SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 1944
“Do you want to die?” the voice hissed.
“Yes,” the woman sobbed.
“You need to ask me for it first.”
“Yes, please kill me! Please kill me!”
Oppenheimer couldn’t bear it any longer. He switched the gramophone off and looked at Ziegler. The man’s eyes were open wide, his face was red, but he said nothing, stared wordlessly at the device’s horn.
“What kind of recordings are these?” Oppenheimer barked at him. His voice was a little louder than planned. He tried to swallow his anger. It cost him a lot to speak calmly to Ziegler.
“If you don’t tell me what these recording are, I’ll have to assume that you made them. That you are the sadist who kidnapped these women and tortured them.”
Ziegler grew restless.
“There are no more excuses. These records were in your possession. They are recordings of an abominable deed. There is no point denying it, Kalle.”
“I didn’t break no one!”
Oppenheimer had to take a deep breath to be able to ask the next question in a matter-of-fact manner.
“Where did you make these recordings?”
“Wasn’t me!”
“Kalle, don’t you understand that you’re making everything worse?”
“I ain’t crazy! I’m not gonna tell you…” Ziegler broke off.
“What don’t you want to tell me?”
Ziegler screamed from the top of his lungs, “It wasn’t me, Inspector!” Then he collapsed. “You all just want me to hang! Right from the start! You ain’t gonna get nothin’ out of me. I’m not snitching on no one!”
“What are you talking about, snitching? Are you trying to tell me that it was someone else?”
No reaction.
“Kalle! I’m talking to you!”
Was Ziegler trying to weasel his way out? Such a reaction wasn’t unusual. People accused of crimes often tried to put the blame on an imaginary acquaintance or even a stranger, a phantom that no one would ever catch because it didn’t exist. But Oppenheimer had proof that Ziegler was in trouble and wanted to find out what was behind it. Was the man crazy? Or was he just imagining an accomplice to not have to admit his own guilt? Oppenheimer tried to recall what Hilde had said about schizophrenia.
“Kalle, do you hear voices sometimes?”
“When someone speaks to me, sure. I’m not loony, you know, Inspector.”
Oppenheimer tried again, trying to be lenient. “Did someone order you to kill these women?”
Ziegler went berserk. “Goddamn it, I didn’t break no one!”
Oppenheimer considered whether Ziegler was actually intelligent enough to put such a hideous plan into action and play cat and mouse with the SS for weeks on end. Then he thought of Karl Großmann and how he’d realized that the less clever murderers in particular were harder to catch because you couldn’t really predict their actions. Oppenheimer recalled the undignified exhibition of the mutilated bodies, five women whose lives had been obliterated just because this stubborn idiot wanted it so. And bit by bit, something happened that had never happened to Oppenheimer during an interrogation. Hatred rose up in him, a hatred he could barely control.
Morosely, he watched the pathetic wretch babbling away to himself so that Oppenheimer had trouble picking up any useful information. It was obvious that Ziegler was involved in the murders and was trying to play for time. He was uncooperative on principle. Any trace of pity that Oppenheimer had ever had for Kalle was eradicated at this moment. He just wanted answers. He didn’t care anymore what means he used to get them.
Before Oppenheimer knew what was happening, he took a mighty leap forward and grabbed the suspect by the neck with both hands.
The chair shattered beneath their weight. They landed on the floor, but he didn’t let go. He wanted the little shit to pay for the suffering he’d caused. The face in front of him turned purple, the eyes started to bulge, the mouth opened into a silent scream. Oppenheimer registered that Ziegler was hitting him on the back, but he could barely feel the blows. He was too possessed with making Kalle accountable, an eye for an eye, one life for the lives of many.
Oppenheimer caught a movement on the edge of his vision. It had to be the stenographer. Two strong hands gripped him and dragged him off Kalle, who was gasping for breath.
Oppenheimer didn’t want to let go, reached out his arms, but he was jerked back and manhandled out into the corridor. He heard the door to the interrogation room close.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “I almost had him there!”
Oppenheimer was let go, and he realized that it was Vogler who had dragged him out of the room.
