Some of the garments still had the price tags attached, and even the soles of the shoes were unworn. By contrast the other suitcase, which I presumed must belong to HaupthSndler himself, contained nothing that was new, except for a few toiletries. There was no diamond necklace. But lying on the dressing-table was a wallet-sized folder containing two Deutsche Lufthansa air-tickets, for the Monday evening flight to Croydon, London. The tickets were returns, and booked in the name of Herr and Frau Teichmnller.
Before leaving HaupthSndler's apartment I called the Adlon Hotel. When Hermine answered I thanked her for helping me with the Princess Mushmi story. I couldn't tell if Goering's people in the Forschungsamt had tapped the telephone yet; there were no audible clicks, nor any extra resonance in Her-mine's voice. But I knew that if they really had put a tap on HaupthSndler's telephone, then I ought to see a transcript of my conversation with Hermine later on that day. It was as good a way as any of testing the true extent of the Prime Minister's cooperation.
I left HaupthSndler's rooms and returned to the ground floor. The caretaker emerged from his office and took possession of his pass-key again.
'You will say nothing of my being here to anyone. Otherwise it will go badly for you. Is that understood?' He nodded silently. I saluted smartly, something Gestapo men never do, preferring as they do, to remain as inconspicuous as possible, but I was laying it on for the sake of effect.
'Heil Hitler,' I said.
'Heil Hitler,' repeated the caretaker, and, returning the salute, he managed to drop the keys.
'We've got until Monday night to pull this one back,' I said, sitting down at Inge's table. I explained about the air-tickets and the two suitcases. 'The funny thing was that the woman's case was full of new things.'
'Your Herr HaupthSndler sounds like he knows how to look after a girl.'
'Everything was new. The garter-belt, the handbag, the shoes. There wasn't one item in that case that looked as though it had been used before. Now what does that tell you?'
Inge shrugged. She was still slightly piqued at having been left behind. 'Maybe he's got a new job, going door-to-door, selling women's clothes.'
I raised my eyebrows.
'All right then,' she said. 'Maybe this woman that he's taking to London doesn't have any nice clothes.'
'More like, doesn't have any clothes at all,' I said. 'Rather a strange kind of woman, wouldn't you say?'
'Bernie, just you come home with me. I'll show you a woman without any clothes.'
For a brief second I entertained myself with the idea. But I went on, 'No, I'm convinced that HaupthSndler's mystery girlfriend is starting out on this trip with a completely new wardrobe, from top to toe. Like a woman with no past.'
'Or,' said Inge, 'a woman who is starting afresh.' The theory was taking shape in her mind even as she was speaking. With greater conviction, she added, 'A woman who has had to sever contact with her previous existence. A woman who couldn't go home and pick up her things, because there wasn't time. No, that can't be right. She has until Monday night after all. So perhaps she's afraid to go home, in case there's someone waiting for her there.' I nodded approvingly, and was about to develop this line of reasoning, but found that she was there ahead of me. 'Perhaps,' she said; 'this woman was Pfarr's mistress, the one the police are looking for. Vera, or Eva, I forget which.'
'HaupthSndler in this with her? Yes,' I said thoughtfully, 'that could fit.
Maybe Pfarr gives his mistress the brush-off when he finds out that his wife is pregnant. The prospect of fatherhood has been known to bring some men to their senses. But it also happens to spoil things for HaupthSndler, who might himself have had ambitions as far as Frau Pfarr was concerned. Maybe HaupthSndler and this woman Eva got together and decided to play the part of the wronged lover in tandem, so to speak and also make a little money into the bargain. It's not unlikely that Pfarr might have told Eva about his wife's jewellery.' I stood up, finishing my drink.
'Then maybe HaupthSndler is hiding Eva somewhere.'
'That makes three maybes. More than I'm used to having over lunch. Any more and I'll get sick.' I glanced at my watch. 'Come on, we can think about it some more on the way.'
'On the way where?'
'Kreuzberg.'
She levelled a well-manicured finger at me. 'And this time, I'm not being left somewhere safe while you get all the fun. Understood?'
I grinned at her, and shrugged. 'Understood.'
The Kreuzberg, the Hill of the Cross, lies to the south of the city, in Viktoria Park, near Tempelhof Airport. It's where Berlin's artists gather to sell their pictures. Just a block away from the park, Chamissoplatz is a square surrounded by high, grey, fortress-like tenements. Pension Tillessen occupied the corner of Number 17, but with its closed shutters pasted over with Party posters and K P D graffiti, it didn't look as though it had been taking guests since Bismarck grew his first moustache. I went to the front door and found it locked. Bending down, I peered through the letter-box, but there was no sign of anyone.
Next door, at the office of Heinrich Billinger, 'German' Accountant, the coalman was delivering some brown- coal briquets on what looked like a bakery tray. I asked him if he could recollect when the pension had closed. He wiped his smutty brow, and then spat as he tried to remember.
'It never was what you might call a regular pension,' he declared finally. He looked uncertainly at Inge, and choosing his words carefully, added: 'More what you might call a house of ill-repute. Not a regular out-and-out bawdy house, you understand. Just the sort of place where you used to see a snapper take her sledge. I remember as I saw some men coming out of there only a couple of weeks ago. The boss never bought coal regular like. Just the odd tray here and there.
But as to when it closed, I couldn't tell you. If it is closed, mind. Don't judge it by the way it looks. Seems to me as how it's always been in that state.'
I led Inge round the back, to a small cobbled alleyway that was lined with garages and lock-ups. Stray cats sat mangily self-contained on top of brick walls; a mattress lay abandoned in a doorway, its iron guts spilling on to the ground; someone had tried to burn it, and I was reminded of the blackened bed-frames in the forensic photographs Illmann had shown me. We stopped beside what I took to be the garage belonging to the pension and looked through the filthy window, but it was impossible to see anything.
'I'll come back for you in a minute,' I said, and clambered up the drainpipe at the side of the garage and onto the corrugated iron roof.
'See that you do,' she called.
I walked carefully across the badly rusted roof on all fours, not daring to stand up straight and concentrate all my weight on one point. At the back of the roof I looked down into a small courtyard which led on to the pension. Most of the windows in the rooms were shrouded with dirty net curtains, and there was no sign of life at any of them. I searched for a way down, but there was no drainpipe, and the wall to the adjoining property, the German accountant's, was too low to be of any use. It was fortunate that the rear of the pension obscured the view to the garage of anyone who might have chanced to look up from poring over a dull set of accounts. There was no choice but to jump, although it was a height of over four metres. I made it, but it left the soles of my feet stinging for minutes afterwards, as if they had been beaten with a length of rubber hosing. The back door to the garage was not locked and, but for a pile of old car tyres, it was empty. I unbolted the double doors and admitted Inge. Then I bolted them again. For a moment we stood in silence, looking at each other in the half darkness, and I nearly let myself kiss her. But there are better places to kiss a pretty girl than a disused garage in Kreuzberg.
We crossed the yard, and when we came to the back door of the pension, I tried the handle. The door stayed shut.
'Now what?' said Inge. 'A lock-pick? A skeleton key?'
'Something like that,' I said, and kicked the door in.
'Very subtle,' she said, watching the door swing open on its hinges. 'I assume you've decided that there's nobody here.'
I grinned at her. 'When I looked through the letter-box I saw a pile of unopened mail on the mat.' I went in. She hesitated long enough for me to look back at her. 'It's all right. There's nobody here. Hasn't been for some time, I'd bet.'
'So what are we doing here?'
'We're having a look around, that's all.'
