Cay Rademacher - The Murderer in Ruins

‘Who’s likely to ask?’

‘Nobody, probably. But I take pride in my investigations being thorough and properly documented.’

‘Make an exception this time.’

‘What if I choose not to?’

‘One mention of Operation Bottleneck and you’ll find yourself the next guest of His Majesty. We have just about enough aircraft fuel to see to that.’

‘I thought as much,’ Stave replied. ‘There again I’ve always wanted to see a Scottish castle.’

‘Not when it’s minus 20 Celsius.’

‘I suppose there is that argument.’ Stave said nothing for a few moments, thinking the matter over. ‘You have my word that I’ll make no mention of Operation Bottleneck,’ he eventually promised. ‘There’ll be nothing more about Hellinger in the files. Nor about the way the files went missing.’

MacDonald took a deep breath. ‘Thank you for that. I would have found it deeply disagreeable to have to do something as unpleasant as kidnapping you. But I am obliged to do everything I can to keep this operation secret.’

‘Do you find it equally unpleasant kidnapping people like Hellinger?’

‘No,’ the lieutenant replied without hesitation. ‘The Nazis had their butchers to do their dirty work, in the Gestapo, in the concentration camps. I’m sure you know the type I mean. Brutal men, with no conscience, but not bright enough to do too much harm on their own. Hitler needed cleverer men for that. Like our good Dr Hellinger with his trigonometric calculators. They worked brilliantly, as 10,000 sailors’ widows from Liverpool to Halifax will testify. No, he doesn’t get my sympathy.’

‘We have something in common there.’

‘That’s why I enjoy working with you so much, Chief Inspector.’

‘Would you say the same for my colleague, Maschke?’

Suddenly MacDonald was cautious. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘How much do you know about him?’

The lieutenant shrugged his shoulders. ‘When I was seconded to this investigation, obviously I read through the personnel files of those I would be working with.’

‘Very thorough of you.’

‘Just being professional. But I didn’t see anything particularly interesting in Maschke’s file. That’s all I know about him.’

‘Would you get the personnel files for me to look at?’

‘Gladly, as thanks for your cooperation in the Operation Bottleneck business. But why were you asking about Maschke in particular?’

‘Now I have a secret from you, Lieutenant. But I promise you I’ll let you in on it before long. When the time is right.’

MacDonald nodded and got to his feet. ‘Fair enough. Just let me know.’

When the lieutenant already had his hand on the door handle to leave, Stave cleared his throat. ‘Just promise me you won’t ask me to be godfather to your child,’ he said. ‘even if it might have been conceived in my office.’

‘Touche ,’ said MacDonald, touching his cap to Stave as he left.

Stave stared out of the window for a long time after the lieutenant had left. He was relieved to have his files back again. I’m such an old stickler for doing things by the book, he thought to himself. Margarethe would have laughed. She would have told me not to make such a fuss.

But things were getting clearer. He could trust MacDonald after all, and, it seemed, Erna Berg too, even if he was still shocked at the idea that, despite being a married woman, she had offered herself to an officer of the army of occupation here in his office. On this desk.

The disappearance of the files had been cleared up. Hellinger was no longer part of the investigation. He was not a suspect, and, thank God, not another victim.

Stave now had enough witnesses and statements to take Maschke to court and charge him with being a former SS man involved in the Oradour massacre. He wondered if it might not be wiser to have Maschke arrested straight away. Or should he leave his former colleague in the dark, play him until he somehow gave himself away? I’m going to have to talk to Ehrlich again, he thought. The public prosecutor must have some idea that Maschke had a Nazi past. Why else had he bumped into him that night in Maschke’s office? He was snooping after something. But he almost certainly had no idea that Maschke had been at Oradour. The Nazi-hunter would be grateful when Stave presented him with the evidence. He would have a new trial, maybe back in the Curio House.

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. Erna Berg popped her head in. ‘You have a visitor.’

It was Andreas Brems from the Search Office.

Stave wanted to get up, as politeness demanded, but all of a sudden his leg went as limp as a deflated bicycle tube. He was about to say something but he couldn’t get a word out.

The researcher, no doubt used to giving people bad news, smiled forgivingly, pulled up a chair, sat down and unfolded a sheet of paper, all without saying a word. Then he pointed down at what was a mimeographed sheet of paper with a list of names on it. Names, names and more names.

‘We’ve found your son,’ he said. And quickly added: ‘Alive.’

Stave gripped the edges of his desk, his mind in a whirl. Karl, a 17-year-old in a Wehrmacht uniform far too big for him, a look of scorn and disgust on his face as he said farewell to his father. Stave forced himself to thank Brems formally, shook his hand across the desk, then bent his head over the list, lifted it in his hand, no longer caring that it was trembling so much it was making the sheet of paper rustle.

The one and only link to his son: ‘Stave, Karl.’

And then one more word. Stave stopped and read it again, having no idea what it meant. ‘What does this mean? Vorkuta.’

‘It’s where your son is at present.’ Brems cleared his throat. ‘A prisoner-of-war camp. In Siberia.’

‘Siberia?’

Stave closed his eyes. People in Hamburg had been talking for months about ‘Siberian temperatures’. And he’d seen the bodies of the murderer’s victims, frozen to the ground. He’d heard of others frozen stiff too; victims not of a murderer but of the cold itself. If it was as cold as this in Hamburg, what must it be like out there?

‘What can I do?’ he heard himself say flatly, though his voice was filled with hope.

‘Nothing. At least not for the moment. The Red Cross furnished us this list. It may be that at some stage a representative will gain access to the camp to talk to the prisoners or bring them post. We can’t be certain of that, but we will do everything we can to improve conditions for the prisoners.’

‘When will they let him go?’

‘Ask Comrade Stalin. Nobody can say. When the trains were still running, prisoners did return from Siberia. At the moment it’s still too cold, but the winter won’t last forever.’

‘Can I write to him at least?’

‘We’ll be happy to take a letter for you. But there’s no rush. It will take weeks before we can get a representative to northern Russia. If at all. You’re confused. Happy but confused. I understand that. I see it every day. For now just enjoy the good news. Give it time to sink in. Wait until then before writing a letter.’

‘One way or another, at least he’s been found.’

‘And once we’ve found someone, we don’t lose track of them.’

At last Stave managed to get up from his chair. ‘Thank you very much,’ he said. ‘And for coming to tell me personally.’

‘You came often enough to us,’ said Brems, shaking his hand in farewell.

When he left the room, Stave stared out of the window again. Night was coming on, black as ink. In the outside office he heard a chair scrape over the linoleum floor: Erna Berg getting up from her desk to go home. An air bubble gurgled in a radiator that was little more than cold, the sound of footsteps down the corridor, and then nothing but the silence of an abandoned question.