Night Crossing

by Robert Ryan

  ‘Stop!’ Ross repeated, hoping his voice wouldn’t crack.

  ‘Keep out of it.’ Erich grabbed his sleeve. Ross shrugged him aside, pulled the nearest kid from the ground and flung him away with surprising ease. He found he could do the same with the second and third and he began to bellow, stoking his fury. As he moved to the centre of the scrum the bodies became harder and heavier, the wall of flesh denser.

  An arm went round his neck and Ross felt his windpipe close. He leaned forward rapidly and Erich lost his grip, his nails raking across Ross’s Adam’s apple.

  As Ross straightened, the group closed in on him, their hot breath on his face and neck. One of them landed a punch on his bicep, deadening it, then there was a kick to the shin. Something cracked against the back of his head.

  He imagined the cornered antelopes he had seen on the bushveld, struggling as the wild dogs tore at their flanks, pulling them to the bloodied earth. He lashed out with an elbow, cracking a nose, gave a stab into an eye with a finger, all the dirty tricks his father had taught him. But, like a tired old gemsbok, the young, hungry dogs were dragging him down.

  Three

  ULI SWABBED A patch of dried blood from Ross’s eyebrow, pulling a few hairs out as she did so. ‘Ow.’

  ‘Serves you right.’

  ‘For standing up to those brutes?’

  ‘For not trimming your eyebrows,’ she sniggered.

  They were in the wooden shelter that was part of the Zelt, the refreshment kiosk, in a darkening park lit by hissing gas-lamps. He had been saved from the pack by the appearance of the regular Berlin police, who had stopped the frenzied youths from tearing Ross limb from limb. He’d been let off with a warning to stay out of internal affairs, and had watched powerlessly as the battered Mutineer was handed over to two SS who had also arrived on the scene. They marched the boy off, administering their own repertoire of slaps and kicks.

  After a loud row with Erich who was furious about Ross’s intervention, Ulrike had fetched a first-aid kit from the proprietor of the kiosk. She cleaned the scratches on Ross’s throat and forehead while Erich, his white uniform besmirched with grass stains, the beret missing in action, had skulked off with his friends. As she dabbed at his face, Uli told Ross about her time with the BdM, the League of German Maidens.

  ‘Are you still in the League?’

  ‘No. The accident stopped that.’

  It was the second mention of a mishap, so he asked: ‘Which accident?’

  She held up her hands. The left was bent at an odd angle. ‘At one of the week-long winter camps. Skiing. I broke both wrists, but this one set funny.’

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘Yes. They were very embarrassed. When I asked permission to attend a music-appreciation class rather than BdM duty, they leapt at it. So no more marches or rallies for me, thank God. There. All done. Sure there’s nothing broken? No dizziness? Nausea?’ She laughed. ‘BdM first aid. See, it was good for something.’

  He stood, aware their voices were carrying through the still evening, and she was talking sedition.

  ‘Come on, I’ll take you home,’ he said.

  ‘No. Let’s get a coffee. I know where.’

  They walked quickly, Uli with her arms folded under her breasts, Ross with his collar turned up to try and hide the livid red marks at his throat. ‘Did the breaks affect your violin-playing?’

  Ulrike smiled. ‘Just about completely. Father had a concert lined up for me. A recital, really, to show me off to his friends and colleagues. I was to play Handel. The Sonata for Violin and Piano in F major … well, it doesn’t matter. I turned up at home with wrists swathed in bandages and the joints of a seventy-year-old. At least, that’s what father told me when the splints came off.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound too sympathetic. Was he disappointed?’

  She nodded. ‘Heartbroken, more like. It’s part of the reason he dislikes Hit—’ She stopped herself. ‘He blames the BdM. He’d be even more heartbroken if he knew the truth.’

  ‘Which is?’

  Ulrike stopped for a second and examined Ross’s face, as if assessing whether she could trust him. She held up her crooked arm. ‘It was no accident.’

  The café that Uli chose was in a street on the edge of the park and so full of pungent smoke from Turkish cigarettes that they took a table outside. Ross had pressed her for more information about her not-so-accidental injury but she parried and batted like an expert, letting his questions drift off into the gathering night. He was glad that he hadn’t had to face this one across a table in one of the Yard’s interrogation rooms.

