The Girl in Berlin (22 page)

McGovern was hoping for some praise for his success, but Kingdom only said: ‘Did you believe him?’ He flung his cigarette away and immediately lit another.

‘Yes, I did. Naive, idealistic, a wee bit out of his depth. I met his girl as well. She’s upset about his change of plan. She’s still desperate to leave Berlin, come to England.’

‘You met her?’ Kingdom raised his eyebrows. ‘You didn’t tell me that.’

‘There hasn’t been an opportunity. I haven’t seen you since.’

Kingdom uncrossed and recrossed his legs. ‘Of course. Well, what about her? What did you think of her? What was your impression?’

‘She’s beautiful.’

‘For Christ’s sake. That wasn’t what I meant.’

‘She’s had a hard time—’ McGovern began to rehearse the story she’d told him, trying to convey his sense of her victimhood, but Kingdom soon interrupted him.

‘Look, old chap, I don’t want to seem heartless, but they all have a sob story. Always a mistake to get taken in by a pretty face. It was chaos in 1945. People did what they had to do to survive, but afterwards they like to embellish it a bit. That’s always the way. And perfectly understandable. You have to be able to live with yourself. Or so I imagine.’

‘I don’t think I was taken in,’ said McGovern quietly, but he was offended by the slur. ‘I’m just reporting what she told me. She just wants to leave Germany because of all that happened. Her mother died in 1944 and not long after the war her sister died too. I met Victor Jordan. He told me there were hints her father was up to – I don’t know – the black market, I suppose, but anyway something illegal. He seems to be a rather sinister character. Mr Jordan thought he must have had links with someone in the occupying forces. He told me all the things going on at the end of the war, the black market, the way the Allies treated the women – but he was very complimentary about you. He said you’d not have anything to do with any of that. He said that didn’t always make you very popular. They were all at it themselves, they were so corrupt they couldn’t believe you didn’t have some wee scam of your own.’

‘He said that?’

‘It was by way of being a joke, sir.’

Kingdom frowned. ‘To tell you the truth, the stories about the black market were exaggerated, in my view. So far as we were concerned, that is. Of course the Germans were doing
whatever they could to survive, but I’m surprised Jordan should have made those sorts of comments about the Allies.’

‘He also said you were the best interrogator.’

‘Did he? I didn’t send you there to discuss me.’ He smoked in silence. After a few minutes McGovern found the silence intimidating. Opaque. Unfathomable. But then Kingdom spoke.

‘You know all that talk of having a good war? You had a good war, all things considered, didn’t you? Badly wounded, but you were able to get away, have a new life. Well, I had a good war too. In fact my war was absolutely fucking brilliant. I enjoyed active service. Loved it. And afterwards – in all that chaos – I’m proud of what we did in Germany, restoring some kind of sanity. The Allies did a bloody good job in Berlin – and Jordan shouldn’t be running it down. We
saved
the Germans and they were only too pleased to do what we wanted. You shouldn’t believe everything Jordan says. He did all right himself, I shouldn’t wonder.’ He stood up. ‘I’ll be in touch soon. You might need to go back to Berlin.’

‘Gorch will never—’

‘Forget Gorch.’

The early evening sunlight slanted across the lawns. McGovern walked slowly in the opposite direction from Kingdom, towards Bayswater. He puzzled over the autobiography. He couldn’t understand why it worried Kingdom so much. Eberhardt had no nuclear secrets. His secrets, if any, must be of some other kind. But what other secrets could be troubling Kingdom? And what had he, McGovern, said that had annoyed Kingdom so much? For something had certainly ruffled the agent’s sangfroid.

twenty-one

T
HE ONLY ASPECT OF THE CASE
that was going well was Manfred Jarrell’s relationship with Doreen of the Progressive Travel Agency. Jarrell had convinced her that he had Alex Biermann’s interests at heart, that he wasn’t under suspicion, that no-one wanted to arrest him and that his, Jarrell’s, sole interest was in Eberhardt’s murder. As the relationship developed he learned more about Biermann’s visit to Yorkshire. It was because a northern comrade was suspicious about a group of Ukrainian immigrants who had settled there after the war and who, it was rumoured, were engaged in illegal fascist activities. Some of their neighbours even alleged that they had fought for the Ukrainian Waffen SS and against the Russians. These suspicions had been passed on to Biermann in the belief that he could get them into the
Daily Worker
. Could there not be an exposé of settlers who were effectively enemy aliens? How had they been allowed in? Hadn’t they been vetted? Why weren’t they in prison in Germany or the Soviet Union? Although no longer working for the communist newspaper, Biermann had travelled up to Leeds, suspecting that the claims might be due more to anti-immigrant prejudice than to any reality. Jarrell didn’t know if he’d found out anything about them.

