The Murderer in Ruins (30 page)

‘What did he have to worry about? Yvonne Delluc and her family had only been living in the bunker for a few weeks. Bunker folk don’t bother much with their neighbours. There’s a good chance nobody in the bunker would remember them. And there didn’t seem
to be anybody else here in Hamburg who knew them. The little girl didn’t go to school, which is why all our efforts to pursue that line of enquiry led nowhere. They weren’t entitled to ration cards. There was no doctor here who had ever treated any of them, nor anywhere else in the former Reich. We should have been looking in France, but how could we have known that?

‘As soon as we found the first body, Herthge/Maschke volunteered to join the investigation, so that he could keep an eye on things. He knew we would find the other victims and that it would make waves. What he didn’t know was that in his haste to strip and loot his victims he had overlooked a couple of things. Nor did he know that there was another Oradour survivor living in Hamburg, one who would finally put me on his tail.’

‘Does Herthge still have no idea, or does he suspect you’re on to him?’

‘Unfortunately,’ Stave said, ‘I’ve sent Maschke, alias Herthge, off on his travels, on the rubble murderer case. He’s supposed to be going round the whole of northern Germany talking to doctors to find a lead. I only learned of his double identity after he was already on the road. Up until some four weeks or so ago, he had been calling the office intermittently. But not since then.’

‘Have you sent out word to other police stations?’ Ehrlich asked.

‘Discreetly. Make it seem we’re looking for Maschke because we’re worried something’s happened to him. Not that we want to arrest him.’

‘Time to change that. Send out an arrest warrant for him.’

Ehrlich sat back in his chair, looking happily at the detective.

‘You have had him under suspicion for some time?’ Stave said.

The public prosecutor smiled. ‘You think that was why I wanted to pay a visit to his office? Indeed, there had been hints: reports from other SS members who – faced with the gallows or a life sentence – were willing to grass on their former comrades. In circumstances like that, you can do yourself a bit of good. And there were always rumours when someone or other had gone under cover and taken a
new identity. Maschke’s name came up, and when I realised he was a policeman, my ears pricked up. But there was no SS man of this name in any of the files. I guessed, therefore, that Lothar Maschke had to be a false identity and that he had served in the SS under another name. I had no idea what that name might have been, nor in which unit he might have served. I can hardly wait to ask Herthge himself these questions. In court. I am deeply indebted to you.’

‘Then perhaps you can do me two favours,’ Stave replied.

The public prosecutor raised an eyebrow. ‘What might they be?’

‘First of all, call Cuddel Breuer and explain to him why I borrowed the Mercedes.’

‘Borrowed,’ Erhlich repeated, with a laugh. ‘I would be willing to bet the Head of CID has never heard the public prosecutor use that word as a euphemism for car theft. My pleasure. And the second favour?’

‘I want to know who the other victims were. It might not make any difference. When you’re dead, you’re dead. But I feel somehow better if there are names. Then at least their names survive.’

‘I agree,’ said Ehrlich.

A
brief telephone call later and Ehrlich gave Stave a reassuring wink.

‘Your boss just wants to know if you got any dents in his Mercedes. But he’s very pleased with our news. He reckons that wrapping up the rubble murderer case is a good end to the winter.’

His next conversation took a lot longer. The public prosecutor spoke French fluently, albeit with a thick accent, Stave noted. He kept nodding, making notes, raised an eyebrow in surprise at one point. He’s not liking what he’s hearing, the chief inspector noted. I hope there are no problems. Not now.

Eventually Ehrlich put the phone down.

‘The Dellucs were Jewish,’ he said.

‘I already know that.’

‘Many members of the family were deported. The others went into hiding, three in Paris and one in Oradour.’

‘Yvonne Delluc.’

‘The grandfather of the family, René Delluc, had friends who stood by him, even in hard times. He went into hiding in Paris. He had a son and a daughter. The son was deported, but his daughter, Georgette, went into hiding with him.’

‘The older woman, the one who had had the operation.’

Ehrlich nodded. ‘She was the aunt of the little girl, Sarah. And also of Yvonne. Sarah and Yvonne were sisters, the daughters of the son who had been deported.’

‘What brought them to Hamburg?’

‘The desire to make it to Palestine, my French colleague assumes, although he has no proof. But there are hints. Apparently the Dellucs had been trying to get to the Holy Land since 1945, but as you know the British won’t let any Jews in.’

Stave remembered that Thérèse Dubois had said the same thing. ‘That’s why they were trying to leave via the British zone of occupation, because the controls on ships leaving for Palestine are less strict here.’