“From now on, that’s our job,” Vogler said. “Many thanks for your help. Now that we have the murderer, the SS will take over.”
Oppenheimer was too agitated to understand. “Give me an hour. Just one. I’ll get the information out of him!”
“Thank you for the offer, but we have our own methods. Wait for further instructions. I’ll be in touch if there is anything else you can do for us.” With that, Vogler returned to the room.
Oppenheimer’s breathing returned to normal. The throbbing in his head stopped. He slowly realized that he no longer played a role in the investigation. It was over, and he had delivered an unworthy spectacle in the final stages. Gradually, he realized what he’d done. He had almost killed a suspect. Within just a few seconds, he’d thrown everything he’d ever believed in overboard. He’d flouted his mentor’s maxim. He’d attacked a suspect to force a confession. Oppenheimer didn’t know whether he’d ever be able to forgive himself. What would have happened if Vogler hadn’t stopped him in time? He didn’t dare think of it. Through the door, Oppenheimer heard Vogler begin to shout at the suspect. “We have witnesses who saw you, Ziegler!” Vogler was clearly gambling. He was probably planning on putting Kalle under pressure with false evidence until he confessed to everything. Oppenheimer had heard that this was the Gestapo’s standard method. But he was not interested in the SS man now; he was preoccupied with himself.
He had caught the murderer and suffered a huge defeat at the same time. Oppenheimer stood in the corridor, dazed, deeply ashamed by his own behavior.
He held on to the smooth enamel of the sink. It was dark. A thin ray of sunshine fell into the room through the window that was as narrow as an arrow slit. Despondency had gripped him and had become so strong that he almost believed he would never be able to escape it. He had to concentrate, recover his control so that he could think straight once more. He didn’t know what to do. Only the belief in his mission prevented him from giving up.
He had already found pleasure in killing during the war. But at the time, that was nothing special. After all, his comrades at the front had endured the same fate. Back home, it had taken him a few years to realize that he was different.
When, in an attack of rage, he had throttled a prostitute who’d laughed at the sight of his member, he’d still been naïve. He’d actually felt panic back then when he realized that the wench with the brightly made-up face was dead. He’d fled from her digs, hoping that nobody had seen him. In the days that followed, he avoided his room, lying low in town, always ready to move on at the sight of a policeman. But no one looked for him, no one wanted to bring him to justice. When he dared to go back to his lodgings, his life returned to its usual rhythm. And yet to him, the world had changed irrevocably.
He turned around and looked at the alarm clock. After having checked that the color had had enough time to work, he leaned forward and started to rinse it from his hair.
When he thought about how awkwardly he’d gone about killing the first wench, he almost had to laugh. What an amateur he’d been back then. Insecure. Fearful. Driven by an urge he initially couldn’t understand.
But after he’d spent a lot of time thinking about it, the time had come when everything made sense. He’d suddenly appreciated how everything hung together and understood the role he himself played in it. Since then, he’d been aware that something had embedded itself deep inside him a long time ago, something that grew incessantly, became stronger, and then freed itself with a forceful outburst.
He dried his bleached hair. When he put the towel aside, he couldn’t help but stare at himself in the mirror. Now he once again resembled the person he wanted to be. Full of pride, he looked at the deadly monster, the führer’s prophecy come true.
After he’d made sure that his original hair color was no longer showing at the roots, he was content. But he knew that the creature in the mirror was not yet complete. It was a constant learning process. In the last few years, he’d already taken many steps in the right direction. And he was particularly proud of one of his skills: the keen sense he’d developed in finding his victims. He was able to discover prostitutes in places where in his naïvety he initially hadn’t assumed them to be. Even the doctors who had treated him for a while were unable to imagine the danger that emanated from the prostitutes. He was almost grateful to the stupid wench for laughing at him and awakening his distrust.
He had placed the four cut-off arms in front of the Reich Chancellery to provoke a reaction. But that had turned out differently from what he’d expected. Now the roles had been reversed. He had become the prey. The SS lackeys followed him like a criminal. They wanted to eliminate him. No question, the situation was serious.