  ‘Down there—’ she pointed suddenly to an ornate house, bristling with columns, cupolas and a host of rooftop statues outlined against the blue-black sky—‘was the home of Joseph Joachim …’ She waited for some sign of recognition, but Ross shrugged. ‘Famous violinist? Hungarian Concerto for Violin, opus 11?’ He shook his head. ‘He was born in 1831, but lived long enough to make recordings. His Brahms …’ She sighed dreamily.

  ‘Go on. Brahms—yes, heard of him.’

  ‘Well, what’s interesting is that Joachim’s house later became the Institute for Sexual Science.’ Ross concentrated on spooning sugar into his coffee, adding three more than he normally would. ‘Apparently it was full of the third-sexers and intergrades—neither men nor women. The locals didn’t know where to look most of the time.’

  Neither do I, thought Ross. Uli’s attitude to talking about sex was as modern as the music in her house, it seemed. Ross cursed his primness, but he knew it was a cultural thing. None of the English girls he knew would talk like this. He looked up and saw the gleam in her eye, as seductive as the little raspberry-blower who had captured his affections all those years ago.

  ‘Talking of violins,’ he said. ‘Your wrists.’

  ‘Hmm. Change the subject if you must.’

  ‘I must,’ he said with a laugh. ‘What did you mean about it not being an accident?’

  She drummed the table with her fingertips. ‘I’ve never told anyone else this.’

  ‘Well, don’t, if you feel—’

  ‘No, I’d like to … what’s your expression? Get it off my chest?’

  Ross nodded.

  ‘Shrug the monkey, as we say. But then we all have monkeys we ought to get off our backs, haven’t we, Inspector?’

  He could feel himself being reeled in, but he couldn’t help himself. ‘Such as?’

  ‘Such as what you are really doing in Berlin.’

  ‘I—’ he began. ‘I’m investigating—’

  ‘Stop. Let me explain one thing. I have an unfair advantage.’ Uli hesitated, relishing the moment. Oddly enough, so was he. ‘I can tell when you’re lying.’

  ‘You can what?’

  ‘I can’t tell what you are lying about, but I know when something isn’t quite right,’ she added hurriedly. ‘I’m what they sometimes call a Duchenne? You know of him?’

  Ross’s head whirled with the sudden switchback changes of topic. She was pulling some of the tricks straight from the textbook his father had written on the art of interrogation—never allow the subject to settle down into a rhythm, don’t give him time to formulate a planned answer. ‘A composer?’

  ‘Not this time. Faces.’

  ‘Faces?’

  ‘Do you know how many muscles control your expressions?’

  He took a guess. ‘Ten?’

  ‘Forty-three. And they work all the time, betray your every emotion. If you know how to read them. Don’t move.’

  Uli reached across and put her hands on either side of Ross’s face, pressing against the cheeks. ‘I can see embarrassment. Anxiety. Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you. Amusement. You think this is a trick, don’t you? A parlour game?’

  ‘I don’t know what it is,’ he said truthfully, although he was enjoying the sensation of her fingers on his face. He looked into her unblinking brown eyes, and felt fear and excitement.

  ‘Did you like my mothe
r?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you lust after her?’

  ‘Uli—’ he protested.

  ‘Yes or no?’

  ‘No.’

  She laughed. ‘A lie, I think. But you are quite good at hiding your thoughts, Inspector. It must be your British reserve.’

  She uncupped his face and leaned back. ‘Let’s see if you register shock.’

  ‘How do you do that?’

  Uli put her elbows on the table and rotated her hands in the air. ‘You were wondering about how I broke my wrists. I got Erich to snap them for me.’

  Erich stood just outside the yellow cone of light from the street lamp, watching Uli and the Englishman together at the café. The afternoon had gone all wrong. He had known that by turning up in uniform at one of her father’s precious soirées with their insulting rules, he would force her to come out to see him. But she’d brought this old man with her. Must be at least thirty. And when he finally did tell her about the honour of training for the U-boats, the moment had been swept aside by those cowardly Mutineers. He had fetched those policemen to rescue the stupid Englishman and what thanks did he get?

