The Girl in Berlin (11 page)

‘Yes, sir, but you are not authorised to be in possession of them.’

‘A wee stickler for protocol, I see, DS Monkhouse. Well, how can we arrange matters so that I can carry on going through them? I don’t need them for long. Twenty minutes will do.’

‘Sir, if you return them to me you can then report to the investigation room and sign for them there.’

‘That’s a waste of time.’

‘It’s the procedure, sir.’

‘I’d prefer you to go back and tell them I’ll be right over with the stuff, in half an hour at the outside.’

‘DI Slater says I’m to return with the material, sir.’

‘All right. Wait outside in the corridor and when I’ve gone through it, I’ll hand it over.’

‘It’s needed right away, sir.’

‘Yes. By me.’

‘It’s against protocol, sir.’

The man should have been a bank clerk. ‘There’s the door. Go. I’ll no be more than half an hour.’

‘I’ll have to file a report.’

‘Do so.’

McGovern immediately regretted his rudeness, but the
interruption had ruined his train of thought. Then again, he’d been pretty stuck anyway. He looked at the objects laid out on the table. The large black wallet was shabby, worn at the edges and the inner pockets coming away from their moorings. There were the two keys, one a Yale. There was the identity card, with Eberhardt’s address in Deal. There was a card advertising the Polish Club in South Kensington. There was a letter, folded tightly into four. He opened it out, and saw the writing was German. The paper was yellowed. He started reading and realised it was an old love letter. Nothing.

The door opened and McGovern looked up, expecting a further protest from Monkhouse, but it was Jarrell. ‘Who’s that bloke in the corridor? He looks cheesed off.’

‘He’s waiting for me to give him back the canal stuff, which he says we have no right to. CID don’t like us nosing about in their cases. But it’s our case too. I’m keeping him hanging about so you can take the keys and get copies cut. Be as quick as you can. When you get back he can take the stuff away. It’ll not be telling me anything more.’

Slater would probably take the trouble to search the old man’s house, but he’d not think it important and the search would be superficial, a going through the motions exercise. In any case, he wouldn’t be looking for what McGovern and Jarrell would hope to find.

It was less than half an hour before Jarrell returned with the keys. McGovern slipped the originals into the large envelope with the wallet. He opened the door and handed them to Monkhouse. ‘Sorry I was a wee bit curt earlier. Please thank DI Slater. Apologies for the delay.’

‘Sir.’

McGovern turned back into the office and said to his sergeant: ‘D’you feel like a day at the seaside? We’re taking a trip to Deal tomorrow.’

The Yale key opened the door. McGovern sniffed a smell of stale tobacco smoke underlaid with the smell of dry dust, paper. It wasn’t the sour smell of a house used to too much cooking and not enough cleaning. There’d been little of either in this house. He stood still for a moment, getting his bearings. A door to the left was ajar and led into a living room. He walked slowly in with Jarrell following and looked round: books on shelves that lined three walls; a rather angular utility sofa placed against the window wall; and a desk near the back wall, on which stood a fairly new Underwood typewriter, a battered wooden in-tray, a bottle of ink, blotting paper, a writing pad and some pens and pencils. A kitchen chair was drawn up to the table, tidily tucked in; and everywhere, on chairs, on the table, on the floor, piles of papers. ‘Have a look out the back, Jarrell. And upstairs. I’ll do this room.’

It would take hours to go through all the books, let alone the papers. People persisted in hiding money or documents between the leaves of books. It was not particularly safe, because the trick was known to burglars and a determined one would do what McGovern was doing now, take each book out, shake it, look behind it and return it to the shelf. His hands were soon covered with dust. There were many scientific books in German and English. There were also German editions of Marx and Engels, of Lenin and Trotsky, of Hegel, Kant and Feuerbach. There were other authors he’d never even heard of. There were also volumes in English and French: novels by Balzac, Dickens, H.G. Wells, Arnold Bennett, Thomas Hardy, Jean Paul Sartre, thrillers by Simenon and Dashiell Hammett. Had the man ever done anything
except
read? McGovern worked his way through them mechanically, trying not to look at the contents. He was familiar with some of them. In his line of work a superficial study at least of the political ideologies he was paid to combat
was, if not mandatory, at least desirable; or so he told himself to justify his extensive reading, which he was able to pass off as ‘research’.

