Night Crossing

by Robert Ryan

  Goldschmidt was a perfumer, not a clairvoyant. In fact, Ross wasn’t even sure about the perfume that Herr Max had created. He’d let Ross sniff it before it was stoppered and wax-sealed, and it was light, fruity, not like the heavy, rich scent he had expected at that price.

  He was already a fool, though. He should have been thinking about links, connections and messages. Why had Uncle Otto, clearly a long-term Nazi, used the Walter household to fix up a meeting with Canaris? What was Canaris up to? How much money was in that account? And what was his next move?

  All these questions—but sitting immovable at the front of his mind was Ulrike. He was confused, that was all. He was glad his colleagues at Scotland Yard couldn’t see him flustered like this.

  The door was in front of him, his hand on the pull, barely shifting it a quarter of an inch, so that there was but the faintest of rattles within. Perhaps they wouldn’t hear. Perhaps he should leave the parcel on the step. Then the maid was smiling and welcoming him in, and he was snatching the hat from his head.

  Ulrike came running into the hall, her stockinged feet struggling to make a purchase on the teak, a letter in her hand, a smile on her face that faded when she saw him.

  ‘Oh. I—’

  ‘Is this a bad time? I’m sorry.’

  ‘No. No. Just … I thought you were father. Come in. Take your coat off. Is it raining? Anna, can we have some coffee—’

  ‘No, thank you, I’m not staying. In fact, I’m leaving Germany.’

  She waved the maid away. ‘Really? Case closed, Inspector?’

  ‘Yes. Look, I wanted to thank you for the other day—’ Ross fished in his pocket for the gift.

  ‘You’ll miss our concert if you leave.’ Ulrike thrust the RMK letter at him.

  ‘Which concert is that?’

  ‘At the Schleehalle.’ She couldn’t hide her excitement.

  ‘When is it?’ At last he had the package out.

  ‘November ninth.’

  ‘I’ll be long gone, I am afraid.’

  She sighed, feigning irritation. ‘Your loss. Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. A real rarity.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said yet again, holding out the daintily wrapped present in his palm. ‘Here. This is for you. I had it made. He made me describe you to get it right. It’s just a token of my appre—’

  He stumbled as she stared back at him, her face shutting down, the playfulness gone, back to a mask of Germanic correctness.

  Ulrike’s voice had dropped again, but there was none of the smokiness in there of the other night, just an uncompromising brittleness. ‘I cannot accept this, Inspector.’

  ‘It’s bespoke.’

  ‘I can see. Goldschmidt’s. Very fancy. But it would be improper for me to take it.’

  ‘I don’t see why—’

  Now, just a hint of a smile. ‘Don’t you, Inspector?’

  ‘I … well, I suppose it could look … I didn’t mean—’

  ‘For a betrothed woman to accept an unexpected gift from an unattached man, it isn’t quite the way we do things in Berlin, Inspector.’

  Ross suddenly felt like the gauche Britisher abroad. ‘Yes. Of course. I was forgetting my manners.’

  Ulrike held out her hand, at once the icily polite hostess, leaving him flustered, unsure of exactly what he had done to upset her, but in no doubt that he had.

  ‘Have a safe journey back. Boat-train or aeroplane?’

  ‘Lufthansa. From Tempelhof.’

  ‘Enjoy the flight. I will give my father your regards.’

  ‘Yes, do that, please. And I’m sor—’

  ‘Goodbye, Inspector.’

  And he was walking down the steps, his face burning, knowing that he had achieved exactly what he had feared—making an idiot of himself.

  Six

  ANWÄRTER SCHULLER OF the Berlin Ordnungspolizei stood to rigid attention in front of ORuKR Pohl, who was slowly reviewing the young man’s notes and his training file. Schuller’s face was impassive as the pages were turned, but inside he was shaking. Pohl was in charge of streamlining the multi-headed police and security forces into something approaching a cohesive organisation. However, it didn’t normally involve dealing with a lowly street cop such as himself. Schuller stared straight ahead at a large picture of the Führer shaking hands with the Mercedes driver Rudi Caracciola just before a Grand Prix race. There was a model of the Auto Union Silver Arrow on the large walnut desk. Schuller hoped the man didn’t expect small talk. He knew nothing about motor sport.

