‘B ut you think he did,’ the girl says, breaking into his narrative. ‘I have seen such things before. She would not have denied so quickly if he had been a gentle man.’ Fritz uses the moment to get up and walk to the kitchen. His throat is always dry now. He decides not to wait for a decent hour. He wants a beer, and so he pours himself one in a jelly glass.
‘Eva wrote the note, then?’
The sip is warm, soothing. He closes his eyes as the alcohol burns its way down his throat. ‘She did.’
‘Doesn’t that prove that she was his mistress then, not Geli?’
‘It proved nothing. As we left, the woman in front was waiting for us. She was Hoffman’s wife, and she did not like Eva much, in that way women have.’
‘What way?’ The girl’s tone has an edge. He is beginning to understand that she hates it when he generalises about women.
‘She was friendly enough, let her work there, maybe even confided in her. But underneath, she didn’t trust her, didn’t even like her much.’
‘You got all that from one conversation?’
He shrugs. He has no answer for that. He was good at what he did. He can understand what people feel if he concentrates on it. That is part of his gift he never talks about. It is the part no one will believe, just as the girl, this Annie, does not believe it. ‘She had no reason to tell us otherwise.’
‘Tell you what?’
‘That Eva was lying.’
‘About Hitler?’
‘About her relationship with him.’ Fritz takes another sip, then pours more into the glass before returning to his chair. He sets the glass beside the full ashtray. He is getting hungry. Soon they should have lunch. This time he will not let her cook for him. ‘Hitler “escorted” Eva, but never proposed. In fact, when Eva began bragging around the shop that she was Hitler’s mistress and he was going to marry her, Herr Hoffman told her to stop telling lies or he would fire her.’
‘Was she lying?’
‘She stopped saying anything, and for a year Hitler insisted that all his photographs be delivered to him. He did not want to see Eva. Then in the summer before Geli’s death, he showed up again and spent some time with Eva. Not enough, though, for her. Hence the note.’
The girl pushes the pause button on her recorder. ‘May I have some of that beer?’
‘My house is yours,’ he says.
She gets up, and takes a stein from his cupboard. She picks his favourite, the one he lets no one else touch. But he says nothing. He does not want to add to the tension he feels from her today.
‘So Hitler hit Geli,’ she says. ‘But he could not have killed her.’
‘Why do you say that?’ he asks.
‘Because you were on the case. You solved it.’ Her naiveté surprises him. ‘And he could not have gone on if he had done such a thing.’
She brings the stein back to her chair, then releases the pause button so the recorder starts again.
‘You are certain of that?’ Fritz asks. ‘None of your leaders have committed crimes?’
‘No, of course not,’ she says, with a primness that makes him smile.
‘Are you so certain?’
‘You’re saying he did it, and no one brought him to justice?’
‘I am saying nothing. At this point in the case, I knew nothing for certain.’
‘Why didn’t you go to Hitler directly? He would have been the one to tell you about all his women and what he was doing when Geli died.’
Fritz nods. ‘He would have, but by then he had disappeared.’