The Perfect Corpse

by Giles Milton

  Karin walked over to the desk. A lady, greying, fiftyish, looked up from her book, smiled warmly.

  ‘One?’

  Karin explained how she’d called on the previous day and was hoping to see the castle library and archives.

  ‘Ah yes, yes,’ said the woman, responding in German. ‘Herr Fischer’s got it all prepared, I think. It should be up there waiting for you. Schloss Hohenstein during the war, wasn’t it?’

  Karin nodded.

  ‘But first you should take the little tour we have. Won’t take you long. Fifteen, twenty minutes at the most. Gives you an overview of the history. And you’ll pass the library close to the end. Herr Fischer should be there, unless he’s off on his break.’

  She nodded and made her way towards a circular stairway in the corner. Enclosed in stone, it was dimly lit by a couple of weak light bulbs. At the top it opened into a small antechamber.

  There was a mullioned window, its diamonds of leaded glass beaded with fresh raindrops. She walked over to it and looked out. The rock dropped away into shadow. To the left, towering above the castle, was the misty peak of the Zugspitze, clinging to its cape of dirty snow. In the other direction, north, she could see the pewter surface of the Alpsee.

  She made her way through the exhibition at speed. Hatchets, halbards, pikes, axes, muskets. The castle’s history was a litany of violent death. Six centuries of bloodshed. One cabinet contained six human skulls, all fractured.

  ‘This is more like it,’ she said to herself, pausing at one of the display cases. ‘Schloss Hohenstein during the Third Reich.’

  A series of black-and-white photographs told the story of the Nazi period more eloquently than the accompanying text. A polished Mercedes Benz was drawn up in the courtyard. Military figures saluting and goose-stepping. Schloss Hohenstein under deep snow. And a shot of the castle from afar, swastikas billowing from every pinnacle and turret.

  ‘In May 1943, Schloss Hohenstein became the permanent headquarters of the SS Totenkopf, along with several other elite divisions of the Waffen SS. The surrounding mountains provided the ideal training ground for endurance exercises and extreme winter training. The schloss was visited on a number of occasions by Adolf Hitler, and both Hermann Goring and Josef Goebbels are also known to have stayed here.’

  Karin took several photographs of the display panel then took a careful look at each of the individual pictures to see if she could spot the face of Hans Dietrich. Several of the men could have been him, but without removing them from the cabinet it was hard to tell with any certainty.

  The library was housed in the cavernous great hall, a barrel roofed room like an upturned ship with a forest of antlers at the far end. Desks in neat rows and a smell that didn’t quite ring true. Wood-polish masquerading as beeswax.

  Herr Fischer was seated at the far end, comfortably rotund. He’d sunk into the chair’s embrace, contented, and looked as if he never intended to get up. The desk lamp gave him a faint aureole.

  He beamed as she approached. ‘Frau Braun just called to say you were on your way up. You must be -’

  Karin returned the smile, her eyes alighting on a stack of files.

  ‘The Totenkopf, isn’t it?’

  She nodded.

  He shook his head in desultory fashion. ‘A mix of material. Some personnel files. A few mission documents, I believe. But a lot’s been lost, probably in the final days of the war.’

  He lowered his voice to a whisper, as if to confide a secret.

  ‘Probably deliberate. Cover the tracks. They knew it was all over.’

  Karin took the files from his hands and scanned through them to see what there was. Far more than at Lichterfelde. The thickest was marked Belegschaft (Personnel) and looked to contain papers on the soldiers in Hans Dietrich’s squad, including Hans Dietrich himself. Another was marked Vermischt (Miscellaneous). It was crammed with letters. The third had a label, Grönland. Several more had nothing written on them.

  ‘Sit yourself down at a desk. I’ll let you crack on.’

  She opened the personnel file about Hans Dietrich and sorted through the items that mentioned him. There were his SS Totenkopf identity papers, a couple of bills, a letter from his mother saying how happy she was to know he was safely returned from Russia. More promising was an account written by Hans Dietrich himself. Eight pages of foolscap.

