‘Maybe you can kickstart Harlan's memory. I would love to know how the guy got hold of my bust of Anni Mewes. But with famous men like him who always have powerful patrons, an ex-convict like me can’t simply knock on the door and ask questions about an old prop. I never thought I would say this to a policeman, but I would be grateful if you could pop by and tell me how your conversation with the famous director went. I could sketch you while we talk.’ The artist nodded towards the pile of charcoal drawings. ‘As a little present for your wife.’
Stave felt a twinge, but he forced himself not to show it. ‘I know an art connoisseur who might be interested,’ he replied, getting up and plodding towards the door.
With the door handle already in his grip, the chief inspector turned around: something had just occurred to him. Could the corpse in the Reimershof be that of the man who had brought the bronze bust from Berlin to Hamburg? ‘Among the people who worked in the prop department for UFA, were there any Jews?’
Weber stared at him for a moment, uncomprehendingly. ‘Jews playing with Goebbels's favourite toy? Anyone wearing a yellow star wouldn’t even have been allowed to sweep the studio floor.’
Stave nodded. It would have been too easy.
There was a chalk drawing of a naked woman with huge breasts on the hood of the patrol car. The two kids were nowhere to be seen. The chief inspector calmly wiped away the drawing with his handkerchief and regretted for a moment that the car didn’t have a radio. A quick call to HQ and he would have had Harlan's address. He could have driven there, knocked on the door – and maybe unleashed a scandal. He thought back to Weber's warning that the director had powerful patrons. And it occurred to him that Harlan's wife, Kristin Söderbaum, even though she had lived in Germany for years, was still a Swede. The British were in charge in Hamburg and they wouldn’t be pleased if some pushy German CID man were to launch a complaint against a citizen of a neutral country. I need insurance, Stave told himself. MacDonald will see to it that I can tread on Harlan's toes without taking any risks. I need to talk to the lieutenant.
Even so, Stave was in no rush to take the patrol car back to the police pool. He was going to visit somebody else first. Unannounced.
It was with more than a little Schadenfreude that the chief inspector deliberately parked the Mercedes to block the driveway to the villa on Fährstrasse. He handed the housemaid his damp hat and overcoat, and sat down in the salon as if he were at home.
‘Your behaviour is impertinent,’ Dr Schramm sniffed when he stormed into the room five minutes later dressed in a dark silk housecoat.
Stave stared at him. When had he last heard that adjective? When had he last seen a silk housecoat? He felt as if he had fallen through an invisible tunnel back to pre-war days.
‘I’ve got a new lead,’ he replied. A lie. ‘About the artworks in your office building.’
‘The Reimershof was not my building. I only rented two rooms there.’
The CID man ignored his interjection. ‘It's taking me in the direction of the movies. The director Veit Harlan. I thought that you, as an art connoisseur—’
‘I’ve nothing to do with that character,’ Dr Schramm forcefully interrupted him. The hand with which he was clasping the damask-covered arm of the chair on which he sat was so tense that the skin had turned white.
‘You know him?’
‘I know his name, of course. But not personally — even if he is almost a neighbour. I wonder why the British let him off the hook, and allowed him to live in one of the best areas.’
‘One of the objects from the Reimershof was for a certain time, how shall I put it, in Herr Harlan's possession. The bronze bust of a woman.’
‘How very nice for him,’ the banker replied in a curt voice. He leaned forward. ‘I need to explain one or two things to you, Chief Inspector. While that man was directing Süss the Jew, I held on to my Jewish employees. My most trusted senior official was called Rosenthal. Just having that name on my list of salaried employees was enough to earn me a visit from certain gentlemen in leather coats. So even if Veit Harlan and I are interested in the same modern art, something that surprises me somewhat, it is still no reason for me to be linked to him. Not back then and certainly not now.’
‘The bronze bust by Toni Weber was confiscated by the Nazis sometime after 1933 as degenerate art, and displayed in the infamous exhibition of such in 1937. In the spring of 1938 it was used by Veit Harlan as a prop in one of his films — one that was shot in Berlin,’ Stave said calmly. ‘But by 1943 at the latest, the piece was being kept in an office building in Hamburg. How did it get there? Who stored it there? When I find out, then I’ll know who it belongs to. I could give it back to the legal owner. My case would be solved.’
