‘Who paid him?’
‘A man I was trying to bring down. His name’s Rudolf Geruschke.’
It was Russell’s turn to be surprised. ‘The owner of the Honey Trap?’
‘Among other things. You’ve met him?’
‘In passing. I can’t say I liked him.’
Kuzorra grimaced. ‘He’s one of the Grosschieber, the black market kingpins. And probably the worst of them — some draw the line at certain traffics, but not him.’
Russell had a mental picture of Geruschke and the American colonel. ‘I’ve got a friend in the French press — according to his sources, it was the Americans who asked for your arrest. Could they be in bed with him?’
Kuzorra considered. ‘It’s a thought. I’d assumed they were being overzealous, but Geruschke might have friends over there. Some Americans have got very rich here, especially in the last few months.’
‘I might have some pull in that direction,’ Russell told him. ‘Maybe not enough, but I can try. What about colleagues? You can’t have been handling the investigation on your own.’
‘It sometimes felt like it. And I don’t imagine any of my colleagues have been eager to pursue matters since my arrest — they know a threat when they see one. I expect the investigation has been abandoned, or put off until “circumstances are more favourable”. And there’s nothing unusual about that — most black market investigations have ended the same way. They’re too damn dangerous. The black marketeers have guns to spare, but the occupation authorities won’t let us carry them.’
‘Okay,’ Russell agreed, ‘but it must be worth finding out whether they’ve given up on Geruschke. Are there any of your colleagues who would talk to me?’ Dallin, he knew, would need more than his and Kuzorra’s protestations of the latter’s innocence to take up the case.
‘Gregor would probably talk to you,’ the detective decided after some thought. ‘Gregor Jentzsch. He still has the makings of a good policeman, despite four years in the East. He works at the station on Mullerstrasse, and
lives a few blocks further down — Gerichtstrasse 44.’
‘I’ll find him. Now what have the French told you? Have they given you a date for a hearing?’
Kuzorra shook his head. ‘They’ve told me nothing.’
‘I’ll ask,’ Russell promised.
‘Good luck. I’m surprised you found someone to tell you I’d been arrested.’
‘One of your neighbours saw them take you away. I came to thank you for what you did in ’41.’
Kuzorra grunted. ‘I was glad you got away. Every now and then I got the chance to stick a spoke in the bastards’ wheels, and nothing gave me more joy. The one great pleasure I have here is knowing that most of my fellow inmates are Nazis.’ He smiled. ‘What are you doing now?’
‘Effi took in a young Jewish girl near the end of the war, and we’ve come back to look for her father. Or find out how he died. And Miriam Rosenfeld — remember her, the girl who disappeared at Silesian Station?’
‘I saw her,’ Kuzorra said unexpectedly. ‘Not long after you escaped — just after the New Year, I think. I was walking down Neue Konigstrasse, and this young woman was walking in the opposite direction. I looked at her photograph often enough when I was questioning people at Silesian Station. I’m sure it was her. She had a baby in a pram.’
‘A baby?’
‘A baby, a small child — I didn’t get a good look. The mother looked happy, I remember that. She hurried on past when she saw me staring at her, which was no great surprise. She wasn’t wearing a star, but of course I knew she was a Jew.’
The French lieutenant reappeared, and indicated that their time was up.
‘I’ll do what I can,’ Russell told the detective.
‘Be careful with Geruschke. I was nowhere near nailing the bastard and he got me locked up — I dread to think what would happen to anyone who really threatened him.’
‘I’ll bear it mind.’
When Russell asked his French escort how long Kuzorra would be held, he got only a Gallic shrug in return. Back at the office, the major had disappeared, and the duty officer might as well have. This particular investigation was not yet complete, he said. If Monsieur Russell wished to testify on the prisoner’s behalf, he should leave his address, and someone would be in touch.
With Kuzorra’s warning still fresh in his mind, Monsieur Russell declined to leave his address. If the detective was right, the only people who could get him released were the people who had got him locked him up — the Americans. Russell would be waiting at Dallin’s door when he arrived on Monday morning.
In the meantime, he had news of Miriam. News that was four years old, but four was better than six. In September 1939 she’d been in terrible shape, and here she was more than two years later with a baby in a pram. And ‘looking happy’. She must have found somewhere safe to live, at least until then. So why not the four years that followed? It still felt unlikely, but less so than it had.
Darkness was beginning to fall by the time he reached Wittenau Station. They were dining at Ali’s again, but he still had time to visit Gregor Jentzsch. After changing trains at Gesundbrunnen, he took the Ringbahn to Wedding and walked the short distance to Gerichtstrasse.
The street seemed more intact than most. The man who answered the door was around thirty, with short blond hair, gold-rimmed glasses and a boyish face. Hearing the name Kuzorra made him wary, but he agreed to give Russell a few minutes. In the living room his equally blonde wife was sitting on the sofa, cradling a blonde baby. Goebbels would have thought himself in heaven.
Jentzsch was clearly fond of Kuzorra, and seemed more than willing to talk, but Russell could tell from his frequent glances at wife and child that the young policeman had no intention of putting his family at risk.
He and other colleagues had been told of Kuzorra’s arrest, and were warned not to involve themselves without specific instructions from the occupation authorities. Their superiors were doing what they could to secure the detective’s release.
‘Kuzorra thinks that Rudolf Geruschke has set him up.’
‘I’m sure he did.’
‘Do your superiors think so?’
‘I don’t know. But we were told to suspend the investigation, at least for the time being.’
‘What about the man who denounced him, Martin Ossietsky?’
‘He works for Geruschke.’
‘At the Honey Trap?’
‘No. He’s in charge of a warehouse out in Spandau. Geruschke brings a lot of goods into the city, and that’s one of his storage depots. There are several others.’
Russell thought for a moment. ‘I could confront Ossietsky. As a journalist, I mean. He might give something away.’
Jentzsch shook his head. ‘He won’t. And you’d be putting yourself in real danger. Geruschke doesn’t like people prying into his business.’
‘What could he do — kill me?’
‘He might.’
‘He didn’t kill Kuzorra, just moved him out of the way.’
‘He’s not a psychopath — he doesn’t go around killing people for the fun of it. But people who oppose him have turned up dead. Always in circumstances where someone else could be blamed, but that’s not hard to arrange, not these days. At least twenty violent deaths are recorded each day across the city, and that’s only in the British, French and American zones. The Soviets don’t keep records of the ones they bury.’
‘So what can I do to help Kuzorra? Do you know anyone in the French administration who would talk to me?’
‘Not really. There’s a major I deal with sometimes. He seems a reasonable man, but I don’t think he works in the right section.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Jean-Pierre Giraud.’
‘Okay. So what have you and your colleagues been doing? Or have you just washed your hands of Kuzorra?’
‘Not quite,’ Jentzsch said with commendable honesty. ‘I keep asking the bosses, just to let them know that we haven’t forgotten him. I think our best hope is that they let him retire.’
‘Which would mean dropping the investigation.’
‘It’s already been dropped.’