Death in Focus Read online

  She stood on the pavement, frozen with indecision and mounting panic.

  “Excuse me, are you lost?” a man’s voice asked in German.

  She spun around and saw a young man a yard or so away from her. He was tall and dark. At first glance he seemed quite ordinary, but there was intelligence in his eyes, and humor.

  “I…” she began, also in German. She had no idea what to say to him. He had spoken to her in German, but she detected a different accent. What could she tell him? She must look like a fool.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “You aren’t lost, are you.” That was a statement. “You just didn’t expect the embassy to be surrounded, and by Brownshirts…”

  With a flood of horror, she realized how obvious she must look, standing here in the street, like a rabbit paralyzed in the headlights of a car. She must be drawing other people’s attention, too, not just this young man’s.

  “Where do you come from?” she asked. It was abrupt, almost rude, but she had to know if he was German, or if he was here at the embassy because perhaps he was a foreigner, too.

  “Chicago,” he replied with a bleak smile. “Or fairly near there. Why?”

  She breathed out with a sigh. He was American. “I need to get to the embassy,” she explained. “I tried the British, but it’s even more tightly surrounded than this. I thought of here, because my mother is American, but this looks hopeless, too…”

  “You could try, if you have business,” he said doubtfully. “They’re looking for the woman they think shot Scharnhorst. You must have heard about it.”

  “Yes,” she said quietly, “I know. I must look like her…” Was that a stupid thing to say? Or would it be even more obvious if she pretended she did not know? She had fallen straight into the very hole she was trying to avoid.

  “You do,” he agreed, looking at her more intently. “They might stop you if you go any closer. I think you should leave, rather quietly.”

  “I’ve nowhere to go!” she said more sharply than she had intended. She could hear the edge in her voice. “I can’t go back to the hotel. I only just managed to get away. They were actually shooting at me.” She steadied her voice. She sounded almost hysterical.

  “I don’t suppose you did shoot him?” he asked with a twisted half smile. “I’d quite like to meet a hero of that order.”

  “Well, you’re out of luck now, because I didn’t. But when I got back to my hotel room there was a rifle in my wardrobe, with those special sights they have for shooting at long distances. I left…”

  He took her arm and she jumped at his grip, trying to pull away.

  “Stop it,” he said quietly. “They’re looking for someone alone. Whether you actually shot him or not, you’ll do just as well, for their purposes, to make them look good. We’ve got to get away from here. Don’t make a scene.” He moved so that she had to turn to go with him, slowly, casually, like a couple coming from the embassy. Who was he? Why would he help her? Or was he taking her captive to hand her over, and take the credit himself? He was holding her arm very tightly. His fingers pinched.

  “Who are you?” she said sharply, trying to pull her arm away, and failing. “Let go of me!” She wanted to be angry; it was so much easier than being frightened.

  “Or what?” he asked, this time speaking in English, his smile rich with amusement. “You’ll scream? Don’t be so damn silly! I’m going to get you out of here, away from the Brownshirts. I’ll take you to friends of mine that you can stay with. They’ll look after you.”

  “Why should they?” she demanded. “I’m a danger…” Again, she tried to pull away.

  “My name is Jacob,” he told her. “Jacob Ritter. I’m from Chicago, but actually I’m working out of New York at the moment. I’m a journalist. And you’re English. Anyone can tell that from your speech. Although your German’s pretty good.”

  “It’s very good. My father was with the British Embassy here for a few years,” she snapped.

  “Keep walking. What’s your name?”

  “Elena Standish. And I didn’t shoot Friedrich Scharnhorst. I don’t know who did, but I do know why.”

  “Really? Do you also know why the rifle was in your bedroom wardrobe?” He kept the firm grip on her arm as they crossed the street, walking a little stiffly because his natural stride was longer than hers.

  “I think so, but it doesn’t matter now. Where are we going?” She ran a couple of steps to keep up with him, then tried pulling her arm free and again failed.

  “We’re going into a predominantly Jewish quarter,” he replied. “I’ve got friends there we can stay with. At least, you can. I have my own rooms. They’ll look after you. And they won’t turn you in, even if you did shoot Scharnhorst.”

  “I didn’t! I don’t know one end of a gun from the other!”

  “You don’t look half-witted,” he said with a smile and a laugh.

  If she laughed now, she would too easily lose control. She tried again to pull away.

  “I said you don’t look like it, so don’t act like it. Walk as if you are an adult, going wherever you want.”

  She straightened up and walked close beside him.

  “Thank you,” he said drily.

  “I didn’t shoot Scharnhorst,” she said again. “In fact, I was trying to prevent it!”

  “Do you think that will bother them, if they decide to blame you?” There was considerable bitterness in his voice. “How long have you been here in Germany—this time?”

  “Only since…” She realized she had just met this man, and trusting him with more than she had to was stupid.

  “Since…what?” he asked, slowing up as they came to a crossroads again.

  Perhaps not trusting him, or more to the point, letting him see that she did not, was foolish. She could not go to the British Embassy, or the American. Where else was there for her to try? She certainly could not get out of Berlin. She had no friends she could turn to, not to trust now. People changed. And could she blame them if they did it to survive? Or for their families to survive? This man was the only chance she had. Perhaps it was better to trust him. He could find out the truth in time anyway, and by then she would have lost her chance to gain his trust in return.

