“And they went to the General Government?”
Halder turned his head and glanced around furtively, to make sure he was not overheard — “the German look”, people called it. “They also had to cope with the Jews being expelled from Germany and the western territories -France, Holland, Belgium.”
“Jews?”
“Yes, yes. Keep your voice down.” Halder was speaking so quietly, March had to lean across the table to hear. “You can imagine — it was chaos. Overcrowding. Starvation. Disease. From what one can gather, the place is still a shit-hole, despite what they say.”
Every week the newspapers and television carried appeals from the East Ministry for settlers willing to move to the General Government. “Germans! Claim your birthright! A farmstead — free! Income guaranteed for the first five years.” The advertisements showed happy colonists living in luxury. But word of the real story had filtered back — an existence conditioned by poor soil, back-breaking work, and drab satellite towns to which the Germans had to return at dusk for fear of attack from local partisans. The General Government was worse than the Ukraine; worse than Ostland; worse, even, than Muscovy.
A waiter came over to offer more coffee. March waved him away. When the man was out of earshot, Halder continued in the same low tone: “Frank ran everything from Wawel Castle in Krakau. That would have been where Buhler was based. I have a friend who works in the official archives there. God, he has some stories… Apparently, the luxury was incredible. Like something out of the Roman Empire. Paintings, tapestries, looted treasures from the church, jewellery. Bribes in cash and bribes in kind, if you know what I mean.” Halder’s blue eyes shone at the thought, his eyebrows danced.
“And Buhler was involved in this?”
“Who knows? If not, he must have been about the only one who wasn’t.”
“That would explain why he had a house on Schwanen-werder.”
Halder whistled softly. “There you are then. We had the wrong sort of war, my friend. Cooped up in a stinking metal coffin two hundred metres under the Atlantic, when we could have been in a Silesian castle, sleeping on silk with a couple of Polish girls for company.”
There was more March would have liked to ask him but he had no time. As they were leaving, Halder said: “So you’ll come round to dinner with my BdM woman?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Maybe we can persuade her to wear her uniform.” Standing outside the hotel, with his hands thrust deep in his pockets and his long scarf wrapped twice around his neck, Halder looked even more like a student. Suddenly he struck his forehead with the flat of his hand. “I clean forgot! I meant to tell you. My memory … A couple of Sipo guys were round at the Archiv last week asking about you.”
March felt his smile shrink. The Gestapo? What did they want?” He managed to keep his tone light, off-hand.
“Oh, the usual sort of stuff. "What was he like during the war? Does he have any strong political views? Who are his friends?" What’s going on, Zavi? You up for promotion or something?”
“I must be.” He told himself to relax. It was probably only a routine check. He must remember to ask Max if he had heard anything about a new screening.
“Well, when they’ve made you head of the Kripo, don’t forget your old friends.”
March laughed. “I won’t.” They shook hands. As they parted, March said: “I wonder if Buhler had any enemies.”
“Oh yes,” said Halder, “of course.”
“Who were they then?”
Halder shrugged. “Thirty million Poles, for a start.”
THE only person on the second floor at Werderscher Markt was a Polish cleaning woman. Her back was to March as he came out of the lift. All he could see was a large rump resting on the soles of a pair of black rubber boots, and the red scarf tied round her hair bobbing as she scrubbed the floor. She was singing softly to herself in her native language. As she heard him approach she stopped and turned her head to the wall. He squeezed past her and went into his office. When the door had closed he heard her begin singing again.
It was not yet nine. He hung his cap by the door and unbuttoned his tunic. There was a large brown envelope on his desk. He opened it and shook out the contents, the scene-of-crime photographs. Glossy colour pictures of Buhler’s body, sprawled like a sunbather’s at the side of the lake.
He lifted the ancient typewriter from the top of the filing cabinet and carried it across to his desk. From a wire basket he took two pieces of much-used carbon paper, two flimsy sheets and one standard report form, arranged them in order, and wound them into the machine. Then he lit a cigarette and stared at the dead plant for a few minutes. He began to type.
To: Chief, VB3(a)
SUBJECT: Unidentified body (male)
FROM: X. March, SS-Sturmbannfuhrer 15.4.64
I beg to report the following.
1. At 06.28 yesterday, I was ordered to attend the recovery of a body from the Havel. The body had been discovered by SS-Schutze Hermann Jost at 06.02 and reported to the Ordnungspolizei (statement attached).
2. No male of the correct description having been reported missing, I arranged for the fingerprints of the subject to be checked against records.
3. This has enabled the subject to be identified as Doctor Josef Buhler, a Party member with the honorary rank of SS-Brigadefuhrer. The subject served as State Secretary in the General Government, 1939-51.
4. A preliminary investigation at the scene by SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Doctor August Eisler indicated the likely cause of death as drowning, and the likely time of death some time on the night of 13 April.
5. The subject lived on Schwanenwerder, close to where the body was found.
6. There were no obvious suspicious circumstances.
7. A full autopsy examination will be carried out following formal identification of the subject by next-of-kin.
March pulled the report out of the typewriter, signed it, and left it with a messenger in the foyer on his way out.
THE old woman was sitting erect on a hard wooden bench in the Seydel Strasse mortuary. She wore a brown tweed suit, brown hat with a drooping feather, sturdy brown shoes and grey woollen stockings. She was staring straight ahead, a handbag clasped in her lap, oblivious to the medical orderlies, the policemen, the grieving relatives passing in the corridor. Max Jaeger sat beside her, arms folded, legs outstretched, looking bored. As March arrived, he took him to one side.
“Been here ten minutes. Hardly spoken.”
“In shock?”
“I suppose.”
“Let’s get it over with.”
The old woman did not look up as March sat on the bench beside her. He said softly: “Frau Trinkl, my name is March. I am an investigator with the Berlin Kriminal-polizei. We have to complete a report on your brother’s death, and we need you to identify his body. Then we’ll take you home. Do you understand?”
Frau Trinkl turned to face him. She had a thin face, thin nose (her brother’s nose), thin lips. A cameo brooch gathered a blouse of frilly purple at her bony throat.
“Do you understand?” he repeated.
She gazed at him with clear grey eyes, unreddened by crying. Her voice was clipped and dry: “Perfectly.”
They moved across the corridor into a small, windowless reception room. The floor was made of wood blocks. The walls were lime green. In an effort to lighten the gloom, someone had stuck up tourist posters given away by the Deutsche Reichsbahn Gesellschaft: a night-time view of the Great Hall, the Fuhrer Museum at Linz, the
Starnberger See in Bavaria. The poster which had hung on the fourth wall had been torn down, leaving pockmarks in the plaster, like bullet holes.
A clatter outside signalled the arrival of the body. It was wheeled in, covered by a sheet, on a metal trolley. Two attendants in white tunics parked it in the centre of the floor — a buffet lunch awaiting its guests. They left and Jaeger closed the door.