he thought. One thing you could say for the blackout - it made the Gestapo's job much more difficult, particularly at this time of the year, when there were only nine hours of daylight. During the other fifteen hours of the day Berlin was cloaked in the sort of darkness that only burglars and rapists loved. Any sort of mobile surveillance was practically impossible.
He waited on the elevated platform at Savignyplatz for the best part of half an hour, hunched up against the bitter cold, trying to remember which stars were which in the firmament above. It was a struggle getting aboard the train when it came, and he spent the next six minutes with a tall soldier's elbow pressing into his neck. Westkreuz was the two-level station where the Stadtbahn and national lines crossed over the Ringbahn, and numerous travellers changing lines were busily bumping into each other in the starlit gloom. Russell went downstairs and up again, just in case. It then took him several minutes to find the street exit, and several more to be absolutely sure that Strohm was not lurking in one of the darker corners.
He settled down to wait, and five minutes later a Ringbahn train pulled in below. Strohm appeared a minute or so later, walking past Russell without a word, but discreetly tugging at his sleeve. Once outside, he walked a short distance down the dark road and stopped. 'We'll wait for a few minutes and go back in,' he said. 'There's nothing for you to see tonight, and the end of a platform's as good a place as any for talking.'
His voice sounded unusually flat, Russell noticed. Bad news was coming.
They walked to the furthest end of the eastbound Stadtbahn platform, where a large swathe of Berlin spread darkly away from them under the starry sky. 'The train that left last Monday was scheduled for Riga,' Strohm said quietly. He expelled a small blue cloud of warm breath. 'They're building a new concentration camp there with a capacity of 25,000.'
It crossed Russell's mind that many football stadiums were smaller.
On the platform opposite an embracing couple were silhouetted against the southern horizon.
'But it's not ready,' Strohm went on. 'The Jews were taken off at Kovno in Lithuania, and taken to one of the old Czarist forts on the outskirts.
That was on Saturday. On Sunday a second trainload of Jews arrived from Frankfurt, on Monday a third from Munich. On Tuesday all three thousand were taken out and shot.'
Russell closed his eyes. 'Why?' he asked. 'On whose orders?' One mental picture of Leonore Blumenthal's Aunt Trudi, in front of a mirror, smiling as she adjusted her hat, gave way to another, of the same woman standing beside a freshly-dug pit, with trembling lips and untidy grey hair.
'We're not certain,' Strohm replied, 'but the decision was probably taken locally. We think that the authorities in Kovno were just told to look after their unexpected guests in whatever way they deemed appropriate.'
A steam locomotive was approaching on the fast line, the sound of its passage rapidly increasing in volume. It hurried through the station, pulling a long line of efficiently darkened carriages, an orange glow seeping from the roughly blacked-out cab.
'So they just killed them,' Russell said, once the noise had sufficiently abated.
'That's what they've been doing in Russia,' Strohm said. 'The fact that these were German Jews doesn't seem to have made any difference.'
'But it doesn't seem as if there was a pre-arranged plan to murder them,' Russell said, as much to himself as Strohm. 'And that does make a difference. If the Riga camp's ready when the next trains are sent, then presumably the Jews will end up there. Why would they be building it otherwise?'
'Perhaps,' Strohm agreed.
He didn't sound convinced, and Russell could hardly blame him. He asked if the leaders of Berlin's Jewish community had been told.
'They will be, if they haven't been already. But they often refuse to believe such news. Some of them at least. They thank us kindly for the information, but you can see it in their eyes. It doesn't surprise me. Knowing that something bad is about to happen is only useful when there's something you can do to avert it.'
'Are any more trains scheduled?'
'Not at the moment. There are none available.' Strohm smiled for the first time. 'The train that took the Jews to Kovno was commandeered in Warsaw by the Quartermasters.'
'Well I suppose that's good news.'
'That and the damage the Soviet partisans are doing to our trains in Russia. There's one thing I have for you: a driver who's willing to talk about what he's seen in the East. He was badly injured several weeks ago in a partisan attack, and now he's convalescing at home. Are you interested?' 'Of course.'
'His name is Walter Meltza. His address is Flat 6, Spanheimstrasse 7. It's near the Plumpe, the Hertha ground. You know where that is?'
'Does the Fuhrer like vegetables?'
Strohm smiled again. 'One day we must have a talk about football, and which is the best Berlin team to support. Have you memorised the address?'
'Yes.'
'Please be careful, for everyone's sake. Only visit after dark. I'll make sure he knows you are coming.'
'At the end of next week,' Russell suggested. He had Sullivan and the Admiral's message to deal with over the next few days.
A local train could be heard approaching from the west. 'I'll tell him.'
They shook hands, and Strohm faded into the darkness as the thin blue headlight glided into the station. This train was almost empty, not to mention strewn with copies of the same leaflet. 'War with America?' was the bold headline, but reading the small print beneath was impossible in the negligible light, and he stuffed the leaflet in his pocket. The war might be European, he thought, but all eyes were now on America. It occurred to him that his own day had revolved around four Americans - Kenyon, Sullivan, Dallin and Strohm. And four more different Americans were hard to imagine: a cosmopolitan diplomat, an ex-actor turned Nazi, a would-be spymaster from California and an essentially German communist. Not to mention himself, the American who had only ever spent six weeks in his supposed homeland. Yet here they all were in Berlin, waiting with their eighty million German hosts for their government in Washington to take the plunge, with or without a Japanese push.
The train pulled in to Savignyplatz station. There were a few signs of movement in the square, but it had an empty sound, as if the residents had already tucked themselves away for the night. Walking up Carmerstrasse, he found himself thinking about the Blumenthals. If they didn't already know, should he tell them? How would it help them to know?
He would ask Effi, he decided, as he climbed the stairs to her apartment. She was lying on the sofa, a script laid flat across her stomach, stretching her arms in the air. 'I heard the outside door,' she said. 'Where've you been?'
'Meeting my railwayman. He had...'
The swelling of sirens interrupted him.
'Oh, not again,' Effi lamented. 'I need some sleep!'
She was still sleeping when Russell left the next morning. Either the raid had been protracted, or those in charge of the all-clear had inadvertently dropped off, because it hadn't sounded until a quarter past four. Two possible chains of circumstance that any local Sherlock Holmes could have deduced from the bleary eyes of his fellow passengers on the Route 30 tram.
Russell remembered how quickly Paul had fallen in love with Holmes and Watson. How old had he been? Nine? Ten? One day at the Funkturm they had invented German equivalents - Siegfried Helmer and Doctor Weindling. They lived at Kurfurstendamm 221, over an actual tobacco shop.
How would Paul react if he told him what had happened in Kovno? He had told Effi on their way back home from the shelter, and she had not wanted to believe it. She had, but only after desperately searching through the facts for a more acceptable interpretation. Paul would simply deny it. His father's source must be mistaken, or simply inspired by hatred of the Reich.
And Russell was almost glad that Paul would think that way, because denial was infinitely preferable to acceptance.
His tram ground to a halt in the shadow of the Brandenburg Gate. The sky was mostly clear, but was expected to cloud over in the afternoon and thereby offer Berliners some respite from the attentions of the RAF. That was the good news. The bad was that Effi had accepted an invitation for dinner at her sister's house for them both. The food might be good, but only until Zarah cooked it; and sharing several hours with her punctilious Nazi