The chief inspector wondered if he should mention to Schramm the photo with the bust in it — proof that in late 1938 the sculpture was already in Hamburg, in fact in precisely the villa where he was now sitting opposite the banker. Everything suggested that Schramm at some later stage had hidden the object in his private office rooms in the Reimershof — perhaps because the visits from the Gestapo were threatening enough for him to decide not to keep degenerate art in his home any longer. Then it fell victim to the bombing raids of 1943. Schramm only needed to confirm the story, and the bronze bust and probably the other works of art, even still worth several thousand Reichsmarks, would be returned to him, and no policeman would worry about the whole business ever again.
Don’t start imagining things, the CID man told himself. Why had Toni Weber, who had made the bronze, never mentioned a word about Schramm? And how and why would a work of art leave the hands of a Nazi film director for those of a man under suspicion by the regime? And what had the corpse, found in the ruins next to the artworks, to do with all this? Something about the story didn’t make sense – and if Schramm acknowledged the piece as his, then I would keep on his heels, keep digging, not giving him any peace. He’d already had enough to do with hard-nosed policemen of the most dangerous sort. He's not going to tell me anything.
‘There are so many unsolved cases,’ Schramm replied, ‘from 1945 onwards. This really isn’t one of the most important to scratch one's head over, I imagine. Put it in the files and give the artworks to the city of Hamburg. They’ll end up in a museum, which is where they belong.’
‘Thanks for the advice.’
‘You should take it to heart,’ the banker replied. It sounded like a threat.
Stave drove to Police Station 31, in Barmbek, only a few hundred metres away. Jewish staff, he thought to himself. Schramm had had Jewish staff, even after 1933. That was something in itself. If this had been an official enquiry he would have got access to lists of staff. Personnel files, things like that. Instead he would have to go around the houses.
The Barmbek police station had a telephone. He grabbed the receiver, worked the dial and in a few minutes found out where MacDonald was: in the British officers’ club in Volksdorf. The sergeant he had on the line spoke English to him. Slowly and loudly, as if he were speaking to a stupid child. Even so, the CID man had to ask three times before working out where the club was: Ohlendorff’sche Villa. He had heard of the place before the war, but never been there. He studied the city map in the police station and eventually found his destination right at the edge.
‘You have to say one thing for the English,’ an older cop said to him. ‘They know how to find the nicest houses, even if they are out in the sticks.’
‘You know the house?’
‘Volksdorf was part of my old beat. The Ohlendorffs used to be the most important family there. Junior princes. They made their money in business: guano dung from Peru. It's amazing how and where people can make money. And how they can lose it again. Things started to go downhill for them even before ’33, and not just in business. The youngest one was more interested in music. And he was also a freemason. The Gestapo almost certainly had a file on him. The fact that the Tommies commandeered the Ohlendorff villa was just the kiss of death for the
m.’
‘How long is it going to take me to get up there?’
‘Volksdorf was barely damaged. The roads are clear. Less than half an hour – always assuming that old Mercedes gets that far.’
‘I’ll get another thousand kilometres out of it.’ Stave muttered, gave the constable a nod of thanks and picked up the telephone receiver again to call MacDonald.
‘Old boy, I’ll invite you to lunch.’
‘Sounds like an offer I can’t refuse,’ the chief inspector replied.
The villa was a two-storey, salmon-pink lump sitting on a hill in parkland with exotic trees Stave couldn’t name. There was an archway above the door, like the entrance to a Romanesque church. To one side was a small semi-circular extension almost like a chapel. The exterior was plain, with a glass-walled salon to one side, which appeared to be the restaurant dining room. All in all, the house was the expression of a spirit that longed for the levity of the south but was born of Hanseatic sobriety. Money from bird shit. As the chief inspector walked across the parkland he passed a couple of gravestones. He assumed they were those of past owners of the house, until he read the name: it was the Ohlendorffs’ dog cemetery.
