He listened. Was there something else?
Switching off his flashlight he was enveloped by impenetrable darkness, but… was that the quiet rhythm of footsteps? Heels on concrete, reinforced by the echo, a slow but continuous staccato growing ever louder? It wasn’t coming from the street. Someone was descending the northern ramp.
He felt panic rising, but remembered his Luger and felt more secure.
What did you expect? Of course he’s coming down. Be glad he wasn’t waiting for you in the dark.
When his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he made out a glimmer of light filtering into the tunnel from the turnout, giving the puddles and concrete floor a yellow shimmer.
The footsteps drew nearer until a shadow made the reflections on the puddles dance. Standing stock-still, pressed against the tunnel wall, he scarcely dared breathe. Taking the torch in his left hand he fetched the pistol from his coat pocket as the figure slowed. He heard a clicking sound, and a lighter flared up, illuminating the face of a man gazing fixedly on the ground as he drew closer. ‘You?’ he said, and started at the sound of his own voice echoing from the walls of the tunnel.
106
Berthold Weinert didn’t want to cover yet another torchlight procession, or listen to still more braying cries of Germany awake! More flags and dimwit speeches. To cap it all, they were burning books, among them some of his favourite authors. He didn’t want to be here, but Hefner had sent him.
Every few days the Nazis found some new pretext for mass marches and torchlight processions. Hitler’s birthday, the first of May, book-burning and, whatever it was, Der Tag and its roving reporter Weinert would be somewhere in the midst.
Against the un-German spirit. What did it mean? The books were written in German, not some strange, other language. He couldn’t help thinking of his own three-quarters-finished novel. Would any publisher take it on? ‘Asphalt-literature’ they would say, no one buys that sort of thing anymore.
His story detailed the exploits of an unsuccessful but optimistic screenplay writer who seeks his fortune in Berlin. Turning it into a tale of Nazi awakening was impossible, but he’d hardly spent any time on it now that his temporary role might become permanent. Perhaps he should just stick it back in its drawer.
The truth was, Weinert was afraid to jeopardise his prospects with a ‘politically dubious’ novel. Better to bide his time and wait for things to change. Finish it then. Nothing stayed the same forever. Besides, the longer a manuscript lay untouched the more it matured. At least he had ceased to rue his slow progress. Indeed, he was happy that his novel – working title, Fade-out – hadn’t been published. In today’s climate, his literary debut – the product of many lonely, torturous night-time hours – would be kindling for the fire.
He could hardly bear to look as the blaze devoured millions of hours of arduous, creative labour, and still more books careered towards the flames, their pages flapping like lost, dying birds. The students delved into the mounds of books at their feet, emerging with their hands full. Thousands of books were being destroyed and, the worst thing, by students who ought to appreciate them.
Moments before, Weinert thought he had seen Erich Kästner in the crowd, whose books were destined for the pyre. He must surely be mistaken. Kästner, a fully paid-up member of the ‘asphalt’ literati, must have got out by now. To Prague, like Weinert’s colleague Kleibert, or some other city where you could still say and write what you wanted.
Gereon had called him yesterday to say that Achim von Roddeck would be speaking, reminding him of the story that stood to make or completely destroy his fledgling career. But Roddeck hadn’t spoken. He had simply vanished, as if sensing that Weinert stood waiting to interrogate him once more.
The way the author had responded to his questions had confirmed that Gereon must be onto something. Achim von Roddeck knew it wasn’t Benjamin Engel who had been fished out of the Spree, so why had he identified the corpse?
Another, more decisive question was whether Gereon’s story would make it to print. By now it was largely written, even if it was based almost exclusively on supposition, but silence, too, could be eloquent. The silence, say, of the forensic pathologist, who had been as open to Weinert’s inquiries as a sealed coffin. The story might be largely written, but Hefner would never print it unless Weinert found an appropriate scapegoat. Wilhelm Böhm was out of favour, but he had relinquished the case before Roddeck came on the scene, and Weinert wasn’t about to do the dirty on Reinhold Gräf, not now he was part of the State Police. Chances were the story would go unpublished unless Roddeck could be duped into some ill-considered remark.
He was considering how long he should wait when the crowd broke out in thunderous applause. At first he thought Roddeck was taking to the podium after all, but then he spotted the sedan, and the Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda waving to the crowd like a crown prince.
Achim von Roddeck wouldn’t be speaking now. The only man allowed to address a crowd after Goebbels was Hitler himself. The minister, dressed in a raincoat and surrounded by adoring, brown-uniformed students, was in high spirits. He had a doctorate in German Studies, but delighted in burning books? Like so many things about the Nazis, Weinert struggled to understand, but he had to admit they knew how to exploit their power.
‘Fellow students!’ Goebbels began, emphasising that he, too, was an academic. ‘German men and women! The age of extreme Jewish intellectualism is at an end!’
107
Wearing a lost expression while waving his gun around, Achim von Roddeck looked overwhelmed. During the war, this had all too frequently been the case. Without Friedrich Grimberg to cajole or beat decisions out of him, his ineptitude would have been exposed in the first year. For the son of a military family it would have been a disgrace, but Grimberg had shielded him through four and a half miserable years of war. Roddeck switched on his flashlight and stammered, ‘Friedrich, what are you doing here?’
Couldn’t he work it out for himself? At least now Grimberg knew that Roddeck hadn’t been trying to swindle him. If anyone had, it was Engel, who had brought them to this place. ‘Are you going to shoot me?’ he asked.
Roddeck smiled nervously and lowered his weapon. ‘Sorry, I thought… you never know who might be down here.’
‘On the contrary. You know very well.’ Grimberg looked at his watch. ‘In five minutes, Benjamin Engel will be here. If he intends to meet us at all.’
‘He’ll be here,’ Roddeck said. ‘I saw him at the book-burning. He’s in the crowd somewhere.’
‘Perhaps he wanted us to gun each other down.’
‘My God, Friedrich, I’m not going to shoot you! We’re comrades.’
‘That didn’t stop you from killing Wegener.’
‘Wegener, a comrade? He’d have betrayed us in a flash.’
‘And Heinrich? Why did he have to die?’
‘Pardon me?’
‘Don’t play the innocent! You saw his corpse. It was clever of you to pass him off as Engel, but you should have told me. Now I can’t shake the feeling you mean to go behind my back, just like you went behind poor Heinrich’s back and stabbed him with his own dagger.’