Eventually he became so bored that he turned to the papers. And halfway through the second pile he at last found something interesting. It was a letter typed on headed writing paper; the address was the Progressive Travel Agency, near Baker Street.

Sehr geehrte Herr Dr. Eberhardt,

Die Fahrkarte sind bereitet. Sie können die abholen, oder wenn

Sie lieber will, kann ich sie auf dem Postweg schicken.

Mit freundlichen Grüssen, Alex Biermann

It wasn’t much. But it was something.

eleven

T
HE TRAVEL AGENCY
stood in a side street off Westbourne Grove. McGovern had never been inside a travel agency before, was barely aware of them. It was taken for granted that Lily and he went home to Glasgow for their holidays and they were quite happy with the arrangement, which included trips into the countryside, to Loch Fyne and as far as the Mull of Kintyre. But a travel agency was a sign of the times, he supposed, that people were travelling more now, going abroad, currency restrictions lessening. He looked at the alluring poster in the window, illustrating azure skies and a turquoise sea, and allowed himself to contemplate the idea of continental hedonism.

‘Have you ever been to the Côte d’Azur, sir?’

‘If you look closely, you’ll see it’s the Black Sea, Jarrell. Sochi. But yes and no, if you count the desert as a Mediterranean holiday. And yourself?’

‘I’ve been to Brittany.’

The door clicked softly behind them. The man facing the detectives from across his desk looked as though he was wearing make-up, his high colour as if rouged. The flowing chestnut hair and purple corduroy jacket suggested an actor. The smile and booming greeting seemed equally exaggerated. The young woman, seated at a second desk tucked into a corner, was also
brightly dressed in a flowered cotton frock and red-rimmed spectacles that matched her lipstick.

‘How may I help you? Please take a seat.’ The man was like a master of ceremonies, thought McGovern, dazzled by the elaborate gestures and flashing smile.

‘I believe a Mr Alexander Biermann works here.’ The travel agent frowned. His manner was so theatrical that McGovern decided the surprise was genuine. Or was it more than surprise? McGovern thought a touch of panic flickered across the highly coloured mask. The woman in the corner scraped her seat against the floor as she rustled through a folder of papers.

‘Alex … Mr Biermann. Yes, he’s employed here. Or rather – he was. He’s just left us, I’m afraid. May I ask in what connection …?’

‘May I sit down?’ McGovern felt he would be less threatening if seated.

‘Of course – of course—’

McGovern sank into one of the wicker basket chairs provided for clients and gestured to Jarrell to do likewise.

‘It’s in connection with a drowning. A body was found in the canal. Among the dead man’s effects we found a letter from Mr Biermann to the dead man from this agency concerning some tickets.’

The travel agent cleared his throat. ‘As I said, Mr Biermann is no longer here, in fact I believe he’s away from London at the moment.’

‘On holiday? On business, Mr …?’

‘Harvey Lefanu. Director of the ProgressiveTravel Agency.’ He leaned forward and held out his hand. McGovern disliked its clammy feel.

‘He’s on holiday in Yorkshire, I believe. He left yesterday, as a matter of fact.’ Harvey Lefanu looked down, away, anywhere but straight at McGovern. He blinked, batting his lashes.

‘Do you know anything about this letter Mr Biermannsent?’
And McGovern pulled Biermann’s letter from his inside pocket, unfolded it and handed it to Lefanu.

The travel agent took it. ‘Dear Dr Eberhardt—’ He looked up. ‘You’re investigating
Eberhardt
’s death? I saw
The Times
obituary yesterday. A shocking thing … but surely—’ And he looked questioningly at McGovern.

‘The circumstances of death aren’t clear.’

