Silesian Station (2008) (38 page)

He asked when the maid would be back.

'At eight o'clock.'

'What will she do if no one answers the door?'

'She has a key.'

Russell exhaled noisily. 'Okay. First things first. We need to wrap him up and get rid of the blood.'

'A blanket?'

She looked better, he thought. The shock was wearing off. 'A thin one if possible,' he answered. 'He's going to be heavy enough as it is.'

They got to work. Russell rolled the body into a brown blanket, tying the ends with some twine until the whole ensemble resembled a giant Christmas cracker. Sarah mopped up the blood and got to work on the stain, scrubbing and scrubbing until it made no difference. The patch no longer attracted attention, but anyone who knew what they were looking for would find it.

Russell was already wondering where to take the body. It was a pity there was no locomotive depot nearby, no glowing firebox to cremate it in. 403 Eisenacher Strasse came to mind, but only for a moment - the Standartenfuhrer might still be unconscious but Sternkopf would have smelled a rat hours ago. And the moon would be up, making it much easier for the police to see what was going on. The shorter the distance he had to drive with a dead body in the car the better.

Which ruled out a trip to the country, and a clandestine burial in the woods. It had to be the Spree or the Landwehrkanal, he told himself. The simple option. The canal, he decided - the river bridges were too exposed. The spot where they had said goodbye to the ambulance earlier that evening.

'Time you got dressed,' he told her. 'And you can't come back here, so pack yourself a suitcase - nothing too big. Just a few changes of clothes and whatever else you want to keep.'

She didn't argue. As she began gathering things together Russell slid the wrapped body down the stairs and into the kitchen. Slipping out through the back door he found the sky had lightened, but the alley was still cloaked in darkness. There were no signs of life in any of the neighbouring houses.

He opened the passenger's side door, tipped the seat forward, and went back for the body, dragging it as quietly as he could across the stone, ears alert for the sound of any curious onlooker opening a window. He propped the legs up in the opening, walked around, pushed the driver's seat forward, and laboriously levered the whole bundle into the back seat. By the time he'd finished his breathing seemed loud enough to wake half the neighbourhood.

Back indoors, he stood in the hall thinking about the maid. 'You should leave a letter on this table,' he told Sarah when she came downstairs. 'Tell her you've gone away for a while and leave her a couple of weeks' wages. With any luck she'll just take it and go.'

Sarah did as he suggested, taking the required Reichsmarks from a healthy-looking bundle. 'I was afraid this day would come,' she said, leaving Russell to wonder whether her expectation had included these particular circumstances. She took a last wistful look around, and turned off the light.

Russell squeezed her suitcase into the boot and got in behind the wheel. 'Can we get out this way?' he asked.

'No. But there's a space at the end for turning.'

He started the engine, which sounded deafening. He told himself it didn't matter if people saw and heard them. As long as no one stopped them...

He drove slowly forward, the dark wall of the Stadtbahn viaduct looming to meet them, and turned the car in the circular space beneath it. The drive back down the pitch-black alley felt like an epic voyage, and Russell's shirt was slick with sweat when they reached the street beside the Spree. Everything seemed quiet, and dropping the body off the nearest bridge seemed, for a few moments, a more tempting prospect than driving round Berlin with a high-ranking corpse in the back seat. He told himself to be sensible. The quarter-moon had risen above the buildings to the west, greatly increasing visibility. And while a body dumped in the Spree would float and be found within hours, it might take days to arrange Sarah's escape from Berlin. Stick to the plan, he told himself. Schoneberger Ufer would be dark and deserted. They could take their time, do it right.

Assuming they reached it. As he drove back down Altonaer Strasse Russell had enough butterflies in his stomach to start a collection. He half expected to find police cars drawn up outside Sarah's front door, but the street was mercifully empty. Crossing Hansa-Platz, they headed into the Tiergarten, and as they arced round the Grosserstern circle a car went by in the opposite direction. Russell found he was approaching each bend as if the enemy was hidden around it, and almost gasping with relief at finding another stretch of empty road.

Sarah Grostein sat silent beside him, hands clasped together in her lap. What she was feeling he could hardly imagine - a few moments' loss of control had cost her everything but her life, and that still needed saving. He remembered her saying she liked the man, and tried to square that admission with the obliterated face. Maybe liking him had been the last straw.

