Stoffel came to Schlegel’s cell and said, ‘Upstairs!’ Schlegel suspected Stoffel had tired of the charade and it was the two thugs come for him.
‘Visitor,’ Stoffel said, seeing his alarm.
Schlegel had been transferred to his own cell. Already he was losing any sense of time. They had taken his watch. He had slept a lot and woken disorientated. He had no idea if Huber had managed to contact Morgen. He supposed thirty-six or even forty-eight hours had passed. As they walked upstairs Stoffel told him that the thugs had put in the paperwork for his transfer.
‘Under whose authority?’ Schlegel asked.
‘Fire Protection Police, according to the docket.’ Stoffel snorted. ‘It says you are wanted for questioning about burning down a clinic.’
Schlegel supposed the fat man and the cadaver could hide behind whatever bureaucracy they wanted – Ministry of Works one day, Fire Protection Police the next. Schlegel was forced to admit a grudging admiration for the cleverness of the charge. It was a perfect frame.
Stoffel said, ‘Apparently you have previous form.’
It was true. The year before he had been accused of starting a fire in Auschwitz to destroy evidence.
‘It was a fit-up, like this,’ he protested. ‘Morgen got me off and there’s no record of it on my file.’
‘Tell that to the judge!’ said Stoffel.
As to whom the two thugs really answered, Schlegel supposed it was Bormann. The Party Secretary was the great manipulator when it came to scene shifting, and a lot of that had been going on since 20 July. No doubt the clean sweep was an excuse for settling many old scores. They were all bound to have their lists: Bormann, Goebbels, Himmler . . .
Schlegel asked Stoffel, ‘How long do you think before my transfer?’
‘They appear in no hurry. I doubt if you’re top of anyone’s list. They know where you are and will be happy to let you sweat.’
Stoffel showed Schlegel into a private visiting room rather than the common area. He found Anna Huber when he was expecting Morgen and stood tongue-tied. Huber looked even more beautiful in such grubby surroundings. She surprised him by stepping forward and putting her hand on his shoulder.
‘I am so sorry to hear about your friend,’ she said.
What had she been told?
‘Morgen said there was a terrible accident,’ she went on, stepping back.
‘How much do you know?’ he asked. ‘About everything.’
The worry lines above her nose deepened.
‘Only that you have a habit of getting into trouble and it falls to Morgen to bale you out. But that’s not why I am here. I want to tell you about your father. You had better sit down.’
She was smartly turned out and Schlegel wondered if she was on her way to meet a man.
Huber sat. She said nothing for a moment, and then: ‘After everything that has happened, I hope this doesn’t come as too much of a shock.’
*
If there was one thing Schlegel was convinced of it was that his father’s existence had long since ceased, and if he had not drowned in an Argentinian river in 1934 then he had met his end around that time in Munich.
‘Alive?’ he repeated after Anna Huber.
‘Might be. I didn’t know whether to tell you. Nothing is certain.’ She trailed off. ‘He’s not the most reliable, my brother, but I tell it for what it is.’
Having given so little thought to his father in all those years, Schlegel could not absorb the fact that the man might not be dead. The idea of him still living and breathing was almost too much.
Anna Huber said, ‘Anton Schlegel was not a Party member so I made some discreet enquiries.’
Schlegel couldn’t imagine what form they took.
Huber brightened. ‘Next year is the twentieth anniversary of the publishing of Mein Kampf. I said we were thinking of doing a ‘where are they now’ for the twenty-five dedicated recipients of the signed limited edition. Quite clever, I thought.’
Schlegel agreed. Suitably innocuous and the kind of idea the ministry would come up with.
‘And your brother? The one you said was a brownshirt.’
‘Do you know who I mean by Emil Maurice?’
Gestapo Müller had first made the connection, suggesting Maurice might have a tale to tell about Anton Schlegel.
‘My brother told me Emil Maurice was supposed to have shot your father, but, for whatever reason, let him off.’
‘When was this?’
‘In 1934, after the brownshirt putsch failed.’
It was a long way from drowning in Argentina. Schlegel wondered if his mother had known and made up the other story in denial of the dishonour.
‘How does your brother know?’
‘He was friendly with one of the two men who did the job with Emil Maurice.’
Schlegel found it hard to imagine his father caught up in a revolution, then had to ask himself what did he know of anyone? He never would have guessed that his stepfather was plotting against the government. Gerda he had known only two or three things about. Morgen remained an enigma and Schlegel was a stranger to himself most of the time. And the woman opposite, although she no doubt led a real life, appeared more like a screen for a phantom projection of his own flimsy imaginings.
‘Why was Anton Schlegel down for execution, does anyone know?’ It seemed presumptuous to say his father.
‘For the same reason as everyone else. He probably knew too much.’
Schlegel watched her watching him as they realised they were in dangerous waters.
‘Does Morgen know?’
‘I thought I should tell you first.’