The Winter Garden (2014) (47 page)

Clara pushed open the door and crossed the wide marble hall to where a uniformed guard sat at a desk, looking her up and down. He was a heavy-set bruiser with a dusting of bristles on his scalp
and eyes that had been squashed too closely together in his face.

‘I need to see the Minister. Please tell him Fräulein Clara Vine needs to see him urgently.’

The man regarded her insolently and made no attempt to lift the telephone.

‘Can I ask what this is about?’ He had a wet smirk of a mouth.

‘It’s personal. He’ll understand.’

With another sardonic look the man rose and crossed to the opposite side of the hall where another guard sat. The two men conferred, smiling and darting glances in her direction. She forced
herself to concentrate on the guard’s cigarette, dwindling into the ashtray on his desk. Fear lay like a great weight on her chest. It was a risk she was taking now, probably the biggest risk
she had taken since she set foot in Germany, but she had no choice. So long as Unity knew that Clara had the pictures, there was no possibility that she would keep quiet.

The guard returned across the wide marble hall with all the urgency of a man out for an evening stroll.

‘So sorry, Fräulein. I regret the Minister has left for the evening.’

He smirked a little more, betraying his conviction that here was another desperate actress whose business with the Herr Doktor was strictly unofficial. ‘Perhaps you could try another
night?’

Clara ignored the implication. ‘Can I ask where he might be?’

The guard found this hilarious. He choked his laughter down. ‘The Minister does not permit us to give out details of his whereabouts to anyone who happens to turn up. Not even beautiful
ladies. Is there any message?’

‘No. No message.’

As swiftly as she could, with the eyes of the two men on her, Clara left the building. Where was Goebbels? He could be anywhere in Berlin. He could even be at home at Schwanenwerder, but Emmy
Goering had said he never went home until late. What had she said?
He’s become very secretive about his movements, apparently. He even keeps his officials at the Ministry in the
dark.
Goebbels had to be somewhere in the city, but where? Berlin’s ceaseless, churning nightlife, with its hundreds of bars and theatres, which usually excited Clara, now existed to
taunt her. Her chances of unearthing Goebbels in the plush depths of some west-end nightclub were next to none.

She exited the courtyard and turned right into Wilhelmstrasse, heading towards Unter den Linden. She walked rapidly, intent on staying inconspicuous, trying to melt into the shadow of the hefty
baroque buildings. It was then that she saw it. A flicker of movement that took on the shape of a man. He was walking about fifty yards behind her on the other side of the road, yet she knew at
once that he was watching her. It was the way his attention shifted, without any outward signs, just some microscopic angling of his body towards her, that said he had her in his sights. And there
was something about him, to do with his carriage or the tilt of the shoulders, that she recognized. She had only seen him for a fraction of a second, and had not caught full sight of his face, but
it was enough to tell her she had seen him before. On the night she had led Ralph Sommers on a trail through Berlin. The man with the pale fedora in Voss Strasse. He was the man who had been at the
art gallery in Munich too. The man who had been following her ever since she first took possession of Anna Hansen’s case. And now he had found her. He looked absolutely calm, intent and
unhurried. He was a normal businessman, anxious to get home to his Frau and a couple of delightful children.

The wind whipped her hair into her eyes and when she looked again he was gone.

At once, everything Clara knew about being shadowed kicked in. There was no need to ascertain that the man was genuinely a tail, so she did not slow her pace, or vary her direction. All she
needed to do was shake him off. It sounded simple, put like that, but this man was a professional, she could tell, and he had been watching her for weeks. Like a lover, he would know the shape and
gait of her and could read in the mere movement of her body the workings of her mind.

She walked purposefully on to the top of Wilhelmstrasse and paused fractionally to decide her direction. To one side the doors of the Adlon Hotel spilled a golden corridor of light across the
pavement, its uniformed doormen shuffling and blowing clouds in the icy air. To the other side, beneath the enormous eagle-topped pillars that marched off into the distance, the evening bustle of
Unter den Linden was underway. Turning right would be the obvious choice. The theatres and restaurants that clustered around Friedrichstrasse would be the best place to disappear. Yet it was also
what he would expect of her. So she dipped into the subway of the S-Bahn, rose the other side and as she reached street level swerved left, and clipped towards Pariser Platz, in the direction of
the Brandenburg Gate.

