Chord of Evil

by Sarah Rayne

  But if Giselle’s murdered ghost – or anyone else’s – lingered anywhere, it did not seem to do so in the nice old shop. It was a delightful old place, with a gentle feeling of welcome and a gentlemanly implication that it was not overmuch bothered about selling its wares. Phin, drawn irresistibly to the racks of CDs, found a recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 6, which had been a particular favourite of his grandfather’s. His grandfather had been a great admirer of Mahler – Phin had never been able to decide if this was an act of defiance against the Nazis who had banned Mahler on the grounds that he and his music were degenerate, or whether it was a genuine love of Mahler’s music. He bought the CD as a small nod to his grandfather’s memory; the hire car had a CD player, and Phin thought he would listen to it while driving back to the airport in two days’ time.

  Toby, meanwhile, had discovered, with glee, a small volume of old local folk songs. He promptly bought this, along with the clearest German/English dictionary he could find on the shelves, and sat down to study it, informing Phin that, among other treasures, the book contained a refrain that appeared to be in praise of an eighth-century Bavarian duke who had gone by the name of Henry the Quarrelsome, and whose life had apparently been turbulent.

  This all opened up a friendly conversation with the shop’s owner, who appeared to have a fair knowledge of English.

  ‘We have English people who come in here, so it is useful for me,’ he explained. ‘We are not a library in the usual sense, but I have some reference books – people sometimes come in for research, and I enjoy helping.’

  Phin thought this would be the right moment to produce his business card, and explain that he was interested in tracing any members of the Lindschoen Orchestra.

  ‘It’s for background research relating to a forthcoming book about musicians in the 1930s and 1940s,’ he said. ‘And it’s been suggested that you might have some old documents or local reference books we could look at.’

  He had not expected any very positive response, but the man beamed. ‘I know of the Lindschoen Orchestra, very well,’ he said. ‘Its leader was Felix Klein, and once he owned – and lived in – this very shop.’

  Phin stared at the man and thought there were times in the research processes when something totally unexpected but entirely satisfactory came scudding up to greet you.

  ‘He lived here? The Lindschoen Orchestra’s leader lived here?’

  ‘Certainly. My father acquired the shop many years since – I am not sure from whom exactly – but I know that in Felix Klein’s day it was known as The Music House, and he bought and sold musical instruments, and also gave music lessons. The orchestra was his great love – he led it for many years, and there were often concerts in a small theatre just outside Lindschoen. Sadly it is no longer there, that theatre. But it was well known for theatrical performances. Also, children’s plays at Christmas and at Hanukkah – there was once a large Jewish community in these parts, you understand.’

  ‘And Herr Klein himself? Do you know anything about him – I’m sorry I don’t know your name—?’

  ‘I am Herr Volk, but please call me Ottomar.’ There was an exchange of hands. ‘I think Felix Klein was known as very gifted, and also very well respected,’ said Ottomar Volk. ‘Not so much is known of his life, but the little that is known does not seem a happy story. I am sorry to tell you that. It was the 1940s, you understand – a difficult time. There were dangers, people were lost, and their fates never known.’

  ‘And one night Felix Klein gave a concert that included one of the banned composers,’ said Phin. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Ah, you know of that. Yes, it is so. I think he must have been a man not to bow down – submit? – to a ban he thought wrong. He was courageous enough to stand up for his beliefs. So, one night, early in 1940, he played Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony.’

  ‘And,’ said Phin, ‘Mendelssohn’s works were banned by the Nazis, yes?’

  ‘Yes. It was open defiance by Felix Klein, but he could not have known that SS men were in the audience that night. And so he paid the price.’

  ‘Herr Volk – Ottomar – my understanding is that Herr Klein was taken to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Is that right? Did he die there?’

