Brecker’s elderly eye travelled over the luggage and came to rest on Charlie, at which point a gleam entered it. “And this is Frau March?”
“Unfortunately, no.” March put his hand on Brecker’s sleeve and guided him into a corner, where they were watched with suspicion by the elderly receptionist. “This young lady has information of a crucial character, but we wish to interrogate her …how shall I put it?”
“In an informal setting?” suggested the old man. “Precisely!” March pulled out what was left of his life savings and began peeling off notes. “For this "informal setting" the Kriminalpolizei naturally would wish to reimburse you handsomely.”
“I see.” Brecker looked at the money and licked his lips. “And since this is a matter of security, no doubt you would prefer it if certain formalities — registration, for example -were dispensed with?”
March stopped counting, pressed the entire roll of notes into the manager’s moist hands and closed his fingers around it.
IN return for bankrupting himself March was given a kitchen maid’s room in the roof, reached from the third floor by a rickety back staircase. They had to wait in the reception for five minutes while the girl was turned out of her home and fresh linen was put on the bed. Herr Brecker’s repeated offers to help with their luggage were turned down by March, who also ignored the lascivious looks which the old man kept giving Charlie. He did, however, ask for some food — some bread, cheese, ham, fruit, a flask of black coffee — which the manager promised to bring up personally. March told him to leave it in the corridor.
“It’s not the Adlon,” said March when he and Charlie were alone. The little room was stifling. All the heat in the hotel seemed to have risen and become trapped beneath the tiles. He climbed on a chair to tug open the attic window and jumped down in a shower of dust.
“Who cares about the Adlon?” She flung her arms around him, kissed him hard on the mouth.
THE manager set down the tray of food as instructed outside the door. Climbing the stairs had almost done for him. Through three centimetres of wood, March listened to his ragged breathing, and then to his footsteps retreating along the passage. He waited until he was sure the old man had gone before retrieving the tray and setting it on the flimsy dressing table. There was no lock on the bedroom door, so he wedged a chair under the handle.
MARCH laid Luther’s case on the hard wooden bed and took out his pocket knife.
The lock had been fashioned to withstand exactly this sort of assault. It took five minutes of hacking and twisting, during which he snapped one short blade, before the fastener broke free. He pulled the bag open.
That papery smell again — the odour of a long-sealed filing cabinet or desk drawer, a whiff of typewriter oil. And behind that, something else: something antiseptic, medicinal …
Charlie was at his shoulder. He could feel ^her warm breath on his cheek. “Don’t tell me. It’s empty.”
“No. It’s not empty. It’s full.”
He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his hands. Then he turned the case upside down and shook the contents out on to the counterpane.
AFFIDAVIT SWORN BY WILHELM STUCKART, STATE SECRETARY, INTERIOR MINISTRY:
[4 pages; typewritten]
On Sunday 21 December 1941, the Interior Ministry’s Adviser on Jewish Affairs, Dr Bernhard Losener, made an urgent request to see me in private. Dr Losener arrived at my home in a state of extreme agitation. He informed me that his subordinate, the Assistant Adviser on Racial Affairs, Dr Werner Feldscher, had heard “from a fully reliable source, a friend” that the one thousand Jews recently evacuated from Berlin had been massacred in the Rumbuli Forest in Poland. He further informed me that his feelings of outrage were sufficient to prevent him from continuing his present employment in the Ministry, and he therefore requested to be transferred to other duties. I replied that I would seek clarification on this matter.
The following day, at my request, I visited Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich in his office in Prinz-Albrecht Strasse. The Obergruppenfuhrer confirmed that Dr Feldscher’s information was correct, and pressed me to discover its source, as such breaches of security could not be tolerated. He then dismissed his adjutant from the room and said that he wished to speak to me on a private basis.
