Hitler's Angel Read online

  This one is in memory of Kent Patterson.

  CONTENTS

  TITLE

  DEDICATION

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  COPYRIGHT

  ONE

  F ritz pats his shirt pocket for his cigarettes. The pack is nearly empty, the cellophane crinkling beneath his fingers. The girl watches him, her wide, round American eyes taking in each movement. She perches on the edge of his metal kitchen chair. He has not risen from his seat. He doesn’t want her to see that the orange plastic has ripped, revealing a mottled brown stuffing and the coil of a spring.

  The apartment is bad enough: two rooms with a makeshift kitchen and a bath down the hall. He can afford better but he still sees luxury as a sign of schiebers and politicians – men who get rich off the pain of others. His money has come from the careful investment of his twenty-year-old windfall into television and business machines. He never speaks of those investments, made outside of Germany into American companies. He sees it all as vaguely illegal, although young Germans of today would probably applaud his foresight.

  He pulls the cigarette slowly from the top of the pack and resists the urge to sniff the tobacco as if he held a Cuban cigar. His cigarettes are thin, wrapped in brown paper, and unfiltered. He read in the American propaganda he receives that such cigarettes can kill a man – they have gone so far as to ban television advertising of all cigarettes in the United States – but they seem to have no effect on him. His fingertips are stained with nicotine, but his hands are unrecognisable to him anyway – thick, covered with tufts of white hair, with deep wrinkles. They look like his grandfather’s hands, the hands of a man who died before this century, now in its seventy-second year, was born.

  ‘You Americans all act as if the Demmelmayer case is the only thing that happened in Bavaria in 1929.’ He grabs the matches off his scarred end table. He flips open the match lid, pauses, and adds with only a touch of sarcasm, ‘There was a worldwide financial collapse in 1929.’

  ‘The Demmelmayer case was important to police work,’ the girl says. Her German is slightly accented. If he struggles, he can separate out the American inflections and discover how many of her teachers were Bavarian, Prussian, Pomeranian – or just plain ignorant.

  With a single movement, he rips out a match. ‘I have already talked about Demmelmayer. To schoolboys in the Fifties, BBC commentators in the Sixties, and now to you. Someone wrote an entire book on the case. You can find all you need in there. You do not need to speak to me. I have no more to say.’

  ‘People have written about the case’s sensationalism,’ she says. ‘I am studying how it fits into the science of crime-solving. For my dissertation.’

  He studies her a moment. Americans have flooded Munich all spring to prepare for the Olympics, and to see West Germany. She is no different. She has taken advantage of the cheap airplane tickets to do primary research on her doctoral dissertation, and she hounded him until he finally agreed to this interview. He still isn’t sure he should have let her into the apartment. When she came to the door, he stared at her in dumbfounded awe, unable to speak for nearly a moment.

  The round doe eyes. The high cheekbones. The rich brownish blonde hair. She is a ghost from his past returned.

  Until she speaks.

  ‘No one has examined the importance of your role,’ she says.

  He blinks, still astounded at her uncanny resemblance to a woman fifty years dead. ‘What is your name again?’ he asks, more to clear his mind than to refresh his memory.

  ‘Annie. Annie Pohlmann.’

  ‘Well, Miss Annie Pohlmann, they have all looked at the importance of the investigator. I have been a celebrity twice for this case. Once when I solved it, and then again when your Mr Hitchcock considered Demmelmayer as a base for one of his films.’

  ‘I know about that.’ Her voice is soft. ‘He was never able to get a script he liked.’

  ‘The case was not dramatic enough for him.’ Fritz turns the match over in his hand. He remembers the man. Rotund, very British. A bit too interested in the graphic details. Fritz could not confide in Hitchcock, even though he had another story that might have interested the filmmaker. But despite their failure to work together, word of Hitchcock’s interest was enough for articles on Demmelmayer, then a book, and later a bad television film, all of which gave Fritz enough money to last the rest of his life.

  The girl shakes her head. ‘Perhaps I am not communicating this clearly. I am writing about the way the inspector’s mind works, the way it puts the details together. I believe that only certain people can solve certain crimes.’

  She doesn’t know how right she is. He puts the cigarette in his mouth. ‘And then what?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘After the crime is solved. It is like a movie, no? To your American senses. The crime is solved and all is well.’

  She glances at the room, at its shabbiness, and her cheeks flush. She thinks he is talking about wealth.

  He is not.

  ‘I expect it took a toll on you,’ she says politely.

  ‘What did?’

  ‘Demmelmayer.’

  He snorts, the idea absurd, and with a flick of his thumb, lights the match. ‘And what led you to that conclusion?’

  ‘You retired soon after.’

  ‘No.’ The match burns down to his fingertips. He shakes it out. The unlit cigarette bobs against his lips as he speaks. ‘I worked another three years. No one remembers that. No one speaks of it.’

  ‘Under Hitler?’

  ‘I thought you were an historian,’ he snaps.

