Silesian Station

Leafleteers

The Berlin train proved slower than advertised, spending several long interludes becalmed in the Saxon countryside. A harassed inspector explained that military transports had priority during the summer manoeuvres, and suggested that anyone with a complaint should address it to the General Staff. After that, the rumblings of discontent subsided to a mere murmur.

The train arrived at Anhalter Station soon after seven. The Berlin weather had turned in Russell's absence: the pavements were wet from a recent shower and a grey pall of cloud hung over the city. The taxi rank on Koniggratzer Strasse was bare, so he walked the kilometre and a half to Neuenburger Strasse.

Frau Heidegger had company - another portierfrau from down the street - which were something of a relief. She welcomed him home, passed him his only message, and walked somewhat unsteadily back to the half-empty bottle of schnapps they were sharing. Standing by the only available window in the downstairs hallway, Russell struggled to decipher her scrawl. 'Frau Grostein has found your missing person,' it read. 'If you call in during the day a meeting can be arranged.' He should have asked when the message arrived, he realized, but decided not to risk a second encounter.

There was no message from Kuzorra, which disappointed him. He had hoped the sighting at Silesian Station was a breakthrough, that Kuzorra would have more news for him by this time. Maybe he had, and was just waiting for a visit.

There was nothing from the SD either, no neatly-compiled dossier of lies for him to pass on to the Soviets. They were probably having trouble sorting fiction from truth.

He walked down to the telephone, picked the earpiece and dialled Effi's number.

'Hello,' the familiar voice answered.

'It's me.'

'Hello you. Where are you?'

'At Neuenburger Strasse. I just got here.'

'How was Prague?'

'Interesting. How are things?'

'Fine, but I'm really tired, John. I was on my way to bed when the telephone rang.'

'Oh.'

'I'm sorry, but you wouldn't enjoy me this evening. I've been grumpy all day. These five o'clock starts are killing me.'

'Tomorrow, then.'

'Of course. But come as early as you can. We're shooting on Saturday as well. We're so behind. The producer's pulling out large clumps of his hair, and he can't afford to lose any.'

'Okay. I love you.'

'You too.'

Russell took the suitcase up to his rooms and dumped it on the bed. The apartment matched his mood, which didn't bode well for an evening in. It was only ten to nine - the Adlon Bar would still be busy.

The blanket of cloud was hastening the light's departure. The Hanomag started first go, and he drove it down to Belle Alliance, intent on heading up Wilhelmstrasse. Reaching the circle he changed his mind, and followed the gently snaking Landwehrkanal to Lutzow-Platz before cutting north across the western end of the Tiergarten. The address Sarah Grostein had given him was an elegant three-storey building on Altonaer Strasse, between the elevated Stadtbahn and the bridge over the Spree. He parked a few doors down and walked up towards it. Light showed around the drawn curtains of two windows on the first floor, but the ground floor was dark. He dropped the lion-headed knocker against its base a couple of times, but there was no response from inside. He thought about knocking louder, but his instincts told him it was bad idea.

He walked back to the car. Looking up as he opened the door he saw the curtains twitch open, revealing a silhouetted head and shoulders. It looked like the SS officer he had seen outside the Universum, but he couldn't be sure.

Call in during the day, the message had said. He had assumed she'd meant the day of the message, but he had been wrong.

The curtain closed again, and Russell waited a few moments before driving off. He had parked between streetlights, and didn't think he'd been seen, but he didn't want to advertise his presence by starting the engine. Let them get back to whatever it was they were doing.

In motion once more, he followed the Spree to Sommer Strasse, cut past the Brandenburg Gate into Pariser Platz, and pulled up in front of the Adlon. There were hardly any cars on Unter den Linden - in fact the traffic had been light all evening. Commandeered by the army, he supposed, and now axle-deep in Silesian mud. 'But not you' he told the Hanomag, tapping its steering-wheel.

The Adlon Bar was not exactly hopping - a party of lugubrious-looking Swedish businessmen, a mixed group of SS and Kriegsmarine officers, a spattering of lone foreigners staring into their glasses and pining for the days when a night in Berlin spelled entertainment. And in the corner, playing rummy, Dick Normanton and Jack Slaney.

Their steins were full, so Russell took them a couple of chasers. 'Who's winning?' he asked, just as Normanton went down with a triumphant flourish.

'The bloody English are winning,' Slaney complained, writing it down on the score sheet. 'That's two marks and forty pfennigs,' he said.

'Last of the big-time gamblers,' Russell murmured. 'Can I join in?'

'You'll need twenty pfennigs,' Normanton told him, shuffling the cards.

'So, what's new?' Russell asked. 'I only just got back from Prague,' he added in explanation.

'How are the Czechs doing?' Slaney asked.

'As well as can be expected.'

'There's more trouble in Danzig,' Normanton said, dealing out the cards. 'The Poles won't let the Danzig Germans sell their herrings and margarine in Poland until the Danzig Germans accept their new customs officers. So the Danzig Germans are muttering darkly about opening their frontier with East Prussia and selling the stuff there.'

'Are the East Prussians short of herrings and margarine?' Russell asked.

Normanton laughed. 'Who knows?'

'Who cares?' Slaney added, arranging his cards.

'So we're waiting to see who backs down?' Russell asked.

'That's about it. But I can't see Hitler going to war over herring and margarine. It's not exactly a rallying cry, is it?'

'The important stuff 's happening in Moscow,' Slaney said. 'Molotov met the German Ambassador this morning, and was a damn sight more affable with him than he was with the French and British ambassadors yesterday.'

'Any hard information on what they discussed?' Russell asked.

'None. Lots of rumours though: the Germans are willing to give the Soviets a free hand in the Baltic states, they'll share Poland with the Soviets if the Poles make the mistake of starting a war. According to our man in Moscow, the German Ambassador had the nerve to tell Molotov that the anti-Comintern Pact isn't aimed at the Soviets.'

