Stattin Station

A valued friend of the Reich

They woke later than usual, and Effi cooked the eggs that Zarah had insisted on giving them. 'What time are you meeting Paul?' she asked.

'I'm not,' Russell said, realising he hadn't told her about the Hitlerjugend shooting tournament.

'Don't they allow fathers?'

'If they do, Paul forgot to tell me.'

'Oh well, you can come shopping with me. I need some new boots.'

'You'll be lucky.'

'Ah, I've been told about an old man in Friedrichshain who still makes them. He must get the leather on the black market.'

'Wouldn't it be simpler to borrow some from the studio wardrobe department?'

'Of course, but not half as much fun.'

It occurred to Russell that he hadn't mentioned his rendezvous with Sullivan either. 'I've got a meeting at noon,' he told her, 'but it won't take long. We could meet after that. Two o'clock at the stop in Alexander Platz?'

'Fine. But I thought you'd given up on Ribbentrop's press conferences.'

'I have. It's something else. I'll tell you later,' he added, touching his ear to indicate that they might be overheard. It was several weeks since their last hunt for listening devices.

'Nothing too dangerous, I hope,' she said lightly.

'I can't see why it would be,' he told her, but half an hour later, standing on the Zoo Station platform, he didn't feel quite so sure. The way Kenyon had presented it, Russell was just meeting Sullivan for a friendly chat and a peek at the latter's bona fides. The latter might be corporate secrets rather than state secrets, but was the Gestapo bright enough to know the difference? Although to be fair to the leather-coated brigade, he wasn't sure there was much of a difference anymore. The industrial corporations hadn't been nationalised in any official sense, but they were, to all intents and purposes, controlled by the state. And poring over documentation of their darkest secrets in the Stettin Station buffet might well be considered a crime.

Russell was reasonably certain that he wasn't being followed, and it wouldn't be hard to make absolutely sure. In any case, it seemed much more likely that Sullivan would be followed, since any doubts about the Radio Berlin broadcaster's continuing loyalty to the Reich would have stemmed from his own behaviour. The man had to know that, and would be taking the necessary precautions.

Or would he? Sullivan was intelligent, but in Russell's experience intelligent people just had bigger blind spots.

How could he be sure that Sullivan wasn't being followed? He couldn't trail the man from his home because he didn't know where he lived. He could hope to watch him arrive at Stettin Station, but the number of entrances - at least three from the street and one from the U-Bahn - made missing him much more likely. There were even two entrances to the buffet, although the street one was little used. His best bet was to find a spot on the concourse with a good view of the buffet, hope Sullivan used that entrance, and watch for anyone following him in.

But first things first. He left the Stadtbahn train at Lehrter Station, and remained for several minutes on the elevated platform, staring down with apparent interest at the throat of the terminus below. All but two of the other alighting passengers took the steps down to the mainline platforms, and those two were already out of sight when Russell followed them down the walkway to Invaliden Strasse. Reaching the main road, he could see the man walking west past the old guards' barracks, the woman crossing the road to his right, with the apparent intention of entering the District Court building. She disappeared through the doorway.

Russell walked eastward, turning once or twice to check that the woman hadn't re-emerged. It was about a kilometre to Stettin Station, and he had over half an hour to spare. Crossing the Hohenzollern Canal he could see the Invalidenfriedhof Cemetery stretched out along the eastern bank, a conveniently short journey from the huge military hospital which rose behind it. A steam barge was disappearing into the grey distance, the rust-coloured water rippling in the breeze.

Ten minutes later, he was walking in through the western side entrance of Stettin Station. It was one of Berlin's older and smaller termini, with half a dozen platforms hosting services to Stettin, Rostock and Danzig, and local trains serving Pankow and the outlying suburbs beyond. A spacious glass-roofed concourse lay between the buffers and the booking office, with the buffet and other facilities lining the sides. After buying a newspaper at the kiosk, Russell took up position near the entrance to platform 1, where the steady stream of passengers looking to board the Stettin express offered a modicum of anonymity. He had a clear view of all three street exits, the steps down to the U-Bahn, and the concourse entrance to the buffet. It was eleven forty-five.

The minutes ticked by. Two young women in black walked past him, heading for the Stettin train, and following them with his eyes Russell saw one of several waiting coffins being loaded into a luggage van. Outside it had begun to rain - with some abandon if the loud drumming on the station roof was any guide. A local train pulled in on the far side with a squeal of tired brakes, and soon a procession of arrivals were crossing the concourse towards the various exits. Sullivan was not among them.

It was five to twelve, and Russell wondered when he should check the buffet - the outside entrance was only really convenient for railwaymen coming from the goods yard, but there was always a chance that Sullivan had slinked in that way. He would give it another ten minutes.

The last few passengers for Stettin hurried by, the whistle sounded, and the distant locomotive went into a momentary fit, blasting steam in all directions before finding its feet and easing its load away. The drumming on the roof seemed louder in the subsequent silence, and Russell blessed the fact that the U-Bahn would take him to Alexanderplatz. By the time he met Effi the rain might have stopped.

