The Grave of Truth (14 page)

‘Why haven't you pulled in Steiner?' Andrews demanded. ‘He's the one link we've got—the killing of Walther and these other people are all connected. It looks to me like Uncle Vanya.'

‘If it is the Russians,' Holler said, ‘we have to know why. They had political reasons for killing Sigmund. His reunification policy was gaining support. But why the tie-in with Hitler and the Bunker?'

‘Maybe Walther was a neo-Nazi.' Curt Andrews tipped up in his chair and beamed his hard stare at the German. ‘Certain people at home suspected it.'

‘They also suspected that he was working for the Russians,' Holler said. ‘They were just as wrong. I knew Walther well. He wasn't a Nazi and he certainly wasn't a Red. He was a man who loved his country.'

‘If you say so.' Andrews set the chair back on its four legs. ‘But whatever he was, he got killed for it. And this reporter is nosing around among the corpses. ‘I'd like to talk to him. I'd like to ask him why he went to see Helm, why he wanted to interview these other people.' He waited, silently exerting pressure on Heinrich Holler. A man who loved his country. He had never heard such crap said seriously before. A smart ass politician, loaded with money and ambition, aiming for the top.…

‘You'll have the opportunity,' Holler said. ‘When I decide to ask him myself. But he wasn't in Berlin the night Helm was murdered, and he didn't see Schmidt. He is certainly a link but he's not the killer.'

‘And where is he now?'

‘In Hamburg. Where two more names on his list are living. Both are being watched by our people. He's staying with Walther's widow. His investigation seems to have her blessing.'

‘What's the run-down on her?'

‘Old Prussian military family, married at eighteen, five children, very happily married. I know her quite well, though not as intimately as her husband. She was always a great help to him. There's no scandal or political ties there.' He seemed to say it to irritate Andrews. ‘Just a woman in love with a fine man.' He didn't allow himself to smile, but the shift in Andrews's expression showed that he had scored. It was odd, Holler thought, that a man as young as Andrews should dislike human nature so much that he couldn't bear hearing virtue ascribed to man or woman. Perhaps it was the only way he could do his job. Holler had known a number of men with the same attitude. They had big offices in Gestapo Headquarters in Prinz Albrechtstrasse, and in a later generation they had surrounded a president of the United States.

He had to co-operate with Curt Andrews and what he represented, but he wasn't going to let him touch Max Steiner, or cast his shadow close to Minna Walther. He smiled, and got up from his desk. ‘Let me take you to lunch, Herr Andrews. Then you might like to fly down to Hamburg with me. I think it would be useful to see these two men on Steiner's list. Just to find out what questions he asked them.'

‘Thanks,' Andrews got up, aware that he towered over Holler, and it didn't give him a feeling of power. Just size. ‘Let's hope we find them alive to give an answer.'

Max had gone to call at the address where Josef Franke and his wife Ilse lived. He had spent the day studying Walther's notes again; Minna had met him with an excuse the next morning, asking if he could entertain himself as she had made an appointment for lunch that couldn't be broken. She looked pale and her eyes were strained. He guessed that she had been crying before she went to sleep. The housekeeper brought his lunch into the study. He was hungry and the food was excellent; there was a superb chocolate dessert topped with whipped cream and walnuts. He had forgotten the richness of German cooking; when he was a little boy just before the war, there had been no shortages. In the early years of war, too, the fruits of victory were shared liberally among the German civilians. They had the guns and the butter too; French cognac, scent, silk stockings and underclothes, furs, all the luxuries looted from the countries under occupation flowed into Germany, and everyone lived better than ever before.

He could remember the family dinners when his brothers were on leave. They had a Polish girl to help his mother; Max hadn't understood why she was always red-eyed and sullen. He hadn't heard of forced labour, whether it was digging trenches or washing the floors for a German family. He was reminded of those meals, of the beer and wine that he was allowed to share, while his brothers sat on either side of his mother, looking like young gods in their Luftwaffe blue.

Ellie had weaned him away from what she called unhealthy eating. She made him lose weight, which was a good idea, and introduced him to the delights of low-cholesterol cooking and American salads. He had never equated her distrust of rich Continental cooking with the fact that his children were allowed to stuff themselves with biscuits and rot their teeth with Coke and sweets.

