The Butchers of Berlin (31 page)

After the hospital she didn’t spot the young man and took the train back to Charlottenburg and went to the Ufa-Palast in Hardenbergstrasse, not bothering to check what she was going to
see.

Schlegel watched her go into the crowded cinema for the matinee of the big new colour film that had opened that week, which Otto Keleman had missed the press show for because
they were getting drunk. Schlegel thought about going in but fantasy was not to his taste. He asked the cashier when the programme finished. It sounded improbably long, with well over two hours
still to go. Maybe he would come back and see what Sybil did after the film. His feet ached. With nothing better to do, he went to a café over the road and sat reading a newspaper and
watching the sparse Sunday traffic.

It had been easy enough to track Sybil’s whereabouts as it was known that Gersten’s catchers all lodged in the same building, around the corner from where Schlegel lived. That was
Morgen’s idea.

He had cursed himself for losing her in Brunnenstrasse, hung around on the platform not knowing what to do, then spotted her ten minutes later when she came back and didn’t see him. After
that he had hung back and got better. Neither of them was a professional. She didn’t look around any more, thinking she had lost him. After waiting at the hospital, he followed her back,
taking the precaution of not getting in the same carriage.

He was starting to doze when he saw Sybil walk briskly out of the cinema with a young woman. He hurriedly paid and followed. The light was going. They seemed tense. Schlegel didn’t know
the companion. He could just make them out as they walked arm-in-arm, their strides matching, heads close.

They kissed when they thought no one was looking. From the way Sybil cupped the back of her companion’s head it had to be proper open-mouthed kissing. They acted more like a real couple
than many ordinary ones.

The cinema must have been a fallback arrangement in case they became separated, Schlegel told himself, staring, not wishing to but incapable of averting his eyes. When they went into one of the
few cafés still open he took up a position in a doorway across the road and watched them holding hands in a way that didn’t draw attention. When the companion seemed to look straight
at him he stood very still and thought about the distance between them, the traffic and the fading light.

They weren’t hard to keep up with as he followed them to the Ku’damm and down a long, straight street to the left with no turnings, past a big church, and down to Hochmeisterplatz
where they entered a building that Schlegel recognised as the block where Francis Alwynd lived, and realised they must be his stowaways.

‘This is my friend August. He’s a policeman,’ said Alwynd with typical tactlessness.

Schlegel thought the two women put on a brave show, considering.

They made excruciatingly awkward conversation while Alwynd fiddled in the kitchen making tea. As was the way now, neither woman was introduced nor volunteered her name. Schlegel asked what they
did. Sybil’s companion said she was a translator and photographer. Sybil said she was a clothes designer.

Schlegel thought carefully before he said, ‘I know, I have seen some.’

When Sybil paled visibly he wanted to say he was trying to show he was not hostile and she was wrong to assume otherwise.

The two women prattled on about the film they had just seen, talking to each other rather than him. What a spectacle! Such fantastic colour!

Schlegel realised she must think he had been sent by Gersten.

Sybil said, ‘We haven’t seen you here before.’

‘In fact I was last week. We had hoped you might join us.’

‘Well, here we are,’ said the companion facetiously.

Alwynd walked into the room with a tray, saying, ‘Tea and sudden death.’

He turned to Sybil and asked in his appalling German if she would be mother.

Alwynd sat back, beamed and said, ‘
Mea culpa
,’ looking not in the slightest remorseful.

Schlegel suspected Alwynd enjoyed making drama from other people’s lives.

Alwynd finally said, ‘Francis may have dropped a bit of a clanger. I was in my cups the other night and told August I might be harbouring a couple of runaways.’

Sybil didn’t understand as they were speaking English. Her companion looked shocked. Schlegel told Sybil what Alwynd had said and she gave a small scream and ran from the room, followed by
the other woman.

‘It makes no difference to me,’ said Alwynd airily. ‘They should know that, but at the same time it’s not safe here in the long run because the Foreign Office is always
sticking its nose in my affairs.’

He stood up. ‘Better go and make my peace.’