  Erich flinched as he saw Uli reach out and touch the man’s face. It was ridiculous for him to be jealous, he knew. Uli and Erich went back to kindergarten, to being wheeled side by side by their starched nannies, and they shared a bond, a secret that the Englishman could only guess at. That day on the slopes when she had raised her arms and closed her eyes and he had pushed her forward, three times in all, until there was a snapping sound and Uli began to scream, even louder than when she’d thought the Englishman was about to be coshed in the park. That subterfuge in ski week, the drastic action she saw as guaranteeing her freedom from her father, that would keep and bind them together for ever. It had been the only reason he had done it.

  Erich looked at his watch. He couldn’t stand there all night, and he could feel the panic draining away from him as he watched the man. It was foolish to think that the old boy could look at Uli as anything other than a child. Even more so to contemplate Uli falling for a foreigner. God, he’d be a candidate for the Dalldorf lunatic asylum if he continued thinking that way.

  Having reassured himself, Erich turned for home, to settle down to his project on Kapitän Hans Rose, commander of U-53, one of the boats that had nearly brought Britain to its knees in the Great War. Daring, a brilliant tactician, ruthless in the pursuit of victory, yet humane once he had achieved it. A role model for all Germans.

  Ross ran the bath deep and hot and sprinkled in the salts that the Adlon’s concierge had magicked up. Gingerly he lowered his battered body into the bubbles, sucking air between his teeth as his skin reddened. As he lay there, he pondered the strangeness of the day. Finding himself hanging on the every word of someone with whom he had last played childish games twenty years previously. Someone who now seemed to be able to second-guess him, to know intuitively what he was about to say before the words came from his mouth. The dozen years that separated them had seemed like a vast gulf in Africa. Here it had shrunk to nothing. Or perhaps the adolescent crush that he had had on the mother had transferred itself to her almost identical—in fact, more attractive—daughter.

  She’s engaged, said an unwelcome voice, so stop that now.

  She’s engaged to a mindless thug, he insisted back. And there was something about those eyes when she held him …

  Was all that stuff about Duchenne genuine? Was that how she had deduced that he was in Berlin on something other than straightforward police business? Then there was the enigma of her father’s party, with Uncle Otto and his note—which, he realised with a start, he hadn’t even looked at.

  Ross heaved himself from the bath, donned a robe and rummaged in his jacket pockets. Why a note? Notes were dangerous things in the world of subterfuge. Unless … unless someone was listening. That was what Uli had suggested. She hadn’t been pointing at the room above, she was pointing at microphones. Was that why Uncle Otto had taken him out into the garden, because somewhere down the road men with headphones and notepads were scribbling down snatches of conversation, hoping to catch an indiscreet remark?

  Ross found the note and unfolded it. The letterhead featured the ubiquitous German eagle sprawled across the top. The message was handwritten, the signature stamped and smudged but legible. There was a time—nine-thirty a.m.—and an address. To his surprise he found his hand shaking. It must be delayed shock after the park, Ross reasoned. But then again, it wasn’t every day a British spy, albeit a casual one, was invited to meet the head of the Spionageabwehr, the German military intelligence organisation.

  Four

  THE ROW OF brown stucco-fronted town houses that had been pressed into military service on Tirpitzufer had been divided and subdivided over the past four years, so that the interiors were baffling rat-runs, with staircases that led to blind walls, and seemingly endless rows of tiny offices.

  Ross was chaperoned through the dark, creaking bowels of the Abwehr HQ to a rear staircase, and shown up to the fourth floor. He passed through several ante-rooms before being ushered into a cramped office. It appeared to be empty, but the curtains blew and he spotted his host on the balcony, gazing over the Landwehrkanal.

  ‘Inspector,’ the man said in his excellent English, striding into the room with his hand extended. No formal stiff-armed salute, Ross noted with some surprise, and a business suit rather than a uniform. There were other unexpected touches. The required picture of Hitler was present and correct, but positioned high behind the desk, where it would not be seen, at least not by the desk’s occupant. A long-haired dachshund sniffled on a bed in a corner. Ross was standing on a threadbare carpet, and the room’s only ornamentation was the model of a battle cruiser on the desk and a signed and dedicated picture of Franco, displayed rather more prominently than the Führer’s. It was far removed from the over-embellished gilded lair, of the kind that Fat Hermann might prefer, that Ross had been anticipating.