‘The port was badly damaged. Even the British are pleased when freighters are halfway able to load or unload. It’s vital for the occupation zone. So who’s checking all the paperwork? Who really checks whether a cargo shop that has just delivered a load of wheat is really bound for Cyprus next? Or might be heading for a port just that little bit further east? It’s a long way round to get to the Holy Land, but after all that the Jews have been through over the past few years, it’s a risk worth taking. There are more and more people being smuggled on board ships bound for Palestine. DPs and Jews who arrived after 1945.’

‘Like the Dellucs.’

‘Yes. Their misfortune was that they arrived too late. They disappeared from France around November 1946, but by then the Elbe had begun to freeze over. We were running short of coal. No further ships were departing. They sat tight, waiting for the thaw when they could be on the move again. They had no idea that they would be
stuck here for weeks. And certainly no idea that they would run into one of the Oradour murderers.’

‘Where do you think Herthge might be?’

Ehrlich raised his hands. ‘Somehow or other he seems to have got wind that we’re on his trail. He might not know for sure, but is being cautious, and when you sent him off round northern Germany, he took the opportunity to disappear. He wasn’t going to get as good a chance again.

‘Once we issue the warrant for his arrest, we obviously have to send an officer round to see his mother. But I doubt very much he’d be stupid enough to hide there. Maybe he’s already on the way to South America: Argentina, Chile, Paraguay. It’s no longer a secret that there are Nazi colonies out there.’

‘It would be hard to get from northern Germany to South America. Even if he has comrades to help him.’

‘The only port anywhere close from which ships leave for South America is Hamburg. But the ice is melting. In a week or two steamers will be sailing again.’

‘You think he might hide around here that long?’

‘He knows his way around the ruins. He’s proved that. And now that the weather’s getting warmer, he’ll find it easier to get by.’

‘Maybe he’s shacked up with some whore or pimp. He knows that world well enough.’

‘Or maybe with a former comrade. There’re enough SS men still walking around free.’

‘I hate putting up “wanted” posters,’ the chief inspector said, getting up from his chair. ‘It would make waves if people found out the police were after one of their own. On the other hand, I’d rather see Herthge’s picture up on a wall than that of another strangled child.’

As Stave left, Ehrlich got up and shook his hand, a gesture he realised the prosecutor had previously avoided.

‘We should go for a meal together occasionally,’ Ehrlich said. Stave left his office and walked silently back to the CID headquarters.
When he entered his office, it looked somehow smaller and quieter than it used to, but also cleaner.

On his desk was a large, light-coloured envelope. From the Red Cross.

S
tave stared at the envelope, overcome all of a sudden. It took an enormous effort for him to walk the last two steps to his desk, stretch out and take the envelope in his hands. He ripped it open, his hands trembling. Inside was another envelope, much smaller, grey and rough, as if made from cheap toilet paper. It was addressed to him, care of Hamburg CID. In his son’s handwriting.

Stave collapsed into his seat, stared out of the window, then back at the envelope. Karl was alive. And yet he felt a frisson of angst: what might he have written?

Eventually he summoned the courage to open this envelope too, slowly and carefully, as if it was a precious treasure. Inside was a small sheet of paper, not even the size of a page in an exercise book, ripped along the bottom, as if it had been torn from a larger sheet. The letters in pale blue pencil were barely legible, but the handwriting was unmistakable from all that homework, which Stave had once corrected so that the teacher wouldn’t find any mistakes in it.

Stave laid it down carefully on his desk, though for a moment he had almost scrunched it up, even though it was so precious. He was disappointed, and at the same time ashamed of himself for being so. Nothing about life in the camp or about what his life had been like over the past two years. No personal message. It’s your own damn self-pity at work again, he told himself. Read it again, carefully. Karl had only a scrap of paper. Were you expecting him to write a novel? And every word he wrote would be read by a Soviet censor out there in Vorkuta. Karl, your proud, so sensitive, lone wolf of a boy would not want some Soviet political officer reading anything personal. Maybe there was a message for him from his son in that cold factual language.

He read the letter again, and there it was: ‘
I hope to be back in our Hamburg apartment soon.’

‘Our apartment.’

That one word our – didn’t that reflect a togetherness of father and son? Didn’t it show that Karl wanted to come back? That this was still his home? Home, what did that mean if not togetherness, trust and, hopefully, love?

Stave could have cried if he hadn’t feared that some colleague might burst in and find him slumped in tears on his desk. This was the first step of Karl’s return. Nothing more, but nothing less. And Karl had a thousand steps at least to take. I have to handle this carefully, he told himself.

H
e left the building and walked the few hundred metres to the Hansaplatz. We’re not about to carry out a raid today, he thought, and hopefully nobody will recognise me from the last time.

‘Siberia is very cold
,’ Karl had written. Wasn’t it possible to send parcels via the Red Cross? Stave would take the cigarettes he had saved up and the few Reichsmarks notes that he always carried with him for fear of burglars and visit the black market. What could he get? A coat, scarf, hat? Shoes, good heavy winter shoes or boots. Whatever.

