threateningly. ‘Where’s your uniform? You look like a fucking tramp.’ It hurt Gunther that the man didn’t realize they were twins.
‘He’s my brother,’ Hans said. ‘He’s just travelled back from England.’
The man shone a torch in Gunther’s face. ‘All right, Hoth. But he’s your responsibility.’
Gunther and Hans joined a trail of men and boys walking down the path, talking excitedly, lighting the way with their bicycle lamps. They came to the little lake. Tall torches in braziers had been lit on the shore, a boy watching each to make sure the flames stayed under control in the dry forest. There were about two hundred people there. Hans said, ‘I’ve got to get my lads lined up. There’s a speaker coming from Berlin. Just stand somewhere on the side and watch. Don’t sit down,’ he added. ‘That would be disrespectful.’
Gunther watched as Hans organized two dozen boys efficiently into straight lines. They stood to attention on the shore. At a command everyone fell completely silent. Gunther could hear the wood crackling in the branches. The scene was beautiful and dramatic: the torchlight, the uniformed men still in their silent lines before the calm moonlit lake, the forest behind. Gunther felt a shiver of excitement. Then four Brownshirts walked out of the trees, accompanied by a tall, slim young man in black uniform. He had light blond hair and an extraordinary, long face, ascetic with a proud beak of a nose and a wide, full mouth that somehow spoke of strength and immense firmness. He stood beside a torch, back to the forest, facing the assembly. He was introduced as National Comrade Heydrich from Berlin, recently appointed to the Leader’s personal guard.
Heydrich began speaking, in a confident, penetrating voice. He said, ‘Sixteen years ago, in 1914, in a forest not far from here, Germany fought and won a great battle. Russia had invaded us, they were set to conquer and destroy us. But at the Battle of Tannenberg we threw them back. We destroyed their army. The few Russian survivors ran away. Germany suffered 20,000 casualties; brave men many of whose bones lie in these forests, in the German soil they defended.
Heydrich spoke of the surrender by Socialist German politicians at the end of the War, the destruction of the German economy by the Allies, the Depression, the dithering bourgeois parties and the growing Marxist threat. He spoke of a new Germany to be built on the ruins. He had taken a military stance, hands behind his back, his voice growing more insistent. ‘We shall prevail, because greatness is Germany’s destiny; that is the lesson of history, clear to all who read it. A legacy handed down by our ancestors who first settled these forests, the heroic Teutonic Knights.’ Gunther suddenly thought, I’ve spent years studying English history. But what about my history, Germany’s history? Have I wasted all this time?
Heydrich raised a slim hand, pointing at the ranks before him. ‘But if we are to fulfil our mission we must be alert, aware of the enemies within and outside the Reich! It will take years to beat them down but we shall do it. The French, the Socialists, the Catholics with their masters in Rome, the Communists with their masters in Russia. And the masters of them all, the controlling hand, the enemy within and without. The Jews.’
Gunther hadn’t thought about the old Jew he had seen in the alley for years but he remembered now.
Heydrich fell silent. Gunther glanced over at Hans to see him looking back at him. His twin smiled and nodded. At a signal, the Brown shirts began singing, their clear young voices echoing across the lake:
As he listened, Gunther thought, Now I can be proud to be German again.
He woke with a grunt. Sitting there, thinking back, he had fallen asleep. He looked at the clock; the Englishman would be here in half an hour. He was hungry. He walked into the kitchen and, sitting at the little table, ate some bread and sausage. Then he went back to the bedroom and took some fresh clothes from his case. He looked at himself in the mirror, the sagging features and protruding belly. He was letting himself go, had been ever since his marriage broke up. His wife came from a police family, too, but even so she had never been able to adjust to Gunther’s irregular hours. She had loathed England during his posting there. Back in Germany she hadn’t liked his new work either, finding the remaining Jews and the networks that harboured them. ‘I know they must be resettled,’ she had said, ‘but I don’t like the idea of you hunting people out, hounding them.’
