All of which made more sense than dumping his body in a public park and inviting a thorough police investigation.
Goebbels obviously had no idea that state minions were responsible, or he wouldn't have ordered Kuzorra to force open what was certain to be a huge can of worms. Of course, Russell couldn't know for sure that the men he'd seen at Stettin Station were state minions, but these days who else got to drive cars? Only big businessmen - like the German heads of American subsidiaries - and perhaps their enforcers.
It was more than possible. In Russell's experience, few governments could match big business when it came to the ruthless pursuit of self-interest. But it didn't really make any difference - in 1941 Berlin both government and business belonged to the Nazis. The only question was how deeply Kuzorra would delve before someone informed him that the investigation was off. For the detective's sake, Russell hoped that it wouldn't be too deep; he liked Kuzorra. He thought about warning him, but could think of no way of doing so without exposing himself. In any case the detective had never struck him as someone who had trouble looking after himself.
Back at the apartment, he found Effi already up, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of Chinese tea. 'Zarah did call,' she said by way of explanation. 'Was it gruesome?'
'Not particularly, not in the way you mean. Goebbels turned up, which is always a bit on the gruesome side.'
'What on earth for?'
'Oh, one of his soldiers in the great propaganda war has made the ultimate sacrifice, etc etc. You know how they love swearing vengeance on anyone who crosses them.'
Effi suddenly worried. 'Will they want to talk to you?'
'Perhaps. The Consulate won't say anything, so it depends on whether Sullivan told anyone else that he was meeting me. He might have put it in his diary, I suppose. "Meeting John Russell to hand over state secrets" - something like that.'
'Fool. Are we still going to see the Blumenthals today?'
'I thought so.'
'When?'
'Around three o'clock?'
'That's good. Zarah wants to meet me at eleven, at Cafe Palmenhaus. She sounded really upset on the telephone.'
When Effi arrived at the cafe on Ku'damm, the reason for her sister's distress was immediately evident - Zarah's left cheek was purple with bruising. 'What happened?' she asked, already guessing the answer.
'Jens hit me. Last night. After Lothar had gone to bed, thank God.'
'Why? Not that there's any excuse, but what set him off?'
'Oh, I was nagging him about his drinking. I shouldn't do that...'
'It's no reason to hit you.'
'No, I know, but... on the tram coming here there was a young woman in mourning with two small children... and Jens lashing out just once... well, it's nothing is it?'
'It is not nothing, and you know it.'
'He was so sorry afterwards. He was nicer to me this morning than he has been for months. And he's under so much pressure at work.'
'I know.' Effi could see Jens at the dinner table, the slight tremble of his lips as he described what was happening in Russia. She took her sister's hand and squeezed it, wondering what she would do if John ever hit her. She would show him the door, simple as that. But Zarah would never do that to Jens. Where could she go? Back to their parents with Lothar? 'You must tell Jens that if he ever hits you again, you and Lothar will be gone,' she said.
'But I couldn't leave him...'
'He doesn't know that. However bad it is at work, he has no right to take it out on you.' Though you could be doing more to help him, Effi thought but didn't say. Jens had crossed a line, and for today at least her sister should feel herself blameless.
They talked for an hour or more, going over and over the same ground, Effi's frustration kept in check by the obvious comfort this was giving her sister. On the pavement prior to parting, Zarah revealed how terrified Jens was that Effi would never speak to him again.
'Don't disabuse him,' Effi told her. 'Not for a while.'
Russell had stayed home to write up the story. He had his doubts as to whether a report of Sullivan's death would ever see the light of day, but where Nazi government circles were concerned there was always a reasonable chance that the left hand was in utter ignorance of the right hand's activities. And, if no one whispered a few cautionary words in Goebbels' ear before Russell's copy deadline, then the story might slip through.
Soon after one o'clock he arrived at the Press Club on Leipziger Platz, and after handing the article over to the censors climbed the stairs to the dining room. Sullivan's fate was one topic of conversation among the foreign correspondents, but not the most prominent: that honour belonged to the German Army's unexpected ejection from recently-conquered Rostov. This news had been aired by the BBC on the previous evening, and grudgingly confirmed by Braun von Stumm at the Foreign Ministry press conference only an hour or so ago.