The chief inspector pulled up the collar of his coat, even though the air wasn’t cold. That way the collar and hat pulled down over his eyes would conceal his face, he hoped. Then he joined the throng of the shuffling figures wandering this way and that on the square. He stopped for a few minutes, displaying his wares from inside his overcoat, and whispering, ‘Winter shoes, size 42, winter shoes.’

‘Over here,’ a careworn, elderly woman strolling nearby hissed. She looked vaguely familiar. She was probably arrested in the raid, he thought, but luckily he hadn’t interviewed her himself. Hopefully she won’t recognise me, he thought, but she gave him a shy smile. She probably thought she wouldn’t be able to get rid of winter shoes, now that it’s getting warm again.

She walks a bit faster and he follows her to the edge of the square. In the shadows of a house doorway she pulls out an old shopping bag with a pair of brown men’s shoes in it. Thick soles, sturdy leather. They would do for winter shoes, even though the leather was scarred and the soles worn.

‘Barely worn,’ the woman lies.

‘How much?’ Stave asks, hoping they’re the right size.

‘500 Reichsmarks,’ she replies.

Cheeky, especially now that the winter’s over, he thinks.

‘Done,’ he says. What else can he do?

Furtive glances, two hasty movements, and the deal’s done.

The woman disappears without a second glance.

‘Was it a good deal?’

Stave spins round, shocked, desperately trying to think up an excuse in case it’s one of his colleagues. But then he catches his breath.

Anna von Veckinhausen.

Stave feels himself redden.

Everything that enters his mind sounds stupid, so he stands there trying to think of something to say.

She comes over to him and nods at the pair of shoes. ‘If I were you, I’d hide those under my coat, or else every policeman within
500 metres will arrest you. But if there’s a raid, it’s no good. Just drop them and play dumb.’

‘I’ve had the experience,’ he replies, quickly hiding his purchase.

‘For you? Winter is finally over.’

‘For my son. In Siberia. It’s still cold there.’

The smile fades from Anna von Veckinhausen’s face. ‘He’s a Soviet prisoner.’ Not a question, a statement. ‘That must be tough for you as a father.’

‘To be honest, not really,’ the chief inspector replies. ‘Up until four weeks ago, I had no idea whether or not my son was still alive. In that respect the fact he is in a camp in Siberia is relatively good news.’

‘What has happened to us, when something like that is good news?’ she whispers. Then she takes his arm and says, ‘Walk with me for a bit.’

Confused, Stave nods, stiffer than normal, feeling as awkward as some 14-year-old. Anna’s hand is on his lower arm. Just the cloth and pullover wool keeping skin from skin. He hasn’t been this close to a woman in ages.

‘What was your business at the Hansaplatz?’ he asks.

‘The usual. A meeting with a British officer at the station. I got hold of a passable copy of Caspar David Friedrich’s
The Monk by the Sea
, horrible frame, pseudo-baroque, gilded with lots of chips on it. But it’s an oil and done by somebody who knew what he was doing.’

‘Did you get a good deal?’

She smiles, but says nothing.

S
tave wondered if she had palmed it off on the Brit as an original. American officers, according to popular wisdom, were so ignorant they’d buy any old rubbish. But the English? He didn’t press her. Otherwise she’ll just take me for a typical policeman, he told himself. Out loud he said, ‘Do you fancy taking a look at some original Friedrichs? We could take a stroll through the Kunsthalle?’

It was only a short walk, just a few minutes from the station,
where three trains with steam pouring from their funnels had pulled in. ‘There must be coal supplies again,’ said Stave. ‘I can’t remember the last time I saw more than one train in the station.’

‘I guess that means they’ll be starting domestic deliveries again; with any luck we’ll be able to get warm by the time summer comes,’ Anna von Veckinhuasen replied. ‘I don’t mean to be sarcastic. Everybody’s doing what they can.’

They turned right past the station and 200 metres ahead of them the Kunsthalle loomed: a great grey box with a rotunda crowned by a dome, like a side of bacon with a musket ball stuck in it. The imposing façade of the old museum was dirty, but almost undamaged. A few scars caused by bomb shrapnel, streaks of smoke on the cornices. In front of the rotunda stood an ancient oak tree with a trunk thicker than the columns on the façade.

‘Incredible that that tree’s still unharmed,’ Stave commented.

‘There are always survivors, even in the plant world.’

In the shadow of the oak tree stood a tall bronze statue of a man on a horse, naked save for an antique helmet. ‘Rider,’ Stave read the inscription on the plaque below. ‘I’d never have guessed.’

‘There’s another miracle for you,’ Anna von Veckinhausen said. ‘That the thing wasn’t melted down.’

‘Some Nazi obviously liked it, or at least preferred it to the church bells. They were all melted down to make hand-grenade casings.’

