Into Darkness

by Anton Gill

  At that time, Hoffmann hadn't been able to believe that the State could keep a prisoner for four days in a dog-kennel, and then, when he was released, barely able to stand, feed him on salt-herring smeared with axle-grease; and when he vomited, make him eat the vomit. Kessler still believed he had died of a straightforward heart-attack.

  His father's arrest had, curiously enough, fired Kessler's zeal: a cynic might have thought that the son had buckled down to work because he knew he'd be watched, and didn't want to disappear into one of the camps they were setting up for people who tried to make things difficult for the Party in the early days. Hoffmann had kept him away from political work, and detailed him to the homicide and drugs unit; but Hoffmann had noticed that politics was a subject Kessler kept quiet about.

  ***

  It was the first flight Kessler had ever made. He looked through the window, his tiredness dispelled by anticipation. The Junkers roared and shuddered. Most of the men on board had made this journey before, but there was apprehension in the cabin: would the thing shake itself to pieces?

  The young inspector took off his glasses and wiped them on his tie. The chocks were pulled away. The plane jolted along the runway and pulled abruptly into the air. Kessler gasped. It amazed him that after all he had seen in the past ten years he could still lose himself in a new experience.

  He watched Berlin recede beneath him, but his mind irresistibly returned to the work the next few days held, and, because she was never truly absent from it, especially now, to Emma. Whatever else happened, she had to be protected. At all costs. Kessler admired Hoffmann, but latterly he'd admitted to himself that that admiration wasn't unqualified; and these days one had to qualify loyalty with a sense of survival. Hoffmann was… what? Roughly twenty years his senior - in fact he knew exactly, he'd seen the files.

  He looked out of the window again. Nothing but clouds below them now. They reminded him of the gentle winter hills down in the Allgäu his father and mother had walked him over during their Christmas holidays.

  But he didn't have time for all that now.

  12

  Everyone on the flight was fighting sleep. Across the aisle, facing an elderly, clerkish SS-captain (the flight was full of desk-soldiers), sat Ernst Schiffer, hot in his uniform, his neck bulging over the collar. He fiddled with papers on his lap.

  Hoffmann knew Schiffer wasn't concentrating. He tried to avoid catching the man's eye, failed to, and nodded, glad the noise of the plane prevented conversation. He remembered the day his former protégé had told him he was transferring to the Gestapo. What could he do but congratulate him? Fast-lane promotion, staff car, Party brothels, Scotch whisky, all the other perks. He wondered what Schiffer was thinking now. Did the man still believe it had all been worth it?

  Hoffmann looked out of the window at his city, at the swathes of rubble the enemy bombers had already cut, at the ruined towers and crumbled walls. The Lancasters and the B-17s were doing Hitler's demolition job for him, but Hoffmann doubted if Albert Speer's mighty buildings would ever rise from the ashes now. Columns of smoke and dust moved like ghosts over the rooftops.

  He tried to concentrate. He would sift through the evidence, but as the guilty men, the principals at least, had been arrested or killed, he could not see the point of this exercise. He'd have been more useful in Berlin. Which begged the question of how much Hitler still trusted him.

  He thought about Berlin, disappearing now as the plane climbed through cloud. He thought about how it had changed in a decade, though the changes were easy enough to map after the short, hopeful, unstable 1920s. As a young policeman then, he'd known an open city. The world had beaten a path to its door, bringing dollars and pounds and francs with it, attracted by a downward-spiralling currency which made a foreign beggar a king there.

  Too many memories to contain.

  Hoffmann gave way to them. He had done well; he'd married, had a daughter, and learned how useful cocaine was when you were working twenty-hour shifts. He thought of the early years of the Reich, and of how Berlin, stripped within a year or two of its inner life and its most interesting citizens, had bowed under the yoke.

  It all seemed to have happened to someone else, even to another city. The Berlin of 1944 and the Berlin of 1933. A blink of Time's eye.

  The Junkers reached cruising height, and its engines settled to an even rumble. Cradled by the rhythm, Kessler's hands once or twice loosened on the papers in his lap and he started to give way to the sleep they all needed.