Suddenly he saw Sullivan, cutting across the concourse from the same direction as the arriving local passengers some ten minutes earlier. Had he been on that train? It seemed unlikely that he would have chosen to live north of the city when Radio Berlin was situated thirty kilometres to the south. And if he had, where had he been for the last ten minutes? In a toilet?

Not that it mattered. Russell watched Sullivan walk into the buffet without a backward glance - the broadcaster clearly had no qualms about a possible tail. He would give it a minute, he decided, and only set himself in motion once the second hand of the station clock had stuttered its way around the dial. He was about ten metres from the buffet doors when two young men hurried in through the main station entrance, eyes flashing in all directions, clearly searching for someone or something. They were wearing neither leather coats nor formal uniforms, but Russell was willing to bet they knew people who did. He adjusted his route and speed accordingly, walking slowly past the open buffet doors towards the main entrance. As he passed the doors he caught a glimpse of the two men bearing down on an unsuspecting Sullivan.

Russell walked on through the wide archway of the main entrance, and stopped among the people waiting for the rain to slacken or stop. There was a Mercedes 260 parked in front, its busy windscreen wiper offering pulsatory glimpses of the man behind the wheel. He seemed to be studying his manicure. When several footfalls sounded behind Russell, he didn't turn his head, just waited until the three men were past him, splashing their way across to the parked car. He only saw Sullivan's face as one of the young men hustled him into the back seat. The broadcaster looked more angry than frightened.

The car pulled away and, as it turned towards the forecourt exit on Invalidenstrasse, Russell had a clear view of the rear numberplate. Stepping further back into the archway, he jotted it down in his notebook.

It was still raining when he emerged from the U-Bahn at Alexanderplatz, still raining when Effi's tram arrived at the stop twenty minutes later. Russell made to get on, but she urged him back off again. 'I've lost the boot-maker's address,' she said. 'I know which street he lives on, but this doesn't seem like a day for knocking on lots of doors.'

'No,' he agreed.

'I've also lost my umbrella,' she added plaintively. 'I thought you could take me somewhere nice for lunch instead.'

'How about the Adlon? I have to call in at the Consulate.' As they waited for a tram back up Konigstrasse he told her about Sullivan, the arranged meeting and the events at Stettin Station.

'Thank God they didn't catch you with him,' was her first reaction. 'But what if he tells them he was there to meet you?'

'Why should he? He'd only incriminate himself. No, I'm safe enough. They'd have had to catch us in the act, flash bulbs popping as the documents were handed over.'

'Yes?' she half asked, as if not quite convinced.

'Yes,' he insisted, hiding the fact that he wasn't either.

The tram arrived and dropped them a few minutes later on Behrenstrasse, several hundred very wet metres from the Adlon. A waiter fan of Effi's insisted on bringing towels for their hair, and took their coats away to be dried while they ate. 'I thought you said this place had gone downhill,' Effi whispered.

'Look around you,' Russell told her. There were only about twenty people in the huge dining room, and most of them were in uniform.

'And the food is somewhat variable.'

But today was one of the better days, and being there with Effi brought back fond memories of pre-war times, when the Adlon had still functioned as a cosmopolitan island in a cheerless German sea.

After eating they moved into the bar, where some of Russell's colleagues were already ensconced. The Foreign Ministry press conference had yielded fresh news of Soviet reverses, with Tula supposedly surrounded and Moscow threatened from the south. By contrast, the latest releases on the situation in North Africa had seemed less confident, as if the authorities were preparing the ground for possible failure. Dr Schmidt had spent most of the briefing rubbishing British claims that the allied delegations now departing Berlin were mere 'puppets' of the Germans, but in vain. 'You could see that part of him really liked the idea of their being puppets,' one of the Americans explained, 'so his denials weren't that convincing.'

Russell left Effi with a colleague and a bilious-looking cocktail, and made a dash through the rain to the adjacent Consulate.

Kenyon came down to meet him, and invited him back out into the shelter of the portico. 'I can't see any suspicious wires,' he said, examining the column-supported roof. 'Can you?'

'Not even one,' Russell agreed. The rain was still falling steadily, running in sheets down the side of the Brandenburg Gate.

'So?' Kenyon asked, one hand emerging from one pocket with a packet of cigarettes, the other from the other pocket with the silver lighter.

'He was arrested,' Russell said. 'At least I assume so.' He went through the sequence of events. 'I didn't see them show him any identification, but that would have happened in the buffet. There was no struggle of any kind, no guns. Sullivan looked furious, but he went with them willingly enough.' Kenyon exhaled a lungful of smoke, and thought for a few moments. 'Was he carrying anything?' he eventually asked.

'Only a newspaper. He must have had the documents in an inside pocket.'

'Whatever they were,' Kenyon murmured, apparently to himself. 'And I don't expect we'll ever find out now. Which sticks in my craw. If American businesses really are planning on supplying the enemy after an official declaration then I'd happily see their bosses taken out and shot.'

'Those guys always survive.'

Kenyon stubbed out his cigarette and stared out at the rain. 'They do, don't they? But let me dream. If Sullivan does get back in touch, and if by some miracle he still has those proofs he was talking about, I'll fix up another meeting.'

