by Chris Petit
He swept in alone, the retinue dismissed. Servants had been trained not to attend to his homecoming. He hung up his coat and hat in the boot room and put the umbrella in its rack. Only when he emerged again and placed his briefcase on the hall table did Nebe deem it safe to approach.
Goebbels clapped his hands and said, ‘Excellent, Nebe, excellent! What would I do without you?’
Any mention of indispensability needed to be regarded with the greatest heed, Nebe knew, from the fate of others.
Just the two of them sat for lunch. Wine was offered in the expectation of it being refused. Nebe reported on Stoffel’s success. Goebbels pulled a long face and said better than a Jewish maniac but it rather endorsed the government attitude towards mental sickness.
‘I feel an editorial coming on. Given the greater conflict, we don’t bother with domestic crime, but in this case I might make an exception and put one of our top reporters on it.’
He made a note on the pad he kept constantly by his side.
Nebe was hopeful that the rest of the lunch would pass without incident. A solo meal with Goebbels was never a comfortable experience. The man picked at his food and was impatient with the ritual of dining. Conversation proceeded along set lines. First there was the racy political gossip.
‘We’re kissing on the lips now, Speer and I. No tongues yet but that will come.’
Goebbels regaled Nebe with such indiscreet details of his sex life that Nebe wondered if the recital wasn’t relished more than the possession. ‘A magnificent flaming red bush.’ ‘Her orgasm left her squeaking in the most disconcerting manner.’
There was something intrinsically grubby about the man, however discreetly perfumed, and his tedious one-upmanship.
There was his other great love, cinema. He confessed his frustration that films could not be as broad in their taste as he would like. For that reason he closely monitored the latest product from Hollywood and boasted his private screenings were the hottest tickets in town. He was especially keen to see RKO’s forthcoming I Walked with a Zombie, directed by Jacques Tourneur and written by Curt Siodmak, a defector whose talents he could have put to better use. Goebbels was a huge fan of Tourneur’s previous film, Cat People, flown in by diplomatic bag from the Republic of Ireland.
‘Too risqué to screen for all but the most sophisticated, with Simone Simon, Jewish alas, descended from people who turn into cats when sexually aroused. Deliciously corrupt. Exactly the kind of decadent nonsense our people must be protected from.’
Goebbels made a throaty purring noise, followed by his blankest expression. ‘And what of these flayed bodies?’
Nebe badly wanted to relieve himself, faced with what was known as the Goebbels trapdoor moment.
He was let off. Goebbels wagged his finger reprovingly. ‘You are lucky I am in a good mood. The Gestapo has just informed me they were the work of a Bolshevik spy since arrested. It was to be the start of a terror campaign to destabilise the civilian population. An exercise in black propaganda.’
He appeared taken with the idea.
That appeared to be the end of lunch yet Goebbels did not finish it by standing first, as protocol demanded. Instead he sat there, making Nebe more nervous.
‘We are moving into difficult times,’ he eventually said. ‘We face our sternest test.’
Toughness, compassion and resolve were the qualities that would see them through. He harangued Nebe for five minutes before getting to the point. Corruption was no longer an option.
‘Those previously lining their pockets must be brought to book.’
Nebe wondered if it was some kind of personal message.
‘And we are talking about corruption top to bottom. The golden pheasants. The fat cats. The pigs with their snouts in the trough. Our needs require radical reforms. A clean sweep. Showing the people we care. Are you with me on this?’
Nebe could say nothing except of course.
He was sufficiently practised at reading between the lines to understand any clearout would be selective according to Goebbels’ requirements.
‘We need our own secret agent. Someone who can go hither and thither, like the wind, who appears to operate on his own initiative, acting on the letter of the law, which may be our greatest ally, who of course has no orders, so nothing can be attributed.’
How uncanny, Nebe thought. It was as though his own premonition had anticipated Goebbels’ plan. He made a point of pausing for thought before announcing he might have just the man.
‘A Scarlet Pimpernel,’ purred Goebbels, clapping his hands.
42
At the Kripo the day was spent preparing for the big party, which was a combination of a pre-retirement bash for Stoffel and to celebrate his nailing what was being called the biggest murder case in years.