Above her, Victoria, the goddess of triumph, championed her four horses in the ominous direction of Hitler’s chosen Lebensraum in the East. Beside her the windows of the French embassy
sent bright oblongs of light into the square. Clara kept to the shadows, calculating fiercely which route to take, longing for crowds and traffic to obscure the path between them. She could sense
the man behind her, his step quickening, trying to make up the ground between them. She felt danger, thrumming in her skull, rising and jangling.

No sooner had she emerged the other side of the gate than she had another choice to make. To her right lay the Platz der Republik and the Reichstag, heading northwards to Lehrter Bahnhof. To her
left was a short walk to the bustle of Potsdamer Platz, where she could disappear down the U-Bahn. But if she went into the U-Bahn she risked being trapped. On impulse she took the choice right
ahead of her and headed into the darkness of the Tiergarten.

It was properly dark now. A hard moon slipped behind filigree clouds in the sky. The park was empty. No one wanted to be out on a night like this, still and bitterly cold with the taste of snow
in the air.

She headed resolutely off the paths, past heavy statues of forgotten German statesmen and bronze heroes struggling with wild boar and bears, threading her way deeper between the trees. Clara
zigzagged from tree to tree, halting in the pool of deeper shadow cast by each trunk. For a moment she stopped, breathless, and thought about sinking down to the earth, huddling in the darkness and
waiting for her follower to abandon his search. She dared to hope she had shaken him off. There was no crunch of footsteps on the fallen leaves, no human sound apart from the distant thrum of
traffic. It was as though he had vaporized.

As she stood there, motionless, she imagined for a moment that she had gone back to childhood and was in the nursery, tucked up in the eaves of the house. Night after night, as she curled in her
warm bed trying to sleep, she would see shadows in the corner of the room rise up and form themselves into menacing shapes. Her fears would grasp her by the shoulders and shake her as she lay.
Eventually her father would appear, sternly dismissive and almost as frightening as the shadows themselves. The experience was just night terrors, he would explain when he found her sobbing figure
on the stairs. It was merely her own imaginings stepping outside of her mind and taking a shape of their own.

‘Your fears are nonsensical, Clara. You have always had an overactive imagination.’

But this was no night terror. The man following her had a most deadly agenda.

Clara wouldn’t have seen him if he hadn’t made a mistake. He was about a hundred yards away from her, still on the path, and he passed a lamp. For a split second his shadow twisted
up under the light, revealing the brim of his hat, even though his face remained obscured. A moment later darkness swallowed him as he veered off the path in the direction of the trees. He was
coming towards her. She remembered what Unity Mitford said to her about hunting.
I learned an awful lot about being the prey. You’ve got to avoid sudden movement. That always draws the
eye.

If she was being hunted, she needed to remain where she was, completely still. Looking behind her she was sure she heard his step, but when she glanced, he was nowhere to be seen. She forced
herself to be calm. She would stand completely motionless in the deep shadow. She bitterly regretted choosing the coat with the white fox collar. The fur gleamed in the moonlight and made her far
easier to spot.

Even while she tried her hardest not to move, Clara was cursing herself for choosing the route into the Tiergarten. The place was deceptively large. If you strayed off the paths, getting lost
was a real possibility. The Tiergarten was no tame English park. There was something wild and impenetrable about it. It seemed incredible that in the heart of the city – and such an orderly,
monumental city as Berlin – this wildness should be enclosed. Perhaps, Clara thought, it stood for something in the city’s soul.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a crunch of twigs a few yards away and instantly she knew that he was perilously close. She needed to make a decision. Abandoning her stillness she lurched
forward and ran. She ran, though her heels hobbled her and the darkness was so solid it stunted her movement, as though she was running through sand. She ran until her lungs were screaming for air
and fear dragged her backwards like a tide, pulling her down into the sweet surrender of oblivion. All the time she ran, she strained for the pitch of his footsteps behind her confirming that he
was gaining ground.

She was terribly afraid. Fear rose in her gullet like acid, but in the midst of her fear she found anger, hard and cold as a stone. This was the man who had threatened Erich. Who had murdered
Anna Hansen. If she slowed, if she surrendered to a man like this who thought he could dominate and destroy women, she would give up her life. She would give up her life, so hard achieved, to
someone who wanted to save his own. The thought of Unity, who would even now be passionately regaling the Führer with the story of the photographs Clara possessed, spurred her further on.