  ‘One story says he was taken to Sachsenhausen, but no one ever knew for sure. He was what some people call one of the “lost ones”. There were many of them. All that is known is that he never came back to Lindschoen or to this house. Sachsenhausen,’ said Herr Volk, softly, ‘was a terrible place. The stories told of it are shocking – perhaps the stories not told may be even worse. There are things people never spoke of – memories they did not wish to preserve in their minds. But there is also a story that says Herr Klein was taken to the Torhaus. You knew that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It was another of the mysteries handed down about Felix Klein, because people who defied the SS as he did were always taken straight to one of the concentration camps. Not so for him, though – at least, not at first.’

  ‘What exactly was – or is – the Torhaus?’

  ‘It is difficult to answer that. I think it was once one of the guardhouses – gatehouses? – to Wewelsburg Castle. For one part of the war it was the residence of commandants at Sachsenhausen. It has been empty for a great many years now, and it has a bad reputation.’

  ‘Who owns it?’

  ‘I don’t think anyone knows. Ownership would be complicated, because the house stands so close to Wewelsburg Castle – perhaps even on the castle’s land.’ He paused, then said, ‘But I know that it was whispered by local people that it was at the Torhaus that the infamous Wewelsburg murder took place.’

  ‘We didn’t expect that,’ said Phin, as they walked away from the Kerzenlicht Hall.

  ‘We did not,’ said Toby. ‘What was that about the infamous Wewelsburg murder and the Torhaus? Did I follow that right? Have we come across that reference before?’

  ‘Don’t think so. Volk didn’t seem to know any more – just that there was a vague legend about a murder that had happened at the Torhaus.’

  ‘Vague or not, we ought to see the place, oughtn’t we?’

  ‘Oh yes. Herr Volk admitted it was odd that Klein – who defied the SS by playing Mendelssohn at his last concert – wasn’t taken straight to Sachsenhausen. And it is odd, you know. In fact, I can only think of one reason.’

  ‘The Siegreich.’

  ‘Yes. I think Felix Klein was the musician the Nazis tortured to compose their victory march.’

  He paused to look back at the square, and Toby said, ‘It’s a marvellous place, isn’t it? You can visualize candles in those lamps – and a lamplighter reaching up to light them with a wick on a long pole. And if you dare to tell me I’m an irreclaimable romantic—’

  ‘Heaven forfend,’ said Phin, deadpan. ‘You did pay for that book with the rude song about Henry the Quarrelsome, did you?’

  They reached the hotel and Toby promptly spread maps across Phin’s bed to trace the route to Wewelsburg and the Torhaus.

  ‘I know the car’s got a sat-nav, but we’ll take maps as back-up in case we can’t understand the directions.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can find about Wewelsburg Castle,’ said Phin, opening the laptop.

  ‘OK, and I’ll whizz down to that food-to-go place, and collect something for supper. We can work and plan while we eat.’

  Toby returned fairly quickly, laden with braised beef rolls, crêpes with sauerkraut, and two tubs of what he said was German beer cheese soup, which he had not been able to resist. ‘And some Rumtopf,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what it is, but I liked the word. It looks like a squishy fruit preserve,’ he said, having cautiously investigated. ‘How’s Wewelsburg and the gatehouse? Have you found anything?’

  ‘Not very much. It’s in Paderborn, so it’ll be a reasonable journey from here. Mostly there’s just details about its history, and how Heinrich Himmler acquired it and wanted to turn it into a kind of school for SS training and a h
igh-flying meeting place for senior Gestapo. There seems to be a vague legend that Himmler might have wanted to create what he called a Grail castle – reproducing elements of Arthurian legends and images, presumably. He was supposed to be planning to have an eternal flame burning in the vaults.’

  ‘You can’t say he didn’t aim high, that Himmler,’ said Toby.

  ‘There’s nothing about any murders, though – oh, except that shortly before the outbreak of World War Two a group of Jews were imprisoned there – before being taken to Buchenwald. That doesn’t sound relevant, though.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Toby, who was setting out the foil and plastic dishes of food, ‘that we’ve only got two days left before we fly back.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And this Torhaus/Wewelsburg lead is sounding a bit – um—’

  ‘Tenuous? Vague?’

