Books by David Downing

The John Russell Series

Zoo Station

Silesian Station

Stettin Station

Potsdam Station

Lehrter Station

Masaryk Station

The Jack McColl Series

Jack of Spies

One Man’s Flag

Lenin’s Roller Coaster

The Dark Clouds Shining

Other Books

The Red Eagles

Diary of a Dead Man on Leave

Copyright © 2021 by David Downing

All rights reserved.

Soho Press, Inc.

227 W 17th Street

New York, NY 10011

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Downing, David, 1946– author.

Title: Wedding station / David Downing.

Description: New York, NY : Soho Crime, [2021]

Series: The John Russell series ; 7

Identifiers: LCCN 2020019809

ISBN 978-1-64129-107-1

eISBN 978-1-64129-108-8

Subjects: LCSH: 1. Russell, John (Fictitious character)—Fiction.

2. World War, 1939-1945—Fiction. 3. Berlin (Germany)—Fiction

4. GSAFD: Historical fiction. 5. Mystery fiction.

Classification: LCC PR6054.O868 W44 2021 | DDC 823’.914—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020019809

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Sacha and Jill

On 30 January 1933 Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. Wishing to further consolidate his power, he arranged for new elections to be held in early March, but on 27 February, in the midst of an increasingly violent campaign, someone set fire to the Reichstag parliament building.

A Degenerate Cuckoo

As the packed Stadtbahn train emerged from beneath the roof of Friedrichstrasse Station and rumbled onto the iron bridge across the Spree, John Russell saw the fire. First as dancing reflections on the rippling water, then as flames licking skyward above the bend in the river.

And then it was gone, masked by the bulk of the Moabit tax office. For a moment Russell wondered—or merely hoped—that he was drunk enough to be seeing things, but as the train pulled past the adjoining electricity station he knew that was not the case. The building that housed the German parliament really was ablaze.

Other passengers had seen it now. There were gasps, low whistles, even one doubtful cheer. Russell’s new companion, whose enthusiastic kiss on the Clärchens Ballhaus dance floor had seemed so promising half an hour earlier, and whose body was currently pressed against his own, could only come up with a nervous giggle. In the silence that followed, his cup of desire, fairly brimming five minutes before, drained sadly away.

Their train took the long bridge over the Humboldt Hafen and into the Stadtbahn platforms that hung over the throat of Lehrter Station. The fire was now hidden by the latter’s roof, but everyone in the carriage seemed to be talking, if only to themselves. There was excitement in some voices, consternation in others. And fear, Russell, thought. Fear above all.

Ours is the next stop, the girl told him.

Her name, he remembered, was Henni.

And my parents are away, she reminded him with a smile.

After descending the stairs at Bellevue, they walked arm in arm down the affluent-looking Flensburger Strasse, stopping halfway down, at her instigation, for a kiss and a squeeze. She was quite lovely, Russell thought. Old enough to be free, young enough not to know or care what the fire behind them would mean before the night was out. All hell was going to break out, as the arsonists had no doubt intended.

It occurred to Russell, with only the slightest flicker of shame, that Henni’s bed, apart from its most obvious attraction, would be one of the safer places he could spend this particular night. He didn’t think the SA stormtroopers would be prioritising foreign ex-communists on their list of prospective victims, but there was always the chance of putting himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. He currently lived in Wedding, a much poorer part of the city, and his apartment was only a stone’s throw away from streets famed as communist strongholds. In Wedding the local brownshirts would be out in force, out for blood.

But the giggle had told him too much about her. About himself for being with her.

And he was a journalist. Working, for almost three weeks now, on the crime desk of a daily newspaper. And if he wasn’t much mistaken, the orange sky behind him craved his professional attention.

I’m really sorry, he said, when they reached the steps leading up to her house, but I have to go to work.

Her expression suggested he must be mad. Or joking?

I’m a reporter, he explained. The fire we saw. It’s something my editor will expect me to cover.

Well then, that’s that, she said, looking more confused than angry.

You’re a great dancer, he told her.

She shook her head and started up the steps.

He walked back down to Bellevue Station, and then eastward along the side of the River Spree. On reaching the Lutherbrücke he could see the Reichstag in the distance, still spurting flames like a torch held up to the sky. A Nazi one, he assumed. They did love their torches, and who else would this spasm of pyromania serve? The communists would be blamed, the dogs let loose.

He entered the forested Tiergarten. There were still patches of snow on the ground from Saturday’s fall, and it felt decidedly chilly among the dark trees. He thought of Henni, who might already be warm in bed, and allowed himself a rueful smile.

There were other people about, and Russell judged it wiser to take the smaller paths than the better-lit roads. Every now and then a flicker of flame would show through the trees, and he would adjust his course accordingly. He sensed rather than saw others moving in a similar direction, all drawn by the fire and silenced by what it might mean.

He was still in the trees when he made out the cordon of men on the open ground ahead. Brownshirts mostly, with a smattering of regular police, confronting a motley crowd of the curious, some clearly out for a night on the town, others still on their way home from work. Many of the park’s unofficial residents—most of them homeless and unemployed—were also on hand, enjoying the free entertainment. Some were holding their palms up to the burning building three hundred metres away, making the most of the complimentary warmth.

Russell approached the brightest-looking stormtrooper he could see—spoilt for choice was not the phrase—and pulled out his press card.

The man barely glanced at it. I can’t let anyone through, he said, with surprising civility. Follow the perimeter round to Budapester Strasse—that’s where the command post is.

