Phin fell in love with Lindschoen at first sight. He thought it was the kind of place where, if you went along a particular street and took a particular turning, you might find you had fallen into its medieval past. He was entranced by the cobbled squares and stone buildings with their windows criss-crossed with lead, and the lime trees that threw their soft outlines across the old stones.
‘Linden,’ said Toby, when Phin pointed these out. ‘Aren’t there folk songs about the lime trees here?’
‘Schubert,’ said Phin. ‘Der Lindenbaum.’
‘See?’ said Toby, grinning. ‘I don’t only know rude rugby songs.’
Most of all, Phin liked the thought that the mysterious Giselle had lived here. Silke’s letter had confirmed that, which meant Giselle must have walked along these streets, and looked into the shop windows, and stopped to talk to people in the little squares. How about Christa? Had his villainess or spy-heroine also walked these streets?
They had booked into a hotel a few miles from Lindschoen itself – Phin thought it was the German equivalent of a Travelodge, and, as Toby said, it was perfectly acceptable as their base. There was a coffee place on the ground floor and a fast-food shop, and there were tea- and coffee-making facilities in each room.
Before leaving London, Phin had wondered, a bit guiltily, whether he might find himself regretting having Toby with him, but he had not. Toby was so genuinely interested in everything; he clearly regarded the expedition as a kind of quest, midway between a Boys’ Own adventure and a James Bond romp, and Phin thought he could not have had a better companion. The memory of the redhaired Canadian editor flipped rather annoyingly through his mind. She would certainly have jumped at the chance to join him on this trip – always providing her crowded schedule would have allowed it – and she would have been efficient and knowledgeable. It was disloyal to think she might have been just very slightly patronizing about a small set-up like the Lindschoen Orchestra, and also to think that she might have been a tad dominating, wanting Phin to explore avenues he instinctively knew were dead ends, and taking charge of the travel arrangements.
What was even more disloyal – in fact it was wildly absurd – was the thought that Arabella Tallis would have been exactly right as a companion; she would have bounced delightedly through the cobbled streets, eagerly discussing what they should do next, laughing if they got lost, wanting to celebrate if they found a useful clue. Phin dismissed these speculations, because Arabella would have been maddening and distracting, and he was not going to think about her again.
The day before they left for the airport, he looked at the Siegreich music for a very long time. He still felt its darkness strongly, and if the legend could be believed, this was music that had been created out of pain and fear – it had been forged in the grim darkness of World War Two at the command of the Nazis. But its composer – whoever that composer had been – did not deserve to have his work destroyed eighty-odd years later. Phin was by no means sure he wanted to actually hear the Siegreich played; what he did think was that he owed it to that long-ago composer as well as to Stefan Cain, who was the music’s apparent owner, to make sure it was preserved.
Rather than risk damaging it in a photocopier or a scanner, he took several very careful photos of each page, which he uploaded on to his computer and printed. That dealt with, he swathed the original in several layers of bubble wrap, enclosed them in a large, padded envelope, and took it to his bank, with a request that it be stowed in a safety deposit box. He had never used this service, which he vaguely associated with jewel thieves stashing away filched diamonds, or espionage plots involving stolen government papers, or the plans for a new atomic warhead, but the procedure turned out to be simple and the bank’s charge was modest.
‘What about Christa?’ demanded Toby, when Phin reported having done all this. ‘I don’t think we should leave her at Greymarsh, do you? Stefan’s going to be transferred to that convalescent home for a week or so, which means the house will be empty. We’re looking after the music for him – at least, your bank is – but there’s still the portrait, and in view of the fact that somebody’s already tried to break in to Greymarsh—’
‘We can’t leave Christa at Greymarsh,’ said Phin. ‘Could we leave her at my flat?’
‘That ought to be safe enough. There’s the security keypad on the street door. Oh, and you could ask The Pringle to look in every morning. Say it’s to check your post. She isn’t very likely to do it for me, but I bet she’d do it for you like a shot. She thinks you’re a very nice gentleman – she told me so – and she can’t imagine why you haven’t been snapped up by some attractive girl years ago.’ He sent Phin the mischievous grin. ‘I didn’t tell her about your redhead,’ he said. ‘Or about Arabella.’
‘I wish you’d remember that I’ve never met Arabella, and that Arabella’s only met me by looking through the window of your flat,’ said Phin.
‘It’s the stuff of romance,’ said Toby, promptly. ‘Instant love through a glass darkly.’
‘It’s the stuff of nonsense,’ said Phin, but he agreed that enlisting Miss Pringle was a good idea.
