Hitler's Angel Read online

  ‘So,’ she says, a bit too brightly, as if she is trying to make the tense moment pass, ‘who gave you the paintings?’

  Fritz sighs and shakes his head. She is over-eager and undereducated. ‘In due time,’ he says. ‘We first had to solve the mystery of the letter.’

  He tells her of Henrich and the mysterious Eva.

  ‘Eva Braun?’ the girl asks.

  ‘Eva Braun,’ he says, ‘long before she became famous.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  Henrich took him to a photographic shop. The storefront was recessed against the neighbouring shops, and even from the doorway it looked dark and uninviting. The photographs in the two slim windows which flanked the door were varied. Some were tasteful art shots of Bavarian women: not too pretty but made striking by use of lighting and make-up. Others were of soldiers looking tall and proud in their uniforms, and families huddled stiffly and sombrely together. Only a photograph of Hitler – showing a thinner, younger man than the one Fritz had met, looking fierce and holding the passenger door of an automobile – gave any indication that Hoffman Photographic Studio did anything other than studio portraits.

  Fritz went inside. To his right was a small sitting room. Lamps with umbrella-like shades and cameras on stands broke the illusion. In front of Fritz was a single desk with a middle-aged woman sitting behind it. She did not smile at him when he entered. Behind her were rows and rows of portraits, all expensively framed, all difficult to see in the dim light.

  Henrich hesitated beside him. Fritz stuck his hands in the pockets of his overcoat and approached the woman. ‘I am looking for Eva Braun. I am told she works here.’

  The woman said nothing. She stood and slipped through a curtain into the back room. Her movements filled the air with strong perfume and the sharp scent of emulsifier. Henrich glanced at Fritz and shrugged. After a moment, a short blonde with athletic grace entered the room. She wore a black A-line skirt and heels that accentuated her muscular legs. The black and white striped sweater made her appear slimmer than she was. She wore her hair in a modified marcel that revealed her youth. Fritz guessed her age to be 19.

  ‘I am Eva,’ she said.

  Fritz nodded to her. ‘Fraulein, I am Detective Inspector Stecher. Is there a place we may talk privately?’

  Eva’s eyes widened. She glanced at the woman who did not look at her.

  ‘In the back,’ Eva finally said.

  The older woman took her seat behind the desk, as if she expected a flood of customers. Eva parted a curtain and waited for the two men. Fritz slipped around the desk and stepped into the back. It was half the size of the front with a door labelled ‘Darkroom’ on the left and a smaller room to the right. He waited for the girl. She led Fritz and Henrich into the smaller room. The walls were covered with cabinets, and they had to squeeze to get around the table in the centre.

  Eva offered them some bread still sitting on a sideboard, but Fritz and Henrich declined.

  ‘Is it private back here?’ Henrich asked.

  The girl bit her lower lip. She was obviously worried about herself. ‘Frau Hoffmann can’t hear.’

  Fritz wasn’t certain if that statement meant that the older woman couldn’t hear at all or if she couldn’t hear what was being discussed in the back room. He supposed it didn’t matter.

  ‘We would like to talk with you about the death of Geli Raubal,’ he said.

  ‘Oh.’ Eva sat down. She crossed her ankles and tucked her legs under her chair, an unconscious way of emphasising her strongest feature.

  ‘Did you know her?’ Henrich asked.

  ‘No.’ The edges of the girl’s mouth tightened, as if she had to restrain herself from saying more.

  Fritz sat down across from her. The chair was old and wobbly. He braced himself to keep from swaying. Henrich sat as well.

  ‘Did you know of her?’ Fritz asked.

  Eva nodded. ‘She is Adolf Hitler’s niece.’

  Is. Eva was one of the few people to speak of Geli in the present tense. ‘I understand that you know Herr Hitler,’ Fritz said.

  ‘He comes to the shop.’

  ‘He has taken you out a few times, no?’ Henrich said.

  She glanced at him like a doe trapped in a hunter’s sights. ‘Who said that?’

  ‘You did.’ Fritz removed the taped letter from his pocket. Eva watched his movements closely. He slid the letter across the table. ‘Did you write that?’

  She put a small hand on the letter, her finger tracing the tape. ‘What happened to it?’

