Her tram arrived, and ten minutes later they were alighting close to the old synagogue on Oranienburgerstrasse. Once inside the Blumenthals' crowded apartment it immediately became apparent that the terrible news had preceded them. The welcome was warm as ever, but the eyes of mother and daughter held an underlying bleakness which was new. 'Someone came round from the Jewish community office,' Leonore explained, 'and asked if we could pass the news on. They would have called a meeting, but meetings are forbidden.'
The whole story had been reported: the unfinished camp at Riga, the 'improvised' response at Kovno. All the Blumenthals' friends were hoping that the latter was an aberration – Martin Blumenthal was even hoping that the guilty parties would be punished – but a majority also feared the worst. Knowing what Jens had told him and Effi over a candlelit dinner in Grunewald, Russell was afraid they were right, and that the survival of Berlin's remaining Jews was dependent on the continuing inefficiency of the Reichsbahn. But he refrained from saying so.
'If I'm on the next list, I'm not going,' Ali said abruptly.
The announcement obviously surprised her parents. 'You won't be on the list,' was her father's reaction. 'Why would they send a good worker like you? Herr Schade will see to it, you'll see.'
'What would you do?' her mother said.
'Go underground. More of us are doing it every day. You take off the star and you become invisible again. That's why they insist on us wearing them.'
'But how would you live?' her mother wanted to know.
'I'll manage somehow. I'll have a better chance here in a city I know than I would on a train to the East.'
'This is foolish talk,' her father said heatedly. 'We're not going on a train to the East. You and I, we both have important jobs, and your mother must be here to look after the house. Why would they send away workers they need? It's the old they are sending, God spare them.'
Ali walked over and put an arm around her father's neck. 'I hope you are right, Papa.'
He smiled at her, and looked out of the window. 'A beautiful day for a walk in the park,' he said wistfully. 'Maybe in Lodz there are still parks where Jews are allowed to walk,' he added quietly, almost as if he was talking to himself.
'They are starving in Lodz,' his wife muttered angrily.
Travelling home together, Effi and Russell sat mostly in silence, lost in their own thoughts. Effi was thinking about Zarah's troubles, how insignificant they seemed when compared to those of the Blumenthals, and how irrelevant such contrasts always were. Russell watched the familiar streets go by, streets which would soon no longer be familiar. His evacuation train would not be heading east into lands wracked by famine and war, but north or south to Denmark or Switzerland, havens of relative peace and prosperity. He thanked providence for not making him a German Jew, and wondered what had happened to his sense of shame. The knock on their door came soon after dark, and as he went to answer it Russell realised that his unconscious had registered the arrival of a car a minute or so earlier. The visitors would be official.
The first face he saw – both boyish and bookish – belonged to a tall young man in an SS Obersturmfuhrer's uniform. The second, half hidden behind the first man's shoulder, belonged to Uwe Kuzorra. 'Herr John Russell,' the Obersturmfuhrer stated rather than asked.
The man had lost an arm, Russell realised. 'That's me,' he said, without unblocking the doorway.
'We need to ask you some questions. Inside, if you please.'
Russell stepped back to allow them in, and pushed the door shut. Effi had retreated to the bedroom doorway, and the Obersturmfuhrer was staring at her with obvious recognition.
'I'll leave you to it,' she said with a smile, and closed the door behind her.
Russell offered the two men seats, his mind racing. They must have discovered that he had an appointment to meet Sullivan on the previous day. What could he safely tell them? Certainly not that Sullivan had secret information to hand over – Russell had no desire to face an espionage charge.
Kuzorra lowered himself onto the sofa with obvious pleasure. The detective would have had a long and busy day, and he was well into his sixties by now.
The Obersturmfuhrer remained on his feet, tapping his right thigh with his hand.
'You know who I am,' Kuzorra told Russell. 'This is my assistant, Obersturmfuhrer Schwering.'
The younger man reluctantly accepted Russell's offer of a handshake. 'I noticed you this morning,' Kuzorra went on. 'I was rather surprised to find that you were still in Berlin.'
'I live here,' Russell said with a shrug. Saying as little as he could seemed a good guiding principle where this conversation was concerned.
'We have discovered that our victim arranged a meeting with you,' the Obersturmfuhrer said accusingly. 'Stettin Station at twelve o'clock, I believe.'
'Who told you that?' Russell asked pleasantly.
'That is neither…' Schwering began.
'His wife,' Kuzorra cut his subordinate off. 'His widow,' he corrected himself.
'It's true that I had arranged to meet him,' Russell admitted. 'But I was late. If he ever turned up, he was gone by the time I got there.'
The Obersturmfuhrer looked unconvinced, but let that go for the moment. 'So what was this meeting for?'
'He said he had some information for me. As I'm sure you know, most journalists get their information from a variety of sources.'
'Was he giving or selling?' Kuzorra wanted to know.
'Selling. Patrick Sullivan was only ever interested in the truth as a commodity.'
'What was this information?' Schwering asked.
Russell shrugged. 'I've no idea. Sullivan obviously thought it was worth something, but he wouldn't tell me anything in advance. He was probably afraid that spreading a few clues would allow me to dig the story up myself.'
The Obersturmfuhrer was far from happy. 'We shall be checking your story,' he said, as if knowing that fact would persuade Russell to come clean.
'I'm sure Herr Russell is aware of that,' Kuzorra said, getting to feet. 'How is your wife?' Russell asked, hoping to move matters onto a more convivial footing.
'She died last year,' Kuzorra told him, a moment of bleakness apparent in his eyes. 'A sudden illness. She didn't suffer.'
Unlike you, Russell thought. He remembered how well suited the two of them had seemed. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'How long have you been back at work?'
'Since that time.' He managed a thin smile. 'I needed something to do.'
Russell showed them out, and leant back against the door with some relief.
'Trouble?' Effi asked as she emerged.
'I don't think so.' He filled in those bits of the conversation which she had been unable to follow from the other side of the bedroom door.
'That's sad,' she said of Kuzorra's loss. She had not met the detective before, but remembered Russell's description of him and his wife Katrin.
'She seemed the one with the energy,' Russell recalled. 'And she made a wonderful cup of coffee.'
'Let's go out to eat,' Effi said. 'In case they come back. I don't want to share my last free evening before filming with an overgrown boy in a black uniform.'
They followed the white kerbs to the Ku'damm, and walked slowly west along the wide boulevard. This was also blacked-out, but the sheer number of phosphorescent badges and masked headlights provided sufficient illumination for seeing their way and recognising restaurants. Most of the latter were doing good business, Berliners having just received their December ration tickets.
They opted for the Chinese. The meat in the chow mein didn't taste much like chicken, but then it didn't taste much like anything else either. Russell wasn't even sure it was meat. Watching the members of the extended family who owned and ran the restaurant hurrying to and fro, he wondered, not for the first time, what on heaven's earth had persuaded them to set up shop in Hitler's Reich.
After they had finished eating someone stopped at the table to ask for Effi's autograph, and she obliged with her usual good grace. 'Are you looking forward to tomorrow?' Russell asked once the happy fan had returned to her own table.