Paula called out to Kraus, ‘Come here! There’s something happening in Berlin – something awful.’

  And that was how they heard the Berlin Wall go up.

  Over the following weeks the fortifications and defences, all on the East German side, grew more deadly and more complex. The Cold War between the East and West deepened by the day. Soviet newspapers were filled with stories about evil German ‘revanchists’ or revenge-seekers who wanted to attack Russia in retribution for their defeat in 1945, and cartoons in which Germans were represented as fat, pig-faced Nazis.

  And then, out of the blue, the breakthrough came. Kraus received a message from the Russian embassy in Bonn informing him that the Justice Department of the Soviet government was aware of his investigation into Nazi atrocities. Following consultations with the highest levels of the Politburo it had been decided to offer the assistance of the Russian people to the prosecution of the criminal Heuser and his accomplices. To that end, a cache of documents, seized by the Red Army in July 1944, would be made available for inspection and any that furthered the case against Heuser could be copied and taken to Germany for use as evidence in the forthcoming trial.

  Kraus went straight round to the private office that was one small reward for Paula’s loyalty to the case. ‘Pack your bags! We’re going to Moscow!’

  ‘Moscow? But that’s impossible. Why would they ever let us in there?’

  ‘Because the Russians have decided to let us have the documents they found when they recaptured the Lenin House. Or to put it another way—’

  Paula had to resist the urge to leap up and kiss him. But she could at least finish his sentence. ‘They’re giving us the smoking gun!’

  14

  Berlin: 7 February – 3 July 1941

  It was commonly supposed that the Gestapo were everywhere. The average Berliner had a picture in his or her head of countless thousands of agents on the prowl, constantly looking out for anyone who was in any way disloyal to Party or state. That impression, of course, was very carefully calculated: fear was a useful tool in the maintenance of absolute power. Yet in February 1941 there were just seven hundred Gestapo men covering the entire capital. This relatively small force was able to maintain control over millions of people thanks to the efforts of the people themselves, for in those days betrayal was a way of life. Neighbours, workmates, friends and even family members had long been accustomed to reporting one another’s slightest infractions. So when, three days after our meeting, Lüdtke issued a public request for any information that might help catch the murderer, it was a heaven-sent opportunity for every snoop in the city.

  Hundreds of denunciations poured into the murder squad. Many simply named the nearest Jew or foreigner they could find. Others took the opportunity to slander anyone against whom they held a particular grudge. A few S-Bahn employees accused their colleagues of suspicious behaviour. There were even a number of people who had no particular culprit in mind, but had travelled on the S-Bahn on the date of one murder or another and thought that they might have seen something that could be of assistance to the police.

  It was my task to sift through this flood of bile and determine which leads were worth following up. Some correspondents were so obviously malicious, stupid or plain mad that they could safely be ignored. Others made claims that were contrary to the known facts. They, too, were dismissed. Others again referred to suspicious individuals or events on the far side of Berlin from Rummelsburg, Karlshorst and Friedrichsfelde. The concentration of all his attacks in these areas suggested that our man was a local, but it wasn’t impossible that he came from another part of the city. So these leads were considered to be lower priority, but not ignored altogether. That still left a very large number of sane, credible correspondents requiring a telephone call, a summons to Alexanderplatz or a visit from a detective, and it was my responsibility to decide who should get what.

  At the same time as managing that process, I was also trying to familiarize myself with the case as a whole: not just the general facts that Lüdtke had already described for me, but the vast amount of information that underpinned them. There were, for example, three thousand interviews with S-Bahn staff, all of which I was expected to read. He also wanted me to study shift patterns, trying to find anyone who might have an S-Bahn uniform but wasn’t at their post at the times of the various murders. From first thing in the morning until late at night I sat surrounded by files and ledgers, studying, noting and committing their contents to memory in a way that I’d not had to do since I revised the legal code for my last law exam. Woe betide me if I missed anything, because Lüdtke would grill me at regular intervals. What did I think of so-and-so’s personnel file? How many of his free nights matched the murder dates? Who was in a position to get hold of the inside information about our operational plans that the killer seemed to possess?

  The other detectives saw this as a form of initiation rite: Lüdtke’s way of discovering whether I was willing to take shit without complaining, or if I was just a stuck-up golden boy from the Leaders’ School who thought he was too good for donkey-work. Each man reacted as I might have expected: cheerful banter from Baum, intercut by more cynical mockery from Richter; avuncular sympathy from Schmidt and snide bitterness from Frei, for whom my status as an arrogant fancy-pants was taken as read. I responded to each of them as positively as I could. I was keen to demonstrate that I was a good team-member, willing to handle my boss’s demands and my comrades’ banter with equal good grace.

  Much the best part of the whole process was the chance it gave me to get to know Fräulein Tietmeyer a little better. I discovered that her first name was Sabine and that she was a very different person when she’d been able to get a decent night’s sleep. Her hair was washed, the dark rings round her eyes a little lighter and the smile that I’d only glimpsed that first morning now a much more frequent visitor. She would appear at my desk with armfuls of material from the departmental filing cabinets, which she would exchange for all the papers I’d already dealt with. No matter how tired I was or how much my eyes ached from the endless hours of reading, I’d find myself smiling too with the pleasure of seeing her. I began to depend upon her presence to brighten up my days, and when she took a day off and I had to put up with a replacement secretary I found the time dragging and my eyes glazing over the pages before me in a way they never did when Sabine, as I now thought of her, was about the place.