  ‘I was hoping you knew.’

  Her finger followed the jagged lines formed by the rips. It lingered over Hitler’s name. ‘I sent it to Herr Hitler. I haven’t seen it since.’

  ‘Did he respond to it?’

  A small smile played at the edges of her mouth before she suppressed it. ‘He had Herr Hoffman bring me flowers.’

  The statement surprised Fritz, although he did not allow his surprise to show. Hitler had not struck him as a sentimental man. ‘How long have you known Herr Hitler?’

  ‘Two years.’ Her finger kept moving, up, down, over, around. Her wrist bone was visible and she had muscle definition in her forearm. She was athletic in a way that Geli had not been.

  ‘And you dated Herr Hitler all this time?’

  This time she allowed her smile. Before she answered, she gazed up at Fritz from the corner of her eyes. A sly, flirtatious look. ‘I didn’t know who he was at first.’

  Henrich shot a disbelieving glance at Fritz. No one who paid attention to life in Munich would have failed to recognise Hitler, even two years ago. Eva’s revelation only confirmed Fritz’s sense of her youth. ‘How did you meet?’

  ‘He came to the shop with Herr Hoffman. They sat opposite me. Herr Hitler was watching my legs. I felt slightly embarrassed because I had shortened my skirt that day, and I wasn’t sure I’d got the hem right.’ As she spoke, she tugged at the hem of the skirt she was wearing, adjusting it over her calves. ‘We talked for a while, and I refused his offer of a lift in his Mercedes. That was when Herr Hoffman told me who he was. He came back to the shop a lot after that. He brought me candy.’

  ‘You never met his niece?’

  A slight flush built in her cheeks. It added to the freshness of her looks, made her look windblown and alive. ‘I never went to his apartment. When he took me out, we had our own places.’

  ‘Did you meet any of his friends?’

  ‘I work for Herr Hoffman. He is with Herr Hitler all the time.’

  ‘But you never met any of his other friends.’

  Her hand brushed her skirt. She looked back down at the letter. ‘I am not political,’ she said. ‘I am for him to relax.’

  Fritz stiffened. She was parroting the words. All of Hitler’s associates seemed to quote him without attribution. He would like some time alone with the man, just to get a sense about how they managed to do that.

  ‘So you were his mistress?’ Henrich said. Fritz drew in his breath sharply. He did not want to antagonise this girl.

  ‘No!’ Eva’s flush grew deeper. ‘He was going to marry me!’

  Fritz frowned. No one else had mentioned that. ‘He proposed to you?’

  Her lips tightened into a small bow. She pushed the letter away.

  ‘Fraulein, this is important, ’Henrich said. ‘Did he propose to you?’

  ‘He was going to marry me.’ Her tone had a petulant edge, as if she expected their disbelief. The tense bothered Fritz again. She spoke of Geli in the present tense, but Hitler in the past.

  ‘When was the last time you saw him?’ Fritz asked.

  ‘A few weeks ago.’

  ‘Then you sent him the letter?’ Henrich said. ‘It seems formal for a girl to send to her fiancé.’

  ‘He isn’t my fiancé,’ she said. ‘He was.’

  Her cheeks were ruddy, almost scarlet, and the flush had crept to her throat. Clearly, the man had lied to her to get her to sleep with him. Fritz suppressed a sig
h. Such things were not unusual, and he disliked her distress. The girl’s relationship with Hitler didn’t matter unless she had access to the apartment and to one of Hitler’s guns. ‘Do you have a key to his apartment?’

  She shook her head. With three fingers, she pulled the letter toward her, touching it as if it were a talisman. ‘I don’t even know where he lives. On Prinzregentenstrasse, I think. But if I delivered photographs or if I met him, it was here or at the Brown House.’

  ‘You have never been to his apartment?’

  ‘No!’ She looked up, her eyes wet, her humiliation palpable. ‘I am not that kind of girl.’

  Fritz swallowed, knowing his next questions would increase her upset, but unable to see any way around them. ‘Did you know of his relationship with Geli Raubal?’

  ‘She is his niece. Everyone knows that.’

  ‘I was told,’ Fritz said slowly, ‘that he was in love with her.’

