The Pale Criminal (27 page)

‘Ulrike.’

I walked over to the Sturmerkasten where she was standing, singing quietly to herself.

‘You know what to do, Ulrike?’ I said quietly, not looking at her now that I was beside her, but staring at the Fips cartoon with its mandatory ugly Jew. No one could look like that, I thought. The nose was as big as a sheep’s muzzle.

‘Yes, sir,’ she said brightly.

‘There are lots of policemen around. You can’t see them, but they are all watching you. Understand?’ I saw her head nod in the reflection on the glass. ‘You’re a very brave girl.’

At that she started to sing again, only louder, and I realized that it was the Hitler Youth song:

I walked back to where Becker was standing and got back into the car.

‘She’s quite a girl, isn’t she, sir?’

‘She certainly is. Just make sure that you keep your flippers off her, do you hear?’

He was all innocence. ‘Come on, sir, you don’t think I’d try to bird that one, do you?’ He got into the driving seat and started the engine.

‘I think you’d fuck your great-grandmother, if you really want my opinion.’ I glanced over each shoulder. ‘Where are your men?’

‘Sergeant Hingsen’s on the first floor of that apartment building there,’ he said, ‘and I’ve got a couple of men on the street. One is tidying up the graveyard on the corner, and the other’s cleaning windows over there. If our man does show up, we’ll have him.’

‘Do the girl’s parents know about this?’

‘Yes.’

‘Rather public-spirited of them to give their permission, wouldn’t you say?’

‘They didn’t exactly do that, sir. Ulrike informed them that she had volunteered to do this in the service of the Fiihrer and the Fatherland. She said that it would be unpatriotic to try and stop her. So they didn’t have much choice in the matter. She’s a forceful sort of girl.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘Quite a swimmer, too, by all accounts. A future Olympic prospect, her teacher reckons.’

‘Well, let’s just hope for a bit of rain in case she has to try and swim her way out of trouble.’

I heard the bell in the hall and went to the window. Pulling it up I leant out to see who was working the bell-pull. Even three storeys up I could recognize Vogelmann’s head of distinctive red hair.

‘That’s a very common thing to do,’ said Hildegard. ‘Lean out of a window like a fishwife.’

‘As it happens, I might just have caught a fish. It’s Vogelmann. And he’s brought a friend.’

‘Well, you had better go and let them in, hadn’t you?’

I walked out on to the landing and operated the lever that pulled the chain to open the street door, and watched the two men climb up the stairs. Neither one of them said anything.

Vogelmann came into Hildegard’s apartment wearing his best undertaker’s face, which was a blessing since the grim set to his halitosic mouth meant that, for a while at least, it stayed mercifully shut. The man with him was shorter than Vogelmann by a head, and in his mid-thirties, with fair hair, blue eyes and an intense, even academic air about him. Vogelmann waited until we were all seated before introducing the other man as Dr Otto Rahn, and promised to say more about him presently. Then he sighed loudly and shook his head.

‘I’m afraid that I have had no luck in the search for your daughter Emmeline,’ he said. ‘I’ve asked everyone I could possibly have asked, and looked everywhere I could possibly have looked. With no result. It has been most disappointing.’ He paused, and added: ‘Of course, I realize that my own disappointment must count as nothing besides your own. However, I thought I might at least find some trace of her.

‘If there was anything, anything at all, that gave some clue as to what might have become of her, then I would feel justified in recommending to you that I continue with my inquiries. But there’s nothing that gives me any confidence that I wouldn’t be wasting your time and money.’

I nodded with slow resignation. ‘Thank you for being so honest, Herr Vogelmann.’

‘At least you can say we tried, Herr Steininger,’ Vogelmann said. ‘I’m not exaggerating when I say that I have exhausted all the usual methods of inquiry.’ He stopped to clear his throat and, excusing himself, dabbed at his mouth with a handkerchief.

‘I hesitate to suggest this to you, Herr and Frau Steininger, and please don’t think me facetious, but when the usual has proved itself to be unhelpful, there can surely be no harm in resorting to the unusual.’

‘I rather thought that was why we consulted you in the first place,’ Hildegard said stiffly. ‘The usual, as you put it, was something that we expected from the police.’

