The Nuremberg Puzzle

by Laurence O'Bryan

  He turned to her, said something fast in German. She shrugged in response. He waved a hand in the air, as if whatever he’d said didn’t matter. Ten minutes later he pulled up at a modern office block with four storeys and a steeply sloping red tiled roof. The building looked as if it took up the whole of the block. A small blue sign jutting out from one corner had the word POLIZEI on it.

  She paid the driver. He gave her an odd look. She ignored him, went into the station. The reception area was small, only ten foot wide. Blue plastic chairs were bolted into the floor along one side. A glass wall looked into an office where two policemen sat at desks.

  A man with a straggly gray beard was talking in German, through a microphone set in the glass wall, to one of the policemen, seated on the other side. The man’s voice was monotonous. He seemed to be reciting something. The policeman was tapping at a computer keyboard. Both officers wore light brown shirts. The officer visible on the other side of the room had dark brown trousers on, with a wide black belt, and a large black leather holster, with the butt of a gun glinting in it.

  She didn’t want to wait. She stood near gray beard. He glanced at her, opened his eyes wide, daring her to interrupt him. She took a step back, forced herself to breathe, to wait. She wouldn’t get a helpful response if she pushed her way in front of someone.

  The officer glanced at her, then continued his conversation with gray beard. It went on and on. Gray beard kept repeating something. The policeman’s replies became longer, but he showed no impatience. After a while Isabel figured out he was repeating himself, but with extra details each time.

  She could feel the light breakfast she’d had turning in her stomach, as flashes of what a life without Sean might be like ran through her mind. A numbness threatened to engulf her. Continuing on without him, was not a possibility she wanted to explore.

  She was used to being loved, almost took it for granted. Losing him would be like losing a part of her body. The part that kept her alive.

  Eventually, after Isabel sat down, holding her arms tight to herself for what seemed like hours, the old man turned and left and Isabel stood and approached the reception desk and the microphone.

  “Do you speak English?”

  “Yes, a little. How can I help?” The officer’s smile was fleeting.

  “I believe my husband is in danger. Can I report a missing person?” Her voice almost cracked as she spoke. Her words made what was happening real.

  “How long has your husband been missing?” His tone was impersonal.

  Isabel bit her lip. “Twenty-four hours.” It was a lie. It was no more than twenty, but she wasn’t going to be fobbed off.

  “I’m sorry, unless we have evidence that,” he paused, gave her a granite hard look, “a missing person’s life is in danger, we are unable to conduct a missing person enquiry in the Federal Republic of Germany.” He examined her face for her reaction.

  “Didn’t you hear me? My husband is in danger. He called me, yesterday, told me he needed help. His life is in danger. Please! He’s not at his hotel!” The danger sounded less substantial now that she put it into words. She pulled her phone out of her jeans pocket, went to her call records, showed him the screen. A sinking feeling came over her. What she was showing him wasn’t evidence of a serious threat to Sean’s life.

  The policeman glanced at the call record, then back at her.

  “What type of danger do you think your husband is in?” He glanced over her shoulder.

  Someone had come in. There was a muttering and a shuffling behind her.

  “I think he’s been kidnapped.”

  “Has someone contacted you to tell you this?” There was weariness in his voice.

  “No.” She shook her head. “But he came to Nuremberg for a conference and never attended.”

  “Do you know any reason why he might be kidnapped?”

  She stared at him, as she tried to work out her answer. “No, but I’m afraid he might have got caught up in something.” As an explanation, it lacked substance. But what else could she say? She licked her lips. They were paper dry, thick. She wanted the questioning to be over, for them to do something, for them to help her.

  The officer glanced behind her again, then spoke. “Please, what is your husband’s full name?” He tapped at his computer screen, got her to spell Sean’s name, their home address, her own name, gave the date he’d arrived, what he was doing in Nuremberg, and the name of the hotel he’d been staying in, and where she was staying.

