Nucleus

by Rory Clements

  Wilde put down the telephone and sought out Lindberg and Eva. ‘We’ll set off for the Cavendish at 2 p.m.,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to leave you to your own devices until them, I’m afraid. Anything you need, just ask Doris.’

  Eva nodded. ‘Uncle Arnold will stay here. I wish to go to the new synagogue, not far from the Magdalene Bridge. Is that fitting for you?’

  ‘If you don’t mind motorbikes, I’ll give you a ride down there.’

  *

  Wilde brought the Rudge to a halt outside Antonio’s Café. ‘Before you go your own way, can I take you for a coffee, Dr Haas?’

  She looked slightly wary at the suggestion. ‘I wanted to make myself known at the synagogue. I have Jewish friends in Cambridge.’

  ‘Ten minutes, maybe a quarter of an hour? Best coffee in town here.’

  She bowed politely. ‘Of course, Professor Wilde. I should be delighted.’

  They entered Antonio’s and found a good table, with a white cloth and a choice of Italian coffees, including espresso, which Wilde ordered. Eva asked for a hot chocolate.

  ‘I just wanted to say hello, really. Tell you a little about myself. Welcome you to Cambridge. I know you’ve lived here before, at Girton, but the circumstances must be very strange for you, not to say distressing.’ He smiled at her and his voice softened. ‘Tell me about your boy. I cannot imagine how dreadful this must be for you.’

  She looked strained. ‘I do not know what to say about him. It is all so . . . so terrible.’

  ‘Even if the Nazis have taken him, I’m sure they won’t hurt a child.’

  ‘I pray you are right.’

  ‘Have you notified the police?’

  She shrugged helplessly. ‘Which police, Professor Wilde? The Gestapo, perhaps?’

  He saw her point and changed the subject, asking her about her friendship with Lydia.

  ‘You know, she was always a good friend. Not everyone was so welcoming to a German Jewish girl in those days. And then I was so pleased when she agreed to meet Albert and look after him until my arrival. I knew I could trust her.’ She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. ‘Now I feel she blames herself somehow for what has happened. But, of course, that is not the case.’

  Their drinks came. They talked more about her time in Cambridge, the rigours of Girton and the lectures she attended by the men who had split the atom: Rutherford, Cockcroft and Walton.

  ‘Were you there when it happened?’

  She laughed. ‘No, but when I heard their lectures I was beguiled by their magic. No one has ever seen an atom, and yet they, in their own separate ways, brought these minuscule particles to life for me. I knew then what I wanted to do with my life.’ She managed a small smile. ‘But you know it has been difficult these past few years with the sanctions in Germany. I should have stayed in England after Girton, but my husband wanted me back home. Klaus had a good job with a chemical concern. The deal was that I should complete my studies and then return and we would be a family.’

  ‘Of course, I understand. And where is Klaus now?’ Even as he asked the question, he knew the answer. He had endured the same loss himself, and it left an indelible mark.

  Her hand came across the table and touched his. ‘I see it in your eyes, Professor. You have suffered the same thing. My Klaus was taken by TB two years ago.’

  ‘I am sorry.’

  ‘Of course, thank you. And you?’

  ‘Childbirth. My wife and our child. It’s a long time ago.’

  ‘But the wounds do not heal so easily. Anyway, as you know, life became intolerable for us these past few months. Albert had already been banished from his school for the crime of not being wholly Aryan. And then Kristallnacht. I knew we would have to leave.’

  After they finished their coffee and chocolate, Wilde walked her to the synagogue. As he left her, he couldn’t help noticing that a dozen or more police officers were milling about Thompson’s Lane. He approached a tall, uniformed constable who was standing guard, hands clasped behind his back.

  ‘What’s going on, constable?’

  The policeman looked suspicious. ‘Are you Irish, sir?’

  ‘The accent’s American.’

  The constable visibly relaxed. ‘There’s been an IRA outrage you see, sir. Irish beggars let off a bomb outside the power station.’

  Ah, so this was what they were talking about at St Andrew’s Street. ‘Anyone hurt?’

  ‘A dog, sir. As to the damage, it’ll be the work of a week to put it right, including the broken windows.’