'Then who the hell is it aimed at?'

'That's what Molotov asked. The Ambassador told him there was no point in dwelling on the past. One of the Soviets leaked this to our guy because he couldn't believe his ears, and wanted a second opinion.'

'No government statement here?'

'Not a word. They're playing this close to their chests.'

'Sounds serious.'

Slaney grunted. 'The British and French don't seem to think so. Their delegation left for Moscow yesterday. Guess how they're getting there?'

'They can't have gone by train?'

'Worse. They've taken a boat, and the slowest one they could find. Some obsolete warship with a top speed of twelve knots. They should be in Moscow by the middle of the month.'

'It would be quicker to walk,' Russell observed.

'Jim Danvers came up with a good line,' Normanton said. 'He said the British and French had missed the boat by catching it.'

'Not bad at all,' Slaney agreed. 'Remind me to steal it.'

Two hours later and several marks poorer, Russell drove back through the wet and empty streets to Neuenburger Strasse. Would Hitler and Stalin really do a deal, he wondered? Both would have a mountain of words to eat, but the advantages were obvious. A free hand for Hitler, time for Stalin. Poland kaput.

The only message by the unhooked telephone was for Dagmar, the blonde waitress on the third floor. 'Siggi is desperate,' Frau Heidegger had written. 'He must see you tomorrow.' Dagmar was obviously not at home, and probably sleeping with Klaus. He would get an update from Frau Heidegger in the morning.

The stairs seemed endless. It was less than twenty-four hours since the sand dryer, but it seemed a lot longer. After taking off his jacket he extracted the slip of paper with Hornak's suggested contact details from his wallet. How long before they were safe to use, he wondered, now that the local Gestapo had come calling?

Friday morning was grey as Berlin stone, and the giant swastikas on Wilhelmstrasse hung limp in the humid air. In the Kranzler Cafe the waiters seemed more interested in arguing with each other than in serving their customers, and Russell's coffee was lukewarm. The newspapers lauded the imprisonment of a Wittenberge worker for laziness, but conspicuously failed to mention either Danzig or Soviet-German relations.

Time to earn your living, Russell told himself. The Bristol Hotel had a convenient bank of public telephones, and while the booths lacked the luxurious fittings of those in the Adlon, they were much less frequented by his fellow journalists. He settled down on a cushioned seat to make his calls.

Over his years in Berlin, Russell had met a lot of influential people in government, arts and the media. Most leaned to the left politically, and many had lost their jobs when the Nazis came to power; some had even left the country. But a surprising number were still in the same positions, keeping their heads down and waiting for the whole shocking business to blow over. Self-preservation was an obvious priority, and precluded open criticism, but briefings off the record were another matter. The urge to stick spokes in the Nazi wheel was surprisingly widespread.

Sometimes, though, there was no dirt to dish. After speaking to a dozen people, Russell was no nearer to knowing how likely a Nazi-Soviet agreement might be. Some of his contacts had laughed at the idea, others had thought it possible, but only one man - an economist who worked for the Trade Ministry - had anything definite to tell him. A trade agreement between the two countries was a racing certainty, the man said, but there was no guarantee that a political deal would follow.

He dropped in on the Adlon Bar to make sure no official briefings were imminent, and checked his wire service. A three word message had arrived the previous night from San Francisco: 'How about Silesia?'

'How about it?' Russell muttered to himself, but he saw his editor's point. As far as the international community was concerned, Danzig looked like a soluble problem. The Poles might not like it, but Danzig was, in the last resort, a German city. A bilateral deal that included its peaceful absorption into the Reich would not involve the Poles in giving up any of their own territory.

Upper Silesia was a different matter. Poland had been reformed in 1918 from the debris of the German, Austrian and Russian Empires, and any reversal of that process could only be seen as a national death-knell. If Hitler went for Upper Silesia - or for any of the other so-called 'lost territories' - his intent would be crystal-clear. So what was happening down there? Was the border between the two Silesias as tense as Poland's border with Danzig? It would be worth a trip to find out.

Russell went back to the Hanomag, collected the The Good Soldier Schweik from under the seat, and walked round the southern side of Pariser Platz to the new American Embassy. As usual, a long line of anxious-looking Jews stretched around the corner from the front entrance on Herman Goering Strasse. They were queuing, if Russell's memory served him right, for the right to enter America in 1944.

Once inside, he gave his name and asked to see someone about an American passport for his son. The receptionist gave him a quick worried look and disappeared through a door behind her desk. She returned a minute or so later with the sort of smiling young man that Russell imagined was found on Californian beaches. His blond hair was almost bleached, his tan a tribute to Berlin's summer. 'This way,' he said, beckoning Russell through the door. 'I've been expecting you. My name's Michael Brown,' he added.

They climbed to an office on the second floor. 'This was Blucher's palace,' the young man said. 'You know, the guy at Waterloo.'

'Before my time,' Russell told him.

'So, do you have anything for me?'

Russell explained what had happened in Prague, and handed over The Good Soldier Schweik. 'I've written the contact name and address on the flyleaf, so all you have to do is get it to the department in Washington.'

'Of course.' Brown was leafing through the book with the air of someone searching for secrets.

'Do you have any messages for me?'

Brown looked surprised. 'None.'

'So, for German consumption, you're being difficult about giving my son a passport, and you've told me to come back in a couple of weeks. All right?'

'Sure.'

Russell got to his feet. 'Nice to meet you.'

A neatly-uniformed maid answered the door on Altonaer Strasse. Was Frau Umbach expecting him?

'Frau Grostein is,' Russell said, wondering who the hell Frau Umbach was.

'Wait there,' the maid said, shutting the door in his face.

