End of Spies, Alex Gerlis [important of reading books txt] 📗

the understanding was that after the war they would return the property to him, and they even exchanged documents to that effect, which was most unusual.’

‘And Mayer obviously survived the war?’

‘He managed to get into Switzerland and remained there for the duration of the war. Now he was back and needed us to verify his identity so the ownership of the property could be transferred back to him. Herr Winkler had died early in the war, but Frau Winkler had kept the shop going and lived in the apartment. It was untouched by the bombing and she told him the bombers must have known it was a Jewish property. Mayer said she readily signed back the property to him and asked him to take rent she owed, which he wouldn’t do. He said she could not have been more decent: not only was there not a hint of anti-Semitism about her, but she was very anti-Nazi.’

‘Well, they all are, aren’t they?’

‘Mayer said she and her husband always were like that: in 1938 it would have been easy for them to claim the property by saying a Jewish landlord had treated them badly, or she could have destroyed her copy of the papers that showed the property would be returned to Mayer.’

‘So it seems we could trust her, Corporal?’

‘Absolutely, yes.’

‘But would she know about anything clandestine going on in the town now?’

Corporal Harcourt shrugged. ‘Why don’t we go and ask her?’

They’d wanted to bring Frau Winkler to the FSS base on Hauptplatz, but Hanne suggested she go to the shop near the station on her own. It was dimly lit and dusty, with women’s clothes crammed on one side of a narrow aisle and men’s on the other. Most of the shelves were taken up with hats and gloves, and the rails with jackets and coats. At the end of the aisle Frau Winkler sat behind a raised counter, surveying the shop like a schoolteacher watching her pupils.

Hanne explained that she was working for the British authorities, at which point she noticed Frau Winkler pale and grip the side of the counter. She told her not to worry, she was not in any kind of trouble; in fact Herr Mayer had told them how decent she’d been, and would it be possible to ask her some questions?

Come back in forty minutes when I close for lunch: we can talk upstairs.

The apartment was as crammed as the shop below it: dark furniture adorned with ornaments and framed photographs, many of them by a bay window draped in an ornate net curtain. Frau Winkler sat nervously on the edge of her seat and gave a series of polite but sparse answers to Hanne’s questions.

Yes, Herr Mayer was a fine landlord and a decent man as his parents had been… All this dreadful talk about Jews, they were the most decent people in the town… The arrangement was a very fair one… There was no question we would honour our agreement to return the property to him after the war… No, my husband died in 1941 – from cancer…

At that point Frau Winkler indicated a silver-framed photograph of a man in what Hanne assumed was the uniform of the Austro-Hungarian army, smiling at it fondly.

We were always opposed to the Nazis; we considered ourselves social democrats… We were very private people… never wanted any trouble, you understand… but what the Nazis were up to was appalling, especially to the Jews…

She explained how she and her husband had resolved they would do nothing to help the regime, but nor would they do anything to draw attention to themselves. ‘If someone had come and said their life was in danger, I hope I would have helped. But here, in this town, that situation never arose. After dear Klaus died, I was too occupied with keeping the business going by myself. Many shops were destroyed by the bombing, but this one was spared. Nonetheless, I was a coward. I’m ashamed of myself.’

She was wringing her hands, looking down at the rug that lay between her and Hanne, tilting her head as if following the pattern. Her distress was quite sincere, and it was at this point that Hanne decided she could trust her.

‘Ashamed in what way?’

‘I feel I should have done something: maybe Klaus and I felt that promising ourselves we would return the property to Herr Mayer was enough, but other people in other places in Europe, one hears about how brave they were…’

Hanne assured Frau Winkler there was nothing someone like her could have done. ‘But perhaps you can help me now. Do you know about any Nazis who were in the town – I don’t mean so much during the war, but perhaps people who’ve been active in the six months since the war ended? Maybe you’re aware of something suspicious?’

Frau Winkler moved back in her seat. She was a tiny woman, and the armchair appeared to envelop her. She shook her head and frowned, and Hanne wasn’t surprised. She hadn’t really expected this widow in her late sixties to know anything, and she couldn’t blame her. Avoiding trouble was almost an act of resistance in itself.

‘I did have a friend, though, Frau Egger – perhaps friend is the wrong word. I’ve known her for years, in fact we were at school together, but she is a most unpleasant woman. She loves gossip and she loves using people, and she also loves a bargain: she expected a generous discount in the shop. I tolerated her before the war, no more than that, but once the war began, she became an active member of the Nazi Party, and in fact was the Blockleiter in this area – you know what that is? A Blockleiter was a Nazi who kept their eyes and ears open in a particular area, sometimes just a street or an apartment building. I encouraged her to believe we were good friends because I reasoned that one day I might need