The Samurai Inheritance

XI

They emerged from Kochstrasse station, close to what had once been the most notorious location on the Berlin Wall, a place of high-risk spy swaps, hair’s-breadth escapes and tragic failures, which seemed appropriate in Jamie’s view. Everything was a bit of a blur. He dazedly noted that Checkpoint Charlie had been turned into a tourist attraction: a hut surrounded by sandbags, a few warning signs and an opportunity to have your photograph taken with a grim-faced actor in a DDR border guard’s grey uniform. It seemed a demeaning end for such an iconic piece of history, and he couldn’t help thinking it would have been better if it had been swept away with the rest of the Wall.

‘Who is Berndt Hartmann?’ Magda asked. ‘The boy with the knife said “This is for Berndt Hartmann” when he was going to … going to stab you.’

A grinning goblin face swam into view and Jamie remembered the awkward hump of a hunched back that didn’t seem to slow the owner when they’d been running for their lives. ‘Just someone I knew.’

‘Come on, Jamie.’ The words exploded from Magda, revealing a new and formidable dimension to her character. He realized then that he’d gravely underestimated the steel that lay beneath the designer couture. ‘Somebody just tried to kill you. I deserve more than that.’

‘I’m sorry. It’s … He was a former SS man, part of a team who stole art treasures and … other things … for Heinrich Himmler.’

‘Did you kill him?’

Jamie remembered Bernie Hartmann’s irresistible grin. ‘No.’ He smiled wearily. ‘I tried to save his life. He died in a plane crash, but if I read the situation correctly no one told his former comrades. There was a Hamburg connection. I think it must have been a coincidence and the leader recognized me.’

‘I thought you were just a jumped-up errand boy,’ her tone took the edge off the words. ‘But there was a moment on the train when you were enjoying yourself. I think you might be a dangerous man to be around, Jamie Saintclair.’

There didn’t seem to be an answer to that, so they walked on in silence for a while. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘why didn’t you use your SAS trick on him?’

She had to think for a moment before she came up with a reply. ‘I didn’t feel like killing anybody today.’

They emerged into a square dominated by an enormous modern office block thirty or forty storeys high with the word Morgenpost emblazoned across the roof in neon letters ten feet tall. Above the doorway a slightly more modest display announced that this was the Axel Springer building. Jamie knew Springer had been the German equivalent of Rupert Murdoch, a media mogul who had monopolized German newspapers for four decades until his death in the Eighties.

They checked in at the front desk where a receptionist telephoned Magda’s contact to confirm the meeting and issued them with temporary badges authorizing their presence in the building. A few minutes later a blond-haired girl in a smart business suit appeared at the entrance barrier and greeted Magda with an exclamation of delight.

‘This is my friend Uli.’ Magda smiled as the other woman used a swipe card to open the barrier. ‘She’s a feature writer on the Berliner Morgenpost and quite the famous one, aren’t you, darling?’

Uli blushed, but Jamie could see she was pleased by the praise. ‘As you know very well, Magda, a byline does not make you famous. I’m only as good as my next story. Herr … Saintclair, isn’t it?’ She held out her hand and Jamie shook it. ‘That is the way it is in newspapers. Please.’

She led the way to the rear of the building and a brightly lit cafe, where a number of the tables were occupied by groups of three or four, mainly older men and young women. The women were dressed universally in jeans and T-shirts and the men looked as if they’d emerged from a Seventies time warp when beards and moustaches were still in fashion. ‘Our sub-editors are on a lunch break,’ Uli whispered with an indulgent smile. ‘Geniuses with words most of them, but their dress sense? Ugh!’

She left them sitting at a table with a scarred top and returned a few moments later juggling three china mugs filled with steaming black coffee and a handful of sachets of sugar and milk. When they’d sorted the drinks out to individual preference she turned to Jamie. ‘Magda said you are interested in the newspaper’s records?’

‘That’s correct. For a certain period in nineteen thirty-six and ’thirty-seven.’

Uli frowned. ‘Before I came to meet you I checked our computer system, but there are no comprehensive computerized archives available to us for the period before nineteen forty-five …’

Jamie stifled a groan. ‘Does that mean they were all destroyed during the war?’