She returned a few moments later to beckon him in. 'This way,' she said, leading him down a hallway, through a very modern-looking kitchen, and out into a small, secluded courtyard garden. Sarah Grostein was sitting at an iron table, under a pergola draped in deep red roses. She was wearing a simple blouse and slacks, smoking what smelt like a Turkish cigarette, and halfway through writing a letter. Her mass of wavy brown hair certainly looked feminine, but in all other respects she fell lamentably short of the official ideal of Nazi womanhood.

'Mr Russell,' she said, offering him a chair.

'Frau Umbach?' he asked.

She grimaced. 'I should have told you. My friend has decided I should use my maiden name. For obvious reasons.'

'I got your message.'

'Good. Freya wants to meet you. And so does Wilhelm, come to that.'

'Why?'

She smiled. 'I think he's looking for some publicity, but...'

'For what?'

'He can tell you that. Are you busy this evening, around six o'clock? That was one of the times they offered me.'

He hated giving up precious time with Effi , but she would understand. 'I'm free.'

'I'll confirm it with them this afternoon. You have a car?'

'Of a sort.'

'You can pick me up then. Say five-thirty.'

'Fine.' He considered telling her about Gorodnikov, but decided it would be safer to have that conversation in the car.

As she led him back to the front door, he caught a glimpse of a Kandinsky on the living room wall. 'Doesn't your friend object to the painting?' he asked.

'He likes it,' she said simply, and opened the door.

'Five-thirty,' he reiterated over his shoulder.

The Hanomag looked particularly down-at-heel in its current surroundings. The luxury models which usually lined Altonaer Strasse were nowhere to be seen, but not, Russell suspected, because they were out on military manoeuvres with the Wehrmacht. Those cars would have been hidden away for the duration at their owners' country homes.

A tap on the fuel gauge revealed that the Hanomag was running low on petrol. The big garage on Muller-Strasse was almost on his way to Kuzorra's, and had a public telephone he could use to call the studio.

The garage was open, but would only sell him five litres of petrol. There was a shortage, the manager told him, with the air of someone explaining something for the umpteenth time. The military had first claim on what there was, and everyone was running short. All over Berlin regular customers were getting ten litres, strangers five. He should go to his local garage, and not waste too much time about it - the autobahn service stations had already run dry.

Russell took his five litres and pulled over beside the telephone to call the studio. The woman who answered seemed only half-there, but managed to repeat Russell's name and message back to him. 'That's for Effi Koenen,' he repeated. 'Oh,' she said, as if it was the first time she'd heard the name.

He drove on to Kuzorra's, wondering whether he'd even reach his local garage with this much petrol in the tank. Maybe the SD had stores set aside for their best agents. He couldn't imagine the Gestapo running dry - cruising up and down streets looking ominous was what made them happy.

Frau Kuzorra's welcome seemed chillier than before, and her husband, en-sconced in his usual chair, could only manage the wryest of smiles. The man looked older, Russell thought, as he refused Frau Kuzorra's half-hearted offer of coffee.

'I won't waste your time,' Kuzorra said once Russell was seated. 'I have to give up this enquiry.'

'Why?' Russell asked simply.

'I will tell you, but I ask you not to repeat any of this. Except to Herr Schade, of course. And please ask him not to repeat it to anyone else.'

'I will.'

Kuzorra leant back in his chair. 'A few days ago I received a visit from an old colleague - a man whom I disliked intensely when we worked out of the same office. He is still on the job, a Kriminalinspektor now. He was always a brown-noser - an old term, and one that gained a double meaning when Hitler's thugs started running things on the streets.'

Frau Kuzorra muttered something under her breath.

'In my own home I will speak the truth,' Kuzorra told her. He turned back to Russell. 'I won't tell you the man's name because it's not relevant. Anyway, he came to see me last Sunday - he was waiting outside when we returned from church. He told me there had been complaints from railway staff at Silesian Station - and from some of the stall-owners - that I had been harassing them. He wanted to know why I was trying to cause trouble over some miserable Jewish girl. Her disappearance - if she really had disappeared - was police business, and I should keep out of it. I argued with him, said the police had done nothing. He just smiled and said they had done everything that needed doing, and that there was no need for a retired private detective to waste his time on such a business. I said it was my time to waste, and my living to earn. He said not anymore, that my license to operate as a private detective had been withdrawn. I tell you, the bastard was really enjoying himself. And there was more. If I carried on with the investigation I would be putting our pensions at risk. Our pensions, you understand. Not just my police pension, but both our pensions from the state. We could not live without them. So...' He spread his hands in a gesture of resignation. 'I am sorry.'

'So am I,' Russell said. He was wondering whether Thomas had also been leaned on. 'The last message you left for me - you said Miriam had been seen with a man.'

'I have been told to tell you I discovered nothing,' Kuzorra said, 'so please, be careful how you use what I tell you. The witness...it wouldn't help you to know who he is. This witness thought he recognized Miriam from the picture you gave me.' He took it out of his wallet and gave it back to Russell. 'He wasn't absolutely sure, but he thought it was her. And he saw her talking to a man. A man he has seen before at Silesian Station. He's about fifty, average height, a little overweight perhaps. He has closely-cropped grey hair, a little like mine, the man said.' The detective ran a hand across his grey stubble. 'And eyebrows which are darker than his hair. He was wearing some sort of dark blue uniform - my witness thought it might be a chauffeur's.

