cunning in her eyes. She had spent the last two years in prison, in her home city so that relatives might conveniently visit her, awaiting a trial that might never come. She had been a guard at Maidanek camp. The depositions that had been presented against her recited her deeds. She had killed babies, children, women as a matter of course, of routine — something more chilling to Zimmermann when he had first read the depositions than the gratuitous, hideous way her activities had reached above and beyond the call of duty; the dashing out of brains on concrete floors or against the wooden walls of huts, the rumours of the lampshades of skin, the collection of lingering enlargements that decorated her quarters.
Zimmermann had met them before — the survivors of the SS and the Gestapo. There was still no other emotion he could feel than sick, quiet horror, at history and at their nationality.
The woman had been on holiday with a party of similarly retired women in Florida when a survivor of Maidanek had seen and recognised her. Margarethe Schroder had never denied the charges; merely dismissed them as unimportant. She did not acknowledge their criminality. Zimmermann, however, believed she wished to end her imprisonment. She resented the sense of blame, of accusation that surrounded her — resented it deeply and bitterly. He could offer her a speedy and innocuous trial, even if he hoped he did not mean it, preferred to think that he would renege on any deal. However, all that was for later.
'I would undertake,' he continued, breaking the silence that had held only the slight noise of the humming striplight, 'to ensure that the trial was brought forward — dealt with this year…' Schroder's eyes watched him, burning and suspicious and afraid. Zimmermann tried to smile reassuringly: 'We could ensure a very light sentence, thanks to some new depositions that contradict those held by the Federal Prosecutor's office — a sentence which, in view of your incarceration for the past two years, Frau Schroder, would ensure your release before next Christmas.'
He waited then. Schroder looked at her lawyer, who appeared to carefully consider the offer that had been made. He removed his spectacles, becoming at once little more than a boy in appearance, wiped them with a silk handkerchief, then replaced them and his learned air with a flourish.
'There will be no notes,' he observed. 'At the moment, this is not to be considered a statement of any kind.'
'Of course not.'
'You will not ask Frau Schroder any questions concerning the period 1941-45. Do you agree to this?'
'Naturally. That part of Frau Schroder's life does not interest me — it is not important to me,' he corrected himself, unwilling to antagonise the woman. Again, he essayed a smile in her direction. She was looking at her lawyer, who nodded to her. She turned to Zimmermann. Her voice was deep and hoarse. Her hands, spread on the bare, formica-covered table, were large, the nails unmanicured. Zimmermann might almost have called them a man's hands had he not realised the easy platitude for what it was, and recognised the way in which he was making her fit a stereotype. In reality, there was nothing with which to compare Schroder and all the others.
'What do you want to ask me?' she said grudgingly.
'Thank you, Frau Schroder.' Zimmermann sat down on the opposite side of the table. Schroder lit a cigarette and blew smoke at the humming striplight. The interview room was warm, drily stale and unused like the aseptic corridors he had followed to reach it. The prison was modern, clean and spacious, like a huge office building, suggesting that crime and criminals were not to be found there. Like most of those built in Germany since the war, the prison always appeared to Zimmermann like a grim pastiche of a Costa Brava hotel.
'I wish to take you back to 1974, when you worked…' She nodded dismissively. She knew why he had come. '… for an officer in British Intelligence during his residence in Bonn. You were the secretary of a man named Andrew Babbington?'
'Yes.'
'I want to ask you some questions about him.'
'I was always a good secretary — very efficient. There were no accus—' She coloured slightly, but mostly in anger at herself. 'No reports of inefficiency, I am certain.'
'Of course, Frau Schroder. Of course not. I know that Mr Babbington was very pleased. It is not you I wish to discuss, but him. You understand that I cannot tell you why at this moment?'
She weighed his statement while Zimmermann looked at the lawyer, who eventually nodded his complicity. There was no need for Zimmermann to warn either of them of the security aspects of his enquiries. He returned his attention to Margarethe Schroder. She was grinding out the first cigarette, lighting a second almost at once. She nodded. Evidently, she had accepted that it was not some subtle trick, an indirect and overland route to Maidanek and her crimes, even if she could not understand the importance attached to an Englishman in 1974.
'I believe that Mr Babbington had an affair — with a married woman who has since died of cancer — while he was in Bonn?' He studied Schroder. 'You knew of this affair, of course?' His tone was carefully calculated. It implied a vague bond between them, a similarity of attitude to the business of their discussion, but it was clipped and authoritative, suggesting that Zimmermann was some kind of senior officer in the same organisation in which Schroder served. She nodded abruptly in reply. 'Good. Now — how often did they meet? Where did they meet?' There was guilt, at once, a sense of complicity that might now endanger her. The cigarette wobbled between her lips. She coughed. 'Come now, Schroder — you have done nothing wrong. Where did they meet?'
'In — my flat,' she admitted in a small voice. 'Usually in my flat.' The repetition was more defiant. She had lifted her head.
'Why — for security?' he asked nonchalantly.
'Of course,' she answered scornfully. 'The woman was the wife of a civil servant, someone he worked with here in Bonn.' Zimmermann was nodding, staring at the table-top and its faint geology of coffee stains and pencil scribbles, doodles and cigarette burns. 'They had to be careful. I was asked — I helped.' The implication was that she had been paid, too. Babbington had evidently won her over by charm and bribery. She flicked a lock of frizzy white hair from her forehead. 'They met there two, maybe three times a week.'
'Can you remember exactly when this was?'
'1974, of course.' And then her anger burst out. 'When Guillaume, the traitor, was arrested. Now he is back in the East, after what he did to betray Germany, and I am here—!' Zimmermann reached towards her, but she snatched her manlike hands from the table. 'Why do they still care about all that?' she wailed. There was iron in the self-pity, however. 'It was forty years ago — everyone has forgotten — people don't know and don't want to know! Why am I here?' she screamed.
Zimmermann stood up, leaning his knuckles on the table. 'It is to help you get out of here that you must answer my questions, Frau Schroder. A little more help, if you please. I am a very busy man, and I have no time to waste with these — demonstrations of self-pity.'
She turned from her lawyer to him, sniffed and wiped her eyes. The tone had stung and impressed her. Bribed her, too. She nodded her head, vigorously.
'What can I tell you? Two or three times a week, there was never mess, the sheets were always changed on the bed, there were champagne glasses washed up, any food… all was washed up, put away when they had finished. I was never inconvenienced. The flat was always empty when I returned.'
'Did you know this woman?'
'Yes. By name — I had seen her once or twice.'
'But never at the flat?'
'No. They were — discreet.'
Zimmermann pondered. At last he had been able to dehumanise the situation, purge it of its associations. Margarethe Schroder was now no more than a possible witness to events in 1974 — a retired secretary with a high security clearance. The recipient of a civil service pension.
'Can you be specific, as to dates? When did this affair begin — when did they begin using your flat for their meetings?'
'I went to work for Mr Babbington — oh, in March, or perhaps the beginning of April. I am not certain. At first, I did not wish to be seconded, but he was very charming, very considerate…'
'Of course. And the flat?'
'Perhaps two weeks later — at first, it was to be only for one time, then he pressed me, with such apologies… and so…' She raised her hands, almost smiling. 'Then two or three times a week.' She chuckled throatily.
'I see. They could not use hotels?'
