Fatherland

MARCH arrived back in his office just as Max Jaeger was hanging up his coat. “Zavi!” Jaeger spread his arms wide. “I got a message from the Duty Room. What can I say?” He wore the uniform of an SS Sturmbannfuhrer. The black tunic still bore traces of his breakfast.

“Put it down to my soft old heart,” said March. “And don’t get too excited. There was nothing on the corpse to identify it and there are a hundred people missing in Berlin since Sunday. It’ll take hours just to go through the list. And I’ve promised to take my boy out this afternoon, so you’ll be on your own with it.”

He lit a cigarette and explained the details: the location, the missing foot, his suspicions about Jost. Jaeger took it in with a series of grunts. He was a shambling, untidy hulk of a man, two metres tall, with clumsy hands and feet. He was fifty, nearly ten years older than March, but they had shared an office since 1959 and sometimes worked as a team. Colleagues in Werderscher Markt joked about them behind their backs: the Fox and the Bear. And maybe there was something of the old married couple about them, in the way they bickered with and covered for each other.

“This is the ‘missing’ list.” March sat down at his desk and unrolled the print-out: names, dates of birth, times of disappearance, addresses of informants. Jaeger leaned over his shoulder. He smoked stubby fat cigars and his uniform reeked of them. “According to the good doctor Eisler, our man probably died some time after six last night, so the chances are nobody missed him until seven or eight at the earliest. They may even be waiting to see if he shows up this morning. So he may not be on the list. But we have to consider two other possibilities, do we not? One: he went missing some time before he died. Two — and we know from hard experience this is not impossible — Eisler has screwed up the time of death.”

“The guy isn’t fit to be a vet,” said Jaeger.

March counted swiftly. “One hundred and two names. I’d put the age of our man at sixty.”

“Better say fifty, to be safe. Twelve hours in the drink and nobody looks their best.”

True. So we exclude everyone on the list born after 1914. That should bring it down to a dozen names. Identification couldn’t be much easier: was grandpa missing a foot?” March folded the sheet, tore it in two, and handed one half to Jaeger. “What are the Orpo stations around the Havel?”

“Nikolassee,” said Max. “Wannsee. Kladow. Gatow. Pichelsdorf-but that’s probably too far north.”

Over the next half hour, March called each of them in turn, including Pichelsdorf, to see if any clothing had been handed in, or if some local derelict matched the description of the man in the lake. Nothing. He turned his attention to his half of the list. By eleven-thirty he had exhausted every likely name. He stood up and stretched.

“Mister Nobody.”

Jaeger had finished calling ten minutes earlier and was staring out of the window, smoking. “Popular fellow, isn’t he? Makes even you looked loved.” He removed his cigar and picked some shreds of loose tobacco from his tongue. “I’ll see if the Duty Room have received any more names. Leave it to me. Have a good time with Pili.”

THE late morning service had just ended in the ugly church opposite Kripo headquarters. March stood on the other side of the street and watched the priest, a shabby raincoat over his vestments, locking the door. Religion was officially discouraged in Germany. How many worshippers, March wondered, had braved the Gestapo’s spies to attend? Half-a-dozen? The priest slipped the heavy iron key into his pocket and turned round. He saw March looking at him, and immediately scuttled away, eyes cast down, like a man caught in the middle of an illegal transaction. March buttoned his trenchcoat and followed him into the filthy Berlin morning.

THREE

Construction of the Arch of Triumph was commenced in 1946 and work was completed in time for the Day of National Reawakening in 1950. The inspiration for the design came from the Fuhrer and is based upon original drawings made by him during the Years of Struggle.”

The passengers on the tour bus — at least those who could understand — digested this information. They raised themselves out of their seats or leaned into the aisle to get a better view. Xavier March, half-way down the bus, lifted his son on to his lap. Their guide, a middle-aged woman clad in the dark green of the Reich Tourist Ministry, stood at the front, feet planted wide apart, back to the windscreen. Her voice over the address system was thick with cold.

The Arch is constructed of granite and has a capacity of two million, three hundred and sixty-five thousand, six hundred and eighty-five cubic metres.” She sneezed. “The Arc de Triomphe in Paris will fit into it forty-nine times.”