'Okay,' Russell said, shaking his hand. Back at the Adlon he found Effi deep in conversation with the waiter who'd provided the towels. They were talking about the film she'd been making when Russell first met her. 'They don't seem to write such good stories these days,' the waiter admitted. 'Too much politics,' he added in a whisper.

The telephone rang at six in the morning, which was rather early for a Sunday. Russell decided to ignore it, but Effi was worried it might be Zarah, and leapt out of bed to answer. Much to her disgust, it was for him. Rainer Duhnke was a German journalist whom Russell had known since the early thirties, and the two of them had made a habit of passing on stories which suited their own national readerships.

'I've just had a tip-off from a friend at the Alex,' Duhnke said, 'and you seemed like the right person to tell. They've just found Patrick Sullivan's body in the Tiergarten.'

Russell felt a momentary pang of sadness. 'Do you know where exactly?'

'Between the Neuer See and the Landwehrkanal. It's still there - nothing can happen until it gets light. So if you get down there now...'

'Thanks, Rainer.'

'What is it?' Effi wanted to know.

He told her as he dressed.

'Be careful,' she said.

'No need. I'm only wearing my journalist hat.'

It still seemed very dark outside, but as he turned onto Hardenberg Strasse a pale grey glow was noticeable in the eastern sky, and by the time he reached the bridge over Landwehrkanal the world was taking visible shape once more. Three black cars were already lined up on the Tiergartenufer, with one uniformed policeman standing guard. As Russell walked towards them he heard the sound of other cars approaching from the west. Turning, he saw headlights cleaving their way through the dawn twilight with the sort of abandon that only high-ranking officials could afford. And as the leading car materialised into a swish limousine generously bedecked with swastikas, it became apparent that Joseph Goebbels himself had come to examine the corpse.

Hoping to escape attention, Russell stayed where he was on the canal side of the road. Goebbels emerged from the limousine, straightened the large peaked cap that always made him look even shorter than he was, and strode energetically off across the grass in the direction indicated by the uniformed officer. In the meantime, the other cars in Goebbels' convoy had begun discharging their passengers, and these, Russell delightedly realised, were colleagues. Most seemed to be German, but he recognised at least one Swede. The press had clearly been invited.

After working his way around the line of cars Russell joined the rear of the procession. The light was rapidly improving now, the bare trees sharply outlined against the grey dawn, the flak tower behind them a well-defined block in the southern sky. It only took about three minutes to reach the crime scene, which lay just beside a footbridge carrying a path across a narrow arm of the Neuer See. Around a dozen policeman were already at work, most of them Kripo officers in plain clothes. Sullivan's blanket-covered body lay in the middle of the path, and Goebbels was standing over it, staring down with what looked like a calculated mixture of grief and anger. He was clearly itching to lift the blanket, and a few seconds later did so, briefly revealing blood-encrusted hair and a badly beaten face.

The Propaganda Minister asked a question of an acolyte, who gestured towards one of the plain clothes men. Obviously under instruction to fetch him, the acolyte trotted across the glistening grass, laid a proprietary hand on his quarry's arm and said something in his ear. The detective turned his eyes in Goebbels' direction, giving Russell a first glimpse of his face. It was Uwe Kuzorra.

If memory served him well, Kuzorra had resigned from the police force in 1933, a few months after the Nazi takeover. He had worked as a private detective for five years, and Russell had met him during that period, whilst engaged in writing a freelance piece on Berlin's growing army of shamuses. In the summer of 1939 he had persuaded Kuzorra to help him hunt down a missing Jewish girl named Miriam Rosenfeld, but old Nazi colleagues in the Kripo had pressured the detective into withdrawing from the case. Now it seemed he was back in his original harness. Russell had heard that the police were re-engaging retired officers as replacements for those lost to the military, and presumably Kuzorra was one of them.

He was talking to Goebbels at this moment, or at least listening. His face wore a neutral expression, but Russell would have bet money that Kuzorra was secretly enjoying his height advantage. He had always loathed the Nazis.

Goebbels turned away from the detective, eyes searching and finding his audience. The journalists dutifully arranged themselves in a semicircle. 'A valued friend of the Reich has been brutally murdered,' he began. 'And no effort will be spared in the search for his murderer. Kriminalinspektor Kuzorra' - he indicated the detective beside him - 'will lead the investigation, and will be given all the resources he deems necessary for bringing it to a rapid conclusion. Patrick Sullivan will be sorely missed by his colleagues at Radio Berlin, and, of course, by his millions of listeners in the United States, who looked to his broadcasts for the sort of no-nonsense truth-telling which their own newspapers have long since abandoned. Herr Sullivan also offered a constant and welcome reminder to Germans that not all Americans have fallen for the lies of their President and his British cronies.'

Goebbels paused, perhaps for effect, perhaps for inspiration. He was, Russell noted with reluctant admiration, making it up as he went along.

'It may turn out that Herr Sullivan was the victim of a random crime,' the Minister continued, 'that he was assaulted by one of those despicable criminals who use the blackout as a cover for their robberies and murders. That may be the case. But it is also possible that Herr Sullivan was killed for political reasons, because he was prepared to speak out for fairness and plain speaking in German-American relations, and prepared to speak out against the Jews, who work day and night in their attempt to poison those relations. Herr Sullivan was a committed enemy of the Jewish-Bolshevik alliance, and his murder is bound to increase the anxiety of ordinary Berliners about the large number of Jews still living in their midst.'

