front door, but there was so much debris I couldn’t see anywhere for me to step. Round to the side I found a window that gave onto another room where the going wasn’t so difficult underfoot. Hoping that I might at least find the safe, I climbed inside. Not that I needed to be there at all. I just wanted to form a picture inside my head. I work better that way: I’ve got a mind like a comic book. So I wasn’t too disappointed when I found that the police had already taken the safe away, and that all that was left was a gaping hole in the wall. There was always Illmann, I told myself.
Back at the gate I found Wilhelm trying to comfort an older woman of about sixty, whose face was stained with tears.
‘The cleaning woman,’ he explained. ‘She turned up just now. Apparently she’s been away on holiday and hadn’t heard about the fire. Poor old soul’s had a bit of a shock.’ He asked her where she lived.
‘Neuenburger Strasse,’ she sniffed. ‘I’m all right now, thank you, young man.’ From her coat pocket she produced a small lace handkerchief which seemed as improbable in her large, peasant hands as an antimacassar in those of Max Schmelling, the boxer, and quite inadequate for the task which lay before it: she blew her pickled-walnut of a nose with the sort of ferocity and volume that made me want to hold my hat on my head. Then she wiped her big, broad face with the soggy remnant. Smelling some information about the Pfarr household, I offered the old pork chop a lift home in my car.
‘It’s on the way,’ I said.
‘I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble.’
‘It’s no trouble at all,“ I insisted.
‘Well, if you are sure, that would be very kind of you. I have had a bit of a shock.’ She picked up the box that lay at her feet, each one of which bulged over the top of its well-polished black walking shoe like a butcher’s thumb in a thimble. Her name was Frau Schmidt.
‘You’re a good sort, Herr Gunther,’ said Wilhelm.
‘Nonsense,’ I said, and so it was. There was no telling what information I might glean from the old woman about her late employers. I took the box from her hands. ‘Let me help you with that,’ I said. It was a suit-box, from Stechbarth’s, the official tailor to the services, and I had the idea that she might have been bringing it for the Pfarrs. I nodded silently at Wilhelm, and led the way to the car.
‘Neuenburger Strasse,’ I repeated as we drove off. ‘That’s off Lindenstrasse, isn’t it?’ She confirmed that it was, gave me some directions and was silent for a moment. Then she started weeping again.
‘What a terrible tragedy,’ she sobbed.
‘Yes, yes, it’s most unfortunate.’
I wondered how much Wilhelm had told her. The less the better, I thought, reasoning that the less shocked she was, at least at this stage, the more I would get out of her.
‘Are you a policeman?’ she asked.
‘I’m investigating the fire,’ I said evasively.
‘I’m sure you must be too busy to drive an old woman like me across Berlin. Why don’t you drop me on the other side of the bridge and I’ll walk the rest. I’m all right now, really I am.’
‘It’s no trouble. Anyway, I’d quite like to talk to you about the Pfarrs – that is, if it wouldn’t upset you.’ We crossed the Landwehr Canal and came onto Belle-Alliance Platz, in the centre of which rises the great Column of Peace. ‘You see, there will have to be an inquest, and it would help me if I knew as much about them as possible.’
‘Yes, well I don’t mind, if you think I can be of assistance,’ she said.
When we got to Neuenburger Strasse, I parked the car and followed the old woman up to the second floor of an apartment building that was several storeys high.
Frau Schmidt’s apartment was typical of the older generation of people in this city. The furniture was solid and elaborate -Berliners spend a lot of money on their tables and chairs – and there was a big porcelain-tiled stove in the living room. A copy of an engraving by Durer, which was as common in the Berliner’s home as an aquarium in a doctor’s waiting room, hung dully above a dark red Biedermeier sideboard on which were placed various photographs (including one of our beloved Fuhrer) and a little silk swastika mounted in a large bronze frame. There was also a drinks tray, from which I took a bottle of schnapps and poured a small glassful.
‘You’ll feel better after you’ve drunk this,’ I said, handing her the glass, and wondering whether or not I dared take the liberty of pouring myself one too. Enviously, I watched her knock it back in one. Smacking her fat lips she sat down on a brocaded chair by the window.
‘Feel up to answering a few questions?’
She nodded. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Well for a start, how long had you known Herr and Frau Pfarr?’
‘Hmm, let’s see now.’ A silent movie of uncertainty flickered on the woman’s face. The voice emptied slowly out of the Boris Karloff mouth, with its slightly protruding teeth, like grit from a bucket. ‘It must be a year, I suppose.’ She stood up again and removed her coat, revealing a dingy, floral-patterned smock. Then she coughed for several seconds, tapping herself on the chest as she did so.
All this time I stood squarely in the middle of the room, my hat on the back of my head and my hands in my pockets. I asked her what sort of couple the Pfarrs had been.
‘I mean, were they happy? Argumentative?’ She nodded to both of these suggestions.
‘When I first went to work there, they were very much in love,’ she said. ‘But it wasn’t long after that that she lost her job as a schoolteacher. Quite cut up about it, she was. And before long they were arguing. Not that he was there very often when I was. But when he was, then more often than not they’d have words, and I don’t mean squabbles, like most couples. No, they had loud, angry arguments, almost as if they hated each other, and a couple of times I found her crying in her room afterwards. Well, I really don’t know what it was they had to be unhappy about. They had a lovely home – it was a pleasure to clean it, so it was. Mind you, they weren’t flashy. I never once saw her spending lots of money on things. She had lots of nice clothes, but nothing showy.’
‘Any jewellery?’
‘I believe she had some jewellery, but I can’t say as I remember her wearing it, but then I was only there in the daytime. On the other hand, there was an occasion when I moved his jacket and some earrings fell onto the floor, and they weren’t the sort of earrings that she would have worn.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘These were for pierced ears, and Frau Pfarr only ever wore clips. So I drew my own conclusions, but said nothing. It was none of my business what he got up to. But I reckon she had her suspicions. She wasn’t a stupid woman. Far from it. I believe that’s what drove her to drink as much as she did.’
‘Did she drink?’
‘Like a sponge.’
‘What about him? He worked at the Ministry of the Interior, didn’t he?’
She shrugged. ‘It was some government place, but I couldn’t tell you what it was called. He was something to do with the law – he had a certificate on the wall of his study. All the same, he was very quiet about his work. And very careful not to leave papers lying around so that I might see them. Not that I would have read them, mind. But he didn’t take the chance.’
‘Did he work at home much?’
‘Sometimes. And I know he used to spend time at that big office building on Bulowplatz – you know, the one that used to be the headquarters for them Bolsheviks.’
‘You mean the D A F building, the headquarters of the German Labour Front. That’s what it is now that the Kozis have been thrown out of it.’
‘That’s right. Now and again Herr Pfarr would give me a lift there, you see. My sister lives in Brunenstrasse and normally I’d catch a Number 99 to Rosenthaler Platz after work. Now and then Herr Pfarr was kind enough to run me as far as Bulowplatz, where I’d see him go in the D A F building.’
‘You saw them last – when?’
‘It’s two weeks yesterday. I’ve been on holiday, see. A Strength Through Joy trip to Rugen Island. I saw her, but not him.’
‘How was she?’
‘She seemed quite happy for a change. Not only that, but she didn’t have a drink in her hand when she spoke to me. She told me that she was planning a little holiday to the spas. She often went there. I think she got dried