  She wasn’t a beauty in the sense of some perfect, doll-like creature whose entire existence is centred upon the desire she can provoke in men. Her features were quite pronounced – one might almost say handsome rather than pretty – but her eyes were bright and filled with laughter; her smile was warm and always entirely sincere. I never once knew Sabine to adopt a pose or attitude for effect: she had a wonderful honesty that made one trust her at once and without reservation.

  Her body was of a piece with her face. By that I mean that she didn’t possess an hourglass figure, or tiny delicate hands and feet. She was instead a tall, slender, athletic sort of girl. In those days the propaganda ministry liked to liven up the weekly newsreels by filming groups of fine German maidens, invariably dressed in short, revealing tunics, doing their exercise routines in the sun; touching their toes, swinging hoops or clubs above their heads and generally looking like fine breeding stock for red-blooded young Aryan males. Sabine had just that look, or rather she would have done if she’d made any effort at all to show herself off.

  This was in part a function of the times in which we lived: in an era of shortages, women were encouraged to discard all extravagance and frippery. But it was also Sabine’s own response to working in an almost exclusively male environment. She didn’t want to spend her days fending off advances and wandering hands, and so tried to present herself as one of the boys. In this, she was only partly successful, since it didn’t take any man with red blood very long to work out that there were two long legs and a fine pair of breasts hidden away beneath her less than flattering clothes.

  I’d been working at the murder squad for two weeks and had very nearly completed my analysis of the case so far when I finally plucked up the courage to ask Sabine out on a date. Making sure that there were no other squad members within earshot, I made a direct, but rather formal inquiry: ‘I was wondering if you’d like to have dinner with me on Thursday. I’ve been lucky enough to book a table at Borchardt and I thought we might also take in a show. People say the Something Crazy revue at the Scala Theatre is really quite entertaining.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you to ask, Assistant Commissar,’ she said, replying with equal correctness. ‘But I really don’t think that would be a good idea.’ Sabine must have seen my face fall, so she added: ‘Please don’t take this personally. I simply don’t wish to confuse my personal and professional lives.’

  I wasn’t going to give up that easily. I was making Fräulein Tietmeyer quite an offer, for Borchardt was one of the smartest restaurants in Berlin, and who didn’t love the shows at the Scala?

  ‘Please,’ I said, looking at her with what I hoped was a friendly, engaging expression. ‘I’ve been stuck here at my desk for the past two weeks. I’m in very bad need of some innocent fun.’

  ‘Innocent, eh? I’m not so sure about that,’ she said.

  Her tone was sceptical, but I had the feeling I’d made a little ground, so I played my trump card. ‘And the reason I want to have this fun on Thursday, in particular, is that it’s my birthday. Surely you can’t allow me to spend my birthday all alone?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you’re not often alone, a good-looking man like you. I bet you have a little black book just filled with pretty girls’ names.’

  She’d called me good-looking – that was a good sign!

  ‘Of course!’ I said, with a smile. ‘But none of them want to talk to me. They all say that I have become boring with all this work I keep doing. And so, Fräulein Tietmeyer, there’s no one left to ask but you.’

  ‘So I’m the last resort? That’s not very flattering!’

  I could tell that she was just about to laugh, and I knew that the moment she did, I’d won.

  ‘On the contrary,’ I said. ‘I have told every one of them that I am no longer interested. I only have eyes for another.’

  Even in those days, I wasn’t given to flights of fancy, but for once I made an exception: ‘Berlin is filled with beautiful women wondering what extraordinary creature has taken their place in my heart. “Who is this Tietmeyer?” they ask. “What does she have that we do not?” You may not know this, Fräulein, but you’re the talk of the town.’

  And then she laughed and said: ‘You had better ask Commissar Lüdtke’s permission. He won’t know what to do with himself if we’re both out of the office.’

  ‘I already have,’ I said. ‘I always like to plan ahead.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I can tell.’

  And so we arranged our first evening out. To be honest, I’d never really doubted that Sabine would accept my invitation. I was a good catch, well on the way to the Beamter status that would guarantee financial security for life. Above all I was just about to turn twenty-eight, an age when one has begun to acquire the trappings of a man without entirely losing the glorious optimism of youth. I felt immortal, indestructible. I thought I could conquer anything.

  15

  Sabine looked wonderful. She may have been standing in the front room of a modest little boarding house, with bare patches on the carpet and fading patterned paper on the wall, but I didn’t care. In her dark blue satin cocktail dress, with every line of her body picked out by the glossy material, she took my breath away. ‘Tonight, Fräulein Tietmeyer, you must be the most beautiful woman in Berlin.’

  She seemed surprised by the compliment and as she said, ‘Thank you,’ I thought I could detect the trace of a blush beneath her make-up.