  “I got here yesterday. I hadn’t planned to come, but circumstances…” What a ridiculous word to use! She bit it back. “I came to try to stop the assassination, because I knew the British were going to be blamed. But obviously I didn’t succeed. I think perhaps it was a futile idea from the beginning.”

  They were in quieter streets now. Jacob slowed his pace a little and gave her a sideways glance, his dark eyes unreadable. “You aren’t making much sense. How did you know anything about it? Where did you come from?”

  She hesitated a moment. Was she walking straight into a trap? But to trust him was her only chance.

  Briefly she told him about Amalfi, and Ian’s murder on the train, and how she had promised him she would get the message to the British Embassy. She found her voice thick with unshed tears as she did so.

  He slowed to a stop, for the first time completely letting go of her arm. “I’m sorry,” he said gravely, his face full of pity. “But you did everything you could. Either this man Cordell tried to stop it and failed, or I’m afraid he didn’t try, for whatever reason. It’s probably a damn good thing you didn’t get into the embassy. He could have made a gesture of goodwill and handed you over to the Germans.”

  For a moment the quiet street swam around her; then she forced herself to focus. “I hadn’t thought of that,” she admitted. “Damn! I’m behaving like a fool!”

  “You couldn’t help it to begin with,” he agreed, smiling very slightly. “But you can now. Forget Cordell. Perhaps he did everything he could. He couldn’t warn you, because it probably never occurred to him that you would go to the rally. Why did you?”
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  “To get photographs of Scharnhorst, of course!” she replied, as if it were obvious. “If there had been someone arrested for trying to attack him, it could have been a dramatic moment. I’m a photographer,” she added, almost as an afterthought.

  “And I’m a journalist, but I’m no good to anyone if I’m dead,” he responded.

  “I thought Cordell would have prevented the assassination!”

  “Then you had more faith in him than you should have.”

  “It wasn’t blind faith!” Elena protested. “I know him; I have for years.”

  “Really? How long?” Jacob looked slightly surprised.

  “From when my father was ambassador here.”

  “I thought you said that was a long time ago.”

  “Long time is…relative, I suppose.”

  “Meaning that people change?” he asked more gently.

  “Not that much. He used to be…fun…” Memory rushed back of Cordell years ago, perhaps a decade. It was five years after the war. Some people were still giddy with peace. “He really made us laugh,” she went on. “Teaching us about the etiquette necessary to be a good ambassador. How to take any situation whatever with aplomb.”

  “Stiff upper lip?” Jacob asked lightly.

  “It’s more than that, it’s…”

  He stood listening, eyebrows slightly raised. Then she realized he was gently making fun of her. She answered as her memory slipped back easily. “For instance, how do you carry it off gracefully at dinner when the duchess’s false teeth slip into her soup?”

  His eyes widened. “What do you do?”

  “Well, if it’s broth, you can distract attention while she fishes them out again, and replaces them,” she replied, feeling her grip on herself slipping out of control. “But if it’s tomato soup, you haven’t a chance.”

  “And what was Cordell’s answer to that?” Jacob asked incredulously.

  “You have the butler remove the plate, serve her another, very discreetly, and take the soup away to fish more effectively. Without comment, of course. The real style is to keep the conversation going without a hiccup.”

  “And did he? Did it ever happen?”

  She remembered vividly. “Yes. But I had to leave the room.”

  “Because you were diplomatic?”

  “I’m afraid not. I was bursting with laughter.”

  Suddenly all the lightness vanished out of his face, even from his eyes. “You’ll have to be more diplomatic now. Your life depends on it. Really! And not only yours, the lives of the people who help you.” He searched her face carefully. “If you’re telling me the truth, two men are dead already.”

  “Three,” she corrected, her voice catching in her throat so it was barely a discernible word. “There was a man in Amalfi, too.”

  He looked at her. “You didn’t mention that. Didn’t your friend on the train know about it?”

  “Yes. I know! I know!” She could hear her own voice higher and sharper. She controlled it with difficulty. “He was dying when he told me he knew the man. It didn’t seem to be terribly important at the time. Nothing else did!”

  He put his hands on her shoulders, very gently. “I’m sorry. I’m sorrier than I can say. But now we’ve got to do all we can to keep you safe. He would want that, wouldn’t he?”

  She was too near tears to speak. She nodded, meeting his eyes for a moment. Then turning away, she began to walk forward again.

  He caught up in a couple of steps. “We shouldn’t be out in the street longer than we have to be. You can trust most people here, but not everyone. Fear…” He stopped, his face touched with pain. He looked about Elena’s own age, perhaps a year or two older, but already there were deeply etched lines around his eyes and mouth. He was not handsome, but there was too much wit and understanding in him not to be attractive.

