In all his years, Seb had never felt this impotent. Even in the worst days of the war, he had a gun and an enemy to fire at. But now he felt helpless. He no longer had any say over his son’s life, he had not a single clue to the murderer of his friend Caius Klammer and he was powerless to prevent the execution of a young man who was surely innocent, despite his confession of guilt.
He wanted to see Friedlander again to ask him why he was changing his plea, but when he attempted to visit him in the cells at the Police Presidium he was informed that the prisoner had been moved to the main Stadelheim prison in Perlach on the south-eastern outskirts of Munich.
It was a move that made no sense to him. The trial would be at the Palace of Justice in the centre of the city, so why move him further away? He put a call through to Stadelheim and asked about paying a visit to the accused man, but his call was transferred to the governor who insisted that the only visitor Friedlander was allowed before tomorrow’s trial was his lawyer, Herr Brühne.
‘Why is that?’
‘Orders from above, Inspector.’
‘From who exactly?’
‘From above. Good day, Inspector.’ The phone call ended abruptly.
He made one more phone call, to the home of Otto Raspe in Altbogenhausen. The writer’s wife Heidi answered the call. ‘Ah, Inspector Wolff,’ she said after Seb introduced himself. ‘Do you want Adam Rock?’
‘Actually, I was hoping to speak to your husband.’
‘He’s at work. You’ll almost certainly find him at the Völkischer Beobachter offices.’
‘Thank you, Frau Raspe.’
The weather was fine. He climbed into the Lancia and drove north to Schellingstrasse for the second time that day. What was it about this pleasant but otherwise unremarkable street that attracted Hitler: his favourite restaurant, his friend’s photographic studio, his newspaper, his former party HQ?
Seb parked outside the newspaper office and introduced himself at reception. A call was put through and a minute later he was told that Colonel Raspe would be happy to talk to him, and he was shown up to his office.
The Beobachter was like any newspaper office anywhere in the world. The floor was littered with ash and cigarette butts, desks were piled high with paper and old newspapers from around Germany and the rest of the world. Smoke and noise filled the air. Men – almost exclusively men – hammered away at typewriters or scrawled in notebooks while holding telephones wedged between their shoulders and ears. There was a lot of shouting. Smell and noise, a little like a police department but even more so.
Many newspapers took political stances, but this one didn’t even pretend to be independent. It belonged to Hitler and was an unashamed mouthpiece for the Nazi Party. Nothing went in it that hadn’t been approved politically.
Otto Raspe, as a star columnist, had a room to himself, close to the editor’s office on the far side of the main open-plan area. Seb was fully expecting to dislike him, given Hexie’s antipathy. Her instinct was usually sound on such matters.
Three secretaries, all in smart dark skirts and crisp white blouses, were stationed outside his office. One of them immediately stood up and saluted Seb, which he returned in kind. She then welcomed him and knocked on Raspe’s closed door.
‘Come in.’
She nodded to Seb and opened the door to allow him to step past her into the office, then retreated, closing the door after her. Raspe immediately stood up and came around to greet him.
Seb was about to raise his arm in the Hitler salute, but Raspe merely reached out to shake his hand. ‘Inspector Wolff, it’s a real pleasure to meet you.’
‘Colonel Raspe, thank you for agreeing to see me.’
‘Dear fellow, it’s my honour. I have heard great things about you. Munich’s finest detective, I’m told, and you have certainly proved yourself these past few days. I hear, too, that you did good work in the Army Group Rupprecht in the war. Sixteenth Bavarian Reserve Infantry like our dear Führer, wasn’t it? Machine-gunner on the Western Front, eh, shooting Tommies and Yankees? Iron Cross First Class?’
‘Yes, sir.’ How did Raspe know all that? It wasn’t something Seb went around telling people.
‘Good man. One of us, a true Bavarian and a true German. Worst day of my life when we capitulated. The cowardly swine in Berlin let us all down in November 1918. And don’t even get me started on Versailles and the damned French.’
Raspe was a good-looking man, very much the soldier with his erect carriage, his polished shoes, fine clothes and his salt-and-pepper hair. He actually had a look of Bavarian royalty about him, not dissimilar to the handsome Crown Prince Rupprecht himself. Probably about fifty years of age, but he could have passed for ten years younger. The only untoward marks on his otherwise immaculate person were the fingertips of his right hand, which were black with ink where his pen must have leaked.
‘Now then, coffee? Something stronger?’
‘A coffee would be very welcome.’ Anything to give him as long as possible in this man’s company.
He stepped to the door, opened it and ordered a pot of coffee. As he turned back, he smiled. ‘And how can I help you, Herr Wolff?’
‘It’s a long shot, sir, but I didn’t know where else to turn. The thing is I was hoping to tap into your expertise of all things Völkisch. With your background in the Thule Society and the scholarly things you research and write for the Beobachter, it seemed to me you probably know as much if not more about the subject than anyone in Bavaria, perhaps the whole of Germany.’
‘You flatter me, young man. But, anyway, what in particular do you want to know?’
‘I was wondering whether you have any knowledge of runes – runic script.’
