He brushed down his uniform and put it back on, together with a clean shirt, and packed his suitcase. As he bent to snap it shut his eye was caught by something in the empty grate. The photograph of the Weiss family was lying face down. He hesitated, picked it up, folded it into a small square — exactly as he had found it five years earlier — and slipped it into his wallet. If he was stopped and searched, he would say they were his family.
Then he took a last look round and left, closing the broken door behind him as best he could.
AT the main branch of the Deutschebank, in Wittenberg Platz, he asked how much he held in his account.
“Four thousand two hundred and seventy-seven Reichsmarks and thirty-eight pfennigs.”
“I’ll take it.”
“All of it, Herr Sturmbannfuhrer?” The teller blinked at him through wire-framed spectacles. “You are closing the account?”
“All of it.”
March watched him count out forty-two one-hundred Mark notes, then stuffed them into his wallet, next to the photograph. Not much in the way of life savings.
This is what no promotions and seven years of alimony do to you.
The teller was staring at him. “Did the Herr Sturmbannfuhrer say something?”
He had given voice to his thoughts. He must be going mad. “No. Sorry. Thank you.”
March picked up his suitcase, went out into the square and caught a taxi to Werderscher Markt.
ALONE in his office, he did two things. He rang the headquarters of Lufthansa and asked the head of security- a former Kripo investigator he knew, called Friedman — to check if the airline had carried a passenger by the name of Martin Luther on any of its Berlin-Zurich flights on Sunday or Monday.
“Martin Luther, right?” Friedman was greatly amused. “Anyone else you want, March? Emperor Charlemagne? Herr von Goethe?”
“It’s important.”
“It’s always important. Sure. I know.” Friedman promised to find out the information at once. “Listen. When you get tired of chasing ambulances, there’s always a job for you here if you want it.”
“Thanks. I may well.”
After he hung up, March took the dead plant down from the filing cabinet. He lifted the atrophied roots out of the pot, put in the brass key, replaced the plant, and returned the pot to its old position.
Five minutes later, Friedman called him back.
ARTUR NEBE’S suite of offices was on the fourth floor- all cream carpets and cream paintwork, recessed lighting and black leather, sofas. On the walls were prints of Thorak’s sculptures. Herculean figures with gargantuan torsos rolled boulders up steep hills, in celebration of the building of the Autobahnen; Valkyries fought the triple demons Ignorance, Bolshevism and Slav. The immensity of Thorak’s statuary was a whispered joke. “Thorax” they called him: “The Herr Professor is not receiving visitors today — he is working in the left ear of the horse.”
Nebe’s adjutant, Otto Beck, a smooth-faced graduate of Heidelberg and Oxford, looked up as March came into the outer office.
March said: “I need to speak with the Oberstgruppenfuhrer.”
“He is seeing nobody.”
“He will see me.”
“He will not.”
March leaned very close to Beck’s face, his fists on his desk. “Ask.”
Behind him, he heard Nebe’s secretary say: “Shall I call security?”
“One moment, Ingrid.” It was fashionable among the graduates of the SS academy in Oxford to affect an English coolness. Beck flicked an invisible speck from the sleeve of his tunic. “And what name is it?”
“March.”
“Ah. The famous March.” Beck picked up the telephone. “Sturmbannfuhrer March is demanding to see you, Herr Oberstgruppenfuhrer.” He looked at March and nodded. “Very well.”
Beck pressed a button concealed beneath the desk, releasing the electronic bolts. “Five minutes, March. He has an appointment with the Reichsfuhrer.”
The door to the inner office was solid oak, six centimetres thick. Inside, the blinds were tightly drawn against the day. Nebe was curled over his desk in a puddle of yellow light, studying a typed list through a magnifying glass. He turned one vast and blurry fish eye upon his visitor.
“What have we here…?” He lowered the glass. “Sturmbannfuhrer March. Empty-handed, I assume?”
“Unfortunately.”
Nebe nodded. “I learn from the duty office that the police stations of the Reich are even now being filled to overflowing with elderly beggars, ancient drunkards who have lost their papers, absconding geriatrics… Enough to keep Globus busy until Christmas.” He leaned back in his chair. “If I know Luther, he is far too cunning to show himself yet. He will wait a few days. That must be your hope.”
“I have a favour to ask.”
“Proceed.”
“I wish to leave the country.”
Nebe let out a shout of laughter. He pounded the desk with both hands. “Your file is compendious, March, but nowhere does it mention your sense of humour. Excellent! Who knows? You may yet survive. Some KZ commandant may adopt you as a pet.”
“I wish to go to Switzerland.”
“Of course. The scenery is spectacular.”
“I have had a call from Lufthansa. Luther flew to Zurich on Sunday afternoon, and returned to Berlin on the last flight on Monday night. I believe he had access to a numbered bank account.”
Nebe’s laughter had dwindled to an occasional snort. “On what evidence?”
March placed the envelope on Nebe’s desk. “I removed this from Stuckart’s apartment last night.”
Nebe opened it and inspected the letter through the magnifying glass. He glanced up. “Should there not be a key with this?”
March was staring at the paintings behind Nebe’s head -Schmutzler’s “Farm Girls Returning From the Fields”, Padua’s “The Fuhrer Speaks” — ghastly, orthodox muck.
“Ah. I see.” Nebe sat back again, stroking his cheek with the glass. “If I don’t allow you to go, I don’t get the key. I could of course turn you over to the Gestapo, and they could persuade you to disgorge the key — probably quite quickly. But then it would be Globus and Heydrich who would learn the contents of the deposit box, rather than me.
He was silent for a while. Then he dragged himself to his feet and hobbled across to the blinds. He opened the slats a fraction and peered out. March could see his eyes moving slowly from side to side.
At last he said: “A tempting bargain. But why is it that I have this vision of myself, waving you off with a white handkerchief from the tarmac of Hermann Goring Airport, and of you never coming back?”
“I suppose giving you my word that I would return would be of no use?”
“The suggestion demeans our intelligence.”
Nebe went back to his desk and read the letter again. He pressed a switch on his desk. “Beck.”
The adjutant appeared. “March — give him your passport. Now, Beck, get that to the Interior Ministry and have them issue an immediate twenty-four-hour exit visa, starting at six tonight and expiring at six tomorrow.”
Beck glanced at March, then slid out of the office.
Nebe said: This is my offer. The Head of the Swiss Criminal Police, Herr Streuli, is a good friend of mine. From the moment you step off the aircraft until the moment you reboard it, his people will be watching you. Do not attempt to evade them. If you fail to return tomorrow, you will be arrested and deported. If you try to make a run to Bern, to enter a foreign embassy, you will be stopped. In any case, there is nowhere for you to go. After yesterday’s happy announcement, the Americans will simply toss you back over the border to us. The British, French and Italians will do what we tell them. Australia and Canada will obey the Americans. There are the Chinese, I suppose, but if I were you I’d sooner take my chances in a KZ. And the moment you return to Berlin, you will tell me everything you have discovered. Good?”