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Chapters (50)
  1. Cover
  2. FIELD GRAY
  3. ALSO BY PHILIP KERR
  4. FIELD GRAY
  5. Copyright
  6. Epigraph
  7. Dedication
  8. FIELD GRAY
  9. Contents
  10. 1
  11. 2
  12. 3
  13. 4
  14. 5
  15. 6
  16. 7
  17. 8
  18. 9
  19. 10
  20. 11
  21. 12
  22. 13
  23. 14
  24. 15
  25. 16
  26. 17
  27. 18
  28. 19
  29. 20
  30. 21
  31. 22
  32. 23
  33. 24
  34. 25
  35. 26
  36. 27
  37. 28
  38. 29
  39. 30
  40. 31
  41. 32
  42. 33
  43. 34
  44. 35
  45. 36
  46. 37
  47. 38
  48. 39
  49. 40
  50. AUTHOR’S NOTE

I hadn’t wanted them bothering her, so I hadn’t mentioned the fact that the address on the envelope containing the several hundred dollars Mielke had given me was Elisabeth’s.

29

GERMANY, 1946

Instead of pocketing this money, I’d resolved to deliver it to her myself—as the MVD assassin would have done if I hadn’t killed him first. Besides, I needed somewhere to stay, and where better to stay than with a former lover? So, when I got off the train from Dresden in the no-less-depressing ruin of Anhalter Station in Berlin, I’d quickly boarded a westbound tram and headed straight for the Kurfürstendamm.

From there I walked south, convinced that at least one of Hitler’s predictions had come true. In the early days of his success, he had told us that “in five years you will not recognize Germany,” and this was certainly true. Kurfürstendamm, formerly one of Berlin’s most prosperous streets, was now little more than a series of ruins. Even for me, a former policeman, it was hard to find one’s way around. Once, forgetting the uniform I was wearing, I asked a woman for directions and she hurried away without reply, as if I’d been the carrier of plague. Later on, when I heard about what the Red Army had done to the women of Berlin, I wondered why she’d not picked up a rock and thrown it at me.

Motzstrasse was not as badly damaged as some. Even so, it was hard to imagine anyone safely living there. One decent earthmover could probably have leveled the entire street. It was like walking through a scene from the apocalypse. Piles of rubble. Buttressed façades. Moon-sized craters. The prevailing smell of sewage. The road underfoot as uncertain as a mountain path. Burned-out armored vehicles. The occasional grave.

The window on the landing in front of Elisabeth’s apartment was gone and boarded over, but the weather-beaten door looked secure enough. I knocked at it for several minutes until a voice shouted down the stairs and told me that Elisabeth was out until five. I glanced at the dead major’s watch and realized I needed to kill some time without drawing too much attention to myself. It wasn’t that an MVD officer was unusual in the American sector, but I thought it best to avoid contact with anyone official, who might have asked what I was doing.