The Girl in Berlin (34 page)

‘You will help me, won’t you.’

He still didn’t answer.

‘Please.’

‘When I get back to London – I go back tomorrow – I’ll try,’ he said, not knowing if he could, or would.

He was becoming bold. He asked the waiter to recommend a wine and they were brought a slender bottle of Riesling. He needed it to give himself courage.

‘I met some people here who were working with all the abandoned children right after the war. What they told me was very interesting.’

Frieda looked at him. ‘What was that?’

‘They talked about the way children were exploited, when everything was chaotic, in the hunger years. They talked about child prostitution, children murdered, even.’

To his annoyance the waiter interrupted them with the menu.

‘You’d like something to eat?’ He assumed she was probably hungry. She nodded and he ordered a plate of sausage, bread, some salad.

She drank. ‘The wine is very nice.’ He poured her more.

McGovern continued: ‘I was told about rumours, rumours about your father and about someone in the occupying forces.’

‘I know nothing about this.’

‘Why did he suddenly move into the Russian sector?’

‘How should I know? Do you think he ever thought he needed to explain himself to me? It was just: Come. We’re going. But why do you talk about this now? It’s all in the past.’

‘I think it’s important, Frieda. You see, they worked with children, these friends of my friend. And, like I said, they said bad things were happening to some of the children, abandoned children, homeless children, children with no parents. They were ill-treated, exploited, one or two were even murdered.’

Frieda put her hand on his arm. She was looking at him in that way of hers that was hard to resist, not imploring, nor seductive, but as if she saw deeply into him, as if she understood him. ‘Please don’t let us talk about the past. I want to talk about the future. Because I really need your help, Mr Roberts.’

‘But it isn’t in the past, is it, Frieda. I was told the new West German government might even investigate some of these murders.’

McGovern only had Victor Jordan’s word for this and doubted it. It seemed improbable that, of all the iniquities that must have gone on, this should have been chosen for a further investigation. The Hoffmann case was different. It was already a scandal and the widows of the men who had disappeared were significant members of society, or at least their husbands had been. One dead corpse of a child among the ruins where so many corpses lay – that was unlikely to be given the same priority. True or not, however, McGovern could use this ‘information’ as a lever to get Frieda to talk. But perhaps that was too subtle, because it wasn’t working.

She shrugged. ‘This has nothing to do with me.’

‘Frieda. You want me to help you. You mustn’t lie to me. You must tell me the truth. My coming here to Berlin in the first place was to find out what Colin was doing. You were part
of that because you both wanted to return to England. Or that was what we thought at first. Then Colin had second thoughts or changed his mind, but you’re still desperate to get away.’

‘Wouldn’t you be desperate if you were me? With a father like mine?’

‘But Colonel Ordway told me he could probably have helped you. Yet you didn’t go then. If you want me to help you get away you have to tell me what happened after the end of the war. You didn’t tell me your father had worked in Buchenwald. Are there other things you’re not telling me? I think there are.’

She fiddled with a button on her red cardigan. It was loose on its thread.

McGovern leaned forward. ‘Your father – what was he doing?’

She wouldn’t look at him, but she straightened up and drank more wine. ‘We made it to the British sector here in Berlin, when everything was still in chaos. We had no way of living at first, of even getting food. But my father was very clever. He had had all kinds of arrangements in the camp and he knew how to—’

‘How to what? Exploit the situation?’

Frieda nodded. ‘I suppose you could put it like that. He knew how to use people. He understood their weaknesses. He was clever in that way.’

‘So he got involved in the black market?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘What, then?’

‘Well, yes, in a way. And then – I’m not sure, but I think someone from Buchenwald, a survivor perhaps, recognised him. I don’t really know, but that’s what I suspect. Anyway he was interrogated. But nothing came of it, there were no charges, nothing. He was very … I don’t know … confident after that, and, well, things went on as before. May I?’ And Frieda slid
a cigarette from McGovern’s packet, which lay on the table between them. He lit it for her. She smoked. She wasn’t going to say any more. He let the silence continue for a time, but then he made another attempt.