Ahead of her, the trees thinned and she saw a glistening blank stretch of water she recognized as the Neuer See, a favourite weekend spot for Berliners who loved to drink beer under the pine
trees or hire boats to sail on the lake. Bobbing darkly at the water’s edge, moored to a post, there was, she could just make out, the dim shape of a rowing boat. A pair of oars were lying
along its bottom. Clara thanked God that Erich had persuaded her that summer to learn to row. She knelt down and fumbled with the rope, but the knot which tied the boat to its mooring post might
have been devised by an entire brigade of Hitler Youth. It was fiendishly complex and tightly coiled. Her fingers slipped helplessly as she grappled in the darkness with the damp and muddy strands.
She sank back on her heels in desperation. A chance of escape was in front of her, but a single rope prevented her from taking it. Then she remembered Erich’s knife at the bottom of her bag
and, unsheathing it, she marvelled at its sharpness in slicing through the rope in one blow.

On the edge of her vision she saw something, a flick of shadow on the water, but it was only a heron, lifting off from its nest in the reeds. The boat rocked as she stepped into it, and reaching
for the oars she fixed them into the rowlocks and pushed off into the night.

Despite the cold, she was damp with sweat and hair clung to her face. Her head felt dizzy with the effort as she pulled faster through the black water that was heavy as cement. There was no
sound but the splash of the oars as the water dragged against the blades. She had no idea where she was rowing to, but she felt sure that if she could only remain in the boat, on the water in
darkness, then she would be safe. For a few minutes she let the oars drop and allowed the boat to drift free and undirected on the ripple of the lake.

The crack of a shot changed her mind.

Instinctively, she ducked down. Crouching against the wet bottom of the boat, she thought of the Beretta that remained, uselessly, in the hollowed-out leg of her desk. If only she had listened
to Leo Quinn when he gave her that gun, together with the smooth leather holster that slid over the left shoulder. She had shrunk at that time from carrying death around with her, but now she
realized that, like the cyanide tablet in Ralph’s heel, death and danger were constant companions. There was no virtue in being unprepared.

Ralph might well know by now that she had vanished. Perhaps he would be searching for her. He might even have been to Winterfeldstrasse and discovered her hasty exit. Yet no matter how hard he
was looking, his searches would never lead him to a lake at the heart of the Tiergarten. There was no one to save her now but herself. Around her was shifting darkness, and beneath her was
bottomless black. The man who was pursuing her wanted her dead and would surely shoot again until he caught her. She thought of herself sinking beneath the choking weeds, sodden clothes weighing
her down like chains, blood spiralling upwards towards the closing surface of the lake.

The sound of the gun had, however, unleashed something else. An unearthly screech, followed by a cacophony of bird and animal calls rising up into the night, to be joined by the melancholy,
plangent roar of some caged creature, yearning for its jungle home. Clara glimpsed a tangle of lights stretching beyond the trees that she recognized as the western end of the Tiergarten, and
realized just what she had heard. She was approaching the zoo, from whose walls the strange, night calls of animals would often startle Berliners out for an evening stroll, reminding them of the
captives in their midst.

The zoo. It was then that it came to her. The Ufa Palast am Zoo. Of course! That evening the Ufa Palast am Zoo was hosting the premiere of Lída Baarová’s new film,
Patriots
. The story of a brave German soldier captured by the French in the war, and befriended by a rebel French girl. The story was all part of Germany’s harsher policy towards
France, and it must have seemed an ideal film to show to the city’s most prestigious visitors – the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Goebbels had mentioned that he planned a special evening
for the royal couple. What had he said?
I have a cultural treat in store that I think they will appreciate.
If Goering could give them dinner at his hunting lodge then Goebbels could go
one further, with an evening at the city’s plushest movie theatre, in front of an audience two thousand strong. It would be adequate recompense for the humiliation of the Olympics party, when
Goebbels’ attempt to outshine his rival had descended into debauchery and farce. Hitler would not be there, but almost certainly Goebbels would have assembled as many top-ranking Nazis as he
could muster to showcase his latest film triumph, plus, of course, his latest girlfriend.