Alex Biermann lived in a small block of flats at the end of a terrace of lumpy Edwardian artisans’ cottages that straggled
down towards the river Lee. The modern block seemed to have been built on a piece of spare land adjacent to a sawmill factory. A continual sawing sound grated and whined as the policemen approached the flats and, although he could not see it, McGovern felt sawdust in the air. His throat was dry and his eyes stung.

‘I can’t make head nor tail of Hackney, sir,’ said Jarrell. ‘It just doesn’t seem to have a centre.’ In the late afternoon they had struggled through the rush hour by crowded overground train, bus and foot into the shapeless and meandering districts that seeped out towards the marshes, the reservoirs and beyond, through miles of terraces, bomb sites and factories, towards Epping Forest. Now, having reached their destination, they looked up at the shabby flats. The concrete façade was cracked; the curved ocean-liner windows carried a faded memory of the seaside, but far from gleaming white in sparkling south coast sunshine, the building, stuck between the sawmill and a railway line, was a dingy shade of grey.

‘So what do we know about wee Alexander Biermann, Jarrell?’

McGovern had sent his junior off to see if Special Branch had anything on Biermann, and, sure enough, as with so many communists, they had.

‘Born 1926 in Dresden. Came over here with his family in 1934. His father was a pastor who opposed the regime, his mother came from a wealthy landowning family. Junkers, they were called, sir.’

‘
Yoonkers
, Jarrell. It’s pronounced
Yoonkers
, not like junket. J is pronounced like a y.’

‘Sorry, sir. Well, I think a lot of them, the
Yoonkers
, supported Hitler, but she stuck by her husband and followed him over here. She had money too, and he eventually managed to get some sort of teaching job. They’re not hard up, live somewhere just south of London, sent the son to private school. In 1944
he was conscripted, saw action in Italy, was meant to go to university after he came back, but seems to have rebelled against his family, instead he joined the CP, very active in the Young Communist League, became a Party organiser, wrote for the
Daily Worker
, don’t know what he’s doing now he’s left the Travel Agency. No arrests or convictions, by the way. I cross-checked with Eberhardt’s file. He knew Eberhardt since childhood. Eberhardt was a friend of Biermann senior. Before the war, at least. So all that’s true.’

‘Let’s see if Mr Biermann’s at home. And don’t forget, we’re CID, not Special Branch.’

A dishevelled young woman in blue trousers and a man’s shirt opened the door in answer to the bell and smiled at them, pushing aside a messy tangle of dark hair.

‘Hullo!’

‘Mr Biermann at home?’

‘I’m afraid not. He’s just nipped out – but he’ll be back soon.’ She appeared delighted to see them. ‘Can I say who called? Or can I help you in any way?’

McGovern flashed his card, but that didn’t disturb her. She gestured them into a cramped, chaotic living room.

‘Can I get you some tea or something?’

McGovern declined. The young woman cleared a space on the settee, which was piled with papers, and sat looking at them.

‘What’s Alex been up to now?’ she enquired brightly.

‘You tell me, Miss—’

‘Bridgenorth, I’m Alice Bridgenorth.’

‘We’re sorry to bother you, miss. Perhaps you could just let Mr Biermann know we’re investigating the murder of Konrad Eberhardt, who was a friend of his and of his family, we understand.’

‘Oh yes! He’d known him all his life,’ interrupted Alice. ‘He’d been a friend of the family, although I believe they’d
fallen out. But Alex kept in touch with him. It was a terrible shock, him dying like that. Alex was dreadfully upset.’

‘Is there anything you can tell us about him, anything that might help us understand exactly what happened? I mean, what did Mr Biermann say? We know he saw Mr Eberhardt shortly before he died.’

‘Yes, they were at a funeral. He’d persuaded the old man to go back to his family in Germany, because he thought he wasn’t in a fit state to look after himself any more, he’s all alone here, you see. He even thought it might have been his fault, somehow, that he – died. Look, are you sure you won’t change your mind about the tea? It must be awfully thirsty work being a policeman.’