  Before I could say another word, her landlady, Frau Hartung, came in. Sabine had warned me about her in advance. Indeed, she’d been reluctant to let me collect her from her lodgings for fear of the endless disapproving questions the presence of a man might provoke. ‘Don’t worry,’ I’d assured her. ‘I have the perfect way of keeping her sweet.’

  I came to collect Sabine in the dress uniform of an SS-Second Lieutenant, complete with greatcoat, britches and riding boots. Frau Hartung had a mean, shrewish face, with a sharp nose and tight little mouth. She was the kind of woman whose only pleasure comes from criticizing others, and I was quite sure that if I called up Gestapo headquarters I’d find a thick file stuffed with her observations – all negative – on her tenants and their associates. But the moment she saw me, she suddenly became almost pathetically solicitous and eager to please. For the first but by no means the last time, I experienced the overwhelming effect – an awestruck combination of admiration and sheer terror – that an SS uniform could induce. Now Sabine faced no disapproval whatever. On the contrary, Frau Hartung was as humble as a lady’s maid as she helped her young tenant into her coat and fetched her handbag and gloves.

  The moment we were through the front door and out of her landlady’s earshot (though I’m sure the blackout blinds were twitching as she tried to spy on our departure), Sabine took my arm and burst out laughing. ‘My God! She’ll be treating me like a princess from now on!’

  ‘As will I … I’ve even arranged for a royal carriage.’

  The blackout was so absolute that it was at first difficult to distinguish anything at all outside. But then I switched on the small torch which, like any sensible Berliner, I always carried with me at night. It was absolutely forbidden to shine the light upwards, but I was able to illuminate the wheels at least of an unmarked Criminal Police car waiting at the kerb a few metres away. ‘I slipped the driver five Reichsmarks and he’s ours for the evening,’ I told Sabine, by way of explanation. ‘The murder squad have vehicles going in and out at all hours of the night; no one’s going to notice.’

  ‘And I thought you were the kind who was a stickler for the rules.’

  ‘Let’s just say I’m learning which ones can be bent. In any case, I have just worked seventeen straight days, for at least twelve hours a day, and that’s against the rules, too.’

  The theatre was on Lutherstrasse in the Schöneberg district, not far from the Kaufhaus des Westens department store, which all Berliners, then as now, knew as the KaDeWe. It was an extraordinary experience, driving through the city in the blackout. There were few cars about and they all proceeded at little more than a brisk walking pace, their drivers made tentative by the feeble washes of light, not fit to be called beams, emitted by their hooded, slitted headlamps. The only light on the streets themselves came from the traffic lights at intersections, which were also half-blinded, and the glows cast on the paving stones by the torches of passing pedestrians. It was virtually impossible to distinguish where one was actually going and the dazzling lights above the theatre that had once formed the message, ‘… And evenings at the Scala’ were now all dimmed. So it came as quite a surprise when the driver came to a halt, leaned round to face us and said: ‘We’re there, sir. I’ll be right outside when you need me. One good thing about driving for the Criminal Police: no one ever dares tell you to move.’

  We stepped out into a crowd of people, milling about beneath the theatre awning. Something about the darkness seemed to discourage us all from making any noise, as if enemy bombers might be able to hear as well as see us, so there was very little of the buzz of bright chatter one would normally expect before an evening performance. But then we passed through the heavily curtained front doors and into the foyer and suddenly the whole scene burst into light, colour and sound, like someone switching on the film projector in the middle of a pitch-dark cinema.

  We had arrived with only a few minutes to spare. There was just time to drop off our coats, buy a programme and make our way to our seats. The auditorium held three thousand people, and one could easily end up needing binoculars to see the performers, but I’d managed to get us seats quite close to the front. Before us rose the golden pillars that supported the great curve of the proscenium arch. Above, the ceiling was studded with lights like a magical, starlit night, and to either side rose the tiers of boxes filled with eager theatregoers in their evening dresses, uniforms and double-breasted suits. Then the lights went down, the legendary Scala house band, conducted by Otto Stenzel, struck up the opening chords of ‘Music! Music! Music!’ and the show began.

  *

  I daresay that Something Crazy would seem like tame stuff today. The ways in which we are entertained have changed so much in recent decades. So it may be hard for those who are not of our generation to imagine Sabine and me roaring with laughter and cheerful applause for a troupe of comedy trapeze artists who kept finding new ways to fall off their swings; a team of trick cyclists who weaved between one another at tremendous speed, with two, three or even four performers on each bike; a man in a Chaplinesque tramp costume who had amusing ways of playing the xylophone; four negro minstrels in blackface, and even a horseman in a scarlet riding jacket who performed a dressage routine set to music.

  The Scala dancers, however, would have been a sensation in any age. They were called the Hiller Girls and I can see them now, those wonderful creatures opening the show dressed as little toy soldiers, with plumed hats, shiny boots and toy guns. They marched across the stage in perfect formation, kicking out their long, long legs in a style that was halfway between a goosestep and a can-can. The Führer’s own bodyguard could not have displayed more immaculate precision.