From the pavement tables of the Café Kranzler it was possible to see a line of people stretching most of the way round Pariser Platz to the doors of the American Embassy. The queue for visas began before dawn and would still be there at dusk. Not that there was anything interesting about a queue in Berlin. Waiting was a way of life. Along with the ordinary queues for bread and meat and vegetables, there were long, snaking queues for train tickets and visas, and foreigners crammed the stations like walkers desperate to get home before the first drops of a storm arrived. A pair of hard-faced soldiers had been deputed to guard the American Embassy queue, but no one seemed remotely likely to step out of line. Disorder was not something they could afford. Occasionally a secretary bearing a tray of tea and sandwiches moved along, pouring cups and asking people if they required sugar. Their faces registered astonishment at the young American’s request. It had been so long since they were considered not just names and numbers, but humans, with preferences and opinions, even about how much sugar they took in their tea.
A few hundred yards away, Clara was waiting for Mary Harker. She had no idea why Mary had asked to meet, but she was glad of the diversion. Even if only for a few hours, it would take her mind off the task she was about to undertake.
Mary arrived late, wrenching off her battered felt hat and running her hand through her hair so that bits of it stood up vertically in a tangle of straw.
‘I’m trying to calm down.’
She threw herself dramatically on a seat, lit a cigarette and inhaled furiously.
‘I’ve just been expelled from a press conference.’
‘Not another one.’
‘I know. There are two press conferences a day now, so I have twice as much opportunity to get ejected. I wouldn’t bother, but with everything moving so fast, you can’t afford to miss one in case they let slip anything important.’
‘And did they?’
‘No such luck. It was “Good News About Employment”. The usual mixture of boasts and lies. They said full employment has finally been achieved in Germany.’
‘And I’d guess that’s not true?’
‘I felt obliged to point out that if there was full employment, it was only because all the workers are now producing armaments. Before I knew it, two thugs had frogmarched me out of the door.’
‘And you let this upset you?’ asked Clara incredulously.
‘Don’t be silly. I’ve been thrown out of more press conferences than I’ve had hot Wurst. No, that’s not why I wanted to see you. It’s about your Faith and Beauty girl. Take a look at this.’
She pushed across the table the latest edition of the Völkischer Beobachter, the ultra-loyal Nazi newspaper. Clara glanced at the headline. Investigation Continues into Slain Girl. There was nothing new in the report except that it was accompanied by a fresh photograph of Lotti Franke. All the previous shots had shown her wearing her regulation Faith and Beauty outfit but this was a large, glamorous image of Lotti dressed in a provocatively low-cut dress, eyes smouldering at the camera, one leg propped vampishly on a chair. In the upper right-hand corner was the photographer credit: Yva.
‘What does this photograph say?’ demanded Mary.
‘That she modelled her own designs. She was artistic.’
‘Nope.’ Mary thrust the paper away, as if disgusted.
‘A picture says a thousand words, right? And I know how newspaper picture desks work. If they have a choice of photographs to illustrate a piece – and there seem to have been a hundred pictures of Lotti Franke – then they’ll choose the one that transmits the correct message. Most of the Völkischer Beobachter might have been dictated by Goebbels himself and this photograph is not an accident. It says Lotti was not the archetypal German maiden. She was not the pure Faith and Beauty girl everyone imagines. She was different, original, a little out of the ordinary. In other words, she got what was coming to her.’
‘She deserved to die?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘But why?’
Mary frowned. ‘That’s what I don’t understand. For some reason the investigation is changing course. Did I mention that they have a suspect now?’
Clara clattered her cup back into the saucer. ‘Mary! You left it until now to tell me?’
‘When I was leaving the Propaganda Ministry this afternoon I ran into one of the few sane press deputies and he told me they’ve arrested a man. They’re announcing it tomorrow.’
‘That changes everything.’
‘No it doesn’t. Because it’s a Pole. If you believe the police department – which of course I don’t – Poles have been responsible for most of the crimes in the Reich for the past three months. Whoever this man is, he didn’t do it. But it shows that they’re tired of the story now. The police are no longer trying to solve the murder. If they can’t tar Lotti as a promiscuous eccentric, then they’ll pin her murder on a Pole. I’m afraid, Clara, it means they can no longer be bothered to find the right man.’
‘Or they don’t want to.’
She felt again that intuition that had dawned at the Faith and Beauty home, that Lotti’s murder was not the act of a lone madman. That it had roots in something far beyond the opportunistic sexual murder of a girl in the wrong place at the wrong time. But it was impossible to explain, and besides, Mary was rushing impatiently on.
‘Also Clara, I wanted to say goodbye. I’m leaving town for a while.’
‘Just because you were expelled from a press conference?’
‘Much better reason than that.’ Mary grinned. ‘I’m making a trip to England because I’ve had the strangest request. Jack Kennedy, the son of the American ambassador in London, wants to meet me. He thinks I might be able to give his father a better idea of what the Nazis are like up close.’
Clara smiled. ‘I met Jack Kennedy when I was in Paris. But I never thought he’d ask you to lecture his father.’
Mary reached over and gripped her arm. ‘I might have guessed it was you. Thank you, Clara. It’s an incredible opportunity. And believe me, I won’t hold back. I owe you.’
Clara hesitated. ‘In that case, there is something you can do, something for me. There’s a little girl, Esther Goldblatt. She’s fourteen. Jewish. She reminds me of myself at that age and she’s in a bit of trouble. She desperately needs to get out of Germany and she has a visa for America, but it will take years before her number comes up. She could get an exit visa to travel to England, but only if she has a sponsor there who is prepared to adopt her.’
‘That’s quite a hurdle.’
‘I think I know the right person.’
Clara reached for her notebook.
‘Here’s her address and telephone number.’
Mary looked down at the paper.
‘Angela Mortimer? Are you serious? I would have thought your sister was the last person on earth to contemplate adopting a little Jewish girl.’
‘That was my first instinct, but there’s more to Angela than you think. Her views may be reprehensible, but she’s a decent person at heart. She was very motherly to me when I was a truculent teenager. And she has no children to mother, so it’s perfect. Tell her I’ll write and explain but she needs to register as a sponsor as soon as possible. She must contact Bloomsbury House in Great Russell Street. It’s the headquarters of the Jewish refugee committee. Oh, and something else.’ Clara reached up to her neck and unclasped Steffi’s pearls, then handed them to Mary.
‘Take these, sell them for the best price you can, and give Angela the money. Tell her it’s for Esther.’
She watched as Mary stowed the pearls carefully in her bag.
‘And good luck.’
‘Thanks.’
But Clara knew if anyone was going to need luck, it would be her.