  ‘Your family originally Schwäbisch?’

  ‘Yes, sir. From near Heidelberg. We moved here when I was two.’

  ‘Good National Socialists, are they? Your family?’

  ‘Yes, sir. My sister is a BdM group leader,’ Schuller replied, even though he was certain that snippet would be in his file.

  ‘Good. Your notes here about the meeting with the Englishman, Ross. They are complete?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ He had taken great care with his record of everything that had happened in that alley. He knew that interacting with a foreigner would attract interest, although he hadn’t anticipated it would be at this level.

  ‘Nothing else was said? About why Scotland Yard saw fit to send its own man across for a straightforward murder case?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Very good. Your file has a red eagle, Schuller. You know what that means?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Schuller answered truthfully. It didn’t sound good.

  ‘It means …’ Pohl hesitated. ‘Promising. One to watch.’

  Schuller couldn’t help exhaling with relief.

  ‘I am sure you are bored with pounding the streets of Neuköln. I am recommending your transfer to the Hackescher Markt station. And for promotion.’

  ‘Sir. Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Any questions?’

  ‘What will my assignment be over there, sir?’

  Pohl smiled. ‘We are setting up a new Barrack Police Unit for special duties in the Mitte district. If you are interested.’

  Schuller nodded. He was being transferred to the Schutzpolizei, the Schupo, the Protection Police of the Reich. Something big was clearly, in the air. It could be, thought Schuller, his chance to shine.

  ‘Of course, sir. Thank you, sir,’ he said again.

  The departure lounge at Tempelhof aerodrome was a world apart from the oversized garden shed that served the same purpose back at Croydon. Three of the four walls were panelled in heavy oak and adorned with huge photographs of Nazi dignitaries—many of them showing a beaming Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering—waving from the steps of various aircraft. A carved German eagle sprawled across one side of the room, its talons gripping a garlanded swastika, while finely detailed German aircraft swooped in attendance. The fourth wall was mostly glass, where travellers looked out over the airstrip itself and admired the Junkers and Focke-Wulfs of the Lufthansa fleet. It came as no surprise to hear that the Reichsmarschall himself had had a hand in designing the area.

  Outside Ross could see the London-service tri-motor on the apron, the last of the luggage being loaded, the boiler-suited mechanics making their final checks. He couldn’t wait to be home, to speed away the next five hours and be deposited in his flat, where he could bury his embarrassment about Ulrike in some deep recess of his mind.

  Through the window, he saw what looked like his case disappear into the hold. The cigar tube was nestling in the hidden compartment at the rear of the lining. It was only incriminating if one knew where it had been and what it represented, but the presence of the tube still made him feel edgy. He glanced up at the lounge desk where the Lufthansa staff were still busy with the paperwork, willing them to get a move on.

  ‘Herr Ross.’ There was a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at a sallow specimen in a trilby staring down at him. The man produced his identity card. He was a member of the Luft-Sonderpolizei, the special airport police. ‘If you will come with me, please.’

  Ross looked around
, his mind seeking some way out of this. One or two of his fellow passengers stared at him, but most had buried their heads in their complimentary copies of Volkische Beobachter, knowing it was the safest course of action.

  They must have located the cigar tube hidden in the case. Idiot, Ross thought. Hide in plain sight, his father always said, that was the best course of action. Ross nodded and stood. He felt the guiding pressure of a palm in the small of his back, ushering him out of the lounge.

  As they stepped through the glass doors, the policeman said, regretfully, ‘I am afraid I had no choice.’

  ‘No,’ Ross agreed.

  ‘She is not allowed through without a ticket, you see.’

  Ross didn’t understand until he turned and saw Ulrike, clutching an envelope to her bosom.

  ‘Thank you so much, officer,’ she said, beaming.

  ‘My pleasure,’ said the cop, touching his trilby.

  ‘Uli,’ said Ross.