‘“The tickets are ready. You can pick them up at any time, or, if you prefer I can post them to you,”’ read Lefanu. ‘This is what we do, Inspector. Arrange holidays. Provide tickets.’

‘Presumably the tickets are still here somewhere.’

Lefanu gestured vaguely. ‘Do you know anything about this, Doreen? Where did Alex keep his tickets for collection? In his desk, I suppose.’

‘Of course, Mr Lefanu, where else.’ The young woman stood up and walked over to an alcove at the back of the agency, where a third, smaller desk was located. She opened each of the three drawers and looked through the contents. ‘They’re here,’ she said, but made no attempt to hand them over.

‘I’d like to have a look at them, if you don’t mind.’

The young woman handed them to him and continued to stand beside him. She smiled brightly at Jarrell, who appeared to be admiring her.

McGovern glanced at the tickets and passed them to Jarrell, who murmured: ‘Destination Dresden.’

McGovern had got it into his head that Alexander Biermann was the man in the fedora who had been with Colin Harris and, at one point, with Eberhardt, at the funeral. It was so obvious. It hit you in the face. Those two must be responsible for Eberhardt’s death. Yet he knew how dangerous it was to jump to conclusions. It was reasonable to have suspicions about Harris and his companion, but there wasn’t a shred of evidence that that companion was Biermann. You had to go by the facts. Facts, facts, facts. Don’t invent your own conspiracy theories,
Gorch always said. There are enough of those around already.

‘When will Mr Biermann be back?’

‘He’s only away for a few days. He’s back next – Wednesday, is it, Doreen?’

‘Yes,’ said Doreen, ‘but he won’t be here. He’s starting a new job. Why are you so interested in him?’

‘We’re investigating what may be a suspicious death,’ McGovern said cautiously.

‘You’re not suggesting Eberhardt’s death had anything to do with Alex!’ protested Lefanu. He looked horrified.

‘We’re simply trying to find out everything we can about how he died.’

‘But why all these questions about Alex? He hasn’t done anything wrong.’ Now Doreen sounded rather shrill.

Lefanu was looking alarmed. ‘The police are only doing their duty, Doreen.’

‘We’re interested in why Mr Eberhardt was planning to travel to Germany,’ said McGovern soothingly. ‘We have hardly anything to go on. These are simply routine enquiries. We just wondered why the deceased would have used this particular agency. He lived in Deal, seemed something of a recluse. We just thought there might be some connection. I’m not even altogether clear what the work of a travel agency involves. I’ve never even been abroad myself. Except to North Africa with the Eighth Army, but that doesn’t count.’

Lefanu still looked anxious, but he answered politely: ‘We arrange tickets for rail and coach, also air tickets. We organise hotels, we can arrange special trips. Effectively, a travel agent undertakes all the arrangements for a holiday, relieving the client of the work and anxiety involved in doing it for himself.’

‘And people mostly travel where – within the British Isles, to France, Holland, further afield sometimes, to the colonies for instance?’

‘We specialise in slightly more adventurous destinations,’
put in the young woman. ‘We’re trying to open up the market in Yugoslavia, Hungary. We organise peace tours.’

‘And Germany too? Does anyone want to travel to Germany now?’

‘Mr Biermann was exploring that possibility.’

‘It’s a German name, Biermann. He’s a German national, is he?’

‘Oh no,’ said the girl, ‘he came here as a child. His parents had to leave Germany because of the Nazis. They’re all British now.’

‘You don’t have a photograph of him, by any chance?’

‘No. Why should we?’ Lefanu’s smile revealed obtrusive teeth. He suddenly reminded McGovern of Little Red Riding Hood’s wolf.

‘I assume you have his address, though. I’d be grateful if we could have that.’

‘Well – is that necessary?’

‘It would be helpful. Mr Biermann’s not in trouble. But he might be able to clear up one or two things about Konrad Eberhardt.’

‘Yes, yes … of course … Doreen?’

The young woman wrote out an address on a notepad and handed the sheet to Jarrell with a bright smile. As the detectives left, Jarrell looked backwards.

‘Nice to meet you, miss.’