Yvonne Delluc.
He had made a note of the name. Then struck it out. She was one of the survivors of Oradour. And he had seen the name before, in Maschke’s card index. The card index in which the vice squad man had noted all the names of his ladies of the night and their pimps. He could see it in his mind’s eye now as clearly as if he had just crept into his colleague’s office an hour ago.
‘Yvonne Delluc. Has family here.’
A Frenchwoman. And a survivor of Oradour. An earring from a Parisian jeweller. Stave had no idea what else she might have lost along the banks of the Elbe. But it was no wonder nobody had come forward to identify her. Not one of her neighbours. Not one of the British. None of the DPs – who were in any case former forced labour workers or former concentration camp inmates, whereas the survivors of Oradour were normal French citizens from the provinces. Nobody had dragged them to Hamburg.
‘Has family here,’ the note Maschke/Herthge had made. Somehow or other the Oradour survivor had bumped into the only surviving Oradour killer, and he had taken a note of her name. And the fact that she had other family here.
Could Yvonne Delluc have been the young woman? Or the older woman? Or even the child? Stave would find out. Maybe.
He put his foot down, the engine roared, the tyres squealed as he turned yet another bend.
How would he have come across Yvonne Delluc? By chance, when he had been looking for witnesses along the Reeperbahn, one of the hookers had mentioned that one of the vice squad men seemed a bit over-keen – to the extent that he accused ordinary harmless women of being prostitutes. Could that have been how he came across Yvonne Delluc? An elegant woman, not someone worn and haggard, a woman with a French name. Lots of prostitutes used French names, but in this case it happened to be her real name. Maschke might have thought he was checking out a whore and suddenly realised he was dealing with one of the witnesses of the massacre he had taken part in. At which point he kills her. And then, just to be sure, wipes out the rest of her family.
Then he volunteers to join the investigation, just to keep tabs on it. So that he can do what he has to if suspicion points to him: plant false evidence or at least know in advance when it was time to disappear.
‘One Peter, One Peter, please call in.’
The voice over the radio caused Stave to flinch. Keeping his eyes on the road he thumped the radio furiously until it stopped.
The brakes screeched and the vehicle came to a shuddering halt. Stave leapt out of the car. There before him was the dark sinister bulk of the Eilbek bunker.
The chief inspector threw open the steel door and climbed the stairs to the first inhabited floor, dashing past the wooden partitions. The air was clammier than it had been on his first visit two months ago, warmer now, but mouldy and stuffy. The same ripped oilskin jackets hung at the entrance.
Stave sighed with relief: it meant Anton Thuman was still alive. He stomped into the man’s little cubicle. The old seaman sprang to his feet and had put up his fists before recognising him.
‘There are more polite ways of announcing one’s presence, Herr Commissar,’ he shouted at him, keeping his fists up.
The chief inspector managed, just, to control his anger. What angst he might have been spared if this man had just spoken up. One of the first witnesses he had spoken to, the day after they had discovered the first body! The young woman. He had mentioned a French family in the next cubicle who had been taken away by a policeman the day before. A policeman!
Stave reached into his jacket. Thuman’s eyes opened wide.
‘Don’t shoot!’ he called out.
The chief inspector ignored his pleas, and instead pulled out the photographs of the victims. Thuman, obviously relieved, put down his fists. Stave handed the photos to him, his hand shaking with anger.
‘The people who lived next door,’ the old seaman said indifferently. ‘The French.’
The chief inspector closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Why did you not report this to the police ages ago?’ he said, trying hard to keep calm.
‘Why should I have?’
‘Did you not see the posters all over the city?’ Stave asked, incredulously.
Thuman stared with empty eyes at the partition wall. ‘I hardly ever leave here. And if I do, I don’t look at stuff like that. In any case, I can’t read. Never learned to. Never needed to.’
Stave leant back against the wooden planks and ran his hand over his eyes.
‘Do you know what the family next door were called?’
