The Wolf Children Page 8

  There was nobody on the street, nobody in the shade of the trees, not a cyclist in sight. But curtains twitched behind windows; Stave had the feeling he was being watched.

  He steered the heavy old Mercedes carefully over the bridge. The water was nothing more than a dirty trickle, the meadow on the other side dried up and yellow. At the crossroads there was a wooden signpost with the sort of arrow-shaped board that engineer units in every army in the world put up: ‘Heim und Werk’ it said: home and work, and pointed to a rutted street that led up a hill. In the distance Stave could see some huts near a little wood. It looked a bit like an old army barracks.

  He turned out to be right. As he drove up the hill he passed an old gatehouse with a barrier, and though it was raised he could make out a few numbers scrawled on the wall and a few words in English. The Tommies must have been here.

  The chief inspector parked on a patch of roughly raked gravel outside one of the barracks. Before he could even get out of the car, a door opened and a man appeared, mid-sixties, a round face, broad-shouldered, grey-haired, grey-faced.

  ‘You bringing me another boy?’

  Nice way to say hello, Stave thought to himself as he closed the car door. The man had recognised him as police straight away.

  He introduced himself and showed the man his ID.

  ‘Gustav Bartsch,’ the man said in return, shaking his hand, gripping it hard. ‘I’m in charge of the hostel. If you’ve haven’t come to bring me a boy, are you here to take one away? One of them done something wrong?’

  Any of them not done something wrong?’ Stave retorted with a smile. ‘I’m just looking for some information.’ He gave the man a brief outline of the case.

  The man led him into the barracks, into a sparsely furnished office with just a few pale violet flowers in a jam jar to give it a hint of colour. The heat was oppressive despite the windows being wide open.

  ‘Typical army barracks,’ Bartsch said. ‘Come in here in summer and you wish it was winter, in winter you freeze and dream of the summer. That's one of the reasons the lads who end up here don’t stick it for long, not the main one though.’

  ‘How many are here at the moment?’

  ‘Exactly two dozen. At least that's how many turned up for morning roll call today. A few of them may have done a runner since then.’ He shrugged and held up his hands: fat fingers, hard with callouses. ‘I’m a master locksmith not a prison guard. Used to be at the Phoenix Works in Hamburg, until the autumn of ‘45. Then I retired.’

  Bartsch gave a bitter laugh. ‘If that little Austrian corporal had won his war, I suppose I’d be getting more money. But I’m an old Leftie. I was in the Social Democratic Party until 1933, and I rejoined in 1945. Things could have been worse for me, a lot worse.’ He shook his head silently. ‘The English asked me if I’d take charge of this place. I agreed because in the first place I needed the money, but also because it means I get the chance to help a few lads out; I’ve no children of my own, but I used to give a few lessons to the apprentices at work. I enjoy it.’

  ‘But a lot of them run away’

  ‘I don’t really understand why in one way, but then again, in another I do.’

  Stave gave him a quizzical look.

  ‘You should see these kids when they’re brought here, Chief Inspector. They’re starving, lice-ridden, filthy, stinking clothes, often no shoes or underwear, with scratches and scrapes, sometimes even festering wounds. And you wouldn’t believe the language they’ve got used to speaking, straight from a public house, or worse. Here they get cleaned up and get something to eat. Most of them get extra rations to build them up. Some of them can only manage soup at first, they’re so starved they can’t keep anything solid down. We give them new clothing, stuff made out of dyed old army kit. As soon as they get a bit of steam up, so to speak, we send them off to work, usually with the farmers out in the fields, sometimes to chop wood in the forest. Honest jobs with honest wages, fresh air, decent food, no rubble all around — that's the bit I don’t understand: why abandon all that to go back to a city where you starved and got covered in lice.’

  ‘Why indeed?’

