Schlegel continued to exasperate Morgen, looking at everything as if it didn’t quite belong, or he to it, with the dazed wonder of a man stumbling through a party to which he hasn’t been invited and doesn’t know how to leave.
Or perhaps Morgen’s own sense of order and propriety had taken such a kicking that he rather envied Schlegel’s lackadaisical approach. The law Morgen was there to uphold was repeatedly shown to be meaningless.
For two years his casework had amounted to exposing rot for others to cover up. In Warsaw 1942, Fegelein, Becher and others, steeped in corruption, became mysteriously protected. Ditto Auschwitz 1943, a racket from top to bottom. Deportation trains brought hundreds of thousands, turning up with their baggage allowance of fifty kilos, confiscated on arrival. What happened next was state-sanctioned, Morgen was told in no uncertain terms. Piles of money, piles of bodies, death factory politics – there was an actual reformist movement, Morgen was staggered to learn – and shopping in Auschwitz. The commandant and his wife were in it up to their necks, with her jewellery ‘enterprise’ servicing her husband’s boss in Berlin. Threatened with exposure, the commandant got kicked upstairs, a makeweight replacement was sent to appease the reformists, and, in an act of apparently spontaneous combustion, for which they tried to blame Schlegel, all Morgen’s collected evidence went up in flames.
That was eight months ago. The bitter footnote was that the commandant had since been restored to his post, with extended powers not unconnected to that summer’s influx of trains from Hungary.
Morgen found it increasingly hard to ignore the voice shouting in his ear that there was nothing he could do because nothing mattered.
They would all be running soon. As to what he believed or did: who would care in six or nine months? Even his selfestimation he saw as the vanity of wanting to think well of himself in the mirror, but who was to judge? In five hundred years the whole debacle would be no more than a speck on the historical horizon.
*
Schlegel’s summons came more as an irritation than a distraction. Morgen had paused hard, wondering whether to bale him out again. If he had snubbed Schlegel in Budapest it was because the man never seemed quite to trust him, and seeing him with the smooth and dubious Becher had no doubt only confirmed that. The trouble was it was true. Morgen had found himself unable to decide whether he was exploiting situations to expose them or was just following suit. Budapest was a case in point. He could pretend he was on the job rather than in retreat from his own failures and living well into the bargain.
When Anna Huber contacted him because, as she put it, present circumstances prevented Schlegel from making calls abroad, Morgen decided he was wasting his time in Budapest. With no real dirt on Becher, and intrigued by the sound of Anna Huber, he packed his bags and flew back to Berlin, ready to give Schlegel short shrift, only to find a broken and bewildered man.
*
It took Schlegel the best part of a day to explain how he had ended up in a prison cell. Morgen often had to get him to go over things he didn’t understand. Schlegel was like that. Ambiguous in his interpretation of events. Afterwards, Morgen was not sure what to make of it all. Schlegel appeared to be trying to rewrite history while having his own family history rewritten into the bargain.
Morgen supposed Schlegel’s young woman had been there when it should have been Schlegel. The two thugs weren’t done for the night either. Morgen checked: the drama agent’s wife or sister or whatever she was had also taken the high dive. Stoffel told him they were being instructed to treat the case as self-inflicted. Suicides by then were commonplace.
*
The other half of Schlegel’s account Morgen didn’t know what to make of either: the long-lost father, spectacularly re-emerged as an old Führer darling, about whom everyone was unwilling to utter a word, though that wasn’t so unusual these days. The problem was getting anyone to remember. But if Schlegel had a gift, it was to stumble across some wild connection that he, Morgen, being more methodical, would have missed. Schlegel had come up with a dubious bomb plot, unresolved, and the scandal of the dead niece, also unresolved. What strange bookends, Morgen thought.
When Schlegel first brought up the business of the niece, Morgen wondered if the spectre of Schlegel’s father was inviting them to expose the present by digging up the past.
Morgen remembered at the time of the niece’s death being a podgy, gauche young man, completing his studies at the Institute for World Economy and Ocean Traffic in Kiel. Even then the story struck him as blown out of proportion: a sensational, distant provincial scandal, involving a man known for public hysteria and barely able to contain himself on stage. The death’s occurrence during the hothouse of Munich’s Oktoberfest was noted, suggesting dark undercurrents of collective frenzy.
