Winter of the World

13

1942 (II)

Nursing Sister Carla von Ulrich wheeled a cart into the supply room and closed the door behind her.

She had to work quickly. What she was about to do would get her sent to a concentration camp if she were caught.

She took a selection of wound dressings from a cupboard, plus a roll of bandage and a jar of antiseptic cream. Then she unlocked the drugs cabinet. She took morphine for pain relief, sulphonamide for infections, and aspirin for fever. She added a new hypodermic syringe, still in its box.

She had already falsified the register, over a period of weeks, to look as if what she was stealing had been used legitimately. She had rigged the register before taking the stuff, rather than afterwards, so that any spot check would reveal a surplus, suggesting mere carelessness, instead of a deficit, which indicated theft.

She had done all this twice before, but she felt no less frightened.

As she wheeled the cart out of the store, she hoped she looked innocent: a nurse bringing medical necessities to a patient’s bedside.

She walked into the ward. To her dismay she saw Dr Ernst there, sitting beside a bed, taking a patient’s pulse.

All the doctors should have been at lunch.

It was now too late to change her mind. Trying to assume an air of confidence that was the opposite of what she felt, she held her head high and walked through the ward, pushing her cart.

Dr Ernst glanced up at her and smiled.

Berthold Ernst was the nurses’ dreamboat. A talented surgeon with a warm bedside manner, he was tall, handsome and single. He had romanced most of the attractive nurses, and had slept with many of them, if hospital gossip could be credited.

She nodded to him and went briskly past.

She pushed the trolley out of the ward then suddenly turned into the nurses’ cloakroom.

Her outdoor coat was on a hook. Beneath it was a basketwork shopping bag containing an old silk scarf, a cabbage and a box of sanitary towels in a brown paper bag. Carla removed the contents, then swiftly transferred the medical supplies from the trolley to the bag. She covered the supplies with the scarf, a blue and gold geometric design that her mother must have bought in the twenties. Then she put the cabbage and the sanitary towels on top, hung the bag on a hook, and arranged her coat to cover it.

I got away with it, she thought. She realized she was trembling a little. She took a deep breath, got herself under control, opened the door – and saw Dr Ernst standing just outside.

Had he been following her? Was he about to accuse her of stealing? His manner was not hostile; in fact, he looked friendly. Perhaps she had got away with it.

She said: ‘Good afternoon, Doctor. Can I help you with something?’

He smiled. ‘How are you, Sister? Is everything going well?’

‘Perfectly, I think.’ Guilt made her add ingratiatingly: ‘But it is you, Doctor, who must say whether things are going well.’

‘Oh, I have no complaints,’ he said dismissively.

Carla thought: So what is this about? Is he toying with me, sadistically delaying the moment when he makes his accusation?

She said nothing, but stood waiting, trying not to shake with anxiety.

He looked down at the cart. ‘Why did you take that into the cloakroom?’

‘I wanted something,’ she said, improvising desperately. ‘Something from my raincoat.’ She tried to suppress the frightened tremor in her voice. ‘A handkerchief, from my pocket.’ Stop gabbling, she told herself. He’s a doctor, not a Gestapo agent. But he scared her all the same.

He looked amused, as if he enjoyed her nervousness. ‘And the trolley?’

‘I’m returning it to its place.’

‘Tidiness is essential. You’re a very good nurse . . . Fräulein von Ulrich . . . or is it Frau?’

‘Fräulein.’

‘We should talk some more.’

The way he smiled told her this was not about stealing medical supplies. He was about to ask her to go out with him. She would be the envy of dozens of nurses if she said yes.

But she had no interest in him. Perhaps it was because she had loved one dashing Lothario, Werner Franck, and he had turned out to be a self-centred coward. She guessed that Berthold Ernst was similar.

However, she did not want to risk annoying him, so she just smiled and said nothing.

‘Do you like Wagner?’ he said.

She could see where this was going. ‘I have no time for music,’ she said firmly. ‘I take care of my elderly mother.’ In fact Maud was fifty-one and enjoyed robust good health.

‘I have two tickets for a recital tomorrow evening. They’re playing the Siegfried Idyll.’

‘A chamber piece!’ she said. ‘Unusual.’ Most of Wagner’s work was on a grand scale.

He looked pleased. ‘You know about music, I see.’

She wished she had not said it. She had just encouraged him. ‘My family is musical – my mother gives piano lessons.’

‘Then you must come. I’m sure someone else could take care of your mother for an evening.’

‘It’s really not possible,’ Carla said. ‘But thank you very much for the invitation.’ She saw anger in his eyes: he was not used to rejection. She turned and started to push the cart away.

‘Another time, perhaps?’ he called after her.

‘You’re very kind,’ she replied, without slowing her pace.

She was afraid he would come after her, but her ambiguous reply to his last question seemed to have mollified him. When she looked back over her shoulder he had gone.

She stowed the trolley and breathed more easily.

She returned to her duties. She checked on all the patients in her ward and wrote her reports. Then it was time to hand over to the evening shift.

She put on her raincoat and slung her bag over her arm. Now she had to walk out of the building with stolen property, and her fear mounted again.

Frieda Franck was going at the same time, and they left together. Frieda had no idea Carla was carrying contraband. They walked in June sunshine to the tram stop. Carla wore a coat mainly to keep her uniform clean.

She thought she was giving a convincing impression of normality until Frieda said: ‘Are you worried about something?’

‘No, why?’

‘You seem nervous.’

‘I’m fine.’ To change the subject, she pointed at a poster. ‘Look at that.’

The government had opened an exhibition in Berlin’s Lustgarten, the park in front of the cathedral. ‘The Soviet Paradise’ was the ironic title of a show about life under Communism, portraying Bolshevism as a Jewish trick and the Russians as subhuman Slavs. But even today the Nazis did not have everything their own way, and someone had gone around Berlin pasting up a spoof poster that read:

Permanent Installation

The NAZI PARADISE

WAR HUNGER LIES GESTAPO

How much longer?

There was one such poster stuck to the tram shelter, and it warmed Carla’s heart. ‘Who puts these things up?’ she said.

Frieda shrugged.

Carla said: ‘Whoever they are, they’re brave. They would be killed if caught.’ Then she remembered what was in her bag. She, too, could be killed if caught.

Frieda just said: ‘I’m sure.’

Now it was Frieda who seemed a little jumpy. Could she be one of those who put up the posters? Probably not. Maybe her boyfriend, Heinrich, was. He was the intense, moralistic type who would do that sort of thing. ‘How’s Heinrich?’ said Carla.

‘He wants to get married.’

‘Don’t you?’

Frieda lowered her voice. ‘I don’t want to have children.’ This was a seditious remark: young women were supposed to produce children gladly for the Führer. Frieda nodded at the illegal poster. ‘I wouldn’t like to bring a child into this paradise.’

‘I guess I wouldn’t, either,’ said Carla. Maybe that was why she had turned down Dr Ernst.

A tram arrived and they got on. Carla perched the basket on her lap nonchalantly, as if it contained nothing more sinister than cabbage. She scanned the other passengers. She was relieved to see no uniforms.

Frieda said: ‘Come home with me. Let’s have a jazz night. We can play Werner’s records.’

‘I’d love to, but I can’t,’ Carla said ‘I’ve got a call to pay. Remember the Rothmann family?’

Frieda looked around warily. Rothmann might or might not be a Jewish name. But no one was near enough to hear them. ‘Of course – he used to be our doctor.’

‘He’s not supposed to practise any more. Eva Rothmann went to London before the war and married a Scottish soldier. But the parents can’t get out of Germany, of course. Their son, Rudi, was a violin maker – quite brilliant, apparently – but he lost his job, and now he repairs instruments and tunes pianos.’ He came to the von Ulrich house four times a year to tune the Steinway grand. ‘Anyway, I said I’d go round there this evening and see them.’

‘Oh,’ said Frieda. It was the long drawn-out ‘oh’ of someone who has just seen the light.

‘Oh, what?’ said Carla.

‘Now I understand why you’re clutching that basket as if it contained the Holy Grail.’

Carla was thunderstruck. Frieda had guessed her secret! ‘How did you know?’

‘You said he’s not supposed to practise. That suggests he does.’

Carla saw that she had given Dr Rothmann away. She should have said that he was not allowed to practise. Fortunately, it was only to Frieda that she had betrayed him. She said: ‘What is he to do? They come to his door and beg him to help them. He can’t turn sick people away! It’s not as if he makes any money – all his patients are Jews and other poor folk who pay him with a few potatoes or an egg.’

‘You don’t have to defend him to me,’ said Frieda. ‘I think he’s brave. And you’re heroic, stealing supplies from the hospital to give to him. Is this the first time?’

Carla shook her head. ‘Third. But I feel such a fool for letting you find out.’

‘You’re not a fool. It’s just that I know you too well.’

The tram approached Carla’s stop. ‘Wish me luck,’ she said, and she got off.

When she entered her house she heard hesitant notes on the piano upstairs. Maud had a pupil. Carla was glad. It would cheer her mother up as well as providing a little money.

Carla took off her raincoat then went into the kitchen and greeted Ada. When Maud had announced that she could no longer pay Ada’s wages, Ada had asked if she could stay on anyway. Now she had a job cleaning an office in the evening, and she did housework for the von Ulrich family in exchange for her room and board.

Carla kicked off her shoes under the table and rubbed her feet together to ease their ache. Ada made her a cup of grain coffee.

Maud came into the kitchen, eyes sparkling. ‘A new pupil!’ she said. She showed Carla a handful of banknotes. ‘And he wants a lesson every day!’ She had left him practising scales, and his novice fingering sounded in the background like a cat walking along the keyboard.

‘That’s great,’ said Carla. ‘Who is he?’

‘A Nazi, of course. But we need the money.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Joachim Koch. He’s quite young and shy. If you meet him, for goodness’ sake bite your tongue and be polite.’

‘Of course.’

Maud disappeared.

Carla drank her coffee gratefully. She had got used to the taste of burnt acorns, as most people had.

