaulle.

After about five minutes the door swung open and a limping Uwe Kuzorra was ushered in by the same lieutenant.

The detective showed surprise and pleasure when he saw who his visitor was. ‘John Russell,’ he said with a smile, extending his hand.

‘Fifteen minutes,’ the French lieutenant said, and left them to it.

They sat down. Kuzorra looked in poor health, Russell thought, but then so did most Berliners. ‘It’s good to see you,’ he said, ‘but if we have only fifteen minutes we’d better save the small talk for later. I’m here to help, so tell me why you’ve been arrested.’

‘I was denounced as a former member of the SS.’

‘But you were never…’

‘Not in the usual way, no, but the reorganisations under Heydrich did confuse matters.’

‘But there must be colleagues out there who will testify that you were never a Nazi.’

‘There might be. But it wouldn’t help.’

‘Why not? Who denounced you?’

‘A man named Martin Ossietsky.’

‘Why? Has he got a grudge against you?’

Kuzorra shook his head. ‘He was paid to denounce me, and if his accusations prove insufficient then there’ll be others.’

‘Who paid him?’

‘A man I was trying to bring down. His name’s Rudolf Geruschke.’

It was Russell’s turn to be surprised. ‘The owner of the Honey Trap?’

‘Among other things. You’ve met him?’

‘In passing. I can’t say I liked him.’

Kuzorra grimaced. ‘He’s one of the Grosschieber, the black market kingpins. And probably the worst of them — some draw the line at certain traffics, but not him.’

Russell had a mental picture of Geruschke and the American colonel. ‘I’ve got a friend in the French press — according to his sources, it was the Americans who asked for your arrest. Could they be in bed with him?’

Kuzorra considered. ‘It’s a thought. I’d assumed they were being overzealous, but Geruschke might have friends over there. Some Americans have got very rich here, especially in the last few months.’

‘I might have some pull in that direction,’ Russell told him. ‘Maybe not enough, but I can try. What about colleagues? You can’t have been handling the investigation on your own.’

‘It sometimes felt like it. And I don’t imagine any of my colleagues have been eager to pursue matters since my arrest — they know a threat when they see one. I expect the investigation has been abandoned, or put off until “circumstances are more favourable”. And there’s nothing unusual about that — most black market investigations have ended the same way. They’re too damn dangerous. The black marketeers have guns to spare, but the occupation authorities won’t let us carry them.’

‘Okay,’ Russell agreed, ‘but it must be worth finding out whether they’ve given up on Geruschke. Are there any of your colleagues who would talk to me?’ Dallin, he knew, would need more than his and Kuzorra’s protestations of the latter’s innocence to take up the case.

‘Gregor would probably talk to you,’ the detective decided after some thought. ‘Gregor Jentzsch. He still has the makings of a good policeman, despite four years in the East. He works at the station on Mullerstrasse, and

lives a few blocks further down — Gerichtstrasse 44.’

‘I’ll find him. Now what have the French told you? Have they given you a date for a hearing?’

Kuzorra shook his head. ‘They’ve told me nothing.’

‘I’ll ask,’ Russell promised.

‘Good luck. I’m surprised you found someone to tell you I’d been arrested.’

‘One of your neighbours saw them take you away. I came to thank you for what you did in ’41.’

Kuzorra grunted. ‘I was glad you got away. Every now and then I got the chance to stick a spoke in the bastards’ wheels, and nothing gave me more joy. The one great pleasure I have here is knowing that most of my fellow inmates are Nazis.’ He smiled. ‘What are you doing now?’

‘Effi took in a young Jewish girl near the end of the war, and we’ve come back to look for her father. Or find out how he died. And Miriam Rosenfeld — remember her, the girl who disappeared at Silesian Station?’

‘I saw her,’ Kuzorra said unexpectedly. ‘Not long after you escaped — just after the New Year, I think. I was walking down Neue Konigstrasse, and this young woman was walking in the opposite direction. I looked at her photograph often enough when I was questioning people at Silesian Station. I’m sure it was her. She had a baby in a pram.’

‘A baby?’

‘A baby, a small child — I didn’t get a good look. The mother looked happy, I remember that. She hurried on past when she saw me staring at her, which was no great surprise. She wasn’t wearing a star, but of course I knew she was a Jew.’

The French lieutenant reappeared, and indicated that their time was up.

‘I’ll do what I can,’ Russell told the detective.

‘Be careful with Geruschke. I was nowhere near nailing the bastard and he got me locked up — I dread to think what would happen to anyone who really threatened him.’

‘I’ll bear it mind.’

When Russell asked his French escort how long Kuzorra would be held, he got only a Gallic shrug in return. Back at the office, the major had disappeared, and the duty officer might as well have. This particular investigation was not yet complete, he said. If Monsieur Russell wished to testify on the prisoner’s behalf, he should leave his address, and someone would be in touch.

With Kuzorra’s warning still fresh in his mind, Monsieur Russell declined to leave his address. If the detective was right, the only people who could get him released were the people who had got him locked him up — the Americans. Russell would be waiting at Dallin’s door when he arrived on Monday morning.

In the meantime, he had news of Miriam. News that was four years old, but four was better than six. In September 1939 she’d been in terrible shape, and here she was more than two years later with a baby in a pram. And ‘looking happy’. She must have found somewhere safe to live, at least until then. So why not the four years that followed? It still felt unlikely, but less so than it had.