Miss Pringle expressed herself as delighted to help Mr Fox in any way she could, and was charmed to think her services were required for checking his post.
‘And I’ll nip up in the evening as well, shall I, and switch on a few lights and draw the curtains. You can’t be too careful, and if you’re both going to be away at the same time … You must take some photographs of your jaunt and let me see them when you get back.’
As Toby said later, it was clear that Miss Pringle was visualizing, with fascination, the two of them yomping across Europe in a kind of modern version of the Grand Tour that Regency bucks had once taken.
‘You’ll have to take some photos for her; in fact you could even keep a diary like those colourful Victorian travellers did, and let her read it when we get back. By the way, I’m bringing my notes about our bawdy songs collection. I’ll bet there’re a few good ballads to be found in Germany.’
Christa’s safety ensured, the Siegreich’s security dealt with, and Toby’s travelling entertainment provided for, Phin booked flights to Berlin and arranged for the hire of the smallest and most inexpensive car that could be found at the other end. He did not dare check his bank balance to see how well it was standing up to this unexpected fiscal strain.
Phin had said, and Toby had agreed, that the first thing to find in Lindschoen had to be the place mentioned in Silke’s letter.
‘The house in the square that had a beautiful and appropriate name, and old lamps on the door.’
‘It’s probably a Lidl supermarket now.’
‘It’s a starting point, though.’
They spent the first day wandering around the various streets, but they did not find any buildings that seemed to fit Silke’s description.
‘Never say die, we’re only at the start,’ said Toby, as they stopped for lunch at a Konditorei smelling deliciously of fresh coffee and pastries. Over a wedge of plum cake, he said, ‘Supposing we’re approaching this from the wrong angle. Is there a library or something where we could find out about local concert halls? Because we want to find the orchestra as well, don’t we?’
Phin managed to ask their waitress if there was a local library where they could get lists of old buildings, and was pleased that she understood him sufficiently to direct them not to a library exactly, for Lindschoen had no Bibliothek, sad to say. But there was a Buchgeschäft – a shop that dealt in reference books and also music, and had many papers of the past. That would be helpful, perhaps?
‘Very helpful. Thank you very much,’ said Phin, writing down the waitress’s directions. ‘Vielen dank.’
The waitress indicated that she would be interested to hear how their research progressed. They offered coffee and very nice pastries in the afternoon, and there would shortly be a delivery of Spritzkuchen. They would come back for those and tell her how their search was progressing?
‘Perhaps,’ said Phin, who could not remember the German word for this.
In that case, the waitress would make sure to keep some of the Spritzkuchen. It would be very good if they returned. It was difficult to know if this suggestion was directed at Phin or at Toby, or at them both equally.
‘It was directed at you,’ said Toby. ‘I think you’ve clicked there.’
Phin said he was not in a mood to be clicking with anyone at the moment, not with the Siegreich and the orchestra taking up all his time and mental energy.
‘We might go back for Spritzkuchen, anyway; in fact it would be rude not to,’ said Toby, hopefully. ‘What is Spritzkuchen?’
‘Deep-fried doughnuts, I think. Is that glint in your eye for the waitress or the doughnuts?’
‘The doughnuts sound good,’ said Toby, ‘but the waitress was very nice, too. And we ought to have at least one romantic anecdote to take back to Miss Pringle.’
‘We could go back after we’ve been to the bookshop,’ said Phin.
‘We could couldn’t we? We’ll probably need reviving, anyway.’
‘We’ll probably need more than doughnuts,’ said Phin. ‘I shouldn’t think the Buchgeschäft will provide any leads.’
But it did. And it stood in an old square with traces of old cobblestones, and old-fashioned lamps.
‘And look at the sign,’ said Phin, pointing. ‘Kerzenlicht Square. Candlelight Square. If that doesn’t square with what Silke said in her letter about old-fashioned lamps, and a beautiful and appropriate name— I’ll bet those streetlamps are pre-electricity, and maybe even pre-gaslight.’
‘Let’s go in.’
Phin was aware of a curious mix of anticipation and apprehension. Was this really the house Silke remembered as the magical, lamplit place of her childhood? Giselle’s house, he thought. And if Silke’s letter can be trusted, Giselle was murdered by Christa.