Stave bought two entrance tickets. His companion nodded gratefully.

‘How did you know that the Kunsthalle was open again?’

‘I didn’t. We’re just lucky,’ Stave replied.

The museum had re-opened shortly after the end of the war. The collection had been housed either in bank safes or in the concrete bunker at Heiligengeistfeld, at least those works that the brownshirts had not declared to be
entartet
, unworthy to be considered art. The latter had all been sold off abroad, cheap. But in winter it had been impossible to heat the great galleries, not least because some of the roofs had been damaged and only partly patched up. So the museum
had been closed and in fact this warm day was the first of the new season.

Most people, however, were out enjoying the sunshine, and hardly anybody thought of spending the precious daylight hours indoors. As a result Stave and Anna von Veckinhausen had the museum almost to themselves, and were able to wander leisurely from gallery to gallery. Some had black streaks down the walls from water coming in, and others were suspiciously empty, notably those that had been dedicated to modern art. Even so they enjoyed strolling slowly past the masterpieces. What is it that I like most, Stave asked himself, and answered: it’s the colours. The oils and watercolours, the blues and reds, the yellows and greens, the gold of the old masters – it was a treat for the eye, in contrast to the grey and black of the ruins, the brown of people’s clothing.

Anna von Veckinhausen was still on his arm. He wondered what she was thinking. They were both silent.

Eventually they reached the gallery with the works of Caspar David Friedrich. Stave stared at the fantastic landscapes and the tiny figures: women in bonnets, men in old-fashioned traditional dress, all of them with their backs to the spectator. He spent a long time over the painting entitled
Eismeer
, of a ship crushed between mighty ice floes. Once upon a time he had considered it surreal but after this winter it no longer seemed so. It was years since he had last been in here. With Margarethe. He quickly suppressed the memory.

Stave nodded at the paintings and said, ‘It’s funny to think that these are little more than 100 years old. To me, now, they seem like relics from the ancient world, on another continent.’

‘That’s what they are. Nothing Friedrich saw still exists, nothing he believed in is believed any more.’

‘But the works are still displayed on the walls here. And people come to see them. Like us.’

‘Because we long for those long-gone days. Because we feel we’ve lost something, but we don’t know what it is.’

‘There again, Caspar David Friedrich would have liked that.’

‘But only that. He painted picturesque ruins into woods and mountains. If he were to see the ruins here today, he’d soon lose his taste for gaping windows and ruined walls.’

She put her free arm across her chest, and shuddered. ‘I need to get out of here, back into the sunlight.’

F
rom the museum it was only a short stroll across the broad pavements of the Glockengiesserwall to the Inner Alster. Before the war the river, turned into a giant square here by two dams, had reflected Hamburg’s most famous façades – the Jungfernstieg. The psychologist’s practice was just opposite the Glockengiesserwall. There were trees along the embankment, promenades, the offices of important shipping companies behind the façades, and the spires of the city’s churches towering above the glistening tiled roofs. Before the war the citizens of Hamburg would stroll up and down here in their Sunday best, and now they were here again, trying to ignore the cracks in the façades and their own dowdy dress.

Stave and his companion made their way carefully over the temporarily repaired rail tracks to the Ballindamm, around two empty, long-abandoned wagons which up until the beginning of the winter workers had used to bring rubble from the town and tip it into the Alster. The ice on the river no longer glittered, but lay there white and watery in the sunlight, like spilt milk. Yet only on the surface. The ice below was still up to three metres thick. A few intrepid souls were skating in wide circles on it, sending little sprays of water up behind them. Most people stayed on the embankment, as if it were somehow unseemly to venture on to the ice.

Stave shivered. The cold rising from the Alster reminded him of the morgue. Maybe because he was taking a casual walk, something he was unused to doing. Going for a walk along the waterfront was an activity that was simultaneously pointless and an end in itself: you walk along the riverfront without following any particular route because no one route mattered more than any other; when you went for a walk you ended up where you started from. It was as if this
casual walk, this feeling of doing something and at the same time doing nothing, was untying a knot in his soul.

A
nd suddenly the chief inspector began to talk, unaware of how or why he started, but he talked about his son in Siberia and how they’d argued back in the summer of 1945 when he set out for the front. About his son’s scorn for his father, and his youthful enthusiasm, so painfully genuine, so horribly misled. About Margarethe and the night she died in the bombing. About the rubble murderer, who turned out to be one of his colleagues. And a Jewish family fleeing to find a new home who got stranded amidst the ice in a hostile city. A city with a murderer at large, a murderer whose fate and theirs were inextricably linked. About Lothar Maschke, who was really Hans Herthge, about whom he now knew a lot but not everything – things he couldn’t believe. But what was the point of knowing something if that knowledge had no consequence.