Darkness was beginning to fall by the time he reached Wittenau Station. They were dining at Ali’s again, but he still had time to visit Gregor Jentzsch. After changing trains at Gesundbrunnen, he took the Ringbahn to Wedding and walked the short distance to Gerichtstrasse.

The street seemed more intact than most. The man who answered the door was around thirty, with short blond hair, gold-rimmed glasses and a boyish face. Hearing the name Kuzorra made him wary, but he agreed to give Russell a few minutes. In the living room his equally blonde wife was sitting on the sofa, cradling a blonde baby. Goebbels would have thought himself in heaven.

Jentzsch was clearly fond of Kuzorra, and seemed more than willing to talk, but Russell could tell from his frequent glances at wife and child that the young policeman had no intention of putting his family at risk.

He and other colleagues had been told of Kuzorra’s arrest, and were warned not to involve themselves without specific instructions from the occupation authorities. Their superiors were doing what they could to secure the detective’s release.

‘Kuzorra thinks that Rudolf Geruschke has set him up.’

‘I’m sure he did.’

‘Do your superiors think so?’

‘I don’t know. But we were told to suspend the investigation, at least for the time being.’

‘What about the man who denounced him, Martin Ossietsky?’

‘He works for Geruschke.’

‘At the Honey Trap?’

‘No. He’s in charge of a warehouse out in Spandau. Geruschke brings a lot of goods into the city, and that’s one of his storage depots. There are several others.’

Russell thought for a moment. ‘I could confront Ossietsky. As a journalist, I mean. He might give something away.’

Jentzsch shook his head. ‘He won’t. And you’d be putting yourself in real danger. Geruschke doesn’t like people prying into his business.’

‘What could he do — kill me?’

‘He might.’

‘He didn’t kill Kuzorra, just moved him out of the way.’

‘He’s not a psychopath — he doesn’t go around killing people for the fun of it. But people who oppose him have turned up dead. Always in circumstances where someone else could be blamed, but that’s not hard to arrange, not these days. At least twenty violent deaths are recorded each day across the city, and that’s only in the British, French and American zones. The Soviets don’t keep records of the ones they bury.’

‘So what can I do to help Kuzorra? Do you know anyone in the French administration who would talk to me?’

‘Not really. There’s a major I deal with sometimes. He seems a reasonable man, but I don’t think he works in the right section.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Jean-Pierre Giraud.’

‘Okay. So what have you and your colleagues been doing? Or have you just washed your hands of Kuzorra?’

‘Not quite,’ Jentzsch said with commendable honesty. ‘I keep asking the bosses, just to let them know that we haven’t forgotten him. I think our best hope is that they let him retire.’

‘Which would mean dropping the investigation.’

‘It’s already been dropped.’

‘But would Kuzorra let it lie?’

Jentzsch sighed. ‘Probably not.’

Russell was an hour late arriving at Ali’s, but dinner was still cooking. He was about to tell Effi about Miriam when she announced some news of her own. ‘You know you thought Wilhelm Isendahl was too cocky to survive the war?’

‘Yes.’ When Russell had first met Isendahl in 1939, the blond young Jew had enjoyed dining in restaurants patronised by the SS. He and his gentile wife Freya had helped them rescue Miriam and the other girls from the house on Eisenacher Strasse.

‘Well, Ali’s found him. And he’s here in Berlin.’

‘I don’t believe it. That’s great.’ Isendahl had found four families to shelter the rescued girls, but had, at the time, told no one else who they were. But now he could tell them who had taken Miriam. And if any members of the family had survived, they might know what had happened to her, or even where she was.

‘What about Freya?’ he asked.

‘Someone told me that she was in America when Pearl Harbour was attacked,’ Ali said. ‘She may be back now. I don’t know. Anyway, here’s his address.’

Russell pocketed the piece of paper, thinking he could go there next day. ‘I saw Uwe Kuzorra today,’ he announced. ‘He’s the detective we hired to find Miriam in 1939,’ he explained to Ali and Fritz.

‘The one who helped you escape in 1941,’ Ali added for her husband’s benefit.

‘The same. Anyway, he swears he saw Miriam early in 1942. Recognised her from the photograph I gave him. She was walking down Neue Konigstrasse with a baby in a pram.’

‘A baby,’ Effi echoed. ‘How old was it?’

‘Kuzorra couldn’t tell.’

Effi did a quick calculation. ‘If the child was less than eighteen months old, then the father was someone she met after we rescued her. But if it was older than that…’

‘Then the father was one of those SS bastards who visited the house on Eisenacher Strasse,’ Russell said, completing the unwelcome thought. ‘Kuzorra thought she looked happy,’ he added in mitigation.

‘Motherhood can do that,’ Effi told him. ‘It makes no difference who the father is.’

Sunday morning, Effi and Russell went their separate ways. Annaliese expressed disappointment that Russell wouldn’t be sharing their walk, but he suspected she was being polite, and set out for Friedrichshain with a clear conscience.

