The Age of Treachery (18 page)

Forrester blinked. He could see the scene all too clearly. Greta smiled grimly. “The rubble saved me,” she said. “The fallen bricks came halfway up the wall of the house. I slid down to the bottom as the first soldier came after me, and then he stopped and saluted.” She let Forrester puzzle on that for a moment. “It was an officer, a captain. He had only slowed down because his car had to manoeuvre through the rubble. He glanced at me and saw something – I don’t know what, it was certainly not my beauty – but he motioned me to get into the car. And that was all there was to it. He took me to the house he had requisitioned and I became his.” She saw the expression on Forrester’s face. “Many women here in Berlin have done the same,” she said. “Better to belong to
one
of the invaders than be at the mercy of them all.”

“And you’re still with him?” asked Forrester, and when she nodded went on, “He doesn’t mind you singing here?”

“He likes it,” said Greta. “He likes to show me off, to say he has a famous singer as his mistress. I’m not a famous singer, of course, but that’s what he tells his friends.” She gave him a sharp glance. “He’ll be here in an hour,” she said. “Tell me what you want to know.”

Forrester explained his mission, and watched a wary expression come into Greta’s eyes. “I know nothing definite against Peter Dorfmann,” she said, “but I think the reason he was favoured over Professor Schopen was that he was close to the Nazis.”

“And you know that because…”

“They used to collect him from the university. Several times I saw a big car arrive and he would go off in it.” She saw his scepticism and added, “The kind of car only the top Nazis used.”

“Did you see anyone in the car?”

“Only the driver. They were taking him somewhere, but he was not afraid. He always came back. This I saw several times.”

Forrester contemplated this information – it was tantalising.

“And there was nothing to suggest what he was going to do, where he was going?”

“Nothing. Except the Viking book.”

Forrester felt an almost visceral jolt. “What Viking book?”

“I don’t know
what
Viking book, but it was his big secret. I came across it one day when I was bringing him a message. It was open on his desk and I looked at it. He was very angry when he found me.”

“Tell me more about this book. What did it look like? Was it a printed book, or a manuscript?”

“A manuscript, the kind that monks used to write. There were pictures of men in ships in it, dragons and such. The letters at the beginning of each sentence covered in leaves, and little heads and things. He had been tracing one of the drawings.”

“Tracing?”

“There was tracing paper in the book. He snatched it away when he saw me looking at it. After that I only saw it when he was carrying it to that car.”

“And this big car was the only link with the Nazis? That you can be sure of?” said Forrester. “Did you ever see him outside the context of the university, for example? A party rally, a government meeting, something like that?”

“The Press Club Ball, maybe you have heard of it, early in the war, before such things were stopped.” She smiled, reminiscing. “It was held at the Funkturm, very glamorous; all the film stars were there, and the professors in their best evening dress, and army officers in their dress uniforms, and diplomats with gold embroidery.”

“And party big-wigs,” prompted Forrester.

“That was the only time I actually saw him with them,” said Greta. “Or one of them, anyway.”

“His name?” asked Forrester.

“Walter Schellenberg,” said Greta.

Forrester blinked. “The intelligence man?”

“I don’t know,” said Greta. “He was in the uniform of the SS. A
Standartenführer
, I think. There was an admiral with them too.”

“Not Canaris?”

Greta shrugged. “It could have been,” she said. “I did not recognise him, but Walter Schellenberg was handsome and not easy to forget.”

“And Dorfmann was clearly familiar with them both?”

“So it seemed to me,” said Greta. “So I was not surprised when he was promoted. You see—” she broke off, as a Russian officer appeared behind Forrester.

“Darling,” said Greta, and stood up to embrace him. He was quite young, his blond hair shaved close to his scalp. Greta made the introductions; his name was Captain Sergei Bolkonsky and he worked for a man named Tulpanov, who was the Russian Commissar for Culture in Berlin. Forrester remembered the invitation to the Goethe evening Professor Schopen had received from Tulpanov during their meeting. He had seen pictures of the Russian, a man with a brutal reputation who was competing furiously with the British and the Americans to make the Germans think well of the Russians, despite their atrocities, by keeping them entertained with opera, film and drama.