Goebbels paused again. 'That will be all for the moment. Any developments in the investigation will be reported at this afternoon's press conference.' He turned to shake Kuzorra by the hand, then strode towards his limousine, the acolytes falling in behind him like a squadron of geese in flight.

Russell headed back in the same direction. He didn't think Kuzorra had noticed him, and he wasn't at all sure that re-introducing himself at this moment was a sensible idea. It was theoretically possible that one of Goebbels' two suppositions were right; that Sullivan, once released from custody, had chosen to celebrate this fact by going for a winter's night stroll in the blacked-out Tiergarten, and had accidentally bumped into either a homicidal maniac or an outraged Jew. But it seemed more likely that the broadcaster had been murdered by the men who picked him up at Stettin Station, and then dumped in the Tiergarten after it got dark. Why was another question. Assuming they'd found the illicit documents, then several more obvious options sprang to mind. They could have blackmailed Sullivan into continuing his broadcasts; they could have arrested and promised to try him; they could have dropped him in the concrete foundations of the new flak tower in Friedrichshain.

All of which made more sense than dumping his body in a public park and inviting a thorough police investigation.

Goebbels obviously had no idea that state minions were responsible, or he wouldn't have ordered Kuzorra to force open what was certain to be a huge can of worms. Of course, Russell couldn't know for sure that the men he'd seen at Stettin Station were state minions, but these days who else got to drive cars? Only big businessmen - like the German heads of American subsidiaries - and perhaps their enforcers.

It was more than possible. In Russell's experience, few governments could match big business when it came to the ruthless pursuit of self-interest. But it didn't really make any difference - in 1941 Berlin both government and business belonged to the Nazis. The only question was how deeply Kuzorra would delve before someone informed him that the investigation was off. For the detective's sake, Russell hoped that it wouldn't be too deep; he liked Kuzorra. He thought about warning him, but could think of no way of doing so without exposing himself. In any case the detective had never struck him as someone who had trouble looking after himself.

Back at the apartment, he found Effi already up, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of Chinese tea. 'Zarah did call,' she said by way of explanation. 'Was it gruesome?'

'Not particularly, not in the way you mean. Goebbels turned up, which is always a bit on the gruesome side.'

'What on earth for?'

'Oh, one of his soldiers in the great propaganda war has made the ultimate sacrifice, etc etc. You know how they love swearing vengeance on anyone who crosses them.'

Effi suddenly worried. 'Will they want to talk to you?'

'Perhaps. The Consulate won't say anything, so it depends on whether Sullivan told anyone else that he was meeting me. He might have put it in his diary, I suppose. "Meeting John Russell to hand over state secrets" - something like that.'

'Fool. Are we still going to see the Blumenthals today?'

'I thought so.'

'When?'

'Around three o'clock?'

'That's good. Zarah wants to meet me at eleven, at Cafe Palmenhaus. She sounded really upset on the telephone.'

When Effi arrived at the cafe on Ku'damm, the reason for her sister's distress was immediately evident - Zarah's left cheek was purple with bruising. 'What happened?' she asked, already guessing the answer.

'Jens hit me. Last night. After Lothar had gone to bed, thank God.'

'Why? Not that there's any excuse, but what set him off?'

'Oh, I was nagging him about his drinking. I shouldn't do that...'

'It's no reason to hit you.'

'No, I know, but... on the tram coming here there was a young woman in mourning with two small children... and Jens lashing out just once... well, it's nothing is it?'

'It is not nothing, and you know it.'

'He was so sorry afterwards. He was nicer to me this morning than he has been for months. And he's under so much pressure at work.'

'I know.' Effi could see Jens at the dinner table, the slight tremble of his lips as he described what was happening in Russia. She took her sister's hand and squeezed it, wondering what she would do if John ever hit her. She would show him the door, simple as that. But Zarah would never do that to Jens. Where could she go? Back to their parents with Lothar? 'You must tell Jens that if he ever hits you again, you and Lothar will be gone,' she said.

'But I couldn't leave him...'

'He doesn't know that. However bad it is at work, he has no right to take it out on you.' Though you could be doing more to help him, Effi thought but didn't say. Jens had crossed a line, and for today at least her sister should feel herself blameless.

They talked for an hour or more, going over and over the same ground, Effi's frustration kept in check by the obvious comfort this was giving her sister. On the pavement prior to parting, Zarah revealed how terrified Jens was that Effi would never speak to him again.

'Don't disabuse him,' Effi told her. 'Not for a while.'

Russell had stayed home to write up the story. He had his doubts as to whether a report of Sullivan's death would ever see the light of day, but where Nazi government circles were concerned there was always a reasonable chance that the left hand was in utter ignorance of the right hand's activities. And, if no one whispered a few cautionary words in Goebbels' ear before Russell's copy deadline, then the story might slip through.