  Hoffmann, looking around, wondered how many of his colleagues were seriously concerned about the attempted coup, except insofar as it might affect them personally. No-one with any intelligence, and these administrators were all bright, could think that the Führer had a future. But he was still to be feared, still had his loyal dogs. Everyone had his own interests at stake; no-one knew what would happen to him if the top man fell, and so the bastard survived. But that had always been how dictators managed it.

  He thought of Brandau. His missions to Switzerland had started a year earlier. Hitler knew nothing about them, and, like Brandau, Hoffmann was counting on the mounting confusion to provide a forest for him to hide in. But he was getting tired of the game. He hadn't slept for twenty-four hours, and his eyelids drooped. He dreaded sleep, for it might betray him - he couldn't remember when he had last slept a whole night through - but now he fell into a flickering half-slumber.

  His daughter's face came into his mind. Emma. He knew all about putting pressure on people through their families. They'd do it to him without hesitation. The fear woke him for a moment, but he was too tired: he subsided again. It wouldn't help to worry, and he had laid what plans he could.

  His sleep grew deeper, the plane's engines faded to a murmur, and then ceased. He saw his wife. He seemed to be awake, and he saw her with absolute clarity, but her face was still. He knew he was looking at a picture of her, a photo he had taken on their honeymoon in Perthshire. She'd bought him a tartan tie: Hunting Fraser. Where was that tie now?

  Ursula had been dead fourteen years. He remembered the face of a woman of thirty. The dead do not change. He had not even forgotten her voice, and they say that's the first thing you forget. Her smell clung to her clothes and for months after she had gone he would plunge his face into them, bringing her back; but it faded, blending with the lavender that scented her wardrobe and outlived her. He carried one of her handkerchiefs in his breast pocket, dabbing it with her perfume when everything else, everything personal, had gone; but then he smelt the same perfume on a woman he passed in the street and it became just another scent. He let go without forgetting. Grief is the price you pay for love.

  She would have been be forty-four now. Even in sleep, still, the thought prompted him that if he'd done more for the marriage, they would have been closer. But he'd had a career to forge, and he was a selfish man.

  Her face stayed a long time.

  13

  Hoffmann awoke. The elderly SS-captain was dozing. Schiffer glanced up dully from his papers. What was he reading? He had loosened his collar, and his right hand loosely clasped a damp handkerchief. Fighting sleep, thought Hoffmann. Two middle-aged colonels were conferring. One of them wore hair-dye, which was running a little in the heat.

  What was going on in all those minds?

  Suddenly he heard laughter, close to his ear, but it wasn't coming from anyone in the plane. He started; it had sounded so real. Though he fought it, he was falling asleep again without realising it.

  Another face appeared, the face of the woman who had laughed a moment ago. The face was strong and in movement, a vivid memory, a colour film. Not looking at him, as Ursula's had, as if drowned, through a veil of water.

  He could hear her laughter. He could feel her breath. But then all faded as quickly as it had appeared. He had scarcely had time to grasp it, none to savour it. In his dream he found himself complaining that it was unfair, that she should have stayed longer. Another voice told him that she was
still there, and always would be.

  He had no photo of her. But he would never forget her face or her voice.

  He had mourned Ursula. Ursula too had died young, but at least she had died in peace.

  Kara had died in pain.

  There were more images, but now they were confused, coming from nowhere. Kessler chasing a leveret. A little boy running towards him through a garden. The almond-white body of a sixteen-year-old heroin addict, pulled out of the river Spree, lying on the bank next to the glittering water. Long dead, but still vulnerable. What he'd thought at the time. His first case. Never found anyone who knew anything about the girl. Then a mountainside, a dark green forest, a lake deep within it. Then nothing.

  He plunged into other dreams.

  The moon, a searchlight, lit the earth. No escaping it.

  A copper star on fire in the sky, leaning over hundreds of people running across a compound. Dogs: dark, low shadows thrusting and darting amongst the crowd. From the crowd, a little boy breaks free and runs, fear in his eyes.

  The eyes of the dogs.

  Hoffmann was looking at a flock of geese. A flock of geese had replaced the people. The noise they made was deafening, but behind it you could hear the jagged roar of an engine, and a boy screaming as dogs chase him down as they would a hare.