He went toward the door but stopped after a few steps. Heeding an inner impulse, he approached the preserving jars that were arranged on a shelf in an orderly row. He hoped to feel some sort of reassurance at the sight, but doubt had already gripped his heart again. He didn’t know whether he was still capable of continuing his mission, despite his many capabilities. The next step would be to manage without Kalle.
He reproached himself for being naïve enough to trust an idiot like Kalle. But the man had been useful, taking on the tasks from which he himself shied away. Without Kalle, it would have been difficult to protect himself from the prostitutes’ contaminated blood. Kalle wasn’t afraid of carving the genitals out of the women’s bodies and putting them into saline solution. He knew that his helper didn’t believe in the same things, and he hadn’t considered it appropriate to enlighten him. Kalle didn’t care about anything, as long as he could play his games with the women. And now he’d gone. Disappeared, just like that.
He leaned against the cold wall and asked himself the unavoidable question. Had all his work been in vain? He looked across toward the preserving jars once more to gather courage. But the malignant genitals trapped in there just looked like dead pieces of meat. He realized that the memories of his deeds were fading. But he needed these memories, needed them as confirmation that he was not idle, but continuing to follow the right path.
He thought he could hear the shrill laughter of the whore in the distance, but he knew it was just his mind playing tricks on him. He pulled on the gas mask he always carried with him. Underneath his second face, he felt secure. Once he’d affixed the mask, he felt his former assurance slowly return. When he took a deep breath, the distant laughter had disappeared. The only sound that remained was the sharp hiss of the filter, and there was no more room for doubt.
Calmly, he weighed the options. The fact that Kalle had disappeared probably meant that the SS people had picked him up. They would interrogate him, and he didn’t doubt that Kalle would crack at some point. His storage hut was well hidden in the woods, but he wasn’t safe here anymore. His pursuers could turn up any second.
He now knew what he was looking at. He realized he had a head start. He could calmly make all the arrangements before snatching the next prostitute.
And he had no doubt that he needed to continue with his task. Even if they were chasing him, he would not stop. Catching. Killing. There were still so many who needed to be punished. He couldn’t stop now.
At least Kalle had left the delivery van behind. That was very valuable. Now he just had to find a way of protecting himself in case someone found his hideout.
He stood in the middle of his storehouse, looked around, and thought about how the attackers would proceed. They would have to take the deserted forest path to get onto the property. There were two doors to the building, but he’d already closed the back entrance off with bricks several years ago so that the prostitutes couldn’t flee. Then there was the iron hatch down to the coal cellar, but that was hard to find because it was overgrown with shrubs and could be opened from the outside only with a blowtorch. So it was obvious which way the intruder would have to come in to overpower him: through the front entrance, straight through the storage area to the workroom. Where he killed the women.
He tried to put himself in the pursuer’s shoes. Crouching down low, he crept along the wall and jumped through the doorway.
Now he was in his workroom. When the wooden floor creaked beneath his feet, he looked down. Seen from the outside, the storage hut seemed to consist of strong brick walls, but the inside was a ramshackle construction. Only a few rotten beams ensured that he didn’t break through the floor and fall into the cellar.
Suddenly, he had the idea he’d been waiting for. No, they couldn’t touch him. Now he knew how he could get away. Now that he’d resolved this, he felt ready. For the next deed.
“The race is almost over. There’s a hot favorite now, but the horse was replaced shortly before the finishing line. I think we can fetch our old nag from Happegarten now.”
Hilde understood Oppenheimer’s description of the situation. “The knacker has been informed. However, we’ll need at least three hours to get to Happegarten. It’s quite a long way to the trotting track.”
There was a note of disappointment in Oppenheimer’s voice. “As I said, there is nothing more we can do. See you later.”
He replaced the handset on the cradle and contemplated the telephone a while longer. He had to think of other things now. Very well, Vogler had taken the case off him, and the ending had been disappointing, but there was nothing to be done about it. Now that Oppenheimer was no longer needed, he was in an extremely dangerous situation. He could not afford to look back. The next goal had to be to get out of Germany and seek refuge somewhere. He still had three hours. All of a sudden, that seemed an extremely long time to Oppenheimer. So much could go wrong.