  “Wait over there,” he said. She sat on one of the seats.

  She checked her phone for messages, looked through her emails. Time slowed. She wanted to be doing something more. A woman, dressed in layers of ill-fitting clothes came in, was seen. Then a young man came in. Then he was gone and the little waiting area was empty again, except for her. She went back to the glass window. She couldn’t just sit there, indefinitely.

  “Please, what’s happening?”

  “Someone will come to see you, soon,” was the reply.

  She waited some more. Eventually, her stomach twisting, memories of Sean, and visions of an empty future swirling in her mind, she closed her eyes.

  “Frau Ryan?” a plainclothes officer was holding the glass door to the right open. He held out his hand to her. “I am Kurt Dienelt. I am sorry for keeping you waiting. I am an investigating officer.” He led the way down a corridor, up some shiny stairs and into a modern office with two desks and a window overlooking a dark inner courtyard.

  “Please, sit.” He pointed at a chair that faced the side of the desks. He sat at one of the desks. A stack of red plastic files rested in one corner of the desk. A thin computer screen stood at the other. A closed leather diary, pens, and a German flag on a tiny podium, sat in the middle.

  “I met your husband yesterday, Frau Ryan. He seemed good then. What do you think has happened to him?”

  She gulped. He’d seen Sean!

  38

  The tour guide smiled. It wasn’t often he got so many question. The Frauenkirche was open to the public. The Nuremberg Meistersingers had just given a lunchtime recital, but he didn’t mind showing this nun around. She had been sent specially by the senior administrator of the Diocesan Museum of Bamberg, a priest he knew well.

  He touched the nun on her arm. She was taller than him, and he wondered where she might be staying. Perhaps she would go for a coffee with him afterwards? It wasn’t often they got visitors from Rome.

  “May I see the crypts?” said Xena. She pulled the wimple tight down over her forehead and looked at the tour guide’s shoes. They were brown, highly polished. He clicked his heels together.

  “But of course, Sister. We don’t allow the public tours to visit all of the crypts, but in your case, I am sure no one will mind if I give you the full tour.”

  The sound of the last concert-goers exiting the front of the Frauenkirche echoed from the roof of the church and the high stone arches on both sides. The door he led her through had stone images of saints running up each side and a pointed three tier arch with small stone faces above. He turned on a single yellow light bulb above their heads before closing the door behind him.

  “We don’t want the public coming down here and getting lost, do we Sister?” He smiled at her. His small white teeth gleamed against his pale lips.

  “Do people get lost down here, Father?” she replied, meekly. She gave him a small smile, then wiped it from her face and looked down at his shoes again.

  “You could, Sister.” He leaned towards her. “And please, do not call me Father. I am not ordained, yet. I am still a young man.” He put a hand on her arm. “Follow me.”

  They passed a stone statue of a grieving Virgin Mary with the body of Jesus across her knees. There were blackened, half-finished, and unlit candles in a row at her feet. They reached a stone stairs leading downwards.

  “These crypts used to be part of a synagogue that was on this site.”

  “There was a synagogue here?
” she sounded genuinely interested.

  “Yes, in the pogrom against Jews in 1349 about 500 were burnt to death on this site. Afterwards Charles IV gave the area to the Church. It’s said the Church helped him raise the rabble that did the burning, but we don’t believe that, do we?” He turned to smile at her as he reached the first stone landing. “In any case there are no records of sermons from that time.”

  “No, of course not. But it helped the church, did it not?”

  He stopped at the next landing. The light was even yellower now.

  “Your bag seems heavy, Sister.” He pointed at the square black leather bag she held in her left hand.

  “Prayer books. I have few possessions.” She caught up with him, looked him full in the face. “Do you know of any small bed I might sleep in tonight?”

  His face flushed. He blinked and swallowed.

  “I’m sure we can find a place for you to lay your head, Sister.” He continued on down. At the bottom there was a modern wooden door. He opened it with a key, reached inside the door and turned on a row of frosted glass lights set into the walls.

