The Butchers of Berlin (25 page)

Afterwards they agreed they were even looking forward to the results.

Lore saw there were some frames left on the roll and said she wanted a photograph of them together. They had never appeared in the same picture.

Lore had a self-timer. Sybil stood waiting in front of the camera, trying to make herself as tall as possible, like she had as a child having her picture taken. Probably fewer than thirty
photographs of her existed altogether, all lost, apart from three: one showing her as a baby in a perambulator; one as a young schoolgirl with her first satchel; and one of a student group in a
café, all mugging to camera, apart from Franz trying to look cool in dark glasses.

Sybil stared into the lens and watched the camera iris open and shut. For the first they stood next to each other. In the second Sybil took Lore’s hand and in the third she impulsively
reached for Lore and kissed her as hungrily as she ever had.

They both grew awkward when Lore took the finished roll and handed it to Sybil. Still feeling the effects of Alwynd’s brandy, they stood kissing for a long time in the doorway. Sybil
wanted to go back to bed. Lore said later; she had to work. Lore said in a self-conscious way, ‘Sweet kisses as we part,’ and gave a salute like a matelot. Sybil was conscious of Lore
watching as she left, as though wishing to retain the moment.

She wondered about not going to Schmidt’s, while perfectly aware she had little choice. She compromised and decided to go after spending an hour in the sanctuary of her little room, only
to find Polish workers in the process of boarding up the house.

She tried to negotiate with the German supervisor, saying it was her home and she had come to retrieve the last of her belongings. The man showed his order sheet saying the property was
condemned.

Sybil took the 51 tram as before, depressed at losing her refuge.

The track had been repaired so she didn’t have to change.

Schmidt was no more or less friendly than before. Come back in two days, he said.

That was a Sunday. Sybil took it to mean Schmidt intended to subject her to his lens. They could discuss any other business then, he said.

She ventured to ask how long it took to get papers. He said it depended, implying that the acquisition of illegal papers was like everything else and worked according to influence, position and
usefulness.

Taking the initiative, Sybil said they could try some photographs now.

Schmidt had a studio across a courtyard, with proper lighting and a series of painted backdrops. She had to wait wrapped naked in a blanket for the mark of her brassiere to go. Schmidt was
remote and professional. A little to the left. Head up. Sybil displayed herself as naturally as she could. Only at the end did he say if she were more adventurous he could pay a lot more. Sybil
knew she had been naive not agreeing a price. She had assumed it was a test and part of getting in with the man. Only the fact of Lore trusting him had stopped her walking out. Schmidt’s
unthreatening manner had probably tricked a lot of women into taking their clothes off.

‘How much do you pay?’

He told her. It was a small fortune.

‘Next time. Not now.’ He had to keep the shop open in the day. ‘Think about it.’

A man tried to pick her up on the tram on the way back, sitting behind and resting on the back of the seat so he could keep up an insistent monologue. She got off and walked.

Lore had never been interested in the tedious demands of male desire. The few men she had tried it with were all sprinters or non-performers. Girls had more fun, she said, and it didn’t
end with getting pregnant.

Had they been ordinary citizens they could have lived as a couple, for the simple reason that the law hadn’t got around to sending them off to a camp for loving each other, as they did
men.

Outside of motherhood, women were deemed irrational and irrelevant. Their role was proscribed. Even so, she and Lore could have lived hiding in plain sight.

But had they not been persecuted they would never have met and being on the run together was preferable to a safe life alone, Sybil decided. It seemed absurd how this medieval witch hunt made a
dirty secret of everything. The enemy included Alwynd, for whom they represented a prurient interest to be treated with amused but latent hostility because they fell outside his masterful gaze.

They were in the staff day room of the Jewish hospital, a big room with tall windows and angled sunlight, beyond which lay a bare expanse of neglected garden, its lawn full of
last year’s weeds. Franz was dozing in an armchair. Seeing them standing there he knew he had been seconds too late waking up. He seemed resigned, as though he knew someone would come for him
sooner or later.

‘We’re going for a drive,’ said Morgen.