  “Fear changes things,” he said, this time not looking at her, as he continued to walk. “Most of us think we know what we believe, and what we value, who we’ll defend. But when the Brownshirts come to your door, sometimes your courage disappears, your guts turn to water, and you tell them what they want to know. The best of us will lie to them and take the consequences on ourselves. But it’s altogether another thing when it’s your mother or your child that they’ll hurt. And they will. We know that from experience. You can see the guilt in some people’s eyes. They didn’t believe it because they didn’t want to. But they should have. I say that as fact, not to place blame. I don’t know what I would do if it were someone I loved who would be made to pay. Or anyone else at all, for that matter.”

  She said nothing. It was not something to which any reply made sense. The thought was too overwhelming.

  They walked two more blocks in silence, all the time Elena’s mind struggling to think honestly what she would do. If there were nothing that mattered more than herself, that was, in a way, the final defeat.

  Jacob turned left, left again, then finally right, and stopped in front of a handsome family home. He ignored the front door and went along a narrow stone path to the back door, where he knocked.

  It was opened after a moment by a middle-aged woman wearing a crisp white apron. As soon as she saw Jacob, she smiled. “Good afternoon, Mr. Jacob,” she said cheerfully. “Come in. Come in, Miss…”

  “Miss Standish,” he introduced her. “Marta is a good friend,” he added to Elena, standing back to allow her in ahead of him.

  Elena went inside and found herself in a large, warm kitchen with pleasant but unfamiliar smells. She could not help staring around. It was comfortable, domestic, someone’s home, made to be used and lived in. There was china all along the dresser shelves, pots and pans hanging from hooks on the wall, and clean laundry in a pile on a side table near another door. Washed vegetables stood on a bench near the sink, and there were bunches of dried herbs hanging from hooks above.

  “Is Zillah at home?” Jacob asked, as soon as the outer door was closed.

  “Yes. In the sitting room,” Marta replied. She glanced at Elena, a question in her eyes, but also concern. Did they have fugitives here often enough to recognize one on sight? Or did she emanate fear as profoundly as she felt it, and anyone could pick it up?

  “Come,” Jacob told Elena, then said something to Marta very quickly, in a dialect Elena did not understand. It was a little like German, but unfamiliar.

  She followed him across the hallway, and after a brief knock, into another comfortable room, lit by the afternoon sun.

  A tall woman, dark-haired and a little thin, stood by the window. She turned as she heard Jacob. There was no fear in her face, only a quiet confidence, almost a serenity. She was not in the least fashionable—her clothes were dark and conservative—but there was a gentleness, a symmetry in her face that some might even have found beautiful.

  “I’m sorry to catch you without warning,” Jacob said a little ruefully, “but I have a genuine fugitive. Elena, this is Zillah, Frau Hubermann. Elena Standish. She is English. She did not shoot Friedrich Scharnhorst, but some of the Brownshirts think she did. Or they want to think so. Could be they shot him themselves, but the truth will make no difference. She can’t go to the British Embassy, because they are likely the ones who made her look guilty. They were the only ones who even knew she was here. And she can’t go to the American Embassy, even though her mother is American, because that’s the next place they’d look.”

  “Oh dear,” Zillah said with a rueful smile. She looked at Elena gently. “Are you all alone?”

  “Yes. My…my friend who was going to warn the British Embassy about the assassination was murdered…on the train from Milan to Paris.” She said it as quickly as she could, to keep her voice very nearly steady. “He worked for British Intelligence. He told me before he died that Scharnhorst would be assassinated, and they would try to blame us, the British, to create an inte
rnational incident. I suppose if he had got here, they would have blamed him. The rifle is now in my hotel room. Which would have been his room, I think.” She stopped. She was talking too much. Did it all make any sense to this quiet woman standing in the sunlight?

  “Scharnhorst’s death is probably the only good thing about it,” Jacob said bleakly. “Can hardly blame anyone for wanting that bastard dead. Although I would have done it more slowly.”

  Zillah looked him up and down. “I suppose you didn’t, did you?” For an instant it was impossible to tell from her face if there was any seriousness behind the question.

  “I’ve left a few odd things in other people’s bedrooms.” Jacob smiled with real amusement. “But no rifles.”

  Zillah looked toward the ceiling for a moment, rolling her eyes, then turned to Elena. “You are welcome to stay here, until you decide what would be best for you,” she said quietly. She looked Elena over. “Perhaps a darker dress, something more like…”

  “A housemaid,” Jacob supplied. “That will not cause any comment.”

  Elena nodded. Everything was happening too quickly, but even in her dazed state, she could see the sense in that. “I will be happy to do whatever I can. I don’t know where to go…yet. I should get out of Berlin, perhaps to Paris, and then home.”

  “They’ll be looking for you.” Jacob shook his head. “One day at a time. There’ll be a way.”

  “You’ll have to say that you have no idea who I am.” She looked from one to the other of them, suddenly aware that she was putting them in danger. “Jacob—”

  “We’re used to it,” he said with sudden bitterness. “Eli, Zillah’s husband, thinks there’s really nothing wrong, and it will all pass over.”

  Zillah drew in her breath to caution him, or perhaps to contradict. Elena was not sure, but it seemed that Zillah changed her mind, as if she would not speak of her husband with disrespect, even if she disagreed with his opinion.