“It seems too convenient.”
“The obvious is sometimes the best answer, Herr Ryan. Didn’t one of your famous detectives say that?”
“He was a fictional detective.”
The officer gave Sean a look that said, I know that.
“His observation was correct though.”
Sean coughed. The disinfectant smell in this interview room was even more powerful than in the other one the day before.
“Are you looking for Jerome Ruzibiza?”
“We do not discuss operational matters in these cases.”
“But you have to be looking for him. He’s gone missing.”
“We cannot say what has happened to Jerome Ruzibiza, whether he is missing or not.”
“He’s not a murderer. And something has happened to him. I was at his hotel this morning.”
The policeman’s mouth twitched. His expression indicated he already knew where Sean had been that morning.
“Tell me what happened there.”
Sean told him.
“Have you found Jerome?”
The officer shrugged. “I do not know that, Herr Ryan.”
“Aren’t you concerned about what may have happened to Jerome Ruzibiza?”
“A report was filed by the hotel about damage to his room. We are looking into it.”
“That doesn’t sound very urgent.”
“We cannot know what has happened to Jerome Ruzibiza, Herr Ryan. We have very little to go on. He may have gone away with friends to visit his own people. We have to do these things correctly. There are procedures that have to be followed. I am sure you understand.”
Sean looked at the officer.
“This is just time-wasting.” The officer shrugged. “I don’t know about your procedures, but Jerome Ruzibiza’s life is in danger. I am sure of that. You can’t just shrug this off.”
The officer stood. “Jerome Ruzibiza has recently lost his job here in Germany, Herr Ryan. His partner has also died. I have experience with immigrants and refugees. Such things often lead to them returning to their country. Perhaps it is for the best.” He smiled for the first time in their conversation.
Sean stared at him. “You’re not taking this seriously at all,” he said.
“You may leave now, Herr Ryan.” He opened the interview room door.
Sean stood. “Are you investigating the Nazis who left stickers outside Eleni and Jerome’s home?”
The officer shook his head. “We have no reports of intimidation from their apartment block. I think you are mistaken, Herr Ryan. Several rock groups use such symbols to create a little, what do you English call it, buzz. I am right, am I not?” He smiled, condescendingly.
“This was nothing like that.” Sean was angry now. How could this guy be so pig-headed? “He and Eleni were in fear of their lives and look what’s happened.” His voice was raised.
The policeman’s face hardened. “If you have any other information about Eleni Kibre’s disappearance, Herr Ryan, please contact us.” He opened the door of the interview room, stood holding it for Sean to pass.
As they went down the corridor a small man in plain clothes came out of a room and said something to the officer with Sean, which he replied to. It sounded like an irritable exchange.
In the brick walled reception area the officer clicked his heels. “Goodbye, Herr Ryan. If we need to contact you again we will do so.”
And that was it. Sean felt at a loss when he went out into the street. He’d expected the police to be more interested in him and in the intimidation Eleni and Jerome had suffered. It seemed as if they’d already made their minds up about what had happened.
A man was standing behind the glass door of the station looking at him. It was the same man who’d been talking to the officer who’d interviewed him before. Sean kept walking. Who could you go to in Germany, if you didn’t trust the police? But more importantly, what the hell had happened to Jerome?
Sean knew the way back to the hotel now, he’d taken the journey so often. He started walking. Cars streamed by him. What was left for him to do? He’d been to the apartment. He’d seen the police. Should he go back to Jerome’s hotel, to check if he’d reappeared? He took out his phone, opened the web browser, put the name of the hotel in. Their web site came up. He called the number.
Jerome wasn’t there. He wasn’t even registered as a guest anymore.
It was three-thirty when he arrived back at his own hotel. He looked in the door of the restaurant, but he didn’t stay. He had no appetite. He headed up to his room. He was about to open his laptop when a sharp knock sounded on his door.
