The Pursuit of Pearls

by Jane Thynne

  Coming out into the bright sunshine, she ran straight into Hugh Lindsey.

  “How lovely to see you,” he remarked, as though they had bumped into each other on Oxford Street, or at a cocktail party in Mayfair. “I was miles away.”

  She almost laughed with relief. In his Burberry coat, tie slightly askew, and hat pushed back on his head, Hugh was like a great breath of Englishness. It was just the way she had felt on the bus in the King’s Road, surrounded by the staid, understated citizens. Everything about him made her feel safe.

  “Were you, Hugh? What were you thinking about?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “I do.”

  “All right. I was thinking about England’s batting averages. At the last count…”

  Clara held up a hand and laughed. “You’re right. I don’t want to know. I know absolutely nothing about cricket, and I’m not sure I’ll ever learn.”

  “As a matter of fact I was heading back to the Adlon. Care to walk with me?”

  The two of them progressed companionably through Alexanderplatz, past the circular lawn in one corner of the square.

  “You know, in 1918 there was shooting going on in this square. Fighting between the Reds and the Freikorps,” remarked Hugh. “But even though crossing this lawn was the shortest distance through the square, and the obvious way to escape the bullets, Berliners still refused to walk on the grass. Isn’t that extraordinary? Lenin said he realized at that moment that the revolution was lost. He said you can’t hold a revolution in a city where people obey the Keep Off the Grass signs.”

  In the Schlossplatz, arcs of water spurting from the Neptune Fountain turned into rainbows in the air, and Hugh brought out a packet of cigarettes. He lit one, then almost immediately chucked it into the water.

  “I can’t smoke these things! I’ve run out of Benson and Hedges, but these are like a hand grenade going off in your chest.”

  “Have one of mine.”

  “A Gauloise? Lucky girl.”

  “I got them the other day, in Paris.”

  “Paris? What were you doing there?”

  “A fashion shoot for Vogue magazine.”

  “How refreshing to find a British girl who loves fashion. Most women I know don’t give a hoot about it. Their favorite shade is porridge, and they like their tweeds hard as a board.”

  It was a relief to be with Hugh. He had a way of speaking that was midway between joking and serious. Englishmen were often like that. It helped them cope with feelings—that was what Rupert Allingham used to tell her. Irony was the first lesson Englishmen learned at school. Even Hugh’s manner, and his way of swiping away his forelock, reminded her of her brother, Kenneth, and his friends, who were just as obsessed with the fortunes of the English cricket team.

  He inhaled the Gauloise greedily. “You need these things to take the edge off the appetite. Don’t you find yourself getting frightfully hungry nowadays? I have a recurring dream that I’m at Rules, on one of the back banquettes, being served smoked salmon, potted shrimps, Dover sole, and jugged hare. Followed by crumpets and buttered anchovy toast.”

  He hesitated. “I’m not making you feel sick, am I?”

  Being with Hugh, talking about England, had brought on a compelling urge to confide.

  “I think I’m being followed.”

  “Is that all? I shouldn’t worry. Mary says we’re all being followed. I imagine my chap is having a jolly dull time of it.”

  “Not like that. That’s just the regulation minders from the Propaganda Ministry. I think this is something different.”

  His smile dropped, and he regarded her more seriously. “Could it possibly be to do with that man we saw the other evening? Herr Adler?”

  “I’m not sure…”

  “I don’t mind telling you, there’s something about him I didn’t like, Clara. I think you should keep away from him.”

  “I will. I can’t imagine I would see Adler again. But it’s nothing to do with him.”

  “Do you know what? I think I can guess what’s really bothering you.” His eyes were kindly, with an Englishman’s repressed emotion. “It’s that business about the Faith and Beauty girl. You knew her, didn’t you? And you said you were living close to where it happened.”

  “Yes.”

  “The whole affair must have been a tremendous shock.”

  “It was, but…”

  “They think the man’s still around, don’t they?”

  “Apparently.”