This was important news. Rostov was the first city the German Army had been forced to surrender in over two years of war. Rostov was the gateway to all that oil which the Wehrmacht so desperately needed - a gateway now apparently closed. His sauerkraut was tasting so much sweeter, Russell realised. After lunch he used Bradley Emmering's notes from the press conference to write an appropriate piece, and submitted that to the censors.
His good mood ebbed away as he waited for Effi at the tram stop on Budapester Strasse. He had decided to pass on Strohm's terrible news, but found himself hoping that the Blumenthals had already heard it from other sources. Effi had argued for complete disclosure from the start, and was utterly unimpressed by his argument that the news might unleash a violent reaction from the Jewish community, one which would seal its fate more swiftly and surely than might otherwise have been the case. 'They deserve to know,' she had said with her usual trenchancy. 'You know they do.'
He did. Maybe not knowing was something he craved for himself.
Her tram arrived, and ten minutes later they were alighting close to the old synagogue on Oranienburgerstrasse. Once inside the Blumenthals' crowded apartment it immediately became apparent that the terrible news had preceded them. The welcome was warm as ever, but the eyes of mother and daughter held an underlying bleakness which was new. 'Someone came round from the Jewish community office,' Leonore explained, 'and asked if we could pass the news on. They would have called a meeting, but meetings are forbidden.'
The whole story had been reported: the unfinished camp at Riga, the 'improvised' response at Kovno. All the Blumenthals' friends were hoping that the latter was an aberration - Martin Blumenthal was even hoping that the guilty parties would be punished - but a majority also feared the worst. Knowing what Jens had told him and Effi over a candlelit dinner in Grunewald, Russell was afraid they were right, and that the survival of Berlin's remaining Jews was dependent on the continuing inefficiency of the Reichsbahn. But he refrained from saying so.
'If I'm on the next list, I'm not going,' Ali said abruptly.
The announcement obviously surprised her parents. 'You won't be on the list,' was her father's reaction. 'Why would they send a good worker like you? Herr Schade will see to it, you'll see.'
'What would you do?' her mother said.
'Go underground. More of us are doing it every day. You take off the star and you become invisible again. That's why they insist on us wearing them.'
'But how would you live?' her mother wanted to know.
'I'll manage somehow. I'll have a better chance here in a city I know than I would on a train to the East.'
'This is foolish talk,' her father said heatedly. 'We're not going on a train to the East. You and I, we both have important jobs, and your mother must be here to look after the house. Why would they send away workers they need? It's the old they are sending, God spare them.'
Ali walked over and put an arm around her father's neck. 'I hope you are right, Papa.'
He smiled at her, and looked out of the window. 'A beautiful day for a walk in the park,' he said wistfully. 'Maybe in
Lodz there are still parks where Jews are allowed to walk,' he added quietly, almost as if he was talking to himself.
'They are starving in Lodz,' his wife muttered angrily.
Travelling home together, Effi and Russell sat mostly in silence, lost in their own thoughts. Effi was thinking about Zarah's troubles, how insignificant they seemed when compared to those of the Blumenthals, and how irrelevant such contrasts always were. Russell watched the familiar streets go by, streets which would soon no longer be familiar. His evacuation train would not be heading east into lands wracked by famine and war, but north or south to Denmark or Switzerland, havens of relative peace and prosperity. He thanked providence for not making him a German Jew, and wondered what had happened to his sense of shame.
The knock on their door came soon after dark, and as he went to answer it Russell realised that his unconscious had registered the arrival of a car a minute or so earlier. The visitors would be official.
The first face he saw - both boyish and bookish - belonged to a tall young man in an SS Obersturmfuhrer's uniform. The second, half hidden behind the first man's shoulder, belonged to Uwe Kuzorra. 'Herr John Russell,' the Obersturmfuhrer stated rather than asked.
