by Thynne, Jane
Images flashed through her brain. Ilse thought of the American lady and felt glad that she had talked to her. She had lovely kind eyes and a laugh that made you think nothing really mattered. Ilse tried to remember the address on the card she had given her. It was Winterfeldstrasse, wasn’t it? If only she could remember it she could head there, then perhaps Fräulein Harker would look after her. But that was a crazy hope. How could she possibly reach the city from here?
She ran on and on until her thoughts became a jumble, a kind of harsh music. All she had ever tried to do was obey the Führer’s ideas on how to honour the Fatherland and behave the way a good German woman should behave. She had been good, hadn’t she? What more could the Führer ask of a girl? She began to pray, the new kind of prayer, the Führer’s prayer. ‘Führer, mein Führer, bequeathed to me by the Lord. Protect and preserve me as long as I live.’
Chapter Forty-one
It was late afternoon by the time Clara got back to her apartment. She sat down, kicked off her shoes, exhausted, and lay back in her chair as the light leaked out of the sky and the yellow glow of streetlights took its place.
After some time she sat up again. She had dumped Anna’s case down on the floor, but now she took it up and looked at it. Anna had her secrets. Secrets she kept even from her oldest friend. And it was those secrets which had killed her in the end. Because everything that had happened to Clara – being followed, Erich being threatened – had happened since she took care of Anna’s case. Yet she had looked at it a thousand times, she had been through Johann’s letters time and again. The theatre programmes, the souvenirs. If there was anything secret about this case it was either invisible, or hidden in plain sight.
She remembered what Strauss had said to her about aerial photography. Some of the most important things are hidden in plain sight.
Clara opened the case again and shut her eyes. Then she felt around it like a blind person, her fingertips feeling out the sleek plush of the velvet lining, the tooled edge of leather that formed the writing insert, the drawers with their little ivory knobs. She pulled them out again, but they were empty. She ran her fingers along the outside of the case and swept down to the bottom and then up again to the top.
A ledge.
Her fingers sensed a dip in the velvet. She opened her eyes and looked again but could see nothing. Her eyes said there was nothing to see, but her fingers told her it was there. A slight depression that ran along the entire upper edge of the case. She pressed experimentally, and the depression rose smoothly to her hand. So that was it! A partition. Concealed in the upright of the lap desk. She pulled it all the way out and looked at the contents.
There were four packages about six inches square, each made from four flaps of brown paper, constructed like envelopes so that the flaps overlaid each other. Opening one she saw that it contained an old-fashioned glass plate negative. You never saw them now, not since everyone worked with rolls of film.
Now we see through a glass darkly.
Holding them up to the light she squinted to see what they represented. It was hard to make out at first, but she discerned a group of people, at a party perhaps. Men in uniform, with their arms around each other. Two of them, she thought she recognized. Rudolf Hess, with his beetle brow and lantern jaw, and Ernst Röhm, the commander of the SA, an intimate of Hitler’s since he was an education officer in the army, a devoted friend from the days of the Munich beer hall and the only man who was allowed to address the Führer as ‘du’. She knew it was Röhm from the way the cap sat on his bullet head, the sleek outcrop of hair, centrally parted, and the dimpled fold of fat on his face. Röhm, who had been slaughtered on Hitler’s orders back in 1934, when the Führer feared that the power of his storm troopers threatened the Wehrmacht. In the picture Röhm had his arm around another man and something about the composition of the group reminded her uncannily of the picture painted by Bruno Weiss in the Degenerate Art exhibition.
She spread the negatives out on the rug and scrutinized the second, then the third. More groups of people in close embraces. Squinting at the fourth, it was then that she found the most extraordinary thing. This time the man in it was unmistakeable. The intense burning eyes, the mirthless grimace which passed for a smile. It was that picture, Clara realized at once, which held the key to Anna’s death.