  “That decides it then. I’m giving you a lift home. My car’s right outside the Adlon. It’s a Mercedes Sport Roadster. Burgundy red and a real thoroughbred. Runs like a dream. I’m pathetically proud of it.”

  “Thank you, I’d like that.”

  —

  ONCE THEY WERE IN the car, and driving towards the west of the city, he lifted a silver Dunhill hip flask from the side pocket and tipped it towards her.

  “Can I tempt you? I always keep a little something, and since I’ve managed to get hold of a half-decent bottle of Glenmorangie, it would be a shame not to share it.”

  Clara sipped, grateful for the Scotch’s slow, reviving fire.

  As they entered the fringes of Griebnitzsee, they passed a couple of police cars. Since the murder, there’d been police cars all around the area. The newspapers claimed there was to be “no expense spared” to catch the killer. It was as if Lottie Franke had come to symbolize everything that was good and pure about German womanhood, and her hideous murder was an outrage that threatened to sully the whole of the Aryan race.

  Hugh parked his car outside Ursula’s home and peered enviously through the screen of trees. He gave a low whistle of admiration. “Some place.”

  “It’s only temporary.”

  “Bet it looks right out on the lake.”

  “It does.”

  “Want me to come in? See you’re all right?”

  She knew she should invite him in. Hugh had, after all, gone out of his way to drive her home in his smart new car. The very least she could do was to brew up some of Ursula’s stash of coffee. But she knew she would not be good company.

  “Really, I’m fine. Another time?”

  “Absolutely.” He gave a dazzling smile and steered away.

  The sight of the police had brought Lottie Franke to the forefront of Clara’s thoughts. She had promised the girl’s parents that she would see if there was anything she could discover about their daughter’s death. That had been weeks ago, and in that time the tearful hysteria of Marlene Franke and the quiet desperation of her husband had tugged constantly at her heart, yet Clara had been far too busy to give it any attention. But the previous day something had happened that renewed her resolve to find out what she could. Hedwig Holz had left a message at the studio, asking if she would mind stopping by the Faith and Beauty home. Clara had been certain there was something Hedwig was not telling her, and no matter how trivial, it could be the information that helped the Frankes in their heartbreak.

  She had made a promise to them and she would do her best to keep it. She decided to visit the next day.

  CHAPTER

  24

  It was upscale, as all the villas were out in the affluent suburbs west of Berlin; Schlatchtensee, Nikolassee, Wannsee, Griebnitzsee. Groups of large, turn-of-the-century villas with gravel drives and high gates that allowed only a glimpse of a world framed by curly wrought iron, of sunlit lawns screened by abundant pines. This was the heartland of Berlin’s aristocracy. Back in their heyday, in the 1900s, there would have been carriages in the drives and families photographed on the front steps, plump men in swallowtail coats and ladies in wide hats, flanked by their servants. There would have been dances that went on until dawn, with fairy lights strung in the trees and views across the lakes. All the big house owners were rich industrialists, lawyers, and bankers; patriarchs with wide mustaches who were the very picture of confident prosperity. Many of them were Jewish, and they had plenty of good taste to
go with their money. They hung their halls with fine art, and their gardens were filled with statuary. But in 1933 everything changed. Most of the owners were moved out of their villas in as little time as it took to pack a suitcase. Some of the new residents reported finding the coffeepots still warm.

  The Faith and Beauty home was an ornately decorated house whose builder had, in common with many around here, regarded the Austrian Tyrol as the apogee of architectural sophistication. Stained-glass windows and Jugendstil decoration were garnished with a pair of antlers affixed above the doorway. Little gables and cross timbers gave it the air of a hunting lodge plucked from the Bavarian countryside and transported intact to the plush district that edged up against the Grunewald’s dark heart.

  Inside, sun swirled up to the icing-sugar cornices of the high ceiling, filling the room with a wash of pale gold. An early bee butted softly against the window, like a bomber failing to reach its target. An opened window carried the smell of grass on the breeze, and as she waited for Hedwig, Clara glimpsed a group of girls practicing gymnastics on the lawn, shiny braids swaying in unison. From somewhere in the distance came the sound of clear girls’ voices singing a marching hymn to the Führer.