She chatted idly to Ada for a few minutes. Ada had once been plump, but now she was thin. Few people were fat in today’s Germany, but there was something wrong with Ada. The death of her handicapped son, Kurt, had hit her hard. She had a lethargic air. She did her job competently, but then she sat staring out of the window for hours, her expression blank. Carla was fond of her, and felt her anguish, but did not know what to do to help her.

The sound of the piano ceased and, a little later, Carla heard two voices in the hallway, her mother’s and a man’s. She assumed Maud was seeing Herr Koch out, and she was horrified, a moment later, when her mother entered the kitchen, closely followed by a man in an immaculate lieutenant’s uniform.

‘This is my daughter,’ Maud said cheerfully. ‘Carla, this is Lieutenant Koch, a new pupil.’

Koch was an attractive, shy-looking man in his twenties. He had a fair moustache, and reminded Carla of pictures of her father when young.

Carla’s heart raced with fear. The basket containing the stolen medical supplies was on the kitchen chair next to her. Would she accidentally betray herself to Lieutenant Koch, as she had to Frieda?

She could hardly speak. ‘I–I–I am pleased to make your acquaintance,’ she said.

Maud looked at her with curiosity, surprised at her nervousness. All Maud wanted was for Carla to be nice to the new pupil in the hope that he would continue his studies. She saw no harm in bringing an army officer into the kitchen. She had no idea that Carla had stolen medicines in her shopping basket.

Koch made a formal bow and said: ‘The pleasure is mine.’

‘And Ada is our maid.’

Ada shot him a hostile look, but he did not see it: maids were beneath his notice. He put his weight on one leg and stood lopsided, trying to seem at ease but giving the opposite impression.

He acted younger than he looked. There was an innocence about him that suggested an over-protected child. All the same he was a danger.

Changing his stance, he rested his hands on the back of the chair on which Carla had put her basket. ‘I see you are a nurse,’ he said to her.

‘Yes.’ Carla tried to think calmly. Did Koch have any idea who the von Ulrichs were? He might be too young to know what a social democrat was. The party had been illegal for nine years. Perhaps the infamy of the von Ulrich family had faded away with the death of Walter. At any rate, Koch seemed to take them for a respectable German family who were poor simply because they had lost the man who had supported them, a situation in which many well-bred women found themselves.

There was no reason he should look in the basket.

Carla made herself speak pleasantly to him. ‘How are you getting on with the piano?’

‘I believe I am making rapid progress!’ He glanced at Maud. ‘So my teacher tells me.’

Maud said: ‘He shows evidence of talent, even at this early stage.’ She always said that, to encourage them to pay for a second lesson; but it seemed to Carla that she was being more charming than usual. She was entitled to flirt, of course; she had been a widow for more than a year. But she could not possibly have romantic feelings for someone half her age.

‘However, I have decided not to tell my friends until I have mastered the instrument,’ Koch added. ‘Then I will astonish them with my skill.’

‘Won’t that be fun?’ said Maud. ‘Please sit down, Lieutenant, if you have a few minutes to spare.’ She pointed to the chair on which Carla’s basket stood.

Carla reached out to grab the basket, but Koch beat her to it. He picked it up, saying: ‘Allow me.’ He glanced inside. Seeing the cabbage, he said: ‘Your supper, I presume?’

Carla said: ‘Yes.’ Her voice came out as a squeak.

He sat on the chair and placed the basket on the floor by his feet, on the side away from Carla. ‘I always fancied I might be musical. Now I have decided it is time to find out.’ He crossed his legs, then uncrossed them.

Carla wondered why he was so fidgety. He had nothing to fear. The thought crossed her mind that his unease might be sexual. He was alone with three single women. What was going through his mind?

Ada put a cup of coffee in front of him. He took out cigarettes. He smoked like a teenager, as if he was trying it out. Ada gave him an ashtray.

Maud said: ‘Lieutenant Koch works at the Ministry of War on Bendler Strasse.’

‘Indeed!’ That was the headquarters of the Supreme Staff. It was just as well Koch was telling no one there about learning the piano. All the greatest secrets of the German military were in that building. Even if Koch himself was ignorant, some of his colleagues might remember that Walter von Ulrich had been an anti-Nazi. And that would be the end of his lessons with Frau von Ulrich.

‘It is a great privilege to work there,’ said Koch.

Maud said: ‘My son is in Russia. We’re terribly worried about him.’

‘That is natural in a mother, of course,’ Koch said. ‘But please do not be pessimistic! The recent Russian counter-offensive has been decisively beaten back.’

That was rubbish. The propaganda machine could not conceal the fact that the Russians had won the battle of Moscow and pushed the German line back a hundred miles.

Koch went on: ‘We are now in a position to resume our advance.’

‘Are you sure?’ Maud looked anxious. Carla felt the same. They were both tortured by fear of what might happen to Erik.

Koch tried a superior smile. ‘Believe me, Frau von Ulrich, I am certain. Of course I cannot reveal all that I know. However, I can assure you that a very aggressive new operation is being planned.’

‘I am sure our troops have everything they need – enough food, and so on.’ She put a hand on Koch’s arm. ‘All the same, I worry. I shouldn’t say that, I know, but I feel I can trust you, Lieutenant.’

‘Of course.’

‘I haven’t heard from my son for months. I don’t know if he’s dead or alive.’

Koch reached into his pocket and took out a pencil and a small notebook. ‘I can certainly find out for you,’ he said.

‘Could you?’ said Maud, wide-eyed.

Carla thought this might be her reason for flirting.

Koch said: ‘Oh, yes. I am on the General Staff, you know – albeit in a humble role.’ He tried to look modest. ‘I can inquire about . . .’

‘Erik.’

‘Erik von Ulrich.’

‘That would be wonderful. He’s a medical orderly. He was studying to be a doctor, but he was impatient to fight for the Führer.’

It was true. Erik had been a gung-ho Nazi – although his last few letters home had taken a more subdued tone.

Koch wrote down the name.

Maud said: ‘You’re a wonderful man, Lieutenant Koch.’

‘It is nothing.’

‘I’m so glad we’re about to counter-attack on the Eastern Front. But you mustn’t tell me when the attack will begin. Though I’m desperate to know.’

Maud was fishing for information. Carla could not imagine why. She had no use for it.

Koch lowered his voice, as if there might be a spy outside the open kitchen window. ‘It will be very soon,’ he said. He looked around at the three women. Carla saw that he was basking in their attention. Perhaps it was unusual for him to have women hanging on his words. Prolonging the moment, he said: ‘Case Blue will begin very soon.’

Maud flashed her eyes at him. ‘Case Blue – how tremendously thrilling!’ she said in the tone a woman might use if a man offered to take her to the Ritz in Paris for a week.

He whispered: ‘The twenty-eighth of June.’

Maud put her hand on her heart. ‘So soon! That’s marvellous news.’

‘I should not have said anything.’

Maud put her hand over his. ‘I’m so glad you did, though. You’ve made me feel so much better.’

He stared at her hand. Carla realized that he was not used to being touched by women. He looked up from her hand to her eyes. She smiled warmly – so warmly that Carla could hardly believe it was 100 per cent faked.

Maud withdrew her hand. Koch stubbed out his cigarette and stood up. ‘I must go,’ he said.

Thank God, Carla thought.

He bowed to her. ‘A pleasure to meet you, Fräulein.’

‘Goodbye, Lieutenant,’ she replied neutrally.

Maud saw him to the door, saying: ‘Same time tomorrow, then.’

When she came back into the kitchen she said: ‘What a find – a foolish boy who works for the General Staff!’

Carla said: ‘I don’t understand why you’re so excited.’

Ada said: ‘He’s very handsome.’

Maud said: ‘He gave us secret information!’

‘What good is it to us?’ Carla asked. ‘We’re not spies.’

‘We know the date of the next offensive – surely we can find a way to pass it to the Russians?’

‘I don’t know how.’

‘We’re supposed to be surrounded by spies.’

‘That’s just propaganda. Everything that goes wrong is blamed on subversion by Jewish-Bolshevik secret agents, instead of Nazi bungling.’

‘All the same, there must be some real spies.’

‘How would we get in touch with them?’

Mother looked thoughtful. ‘I’d speak to Frieda.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Intuition.’

Carla recalled the moment at the bus stop, when she had wondered aloud who put up the anti-Nazi posters, and Frieda had gone quiet. Carla’s intuition agreed with her mother’s.

But that was not the only problem. ‘Even if we could, do we want to betray our country?’

Maud was emphatic. ‘We have to defeat the Nazis.’

‘I hate the Nazis more than anyone, but I’m still German.’

‘I know what you mean. I don’t like the idea of turning traitor, even though I was born English. But we aren’t going to get rid of the Nazis unless we lose the war.’

‘But suppose we could give the Russians information that would ensure we lost a battle. Erik might die in that battle! Your son – my brother! We might be the cause of his death.’

Maud opened her mouth to answer, but found she could not speak. Instead, she began to cry. Carla stood up and put her arms around her.

After a minute, Maud whispered: ‘He might die anyway. He might die fighting for Nazism. Better he should be killed losing a battle than winning it.’

Carla was not sure about that.

She released her mother. ‘Anyway, I wish you’d warn me before bringing someone like that into the kitchen,’ she said. She picked up her basket from the floor. ‘It’s a good thing Lieutenant Koch didn’t look any further into this.’

‘Why, what have you got in there?’

‘Medicines stolen from the hospital for Dr Rothmann.’

Maud smiled proudly through her tears. ‘That’s my girl.’

‘I nearly died when he picked up the basket.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You couldn’t know. But I’m going to get rid of the stuff right now.’

‘Good idea.’

Carla put her raincoat back on over her uniform and went out.

She walked quickly to the street where the Rothmanns lived. Their house was not as big as the von Ulrich place, but it was a well-proportioned town dwelling with pleasant rooms. However, the windows were now boarded up and there was a crude sign on the front door that said: ‘Surgery closed’.

The Rothmanns had once been prosperous. Dr Rothmann had had a flourishing practice with many wealthy patients. He had also treated poor people at cheaper prices. Now only the poor were left.

