Hitler's Angel Page 14

  The Chief took off his glasses and sucked on the earguard. His face looked naked without them, younger, as if he were revealing a part of himself no one else saw. ‘Have you evidence that links him with Angela Raubal’s death?’

  Fritz shoo his head. ‘I have information that links everyone from a 19-year-old jealous shopgirl to political enemies of Hitler to intimations of Hitler himself. If I could talk with the man, I might get a sense of what happened.’

  ‘What sense have you now?’

  Fritz leaned against the desk. The wood had absorbed the warmth of the room. The papers nearest him smelled of pipe tobacco, even though the Chief didn’t smoke.

  ‘Hitler’s people are covering up the crime,’ Fritz said. ‘But I do not know if they are doing so merely to avoid a scandal planned by opposing parties, or if they are doing so to protect one of their own.’

  ‘The shopgirl?’

  Fritz shook his head. ‘A lover of Hitler’s, perhaps, but she was startled enough by the news of his affection for his niece that I can rule her out. Also, the housekeeper used the girl as a reason for the niece’s suicide. I think they are trying to lead me down a blind alley.’

  ‘I don’t want you to talk with Hitler until you have something concrete,’ the Chief said. ‘It is difficult enough to interview a political candidate, particularly one with the kind of connections that Hitler has. The last thing we want is for this unofficial investigation to be forced to a conclusion.’

  Fritz sighed. This investigation had given him a sense of unease from the moment he walked into the apartment on Prinzregentenplaz. ‘You tell me I need to work this case, and then you tie my hands. What do you want here, Chief? Are you hoping that I will find Hitler to be the murderer?’

  The Chief stared at something over Fritz’s head for so long that at first it seemed as if he hadn’t heard. Then the Chief said, ‘A year ago, in Berlin, members of the NSDAP kicked my younger sister to death. They claimed she had threatened them, but witnesses said the men were baiting her, calling her names like jewbait, schieber, and kike –’

  ‘Schieber?’ the girl says. ‘You have used the word “schieber”.’

  ‘Ach.’ Fritz takes a sip of beer. He does not want to be sidetracked now. He wants her to listen. Is that too much to ask. ‘Not all schiebers were Jews.’

  ‘Then why was the Chief offended by this?’

  The exasperation makes him stand. He paces around the small apartment, his fists clenched. ‘Because the schiebers got rich after the war. They took food from the mouths of children and sold it for profit. After the war, any German who was well fed was probably a schieber. It was a shameful thing.’

  ‘And the NSDAP called her a schieber because she was Jewish, because Jews stereotypically get rich off other people’s pain, because –’

  ‘I did not make up the rule or the story. And I did not mention the stereotype. You did.’ Fritz stops behind her chair. His fists are clenched so hard his nails have dug into his palm. ‘Just because I am a German of a certain age, I am judged anti-Semitic. Let me remind you. I spent the years you have read about, the years of the atrocities before the war, and the years of the war, in London.’

  ‘It does not automatically provide a defence,’ she says. ‘The attitude was prevalent. Even I know that –’

  ‘I have enough guilt without adding this,’ he says. A drop of blood falls from his right palm onto the back of the chair. ‘I warned you that this story is not pretty. It is not pretty for women, or Jews, or Germans, for that matter. If you do not want to hear any more, I would be glad to take your tapes and apologise for the use of your time. I will talk about Demmelmayer and we never have to see each other again.’

  When he finishes, the room is so quiet all he can hear is his own breathing. Somewhere in the middle of his rant, she has paused the recorder.

  ‘Why have you chosen to tell this to me?’

  He stands behind her. She is wearing a light perfume, flowery, very feminine. Hes can lie to her. He can say he is reminiscing because he is getting old, because the story needs to be told, because she is the only one who appeared even slightly interested. But he has got into the habit of telling her everything. So he says, ‘I tell you because you remind me of her.’

  ‘Of Geli?’

  ‘No,’ he says, and returns to his chair.