'I spent a couple of hours at the station on the Thursday evening, but no one of that description met the train which Miriam had taken. So I went back on the Friday. More in hope than expectation, but there he was. At least, I think so. My witness doesn't work on Fridays, so I had no way of confirming that this was the man he saw with Miriam. But this man matched the description, except for the fact that he wasn't wearing a uniform. He did spend a long time on the concourse, scanning all the arriving passengers as if he was looking for someone. He didn't speak to anyone though, and there were several attractive young women whom he might have approached. After the passengers from the 9pm arrival had all gone through, he simply turned on his heel and walked out through the main entrance. He had a car - a big one - parked on Stralauer Platz, and I managed to see the number plate as he drove off.' Kuzorra looked sheepish. 'But by the time I'd dug out a pencil I'd forgotten most of it - my memory isn't what it was, I'm afraid. I am sure the number ended in thirty-three - that's not a number I'm likely to forget.'

The year Hitler got a proper job, Russell thought. The year Kuzorra lost his. 'Why do you think your colleague came to lean on you?' he asked.

'I don't know. Just spite, perhaps. He heard about the investigation - may-be someone at Silesian Station really did complain - and he felt like making a point. Police detectives get very territorial, even the best of them, and this one's scum. Maybe he just couldn't bear the thought that someone was trying to help a Jew. Or he's been holding a grudge against me for heaven knows what reason and finally found a way of getting his own back. Who knows?

'The other possibility is more worrying, at least as far as you're concerned. Let's say that the man I followed to his car really did have something to do with the girl's disappearance. If he noticed my interest... I mean, I have no idea how he could have found out who I am, but if he had friends in high places, or he works for someone who does, then my old Kripo colleague could simply be the messenger. One who enjoyed delivering the message of course, but not the instigator.'

Russell considered this possibility, and didn't like where it took him. 'Thank you,' he said, getting to his feet. 'You've sent your bill to Schade & Co?'

'No. I...'

'Send it. You've done the work.'

'It's here,' Frau Kuzorra said, appearing beside him with a neatly-typed invoice.

'I'll pass it on to Herr Schade,' Russell told her.

Kuzorra was also on his feet, offering his hand. 'If you ever find her, I'd like to know,' he said.

'You will.'

Back in the car Russell took out the Rosenfeld family photograph and looked at Miriam. 'What kind of a mess are you in?' he asked her.

It was a little after three-thirty - time for a short stop-off at the Adlon before picking up Sarah Grostein. None of his friends were in the bar when he arrived, sparking fears that he was missing a major story, but another journalist told him that boredom had driven them upstairs for a poker session.

After some deliberation, Russell phoned Schade & Co from a booth in the lobby. Thomas was out of his office, but his secretary managed to track him down.

Russell asked him if he'd had any visits from the authorities.

'No. Why?'

'Because they resent your interference in what is clearly a police matter. And I must say, I tend to agree with them.'

Thomas was never slow on the uptake. 'I suppose you're right.'

'Well, they've certainly convinced Kuzorra.'

'I take it he's quit.'

'He has. And I think we should give up on it too. We're not even certain the girl ever reached Berlin.'

'That's true. All right. What else can we do, anyway?'

'Good. We're agreed. Now, about that fishing trip we were going to take - we need to talk about it. Can I come over tomorrow lunchtime?'

'Yes. Good. I'll get the maps out.'

'Okay. Bye.' Russell clicked the line dead and burst out laughing.

Sarah Grostein was waiting for his knock. 'I must be back by eight,' she said as they walked to the car. She had changed since the morning, and was now wearing what Russell's English aunt called a sensible skirt. Her hair was tied back, and her face bore no signs of make-up. She was wearing low-heeled shoes, which only seemed to emphasise how tall she was.

'Where are we going?' Russell asked, starting the car.

'Didn't I tell you? Friedrichshain. The park. The cafe near the Konigsthor entrance - do you know it?'

'I once took Albert Wiesner there for a coffee and a fatherly chat.'

She laughed. 'Did he listen?'

'No, not really. He enjoyed his cream cake though.'

'He's in Palestine now.'

'I know. I had a letter from his sisters a few weeks ago. They're doing well.'

'Thanks to you.'

'They earned it.'

'Yes, but...' She fell silent as Russell squeezed the Hanomag between a tram and a parked car, then changed the subject. 'Was it you knocked on my door last night?' she asked.

'Yes, I'm sorry. I misunderstood your message. I hope it didn't...'

'No. I told him someone was knocking on the neighbour's door. '

'He looked out of the window.'

'Yes, he saw your car.' She took out a cigarette.

They were on Invalidenstrasse in the Friday rush-hour, and the miserly number of motorists could hardly believe their luck. Russell wondered what the Wehrmacht was doing with all the cars. There weren't that many generals to drive around.

'I have some news for you,' he said. 'I had to go to the Soviet Embassy last week on other business - journalistic stuff - and I passed your request to the relevant person. They'll check you out with Moscow, of course, and with whatever's left of the KPD leadership. Assuming that all goes okay,' he said, glancing across at her, 'they want me to be your contact here in Berlin.'

She looked surprised at this. 'I didn't realize...' she began.

He thought about explaining his involvement, and decided against. She didn't need to know.

'It sounds like a good idea,' she said at last. 'We are people who could have met and become friends in ordinary circumstances.'

He glanced at her, wondering if that was true. 'You've got my number,' he said. 'And I'll give you my girlfriend's as well. But please, only use hers in an emergency. She's not involved in this.'

They sat in silence for the rest of the journey. Every so often she flicked the ash from her cigarette out of the window, but seemed too lost in thought to actually smoke. The sun appeared behind them as they drove east on Lothringer Strasse, and by the time they reached the entrance to the Friedrichshain park the sky was rapidly turning blue. Freya and Wilhelm Isendahl were waiting by the sculptures of Hansel and Gretel at the foot of the Marchen-Brunnen waterfalls.

They looked like the ideal Nazi couple. Freya's shoulder-length blonde hair framed an open face, very blue eyes and a ready smile. Her clothes and shoes were both attractive and practical, and her skin had the freshness of innocence. Wilhelm was equally good-looking, but several years older. His neatly-parted hair was a darker shade of blonde, and his eyes were green. The long nose and full mouth reminded Russell, somewhat unfortunately, of Reinhard Heydrich. Which raised all sorts of interesting questions.