Franz looked at Schlegel and clutched the arms of the chair, as if about to change his mind and make a run. Morgen pushed him back and said he had nothing to worry about.

‘Think of it as an excursion.’

They drove across town to the western edge. They were in Stoffel’s Opel again. The motor pool clerk had given them the nod, saying Stoffel was in the tank sweating a suspect and had been
for the last twelve hours. Morgen watched Franz in the rear-view mirror, handcuffed in the back. Franz asked where they were going. Morgen said to relax, it was nice weather and spring was
coming.

‘What do you think of this war?’ Morgen asked, as though making conversation.

‘Which? The one against us?’

‘A man with spirit, that’s what I like to see. At least you don’t have to go into the army and get your head blown off.’

Franz grunted. ‘We’re all dead one way or another.’

He gave a good impression of sangfroid. Schlegel wondered how long it would last.

What was left of the afternoon sun blinded them as they passed down the Kurfürstendamm with its once-smart shops depleted and shabby. ‘Can you still get milkshakes at
Kranzler’s?’ Morgen asked.

They drove on into Koenigsallee, past smart houses and little lakes through the district known as the Gold Coast.

‘Where a lot of your people used to live,’ said Morgen.

‘My people weren’t rich,’ said Franz.

Everything looked softened and reduced through the dirty windscreen. Schlegel sensed the purpose of the drive was to stretch the tension until it snapped.

Morgen turned off the main road, drove for a few minutes and stopped on a long straight avenue by the railway tracks and big goods depot. Morgen suggested they stretch their legs. Franz looked
reluctant.

Morgen rested his backside against the warm bonnet and smoked. Past the avenue of trees a long line of covered wagons stood in a siding.

Morgen said, ‘You should ask yourself what you know. Prove useful and you won’t find yourself on that platform.’

Schlegel watched Franz swallow. Morgen appeared serene. He produced Sybil Todermann’s identity card and passed it to Franz.

They had been students together, it turned out, Franz at the Jewish art school and Sybil at the equivalent of fashion and design. They had all hung out at the Café Quik.

Morgen said, ‘I remember the Quik. Joachimstaler Strasse.’

He asked where Franz had lived. Mitte, he replied.

Morgen said, ‘I once availed myself of a tart in Münzstrasse before the war, when it was still a red-light area. Do you remember the Jewish baker that sold the onion pies with poppy
seeds?

‘He was Polish. In Rochstrasse.’

‘With the fruit and veg market, and the model railway shop I once saw Goering coming out of. It was where he bought his train sets.’

Schlegel would not have been surprised if he and Franz hadn’t attended the same parties during his Bohemian phase. Boys with long hair, drinking beer out of bottles, jazz records, girls in
lipstick. He had been to a cellar bar once with a three-piece combo and the drummer openly smoked a reefer.

Morgen showed him Abbas’s card next. Franz glanced at it and handed it back.

‘All I know is the rumour mill says he was someone’s agent, in exchange for his daughter going to a soft camp, and he may now be dead.’

‘Did you know him?’

‘Not to speak to.’

‘Whose agent?’

‘It doesn’t do to learn their names.’

‘That’s all right. It’s not our investigation. What about Grigor?’

Franz frowned and eventually said, ‘You mean the one I was at art school with? He was two years above me. He had his own crowd. I didn’t see him in years.’

‘He drove the hearse. You work at the hospital.’

‘We have nothing to do with them. The hospital has its own pathology department.’

Franz had a stiff right hand that he frequently massaged. Morgen asked to see it. Two fingers had been broken and badly set.

‘No forging for you. Another one off the list.’

Nor did Franz admit to knowing the strangled woman, in as much as they were able to describe her. He did remember that Grigor was a great one for dancing.

Across the tracks a group of men in blue coats emerged from a hut and prepared the wagons, setting ramps and unlocking doors. Schlegel could just make out the stoker firing the boiler in the cab
of the engine. The men seemed in good spirits, calling out, followed by bursts of laughter.

Morgen said, ‘Are we clear about this? What’s going on over there and what’s going on between us?’

Franz said nothing.

‘Information is all we need. Not much of a price. Or we just as easily stroll over the tracks and put you on the train. There’s always room for one more.’