Russell realized he didn't even know the man's name. He asked what it was.

'Rainer,' she said. 'Rainer Hochgesang.'

They reached the canal above Lutzow-Platz and drove along the southern bank towards Schoneberger Ufer. A car pulled out in their slipstream and stayed behind them for several blocks, before vanishing down a side street. Heart thumping, Russell checked the mirror several times to convince himself it was gone.

Finally they were there. Schoneberger Ufer was certainly deserted, though less dark than it had been a few hours earlier. He asked Sarah to stay where she was and walked across to the wall. The moon had turned from yellow to cream, and the waters of the Landwehrkanal were glistening with a beauty they hardly deserved. The usual red light was shining atop the distant Funkturm, which seemed like a sensible breach of black-out regulations. He wondered if they'd turn it off in a real air raid, and sacrifice the tower for an English bomber.

All was silence and stillness. The street on the far side of the canal was lined with old workshops, most of which now served as offices. On this side the overgrown site of a ruined synagogue lay between two warehouses. They should all be empty, give or take the odd night-watchman.

There was no point in waiting. Russell gestured Sarah to get out, pushed her seat forward, and pulled the blanket-bound body out onto the pavement. He dragged it quickly across to the wall and left it there. 'We need to weigh him down,' he said. 'You untie the strings while I find something.'

He hurried across the road and into the site of the burnt-out synagogue, searching for ballast. The remains of a fallen wall were scattered along one side. Somewhat appropriate, Russell thought, sending a dead Nazi to the bottom of the Landwehrkanal with Jewish bricks. He could almost hear the celestial applause.

He piled six bricks in his arms and staggered back across the road, ears straining for the sounds of an approaching car. Sarah had undone the strings, and they rammed three bricks into each end of the roll.

'Okay,' Russell muttered once they'd rebound the ends. He began lifting one end up towards the chest-high parapet. The canal was just as deep at the sides, and there was less chance of the Gruppenfuhrer catching on a propeller.

Sarah helped him lever the body onto the parapet, and held it in balance while he made sure he had it round the ankles. As they pushed it over, the strain on his arms was almost too much, but he managed to hang on, and to lower it down for another foot or so, until the hidden head was only a metre or so from the water.

He let go. There was a louder splash than he expected, but no lights appeared in the surrounding buildings. He stared down at the surface of the water, half-expecting the body to flop back up, but there was only a flurry of bubbles.

A small indeterminate sound escaped from Sarah's lips.

'Are you all right?' he asked.

'No,' she said. 'But yes.'

Russell took another look round. If someone out there was watching them, he or she would have telephoned the police. 'Let's get out of here,' he said.

They reached Neuenburger Strasse in less than ten minutes. He took her up to his apartment and showed her where everything was. 'I'll bring you some food tomorrow,' he told her, 'and I'll contact our people about getting you out. The tenant below has been called up, so you don't have to worry about moving around, but the bathroom's one floor down... If you do run into anyone just say you're an old friend from...where do you know well?'

'I grew up in Hamburg.'

'Then say you're an old friend from Hamburg, just visiting for a few days. Nothing else.'

She looked utterly lost, and he felt guilty leaving her, but Effi would be worried sick. He could telephone her from downstairs, but...

'I'll be all right,' she said, and tried to look as if she would.

He took the offered release. Twenty minutes later he was letting himself into Effi's apartment, feeling like he'd lived several lifetimes in a few hours. She let out a cry of relief and burrowed into his arms.

Russell's sleep was full of dreams, most of them anxious. He woke in the strange darkness of the blacked-out room and lay there on his back, compulsively listing all the things that could still go wrong. The Standartenfuhrer might have recognized someone - Wilhelm or one of his friends. Sternkopf could be down at Prinz Albrecht-Strasse, leafing through photographs of the state's enemies. Wilhelm and the others could have been stopped on the way back to Friedrichshain and taken to the cellars for interrogation. Sarah Grostein's maid might have found the bloodstain, or the body might have jettisoned its Semitic ballast and floated to the surface, making sense of what someone had seen in the middle of the night. In fact two separate police units could be out on the porch right now, arguing over which had precedence.

'Jesus,' Russell murmured. He might as well turn himself in and be done with it.

