The light was almost gone when he emerged, but it was a lovely evening, warm with a feathery breeze. He drove back up towards the Kaiser Memorial Church and found an empty table at one of the busy pavement cafes on Tau-enzien-Strasse. After ordering schnapps and coffee - in theory the caffeine and alcohol would cancel each other out - he sat and eavesdropped on the conversations around him. One young couple were discussing what colour to paint their bedroom; a middle-aged couple were planning the series of trips they would make when they finally took delivery of their People's Car. Visiting his wife's family in Essen did not seem high on the husband's list of priorities. The only hint that war might be imminent came from the young man to his left, who was trying to convince his girlfriend, without actually saying so, that the time for consummating their relationship might be shorter than she thought. Her replies sounded like distant echoes of those which Russell had received from prim little Mary Wright in the spring of 1917. Some things never changed.
It was dark now, the spire of the Memorial Church circled by stars. Russell drove home to Neuenburger Strasse and wearily climbed the stairs. Reaching the top, he realized that the bulb on his landing had gone again.
As he opened the door to his room - one hand turning the key, the other the knob - it seemed for a moment as if the key hadn't needed turning. He was still thinking he must have imagined that when his flick of the switch failed to produce light. A mental alarm bell started ringing, but much too late.
Two things happened almost simultaneously. A bright beam of light caught him right in the eye, and something very hard delivered a tremendous blow across his stomach. As he doubled over, a second blow in the back sent him crashing to the floor. Once, twice, feet thudded into his front and back, torch-light dancing above. A kick in the groin hurt like hell, and curled him into a foetus-like ball, arms clasped together to protect his face and head. He tried to shout out, but his lungs could only manage a rasp.
The blows had stopped, but a heavy foot planted on his stomach was pinning him down. He tried opening his eyes, but the beam of light - a torch, he assumed - was shining right in his face, and the figures above him were only flickering shadows. He felt one draw nearer, and a gloved hand dragged one arm away from his head. Something cold and metallic was rammed into his ear. The barrel of a pistol.
He could smell beer on the breath of the man who held it.
'Finish him off,' someone said.
'My pleasure,' the man holding the gun murmured.
Russell felt the flow of warm piss inside his pants as the trigger clicked on an empty chamber.
'Just kidding,' the man said. 'But next time...well, now you know how easy it would be. We can always find you. Here or on Carmerstrasse.'
The torch shifted away from Russell's face. Blinking through the after-lights he could see it illuminating the framed poster for Effi's first major film. 'She could be on her way to Ravensbruck tomorrow,' the voice said. 'But they'd hold her in Columbiahaus until the next shipment. How many men do we have there?'
'Around forty,' one of his friends said.
'They'd be queuing up, wouldn't they? They'd all want to fuck a film star.' The torch was back in Russell's eyes. 'You do understand?' beer-breath said, increasing the pressure of the gun barrel.
Russell managed a rasping 'yes'.
'I think he's got the message,' the second voice said.
'You can smell it,' a third man said.
Suddenly foot and gun barrel were gone, the torch switched off. Darkness gave way to dim light as his assailants tramped out of the apartment, then fell once more as the door shut behind them.
Russell lay there, tentatively shifting his body. The pain in his groin was beginning to subside, leaving more space for the one in his kidneys, but nothing seemed to be broken. He lay there in his sodden trousers, remembering the last time he had pissed himself in fear, walking towards the German lines as mates on either side of him literally lost their heads.
His eyes were adjusting now, making the most of what light there was from the city outside. He painfully worked his way across the floor to the nearest armchair, and levered himself up so his back was against one side. A warning, he thought. His visitors had been told to hurt him but leave no visible marks. To scare the shit out of him.
They'd succeeded.
He sat there for a while, then clambered laboriously to his feet. The standard lamp responded to its switch, revealing an apparently untouched room. The two extracted light bulbs had been left on the table.
Russell swapped his clothes for a dressing-gown and walked down to the bathroom he shared with three other tenants. The red patches on his body would doubtless turn blue over the next few days, but he avoided his own face in the mirror, frightened of what he might find. Back in the flat, he lowered himself onto the bed and turned out the light. Sleep came more easily than he expected, just as it had in the trenches.
He woke much earlier than he wanted to, and sat at his window for the better part of an hour listening to the city stir. His body ached in the expected places, and movement was still painful, but at least there was no blood in his piss. At around a quarter to seven he ran himself a deep hot bath, and lay soaking until a fellow tenant began banging on the door.
Back in the apartment, he wondered how he should dress for his eleven o'clock appointment. A suit and tie seemed called for - the Heydrichs of this world liked a smart appearance. He chose the dark blue, took time to polish his shoes, and then spent another five minutes at the sink scraping the polish off his fingers. A look in the wardrobe mirror proved less than reassuring - the outfit was all right, but his hair was slightly over-length by SS standards, and the dark circles underneath his eyes suggested debauchery or worse. 'You don't look a day over fifty,' he mumbled at his reflection. 'Pity you're only forty-two.'
During his coffee and rolls in the Cafe Kranzler, an altercation broke out on the other side of the intersection: a tram-driver was leaning from his cab window and shouting at a brown-shirted team of flag-hangers, all of whom seemed blissfully unaware that their truck was blocking the rails, or that the occupants of the Cafe Kranzler's pavement seats were watching them with interest. One of the Brownshirts walked across to the tram, shouting as he went, whereupon the driver climbed down onto the road. His wide shoulders and impressive height - around two metres of it - clearly gave the storm trooper pause for thought. The driver, aware of the wider audience, seized his chance to show his flair for mime. These are rails, his arms seemed to say, and this thing here - the tram - could only run on rails. Their truck was slewed right across them. Conclusion - they had to move the damn thing!
There was a spattering of applause from the Cafe Kranzler clientele. The storm trooper spun round, face twisted in anger, but decided with obvious reluctance against arresting everyone in sight. He turned away from the crowd and ordered his underlings to move the truck. When one of these disconsolately raised an unhung flag, he was treated to a loud burst of abuse. The truck was moved; the tram squealed through the intersection and disappeared. The breakfasters went back to their newspapers.
Russell sipped at his coffee and wondered what to do about the previous night's visit. Should he bring it up at his meeting with Hauptsturmfuhrer Hirth? What would be the point? If the man denied SD involvement Russell had no way of proving otherwise. And if, as seemed more likely, the bastard cheerfully admitted complicity, there was no way Russell could threaten him, not when Effi's life was at stake. Better to say nothing, he told himself. Let them see that he took their warning seriously. Which he did.