  ‘How do you know it was the IRA?’

  ‘I believe they sent a message to the newspapers. Could have saved the ink, though. It’s always them, isn’t it, sir?’

  CHAPTER 22

  Wilde rode his motorbike to the Cavendish and found Geoff Lancing. He was sitting at his table in his room, smoking a cigarette. He seemed a long way away.

  ‘I’m sorry, Geoff. Have I interrupted you?’

  Lancing shook his head. ‘Forget it,’ he said. He sounded resigned. ‘Just events. Have you brought the Germans with you?’

  The death of Birbach had obviously hit Lancing hard. The most easy-going, cheerful of men, today he looked utterly despondent. ‘You were very unsure when I called,’ said Wilde,

  Lancing put his cigarette hand to his brow. Smoke curled up slowly through his fringe. ‘It’s complicated, Tom. More complicated than you can imagine.’

  ‘Try me.’

  He drew deeply on his cigarette, then exhaled a cloud. ‘It’s Lindberg. Some people are unhappy about him. His past.’

  ‘You mean because he’s a Communist?’

  ‘No, no one gives a damn about that. This is the least political place in Cambridge. Outside these walls there is sound and fury – the whole world in a rage about ideologies and God knows what else – but in here, we delve quietly into the heart of the cosmos. Tory or Labour, Communist or Fascist? Do you think those distinctions amount to anything in the vastness of the universe?’

  ‘I take your point. But of course, Lindberg has already worked here. I wonder what has changed?’

  Lancing looked pained. ‘We all know he’s had a hard time, but frankly, Tom, he wasn’t totally honest with Rutherford when he was here before. It’s his work at the end of the war, I’m afraid. You probably wouldn’t know about it.’

  ‘Then tell me.’

  ‘He started life as a chemist. In early 1918 he volunteered to work with Fritz Haber in the Chemistry Section of the German War Office where they were developing gas weapons. He was at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Dahlem and later he joined the Bayer Chemical Works in Leverkusen. Apparently, he came up with some lovely ideas involving phosgene, chlorine and the mustard gases. And you know what – they all bloody knew it was against the Hague Convention.’ Lancing sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Tom, it makes me bloody mad. My old man’s brother was gassed. Survived, but God he was a ghost of a man.’

  ‘It was war, Geoff. The British used gas too.’

  Lancing snorted. ‘But while the poor bloody infantry were drowning, blistering and choking, the men who designed these gases survived and prospered. Haber won the Nobel prize in 1918 for pity’s sake. Otto Hahn was one of them, too – and now he’s acclaimed for his fission work! The world is upside down, Tom.’

  ‘Look, I’ll keep Lindberg away.’

  Lancing stubbed out his cigarette and reached for another. ‘No, you’re right. It’s just me and this damnable day. Lindberg can come and work in the library, do some reading. I’m sure he’s a fine chap and he doesn’t need me to judge him after what’s been through in the concentration camp. I’m sure he’s atoned. Who knows? He might even come up with some sound work for us. But I’m not letting him near any of our equipment. Apart from anything else, the secret boys wouldn’t allow it; they were rather wary of Birbach, if you must know.’

  ‘Understood.’ Wilde waited until he could be sure the worst of Lancing’s anger had dissipated. ‘Look, Geoff, I want you to
tell me about Birbach – who he was, where he came from. I lived and worked only a dozen steps away from him, but I knew nothing about him.’

  Lancing gave a brief resumé of Birbach’s career: hounded out of his job at the University of Munich, he’d worked in Italy with Fermi and in America with Oppenheimer, before arriving in Cambridge three years earlier.

  ‘And he was supposed to rejoin this Oppenheimer fellow?’

  ‘Exactly. And I could quite understand why. America’s the coming place for particle physics. I know I’ve told you this before, Tom, but I can’t stress enough what a remarkable mind Birbach possessed. He saw things with breathtaking clarity. He was convinced he had come up with a feasible way to create an energy source – for good or ill – with a minimal amount of radioactive material, perhaps no more than five pounds of uranium. At any rate, a great deal less than the tonnage most physicists have been imagining. He also believed that it might be terrifyingly simple to make a bomb with the power to destroy an entire town or city. Even Werner bloody Heisenberg could do it, he said.’