Schlegel and Morgen were required to witness Lampe’s signed confession to three murders and the theft at the printers. This was recited by a junior officer as Lampe was barely literate.
He read: ‘I, Axel Lampe, for the purposes of this confession admit as a born criminal to the strangulation of Frieda Rosner (29/1/43), Bruno Abbas (28/2/43) and an unidentified woman (1/3/43). The widow Rosner was killed for sexual satisfaction. The Jewish gangster Abbas was an acquaintance. We had previously robbed the Guenstiger printing press (23/10/42) where Abbas knew of a supply of forged money. On 28/2/43 we spent the day drunk together, with a woman (name unknown). A quarrel between Abbas and the woman occurred over the cost of her. As a result of this I killed Abbas in a rage because I had not known he was a Jew. I cut off his penis because he was circumcised. I carried on drinking until the next day when I argued with a woman (name unknown) about the cost of her. We agreed a price, then she resisted intercourse. I took her and left about her person the sum of money agreed. I have no recollection of strangulation but accept it as a repeat of previous behaviour. She told me she was Jewish which may have had something to do with it.’
Lampe had to mark his confession with the combination of a cross and a thumbprint. Schlegel was both impressed and shocked by how it had been turned into such a plausible and more or less coherent document, with most loose ends tied up. How effectively Lampe had become Stoffel’s creature. It had required only a couple of interviews between broaching any given subject and a full confession. Any evidence missing or unclear, Stoffel made up for the sake of his final report, as was standard. One story going the rounds was that a team of screenwriters from Babelsberg studios had been brought in to work round the clock, polishing up the confessions.
That afternoon Nebe summoned everyone to an impromptu meeting to announce the closure of the flayed-body murders. He said, ‘Grudging respect where respect is due to our colleagues in the Gestapo. I have a statement here made by a Bolshevik agent found masquerading as a Ukrainian interpreter.’
He read out: ‘I, Aleksander Lazarenko, confess to the killing of two unidentified Jews (female) on 26/2/43 and on the night of 1/3/43 towards establishing a black propaganda campaign on behalf of my Soviet masters whose agent I am. The strategy behind these acts, of which there were intended to be many, was to destabilise and spread fear among the local population that a deranged Judeo-Bolshevik slayer was operating. The first body was dismembered in the pig house near Landsberger Allee, Berlin, and to this end a Jewish site was erected. The second was killed in a location near Treptower Park, Berlin, where the remains were left. In this work I was assisted by three Russian forced workers (since deceased) and a Russian Jew, name unknown. I was elected for this task because of experience in eliminating local insurrection in the Ukraine town of Lemberg (25/6/41), involving bestial mutilation and dismemberment (20,000 dead). This was possible because of my previous career as a butcher. On occasion, human remains were sold at market for consumption. I was also responsible for similar crimes committed in the cellars of the law courts at Tarnopol where 2,000 prisoners of the Alpine chasseurs, the Luftwaffe, Ukrainians and ethnic Germans had their ears, noses, tongues and genitals removed.’
Morgen rocked on his heels. Schlegel thought how hard it was to argue with these official truths. In the end both versions were as convincing as the real thing – whatever that was – in fact more so because they supplanted and erased it.
Nebe underscored the point, saying, ‘My official congratulations.’
Morgen said nothing afterwards upstairs in the office. Schlegel wanted to talk, complain, try to work out where it left them, but Morgen sat mute until Schlegel’s questions drove him out of the room. He paused only to say, ‘I told you before, the lie is the cornerstone of the edifice. Our job if we are to do it properly is to learn to lie better.’
Morgen arrived at the party drunk. He told Stoffel, who had been drinking since Lampe’s confession, that the business made a mockery of the law and was a travesty of justice.
Stoffel said, ‘A confession is a confession. You heard him.’
The party turned into a circus when Lampe was brought up from the cells, given a drink, and paraded around. A man to whom no one had ever paid the slightest attention now found himself the centre of enormous interest. Lampe rewarded Schlegel with a sly look that said he was nobody’s fool. He told him he and Stoffel were scheduled to go on a road tour to talk to a lot of people and be photographed. He made it sound like a public event.