Kneeling there on the floor, she looked at the photographs in amazement. She switched from one to another as her eye accustomed to the negatives, and adapted to seeing everything in reverse. It was the reverse, too, of what everyone believed. An astonishing opposite. As she looked a chill crept over her and the implications became clear. Anna’s old boyfriend cared enough about these pictures to kill Anna. He had pursued Katia Hansen, too, so much that she had fled to the other end of Germany in fear of him, and the same man knew that Clara had these pictures now. How far would he go to get them back?
For a long time she stared in panic from one picture to another, then rocked back on her heels and put her face in her hands. She felt a throb of fear that rose within her and then a plummeting sensation, like falling from a great height. She had no idea what she could do now. Like Arno Strauss, she felt as though she had seen too much.
There was a rap on the door. Clara froze. Then she heard a woman’s voice. An English voice, young and imperious.
‘Come on Clara! Let me in.’
Unity Mitford was wearing a powder-blue evening dress, with a velvet cape draped across her shoulders and a fur-trimmed hat on her shining blonde head. Her complexion was powdered alabaster white and she had quite unusually applied a slick of cherry lipstick, but the elegance of her appearance was diminished by her breathlessness at climbing several flights of stairs. The swastika brooch that was, as usual, pinned to her breast, bounced up and down as she caught her breath. Her eyes were bright with nervous excitement and she clutched an evening bag, like an eager puppy holding its lead.
‘Guess what, Clara. The Führer says yes!’
‘Hello, Unity. What on earth are you talking about?’
Unity stared at her petulantly.
‘I told you. At the Goerings’ party. I said I was going to ask him to invite you to the Wintergarten to see The Merry Widow. And the Führer said that was fine. So hurry up. We’re due at the Reich Chancellery in fifteen minutes. My man is waiting outside. What’s all that on the floor?’
For the first time Unity seemed to register the negatives which Clara had pushed behind her on the rug. She poked one with her foot. ‘What are all those?’
‘Nothing interesting. Just some historical pictures.’
Unity approached and took one up. ‘Really? I say, that looks like the Führer.’
‘Don’t touch them, please, Unity, they’re fragile.’
Clara’s request was ignored as Unity dropped to her knees and picked up the negatives, staring from one to the other. Her lower lip pushed out in a childish pout.
‘And that must be . . . Ernst Röhm? But . . . what are they?’ Then she turned to Clara savagely. ‘Where did you get these?’
‘They came from Hoffmann’s studio. They were taken a long time ago. Back in the twenties. Before you knew him, Unity. It was a party in Munich. They got up to some wild things.’
‘But the men. They’re kissing!’
‘I know.’
‘It’s lies. These are lies.’ Unity jumped up. Her face had gone from pale to scarlet. Uncomprehendingly she waved them in the air. ‘Pictures are manipulated all the time. Goebbels does it non-stop in the propaganda department. These are just shoddy. They’re fakes.’
‘Of course they are.’
Unity turned to Clara, anger and bewilderment warring in her face.
‘So what are you doing with them!’
‘I found them. I’m keeping them safe. You’re right. No one must get hold of them.’
‘You’re planning to use them against him, aren’t you?’
‘Don’t be silly. Just the opposite. I want to stop them falling into t
he wrong hands.’
Unity was still staring at the pictures, but now she started crying, great gulping sobs like a toddler, swiping the tears angrily away from her face. ‘It’s not true. They are a despicable scandal. The Führer is the finest of men.’
‘Stop it, Unity!’
‘He is a man of the highest emotions. He would never engage in . . . he would never . . .’
She was weeping wildly. Her nose was streaming and her milky complexion was mottled with emotion. With a sudden movement she slammed the negatives to the ground so they rebounded on the wooden floor and splintered into dancing fragments.
‘They’re lies. Lies should be destroyed. That’s what the Führer says.’
The glass negatives lay in shards, some of the bigger slivers embedded upright into the parquet. Unity stared momentarily at the splintered glass, as though slightly stunned by what she had done, then turned to Clara, defiantly.