He sat in Walther's study and wondered how Ellie was and how his children were, and ended up thinking of Minna Walther instead. She had not wanted to spend the morning with him; he sensed that the lunch was an excuse. She had seemed tense and uneasy, and he didn't know what to do to reassure her. Except to keep out of her way. He had decided to go and see Josef Franke that evening, when the store where he worked was closed. He had telephoned, but there was no reply. Probably the wife worked too. If they'd had children they were probably grown up by now. Minna came in during the afternoon. She looked better; there was a faint colour in her face, and he thought suddenly: She hasn't been to lunch, she's been walking.…

‘I hope you've been all right,' she said. ‘Did Paula look after you?'

‘She certainly did,' he said. ‘I nearly fell asleep after lunch. Did you have a good day? Enjoy your lunch?'

‘Yes, yes, very much.'

He tried not to look at her; he hated it when she lied, even though it was so innocent a lie. There was a quality about her which made him associate her with honesty and truth, even in unimportant things like an excuse.

‘I'm going round to see the Frankes tonight,' he said. ‘They won't have anything to tell me, it's just for old times' sake.'

‘For saving your life,' Minna reminded him. ‘Of course I needn't come with you. Getting into the convent is different.'

He looked at her, and let the moment lengthen.

‘I want you to come with me to see Franke,' he said. ‘I want you to go every step of the way with me.'

‘Why?' She said it quietly, and the question floated between them, full of meaning. Because I love you. He could have said it then, because it came straight into his mind and almost escaped into words. And you want me. I know you do; I feel it every time you're near me. But ‘I need you' was what he said.

‘Sigmund wouldn't let me get involved,' she said suddenly. ‘I wanted to so much, but he said no. It wasn't a woman's business to get mixed up in something so—so dangerous. I'm glad you want me to help. I'll be glad of the chance. Glad to have something to do. Thank you, Herr Steiner.'

‘Max,' he corrected. He reached out his hand to her and she took it. He saw the shame in her eyes and the flash of desire it extinguished. He kissed her hand as he had done that day in the Crillon, the morning after she was widowed.

‘We'll do it together,' he said quietly. ‘We'll find Janus.'

He got up quickly and went out of the room before he ruined everything by taking hold of her and kissing her on the mouth. She sat very still and watched him go; she covered the back of her hand with the other and gripped it tight until the fingers lost all colour. The telephone rang; it shrilled until she went to answer it. The voice was deep and familiar. She held the receiver close as she heard it, as if it could bring her comfort.

‘Minna? My dear, how are you?'

‘I'm all right,' she said slowly. ‘Thank you for your letter; it was wonderful. I shall always keep it.'

‘I want to come and see you,' Albert Kramer said. ‘If you feel ready to see anyone.'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘Oh yes, Albert, I'd love to see you.'

‘This evening,' he asked her, ‘just for half an hour?'

‘Please do; I'd be so happy to talk about Sigmund—you were such a friend—'

‘I'll be with you at seven,' he said.

The Frankes lived in a big post-war block of flats just outside the centre of Hamburg; Max took the lift up to the twelfth floor, and rang the bell of apartment 27. It was opened very quickly, and a woman stood framed in it, looking up at him, her expression changing from expectation to surprise. He had last seen her in 1945, her body hidden in a mannish white shirt and brown skirt.… His memory of her was so vivid that it seemed to Max he was looking at two images, blurring and separating the girl Ilse in the Bunker from the older Frau. She was still thin, but her hair was short and curly and she wore a bright coloured dress with flowers.

She stared at him. ‘Yes?'

‘You're Ilse Franke, aren't you?' he inquired.

She nodded, and her eyes were wary. ‘That's right. Who are you—what can I do for you?' She had closed the door so that she could slam it instantly.

‘I came to see you and your husband, Josef,' he said. ‘You won't remember me, it has been such a long time. Is he in?'

‘Not yet,' she said. ‘I thought it was him at the door. He forgets his keys sometimes.…'

‘Can I come in and wait, please?'

‘What's your name?' she demanded.

‘Max Steiner,' he said. It meant nothing to her. She had never known the name of the boy in the Bunker. ‘All right, come in then. Josef won't be long.'