  ‘No!’ Eva’s lower lip was trembling. Her eyes narrowed and filled with tears. ‘He loves me!’

  ‘His housekeeper says that Geli tore up your note out of jealousy.’ Henrich leaned forward as he spoke almost as if he were going to comfort the girl.

  ‘No.’ The word was a whisper.

  ‘He never took you to any public meeting, to meet his friends, to see his apartment?’ Fritz asked.

  A tear ran down her left cheek. ‘He loves me,’ she said again. ‘I am for him to relax. I help him. He loves me.’

  ‘Did you ever see him with Geli Raubal?’

  She shook her head. Another tear escaped, this time from her right eye. ‘He can’t love his niece like he would love me. He can’t. She’s his niece.’ Then she swallowed. ‘Who told you these lies?’

  ‘Most of the people who knew him also knew he was in love with Geli.’

  ‘And that’s why he wouldn’t take me out like a proper woman?’ Her voice was small, childish, needy. In that single sentence, Fritz understood that she had never known about her competition.

  ‘His housekeeper says Geli was jealous of you.’

  ‘Good,’ Eva said. Her chin jutted out. ‘Good.’

  ‘So jealous she tore up your letter,’ Henrich added.

  Eva put her hand over the letter in a protective gesture. ‘She found it?’

  ‘The housekeeper says that’s why Geli killed herself, because she was jealous of you.’

  Eva wiped the tears off her cheek. Her colour was fading. ‘She was? Of me?’ The needy voice, the little girl voice again. Eva had to believe this.

  Fritz nodded.

  ‘So why come to see me?’ Eva said. ‘It seems obvious.’

  ‘Because,’ Fritz said softly, ‘someone broke Geli’s nose before she died.’

  ‘Oh, he would never do that,’ Eva said.

  Her response made Fritz lean forward, his heart beating faster. He had expected surprise from her, the thought that Geli had been murdered, not this quick and almost automatic denial. ‘Who would never do that?’

  ‘Herr Hitler. He would never.’ She glanced from Fritz to Henrich and then back to Fritz. ‘That is what you were going to ask me, isn’t it?’

  ‘What made you think we were going to ask about Herr Hitler?’ Fritz asked.

  ‘That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? About Herr Hitler? I don’t know his niece.’

  ‘Do you think he could have hurt her?’

  She slid her chair back, just enough to be noticeable. The flush had receded from her face, and her skin had turned an odd, pasty white. She looked terrified. ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘I am asking you,’ Fritz said.

  ‘No, of course not,’ she said. ‘He never hurts anyone.’

  ‘Then who do you think killed Geli?’

  Eva opened her mouth, then closed it. She glanced at Henrich who did not move. ‘I thought you said she killed herself. Because of me.’

  Fritz let out the breath he had been holding. The girl lacked guile. ‘So I did,’ he said.

  The girl bit her lower lip and nodded. Fritz stood, and Henrich did the same. He held out his hand. It took a moment before she slid the letter back to him. Then she stood too.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, as he put the letter back into his pocket. ‘I appreciate your help.’

  She did not move. He nodded to Henrich, who went through the door. Fritz stopped when he reached the tiny hallway, turned and looked at Eva. She was sitting at the table, staring at her hands.

  ‘Eva,’ he said.

  She looked up, her lashes wet, her eyes red-rimmed.

  ‘The next time he hurts you, send for me. I will help.’

  The flush returned, deep and swift. ‘He doesn’t hurt me,’ she whispered. ‘He’s never hurt me at all.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ‘B ut you think he did,’ the girl says, breaking into his narrative. ‘I have seen such things before. She would not have denied so quickly if he had been a gentle man.’ Fritz uses the moment to get up and walk to the kitchen. His throat is always dry now. He decides not to wait for a decent hour. He wants a beer, and so he pours himself one in a jelly glass.

  ‘Eva wrote the note, then?’

  The sip is warm, soothing. He closes his eyes as the alcohol burns its way down his throat. ‘She did.’

  ‘Doesn’t that prove that she was his mistress then, not Geli?’

  ‘It proved nothing. As we left, the woman in front was waiting for us. She was Hoffman’s wife, and she did not like Eva much, in that way women have.’

