Stattin Station (18 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'What on earth for?'

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

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

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

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

'I thought so.'

'When?'

'Around three o'clock?'

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

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

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

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

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

'It's no reason to hit you.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'What would you do?' her mother said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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