She nodded. 'Paul was very determined,' she said, distractedly. 'At such times, he could be quite ruthless, you know.'
'I don't doubt it.'
'There is a department in the Gestapo at Prinz Albrecht Strasse, which deals with associations, clubs and the D A F. Paul persuaded them to issue a red tab on Von Greis, so that he could be arrested immediately. Not only that, but they saw to it that Von Greis was picked up by Alarm Command, and taken to Gestapo headquarters.'
'What is Alarm Command exactly?' I said.
'Killers.' She shook her head. 'You wouldn't want to fall into their hands.
Their brief was to scare Von Greis: to scare him badly enough to convince him that Himmler was more powerful than Goering, that he should fear the Gestapo before he should fear the Prime Minister. After all, hadn't Himmler taken control of the Gestapo away from Goering in the first place? And then there was the case of Goering's former chief of Gestapo, Diels, being sold down the river by his former master. They said all of these things to Von Greis. They told him that the same would happen to him, and that his only chance was to cooperate, otherwise he would find himself facing the displeasure of the ReichsFuhrer S S.
That would mean a K Z for sure. Of course, Von Greis was convinced. What man in their hands would not have been? He gave Paul everything he had. Paul took possession of a number of documents which he spent several evenings examining at home. And then he was killed.'
'And the documents were stolen.'
'Yes.'
'Do you know something of what was in these documents?'
'Not in any detail. I never saw them myself. I only know what he told me. He said that they proved beyond all shadow of a doubt, that Six was in bed with organized crime.'
At the gun Jesse Owens was away to a good start, and by the first thirty metres he was powering fluently into a clear lead. In the seat next to me the matron was on her feet again. She had been wrong, I thought, to describe Owens as a gazelle. Watching the tall, graceful negro accelerate down the track, making a mockery of crackpot theories of Aryan superiority, I thought that Owens was nothing so much as a Man, for whom other men were simply a painful embarrassment. To run like that was the meaning of the earth, and if ever there was a master-race it was certainly not going to exclude someone like Jesse Owens. His victory drew a tremendous cheer from the German crowd, and I found it comforting that the only race they were shouting about was the one they had just seen. Perhaps, I thought, Germany did not want to go to war after all. I looked towards that part of the stadium that was reserved for Hitler and other senior Party officials, to see if they were present to witness the depth of popular sentiment being demonstrated on behalf of the black American. But of the leaders of the Third Reich there was still no sign.
I thanked Marlene for coming, and then left the stadium. On the taxi-ride south towards the lakes, I spared a thought for poor Gerhard Von Greis. Picked up and terrified by the Gestapo, only to be released and almost immediately picked up, tortured and killed by Red Dieter's men. Now that's what I call unlucky.
We crossed Wannsee Bridge, and drove along the coast. A black sign at the head of the beach said, 'No Jews Here', which prompted the taxi-driver to an observation. 'That's a fucking laugh, eh? No Jews Here. There's nobody here.
Not with weather like this there isn't.' He uttered a derisive laugh for his own benefit.
Opposite the Swedish Pavilion restaurant a few die-hards still entertained hopes of the weather improving. The taxi-driver continued to pour scorn on them and the German weather as he turned into Koblanck Strasse, and then down Lindenstrasse. I told him to pull up on the corner of Hugo-Vogel Strasse.
It was a quiet, well-ordered and leafy suburb consisting of medium to large-sized houses, with neat front lawns and well-clipped hedges. I spotted my car parked on the pavement, but could see no sign of Inge. I looked around anxiously for her while I waited for my change. Feeling something was wrong, I managed to over-tip the driver, who responded by asking me if I wanted him to wait. I shook my head, and then stepped back as he roared off down the road. I walked down towards my car, which was parked about thirty metres down the road from HaupthSndler's address. I checked the door. It wasn't locked, so I sat inside and waited a while, hoping that she might come back. I put the desk diary that Marlene Sahm had given me inside the glove-box, and then felt around under the seat for the gun I kept there. Putting it into my coat pocket, I got out of the car.
