The Grave of Truth (11 page)

Kesler and Franconi drove back to Munich, stopping for dinner on the way. The next morning they searched the local newspapers, and Franconi found a tiny item at the bottom of the home news page in the
Münchener Merkur
. It reported the death of Adolf Hitler's former valet from a heart attack. There was no other mention. ‘Well,' Franconi said, ‘that's one we can cross out. A beautiful job.'

He glanced at Kesler. ‘I suppose we'd better get on with the next one.'

‘No hurry,' the older man said. ‘We've got time in hand. This job can't be rushed; it won't be so easy, getting to her. I want to keep the place under observation for a day or two—see if we can make a contact with anyone who works inside. Find out when she comes out and where she goes.' He folded up the papers and pushed them aside. They were having breakfast in the restaurant. ‘You're bothered about this, aren't you?'

‘Yes,' Franconi admitted. ‘I am. It's just the idea of a nun—I know she's not an actual nun, but it just turns me up a bit.' Under the shelter of the table, Kesler pressed his knee.

‘Superstition,' he said gently. ‘But I've got an idea. If you don't want to do this one, why not leave it to me? You could go ahead and settle one of the others. How about the one in West Berlin? Old invalid, living with his daughter. It won't be difficult; you know I won't let you take on a heavy job without me, but the one in Berlin is easy.… Why don't we do it like this? We'll have a few days here, keep an eye on the place and find out what we can, and then you go off to Berlin and I'll see to the business here?'

Franconi covered Kesler's hand with his own.

‘I'd like to do that,' he said. ‘You're very good to me, Stanis. You're sure you don't mind? You won't need any help?'

‘One woman? Don't be silly.'

Minna Walther drove back from the airport. Max had expected a car and driver; the Porsche was a surprise, and so was the speed and dexterity with which she cut through the traffic. He had seen her immediately among the crowd by the arrivals gate, because of her height and the green suit she was wearing. They shook hands and she led him to the little sports car. ‘What are you doing in Berlin? I thought you were coming from Paris,' she said.

‘I was,' Max answered. ‘Then something struck me as worth looking at, before I came here. So I went to Berlin first.'

She didn't turn to look at him; she cut through an intersection in a way that made him clutch his seat. ‘Was it to do with Sigmund?'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘Indirectly. I went to see someone; watch out for that car, it's coming across—'

He saw her smile. ‘Don't worry, I can see it. I'm a very safe driver.'

‘I'm sure you are, Frau Walther; you're just a bit positive, if you don't mind me saying so.'

‘My husband couldn't bear me driving,' she said. ‘Men are nervous passengers, I've noticed that. I suppose it's because they don't think women know what they're doing. Here we are!'

He looked up at the house as she got out her keys and opened the front door. It was not very big, red brick and rather ugly. There were some fine trees surrounding it. He went upstairs to wash, and his journalist's eye noticed the comfort without ostentation.
Newsworld
had done an article on the ‘Millionaires of the German Miracle.' The wealth and, in some cases, the almost nineteenth-century vulgarity of the lifestyle of some of the big industrialists had made marvellous copy. But Sigmund Walther had refused to be interviewed. That, as Max remembered, was before he went into politics. As he crossed the landing, he saw a door had been left open. There were draped net curtains and a big bed; Minna Walther's green jacket was lying across it. He hesitated, staring into the room, at the bed, and then hurried on downstairs. Her bed had nothing to do with him.

She was waiting for him in the sitting room, smoking, looking very elegant in a silk shirt that matched the green of her suit. He looked tired, she thought suddenly. Such a different type of man from Sigmund, who always looked glowing with health. Very dark for a Berliner—there must be Bavarian blood in him somewhere. A restless man, keyed up with nervous energy. He lit a cigarette, and she noticed his hands. They were strong, but sensitive, without hairs. She hated a man's hands to be hairy. He wore a wedding ring. She noticed the silence and didn't know how to break it. They were mentally circling each other, seeing the sex of the other as they hadn't done before. Like animals deciding whether they were scenting friend or foe.…

She knew that Max was seeing her as a man taking stock of a woman, just as she had noted his hands, the dark colour of his eyes, the way he sat opposite to her, leaning a little forward.… The moment of mutual recognition lengthened; she felt the colour in her face, and a sensation that was almost panic. Ten days. She'd been a widow for ten days and already she was reacting to a man.…

‘Frau Walther,' Max Steiner said. ‘You have something to show me. And I've got things to tell you. Where do we start?'