‘We were never introduced.’
‘Delluc?’
‘Maybe. Maybe not.’
‘Can you describe the family to me? How many of them were there? Men, women, children?’
‘An old guy who walked with a stick. Two women, ladies, if you know what I mean. One of them young and pretty but a bit cheeky. The other was also pretty, but a bit older. And a kid.’
‘A little girl?’
‘How old?’
‘No idea. I don’t have children. Small, though.’
The chief inspector sighed. Thuman’s hardly going to be a great witness in court, he sighed.
‘More like six? Or more like 14?’
‘More like six.’
‘Any more members of the family?’
‘Just those four in the photographs. As far as I know.’
Stave pulled out one more photograph. From Maschke’s personnel file.
‘Is this the policeman who took the family away?’
‘That’s him. Filled the place with smoke, but didn’t offer me a single Lucky Strike. Arrogant bastard.’
‘Did the family go with him willingly?’
‘Whoever goes willingly with the police?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They both looked unhappy. But the policeman didn’t have to act tough. No handcuffs, no truncheon. Didn’t go around shouting at people.’
‘Both?’
‘The older woman and the little girl. Neither of the others were there at the time. But they never came back either.’
‘Is their cubicle occupied again?’
‘Yes, but I don’t know their name.’
‘Doesn’t matter. But are any of the French family’s possessions still there?’
Thuman looked at the ground. ‘No, everything’s gone,’ he mumbled.
‘Gone? Did the policeman take their stuff?’
‘No, when the French lot didn’t come back after a few days, a few lads from upstairs came down and snaffled all their stuff.’
‘Go the police headquarters on Karl-Muck Platz, and ask for Inspector Müller. He’ll take your statement.’
‘Why aren’t you coming with me?’
‘Because I have other things to take care of.’
‘And what if I don’t go?’
‘Then you’ll end up in a hole that’ll make this bunker look like a luxury hotel.’
Stave sped through the city. I just hope they’re not already out looking for this car, he thought. And I hope there’s enough fuel in the tank.
It took him more than an hour to get to the Warburg Children’s Health Home. He screeched to a halt before the gates, almost crashing into them, and parped his horn. The young man who had opened the gates for him before came running out.
‘What do you think you’re doing? We have children here,’ he remonstrated. But he opened the gates all the same.
‘I know,’ said Stave. ‘It’s one of them I’m here to see,’ and he put his foot down, and roared off up the drive sending gravel flying on either side.
Thérèse Dubois had been standing by the window of the veranda watching him, and opened the door a few seconds later.
‘You’ve caught him!’ she said.
‘I need to speak to Anouk Magaldi,’ Stave replied.
Five minutes later he was showing the girl the photos of the four victims. On his last two visits he hadn’t dared show the photos to the child.
And the warden had told
him that the young children never left the villa grounds. So there would have been no way Anouk Magaldi could have seen the posters.
The little girl studied the photos, slowly, one by one. She looked sad but not particularly interested by the first three. Stave’s pulse raced. When he showed her the fourth, she flinched, and stared at it with tears in her eyes. It was the photo of the younger woman.
‘Mademoiselle Delluc,’ the little girl whispered.
The chief inspector sighed with relief and leaned back in the wicker chair.
‘An Oradour survivor?’ Thérèse Dubois asked.
‘Who finally met her murderer in Hamburg,’ Stave replied.
‘Your colleague?’
He nodded wearily. ‘My colleague, who joined the police under a false name. My colleague, who used to be an SS man and was probably the only surviving member of the brigade that committed the massacre. And here in Hamburg he came across a victim of his crime. He strangled her to eliminate a witness who could have landed him in court. Then stripped her naked so that nobody could identify her.’
‘What about the other three victims?’
Stave asked Anouk Magaldi, who told him that she had never seen any of Yvonne Delluc’s three relatives before. The young woman herself had not even been from Oradour. She had just been staying with friends. Her family had lived elsewhere.