Carla went around the back, as the patients did.

She knew immediately that something was wrong. The back door was open, and when she stepped into the kitchen she saw a guitar with a broken neck lying on the tiled floor. The room was empty, but she could hear sounds from elsewhere in the house.

She crossed the kitchen and entered the hall. There were two main rooms on the ground floor. They had been the waiting room and the consulting room. Now the waiting room was disguised as a family sitting room, and the surgery had become Rudi’s workshop, with a bench and woodworking tools, and usually half a dozen mandolins, violins and cellos in various states of repair. All medical equipment was stashed out of sight in locked cupboards.

But not any more, she saw when she walked in.

The cupboards had been opened and their contents thrown out. The floor was littered with smashed glass and assorted pills, powders and liquids. In the debris Carla saw a stethoscope and a blood pressure gauge. Parts of several instruments were strewn around, evidently having been thrown on the floor and stamped upon.

Carla was shocked and disgusted. All that waste!

Then she looked into the other room. Rudi Rothmann lay in a corner. He was twenty-two years old, a tall man with an athletic build. His eyes were closed, and he was moaning in agony.

His mother, Hannelore, knelt beside him. Once a handsome blonde, Hannelore was now grey and gaunt.

‘What happened?’ said Carla, fearing the answer.

‘The police,’ said Hannelore. ‘They accused my husband of treating Aryan patients. They have taken him away. Rudi tried to stop them smashing the place up. They have . . .’ She choked up.

Carla put down her basket and knelt beside Hannelore. ‘What have they done?’

Hannelore recovered the power of speech. ‘They broke his hands,’ she whispered.

Carla saw it at once. Rudi’s hands were red and horribly twisted. The police seemed to have broken his fingers one by one. No wonder he was moaning. She was sickened. But she saw horror every day, and she knew how to suppress her personal feelings and give practical help. ‘He needs morphine,’ she said.

Hannelore indicated the mess on the floor. ‘If we had any, it’s gone.’

Carla felt a spasm of pure rage. Even the hospitals were short of supplies – and yet the police had wasted precious drugs in an orgy of destruction. ‘I brought you morphine.’ She took from her basket a vial of clear fluid and the new syringe. Swiftly, she took the syringe from its box and charged it with the drug. Then she injected Rudi.

The effect was almost instant. The moaning stopped. He opened his eyes and looked at Carla. ‘You angel,’ he said. Then he closed his eyes and seemed to sleep.

‘We must try to set his fingers,’ Carla said. ‘So that the bones heal straight.’ She touched Rudi’s left hand. There was no reaction. She grasped the hand and lifted it. Still he did not stir.

‘I’ve never set bones,’ said Hannelore. ‘Though I’ve seen it done often enough.’

‘Same here,’ said Carla. ‘But we’d better try. I’ll do his left hand, you do the right. We must finish before the drug wears off. God knows he’ll be in enough pain.’

‘All right,’ said Hannelore.

Carla paused a moment longer. Her mother was right. They had to do anything they could to end this Nazi regime, even if it meant betraying their own country. She was no longer in any doubt.

‘Let’s get it done,’ Carla said.

Gently, carefully, the two women began to straighten Rudi’s broken hands.

(ii)

Thomas Macke went to the Tannenberg Bar every Friday afternoon.

It was not much of a place. On one wall was a framed photograph of the proprietor, Fritz, in a First World War uniform, twenty-five years younger and without a beer belly. He claimed to have killed nine Russians at the Battle of Tannenberg. There were a few tables and chairs, but the regulars all sat at the bar. A menu in a leather cover was almost entirely fantasy: the only dishes served were sausages with potatoes or sausages without potatoes.

But the place stood across the street from the Kreuzberg police station, so it was a cop bar. That meant it was free to break all the rules. Gambling was open, street girls gave blow jobs in the toilet, and the food inspectors of the Berlin city government never entered the kitchen. It opened when Fritz got up and closed when the last drinker went home.

Macke had been a lowly police officer at the Kreuzberg station years ago, before the Nazis took over and men such as he were suddenly given a break. Some of his former colleagues still drank at the Tannenberg, and he could be sure of seeing a familiar face or two. He still liked to talk to old friends, even though he had risen so far above them, becoming an inspector and a member of the SS.

‘You’ve done well, Thomas, I’ll give you that,’ said Bernhardt Engel, who had been a sergeant over Macke in 1932 and was still a sergeant. ‘Good luck to you, son.’ He raised to his lips the stein of beer that Macke had bought him.

‘I won’t argue with you,’ Macke replied. ‘Though I will say, Superintendent Kringelein is a lot worse to work for than you were.’

‘I was too soft on you boys,’ Bernhardt admitted.

Another old comrade, Franz Edel, laughed scornfully. ‘I wouldn’t say soft!’

Glancing out of the window, Macke saw a motorcycle pull up outside driven by a young man in the light-blue belted jacket of an air force officer. He looked familiar: Macke had seen him somewhere before. He had over-long red-blond hair flopping on to a patrician forehead. He crossed the pavement and came into the Tannenberg.

Macke remembered the name. He was Werner Franck, spoiled son of the radio manufacturer Ludi Franck.

Werner came to the bar and asked for a pack of Kamel cigarettes. How predictable, Macke thought, that the playboy should smoke American-style cigarettes, even if they were a German imitation.

Werner paid, opened the pack, took out a cigarette, and asked Fritz for a light. Turning to leave, cigarette in his mouth tilted at a rakish angle, he caught Macke’s eye and, after a moment’s thought, said: ‘Inspector Macke.’

The men in the bar all stared at Macke to see what he would say.

He nodded casually. ‘How are you, young Werner?’

‘Very well, sir, thank you.’

Macke was pleased, but surprised, by the respectful tone. He recalled Werner as an arrogant whippersnapper with insufficient respect for authority.

‘I’m just back from a visit to the Eastern Front with General Dorn,’ Werner added.

Macke sensed the cops in the bar become alert to the conversation. A man who had been to the Eastern Front merited respect. Macke could not help feeling pleased that they were all impressed that he moved in such elevated circles.

Werner offered Macke the cigarette pack, and Macke took one. ‘A beer,’ Werner said to Fritz. Turning back to Macke, he said: ‘May I buy you a drink, Inspector?’

‘The same, thank you.’

Fritz filled two steins. Werner raised his glass to Macke and said: ‘I want to thank you.’

That was another surprise. ‘For what?’ said Macke.

His friends were all listening intently.

Werner said: ‘A year ago you gave me a good telling-off.’

‘You didn’t seem grateful at the time.’

‘And for that I apologize. But I thought very hard about what you said to me, and eventually I realized you were right. I had allowed personal emotion to cloud my judgement. You set me straight. I’ll never forget that.’

Macke was touched. He had disliked Werner, and had spoken harshly to him; but the young man had taken his words to heart, and changed his ways. It gave Macke a warm glow to feel that he had made such a difference in a young man’s life.

Werner went on: ‘In fact, I thought of you the other day. General Dorn was talking about catching spies, and asking if we could track them down by their radio signals. I’m afraid I couldn’t tell him much.’

‘You should have asked me,’ said Macke. ‘It’s my specialty.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Come and sit down.’

They carried their drinks to a grubby table.

‘These men are all police officers,’ Macke said. ‘But still, one should not talk publicly about such matters.’

‘Of course.’ Werner lowered his voice. ‘But I know I may confide in you. You see, some of the battlefield commanders told Dorn they believe the enemy often knows our intentions in advance.’

‘Ah!’ said Macke. ‘I feared as much.’

‘What can I tell Dorn about radio signal detection?’

‘The correct term is goniometry.’ Macke collected his thoughts. This was an opportunity to impress an influential general, albeit indirectly. He needed to be clear, and emphasize the importance of what he was doing without exaggerating its success. He imagined General Dorn saying casually to the Führer: ‘There’s a very good man in the Gestapo – name of Macke – only an inspector, at the moment, but most impressive . . .’

‘We have an instrument that tells us the direction from which the signal is coming,’ he began. ‘If we take three readings from widely separated locations, we can draw three lines on the map. Where they intersect is the address of the transmitter.’

‘That’s fantastic!’

Macke raised a cautionary hand. ‘In theory,’ he said. ‘In practice, it’s more difficult. The pianist – that’s what we call the radio operator – does not usually stay in the location long enough for us to find him. A careful pianist never broadcasts from the same place twice. And our instrument is housed in a van with a conspicuous aerial on its roof, so they can see us coming.’

‘But you have had some success.’

‘Oh, yes. But perhaps you should come out in the van with us one evening. Then you could see the whole process for yourself – and make a first-hand report to General Dorn.’

‘That’s a good idea,’ said Werner.

(iii)

Moscow in June was sunny and warm. At lunchtime Volodya waited for Zoya at a fountain in the Alexander Gardens behind the Kremlin. Hundreds of people strolled by, many in pairs, enjoying the weather. Life was hard, and the water in the fountain had been turned off to save power, but the sky was blue, the trees were in leaf and the German army was a hundred miles away.

Volodya was full of pride every time he thought back to the Battle of Moscow. The dreaded German army, master of blitzkrieg attack, had been at the gates of the city – and had been thrown back. Russian soldiers had fought like lions to save their capital.

Unfortunately the Russian counter-attack had petered out in March. It had won back much territory, and made Muscovites feel safer; but the Germans had licked their wounds and were now preparing to try again.

And Stalin was still in charge.

Volodya spotted Zoya walking through the crowd towards him. She was wearing a red-and-white check dress. There was a spring in her step, and her pale-blonde hair seemed to bounce with her stride. Every man stared at her.

Volodya had dated some beautiful women, but he was surprised to find himself courting Zoya. For years she had treated him with cool indifference, and talked to him about nothing but nuclear physics. Then one day, to his astonishment, she had asked him to go to a movie.