‘Not necessarily,’ she said, raising his hopes again. ‘But you have to understand that the owners of this newspaper are not proud of the Morgenpost’s record during that period. When the Nazis came to power they immediately introduced a policy of gleichschaltung — that is, coordination — which may sound quite innocent, but in effect created a one-party state and outlawed all criticism of that party. One of the consequences of gleichschaltung was that the propaganda ministry under Josef Goebbels took over complete editorial control of all German newspapers.’ Uli was obviously uncomfortable with this part of her profession’s and her nation’s history. The words tumbled out in a flow of pure passion and she had to take a deep breath to compose herself. ‘If you were an editor who questioned the party line, you were replaced by a Nazi. If you were a journalist and wrote the wrong thing you would be fired, and quite possibly end up in a concentration camp. It did not matter whether you were part of an anti-Nazi organization or just a moderate expressing an alternative point of view, you were the enemy. Hundreds of journalists were imprisoned and many killed because they voiced opposition to the regime.’ She paused to drink from her coffee.

‘They were very brave,’ Jamie said.

‘Yes, Mr Saintclair,’ Uli’s eyes held a challenge, ‘there were brave Germans who stood up to the Nazis, not many, but some. But from nineteen thirty-three to ’forty-five the Morgenpost was essentially a Nazi mouthpiece. Its pages hailed the Night of the Long Knives — when Ernst Rohm and his Brownshirts were murdered — as the putting in its place of a gang of criminals. It celebrated Kristallnacht and the persecution of the Jews as throwing off the shackles of centuries of Zionist oppression. The Anschluss, the annexation of the Sudetenland, the invasion of Poland, and every German victory that followed were the subject of unquestioning devotion and hysterical applause. Is it any wonder the owners do not wish to make the record of those years too readily available to the public? Some archive material was destroyed during the bombing, but much of it survived. Although I said there were no comprehensive records, a restricted computer database is available to historians and researchers, but Magda led me to believe you would prefer to see the originals, yes?’

Jamie exchanged a glance with Magda Ross. ‘We’d be very grateful.’

‘Then come with me.’

She led them through the glass doors of the cafe and across a broad brightly lit hall to the lifts. Inside the lift she hit a button marked B and they descended in silence until it bumped to a halt and the doors opened. B stood for basement car park and they walked through the lines of partially filled parking bays across concrete streaked with tyre marks, until they reached what looked like a wooden hut at the far end. Uli removed a key from her pocket and unlocked the door, flicking a switch that illuminated a series of striplights as she entered.

‘Our archives,’ she announced wryly. ‘Some of us still fight to keep our history alive.’

A damp, musty scent — a combination of old-age and decay — hit them as they followed Uli into the hut. It was lined with wooden frames crammed with thick tabloid-size volumes in blue-marbled covers. Some were virtually pristine, with the embossed name of the paper and the year outlined in gold; others seemed to be held together by string and what looked like sticking plaster. Three narrow tables of rough wood ran down the centre of the shelves and two of the ragged volumes already lay there. ‘Nineteen thirty-six and ’thirty-seven,’ Uli confirmed. ‘They are not in the best of condition, as you see.’

She stepped back. ‘I have work to do, so I will leave you to your research. You shouldn’t be disturbed, but if anyone asks just show them your passes and tell them you’re my guests. I’ll come down and see how you’re getting on in an hour.’

‘Thank you.’ Jamie was already removing his jacket. ‘I’m very grateful for your help.’

‘Maybe it would be quicker if we took a volume each,’ Magda suggested.

‘Aren’t you a little overdressed for this?’ He pointed to the dark silk of her suit.

‘You’re talking to someone who’s been up to her armpits in a Melanesian cesspit.’ She pulled up the jacket’s sleeves. ‘Never let it be said an anthropologist was afraid to get her hands dirty. If there’s any permanent damage I’ll take it up with the House of Chanel.’

‘All right. If you check January nineteen thirty-seven, I’ll do the winter of ’thirty-six.’

‘Why don’t we broaden the search a month either side of our window, just in case?’ she suggested.

‘Good idea.’ Jamie opened the thick volume so the weight of the paper slapped back against the wooden surface, raising a small cloud of dust that made his nose twitch. ‘A pity they didn’t provide gas masks.’