Soon after one o'clock he arrived at the Press Club on Leipziger Platz, and after handing the article over to the censors climbed the stairs to the dining room. Sullivan's fate was one topic of conversation among the foreign correspondents, but not the most prominent: that honour belonged to the German Army's unexpected ejection from recently-conquered Rostov. This news had been aired by the BBC on the previous evening, and grudgingly confirmed by Braun von Stumm at the Foreign Ministry press conference only an hour or so ago.

This was important news. Rostov was the first city the German Army had been forced to surrender in over two years of war. Rostov was the gateway to all that oil which the Wehrmacht so desperately needed - a gateway now apparently closed. His sauerkraut was tasting so much sweeter, Russell realised. After lunch he used Bradley Emmering's notes from the press conference to write an appropriate piece, and submitted that to the censors.

His good mood ebbed away as he waited for Effi at the tram stop on Budapester Strasse. He had decided to pass on Strohm's terrible news, but found himself hoping that the Blumenthals had already heard it from other sources. Effi had argued for complete disclosure from the start, and was utterly unimpressed by his argument that the news might unleash a violent reaction from the Jewish community, one which would seal its fate more swiftly and surely than might otherwise have been the case. 'They deserve to know,' she had said with her usual trenchancy. 'You know they do.'

He did. Maybe not knowing was something he craved for himself.

Her tram arrived, and ten minutes later they were alighting close to the old synagogue on Oranienburgerstrasse. Once inside the Blumenthals' crowded apartment it immediately became apparent that the terrible news had preceded them. The welcome was warm as ever, but the eyes of mother and daughter held an underlying bleakness which was new. 'Someone came round from the Jewish community office,' Leonore explained, 'and asked if we could pass the news on. They would have called a meeting, but meetings are forbidden.'

The whole story had been reported: the unfinished camp at Riga, the 'improvised' response at Kovno. All the Blumenthals' friends were hoping that the latter was an aberration - Martin Blumenthal was even hoping that the guilty parties would be punished - but a majority also feared the worst. Knowing what Jens had told him and Effi over a candlelit dinner in Grunewald, Russell was afraid they were right, and that the survival of Berlin's remaining Jews was dependent on the continuing inefficiency of the Reichsbahn. But he refrained from saying so.

'If I'm on the next list, I'm not going,' Ali said abruptly.

The announcement obviously surprised her parents. 'You won't be on the list,' was her father's reaction. 'Why would they send a good worker like you? Herr Schade will see to it, you'll see.'

'What would you do?' her mother said.

'Go underground. More of us are doing it every day. You take off the star and you become invisible again. That's why they insist on us wearing them.'

'But how would you live?' her mother wanted to know.

'I'll manage somehow. I'll have a better chance here in a city I know than I would on a train to the East.'

'This is foolish talk,' her father said heatedly. 'We're not going on a train to the East. You and I, we both have important jobs, and your mother must be here to look after the house. Why would they send away workers they need? It's the old they are sending, God spare them.'

Ali walked over and put an arm around her father's neck. 'I hope you are right, Papa.'

He smiled at her, and looked out of the window. 'A beautiful day for a walk in the park,' he said wistfully. 'Maybe in Lodz there are still parks where Jews are allowed to walk,' he added quietly, almost as if he was talking to himself.

'They are starving in Lodz,' his wife muttered angrily.

Travelling home together, Effi and Russell sat mostly in silence, lost in their own thoughts. Effi was thinking about Zarah's troubles, how insignificant they seemed when compared to those of the Blumenthals, and how irrelevant such contrasts always were. Russell watched the familiar streets go by, streets which would soon no longer be familiar. His evacuation train would not be heading east into lands wracked by famine and war, but north or south to Denmark or Switzerland, havens of relative peace and prosperity. He thanked providence for not making him a German Jew, and wondered what had happened to his sense of shame.

The knock on their door came soon after dark, and as he went to answer it Russell realised that his unconscious had registered the arrival of a car a minute or so earlier. The visitors would be official.

The first face he saw - both boyish and bookish - belonged to a tall young man in an SS Obersturmfuhrer's uniform. The second, half hidden behind the first man's shoulder, belonged to Uwe Kuzorra. 'Herr John Russell,' the Obersturmfuhrer stated rather than asked.

The man had lost an arm, Russell realised. 'That's me,' he said, without unblocking the doorway.

'We need to ask you some questions. Inside, if you please.'

Russell stepped back to allow them in, and pushed the door shut. Effi had retreated to the bedroom doorway, and the Obersturmfuhrer was staring at her with obvious recognition.

'I'll leave you to it,' she said with a smile, and closed the door behind her.

Russell offered the two men seats, his mind racing. They must have discovered that he had an appointment to meet Sullivan on the previous day. What could he safely tell them? Certainly not that Sullivan had secret information to hand over - Russell had no desire to face an espionage charge.

Kuzorra lowered himself onto the sofa with obvious pleasure. The detective would have had a long and busy day, and he was well into his sixties by now.

The Obersturmfuhrer remained on his feet, tapping his right thigh with his hand.

'You know who I am,' Kuzorra told Russell. 'This is my assistant, Obersturmfuhrer Schwering.'

The younger man reluctantly accepted Russell's offer of a handshake. 'I noticed you this morning,' Kuzorra went on. 'I was rather surprised to find that you were still in Berlin.'