It was shortly after the riot in which General Bobrov had been killed. Her attitude to him had changed that day; he was not sure he understood why; somehow the shared experience had created an intimacy. Anyway, they had gone to see George’s Dinky Jazz Band, a knockabout comedy starring an English banjolele player called George Formby. It was a popular movie, and had been running for months in Moscow. The plot was about as unrealistic as could be: unknown to George, his instrument was sending messages to German U-boats. It was so silly that they had both laughed their socks off.

Since then they had been dating regularly.

Today they were to have lunch with his father. He had arranged to meet her beforehand at the fountain in order to have a few minutes alone with her.

Zoya gave him her thousand-candlepower smile and stood on tiptoe to kiss him. She was tall, but he was taller. He relished the kiss. Her lips were soft and moist on his. It was over too soon.

Volodya was not completely sure of her yet. They were still ‘walking out’, as the older generation termed it. They kissed a lot, but they had not yet gone to bed together. They were not too young: he was twenty-seven, she twenty-eight. All the same, Volodya sensed that Zoya was not going to sleep with him until she was ready.

Half of him did not believe he would ever spend a night with this dream girl. She seemed too blonde, too intelligent, too tall, too self-possessed, too sexy ever to give herself to a man. Surely he would never be allowed to watch her take off her clothes, to gaze at her naked body, to touch her all over, to lie on top of her . . . ?

They walked through the long, narrow park. On one side was a busy road. All along the other side, the towers of the Kremlin loomed over a high wall. ‘To look at it, you’d think our leaders in there were being held prisoner by the Russian people,’ Volodya said.

‘Yes,’ Zoya agreed. ‘Instead of the other way round.’

He looked behind them, but no one had heard. All the same it was foolhardy to talk like that. ‘No wonder my father thinks you’re dangerous.’

‘I used to think you were like your father.’

‘I wish I was. He’s a hero. He stormed the Winter Palace! I don’t suppose I’ll ever change the course of history.’

‘Oh, I know, but he’s so narrow-minded and conservative. You’re not like that.’

Volodya thought he was pretty much like his father, but he was not going to argue.

‘Are you free this evening?’ she said. ‘I’d like to cook for you.’

‘You bet!’ She had never invited him to her place.

‘I’ve got a piece of steak.’

‘Great!’ Good beef was a treat even in Volodya’s privileged home.

‘And the Kovalevs are out of town.’

That was even better news. Like many Muscovites, Zoya lived in someone else’s apartment. She had two rooms and shared the kitchen and bathroom with another scientist, Dr Kovalev, and his wife and child. But the Kovalevs had gone away, so Zoya and Volodya would have the place to themselves. His pulse quickened. ‘Should I bring my toothbrush?’ he said.

She gave him an enigmatic smile and did not answer the question.

They left the park and crossed the road to a restaurant. Many were closed, but the city centre was full of offices whose workers had to eat lunch somewhere, and a few cafés and bars survived.

Grigori Peshkov was at a pavement table. There were better restaurants inside the Kremlin, but he liked to be seen in places used by ordinary Russians. He wanted to show that he was not above the common people just because he wore a general’s uniform. All the same, he had chosen a table well away from the rest, so that he could not be overheard.

He disapproved of Zoya, but he was not immune to her enchantment, and he stood up and kissed her on both cheeks.

They ordered potato pancakes and beer. The only alternatives were pickled herrings and vodka.

‘Today I am not going to speak to you about nuclear physics, General,’ said Zoya. ‘Please take it as read that I still believe everything I said last time we talked about the subject. I don’t want to bore you.’

‘That’s a relief,’ he said.

She laughed, showing white teeth. ‘Instead, you can tell me how much longer we will be at war.’

Volodya shook his head in mock despair. She always had to challenge his father. If she had not been a beautiful young woman, Grigori would have had her arrested long ago.

‘The Nazis are beaten, but they won’t admit it,’ Grigori said.

Zoya said: ‘Everyone in Moscow is wondering what will happen this summer – but you two probably know.’

Volodya said: ‘If I did, I certainly could not tell my girlfriend, no matter how crazy I am about her.’ Apart from anything else, it could get her shot, he thought, but he did not say it.

The potato pancakes came and they began to eat. As always, Zoya tucked in hungrily. Volodya loved the relish with which she attacked food. But he did not much like the pancakes. ‘These potatoes taste suspiciously like turnips,’ he said.

His father shot him a disapproving look.

‘Not that I’m complaining,’ Volodya added hastily.

When they had finished, Zoya went to the ladies’ room. As soon as she was out of earshot, Volodya said: ‘We think the German summer offensive is imminent.’

‘I agree,’ said his father.

‘Are we ready?’

‘Of course,’ said Grigori, but he looked anxious.

‘They will attack in the south. They want the oilfields of the Caucasus.’

Grigori shook his head. ‘They will come back to Moscow. It’s all that matters.’

‘Stalingrad is equally symbolic. It bears the name of our leader.’

‘Fuck symbolism. If they take Moscow, the war is over. If they don’t, they haven’t won, no matter what else they gain.’

‘You’re just guessing,’ Volodya said with irritation.

‘So are you.’

‘On the contrary, I have evidence.’ He looked around, but there was no one nearby. ‘The offensive is codenamed Case Blue. It will start on 28 June.’ He had learned that much from Werner Franck’s network of spies in Berlin. ‘And we found partial details in the briefcase of a German officer who crash-landed a reconnaissance plane near Kharkov.’

‘Officers on reconnaissance do not carry battle plans in briefcases,’ Grigori said. ‘Comrade Stalin thinks that was a ruse to deceive us, and I agree. The Germans want us to weaken our central front by sending forces south to deal with what will turn out to be no more than a diversion.’

This was the problem with intelligence, Volodya thought with frustration. Even when you had the information, stubborn old men would believe what they wanted.

He saw Zoya coming back, all eyes on her as she walked across the plaza. ‘What would convince you?’ he said to his father before she arrived.

‘More evidence.’

‘Such as?’

Grigori thought for a moment, taking the question seriously. ‘Get me the battle plan.’

Volodya sighed. Werner Franck had not yet succeeded in obtaining the document. ‘If I get it, will Stalin reconsider?’

‘If you get it, I’ll ask him to.’

‘It’s a deal,’ said Volodya.

He was being rash. He had no idea how he was going achieve this. Werner, Heinrich, Lili, and the others already took horrendous risks. Yet he would have to put even more pressure on them.

Zoya reached their table and Grigori stood up. They were going in three different directions, so they said goodbye.

‘I’ll see you tonight,’ Zoya said to Volodya.

He kissed her. ‘I’ll be there at seven.’

‘Bring your toothbrush,’ she said.

He walked away a happy man.

(iv)

A girl knows when her best friend has a secret. She may not know what the secret is, but she knows it is there, like an unidentifiable piece of furniture under a dust sheet. She realizes, from guarded and unforthcoming answers to innocent questions, that her friend is seeing someone she shouldn’t; she just doesn’t know the name, although she may guess that the forbidden lover is a married man, or a dark-skinned foreigner, or another woman. She admires that necklace, and knows from her friend’s muted reaction that it has shameful associations, though it may not be until years later that she discovers it was stolen from a senile grandmother’s jewel box.

So Carla thought when she reflected on Frieda.

Frieda had a secret, and it was connected with resistance to the Nazis. She might be deeply, criminally involved: perhaps she went through her brother Werner’s briefcase every night, copied secret papers, and handed the copies to a Russian spy. More likely it was not so dramatic: she probably helped print and distribute those illegal posters and leaflets that criticized the government.

So Carla was going to tell Frieda about Joachim Koch. However, she did not immediately get a chance. Carla and Frieda were nurses in different departments of a large hospital, and had different rotas, so they did not necessarily meet every day.

Meanwhile, Joachim came to the house daily for lessons. He made no more indiscreet revelations, but Maud continued to flirt with him. ‘You do realize that I’m almost forty years old?’ Carla heard her say one day, although she was in fact fifty-one. Joachim was completely infatuated. Maud was enjoying the power she still had to fascinate an attractive young man, albeit a very naive one. The thought crossed Carla’s mind that her mother might be developing deeper feelings for this boy with a fair moustache who looked a bit like the young Walter; but that seemed ridiculous.

Joachim was desperate to please her, and soon brought news of her son. Erik was alive and well. ‘His unit is in the Ukraine,’ Joachim said. ‘That’s all I can tell you.’

‘I wish he could get leave to come home,’ Maud said wistfully.

The young officer hesitated.

She said: ‘A mother worries so much. If I could just see him, even for only a day, it would be such a comfort to me.’

‘I might be able to arrange that.’

Maud pretended to be astonished. ‘Really? You’re that powerful?’

‘I’m not sure. I could try.’

‘Thank you for even trying.’ She kissed his hand.

It was a week before Carla saw Frieda again. When she did, she told her all about Joachim Koch. She told the story as if simply retailing an interesting piece of news, but she felt sure Frieda would not regard it in that innocent light. ‘Just imagine,’ she said. ‘He told us the code name of the operation and the date of the attack!’ She waited to see how Frieda would respond.

‘He could be executed for that,’ Frieda said.

‘If we knew someone who could get in touch with Moscow, we might turn the course of the war,’ Carla went on, as if still talking about the gravity of Joachim’s crime.

‘Perhaps,’ said Frieda.

That proved it. Frieda’s normal reaction to such a story would include expressions of surprise, lively interest, and further questions. Today she offered nothing but neutral phrases and noncommittal grunts. Carla went home and told her mother that her intuition had been correct.

Next day at the hospital, Frieda appeared in Carla’s ward looking frantic. ‘I have to talk to you urgently,’ she said.

Carla was changing a dressing for a young woman who had been badly burned in a munitions factory explosion. ‘Go to the cloakroom,’ she said. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

Five minutes later she found Frieda in the little room, smoking by an open window. ‘What is it?’ she said.

Frieda put out the cigarette. ‘It’s about your Lieutenant Koch.’

‘I thought so.’

‘You have to find out more from him.’

‘I have to? What are you talking about?’

‘He has access to the entire battle plan for Case Blue. We know something about it, but Moscow needs the details.’