He exited from the post office and at first didn’t know where to go. Potsdamer Platz lay before him; countless people were walking to the train station, which was not really surprising, as the first people were leaving work for the day. A horse-drawn cart turned from Leipziger Straße into Hermann-Göring-Straße and almost forced a cyclist off the road, who rang his bicycle bell wildly. Life in the city was running its usual course, but Oppenheimer felt cut off from it all. He stood in the midst of the hustle and bustle, suddenly a stranger in the pulsating metropolis.
Hoffmann was nowhere to be seen; he probably had to drive more important people through Berlin now. Oppenheimer decided to take the subway line A-II to the Krumme Lanke station. He estimated that this would get him closer to the Kameradschaftssiedlung than the commuter train to West Zehlendorf. However, the roof of the subway station at Potsdamer Platz had been bombed during the big attack on Wednesday. Oppenheimer could see it was cordoned off. It seemed they were still working on it. He hoped that some sort of replacement transport had been arranged.
He was just about to cross Saarlandstraße when someone called out his name. “Mr. Oppenheimer! Wait!”
He turned but couldn’t spot anyone familiar. A figure limped through the crowd, waving his hat, his head almost bald. Güttler. Oppenheimer remembered. He’d given the man a task after they’d found the body of the whore called Friederike, who had been Verena Opitz before the SS gave her the alias Edith Zöllner. Ms. Becker had seen the murderer creep away from the graveyard in Steglitz, but her two descriptions of the perpetrator had contradicted each other.
“There you are!” Güttler said happily. “I was just about to go to Hauptsturmführer Vogler because I didn’t find you in Zehlendorf.”
“How are you, Güttler?”
“That’s quite a job you gave me. A veritable Sisyphean task, finding Ms. Becker.” With a proud smile, he then announced, “I’ve been successful, though.”
“You know where she lives?”
“Ms. Becker is staying in Dahlem. Her name was misspelled at the registration. Elfriede Bäcker, spelled ä instead of e. It took a while for me to figure that out. She claimed that all her papers were destroyed during the bomb attack.”
Oppenheimer stopped. This didn’t make sense. When he’d questioned Ms. Becker, she’d had no problem identifying herself. And there had been no further bomb attacks until she’d disappeared without a trace. This was not the behavior of an innocent person. This lady was hiding something. Oppenheimer made a note of the new address.
“Has anyone been informed about this yet?”
“Of course not. You set me on the task, and I wanted to report only to you.”
“Thank you, Güttler. Good job. I hope we see each other again. Maybe on the next case.”
With this empty promise and a handshake, Oppenheimer took his leave of the SD man. Before he knew it, his thoughts were revolving around the case again. Once he’d checked that the subway was working properly, he decided to get out a few stops earlier. Dahlem-Dorf was four stops before the final stop, Krumme Lanke. So paying Ms. Becker a visit was not a detour, and after all, Oppenheimer still had just under three hours.
CLOSED UNTIL THE ULTIMATE VICTORY, the large letters on the yellowing sign said. The tailor had placed the note behind the glass entrance door. Whether this was his cynical comment on the current war situation or whether he possibly still believed the German army would win was not clear.
Oppenheimer looked at the house. This was number seven, the address Güttler had given him. If his information was correct, this was where Ms. Becker was living.
So far, the building had remained untouched by bomb hits. In fact, the entire street was still intact. There were two floors above the tailor shop. Curtains hung in the windows. So someone was living here.
The entrance to the flats was at the side of the building. Oppenheimer looked for Ms. Becker’s name on the four mailboxes, and there was one with the name Becker on it.
When he reached the top floor and rang the bell, he heard agitated clattering inside the flat. A moment later, the door opened, and Elfriede Becker squinted at him from behind her glasses.
“Yes?” she asked. Oppenheimer felt that her voice sounded shaky.
“Elfriede Becker?” he asked.