Raspe laughed. ‘Does anyone really know them? They are perhaps the greatest mystery of our glorious past. What messages might our ancestors have been trying to leave us? What universal secrets might they reveal? They are things of beauty from antiquity, but they are abstruse. A man could study them for a lifetime and be none the wiser. And yet, their very darkness inspires us.’
Seb smiled. ‘You are clearly a man of great learning, sir, which is why I have come to you. I know from your marvellous articles that you have an abiding interest in such things.’
‘Flattery, more flattery. Really Wolff, you do lay it on a bit thick.’
The coffee arrived and the conversation paused until the secretary had poured two cups and departed.
‘And yes,’ Raspe continued, ‘of course I’ll help you in any way I can with what little I know, for I always wish to enlighten men of true German blood. But perhaps you’d give me a clue as to what exactly you want to discover, and why? Is this personal or a police matter?’
‘It’s a police matter. I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss the details at the moment.’
‘Nothing to do with the murder of my dear young friend Miss Palmer, I take it.’
And so they came to it, as Seb had known they would. This visit to this man was an act of foolhardy desperation, taken because he could think of nowhere else to turn. He didn’t even know what he was hoping to find out. Colonel Otto Raspe was not his friend and never would be. But he was a last hope.
‘Did you know her, sir? I confess I did wonder when I saw you with her brother and Miss Mitford at the House of Artists.’
‘Of course, you were there, weren’t you? Bobo pointed you out to me and said what good work you had done in following her lead and arresting the man. I should have come over and introduced myself and offered you my congratulations there and then, but it was a busy, hectic evening. As for Miss Palmer, yes, I knew her very well. A beautiful, charming young woman. Her death is an absolute tragedy for her family and friends, and I look forward to that young man losing his own life for his heinous deed.’
Seb nodded gravely. ‘A wish many of us share, sir. Do you think I might confide in you?’
‘Of course. An officer never betrays a confidence.’
‘When you asked whether my interest in runes was personal or police work, it’s actually a bit of both. And it does indeed involve the murder of the English girl.’
‘Really? How extraordinary.’
‘You see, this is probably not known to you – unless, of course, Lord Braybury mentioned it – but there were markings on the body. Cuts in strange shapes and red marks made with what looked like lipstick.’
Raspe was sipping his coffee hot. He looked puzzled. ‘He did mention the markings, but he said they were believed to be Hebrew script.’
‘That was never proved and I now believe it’s possible they were runes. That doesn’t mean the accused man is innocent because, of course, he has admitted his guilt. But it occurred to me that perhaps he had an accomplice. Professor Lindner, who carried out the post-mortem said he doubted the murder was carried out at the place where she was found, so her body must have been transported some distance. It can be no easy matter for someone to carry a body down through the Herzogpark woods to the water’s edge.’
‘So you think there was a second killer, eh? Well, that certainly is an intriguing theory. What does your chief of police say?’
‘I won’t speak ill of Deputy President of Police Ruff, but he has been under intense pressure over this case and now that one killer has been found, he simply wants the matter closed. You might think that is quite understandable given the political implications of a crime involving the British nobility and international diplomacy.’
‘Yes, yes, I see that. And your theory is not implausible. Look, do you have a record of these markings – a photograph, for instance? I might know someone who could take a look.’
‘There are photographs. I’ll bring one.’ There were no photographs; they had disappeared. Or had they? What about the original plates, they must be somewhere. ‘Tomorrow, perhaps.’
‘Thank you. I’m sure they will be painful to look at, but if there is a second culprit, he must be found, so I would be happy to help in that.’
Seb nodded with a smile, then drank his coffee. He wanted to see Raspe’s face as he looked at the pictures of Rosie Palmer’s mutilated corpse. Who knew? Perhaps he had seen it before.
There was little more to say. Otto Raspe thanked Seb for coming and confiding in him. He said they should meet for a drink one day. Perhaps the inspector had heard that the Thule Society had been re-formed in recent years despite some opposition within the party? In fact, said Raspe, it had never really gone away despite suggestions that it had disbanded in the early 1920s. ‘Do you have an interest in the history of the German race, Wolff?’
‘Indeed I do,’ Seb lied.
‘Well, you might like to consider joining; we could do with new blood. Not something you should mention to your superiors in the police, though, eh?’
‘No, sir.’
‘You see we have been rather overshadowed by the Nazi Party itself in recent years and there are those who resent us, even though we laid the ideological foundations of the movement and support it with every fibre of our being. What many don’t realise is that Thule goes beyond politics, to the very depths of the Aryan spirit and soul.’
*
He was about to climb into the car, when he had a thought. It was just possible that the autopsy photographs had been developed at the Hoffmann studio, just over the road, no more than a hundred metres from the Beobachter offices.
Hexie could look them up. But he didn’t want her to get in trouble, so perhaps he could ask the other girl at the counter, the new one. It would be an innocent enough question. He’d show his police badge and explain his enquiry. No need to mention that the prints had disappeared in sinister circumstances.
He stepped out into the road. He didn’t see the black saloon car pull out and accelerate straight at him until the last second. Time slowed down and in that final fraction he knew he could not get out of the way, that the car was coming at him deliberately, and that he was about to die.