The Iron Heart - [Franz Schmidt 02]

by Marshall Browne

  Only then did he remove his hat and overcoat. He rubbed warmth into his hands. The plasticine material in the box would do to make an imprint of the key that President Funk kept attached to himself by the leather strop. If he could ever get hold of it.

  ~ * ~

  24

  E

  LISABETH STIFFENED. A car was in the deserted street crawling along the kerb, headlights rising and dipping as its white tyres jounced on the cobbles; the driver was trying to pick up a number. She jumped up and recognised Hans’s car. She seized her handbag. Then she was on the landing locking the flat’s front door. She hurried down the stairs into the street. Its engine idling, the car had stopped beside the building. The passenger door swung open. She ran across the pavement and slid into the front seat. The driver leaned across and gripped her hand.

  ‘Hans!’ she breathed, pulling the door closed. ‘I didn’t know if you could come.’

  The pastor’s smile was a grimace in the greenish light from the instruments. ‘I am here and now we must go.’ He stared down the street where fog swirled in the headlights in yellow streamers. He was breathing harshly. He let out the clutch and steered out from the kerb.

  From behind them, the black car came out of the night with a shriek of brakes and a scream of klaxon. For a terrifying second Elisabeth glimpsed white faces peering at them from where the car had slithered to a stop.

  ‘God save us,’ Hans gasped. He twisted the steering wheel, jabbed down his foot and accelerated past the stalled vehicle. In front — another car, another klaxon. The pastor swerved to avoid a head-on collision, braked hard and smashed into a lamppost. Elisabeth was thrown forward, her head striking the windscreen. Hans was backing off, desperately twisting the wheel afresh. In her daze Elisabeth sensed rather than saw dark figures sprinting down the street. ‘Elisabeth!’ Hans cried. A figure was on the running-board, aiming a pistol. He shot the pastor in the head through the glass window. With the cry of her name ringing in her brain, Elisabeth screamed as blood spurted out from his head like water from a pierced pipe.

  ~ * ~

  They had the ringleader. Sack was busy on the phone. His first call was to the Central Security Office. ‘The rest will be rounded up in short order,’ he told the heavily silent SS obersturmbannfuehrer. The night was turning out better than he’d feared. But they needed all of them in the bag to satisfy the Reich Minister. And maybe some others. He reached again for the photograph and the slim file of the Abwehr captain. Three years at Oxford University. Had the Military Intelligence Department been frying fish in England, or had the fellow been doing his own cooking with the English? Perhaps an innocent education after all. He consulted the file - studied Shakespeare. He put it aside.

  Auditor Schmidt. Another shadowy individual, some kind of hero to the Party. What had happened about the inquiry he’d made? He’d asked if there was a file on the fellow, and hadn’t heard back. Freda’d said he had a high-up mentor, which was an unsettling prospect. Sack knew that he had every right to be deeply suspicious about the infinite facets and power-bases of the Third Reich. He’d observed colleagues stumble fatally into those minefields.

  Midnight. He stood up. Time to start the interrogation.

  Sack entered the whitewashed room in the basement. The SS guard outside the door closed it behind the sturmbannfuehrer. Sack stood for a moment, regarding the tall blonde woman in the bloodstained coat, whose eyes were downcast to the table at which she sat. Even when he pulled back a chair and sat down opposite her, she didn’t lift her eyes.

  Here was the celebrated girls’ school headmistress; an icon in the education of the nation’s females; a traitor facing a death sentence; not the elegant woman he’d seen in the café with Herr Schmidt . . . ‘Fräulein von Bose,’ he said quietly, ‘please give me your full attention.’

  Slowly the blue eyes were raised, but Sack felt they weren’t seeing him. Shock. The other one is hysterical, this one has gone into her shell. A pity they’d shot the pastor. About now agents would be interviewing his wife in Potsdam.

  He looked down at the list in his hand, with the names of the women not yet arrested — headed by the Countess von Dreisler. He knew where the countess was. Obviously, with hindsight, she and her husband had been spying for the English. The Party should check all diplomats with connections to London and America.

  Sack knocked on the table with his knuckles. ’Fräulein Anna von Schnelling. Please tell me where she is.’

  No response. He repeated the question in a louder voice.

  Elisabeth lifted her head as if coming out of a trance. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Ah! When did you last see her?’

  ‘I cannot remember.’ The voice was clear and cultured, but dead quiet.

  ‘Yesterday evening? Do you remember being with her at Sachs tearoom, and with a man?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Who was that man?’

  She was silent.

  ‘Well, I know who he is. Captain Eugene von Beckendorf. Why was he there, fräulein?’ At Eugene’s name, her eyes had flickered. ‘Is he one of your traitorous little group?’

  For the first time, she looked him in the eye. ’No, mein herr. And we are not traitors.’

  Sack feigned surprise. ‘No? We have enough information to say that you are - from an excellent source.’

  Elisabeth shook her head. The Swiss doctor. In the white room the light was dazzling. Her head was pounding and she was thirsty. A vision of Hans kept swimming in and out of her head, his last word — her name — kept resounding in her ears. It was impossible to get past that. Despair for his dear wife was making her feel physically ill.