  “The crypts, Sister. They extend to a point directly under the altar. It is said that masses were held down here when the city was threatened. I believe members of our hierarchy stayed here when the Americans bombarded the city in 1945.” He pointed at a row of wooden tables.

  She strode up the centre of the wide, stone-floored open space. “This is wonderful. What’s going on under the altar Father?”

  “Aaah,” he said. “They are building a wooden staircase to a trapdoor in the apse. There is a plan to open this whole floor up to visitors one day.”

  Xena put her case down. “Show me.”

  39

  “Sean called me last night,” said Isabel. “He asked for help. Can you find him, please?”

  Kurt rubbed a hand across his forehead. “We will do everything we can.” He looked sympathetic. “Is there anything you can tell me, that might help us?”

  She shook her head. Then she remembered about the paper he was planning to give at the conference. He’d told her about locals denying that there were any undiscovered mass graves around Dachau concentration camp, near Munich.

  “Is it possible someone objected to the paper he was going to read at the conference?”

  Kurt looked at her. “After I received the note that your husband was missing, a few minutes ago, I spoke with the conference staff, where you reported he was speaking. They said there were no threats or any incidents at any conference event.”

  “But there were objections to the paper he was going to deliver.” She said it forcefully. She wasn’t going to be fobbed off.

  “Yes, but there is no record of any threats. Perhaps I might ask you about your relationship with your husband. How is that?”

  She stared at him, her hands tightening into fists at the unspoken implications. “Our relationship is good. We have a good marriage. No problems. No problems whatsoever.” She forced those last words out one by one.

  There was a noise behind her. She turned. A middle-aged man with curly black hair and a large face had come in. He nodded at Kurt, then left the room.

  “That was my partner. Would you like some coffee, Frau Ryan, or tea?”

  “Coffee, please.” She could manage a coffee, if it meant she could keep going.

  After Kurt returned, a minute later – he must have gotten the coffee from a machine nearby – she said, “You don’t think this has anything to do with Eleni Kibre’s murder, do you?”

  Her hand trembled as she raised the thin plastic cup to her lip. After sipping at it, she held the cup away from her, as if afraid it might fall from her fingers. The coffee was weak, hot.

  “We do not know that,” said Kurt.

  Isabel stared at him. “Could the same person who murdered Eleni, have taken my husband?” She had to put the cup down. Her arm felt weak. It was hard to take in everything that was happening. She felt as if she was watching someone else go through it all, that she was just observing everything.

  “Such a thing is possible, but let’s wait to see what evidence our investigation uncovers, before we come to any conclusion, ja?”

  The other policeman returned. He started speaking rapidly in German to Kurt. Sean’s name was mentioned twice. Isabel could do no more than interpret their expressions. Kurt looked pensive, almost angry. Finally, he ended the conversation with a stroke of his hand and a few loud words in German. “Scheisse,” was one of them.

  He turned to her. “There was a request last night from our London colleagues at the Metropolitan Police. It was about your husband. Unfortunately, most of our available officers are engaged on a large investigation at present, so there may be a delay in dealing with their request.” He paused.

  Isabel picked up her coffee, sipped it. Henry Mowlam must have asked the Met to start a search for Sean. There could be no other reason for them contacting the police here.

  “I am sorry, we have had over fifty unexpected deaths in Nuremberg in the past twenty-four hours,” said Kurt. He turned to her. His eyes were red-rimmed. “We are overstretched already, visiting each family in our area to . . .” He stopped, abruptly.

  The other officer had interrupted him. He was speaking rapidly in German. When he finished he stood, left the room.

  Kurt stood. “I will call you when our investigation is finished,” he said. “I have been summoned to a meeting. I am sorry. I will make sure that your husband’s hotel security system recording is viewed, and also the one at the university in case he went there. I will call you if I have any news.” He frowned. “Do you know if he had any other friends in Germany?”