  ‘You forgot these documents, Herr Ross,’ she said loudly for the benefit of the copper. ‘So I took the liberty of bringing them down.’

  She handed over the envelope and he said, ‘How careless of me. Thank you very much, Uli.’

  She lowered her voice. ‘I had to apologise.’

  ‘No. It is me who should—’

  ‘Shush. I’ve been rehearsing this all the way over here. The least you can do is let me say it.’ Ross nodded, trying to hide his smile. ‘I was rude. I was simply taken aback by your generosity and forgot that you English, uh, Scottish—’

  ‘British,’ he offered.

  ‘British. Do things differently. It was a lovely gesture.’

  ‘And it’s in my bag. On that plane. There.’ As he looked back he could see a trail of passengers heading for the steps.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t come for that. Honestly. Is that what you think? I came for my perfume?’

  Her face began to cloud and he said quickly, ‘No, no. Just that … well, it’s no use to me. I’m glad you came down, Uli. Really. And just let me offer my apologies.’

  ‘Not needed. But accepted.’

  A silence fell between them. A German man would have bowed and turned at this point, all honour satisfied for both parties, but Ross shifted his weight from foot to foot. She stepped close, raised herself on tiptoes and kissed his cheek. As she came away she remained close, near enough for him to feel her breath on his neck, and he imagined his arms around her, pulling her to him in a long embrace. Then she would kiss him again, and to the outside world they would just be two lovers having to endure separation, storing up the memories of each other’s touch and aroma for the weeks and months ahead.

  His arms, though, remained at his side. He hoped that on this occasion Uli really could read his mind, and the twinkle in her eyes suggested that she might have.

  ‘Have a safe flight, Inspector. I hope we meet again.’ She turned, a grin dimpling her cheeks as she did so, and strode purposefully off. Ross took a step after her, wanting to prolong the moment, to ask why she had turned cool on him when he had offered her the scent, but there was someone at his side, a Lufthansa official.

  ‘Sir, the London flight is boarded. The Captain wishes to start the engines.’

  ‘Yes, I’m coming,’ he said softly.

  When Ross, still feeling queasy after a pitching flight through the thick cloud cover nestling over Europe, arrived back at his flat in Fitzrovia, there was a terse note summoning him to a meeting with his father the next day. He could feel the disapproval leaching from the page into his fingertips. Ross had failed him. His own son had shown that he was better off in A Division than as one of the casuals of the Z organisation that Ross senior ran for Claude Dansey. Well, Ross had warned him that would be the case. It wasn’t always a matter of like father, like son.

  Ross put the note aside, undid the string around the parcel that he had picked up from the bookseller on Charing Cross Road and peeled aside the paper. He lit the gas fire in the living room and sat in the armchair, about to read through his purchases, when some instinct made him fetch from his coat pocket the envelope that Uli had given him. He had assumed it was empty, a ploy, but as he shook it a small piece of paper fluttered out onto the carpet. It was seven lines of poetry, by Eduard Mörike.

  Night rises tranquil on the land;

  Dreaming, she leans on the wall of the hills.

  Her eyes behold the golden scales

  Where time’s at rest in peaceful vessels.

  But bold the springs and the fountains rush forth,

  They sing in the ear of Night, the mother, of day,

  Of the day that is ended now.

  Ross stared at it for a while, trying to fathom what Ulrike was trying to say. Was there a message for him here? He was lost. Eventually, he put on the kettle for tea and turned to the two volumes he had bought. Perhaps there was a clue to this strange but beguiling girl in the books.

  The first, on human physiology, told him that Guillaume Duchenne de Boulogne was a nineteenth-century neurologist who had given his name to a form of muscular wasting disease. Ross closed his eyes at this, imagining what the knowledge of certain early death would do to a person. Would it make you grasp the remaining time with vigour? Or would one slump into a despondency?

  He read on. The condition, it explained, was passed from mother to son. He reread the passage hungrily, making sure that he hadn’t skipped any vital words. Only occurs in males.