  ‘– then,’ the Chief said, ‘when she ignored them and kept trying to walk down the street, they grabbed her, beat her and kicked her to death.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Fritz said, hoping he sounded sincere.

  It had become a litany through the Twenties. Somewhere around 1925, people stopped talking about their personal grief because the collective grief was too overwhelming. Compassion had become a rare commodity. Fritz still had trouble feeling it, although he knew that the Chief wanted something from him.

  The Chief did not appear to have heard him. ‘The witnesses were bribed, the case closed from lack of evidence. I am not naïve. Perhaps I would have understood the difficulties the Berlin force had. Lord knows how many cases we have had here where the witnesses have been silenced, the criminals have disappeared. But Hitler –’ the Chief took a deep breath ‘– Hitler said that decent women cannot walk the street when there are Jews around, that it is up to all Germans to banish the Jewish scourge from the face of Germany, that my sister’s death was merely part – part – of what all Jews deserved. No sorrow. No remorse. Just a pledge to continue the slaughter and the persecution.’

  ‘So this is a personal vendetta,’ Fritz said.

  The Chief blinked and looked at him as if remembering he were there. ‘No,’ the Chief said. ‘Yes. Perhaps. All I know is that the NSDAP is a cancer among us and if we allow them to grow, then my sister’s death will become one of many.’

  She already was one of many, but Fritz did not say that. Instead, he moved away from the desk. ‘I cannot conduct a secret investigation so that you can get revenge.’

  ‘I don’t want that kind of revenge,’ the Chief said. ‘I don’t care if Hitler pays for this. I just want to prevent the NSDAP from covering up another murder, especially one that might destroy their power.’

  ‘Sir, it would seem to me that those are not the right reasons to conduct an investigation.’

  The Chief slipped his glasses back on, taking the vulnerable edge from his face. He leaned forward. ‘You took those pictures of Angela Raubal. Someone beat her before she died. You concluded that she was murdered. When someone is murdered in Munich, the case is handled by the Kripo, no?’

  ‘Yes, but sometimes those cases are closed, like this one was, and ruled something other –’

  ‘Only the Kripo had no say in the Minister of Justice’s ruling, did they?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘We never even had a chance to investigate, did we?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘A girl was murdered in the home of a political candidate with enough clout to cover over that murder. In the last election, his party gained 95 seats in the Reichstag. In the next election, they could gain more. Germany is already considered a nation of thugs. We are bent under reparations and –’

  ‘Sir, this could cost me my career.’

  The Chief stopped. He crossed his arms, and looked down his long nose at Fritz. ‘Yes, it could,’ he said. ‘You work for me, not for Franz Gürtner or Adolf Hitler.’

  ‘But if anyone gets in trouble for this investigation, it will be me.’

  The Chief shook his head. ‘All of Munich knows that no one in Kripo takes a piss without my permission. You inflate your position here. The complaints have been coming to me, and will continue to do so. I would simply like there to be fewer of them.’

  Fritz’s hands were shaking. Instead of reassuring him, the conversation made him feel even more alone. He stood. ‘Will I be able to get assistance from the Political Branch?’

  The Chief stared at him for a moment. ‘I will have them find Herr Hitler for you. But you will not learn of hi
s location until you have a suspect and clear evidence.’

  ‘Sir, I need to talk with Hitler.’

  ‘You need to continue your investigation. Quietly.’ And with that, Fritz was dismissed.

  TWENTY-SIX

  ‘H e put you in an impossible position,’ the girl says. ‘Why didn’t you resign?’

  ‘Why are you asking so many questions today?’ Fritz’s glass is empty. The beer has left a sour taste in his mouth.

  ‘Because I don’t understand. If I knew more about the case, perhaps I would be able to make some of the logical jumps –’

  ‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘It is more than that. You are angry with me. Do you think I waste your time?’

  She is looking down at her hands.

  ‘Do you think this is unimportant?’

  ‘I think,’ she says softly, ‘you are using this case to prove that you are more important than I think you are.’

  He lets out a breath and leans back. ‘But you said this was insignificant before.’