He glanced round the sitting room; it was comfortably furnished, the colours too bright, and a garish reproduction of Tretchikov's Chinese woman glared at him from the main wall. There was a TV set and a trolley laid out with bottles and glasses.

He sat down, and she asked him if he would like a beer. ‘Or gin, maybe? We've got some Bols, if you'd like that.'

‘No, thank you,' Max said.

She seated herself on the chair opposite, her hands clasped primly on her lap. ‘Where did you meet Josef—I don't place you at all, Herr Steiner. How long ago did we meet you?'

‘We were in Berlin,' he said. ‘The last day of April, 1945. I was the Hitler Jugend troop leader you helped escape from the Bunker.'

She was a sallow-skinned woman, and when the colour drained she looked a pasty grey; her eyes opened wide in horror, and she brought both hands up to her mouth.

‘Oh my God! My God—it's you? It can't be—Oh, Jesus Christ!'

‘Why be so upset?' Max said quietly. ‘You saved my life; your husband certainly did. I've come back to see you both and thank you. There's nothing for you to worry about.'

‘Oh no? Where the hell have you been all these years then—nothing to worry about! After we've got ourselves settled and Josef's in a good job.… Listen.' She got up and glared at him. ‘You get out,' she said. ‘We don't know anything about the Bunker and we don't know you.'

‘What's the matter, love?' Josef Franke was in the doorway; he wore a dark brown uniform, with the insignia of a well-known security force on his shoulder. He was still a big man, though smaller than Max remembered, with broad shoulders and a powerful neck. His hair was cropped very short and completely grey. He stared hard at Max. He would have been a match for most men, in spite of his age. ‘Who are you?'

His wife answered. ‘It's the kid we brought out of Berlin.' She hurried over and caught his arm. ‘You remember—tell him to get out, Seff; we don't want anyone like him coming round, making trouble!'

‘I'm sorry,' Max said. ‘I didn't mean to upset your wife. I've just come back to Germany and I wanted to look you up. Just to say thank you.'

‘Well, you've said it,' the woman snapped at him. ‘Now go away and leave us alone.'

‘Ilse,' her husband said. ‘Ilse, shut up!' He went over to Max and held out his hand. ‘Don't mind her,' he said. ‘We had a rough time after the war. I'm always glad to see an old comrade. Sit down and have a beer; I often wondered what happened to you.'

‘The Americans picked me up,' Max said. ‘I was sent to my aunt in Bremen. I live in Paris now. I'm just here on a visit. What happened to you?'

‘The Americans arrested both of us,' Franke said. ‘They found the serial number I'd had tattooed under my armpit. I had to admit to being SS, but I said I was a deserter from the Eastern zone. I went into the bag for a couple of years; they didn't hold Ilse and she waited for me.' He glanced at her and his expression softened. ‘Kept me going with food, got herself a job cooking for an American colonel. Robbed the bastards right and left and they never caught on—when I came out we got married. And it was rough. No jobs for people like me, after the war. Nobody wanted to touch us with a ten-foot pole. And I wasn't a bigwig so Odessa didn't bother with the likes of me. We scraped by; Ilse had a baby but it died.' He shrugged and reached for the glass of beer Ilse had given him. ‘Never mind, we're all right now. I got this job with the security force and we live very well. Nice little place, this, isn't it?'

‘Yes,' said Max. ‘Very cosy.'

‘What's your job?' Josef asked. ‘Why do you live in Paris? I never liked the French—crawl up your arse one minute and stab you in the back the next!'

‘I work for a news magazine,' Max said. ‘I'm on a story at the moment, as a matter of fact. I'm doing a story on the last days in the Bunker.'

‘Oh?' For a moment the older man's face darkened with suspicion. Max saw it and recognized the same sensitivity to anti-Nazi propaganda that he had found in the police inspector in West Berlin. He decided to make good use of it.

‘It's about time,' he said, ‘that people knew the truth about us; all the world's been fed is horror stories, concentration camps, six million Jews killed, all the old anti-German stuff that keeps on turning up. I'm going to write about it as it
really
was. About my mother and my grandmother being killed, about the old men of the Volksturm and the children in the Hitler Jugend going out to face Russian tanks to defend their city and their homeland. That's what I'm going to write!'