The man had lost an arm, Russell realised. 'That's me,' he said, without unblocking the doorway.
'We need to ask you some questions. Inside, if you please.'
Russell stepped back to allow them in, and pushed the door shut. Effi had retreated to the bedroom doorway, and the Obersturmfuhrer was staring at her with obvious recognition.
'I'll leave you to it,' she said with a smile, and closed the door behind her.
Russell offered the two men seats, his mind racing. They must have discovered that he had an appointment to meet Sullivan on the previous day. What could he safely tell them? Certainly not that Sullivan had secret information to hand over - Russell had no desire to face an espionage charge.
Kuzorra lowered himself onto the sofa with obvious pleasure. The detective would have had a long and busy day, and he was well into his sixties by now.
The Obersturmfuhrer remained on his feet, tapping his right thigh with his hand.
'You know who I am,' Kuzorra told Russell. 'This is my assistant, Obersturmfuhrer Schwering.'
The younger man reluctantly accepted Russell's offer of a handshake. 'I noticed you this morning,' Kuzorra went on. 'I was rather surprised to find that you were still in Berlin.'
'I live here,' Russell said with a shrug. Saying as little as he could seemed a good guiding principle where this conversation was concerned.
'We have discovered that our victim arranged a meeting with you,' the Obersturmfuhrer said accusingly. 'Stettin Station at twelve o'clock, I believe.'
'Who told you that?' Russell asked pleasantly.
'That is neither...' Schwering began.
'His wife,' Kuzorra cut his subordinate off. 'His widow,' he corrected himself.
'It's true that I had arranged to meet him,' Russell admitted. 'But I was late. If he ever turned up, he was gone by the time I got there.'
The Obersturmfuhrer looked unconvinced, but let that go for the moment. 'So what was this meeting for?'
'He said he had some information for me. As I'm sure you know, most journalists get their information from a variety of sources.'
'Was he giving or selling?' Kuzorra wanted to know.
'Selling. Patrick Sullivan was only ever interested in the truth as a commodity.'
'What was this information?' Schwering asked.
Russell shrugged. 'I've no idea. Sullivan obviously thought it was worth something, but he wouldn't tell me anything in advance. He was probably afraid that spreading a few clues would allow me to dig the story up myself.'
The Obersturmfuhrer was far from happy. 'We shall be checking your story,' he said, as if knowing that fact would persuade Russell to come clean.
'I'm sure Herr Russell is aware of that,' Kuzorra said, getting to feet. 'How is your wife?' Russell asked, hoping to move matters onto a more convivial footing.
'She died last year,' Kuzorra told him, a moment of bleakness apparent in his eyes. 'A sudden illness. She didn't suffer.'
Unlike you, Russell thought. He remembered how well suited the two of them had seemed. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'How long have you been back at work?'
'Since that time.' He managed a thin smile. 'I needed something to do.'
Russell showed them out, and leant back against the door with some relief.
'Trouble?' Effi asked as she emerged.
'I don't think so.' He filled in those bits of the conversation which she had been unable to follow from the other side of the bedroom door.
'That's sad,' she said of Kuzorra's loss. She had not met the detective before, but remembered Russell's description of him and his wife Katrin.
'She seemed the one with the energy,' Russell recalled. 'And she made a wonderful cup of coffee.'
'Let's go out to eat,' Effi said. 'In case they come back. I don't want to share my last free evening before filming with an overgrown boy in a black uniform.'
They followed the white kerbs to the Ku'damm, and walked slowly west along the wide boulevard. This was also blacked-out, but the sheer number of phosphorescent badges and masked headlights provided sufficient illumination for seeing their way and recognising restaurants. Most of the latter were doing good business, Berliners having just received their December ration tickets.
They opted for the Chinese. The meat in the chow mein didn't taste much like chicken, but then it didn't taste much like anything else either. Russell wasn't even sure it was meat. Watching the members of the extended family who owned and ran the restaurant hurrying to and fro, he wondered, not for the first time, what on heaven's earth had persuaded them to set up shop in Hitler's Reich.