  ‘So why was he there?’

  ‘He is a friend and a cousin of Fräulein von Schnelling’s.’

  ‘Ahh,’ Sack said, as though this was a new discovery. ‘Herr Franz Schmidt, at the café near the Adlon Hotel. What is your connection with him?’

  Wearily, automatically, she brushed back hair from her face. ‘No connection. I was telling him Fräulein von Schnelling would not be meeting him. Her cousin was taken ill.’

  Sack regarded her. In a spasm of movement, he thrust forward and banged his fist down on the table, making it jump. The flesh on her face shook. ‘You’re telling me lies, fräulein. Those men are also traitors. Talking and hatching plans against the Reich, against the Fuehrer.’

  ‘They are not.’ She had not raised her voice. She squeezed her eyes shut against the glare. In a few hours her life had plunged from comfort and respect and independence into this hellish world. Truth! Even here it must have relevance.

  Sack leaned back in his chair, said calmly, ‘Where is the von Schnelling woman?’

  ‘I wish to see a lawyer.’ She swayed in her chair. He noted that her eyes had glazed over.

  ‘There are no lawyers here. We are the lawyers and the law.’ He peered harder at her face. ‘Very well, fräulein, we’ll talk in the morning. Then I will expect answers.’

  He stood up and went out. ‘Have a meal brought and a jug of water,’ he said to the guard. ‘Then let her clean herself up and take her to the cells.’

  Sack yawned in the passage. He’d been on duty since 7.00 am. He’d make a fresh start on this woman and the other one early tomorrow. By then they’d have the Abwehr captain’s address and he’d call on him and see what he had to say for himself.

  It was 1.21 am when Sack walked out of the building. Now he was conscious of the pain in his hip. Crossing the street, he wondered if the lotion he treated Freda’s passionate raking of his chest with might also work on the deep bruise.

  ~ * ~

  Sturmbannfuehrer Strasser came on duty at 1.30 am, straight from a nightclub, which wasn’t unusual. He checked the running log to see what was current, the duty stabsscharfuehrer at his side. ‘Ahhh,’ he said. ‘They’ve got the teacher.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘In the cells.’

  Strasser rubbed his jaw an
d fingered his lips. He smelled of beer. He was a very handsome man, and immaculately dressed. ‘And the Kapp woman?’

  ‘The cells.’

  ‘Bring them up and put them in adjoining rooms.’

  The sergeant-major hesitated, cleared his throat. ‘Sturmbannfuehrer Sack said he will continue the interrogations at 8.00 am.’

  Strasser turned on him. ‘Bring them up! Sack will welcome a little help.’ He tapped the handwritten report. ‘He hasn’t got very far, has he?’

  The subordinate was silent.

  ‘Is Herr Sewer around?’

  The sergeant-major stared at Strasser. The man they called the Sewer Rat was always hanging around. He nodded.

  ‘Good. Let’s go to it.’

  ~ * ~

  Strasser lit a cigarette and drew on it. ‘Fräulein, I don’t beat around the bush like my colleague. You will tell me immediately where the following women have gone.’ He read off the names.

  Elisabeth was back in the same room, the same chair as earlier. She’d been able to wash herself and had had soup and bread although it had nearly made her vomit. She shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ His eyes speared into her. ’Which, I can tell you, is an undesirable situation for you to be in.’

  Strasser’s regular features formed an unpleasant smile.

  ‘It’s the truth, mein herr.’ Her voice was hardly above a whisper. This man was different from the other.

  ‘Even their families have disappeared! Who warned you?’

  She was silent. Then said, ‘You murdered a good German tonight.’

  He leaned back, ignoring the remark. ‘Take off your clothes.’

  She stared at him with incomprehension.

  ‘Everything. Put them on that chair.’

  She sat up straighter. ‘I will not.’

  He smiled. ‘Fräulein, I can call in men who will remove them. They won’t do it gently.’

  He stood up and opened the door. In the next room a woman screamed and began to sob. Elisabeth twisted her head to the sound. Slowly she stood up and began to undress.

  ‘Everything,’ Strasser repeated. He ran a pale hand over his smooth yellow hair, which was combed straight back. ‘Very good. Now, sit on that chair in the corner.’

  Pale and hopeless, she hunched in the chair, one hand over her sex, the other hand and arm protecting her breasts. Strasser stared at her, inspecting each fold of flesh, each mole on her body. A handsome woman, previously beautiful, but his taste was for younger flesh. He said, ‘You didn’t even imagine this could happen to a person like yourself, did you?’

  ‘I could not imagine such evil.’ Her voice was very low.

  ‘It is you who are practising evil, fräulein.’ Strasser smiled mockingly, got up and went out to the corridor. ‘Sewer, come here immediately,’ he shouted.

  The SS guard outside the door glanced in at the naked woman, his face blank.

  A fat, raggedly dressed man with the appearance of a tramp came shambling down the passage. ‘Heil Hitler!’ he cried in a falsetto voice. The unwashed odour that emanated from him was overpowering. The Sewer Rat was one of Strasser’s favourite tools of trade where women were involved. ‘Yes, Herr Strasser, here I am, at your service, sir.’