English military police, uniformed German servants, sweet cigarette smoke, ice cubes tinkling in heavy glasses. As soon as he entered the officers’ club Stave felt he had wandered on to the set of one of those adventure films set in exotic lands that had been popular before 1939. MacDonald folded up a copy of the Manchester Guardian weekly he had been reading and made a gesture to the sergeant who wasn’t going to let the German pass. The he led Stave over to a pair of broad leather armchairs with a view out on to the park. The chief inspector leaned back. There was a scent of old leather and printer's ink. A servant, a gaunt elderly man, set a glass of lemonade on the table in front of him unasked. He avoided looking at Stave. He probably regards me as a collaborator, the CID man suddenly thought.
‘Have you got the forger?’ the lieutenant whispered hopefully.
‘What I have got is a lot of questions.’
‘That's a shame. But if it had been an easy case, then an amateur like me could have solved it on my own.’ MacDonald smiled, but didn’t completely manage to hide his disappointment.
The chief inspector, who knew his British friend was with the secret service, glanced indulgently out of the window at the word ‘amateur’. ‘I’ve put a couple of Department S colleagues on to it,’ he said, ‘without spelling things out too clearly, of course. They’re looking through the department's usual suspects who have access to printers. If Toni Weber's right, the things were turned out on a printer, and a banknote printer can’t be kept upstairs – the things are too heavy. They need a large space either in a hallway, an apartment or a workshop. But living space is scarce, paper is scarce and ink is scarce. If somebody has a big piece of equipment like that set up somewhere, then sooner or later it's going to be noticed. If somebody really is using one to turn out fake banknotes then it's only a matter of time before we find the press.’
‘We might not have that much time.’
Stave looked at the man opposite him. ‘What's forcing our hand? X-day and the new currency? Or your transfer?’
‘X-day. Did you know that the majority of German company bosses have already paid their workers half a month's wages? Because they believe that the new currency will be introduced before the end of this month. People are hoarding goods. Shops have less in them than they had in the winter when they came close to starvation, because now salespeople are hiding their goods in the hope they’ll soon fetch a better price. And because nobody wants to keep the old Reichsmarks in their tills. We Allies have more or less become prisoners of you Germans: we have no option but to introduce the new currency as soon as possible. The business is slipping out of our control, we have to bring it in now.’
‘Whether there are forgeries out on the black market or not?’
‘If we can’t get our hands on the forger before X-day, we’ll have to do it afterwards. But quickly.’
‘It is, of course, a possibility that the printing press we’re looking for isn’t even in Hamburg.’
‘We’re searching everywhere throughout the British zone.’
‘What if,’ Stave hesitated for a moment, ‘the Russians have it? The Soviet zone begins just a few kilometres beyond Hamburg. It would be easy to smuggle a few forged notes across the Elbe.’
‘In that case we’ll have to bomb Moscow,’ the lieutenant replied calmly, so that Stave wasn’t sure whether or not it was a joke. The chief inspector downed his lemonade in one, because all of a sudden his throat had gone dry. ‘Is X-day tomorrow?’
‘It's not far off. I honestly can’t tell you any more,’ MacDonald replied, getting up from the armchair. ‘Come along. I’ve got a table reserved for us. An English lunch is better than people think. While we eat you can tell me about your other case, and – like any new father – I’ll tell you a few soppy stories about my daughter.’
Ten minutes later Stave was dubiously poking around a plate of lamb with mint sauce while recounting the saga of the bronze bust.
‘I want to be sure of what I’m doing before I knock on Harlan's door,’ he said in conclusion.
‘I’ll ask about it in London,’ MacDonald promised. ‘From what I know the Swedes are very embarrassed at having Kristin Söderbaum as one of theirs. The less the public read about her in the press, the more they like it. If you could keep any interview with her as discreet as possible, Stockholm's ambassador would be very satisfied.’
‘Do you want to come with me?’
‘That too is a question for my superiors. I’d be interested to meet a guy like Harlan, but as I said, discretion is the main thing that matters. I need to see if I can get permission.’
