Sam Eastland - Berlin Red

‘And how do you propose to do that?’

‘I have a pretty good idea,’ replied Pekkala.

Hunyadi was in his office, staring at a map of Berlin. With a magnifying glass, he studied the layout of the streets in the eastern quadrant of the city, as if to find in it some hint as to the whereabouts of the radio transmitter.

A gentle knocking on the door made him look up. Through the blurred glass pane, Hunyadi could see that his visitor was a woman, even though he could not make out the features of her face.

‘Come in,’ he said.

The door opened, and an expensively dressed lady stepped into the room. She wore a knee-length navy-blue skirt, with a matching jacket piped in white, with large white buttons. Her hair was startlingly blonde. Freckles dappled her round face, making her look younger than she was. It was her eyes that gave her away. They looked strangely lifeless, as if they had witnessed more misery than one person should see in a lifetime.

Slowly, Hunyadi climbed to his feet. ‘I think you might have the wrong room,’ he said.

‘Inspector Hunyadi?’

‘It seems you’re in the right place, after all.’ He gestured at a chair on the other side of his desk. ‘Please,’ he said, gently.

The woman looked at the chair, but she did not sit down. ‘My name is Elsa Batz,’ she said, unbuckling her handbag to remove her government-issued identification book.

As she did so, Hunyadi caught a glance of a small pistol in her bag, jumbled in amongst a hairbrush, a tube of lipstick and several crumpled scraps of paper, which appeared to be restaurant receipts.

Elsa Batz handed him the identification.

Hunyadi opened the flimsy booklet and inspected the even flimsier pages inside. He noted that she lived on Bleibtreustrasse, not far from the notorious Salon Kitty nightclub. ‘How may I help you?’ he asked, returning the booklet to her outstretched hand.

‘I hear you have been looking for a spy,’ said Elsa Batz.

Hunyadi felt his stomach muscles clench. ‘Fraulein Batz,’ he said, ‘what gave you that idea?’

‘There is a chauffeur,’ replied Elsa Batz, letting her tongue rest upon the last word as if unable to conceal her disgust for the profession. ‘She works for Gruppenfuhrer Hermann Fegelein.’

‘And her name?’

‘Lilya,’ she replied. ‘Lilya Simonova.’ And then she added contemptuously, ‘She used to be his secretary.’

‘Simonova,’ repeated Hunyadi. He began to take notes on a piece of paper.

‘He calls her “Fraulein S”.’

‘And you suspect her of treason?’

‘I do.’

‘On what grounds?’

‘I just do.’

Hunyadi paused and glanced up from his writing. ‘That isn’t much to go on, Fraulein Batz.’

‘Sometimes a hunch is enough,’ she replied.

‘Are you, perhaps, an acquaintance of the Gruppenfuhrer?’

She nodded. ‘Which is why I know that my hunch is correct.’

We all do what we have to in order to survive, Hunyadi thought to himself, and I think I know exactly what you do. ‘Herr Fegelein has perhaps expressed his doubts to you about this Fraulein S?’ he asked.

‘No!’ spat the woman. ‘He thinks she’s wonderful. He even fired his driver so that she can drive him around the city instead.’

‘I see. And this is what makes you suspicious?’

‘Yes!’ she called out in exasperation. ‘She could be running a whole circus of spies and he wouldn’t even notice.’

‘A circus?’

‘Well, whatever you would call them, then.’

‘But you have no actual proof,’ remarked Hunyadi. ‘Only . . .’ he paused, ‘intuitions.’

‘That’s right,’ she answered defiantly, ‘and they have served me very well so far.’

‘I promise to look into it,’ said Hunyadi, rising to his feet to show that this little interview was at an end. But he wasn’t quite finished with her yet. ‘One more thing, Fraulein Batz,’ he said.

She raised her sculpted eyebrows. ‘Yes?’

‘If I could just take a look at the gun you are carrying in your handbag.’

Her cheeks turned red and she immediately became flustered, but she did as she was told, retrieving the gun from her bag and placing it upon the desk in front of him.

It was a Walther Model 5, a small 6.35 mm automatic of a type often carried by high-ranking officers for personal protection, rather than for use in combat. A tiny eagle, with a three-digit number beneath, had been stamped into the metal slide and also into the base of the magazine.

‘This is a military-issue gun,’ remarked Hunyadi.

‘I suppose it must be,’ she replied.

‘And where did you get it?’

‘From Hermann,’ she told him, and then, as if that were not formal enough, she added, ‘from Gruppenfuhrer Fegelein. He also gave me a permit.’ Rummaging in her purse, she produced a small card, which she now handed to Hunyadi.

The permit was genuine, but it had been issued by Fegelein himself, which he lacked the authority to do, no matter how high his rank.

Hunyadi glanced at Elsa Batz.

She sensed his hesitation. ‘Keep it if you need to,’ she told him. ‘I never use it anyway, and I’m tired of carrying it around.’

Fegelein had given her the gun soon after they began seeing each other. On what she recalled as their first official outing, he drove her to the ruins of a house on the outskirts of the city. The building had been destroyed earlier in the war by a stray bomb. Fegelein walked her into what had once been a neatly tended garden but was now completely overgrown. From the skeletal frame of an old greenhouse, he removed three earthenware flower pots, placed them on the garden wall, then stood back ten paces and motioned for Elsa to join him.

‘A present for you,’ said Fegelein, holding out the gun on the flat of his palm.

‘What do I need that for?’ she asked, refusing to take the weapon from his hand.

‘I won’t always be around to protect you,’ Fegelein told her, ‘and there’s no point having one of these unless you know how to use it.’

He showed her where the safety catch was, and how to aim, and how to level out her breathing just before she pulled the trigger.

Her first shot ricocheted off the wall, leaving a pink gash on the red brick. The second and third shots also missed.

‘Well, it’s a good thing I don’t have you for a bodyguard,’ laughed Fegelein.

He had a particularly annoying laugh.

Elsa was already feeling annoyed that Fegelein had brought her here, instead of to some charming restaurant, but to hear the stuttering hiss of Fegelein’s laughter so enraged her that she strode forward to the wall, set the barrel of the gun against each flower pot and blew them all to pieces one by one.

This only made him laugh more. ‘That’s one way of doing it!’ he shouted.

She wheeled about. ‘I don’t want it! Can’t you see?’

The smile had frozen on his face, and all amusement vanished from his eyes.

It was only in this moment that Elsa realised she was pointing the gun right at him. She lowered it at once, immediately terrified of what he might do to her now.

But Fegelein only sighed and told her to put it away.

Since then, she had kept the gun in her purse, letting it rattle around amongst the spare change and cosmetics.

‘Keep it,’ she repeated to Hunyadi.

‘No,’ replied the inspector, returning the weapon and her permit. ‘I’ve seen all I need to see.’ He knew that, technically, he should have confiscated the gun, but right now there were more important things to do.

After Elsa Batz had departed, leaving behind the faint odour of perfume, Hunyadi picked up the phone and called General Rattenhuber at the bunker.

Rattenhuber did not sound pleased to hear from him. ‘What do you want?’ he demanded. ‘Make it quick! I’m very busy.’