The address I had was a dirty-brown, two-storey affair with a run-down, dilapidated look about it. The paint was peeling from the closed shutters, and there was a 'For Sale' sign in the garden. The place looked as though it hadn't been occupied in a long time. Just the kind of place you'd choose to hide out in. A patchy lawn surrounded the house, and a short wall separated it from the pavement, on which a bright blue Adler was parked, facing downhill. I stepped over the wall, and went round the side, stepping carefully over a rusting lawnmower and ducking under a tree. Near the back corner of the house I took out the Walther and pulled back the slide to load the chamber and cock the weapon.
Bent almost double, I crept along beneath the level of the window, to the back door, which was slightly ajar. From somewhere inside the bungalow I could hear the sound of muffled voices. I pushed the door open with the muzzle of my gun and my eyes fell upon a trail of blood on the kitchen floor. I walked quietly inside, my stomach falling uncomfortably away beneath me like a coin dropped down a well, worried that Inge might have decided to take a look around on her own and been hurt, or worse. I took a deep breath and pressed the cold steel of the automatic against my cheek. The chill of it ran through the whole of my face, down the nape of my neck and into my soul. I bent down in front of the kitchen door to look through the keyhole. On the other side of the door was an empty, uncarpeted hallway and several closed doors, I turned the handle.
The voices were coming from a room at the front of the house and were clear enough for me to identify them as belonging to HaupthSndler and Jeschonnek.
After a couple of minutes there was a woman's voice too, and for a moment I thought it was Inge's, until I heard this woman laugh. Now that I was more impatient to know what had become of Inge than I was to recover Six's stolen diamonds and collect the reward, I decided that it was time I confronted the three of them. I'd heard enough to indicate that they weren't expecting any trouble, but as I came through the door, I fired a shot over their heads in case they were in the mood to try something.
'Stay exactly where you are,' I said, feeling that I'd given them plenty of warning, and thinking that only a fool would pull a gun now. Gert Jeschonnek was just such a fool. It's difficult at the best of times to hit a moving target, especially one that's shooting back. My first concern was to stop him, and I wasn't particular how I did it. As it turned out, I stopped him dead. I could have wished not to have hit him in the head, only I wasn't given the opportunity. Having succeeded in killing one man, I now had the other to worry about, because by this time HaupthSndler was on me, and wrestling for my gun. As we fell to the floor, he yelled to the girl who was standing lamely by the fireplace to get the gun. He meant the one which had fallen from Jeschonnek's hand when I blew his brains out, but for a moment the girl wasn't sure which gun it was that she was supposed to go for, mine or the one on the floor. She hesitated long enough for her lover to repeat himself, and in the same instant I broke free of his grasp and whipped the Walther across his face. It was a powerful backhand that had the follow-through of a match-winning tennis stroke, and it sent him sprawling, unconscious, against the wall. I turned to see the girl picking up Jeschonnek's gun. It was no time for chivalry, but then I didn't want to shoot her either. Instead I stepped smartly forward, and socked her on the jaw.
With Jeschonnek's gun safely in my coat pocket, I bent down to take a look at him. You didn't have to be an undertaker to see that he was dead. There are neater ways of cleaning a man's ears than a 9 mm bullet. I fumbled a cigarette into my dry mouth and sat down at the table to wait for HaupthSndler and the girl to come round. I pulled the smoke through clenched teeth, kippering my lungs, and hardly exhaling at all, except in small nervous puffs. I felt like someone was playing the guitar with my insides.
The room was barely furnished, with only a threadbare sofa, a table and a couple of chairs. On the table, lying on a square of felt, was Six's necklace. I threw the cigarette away, and tugged the diamonds towards me. The stones, clacking together like a handful of marbles, felt cold and heavy in my hand. It was hard to imagine a woman wearing them: they looked about as comfortable as a canteen of cutlery. Next to the table was a briefcase. I picked it up and looked inside.
It was full of money dollars and sterling as I had expected and two fake passports in the names of a Herr and Frau Rolf Teichmnller, the names that I had seen on the air-tickets in HaupthSndler's apartment. They were good