The woman instinctively pulled her cardigan closer around herself. “What can I do for you?”
“Inspector Oppenheimer. We’ve met. Back at the cemetery in Steglitz. I have a few more questions. Could I come in?”
“I … That’s not convenient. I have to leave in a moment. I have an appointment.”
“It will really only take a few seconds,” Oppenheimer assured her, and before she could react, he had pushed his way into the flat. She appeared just marginally younger than that night at the police station. Oppenheimer guessed she was in her early to midthirties. Hesitantly, she led the way into the living room.
“You really are hard to find,” he said as he sat down in the armchair.
“How do you mean?”
“The address that you gave us doesn’t exist anymore. The house. And you gave a false name at the registration office.”
“What? That can’t be right. One of the clerks must have written it down wrong. It’s not my fault. It’s always so busy there.”
A framed photograph stood beneath the table lamp. A young Elfriede Becker was beaming at Oppenheimer from a wedding photograph. So, in actual fact she was Mrs. Becker, not a Miss.
“Do you live alone?”
“My husband fell at the eastern front last year, if that’s what you mean. It’s probably best if you ask your questions frankly.”
“You said that you saw the person leaving the cemetery on the night in question. Unfortunately, you gave two contradicting descriptions.”
“That was a mistake. It was only later when I thought about the event that I remembered everything in detail.”
Oppenheimer pricked up his ears. Someone had coughed in the next-door room, muffled, but quite clearly perceivable.
“The neighbors,” Mrs. Becker hurried to explain.
Oppenheimer looked her in the face. Then he got up and went straight into the room that the noise had come from. A bedroom. The back wall was taken up by a large wardrobe.
“I told you, it’s the neighbors,” Mrs. Becker protested.
“Is that your wardrobe, or was the room already furnished?”
“It was already here. Just like all the other items.”
Oppenheimer walked up and down in front of the wardrobe and examined the large doors. In a loud voice, he then addressed the large item of furniture. “You can come out now! The game is up! Do you hear me?”
Silence.
Very slowly, one of the wardrobe’s doors began to open. Two eyes stared at Oppenheimer, full of fear.
“I’m waiting.”
A rustling noise. Caught out, a man made his way out from between the clothes. He was in his early twenties, definitely of an age fit for military service. Now Oppenheimer understood Mrs. Becker’s strange behavior.
“Which battalion?”
“Eighth,” the young man answered, intimidated.
Of course, a deserter. Like so many others who didn’t report back to the front after their leave, preferring to take the risk of being shot by a firing squad should they be caught. When he saw how Mrs. Becker put her arms protectively around the shaking young man, he understood what had happened. If what she’d told Oppenheimer was true, then her husband had been killed, and she had fallen in love again. Unfortunately, her lover was a deserter. No one must know of his existence. Doubtlessly, she was crazy about the boy; otherwise, she wouldn’t have taken the risk of hiding him in her flat. His life depended on her behaving correctly. Hence the deception once the police had become aware of her. But now the house of cards these two had built had collapsed.
“I told you there was no point, Friede,” he said resignedly to Mrs. Becker. She began to sob quietly.
“I’m not interested in you,” Oppenheimer said as calmly as possible. “I just care about the witness statement. When I leave, you’ll never see me again. No one will find out about this from me. I give you my word of honor. But I ask you to now give me a genuine report of what you saw at the cemetery that night.”
Mrs. Becker turned toward Oppenheimer in surprise. The young man’s eyes also held renewed hope.
“What shall I call you? Just your first name so that I can address you.”
“Ernst,” the young man said.
“So, Ernst, were you there when Mrs. Becker made the observation at the cemetery in Steglitz?”
“We’d only met a few days before,” it suddenly burst out of Mrs. Becker. “We saw each other for the first time during an air raid. We were in the same bunker, and, well, we liked each other straightaway.”
“I accompanied her home that night,” Ernst added.
“Right. I don’t need any further details. So you were walking along the wall of the cemetery. Now to the important question: Which one of you actually made the observation? Let’s start with you, Ernst.”
