The Grave of Truth (5 page)

He had fallen asleep at his desk, his head resting on his folded arms, and the tape-recorder shone its red eye unheeded, waiting to be switched off. The window grew lighter, showing the outline of roofs on the opposite buildings, and the sky changed subtly from grey to pink and then to a sulphurous yellow as the sun rose. He woke stiff-necked and aching, with the nightbeard bristling on his chin, and a staleness in his mouth. It was too early for the office staff to have arrived; he heard the distant hum of a vacuum cleaner in the corridors. He needed a bath and a shave and first, some coffee. There was a machine outside his secretary's office, and he got a plastic cupful, so hot and black that it burned his tongue.

He went back to his office and lit a cigarette. The thought of Ellie nagged him; he needed to go home and use his own bathroom, change out of the suit he had slept in. But going back to the apartment meant facing his wife, submitting to the questions and the fussing and the reasoned reproaches. He stretched, loosening the muscles in his back and shoulders. He was behaving badly, like a coward. He was sure she hadn't slept all night; his children must be worried, shocked by his involvement with a violent murder. He switched on his portable radio and caught the eight o'clock news. There were no new developments; the police were conducting a nationwide hunt for the two killers; he listened to the clichés that concealed a lack of fresh news, and then switched the set off.

‘Janus.' The nightmare had not come; he had slept deeply and without disturbance. But his memory was running as clear as if he were watching a film of his own past; incidents long forgotten came crowding and jostling for recognition, linked by the dying word of Sigmund Walther, and the whisper of the condemned man in the Berlin Chancellory yard. He had got out of the centre of the city, with Ilse, the girl from the kitchens, and her SS lover, Franke. How clearly he remembered their names. Then an American patrol had picked them up; the Red Cross had arranged his repatriation to his father's sister in Bremen. With her family, he had begun to reshape his life and go to school and then to university. He had kept the secret of his last days in Berlin to himself. There had been no point in returning to Albrechtstrasse to look for his house; it had been destroyed. His mother and grandmother were never heard of again.

As a young journalist he had written of his flight from the doomed city, of the shelling and fighting he had lived through and his arrest by the Americans. But he had never mentioned his presence in the Bunker to a human soul. But whatever the condemned man had known and tried to communicate to him, Sigmund Walther had known about too. He knew exactly what he had to do, and the decision brought with it a sense of extraordinary relief. He picked up the telephone and dialled the Crillon; no calls were being put through to the Walthers' suite. He persuaded them to send up a message, and he waited, holding onto the telephone.

When he heard her voice it shocked him; it sounded thick with tears.

‘This is Minna Walther. You wanted to speak to me.'

‘Yes,' Max said. ‘I'm sorry I had to intrude on you, Frau Walther. Please believe me, this has nothing to do with my paper. Your husband said something before he died. I didn't mention it to the police. But I'd like to talk to you about it. Will you see me?'

There was a slight pause; he heard her clear her throat.

‘Yes,' she spoke slowly, carefully. ‘Yes, of course I will. My elder children are here—there are arrangments to be made this morning. I'd rather not see ordinary journalists.'

‘That's very natural,' he said. ‘What can we do, then—'

‘I shall arrange to be alone at lunchtime,' Minna Walther said. ‘Come and see me just after one o'clock.'

‘Thank you, Frau Walther,' he said. She hung up without saying good-bye.

Chapter 2

‘Why doesn't she cry? Why won't she let go for once?' Helmut Walther stopped pacing the sitting room and turned round to his sister. He was pale and red-eyed from a night spent weeping for his father; he looked very much like him. He was eighteen, and going to be reading law and economics at Heidelberg University. He faced his younger sister and asked the same angry question. ‘She loved him—for Christ's sake, why can't she show what she's feeling?'

Freda Walther shook her head. She too resembled her father, except that she had inherited her mother's tall, slight build. At seventeen she was a pretty girl with the promise of beauty when she matured.

‘She doesn't want to upset us,' Freda said. ‘You don't understand Mother, you never have. This isn't the time to start criticizing. She's just thinking of us!'