  ‘I merely want you to tell me the point.’

  ‘I do not know what the point is.’ As soon as the sentence leaves him, he realises his mistake.

  She shuts off the recorder. But he does not want her to leave.

  ‘Please,’ he says. ‘Please, understand. You are the scholar. Scholars analyse. Scholars determine what is important and what is not. But sometimes scholars do not know everything. Please. This case is crucial to Bavaria. To Germany. You must know what happened.’

  ‘Did they force you to leave? Did you discover who the murderer was and did the Minister of Justice ask you to leave the force?’

  ‘It was not so simple. I retired. I knew I could do no more.’

  ‘Yet you would not resign when the Chief Inspector made you the tool of his vengeance.’

  Fritz gripped the arms of his chair. ‘If you are such an expert on the Bavarian police, you would know why I did not resign then.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I was afraid I would starve.’

  The words hang between them. She has gathered her bag closer, like she does when she is about to leave. ‘But you said you saved money in that period.’

  ‘And the inflation was starting again. Five million unemployed at the start of 1931, and a million more by 1932. It seemed like 1925 all over again. And 1919. I will be someone’s slave before I go hungry again.’

  ‘But you retired six months later –’ She stops herself. ‘My God,’ she says and lets her bag drop. ‘Did something happen so that you could afford to retire six months later?’

  He does not answer that. He has no simple answer. Everything is infinitely more complex than she makes it. Perhaps her mind lacks the ability to grasp the subtleties of life.

  ‘Let me get us lunch,’ he says, and flees out the front door.

  When he reaches the street he stops and stares at the glass and steel buildings rising over the gothic architecture that once covered all of Munich. Once, he did not think he would live to see the future, but now that he has, he is angry that he is unable to explain how he got here to this place, a world he does not, cannot, will not recognise.

  He buys lunch in a café down the street. As he walks back to the apartment, a woman leaves the building and hails a cab. He dodges through the crowd, runs, his body slower than it used to be. He bumps into a man older than himself, but does not beg for pardon; he is too intent on the vehicle ahead of him. As he reaches it, it pulls away. All he can see is the back of her head. He stands on the curb, breathing so hard he wonders if he will ever be able to breathe normally again. The bag is heavy in his hands.

  Finally, he goes inside. The walk up the stairs is torture. His muscles ache even from that small exertion. He is not in the physical condition he thought he was in. He has spent too much time in his chair, remembering the days when he could take a flight of steps four at a time, instead of doing the work. Perhaps, since his afternoon is now free, he will begin his regimen all over again.

  He opens the door. She is still sitting in her chair. For a moment, he merely stares at the back of her head. Grey strands mix with brown on her head. She is not young, and not old, and despite his fevered imagination, she has waited for him.

  ‘It took you a long time,’ she says.

  He wants to say: I am glad you stayed. I thought I saw you get into a cab. No one stays around me. Thank you for waiting, for being willing to listen. Instead he says: ‘They did not have what I wanted. I had to go to the next restaurant down.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Fritz returned to his building at eight o’clock that night, hungry, exhausted, anxious. Despite the Chief’s warning, Fritz had stopped at Hitler’s apartment again only to find Frau Reichert there alone with her ailing mother. She would not let him see her mother. She said she had not seen Hitler since the weekend, and swore that her mother had not either. Then she begged Fritz not to return again.

  He made no promises.

  But he went home after that. The meeting with the Chief had left him unsettled, and his inability to find Hitler without the help of the Political Police unsettled him even more. So much so that he failed to note the darkness in the hallway around his apartment until too late.

  He pulled his key from his pocket, and fumbled in the dark, cursing the landlord’s inability to keep the building up, when a hand covered his.

  ‘Please, Inspector, just a moment.’

  The voice was male and familiar, but Fritz couldn’t place it. The man standing close to him smelled of sweat and cigarette smoke. Fritz pulled his hand away and put the key back into his pocket.

  ‘Not here,’ the man said. ‘Inside, perhaps?’