Both were wearing wedding rings.

They introduced themselves, Sarah and Wilhelm exchanging nods of recognition. Walking on into the park Russell remembered his last visit with Albert Wiesner. The trees had been bare, the grass flecked with snow, and Albert had been silently daring every passer-by to call him a Jew. The cafe owner had risen to the challenge, and initially refused to serve them.

Russell suspected that Wilhelm Isendahl was every bit as angry, but that his defiance took a different form. Wilhelm simply assumed his right to equality, as worthy of his human status as any paid-up member of the master-race. The lack of stereotypical Jewish features helped, but the self-belief came from within. When they reached the cafe, which was now sporting a large 'Jews prohibited' sign, Wilhelm shared a joke with the proprietor and helped Russell carry the coffees back to their table.

Russell told Freya about his meeting with her parents.

'How are they?' she asked, without much enthusiasm. 'They were so rotten to Wilhelm,' she added, as if in explanation. 'I still find it hard to forgive them.'

Russell shrugged. 'I'll take your word for it. All they said to me was that he was a bit of a mischief-maker.'

Wilhelm grunted with apparent amusement, but Freya's eyes blazed. 'You see what I mean! A mischief-maker! What do they expect Jews like Wilhelm to do? Just let the Nazis walk all over them?'

Russell smiled. 'I understand. I'm just the messenger. They just asked me to make sure you're all right.'

'Well, you can see that I am,' she said, and Russell had to agree. She looked tired, certainly, but there was a happy sparkle in the eyes. 'Look,' she said, relenting, 'I will write to them, tell them that we are married. Do you have their address?' She looked sheepish for a moment. 'I'm afraid I threw their letters away.'

Russell wrote it out in his reporter's notebook and tore out the page. 'I'll wire them and say you'll be writing,' he said, passing it across. 'Are you still working at the University?' he asked.

'No. At Siemens,' she said. 'As a secretary in the offices. Wilhelm works there too.'

Russell raised an eyebrow.

'The government lets them hire Jews because they're short of armaments workers,' Wilhelm told him. 'And Siemens are all in favour because they can get away with paying us next to nothing. But both of them may live to regret it. We are getting organized - Jews and non-Jews together.'

'Frau Grostein said you wanted to meet me in my journalistic capacity.'

'Yes.' He pulled a much-folded piece of paper from his shirt pocket and carefully opened it up. 'Have you seen these?' he asked, passing it over.

It looked like the leaflet Russell had read on the tram. The message was different - this one concerned the recent death in a concentration camp of a prominent pastor - but the viewpoint and printing style were identical.

'Our group is responsible for these,' Wilhelm went on. 'It would be good if we could get some coverage in the foreign press. Let people know that some of us are fighting back.'

'All right, but why the foreign press?'

'Because we'll never get mentioned in the German press, and word does get back. When people come back from outside the cage they tell their friends what they've read and heard, and that gives other people hope that these pigs won't be lording it over us for a thousand years. Any news of resistance boosts everyone's morale, it really does.'

Everyone hungers after fame, Russell thought cynically, and mentally scolded himself. Who was he to judge this young man? 'I'll see what I can do,' he said. 'It'll have to be generalised, of course. I can't say I've actually been talking to the people responsible for the leaflets, or they'll want me to name names. I don't think journalistic privilege covers treason these days. But this group of yours - is it just printing leaflets?'

'It's not my group,' Wilhelm said with some asperity, 'and distribution is the dangerous part.'

'I appreciate that.'

'Good.' The young man's irritation passed as swiftly as it had risen. 'Other-wise... well, we hold discussion meetings, and we help organize support for people with no income. And we're thinking about printing a regular news sheet...'

'Any connection with the Palestine group?'

Wilhelm looked scornful. 'You don't fight race hatred by creating a state based on race. That's what the Nazis are doing.'

'Not in the same way,' Sarah Grostein interjected.

'What's the difference?' Wilhelm wanted to know.

'I think that's an argument for another time and place,' Russell said, aware that at least one other customer was watching them. An open-air cafe in Hitler's Berlin hardly seemed the ideal setting for an angry argument between communists about the future of Palestine. He turned to Freya. 'If you give me your address,' he said, 'I can give it to your parents when I wire them.'

She looked at Wilhelm, who nodded.

Russell wrote it down - one of the run-down streets off Busching Platz, if he remembered correctly. 'And I'll let you know if I can get you some publicity,' he told Wilhelm. They were all on their way back to the park entrance when he had a better idea. 'You could write something yourself,' he told Wilhelm. 'About your campaign, I mean. Your motives, how you distribute the leaflets, how you keep one step ahead of the Gestapo. Say what you want to say but make it sound exciting, even if it isn't.'

'Who would print it?'

'Send it to me, along with a covering letter saying who you are and who you represent. Not your real name, of course, but something convincing. I know - you can also send me an advanced copy of your next leaflet, and tell me to look out for other copies in a few days time. On a particular tram route, say. That'll give me all the proof I need that the article and the leaflets have been written by the same people. The creeps at the Propaganda Ministry won't be very happy, but I'll just be behaving like a responsible journalist. I got sent the piece, I checked its source, and I sent it for publication. And no, I have no idea who it came from.'

Wilhelm smiled, and looked several years younger. 'I will do it.'

'Send it to me, John Russell, care of the Adlon Hotel.'

They shook hands. Russell and Sarah Grostein watched the young couple walk off arm in arm, Freya's blonde head resting on Wilhelm's shoulder. The similarities between her past and Freya's present accounted for the wistfulness in Sarah's face, but there was also something harder there, something beyond recall. Just age perhaps, or the knowledge of what could go wrong, and how you dealt with that.