‘Possibly in Paris,’ Stave murmured, thinking of the earrings. Then he remembered the medallions and showed the little girl a photo of one. She beamed at him, put her hand to her neck and from under her jumper pulled out an identical one.
Stave looked at the girl, then down at the little medallion in her hand, and muttered: ‘I was so close. So close, so often.’
Then he pulled himself together, and said, ‘What does it mean, the cross and two daggers?’
She answered, speaking fast, with pride in her voice. Thérèse Dubois translated. ‘It’s the coat of arms of Oradour. Don’t ask me what the symbols stand for, but the few survivors all wear it, and their relatives too. In memory.’
‘Their relatives too,’ the chief inspector noted, with satisfaction. ‘At last I have everything I need. Can she tell me anything more about Yvonne Delluc? If she had a job? If she was married? If she had children?’
Anouk Magaldi thought, then shook her head, smiled and said, ‘Elle est Juive, comme moi.’
‘A Jew, like me,’ the warden translated. ‘Why would a Jew who had escaped a massacre come to the country of those who committed it?’ she asked.
‘I’m afraid I have no answer for that,’ Stave said grimly. ‘But be patient. In time all the details will come out. In the next trial at the Curio House.’
It was lunchtime. Stave hoped Erhlich wouldn’t be out at some restaurant or in one of the British officers’ clubs. He had a few interesting things to put before the public prosecutor. He was in luck and before long was sitting at the prosecutor’s desk, the man’s eyes behind his thick glasses upon him.
Stave recounted the previous life of Lothar Maschke, whose real name was Hans Herthge and who had been in an SS Panzergrenadier unit. He told him about the little orphan in the children’s home in Warburg, and about the map he had found in Maschke’s desk, without going into detail about how the map came to be in his hands.
Ehrlich just nodded, clearly recalling that night they had bumped into one another in the vice squad man’s office. Next to the map Stave laid the Search Office’s index card with Maschke’s name on it. He told him about the coat of arms of the village of Oradour and the medallions found on two of the victims, about the Paris jeweller, about the illiterate seaman in the bunker who paid no attention to posters because he couldn’t read what was written on them, and wasn’t surprised when a family living next door to him simply disappeared. A French family.
Ehrlich listened to him patiently, then smiled and polished his glasses. ‘So what is your version of the chain of events?’
‘Herthge alias Maschke bumps into Yvonne Delluc in Hamburg. I have no idea if he realised straight away that she was a survivor of Oradour. Or if it was her who recognised him and confronted him. Nor have I any idea what this young woman and the other members of her family were doing in our city. Nor do I know what relationship they bore to one another.
‘But they meet, and Herthge/Maschke realises she could send him to the gallows, and so he kills her. Probably not when they first meet. Maybe he runs off. Or maybe she doesn’t recognise him straight away. Or maybe he kidnaps her and holds her prisoner. Either way he has time enough to make a note of her name on his index card and the fact that she had relatives here. He obviously worked that out one way or another.
‘He’s also careful, methodical. He waits until he knows more about Yvonne Delluc’s circumstances, then he strikes, mercilessly, eliminating all the evidence. He murders Yvonne Delluc somewhere in the city and hides her body in the ruins. How he got her body there I still don’t know. Then he lies in wait for the old man and when he finds him, murders him on the spot. Maybe he found out he always took the same route. Then finally, on some pretext or other, he lures the other woman and child out of the bunker. They probably have no idea what’s going on, they weren’t in Oradour. Once they’re out of the Eilbek bunker, he kills them and dumps their bodies. It’s not impossible that he got hold of a police vehicle and used it to transport them to near where we later found them, and then dumped them in the ruins when the moment was right.