  He slammed the book shut and picked the second volume, on psychology. He found Duchenne de Boulogne in the index and thumbed through to a chapter on ‘Physiognomy and the Inner Life’, illustrated with photographs of often grotesque expressions, many of them displayed by the feeble-minded.

  He read slowly this time, aware of his heart thumping. Could it really all be true? He looked at his watch. He called the Yard and got through to DS Fred Cherrill, the new head of the Fingerprint Bureau. Cherrill was held up as the epitome of the modern copper, bringing order and science to the detection of crime. He had also written a paper on the Yard’s long-discredited Anthropometry Department—the one concerned with classifying criminals by their physical characteristics—that had been abandoned forty years earlier, claiming that, although much of it was bogus, some of the techniques merited re-examination.

  After he got off the telephone with Cherrill, Ross knew without a shadow of a doubt that Uli had not been playing a parlour trick on him. And why she had refused the perfume. It was a good thirty minutes before his face stopped glowing.

  Lehrter Bahnhof, situated across the Spree from Tiergarten and the scorched shell of the Reichstag, was Berlin’s main station for departures to the north. It served cities such as Stendal, Hannover, Köln, Lübeck, Hamburg and Kiel, so it was usually busy, but Uli had never seen it so crammed with people and locomotives.

  There was a train at each of the eighteen platforms and as soon as one whistled its departure and left the station, another slid to take its place.

  Uli pushed her way through an entrance all but blocked by kitbags and suitcases, then navigated her way through the human throng. The air of the departure hall was thick with steam and raised voices. Over at one side, cordoned off behind a row of policemen, was a line of terrified-looking civilians—mostly Jews, she guessed—their papers being heavily scrutinised before they were allowed onto the platform to board.

  Most of those about to depart Berlin from the station, however, were from the army or navy, and they were young, even the officers practising their swaggers.

  Uli felt herself swamped by the uniforms as the crowd pressed around her, and she had to walk on tiptoe to try and spot Erich. She had promised to see him off, even though she was dreading another goodbye, especially this one. Hers was not the kind of news that you were meant to bring to someone about to go off and serve the Fatherland.

  She found him at the news-stand, hastily scribbling her a note, and he beamed with relief when he saw her. ‘Uli. I thought you weren’t coming.’

 
He put his arms round her waist and there were catcalls and whistles from his new colleagues. Erich ushered them to a quiet spot between the mail trucks.

  ‘I had trouble finding you,’ she explained. ‘So many people.’

  ‘Yes. Exciting, isn’t it?’

  She stepped back and looked at him. He seemed changed, less awkward in the uniform, no longer a boy trying to fill a man’s shoes. ‘You look very smart.’

  He plucked at his tunic and lowered his voice. ‘I know. Mother altered it for me, so it fitted better. I’m glad you came …’

  ‘So am I.’ She paused to gather her strength and began. ‘Erich—’

  ‘Uli,’ he interrupted, ‘I have been thinking. I shall be away for months and, if the worst happens, I shall be at sea for perhaps years. I think it is unfair to ask you to wait for me as my fiancée.’

  ‘Erich. You’ll be back for Christmas.’

  ‘Probably. Even so, I think the honourable thing to do would be to put our engagement in abeyance.’

  ‘What? You’re breaking it off?’ she said, genuinely shocked.

  ‘Don’t be upset.’

  ‘I’m not upset.’

  ‘I talked it over with my father. He agreed. If we had named a date it would be different …’

  ‘Erich. I don’t know what to say’

  ‘It doesn’t change anything, really. I still want us to be together. I still love you.’

  She knew what the gesture meant. Erich’s intention was to make sure that Uli would not be constrained by the conventions of being betrothed while he was gone indefinitely. He was giving her her freedom. Uli felt a rush of relief, and had to force herself not to tell him that she was going to break it off anyway. Exactly why, she wasn’t certain, but she had divined over the last few days that Erich, with his blind obedience to a cause she loathed, was not where her future lay. However, not having to explain this was an unexpected bonus. Let his noble sacrifice stand, she told herself.

  Erich’s head snapped around as he heard shouted orders for his group to entrain. ‘You aren’t mad at me, are you?’ he asked.