In the car she lit another cigarette, took a single puff and threw it away. 'He's a brave man,' she said eventually, 'but I don't know whether he's careful enough. What did you think of him?'

'Impressive. Young. As for careful, it's hard to say. I'm not sure it matters that much. I have a horrible feeling that survival's more a matter of luck than anything else.'

'Not in the long run.'

'Because history's on our side? Even if it is, there don't seem to be any individual guarantees.'

'No,' she agreed. 'My husband would have agreed with you. Not that he ever tried to be careful.'

As they turned into Lothringer Strasse the evening sun hit Russell squarely between the eyes, temporarily blinding him. A lorry roared past only inches away, horn blasting, before the road swam back into focus. 'There're some sunglasses in there,' he said, gesturing towards the glove compartment.

'I haven't seen anything like those before,' she said, passing them over.

'I bought them in New York,' he told her. 'They're called Polaroids, which means they're reflective. They were only invented a couple of years ago.'

'Richard and I went to New York in 1929. We were on the boat home when we heard about the stock market crash.'

'Tell me about him.'

She thought about it for the better part of a minute. 'He was a lovely man,' she said eventually. 'Temperamental, argumentative, a bit too sure of himself, but always kind. A businessmen who wrote romantic poetry. A wonderful lover.'

'That's some testament.'

She looked away, and he half-suspected tears, but when she turned back towards him her face was harder. 'I expect you're wondering how I can prostitute myself with the people who killed him.'

There was no easy answer to that. 'It must be hard,' was all he said.

'Sometimes. You know the worst thing of all? He's not a bad man. He makes interesting conversation, he makes me laugh. He represents everything I hate, but I can't hate him.' She almost laughed. 'Isn't that ridiculous?'

'Not at all. I didn't hate any of the Germans on the other side of no man's land, but I was quite prepared to kill them.'

'Is that the same? I suppose it is in a way. But you weren't sleeping with the enemy.'

'No.'

She managed another half-strangled laugh. 'I suppose this is what passes for small talk in a Thousand Year Reich.'

After dropping Sarah off at her home Russell headed straight for Effi's. As he pulled the Hanomag into the yard beside her building, he noticed two men standing outside the front door. They were in civilian dress, but they didn't look like salesmen.

Both were wearing long coats and hats despite the warmth of the evening, and the shorter of the two - a slim blonde with a weasel face - sported beads of sweat on his forehead and above his upper lip. As he moved to block Russell's entrance he tried for a winning smile. He failed, but the mere attempt was reassuring.

'John Russell,' he said. It wasn't a question.

'That's me.'

'We need to talk to you. In your car, perhaps?'

There was no point in refusing. Russell led the way back to the Hanomag and opened the doors. The taller man jammed himself into the back, leaving Russell and weasel-face in the front. 'A message from Hauptsturmfuhrer Hirth?' he asked.

The man looked disappointed that his line had been stolen. 'Instructions,' he corrected. 'You will be receiving a number of documents in the next few days. The Hauptsturmfuhrer assumes you know what to do with them.'

'Pass them on to the Reds.'

'That is correct.' He reached for the door handle.

'Hold on a moment,' Russell said. 'How are you planning on delivering these documents? You can't come here again - the Soviets know I live here most of the time, and they could be watching the place.' He very much doubted that they were, but he wanted to keep Heydrich's goons as far away from Effi as possible. And if they got the impression he was taking his new mission seriously, it might even bolster his credibility.

Weasel-face stared out at the darkened street. 'They will also know of your other address.'

'Of course. You'll have to use the post,' Russell explained, trying not to sound like he was talking to a ten-year-old child. 'Send everything to Neuen-burger Strasse,' he added.

The man nodded. 'It shall be done as you suggest,' he said, and reached for the door handle again.

Russell sat in the car watching them walk away. He expected more from Heydrich's people, and felt somewhat cheered by the utter banality of the encounter. Don't get too cocky, he told himself. Hauptsturmfuhrer Hirth was not a fool.

He was only halfway up the stairs when Effi opened the door with a face full of questions. 'Who were they?' she asked as she almost pulled him inside. 'What did they want?'

'Nothing that important,' he told her, kissing her on the forehead. 'A couple of Heydrich's boys delivering a message. Did they come up?'

'Oh yes. They wanted to wait for you inside. I told them I had a reputation to think of, and both of them leered at me. But they went back downstairs.'

'They were well-behaved then,' he said, taking her into his arms. He could see that she'd been shaken by their appearance. 'Have you eaten?' he asked, thinking that it would be better to get her out of the flat.

'I'm not hungry. What was the message, John?'

'I thought we agreed not to tell each other certain things.'

'Yes, yes, I know we did. All right. But I've been standing by the window waiting for you to come back and wondering what they wanted with you... whether they were going to arrest you or ask you to do something horrible. John, I don't want you doing anything that you know is wrong just to keep me safe.'

He put his hands on her shoulders. 'If it ever comes to that, I'll tell you. And we'll decide together.'

'Yes, but what choice will there be?'

'We can do what they want me to do, or we can leave. Together.'

'How could we leave? They won't let us.'

'I'm working on that.'

She looked up at him with worried eyes.

'It's going to be all right,' he said, and found, rather to his surprise, that he half-believed it.

She dropped her head on his chest and hugged him tightly.

'I haven't eaten,' he said eventually.

'No, neither have I,' she admitted, looking at her watch. 'So who needs sleep? I'm supposed to look haggard tomorrow - it's the scene where I've been sitting at the SA squad leader's bedside for nights on end. Lili will be amazed by how little make-up I need.'

They walked to the small French restaurant just off the Ku'damm. Both city and restaurant seemed quiet for a Friday night, another consequence, Russell guessed, of the military manoeuvres. As they waited for their meals in a secluded corner of the rear garden, he brought Effi up to date on the search for Miriam Rosenfeld.