  ‘No,’ Fritz said. ‘There is a beer hall on the corner. We will meet there in five minutes.’

  ‘It’s too public,’the man said. ‘Inside would be better.’

  ‘You may either speak to me in the beer hall or on the street. I would like to be able to see your face.’

  ‘What I have to say to you is not for anyone else to hear. Please, Inspector. Hear me.’

  ‘Then tell me why you put out the lights in the hallway.’

  The man reached up and screwed the lightbulb back in. The sudden light made Fritz blink. The hallway was empty except for the both of them.

  ‘I don’t want to be seen talking with you,’ the man said. ‘It could get me killed.’

  Fritz recognised him. The man still wore his suit, but it had rumpled with use. His wire-rimmed glasses made his eyes look owlish, a feature enhanced by his balding head. He had been the man Fritz had seen outside Hitler’s office in the Brown House that morning.

  The man was not carrying a weapon, and the fear radiating from his body was palpable.

  Fritz fumbled for his key, unlocked the door, and let the man inside. Then Fritz followed and locked the door behind them. He closed the curtains over the window before turning on the light inside. The man hovered near the door, his thumbs hooked on the pockets of his suit coat, marring its line.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  The man made no comment about the meagreness of the surroundings. Fritz folded the newspaper he had left open on the couch, and tossed his coat over his duffel. Then he went into the small kitchen and cut himself a slice of bread, offering the man a piece by waving his hand. The man shook his head.

  ‘I am Otto Strasser,’ the man said.

  So the young Brownshirt had been right. A Strasser had been in the Brown House. Only it was the wrong brother.

  ‘I would like to talk about Geli Raubal,’ Otto said.

  ‘I know no other reason you would be here.’ Fritz took a bite of the bread. It was doughy and its crust had been baked with butter. He did not offer Strasser a seat. The man’s presence bothered him. It made him think of Hess, and Hess’s odd honesty. Otto Strasser was devious enough, Herr Schwarz had said, to plot against Hitler. Perhaps not for Strasser’s gain, but for his brother’s.

  ‘Why didn’t you talk to me
this morning?’ Fritz asked.

  ‘I didn’t know who you were then.’

  Fritz brushed some crumbs off his own coat. ‘You did well to find me so easily tonight.’

  Strasser shrugged. ‘I have sources, Inspector. Your home is not secret.’

  ‘Your visit probably is not either.’

  ‘I realise that.’ Strasser spoke softly. ‘But I have some information you might need to know. I doubt anyone else might have it.’

  Fritz took another bite of the bread, and leaned against the counter. ‘Were you at Prinzregentenplaz when Geli died?’

  ‘No,’ Strasser said. ‘I was in Berlin. I came here as soon as I heard.’

  ‘I thought you were no longer a member of the NSDAP.’

  ‘I am no longer a member of Hitler’s NSDAP.’

  ‘So you came to help your brother regain leadership of the party.’ Fritz finished the slice of bread. It would hold him until Strasser left.

  ‘I don’t think they realise the extent of the crisis at the Brown House yet,’ Strasser said.

  ‘And you do.’

  He nodded. ‘I know who killed Geli.’

  ‘All the way from Berlin, you got this knowledge?’

  ‘No,’ Strasser said. ‘Please, Inspector. I know what Hitler was doing to her. It was only a matter of time.’

  Despite himself, Fritz was interested. He opened his hand toward the couch. Strasser nodded, loosened his tie, and sat as if he had visited a hundred times before. Fritz remained in the kitchenette, leaning against the counter.

  ‘All right,’ Fritz said. ‘I’ll listen.’

  ‘I liked Geli,’ Strasser said. ‘I really did. She was a beautiful girl, and so lively. That she is dead –’ his voice broke ‘– that she is dead is a crime against life itself. She would never kill herself. Never.’

  ‘If you are accusing someone of killing her, you will need to be more explicit, Herr Strasser.’

  Strasser looked down and nodded. His hands, resting on his knees, fidgeted with the legs of his trousers. ‘I took Geli to the Mardi Gras dance last year.’