Frieda was making a bewildering set of assumptions, but Carla went along with it. ‘I can ask him . . .’

‘No. You have to make him bring you the battle plan.’

‘I’m not sure that’s possible. He’s not completely stupid. Don’t you think—’

Frieda was not even listening. ‘Then you have to photograph it,’ she interrupted. She produced from the pocket of her uniform a stainless-steel box about the size of a pack of cigarettes, but longer and narrower. ‘This is a miniature camera specially designed for photographing documents.’ Carla noticed the name ‘Minox’ on the side. ‘You’ll get eleven pictures on one film. Here are three films.’ She brought out three cassettes, the shape of dumbbells but small enough to fit into the little camera. ‘This is how you load the film.’ Frieda demonstrated. ‘To take a picture, you look through this window. If you’re not sure, read this manual.’

Carla had never known Frieda to be so domineering. ‘I really need to think about this.’

‘There’s no time. This is your raincoat, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, but—’

Frieda stuffed the camera, films and booklet into the pockets of the coat. She seemed relieved they were out of her hands. ‘I’ve got to go.’ She went to the door.

‘But, Frieda!’

At last Frieda stopped and looked directly at Carla. ‘What?’

‘Well . . . you’re not behaving like a friend.’

‘This is more important.’

‘You’ve backed me into a corner.’

‘You created this situation when you told me about Joachim Koch. Don’t pretend you didn’t expect me to do something with the information.’

It was true. Carla had triggered this emergency herself. But she had not envisaged things turning out this way. ‘What if he says no?’

‘Then you’ll probably be living under the Nazis for the rest of your life.’ Frieda went out.

‘Hell,’ said Carla.

She stood alone in the cloakroom, thinking. She could not even get rid of the little camera without risk. It was in her raincoat, and she could hardly throw it into a hospital rubbish bin. She would have to leave the building with it in her pocket, and try to find a place where she could dispose of it secretly.

But did she want to?

It seemed unlikely that Koch, naive though he was, could be talked into smuggling a copy of a battle plan out of the War Ministry and bringing it to show his inamorata. However, if anyone could persuade him, Maud could.

But Carla was scared. There would be no mercy for her if she were caught. She would be arrested and tortured. She thought of Rudi Rothmann, moaning in the agony of broken bones. She recalled her father after they released him, so brutally beaten that he had died. Her crime would be worse than theirs; her punishment correspondingly bestial. She would be executed, of course – but not for a long time.

She told herself she was willing to risk that.

What she could not accept was the danger that she would help kill her brother.

He was there, on the Eastern Front, Joachim had confirmed it. He would be involved in Case Blue. If Carla enabled the Russians to win that battle, Erik could die as a result. She could not bear that.

She went back to her work. She was distracted and made mistakes, but fortunately the doctors did not notice and the patients could not tell. When at last her shift ended, she hurried away. The camera was burning a hole in her pocket but she did not see a safe place to dump it.

She wondered where Frieda had got it. Frieda had plenty of money, and could easily have bought it, though she would have had to come up with a story about why she needed such a thing. More likely she could have got it from the Russians before they closed their embassy a year ago.

The camera was still in Carla’s coat pocket when she arrived home.

There was no sound from the piano upstairs: Joachim was having his lesson later today. Her mother was sitting at the kitchen table. When Carla walked in, Maud beamed and said: ‘Look who’s here!’

It was Erik.

Carla stared at him. He was painfully thin, but apparently uninjured. His uniform was grimy and ripped, but he had washed his face and hands. He stood up and put his arms around her.

She hugged him hard, careless of dirtying her spotless uniform. ‘You’re safe,’ she said. There was so little flesh on him that she could feel his bones, his ribs and hips and shoulders and spine, through the thin material.

‘Safe for the moment,’ he said.

She released her hold. ‘How are you?’

‘Better than most.’

‘You weren’t wearing this flimsy uniform in the Russian winter?’

‘I stole a coat from a dead Russian.’

She sat down at the table. Ada was there too. Erik said: ‘You were right. About the Nazis, I mean. You were right.’

She was pleased, but not sure exactly what he meant. ‘In what way?’

‘They murder people. You told me that. Father told me, too, and Mother. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. I’m sorry, Ada, that I didn’t believe they killed your poor little Kurt. I know better now.’

This was a big reversal. Carla said: ‘What changed your mind?’

‘I saw them doing it, in Russia. They round up all the important people in town, because they must be Communists. And they get the Jews, too. Not just men, but women and children. And old people too frail to do anyone any harm.’ Tears were streaming down his face now. ‘Our regular soldiers don’t do it – there are special groups. They take the prisoners out of town. Sometimes there’s a quarry, or some other kind of pit. Or they make the younger ones dig a great hole. Then—’

He choked up, but Carla had to hear him say it. ‘Then what?’

‘They do them twelve at a time. Six pairs. Sometimes the husbands and wives hold hands as they walk down the slope. The mothers carry the babies. The riflemen wait until the prisoners are in the right spot. Then they shoot.’ Erik wiped his tears with his dirty uniform sleeve. ‘Bang,’ he said.

There was a long silence in the kitchen. Ada was crying. Carla was aghast. Only Maud was stony-faced.

Eventually Erik blew his nose, then took out cigarettes. ‘I was surprised to get leave and a ticket home,’ he said.

Carla said: ‘When do you have to go back?’

‘Tomorrow. I have only twenty-four hours here. All the same I’m the envy of all my comrades. They’d give anything for a day at home. Dr Weiss said I must have friends in high places.’

‘You do,’ said Maud. ‘Joachim Koch, a young lieutenant who works at the War Ministry and comes to me for piano lessons. I asked him to arrange leave for you.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘He’ll be here in a few minutes. He has grown fond of me – he’s in need of a mother figure, I think.’

Mother, hell, Carla thought. There was nothing maternal about Maud’s relationship with Joachim.

Maud went on: ‘He’s very innocent. He told us there’s going to be a new offensive on the Eastern Front starting on 28 June. He even mentioned the code name: Case Blue.’

Erik said: ‘He’s going to get himself shot.’

Carla said: ‘Joachim is not the only one who might be shot. I told someone what I learned. Now I’ve been asked to persuade Joachim, somehow, to get me the battle plan.’

‘Good God!’ Erik was rocked. ‘This is serious espionage – you’re in more danger than I am on the Eastern Front!’

‘Don’t worry, I can’t imagine Joachim would do it,’ Carla said.

‘Don’t be so sure,’ said Maud.

They all looked at her.

‘He might do it for me,’ she said. ‘If I asked him the right way.’

Erik said: ‘He’s that naive?’

She looked defiant. ‘He’s in love with me.’

‘Oh.’ Erik was embarrassed at the idea of his mother being involved in a romance.

Carla said: ‘All the same, we can’t do it.’

Erik said: ‘Why not?’

‘Because if the Russians win the battle you might die!’

‘I’ll probably die anyway.’

Carla heard her own voice rise in pitch agitatedly. ‘But we’d be helping the Russians kill you!’

‘I still want you to do it,’ Erik said fiercely. He looked down at the chequered oilcloth on the kitchen table, but what he was seeing was a thousand miles away.

Carla felt torn. If he wanted her to . . . She said: ‘But why?’

‘I think of those people walking down the slope into the quarry, holding hands.’ His own hands on the table grasped each other hard enough to bruise. ‘I’ll risk my life, if we can put a stop to that. I want to risk my life – I’ll feel better about myself, and my country, if I do. Please, Carla, if you can, send the Russians that battle plan.’

Still she hesitated. ‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m begging you.’

‘Then I will,’ said Carla.

(v)

Thomas Macke told his men – Wagner, Richter and Schneider – to be on their best behaviour. ‘Werner Franck is only a lieutenant, but he works for General Dorn. I want him to have the best possible impression of our team and our work. No swearing, no jokes, no eating, and no rough stuff unless it’s really necessary. If we catch a Communist spy, you can give him a good kicking. But if we fail, I don’t want you to pick on someone else just for fun.’ Normally he would turn a blind eye to that sort of thing. It all helped to keep people in fear of the displeasure of the Nazis. But Franck might be squeamish.

Werner turned up punctually at Gestapo headquarters in Prinz Albrecht Strasse on his motorcycle. They all got into the surveillance van with the revolving aerial on the roof. With so much radio equipment inside it was cramped. Richter took the wheel and they drove around the city in the early evening, the favoured time for spies to send messages to the enemy.

‘Why is that, I wonder?’ said Werner.

‘Most spies have a regular job,’ Macke explained. ‘It’s part of their cover story. So they go to an office or a factory in the daytime.’

‘Of course,’ said Werner. ‘I never thought of that.’

Macke was worried they might not pick up anything at all tonight. He was terrified that he would get the blame for the reverses the German army was suffering in Russia. He had done his best, but there were no prizes for effort in the Third Reich.

It sometimes happened that the unit picked up no signals. On other occasions there would be two or three, and Macke would have to choose which to follow up and which to ignore. He felt sure there was more than one spy network in the city, and they probably did not know of each other’s existence. He was trying to do an impossible job with inadequate tools.

They were near the Potsdamer Platz when they heard a signal. Macke recognized the characteristic sound. ‘That’s a pianist,’ he said with relief. At least he could prove to Werner that the equipment worked. Someone was broadcasting five-digit numbers, one after the other. ‘Soviet Intelligence uses a code in which pairs of numbers stand for letters,’ Macke explained to Werner. ‘So, for example, 11 might stand for A. Transmitting them in groups of five is just a convention.’

The radio operator, an electrical engineer named Mann, read off a set of co-ordinates, and Wagner drew a line on a map with a pencil and rule. Richter put the van in gear and set off again.

The pianist continued to broadcast, his beeps sounding loud in the van. Macke hated the man, whoever he was. ‘Bastard Communist swine,’ he said. ‘One day he’ll be in our basement, begging me to let him die so the pain will come to an end.’

Werner looked pale. He was not used to police work, Macke thought.

After a moment the young man pulled himself together. ‘The way you describe the Soviet code, it sounds as if it might not be too difficult to break,’ he said thoughtfully.

