out.’
‘I see. And so this morning you went to Ferdinandstrasse via the tailors, is that correct, Frau Schmidt?’
‘Yes, that’s right. I often did little errands for Herr Pfarr. He was usually too busy to get to the shops, and so he’d pay me to get things for him. Before I went on holiday there was a note asking me to drop his suit off at his tailors and that they knew all about it.’
‘His suit, you say.’
‘Well, yes, I think so.’ I picked up the box.
‘Mind if I take a look?’
‘I don’t see why not. He’s dead after all, isn’t he?’
Even before I had removed the lid I had a pretty good idea of what was in the box. I wasn’t wrong. There was no mistaking the midnight black that echoed the old elitist cavalry regiments of the Kaiser’s army, the Wagnerian double-lightning flash on the right collar-patch and the Roman-style eagle and swastika on the left sleeve. The three pips on the left collar-patch denoted the wearer of the uniform as a captain, or whatever the fancy rank that captains were called in the S S was. There was a piece of paper pinned to the right sleeve. It was an invoice from Stechbarth’s, addressed to HauptStuurmFuhrer Pfarr, for twenty-five marks. I whistled.
‘So Paul Pfarr was a black angel.’
‘I’d never have believed it,’ said Frau Schmidt.
‘You mean you never saw him wearing this?’
She shook her head. ‘I never even saw it hanging in his wardrobe.’
‘Is that so.’ I wasn’t sure whether I believed her or not, but I could think of no reason why she should lie about it. It was not uncommon for lawyers – German lawyers, working for the Reich – to be in the S S: I imagined Pfarr wearing his uniform on ceremonial occasions only.
It was Frau Schmidt’s turn to look puzzled. ‘I meant to ask you how the fire started.’
I thought for a minute and decided to let her have it without any of the protective padding, in the hope that the shock would stop her asking some awkward questions that I couldn’t answer.
‘It was arson,’ I said quietly. ‘They were both murdered.’ Her jaw dropped like a cat-flap, and her eyes moistened again, as if she had stepped into a draught.
‘Good God,’ she gasped. ‘How terrible. Whoever could do such a thing?’
‘That’s a good question,’ I said. ‘Do you know if either of them had any enemies?’ She sighed deeply and then shook her head. ‘Did you ever overhear either of them arguing with someone other than each other? On the telephone, perhaps? Somebody at the door? Anything.’ She continued to shake her head.
‘Wait a minute, though,’ she said slowly. ‘Yes, there was one occasion, several months ago. I heard Herr Pfarr arguing with another man in his study. It was pretty heated and, I can tell you, some of the language they used was not fit to be heard by decent folk. They were arguing about politics. At least I think it was politics. Herr Six was saying some terrible things about the Fuhrer which -’
‘Did you say Herr Six?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He was the other man. After a while he came storming out of the study and through the front door with a face like pig’s liver. Nearly knocked me over he did.’
‘Can you remember what else was said?’
‘Only that each accused the other of trying to ruin him.’
‘Where was Frau Pfarr when all this happened?’
‘She was away, on one of her trips, I think.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘You’ve been most helpful. And now I must be getting back to Alexanderplatz.’ I turned towards the door.
‘Excuse me,’ said Frau Schmidt. She pointed to the tailor’s box. ‘What shall I do with Herr Pfarr’s uniform?’
‘Mail it,’ I said, putting a couple of marks on the table. ‘To Reichsfuhrer Himmler, Prinz Albrecht Strasse, Number 9.’
4
Simeonstrasse is only a couple of streets away from Neuenburger Strasse, but where the windows of the buildings in the latter are lacking paint, in Simeonstrasse they are lacking glass. Calling it a poor area is a bit like saying that Joey Goebbels has a problem finding his size in shoes.
Tenement buildings five- and six-storeys high closed in on a narrow crocodile’s back of deep cobblestones like two granite cliffs, linked only by the rope-bridges of washing. Sullen youths, each one of them with a roll-up hanging in ashes from his thin lips like a trail of shit from a bowl-bored goldfish, buttressed the ragged corners of gloomy alleyways, staring blankly at the colony of snot-nosed children who hopped and skipped along the pavements. The children played noisily, oblivious to the presence of these older ones and taking no notice of the crudely daubed swastikas, hammers and sickles and general obscenities that marked the street walls and which were their elders’ dividing dogmas. Below the level of the rubbish-strewn streets and under the shadow of the sun-eclipsing edifices which enclosed them were the cellars that contained the small shops and offices that served the area.
Not that it needs much in the way of service. There is no money in an area like this, and for most of these concerns business is about as brisk as a set of oak floorboards in a Lutheran church hall.
It was into one of these small shops, a pawnbroker, that I went, ignoring the large Star of David daubed on the wooden shutters that protected the shop window from breakage. A bell rang as I opened and shut the door. Doubly deprived of daylight, the shop’s only source of illumination was an oil lamp hanging from the low ceiling, and the general effect was that of the inside of an old sailing ship. I browsed around, waiting for Weizmann, the proprietor, to appear from the back of the shop.
There was an old Pickelhaube helmet, a stuffed marmot, in a glass case, that looked as if it had perished of anthrax, and an old Siemens vacuum-cleaner; there were several cases full of military medals – mostly second- class Iron Crosses like mine own, twenty odd volumes of Kohler’s
‘You should look after yourself, Weizmann.’
‘And what would I do with a long life?’ The threat of Weizmann’s wheezing cough was ever present in his speech. It lay in wait to trip him like a sleeping halberdier. Sometimes he managed to catch himself; but this time he fell into a spasm of coughing that sounded hardly human at all, more like someone trying to start a car with an almost flat battery, and as usual it seemed to afford him no relief whatsoever. Nor did it require him to remove the pipe from his tobacco-pouch of a mouth.
‘You should try inhaling a little bit of air now and then,’ I told him. ‘Or at least something you haven’t first set on fire.’
‘Air,’ he said. ‘It goes straight to my head. Anyway, I’m training myself to do without it: there’s no telling when they’ll ban Jews from breathing oxygen.’ He lifted the counter. ‘Come into the back room, my friend, and tell me what service I can do for you.’ I followed him round the counter, past an empty bookcase.
‘Is business picking up then?’ I said. He turned to look at me. ‘What happened to all the books?’ Weizmann shook his head sadly.
‘Unfortunately, I had to remove them. The Nuremberg Laws -’ he said with a scornful laugh, ‘- they forbid a Jew to sell books. Even secondhand ones.’ He turned and passed on through to the back room. ‘These days I believe in the law like I believe in Horst Wessel’s heroism.’
‘Horst Wessel?’ I said. ‘Never heard of him.’
Weizmann smiled and pointed at an old Jacquard sofa with the stem of his reeking pipe. ‘Sit down, Bernie, and let me fix us a drink.’
‘Well, what do you know? They still let Jews drink booze. I was almost feeling sorry for you back there when you told me about those books. Things are never as bad as they seem, just as long as there’s a drink about.’