‘Things went on as before; what does that mean? What things?’

She shrugged and made a face. ‘Oh …’

‘Was your father exploiting children? Was he involved in some sort of child prostitution racket?’

She tried to maintain her look of indifference. ‘By then I had met Colonel Ordway. I had a job, I wasn’t there much. I don’t know anything about that. What makes you think he would be involved in such a thing?’

The food arrived, but she only picked at it.

‘You were not actually living with the Colonel, were you? You must have known something about what was going on.’

She shook her head, swallowed. Her eyes swam with tears. ‘You don’t understand what it was like.’ She put a hand on his, and her look was hard to resist.

McGovern had thus far held back from mentioning the sister. It was his strongest card, perhaps his only card. But it was based on pure supposition and guesswork. ‘You must have known what happened when your sister died. What happened, Frieda? How did your sister die?’

She shook her head. ‘No-one knows exactly. Her body was found. No-one knew how it got there, on a bomb site.’

‘Frieda. You’re lying.’

She stood up. ‘I have to go now.’

McGovern also stood up. ‘Sit down. Remember I promised to help you if you told me the truth.’

She might be lying, but he was lying too and she must surely know it. She wasn’t stupid. The uglier the truth she revealed, the less likely her escape; unless, that is, she believed she had wholly ensnared him. He had to gamble on that. ‘I’d
do anything to help you, Frieda, you know that, don’t you,’ he said. ‘Please. Sit down.’

She acquiesced. He refilled their glasses and then took her hands across the table. ‘Whatever it is you’ve done, I’ll help you – you’ll be able to make a fresh start in another country.’

‘You really mean that?’

He nodded.

‘If I tell you, will you promise to help me? Truly help me?’

‘Of course I will, Frieda. I promise.’

‘Well, in a way you are right.’ She spoke in hardly more than a murmur so that he had to lean forward to hear her words. ‘There were all these children. I don’t know how it started. I suppose he himself … as I said, he could always find out people’s weaknesses, he was very good at that. He used to boast about it, when he worked at the camp, how easy it was to get people to do what you wanted if you knew what
they
wanted. That was the key, he used to say, find out what they want. Of course he used violence as well, but he always said, psychology, that’s the clue. Some people will do almost anything to satisfy their desires. And once we were here in Berlin, the occupation was a wonderful opportunity. He knew there were soldiers – he found out there were men who wanted what he could give them. Not so much the Russians. The Russians raped every woman in sight, but they were nice to children. But some of the others. And there was someone from the interrogation team who came to see him, who liked what my father called green fruit. Many men like that, he said, it’s quite normal.’

‘Tell me more about this man. What was he like? What did he look like?’

‘I don’t remember much about him. Tall … fair … well dressed. You could tell he was rich. We were not rich. My father did all right in the war, but we were still common people. Other people in our village envied us, because we had more than them, but sometimes really important men came
to visit my father and then you could tell the difference. The difference in their clothes, their shoes – and they always had those extra things that those sort of men have: a signet ring, a heavy watch, a silver cigarette case, even a special implement to do something to their cigars. It’s not that those things are useful, it’s what they tell the world. And he was like that. He had everything always right, the watch, the ring, the cigarette case …’

‘Would you recognise him again?’

‘I should think so,’ she said, but without much interest.

‘What about you and your sister?’

‘I was fifteen, nearly sixteen, I was already too old for these men and besides I had met Colonel Ordway.’

‘Did you never think of telling the Colonel what was going on?’

‘My father would have killed me.’

‘And your sister? Did she know? Was she involved?’

Frieda’s expression had become closed in and she was muttering in an almost dreamy way. ‘Sabine was very pretty, but she was so stupid. The man I mentioned, the interrogation man, he liked her. But she wouldn’t do as she was told. Something happened. I don’t know what it was exactly, but I think she tried to run away, she threatened them, she said … I don’t know if she said she’d go to the authorities – if she even knew who they were and what good would that have done anyway, so … One evening I came home and
der Vater
said she was missing and then when she didn’t come back, after a while he said perhaps she wasn’t coming back. And the body was found, and people started to talk. So we moved to Prenzlauerberg.’