'You can't blame him,' she said of Kuzorra's resignation, 'but what are you and Thomas going to do now?'

'I don't know. We've got so little to go on - nothing really, nothing definite. The one witness Kuzorra found couldn't swear it was her. And if it wasn't her, then the man he saw talking to her is irrelevant. He could have been a father meeting a daughter or an uncle meeting a niece - something perfectly innocent.'

'But the man was seen again.'

'Probably. We're not totally sure it was the same man.'

'So why did they lean on your detective?'

Russell shrugged. 'A private grudge? Someone enraged by the idea that a missing Jew needs finding? We just don't know. We still don't know for certain that she ever reached Berlin.'

'I think you do,' Effi said. 'All right, none of the things your detective discovered are a hundred per cent. But together - it's just too much. A girl who looks remarkably like Miriam meets a man who makes a habit of hanging round Silesian Station, and the moment your detective starts asking questions about the two of them he gets a visit from his old colleague. If those were the opening scenes of a movie you would know what had happened.'

Russell sighed. 'I know. I just keep hoping there's another explanation, that she never got here, or that her meeting with our mystery man was an innocent one, and she decided for some reason or other to go home. She might have found out about her uncle being beaten up and just panicked, and gone rushing back to her family. She is only seventeen, and I don't think she'd even seen a city before, let alone one this size.'

'So are you and Thomas going to look for another detective?'

'We might try, but I doubt we'll find one.'

'Then what?'

'I don't know. I'll drop in and see Thomas on my way to Paul's tomorrow. If I can find enough petrol, that is.' He explained the shortage, and the new garage policy of favouring regular customers. 'Which is fine if you have a regular garage. I don't.' He saw the look on her face, and grinned. 'I know. There are always trams. Especially for those of us who don't warrant studio cars.'

It was gone ten by the time they got home, almost eleven when Effi's breathing took on the pattern of sleep. Russell lay there, enjoying the soft warmth of her body curled into his, thinking back over his day. Two embassy appointments to discuss espionage work, an angry private detective and a rather remarkable woman, a sweet young pair of resisters and a dumb young pair of SD goons. All topped off with the love of his life lying naked beside him. Life was far from empty.

He had promised Effi that everything was going to be all right. Was it? He felt safe in Berlin, which was more than he'd felt in Prague. But was he missing something crucial? Had he taken one of those oh-so-ordinary life-and-death decisions without realizing it?

Look at the big picture, he told himself. The Germans could hardly accuse him of spying for the Soviets when it was they who had put him up to it. And vice versa. His spying for the Americans could be justified as part of his double role with the Soviets, and most of it could, at a pinch, be explained away as over-zealous journalism. And if things got out of hand there was always the emergency call to Zembski. What did he have to worry about?

Effi was long gone when he woke. After a quick breakfast at the Cafe Kranzler he stopped off at the Propaganda and Foreign Ministries to see if any briefings were scheduled for the day - there were none. He found out why from Slaney, who was downing his usual milky coffee in the Adlon breakfast room. 'The bastards have had their bluff called,' the American said jubilantly. 'The Nazis in Danzig issued the Poles with an ultimatum, and the Poles issued one right back. The Nazi leader blustered for a bit, the Poles held firm, and he just threw in the towel. Last thing I heard he was trying to convince the Poles that the original ultimatum was a hoax.'

'So it's all blown over.'

'Looks like it. For the moment anyway. I don't imagine Adolf will let things lie for long.'

'Have you wired it off already?'

'No point. "Small crisis in Danzig fizzles out" isn't much of a headline, is it?'

'True.' Russell got up to go. 'I'm off to find some petrol.'

'Good luck.'

As he started up the Hanomag, Russell had an idea. 'You're going home,' he told the car, directing it up Luisen-Strasse towards Invaliden-Strasse. A short drive through the maze of industrial backstreets beyond Lehrter Station brought him to the garage owned by Zembski's cousin Hunder, where he had bought the Hanomag six months earlier.

The garage yard was full of automobiles, most of them taxis. A line of lorries was parked along the far wall, under the noxious cloud of smoke provided by the adjoining locomotive depot. Hunder was doing sums in his office, small piles of bills rising from his desk and floor like ancient stones.

He greeted Russell with evident relief, and an apparently bountiful supply of petrol. Since they were friends, he would let the Englishman have a full tank at only twice the usual price.

Russell grinned and accepted - what else were expenses for? Outside, Hunder summoned one of his young apprentices to siphon fuel from the nearest taxis.

'What are they all doing here?' Russell asked.

Hunder smiled. 'In for repair, every last one of them.'

Russell got it. 'And they'll all be ready for the road the moment the manoeuvres end.'

'What a cynic you are.'

Ten minutes later he was on his way. A tap on the fuel gauge brought it springing to attention, like a fourteen-year-old in a brothel, as his old sergeant had used to say.

Berlin's other motorists seemed to be conserving their fuel, and the trip out to Dahlem took him less than half an hour. Thomas was digging in the garden, and as grateful for the interruption as Hunder had been. He took Russell into his study, poured them both a generous glass of schnapps, and listened, with increasing anger, to his friend's account of the final meeting with Kuzorra.

'What can have happened to her?' he said when Russell was finished. 'I can understand her falling prey to some criminal, but that wouldn't explain the police threatening Kuzorra.'

'Here's his bill, by the way,' Russell said, fishing it out of his pocket and handing it over.

Thomas looked at it briefly, and put it to one side. 'What more can we do?' he asked. 'Find another detective?'

'We could try.'

'Whatever we do, we should do it discreetly. I don't want the Kripo out at the factory. Or here come to that.'

'We could give up,' Russell said. 'It would be the sensible thing to do. One girl, who may or may not be in trouble.'