Like a stone flung into water, the question dispersed the reflection of themselves which each had permitted to emerge, and each had looked at. The moment was gone and the danger with it. Minna Walther said, ‘We have to trust each other. I trust you, Herr Steiner. But I don't know why you want to find out about Janus, if it isn't to make use of it. As a political journalist. I've brought my husband's file here from Bonn, but before I show it to you, I have a right to know what your motives are.'

‘Finding your husband's killers isn't enough?' Max asked.

She shook her head. ‘No. A lot of other people have that motive. The police, for instance, his friends—I want to find them more than anyone. But it's not just that with you. It's Janus. Why?'

He paused for a moment, and then made up his mind. They were going to be allies, working together. They had to trust each other; she was right. He remembered saying the same thing to her when she lied to him the day after Walther's murder. No secrets, no holding back.

‘I was in a Hitler Jugend cadre in April 1945,' he said. ‘We went to the Bunker; Hitler was going to shake hands with us and send us off to the Pichelsdorf bridge to get blown to bits by the Russians. We never saw Hitler; we were detailed to act as a firing squad, I was the platoon leader. The man had been beaten up, probably tortured. He spoke to me. He said, “Find Janus.”'

‘And you shot him?' Her voice was low, shocked.

‘No,' Max said. ‘I didn't. Something just snapped in me; the whole Nazi mess blew up in my face. My father and my two brothers were killed, my mother and grandmother were under shellfire, we were all going out to die for Hitler. That was enough without being told to kill a man they'd half murdered already; the Führer's order—that's what the SS told us. He couldn't even stand; they'd had to tie him into a chair so we could shoot him.'

‘Don't,' she said, and her hand covered her face for a moment.

‘I said no,' Max went on. ‘So the Standartenführer knocked me flying and laid a few kicks into me, and my squad carried out the execution. Then I passed out. I used to wonder why they didn't shoot me. Still,' he shrugged, ‘maybe a few shells started falling near and they took cover. One of the guards picked me up later and brought me down into the Bunker. I didn't know what was happening at the time, but apparently Hitler and Eva Braun had committed suicide and they were going to burn the bodies, so everyone was cleared away from the Chancellory garden and the exits.'

‘How did you escape?' she asked. ‘Nobody got away from there—the Russians killed or captured all of them—'

‘The guard who found me in the garden and his girlfriend slipped out that night, and took me with them. They disappeared together when we got near the American patrols, but I was picked up and sent to a camp: Eventually I got back to my aunt in Bremen through the Red Cross.' Minna got up, and he stood with her.

She didn't say anything, she walked across to the mahogany cupboard and opened it. He saw the ranks of bottles shining inside. She came back with two glasses of whisky. He took one of them. ‘I never told anyone about it,' he said. ‘But I had nightmares occasionally. I'd dream the whole thing, and wake up shaking like a leaf. It doesn't sound very manly, does it, but I was never the Nazi Superman type—'

‘How old were you?' she asked.

‘Sixteen. It's an, impressionable age. I made my life, got married, got myself a very good job, and I still dreamed about the man who said I had to find Janus. In the last year I've been having the dream nearly every night. I began to think I was breaking up. Then I met your husband. And now you know why I have to find out what Janus means.'

‘Yes,' Minna said. ‘I see. Thank you for telling me. Bring your glass and we'll go into my husband's study.'

He sat in Sigmund Walther's chair, and she put the thick brown hessian file on the desk in front of him. Then she sat and sipped her drink.