  She scanned the first page. It was an account of his early years in the SA and the SS.

  In June 1932, two local SA men were murdered by the Freiburg Reds. It was what made me determined to join the SA. I got a reference from Otto Streckenbach, who was already a member, and was accepted. Our job was to maintain order at Party meetings and we were delighted to at last have something to fight for.

  The first time I saw action was at a large Communist rally. We disguised ourselves as ‘civilians’ and joined the throng in the hall. When the meeting was underway, I lit a stick of cordite and hurled it towards the rostrum. There was a loud explosion that shattered all the windows. The room was filled with dust and smoke.

  We stood up, seized chairs and began smashing them into the faces of the Reds. They squealed in terror and tried to rush the doors, but we had already blocked the way. We beat them to a pulp. We were not allowed to carry guns in those days, so we had to learn to fight with our fists and with knuckle-dusters. Afterwards we sang the usual victory songs: ‘Throw out all the Yiddish gang’ and ‘When on the knife the Jew blood spurts’. But it was the Horst Wessel song that became our battle hymn.

  Karin put down the diary for a second, thinking hard. Jack had described Hans Dietrich as a clinical killer, fastidious, choosing the carotid artery with care. But here he came across as a common thug.

  After the Röhm business the SA was demoralized. I applied for membership of the SS and was immediately accepted. My past record spoke for itself. It was like joining an elite club, just like the old Germany. We swaggered about in our smart black breeches and polished jackboots and cracked jokes about the simple brown-shirts.

  We trained hard, both physically and mentally. We were an institution, an order that was dedicated to controlled violence. We did not much care for the Regular Army who were snobbish and old fashioned. Besides, it was us who had done all the fighting against the enemy and we all knew that fighting counts more than medals and uniforms.

  Once I had sworn the oath, the Führer became my life. His genius had brought light and renewed life to millions of people. I vowed to devote my lifeblood to the task of translating his decrees into practice. I was promoted in 1936 and again in 1939. Then, one morning we were listening to the wireless when we heard the words: ‘It is now no longer the Poles alone who shoot.’

  I was selected to be among the first group sent to Poland and I worked systematically and with diligence, performing many acts of daring. The hard training now paid its dividends. The work I undertook in the sector to the south of Warsaw ensured my entry into SS Totenkopf.

  In the spring of 1942 we were

  Karin turned the sheet. Nothing. The account stopped in mid sentence.

  ‘Bugger.’

  She made her way over to Herr Fischer and pointed to where the account broke off.

  He shrugged.

  ‘Afraid they’re all like that. The castle was in a terrible state after the war, see. Everything jumbled up. The archivist at the time tried to piece it together as best he could but -’ He threw up his hands. ‘What can you do?’

  Karin went back to the desk and sorted through the rest of the Dietrich papers. Then she looked at the letters and notes belonging to the other men, Emil Lorenz, Ludolf Gebhardt, Kurt Becker, Joachim Ulrich, Otto Streckenbach. A pattern started to emerge. The men in the SS Totenkopf had been singled out for their physical prowess and their intellect. All had degrees. All spoke several languages. And all shared a passion for the business of death.

  There was also more about life at Schloss Hohenstein. Mountaineering, rock-climbing, abseiling, chess and logic puzzle
s: every aspect of life was designed to fine-tune the skills of the men stationed here.

  She was in the process of putting the Hans Dietrich papers back into the file when she saw a sheet she hadn’t noticed before.

  ‘Huh!’

  She looked again, puzzled by the name and address that was staring out from the sheet. Ferris Clark. Number 2586 Avery Street, Green Diamond.

  She sat up sharp and looked at it again. It was written in black and white. Ferris Clark. Number 2586 Avery Street, Green Diamond.

  She thought for a moment, trying to make sense of it. Ferris Clark. If they’d been sent to Greenland to kill him, then it was no surprise that his name should be in the file. But why his home address?

  She looked at the paper underneath. It was some sort of architectural drawing. She turned it over, still thinking hard. Written on the back were those same words: Number 2586 Avery Street, Green Diamond.