  ‘Yes. So, rather than both of us waste the better part of a day on what might be a dead end, how about dividing our strengths? One of us to drive to this Torhaus place – probably that should be you, because if there are any clues about the orchestra and whatnot, you’d recognize them better than I would. I’ll go back to the shop in Kerzenlicht Square – oh, doesn’t that sound Dickensian! – and see if I can ferret into some of those old documents that Ottomar Volk’s got stashed away.’

  Phin saw the sense of this idea. He said, ‘You’re right that the Torhaus might be a wild-goose chase. Volk said not much was known about Klein, didn’t he? Just bits of stories handed down. I don’t want to ignore it altogether, though.’

  ‘And,’ said Toby, ‘if either of us finds anything halfway interesting, we can join forces the following day.’

  ‘Good thinking. Would you mind not putting the Rumtopf on my bed, in case it spills out,’ said Phin.

  Phin found it difficult to sleep that night. His mind was full of Felix Klein – of how they had found the house where Klein had lived, and heard the story about him having been taken to the Torhaus.

  Then he began thinking about the Lindschoen Orchestra’s last performance. Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony. It was a joyful, lively, piece – ‘Jolly,’ Mendelssohn had called it. But how had they felt, those musicians, when they performed it? Had they been defiant, or nervous, or fearful? Had Felix Klein rallied them? Had he – this was a bad thought – had he even bullied them? Phin did not want Felix, who might have been the Siegreich’s composer, to have been a bully.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Berlin, February 1941

  Stefan was not coming to Father’s concert. It was a long evening for him, and he would stay with Velda for the night. He liked Velda, and the two of them would probably make toffee together in the kitchen, burning saucepans and leaving a litter of caramel blobs on the floor which had to be scraped off when they had cooled.

  Christa and Father went to the concert in Herr Eisler’s car, which he drove bouncily to the hall, about ten kilometres away. She liked the concert hall. Father put on a lot of his concerts here, and there were sometimes plays that Christa and Stefan came to see. Just before Christmas there had been a stage version of the old fairy story, The Tinder Box.

  They did not exactly celebrate Christmas – ‘Although we respect it,’ Father often said – but Hanukkah, the marvellous Jewish Festival of Lights, had fallen right at the end of December, and going to see a Christmas-type play had felt like part of the Hanukkah celebrations.

  Christa had enjoyed The Tinder Box, with the soldier trying to get at the gold and having to tiptoe past the sleeping trolls, which Father had said were in the original Danish folk tale and were characters that were often left out nowadays. But Stefan had not liked the dogs with huge eyes that guarded the treasure – he had put his hands over his eyes, and refused to look at the stage until the dogs had gone away. People in the audience said some of the costumes – those trolls and the dogs’ heads! – had been a bit frightening for smaller children.

  There was a big audience for tonight’s concert. Christa found a seat near the back, and looked along the rows, hoping to see the stranger. She still had no idea who he was and she had not liked to ask his name, but in case she did see him tonight she had put on her birthday-present frock for the evening. It was topaz-coloured with a velvet collar and she had little black velvet shoes.

  If the stranger turned up, he would probably have some beautiful lady on his arm – somebody who would be wearing a proper evening frock. She would have perfectly arranged hair and be wearing lipstick and powder, and Christa’s topaz velvet would look a bit dull in comparison. She surreptitiously pinched her cheeks to make them pink, which she dimly remembered her mother telling her people used to do in the past, in the days when wearing make-up branded you as a loose woman.

  It was good to see the hall so full. Christa’s heart suddenly bumped, because the stranger was here after all. She did not think he had seen her, because he was studying the programme, and seeming interested in it.

  People were murmuring to one another, and Christa began to understand that some of them were here to see if Felix Klein was going to defy the SS ban and, if so, what would happen.

