The Schelling-Salon taproom and restaurant on Schellingstrasse was crowded and noisy, but Seb saw Hexie straightaway. She was at the bar beyond the billiard tables with a half-litre of her favourite wheat beer in her hand. She waved to him and gave him her beautiful smile as he wove his way through the throng of early evening drinkers.
‘Seb, my darling, you look as though you need a beer very badly.’
‘I was just diving in to say hello. Life is a bit frantic.’
‘And look who’s here.’
His eyes drifted past her and there was the enormous shape of his best friend in the whole world. His schoolfriend, his war comrade. The one man he could trust above all others. Suddenly, if only momentarily, the day looked brighter. ‘Max! Max Haas, what are you doing in Munich?’
‘Drinking, of course. What else would I be doing in the city of beer?’
‘Seriously, Max. It must be five hundred kilometres from Dortmund. Have you come home?’
‘No, no, I’m committed to Dortmund. The good wife insists because her family is there – and you know how she rules me. Actually, I’m here because two Bolsheviks needed a lift to Dachau and I, of course, obliged, because I’m an obliging sort of fellow. If you must know, I volunteered so I could stay overnight and see you and your beautiful girl.’
‘Well, this calls for drinks, but I can’t stay long.’
‘Already ordered for you, my friend.’
‘And what, pray, had your two commies done to warrant a relaxing holiday in Dachau?’
Max laughed out loud. ‘Since when did a Gestapo officer need an excuse to put a Red in a concentration camp? If you must know, they had plans to rob a bank, but we nipped that in the bud. Funny how they want to redistribute wealth, but only if it’s distributed to them.’
Seb was puzzled. ‘But bank robbery is not a political crime. Why were they not simply put in jail?’
‘The idiot jury found them not guilty. Perhaps not idiotic – perhaps the jury were Reds, too. Plenty of them in Dortmund.’
Seb raised an eyebrow.
‘Come on, Seb. You know what juries are like. These guys were armed and guilty as hell – no one would want them back on the streets.’
In all their years together, first as neighbours and schoolmates in Munich and later in the same unit on the Western Front, Seb and Max had never had an argument. But that didn’t mean Seb was happy when his friend accepted a post as an officer in the Dortmund Gestapo bureau. His feelings were conflicted, and so he avoided thinking about it. Nor would he say anything, because it was Max’s choice. Anyway, perhaps he could use his influence to civilise those around him; Max might never walk away from a fight but unprovoked brutality was not in his nature.
Seb turned his attention back to Hexie and put an arm around her shoulders and accepted a kiss. ‘Is that it then?’ he said when their mouths parted. ‘Is that all I get for my birthday, a beery kiss?’
‘Your present would have appeared as if by magic on the banks of the Starnbergersee, but you insisted on irritating that BPP snake. No matter, I’ve still got it, tucked away about my person. You can unwrap it in my bedroom later.’
She really was a remarkably sexy girl. The British seamen aboard the Eastern Star would have called her Sexy Hexie, had they known her. Perhaps girl was the wrong word since she was now in her twenty-eighth year. She deserved the honour of being called a woman. If a fräulein wasn’t married by that age, it was only fit and proper to do her the honour of addressing her as frau.
What made Hexie different in Seb’s eyes was that he liked her company as well as her body. He liked waking up with her, not just taking her to bed. Perhaps Uncle Christian was right – perhaps he should marry Frau Hexie Schuler. Her short summer skirts and dresses, her long tanned legs, her soft rounded breasts, all ripe for childbearing. Seb doubted she’d wait long if he dithered.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Sounds good. I can hardly wait to see my surprise. For the moment, though, I’ll join you both in a beer.’
A litre stein had already been drawn for him, along with glasses of schnapps for all three of them. For the next hour, they drank beer and schnapps, ate sausages and pickled cabbage, shared jokes and gossip, much of it in whispers about Hexie’s colleague Evie Braun and her affair with Adolf.
‘You really think they’re shagging?’ Max asked, astonished.
‘I can’t imagine it, but who knows? What do you think?’
‘I don’t know. No word of this woman has even reached Dortmund. How old is she?’