Isendahl had lived there in 1939, and Russell found himself wondering whether the man had managed to bluff his way through the entire war without even moving apartments. It seemed unlikely — by the end of the war, few adult males of any race had been able to evade the call of the state — but he wouldn’t have put it past him. As it turned out, this apartment was two streets away from the old one, which he and Effi had visited in 1939. Isendahl lived alone in two large rooms, with a panoramic view across the ruins.

His blond hair was longer than Russell remembered, and the old resemblance to Hitler’s security chief Reinhard Heydrich was less marked. ‘We Victims of Fascism are doing well,’ he told Russell, as he ushered him into the spacious book-lined living room. It had taken Isendahl a few seconds to recognise his visitor, but he seemed genuinely pleased to see him. Wilhelm was still a young man; he’d been a prominent member of the KPD youth wing when Hitler first came to power, so he couldn’t be much more than thirty.

What a way to spend your twenties, Russell thought. But then he’d spent most of his own following Lenin’s illusory star.

Isendahl reclaimed the bottle of beer that stood beside his typewriter, and opened one for his guest. After filling each other in on their respective wars — Isendahl had, in his own words, ‘settled for mere survival’ in 1943, and spent almost two years cooped up in a comrade’s roof-space — Russell asked what his host was doing now. Isendahl was happy to tell him, or at least to keep talking, but his answers were somewhat vague. He was working for a local Jewish group which helped survivors get where they wanted to go. He was also liaising with the Soviet occupation authorities, but in what capacity and on whose behalf was less than clear. When Russell asked after his wife Freya, Isendahl looked uncharacteristically sheepish, and mumbled something about this not seeming the right time to send for her. A further question elicited a reluctant admission that she’d been living in New York with her parents since 1941.

Back in 1939, Isendahl had scorned the notion of a Jewish homeland in Palestine — ‘you don’t fight race hatred by creating states based on race’ Russell remembered him saying — but the six years since had modified his stance. Now he was keen to stress the distinction between right and leftwing Zionists, rather than condemn Zionism per se. Without being asked, he rattled off a long list of different groups, ending, somewhat dramatically, with one called the Nokmim, or Jewish Avengers. These followers of a Lithuanian partisan named Abba Kovner were, as their name suggested, determined on vengeance. They believed that six million Nazi deaths were necessary before the Jewish survivors could learn to live with themselves.

Isendahl smiled at the conceit. His view of the Nokmim seemed a mix of amusement and awe.

Russell had never heard of the group, but he recognised the makings of a story. He asked Isendahl if he was in contact with them.

He wasn’t, but he promised to ask around. He was thinking of becoming a journalist himself — or a writer of some sort — once Europe was put back together.

‘Do you remember Miriam Rosenfeld?’ Russell asked abruptly.

‘The mute one.’

‘Do you know what happened to her?’

‘Not in the end, no.’

‘Did she get better?’

‘Yes, she did. I remember now — she had a baby, and that changed everything. Or so I heard.’

‘Did she stay with the same family?’

‘The Wildens? Yes, but later they were killed in the bombing. Someone told me that Miriam hadn’t been hurt, but I don’t know what happened to her after that — we all got more isolated as the war went on. But I can ask around.’

‘Thanks. I don’t suppose you know any Otto Pappenheims?’ He explained about Rosa, and their search for her father.

‘I do know one Otto Pappenheim. Not well — I only met him once.’

‘When was this? How old would he be now?’

‘I only met him a few weeks ago. I should think he’s about thirty-five.’

‘Did he ever have a wife and daughter?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘How would I find him?’

‘Good question. He’s not in Berlin, anymore. He and a friend of mine went off to Poland last month. They’re on their way to Palestine.’

‘Through Poland?’

‘The road begins there, in Silesia. Do you know about this?’

Russell shook his head. He had assumed that Palestine-bound Jews were following well-beaten paths, but had seen no reports of their actual location.

‘A group called Brichah started organising things in Poland,’ Isendahl explained. ‘Then the Haganah — the army of the Palestinian Jews — did the same at their end, and eventually the two of them met in the middle. There are people right along the route now, in Czechoslovakia and Austria, across the mountains and down through Italy to the ports and the ships. The ships that the British try to intercept and send back.’ He noticed the gleam in Russell’s eyes. ‘Another good story, yes? And I am in contact with these people. I could arrange a meeting if you want. They won’t talk to many Western journalists, but I think they would talk to you.’

‘I’d like that,’ Russell admitted. It did sound like a great story, and he might get news of this third Otto Pappenheim.

Walking in the Grunewald was like walking through the past. Some damage had been done by stray bombs or shells, but nature was rapidly repairing all but the deepest scars, and the smell of the pines reminded Effi of Sunday strolls before the war. It was only when they reached the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Turm, and looked back across the treetops at the lacerated skyline in the distance, that the present again became real.

It was a cold day, and seemed to get colder as Annaliese told her story.

‘When I was picked up by American soldiers I felt really pleased with myself. I’d done it — I’d got away from the Russians. The GIs were pretty free with their suggestions, but the ones I met took no for an answer — I wasn’t raped, and neither were any of the other women I came across during those first few days. I was put on a truck with other refugees and some soldiers they’d found hiding in a village, and we were driven west. We were told that there were camps waiting for us, which sounded a little ominous, but just letting us loose didn’t sound so wonderful either — there had to be some sort of organisation, and we thought that was why they were keeping us together.