He strolled off towards the back of the apartment, apparently unconcerned about the damage he could cause, calling over his shoulder, ‘I presume you aren’t here to arrest
them.’

Schlegel felt a fool for compromising everyone. Alwynd always pleaded exemption through ignorance. Schlegel could see him announcing in his faux naive way he thought everything was above board
because he had a friend who was a policeman.

They trooped back in. Sybil looked miserable. Her companion gave Schlegel looks of varying hostility. Schlegel steepled his fingers and tried to appear lost in significant thought. Morgen would
know how to handle the situation.

Schlegel asked to speak to Sybil in private. Alwynd was immediately interested. For her the whole thing must be like being stuck in some ghastly play. Schlegel knew she was working for the
Gestapo, but Alwynd didn’t. It was possible she hadn’t got around to telling her companion. And she could of course report Alwynd, if she believed it was to her advantage.

Sybil blew her nose and stood up. Schlegel excused himself awkwardly.

They stood in the corridor. She did not wish to extend the courtesy of taking him into a room. He saw quite another side of her. Her eyes were hard with anger. At the same time she was
shivering.

His rehearsed little speech vanished. When he tried to reach out to reassure she flinched. He let his hand drop.

Making an effort to overcome his hopelessness, he said, ‘I know Gersten is using you. I think you and I are looking for the same man. He is known as Grigor. His real name is Yakov
Zorin.’

Seeing her reaction, he asked if she knew him. She said no but he could tell she was lying. Now was not the moment to pursue the point. First he had to try to win her trust.

‘I may be able to try to help you.’

‘May be able?’

‘Can try to help you.’

‘You have to help my friend too,’ she said quickly.

‘Of course,’ he said, knowing it was a promise he couldn’t keep. ‘What’s her name?’

Seeing her hesitate, he said it could wait.

‘Lore,’ she said.

He asked hers although he knew it.

‘Sybil,’ she said.

Was he using her as a way of getting to Grigor or did he really want to help? He was still confused by the sight of them kissing.

Alwynd, who enjoyed being crass, said, ‘Ah, the lovebirds are back. Secret or share?’

‘Oh, share,’ said Sybil. ‘Our friend here thinks he might be able to introduce me to clients who need tailoring done, which is very generous.’

Schlegel observed Lore. She must have worked out something was going on, if Sybil had failed to come home for the last two nights. She made a point of announcing she was going to rest.

Sybil left too without saying anything.

‘A bit sticky that,’ said Alwynd. ‘Of course the one is a hardened lesbian. It’s a pity about the other because I suspect her tastes are broader, but she seems quite
besotted for the moment. How’s your sex life?’

‘Not as busy as yours I would imagine.’

‘Seek the wildness, dear boy! The men are all gone. Time to play.’ He giggled and proceeded to regale him with the ins and outs of his affairs for the next half-hour before Schlegel
made his excuses and left, more confused than ever.

Nebe arrived five minutes early for Monday lunch at Dr Goebbels’ official residence in Hermann Goering Strasse, now stripped of much of its ornament to reflect the
gravity of the situation. This was not easy as the size of the place indicated nothing but self-aggrandisement. Oriental rugs and light bulbs had been removed from corridors. Rooms were closed off
to create the appropriate sense of economy. The tightened belt was Goebbels’ latest catchphrase. A modest lunch would be served. No alcohol to be offered beforehand.

It had occurred to Nebe that Goebbels was strangely powerless, although branding himself the total war man, and going to enormous lengths to get the message across to the public, whose saviour
he believed he would be in the end. Nebe suspected it was smoke and mirrors. Dr Goebbels was in the business of massaging public opinion yet there was nothing he could do, even with a muzzled
press, to make himself more popular, however charming his personal company.

Known as Popeye because of his taste for spinach, he was also referred to as the Lenten Dr Goebbels. Abstemiousness disguised many indulgences. A fortune was spent on clothes, the same suit
never worn twice running, and a supply of handmade shirts that kept an exclusive outfitter in business for a year. Nebe knew because he used the same tailor and often had to wait because a rush job
was on for the minister.

