Some pedestrians gazed to the side in embarrassment and occasional disapproval. Most looked the other way.
Just then Rath saw a woman enter a clothing store in spite of the unwanted attention of two SA officers, and thought perhaps the old Germany was still alive after all. He would have liked to follow suit, if only to show that not all Germans went along with this Nazi bullshit, but he had made himself conspicuous enough already. It was a ladies’ clothing store anyway.
Moments later he had renewed cause for doubt. Passing a shoe shop, a poster in the display window caught the eye immediately, adorned as it was with the black-white-and-red of the imperial German flag, in the middle of which was a swastika and the words Christian Enterprise. Underneath that: Buy German Goods from German Shops! Combat League for Middle-Class Employees and Artisans.
How quickly the Christian middle-classes had realised there was profit to be made from the travails of their Jewish competition.
87
Winter returned on Sunday morning. Sleet that smelled of cold, high winds; foul weather. For the first time since being transferred to this house, into the care of these men whose motives were still unclear, and who might yet turn out to be cops, Hannah appreciated her warm confines. None of them had revealed much. Nor had she asked them. Try as she might she simply couldn’t get the words out.
The pain in her side had been agonising, worse than that in her arm. They had given her morphine from an infusion bottle next to the bed. Hannah recognised old Sister M immediately. Only she had made her final days in the Crow’s Nest bearable. Before the fire that changed everything.
She could barely remember it now, only the warmth of the flames on that bitterly cold December night. She’d set the shack on fire while high, she told the court. She was high, she said, and mad, but it wasn’t true. The fire had been an attempt to free herself. To deliver her once cheerful, carefree father from his suffering, this bitter cripple who had lost the most essential part of himself in the no-man’s-land between the trenches. She had sought to erase the nightmare years in the Crow’s Nest, in the hope of achieving some new future. Only to be packed off to the madhouse, where she had bust out and almost been killed.
Now, with her strength returning, she started to consider her future again, making plans and thinking about her next move. The first thing was to get out of here.
She could make it to the window without assistance and, on a few occasions, had struck out, pulling the infusion bottle behind her. The gardens were surrounded by a high wall, with armed men posted everywhere. The police officer from a few days ago was still the only woman she’d seen, but all her questions had achieved was to tighten the knot in Hannah’s tongue. She couldn’t talk about Huckebein and the Crows and everything the bastards had done to her, nor the approval of the man in whose crippled, morphine-addicted body her father had once resided. Her father who had gone permanently missing in action, and would never have allowed such things to occur.
She was being held in a kind of fortress, better guarded than the sealed unit in Dalldorf. If her hunch was right, this was a criminal’s hideout.
The doctor who never wore a white coat, the friendly but inscrutable man so adept with stab wounds, was none other than Johann Marlow. Never in her life had she imagined she’d see Dr M. in the flesh, and she’d spent the last few days racking her brains over what business this policewoman could have with him. He was no ordinary criminal, that was for sure. Compared with the misery of the Crow’s Nest, the tawdriness of begging and petty theft, this was a whole new world; a world in which, contrary to popular belief, crime appeared to pay handsomely.
Hearing the tottering sound of high-heeled shoes she knew she had visitors. As the footsteps turned into the corridor she heard low voices, and a knock. The door opened and Fritze peered cautiously inside. He took a few steps towards her bed. ‘How are you?’ he asked.
She took him in her arms and hugged him tight. ‘Better,’ she rasped. ‘Better.’
The knot in her tongue, the bung in her throat, were gone, and here was someone who wanted nothing from her but to be near.
‘I was worried you’d die,’ he said, when she let go.
‘Without you, I might have done. Was it you who brought me to this palace?’
‘Friends of mine.’
‘The house belongs to Dr M.’
‘Who?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Tell me about these friends.’
‘They’re cops, only different somehow. Nice. I’m living with them.’
Hannah sat upright. ‘The cops had me brought here?’
‘Not the cops. Two cops. I’m telling you, they’re different. They took care of everything. The man trying to strangle you was some killer.’
Hannah felt her throat constricting. ‘Huckebein.’
‘That’s not his name.’
‘In the Crow’s Nest he…’ She couldn’t carry on.
‘There’s no need to be afraid. He’s dead.’
She reached for his hand, knowing what it meant to have killed someone. Several people. Even people you despised.
‘I just wanted him to stop,’ Fritze said. ‘I kept stabbing until he did.’
‘Let’s talk about something else. Do you know what the plan is?’
‘I’m to start school, they say.’
‘Who?’
‘My aunt Charly, and Gereon. The two cops.’
‘They’re sending you back into care?’
‘No, she gave her word. They’re looking for something else. A family or something.’
‘What about me?’
She hadn’t meant to say it, but it came out with the tears she could no longer hold back. All of a sudden she felt more alone than ever before, and she had spent a hell of a lot of time feeling alone.
Fritze shrugged. ‘The main thing is to get yourself healthy again.’
‘I am healthy.’
‘Hannah, listen,’ he said. ‘Charly wants to ask you a few questions, and…’
‘I know,’ she interrupted, a little too sharply. ‘She’s been here already.’
‘I mean, don’t you want to talk to her, she’s nice you know…’
‘Sometimes I just can’t. I want to, but I can’t.’
He held her hand. ‘I’ll stay with you if you like.’
‘I was wondering why she’s been outside all this time.’
At that moment the door opened and the policewoman came in.
Hannah didn’t understand. Moments ago she’d been talking a blue streak, but no sooner did she lay eyes on the woman than the lump in her throat returned.
‘Hello, Hannah,’ the woman said. Aunt Charly. ‘You look a lot better than the last time I saw you. How are you?’
‘Fine.’ She squeezed the word out.
The woman sat by her bedside. ‘I don’t want to push you, but there’s something I need to know about the man who was trying to kill you.’
The lump in her throat grew bigger. The woman was talking about Huckebein. Why did everyone always want to talk about him? It was just like back in court.
‘Do you think we can manage?’ The woman smiled and said, ‘Listen, we’ll do it like this. I’ll ask my questions in such a way that you need only nod or shake your head.’
Hannah nodded.