Annaliese shook her head. ‘We couldn’t have been more wrong. The camp was called Rheinberg — it can’t have been far from the river — and it was hell on earth. You wouldn’t believe how bad it was. There were thousands of us: mostly men, but families as well, and far too many children. When we got there it was just a huge field surrounded by barbed wire — there were no buildings, no tents, no shelter of any kind. And there was hardly any food. Teething troubles, I thought, but things got worse rather than better. Any food that arrived was rotten, and there was hardly any water. Before too long we were eating grass, and getting sick.’

‘People started digging holes for shelter — the soil was sandy so it wasn’t too hard — but the walls would collapse and those inside were covered in sand, and too weak to fight their way out. Almost everyone had dysentery, and the toilets were just poles strung across pits. People who didn’t have the strength to hold on would fall in and drown.’

‘Did the people higher up know about this?’ Effi asked. ‘Was it just this one camp?’

Annaliese shook her head. ‘I don’t know who knew, but it wasn’t just Rheinberg. I’ve met people since from several other camps, and they all sounded much the same. It was policy — it had to be. How should I say this? The guards didn’t beat people up or torture them with irons — they just killed them with neglect. We found out later that there was enough food and water — but they’d deliberately withheld it. During the weeks the Americans were in charge about a hundred bodies a day were carried out. They stacked them in quicklime outside the fence.

‘There were a few doctors in the camp, and several nurses like me. We did what we could, but it wasn’t much. We were all so weak ourselves. I’m still thinner than I was in the Bunker last spring.’

‘How did you get out?’

‘The camp was in the British zone, and in June the Americans handed it over. The British couldn’t believe what they found, and some of their officers talked to the press, but it was all hushed up. One officer told me that a few dead Germans weren’t worth a big row with the Americans, not with the Russians to worry about.’

‘I expected better of the Americans,’ Effi said.

‘So did I. But most of them seem so angry. When the British arrived they were much more sympathetic — they seem to get it that we weren’t all Nazis. The Americans hate us, or at least a lot of them do. The ones at Rheinberg blamed every last one of us for the war, and all the horrors that were done in our name. And they were quite prepared to let us all die.’

They were both silent for a few moments, listening to the breeze stirring the pines. ‘Why did you come back here?’ Effi eventually asked.

Annaliese smiled. ‘I missed the place. And I felt guilty about leaving Gerd’s parents to fend for themselves. I persuaded the British to let me go — one officer took a bit of a shine to me, I think — and I managed to get on a train. What a journey that was! I’ve never seen anything like it — every place we stopped there were other trains full of people, and huge camps by the side of the tracks, with everyone hungry and begging for food. It felt like the whole world was on the move.

‘It took me four days to get here. I needn’t have worried about Gerd’s parents — their staying was a damn sight more sensible than my going. They were surprised to see me, but pleased, I think. And I got my old job back. I took a trip in to the Elisabeth Hospital, partly to see if it was still there, and hoping to find old friends if it was. And of course they were short-staffed.’

‘But you’re a sister now.’

‘Impressive, isn’t it? The pay’s better too, or would be if the money ever showed up. And if you could buy anything with it. But it’s all so frustrating, Effi. Without medicines, we’re just a half-wrecked hotel with nurses. We know the medicine’s out there, but most of the time we can’t afford it. I ask you, what sort of bastard wants to get rich on the backs of dying children? After all we’ve been through, it’s still pieces of shit like that who are running things. Why don’t the occupation authorities do something about it?’

‘I think you already answered that — because, consciously or not, they want to see us suffer. And because they’re up to their ears in shit themselves.’

Annaliese gave her a look, part surprise, part admiration.

‘We’ve all lost our innocence,’ Effi said. ‘Even the children.’

That evening Russell told Esther what he’d learned from Kuzorra and Isendahl, that Miriam had given birth to a child in either 1940 or 1941, and that both had been alive in early 1942. Esther had listened with her usual composure, made sure that she had understood him correctly, and then sat in thoughtful silence, as if carefully weighing what it did and didn’t mean.

First thing on Monday morning, Russell arrived at the French administrative HQ on Mullerstrasse. Major Giraud proved willing to see him, but, as Jentzsch had feared, knew nothing of Kuzorra or the reasons for his arrest. Thinking he was being helpful, he took Russell upstairs and introduced him to Jacques Laval, the man who’d been so singularly obstructive on his last visit.

Russell refused to be daunted. He told the cold-eyed Frenchman that he’d been to see Uwe Kuzorra at the detention centre in Wittenau, and was pleased to note the momentary look of surprise in the other man’s eyes. ‘I’m writing a story about his arrest,’ he lied glibly, ‘and the treatment he’s receiving at French hands. As far as I can tell, no date has been set for a hearing or trial.’

‘That is quite usual,’ Laval replied. ‘We only have the people to conduct a few cases at a time. Even the Americans have this problem. Your friend will just have to wait his turn. Now…’

Russell noticed the slight sneer in Laval’s voice when he mentioned the Americans. ‘You arrested Kuzorra because the Americans told you to,’ he said coldly. ‘Are you holding onto him out of spite?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Then why? Why hasn’t he been handed over to them?’

‘He will be.’

‘When they snap their fingers, perhaps.’

