The Odessa File

‘No. Not me.’

‘Why not? What’s the matter?’

‘Because I don’t want to get involved. You’re all right. You’re single, unattached. You can go off chasing will-o’-the-wisps if you want to. I’ve got a wife and two kids, and a good career, and I don’t intend to jeopardise that career.’

‘Why should this jeopardise your career with the police? Roschmann’s a criminal, isn’t he? Police forces are supposed to hunt criminals. Where’s the problem?’

Brandt crushed out his stub.

‘It’s difficult to put one’s finger on. But there’s a sort of attitude in the police, nothing concrete, just a feeling. And that feeling is that to start probing too energetically into the war crimes of the SS can do a young policeman’s career a power of no-good. Nothing comes of it anyway. The request would simply be denied. But the fact that it was made goes into a file. Then bang goes your chance of promotion. Nobody mentions it, but everyone knows it. So if you want to make a big issue out of this, you’re on your own. Count me out.’

Miller sat and stared through the windscreen.

‘All right. If that’s the way it is,’ he said at length. ‘But I’ve got to start somewhere. Did Tauber leave anything else behind when he died?’

‘Well, there was a brief note. I had to take it and include it in my report on the suicide. By now it will have been filed away. And the file’s closed.’

‘What did he say in it?’ asked Miller.

‘Not much,’ said Brandt. ‘He just said he was committing suicide. Oh, there was one thing; he said he left his effects to a friend of his, a Herr Marx.’

‘Well, that’s a start. Where’s this Marx?’

‘How the hell should I know?’ said Brandt.

‘You mean to say that’s all the note sa

id? Just Herr Marx? No address?’

‘Nothing,’ said Brandt. ‘Just Marx. No indication where he lives.’

‘Well, he must be around somewhere. Didn’t you look for him?’

Brandt sighed.

‘Will you get this through your head? We are very busy in the police force. Have you any idea how many Marxs there are in Hamburg? Hundreds in the telephone directory alone. We can’t spend weeks looking for this particular Marx. Anyway, what the old man left wasn’t worth ten pfennigs.’

‘That’s all then?’ asked Miller. ‘Nothing else?’

‘Not a thing. If you want to find Marx you’re welcome to try.’

‘Thanks. I will,’ said Miller. The two men shook hands and Brandt returned to his family lunch table.

Miller started the next morning by visiting the house where Tauber had lived. The door was opened by a middle-aged man wearing a pair of stained trousers supported by string, a collarless shirt open at the neck and three days’ stubble round his chin.

‘’Morning. Are you the landlord?’

The man looked Miller up and down and nodded. He smelled of cabbage.

‘There was a man gassed himself here a few nights back,’ said Miller.

‘Are you from the police?’

‘No. The Press.’ Miller showed the man his press card.

‘I ain’t got nothing to say.’

Miller eased a ten-mark note without too much trouble into the man’s hand.