The man named Ernst swallowed and thought hard. “It was like this: I saw someone tampering with the gate.”
“A man?”
“I would say so, yes. He moved like a man. I could not really make out what he was wearing.”
“Hair color?”
“I would say brown or black. Definitely not light. But he could have been wearing a hat.”
“What did you do after you’d seen the man?”
“It seemed quite strange. The man was pushing a handcart. But who has any business in a cemetery at night? I told Friede—I mean, Mrs. Becker—what I’d seen.”
“You didn’t see anything else after that? Did the man vanish? He can’t have disappeared into thin air.”
Ernst looked down in embarrassment. “Well, I quickly looked around for a spot where I might hide. I didn’t know who it was. You understand, in my situation, I have to be careful.”
By and large, his description corresponded with the first witness statement given by Mrs. Becker. “Now to you, Mrs. Becker. Ernst pointed the man in the cemetery out to you. What did you see?”
“The moon was just coming out from behind a cloud when I looked. Usually, you can’t see anything because of the blackout. Everything was light, very briefly, and the first thing I saw was a head of platinum-blond hair.”
“Platinum blond, just as you described him.”
“Yes, I know it sounds crazy because it was a man. I don’t know any men who dye their hair. But anyway, he ran across the street really quickly, and then he disappeared into the darkness.”
“And the handcart?”
“I heard something but couldn’t see what it was.”
“Which one of you noticed that the gate had been broken open?”
“That was me,” Mrs. Becker said. “Someone had broken in. I wanted to report it to the police immediately, but it was too dangerous. I had to tell someone; I couldn’t just slink off. With hindsight, that wasn’t very clever of me.” She smiled grimly. “Ernst says it’s my Prussian blood. Anyway, I told the cemetery caretaker. That seemed the best compromise.”
“But he sent you straight to the police.”
In response, Mrs. Becker shrugged.
“And at the police station, you were worried about getting more involved because of Ernst and therefore gave a false address?” Oppenheimer asked.
“It wasn’t wrong. Just not up to date. It was a snap decision. It might have been easier to give a different name, but then I would have had to lie. The situation with Ernst and everything else—I couldn’t think straight anymore.”
“Why didn’t you just stick to the first version of your witness statement?”
“Initially, I only repeated what Ernst had told me. He was completely convinced that the man had looked like that.”
“But then you began to doubt, and when I questioned you, you described the scene as you yourself had seen it,” Oppenheimer finished.
Mrs. Becker sat before him on the edge of the bed, clearly contrite.
“I’m a silly idiot. But I couldn’t lie. I’d seen the man with my own eyes. But he looked different to me.”
Oppenheimer thought about it. Her description seemed credible. There was a very simple solution for the discrepancy between their two statements. “Is it possible that you saw two different men?”
“I asked myself that too,” said Ernst. “We can’t rule it out entirely.”
“Thank you very much,” Oppenheimer finally said. “I think you’ve answered all my questions.”
He went to the front door and turned once more. Mrs. Becker and Ernst looked at him uncertainly.
“That’s it from my side,” Oppenheimer said, his hand on the door handle. “Take care of yourselves, you two.” When he closed the door behind himself, the two lovers were already embracing. Mrs. Becker held on tightly to Ernst, who was doing his best to calm her.
“Friede, it’s all right,” he said and gently stroked her hair.
Friede. Peace. Ernst had given his lover a beautiful nickname. And somehow it fitted his situation as a deserter.
As Oppenheimer headed for the subway, he went through the information that Mrs. Becker and her lover had given him.
Inevitably, his thoughts wandered back to his unsuccessful interrogation of Karl Ziegler. He had assumed that Gormless Kalle had wanted to extract himself from the situation and had therefore invented an imaginary partner, giving him the blame. Oppenheimer had to admit that he might have formed a hasty judgment. Ziegler having recordings of the torture only implied that he was involved in the crime. No more and no less.
An important aspect was the fact that in the Gestapo office he’d only seen Ziegler seated. The suspect whom he’d followed across the city center of Berlin had had a limp. But Oppenheimer hadn’t taken the time to check whether Ziegler had a limp.
