‘You can’t touch me. Not with the friends I’ve got.’
‘Fehse and the others? They’re finished. And I can not only touch you, I can shoot you here and now. I doubt anyone would come to investigate, but even if they did, I can’t see them caring that much. The camps are full of scum like you, waiting for their trials. And their hangings.’
Mechnig opened his mouth to say something, but was distracted by the return of the women.
‘I might have known,’ the girl said, looking at him. She had obviously overheard their conversation. ‘And I won’t say anything,’ she promised Russell on her way to the door. ‘What a great companion you must be,’ Russell observed after she’d left. ‘But back to business. I want all you know about Fehse.’
‘Or what?’
‘Good question. Let me give you some options. If you won’t talk, we’ll drive you straight into the Russian sector, and hand you over to some NKVD friends of mine, along with your real identity, your false papers, and witness statements from several Jews who remember you all too well. My friend here saw you kill a young boy on a U-Bahn platform and is more than willing to testify against you, should they ever bother with a trial. I think it’s more likely that the Russians will just put you out with the rubbish.
‘Ah, not so confident,’ Russell noted. The look on Mechnig’s face suggested that the NKVD still lay outside his boss’s sphere of influence. ‘But let’s look on the positive side. If you do tell us all you know, we’ll give you a free ride to Anhalter Station, and buy you a ticket to anywhere you like in the American zone. You can keep your papers and carry on being good old squeaky-clean Oskar Meissner. You can even join the rat-run to South America if you know how. This is your chance to live, Ulrich. Your only chance.’
Mechnig said nothing for a moment, but Effi could see he was weakening. If there were two things that Russell was good at, they were talking himself out of corners, and other people into them.
‘He’ll kill me,’ Mechnig said tonelessly.
‘Not if you leave while you can.’
Mechnig ran a hand through what was left of his hair. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Nothing too dangerous. What’s his first name, for a start?
‘Reinhard.’
‘Tell me about his business — what he deals in, how he brings the stuff in.’
‘That’s easy. Everything. He deals in everything — drugs, booze, cigarettes, girls of course — we even brought in a lorry-load of bananas the other day. Anything you can move for a profit, we move it.’
It sounded like a company slogan. ‘How is the stuff brought in? And where is it kept?’
Haulage was mostly by lorry, but Fehse also had men working on the railways. Mechnig listed several distribution centres, including the one out in Spandau where Russell’s reprieve had been granted. ‘We get stuff from everywhere — Denmark and Sweden, the American PX, all across the Reich.’
Russell felt like reminding him that the Reich was history, but concentrated on looking impressed. He could have guessed everything Mechnig had told them so far, but he didn’t want the other man to know that. ‘So Fehse has friends among the Americans?’
‘Of course.’
‘Anyone in particular?’
‘What do you mean?’
Russell had brought four of Horst’s photographs with him — the three still unidentified and the one of the uniformed American. ‘I mean him,’ he said, showing Mechnig the latter.
‘His name’s Crosby.’
‘I thought it might be. What do he and Fehse do for each other?’
‘We do jobs for him, and he keeps the occupation people off our backs.’
‘What sort of jobs?’
‘People mostly. He tells us which Germans he wants brought out of the Russian sector, and we go and get them.’
‘What sort of people?’
‘All sorts. Scientists, businessmen, patriots. These days the Americans are serious about fighting the Russians. It’s a pity they didn’t realise who their real enemy was a couple of years ago.’
‘Isn’t it just,’ Russell said drily. ‘So Fehse doesn’t have any Russians on his payroll?’
‘Only one that I know about. An army man out at Kopenick.’
‘Name?’
‘Sokolovsky.’
A shame it wasn’t Nemedin, Russell thought to himself. One last question occurred to him: ‘So why does Fehse hire so many Jews?’
Mechnig laughed for the first time. ‘The man’s a genius. None of them are really Jews, but he gets all the kudos for helping them. The Americans lap it up. A gangster with a real soft spot — that’s what they think. A German Robin Hood.’ He laughed again.
‘Where does the genius live?’
‘He has a villa out in Wannsee. It belonged to one of Heydrich’s friends.’
‘How apt.’ Russell showed Mechnig the remaining photographs, and took down the names he gave. He had no way of knowing whether the other man was telling the truth, but instinct suggested he was. Mechnig seemed almost relieved that they knew about his past.
At that moment he was staring at Effi. ‘When I saw you out in Teltow I knew I’d seen you at the club, but I had the feeling then that I’d seen your face before. And then the boss told me you were an actress.’
‘I still am,’ she told him shortly. ‘But don’t expect an autograph.’
He turned back to Russell. ‘So can I pack a suitcase?’
Ten minutes later they were on their way, with Effi at the wheel and the others seated behind her. Russell didn’t expect Mechnig to make a break for it — the promised train would carry him further and faster than his feet ever could — but he kept his hand on the gun, just in case the man had a brainstorm. When they reached Anhalter Station, he took Mechnig through to the ticket office. Frankfurt was the first available destination in the American Zone, which seemed to suit him well enough. Once Russell had purchased the ticket, Mechnig scowled his lack of gratitude, and promptly stalked away.
Behind the wheel of the jeep, Effi seemed excited. ‘None of them are really Jews,’ she repeated, as Russell climbed in beside her.
‘So he’s not a philanthropist after all.’
‘No, you idiot. None of them. Including the first Otto.’
Russell gave her an admiring look. He’d been too busy intimidating Mechnig to notice.
‘So why did he choose that name?’ Effi asked.
Russell checked the petrol gauge. ‘Let’s go and ask him.’
They drove across the desolate Tiergarten to the house on Solinger Strasse. Russell’s persistent hammering evoked no response, from either the phony Otto or any of his neighbours. ‘He’s probably at the Honey Trap,’ Russell decided. ‘And I think our welcome there may be less than effusive. We’ll have to wait.’
‘I’m working tomorrow and Friday,’ Effi lamented.
‘Then we’ll wake him up on Saturday.’
He drove them to the Press Club in Dahlem, and returned the jeep to its owners.
While Effi made use of the pampered press corps’ hot showers, he used one of the telephones to track down the number of a paper now printing in Frankfurt. ‘There’s a man on the train from Berlin,’ he told the desk he eventually reached, ‘the one that’s supposed to arrive just after nine this evening. His papers say he’s Oskar Meissner but his real name is Ulrich Mechnig. He was a Gestapo Sturmscharfuhrer, and he has a lot of blood on his hands.’
‘Who are you? How do you know about this?’
‘I’m a journalist just like you,’ Russell told him. ‘And naturally I can’t divulge my sources.’ He hung up the phone, and stood there for a moment examining his conscience.
It was fine. What he’d done was hardly cricket, but who would invite the Nazis to Lord’s?
That evening, they listened to Torsten recount Miriam’s story. The children were sleeping; Esther, though she stayed with them in the dimly lit kitchen, had heard it all that morning.