Effi stirred beside him. 'We're still here,' she said sleepily.

Russell found himself smiling. 'We are, aren't we?'

Over coffee they discussed the day ahead. During his drive home six hours earlier, Russell had decided to tell Effi about Sarah Grostein. The latter could hardly be compromised any more than she already was, and calling on the comrades to get her out was a decision he thought Effi should share. No one had told him that his and Effi's exit voucher was a one-time offer, but he couldn't help thinking that Moscow was unlikely to sanction unlimited escapes. If Sarah went, their chances of a similar exit were probably reduced.

Effi , of course, saw no dilemma. 'If they get her, they'll torture her,' she told Russell.

'Probably.'

'And yours will be one of the names she has to give,' Effi added, reinforcing her instinctive generosity with that cold calculation which still surprised him.

They went their separate ways, she to a meeting at the studio offices, he to the Adlon. After calling Thomas on the hotel phone with news of Miriam's rescue, he walked across to the bar. Work was low on the list of his priorities, but abandoning it completely would be foolishly suspicious. As it was, there was nothing new to report. No prominent Pole had arrived, and none was expected. One of the correspondents had been out walking the streets and riding the trams. Berliners, he said, were unanimous twice over. All of them expected the war that none of them wanted.

Russell dedicated the rest of the day to his own survival. He withdrew a large sum of cash from his bank, used his ration card to buy groceries at the Wertheim food hall, and drove down to Neuenburger Strasse with them. Frau Heidegger intercepted him, and the usual cup of undrinkable coffee was accompanied by a litany of complaints. Her knees were bad, the rations inadequate, and, to top it all, Beiersdorfer had threatened her with the police. 'The fool says someone stole his helmet,' she said, 'and as I'm the only other person with a key it must have been me. What an idiot! I mean, what would I want with his stupid helmet?'

Russell made his escape, grateful that Sarah's presence had so far gone unnoticed. She seemed unnaturally listless when he arrived, but made a visible effort to perk up as he explained what he intended doing. She had only made one trip to the bathroom, she said, and that in the middle of the night. He promised to drop in again on the following day.

From Neuenburger Strasse he drove east towards Neukolln. He had considered following instructions and calling Zembski on the telephone, but why risk a Gestapo listener? Privacy was easier to ensure in person. The photographic studio on Berlinerstrasse was open but empty - the river of parents bringing sons in uniform for a farewell portrait had presumably dried up, now that the boys in question were all leaning over the Polish frontier. The fat Silesian emerged from his small office and smiled when he saw who it was. 'Herr Russell. Long time, no see.'

'It's good to see you too,' Russell said, offering his hand.

'Do you need your picture taken again?' Zembski asked. Russell had last visited the studio to pick up a fake passport which the photographer had created for him.

'I was given your telephone number by mutual friends,' he said softly. 'They said to ask for Martin.'

Zembski looked surprised, but only for a second. 'You need to get out?' he asked, glancing over Russell's shoulder as if fearing to find the Gestapo in close pursuit.

'Not me. A woman. Tell them it's "The Violinist". They'll know who she is. Tell them she has to get out now - there's a body involved. And tell them she's bringing them some useful information,' he added, hoping it was true.

The door opened behind them - a middle-aged couple. 'I'll only be a moment,' the Silesian told them, and turned back to Russell. 'Your photographs should be ready tomorrow,' he said. 'If you call in the afternoon, I'll let you know.'

Russell left the studio and walked down Berliner Strasse in search of lunch. Most of his fellow-Berliners were wearing resigned expressions that morning, but then they usually did. He ordered a bowl of potato soup and sausages at the first bar he came to, washed it down with a beer, and stepped reluctantly back into the summer sunshine. He spent a few minutes in the Hanomag working out logistics, and then headed north towards the Schade Printing Works. Leaving the car in a street nearby, he took one tram to Alexanderplatz and another out to Friedrichshain, arriving at the park almost half an hour early for his meeting with Wilhelm Isendahl. He sat on the agreed bench and reflected that while Wilhelm had performed brilliantly the previous evening, nothing would persuade him to work with the man again. Wilhelm was too damn sure of himself already, and each dart he planted in the neck of the Nazi bull would make him more so. He would come to feel invincible, and then the bull would get him.