Munich was a long way from Kiel, a tough, blowhard navy town, where it was regularly pointed out that Hitler had barely seen the sea. It was fashionable anyway to ignore the noisy squabbles of a thuggish provincial minority. Morgen could not picture a man as sexless as Hitler obsessing over anything as inconsequential as a female. Back then he saw only a comic figure – his mistake – a bogus faith healer who should be peddling miracle cures and religious crackpotism, and a weird super-narcissist who, however noisy and effective on a soapbox, would turn out to be a political damp squib.
As for pursuing the no doubt sordid business of the niece, there were plenty of unanswered questions, but if he couldn’t nail someone as openly corrupt as Fegelein, what chance of bagging the biggest tiger of all? But then, if none of it mattered, what did he have to lose?
It would be enough even to have the man in his sights.
*
Morgen had it in mind to go to Munich and not take Schlegel. The two thugs seemed in no hurry to remove Schlegel, and Morgen had discussed with Stoffel whether to transfer him to somewhere remote and lose him in the system. Morgen couldn’t decide who, precisely, wanted Schlegel dead, and Schlegel was doing himself no favours trying to resurrect Anton Schlegel, who belonged in a locked drawer marked: Things We Keep Quiet About.
The question was whether Morgen gravitated towards Bormann or Müller, to neither of whom could he say: I want to expose a big skeleton in the Führer’s closet.
Morgen made a simple bet with himself: that Bormann knew more than Gestapo Müller, but Müller was always keen to learn more and he would see him on the same day when others had to wait weeks.
The problem with dredging up former lives was the regime’s talent for unwriting the past. In terms of who was who in Munich in the old days, the Führer’s driver, Emil Maurice, was the most curious because he hadn’t moved to Berlin with the rest. Emil Maurice was listed in the Party register as chairman of the Munich Chamber of Commerce. His record showed years of loyal service. He was among the first hundred Party members in 1919. By 1923, he was head of Hitler’s elite new bodyguard, which two years later became the SS. Maurice seemed to be something of a local hero yet it was an odd career. Although in effect the SS’s actual founder, immediately after Hitler, he now ran a local Chamber of Commerce, which could be taken for a sideways shunt, a fall from grace, or a sinecure.
Then Morgen stumbled across the undreamed-of connection. Thinking how paperwork always held its own secrets and being curious, he went back to company records for the clinic. If life had taught him anything it was that there was no such thing as coincidence. The clinic had four major shareholders. The deceased surgeon, two others and Emil Maurice.
*
Müller received Morgen in his more formal office. Morgen disagreed with Schlegel’s description of Müller as the ultimate grey man. Müller always struck him as full of fizz, like a cheap brown drink.
Morgen got straight to the point, wanting to know if the case of the burned clinic was closed.
‘I can’t see why not,’ Müller said, taking care not to look surprised by Morgen’s angle.
Morgen explained about Emil Maurice being one of the shareholders. A lesser dissembler would have recoiled in surprise. Müller blinked and his eyes travelled across the ceiling.
Müller said, ‘Emil Maurice is a Jew, you might like to know.’
That didn’t make sense. Morgen was careful to say nothing.
‘Protected by the Führer’s benevolence. Up to a point. You will find the clinic shares are a reward for past loyal service. The Führer is not as intolerant as is sometimes made out if he befriends a Jew like Emil. But this is not really about the clinic.’
Müller was not a man to bluff, so Morgen remained silent.
‘It’s about the niece,’ Müller went on.
‘The niece?’
‘Let me explain. I sometimes think we never got to the bottom of it. Girls of twenty-three don’t usually shoot themselves with pistols as far as I know, not held at such an angle.’
Müller demonstrated with his fingers, pointing down towards his heart. He appeared amused. ‘I know Fräulein Braun subsequently managed to shoot herself unsuccessfully, but that was the act of a copycat, in imitation of her rival. Anyway, she is more the cry-for-help type.’
‘Fräulein Braun?’
‘A friend of the Führer. You can ask her. She’s around, with nothing to do.’
Müller stared at his desktop in mild disbelief at the ways of women before going on. ‘It might not be a bad time to review the Raubal case to show a Jew was responsible. Of course that Jew could be Emil Maurice.’
Morgen felt outmanoeuvred. It now looked like he was expected to provide some cooked-up story so Dr Goebbels’ press could go to town with another load of lies.
‘Isn’t the business of the girl best forgotten?’ Morgen ventured, curious to know the answer.
‘I agree. The case has been dead for years, except now it is being dug up again.’ Müller paused. ‘Given recent events, we have to presume a plot to destabilise, perhaps connected to the previous one.’
So that was what it was about, thought Morgen.