Vogelmann smiled awkwardly. ‘I’ve expressed it badly,’ he said. ‘I should perhaps have been talking in terms of the ordinary and the extraordinary.’

The other man, Otto Rahn, came to Vogelmann’s assistance.

‘What Herr Vogelmann is trying to suggest, with as much good taste as he can in the circumstances, is that you consider enlisting the services of a medium to help you find your daughter.’ His accent was educated and he spoke with the speed of a man from somewhere like Frankfurt.

‘A medium?’ I said. ‘You mean spiritualism?’ I shrugged. ‘We’re not believers in that sort of thing.’ I wanted to hear what Rahn might have to say in order to sell us on the idea.

He smiled patiently. ‘These days it’s hardly a matter of belief. Spiritualism is now more of a science. There have been some quite amazing developments since the war, especially in the last decade.’

‘But isn’t this illegal?’ I asked meekly. ‘I’m sure I read somewhere that Count Helldorf had banned all professional fortune-telling in Berlin, why, as long ago as 1934.’

Rahn was smooth and not at all deflected by my choice of phrase.

‘You’re very well-informed, Herr Steininger. And you’re right, the Police President did ban them. Since then, however, the situation has been satisfactorily resolved, and racially sound practitioners in the psychic sciences are incorporated in the Independent Professions sections of the German Labour Front. It was only ever the mixed races, the Jews and the gypsies, that gave the psychic sciences a bad name. Why, these days the Führer himself employs a professional astrologer. So you see, things have come a long way since Nostradamus.’

Vogelmann nodded and chuckled quietly.

So this was the reason Reinhard Lange was sponsoring Vogelmann’s advertising campaign, I thought. To drum up a little business for the floating wine-glass trade. It looked like quite a neat operation too. Your detective failed to find your missing person, after which, through the mediation of Otto Rahn, you were passed on to an apparently higher power. This service probably resulted in your paying several times as much for the privilege of finding out what was already obvious: that your loved one slept with the angels.

Yes indeed, I thought, a neat piece of theatre. I was going to enjoy putting these people away. You can sometimes forgive a man who works a line, but not the ones who prey on the grief and suffering of others. That was like stealing the cushions off a pair of crutches.

‘Peter,’ said Hildegard, ‘I don’t see that we really have much to lose.’

‘No, I suppose not.’

‘I’m so glad you think so,’ said Vogelmann. ‘One always hesitates to recommend such a thing, but I think that in this case, there is really little or no alternative.’

‘What will it cost?’

‘This is Emmeline’s life we’re talking about,’ Hildegard snapped. ‘How can you mention money?’

‘The cost is very reasonable,’ said Rahn. ‘I’m quite sure you’ll be entirely satisfied. But let’s talk about that at a later date. The most important thing is that you meet someone who can help you.

‘There is a man, a very great and gifted man, who is possessed of enormous psychic ability. He might be able to help. This man, as the last descendant of a long line of German men of wisdom, has an ancestral-clairvoyant memory that is quite unique in our time.’

‘He sounds wonderful,’ Hildegard breathed.

‘He is,’ said Vogelmann.

‘Then I will arrange for you to meet him,’ said Rahn. ‘I happen to know that he is free this coming Thursday. Will you be available in the evening?’

‘Yes. We’ll be available.’

Rahn took out a notebook and started writing. When he’d finished he tore out the sheet and handed it to me.

‘Here is the address. Shall we say eight o‘clock? Unless you hear from me before then?’ I nodded. ‘Excellent.’

Vogelmann stood up to leave while Rahn bent and searched for something in his briefcase. He handed Hildegard a magazine.

‘Perhaps this might also be of interest to you,’ he said.

I saw them out and when I came back I found her engrossed in the magazine. I didn’t need to look at the front cover to know that it was Reinhard Lange’s
Urania.
Nor did I need to speak to Hildegard to know that she was convinced Otto Rahn was genuine.

The Resident Registration Office turned up an Otto Rahn, formerly of Michelstadt near Frankfurt, now living at Tiergartenstrasse 8a, Berlin West 35.

VC1, Criminal Records, on the other hand, had no trace of him.

Nor did VC2, the department that compiled the Wanted Persons List. I was just about to leave when the department director, an SS Sturmbannfuhrer by the name of Baum, called me over to his office.

