Schreiber's Secret (30 page)

They took a taxi to the Holocaust Memorial, set in a garden like so many other edifices dedicated to the anguish of Man. Wrapped up in their own emotions, they entered the Tent of Remembrance, there to encounter the famous adjoining squares of basalt bearing the names of twenty-two death camps in Hebrew and English. The flame of remembrance seemed to flicker and wane for a moment, as if its memories were too painful to bear. The place was all numbers, thought Edwards. Six million. How could anyone come to terms with the magnitude of such a crime? Even more moving was the Room of Names, where two million epitaphs bore silent testimony to those who had perished. They learned that the names of the remaining four million must go unrecorded because the communities from which they came had been expunged totally from the earth.

Holding hands, they walked from one silent representation of hell to another. Behind the sixty-five-foot-tall Pillar of Heroism stood the inaptly named Garden of Children. It was, in fact, an artificial cave. Entering the sudden blackness from the brilliance of the noon sun, they were forced to grip the handrail while passing before a panoply of thousands of pinpricks of light. More numbers, thought Edwards. One and a half million children murdered. It was a planetarium of evil. Recorded voices began calling out the names of the dead children, sending a chill through him. He was not yet a parent, yet he felt the same sense of loss.

Danielle had hardly spoken by the time they had finished their tour of Yad Vashem and were weaving their way through th
e
shu
k
leading to the Western Wall. She waved aside the pleas of the Arab vendors and hurried down the steps of the Via Dolorosa. It was only when they had entered the huge open area leading to the Wall that she began to open up.

“I know you’ve been trying to get me to talk about it, Mark,” she said, turning to face him at the entrance to the praying area. “I just don’t feel like it. I was very moved, but Theresienstadt was more immediate. It had a greater impact.”

“You don’t have to say any more, darling. I felt the same.”

“Look, it’s packed today,” she exclaimed, pointing to the hundreds of people, including many Hassidim, swaying backwards and forwards from the waist in pious fervour.

“What are they doing?” he asked.

“They’r
e
dovenin
g
. You remember. Th
e
shiv
a
.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Anyway, we’ve got to separate now. Take a pape
r
kipp
a
from that man and put it on your head. You’ve got your pen and piece of paper, haven’t you?” Edwards watched her wrap a silk scarf over her head and then turn away to walk elegantly towards the women’s section. Aware of the religious edict, she had chosen a plain blue cotton dress which covered her shoulders and upper arms. God, she was beautiful, he thought.

The gentile donned the black paper skullcap and headed towards the milling throng. He tried hard to be the polite Englishman, but in the end had to push and
shove to reach the Wall. His first instinct was to touch the sacred stones. He was surprised how cool they were, and how ordinary they looked. And yet he knew that if the stones could speak, they would relate the history of mankind, its good and its evil. In a way, the Wall was alive with words. In seemingly every crevice within hand’s reach were little folded pieces of paper bearing messages of peace and hope.

Edwards withdrew the small scrap of paper from his pocket and began scribbling. He then folded it tightly, kissed it and reached to his right towards a crevice that seemed less crowded than most. He rammed the wad into it with his thumb. He then did something that he had not planned. He leaned against the stone nearest to him and kissed it. In that one moment he felt his whole body tingle. It was as if a certain kind of piety had been born within him, a strange feeling of belonging.

Danielle was already waiting for him by the time he reached the main fence about fifty yards from the Wall. “Well,” she said expectantly, “wasn’t it incredibly moving?”

“Yes,” he said quietly, “it was the most moving moment for me so far.”

“I know I shouldn’t ask, but what did you write in your note?” Her emerald eyes danced with the desire to know.

Edwards took a deep breath. It was now or never. This had to be the moment and this had to be the place. He took hold of her slender hands and gripped them nervously. “I begged God to grant peace on all Israel and protect His daughter, Danielle,
and ...”

“Yes?” she pleaded earnestly.

“That He make her my wife.”

She stared at him, her eyes suddenly misty. Then they began to glisten as the tears welled. “Oh, darling.” She hugged him. “Oh, darling, I love you. I will be proud to be your wife.”