‘Oh no, she isn't,' Helmut said. ‘It's the shit Prussian attitude—no human feelings, no tears—only the lower orders cry! I remember Grandpa saying that to us, and so do you! I tell you, Freda, I don't know how Papa lived with it—'

He sat down and covered his face; his shoulders moved as he sobbed. His sister got up quietly and went to comfort him. He was a brilliant student, but the most impulsive of the family; he laughed and cried easily, loved and hated on intuition. He would be a great man, Sigmund used to say gently, when he learned to control himself and think first before he spoke. Freda loved him; she stroked his hair and murmured to him. He had worshipped his father; although she was not as clever as he was, she understood that venting his anger upon their mother was only part of his grief.

‘Come on,' she repeated, ‘come on, Helmut—Papa would not want you to go on like this. He'd want you to be brave and help Mother now. We've all got to stick together and look after Hedda, Willi and poor little Magda—we'll be going home tonight and we've got to think about them.' She hugged her brother close to her for a moment. ‘You're wrong about Mother. I was awake last night and I heard her crying her eyes out. Papa absolutely worshipped her, you know he did.'

Her brother slipped an arm round her waist.

‘All right,' he said. ‘I suppose she can't help it—none of that generation could. Oh God, how we're going to miss Papa! I still can't believe it—'

‘Nor can I,' Freda said. ‘I keep thinking he'll walk in from the bedroom … why—why did anyone want to kill him?'

‘Because he was a liberal German,' Helmut said fiercely. ‘He wanted to bring us all together. I know who murdered him—the bloody right wing!'

They heard the bedroom door open and together they looked up and saw their mother. She was very pale and though it was a trick of the sunlight through the window, her blonde hair seemed almost white. She stood and looked at them for a moment; Freda moved first. She went and put her arms round her mother.

‘How do you feel, Mama? Did you sleep?'

Minna clung to her daughter for a few brief seconds, and then released her.

‘I'm all right darling. Helmut—' She approached her son with hesitation.

There had always been antipathy between them; she had married Sigmund Walther at eighteen and been a mother by her nineteenth birthday. The strong-willed, volatile boy had grown up into an adversary, as close to his father as he was distant with her.

‘I spoke to the Ambassador this morning. Arrangements have been made to fly your father home. They've booked us on a Lufthansa flight this afternoon; they're very worried about security, so the Ambassador suggested you and Freda should go round to the embassy at lunchtime, I'll join you later and we'll be driven to the airport together.'

‘Why aren't you coming with us?' Helmut asked. ‘If there's any danger, you should go to the embassy too. You've no reason to wait on here, Mother.'

‘Someone is coming to see me,' Minna said quietly. ‘He's coming to the hotel.'

‘Who is it?' Her son spoke sharply. ‘It's not a reporter is it? I said last night we wouldn't give any interviews or talk to anyone on the media. I thought you agreed to that—' Minna looked at him. He was the head of the family now that his father was dead; there was a silent confrontation, witnessed by Freda. Then Minna Walther spoke. Her voice was cold and there was anger in it.

‘The man who is coming here was with your father when he died. I have a right to see him, and it is nothing to do with you, Helmut, or anyone else. The embassy car will be here at twelve. You'll both go, and I shall join you later.'

She turned her back on her children, went into her bedroom and closed the door. She didn't come out until she knew that they had left. She checked herself in the mirror; it was habit, not vanity. Nineteen years of living in the spotlight as Sigmund's wife had conditioned her to looking right, whatever the occasion. She had not worn black, although she possessed a black suit; but her husband had detested mourning and the ritual of death. He had been a man to whom life was all-important; a man with a personality that radiated energy, optimism and hope. She would never wear black for him.