‘Correct!’ Macke was pleased that Werner caught on so fast. ‘But I was simplifying. They have refinements. After encoding the message as a series of numbers, the pianist then writes a key word underneath it repeatedly – it might be Kurfürstendamm, say – and encodes that. Then he subtracts the second numbers from the first and broadcasts the result.’

‘Almost impossible to decipher if you don’t know the key word!’

‘Exactly.’

They stopped again near the burned-out Reichstag building and drew another line on the map. The two met in Friedrichshain, to the east of the city centre.

Macke told the driver to swing north-east, taking them nearer to the likely spot while giving them a third line from a different angle. ‘Experience shows that it’s best to take three bearings,’ Macke told Werner. ‘The equipment is only approximate, and the extra measurement reduces error.’

‘Do you always catch him?’ said Werner.

‘By no means. In most cases we don’t. Often we’re just not quick enough. He may change frequency halfway through, so that we lose him. Sometimes he breaks off in mid-transmission and resumes at another location. He may have lookouts who see us coming and warn him to flee.’

‘A lot of snags.’

‘But we catch them, sooner or later.’

Richter stopped the van and Mann took the third bearing. The three pencil lines on Wagner’s map met to form a small triangle near the East Station. The pianist was somewhere between the railway line and the canal.

Macke gave Richter the location and added: ‘Quick as you can.’

Werner was perspiring, Macke noticed. Perhaps it was rather hot in the van. And the young lieutenant was not accustomed to action. He was learning what life was like in the Gestapo. All the better, Macke thought.

Richter headed south on Warschauer Strasse, crossed the railway, then turned into a cheap industrial neighbourhood of warehouses, yards and small factories. There was a group of soldiers toting kitbags outside a back entrance to the station, no doubt embarking for the Eastern Front. And a fellow-countryman somewhere in this neighbourhood doing his best to betray them, Macke thought angrily.

Wagner pointed down a narrow street leading away from the station. ‘He’s in the first few hundred yards, but he could be on either side,’ he said. ‘If we take the van any closer he’ll see us.’

‘All right, men, you know the drill,’ Macke said. ‘Wagner and Richter take the left-hand side. Schneider and I will take the right.’ They all picked up long-handled sledgehammers. ‘Come with me, Franck.’

There were few people on the street – a man in a worker’s cap walking briskly towards the railway station, an older woman in shabby clothes probably on her way to clean offices – and they hurried quickly past, not wanting to attract the attention of the Gestapo.

Macke’s team entered each building, one man leapfrogging his partner. Most businesses were closed for the day so they had to rouse a janitor. If he took more than a minute to come to the door they knocked it down. Once inside they raced through the building checking every room.

The pianist was not in the first block.

The first building on the right-hand side of the next block had a fading sign that said: ‘Fashion Furs’. It was a two-storey factory that stretched along the side street. It looked disused, but the front door was steel and the windows were barred: a fur coat factory naturally had heavy security.

Macke led Werner down the side street, looking for a way in. The adjacent building was bomb-damaged and derelict. The rubble had been cleared from the street and there was a hand-painted sign saying: ‘Danger – No Entry’. The remains of a name board identified it as a furniture warehouse.

They stepped over a pile of stones and splintered timbers, going as fast as they could but forced to tread carefully. A surviving wall concealed the rear of the building. Macke went behind it and found a hole through to the factory next door.

He had a strong feeling the pianist was in here.

He stepped through the hole, and Werner followed.

They found themselves in an empty office. There was an old steel desk with no chair, and a filing cabinet opposite. The calendar pinned to the wall was for 1939, probably the last year during which Berliners could afford such frivolities as fur coats.

Macke heard a footstep on the floor above.

He drew his gun.

Werner was unarmed.

They opened the door and stepped into a corridor.

Macke noted several open doors, a staircase up, and a door under the staircase that might lead to a basement.

Macke crept along the corridor towards the foot of the stairs, then noticed that Werner was checking the door to the basement.

‘I thought I heard a noise from below,’ Werner said. He turned the handle but the door had a flimsy lock. He stepped back and raised his right foot.

Macke said: ‘No—’

‘Yes – I hear them!’ Werner said, and he kicked the door open.

The crash resounded throughout the empty factory.

Werner burst through the door and disappeared. A light came on, showing a stone staircase. ‘Don’t move!’ Werner yelled. ‘You are under arrest!’

Macke went down the stairs after him.

He reached the basement. Werner stood at the foot of the stairs, looking baffled.

The room was empty.

Suspended from the ceiling were rails on which coats had probably been hung. An enormous roll of brown paper stood on end in one corner, probably intended for wrapping. But there was no radio and no spy tapping messages to Moscow.

‘You fucking idiot,’ Macke said to Werner.

He turned and ran back up the stairs. Werner ran after him. They traversed the hallway and went up to the next floor.

There were rows of workbenches under a glass roof. At one time the place must have been full of women working at sewing machines. Now there was nobody.

A glass door led to a fire escape, but the door was locked. Macke looked out and saw nobody.

He put his gun away. Breathing hard, he leaned on a workbench.

On the floor he noticed a couple of cigarette ends, one with lipstick on. They did not look very old. ‘They were here,’ he said to Werner, pointing at the floor. ‘Two of them. Your shout warned them, and they escaped.’

‘I was a fool,’ Werner said. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m not used to this kind of thing.’

Macke went to the corner window. Along the street he saw a young man and woman walking briskly away. The man was carrying a tan leather suitcase. As he watched, they disappeared into the railway station. ‘Shit,’ he said.

‘I don’t think they were spies,’ Werner said. He pointed to something on the floor, and Macke saw a crumpled condom. ‘Used, but empty,’ Werner said. ‘I think we caught them in the act.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ said Macke.

(vi)

The day Joachim Koch promised to bring the battle plan, Carla did not go to work.

She probably could have done her usual morning shift and been home in time – but ‘probably’ was not enough. There was always a risk that there might be a major fire or a road accident obliging her to work after the end of her shift to deal with an inrush of injured people. So she stayed at home all day.

In the end Maud had not had to ask Joachim to bring the plan. He had said he needed to cancel his lesson; then, unable to resist the temptation to boast, he had explained that he had to carry a copy of the plan across town. ‘Come for your lesson on the way,’ Maud had said; and he had agreed.

Lunch was strained. Carla and Maud ate a thin soup made with a ham bone and dried peas. Carla did not ask what Maud had done, or promised to do, to persuade Koch. Perhaps she had told him he was making marvellous progress on the piano but could not afford to miss a lesson. She might have asked whether he was so junior that he was monitored every minute: such a remark would sting him, for he pretended constantly to be more important than he was, and it might easily provoke him into showing up just to prove her wrong. However, the ploy most likely to have succeeded was the one Carla did not want to think about: sex. Her mother flirted outrageously with Koch, and he responded with slavish devotion. Carla suspected that this was the irresistible temptation that had made Joachim ignore the voice in his head saying: ‘Don’t be so damn stupid.’

Or perhaps not. He might see sense. He could show up this afternoon, not with a carbon copy in his bag, but with a Gestapo squad and a set of handcuffs.

Carla loaded a film cassette into the Minox camera, then put the camera and the two remaining cassettes in the top drawer of a low kitchen cupboard, under some towels. The cupboard stood next to the window, where the light was bright. She would photograph the document on the cupboard top.

She did not know how the exposed film would reach Moscow, but Frieda had assured her it would, and Carla imagined a travelling salesman – in pharmaceuticals, perhaps, or German-language Bibles – who had permission to sell his wares in Switzerland and could discreetly pass the film to someone from the Soviet Embassy in Bern.

The afternoon was long. Maud went to her room to rest. Ada did laundry. Carla sat in the dining room, which they rarely used nowadays, and tried to read, but she could not concentrate. The newspaper was all lies. She needed to cram for her next nursing exam, but the medical terms in her textbook swam before her eyes. She was reading an old copy of All Quiet on the Western Front, a German bestseller about the First World War, now banned because it was too honest about the hardships of soldiers; but she found herself holding the book in her hand and gazing out of the window at the June sunlight beating down on the dusty city.

At last he came. Carla heard a footstep on the path and jumped up to look out. There was no Gestapo squad, just Joachim Koch in his pressed uniform and shiny boots, his movie-star face as full of eager anticipation as that of a child arriving for a birthday party. He had his canvas bag over his shoulder as usual. Had he kept his promise? Did that bag hold a copy of the battle plan for Case Blue?

He rang the bell.

Carla and Maud had premeditated every move from now on. In accordance with their plan, Carla did not answer the door. A few moments later she saw her mother walk across the hall wearing a purple silk dressing gown and high-heeled slippers – almost like a prostitute, Carla thought with shame and embarrassment. She heard the front door open, then close again. From the hall there was a whisper of silk and a murmured endearment that suggested an embrace. Then the purple robe and the field-grey uniform passed the dining-room door and disappeared upstairs.

Maud’s first priority was to make sure he had the document. She was to look at it, say something admiring, then put it down. She would lead Joachim to the piano. Then she would find some pretext – Carla tried not to think what – for taking the young man through the double doors that led from the drawing room into the neighbouring study, a smaller, more intimate room with red velvet curtains and a big, sagging old couch. As soon as they were there, Maud would give the signal.

Because it was hard to know in advance the exact choreography of their movements, there were several possible signals, all of which meant the same thing. The simplest was that she would slam the door loud enough to be heard throughout the house. Alternatively, she would use the bell-push beside the fireplace that sounded a ring in the kitchen, part of the obsolete system for summoning servants. But any other noise would do, they had decided: in desperation she would knock the marble bust of Goethe to the floor or ‘accidentally’ smash a vase.

Carla stepped out of the dining room and stood in the hall, looking up the stairs. There was no sound.

She looked into the kitchen. Ada was washing the iron pot in which she had made the soup, scrubbing with an energy that was undoubtedly fuelled by tension. Carla gave her what she hoped was an encouraging smile. Carla and Maud would have liked to keep this whole affair secret from Ada, not because they did not trust her – quite the contrary, her hostility to the Nazis was fanatical – but because the knowledge made her complicit in treachery, and liable to the most extreme punishment. However, they lived too much together for secrecy to be possible, and Ada knew everything.