  ‘Of police procedures. I have no interest in Nazi Germany.’

  He stares at her a moment, astounded that she believes she can study one part of a culture without studying another. The procedures he used, the procedures he changed, evolved because he was German, because he had been a soldier, because he had starved.

  Because of Gisela.

  He takes a deep breath, says, ‘Hitler did not come to power until 1933. What do they teach you in your American schools?’

  ‘Apparently not enough.’ She speaks with a touch of wry humour, as if she knows her education is lacking.

  ‘Then you should know that the Nazis introduced many new police techniques.’

  ‘None I want to study,’ she says.

  ‘Because you shock easily?’

  She shakes her head. ‘I do not believe in studying the deeds of evil men.’

  He strikes another match and, with a shaking hand, lights his cigarette. ‘You know a man’s heart, then?’

  She frowns, swallows, and in an unconscious gesture, draws her bag closer to her body. ‘None of the histories say you were a Nazi.’

  ‘Many men go to great lengths to h
ide their past.’ He takes a drag. The nicotine is cool against his throat.

  ‘So you were.’

  He shakes his head. ‘I was in England by then.’

  ‘But you believed –?’

  ‘It is not as simple as that.’ He stubs out the cigarette, disappointment filling him. Despite her looks, despite her curiosity, she is the wrong one. ‘You do not need to talk to me.’

  She lets her bag fall. It thuds against the floor. His sudden refusal seems to have intrigued her. She glances at the tape recorder she has set on the table beside her. A strand of brown hair falls across her face. He is wrong calling her a girl. She is a woman of perhaps thirty years. Old enough to have children of her own. Old enough to write books about things she does not understand.

  She brings her head back up, looks directly at him. ‘You worked for three more years,’ she says, her doe eyes full of compassion. ‘Yet no one speaks of it.’

  He does not move. Her words catch him, her expression holds him. In it, there is something he has waited a long time to see.

  ‘Why does no one speak of it?’ she asks.

  The air is full of a sudden tension. The question he has waited almost four decades to hear.

  ‘Because they do not think it important,’ he says. The words are a test. The final test. If she passes it, he will talk to her.

  ‘And you do.’

  He takes another cigarette, presses its end against the half-smoked butt, using the old cigarette to light the new. Then he takes a puff, letting the acrid, unfiltered taste burn the back of his throat. He releases the smoke through his nostrils. The white wisps curl around his face, obscuring her and the tiny, shabby room. ‘I think,’ he says, pulling the cigarette from his mouth, ‘the things people fail to talk about are always the most important, don’t you?’

  The smoke clears. He puts the cigarette on his ash tray. She tucks the loose strand of hair behind her ear. Americans all have a fresh-faced look, an innocence bred of good food and adequate medical care. She seems to have no response.

  He sighs. For a moment, he thought she would be the one. But she has shown she is not. For a moment, though, he believed…

  He stubs out the cigarette. The interview is over, and he wants a glass of beer. He tried to speak to her, but like the last, she is not willing to listen. Well, then. Perhaps the next. Or the next.

  Please God, he hopes someone will listen before he dies.

  ‘Will you tell me why you quit?’ she asks, her voice soft.

  His breath catches in his throat. He wishes he has not put out his cigarette. He tries not to sound too eager when he says, ‘If you listen to the whole story.’

  TWO

  The Föhn was still blowing when he arrived at Prinzregentenplaz. The wind carried dust from the gardens lining the buildings, off the cobbled streets, and into his eyes. He hated the Föhn – the wind some said brought hallucinations, and others claimed brought truth. Crime increased during the Föhn, a fact he always found odd, since the light Münich was so famous for was clearer when the strange wind blew down from the Alps. The Föhn had started the day before and had continued all night. And he had known, with a certainty that bordered on foresight, that change flew on this wind.

  So he was not surprised to be called on a Saturday morning to one of the richest sections of the city, within walking distance of the Englischer Garten, the only peaceful place in the city. The few cars parked alongside the street were black and expensive, most of them Mercedes. The houses were Victorian, although some of the newer sported art nouveau facades. This block was full of apartment buildings, built for luxury, many two and three centuries old.

  He stood in front of 16 Prinzregentenplaz, hands in the pockets of his overcoat. So far, only the men from his unit and the street police had arrived. Good. With a murder in a location like this, the political inspectors could not be far behind.

  ‘At this time,’ he says, uncertain now about her level of knowledge, ‘the Bavarian police had three divisions. The Schutzpolizei or the –’

  ‘Schupo,’ she says, as if to prove herself. ‘They were what my country would call the beat police officers, the street patrol.’

  ‘They were more than that,’ he says, ‘but it will do.’ Then he waits. She smiles.

  ‘There was also the political police or the Abteilung IA –’

  ‘That was Berlin,’ he says. ‘Each German region had different laws, different organisations.’

  ‘Not that different,’ she says. ‘There were political police in Bavaria.’