She went into the empty sitting room; it was full of sunshine. She poured a glass of whisky and water, lit a cigarette; went to the windows and looked out over the Place de la Concorde. The evening they arrived from Bonn, she and Sigmund had stood in front of the window, he with his arm around her, enjoying the spectacular view of the Place at night, jewelled with lights, the traffic flashing diamond headlights in a glittering moving pattern. He had said suddenly that he felt everything they had worked for was coming closer; he told her how much he owed to her support, and asked her, as he often did, if she still loved him. They had made love that night. She remembered it, not seeing the panorama beyond the window. The cigarette was finished. She stubbed it out and went to the sofa, sipping the whisky. She sat down to wait for Max Steiner.

Max Steiner was right when he supposed his wife hadn't slept; she had spent a long time calming Francine and reasoning with Peter, who was still sullen and hostile towards his father. The more she emphasized the danger he had been in when the West German MP had been assassinated, the more hysterical Francine became and the less her son responded. In the end Ellie took the girl into bed with her, and left Peter dourly watching late-night television with the English girl. Love for her children masked Ellie's own anxiety and hurt feelings until Francine was asleep and she was awake in the darkness. She loved Max, and she was in love with him; she admired his intelligence, his grasp of events, his brilliant journalism. Her role was supportive; to mother his children and care for him, to be lover and companion, and to apply her own brand of simple wisdom in dealing with his difficult temperament. She had never consciously put the children first; they were children and automatically claimed priority over either of their parents. It pained and troubled Ellie that Max had grown so apart from them, and from her in the last year or more. She had accepted the change in him, rationalized her own disappointment and continued to do her best. In the darkness her daughter stirred uneasily beside her. He should have come home; he should have thought first of his family's anxiety and at least telephoned. By the morning, Ellie had recovered her composure; she was pale and her head ached from weariness and tension, but she saw her children off to school, kept up a bright chatter with the English girl, and refrained from telephoning the
Newsworld
office until ten o'clock. There Max's secretary told her that he had been called out, and gave her his message. He would be back after lunch, and she was not to worry. Everything was fine.

She was reading the
Figaro
and drinking coffee in the kitchen when the doorbell rang. ‘I'll answer it, Madame Steiner,' Pat said. Ellie nodded, deep in the editorial which was devoted to the significance of Sigmund Walther's murder. A moment later Pat was back.

‘It's someone called Durand from the Sûreté,' she said. ‘He wants to see you.'

Ellie frowned. ‘Okay, Pat, thanks. Bring us some coffee, will you please?'

He was a small, square man, holding his hat rather stiffly at his side. He wore thick-rimmed spectacles. Ellie took him into the sitting room and sat opposite to him.

‘I'm afraid my husband isn't here,' she said. ‘I got a message he'll be back this afternoon.'

‘Have you any idea where I could find him, Madame?' The eyes behind the lenses were small and blue; he had an intent look that made Ellie feel uncomfortable.

‘I haven't. I'm sorry. His secretary said he was called out, that's all I know.'

‘Your husband was very lucky not to have been killed yesterday,' the Sûreté detective said. ‘It's surprising they didn't shoot him too.'

Ellie shivered. ‘Don't even talk about it,' she said. ‘You'll have some coffee, won't you?' Pat put down the tray, glanced briefly at the policeman and went out.

‘I was hoping to talk to your husband,' Durand said, ‘but perhaps you can help me. What exactly did he tell you about the killing—anything, even the smallest detail, could help us find the murderers.'

Ellie shook her head. ‘He didn't tell me anything—I haven't seen or spoken to him since it happened. He was down at the Sûreté yesterday making a statement. I guessed he was back there this morning—' she paused, and then spoke her thoughts aloud. ‘I wonder where he is?'

‘Maybe with SDECE,' Durand said. ‘They're a law unto themselves; they don't believe in co-operating with us or anybody else. I'm sorry I've bothered you for nothing. It's just that sometimes the memory plays tricks after a shock; your husband might have remembered something talking to you which he'd forgotten when he made his statement to us.'

‘Can I get him to call you when he comes back?' The detective stood up. His coffee cup was full; he hadn't touched it. ‘No, thank you, Madame Steiner. We'll contact him.' They were on the way to the front door when he stopped.

‘Has anyone else tried to see him this morning—have you had any telephone calls?'