Sam Eastland - Berlin Red

‘A guest,’ Hunyadi corrected him.

‘Follow me, if you please,’ Waldenbuch said quietly and escorted the detective through the kitchen where, Hunyadi could not help but notice, he was studiously ignored by the staff, and brought him to one of several locked doors at the back of the restaurant. From a bundle of little brass keys, Waldenbuch selected the one he needed, opened the room and gestured for Hunyadi to enter.

‘I have not seen you here before,’ remarked Herr Waldenbuch.

You might have done, thought Hunyadi, if one meal here didn’t cost a man like me his salary for the week. But he kept that to himself and only nodded.

‘The Gruppenfuhrer is often late,’ confided Herr Waldenbuch.

‘In that case,’ replied the detective, ‘and since he will be picking up the tab, you might as well bring me some lunch.’

‘What would you like?’ asked the manager.

Hunyadi shrugged. ‘After where I’ve been, Herr Waldenbuch, anything at all would suit me fine.’

Waldenbuch bowed his head sharply and left.

Alone now in this airless little room, it occurred to Hunyadi that this could all be a part of a trap. Fegelein’s attempt to re-ingratiate himself with Hitler’s entourage might have nothing to do with helping this investigation and everything to do with getting him arrested on charges of conspiracy. If that is the case, thought Hunyadi, I’ll be on my way back to Flossenburg before this meal is even on the table.

To take his mind off these grim thoughts, Hunyadi studied the pictures hanging on the walls. They showed the restaurant in earlier days – men in high-collared shirts and women with complicated hats staring with bleached-looking faces through the persimmon-coloured light of old sepia prints.

He wondered if these pictures would survive the coming fight. Lately, Hunyadi had become morbidly obsessed with trying to guess whether the objects that passed through his life were doomed to perish in the flames which would engulf this city, or whether they would be carted back to Russia as souvenirs, or if perhaps they would remain here, untouched, to decorate the walls of whatever city rose up from the ashes of this war.

At that moment, Fegelein arrived. He wore a brown leather greatcoat over his uniform, the hide darkened across his shoulders by the rain that was falling outside. ‘Welcome to my private dining room,’ said Fegelein as he shrugged off the coat and draped it over an unused chair.

‘Yours?’ asked Hunyadi.

‘There are three things a gentleman needs in life,’ said Fegelein. ‘A good barber, a good tailor and a table at his favourite restaurant. I went one further, and made sure it came with a room.’ He settled himself into a chair opposite Hunyadi. ‘Now then, Inspector, what is it I can do for you?’

Both men fell silent as Herr Waldenbuch entered with bowls of carrot and fennel soup, the deep orange colour seeming to radiate its own light in the confines of that windowless room. He placed them down before the men, bowed his head, and left.

Hunyadi wondered where on earth such food could still be found in this beleaguered city.

As soon as they were alone again, Hunyadi reached into his pocket, withdrew a crumpled sheet of paper on which the agent’s coded message had been written and slid it across the table to Fegelein. ‘I was hoping you might be able to make sense of this.’

Fegelein picked up the document and stared at it. ‘This is some kind of military code.’

‘That much I’ve already guessed,’ said Hunyadi.

‘And did you also guess that it isn’t one of ours?’

‘More or less.’

Fegelein laughed quietly. ‘And you think I know how to read it?’

‘Probably not,’ answered Hunyadi, ‘but I imagine you know someone who does.’

‘It has to do with your investigation?’

‘It does.’

‘Where did it come from?’

Hunyadi paused to clear his throat. ‘For now, Herr Gruppenfuhrer, the help I’m asking for will have to be a one-way street.’

Neatly, Fegelein folded the page and tucked it away in his pocket. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

From the distance came a wail of air-raid sirens, the sound muffled by the thick walls of the restaurant. Instinctively, both men stood up to leave, each one calculating the distance to the nearest of the city’s many bomb shelters, the locations of which had long ago been branded on their minds.

As they made their way out, they found that the main dining room was already empty. Food lay uneaten on plates. Mozart played softly on the gramophone.

The men stepped out into the street. It was almost dark now and the sirens were much louder here, the rising, falling moan shuddering into their bones. People hurried past them, clutching cardboard suitcases already packed for the hours they knew they would spend below ground.

Now they could hear the heavy drone of bombers in the distance, and the dull thump of anti-aircraft fire from the outskirts of the city.

‘It must be done quickly,’ urged Hunyadi. ‘I don’t think there’s much time. And the discretion you promised . . .’

Fegelein patted the pocket where he had stashed the message. ‘It goes without saying, Inspector.’

Arriving at the Pankow district police station, Pekkala went in to find Hunyadi, while Kirov remained out of sight in an alleyway across the road.

The rising, falling wail of the air-raid sirens filled the streets.

The duty officer at the front desk sent Pekkala up to the receptionist on the next floor, where Hunyadi’s office was located.

‘You’d best be quick,’ said the duty officer. ‘You’ve only got about ten minutes before the bombs start falling.’

The receptionist was an elderly woman named Frau Greipel. She had worked on that floor of the police department for many years and considered it her personal domain. The men who worked here, aware of just how miserable she could make their lives if she wanted, knew better than to question her authority.

As a rule, Frau Greipel did not take kindly to strangers, and most of them were sent packing down the stairs much faster than they had come up, especially if air-raid sirens had already begun to sound.

But she did not chase away Pekkala. There was something in the bearing of the man which was both familiar and strangely comforting to her, as if he knew his way around the place, even though she was certain he had never been there before.

Frau Greipel escorted Pekkala to Hunyadi’s office, knocked on the door, opened it and found the room empty. ‘He must have gone to the shelter already,’ she said. ‘Would you like to leave a message?’

‘Yes,’ replied Pekkala. ‘Please tell him I have come about the Diamond Stream.’

Back at her desk, Frau Greipel made him repeat the words as she wrote them down. ‘Are you sure he will know what that means?’

‘I believe so,’ said Pekkala.

‘And your name?’

‘Pekkala.’

She made him spell it out.

‘And what kind of name is that?’ she asked. ‘Where does it come from?’

Receiving no answer to her question, Frau Greipel looked up and realised that the man had already gone.

As she had done many times before, Frau Greipel locked her desk drawer, put the key in her pocket and after making sure that she was the last one on the floor, she turned out the lights and made her way downstairs, heading for the shelter across the road.

In the gloom of the darkened police station, Pekkala appeared from a storage closet and made his way to the office of Inspector Hunyadi. Once inside, he turned on the desk lamp and began searching for anything which might reveal the man’s home address. It did not take more than a moment to locate the pile of unopened mail, addressed to Hunyadi’s flat in Pradelstrasse.