'I live here,' Russell said with a shrug. Saying as little as he could seemed a good guiding principle where this conversation was concerned.

'We have discovered that our victim arranged a meeting with you,' the Obersturmfuhrer said accusingly. 'Stettin Station at twelve o'clock, I believe.'

'Who told you that?' Russell asked pleasantly.

'That is neither...' Schwering began.

'His wife,' Kuzorra cut his subordinate off. 'His widow,' he corrected himself.

'It's true that I had arranged to meet him,' Russell admitted. 'But I was late. If he ever turned up, he was gone by the time I got there.'

The Obersturmfuhrer looked unconvinced, but let that go for the moment. 'So what was this meeting for?'

'He said he had some information for me. As I'm sure you know, most journalists get their information from a variety of sources.'

'Was he giving or selling?' Kuzorra wanted to know.

'Selling. Patrick Sullivan was only ever interested in the truth as a commodity.'

'What was this information?' Schwering asked.

Russell shrugged. 'I've no idea. Sullivan obviously thought it was worth something, but he wouldn't tell me anything in advance. He was probably afraid that spreading a few clues would allow me to dig the story up myself.'

The Obersturmfuhrer was far from happy. 'We shall be checking your story,' he said, as if knowing that fact would persuade Russell to come clean.

'I'm sure Herr Russell is aware of that,' Kuzorra said, getting to feet. 'How is your wife?' Russell asked, hoping to move matters onto a more convivial footing.

'She died last year,' Kuzorra told him, a moment of bleakness apparent in his eyes. 'A sudden illness. She didn't suffer.'

Unlike you, Russell thought. He remembered how well suited the two of them had seemed. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'How long have you been back at work?'

'Since that time.' He managed a thin smile. 'I needed something to do.'

Russell showed them out, and leant back against the door with some relief.

'Trouble?' Effi asked as she emerged.

'I don't think so.' He filled in those bits of the conversation which she had been unable to follow from the other side of the bedroom door.

'That's sad,' she said of Kuzorra's loss. She had not met the detective before, but remembered Russell's description of him and his wife Katrin.

'She seemed the one with the energy,' Russell recalled. 'And she made a wonderful cup of coffee.'

'Let's go out to eat,' Effi said. 'In case they come back. I don't want to share my last free evening before filming with an overgrown boy in a black uniform.'

They followed the white kerbs to the Ku'damm, and walked slowly west along the wide boulevard. This was also blacked-out, but the sheer number of phosphorescent badges and masked headlights provided sufficient illumination for seeing their way and recognising restaurants. Most of the latter were doing good business, Berliners having just received their December ration tickets.

They opted for the Chinese. The meat in the chow mein didn't taste much like chicken, but then it didn't taste much like anything else either. Russell wasn't even sure it was meat. Watching the members of the extended family who owned and ran the restaurant hurrying to and fro, he wondered, not for the first time, what on heaven's earth had persuaded them to set up shop in Hitler's Reich.

After they had finished eating someone stopped at the table to ask for Effi's autograph, and she obliged with her usual good grace. 'Are you looking forward to tomorrow?' Russell asked once the happy fan had returned to her own table.

'First days are usually fun,' she said. 'Everyone's trying to make a good impression on everyone else, even the director. And a masterpiece still seems possible, especially if you've only read your own part of the script. Of course, the first scene usually shatters that particular illusion.'

'Not the first scene of GPU, surely?'

'That may have the whole cast in stitches. I hope so. If everyone knows what rubbish it is, then we really can have some fun with it. But if the director thinks he's making an important statement, then God help us.' She smiled a quite dazzling smile at Russell. 'But I do love it most of the time. If it wasn't for the getting up at four-thirty in the morning, and the fact that we hardly see each other when I'm filming...'

'I know. Particularly now, when I may be whisked out of the country at a moment's notice.'

She reached a hand across the table. 'I've been meaning to tell you. Just in case you don't know. I shall be waiting for you, however long it takes. Though I can't guarantee that I'll still have my film star looks. '

'I love you too,' he said. 'And with any luck at all we'll soon be enjoying regular conjugal visits in Switzerland, courtesy of the Abwehr.'

'Conjugal, eh?'

'I was hoping.'

'I shall miss our bed, though.'

'It is an excellent bed.'

'And waiting for us right now.'

'I'll get the bill.'

Russell was still half asleep when he heard the knock on the door, and his first thought was that Effi had returned, having forgotten her keys and God knew what else. He was almost at the door when he noticed the clock, and realised that she would be in front of the cameras by this time.

It was Kuzorra, and this time he was alone. Russell stood aside to let the detective in, and offered him a cup of coffee.

'Real coffee?' his guest asked.

'I'm afraid not. Even we pampered foreigners have trouble getting that.'

'Then I'll pass.'

Kuzorra took the seat he had occupied the evening before. 'There's a phrase you journalists use when you want a quote, and the person concerned doesn't want anyone to know that it came from them...'

'Off the record.'

'That's the one. Well, I'd like you to tell me what you know about this business - off the record.'

'What makes you think I know anything more than what I've already told you?'

Kuzorra smiled. 'A journalist who loathes the Nazis meets a journalist who loves them for unexplained reasons. And before you can say "Joseph Goebbels" the second journalist is apparently beaten to death. It's hard to believe there's no connection.'