‘Did many men visit your father? That would have been very risky, surely?’

‘Only the one I spoke of. And he didn’t come for …
that
, not there, where we lived. He had a car … No, normally there
would be a meeting place – there were so many places in the ruins – and it would be done like that. There would be an arrangement.’

‘So you knew all about it. How were these arrangements made? You must have had an idea. There must have been some sort of go-between. Your father could never have done it all himself. Did he make contacts with the members of the occupying forces who wanted that sort of thing? Did the man who visited him put him in touch with likely clients? And who found the children? It seems to me the most likely person to entice the children would have been a woman, a girl, someone not much older than them. Isn’t that right, Frieda?’

And finally Frieda smiled. ‘You are not stupid, Herr Roberts. But what could I do? That was life in the hunger years. I went searching in the rubble, in the ruins for the ones who had no-one to look after them. I promised them food and somewhere better to sleep and sometimes I gave them some little thing, a trinket, a toy that my father had got from somewhere or had found. The children weren’t frightened of me. And then I’d take them to the rendezvous. The man would give me the money and I would take it back to my father.’

‘That must have been an awful thing to have to do.’ He watched her sensuous lips, her sad eyes, her dreamy expression.

But she looked straight at him now. A burden seemed to be lifted from her, she sat up, and with the lightness and freedom of at last speaking the truth, she said: ‘I didn’t really care. It stopped my father beating me. And the children were starving. It was a good bargain for them. They got food and some chocolate, didn’t they.’

thirty-six

I
N THE COURSE OF HIS WORK
a policeman encounters a disproportionate number of violent, stupid, malevolent and self-destructive individuals. This can lead to a jaundiced view of human nature. McGovern had always fought against the occupational hazard of disillusionment, had kept an even keel and rejected the cynicism that led some of his colleagues to an unremitting contempt for the whole human race.

His conversation with Frieda had nevertheless shaken him in more ways than one. He was glad to get away from Berlin. As the plane rose above the city, he looked down at the grey honeycomb of bombed buildings and new constructions and began to attempt a coherent understanding of what he now knew. But it was hard and the drone of the engines sent him into a doze in which he was back at the youth march on Marx Engels Platz, only now it was Kingdom who was his companion and kept telling him this is the future.

Events had moved quickly in London, as McGovern discovered when he reached the office. Mihaili Kozko had been brought in for questioning. At first it hadn’t gone well. Slater had fumed. But fingerprints were taken and turned out to match a set on Konrad Eberhardt’s wallet.

He was to be questioned again today. McGovern and Jarrell were to be present.

‘You’ve been very active while I’ve been away, Jarrell.’ McGovern suppressed an unworthy feeling of professional resentment that his sergeant had done so well. He knew it was ungenerous and did his best to suppress it. ‘Well done,’ he said, more heartily than necessary. ‘That was good work, tracking down the Ukrainian.’

‘It was just luck. A hundred to one chance he’d be the first person I saw at the sailors’ union, which is what the association is, really. It’s a sort of community centre for Ukrainians. I went through Biermann’s notes, the ones that were in his flat. He’d done a lot of investigation. He’d discovered Kozko’s known by more than one name and has quite a reputation up north. I spoke to detectives up in Leeds, sir. They were glad to see the last of him.’

‘You didn’t expect to link him to Eberhardt.’

‘That was the big surprise, sir. It hadn’t occurred to me he might have killed Eberhardt. I thought it was all to do with Biermann. We might get him to confess to Biermann’s murder as well, but we haven’t any evidence for that. I feel bad about Biermann. Looking through his notes, I felt I really got to know him. He was very thorough.’

‘Sounds as if he’d have made a good reporter. Shame he didna stick at that instead of getting a romantic idea of mucking in with the workers and solving crime into the bargain.’