ago. He was one of those Social Democrats who wouldn't shut up when the Nazis came to power. He was an old friend of Felix Wiesner's and I was an old comrade of Eva's - that's how we met.'
'I see,' Russell said, and thought he did. 'You don't need to tell me anything more. Your secrets are safe with me. Even safer if I don't know what half of them are.'
She smiled at that. 'It's not that simple, I'm afraid.' She gave him an appraising look. 'You don't seem to hide how you feel about the Nazis,' she said. 'Of course that must be easier for a foreigner, and you may not take it any further. I have the feeling you do, though. Or maybe that you will at some time in the future. If you do, you'll probably reach that place that I've reached, where you suddenly find that your own decisions have become matters of life and death. Your own life and death.'
Russell nodded. Six months earlier, agonising over what to do with a false passport, he had experienced exactly that thought.
'I've decided to trust you,' she said. 'With my life,' she added lightly. 'I'm guessing you must be a good man because of what you did for the Wiesners, but I don't really know anything about you. Eva told me that you arranged Albert's escape with the comrades, so I'm assuming - hoping - that you're still in touch with them.'
Say no, Russell thought, but he couldn't. 'I could be,' he temporised.
'We...I need to make contact. Our group has had no contact for four years, and we have no idea who it's safe to approach and who it isn't. We just need an address or a telephone number.'
Russell thought about it. She was - to repeat her own phrase - asking him to trust her with his life. He assumed she was a good person because she too had been a friend of the Wiesners, but he didn't really know anything about her either. Except that he'd seen her on an SS Gruppenfuhrer's arm.
Her story rang true. The KPD had certainly been decimated by the Nazis in 1933. Half of its leaders had ended up in concentration camps and half had fled into exile, leaving several million rudderless members to fend for them-selves. Many of those arrested had been persuaded - mostly by fear of torture - into betraying comrades still at liberty. Many had actually joined the Nazis, some from self-interest, others as a clandestine opposition. The problem was knowing which was which.
'We have valuable information,' she insisted. 'My Gruppenfuhrer works in the Reichsfuhrer's office.'
Russell was impressed. 'I'll see what I can do. It may take a few weeks though.'
'After four years, a few weeks won't matter.'
Russell was thinking about Effi's mutual secrets. He knew he wouldn't tell her about this meeting, and the knowledge saddened him.
Another thought occurred to him. 'Do you know a Freya and Wilhelm Isendahl? She was Freya Hahnemann until recently. She's not Jewish but he is.'
'Why are you asking?'
'Because I'm looking for her. I met her parents in New York a few weeks ago and they wanted me to check that she was all right. When I questioned the landlady at their old address I got the impression they were involved in political activity, and I don't want to put them in any danger.'
'I knew a young man of that name, back in '32-'33. Not personally, but by reputation - he was one of the youth wing's rising stars. I'm surprised he's still alive. You know what we used to call our Party activists in 1933?'
'Dead men on furlough.'
'Exactly. I'll see if I can get you an address.'
'Thanks.'
'And you'd better have mine - it's safer to visit than telephone.' She gave him a number and street in one of the posher districts to the north of the park.
'Nice area,' he said.
'My husband was a rich socialist,' she said without irony. 'Family money. And he had the sense to put everything in my name before the anti-Jewish laws were brought in. I used to feel guilty about having it all, but now it just feels like part of the disguise.'
'I'll be in touch, one way or the other,' Russell said.
She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, scenting the air with jasmine. 'Till then.'
They set off in their separate directions. Both of them, Russell guessed, were thinking the same depressing thought - that there was one more person in the world who could, and probably would, betray them under torture. Look on the bright side, he told himself. If he was instrumental in delivering Sarah Grostein's 'valuable information' to the Soviets, they might feel like they owed him something. Yes, and pigs might soar like eagles.
The Hanomag was like an oven, encouraging the pursuit of cold beer. Several cafes in the Old City's Schloss- Platz offered large awnings for drinking under, and the sight of the square's fountain seemed cooling in itself. Russell ordered a Pilsener and reminded himself he had a living to earn. The air raid rehearsal should make a story, but was there any way of finding out where the action was going to take place? Wandering round in the blackout looking for supposedly bombed houses seemed rather hit-and-miss, not to mention potentially dangerous. The local storm troopers would probably be out shooting imaginary paratroopers, and he had no desire to be one of them.
The Propaganda Ministry might let him tag along with one of the ARP units if he asked nicely. How Germany's war preparations contribute to peace. Something like that.
A second beer was tempting, but he decided to get the trip to Wedding over with first. This time it was Kuzorra who opened the door. 'Schnapps?' the detective asked immediately. 'Katrin is out,' he added, as if in explanation.
'A small one,' Russell said.
'I went down to the station,' Kuzorra began once they were seated, 'and met the train your girl would have been on. I talked to three of the crew - the conductor and two of the dining car staff. They all remembered her.'
He took an appreciative sip of his schnapps, placed the glass on a shelf beside his chair, and reached inside the jacket which was draped across the back for a small notebook. He didn't open the notebook though, just held it in his lap. 'The conductor examined her ticket soon after the train left Breslau, but he also remembered seeing her much later in the journey, between Guben and Frankfurt he thinks. A sweet little thing, he called her. A little nervous.
'And then there were the two waiters. The young one who took her order thought she was a 'looker', as he put it. Big eyes. I expect he would have told me how big her breasts were if I'd asked him. The older one - he has one of those moustaches which were old-fashioned in the Kaiser's time - he had to tell her that they couldn't serve her. Some rancid hag panicked at the thought of eating within ten metres of a Jew, and her husband insisted on their checking Miriam's identity papers. He said she looked surprised, but didn't kick up a fuss. Just went like a lamb. That was before Sagan, he thought.'
'So we still can't be certain that she reached Berlin?'
'Not completely, no. I talked to all the station staff, the left luggage people, every last one of the concessionaires - frankfurter stands, news kiosks, hair salon, the lot. I thought she must have been hungry after seven hours without food, but no one recognized her from the photograph. Several regulars were taking their week's holiday though, and they'll be back this Friday. I thought I'd go back for another try. It would be good to get an actual sighting at Silesian Station. Rule out the possibility that she got off at Frankfurt.'
'Why would she do that?' Russell asked, more rhetorically than otherwise.
Kuzorra shrugged. 'She may have been more upset by the business in the dining car than she showed. Took a sudden decision to head back home.'
'She never got there.'
'No. And I know it's unlikely. All my instincts tell me that she reached Berlin.'
'And if she did...'
'It doesn't look good.' The detective reached round and replaced the note-book in his jacket pocket. 'So shall I have another go this Friday?'
'Yes, do that. Do you need any money?'
'No. I'm still earning the retainer.'
Russell got to his feet. 'I won't be around much this weekend, and I'm probably off to Prague on Monday, so leave any message at my number, and if you don't hear back straight away then just keep digging, okay?'