He swallowed hard when he considered the consequences. If the ominous partner did exist, and the most recent witness statements corroborated this, then the murderer was still on the loose. As he’d lost his assistant, he would change his modus operandi, but he wouldn’t stop kidnapping and killing women until someone stopped him. Although it wasn’t cold, Oppenheimer shivered. He turned up the collar of his coat and stomped grumpily down the street. After these new witness statements, the end of this nightmare seemed ever further away.
“That was damned close. The next time, you’ll have to give us more time.” Bauer looked at Oppenheimer reproachfully from the side.
“Where is Hilde?” Oppenheimer wanted to know from the back of the car, trying to catch his breath.
“We’re meeting her later,” Lüttke explained, put the car into second gear, and shot off.
“Amateurs,” Bauer swore under his breath and crossed his arms, a sign he wasn’t happy with the entire situation.
Dot and Anton had discovered Oppenheimer near the “Onkel Tom” housing project; he’d been on his way to the Kameradschaftssiedlung. Bauer had appeared out of nowhere and bundled him into the car. It had all happened so quickly that Oppenheimer was still surprised to be sitting next to the man from the resistance. Even the pedestrian who’d been walking his dog just a few meters behind him was completely taken by surprise by the move. The man had barely turned around, curious about what was going on, when Oppenheimer had already disappeared into the car. It seemed the two men from the resistance had adapted classic Gestapo methods for their own purposes. And they seemed to be quite talented in this regard.
Exasperated, Lüttke sounded his horn. Another vehicle had cut across them. “These bloody rubble heaps! Everyone just drives as they see fit!”
“Has my wife been informed?” Oppenheimer demanded.
“We haven’t been to your flat yet,” Bauer grumbled. “Just tell me what’s new.”
With as much detail as necessary, Oppenheimer recounted the day’s events, but he decided to keep Mrs. Becker’s new statement to himself for the time being.
“Ah, right, so Vogler has found his scapegoat,” Lüttke summarized the situation. “He’s sure to make it to the top.”
“The question remains whether he contents himself with this solution to the case,” Bauer said with a gloomy look. But Oppenheimer was only half listening. At the moment, he didn’t care about Vogler. More important things were occupying his thoughts. He was relieved that he would be getting out of Germany in a few hours, but he was unable to really look forward to it. The devastating fact that there were two perpetrators could not be ignored. So he asked, as matter-of-factly as possible, “Did you get hold of the Lutzow file, by any chance?”
“That file has disappeared off the face of the earth,” Bauer was forced to admit. “Our contact went through the entire archive. There are no notes, no file memorandum, nothing.”
“Interesting,” Oppenheimer mumbled. “Either the files were lost when the police headquarters on Alexanderplatz were bombed, or someone had them removed.”
“That’s exactly why we wanted to speak to you,” Bauer interrupted. “There is something you have to do for us.”
Oppenheimer cast Bauer a questioning look—and froze. At that moment, he noticed for the first time the rows of houses they were passing. He quickly looked over his shoulder. Despite the twilight, he was able to discern the square called Führerplatz disappear into the distance. They had driven past the entrance to the Kameradschaftssiedlung. What was Lüttke doing? Didn’t he know where they were going? “We’ve gone past the entrance!” Oppenheimer protested and grabbed Lüttke’s shoulder.
“As I said, we’ve got things to talk about before we can get you to safety,” Bauer repeated.
“What’s going on? Hilde didn’t say anything about this.”
“Not so fast, my friend.” Now it was Lüttke speaking to Oppenheimer. “We have no idea what Karl Ziegler testified today or what might be pinned on him. We know that the SD works with false confessions. It is possible that they will subsequently try to denounce one of us. These murders would be a welcome excuse for Schellenberg and consorts to silence their adversaries once and for all.”
“You’ve already explained that to me at great length, but what am I supposed to do about it?”