  Bartsch lifted one of his hands as if he were about to slam it down on the metal table, but instead lowered it to the surface with a remarkable air of calm. ‘They aren’t children any more. Legally they are, or else they wouldn’t get brought here: they’re underage and have no parent or guardian. But in reality all the lads who end up here all worked either in the anti-aircraft batteries, or got sent as fighters to the Russian front, and ended up as refugees, thieves, black marketeers, fences for stolen goods. They’ve been through too much to be children the way we were. Why should a seventeen-year-old whose education was learning how to fire a Panzerfaust grenade at a tank, who made his money by dealing cigarettes on the black market, suddenly develop a love for chopping wood in the forest? Why should some kid who's spent years living in bunkers and whose main source of nourishment has been moonshine liquor and Senior Service cigarettes, decide to spend his days dozing peacefully in a barracks on the banks of the Luhe? Most of them clear off as soon as they get back on their feet.’

  ‘And you don’t stop them?’

  ‘There's only me here, and I’m just pleased if none of them puts a bullet through my skull. In any case there are no fences here, no locked doors. I talk to the lads and try to convince them to try another way of life. Sometimes it works. A couple of them have found decent jobs down at the port, three of them have even taken to going to school. One of them married a girl from the village and now looks after his father-in-law's farm. If you saw him today, you’d never believe that just two years ago he was taking out T-34 tanks. That's what I work to achieve. Things like that are little victories, but mostly it just ends in defeat.’ He shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘I need to talk to the boys. One at a time.’

  Bartsch nodded and thought for a moment. ‘A real defeat for me is when one really goes off the rails,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t recall ever having an Adolf Winkelmann here but I know that the life out on the streets is dangerous for these kids. I hope you catch whoever killed him. But I don’t want to create problems. If I call the lads together and tell them a man from the CID is here and wants to talk to them, they’ll be out the door before you can count to three.’

  ‘So what do you suggest?’

  ‘I’ll go down to the woods and bring one of the boys back. You can ask him your questions while I go back and fetch one of the others. The first one will stay here while you question the second so he can’t go back and warn the rest. That way we’ll end up with all of them here, and hopefully none will run off.’

  Stave smiled. ‘As you like.’

  ‘Consider my office your police station,’ Bartsch said, nodding as he left.

  A few minutes later the hostel manager came back with a skinny lad with short brown hair, a gaunt face but suntanned skin, wearing khaki shorts, a collarless shirt and sandals.

  Bartsch introduced him as ‘Friedel Bertram, fifteen years old, been with us two weeks now’. He sounded proud as if merely having the lad still there after two weeks was something of an achievement.

  ‘You from the cops?’ Friedel burst out as soon as Bartsch had closed the door and left them alone.

  ‘CID, Chief Inspector Stave.’ He nodded towards a chair.

  ‘I’m clean,’ the boy replied, ignoring the gesture.

  Stave looked at the boy's skinny legs. There were strange scars on his legs as if from shrapnel or shotgun pellets, barely healed.

  Friedel noticed his look and blushed. ‘I had a rash,’ he stammered. All over but it was worse on my legs. The doctor gave me cream for it and now it's mostly gone but he said I’d be left with scars on my legs.’

  ‘Girls have a thing for boys with scars,’ Stave said, though it hardly sounded convincing. ‘I’m not here for you. I’m hoping one of you will be able to give me some information that could help me with a case. A murder case.’
>
  ‘Wow!’ said Friedel, and sat down after all, obviously interested.

  I wouldn’t mind knowing what he's been up to, thought Stave to himself, given how obviously relieved he is. Then he told him everything worth telling about the murder of Adolf Winkelmann.

  ‘I know Adolf,’ the boy said. ‘Knew him, I mean,’ before quickly adding: ‘Not well though.’

  ‘From school?’

  Friedel burst out laughing so loudly Stave was quite taken aback. ‘Nobody's taking me back to school.’

  ‘From where then?’

  Friedel hesitated a minute.

  ‘It's better if you tell me the truth.’

  ‘The black market,’ the boy blurted out. ‘On the Hansaplatz. I keep a lookout. Used to, I mean. I’m clean these days.’

  ‘Of course you are.’