  ‘I really must take Seppl out.’ He pointed at the dog, which opened one eye in anticipation. ‘Would you care to join me?’

  He was a small man, not five foot five; even so, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris affected a stoop, which made him seem even shorter. He had piercing blue eyes under a wild tangle of eyebrows, white hair shaved high above the ears, and a disarmingly casual manner for the Fatherland’s chief spy. As they left the building the Admiral grabbed a rather grubby mac and placed a trilby on his head.

  They crossed north over the canal, the dog sticking close to Canaris’s heels, to a small private garden square, where Seppl instantly squatted. Ross was thinking that he must watch where he stood when Canaris said: ‘Don’t worry, a contingent of Hitler Youth comes in three times a day. They are only too pleased to clear up our shit.’

  Ross followed the Admiral around the gravel path while Seppl risked a scamper on the grass. ‘I was very honoured by the invitation to meet you, Admiral. But confused …’ His words were drowned out by the engine noise of one of Lufthansa’s Junkers tri-motors coming in low over the city. The plane’s corrugated sides made Ross think of a flying Nissen hut, an image he hadn’t been able to shake when he’d boarded one of the aircraft at Croydon a few days previously.

  ‘The party invitation was a clumsy way to get your attention,’ said the Admiral when the plane had passed. ‘I discovered your connection to the Walters. It was a perfect excuse for Otto to look you over in an informal setting.’

  ‘Did I pass muster?’

  A grin. ‘You’re here, aren’t you?’ He stopped suddenly and turned to look up at Ross. ‘Your suspect in the Draper case was taken before a People’s Court yesterday. He was sentenced to death. He will be beheaded …’ He looked at his watch. ‘Well, by now, actually.’

  Ross’s jaw worked but no words came out.

  ‘It was easier for them just to blame one man, clear it up, send you home. Best not rock the boat just now.’

  ‘I … I shall put a complaint th
rough the embassy. I was not even—’

  ‘Don’t waste your time,’ said Canaris, with a wave of his hand. ‘They suspected what Draper was, just like they suspect you. You know your room at the Adlon is full of listening devices? Be careful.’ From his pocket he produced a silver cigar canister. ‘This is what your man had hidden.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘Only an Englishman would consider where he put this a decent hiding place.’

  It was a second before Ross realised what Canaris meant. ‘As a Scot, I don’t mind agreeing with you. How—?’

  ‘The post-mortem was performed by one of ours.’ He held out the canister. ‘Here. Don’t worry, it’s been disinfected.’

  Ross took Draper’s tube and unscrewed the cap. He peered in. ‘Was it empty when you found it?’

  Canaris shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘So what he found out was valuable?’

  ‘Possibly.’ Canaris ruffled the neck fur of the dog, which had decided it had done enough for one morning and was panting at his ankle. ‘I hear that you, unlike your esteemed father, are a friend of Germany, Inspector Ross.’ Canaris was demonstrating the depth and breadth of his knowledge. ‘Is that right?’

  Ross shrugged. ‘I … yes. I like Germany, I like its culture, music … and I like Germans,’ he said truthfully. He felt his mouth go dry. This next sentence could be the biggest mistake of his professional life. ‘Or at least, I did.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t have to approve of the present incumbents to be a friend, a true friend to Germany, Inspector Ross. Am I correct?’

  Ross hesitated. The man they called the White Fox was certainly not above playing games with him. He said cautiously: ‘I think so.’

  Canaris looked around to make sure that they were unobserved. ‘You know what Heydrich is recruiting now?’ Reinhard Heydrich was Canaris’s protégé turned arch-rival, the ambitious head of the Sicherheitsdienst, the Reich’s Security Service, the Gestapo’s Siamese twin. ‘Lip-readers. If you are registered deaf in Berlin, you are likely to get a call from the SD, seeing if you can be of use. So many people are meeting outdoors, you see, that eavesdropping is becoming difficult. Lip-readers, though, can operate through binoculars at a distance that would render microphones useless.’