They were both suddenly aware that this was the wrong place to show such overt affection. He held her gently at arm’s length. “Danielle, there’s something else.”

She looked at him quizzically. What else could there be?

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I want to convert.”

“Oh, Mark, you don’t have to. Really. Our children will be Jewish anyway because it runs through the mother’s side.”

“I want to, Dani,” he said passionately. “I want to as much as I want you.”

“It’s a tough procedure,” she cautioned. “The rabbis will make sure you end up being more Jew than Jew before they’ll accept you.”

“I don’t care how hard it will be. I want to join the club.” He put his hand quickly to his lips. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that.”

Danielle laughed. “I suppose it is a kind of club, only don’t tell the rabbis that.” She hugged him again. The last seeds of doubt had been dispelled. She was not marrying out. He was marrying in.

Events began to move swiftly as soon as the lovers, tanned and happy, returned to London. The English capital was grey, chilly and morose compared with the warmth and vitality that had erupted the previous day in Israel. Tel Aviv had throbbed with excitement as its citizens flooded the streets for the Independence Day celebrations. Mark and Danielle had thrilled to the fireworks display and folk dancing in the huge City Hall square. They had blown whistles, buzzed buzzers and joyfully participated in pummelling themselves and others with the ubiquitous plastic squeaky hammers. It had truly been an orgy of fun to round off what had been the most extraordinary holiday either of them had experienced.

“Ah, well, back to reality,” said Edwards as he opened the door of his flat. He pushed aside the post with his foot in order to get their luggage inside. “Looks like I’ve been pretty popular while we’ve been away.” 

“Bills, probably,” said Danielle.

“Put the kettle on, darling,” he said, scooping up the letters. There were about ten, large and small. He took them over to the dining-room table and sat down. “Bill, bill, bill,” he rattled off without bothering to open them. “Ah, Bill.” In his hand he now held a large, bulky A4 envelope bearing German stamps. He knew it could only be from William Brown, Esquire.  “There’s one here from Bill Brown,” he called out in eager anticipation.

“Where’s my letter-opener, darling? I saw you with it last.” He did not want to risk tearing any of the contents.

“Here it is,” said Danielle, entering the dining room. “I wonder what he has to say.”

“We’ll soon find out,” he said, taking the knife from her and opening the envelope carefully. He extracted a sheaf of papers. They appeared to be the complete SS records of one Hans Schreiber.

“What do they say?” she asked.

“It’s all in German. It’ll take me a while to go through them.”

“Isn’t there anything from your friend?”

Edwards shuffled the papers. Yes, there it was. A handwritten letter from Brown. He read it aloud.

“Dear Mark, I hope you enjoyed your holiday and weren’t too naughty!

“As you can see from the enclosed documents, I am following up a possible lead. According to those records, an officer named Schreiber was declared missing in action, presumed killed, on the Russian Front in 1944! I assume both the prosecution and the defence have already procured this material. If this turns out to be the man himself, then it’s safe to assume that the defence will claim Schreiber is dead and the prosecution that he is alive and is Henry Sonntag. By the way, there were only documents on three SS men named Hans Schreiber. This one was the only man who had been posted to Theresienstadt.

“Anyway, I wanted to do more checks and made contact with a guy who said he had been a leading member of Odessa. I thought he was a bit of a charlatan. He gave me one item of information: that Schreiber had lived with a woman after the war in Berlin and that the couple had had a son named Franz. Anyway, I thought this character was stringing me a line. When I declined to give him any money, he threatened me and walked out in a huff. I think that might have been a mistake on my part. But it didn’t matter, because what happened after that made up for it.

“I checked and found out that there was a couple named Hans and Gertrude Schreiber who lived in the Charlottenburg area of Berlin in 1946. I had to grease a few palms to find out that they had indeed had a son and that his name was Franz. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I discovered that the boy had been placed into care at the age of four. He had a series of foster parents, the last being Herr Fritz Brandt and his wife Inge. They live in Düsseldorf. Flat C, Oststrasse 12. Telephone 26 36 27. I’m due to see them the day after tomorrow. Meanwhile, I thought I’d try out a long shot. One of the early foster parents said they thought Hans Schreiber’s father was named Wolfgang and that he lived in a small town called Straelen on the Dutch border. I should think he must be dead by now. But I’m on my way there to check it out before I go on to Düsseldorf. Best regards, Bill.”