“If we’re to help you get away tonight,” Bauer explained impassively, “then you have to go through the interrogation transcript one more time. Tonight. Because the government district is constantly being bombed, the SD is moving all its departments to the Wannsee. They have requisitioned several villas there. Vogler has also been given an office there for the duration of the investigation. He keeps all the files on the case there.”
The only noise that could be heard was the sound of the tires splashing through the puddles. Bauer waited for a reaction, but Oppenheimer sat huddled in his seat and thought morosely of how many more delays there would be. Finally, he tried to squirm his way out. “Do you really think that’s necessary?”
“We need to know what Vogler might have added to or changed in the confession. It’s too dangerous for our contact to find that out, and it would take too long. But you are familiar with the case; you know what to look for. It probably won’t take you more than twenty minutes.”
“And you think it’s that simple? I’m supposed to break into an SD building? The place will be guarded like a high-security prison.”
Bauer didn’t take no for an answer. “It’s not as complicated as it looks. There is so much going on there, what with all the departments moving right now. Our contact will be able to help us. It’s all arranged. We just need to be there at ten o’clock. We’ll smuggle you in, and you then pick out the information we need. Quite simple.”
So everything had been arranged. Oppenheimer needed more time to decide. “I am sure you’ll understand that I cannot make this decision alone. I need to speak to my wife first.”
Bauer snorted, dissatisfied. “Mr. Oppenheimer, there is no alternative.”
“Mr. Bauer,” Lüttke intervened, “give him a bit of time to think things over. You’ve already been a great help, Mr. Oppenheimer. We have our reasons for asking you for this last favor. It’s a matter of life or death for some of our colleagues. I can assure you that we haven’t taken this decision lightly. If you agree, you can save our men from worse fates.”
After these words, he drove back to the Kameradschaftssiedlung, and they didn’t speak for the remainder of the drive.
Bauer’s usually brusque manner had morphed into a huffy sulk. Oppenheimer could guess the differences of opinion between the two of them. Bauer had clearly wanted to present him with a fait accompli, while Lüttke thought it would suffice to appeal to Oppenheimer’s decency. Sometimes these two seemed to him like an old married couple who were always at each other’s throats but couldn’t be one without the other.
When they entered the Kameradschaftssiedlung, Lüttke switched off the headlights. The narrow band of light that had lit up the road ahead of them disappeared. Barely visible to the naked eye, the black vehicle glided the last few meters and slowly approached the turning loop to park there.
Lüttke didn’t switch off the engine, ready to roar off again instantly should their plan go wrong. Oppenheimer also felt uneasy. He cleared his throat.
“How are we going to proceed?”
Bauer spoke again. “Is there anyone in the house at this time?”
“Not usually. Possibly the radio operator. He sometimes holds the fort in the cellar.”
“Then be on your guard. Come out with your wife and the luggage and get in the car immediately. The quicker we get out of here, the better. We can discuss the rest during the drive.”
Oppenheimer slowly got out of the car. He hesitated, crouched beside the car door to check the surroundings, but then realized how suspicious he must look. So he put his hands in his coat pockets and tried to walk toward the front door as casually as possible.
He could already discern from the outside that no lights were on in the house. Oppenheimer was a little surprised. Had Lisa already gone to bed? She normally managed to get by without much sleep and had slept in late this morning.
He stepped into the hallway. Fearful that the hinges on the door would squeak, he moved the door very slowly. The door fell shut behind him with a muffled click. He stepped toward the door that led down to the cellar and carefully pushed down the door handle. Locked.
He was hugely relieved. This could only mean that the radio operator had already gone home. To make sure, he let his eyes wander through the living room that contained his office. Nobody to be seen here.
He felt reassured by this discovery. Everything was going according to plan. Secretly, Oppenheimer had suspected that Lüttke’s escape plan was too good to be true. He had constantly feared it wouldn’t work out. And yet he’d played along simply to not give up hope. Oppenheimer told himself that he couldn’t always be dogged by bad luck. He had to get lucky at some point.
Holding on to this thought, he went up to the second floor. But what he saw there made his half-hearted optimism fade again.
The bed was still unmade. Their packed suitcases stood in the corner of the room. But something was missing: Lisa.