  ‘Adolf turned up there once or twice. He wasn’t a professional, or at least didn’t act like one when he was at Hansaplatz.’

  ‘Was he dealing in cigarettes?’

  Friedel shook his head. ‘He was an amateur. One of those who turn up from time to time with something or other to flog.’

  ‘But you remember him.’

  ‘I do, because I remember what it was he would flog — boxing tickets,’ he said with a broad smile.

  ‘Boxing match tickets?’

  ‘If it hadn’t been for Adolf, I’d never have seen Hein ten Hoff's last fight without climbing up some tree to try to see into the HSV Stadium. He got me in. Front row seat even. At least until one of the security staff spotted me.’

  ‘Adolf Winkelmann was selling tickets for fights on the black market?’ Stave could hardly believe it. Buying and selling boxing tickets was legal, so why go to the effort of selling them on the black market and risk being caught up in a police raid and put up in front of a judge in one of the British summary trials.’

  ‘Adolf had a stepfather or something, who organised the fights. He stole a few tickets from him, exchanged them on the black market for cigarettes. Way too cheap. A real amateur.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘When he turned up at the Hansaplatz the second time I bought the ten Hoff tickets off him. I told them he was selling them too cheap and he ought to watch out for cop snitches. No offence meant, Kommissar.’

  ‘It's Chief Inspector, actually. So he told you all about himself

  ‘Just what I’ve just told you. I didn’t even know where he lived.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘When I was telling him to look out for the spies and snitches, he started to get really worried. He said his stepfather would go mad if he found out he’d been stealing from him. He’d have beaten him. He's have to be careful.’

  ‘And was he?’

  Friedel shrugged.

  ‘We agreed he should turn up again. If he had tickets to sell. Or even just so. I showed him a few tricks of the trade.’ Then the boy realised what he had said and went red.

  ‘I’m deaf in that ear,’ said Stave. ‘I won’t pass anything on to my colleagues who work on the Hansaplatz.’

  Friedel smiled. ‘Cigarettes were our business. Adolf really went for those Yankee ciggies. But I never saw him again.’

  ‘When did he sell you the tickets?’

  The boy thought to himself, counting off the days on his fingers. ‘Must have been about four weeks ago when I last spoke to him. March or April: just when it had begun to get a bit warmer.’

  Could that have any connection to the murder, Stave wondered. But that would have been at least a month beforehand. ‘You’ve been very helpful,’ he said. ‘And remember to let the village girls see your scars.’

  Gustav Bartsch brought a line of boys up to the barracks until the sun outside began to change from bright yellow to a gentle pink. Stave was sweating. He could have done with a glass of water, but couldn’t find any.

  The conversations that followed Friedel's were brief. The oldest boy was seventeen, the youngest just twelve, skinny, suntanned, in clothes far too big for them, some of them with horrendous scars, probably war wounds, or shrapnel from the bombing, or maybe just fights on the black market. Did my son look like that at their age, Stave wondered? Maybe he still does.

  None of them had seen or heard anything from Adolf Winkel-mann – at most they had heard the name – or at least that's what they said. The chief inspector had the impression one or two of them might have been lying. None of them liked talking to a policeman. He decided not to go too hard on any of them. He’d get the information he needed sooner or later if he didn’t hassle them too much.

  Eventually Bartsch opened the door again and said, ‘Your last customer is here.’

  Stave looked down at his notebook. ‘This is number 16. You told me there were two dozen.’

  Bartsch shrugged. ‘Done a runner, I suspect. There's nobody else down in the forest. It's Saturday, lots of them go missing at the weekend.’

  ‘I suppose there's fewer police and fewer Tommies out on the roads.’

  ‘Indeed, they’ve got a better chance of getting back to Hamburg.’

  ‘Show the lad in.’

  Arne Thodden, sixteen. He was so thin his shoulders and the bones of his legs were visible through his skin, almost as if he were reduced to a skeleton. He was wearing an old shirt, torn workmen's trousers and homemade wooden clogs. His face was gaunt, wan, his eyes sunken and red below hair shaved almost to the skull. He’ll have been lice-ridden, the chief inspector thought. The boy's head looked like a dead man's skull. He told him what he needed to know about the murder.