‘When they make an official request.’

Russell laughed. ‘Monsieur Laval, let me tell you what my story will be. That you are holding a wholly innocent man in custody, with no intention of giving him a fair hearing or trial. And that you’re not doing this in the interests of France, but because the Americans have ordered you to. Is that a fair summary of the situation?’

‘We don’t take orders from the Americans.’

‘Then give me the name of the American who wanted Kuzorra arrested, so I can ask him why the man’s been left to rot out at Camp Cyclop.’

Laval considered, but only for a second. He had, Russell guessed, no qualms about holding an innocent man for as long as expedience dictated, but a public reputation for sucking up to the Americans was not something he wanted to defend at Parisian dinner parties. ‘Colonel Sherman Crosby,’ he said, almost biting out the syllables.

‘Thank you,’ Russell said, and left it at that.

He made the long trip back to Dahlem — he was, he reckoned, covering more miles each day than he had with Patton — and asked for a brief meeting with Dallin. ‘I can give you five minutes,’ he was told on reaching the intelligence chief’s office.

‘I’ve found out who had the French arrest Kuzorra,’ Russell began.

‘Who’s Kuzorra?’

‘My detective friend. We agreed he’d be an asset to any Berlin network.’

‘Did we? So who was it had him arrested?’

‘Colonel Sherman Crosby.’

‘Ah.’

The name had made Dallin sit up, Russell noticed. And the look on his face suggested a rival. Had the Americans decided to imitate the Nazis and Soviets, and create their own perpetual feud between competing intelligence services? He sincerely hoped not. Four years earlier he had almost been crushed between Canaris and Heydrich, and was not keen to repeat the experience.

He suggested that Dallin talk to Crosby. ‘Ask him why him why he wanted Kuzorra arrested. And whether the name Rudolf Geruschke means anything to him. He’s a black marketeer that Kuzorra was investigating, and one of the letters denouncing Kuzorra came from one of his employees.’

‘I can ask,’ Dallin agreed, almost too readily. ‘Come back this evening. Say five ’o’clock.’

It was now almost two. Russell walked round to the Press Club on Argentinischeallee in search of lunch and some news of the local journalists. The former met all expectations, but the latter was harder to come by. In pre-war days Berlin’s foreign press corps had shared watering holes with its German counterpart, but under the occupation there seemed little in the way of mixing. Fortunately for Russell, one of the older American scribes had run into a German colleague, Wilhelm Fritsche, whom they both knew from pre-war days. Fritsche was keeping ‘office’ in one of the re-opened coffee shops at the eastern end of the Ku’damm.

Russell took to the buses again, wondering where he could find a bicycle. According to Thomas, the Russians had stolen most of the city’s supply in the spring, and broken them learning to ride.

He found the coffee shop without too much trouble, and saw Fritsche and another man right at the back. Fritsche had never been a Nazi, but, like any German journalist who wanted to work in the Thirties, had kept his true political opinions to himself.

He was surprised to see Russell. ‘I thought you’d escaped from Berlin.’

‘I had.’ For about the twentieth time since his return, Russell went over his and Effi’s recent history. Fritsche had heard of Effi’s film, and seemed encouraged by the fact that it was being made. So did his younger companion, who introduced himself as Erich Luders. He was also a journalist, and exactly the one that Russell was seeking. Luders, as Fritsche announced with a mentor’s pride, was investigating Berlin’s black marketeers.

Most of the big operators were Germans, the young journalist told Russell, but they all had powerful friends in one or more of the occupation authorities. Rudolf Geruschke was one of the most successful. He used muscle when he had to, but generally preferred a more discreet approach, buying people off rather than burying them. He had businesses in all four sectors, but none of the occupation authorities seemed inclined to interfere with his activities, and neither did the German police.

Russell asked if Luders had heard of Kuzorra.

‘He was an exception, and Geruschke managed to get him arrested. Why? Do you know him?’

‘He’s an old friend,’ Russell admitted. ‘I went to see him on Saturday at the French camp in Wittenau.’ He told Luders what Kuzorra had told him.

‘Off the record?’ Luders asked.

‘On,’ Russell decided. He didn’t think Kuzorra would mind a little publicity. ‘When are you planning to file?’

‘Too soon to say. When I’ve got enough dirt, I guess. Maybe I’ll give Kuzorra a visit myself.’

Russell was reminded of Tyler McKinley, the young American journalist killed by the Gestapo in 1939 for digging up dirt on their political masters. Seeing the eagerness in Luders’ eyes, he worried for the young man. Things had changed since 1939, but not that much.

Delayed by another disabled tram on the way back to Dahlem, he had time to reflect on the paucity of his own journalistic output — personal matters, an all-too-active espionage career and Berlin’s convalescent public transport were taking up every hour he had. He needed to get something written, but when? He had to complete the interviews for Shchepkin, and he couldn’t just abandon Kuzorra. But then maybe Dallin would have something for him.

When he reached the American’s office he found him about to leave, bound for some formal function in what looked like a borrowed monkey suit. ‘I talked to Crosby,’ Dallin said, hustling Russell towards the stairs. ‘He says they asked the French to pick up Kuzorra after several people denounced him. And that the only reason he hasn’t been interviewed is the backlog of cases they’re having to deal with.’