'That's just it,' Thomas said. 'I've been wondering why I care so much about what happened to this girl. It's because she is just one girl. Not a nation or a race or a class - I've given up thinking that we could save any of those, but surely we should be able to save one person. Or at least give it a damn good try.'

His ex-brother-in-law never ceased to surprise Russell. 'All right,' he said.

'Another detective?'

Russell thought about it. 'Not yet. You still haven't heard anything from her family?'

'Not a word.'

'I'm going to Silesia for work,' Russell said, having just decided as much. His paper wanted him there, so why not take the opportunity? 'I'll go and see the family, see if they can provide any clues. There may be other relatives or friends in Berlin that we know nothing about - something as simple as that.'

Thomas doubted it, but agreed it was worth trying. Driving on to Grunewald to collect Paul, Russell tried to put Miriam Rosenfeld out of his mind. He understood - even shared - Thomas's reasons for wanting to find her, but the task itself might be beyond them.

His son opened the door of the Grunewald home in his Jungvolk uniform, Ilse hovering behind him. 'I've just got back,' he said. 'I need to get this glue off my hands,' he added, holding them for inspection before shooting off upstairs.

'They've been making model planes all morning,' Ilse told Russell. 'It's one of the things he likes about the Jungvolk.'

'He likes a lot of it. Everything but the propaganda, really.'

'I think they're all bored by that. Paul has a whole pile of information folders in his bedroom, but I don't think he's read any of them.'

'Good.'

'They don't know what they think at that age. Paul has that badge he got at the World's Fair pinned above his bed - "I have seen the future".'

'I saw it in New York,' Paul said, rattling down the stairs. 'I got most of it off,' he added, meaning the glue.

Paul wanted to go boating on the Havelsee, an ambition shared by several thousand others. The queue for a boat was interminable, but out on the wide lake water their fellow-Berliners were soon left behind, mere dots in the distance, barely discernible against the wooded shorelines. Russell had hired a hat to shade himself, and when Paul insisted on rowing he sat back and watched as his Jungvolk-uniformed son came to grips with the oars. He was getting older, Russell thought. A trite realization perhaps, but one with some meaning. The trip to America had given the boy something, and the return to Germany hadn't taken it away.

He asked Paul about the Jungvolk meeting, but all the boy wanted to talk about was the World's Fair. 'Remember the Life Savers tower?' he enthused, referring to the 250-foot parachute hoist they'd both gone up in. The plunge before the chute opened had certainly taken several years off Russell's life. At the moment of release he'd been reading the quote from Lenin which topped the Soviet exhibit, and had been left with the impression that the bottom had suddenly fallen out of socialism.

'And Elektro,' Paul said, 'wasn't he fantastic?'

The Westinghouse robot had been amazing, though teaching him to smoke seemed a poor use for futuristic technology. General Motors' Futurama had been just as incredible - a gigantic scale model that took fifteen minutes to traverse in a moving armchair - but its vision of express highways policed by radio towers seemed less than heart-warming. Russell had agreed with Walter Lippman's assertion that the Fair demonstrated man's inability 'to be wise as he is intelligent, to be as good as he is great.' When Russell had showed his son the relevant article in the Herald Tribune, Paul had given him a withering look and said, 'I bet he didn't go up on the Life Saver.'

When Russell got back to Effi's he found her wearing the red dress he'd brought back from America. 'I feel like dancing,' she said, and after a quick snack in the Old Town they scoured the streets around Alexanderplatz for a suitable venue. Before the Nazis there had been a dozen dance halls in the area, some boasting orchestras with a real feel for the new American jazz. Six years on, the pickings were much slimmer, but they found one joint under the Stadtbahn station with a floor and a band that were just about passable. It was full when they arrived and kept getting fuller, but both were laughing with exhilaration when they left two hours later. Berlin had life in it yet.

Next morning they took their usual breakfast in the Tiergarten, and Russell announced that he was probably going to spend a few days in Silesia. 'For the paper,' he added. 'And I'm going to look up Miriam's family. I'll probably be back on Thursday. '

'I've been invited to something that evening,' Effi told him, then hesitated.

'What?' Russell prompted.

'A social gathering,' she said. 'Maybe something more. A friend has asked me to meet some people.'

'Who?'

She hesitated again. 'Christiane.'

Russell looked blank.

'My astrologer.'

'Ah.'

'She's not as wacky as you think she is.'

'That's a relief.'

She gave him the chandelier look. 'I'm going to go.'

'And I'm not invited?'

'No,' she said. 'We agreed to keep these things separate.'

'We did.'

'I can meet you afterwards. It'll be over by nine, I should think.'

Russell didn't like it, but knew he was being unreasonable.

They both sat in silence for a minute or more. It was a lovely warm morning, a breeze shifting the leaves of the trees, the ducks going about their business on the miniature lake. The smell of fresh coffee wafted out from the cafe behind them, the only sounds a train on the distant Stadtbahn and the rustle of morning papers.

'All this,' Effi said. 'It's hard to imagine it ending.'

Russell's first task on Monday was to check that the crisis in Danzig had really blown over. It had. The main item of news in the morning papers was a train accident in Potsdam. The crossing keeper had lifted the gates after a passenger train passed through, only for a goods train to follow. Seven had been killed, the keeper arrested.

He wired San Francisco that he was heading for Breslau and drove back to Neuenburger Strasse. There was another message for Dagmar by the telephone - 'Siggi wants an explanation!!!' in Frau Heidegger's boldest capitals. The portierfrau herself was nowhere to be seen, so Russell left a brief note explaining his absence and walked down to Hallesches Tor in search of a cab.

On reaching Silesian Station he found that the next express to Breslau was not for an hour. He sat drinking coffee on the concourse, wondering if Miriam had ever been there. He kept a look-out for men with grey hair and black eyebrows, but none appeared.