  ‘What way?’ The girl’s tone has an edge. He is beginning to understand that she hates it when he generalises about women.

  ‘She was friendly enough, let her work there, maybe even confided in her. But underneath, she didn’t trust her, didn’t even like her much.’

  ‘You got all that from one conversation?’

  He shrugs. He has no answer for that. He was good at what he did. He can understand what people feel if he concentrates on it. That is part of his gift he never talks about. It is the part no one will believe, just as the girl, this Annie, does not believe it. ‘She had no reason to tell us otherwise.’

  ‘Tell you what?’

  ‘That Eva was lying.’

  ‘About Hitler?’

  ‘About her relationship with him.’ Fritz takes another sip, then pours more into the glass before returning to his chair. He sets the glass beside the full ashtray. He is getting hungry. Soon they should have lunch. This time he will not let her cook for him. ‘Hitler “escorted” Eva, but never proposed. In fact, when Eva began bragging around the shop that she was Hitler’s mistress and he was going to marry her, Herr Hoffman told her to stop telling lies or he would fire her.’

  ‘Was she lying?’

  ‘She stopped saying anything, and for a year Hitler insisted that all his photographs be delivered to him. He did not want to see Eva. Then in the summer before Geli’s death, he showed up again and spent some time with Eva. Not enough, though, for her. Hence the note.’

  The girl pushes the pause button on her recorder. ‘May I have some of that beer?’

  ‘My house is yours,’ he says.

  She gets up, and takes a stein from his cupboard. She picks his favourite, the one he lets no one else touch. But he says nothing. He does not want to add to the tension he feels from her today.

  ‘So Hitler hit Geli,’ she says. ‘But he could not have killed her.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ he asks.

  ‘Because you were on the case. You solved it.’ Her naiveté surprises him. ‘And he could not have gone on if he had done such a thing.’

  She brings the stein back to her chair, then releases the pause button so the recorder starts again.

  ‘You are certain of that?’ Fritz asks. ‘None of your leaders have committed crimes?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ she says, with a primness that makes him smile.

  ‘Are you so certain?’

  ‘You’re saying he did it, and no one brought him to jus
tice?’

  ‘I am saying nothing. At this point in the case, I knew nothing for certain.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go to Hitler directly? He would have been the one to tell you about all his women and what he was doing when Geli died.’

  Fritz nods. ‘He would have, but by then he had disappeared.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  ‘We are receiving complaints about the way you’re spending your vacation.’ The Chief Inspector’s wire-rimmed glasses had slipped to the edge of his nose. He leaned back in his chair. His sleeves were pushed up to his elbows, and the cuffs were smudged with ink.

  ‘I thought you were going to handle those complaints.’

  ‘And I have been. What a man does on his own time is his own business.’ The Chief pushed up his glasses with the knuckle of his right forefinger. ‘But I had thought you would be a bit more discreet.’

  ‘This case is making discretion impossible.’ Fritz sighed and sat down. The Chief’s office was hot. Someone had turned on the heat in the building even though the afternoon was warm. ‘And now I think I’m going to need the help of the political branch.’

  The Chief placed his hands on his thighs – a deliberate gesture designed to prevent an involuntary response. Fritz had seen him use it before, each time in a trying situation.

  ‘Why?’ the Chief asked.

  ‘Because I cannot find Hitler and I don’t know where to look.’ Fritz pulled his chair closer to the desk. The metal legs dragged on the wooden floor, scratching it. The Chief looked pained even though he couldn’t see the damage.

  ‘I thought, from all the complaints I’ve been getting, that you spoke to him already.’

  ‘Briefly,’ Fritz said. ‘On Saturday. He said he would see me on Sunday, but I was already in Vienna. It wouldn’t have mattered. I heard from Schupo that he left the apartment before dawn on Sunday morning and hasn’t been back.’

  ‘Then who wrote the letter in the Münchner Post?’ the Chief asked.

  Fritz shrugged. ‘It could have been Hitler. It could have been his men. I don’t know. I do know that I need to talk with him, and he has disappeared from Munich. None of my sources know where he is, but I rarely work on political cases. I need the help of the Political Branch.’