‘I don’t want you to come to the opera any more, Clara. I shall tell the Führer you’re not coming. And don’t worry, I’m planning to tell him everything. He’s going to be very upset.’
Chapter Forty-two
As soon as the door had slammed behind her, Clara went to the window and watched Unity dash towards a large Mercedes that stood in the street with its engine running. She saw the peaked cap of the driver turn, and Unity jump into the back seat. As the car pulled away, Clara knew she had no time to lose. She didn’t doubt that Unity would tell Hitler exactly what she had seen. She would inform him furiously that Clara Vine, the actress who had been so kindly invited to accompany them to the Wintergarten that evening, had a photograph in her apartment of him kissing another man. A photograph that, although it lay in shards, pieced together the dark puzzle of the Führer and presented him as he was. Like a crossword put together, complete and comprehensible. A picture that could drag him out of the shadowy glamour of celebrity and expose him to the common light of day. Truth lay around her in a litter of broken glass.
Clara looked at the wreckage of the negatives. She had no doubt that these pictures could destroy Hitler. They could slice through the Führer’s reputation throughout Germany and stop his plans for domination of Europe in its tracks. Homosexuality was the vice, after all, for which Röhm and his SA associates had been executed. If Hitler, the object of adoration for millions of women, should be found to have indulged, should be seen as a sexual deviant . . . well, the Nazis had a word for behaviour like that. Degenerate.
There was no chance that Unity would stay silent. She had the deadly combination of slavish devotion to the Führer and the political instincts of a teenager. There was no doubt she would boast about how she had personally destroyed the negatives. As if that was an end of it. As if the Führer would be overcome with gratitude and perhaps give her a medal as a reward.
If Unity was making her way to the Chancellery now, Clara might have an hour before police arrived at her door. Probably less than that. Wildly, she considered her options. She longed to run straight out of the apartment and head for Duisberger Strasse, but her desire to seek refuge with Ralph was swiftly quelled; she couldn’t risk drawing the police to him. There was only one person in Germany who could save her now, and she needed to find him before she herself was found.
Fighting the urge to flee immediately, she forced herself to hesitate, then went over to the cupboard and selected a navy satin dress that perfectly emphasized her curves, navy elbow gloves, pearl necklace, diamond earrings and dark glasses. She needed to use all the persuasive skills she possessed. She paused for a second to survey herself in the mirror, twisted her hair up into a chignon, then drew on the long coat with the frosted fox-fur collar. Picking up a cut-glass atomizer she sprayed a cloud of Evening in Paris about her and finally, with her gloves on, she carefully collected up the shards of glass from the floor and stuffed them into a beaded black and white clutch bag. Looking around her she saw something else. Erich’s knife. Sheathed, with a red ribbon tied around it. She slipped it into the bag and left the apartment.
She made herself walk calmly down the stairs and nod to Rudi, who was immersed in Der SA-Mann. Looking up, he seemed about to comment on the young foreigner who had just slammed out of the door and insert some reprimand for Clara about visitors needing to have respect for other tenants, but she left before the words were out of his mouth and headed into the chill evening air.
She walked the length of Winterfeldstrasse, crossed Potsdamer Strasse and headed north. It was busy now. People were hurrying out to their evening’s entertainment, to the cinema or a show. She tried to stick to the side streets, with her head down, keeping her pace firm and steady. After fifteen minutes’ brisk walk she had reached halfway down Wilhelmstrasse, past the Aviation Ministry, to the wrought-iron gates of the Chancellery. Across the road and slightly set back from it was the Propaganda Ministry. Even at this time of the evening, most of the windows were still lit. The Ministry was never really shut. The message of the new Germany was too important to keep to office hours.
Clara pushed open the door and crossed the wide marble hall to where a uniformed guard sat at a desk, looking her up and down. He was a heavy-set bruiser with a dusting of bristles on his scalp and eyes that had been squashed too closely together in his face.
‘I need to see the Minister. Please tell him Fräulein Clara Vine needs to see him urgently.’