“Wow!” exclaimed Danielle. “That’s some letter.”

Edwards ran his fingers through his hair. “You’re dead right it is. If Brown can find Schreiber’s son, then we have a ball game.

All we have to do is match up the DNA with Henry Sonntag’s and it will prove conclusively whether or not Sonntag is Schreiber. Wow is right. God bless you, Bill Brown.”

“It looks like a whole library,” said Danielle, returning his attention to the photostats. “What do they say?”

“God, there must be dozens of sheets here,” he said, leafing through the documents. For the next twenty minutes, Edwards punctuated his concentration with exclamations of disbelief.

“Tell me, Mark,” she pleaded. “For God’s sake, tell me.”

“This is fantastic, Dani.
The whole record of Hans Schreiber. The whole shebang. You won’t believe some of this stuff. There’s a complete signed typed biography of the man. How he was born in Berlin and how his family moved to Straelen when he was four.”

“That ties in with what Brown said in his letter.”

“There’s more,” Edwards enthused. “Much more. Apparently, he had to go through all this paraphernalia because he had to ask permission to get engaged. He says he intended to get engaged in May 1944. He must have been on leave or something when he met this girl. Let’s see, what’s her name? Er, Gertrude Haas ... from Berlin. There’s a family tree for both of them going back to the eighteenth century.”

“Probably wanted to make sure there wasn’t any Jewish blood,” she said sarcastically.

“Spot on, Dani. There’s even a pageful of excuses as to why some of the details are missing. But the most fascinating thing here is this medical report from when he first entered the SS. Look at this stuff. Those crazy Krauts were mad for detail. There’s a checklist for skin colour, eye colour, hair colour, even the shape of the hair, for God’s sake. It concludes that our friend Schreiber was, quote, Nordic with a little mixture, but still within the Aryan concept, unquote.”

The reporter shuffled the papers excitedly. “Just look at this, Dani,” he said. “The doctor even had to ask him whether he bedwet, what age he learned to talk, walk and speak.”

“What does that word say?” she said, pointing to the top of the page. Edwards burst out laughing.
“
Geschlechtsorgan
e
. Trust you to pick out the word for genitals.”

“Well?” She smiled demurely.

“Normal, whatever that means.”

“Probably uncircumcised.”

“Hmm, you’re probably right. But he wasn’t completely A1.”

“What do you mean?”

“The boy Schreiber suffered from asthma.”

“Mark, I don’t know how you can understand that doctor’s scrawl.”

“It’s not easy, believe me.”

“Is that his signature? At least I can read that.”

“Jesus!”

“What is it, Mark?”

“I hadn’t noticed it before. I don’t know how Bill missed it. It’s signed Obersturmführer Dr Wolfgang Schreiber.” He shuffled through the papers again.

“Yes, here it is. In the family tree.”

“Maybe it’s not his father, but a man with the same name.”

“Hmm. Maybe. Dani, look at this.” She peered over his shoulder. “It’s a list of his postings and his promotions. He got sent to Theresienstadt in 1941. As Bill said, he finally wound up on the Russian Front and was reported missing, presumed killed in action.”

She picked up the white envelope. “Shall I throw it away?” Before receiving a reply, she checked instinctively to see if it was empty. “Hey, you missed another folio ... Oh, Mark,” she gasped.

There before them was
a photostat of three photographs of a young SS officer resplendent in his new uniform. “He doesn’t look like Sonntag. It’s not him.”

Edwards scratched his head. “Remember, Schreiber stole Soferman’s identity. He must have had plastic surgery.”

“It’s not him and you know it, Mark.”