  ‘Hellquist was working with Birbach. Does he understand it?’

  ‘That’s not entirely clear. Torsten Hellquist is a difficult man. He seems open, but in fact he keeps a great deal to himself. He never had Birbach’s insight, but he is quick on the uptake and sees ways of applying theory to practical use. He has dreams of supplying the world’s energy needs, making himself a millionaire. I know he had been working on some technical drawings with Birbach but I don’t know whether they had actually solved all the problems.’

  ‘Is it possible Birbach died for his knowledge?’

  ‘It’s hard not to be worried, isn’t it?’

  ‘What are the police saying?’

  ‘I don’t think the local cops have a clue. Not their fault, really. Probably not more than a couple of dozen people in the world understand what we’re doing. Anyway, I’ve put calls through to Scotland Yard and the War Office. They’ll be sending somebody up.’

  ‘Soon, I hope.’

  ‘Today or tomorrow, hopefully. But who knows? Special Branch and the secret service have other priorities at the moment.’

  Wilde grunted. Perhaps Rupert Weir’s call or Eaton’s influence might shake them out of their torpor. He began to move towards the door, unable to endure any more of Lancing’s smoke. ‘I’m going to take you at your word, Geoff, and bring Lindberg and Haas along. Maybe Lindberg will surprise you. But before I go, there was one other matter. The woman Paul Birbach took to the party, do you know who she was?’

  Lancing laughed. ‘She was a cleaning woman. All his tarts were cleaners or barmaids or laundry women.’ He clapped a hand to his own mouth. ‘God, I sound a snob. I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. But the truth was he did have a pattern.’

  ‘Did this one have a name?’

  ‘Do you know, he did introduce her to me in an offhand sort of way. Now what was it? Ah yes, Mrs Winch, that was it. Annie Winch if I’m not mistaken.’

  ‘Do you know anything more about her? Where she worked, for instance?’

  Lancing rubbed his cheek. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘No, that wasn’t her name – not Annie Winch, Fanny Winch.’

  ‘Well, someone must know. Perhaps Torsten Hellquist. Is he here?’

  ‘No, haven’t seen him today. I imagine he stayed in his rooms back at St John’s. It would be understandable if he was too distraught to work. But whatever you do, don’t forget tennis and cocktails this evening. Hell hath no fury like a Clarissa scorned, you know.’

  *

  Lydia was left alone in a plain room, cold, with a smell of sweat, cigarette smoke and cabbage flatulence. The whole building at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse seemed to echo with footsteps and muted voices. She knew this to be the home of the SS, the SD and the Gestapo. She wasn’t sure whether it was fevered imagining, but every so often she thought she heard screaming from a long way away, reverberating like the wailing of long-dead ghosts along corridors and through walls. Perhaps it was the height of the ceilings and the shine of the institutional paint that made this place so sinister.

  If this solitary treatment was supposed to break her down, it was working. She even wished Herr Kirsch would visit her so that she had someone to plead with. All she wanted was a telephone call.

  It was late afternoon when Kirsch returned. He was smiling and apologetic. ‘Have you been fed, Miss Morris?’

  ‘No. No one has been here. I have not even been allowed to go to the lavatory.’

  ‘I shall arrange that for you in a moment, and then I will have food sent to you. Perhaps a cup of tea and some cigarettes, too.’

  ‘What I want most of all, Herr Kirsch, is to be allowed out. You must know that I have committed no crime and that I have no further information to give you about the murderer or the man who was killed.’

  Kirsch took out a packet of cigarettes and offered her one. ‘The priest, Father Schwartzmann, says you were deep in conversation with the man who was killed.’

  She suspected that was a lie. Kirsch was fishing. She had no reason to think the priest would betray her in such a manner. She shook her head, slowly and very firmly. ‘No, we both know that isn’t right. The priest would not have said such a thing, because it is untrue.’

  Against her better judgement, she took one of his cigarettes. He reached over with a lighter and she drew in the smoke. It was ten years since she gave up smoking and here she was smoking her second in two days. It tasted foul but she didn’t stub it out.