  There was a short Brahms piece first, then a Berlioz March, which was splendidly stirring, and then there was Lizst’s Liebestraum, which was played by Herr Eisler. He was applauded loudly, because everyone loved him, and there were even a few cheers. Any Schutzstaffel spies who might be around would certainly approve of this part of the programme; somebody inside the Third Reich had recently begun to use Liszt’s music to open the weekly army broadcasts – most of which told listeners how victorious Germany was going to be in the war. All the broadcasts started with the first few bars of Les Préludes, which had thoroughly disgusted Father. ‘They’ve filched Liszt’s music like sly pickpockets and chopped it up like butchers,’ he had said.

  After the interval there were a lot of empty seats, as if some people had decided it was too dangerous to stay for the final piece, after all. It was dreadful that people could be so frightened of listening to music, but there was still time for Father to announce a change to the programme. Even at a few moments’ notice, the musicians would be able to pull together, and play something other than the Mendelssohn.

  It seemed that it was not only the audience who were frightened of the music, because the orchestra had shrunk noticeably since the interval. It was not a massive orchestra, of course – it was a bit of a ragbag of music teachers or dedicated amateurs who came and went, according to whether they could be free for a recital. Tonight there had been about eighteen of them. Now Christa counted just twelve. Two of the violinists had certainly left, and Christa thought one of the flutes and a clarinet and a bassoon had gone, as well.

  Father appeared perfectly calm. He raised the baton, gave the count, and the music began.

  Played by the depleted orchestra, it sounded a bit lightweight. It even sounded tinny, although Christa would not say that to Father. Between the first and second movements, several more people went out, and by the time the music reached the last bars, the hall was less than a third full. She began to be thankful that as symphonies went it was fairly short – no more than half an hour – so it would soon be over.

  At the end the applause was ragged and hasty, and as Father gestured to the musicians to rise in the traditional acknowledgement, people were already grabbing coats and scarves and making for the exits, their eyes nervously looking about them. But it’s all right, thought Christa, relaxing slightly. Nothing bad’s happened. She tried to think that she should be proud that Father had stuck to his beliefs.

  Felix Klein turned to face the audience then, and scanned the rows. He’s looking for the SS officer, thought Christa, with sudden fear. The man who came to the shop that night, and who he seemed to know. He’s thinking the man might be here, to see if Father’s defied the order.

  And then, with slow horror, she saw that the SS man was here – that he must have been here all along. He was seated at the very end of a row quite near the platform
, and he was wearing a dark overcoat with squared shoulders and a hem that almost reached the floor. The collar was turned up, and his uniform, if he was wearing it, was hidden. But Christa did not need the uniform to recognize him. He was watching Father very intently, and Father stared straight back, then he inclined his head slightly in the man’s direction. Was it a half-nod of recognition? No, it was not recognition, it was challenge.

  It was as if Father had deliberately and publicly disobeyed the Schutzstaffel’s order, knowing the man would be here to see him do so.

  After the audience had left, Christa stayed in her seat. Somebody had switched off the auditorium lights, and it was dim and shadowy. From beyond the stage were the sounds of the musicians packing up, somebody calling out to know who had taken a clarinet case, somebody else asking if the music had been gathered up. The violinist who had stayed to brave out the Mendelssohn shouted that he was going across the square to the wine bar, in case anyone wanted to join him, and there was a chorus of assent to this, with Herr Eisler’s cheerful rumble the loudest. Then came the sounds of a general exodus, and Christa heard Herr Eisler calling out, ‘Hello – didn’t know you were here, friend. You’ll be most welcome to join us.’

  With another bump of pleasure, Christa heard the stranger’s voice, saying something about being very happy to go with them. If she went up to the backstage area now, she would catch up with them – the man might speak to her.

  She was about to do so, when she realized that the SS man was still in his seat. He was sitting quite still, blending with the shadows. But if Christa walked up to the stage, he would see her, and if he turned round he would see her, so she remained very still.

  The man waited until the musicians had clattered their way out, and the exit door leading to the alleyway had clanged shut. Then he got up and walked towards the stage, going up the steps at the side, and through to the backstage area.