‘What did he have to worry about? Yvonne Delluc and her family had only been living in the bunker for a few weeks. Bunker folk don’t bother much with their neighbours. There’s a good chance nobody in the bunker would remember them. And there didn’t seem to be anybody else here in Hamburg who knew them. The little girl didn’t go to school, which is why all our efforts to pursue that line of enquiry led nowhere. They weren’t entitled to ration cards. There was no doctor here who had ever treated any of them, nor anywhere else in the former Reich. We should have been looking in France, but how could we have known that?
‘As soon as we found the first body, Herthge/Maschke volunteered to join the investigation, so that he could keep an eye on things. He knew we would find the other victims and that it would make waves. What he didn’t know was that in his haste to strip and loot his victims he had overlooked a couple of things. Nor did he know that there was another Oradour survivor living in Hamburg, one who would finally put me on his tail.’
‘Does Herthge still have no idea, or does he suspect you’re on to him?’
‘Unfortunately,’ Stave said, ‘I’ve sent Maschke, alias Herthge, off on his travels, on the rubble murderer case. He’s supposed to be going round the whole of northern Germany talking to doctors to find a lead. I only learned of his double identity after he was already on the road. Up until some four weeks or so ago, he had been calling the office intermittently. But not since then.’
‘Have you sent out word to other police stations?’ Ehrlich asked.
‘Discreetly. Make it seem we’re looking for Maschke because we’re worried something’s happened to him. Not that we want to arrest him.’
‘Time to change that. Send out an arrest warrant for him.’
Ehrlich sat back in his chair, looking happily at the detective.
‘You have had him under suspicion for some time?’ Stave said.
The public prosecutor smiled. ‘You think that was why I wanted to pay a visit to his office? Indeed, there had been hints: reports from other SS members who – faced with the gallows or a life sentence – were willing to grass on their former comrades. In circumstances like that, you can do yourself a bit of good. And there were always rumours when someone or other had gone under cover and taken a new identity. Maschke’s name came up, and when I realised he was a policeman, my ears pricked up. But there was no SS man of this name in any of the files. I guessed, therefore, that Lothar Maschke had to be a false identity and that he had served in the SS under another name. I had no idea what that name might have been, no
r in which unit he might have served. I can hardly wait to ask Herthge himself these questions. In court. I am deeply indebted to you.’
‘Then perhaps you can do me two favours,’ Stave replied.
The public prosecutor raised an eyebrow. ‘What might they be?’
‘First of all, call Cuddel Breuer and explain to him why I borrowed the Mercedes.’
‘Borrowed,’ Erhlich repeated, with a laugh. ‘I would be willing to bet the Head of CID has never heard the public prosecutor use that word as a euphemism for car theft. My pleasure. And the second favour?’
‘I want to know who the other victims were. It might not make any difference. When you’re dead, you’re dead. But I feel somehow better if there are names. Then at least their names survive.’
‘I agree,’ said Ehrlich.
A brief telephone call later and Ehrlich gave Stave a reassuring wink.
‘Your boss just wants to know if you got any dents in his Mercedes. But he’s very pleased with our news. He reckons that wrapping up the rubble murderer case is a good end to the winter.’
His next conversation took a lot longer. The public prosecutor spoke French fluently, albeit with a thick accent, Stave noted. He kept nodding, making notes, raised an eyebrow in surprise at one point. He’s not liking what he’s hearing, the chief inspector noted. I hope there are no problems. Not now.
Eventually Ehrlich put the phone down.
‘The Dellucs were Jewish,’ he said.
‘I already know that.’
‘Many members of the family were deported. The others went into hiding, three in Paris and one in Oradour.’
‘Yvonne Delluc.’
‘The grandfather of the family, René Delluc, had friends who stood by him, even in hard times. He went into hiding in Paris. He had a son and a daughter. The son was deported, but his daughter, Georgette, went into hiding with him.’
‘The older woman, the one who had had the operation.’
Ehrlich nodded. ‘She was the aunt of the little girl, Sarah. And also of Yvonne. Sarah and Yvonne were sisters, the daughters of the son who had been deported.’
The Murderer in Ruins Page 28