Some fifteen Hitler Youth were entering the hall from the back and spreading out along the walls to both sides. Short hair; clean, hard faces. Brown shorts with daggers hanging from their belts.
‘Change the music,’ the one in the lead yelled, waving at the stage. ‘Hey you. Change the music.’
‘I’ll say goodbye,’ Friedl said, his voice tight.
Denham embraced him. Good luck.
‘Find Liebermann.’
He turned and pushed his way along the bar to the corner of the floor, slipped behind the stage curtain, and was gone.
The pianist struck up a halfhearted tango to whistles and jeers. ‘Not kosher!’ someone shouted.
Suddenly a lit cigarette was thrown at the Hitler Youth leader. He recoiled, his fingers frantically brushing the bright embers from his shirt; then he lunged in the direction it had come from, fist raised. The brawl began instantly.
Denham found Eleanor. ‘Time to go,’ he said, taking her hand and leading her towards the foyer.
Seconds later they were through to the street.
Behind them came shouting and the sound of a glass smashing.
Eleanor said, ‘You don’t think there’ll be serious trouble, do you?’
‘Probably not. One gang of kids fighting another. They’ll all scramble before the Orpo get there. Those Hitler Youth were probably just looking for girls.’
He told her about Friedl’s tip-off and his escape into hiding.
‘Do you think he’ll be okay?’
Denham said nothing.
A tram clattered over the carriageway. They meandered hand in hand down a deserted street. Denham had no particular destination in mind. The buildings were ornate, shuttered, and heavy, like old safe boxes. The air was still warm, carrying the sound of a far-off train whistle sighing into the night.
‘I’ve had a great time,’ Eleanor said.
Before them the cobblestones glinted like mackerel scales, and in one of the trees around the streetlamps a nightingale trilled, answered a moment later by another in a nearby street.
They turned and faced each other. Her eyes were swimming in the moonlight, her lips parted a little, her breath short.
They kissed slowly, her tongue hesitant, then insistent, his hands clasping her to him. It had been a long time since he’d held a woman who appealed to him for reasons beyond base need. For a few moments he was lost in her. But then an old demon breathed in his ear and he released her.
‘What is it?’ she whispered.
‘You’re a married woman,’ he said, ‘and I’m a lost cause.’
‘Aren’t lost causes the ones worth fighting for?’ she said quietly.
They embraced again, her warm cheek resting on his neck, and stood still for a few moments, rocking very gently, when she gave a sharp cry and jumped away, sending Denham’s heart into his mouth.
The shriek echoed off the dark buildings. Her eyes were locked on a point over his shoulder.
‘What?’
‘Goddamn it, he’s there,’ she said, pointing to the darkness beneath the trees.
Denham could see nothing.
Then from out of the shadows the figure in the black trilby came quickly towards them.
‘Who are you?’ Denham shouted in German.
‘Please…,’ said a young man’s voice. ‘Don’t run again.’
He stepped into the light of a streetlamp, took off his hat, and Denham recognised him. The mutilated eye and stitched-up cheek glistened.
‘I want to talk to you…’ The young man’s voice was quick and rattled. ‘My name is Roland Liebermann. I’m-’
‘I know who you are,’ said Denham. ‘Relax, son, it’s all right. You gave us a fright, that’s all. How did you find us?’
‘Hannah told me about you while you were in the changing room with that official,’ he said in a hoarse voice. ‘She asked me to follow you, but I couldn’t risk approaching you in public… if they’d seen me talking to you, well…’ He shrugged. ‘I found you again as you left the stadium and, lucky for me, you took a taxi. I jumped in one and followed you home. Taxis are safe for me.’
‘Walk with us awhile,’ said Denham.
Roland Liebermann glanced down the still street. A light had come on in a nearby window, and now there was movement behind a curtain.
‘There will be a Portierfrau with a telephone in every building along here,’ he said. ‘ It’s too dangerous. I must go. My sister said we could trust you, and, if I found you, to ask if you will come to us-tomorrow.’
‘I’ll come,’ said Denham.
‘We live at Winklerstrasse 80, in Grunewald. Will you remember that?’
‘Winklerstrasse 80.’
‘Gnadiges Fraulein,’ Roland continued, turning to Eleanor but still speaking in German. ‘I’m sorry I scared you. Tomorrow then,’ he said to them both. ‘But please, don’t let anyone see you approach our house.’
Denham extended his hand to Roland. He hesitated, but then shook it firmly, before pulling the brim of his hat down and turning away. They watched him disappear up the street, darting through the shadows under the trees.
‘I understood enough of that to know you’re going to see Liebermann,’ Eleanor said. ‘And this time I’m coming with you. No arguments. What’s the matter?’
Denham was looking down at the hand he’d just shaken with Roland Liebermann.
‘He had no index or middle finger.’
T he hallway in Kopischstrasse was in darkness when Denham got home. Inside Frau Stumpf’s apartment a clock chimed twice. Exhausted, he climbed the stairs, intending to fall straight into bed. He opened the door warily but found no sign of another forced entry. On the floor in front of him, though, was a telegram, which Frau Stumpf must have slipped under the door.
It was from Anna, asking him to call immediately.
A bud of anxiety popped into his stomach. He had a cordial friendship with his former wife, but they both knew that Tom was the only reason they kept in touch. Had something happened to him?
He picked up the telephone before his imagination ran riot, got through to the exchange at Charlottenburg, and placed an urgent long-distance call. Within seconds the operator called him back with the connection.
‘Richard?’ Her voice sounded strained. ‘I’ve been trying to reach you since early this morning. There’s been no answer…’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s Tom…’ Anna’s voice wobbled. Behind the hiss and crackle on the line he heard her crying. ‘He’s disappeared.’
Chapter Sixteen
Denham pictured his former wife as he usually did: lying under a quilt, clutching the handset of the bedside telephone. She was prone to tension headaches and retreated to her bed when vexed, her face pallid beneath her dark hair. Denham waited for her to stop crying, and then asked her to explain.
‘You see, on Monday evening I had some important news for Tom. Walter, the friend I’m sure I’ve told you about, has asked me to marry him-yes-and I thought Tom would be pleased. He’s so good to him, Walter is, but anyway I’m afraid Tom took the news rather badly.’
‘Oh.’
‘I asked him to shake hands with Walter in the drawing room, but he was beastly about it, so I told him to apologise and he wouldn’t, so I sent him straight to bed, and-’ She broke off and began crying again. ‘And now he’s