‘Did you tell him that at least one of the denouncers was an employee of the man Kuzorra was investigating?’

‘I did. He said he’d look into it. When I asked him what he knew about Geruschke, he said he knew the man was a black marketeer, but that Berlin was full of them. Which sounds fair enough. And apparently this one has a habit of helping Jews.’

Russell was sceptical. ‘Do you trust him? Crosby, I mean.’

They had reached the main entrance. ‘No,’ Dallin said eventually, ‘but there’s nothing more I can do. Your friend will have to wait his turn.’

‘That’s not good,’ Russell said, following him out.

‘That’s the way it is.’ Dallin stopped and raised both hands to close the subject. ‘And we have something else to talk about,’ he added, lowering his voice. ‘I have a job for you. There’s a man in the Soviet sector who we need to bring out. Theodor Schreier.’

‘Why can’t he just take a bus?’ was the first question that came to mind.

‘Because he’s being watched by the Russians. And if he tries to come over they’ll probably arrest him, and ship him off to Moscow.’

‘Who is he? What does he do?’

‘He’s a research chemist — something to do with polymers, whatever they are. They’re important apparently, and this man was the best in his field. He worked for I.G. Farben.’

‘So why haven’t they whisked him off already?’

‘We don’t know, which is one good reason for haste. What I need from you — from your man Shchepkin, that is — is whatever he knows about the surveillance operation. We’re going to bring Schreier out, but we’d rather not do it in a hail of bullets.’

‘That’s all you want from me?’

‘We’ll also need you for the actual extraction.’

It sounded like a trip to the dentist’s, and might prove a lot more painful — the ‘hail of bullets’ reference was hardly encouraging. But Dallin was looking steadily at him — this was a test, Russell realised, and one that he had to pass. ‘I’m not seeing Shchepkin until Friday,’ he said, ‘and ‘I’ve no way of contacting him before then.’

‘When on Friday?’

‘In the morning.’

‘That’s okay. We’re looking to bring Schreier out on Saturday evening.’

‘What if Shchepkin doesn’t know anything?’

‘Then you’ll have to wing it.’

Russell smiled. ‘Say I succeed — will you have another go at Crosby for me?’

‘If we succeed,’ Dallin said slowly, ‘then I’ll be able to argue the case for taking on more locals, whatever their crimes in the past.’

‘Sounds fair,’ Russell said. It wasn’t much, but it was the best he was likely to get.

As he reached home, Effi was seeing off a smiling British sergeant. ‘And what have you been doing in my absence?’ he asked her.

‘Entertaining the British Army,’ she told him, leading the way back in. ‘He brought a letter from Rosa and Zarah,’ she said happily over her shoulder, ‘and I had to give him something in return.’

‘A biscuit, I hope.’

‘Twenty cigarettes, actually.’

‘What’s in the letter?’

‘You can read it,’ she said, passing it over.

Zarah’s handwriting was almost florid, Rosa’s small and fastidious. The latter stressed how hard she was working at school, described London’s recent weather in enormous detail, and listed the meals that Zarah had taught her to cook. A long line of kisses was addressed to them both. Zarah reported that Rosa had cried for two nights following their departure, but seemed much better since, and was still doing well at school. A letter from Berlin would help, she added pointedly. Lothar had come down with a cold, but seemed to be on the mend, and Paul had taken Marisa to the theatre. He was, Zarah thought, very much in love. And he was also taking his ‘man of the house’ responsibilities seriously, constantly asking if there was anything he could do to help.

‘She says nothing about herself,’ Russell noted.

‘I know. It reminded me that I’ve done nothing about Jens.’

Russell grunted his agreement. It all seemed so wonderfully ordinary in London. He wondered if Paul would ever come back to Berlin, because he doubted the Soviets would ever let him leave. He sighed and put the letters put back in their envelope. ‘How was your day?’ he asked Effi.

‘It was good,’ she said, picking up the envelope and holding it across her chest. Hearing from London had clearly made her day. ‘We had another rehearsal this morning, and filming starts next week — Dufring has been cleared by the Americans.’

‘Fantastic.’

‘Isn’t it, especially after last week, when everything seemed against us. Oh, and this afternoon I visited the two synagogues Ellen told me were open. No sign of Miriam, and no more Ottos.’

‘Shanghai Otto and Palestine Otto are probably enough to be getting on with.’

‘Oh, we can’t have too many Ottos.’

‘Maybe not.’

‘And the English Tommy turned up just after I got here. He was a nice boy. What about you?’

Russell detailed his failure to advance Kuzorra’s cause, and the task which Dallin had dumped in his lap. He was well on the way to dampening Effi’s high spirits when Thomas arrived home, triumphantly bearing a radio. They spent most of the evening listening to the BBC, enjoying the music and reminding themselves of all those nights they’d broken Hitler’s law, with one ear tuned to London, the other cocked for sounds outside. But these days the Gestapo was just a bad memory, and the men in long leather coats wouldn’t be coming to drag them away.

Next morning, Russell was in Thomas’s study trying to get something written when the telephone rang. Out of service for the last two days, the line had apparently been repaired.

It was Miguel Robier. ‘John, I’ve got some bad news. Your friend Kuzorra is dead. He was killed last night.’

‘What?’ Russell said stupidly. ‘Who by?’