  It was a floor plan of Ferris Clark’s house.

  *

  She photographed everything then packed up the files and took them back to Herr Fischer.

  ‘Find what you wanted? Sorry about those missing papers. It’s always the way.’

  Karin smiled. ‘More than I was expecting.’

  ‘Good, good. And if you ever need to come back, well, you’ll know where to find us.’

  ‘Thank you. I might well do so.’

  She headed back through the display rooms then made her way downstairs to where Frau Braun was still seated at the ticket desk. The place was deserted. There were no other visitors.

  ‘All good?’ she asked with a quizzical smile. ‘Find what you needed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not a bad little display,’ said Frau Braun. ‘They try to keep changing it. Each year they put new things in the cases.’

  She paused, picked up her pen.

  ‘Of course there’s one thing you ought to know, if you’re interested in the war.’

  ‘Oh?’

  Karin looked up expectantly.

  ‘They never include it in the display. Say it taints the place, although I’d have thought the SS being here already taints it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Nineteen-forty-three. Summer, I think. That’s when the castle was first used by the lebensborn people.’

  Karin swallowed hard.

  ‘Perhaps you don’t know what I’m talking about? Lebensborn, I mean?’

  Karin gave a vigorous nod.

  ‘Lebensborn. This was a lebensborn castle - ?’

  ‘That’s what they say. You can only imagine what went on inside these walls.’

  ‘Frau Trautwein -’ murmured Karen. ‘I need get back to Murnau.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  Awoken by the sun, Jack turned on the television to catch the news. It was just before eight. Adverts, jingles, adverts, then a spinning planet earth that slowly focused on Nevada. Cut to the studio.

  ‘KVTV good morning. My name’s Jenna Newman. This morning’s top story. A truly gruesome murder in Churchill County, Hanford Gap, has led to a huge manhunt as police attempt to track down the killer. The victim has been identified as forty-seven year old Ashton Brookner, a technical advisor working for Vortec Aerospace. He was found dead in his house at shortly after ten yesterday morning, one of the most shocking killings that Nevada has seen in decades.’

  Jack sat up in bed, propped pillows behind his back. He felt a tingle of alarm. Everything was sliding out of control. Where was it going to end?

  The scene shifted to Rio Vista Drive. A group of reporters were standing in front of the house that he had visited on the previous evening. He saw Officer Don standing on the front lawn, mouth caught in an awkward half-smile, as if he knew this was the biggest day of his life. One to tell the grandchildren in years to come.

  The house looked different in daylight, more modern, and the cameras, journalists and police had transformed it into a regular crime scene. The property would never again be admired as the finest piece of real estate on Rio Vista Drive. Henceforth, and until it was condemned and knocked down, it would be linked with a particularly brutal murder.

  The camera closed in on the KVTV news reporter, Marty Beck, metal-blond hair and a slick of make-up. A frown on her brow, contrived, as if a serious news story deserved a serious expression.

  Studio: ‘Marty, you’re there on the scene for us. Do we have any more details about the murder and the victim, Ashton Brookner?’

  Marty: ‘Yes, and good morning from Rio Vista Drive, Hanford Gap. And I have to say first of all, Jenna, that the murder’s left this normally quiet neighbourhood in deep shock. It was an extremely violent attack with the victim, Ashton Brookner, as you said in your introduction, killed by a single cut to the carotid artery. What makes it particularly distressing is the fact that, well, the police have just told us that when they found the body it was mutilated.’

  Studio: ‘Mutilated - ? Can you give us more on that?’

  Marty: ‘Yes. And I should warn you that some viewers will find this disturbing. But I’m told that some sort of human skull -’ she put additional emphasis on the words human skull - ‘was roughly cut into the victim’s chest.’

  Pause.

  Studio: ‘Do we - do we have any idea as to a motive? The identity of the killer? Can you give us any more information on this?’

  Marty: ‘I’ve been talking to detectives on the scene here this morning, Jenna. No clues so far. In fact I was told just before coming on air that the murderer appears to have entered and left the house without leaving any trace whatsoever. Of course the situation on the ground is changing fast and forensics will certainly provide more answers.’