After they had finished eating someone stopped at the table to ask for Effi's autograph, and she obliged with her usual good grace. 'Are you looking forward to tomorrow?' Russell asked once the happy fan had returned to her own table.
'First days are usually fun,' she said. 'Everyone's trying to make a good impression on everyone else, even the director. And a masterpiece still seems possible, especially if you've only read your own part of the script. Of course, the first scene usually shatters that particular illusion.'
'Not the first scene of GPU, surely?'
'That may have the whole cast in stitches. I hope so. If everyone knows what rubbish it is, then we really can have some fun with it. But if the director thinks he's making an important statement, then God help us.' She smiled a quite dazzling smile at Russell. 'But I do love it most of the time. If it wasn't for the getting up at four-thirty in the morning, and the fact that we hardly see each other when I'm filming...'
'I know. Particularly now, when I may be whisked out of the country at a moment's notice.'
She reached a hand across the table. 'I've been meaning to tell you. Just in case you don't know. I shall be waiting for you, however long it takes. Though I can't guarantee that I'll still have my film star looks. '
'I love you too,' he said. 'And with any luck at all we'll soon be enjoying regular conjugal visits in Switzerland, courtesy of the Abwehr.'
'Conjugal, eh?'
'I was hoping.'
'I shall miss our bed, though.'
'It is an excellent bed.'
'And waiting for us right now.'
'I'll get the bill.'
Russell was still half asleep when he heard the knock on the door, and his first thought was that Effi had returned, having forgotten her keys and God knew what else. He was almost at the door when he noticed the clock, and realised that she would be in front of the cameras by this time.
It was Kuzorra, and this time he was alone. Russell stood aside to let the detective in, and offered him a cup of coffee.
'Real coffee?' his guest asked.
'I'm afraid not. Even we pampered foreigners have trouble getting that.'
'Then I'll pass.'
K
uzorra took the seat he had occupied the evening before. 'There's a phrase you journalists use when you want a quote, and the person concerned doesn't want anyone to know that it came from them...'
'Off the record.'
'That's the one. Well, I'd like you to tell me what you know about this business - off the record.'
'What makes you think I know anything more than what I've already told you?'
Kuzorra smiled. 'A journalist who loathes the Nazis meets a journalist who loves them for unexplained reasons. And before you can say "Joseph Goebbels" the second journalist is apparently beaten to death. It's hard to believe there's no connection.'
'I didn't kill him.'
'I didn't say you did. But I do think you know more about this than you're telling me. Hence the unofficial visit. Without my new assistant.'
Russell considered. 'These are strange times we live in,' he said finally, 'when the police are asking questions off the record.'
'These are strange times.'
'Why can't it have been a robbery?' Russell asked, still prevaricating. Kuzorra smiled again. 'According to the Luftwaffe weather people it only stopped raining around two in the morning on Sunday. The body was wet underneath but dry on top when it was found an hour or so later.'
'So he was killed during that hour.'
'He'd been dead for well over twelve hours when the pathologist examined him at eight this morning.'
'Ah.'
'Ah indeed. He was killed just a few hours after your missed appointment, and placed in the park a lot later, between two and three in the morning.'
'And I don't suppose you're looking for a gang of Jewish-Bolshevik cut-throats?'
'They're thin on the ground these days.'
Russell had run out of wriggle room. 'Off the record,' he began, 'I didn't lie to you yesterday, but I didn't tell you the whole truth either. I didn't meet with Sullivan, but I did see him arrive at Stettin Station.' He paused, wondering how to explain his preliminary surveillance. 'I was a bit worried about meeting him in public,' he went on, improvising heroically. 'Sullivan was a Nazi, after all, and I could imagine him agreeing to help trap me in some sort of indiscretion. Anyway, I watched him go into the buffet and then waited a few moments to make sure that he wasn't being tailed. No one appeared, and I was just about to join him when two goons in suits beat me to it. They took Sullivan out to their car and drove off with him. I had no idea why, and I still haven't. I try and stay out of arguments between Nazis.'
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