  Hoffmann woke up. He wondered how he'd been able to sleep, though sleep had brought no relief.

  The plane's engines throbbed.

  He was sweating. How long had he been asleep? Minutes? He couldn't have cried out, he hoped, for all was quiet around him. Kessler was hunched in his seat, his eyes closed, but his body somehow not relaxed enough for sleep. Around him, men worked at their papers, as Schiffer continued to do, or they talked quietly, smoked, drank schnapps, or slept. But what were they thinking? He had always been perplexed by the idea that you couldn't guess the thoughts even of the person lying next to you in bed, the person you'd just made love to, the old friend you were having a drink with. Experience had taught him how to sniff out lies when questioning a criminal, someone under stress; but how did you deal with the secrets of those you were supposed to trust, your intimates?

  He knew how to veil his thoughts, keep them secret.

  There had been other attempts on the Führer's life, and some had come very close to succeeding. He had been in charge of the investigations. This time, this last time, there had been a better chance than ever. People in power had wanted the assassination to succeed. The war, already lost, would have ended immediately, with some chance of negotiation with an unbeatable enemy, and no more deaths in the concentration camps.

  Hoffmann thought of the enemy. American troops and tanks pouring through the breach in France. He thought of the food they must have. How fat the Ammis were. He thought of the artificial starvation in the concentration camps. Oh, God, he thought, if we had only killed him.

  But they hadn't, they hadn't even had the balls to press home the little advantage they had, and it wasn't as if there was anything to lose. Now, people continued to go through the motions. He tried not to think of the long trains in the east, in Hungary, still rolling, taking the Jews to their deaths; and the pale officers issuing orders, unstoppable. His right hand rested on his service Walther. Why not end it now? But he knew he couldn't. He had too much to take care of.

  He looked at his watch. 0730. He stooped for his attaché case, rested it on his knee, and drew some papers from it. He hated mornings. Always, for him, these days, they were a reconfirmation of hell, though sleep and the night brought him cruel dreams.

  He would not sleep again now.

  14

  The wheels of the Junkers hit the sand of Rastenburg aerodrome an hour later. Hoffmann, ushered down a long corridor, underground, felt his throat wear dry, as it always did when he met Hitler. The man's temper had worsened with time, and, as he wasn't mad enough to believe his own propaganda, his ascending desperation made him more capricious. This time it would be worse than ever.

  But he was mistaken.

  The Chancellor, though greyer and more shrivelled - and his uniform, though well-cut, sat as always like a sack on the unhealthy, bent body it clothed - was in an expansive mood. He was jumpy, but euphoric. He was fifty-five years old. He'd cheated death for the forty-second time.

  Adolf was still taking no chances. They met in the deepest of the underground offices, those built to withstand the most powerful enemy bombs, if the bombers ever got this far. Hoffmann realised that even if the conspirators' single bomb had gone off in any one of these ninth-circle conference rooms, no-one would have survived the blast. The solid walls would have contained the shock-waves and bounced them back on the Nazi High Command.

  Hitler knew it too. 'The cunts would have got me if we'd held the meeting here.' He waved an arm at the concrete walls that encircled them. He spoke more loudly than usual on account of temporary deafness.

  Hoffmann wondered if he had in fact damaged an eardrum. His voice was hoarse, but measured. The experience had evidently knocked the stuffing out of him, and the unusual bonhomie was a reaction to it. Hitler was still in shock. They had never got this close to succeeding before. The man's hair was singed, and one side of his face was bright, shiny orange. Some kind of ointment. He smelled of 4711 cologne, though that didn't disguise his stale breath. And Brilliantine. An interesting cocktail, good scents covering bad. It was unfortunate that he chose always to stand too close. Hoffmann, watching him, and resistant, after long exposure, to the famous charisma, could see nothing but triumph dancing behind the eyes.

  'It was Providence,' the Führer continued. 'Providence that we had the conference in one of the huts. We had the builders in to reinforce the bunker.' He giggled at the workaday phrase he had used. 'Don't you think?' He didn't wait for an answer. 'Of course, they were cowards,' he plunged on. Cunting cowards! Or they would have stayed and gone up with me, seen the job done properly.'

