43
The squirt was becoming a real pain. He clung to her like a limpet. Eleven years old, and already on the streets. There were things he’d experienced in care that he wouldn’t talk about. ‘I’d rather die than go back,’ he had said, and, in the end, it was this sentence that bound them. Hannah recognised her own despair.
There were times when it felt good not to have to wander the streets alone. Occasionally Fritze had won a smile from her, pilfering an apple, or wheedling a mark out of someone in a fur-coat, but in the evenings she realised just how attached he was to her.
Still too innocent to want anything indecent, Hannah thought of him more as a kind of kid brother, but all too often felt like… ‘Fritze, I am not your mother!’
How many times had she said it now, and seen how the statement stung him? He no longer had a mother either… but was that a reason to follow her around like a dog?
Whatever her feelings she knew she had to get rid of him. She was the one on the run. It was just a line for him, that he’d rather die than return to care, but for Hannah it was true. She would die if she was ever picked up. Prison, care, or Dalldorf, Huckebein was sure to find her.
Since their night in the trunk, they hadn’t been apart for a second, and she wondered whether the Märchenbrunnen posse would take her seriously with him in tow. For all that, he was resourceful, and not just when it came to breakfast; he knew the best places to sleep too. Hannah hadn’t had to spend another night in a damp sandpit since Fritze came on the scene, and as for scrounging money there was no one better.
Today at Bahnhof Zoo he was working his little boy charm on rich-looking passers-by, of which there were any number. Hannah didn’t know what he was serving up – her role was to collect the takings – but whatever it was, it did the job. Almost everyone he spoke to parted with a few coins, and no one thought to call the police. There was no shortage of uniformed cops around either.
She didn’t look like a beggar in her new clothes, and certainly not a fugitive from Dalldorf. She didn’t know if the cops had photos to help with their search. They had taken a few after the fire, but she didn’t look like that anymore. Her gaze had been so empty, back when she thought her life was over. It wasn’t until Huckebein tried to kill her that she had been overtaken by an almost demonic will to live.
Yes, she wanted to live, she knew that now, even if she wasn’t sure what she wanted from life. First just survive; don’t get caught. The police, flanked by the odd brownshirt and German Shepherd, didn’t seem to be looking for her, but she stood behind a pillar anyway.
Concentrating hard on them, at first she didn’t notice the man limping down the platform steps. This time he wasn’t dressed in the uniform of an asylum warder, but a fancy coat and equally ill-fitting bowler hat. Berlin wasn’t quite as big as she thought. She made no sudden movements, but Huckebein was heading straight for her and already looking her way. Had he recognised her? She couldn’t be certain. She’d never worn such new clothes in her life, not in the asylum, and certainly not in the Crow’s Nest, and her hair was covered by a red beret.
But he had recognised her, she could tell by his eyes, and his slow, deliberate movements like a tiger trying not to alert its prey. Why here? Why now? She hurried away.
Bursting out of the train station, she rushed down the the steps to the underground, turning to confirm that he was behind her – but with his leg he couldn’t move quickly. Hannah laughed. She realised she was faster; he had no chance on the steps.
‘Stop that girl! She’s a fugitive from the asylum!’ he shouted.
She tried to look as normal as possible so that no one could think he meant her. Briskly, but without running, she climbed the steps to the other side of Hardenbergstrasse, in the shadow of the railway overpass. Stop that mad girl came the cry from below. He didn’t have to be the one to catch her. It was enough to have her sent back to Dalldorf. Once she was there, he could kill her in his own time; finish what he had begun.
She pretended indifference. As long as he didn’t appear up here and start pointing his finger, she’d be fine. Berliners weren’t famous for interfering in other people’s business.
Seeing the tram chug slowly down Joachimsthaler Strasse, she took a running jump and… a young man grabbed her hand and helped her up.
‘You do know you’re not allowed,’ he said sternly, before smiling and throwing her a wink.
Hannah returned his smile and thanked him, pushing towards the rear of the car behind a heavy-set matron. Gazing through a gap in the passengers she spied Huckebein limping up the underground steps and looking around. He threw his hat furiously onto the ground. Too bad, my friend, she thought, looks like I’ve escaped for a second time. The conductor came and she placed a ten pfennig piece in his hand. Luckily Fritze had already given her some of his takings. There would be no trouble on the tram.
She stayed on for a few stops, eventually alighting on Kaiserallee, far away from Bahnhof Zoo. Standing in the shadow of a newspaper kiosk she broke into such hysterical laughter that she wondered if Dalldorf hadn’t made her crazy after all.
44
Juretzka appeared in the Castle at eleven on the dot, escorted by two SA officers and Marlow’s lawyer, Dr Kohn. Kohn was granted entry to the interrogation room; the SA agreed to remain outside.
When everyone was sitting down, including stenographer Christel Temme, Rath took his place behind the desk. Juretzka wore a black eye patch over the gauze bandage covering his empty socket, which lent him a swashbuckling appearance. He still looked the worse for wear, albeit not as listless as in hospital yesterday. He sounded better too, rattling off his statement while Temme diligently noted everything.
Rath leaned back contentedly. Everything was going according to plan. The commissioner had freed a few extra men and Rath had settled on Henning and Czerwinski, nicknamed Plisch and Plum. The pair were unlikely to exceed their brief, or ask too many difficult questions. He had deliberately avoided requesting Gräf, and not just because of his erstwhile colleague’s familiarity with the case.
Plisch and Plum had already been dispatched to Potsdam, after Erika Voss had discovered that one of Wosniak and Roddeck’s former comrades lived there. The unit’s other surviving members were further west, in Magdeburg and Elberfeld. Corporal Meifert, now a senior teacher, was the only one on their list who lived within visiting distance of Alex.
Rath planned to call on the others next week, along with Engel’s widow in Bonn. They had little more to go on than Engel’s name and the results of his medical examination. That and the photo the Reichswehr had enclosed from its archives. Gazing proudly into the lens with his curled moustache, Engel didn’t look any more spiteful than your average Prussian officer. Rath recognised the look from the portrait of his brother, taken shortly before Anno was killed in action. He placed Engel’s photograph on the table in front of Juretzka, who nodded his recognition as agreed.
‘Yes, that’s the man I saw at Nollendorfplatz.’
It sounded almost a little too mechanical, but Christel Temme studiously took it down. Rath had requested her for a reason; there was every chance Erika Voss would see through the swindle.
‘If you could make out a fair copy…’ he said, when she had committed everything to paper.
He waited until she closed the door behind her and he was alone with Kohn and Juretzka. ‘This business with your eye,’ he asked. ‘How did it happen?’