'I didn't kill him.'

'I didn't say you did. But I do think you know more about this than you're telling me. Hence the unofficial visit. Without my new assistant.'

Russell considered. 'These are strange times we live in,' he said finally, 'when the police are asking questions off the record.'

'These are strange times.'

'Why can't it have been a robbery?' Russell asked, still prevaricating. Kuzorra smiled again. 'According to the Luftwaffe weather people it only stopped raining around two in the morning on Sunday. The body was wet underneath but dry on top when it was found an hour or so later.'

'So he was killed during that hour.'

'He'd been dead for well over twelve hours when the pathologist examined him at eight this morning.'

'Ah.'

'Ah indeed. He was killed just a few hours after your missed appointment, and placed in the park a lot later, between two and three in the morning.'

'And I don't suppose you're looking for a gang of Jewish-Bolshevik cut-throats?'

'They're thin on the ground these days.'

Russell had run out of wriggle room. 'Off the record,' he began, 'I didn't lie to you yesterday, but I didn't tell you the whole truth either. I didn't meet with Sullivan, but I did see him arrive at Stettin Station.' He paused, wondering how to explain his preliminary surveillance. 'I was a bit worried about meeting him in public,' he went on, improvising heroically. 'Sullivan was a Nazi, after all, and I could imagine him agreeing to help trap me in some sort of indiscretion. Anyway, I watched him go into the buffet and then waited a few moments to make sure that he wasn't being tailed. No one appeared, and I was just about to join him when two goons in suits beat me to it. They took Sullivan out to their car and drove off with him. I had no idea why, and I still haven't. I try and stay out of arguments between Nazis.'

'What did these men look like?'

Russell described them, and the car.

'I don't suppose you noticed the number.'

In for a penny, Russell thought. He collected the notebook from his jacket pocket, and read the number out.

'Anything else?' Kuzorra asked, once he had noted it down.

'Nothing.'

'Did Sullivan say, or hint, that he had something for you? Something material, I mean. Documents perhaps, or photographs.'

'No. But if he had brought something to show me, then presumably his killers will have it now.'

'Perhaps.' Kuzorra ran a hand across the grey stubble which passed for his hair, a personal habit which Russell remembered from their previous meetings. 'This is a strange case. While we're off the record - I presume this works both ways?'

Russell nodded, intrigued.

'The officer who was with me yesterday evening - Obersturmfuhrer Schwering - was appointed as my assistant less than two hours after Sullivan's body was found. He's on secondment from the Sicherheitsdienst. The first thing he suggested was a thorough search of Sullivan's apartment in Dahlem, and when he got there he seemed very insistent on conducting it himself. I let him get on with it, but kept an eye on him. He seemed rather put out when he didn't find anything.'

'Interesting,' Russell murmured.

'He may insist on searching this flat,' Kuzorra added.

'He won't find anything here,' Russell said flatly. Having their home ransacked by the SD was not a welcome prospect. Particularly if only Effi was here to receive them. 'I'm off to Prague this evening,' he told the detective, 'and I'll be gone for a couple of nights. So if you want to search the place, I'd be grateful if you'd do it now. '

Kuzorra gave him a lengthy stare. 'Consider it searched,' he said at last, and got to his feet. 'I'll give Schwering the car number, and tell him I got it from a witness at the station. It should keep him busy for a day or so.'

'Busy failing to trace it?'

'If it's a car from the SD pool. If it isn't, then he'll be the hero of the hour.'

'Depending on whom it does belong to. I don't envy you this particular job.'

Kuzorra paused with his hand on the doorknob. 'It beats chasing blackout robbers. And the expression on Goebbels' face when the penny finally drops should be something to behold.'

An hour or so later, Russell walked down to Zoo Station. Searching through the Volkischer Beobachter over the usual unsatisfactory breakfast, he found no mention of Sullivan's unfortunate demise. Someone had given Goebbels pause for thought, and sufficient reason for delaying his planned publicity blitz around the manhunt for Sullivan's killer. By tomorrow, Russell guessed, it would all be over. Sullivan's death would be fictionalised in a suitably edifying light, his killers on to their next mission of mercy. Kuzorra would be off the hook, and so would he.

It was a two-kilometre walk down the Landwehrkanal to the Abwehr headquarters. Yesterday's clear skies had persisted, and the low sun was frequently in his eyes as he walked south-eastwards along the towpath. It was suitably cold for December the first, and hopefully colder outside Moscow. The coal traffic seemed busier than ever, barge after laden barge puttering down the ice-edged canal towards the factories and generating stations in the north-western outskirts. The men at their helms all looked like the Ancient Mariner, dragged out of retirement in the Reich's hour of need.

With the Abwehr building looming in the distance, Russell used the Graf Spee Bridge to switch banks. As he approached the entrance on Tirpitz Ufer, he noticed the usual Gestapo Mercedes 260 parked on the opposite quay. In pre-war days foreign agents of all descriptions had lurked in this vicinity, hopeful of overhearing some useful tidbit of military information, but the real war had put paid to such boyish games, and Russell could only assume that the men in the car were Germans spying on their own countrymen.