He opened it, half expecting policemen in uniform to be standing there again. But they weren’t. It was the man, a plain clothes officer, he presumed, who had been watching him at the police station.
“I think I’ve answered every question I can, officer,” he said. He held the wooden door half closed.
“I know that, Herr Ryan. My name is Kurt Dienelt. I am here to help you.”
“How?”
“To help you find your friend.” He pronounced friend as if it had a u in the middle.
Kurt had thin blonde hair, and bags under his eyes that gave him a weary look. He reminded Sean of movies with German intellectuals in them.
“May I come in, Herr Ryan?”
Sean opened the door to let him pass. He noticed a small brown holster on Kurt’s belt.
“I hoped I would see you earlier, but I was delayed with other matters.”
Kurt Dienelt sat at the small wooden breakfast table. Sean pulled the orange curtains open a bit more and sat down opposite him.
“Do you know something about Jerome’s disappearance?”
Kurt leaned forward. “I do.” The low hum of cars outside in the street filled the room.
In his mind Sean could see images of what had been dome to Eleni. He imagined the same thing happening to Jerome. Had the police shown Jerome the pictures too? For a few seconds he imagined himself in that situation. His muscles tightened and a shiver of darkness passed through him.
He wanted to shout at Kurt, to get him to tell what he knew and quickly. Instead he just stared at the officer.
“You must prepare yourself.”
“Why?” Sean pressed his lips together. He sucked in air, tightened his fists as he did so.
Kurt sighed, shook his head.
23
The small home office room in Sean and Isabel’s house felt gloomy. Most of the time it was filled with the empty hum of passing cars from the street below. Dirty gray clouds covered the Sunday afternoon London sky like a lid. Isabel was examining her hands. They were trembling. She gripped them together.
The laptop screen in front of her blinked as it reloaded a web page with a large image in its centre, showing the Nazi hierarchy in the dock, including Herman Göring, the most prominent Nazi to stand trial at Nuremberg. A row of white helmeted U.S. military policemen stood to attention behind him.
This was the iconic image of the trials, which lasted almost a year and ended with the individual sentences being read out on the afternoon of October 1, 1946. The image didn’t show her grandfather, Philip Sharp, nor did it show Colonel Geoffrey Lawrence, the President of the Nuremberg Tribunal, the lead British Judge, who her grandfather had been guarding.
Her grandfather had been serving as a lieutenant with the Royal Artillery Military Police at that time. He’d landed in France a week after D-Day, and had managed to make it all the way to Germany without suffering anything more than a few bruises, so his diary claimed. Then he was promoted to a Close Protection Unit.
He was dead before Christmas ’46.
Isabel took a manila folder from the bottom of the book case and opened it. Inside was a black leather Letts diary, and a few letters on yellowing, almost see-through paper. The diary was breast pocket-sized and a half-inch thick. The cover had 1946 embossed on it in now-fragile gold leaf. She lifted the diary, felt the crinkled leather cover sh
ift under her fingers. The spine was cracked through. Frayed brown cardboard poked out at the corners. The years between her and the war slid away as she held it, transporting her back to London in ’46, a city on rations, rebuilding slowly after the destruction the Luftwaffe had inflicted on it.
She opened the diary at the entry for December the 12th, a Thursday. A faint dusty smell, with a hint of cordite, came to her as she raised the diary, to read the handwriting again. The entry, in dark blue ink, read:
…
If people knew the sickening depravities of the defendants, and of those others who should have been charged at Nuremberg, and the evil of their crimes, most reasonable people would not be able to sleep, as I am unable to.
What I saw and heard here in Nuremberg, and what I learned of the support the Nazi regime received in surprising places, has sickened my mind.
I apologise to my wife and children for any suffering I inflict. I love you all dearly, far more than I can say.
Yours Regretfully,
Philip Sharp,
Lt. Royal Artillery.
Faded, brown rimmed splotches, stained the page, as if tears had fallen on it a long time ago.