He grinned at Schlegel and said, ‘You can’t hang me now.’
Lampe had been given a mug of beer, which he drank with both hands, being handcuffed.
Schlegel saw how all Lampe had to do to continue this wonderful situation was to keep confessing.
He questioned the wisdom of parading Lampe like a sideshow freak. Whether Lampe read his thoughts, he took exception and tried to swing his empty beer glass at Schlegel’s head, which led to a scuffle and Lampe bellowing for all he was worth before being dragged off.
The incident galvanised the party rather than killing it dead. Suddenly everyone was roaring drunk. The women were frisky. One went down like she had been poleaxed and lay on the floor with her eyes fluttering. A member of the homicide crew threw himself on top of her in a lewd pantomime of fucking while a crowd stood around and jeered.
Nebe made a speech to applause and ironic cheers when Stoffel stepped forward, hands clasped above his head like a boxing champ.
Gersten put in an appearance. He was wearing Lazarenko’s whipcord coat with the fur collar. Morgen fingered it and said nothing. Gersten had brought his accordion. The reason became apparent when four men came in carrying a large crate which they placed on a table and Gersten played a riff to quieten the crowd and announced he had a gift for his esteemed colleagues.
A stripper stepped out of the crate to whistles and cheers and went into her routine. She looked like she hadn’t done the act in a long time. Gersten’s accompaniment could hardly be heard for the din. Even Nebe was wolf-whistling. The show ended with her rotating tassels attached to her nipples. Gersten apologised afterwards for her being a bit of a dog but it was the thought that counted. Schlegel wondered where the woman would be spending the night. Gersten said she would be downstairs; she was a social undesirable that had been lent by one of the camps and was being sent back in the morning.
The party spread and drifted as more and more people turned up, few that Schlegel recognised, gatecrashers from other precincts. Nobody seemed to mind as a lot of available women came.
Schlegel found Morgen in a side room listening to a vibrantly drunk Stoffel discourse with several shrinks and scientific experts who were due to pick Lampe’s brains. Stoffel emphasised the killer’s lack of signature, holding forth on how this apparent simpleton might – because of a different wiring of the brain – represent a jump in the psychopathy of murder. All cases showed different facts, different ways of killing and different motives. At none of the murder scenes did the police manage to find useful fingerprints. This was turned by Stoffel into evidence of new, advanced ways of killing, where the killer in effect suppressed the memory of all previous crimes, approaching each new murder as a tabula rasa.
Morgen said Stoffel would soon be on the lecture circuit and no doubt the recipient of a lucrative consultancy from the Ahnenerbe, an organisation ostensibly dedicated to ancestral heritage, with all sorts of strange offshoots.
‘The size and weight of Lampe’s brain will become the subject of great debate, after which his days will almost certainly be numbered.’
People reached the stage of passing out. Schlegel decided he was drinking to get smashed then realised the decision had been made long ago. There was talk of moving on somewhere else. The evening reached a stage of enjoyable incoherence. Morgen didn’t say much to Schlegel and spent time chatting up a woman, which somehow seemed wrong, however much she appeared to enjoy herself, laughing at everything said.
Nebe was standing around with his jacket undone when Schlegel saw Morgen make a beeline for him. Schlegel joined them, trying to look casual. Morgen was offering insincere congratulations on Stoffel’s triumph. Nebe, a man without humour, took him at his word.
They had been very lucky, he said.
‘What will happen when there is another killing in the same vein, as there is bound to be?’
Nebe gave him a blank look and a fast reply.
‘Then it will be your job to make sure no one hears about it.’
‘So we will be in the business of cover-up?’ enquired Morgen innocently.
Nebe took a step towards Morgen and leaned in. ‘There will be no rumour machine. No investigation. It will be your job to make sure it never happened.’
He stepped back, genial again. Schlegel had thought Nebe was joking at first. The three of them were so drunk it hardly mattered. They would all have difficulty remembering.
Nebe made a show of coming clean. ‘I’ll let you in. I was under tremendous pressure from Heine himself.’