  Unsere Fahne flattert uns voran,

  Unsere Fahne ist die neue Zeit.

  Und die Fahne führt uns in die Ewigkeit!

  Ja, die Fahne ist mehr als der Tod.

  Our banner flutters before us,

  Our banner represents the new time,

  Our banner leads us to eternity!

  Yes, our banner means more to us than death.

  Their singing unfurled into the air, rising and falling in uncertain counterpoint, a tapestry of sound that occasionally achieved harmony but then frayed and fell apart. Every now and then it was interrupted by the bark of the singing instructor. “Enough! Again. I remind you, ladies, the Führer requires perfection!”

  Clara had deliberately arrived a few minutes early to allow for a look around. As she stood in the hall, she felt the glances of passing girls sweep over her, as prickling and hostile as stinging nettles, as though her intrusion in their domain was some kind of threat. But a threat to what? To their privacy, their togetherness, their beliefs? Or was it merely the natural distrust that any stranger inspired after the violent trauma that had recently taken place in their midst?

  Hedwig Holz hurried down the stairs, apologizing as she came. She had changed since the last time Clara saw her. The girl’s face was taut with misery and her eyes were ringed with fatigue. She stood before Clara, pushing the sleeves of her smock up and then tugging them down again.

  “Shall we go in the garden?” Clara suggested.

  They navigated the path past the gymnasts towards a bed where a display of tulips stood to attention at the end of the lawn. Even the grass was of a higher quality here, soft and springy, its fragrance floating in the air. The sunlight was studded with pollen, and glinting insects were coasting on the warm spring currents, dipping past the blood-red petals into the tulips’ molten hearts. A group of girls had spread a rug beneath a tree, and as the two women passed, the crunch of their feet on the gravel turned curious probing eyes on them.

  “Thank you for your message, Hedwig. Can I call you Hedwig?”

  “Please.” A quick smile lifted the girl’s features. “Though I hate my name actually. There’s only one person who doesn’t call me Hedwig, and he calls me Hedy.”

  “I’ve just been in France. There they would call you Edwige.”

  “Would they? That sounds so much better. Edwige. It’s beautiful. I’d love to visit France. Lottie promised that if we joined the Faith and Beauty we would end up visiting all sorts of foreign places.”

  “Was that why she wanted you to join?”

  “I suppose. She said she wasn’t going to be some old hausfrau, shuffling around in slippers with a load of brats at her ankles. She was going to travel. She wanted to live somewhere glamorous. She had expectations.”

  Hedwig used this word reverently, as if it conjured all the magic of foreign places, of haute couture and a life where she would never again wear her hair in braids or sit around with a hundred identical girls sharing the greasy contents of an Eintopf stew.

  They walked past the flower beds and through an arch of budding roses, towards the dapple of sun and blur of shadow at the end of the lawn. Beyond it lay the fringe of forest separating the order of the garden from the wild and unknown. Conrad Adler’s comment came into Clara’s head. There’s a narrow boundary that separates the savage from the civilized. Here, in this temple to female purity, that boundary had grown thin and permeable and savagery had seeped in.

  “That’s where they found her.”

  At the edge of the trees Clara could see a flutter of tape marking off an area of the ground.

  “We’re not allowed to go near,” Hedwig told her.

  Clara wanted more details, and thought about asking Hedwig outright, but she seemed like the kind of girl who would clam up at a direct question. She was the kind who let her twisting hands and involuntary glances do the talking.

  “Did Lottie often go into the woods?” Clara asked instead.

  Hedwig was kicking at the gravel, scuffing it and turning over the stones.

  “She used to say that solitude was essential for the development of character. She was quite a private person.” Clara remembered the composed and secretive smile that Lottie gave. “She said that was what was wrong with our country—I’m sorry, Fräulein Vine—that people were never alone. She felt it was impossible to be a creative person if you didn’t have solitude.”