MacDonald pulled out a handful of photos from his shirt pocket: rumpled and pale around the edges from having been handled so much. Erna, smiling with a baby in her arms; Erna by the shores of the Alster, a baby on a blanket; Erna with MacDonald and a large pram between trees, maybe taken on a timer; Erna in a summer dress that made her look coquettish.
‘Little Iris is a ray of sunshine,’ Stave said. ‘And Erna looks great.’ And indeed she had put on a bit more weight than he remembered and her hair had grown. In a few of the photos it even looked as if she was wearing lipstick, something you never saw any more on German women. She looked buxom, strong, full of the joys of life. But yet he thought there was something sad in her face. Thinking of the son she no longer had custody of.
‘She's going to enchant my family back home in Lockerbie,’ the lieutenant replied, although his voice didn’t sound completely convinced. He smiled briefly, shuffled the photos together and put them back in his shirt pocket. He seemed to have something more to say, but couldn’t quite manage it.
Noise. Shouting. Clatter. The ground quaking. Stave and MacDonald spun round. The chief inspector automatically reached for his gun before remembering at the last moment that he had no authority in a British officers’ club, and that in any case he wasn’t carrying the weapon; he took a deep breath. A young captain had come into the glass-doored room from the park, on horseback. Somehow or other he had ridden the damp black steed through the double doors until he was among the tables, posing like a living statue, threateningly imposing in a room that was glassed in on all sides. His comrades cheered him and somebody handed him a whiskey glass. His steed snorted nervously and shook its head, stinking of sweat and pawing the ground with its right rear hoof.
‘Cheers!’ the captain called out, throwing the empty glass to one of his comrades. Then he tugged carefully on the reins, and slowly, bent low over the horse's neck, rode back out the door. It was like a scene from some crazy dream.
His comrades cheered noisily and shouted things in English that Stave didn’t understand. He glanced at the elderly uniformed servant, who simply stared down at the floor. The horse's hooves had left deep scratches on the ancient parquet, and there was a steaming pile of du
ng between two tables. The chief inspector watched the captain out in the park using his spurs to drive the horse to gallop away. He tried not to show any emotion.
‘The captain's name is as long as a cavalryman's sword. Old aristocracy. Great sportsman, the usual stuff.’ MacDonald said by way of explanation.
‘There's something I want to discuss. Something you certainly won’t get the permission of your superiors to look into,’ Stave said, changing the subject and dropping his voice.
‘I’m on for it.’
‘You haven’t heard what I’m asking.’
‘If it's forbidden it's fun. Some of my comrades trudge through ruined houses. I prefer to investigate what's not allowed in the company of a German policeman.’
‘I want to break into a colleague's.’
MacDonald lowered his fork. ‘His office at CID HQ or his house?’
‘CID HQ. His office. At night.’ Stave cleared his throat. ‘I did something similar last year. Nearly got found out. It would be good this time around if I had somebody to cover for me.’
‘Doesn’t exactly sound like something an officer and a gentleman should do,’ the lieutenant replied with a smile. ‘When do we start?’
‘Midnight.’
‘Perfect. Who is it we’re going to drop in on?’
‘Chief Inspector Cäsar Dönnecke of Homicide.’
MacDonald leaned back in his chair. ‘A man known to my service.’
‘People allude to Gestapo connections, but nobody has ever been able to prove anything.’
‘Something you want to change?’
‘No. All I want to know is what my colleague has found out in his current case. Or why he has done next to nothing.’ Stave put MacDonald in the picture concerning his third, secret, case.
‘Schramm the banker protected Jews. He says so himself, and Public Prosecutor Ehrlich backs him up. In those days Schramm was renting a floor in the office building. Might it have been possible for a Jew to have hidden there? Apart from anything, one of the works of art found next to the dead Jew's body had been one of the props used by a director who turned out propaganda films. Veit Harlan might have been one of the last people in the Third Reich to have entertained relations with a Jew, however obscure the connection might have been. I think that my colleague Dönnecke's official report is wrong: the deceased is no accidental victim of a bombing raid, but had something to do with the artwork. And I’d like to know whether Dönnecke — let's say unofficially — found out anything about him. Or if there was nothing about him to find out — and if that was the case, why?’
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