“You know what that means, Dani. It means this information is useless both for the defence and the prosecution. The defence will make great play of producing paperwork on all the Schreibers and proving that none was the defendant. The prosecution will of course say that this is irrelevant and that the files must have been lost. It’ll be a stalemate. And they already
know it.”

“What do you think, Mark?”

“I smell a rat. There are too many coincidences here. Look, there were only a few Hans Schreibers in all the records at the Documentation Centre ... and only one who served at Theresienstadt. This one. I just don’t understand it.”

The crime reporter’s consternation was relieved temporarily by the ringing of his telephone. It was Bob Webb.

“Hi, Mark. When did you get back?”

“A few minutes ago, Bob.
I ...” He was about to relate the developments, but thought better of it. It was premature to involve the police. “We had a great time, Bob. Magic.”

“How’s Danielle?”

“Fine. She sends her love. By the way ...”

“Yes, mate.”

“We’re getting married.”

“Great!” enthused Webb. “It’s about time you made an honest woman of her.”

“There’s something else, Bob.”

“Fire away.”

“We want you to be best man.”

“Honoured, dear friend. Honoured. When’s it going to be?”

“Sometime after the trial.”

“Talking about the trial, mate, I’ve got some news for you. The date’s just been fixed. It’s next Monday.”

For a moment the reporter’s head spun. It was only four days away. “Bloody hell, that’s a bit quick, isn’t it? They usually give plenty of notice on a public-interest trial.”

“Apparently both sides are ready to roll.”

“Thanks, Bob. See you in court.”

Edwards replaced the receiver and turned to Danielle. “It’s next Monday. The trial’s next bloody Monday.”

“What are we going to do?”

“What can we do? We can only rely on Brown to come up with something before then. The way he’s going that could be a distinct possibility.”

“How long do you think the trial will last, Mark?”

“That’s anyone’s guess. We mustn’t panic. There’s still plenty of time.”

“What about Cohen?”

“You’re right,” he said, grabbing the phone and ringing the man’s home number. It was already late at night.

“Sam here,” came the tired response.

“Sam, it’s Mark Edwards. How are you?”

“Oh, hello, Mark.” The voice was suddenly enthusiastic. “How was Israel? Great country, isn’t it?”

“Listen, Sam. Have you heard from Bill Brown?”

“Yes. I got a short note from him this morning. He just said he was making good progress.”

“Sam, I’ve just heard the trial is starting on Monday.”

“Jesus,” exclaimed Cohen. “What the hell are we going to do?”

“Listen, Sam, I know that Brown is on to something. We’ll just have to be patient. And there’s another thing ...”

“Yes?”

“The information could go either way.”

“What do you mean?”

“It could prove that Henry Sonntag is Hans Schreiber.”

“
And ...”

“It could prove that he isn’t.”

“Fifty-fifty, Mark. I’m a gambling man. I’ll settle for those odds.”

CHAPTER 15

THE CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT

Court Number One

Before Mr Justice Pilkington

The Crown vs. Henry Sonntag

A little westwards of St Martin’s Church, slightly lower down Ludgate Hill, runs a street called Old Bailey. It is this otherwise nondescript street which gives its name to probably the most famous court in the world. Faced with Portland stone, the building that houses the Central Criminal Court is grimly suited to the dispensation of justice. Built just after the turn of the century, it centres around a dome surmounted by a twelve-foot-high gilded figure of Justice, her eyes unbandaged, her outstretched arms holding the sword and scales.

Perched above the massive segmental pediment of the main entrance are the sculptured figures of Truth, Justice and the Recording Angel. Inside, under the dome and at the head of a marble staircase, is a central hall. The lunettes of the dome were painted with murals symbolizing the meting out of Justice, the Mosaic Law and English Law as represented by the regal figure of King Alfred. In the hall stands a remarkable collection of sculptures, including those of monarchs, such as Charles I, who faced the ultimate cruelty of Justice. That the Old Bailey now stands on the site of the notorious Newgate Prison can perhaps be seen as progress. The prison, once a medieval gateway, was an appalling place where violent felons and others were incarcerated. It was no respecter of wealth or position.