  Isabel stayed seated. She needed to impress on this policeman that Sean’s disappearance was a serious matter. It wasn’t a case of a philandering husband running off with some younger woman he’d met, and his distraught wife trying to track him down.

  “No, I don’t know any others.”

  Then, as if an afterthought had struck him, he asked, “Was there any interest in the paper your husband was presenting, back in England?”

  “Yes, there was.” Her voice had a shake in it. She clenched her jaw. “Someone approached me about it only the other day.”

  “Can you tell me the name of this person?”

  Kurt was standing over her.

  “I’d rather not say right now. It was an old man. I don’t want to drag him into this.”

  Kurt looked unmoved, as if he’d heard enough sob stories to turn any heart to marble.

  “What was this man’s interest in Herr Ryan’s paper?”

  “He spoke about uncovering secrets from the Nazi era.”

  “Why was he interested in all that?”

  She hesitated, then blurted it out. If it helped Sean, it had to be done. “He claimed he had letters from that time.”

  “We get a lot of this, Frau Ryan. Most of these Nazi truthers, as we call them, have fanciful ideas, but no evidence that any of their claims is true. Did you see these letters?”

  “I saw photographs of them.”

  Kurt smiled. “May I have the name of this person, and their contact details?”

  “I don’t have that with me.”

  Kurt took his jacket from the back of the chair. “Please, send me the details, Frau Ryan.” He put his jacket on. “We are interested in any new evidence about Nazi crimes.”

  Isabel stood.

  “Your husband’s work is important. Thank you for coming here.” He motioned to the door.

  Isabel went first, then followed him down the corridor. She was wondering what she was going to do next; go back to Sean’s hotel, walk the city looking for him? Neither option was appealing. There had to be something else she could do. She couldn’t just fly back to London.

  “Have you found out who murdered Eleni Kibre?” She asked as they went down the stairs.

  “Not yet.”

  On their way out he took her mobile phone number and promised to call he
r if he had any news. She reached out and took his arm. She gripped it tight. “Did he tell you he was going anywhere else in Nuremberg?”

  Kurt put a hand on her shoulder. “Frau Ryan, we are doing everything we can to find your husband. Wait for my call. I will call you.”

  She tightened her grip on him.

  “Where can I go while I wait? I have to do something?”

  He breathed in hard. “Go to the Frauenkirche, if you wish. I believe Sean went there. Jerome claimed he was interested in an archaeological dig that’s going on there, but I went there already. There is no dig. There was no Sean. He was mistaken. But if you want something to do, have a look around there.”

  She found a taxi, took it back to Sean’s hotel. There were no rooms available, but they pointed across the street to another hotel, the Berliner, where she got a room. The hotel was in the same class as Sean’s, clean, modern, with a small, bright reception area. She had a quick shower, then went out. She couldn’t stay in the room. It felt like a prison cell. The condemned cell. And she was waiting for the worst news imaginable.

  The receptionist, an ancient hippy, smiled at her as she passed. She’d loaded a map of Nuremberg and an app guide to the city onto her phone. She stopped at a cafe on the corner nearby, ordered a coffee and the lightest food she could find, a small round bagel with a thin slice of white cheese on it, to keep up her strength. She took a few bites, while she looked at the map and guide on her phone. Then she couldn’t eat any more. The two bites of bagel felt like a slippery stone in her stomach. She sipped her coffee.

  The onscreen map wasn’t much good, the images were too small, but the guide did list the major churches in the city. She looked at the time. It was almost three o’clock. She worked out where the Frauenkirche was in relation to the café, read how it was described online.

  Apparently, it was the symbol of Nuremberg. The market square in front of it was the place where Adolf Hitler had been filmed receiving salutes from thousands of robot-like Nazi followers in Triumph of the Will, the most famous Nazi propaganda film of the 1930’s, when he was increasing his grip on Germany.