But if Giselle’s murdered ghost – or anyone else’s – lingered anywhere, it did not seem to do so in the nice old shop. It was a delightful old place, with a gentle feeling of welcome and a gentlemanly implication that it was not overmuch bothered about selling its wares. Phin, drawn irresistibly to the racks of CDs, found a recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 6, which had been a particular favourite of his grandfather’s. His grandfather had been a great admirer of Mahler – Phin had never been able to decide if this was an act of defiance against the Nazis who had banned Mahler on the grounds that he and his music were degenerate, or whether it was a genuine love of Mahler’s music. He bought the CD as a small nod to his grandfather’s memory; the hire car had a CD player, and Phin thought he would listen to it while driving back to the airport in two days’ time.
Toby, meanwhile, had discovered, with glee, a small volume of old local folk songs. He promptly bought this, along with the clearest German/English dictionary he could find on the shelves, and sat down to study it, informing Phin that, among other treasures, the book contained a refrain that appeared to be in praise of an eighth-century Bavarian duke who had gone by the name of Henry the Quarrelsome, and whose life had apparently been turbulent.
This all opened up a friendly conversation with the shop’s owner, who appeared to have a fair knowledge of English.
‘We have English people who come in here, so it is useful for me,’ he explained. ‘We are not a library in the usual sense, but I have some reference books – people sometimes come in for research, and I enjoy helping.’
Phin thought this would be the right moment to produce his business card, and explain that he was interested in tracing any members of the Lindschoen Orchestra.
‘It’s for background research relating to a forthcoming book about musicians in the 1930s and 1940s,’ he said. ‘And it’s been suggested that you might have some old documents or local reference books we could look at.’
He had not expected any very positive response, but the man beamed. ‘I know of the Lindschoen Orchestra, very well,’ he said. ‘Its leader was Felix Klein, and once he owned – and lived in – this very shop.’
Phin stared at the man and thought there were times in the research processes when something totally unexpected but entirely satisfactory came scudding up to greet you.
‘He lived here? The Lindschoen Orchestra’s leader lived here?’
‘Certainly. My father acquired the shop many years since – I am not sure from whom exactly – but I know that in Felix Klein’s day it was known as The Music House, and he bought and sold musical instruments, and also gave music lessons. The orchestra was his great love – he led it for many years, and there were often concerts in a small theatre just outside Lindschoen. Sadly it is no longer there, that theatre. But it was well known for theatrical performances. Also, children’s plays at Christmas and at Hanukkah – there was once a large Jewish community in these parts, you understand.’
‘And Herr Klein himself? Do you know anything about him – I’m sorry I don’t know your name—?’
‘I am Herr Volk, but please call me Ottomar.’ There was an exchange of hands. ‘I think Felix Klein was known as very gifted, and also very well respected,’ said Ottomar Volk. ‘Not so much is known of his life, but the little that is known does not seem a happy story. I am sorry to tell you that. It was the 1940s, you understand – a difficult time. There were dangers, people were lost, and their fates never known.’
‘And one night Felix Klein gave a concert that included one of the banned composers,’ said Phin. ‘Yes?’
‘Ah, you know of that. Yes, it is so. I think he must have been a man not to bow down – submit? – to a ban he thought wrong. He was courageous enough to stand up for his beliefs. So, one night, early in 1940, he played Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony.’
‘And,’ said Phin, ‘Mendelssohn’s works were banned by the Nazis, yes?’
‘Yes. It was open defiance by Felix Klein, but he could not have known that SS men were in the audience that night. And so he paid the price.’
‘Herr Volk – Ottomar – my understanding is that Herr Klein was taken to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Is that right? Did he die there?’
‘One story says he was taken to Sachsenhausen, but no one ever knew for sure. He was what some people call one of the “lost ones”. There were many of them. All that is known is that he never came back to Lindschoen or to this house. Sachsenhausen,’ said Herr Volk, softly, ‘was a terrible place. The stories told of it are shocking – perhaps the stories not told may be even worse. There are things people never spoke of – memories they did not wish to preserve in their minds. But there is also a story that says Herr Klein was taken to the Torhaus. You knew that?’
‘No.’
‘It was another of the mysteries handed down about Felix Klein, because people who defied the SS as he did were always taken straight to one of the concentration camps. Not so for him, though – at least, not at first.’
‘What exactly was – or is – the Torhaus?’
‘It is difficult to answer that. I think it was once one of the guardhouses – gatehouses? – to Wewelsburg Castle. For one part of the war it was the residence of commandants at Sachsenhausen. It has been empty for a great many years now, and it has a bad reputation.’
‘Who owns it?’
