by Ben Stevens
His name (read Frau Klein) was Kurt Schmidt, although for years he’d lived under the alias of ‘Ernest Kramer’. He’d been arrested at a London hotel two days previously, after a tussle with a number of police officers and detectives that had resulted in one policeman receiving two stab wounds that were, however, not life-threatening.
Schmidt had just returned from a classical concert given by the famous violinist Erich Heinemann, who had identified the alleged former war criminal and alerted the venue’s staff. They in turn informed the police, who were able to track Schmidt’s whereabouts to a nearby hotel. Already alerted by Heinemann to the fact that Schmidt was armed and dangerous, the policemen had obtained entrance to Schmidt’s hotel room by pretending that they had a delivery for him. But upon realising that he’d been tricked, Schmidt had fiercely resisted arrest...
The article then stated that Schmidt was currently under armed guard in a London hospital, accused of being the Auschwitz concentration camp guard known as ‘The Whistler’. Erich Heinemann – who was already widely-known as being an Auschwitz survivor – had stated his willingness to fly from his home in the United States to anywhere in the world in order to give evidence against Schmidt, although that man apparently had advanced cancer and so was not expected to survive beyond the next few weeks...
Frau Klein – who prior to her marriage to a successful banker had had the slightly grand surname ‘von Hahn’ – briefly touched with her fingertips the small photo of a slightly sullen, intense-looking man, with flinty grey eyes and large nose, his hairline now much receded but with what hair he had left still swept back in that familiar fashion...
‘Erich,’ she said in what was almost a whisper. ‘Erich...’
For a moment she wondered what the violinist was doing now – right at this moment on the other side of the world. With his family, perhaps. With his wife. Just making the best use of whatever time he had left in this world, as he always had.
And then Frau Klein closed the newspaper, and with a slight, reminiscent smile continued with her preparations for that evening’s meal.