‘By another prisoner, or at least that’s what they’re saying. I got the news from my friend at Mullerstrasse, the one who told us where Kuzorra was being held. I’m going up there now — there’s something wrong here, I can smell it. Do you want to come with me?’

Russell was still in shock. ‘Yes,’ he said eventually. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘How long will it take you to reach Stettin Station?’

‘An hour,’ he said optimistically.

‘I’ll be waiting.’

Russell fumbled the earpiece back onto its hook, and stood staring at the floor. The man he owed his life to was dead. And he was terribly afraid that he himself had been the cause.

For once the buses cooperated. Robier was waiting on the concourse of the half-ruined station, a newspaper under his arm. ‘Ah, bien,’ he said. ‘There’s a train in a few minutes.’

Soon they were rattling out past the yards, where the remnants of shattered wagons and coaches had been raised into piles, looking like anthills on an African plain.

‘I’m glad I’m with you,’ Russell told Robier. ‘If I turned up on my own they’d just tell me to get lost.’

Robier warned him not to be too optimistic. ‘The people at Mullerstrasse are politicians — they like having friends in the press. The Army couldn’t care less.’

In the event, the authorities at Camp Cyclop seemed eager to display a reasonable front. The major seemed inclined to ignore Russell’s existence, but answered Robier’s questions readily enough. Kuzorra had been found dead in his room that morning — someone had cut the detective’s throat while he slept.

It would have been mercifully quick, Russell thought — a few split seconds of consciousness at most.

The perpetrator was not known, and, if the major’s demeanour was any guide, never would be. They were interrogating other inmates, of course, but there were no fingerprints on the razor blade.

When Russell asked to see the body the major seemed set to refuse, but nodded his acquiescence when Robier demanded the same. They were taken to what looked like an empty storeroom. Kuzorra’s body was laid out on a table, still dressed in his underwear, still wearing an apron of congealed blood. His eyes, still open, looked surprisingly at peace.

Russell suspected that much of Kuzorra’s will to live had died along with his wife Katrin, back in the early years of the war. His own death would probably have worried the old detective less than the fear that Geruschke might profit from it.

He won’t, Russell silently promised the corpse. He didn’t suppose he would ever connect the nightclub owner to this particular murder, but there had to be some way of bringing the bastard down.

He and Robier thanked the still nervous major and talked things over on the Wittenau platform. The Frenchman said he’d try and dig a little deeper into the circumstances surrounding the original arrest, but warned Russell not to expect too much. ‘I know what the line will be — Kuzorra was about to be handed over when he fell victim to some deranged fellow prisoner. Who could we find to prove otherwise?’

Robier got off at Wedding, leaving Russell to travel the last lap alone. As he walked across the Stettin Station concourse he noticed two British military policemen — ‘Red Caps’ they were called — striding towards him.

‘John Russell?’ the shorter of the two asked him.

‘Yes.’

‘Come this way please?’ the man said, shepherding Russell with one arm towards a nearby archway. The other man was at his other shoulder, funnelling him towards the same objective.

Russell went where he was told. ‘What’s this about?’

They were through the archway now, in a part of the station that Russell remembered had once been used by taxis. Now it was empty, save for two men in civilian clothes and a scruffy-looking two-seater Mercedes with its trunk wide open.

‘He’s all yours,’ the shorter MP told the two men, one of whom, almost casually, slid a revolver out of his pocket.

Russell realised why the car’s trunk was open.

‘In’ the man said in English, confirming his guess. The MPs had vanished.

‘No,’ Russell said, playing for time. He could hear other people close by — surely someone else would come through the archway. Or were the MPs making sure that they didn’t?

The man brought the muzzle level with Russell’s head and seemed inclined to pull the trigger. One blast of a locomotive whistle would certainly drown out the noise.

‘All right,’ Russell agreed. The man smiled, and gestured him into the trunk. He was about thirty, Russell guessed, with a long scar on the back of his gun hand and what looked like ancient burns down one side of his face. A veteran of something nasty.

Russell took his time getting into the trunk, and was still arranging his body to fit the space when the lid slammed down, plunging him into darkness. A few more seconds and the car lurched into motion, running straight for a while and then taking what seemed a right turn, presumably onto Gartenstrasse. Maybe they’d be stopped at a military checkpoint, Russell thought — there were few enough cars on the road. If so, he’d make a racket that no one could ignore.

‘Johann’s buried there,’ Scarred Man said as they took another turn. They must be on the street which bisected Wedding cemetery.

‘He was an unlucky bastard,’ the other man said. It was the first Russell had heard his voice, which sounded unusually shrill.

He had no trouble hearing their conversation — the trunk’s inner wall was much thinner than the outer. He wondered if they realised he could hear them, and whether they would care.

They’d been silent for several minutes when Shrill Voice came out with a question: ‘When are you going to do it — when we get to the factory?’

Scarred Man’s laugh was derisive. ‘We’d have to carry the body, wouldn’t we? I’ll wait until Kyritz Wood.’

‘I see what you mean.’

So did Russell, who suddenly felt cold all over. And his bowels were feeling loose — it was Ypres all over again.

They were going to kill him. Why? It had to be Rudolf Geruschke, but why? All he’d done was take an interest in an old friend. He hadn’t even kicked up a real fuss. Not yet anyway, and certainly not with Geruschke. So why?