‘If you accept they should all be resettled in the East, what would you have us do?’
‘I don’t know. But I don’t want you talking about it in front of our son.’
It was then that he had realized she disapproved of him. As though she could understand the things he had to do. Even in his early days in the police, hunting down ordinary thieves and murderers, you had to be hard – especially in those last disordered days of Weimar. And it was the same with the Jews, you couldn’t eliminate the threat with softness. He had visited the ghettos in the East on training courses, seen what the Jews were like when they were forced to live together – filthy and stinking, fawning around the Germans in charge. Vermin that had to go. It was hard and unpleasant but necessary, as Hans had said.
He remembered when an informer had put him onto someone he said was Jewish. He had picked up the suspect, and later heard he had died under interrogation. Then he learned it was all a mistake, the dead man hadn’t been Jewish at all, the informer was carrying out a personal vendetta. It had saddened and angered him, but in war sometimes the innocent died too.
He didn’t miss his wife any more, but he missed his son every day. Michael was eleven now. He hadn’t seen him for a year. He turned away from the mirror. He felt, as so often, that somewhere deep inside he didn’t measure up. Least of all to his dead brother. He remembered Hans’ enthusiasm, his energy, his purity.
Syme was ten minutes late, which annoyed Gunther. When he answered the doorbell he saw a tall, thin man in his mid-thirties, wearing a heavy overcoat and a fedora. He had a lean, clever face full of cheerful, eager malice, and keen brown eyes.
‘Herr Hoth?’ The man extended a long, thin hand, with a friendly, confident smile. ‘William Syme, London Special Branch.’ Gunther shook his hand and ushered him in. He took his coat. Underneath Syme wore a sharp, expensive suit, a white shirt and a silk tie. It was secured with a gold tiepin, in the middle a black circle with a single pointed white flash, the emblem of the British Fascists. ‘I hear you flew over from Berlin today,’ Syme said, in a cheerful friendly voice.
‘Yes. Please, sit down. May I offer you tea or coffee?’
‘Not for me, thanks. I’ll have a beer if you’ve got one.’ Gunther noticed an undertone of a Cockney twang and guessed that Syme, like many ambitious Englishmen on the way up, was trying to develop a ‘received’ English accent.
Gunther brought out two beers and offered Syme a cigarette. Syme looked round the room. ‘Nice flat,’ he said appreciatively.
‘A little modernist for my taste.’
Syme smiled. He said, ‘I’ve been to Berlin a couple of times. Jollies with the Party. Great buildings there. We went to the Nuremberg rally two years ago, we were sorry the Fuhrer couldn’t attend. I’d have liked to have seen him. I hear he’s been ill.’ Syme’s eyes flashed with curiosity.
‘The Fuhrer has many responsibilities,’ Gunther said coolly.
Syme inclined his head. ‘Beaverbrook’s there now. Wonder what they’ve agreed?’
Gunther wondered too, remembering what Gessler had said about the English police soon having their hands full. Whatever it was, Syme didn’t know. He realized he disliked this man. Then he thought, that won’t do, we’re going to have to work closely together. He smiled disarmingly. ‘So, Mr Syme, have you been in the police long? You’re young to reach an inspector’s rank.’
‘Joined when I was eighteen. Promoted two years ago, when I went to Special Branch.’
Gunther smiled. ‘I was working in Britain when the Auxiliary Branches were formed. I remember your then commissioner’s words to the first intake – “You should not be too squeamish in departing from the niceties of established procedures which are appropriate for normal times.” I thought, a very English way of putting things.’
Syme said, ‘Yes. Nowadays our essential job’s fighting the Resistance. Any way we can.’
Gunther nodded at the tiepin. ‘I see you are a member of the Fascist party?’
Syme nodded proudly. ‘I certainly am.’
‘Good.’ Gunther waved a hand to the chair. ‘Please sit down. We are grateful to your people for assisting us in this case.’
‘We’re all good pro-Germans in my section of Special Branch.’