  Strasser waved his hand in front of his nose and led him into the room. The man nicknamed Herr Sewer stopped short, breathing hard from his haste, and peered with tiny eyes encased in folds of fatty flesh at the naked woman.

  Strasser said, ‘Fräulein, you’d better think very quickly of something to tell me that interests me. Otherwise you’ll have a conversation with Herr Sewer. Though the poor fellow isn’t really up to talking. He’ll probably masturbate to relieve his first feelings . . .’

  Strasser made a lewd movement with his hand. ‘He enjoys that. Then he’ll come over to explore your person in some detail. I’ll be nearby. Should you think of something, please call my name. Strasser. Afterward, he’s an appointment with Frau Kapp. He’s very partial to plump women. I don’t know who’ll be squealing loudest — him or her.’

  He gave an elaborate shrug. ‘But you may be able to prevent that.’

  Elisabeth lost control of her bladder. A puddle spread on the floor. Fascinated, the idiot stared at it.

  Strasser sneered at her. ‘Look at yourself, fräulein. You stink. You’re disgusting.’ He turned on his heel and strode out, shutting the door.

  The former headmistress of the famous girls’ school was beyond emotion, beyond everything. Dead in her heart and her body. Alone in the universe. She watched the abomination of humanity unbuttoning his flies. His trembling hands had fingernails rimmed with black. It was 2.20 am, though she didn’t know that.

  ~ * ~

  Eugene was coughing in the next room, trying to be quiet. Anna raised herself on her elbow, listening, wondering if she should go to him. He should never have left the hospital. But then, if he hadn’t, what would have become of her? Though Herr Schmidt had turned up with an identical warning, what could he have done?

  This suburb, the city, seemed to have emptied of life. There was no tramcar route in this street, so even that occasional disturbance was absent. Only a wind came in fits and starts. Like her thoughts . . .

  Her days at the Reichsbank were over. In another situation this would have been momentous to her - staggering! Not now. Whenever she was in trouble, Anna thought of her parents, and especially her father. His grave face would emerge like an image forming on a cinema screen. If she asked him questions he would respond in his deep, reasonable voice. She had had several offers of marriage, but marriage had seemed an irrevocable distancing from her deep-set family bonds . . . Frau Singer had insisted their meeting on Monday night in her flat was a goodbye. Yet Anna had expected to see her again even if only briefly. She wondered what had happened to the Jewess and her dog. With the help of her Jewish friend, perhaps she had left. Fervently, she hoped so.

  Anna’s head dropped back on the pillow and she slept. She was woken by the electric light being switched on. Eugene, haggard and unshaven, stood in her door in his dressing-gown. But really, it’d been the doorbell. She started up, shocked at the pistol in her cousin’s hand.

  ‘Get dressed but stay here,’ he said. He disappeared. She glanced out the window. It was still dark outside.

  Hurriedly she grabbed her clothes. She could hear voices and footsteps coming.

  Eugene returned with Major Hoffmann. The officer flushed red and turned his back on Anna to spare her modesty.

  Anna finished dressing and went out to the living room. Eugene looked even more haggard and worried. He said, ‘Martin has news that isn’t good.’ He nodded at his friend to speak.

  Hoffmann had eyes only for Anna. The usually calm officer appeared under great strain. ‘Yesterday, the Gestapo were making inquiries about Eugene. We surmise they’re connected to you. Almost certainly they will come to interview Eugene. Thank God he changed his flat before going to the sanatorium and no-one’s been told.’ He hesitated. ‘Raids have been made overnight but I don’t have further information.’

  Despite the hour, the major was in uniform. He held his gloves tightly in his right hand, which was blue with the cold. Anna found herself staring at it.

  ‘I suggest you both move immediately to my flat . . . Please, Anna.’

  Another move to temporary shelter. God, Elisabeth and the others. Anna shook her head in despair.

  Eugene also shook his head, vehemently. ’No, Martin, I won’t have you compromised. You might already be in coming here. Pray God you aren’t.’ He gave Hoffmann a searching look as if to steady him. The major was deep into a new project against the Fuehrer. It came before everything else.

  Eugene laid the pistol carefully on a table. He turned to Anna. ‘I’ll stay here but you must go.’ He stared at her, his face resolute. ‘Do you think your Herr Schmidt might shelter you for a few days? Until we can make other arrangements.’ The idea had come to him in a flash.


  Anna’s eyes widened.

  Hoffmann groaned. ‘For God’s sake, the fellow’s a Party member.’

  Eugene nodded. ‘Yes, but we can trust him.’ He was very calm now.

  Hoffmann walked a few paces around the room, then cast an agitated look at Anna. She nodded slowly. Then looked at her watch. It was 6.45. He’d probably be at his flat until 7.30 at least. She was thinking quickly and concisely. ‘Very well, I will go to his flat. I have the address.’

  If he refused? She’d be cast loose in the city - a poor swimmer in a school of sharks. Eugene was nodding at her. ‘He will help. I’ve no doubt of it.’