  ‘Did you know Adolf Winkelmann?’

  ‘Got any cigarettes?’

  ‘Why, because your hands are shaking?’

  ‘I don’t smoke. I just want to be paid.’

  ‘Don’t you do anything without being paid?’

  ‘I’m a businessman.’

  ‘Dealing in cigarettes?’

  ‘Cigarettes are money. Better than those Reichsmarks rubbish if you ask me. I do good business.’

  Stave leant back in his chair. Was this kid making fun of him? The skeletal face looked back at him, expressionless, unless there was a hint of irony in those eyes. Stave looked at the hands of the boy facing him. They seemed unnaturally big for the rest of his body, with calluses and torn fingernails. To hell with it, he thought, I need to get out of this sweathole. Let's get it over with. He put his hand in his pocket and conjured up a single John Player's.

  Arne Thodden made a grab for it, but the chief inspector pulled the cigarette back.

  ‘Cash on delivery,’ he said.

  ‘OK,’ the boy said, with a thin smile. ‘I would see Adolf on the Damm tracks from time to time.’

  ‘Damm tracks?’

  ‘The railway lines down by Dammtor Station,’ Arne explained with a bored sigh. ‘We’d go down there to take coal from the freight cars.’

  A coal thief, Stave realised. The kids who would climb on to the open freight cars and unload coal in bags to take away and sell. He looked back at the boy's hands. No wonder you’ve got those big paws, he thought.

  ‘Was Adolf Winkelmann a coal thief?’ he asked out loud. It would fit: he could hardly sell boxing tickets all the time.

  Arne shook his head. ‘Not usually. Just every now and again, but he did it more for a laugh. I didn’t know him very well. He didn’t fit in ...’ he searched for the right words, ‘... with my business partners,’ he finally managed to say, with a broad grin. Adolf had other friends. The wrong sort.’

  ‘Such as who?’ For the first time, Stave felt he might be on to something important.

  ‘Wolf children.’

  Wolf children was what people called the boys and girls from the east. Orphans who had lost their parents in the fighting in Silesia and East Prussia or afterwards on the flight westwards. Fathers shot, mothers raped to death, houses burnt down. Children who survived in the woods and on the moors, like wild animals, begging, stealing, eating whatever they could get hold of. Many of
them didn’t even know their own names. They would make a home in burnt-out barns or the ruins of houses, and somehow or other managed to reach the western occupation zones. There were supposed to be a few hundred of them living in the ruins of Hamburg.

  ‘What did someone like Adolf Winkelmann have to do with wolf children?’

  A shrug. ‘The wolf children set up gangs. You steer clear of them if you know what's good for you. But somehow or other Adolf got into one of the gangs. Maybe he had a girl rather than a widow.’

  ‘A widow?’

  Another weary sigh. ‘You’re supposed to be in the CID. You must see widows all the time, given the number of dead we’ve had.’

  Stave had to suppress a wave of anger. ‘We’re not in German lessons here, you don’t have to explain the meaning of the word to me.’

  Arne raised his hands apologetically. ‘Widows around here are like sand on the seaside. Young ones and some not so young ones. Pretty ones and some not so pretty ones. Ones you would and ones you wouldn’t. You can take your pick.’ He gave a short cruel laugh. ‘Their men are either buried under the earth somewhere or squatting on the ground in one of Ivan's camps freezing off their wedding tackle. The women are very grateful if somebody's a bit kind to them, gives them a cigarette or a sack of potatoes.’

  ‘Or a sack of coal.’

  ‘If you have coal, you’re the king of the widows. There's always one willing to share her bed for the night. Makes it harder for your colleagues to get their hands on the likes of us. And it's pleasant too.’ He gave the same mirthless laugh. ‘You just have to watch out in case Ivan's let the hubby out and he turns up at the door.’