And then he realised. He had turned up at the man’s nightclub. He hadn’t even heard of Geruschke until that evening, let alone known of his connection with Kuzorra. But Geruschke didn’t know that. And someone — Irma most likely — must have told him that Russell was a journalist.

Even so.

How had they known where to find him? Had someone at Camp Cyclop put in a call, and told them he was heading back into town?

But what the hell did that matter? They had found him, and now they were going to kill him. In Kyritz Wood, wherever the hell that was. But first they would stop at a factory. He might get a chance there. If they ever let him out of the trunk.

He had a sudden memory of the Saint in similar circumstances. The Saint in New York was the book, one of Paul’s childhood favourites. Two of Dutch Kuhlmann’s hoodlums had driven the Saint to a wood in New Jersey — it was amazing how much he remembered of the story. The Saint got away of course, but only because the love interest showed up in the nick of time to distract his would-be killers.

That wouldn’t happen this time. No one else knew where was. No one except Geruschke.

How far had they gone? He couldn’t see his watch, but reckoned they’d been driving about twenty-five minutes. They were still in the city.

He’d been dicing with disaster for six years now, but the thought of surviving the best that Hitler and Stalin could throw at him, and then falling victim to some jumped-up profiteer, was more than a little galling.

And they would bury him in the wood, he realised. From Effi’s point of view, he would simply have vanished. She might guess who was responsible for his disappearance, but she could never be sure, of either his death or his probable killer. At the very least, he had to find some way of reporting his own demise. A message of some sort.

Searching his pockets he realised how much of a rush he’d left in that morning. His pen was still on Thomas’s desk. Some reporter.

His abductors were conversing again. He could hardly credit it — they were not only talking football, but both seemed to be fellow-Hertha supporters.

The car made another turn, and was suddenly bumping over less even ground. Had they reached the factory?

He told himself he had to be ready, to take a chance if it came, to make himself one if none did. Easy words. The phrase ‘hanging by a thread’ had never carried more weight. He needed some sort of plan, but his mind was a raging blank.

The car stopped, bouncing a little as the two men got out. The lid of the trunk lifted up, revealing a row of far-away skylights. ‘Raus,’ the gunman said. ‘Out,’ he added in translation, looking pleased with himself.

They had no idea he spoke German, Russell realised — they’d been ordered to kill an American, and had made the assumption that he only spoke English. Was there any way of using the mistake against them? He couldn’t think of one.

Back on his feet, he felt more than a little unsteady. If he tried to run he’d only get about two metres. Not that there was anywhere to run to. Shrill Voice was sliding shut the door they’d come through, and there was no other obvious exit.

The car had drawn up in one of four loading docks, and a lorry with US Army markings occupied another. Crates and other containers were stacked along the side walls of the platform, and a long, glassed-in office space lined the back.

Scarred Man gestured him towards the open rear of the lorry.

‘I need a piss before we go,’ Shrill Voice told his partner.

‘Okay.’

Shrill Voice was halfway to the office when a telephone started to ring. ‘Should I answer it?’ he shouted back.

Scarface grimaced. ‘I suppose so.’

Russell could hear the high-pitched voice from thirty metres away, but not what was being said. Was this the moment to throw himself at the other man? If the bastard had any reflexes at all, he would empty the gun before Russell reached him, but would there be a better chance?

There might.

There might not.

And Shrill Voice was on his way back. ‘Change of plan,’ he told his partner, three short words that almost caused Russell’s heart to explode. ‘We’ve got to take him back to town.’

‘And do what with him?’

‘Let him go.’

‘What! Why for fuck’s sake? That’s another hour’s driving. We won’t get back from Rostock until God knows when.’

‘He didn’t give me his reasons,’ Shrill Voice said sarcastically.

‘Why didn’t you say we’d already killed him?’

‘I didn’t think of it.’

Scarred Man looked angrily at Russell. ‘Well, it’s too late now.’ He waved the gun towards the Mercedes. ‘I thought the fucking phone was out of order,’ he added, apparently to himself.

‘What’s happening?’ Russell asked in English, as if he had no idea.

Scarred Man lifted his gun, and for a second Russell thought he might use it. But the man just shook his head. ‘You one lucky bozo,’ he said in English, a quote no doubt from a Hollywood movie.

Russell climbed back into the trunk, trying to look bemused. Once the lid was down it was all he could do not to cry out with joy. He felt almost hysterical. If the phone had rung ten minutes later — or if some sweetheart of a Telefunken engineer hadn’t got their line working — he’d been halfway to Kyritz Wood. Some day he’d have to drive out there. The place he hadn’t been shot and buried.

He couldn’t remember a nicer trip in a trunk.

The return journey seemed shorter, but that didn’t surprise him. When the car eventually stopped, there was a long wait before the trunk was opened. Clambering out, he discovered why — they were parked at the side of the Chaussee, in the middle of the Tiergarten. His abductors had been waiting for an empty road.

He thought he should say something, but couldn’t think what, so he just started walking. He heard the slam of the door, and the purr of the motor as the Mercedes pulled away. He felt like falling to his knees and kissing the bare earth, but wasn’t sure how he’d ever get back to his feet.