  Studio: ‘And Ashton Brookner. What do we know about him? He worked at Vortec Aerospace. But did he have family? Any enemies? What’s the sheriff, the police, saying on this?’

  Marty: ‘No family, Jenna, and, as far as we know, no one who might want to commit this -’

  Studio: ‘And what’s the -?’

  Marty: ‘But - but - sorry to interrupt, Jenna. I’m joined here in Rio Vista Drive by Sheriff Lem Rayno, who was the first to arrive at the crime scene. I’m hoping he’ll be able to fill us in on a few more details.’

  The camera panned outwards slightly, into a wider shot. Sheriff Rayno loomed large into the picture, belly like a punch bag and a neck pumped up pink. Sheriff’s badge. Gun. And mirror sunglasses, which he removed for the camera. He was James Best playing Rosco Coltrane, only playing it harder.

  Marty: ‘Sheriff Rayno, you’ve been in charge of the case so far. What can you tell us? Any leads? Any ideas?’

  Sheriff Rayno shifted uneasily, looked down at his polished boots. Then he turned to half-face the camera.

  ‘Nothing so far, Marty. We’re looking at a high level of brutality. In all my seventeen years as sheriff of Churchill County -’ he swallowed hard - ‘in all my seventeen years I’ve never seen nothin’ like this. Detectives from Vegas are currently inside -’

  Marty: ‘The victim. We know he was Ashton Brookner and he worked at Vortec. Of course Vortec’s an important business here in Hanford. You got any leads from the folks there?’

  Sheriff Rayno: ‘Obviously we’re checkin’ that out. And the fact he worked for Vortec - well, as you well know -’

  He paused, half-wondering how much he should say. He shrugged at the camera, raised his hands. Then flung them downwards through the air.

  ‘I dunno. We’re checkin’ all angles. It’s a bad one, a real bad one, this is. Never seen nothin’ like it.’

  Marty (turning to face the camera): ‘So, Jenna, that’s where we are at the moment. Not too much to go on. But police are warning people that if they see anyone suspicious, anyone acting strangely, or have any information about the murder of Ashton Brookner, then they should call the special hotline that should appear at the bottom of the screen.’

  Studio: ‘Yes, Marty, we have it now. It’s seven-seven-five. Four-two-three. Five-zero-five-zero. That’s seven-seven-f
ive. Four-two-three. Five-zero-five-zero.’

  *

  Jack spent the first part of the morning at the hotel looking through the information he had received from Karin. Frau Trautwein. Karin needed to get back to her. And Schloss Hohenstein. There was still a lot to be discovered. He set down a list of questions he needed answered.

  He had a quick coffee then drove over to ZAKRON and made his way up to Tammy’s office. She was on the phone but made a circular motion with her hands, signaling that he should enter.

  ‘Any news?’ she said, cutting the call and snapping shut her phone.

  ‘You haven’t seen? It’s wall to wall. Local channels at the moment. But it’ll go national. Got just the sensational details they love.’

  ‘Exactly my thoughts.’

  She paused.

  ‘You know we’ll go down for this,’ she said solemnly. ‘It’ll all come out and we’ll go down for it.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Glad you’re so confident.’ She looked at him. ‘Don’t you feel any guilt?’

  ‘No. Not for this one. I’m through with guilt.’

  She pushed back her chair and stood up, asking if he’d had news from Germany.

  ‘Yes. Take a look at this. It came overnight.’

  He handed her a print-out of the floor plan that purported to show Ferris Clark’s house. She examined it, puzzled.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘That’s one side of the paper. And this -’ he gave her a second print-out - ‘is what she found written on the other side.’

  Ferris Clark, Number 2586 Avery Street, Green Diamond.

  ‘She found Ferris Clark’s address in the archives in Germany!’

  Jack nodded and told her about Frau Trautwein, the lebensborn programme, the castle. ‘Hoping to get more tomorrow. She’s going back to the old people’s home.’