‘Kommissar, did I hear you asking that officer about somebody called Otto Rahn?’ he asked.

I told him that I was interested in finding out everything I could about Otto Rahn.

‘Which department are you with?’

‘The Murder Commission. He might be able to assist us with an inquiry.’

‘So you don’t actually suspect him of having committed a crime?’

Sensing that the Sturmbannführer knew something about an Otto Rahn, I decided to cover my tracks a little.

‘Good grief, no,’ I said. ‘As I say, it’s just that he may be able to put us in contact with a valuable witness. Why? Do you know someone by that name?’

‘Yes, I do, as a matter of fact,’ he said. ‘He’s more of an acquaintance really. There is an Otto Rahn who’s in the SS.’

The old Hotel Prinz Albrecht Strasse was an unremarkable four-storey building of arched windows and mock Corinthian pillars, with two long, dictator-sized balconies on the first floor, surmounted by an enormous ornate clock. Its seventy rooms meant that it had never been in the same league as the big hotels like the Bristol or the Adlon, which was probably how it came to be taken over by the SS. Now called SS-Haus, and situated next door to Gestapo headquarters at number eight, it was also headquarters to Heinrich Himmler in his capacity as Reichsführer-SS.

In the Personnel Records Department on the second floor, I showed them my warrant and explained my mission.

‘I’m required by the SD to obtain a security clearance for a member of the SS in order that he may be considered for promotion to General Heydrich’s personal staff.’

The SS corporal on duty stiffened at the mention of Heydrich’s name.

‘How can I help?’ he said eagerly.

‘I require to see the man’s file. His name is Otto Rahn.’

The corporal asked me to wait, and then went into the next room where he searched for the appropriate filing-cabinet.

‘Here you are,’ he said, returning after a few minutes with the file. ‘I’m afraid that I’ll have to ask you to examine it here. A file may be removed from this office only with the written approval of the Reichsführer himself.’

‘Naturally I knew that,’ I said coldly. ‘But I’m sure I’ll just need to take a quick look at it. This is only a formal security check.’ I stepped away and stood at a lectern on the far side of the office, where I opened the file to examine its contents. It made interesting reading.

SS Unterscharfiihrer Otto Rahn; born 18 February 1904 at Michelstadt in Odenwald; studied philology at the University of Heidelberg, graduating in 1928; joined SS, March 1936; promoted SS, Unterscharführer, April 1936; posted SS-Deaths Head Division ‘Oberbayern’ Dachau Concentration Camp, September 1937; seconded to Race and Resettlement Office, December 1938; public speaker and author of
Crusade Against the Grail
(1933) amd
Lucifer’s Servants
(1937).

There followed several pages of medical notes and character assessments, and these included an evaluation from one SS-Gruppenfuhrer Theodor Eicke which described Rahn as ‘diligent, although given to some eccentricities’. By my reckoning that could have covered just about anything, from murder to the length of his hair.

I returned Rahn’s file to the desk corporal and made my way out of the building. Otto Rahn.

The more I discovered about him, the less inclined I was to believe that he was merely working some elaborate confidence trick. Here was a man interested in something else besides money. A man for whom the word ‘fanatic’ did not seem to be inappropriate. Driving back to Steglitz, I passed Rahn’s house on Tiergartenstrasse, and I don’t thnk I would have been surprised to see the Scarlet Woman and the Great Beast of the Apocalypse come flying out the front door.

It was dark by the time we drove to Caspar-Theyss Strasse, which runs just south of Kurfurstendamm, on the edge of Grunewald. It was a quiet street of villas which stop only a little way short of being something more grand, and which are occupied largely by doctors and dentists. Number thirty-three, next to a small cottage-hospital, occupied the corner of Pauls-bornerstrasse, and was opposite a large florist where visitors to the hospital could buy their flowers.

There was a touch of the Gingerbread Man about the queer-looking house to which Rahn had invited us. The basement and ground-floor brickwork was painted brown, and on the first and second floors it was cream-coloured. A sep-tagonally shaped tower occupied the east side of the house, a timbered loggia surmounted by a balcony the centre portion, and on the west side, a moss-covered wooden gable overhung a couple of porthole windows.