At reception he was told to report to Colonel Piekenbrock, and for once the Section 1 chief didn't keep Russell waiting outside. Piekenbrock invited him in, sat him down and even suggested a cup of coffee. Russell accepted the latter, more in hope than expectation, and was only mildly disappointed when a pretty brunette arrived with the usual slop.

Piekenbrock gulped his down with almost inhuman gusto. 'This is Grashof,' he said, handing across a photograph. 'That was taken quite recently.'

Russell studied the picture. A tall-looking man with a gaunt face and short dark hair was standing on Prague's famous Charles Bridge, the Little Quarter and Castle rising behind him. Grashof was wearing glasses, and his lips were slightly curled in the beginnings of a smile. This is a clever man, Russell thought, and wondered what it was in the photograph that led him to that conclusion.

He handed it back.

'Your meeting will be at the Sramota Cafe. It's on the river, close to the Smetana Bridge. Grashof will be sitting on the terrace, the very last table along from the entrance. You should arrive at exactly two o'clock, with the latest issue of Signal.'

'What if it's raining? Or snowing even?'

'It's a glassed-in terrace.'

'What if someone beats us to that table?'

'They won't. This is all taken care of; you just have to be there. Greet Grashof like he was an old friend, order a coffee, sit and chat for ten, fifteen minutes. Before you arrive, you will have hidden this letter -' Piekenbrock passed a wax-sealed and unaddressed envelope across the desk '- in your magazine. Grashof will have his own copy, and it should not prove difficult to switch them over.'

'Elementary,' Russell murmured. The Admiral's penchant for the old traditions had scuppered his plan to steam the missive open. 'Will there be anything in his copy?'

'No.'

Russell put the envelope in his inside jacket pocket. 'Is that it?'

'You will need your train tickets and visa,' Piekenbrock said, handing over another envelope. 'You will find some local currency for your expenses. More than enough, I'm sure. Do you have any questions?'

He had several, but none that Piekenbrock could or would answer. He shook his head.

'Then have a good journey.'

Russell resumed his walk along the Landwehrkanal for another few hundred metres, before climbing the steps at the Potsdamer Strasse Bridge and strolling northward at a leisurely pace towards Leipziger Platz and the Press Club. He felt unreasonably cheerful, and could only assume it was the play of sunlight working its usual magic.

A couple of dozing Italians and one self-important Romanian were the press club's only customers, and Russell had the English-language newspapers all to himself. Not that they offered any real enlightenment. Some thought the battles in Russia were going well for the Germans, with the battles in North Africa going better for the British; while others thought the opposite on both counts.

He walked up Wilhelmstrasse to the Foreign Ministry. Braun von Stumm was again presiding, a sure sign that the regime was short of good news. The subject of Rostov's fall - and the unknown extent of the subsequent German retreat - was evaded with all the usual finesse: von Stumm simply refused to talk about it. The attack on Moscow was still said to be going well, but there were no new towns in the 'captured' column - German troops were simply 'closer to the capital'. Leafing back through his notebook, Russell found more of the same. The previous day they had 'taken more ground', the day before that 'further progress had been made'. The fall of Istra provided the last specific tidemark, and that had been five days ago. Were they hoarding news of advances for maximum later effect, or had they really run out of steam? His mind said the latter, his heart feared the former.

He headed homeward, stopping off at the Press Club to file a near-perfect copy of the Germans' own official release. There were no caveats he could add which the censors would pass, and the gaps in the German version hardly seemed to need pointing out.

Back at the flat, he packed an overnight bag. A pair of trousers had gone missing - Effi must have taken a sack of washing to the laundry without telling him, and then forgotten to collect it. He rescued the half-read Tristram Shandy from under the bed and eventually dug up the street map of Prague he had bought in 1939. The flat felt cold and empty, and he hung on later than he should, hoping that Effi would arrive home. She didn't, and the slowness of the tram to Anhalter Station would have caused him to him miss his train, had it not been delayed by an hour. Russell asked a convenient Reichsbahn employee whether dinner on the train would be better than dinner in the Anhalter buffet, and was told to draw his own conclusions from the prominent sign regretting the lack of a dining car. Others had obviously bothered to read it, and the station buffet was packed. Ordering took forever, leaving the time for eating seriously curtailed. Forced to run for the train, Russell quickly realised that every seat was taken, and that even space in the corridors was at a premium. He finally squeezed himself into a small corner beside a draughty corridor connection, feeling slightly nauseous and very out of breath.

It was not a very auspicious beginning. But at least he wasn't carrying anything for the comrades on this trip. Canaris might have occasional problems remembering who his country was fighting, but the Abwehr was still one of the most powerful organisations in Germany, and working for it should be relatively risk-free. He would, he admitted, be happier if he knew what was in the letter, but removing and invisibly replacing the Admiral's seal was beyond him. And whatever it said, it wouldn't have anything to do with him. Or so he assumed - for all he knew the message concealed within was a simple 'Shoot the messenger'. Unlikely, though. It would have been easier to shoot him in Berlin.

The blackout screens on the windows were firmly fixed in place, and Russell was suddenly reminded of a long coffin, rumbling south towards a distant funeral.