Himmler was always referred to as Heine. He never took much interest in them despite being their overall boss.
‘Stoffel’s suspect was a gift from heaven because we are able to make a present of him to Heine. As Lampe is an idiot he will be sent to a special SS clinic for further research into the mind of a killer. Heine is delighted, absolutely crowing to have such a prime specimen when so few are left.’
Nebe beamed. Someone found a hunting horn and blew it. A great cheer went up from the other side of the room as a group threw Stoffel in the air and caught him in a blanket.
Morgen drained his glass and handed it to Nebe as though he were a waiter. He took it in good grace, and announced lightly, ‘Anything goes wrong, I will say it was your idea to offload everything on Lampe.’
Morgen said that went without saying.
For some reason they were all in a bus. The party was still on, with a singsong at the back, and Stoffel driving, hands clamped to the wheel, drunk and incapable of seeing where he was going. When he swerved to avoid something he threw half of them into the aisle, to widespread screams of delight. Schlegel saw Morgen on the bus but not Gersten or Nebe. Someone shouted they were all in a handcart to hell and shrieked with laughter. Someone else was being sick in a bag. Schlegel was aware he had been smooching with the woman sitting next to him. He had no idea who she was. Where were they going, he asked. Another party, she said. She thrust her arm at him and said to pinch her. Schlegel didn’t want to. They nearly had an argument and in the end he did, so hard she cried out and he wondered what her orgasms sounded like. Only when she explained she had wanted to be sure she wasn’t dreaming did he understand, just as Stoffel brought the bus to a shuddering halt and shouted, ‘Everyone out!’
Schlegel stood staring in disbelief and asked Morgen what they were doing back at the slaughterhouse.
Morgen shrugged, amused, and said it seemed a good idea at the time. Schlegel thought he had better laugh. He asked Morgen if he could hear a tuba or whether it was his imagination.
‘No,’ said Morgen. ‘Tuba, tambourine and a drum.’
‘What on earth is that about?’
They
followed the sound until they found the building. Schlegel heard cheering and whooping.
The woman from the bus was dragging on his arm, and they were bumping around like a couple of dodgem cars. She got into the spirit of it, deliberately crashing them into things. The tuba did its oom-pah-pah. The tambourine was being bashed in a frenzy and the drum being thrashed. The cheering went whoo! whoo! whoooah!
A crowd of perhaps thirty stood in the middle of the room. ‘Not more fucking boxing!’ Schlegel shouted to the woman. ‘Hit him! Hit him!’ she screamed.
They were chucking something in the air. Schlegel got it muddled with Stoffel back at the party, and decided everything that had happened since was all in his mind. He saw a child being thrown in the air, except it was too big, then a pig, except it was dressed. It seemed the wrong shape for an adult.
He asked the woman to describe what she saw. Her words flew past at great speed so he missed most of them. He made out her saying Hitler Youth and bacchanalia, which took her several goes to get right.
Then he reached a state of temporary lucidity as he watched boys staggering around weirdly dressed. Some wore garlands in their hair. Other were dressed as women. The boy boxer who had won his fight was prancing around with lipstick smeared over his face.
Schlegel saw Morgen tip his hat back, which struck him as the most sensible gesture he’d seen in ages.
He told the woman his life made no sense and she said, ‘I know what you mean.’
They should have been fucking, except the moment had passed and they knew it.
The mood remained one of raucous celebration, however sinister the intended outcome.
The woman’s mouth opened in an exaggerated ‘oh’ as she pointed to a hangman’s gibbet and dangling noose at the far end of the room. What the boys were throwing in the air was indeed a pig, dressed in human clothes, a man’s shirt and trousers with the legs rolled and a woman’s bonnet tied to her head.
They carried the pig to the gibbet, still tossing her, whooping all the while as she screamed and the music played on. When they reached the gibbet, the pig was wrestled onto a stool and the rope placed around her neck. The crowd started grunting and oinking and clapping in time to the music, which got faster. It took half a dozen to hold the animal down. Most of the boys were helpless with laughter at the pig wriggling and they carried on laughing after Morgen had fired his pistol in the air, thinking it part of the game.