He leafed through the dog-eared pages until he came to October. Front page after front page carried pictures of Hitler, Goering or Goebbels saluting long columns of marching men, shaking hands with other Nazi bigwigs or attending enormous rallies of cheering Hitler Youths. Apart from what seemed an odd fascination with the United States, the stories had a familiar theme. They focused on the success of the regime, vilification of Jews and saboteurs, and how well things were going in Spain where Franco was preparing for an offensive against Madrid. The never-ending diet of Nazi propaganda left him cold, but Jamie forced himself to focus on every paragraph. The only reference he could find of any interest was the arrival of a military delegation from Japan for talks with their Wehrmacht counterparts late in October. The true reason for the visit was revealed a few editions later. On 25 November, the Japanese ambassador to Germany, Kintomo Mushakoji, and the host nation’s foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, committing the two countries to deter the expansion of Communism. Jamie reflected that by November 1936 the Nazis were well experienced on that front, given the number of Communists they’d already killed. He turned back a few pages to an article he’d noticed earlier: the beheading on 4 November of the activist Edgar Andre, rounded up during the anti-Communist witch hunt after the Reichstag fire three years earlier. It would be just like the Nazis to have staged the execution to impress their Oriental guests. Turning back to the page that announced the arrival of the Japanese military mission, he noted down the names of the officers involved. He looked up to find Magda studying him intently. ‘Do you have anything?’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve been though every edition twice and the only thing I can find for January and February is a visit from a low-level US trade delegation.’

‘Nothing else?’ Jamie frowned.

‘Do you have anything particular in mind?’

‘There’s something missing. Can you look again, but take it as far as April?’

‘What am I looking for?’ she persisted.

‘The Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan was about turning back the tide of Communism. Communism meant Stalin.’ He picked up the 1936 volume and took it across to her table, opening it at the picture of Mushakoji and von Ribbentrop. ‘It was a diplomatic initiative that would have generated a diplomatic response. Japan and Germany signed the pact in November, but they would have been negotiating the detail for months in advance, that’s why we have a military mission in Berlin in October. It’s a sure bet the GRU — the Soviet intelligence directorate — would have been keeping Stalin informed. Despite their mutual distrust, relations between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were very polite and formal. The Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe had only closed their secret Russian training schools three years earlier. Once the treaty had been signed — forming an alliance that threatened him with a possible war on two fronts — the first thing Stalin would have done was send some kind of mission to Hitler to protest and assure him that the Comintern was no threat to Germany.’

Magda frowned before returning to her volume. ‘Is it possible Mushakoji was presented with the head?’

‘I’d been wondering that,’ Jamie admitted. ‘My instinct says not. It would be a poor offering for someone who’d just signed such a momentous document. Besides, he’d been in Germany for years, so he’d had plenty of time to visit the local museums.’

Twenty minutes later Uli reappeared at the door. Magda glanced at Jamie and shook her head. Nothing.

‘Have you been successful?’ the blond girl asked.

‘We have one or two leads.’ Jamie pulled on his jacket and put the notebook in the pocket. ‘But apart from that it’s been very helpful in adding some context to my research.’

They thanked her and left the building, walking unhurriedly in the direction of Friedrichstrasse. Jamie pondered what they’d learned and hadn’t learned and where the next move would take him.

‘Where does that leave us?’ Magda’s question cut across his thoughts.

‘Trying to track down your Americans and my Japanese.’

‘You can do that?’

‘I think my client can.’

‘And then?’

He shrugged. ‘Find the head … or not.’

She stopped and faced him. ‘How will you know it’s the right head and not some clever fake?’

It seemed a silly question and Jamie smiled. ‘There can’t be that many shrunken heads on people’s mantelpieces.’

But she was deadly serious. ‘You’d be surprised,’ she said coolly. ‘Melanesia is my territory, Jamie. I’ve seen more shrunken heads than you’ve seen Rembrandts. To a layman, the picture you showed me looks like a dozen others. I’ve been offered an exact replica carved from a coconut with hair woven from a dog’s tail.’

‘All right,’ he capitulated. ‘So I’m not an expert. What are you saying?’

‘That I can help you. That it doesn’t have to end here. One of the places my father served in was Tokyo. I speak a little Japanese, which might be helpful. In any case, I’ve been to Bougainville. It’s my territory.’

Jamie shook his head and laughed. ‘Even if I find the head, I’m not going anywhere near Bougainville. They have snakes there.’ He turned to walk away, but she persisted and the tilt of her head said she wouldn’t move until she had a decision. ‘All right,’ he raised his hands in surrender, ‘I’ll think about it, but the final decision will be up to my client.’

‘Good.’ She reached into her handbag, pulled out a business card and placed it in his hand. ‘Call me.’ As he watched her walk away, the confusion he felt was compounded by an odd feeling of loss.