Tinny, soothing music started to play over the station loudspeakers.

‘Who chooses the music?’ asked Morgen.

They got back in the car and drove a short distance into the forest beyond. Morgen said it was time for a walk. Schlegel couldn’t be sure if Morgen was aware of what he was implying.

Franz sat there, his hands driven between his legs.

‘Out,’ said Morgen.

They walked into the woods. Morgen kept his hand in his coat pocket. Franz looked pinched and worried. It was muddy underfoot. The sun had gone and the first chill was settling after the
unexpected warmth of the day.

Schlegel thought that for Franz they must resemble an absurd and sinister version of a classic double act: the beanpole who looked about sixteen with white hair and the shorter, rounder one who
despite his clownish air was the deadlier.

They passed through the trees and came to an open space with a little bench. Morgen suggested they sit. They must have appeared even more ridiculous, three men crowded on such a bench.

Franz eventually asked, ‘Am I saving my skin here?’

Morgen said, ‘Part of my job is to investigate the internal affairs of bodies that include the SS, Gestapo and criminal police.’

Franz looked at them, calculating.

Morgen went on. ‘We know with regard to Jewish matters there has been a history of financial wrongdoing on the part of the Gestapo, which led to suspensions at the end of last
year.’

Morgen lit yet another cigarette and addressed the glowing end. ‘Were any untoward activity to come to my attention I would be bound to investigate it.’

‘But if I open my mouth and word gets round.’

‘It won’t. I don’t divulge my sources.’

Schlegel tried to imagine himself in Franz’s position. They were about the same age. Franz was involved in a dangerous trade: saying too little was as fatal as saying too much. Schlegel
knew he would be hopeless.

He said, ‘Todermann witnessed a shooting last week. Can you tell us anything about a man named Metzler?’

‘Ah, Metzler,’ Franz said, exhaling. It was like watching the air go out of a balloon.

Metzler, Franz said, had turned up the previous spring claiming he might be able to arrange a deal to get some out.

Franz professed no knowledge of the details, other than a general mistrust of Metzler, who seemed aware of his own questionable trustworthiness.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Morgen.

‘He was in a difficult position as he technically answered to the Gestapo but was recommending we cheat on them, at the same time as warning us we needed to ask ourselves if he was being
sincere or setting a trap.’

‘What was supposed to pay for all this? Private equity?’

They had arrived at a point of trade. Morgen made his understanding clear by offering Franz a cigarette.

‘I was at one meeting with Metzler, only one of two I attended, where he said it would cost a lot of money, but he thought the risk worth it. He was the one who suggested if there
wasn’t the money we should think of ways of finding it.’

Dangerous waters, thought Schlegel.

‘Why only two meetings?’ asked Morgen.

‘I had a feeling about Metzler, so I dropped out.’

‘What sort of feeling?’

‘He was too good. He made it look like he was playing for us but I worried it was a trick to sell out those who became involved.’

‘And what about them?’ Schlegel asked.

‘All moved on, which supports what I am saying.’

Morgen interjected. ‘You are bound to say that even if they weren’t, to protect them.’

‘I am telling you what I know.’

‘Is any of what we have talked about still going on?’

‘If it ever started. People said Metzler was a bullshitter and the plan to make fake money was a Gestapo scam in the first place.’

‘Did anyone get out, as far as you know?’

‘No one ever said. The Austrians came and took over from the Gestapo, which ended anything that might have been going on.’

‘Why?’

‘Unlike the Gestapo, the Austrians didn’t take meetings.’

‘When was this?’

‘Last October.’

‘Tell us how things changed.’

‘A lot of Gestapo faces disappeared. The Austrians increased security massively but suspended deportations, which led people to hope they would not be sent away.’

‘How did the Gestapo take this?’

‘As you would expect when outsiders come in and take over.’

‘Was there any specific reaction?’

‘Are you kidding?’ Franz exclaimed without thinking. He corrected himself and explained how in the week before the Austrians came the Gestapo conducted a big clearout at the Jewish
Association. Several hundred were fired and deported.