Forrester made to leave, but Bolkonsky insisted he share a bottle with them, and quizzed him about Oxford. Despite the fact that Greta was, in effect, his concubine, he seemed inordinately proud of her, waxing lyrical about her talent as a singer, her knowledge and sophistication. Even the fact that she had been talking to Forrester did not appear to concern him; he was just proud of the fact she could hold her own in a conversation with such a distinguished man as he took Forrester to be. Gradually Forrester realised the young man was quite out of his depth here; he’d grown up on a collective farm and couldn’t quite believe he was in the almost mythical city of Berlin as one of the victors.

When Greta performed her second set he watched with wide-eyed admiration, and confided to Forrester that he found it hard to believe a woman like Greta had consented to be his mistress. “She has taught me so much,” he said. Later he insisted they both accompany him to an artists’ club called the Seagull the next day, which his boss, Tulpanov, had set up to provide important German artists with perks they could not get elsewhere.

“Some bad things were done when we first arrived,” he said, “but Colonel Tulpanov believes that if the significant people can be persuaded the Soviet Union is their friend, those things will be forgotten. Already, do you know, we have begun opera again, at both the national and the city theatre?”

Forrester tried to look impressed, but the idea of these starved, desperate, degraded people who had tortured Europe for six years performing Mozart and Rossini amidst the ruins seemed grotesque.

As they walked through the rubble-filled streets, shadowy figures slipped past, pushing prams laden with absurd items – ornate clocks, huge gilt mirrors and aspidistras in brass pots – which they were prepared to barter in return for anything they could eat. Gaunt women hovered in wrecked doorways, offering themselves for a pack of cigarettes. A tram lurched past, sending out a shower of blue sparks, and then stopped in the middle of the road as the power gave out.

It was one in the morning before Forrester finally got back to Fasanenstraße, and the minute he lay on the bed he immediately fell into a deep sleep.

Forrester awoke with a headache and a sense of being overcrowded with possibilities. He followed the smell of bacon and sausages down to a room full of officers tucking into plates brimming with beans, egg and fried bread all liberally garnished with tomato ketchup, took out a notebook, swallowed a mugful of tea strong enough to stand a spoon up in, and wrote down, almost at random, everything he’d heard about Dorfmann since he’d arrived in Berlin.

Then he went through the list and circled several of the words. Among those highlighted were “Viking book” and “Schellenberg”. As he was doing this a voice said, “You don’t happen to know where I could get hold of twenty typewriters, do you?” and he turned to see the dark-haired officer whose conversations he kept overhearing all over Berlin. This time he introduced himself. “Captain Robert Maxwell,” he said. “They’ve put me in charge of one of the newspapers here, and I’m trying to get it up and running. I’ve got the coal for heating, I’ve got the electricity for the presses, I’ve got the paper and I’ve got the ink. But the bloody reporters are having to write their copy in long-hand.” Forrester stared at him. Suddenly he realised why the man seemed familiar.

“We’ve met,” he said. “Back in England.” A shadow passed over Maxwell’s face.

“Sorry, old man,” he said. “Can’t recall.”

“But you had a different name,” said Forrester, trying to bring it back. Then it came to him: the man had been called Private Ivan du Maurier, and he’d been part of a labour battalion digging latrines at one of the country houses where Forrester had been on a training course. His name had stuck in Forrester’s mind because it sounded so upper crust, and the young private had announced it with a thick Czech accent – and indeed looked like a Czech peasant.

“Du Maurier didn’t suit me,” said Maxwell, who now sounded as if he’d been to Eton. “I tried ‘Jones’ for a while, but that wasn’t right either. My commanding officer suggested Maxwell because it sounded Scottish.”

“Ah,” said Forrester. “But your real name is…?”

“Hoch, Ján Hoch,” said Maxwell, shaking hands. “Penniless Czech refugee in 1940, now an officer in the British Army, husband to the beautiful daughter of a French industrialist, and proud holder of the Military Cross.” Forrester registered that he was duly impressed, which he was. It was quite a transformation. “So,” said Maxwell without missing a beat, “about those typewriters?”