  He nods. ‘Indeed, but we had another name for them.’

  She frowns. ‘What?’

  ‘Assholes.’

  Her grin is crooked. It makes her face her own. ‘You were in the criminal police, and I know it was called Kriminalpolizei or the Kripo.’

  ‘It was,’ he says.

  ‘So the Kripo and the Schupo were there, and you were expecting the assholes.’

  ‘But they had not yet arrived.’ He leans back in his chair and continues.

  The building was imposing: five storeys high, with oriel windows and balconies from the second storey up. Gargoyles hung over the windows on the second floor, their grinning faces malevolent, their stone eyes taking in all around them. The curtains were closed on all but the attic windows: he could see nothing inside.

  Fritz took a deep breath before entering. He had had six homicide rotations since he solved the most famous case in Munich. Each time, everyone from the Government Councilor to the Chief Inspector had expected him to catch the murderer within hours of the crime’s commission. He had, much to his own surprise – never confessed to the toll the job was taking on his dreams, and his nightmares. In his waking moments, he feared the next case, worried that he would not solve it, worried that this time it would steal his sanity completely.

  This one was making him even more uncomfortable. Each case they handed him had a different degree of difficulty. The location of this one alone brought it into a whole new level.

  Four stairs led to the main door. A constable blocked it, as he would in a crowded crime scene. Only here he fended off no one. Fritz took the stairs two at a time, his new boots shiny despite the dust. ‘Where?’ he asked.

  ‘Second floor,’ the constable said.

  Fritz nodded and entered. The building smelled of polish, boot black and leather. The first floor held offices and smaller apartments. Another constable blocked the formal staircase. From somewhere above Fritz, a woman’s voice rose and fell, not keening but nearly so. The voice held so much anguish, he could feel an echo in his own bones.

  He passed the second constable, gripped the polished railing, and climbed wide staircase like the young man he no longer was. He remained trim, although he no longer had to qualify for police athletics. Still, he felt that someday his great physical condition would save his life – and it nearly had in August, when he lost his footing in a riot sparked by a Communist rally outside the Hofbrauhaus.

  When he reached the second floor he let go of the railing and paused a final time. His heart was pounding. He would fail this investigation if he did not concentrate, but he did not want to concentrate. The woman’s cry had awakened ancient ghosts in him as well.

  The apartment covered the entire second floor. The landing was a brief stop for the other tenants to take before climbing to their own gran luxe apartments on the upper floor. The door to the second floor apartment was open, though, and from inside came the wail. The woman was actually speaking to someone in the sing-song voice of grief. He could hear mumbled male replies, barely audible, in response.

  Fritz slipped inside the open door and nearly gasped at the richness before him. The floor was so well polished that it shined. Deep blue Oriental carpets began inside the foyer. Heavy curtains covering the nearest windows were in a matching blue, as were the deep-cushioned sofas. Oil paintings hung on the wall, the work dark and realistic. A few amateurish watercolours were mixed in, looking childish and out of p
lace. The tables were made of mahogany – as highly polished as the floor. A pair of black leather gloves had been tossed onto the occasional table beside the door. They provided the only clutter in the otherwise pristine room.

  A stout woman in her late forties sat on the couch, her hands over her face. A sergeant Fritz did not recognise sat across from her, speaking softly. She was sobbing now, her wails having ceased.

  Another woman stood behind the sofa, hands on its back. She watched Fritz, her eyes dark in her wrinkled face. Her hair was piled on her head, and her mouth was a flat line.

  The sergeant looked up. His expression was much more open than the woman’s.

  ‘Detective Inspector Stecher,’ Fritz said.

  ‘I know who you are,’ the sergeant said. ‘Your problem is down the hall.’

  Fritz frowned at the choice of words, but said nothing. Instead he followed the dark blue runner, looking for, and finding, traces of blood.

  The unease he had felt on the street grew.

  The rooms on the street side of the apartment were spacious and echoed the same design as the foyer. All of the curtains were closed, and some of the lights were on, making it feel like night indoors.

  The drops of blood grew into blots as he approached the end of the corridor. Another constable stood near the door, arms crossed, straining the shoulders of his greatcoat. He stared straight ahead as if the watercolour above the mahogany table fascinated him. Fritz glanced at the painting: buildings and stairways in old Vienna, done in stone browns and greens. The precise lettering on the posters hanging from a gate suggested a young artist’s reluctance to use his imagination.

  The trail on the runner ended near the constable’s scuffed black boots. The blood went inward, through the door itself, into what appeared to be a bedroom.

  ‘Detective Inspector –’

  ‘Yes,’ the constable said. He was young, the neck strap from his helmet pushing up his chin. He smiled as if the movement hurt him. ‘You won’t like this.’

  Fritz didn’t like it. He hated that the Schupo knew him and he didn’t know them. It made him wonder how many people on the street recognised him from the stiff drawings of him the papers had printed when they covered his cases.