  Kirsch slid a paper across the table so that it lay in front of her eyes. ‘That is his statement and his signature. You clearly have a reasonable knowledge of German. Read it.’

  She raised her gaze, refusing to look at the words. ‘No, I won’t read it. You could have written that yourself. You are trying to scare me into making a false statement. Now, I would like to go, please, before you show the Gestapo and your country in an even worse light.’

  He sighed. ‘You are making this very difficult for yourself, Miss Morris. I shall go and order your food and find a female member of staff to accompany you to the toilet.’

  ‘Where is the priest? Have you arrested him, too?’

  ‘On what charge?’

  ‘I have no idea. I thought you didn’t need little things like criminal charges to arrest people.’

  ‘No, he has not been arrested. He voluntarily made his statement and returned to the task of tending his flock.’

  There was a knock at the door. Kirsch pulled it open. A young uniformed officer executed an exaggerated Hitler salute and handed him a note. Kirsch read it slowly, then nodded to the younger man in dismissal. He turned back to Lydia. ‘Well, well, Miss Morris, you are free to go.’ He seemed disappointed.

  ‘What was that message?’

  He ignored the question. ‘One of our drivers will take you where you wish.’ He consulted his wristwatch. ‘I fear you will have no flight from Tempelhof today, but I will make sure you have a seat on the first flight in the morning. We will collect your passport and luggage on the way out.’

  ‘I want to go to Captain Foley’s house in Wilmersdorf.’

  As they were about to leave the holding cell, she saw Kirsch pick up the so-called statement by the priest and scrunch it into a ball. He tossed it into an empty wastebin.

  The car was waiting outside the main entrance on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, a uniformed driver at the wheel. Kirsch opened the rear door and she climbed in. She leaned over and said, ‘Lessingstrasse, Wilmersdorf, if you please, driver.’

  Kirsch was still holding her door. ‘I wish you well on your onward journey, Miss Morris,’ he said as the door clicked shut. Lydia leant back on the rear seat and breathed a sigh of relief. Frank and Kay Foley would look after her.

  Suddenly she sat up. There were no handles on the inside of the doors. What sort of car had no handles for the passengers? Kirsch had gone round the front of the car and was leaning into the driver’s window.

  ‘Ravensbrück,
driver,’ Kirsch said. ‘For attention of Baumgarten.’

  Lydia’s muscles contracted. She caught the driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Manfred Bloch was looking back at her. The car pulled out into traffic.

  CHAPTER 23

  ‘Colonel Flood, this is Professor Wilde.’

  At last: Flood’s voice, metallic and distant.

  ‘Where have you goddamn been, Wilde?’

  ‘I got your cable.’ He wasn’t going to make excuses to Colonel Dexter Flood: he owed him nothing. ‘You mentioned fears.’

  More crackling. This was a world away from the ease and convenience of a telephone system along wires. You could talk to a friend in London as easily as you could over the garden fence with a neighbour. Radiotelephonic communication across continents was not so easy.

  ‘Yes, goddamn it, what have you discovered in the Cavendish?’

  ‘The physicist Paul Birbach has been murdered. He was about to go to America to join Robert Oppenheimer.’ Give a little information that is already public knowledge. Put Flood at ease. Tease him out.

  The line went silent. Wilde wondered whether they had been cut off, but then Flood’s weirdly mutilated voice returned. ‘For God’s sake, Wilde! When did this happen?’

  ‘A couple of days ago.’

  The gap seemed to lengthen. ‘And you only tell me now? He’s one of the guys I told you to keep your eyes on. What happened?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Wilde wasn’t about to reveal the little he knew to this man until he understood a little more. ‘Now – about those fears you mentioned. Hadn’t you better tell me what’s going on over there?’

  ‘Heisenberg’s here. You heard of Heisenberg? The Germans’ top uranium man. He’s touring American universities, asking questions. Some of the academic guys don’t like it – they think he’s trying to find out what we know, maybe how close we are to a superbomb. Most of our men are keeping shtum. But what I want from you, Wilde, is the lowdown on Cambridge. What are they saying about this guy Birbach? How was he killed? Goddamit, Wilde! You need to get off your ass, buddy.’