With some difficulty Forrester managed to disabuse Captain Maxwell of the notion that he could provide him with anything for
Der Telegraf
, the paper he’d been assigned to oversee, but by the time he’d managed it he’d realised two things: that Maxwell was a force of nature who was going to come out of the ruins of Berlin considerably better off than when he’d entered them, and that he himself was now on the young ex-Czech’s list of people who would at some point be useful to him, if not now, then later.

He decided, therefore, to get in first, and as they demolished their full English breakfasts and swilled down several more mugs of tea, he got Maxwell to tell him what he knew about Walter Schellenberg, the man whom Greta Rilke had seen with Dorfmann at that distant Press Club Ball.

“Schellenberg’s a real operator,” said Maxwell, with what was clearly the respect of a fellow operator. “Came out of law school in the middle of the Depression, couldn’t get a job for love or money and joined the SS. Heydrich put him in their counter-intelligence department.”

“The
Sicherheitsdienst
,” said Forrester, automatically.

“Exactly,” said Maxwell. “Then Himmler spotted him and made him not just his personal aide but a
Sonderbevollmächtigter
. What’s the translation?”

“Special Plenipotentiary,” said Forrester.

“It was Schellenberg who dreamt up the Venlo Affair,” said Maxwell. In 1939, a certain “Captain Schämmel” had contacted British spies in Holland, claiming to be disaffected with Hitler. He arranged a meeting with the British near the border at a Dutch town called Venlo. But instead of revealing German secrets, Schämmel dragged the British agents over the border into Germany. With the information the Gestapo got out of them the Nazis were able to roll up spy networks all over Europe, particularly in Czechoslovakia.

“Captain Schämmel’s real name was Walter Schellenberg,” said Maxwell. “Later on he tried to kidnap the Duke of Windsor so he could set him up as the King of England.”

“I see what you mean about him being an operator,” said Forrester.

“He set up a brothel with a recording studio in the basement,” Maxwell went on enthusiastically, “and then had the girls entertain all the top Nazis so he could blackmail them. He had a machine gun built into his desk so he could cut people in two at the touch of a button.”

Schellenberg had clearly caught Maxwell’s imagination.

“Where is he now?” asked Forrester.

“Spandau,” said Maxwell briefly. “He was arrested in Denmark trying to negotiate a separate peace with Churchill. He isn’t a man for half measures.”

“I wonder if there’s any chance I might be able to get in to see him,” said Forrester.

“What for?” asked Maxwell. Forrester hesitated.

“This is confidential,” he said.

“Of course,” said Maxwell, but was unable to suppress the glint in his eyes, which suggested that he would make whatever use of the information suited him. Forrester, however, did not really care.

“It’s about a man named Peter Dorfmann,” he said. “He’s being groomed for power in the new democratic Germany and as far as the Control Commission is concerned he was no more than a conscientious Professor of Literature while the Nazis were in power. I’ve found someone who claims to have seen him with Walter Schellenberg.”

“Schellenberg was a cultured man,” said Maxwell. “He could have been discussing literature.”

“He was also one of the most powerful figures in German intelligence,” said Forrester. “Could Dorfmann have been one of his informants?”

“Informants on what?” asked Maxwell. “Tittle-tattle about university politics? Not likely. Schellenberg was involved in bigger things than that.”

“My informant said there was an admiral with them. I’m wondering if it could have been Canaris.” Admiral Canaris had been the head of the Abwehr, the intelligence service of the German Army, but, appalled by German atrocities in Poland, had begun to work secretly for the downfall of Hitler. Ultimately he’d been found out and hanged.

“I’m afraid if you’re looking for something damaging against Dorfmann a connection with Canaris isn’t going to get you far,” said Maxwell. “He was practically on our side.”

“But Schellenberg’s a different matter,” said Forrester.

“Well, it’s worth a try,” Maxwell said, “but getting to him will mean you have to cut enough red tape to wrap round all Berlin. And I don’t see why Schellenberg should help you. He’s got his own neck to think of, when they start trying the big Nazis.”

“That might just make him co-operative,” said Forrester.

“Possibly,” said Maxwell, wiping the last vestiges of egg and ketchup from his plate with a slice of bread. “But if I hear anything that might help, I’ll let you know.”