‘Twenty-three.’
‘And you say she tried to kill herself?’
Hexie put a finger to her lips. ‘Ssh, that really is top secret. Henriette von Schirach – the boss’s daughter – told me. We’ll all be shot if it gets out.’
‘How?’
‘How what?’
‘How did she try to kill herself. Gun or rope?’
‘Overdose of sleeping tablets, just a couple of weeks ago. Twenty-four Phanodorm to be precise. Poor thing. Such a nice girl – I really like her – but she’s awfully dim. Not a political bone in her body. God, though, Max, please don’t mention a word about this. I’m really not supposed to know. No one is.’
‘What do you think she sees in him?’
Hexie gave him a look of derision. ‘Do you really know nothing about women, Max? How on earth did you ever end up married?’
This large, untidy drinking hole was like a non-political oasis in one of the most political parts of Munich. The Osteria Bavaria, Herr Hitler’s favourite restaurant, was here on Schellingstrasse, just a few doors down, so was the vast frontage of the Völkischer Beobachter, official news sheet of the Nazi Party. The Hoffmann photo studio owned by the Führer’s lap dog, Heinrich Hoffmann – and where Hexie worked – was a few doors away. And not far to the south, the whole National Socialist apparatus – the Brown House, the building site known as the Führerbau and all the offices of party and state.
But no one cared about any of that in the Schelling-Salon. Yes, the SS guys and the Nazi high-ups sometimes came in here for a drink, but so did the artists and writers. Here the talk was about art, theatre, literature. Goose-stepping hordes were figures of fun and tongues were loose; sometimes dangerously so.
And yet still the bar survived and no one was quite sure how.
A band started playing and people danced. Seb had drunk a litre of beer and three or four glasses of schnapps, but he was cold sober. This should have been the best birthday celebration ever; Hexie was here and so was Max, but he, Seb, was elsewhere. In a white laboratory, on the banks of the river, in the Brown House, on the parade ground at Dachau, in deep trouble.
‘Did Hexie tell you I had a night in the luxurious Hotel Dachau, courtesy of the Bavarian Political Police, Max?’ He had to raise his voice above the din.
Max nodded. He was tall and broad. A lumbering bear. He liked his bratwurst, he liked his pork knuckle. He could eat a double helping of kaiserschmarrn pancakes with extra sugar at one sitting. ‘She told me.’
‘I bet she didn’t tell you that the BPP sergeant who was responsible for booking me in has now been allocated as my investigating partner. His name’s Winter, and he’s well named because he’s a cold bastard.’
‘Winter? Not Hans Winter by any chance?’
‘The very same. But why would you know his name?’
‘Because he was in the Gestapo in Dortmund. And then he got transferred here.’
‘Really? Why?’
‘I’ve no idea, Seb. They just said family reasons, but it was all a bit sudden. He’s a slimy swine. Licks the arses of the chiefs and reviles the rest. No one likes him.’
‘He’s quite young and inexperienced to have made sergeant.’
‘Young and inexperienced are kind words. I would restrict myself to one: useless.’
‘Well, I’m stuck with him and he’s not going to rest until he’s had me thrown me back in Dachau or put a bullet in my head in Perlacher Forest.’
*
At midnight, Seb said he was going home. He had to be up early and he’d need a clear head in the morning.
‘So, not tonight then, Seb?’ Hexie adopted a pout. ‘You’ve had your way with me and now you’re casting me away like yesterday’s milk.’
Their eyes met and they were smiling. ‘I’ll make it up to you. I promise.’ He held her tight, then turned to Max and they wrapped their arms around each other. ‘I wish I could spend more time with you, Max, but this is serious. To be honest, I shouldn’t have been here this evening.’
‘I understand. Of course, I’ve no idea what you’re investigating, but I can tell it’s a tough one.’
*
When he arrived home, far later than planned, he noted the open-topped Mercedes on the street outside the front door. No one in Ainmüllerstrasse owned a black Mercedes.
A uniformed SS officer was in the front seat. In the back seat, her eyes straight ahead and unblinking, sat Unity ‘Bobo’ Mitford.