  Hoffmann remained silent. The idiotic political monologue had yet to be endured.

  'And talking of cowards - ' Hitler had begun to pace. His back was bent, his wounded right hand clasped his left wrist behind his back. His left hand twitched, dancing in the air, as if trying to escape. It was cool down here but sweat had begun to darken the Führer's shirt as he hit his stride. Hoffmann wondered where the blow was going to fall. He wished he could sit down. He wished he had a cold schnapps in his hand. He waited.

  'Fromm,' spat Hitler. 'He was there all the time. He had command. What did he do?' He waited, turning a burning eye on Hoffmann.

  Why did everyone tremble at this fucking maniac? Why did Hoffmann himself tremble? He could reach out and break his neck, this minute. They were alone. Hitler trusted him. But Hoffmann failed himself. Why, after so long, and with so little to lose? Was it simply the fear of the torture?

  'Well? You were there! Well?'

  'They had General Fromm under arrest -'

  'Don't make excuses for him!' Hitler hit the table in the centre of the room with the flat of his hand. 'He did nothing! He allowed them to take over! And then, after you'd arrived, he had them shot!'

  'Yes -'

  'And compounded cowardice with treachery.'

  Hoffmann waited.

  'He had them shot! He took it upon himself to give them a court-martial and then shot them! Without consultation!' Another pause. Then: 'What is the punishment for high treason?'

  'Hanging.'

  'Hanging! He should have held them until he'd got an order for their formal interrogation. He should have handed them over to the SS!'

  Hoffmann knew what the hangings were like. He'd attended them often enough, in the nave-like execution chamber at Plötzensee, the guillotine - seldom used because it was too quick - to one side, like a stage property, the iron girder with its many hooks stretching from wall to wall three metres above the floor. He thought of the workmen who'd installed it. What had they thought when they were doing the job?

  It lasted twenty minutes on the one centimetre diam
eter wire, if you were lucky. Naked men twisting in front of the cameras. Who were the film-makers? Who operated those cameras? What made this whole operation work?

  'The SS were present,' Hoffmann said. Was he not one of them himself?

  'Yes, some shitty little junior officers. Except you, of course, my dear Max. But in those circumstances it was Fromm's command. No-one, not even you, with the power to countermand him!'

  'General Fromm was loyal.'

  'Then why did he order the executions? Christ, I'm surrounded by fools!' Hitler had been making a bad-tempered tour of the room. Now he came close again. Under the cologne, close to, he smelt like an unventilated room. His skin was sallow, and two deep furrows ran from the corners of his eyes. A creamy gobbet of spittle clung to the centre of his lips.

  'We are setting up an Investigative Commission. I'm giving it to Kiessel and Stawizki. I want to see how they make the rest of the traitors sing.'

  Hitler interrupted himself, changed tack. 'I want you to go over the ground here. Pick up what evidence you can. The SS collected the remains of the bomb and the briefcase it was in, but questions remain. I want this documented. How they got it in, how they primed it. I want security recommendations. Some shitfuckers around here will wish they'd never been born. Questions?'

  'I'll do as you say, Führer; but wouldn't I be of more use to you in Berlin?'

  'I'll decide where you're of use. I think Berlin's in safe enough hands. And we don't need your techniques there. We don't need scalpels there, we need bludgeons!'

  'Sir.'

  Hitler paused, closing his eyes. When he opened them again, it was as if a cloud had passed. 'Don't worry, Maxie,' he smiled. 'I'm still in one piece, and once we've got the Persian oil we'll kick the Russians in the arse - I hear dogs are more intelligent. All we have to do is hold the Americans in the west...' He trailed off. 'And we'll have you back in Berlin in a couple of days, don't worry.' He shook himself, and patted Hoffmann's arm stiffly, smiling that tight smile again, his lips thin black lines. 'You're one of my best men. Clear up here as fast as you can. I need to see how they did it. Then go back and deal with Fromm. They've arrested him. Build a case. Not too complicated, there isn't time. Just fucking throw him to the People's Court!'