‘Well, thanks. Some tea would be nice.’ It would give them, McGovern thought, time for a quick nose round the room, but Alice Bridgenorth returned with the tea tray before they’d found anything interesting.

‘You were saying Mr Biermann thought Mr Eberhardt’s death was somehow his fault?’

Alice laughed. ‘Oh, only in the sense that they met at the funeral of another writer, as you said, and they talked for a while, but then Alex lost track of him. He said one minute he was there and the next he’d disappeared. Alex worried about it, but then he thought, well, Mr Eberhardt had travelled up from Deal on his own and could presumably get back again without accident. Only he didn’t.’

‘Can you tell me any more about this going back to Germany idea? It was simply for the old man’s good?’

‘Of course! What else could it have been?’ She picked up a packet of cigarettes and offered them, before lighting one for herself.

‘I’ve no idea. I’m not suggesting there was any other reason. Did you know the old man yourself?’

‘I’d met him. We went down to Deal together to visit him
one time, but it was pointless my being there. Alex thought I could tidy the place up a bit while the two of them were talking, but Mr Eberhardt got quite angry when I started to touch his things, so that didn’t work.’

‘Did Mr Biermann mention other people at the funeral? You can appreciate there being so many people near the scene of a crime, people who may have known Mr Eberhardt …’

Alice Bridgenorth laughed, put her hand to her mouth. ‘It’s awful to laugh, isn’t it, but that’s so odd, someone being murdered at a funeral. Why choose a funeral to murder him at? It’s macabre and so risky you’d have thought with so many people around. But someone really did kill him?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Actually, Alex said in a way it wasn’t so surprising because he’d quarrelled with almost everyone.’

‘What had he quarrelled with them about?’

‘I don’t know really, but Alex used to say Mr Eberhardt and his friends from before the war were always rowing about what went on in Germany then, whose fault was it Hitler came to power. Alex said they lived in their little world of exiles and couldn’t stop fighting old battles. That’s why he thought Mr Eberhardt would be better off in Germany, he’d be living in the real world.’

‘One sort of real world.’

‘Alex is very much against living in the past.’

‘These quarrels, Miss Bridgenorth. How serious were they? Did Mr Biermann ever suggest that the dead man might have made serious enemies in the exile community?’

The girl gazed at him. ‘Well, how odd you say that, because Alex did say there were rumours. Alex said it was all spite, but Mr Eberhardt had told him some of them thought he was an informer. But what would he inform about? I mean, it doesn’t make sense, does it?’

Recalling that Eberhardt had known Klaus Fuchs, McGovern
didn’t answer her question, but Jarrell said: ‘Would you know the names of any of these individuals who thought he was an informer?’

‘Oh, but you don’t think any of them could have – I mean they’re all old, they surely wouldn’t
kill
anyone – that’s just absurd. Alex jokes about it. They crossed swords, a lot of former comrades, he says, but writers and intellectuals don’t go round murdering each other.’

‘I hope not,’ said McGovern, ‘but you understand we have to look at all possibilities.’ He looked at his watch. ‘You said Mr Biermann would be back soon. We don’t want to take up more of your time.’

‘He’ll be back any minute,’ insisted Alice Bridgenorth.

‘We’ll wait a little longer then.’ The girl was so open that it was worth risking a few questions about Biermann, he thought. He began by asking how long she’d known him.

‘I met him at a party. He’s a communist, you know. I’m not. Of course I agree with his ideas, most of them. But I’m not what he calls an activist. He’d like me to be, but I don’t have the time. I’m training to be a teacher and the comrades always seem to be so busy. Alex used to work for the Party. Wrote for the
Daily Worker
, but he found a lot of it a bit grey and bureaucratic. Not much vision, he said. There were too many constraints. Then he worked for a travel agency, but that was just an interim solution. Now he’s signed up to work for the buses. They’re desperately short of manpower, he says. I’m not sure it’s such a good idea to do that sort of work. It’s manual work, really, isn’t it and he’s so educated. But he says that way he’ll find out how things work, what life’s really like for ordinary people. That’s the problem with the Party, he says, they’re a bit out of touch with ordinary workers. And he’ll get involved with the union. Then later on he’ll go back to writing, he’ll be able to write about the lives of ordinary people.’