Müller counted off on his fingers. ‘One: a long-lost tell-all diary, supposedly written by the niece – political dynamite even if fake, which it probably is – apparently not so lost after all. Why now? Two: an old hack’s secret exposé of the case of the niece, pointing fingers, same rumour of it surfacing. Again why now? And third and most preposterous: a so-called confession – if we can credit that – signed by the Führer saying he killed his niece.’ Müller rolled his eyes.
Morgen thought the confession had to be a hoax. Why would the man admit to what he hadn’t done – and even if he had, why confess after getting away with it?
Müller concurred without being asked, saying, ‘It can only be the work of fifth columnists in the pay of foreign agents.’
Morgen wondered if Müller wanted the confession for himself. Authentic or not, such a document would be of inestimable value as leverage.
‘How might it be connected to the other plot?’ Morgen enquired innocently.
‘Say the Führer had been killed by that bomb. Phase two would have been strategic mud-slinging. Perhaps some of the conspirators are persisting in the vain hope some will stick.’
‘Why would anyone believe it?’
‘Indeed, but there is a long history of outrageous muckraking against the Führer.’
‘A political initiative then?’
‘Making it a time bomb that could be even more damaging than the recent one. Look how that caught everyone out. See it doesn’t happen again.’
‘Do I need to know anything about the circumstances of the girl’s death?’ Morgen asked.
‘One version you can discount was that it came about after talking to Reichsführer-SS Himmler.’ A glint of amusement let Morgen see this was probably Müller’s way of letting him know he could implicate Heini if he chose to. ‘He was meant to have browbeaten her into doing the decent thing after so compromising the Führer by her outrageous behaviour.’
Morgen could picture Heini’s creepy smiling manner, telling her it was the honourable way out, with lots of nonsense about the traditions of the Bushido.
‘Outrageous behaviour?’ asked Morgen going back to the niece.
Müller rolled his wrist. ‘A Jewish lover, or some such, perhaps even pregnant by him. Do you see what I am saying?’
Morgen could – whatever had gone on had had to be hushed up because the Führer’s niece had been consorting with a Jew.
‘And the confession and so forth?’ Morgen ventured.
‘He’s so tiny you might miss him, but try the Party archivist, a fellow by the name of Rehse, been around for years, deals on the side with a lot of dubious material. Fakes can do untold damage in the wrong hands. The text of this ridiculous confession in, say, a Swiss newspaper – there are an awful lot of gullible people out there who believe what they see printed in black and white. The foreign press would have a field day. Find it and bring it to me. As for the diary and and the hack’s exposé, bring them too if you find them. And what role is the Huber woman playing in this?’
Morgen was surprised and he tried not to show it. ‘She was Schlegel’s contact for getting in touch with me.’
‘Did he mention that she is the hack’s daughter?’
No, he hadn’t. Clearly Schlegel wasn’t telling him everything.
‘And are you aware that her brother works with Emil Maurice?’ Müller went on.
No, he wasn’t. More and more curious, Morgen thought.
‘I have arranged with her employer for her to take leave forthwith. Take her. She might be useful. Are you taking Schlegel?’ asked Müller.
‘I was thinking he is better off where he is.’
‘I keep hearing his stepfather is hiding in Munich. The boy has been questioned and I still think he is more connected than he makes out. Take him and see if he makes any moves. All clear?’
Müller looked at Morgen, again amused, knowing it was anything but. Morgen sighed inwardly at being lumbered with two extra lots of baggage. Still, if Huber had connections she might prove useful.
‘What is my authority?’ asked Morgen.
‘Checking Führer security in connection with various residences as a consequence of the recent breach of security. And tell him to dye his hair.’
‘Schlegel?’
‘Who else? I can’t vouch for his safety. He seems to have upset a lot of people. Dr Goebbels is incandescent.’ Müller looked at Morgen blandly. ‘Shall we say five days? If you’re not back by then, I will presume someone has set the dogs on you.’
*
As for the business of the bomb, Morgen was inclined to go along with Schlegel’s version that some sort of a Führer trick had been performed and the plot made most sense as a stage-managed event. In a location of such high security they could have lions and elephants living there and no one would be the wiser. If there had been any Führer swap, the man seemed to have been restored to himself by the time Schlegel was invited to see him with his own eyes as proof, thus closing the case from any other interpretation. Bormann now acted with impunity, having built the Party into a black Vatican and reduced the power of all rivals through controlled channels of information and access. But the trick would not be revealed because the last thing Bormann would say is, ‘Sit down and let me tell you how I did it.’