‘It was a million to one chance that Sigmund heard about the defector,' she said. ‘He'd just got elected to the Bundestag, and he was very friendly with someone in the Ministry for Internal Security. He told Sigmund about the Soviet trade delegate who had asked for political asylum.'

‘When was this?' Max had the file open.

‘Last year. You'll find it there. He brought a lot of information with him; apparently he was a senior KGB officer who felt he was falling out of favour at home, and took the chance to come over to us.'

‘Trade delegations usually have a couple of them, to watch the delegates,' Max said. ‘Vladimir Yusevsky; I remember him—' he was glancing quickly at the first sheets in the folder. ‘There was a fight between the British and the Americans as to who got hold of him. The Americans won. But not before our own people had got their hooks into him by the looks of this.'

‘I'll leave you for a while,' she said. ‘Call, if you want anything.' She closed the door so quietly that Max didn't hear her go. He turned the first page in Sigmund Walther's file and began to read.

There was no complete transcript of the Soviet defector's information; that would have been classified as top security. What Walther had assembled were copies of available Russian documents which had been released long after the events they described, with notes appended to clarify or implement the information. These notes were marked with ‘V. Y. deposition' and a date. The first document was written by Sigmund Walther in longhand. No secretary had been trusted with this material. Vladimir Yusevsky had asked for political asylum in the autumn of '69, during a trade delegation visit to Bonn. The Federal government had granted him temporary asylum while negotiations were in progress with the Soviet government for his return. During the negotiations, he had been discreetly interrogated by the West German Intelligence Service, under the personal direction of Heinrich Holler; his co-operation was a condition of the Federal government stalling Russian attempts to get him back. It had been arranged for him to escape to the Embassy in due course, and from there he was flown to the United States.

He had talked very freely to Holler and his team. There were references in Walther's report of a Soviet network being exposed within the Federal government itself, and a link through to Brussels and NATO which caused a spate of resignations, three arrests and a suicide. Yusevsky had blown a hole in his native Intelligence operations, which had been satisfactory for the West. But he had brought something else, as a bonus for his German hosts. A copy of the original Russian autopsy reports on the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun. The findings had been released by the Soviet authorities in June, three months after the discovery of the dead Führer and his wife in a shellhole grave in the Chancellory garden. Max had already read brief extracts in his initial research in Paris. The reports were accompanied by photographs of the badly burnt corpses, and long, ghoulish descriptions of their teeth and internal organs. The identity of Adolf Hitler had been established beyond doubt by the capture of his personal dentist, complete with his and Eva Braun's dental records. The Soviet doctor in charge had been a woman, A. Kretchinova. She and her assistants had carried out thorough post-mortem examinations on all the bodies discovered in the Bunker itself and in the graves in the garden. Goebbels and his wife had taken cyanide, after poisoning their six daughters. The evidence set out identified the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun beyond any dispute; the Russians found that the Führer had taken poison, rather than shooting himself. It tarnished the martyr image, and ignored the skull shattered by a bullet wound. It detailed primly that the leader of the Third Reich had only one testicle.

Max Steiner was reading, slowly, concentrating on every word. The autopsy on Eva Braun: her age, her height, her teeth, fillings, crowns, bridgework, the evidence of cyanide in her mouth, tiny glass crystals from the bitten ampoule, the smell of bitter almonds when the body was opened. And the findings of the meticulous Soviet woman doctor which had been omitted from the autopsy report released to the rest of the world. Eva Braun had had a child.

Chapter 4

‘You've found it,' Minna Walther said. She had come into the study, and Max got up slowly, holding the file in both hands.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘I've been trying to think what this means.'

‘It means that Adolf Hitler left an heir,' she said quietly. ‘Have you read everything?'

He nodded. ‘I want to go through it again. I want to make notes and put together what I've got. My God, I can't believe it—'

‘Neither could Sigmund,' she said. ‘But it's there, and it's true. The Russians found out, and they must have tried to find the child. That's why they wouldn't let the British or the Americans talk to any of the people they captured from the Bunker. The ones they released didn't know anything. When Yusevsky defected, the secret came with him. American Intelligence knows about Janus.'