Carla faintly heard Maud give a tinkling laugh. She knew that sound. It struck an artificial note, and indicated that she was straining her powers of fascination to the limit.

Did Joachim have the document, or not?

A minute or two later Carla heard the piano. It was undoubtedly Joachim playing. The tune was a simple children’s song about a cat in the snow: ‘A.B.C., Die Katze lief im Schnee’. Carla’s father had sung it to her a hundred times. She felt a lump in her throat now when she thought of that. How dare the Nazis play such songs when they had made orphans of so many children?

The song stopped abruptly in the middle. Something had happened. Carla strained to hear – voices, footsteps, anything – but there was nothing.

A minute went by, then another.

Something had gone wrong – but what?

She looked through the kitchen doorway at Ada, who stopped scrubbing to spread her hands in a gesture that signified: I have no idea.

Carla had to find out.

She went quietly up the stairs, treading noiselessly on the threadbare carpet.

She stood outside the drawing room. Still she could hear nothing: no piano music, no movement, no voices.

She opened the door as quietly as possible.

She peeped in. She could see no one. She stepped inside and looked all around. The room was empty.

There was no sign of Joachim’s canvas bag.

She looked at the double door that led to the study. One of the two doors stood half open.

Carla tiptoed across the room. There was no carpet here, just polished wood blocks, and her footsteps were not completely silent; but she had to take the risk.

As she got nearer, she heard whispers.

She reached the doorway. She flattened herself against the wall then risked a look inside.

They were standing up, embracing, kissing. Joachim had his back to the door and to Carla: no doubt Maud had taken care to move him into that position. As Carla watched, Maud broke the kiss, looked over his shoulder, and caught Carla’s eye. She took her hand away from Joachim’s neck and made an urgent pointing gesture.

Carla saw the canvas bag on a chair.

She understood immediately what had gone wrong. When Maud had inveigled Joachim into the study, he had not obliged them by leaving his bag in the drawing room, but had nervously taken it with him.

Now Carla had to retrieve it.

Heart thudding, she stepped into the room.

Maud murmured: ‘Oh, yes, keep doing that, my sweet boy.’

Joachim groaned: ‘I love you, my darling.’

Carla took two paces forward, picked up the canvas bag, turned around, and stepped silently out of the room.

The bag was light.

She walked quickly across the drawing room and ran down the stairs, breathing hard.

In the kitchen she put the bag on the table and unbuckled its straps. Inside were today’s edition of the Berlin newspaper Der Angriff, a fresh pack of Kamel cigarettes, and a plain buff-coloured cardboard folder. With trembling hands she took out the folder and opened it. It contained a carbon copy of a document.

The first page was headed:

DIRECTIVE NO. 41

On the last page was a dotted line for a signature. Nothing was penned there, no doubt because this was a copy, but the name typed beside the line was Adolf Hitler.

In between was the plan for Case Blue.

Exultation rose in her heart, mingled with the tension she already felt and the terrible dread of discovery.

She put the document on the low cupboard next to the kitchen window. She jerked open the drawer and took out the Minox camera and the two spare films. She positioned the document carefully, then began to photograph it page by page.

It did not take long. There were just ten pages. She did not even have to reload film. She was done. She had stolen the battle plan.

That was for you, Father.

She put the camera back in the drawer, closed the drawer, slipped the document into the cardboard folder, put the folder back in the canvas bag, and closed the bag, fastening the straps.

Moving as quietly as she could, she carried the bag back upstairs.

As she crept into the drawing room she heard her mother’s voice. Maud was speaking clearly and emphatically, as if she wanted to be overheard, and Carla immediately sensed a warning. ‘Please don’t worry,’ she was saying. ‘It’s because you were so excited. We were both excited.’

Joachim’s voice came in reply, low and embarrassed. ‘I feel a fool,’ he said. ‘You only touched me, and it was all over.’

Carla could guess what had happened. She had no experience of it, but girls talked, and nurses’ conversations were brutally detailed. Joachim must have ejaculated prematurely. Frieda had told her that Heinrich had done the same, several times, when they were first together, and had been mortified with embarrassment, though he had soon got over it. It was a sign of nervousness, she said.

The fact that Maud and Joachim’s embraces were over so early created a difficulty for Carla. Joachim would be more alert now, no longer blind and deaf to everything going on around him.

All the same, Maud must be doing her best to keep his back to the doorway. If Carla could just slip in for a second and replace the bag on the chair without being seen by Joachim, they could still get away with it.

Heart pounding, Carla crossed the drawing room and paused at the open door.

Maud said reassuringly: ‘It happens often – the body becomes impatient. It’s nothing.’

Carla put her head around the door.

The two of them were still standing in the same place, still close together. Maud looked past Joachim and saw Carla. She put her hand on Joachim’s cheek, keeping his gaze away from Carla, and said: ‘Kiss me again, and tell me you don’t hate me for this little accident.’

Carla stepped inside.

Joachim said: ‘I need a cigarette.’

As he turned around, Carla stepped back outside.

She waited by the door. Did he have cigarettes in his pocket, or would he look for the new pack in his bag?

The answer came a second later. ‘Where’s my bag?’ he said.

Carla’s heart stopped.

Maud’s voice came clearly. ‘You left it in the drawing room.’

‘No, I didn’t.’

Carla crossed the room, dropped the bag on a chair, and stepped outside. Then she paused on the landing, listening.

She heard them move from the study to the drawing room.

Maud said: ‘There it is, I told you so.’

‘I did not leave it there,’ he said stubbornly. ‘I vowed I would not let it out of my sight. But I did – when I was kissing you.’

‘My darling, you’re upset about what happened between us. Try to relax.’

‘Someone must have come into the room, while I was distracted . . .’

‘How absurd.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Let’s sit at the piano, side by side, the way you like to,’ she said, but she was beginning to sound desperate.

‘Who else is in this house?’

Guessing what would happen next, Carla ran down the stairs and into the kitchen. Ada stared at her in alarm, but there was no time to explain.

She heard Joachim’s boots on the stairs.

A moment later he was in the kitchen. He had the canvas bag in his hand. His face was angry. He looked at Carla and Ada. ‘One of you has been looking inside this bag!’ he said.

Carla spoke as calmly as she could. ‘I don’t know why you should think that, Joachim,’ she said.

Maud appeared behind Joachim and came past him into the kitchen. ‘Let’s have coffee, please, Ada,’ she said brightly. ‘Joachim, do sit down, please.’

He ignored her and scrutinized the kitchen. His eye lit upon the top of the low cupboard by the window. Carla saw, to her horror, that although she had put the camera away, she had left the two spare film cassettes out.

‘Those are eight-millimetre film cassettes, aren’t they?’ Joachim said. ‘Have you got a miniature camera?’

Suddenly he did not seem such a little boy.

‘Is that what those things are?’ said Maud. ‘I’ve been wondering. They were left behind by another pupil, a Gestapo officer, in fact.’

It was a clever improvisation, but Joachim was not buying it. ‘And did he also leave behind his camera, I wonder?’ he said. He pulled open the drawer.

The neat little stainless-steel camera lay there on a white towel, guilty as a bloodstain.

Joachim looked shocked. Perhaps he had not really believed he was the victim of treachery, but had been blustering to compensate for his sexual failure; and now he was facing the truth for the first time. Whatever the reason, he was momentarily stunned. Still holding the knob of the drawer, he stared at the camera as if hypnotized. In that short moment Carla saw that a young man’s dream of love had been defiled, and his rage was going to be terrible.

At last he raised his eyes. He looked at the three women around him, and his gaze rested on Maud. ‘You have done this,’ he said. ‘You tricked me. But you will be punished.’ He picked up the camera and films and put them in his pocket. ‘You are under arrest, Frau von Ulrich.’ He took a step forward and grabbed her arm. ‘I am taking you to Gestapo headquarters.’

Maud jerked her arm free of his grasp and took a step back.

Joachim drew back his arm and punched her with all his might. He was tall, strong and young. The blow landed on her face and knocked her down.

Joachim stood over her. ‘You made a fool of me!’ he screeched. ‘You lied, and I believed you!’ He was hysterical now. ‘We will both be tortured by the Gestapo, and we both deserve it!’ He began to kick her where she lay. She tried to roll away, but came up against the cooker. His right boot thudded into her ribs, her thigh, her belly.

Ada rushed at him and scratched his face with her nails. He batted her away with a swipe. Then he kicked Maud in the head.

Carla moved.

She knew that people recovered from all kinds of trauma to the body, but a head injury often did irreparable damage. However, the reasoning was barely conscious. She acted without forethought. She picked up from the kitchen table the iron soup pot that Ada had so energetically scrubbed clean. Holding it by its long handle, she raised it high then brought it down with all her might on top of Joachim’s head.

He staggered, stunned.

She hit him again, even harder.

He slumped to the floor, unconscious. Maud moved out of the way of his falling body, and sat upright against the wall, holding her chest.

Carla raised the pot again.

Maud screamed: ‘No! Stop!’

Carla put the pot down on the kitchen table.

Joachim moved, trying to rise.

Ada seized the pot and hit him again, furiously. Carla tried to grab her arm but she was in a mad rage. She battered the unconscious man’s head again and again until she was exhausted, and then she dropped the pot to the floor with a clang.

Maud struggled to her knees and stared at Joachim. His eyes were wide and staring. His nose was twisted sideways. His skull seemed to be out of shape. Blood came from his ear. He did not appear to be breathing.

Carla knelt beside him, put her fingertips to his neck and felt for a pulse. There was none. ‘He’s dead,’ she said. ‘We’ve killed him. Oh, my God.’

Maud said: ‘You poor, stupid boy.’ She was crying.

Ada, panting with effort, said: ‘What do we do now?’

Carla realized they had to get rid of the body.