Her father had given her the diary just before he’d moved to India, saying: “Your grandfather was a real hero.” They’d all assumed that the passage from his diary was a suicide note. It had cast a long shadow over their lives.
But was it a suicide note? They were certainly the words of someone under stress, but he could have been talking about other pains he might inflict, not suicide.
And what had her grandfather meant by “the support the Nazis received”? Was he talking about the Catholic Church?
She pushed her hair behind her ears, looked through the other entries in the diary. All the writing was small, and mostly in blue ink. One name stood out. It had been underlined three times. She turned to her laptop and looked it up.
The sentence read – I wish I’d never met Orsenigo.
She read the references in Google and followed the most likely one to an article about Cesare Orsenigo, the Papal Nuncio to Germany during the Second World War. The article discussed his failure to help the Jews. He’d died, conveniently, in April 1946. She didn’t see his name again in the diary. There were only a few more entries before the final one, the one they had assumed was a suicide note.
A chill had entered the room. She’d never noticed Orsenigo’s name before. Or perhaps she’d seen it, but there hadn’t been any reason to check who he was. She stood, rubbed her arms. She felt light-headed. She would have to start cooking dinner soon. Alek would be hungry. She couldn’t leave him to watch TV alone much longer. She turned and gripped the edge of the wooden bookcase as she exited the room.
This was just what she needed. Why did this have to happen when Sean was away? Memories of her father shouting, falling down, came to her. He’d been an embarrassment for such a long time. She’d never thought too much about why he’d been that way, about why he drank. It had just been a given, like wet summers and cold winter walks to school.
How did her family story connect with the letter she’d been shown by Fred Corbett? Had the Catholic hierarchy secretly supported Hitler? Was that what had upset her Grandfather so much, that he had killed himself? Had the Vatican managed to hide this ever since?
She went down the stairs, holding the banisters tight, pushing memories away. She checked the front door, slid the upper and lower bolts across, then headed to the kitchen. She peered out into the garden, at their back wall topped with razor spikes. She felt unsettled, as if danger lurked somewhere out there. Had Fred been right about people looking for him?
She shook her head. No, the Catholic Church was not a force for evil. Maybe they’d made mistakes in the past, but that was long ago. They didn’t murder people who threatened to expose them. Did they?
She bit her lip.
She hadn’t taken much interest in religion herself since she was a child. It had been frowned on in her house. Her father had overheard her talking on the phone to a boy from a Catholic school once, who wanted her to go to Mass with him. He’d shaken his head at her. Logic and reason had been his path, emotions always suppressed, unless he was drunk. That was the way he survived. She’d picked a lot up from him. If she hadn’t met Sean she’d probably be drinking like an idiot still too, like she used to in college.
She checked the back door was locked for a second time, pulled the blind down over the window. Then she went to the small silver screen on the kitchen wall. It showed a live feed from a security camera at the front of the house.
She picked up the phone nearby. Rose, her friend from across the street, was waiting for her call. Rose had also spent money installing security equipment in the last few years. Between the two of them, their surveillance cameras covered most of the street.
The first thing Isabel would ask her friend would be if she had seen anything suspicious. She held the phone in her hand, her fingers poised above the keys. Her knuckles were white. No, she couldn’t say that. Rose would think something was wrong. She’d probably drop the phone in fright.
She wouldn’t call Rose. She would call Sean. She had to talk to him. She stared at the phone. She’d put his mobile number on speed dial, but which button had she put it on? Her mind was numb, frozen. Memories of her father arguing, drunkenly, about religion with her mother had come flooding in. She hadn’t thought about those fights in years.
She jumped. The phone was ringing. The noise echoed around the kitchen.
“Yes.”
“Henry Mowlam, Mrs Ryan. I have an answer to the question you asked me yesterday.”