The man regarded her insolently and made no attempt to lift the telephone.
‘Can I ask what this is about?’ He had a wet smirk of a mouth.
‘It’s personal. He’ll understand.’
With another sardonic look the man rose and crossed to the opposite side of the hall where another guard sat. The two men conferred, smiling and darting glances in her direction. She forced herself to concentrate on the guard’s cigarette, dwindling into the ashtray on his desk. Fear lay like a great weight on her chest. It was a risk she was taking now, probably the biggest risk she had taken since she set foot in Germany, but she had no choice. So long as Unity knew that Clara had the pictures, there was no possibility that she would keep quiet.
The guard returned across the wide marble hall with all the urgency of a man out for an evening stroll.
‘So sorry, Fräulein. I regret the Minister has left for the evening.’
He smirked a little more, betraying his conviction that here was another desperate actress whose business with the Herr Doktor was strictly unofficial. ‘Perhaps you could try another night?’
Clara ignored the implication. ‘Can I ask where he might be?’
The guard found this hilarious. He choked his laughter down. ‘The Minister does not permit us to give out details of his whereabouts to anyone who happens to turn up. Not even beautiful ladies. Is there any message?’
‘No. No message.’
As swiftly as she could, with the eyes of the two men on her, Clara left the building. Where was Goebbels? He could be anywhere in Berlin. He could even be at home at Schwanenwerder, but Emmy Goering had said he never went home until late. What had she said? He’s become very secretive about his movements, apparently. He even keeps his officials at the Ministry in the dark. Goebbels had to be somewhere in the city, but where? Berlin’s ceaseless, churning nightlife, with its hundreds of bars and theatres, which usually excited Clara, now existed to taunt her. Her chances of unearthing Goebbels in the plush depths of some west-end nightclub were next to none.
She exited the courtyard and turned right into Wilhelmstrasse, heading towards Unter den Linden. She walked rapidly, intent on staying inconspicuous, trying to melt into the shadow of the hefty baroque buildings. It was then that she saw it. A flicker of movement that took on the shape of a man. He was walking about fifty yards behind her on the other side of the road, yet she knew at once that he was watching her. It was the way his attention shifted, without any outward signs, just some microscopic angling of his body towards her, that said he had her in his sights. And there was something about him, to do with his carriag
e or the tilt of the shoulders, that she recognized. She had only seen him for a fraction of a second, and had not caught full sight of his face, but it was enough to tell her she had seen him before. On the night she had led Ralph Sommers on a trail through Berlin. The man with the pale fedora in Voss Strasse. He was the man who had been at the art gallery in Munich too. The man who had been following her ever since she first took possession of Anna Hansen’s case. And now he had found her. He looked absolutely calm, intent and unhurried. He was a normal businessman, anxious to get home to his Frau and a couple of delightful children.
The wind whipped her hair into her eyes and when she looked again he was gone.
At once, everything Clara knew about being shadowed kicked in. There was no need to ascertain that the man was genuinely a tail, so she did not slow her pace, or vary her direction. All she needed to do was shake him off. It sounded simple, put like that, but this man was a professional, she could tell, and he had been watching her for weeks. Like a lover, he would know the shape and gait of her and could read in the mere movement of her body the workings of her mind.
She walked purposefully on to the top of Wilhelmstrasse and paused fractionally to decide her direction. To one side the doors of the Adlon Hotel spilled a golden corridor of light across the pavement, its uniformed doormen shuffling and blowing clouds in the icy air. To the other side, beneath the enormous eagle-topped pillars that marched off into the distance, the evening bustle of Unter den Linden was underway. Turning right would be the obvious choice. The theatres and restaurants that clustered around Friedrichstrasse would be the best place to disappear. Yet it was also what he would expect of her. So she dipped into the subway of the S-Bahn, rose the other side and as she reached street level swerved left, and clipped towards Pariser Platz, in the direction of the Brandenburg Gate.