‘I don’t think anyone knows. Ownership would be complicated, because the house stands so close to Wewelsburg Castle – perhaps even on the castle’s land.’ He paused, then said, ‘But I know that it was whispered by local people that it was at the Torhaus that the infamous Wewelsburg murder took place.’
‘We didn’t expect that,’ said Phin, as they walked away from the Kerzenlicht Hall.
‘We did not,’ said Toby. ‘What was that about the infamous Wewelsburg murder and the Torhaus? Did I follow that right? Have we come across that reference before?’
‘Don’t think so. Volk didn’t seem to know any more – just that there was a vague legend about a murder that had happened at the Torhaus.’
‘Vague or not, we ought to see the place, oughtn’t we?’
‘Oh yes. Herr Volk admitted it was odd that Klein – who defied the SS by playing Mendelssohn at his last concert – wasn’t taken straight to Sachsenhausen. And it is odd, you know. In fact, I can only think of one reason.’
‘The Siegreich.’
‘Yes. I think Felix Klein was the musician the Nazis tortured to compose their victory march.’
He paused to look back at the square, and Toby said, ‘It’s a marvellous place, isn’t it? You can visualize candles in those lamps – and a lamplighter reaching up to light them with a wick on a long pole. And if you dare to tell me I’m an irreclaimable romantic—’
‘Heaven forfend,’ said Phin, deadpan. ‘You did pay for that book with the rude song about Henry the Quarrelsome, did you?’
They reached the hotel and Toby promptly spread maps across Phin’s bed to trace the route to Wewelsburg and the Torhaus.
‘I know the car’s got a sat-nav, but we’ll take maps as back-up in case we can’t understand the directions.’
‘I’ll see what I can find about Wewelsburg Castle,’ said Phin, opening the laptop.
‘OK, and I’ll whizz down to that food-to-go place, and collect something for supper. We can work and plan while we eat.’
Toby returned fairly quickly, laden with braised beef rolls, crêpes with sauerkraut, and two tubs of what he said was German beer cheese soup, which he had not been able to resist. ‘And some Rumtopf,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what it is, but I liked the word. It looks like a squishy fruit preserve,’ he said, having cautiously investigated. ‘How’s Wewelsburg and the gatehouse? Have you found anything?’
‘Not very much. It’s in Paderborn, so it’ll be a reasonable journey from here. Mostly there’s just details about its history, and how Heinrich Himmler acquired it and wanted to turn it into a kind of school for SS training and a high-flying meeting place for senior Gestapo. There seems to be a vague legend that Himmler might have wanted to create what he called a Grail castle – reproducing elements of Arthurian legends and images, presumably. He was supposed to be planning to have an eternal flame burning in the vaults.’
‘You can’t say he didn’t aim high, that Himmler,’ said Toby.
‘There’s nothing about any murders, though – oh, except that shortly before the outbreak of World War Two a group of Jews were imprisoned there – before being taken to Buchenwald. That doesn’t sound relevant, though.’
‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Toby, who was setting out the foil and plastic dishes of food, ‘that we’ve only got two days left before we fly back.’
‘Yes.’
‘And this Torhaus/Wewelsburg lead is sounding a bit – um—’
‘Tenuous? Vague?’
‘Yes. So, rather than both of us waste the better part of a day on what might be a dead end, how about dividing our strengths? One of us to drive to this Torhaus place – probably that should be you, because if there are any clues about the orchestra and whatnot, you’d recognize them better than I would. I’ll go back to the shop in Kerzenlicht Square – oh, doesn’t that sound Dickensian! – and see if I can ferret into some of those old documents that Ottomar Volk’s got stashed away.’
Phin saw the sense of this idea. He said, ‘You’re right that the Torhaus might be a wild-goose chase. Volk said not much was known about Klein, didn’t he? Just bits of stories handed down. I don’t want to ignore it altogether, though.’
‘And,’ said Toby, ‘if either of us finds anything halfway interesting, we can join forces the following day.’
‘Good thinking. Would you mind not putting the Rumtopf on my bed, in case it spills out,’ said Phin.
Phin found it difficult to sleep that night. His mind was full of Felix Klein – of how they had found the house where Klein had lived, and heard the story about him having been taken to the Torhaus.
Then he began thinking about the Lindschoen Orchestra’s last performance. Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony. It was a joyful, lively, piece – ‘Jolly,’ Mendelssohn had called it. But how had they felt, those musicians, when they performed it? Had they been defiant, or nervous, or fearful? Had Felix Klein rallied them? Had he – this was a bad thought – had he even bullied them? Phin did not want Felix, who might have been the Siegreich’s composer, to have been a bully.