Maud struggled to her feet with difficulty. The left side of her face was swelling. ‘Dear God, it hurts,’ she said, holding her side. Carla guessed she had a cracked rib.

Looking down at Joachim, Ada said: ‘We could hide him in the attic.’

Carla said: ‘Yes, until the neighbours start to complain about the smell.’

‘Then we’ll bury him in the back garden.’

‘And what will people think when they see three women digging a hole six feet long in the yard of a Berlin town house? That we are prospecting for gold?’

‘We could dig at night.’

‘Would that seem less suspicious?’

Ada scratched her head.

Carla said: ‘We have to take the body somewhere and dump it. A park, or a canal.’

‘But how will we carry it?’ said Ada.

‘He doesn’t weigh much,’ said Maud sadly. ‘So slim and strong.’

Carla said: ‘It’s not the weight that’s the problem. Ada and I can carry him. But somehow we have to do it without arousing suspicion.’

Maud said: ‘I wish we had a car.’

Carla shook her head. ‘No one can get petrol anyway.’

They were silent. Outside, dusk was falling. Ada got a towel and wrapped it around Joachim’s head, to prevent his blood staining the floor. Maud cried silently, the tears rolling down a face twisted in anguish. Carla wanted to sympathize but first she had to solve this problem.

‘We could put him in a box,’ she said.

Ada said: ‘The only box that size is a coffin.’

‘How about a piece of furniture? A sideboard?’

‘Too heavy.’ Ada looked thoughtful. ‘But the wardrobe in my room is not so weighty.’

Carla nodded. A maid was assumed not to have many clothes, nor to need mahogany furniture, she realized with a touch of embarrassment; so Ada’s room had a narrow hanging cupboard made of flimsy deal wood. ‘Let’s get it,’ she said.

Ada had originally lived in the basement, but that was now an air raid shelter, and her room was upstairs. Carla and Ada went up. Ada opened her cupboard and pulled all the clothes off the rail. There were not many: two sets of uniform, a few dresses, one winter coat, all old. She laid them neatly on the single bed.

Carla tilted the wardrobe and took its weight, then Ada picked up the other end. It was not heavy, but it was awkward, and it took them some time to manhandle it out of the door and down the stairs.

At last they laid it on its back in the hall. Carla opened the door. Now it looked like a coffin with a hinged lid.

Carla went back into the kitchen and bent over the body. She took the camera and films from Joachim’s pocket, and replaced them in the kitchen drawer.

Carla took his arms, Ada took his legs, and they lifted the body. They carried it out of the kitchen into the hall and lowered it into the wardrobe. Ada rearranged the towel about the head, though the bleeding had stopped.

Should they take off his uniform, Carla wondered? It would make the body harder to identify – but it would give her two problems of disposal instead of one. She decided against.

She picked up the canvas bag and dropped it into the wardrobe with the corpse.

She closed the wardrobe door and turned the key, to make sure it did not fall open by accident. She put the key in the pocket of her dress.

She went into the dining room and looked out through the window. ‘It’s getting dark,’ she said. ‘That’s good.’

Maud said: ‘What will people think?’

‘That we’re moving a piece of furniture – selling it, perhaps, to get money for food.’

‘Two women, moving a wardrobe?’

‘Women do this sort of thing all the time, now that so many men are in the army or dead. It’s not as if we could get a removal van – they can’t buy petrol.’

‘Why would you be doing it in the half-dark?’

Carla let her frustration show. ‘I don’t know, Mother. If we’re asked, I’ll have to make something up. But the body can’t stay here.’

‘They’ll know he’s been murdered, when they find the body. They’ll examine the injuries.’

Carla, too, was worried about that. ‘Nothing we can do.’

‘They may try to investigate where he went today.’

‘He said he had not told anyone about his piano lessons. He wanted to astonish his friends with his skill. With luck, no one knows he came here.’

And without luck, Carla thought, we’re all dead. ‘What will they guess to be the motive for the murder?’

‘Will they find traces of semen in his underwear?’

Maud looked away, embarrassed. ‘Yes.’

‘Then they will imagine a sexual encounter, perhaps with another man, that ended in a quarrel.’

‘I hope you’re right.’

Carla was not at all sure, but she could not think of anything they could do about it. ‘The canal,’ she said. The body would float, and be found sooner or later; and there would be a murder investigation. They would just have to hope it did not lead to them.

Carla opened the front door.

She stood at the front of the wardrobe on its left, and Ada positioned herself at the back on the right. They bent down.

Ada, who undoubtedly had more experience of heavy lifting than her employers, said: ‘Tilt it sideways and get your hands under it.’

Carla did as she said.

‘Now lift your end a little.’

Carla did so.

Ada got her hands underneath her end and said: ‘Bend your knees. Take the weight. Straighten up.’

They raised the wardrobe to hip height. Ada bent down and got her shoulder underneath. Carla did the same.

The two women straightened up.

The weight tilted to Carla as they went down the steps from the front door, but she could bear it. When they reached the street, she turned towards the canal, a few blocks away.

It was now full dark, with no moon but a few stars shedding a faint light. With the blackout, there was a good chance no one would see them tip the wardrobe into the water. The disadvantage was that Carla could hardly see where she was going. She was terrified she would stumble and fall, and the wardrobe would smash to splinters, revealing the murdered man inside.

An ambulance drove by, its headlights covered by slit masks. It was probably hurrying to a road accident. There were many during the blackout. That meant there would be police cars in the vicinity.

Carla recalled a sensational murder case from the beginning of the blackout. A man had killed his wife, forced her body into a packing-case, and carried it across town on the seat of his bicycle in the dark before dropping it in the Havel river. Would the police remember the case and suspect anyone transporting a large object?

As she thought that, a police car drove by. A cop stared out at the two women with their wardrobe, but the car did not stop.

The burden seemed to get heavier. It was a warm night, and soon Carla was running with perspiration. The wood hurt her shoulder, and she wished she had thought of putting a folded handkerchief inside her blouse as a cushion.

They turned a corner and came upon the accident.

An eight-wheeler articulated truck carrying timber had collided head-on with a Mercedes saloon car which had been badly crushed. The police car and the ambulance were shining their headlights on to the wreckage. In a little pool of faint light, a group of men gathered around the car. The crash must have happened in the last few minutes, for there were still people inside the car. An ambulance man was leaning in at the back door, probably examining the injuries to see whether the passengers could be moved.

Carla was momentarily terrified. Guilt froze her and she stopped in her tracks. But no one had noticed her and Ada and the wardrobe, and after a moment she realized she just needed to steal away, double back, and take a different route to the canal.

She began to turn; but just then an alert policeman shone a flashlight her way.

She was tempted to drop the wardrobe and run, but she held her nerve.

The cop said: ‘What are you up to?’

‘Moving a wardrobe, officer,’ she said. Recovering her presence of mind, she faked a grisly curiosity to cover her guilty nervousness. ‘What happened here?’ she said. For good measure she added: ‘Is anyone dead?’

Professionals disliked this kind of vampire inquisitiveness, she knew – she was a professional herself. As she expected, the policeman reacted dismissively. ‘None of your business,’ he said. ‘Just keep out of the way.’ He turned back and shone his light into the crashed car.

The pavement on this side of the street was clear. Carla made a snap decision and walked straight on. She and Ada carried the wardrobe containing the dead man towards the wreckage.

She kept her eyes on the little knot of emergency workers in the small circle of light. They were intensely focused on their task and no one looked up as Carla passed the car.

It seemed to take for ever to pass along the length of the eight-wheel trailer. Then, when at last she drew level with the back end, she had a flash of inspiration.

She stopped.

Ada hissed: ‘What is it?’

‘This way.’ Carla stepped into the road at the back of the truck. ‘Put the wardrobe down,’ she hissed. ‘No noise.’

They placed the wardrobe gently on the pavement.

Ada whispered: ‘Are we leaving it here?’

Carla drew the key from her pocket and unlocked the wardrobe door. She looked up: as far as she could tell, the men were still gathered around the car, twenty feet away on the other side of the truck.

She opened the wardrobe door.

Joachim Koch stared up sightlessly, his head wrapped in a bloody towel.

‘Tip him out,’ Carla said. ‘By the wheels.’

They tilted the wardrobe, and the body rolled out, coming to rest up against the tyres.

Carla retrieved the bloody towel and threw it into the wardrobe. She left the canvas bag lying beside the corpse: she was glad to get rid of it. She closed and locked the wardrobe door, then they picked it up and walked away.

It was easy to carry now.

When they were fifty yards away in the dark, Carla heard a distant voice say: ‘My God, there’s another casualty – looks like a pedestrian was run over!’

Carla and Ada turned a corner, and relief washed over Carla like a tidal wave. She had got rid of the corpse. If only she could get home without attracting further attention – and without anyone looking inside the wardrobe and seeing the bloody towel – she would be safe. There would be no murder investigation. Joachim had become a pedestrian killed in a blackout accident. If he had really been dragged along the cobbled street by the wheels of the truck, he might have received injuries similar to those caused by the heavy base of Ada’s soup pot. Perhaps a skilled autopsy doctor could tell the difference – but no one would consider an autopsy necessary.

Carla thought about dumping the wardrobe, and decided against it. Even without the towel it had bloodstains inside, and might spark a police investigation on its own. They had to take it home and scrub it clean.

They got home without meeting anyone else.

They put the wardrobe down in the hall. Ada took out the towel, put it in the kitchen sink, and ran the cold tap. Carla felt a mixture of elation and sadness. She had stolen the Nazis’ battle plan, but she had killed a young man who was more foolish than wicked. She would think about that for many days, perhaps years, before she could be sure how she felt about it. For now she was just too tired.

She told her mother what they had done. Maud’s left cheek was so puffed up that her eye was almost closed. She was pressing her left side as if to ease a pain. She looked terrible.

Carla said: ‘You were terribly brave, Mother. I admire you so much for what you did today.’

Maud said wearily: ‘I don’t feel admirable. I’m so ashamed. I despise myself.’

‘Because you didn’t love him?’ said Carla.

‘No,’ said Maud. ‘Because I did.’