Goebbels made a point of arriving five minutes late. The journey from his office took two, for which he travelled with an armed guard in a chauffeur-driven armour-plated Mercedes.

He swept in alone, the retinue dismissed. Servants had been trained not to attend to his homecoming. He hung up his coat and hat in the boot room and put the umbrella in its rack. Only when he
emerged again and placed his briefcase on the hall table did Nebe deem it safe to approach.

Goebbels clapped his hands and said, ‘Excellent, Nebe, excellent! What would I do without you?’

Any mention of indispensability needed to be regarded with the greatest heed, Nebe knew, from the fate of others.

Just the two of them sat for lunch. Wine was offered in the expectation of it being refused. Nebe reported on Stoffel’s success. Goebbels pulled a long face and said better than a Jewish
maniac but it rather endorsed the government attitude towards mental sickness.

‘I feel an editorial coming on. Given the greater conflict, we don’t bother with domestic crime, but in this case I might make an exception and put one of our top reporters on
it.’

He made a note on the pad he kept constantly by his side.

Nebe was hopeful that the rest of the lunch would pass without incident. A solo meal with Goebbels was never a comfortable experience. The man picked at his food and was impatient with the
ritual of dining. Conversation proceeded along set lines. First there was the racy political gossip.

‘We’re kissing on the lips now, Speer and I. No tongues yet but that will come.’

Goebbels regaled Nebe with such indiscreet details of his sex life that Nebe wondered if the recital wasn’t relished more than the possession. ‘A magnificent flaming red bush.’
‘Her orgasm left her squeaking in the most disconcerting manner.’

There was something intrinsically grubby about the man, however discreetly perfumed, and his tedious one-upmanship.

There was his other great love, cinema. He confessed his frustration that films could not be as broad in their taste as he would like. For that reason he closely monitored the latest product
from Hollywood and boasted his private screenings were the hottest tickets in town. He was especially keen to see RKO’s forthcoming
I Walked with a Zombie
, directed by Jacques Tourneur
and written by Curt Siodmak, a defector whose talents he could have put to better use. Goebbels was a huge fan of Tourneur’s previous film,
Cat People
, flown in by diplomatic bag from
the Republic of Ireland.

‘Too risqué to screen for all but the most sophisticated, with Simone Simon, Jewish alas, descended from people who turn into cats when sexually aroused. Deliciously corrupt.
Exactly the kind of decadent nonsense our people must be protected from.’

Goebbels made a throaty purring noise, followed by his blankest expression. ‘And what of these flayed bodies?’

Nebe badly wanted to relieve himself, faced with what was known as the Goebbels trapdoor moment.

He was let off. Goebbels wagged his finger reprovingly. ‘You are lucky I am in a good mood. The Gestapo has just informed me they were the work of a Bolshevik spy since arrested. It was to
be the start of a terror campaign to destabilise the civilian population. An exercise in black propaganda.’

He appeared taken with the idea.

That appeared to be the end of lunch yet Goebbels did not finish it by standing first, as protocol demanded. Instead he sat there, making Nebe more nervous.

‘We are moving into difficult times,’ he eventually said. ‘We face our sternest test.’

Toughness, compassion and resolve were the qualities that would see them through. He harangued Nebe for five minutes before getting to the point. Corruption was no longer an option.

‘Those previously lining their pockets must be brought to book.’

Nebe wondered if it was some kind of personal message.

‘And we are talking about corruption top to bottom. The golden pheasants. The fat cats. The pigs with their snouts in the trough. Our needs require radical reforms. A clean sweep. Showing
the people we care. Are you with me on this?’

Nebe could say nothing except of course.

He was sufficiently practised at reading between the lines to understand any clearout would be selective according to Goebbels’ requirements.

‘We need our own secret agent. Someone who can go hither and thither, like the wind, who appears to operate on his own initiative, acting on the letter of the law, which may be our
greatest ally, who of course has no orders, so nothing can be attributed.’

How uncanny, Nebe thought. It was as though his own premonition had anticipated Goebbels’ plan. He made a point of pausing for thought before announcing he might have just the man.