When she’d seen the two gurneys being taken out to an ambulance at the hotel the night before, she hadn’t been able to make out who was on them. She’s called Henry when she got home. She’d left a message on his voicemail.
“Henry, good to hear from you.” She paused, wondered did she sound too eager. But it really was good to hear a friendly voice. There was silence for a few more seconds, as if Henry was deciding how to respond.
“Before I tell you, you must promise me one thing.”
“What?”
“That you will not get involved in investigating these deaths.”
She pressed her lips together to stop herself exploding. She spoke slowly, when the words came out.
“You’ll have to tell me who died before I can promise you anything.” She knew what his answer would be, but still she had to hear the words.
“No. I want your promise first, Mrs Ryan.” He said it in such a clipped manner, she knew he wasn’t going to bend. The call would be over in the next minute if she made the wrong decision.
“Okay, Henry. I will not get involved in investigating these deaths.” She waited. Seconds ticked by.
“The people you went to meet for InfoFreed died within minutes of your meeting. A police interview will be arranged with you over the next few days.”
His confirmation made a sickening hollow open up inside her. She bent at the waist, as the reality of what had happened to Fred and Daisy sank in.
“Oh my God, Henry.” She was almost whispering.
“That isn’t all I’m going to tell you, Mrs Ryan, now that I have your promise.”
“Go on.” What else would he say? Wild thoughts flashed.
“The pictures you spoke about in your voice message were recovered at the scene. We must ask you not to discuss them with anyone. We believe the letter in the pictures is a fake. Our analysis will confirm that.”
“You’ve pre-ordained the outcome?” She tried not to sound shocked, but couldn’t. His conclusion about the letter had to be premature. What was going on?
24
June 23rd1940
The two hundred and ten horsepower Mercedes 770 touring limousine purred to a stop on the cobbled drive of the Parvis du Sacré-Cœur in Paris.
Two Zündapp Wehrmacht sidecar motorcycles had already pulled up ahead. The SS men who had been riding them were
standing with their black MP-38 machine pistols held in front of them, sweeping the area from side to side, covering the steps up to the white basilica of Sacré-Cœur as well as the street leading back down towards the centre of the city.
Two other Zündapp sidecar motorcycles pulled up behind the car. They blocked access to the street in front of Sacré-Cœur, the iconic Catholic basilica on the highest point in Paris. The engine of the Mercedes limousine remained on and the blackened windows closed. A steady exhaust stream emanated from the tailpipe. It was another minute before a door opened.
The two men who stepped from the back of the vehicle wore glistening leather trench coats and SS caps. They turned, surveyed the scene, then tapped on the front window of the vehicle. It was a warm morning. Sunlight streamed over the gray slate roofs of the city below.
In the distance the top of the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower were visible, though not the giant black and red Swastika that hung in the centre of the Arc de Triomphe. A musty smell hung in the air, though it wasn’t from any damage the city had suffered, it was the smell of Paris, tinged with a whiff of garbage, as rubbish collections had been reduced to almost zero, due to a lack of manpower in the last few weeks.
The city had been occupied nine days before. The night curfew that the victorious Gestapo had imposed meant that few civilians were around at eight thirty that morning.
Standing at the top of the steps was a small welcoming committee. Three men in long black cassocks, two of whom wore violet skull caps, stood in front of the open main doors of Sacré-Cœur, which gleamed white above them, its main cupola raising high into the air.
This was the last, and most important stop on the victor’s tour of Paris. The small group of four, Hitler, an SS Lieutenant, Albert Speer, and General Speidel, took the steps slowly. They turned twice to take in the view of Paris below the hill of Montmartre.
When they reached the triple height bronze doors Speer pointed up at one of the statues above.
“Joan of Arc, Mein Führer. She awaits,” he said, in German, his excitement clear from his voice.
Hitler didn’t look up. He strode towards the three clerics who stood waiting for him. Each man had his arm raised in the Nazi salute.
The Nuremberg Puzzle Page 9