  “But why could she not be alone?”

  “You don’t know what it’s like here, Fräulein Vine. All the women in one group stay together throughout their membership. In that time we’re encouraged to share everything—we eat together and learn together and sing together. It’s hard to feel different. They don’t want you to. But other people don’t realize that.”

  Clara did. She had felt it standing there in the hall. She could feel the emotion in the place pressing up against the walls, all eyes alert, hearts beating as one, the sense that everyone there was part of something bigger than themselves. That was a powerful emotion. It was the emotion that the Third Reich relied on. It was the kind of emotion that could move mountains.

  “Most of the people here have known each other since they were little girls anyway. All their parents know each other too. Lottie and I were the only ones who came from the east of Berlin. That’s good, I suppose. They always used to point Lottie out to visitors, to prove that there was nothing stopping a girl from an ordinary background being special in the Reich.”

  Hedwig and Clara stared together into the blurred shadows.

  “So, was there a reason that you asked to see me?” Clara nudged.

  “I should have told you this before. I think…” Hedwig cast an instinctive glance behind her. “I might have a thought about why Lottie was killed.”

  Her voice had layers of secrecy in it. She was concealing something.

  “You said there was a boyfriend, and that she was frightened of him?” Clara prompted.

  “That’s true. But it’s about something that happened, just before she died. It was a Saturday like this, and Lottie came into the house. She had makeup on, but her face was dirty and you could see the tearstains on her cheeks. She laughed a little when she saw me—she always laughed—but I could see something was wrong. She was late to the art class, and I know she had spent the night with him. She was all flustered, which was so unlike her, Lottie was always perfectly turned out. Anyway, after the art class was finished, she came out here and told me a secret. She said she had stolen something.”

  Hedwig’s words seemed to hang in the air, glinting with meaning.

  “I had to promise not to tell anyone else about it. She was very aggressive. She frightened me. She made me swear on my life.”

  “What was it that she stole?”

  “I don’t know.
”

  “And where is it now?”

  “I’m not sure…”

  “Didn’t you ask her?”

  “I would have. But that was the last time I saw her. The next thing I knew, they found her body.” Hedwig swallowed, reliving the horror of the moment. “I’ve tried so hard to think what she stole and where it might be. I visited her parents and went into her bedroom, saying I wanted to spend a last moment alone with Lottie, and I searched everywhere, but there was no sign of anything.”

  As they walked back to the house, the high, clear voices of the girls were finally rising in harmony, coming together in clear, pleasing unison in their hymn to the Führer.

  “The only thing she said was, ‘It’s precious, Hedwig. It’s more precious than you can imagine. There are a lot of big people in Germany who would kill for this.’ ”

  Clara had a sudden, spiky sense of dread. Was it possible the murder of Lottie Franke was not, after all, the random act of a lone madman? Could it have roots that went deeper? Roots that stretched and touched and entangled others, and ultimately reached out to the darkest places of the Reich?

  CHAPTER

  25

  “I’m afraid I’m not to be trusted, Clara.”

  Conrad Adler was holding the reins of a dappled gray horse, saddled up and ready for a ride. He was dressed in a finely tailored riding jacket, breeches, and high boots, his slick hair shining and a sharp edge of amusement in his eyes. To his side stood a groom with a larger chestnut horse, already snuffing the air impatiently and tossing his head against the reins.

  The Reitclub Grunewald, the city’s smartest riding stables, enjoyed an idyllic location next to the Grunewaldsee. Though the water and the woodland gave it the feel of deep countryside, the club was near enough to the S-Bahn that one could travel from Ku’damm to stable door in twenty minutes flat. Berliners loved horses, and the city was full of bronzed beasts, sculptures of horses rearing in battle, their manes blowing in the wind. Even the famously unsporty Hitler liked to carry a riding whip in his hand. But there was no substitute for the real thing.