“In which case, Max Reles must have tried and failed to put the thumbscrews on him. Or simply faked the bid from your husband’s company. Perhaps both. Either way, Heinrich found out about it. So Max Reles got rid of him. Quickly. Discreetly. But permanently. This all makes sense now. The first night I ever saw your husband was at a dinner hosted by Reles for a lot of businessmen where there was an argument. One of the other businessmen stormed out. Perhaps he was asked to supply an inflated bid for something else.”

“What are we going to do now?”

“Tomorrow morning I have an appointment with the local Gestapo. It seems I’m not the only one who’s interested in Max Reles. Perhaps they’ll tell me what they know, and perhaps I’ll tell them what I know, and maybe we’ll figure out a way forward from there. But I’m afraid all of that might mean another autopsy. Obviously the Berlin pathologist missed something. These days they often do. Forensic standards are no longer as rigorous as they used to be. Nothing is.”

Chapter 28

28

YOU WALK UP TO A DOOR that is guarded by two steel-helmeted men wearing black uniforms and white gloves. I’m not sure about the purpose of the white gloves. Are they meant to persuade the rest of us that the SS is pure in heart and deed? If so, then I’m not convinced: this is the militia that murdered Ernst Röhm and God knows how many other SA men.

Inside a heavy wood-and-glass door is a large hallway with a stone floor and a marble staircase. Next to the desk are a Nazi flag and a full-length portrait of Adolf Hitler. Behind the desk is another man wearing a black uniform and the same unhelpful expression you see all over Germany. It is the face of totalitarian bureaucracy and officialdom. This face does not seek to please. It is not there to serve you. It cares not if you live or die. It regards you not as a citizen but as an object to be processed, up the stairs or out the door. It is how a man looks when he stops behaving like a human being and becomes a kind of robot.

Unquestioning obedience. Orders to be carried out without a second thought. This is what they want. Ranks upon serried ranks of steel-helmeted automatons.

My appointment is checked off on a neatly typed list that lies on the well-polished desk. I am early. I should not be early any more than I should be late. Now I will have to wait, and the robot does not know what to do with someone who is early and has to wait. There is an empty wooden chair beside the elevator cage. Normally there is a guard sitting there, I am told, but until the appointed time I may sit there.