Russell thanked him—you never knew when an SA friend might prove handy—and followed the instruction, taking the chance to weigh up his fellow spectators as he walked. Most of them looked like they were attending a fireworks display, faces reflecting the glow, mouths hanging half open, uttering ooohs and aaahs when something noisily cracked in the blazing Reichstag building.

There didn’t seem many fire engines on hand, but three more came racing up Budapester Strasse as he approached the SA command post. They were followed by three black Mercedes saloons, each of them flying the Nazi flag. Germany’s new Chancellor stepped out of the first, the Nazi propaganda chief out of the second. The third was either just for show, or President Hindenburg had fallen asleep.

Hitler and Goebbels strode through the checkpoint and on towards the Reichstag, presumably keen to inspect the job their hired hand had done. Hitler looked in a rage, either feigned or real, neither of which was unusual. Goebbels limped along in his wake looking faintly amused, which also seemed par for the course. Göring was now visible in the distance, wagging a fat finger in some unfortunate’s face. The gang’s all here, Russell murmured to himself. And he did mean gang.

Several of the men around the command post were journalists Russell recognised, and none were receiving permission to breach the cordon. He talked to those he knew, and then retraced his steps around the perimeter, listening in on unguarded conversations and asking the occasional question. There were few who didn’t have their suspicions, but none who had any evidence. Back among the journalists, he heard that one communist had already been arrested, and that others were likely to follow. All 300,000 members of the German Communist Party, if Hitler had his wish.

What now? Russell wondered, lighting up a Da Capo cigarette. They were an indulgence, but he couldn’t bring himself to smoke one of the cheaper brands the SA manufactured as a profitable sideline for their rank and file. He would cut down his intake instead, save the money that way.

It was gone eleven. The early editions should have been printed by now, but if this wasn’t a night for holding the presses he didn’t know which would be. He had nothing much to report—and doubtless the paper’s political team were already on top of the story—but he might as well make his way down to Kochstrasse and see if there was anything he could do.

The office was a ten-minute walk away. As he cut across Potsdamer Platz Russell noticed that Haus Vaterland and its seven themed restaurants were all still brightly lit and crowded. And why shouldn’t they be? The news would seep out across Germany overnight, before erupting across front pages and airwaves. Most of the diners across the way had no idea their world had taken another big turn for the worse in the hour or two since they’d sat down.

Leipziger Strasse was quieter, all the stores having closed some time before. Russell turned left down Mauerstrasse, whose only occupants were a couple in evening dress, the woman throwing up in the gutter while the man held her handbag. At the corner of Kochstrasse the Café Friedrichshof was open but poorly attended, most of its usual press clientele out seeking or writing last minute copy. Russell walked on another hundred metres to the building that housed the Morgenspiegel and a dozen other newspapers and magazines. Once inside he cocked an ear for the printer machines in the basement, but as he’d suspected they were still biding their time.

His boss, editor Theodor Hiedler, was large without being fat, with a good head of wavy dark hair for his age and a face that looked forgetful fronting a mind that was anything but. He was currently talking into one of his telephones, looking annoyed but doing his best not to lose his temper. One of the owners, Russell guessed. They would not want their editor taking them out on a limb.

The large open newsroom was as crowded as Russell had ever seen it, despite the hour. There were still a lot of faces he couldn’t put a name to, but none of the hostile glances he’d encountered during his first few days at the paper, when many had wrongly assumed that his appointment in place of a Jew was part of some Aryanisation process. The Jew in question had simply seen the writing on the Nazi wall, and quit as a prelude to leaving the country.

"And what have you got for me?" Hiedler shouted in greeting.

Next to nothing, Russell replied, making his way to the editor’s desk. He had already discovered that anything less than complete frankness drove Hiedler to distraction. One arrest so far. A communist, needless to say, allegedly caught with a lighted match in his hand. A fire-fighter I talked to said at least a dozen fires had been started almost simultaneously. More than one pair of hands could manage, was his opinion.

Hiedler smiled at that. Did you get the Red’s name?

No, they hadn’t given it out when I left.

I expect they soon will.

Half an hour later they did. The messenger was a Prussian Interior Ministry lackey, the message on a single sheet of Ministry paper strewn with typing errors. The man already arrested was a young Dutch communist named Marinus van der Lubbe; others involved in this Soviet-inspired plot against the German people would soon be joining him behind bars. The German people would be expecting a vigorous response from their government, and harsh new measures would be announced over the next twenty-four hours.

The lackey had barely left when Johannes Oertel arrived with fresh information. Russell had known the wiry political reporter for several years, and knew why Hiedler had such faith in him.

According to Oertel, van Lubbe was well known in communist circles as a loner with a screw loose. Which made him someone who might want to set such a fire, but probably not with such efficacy. Van Lubbe was apparently more than half-blind following eye injuries sustained in his youth, and probably incapable of setting so many fires in such a short time. There was no doubt he’d been inside the Reichstag, but had he been alone? Several sources had told Oertel that Göring had been on the scene with almost indecent haste, and that the tunnel connecting his Air Ministry to the Reichstag could have been used by a team of SA arsonists.

Hiedler kneaded his chin between thumb and forefinger, then shook his head. We’ll stick to the official version, he said, to murmurs of dismay. We’ll point out any inconsistencies, but we won’t offer any alternative narratives. No speculation, just the known facts. I want to be still publishing a week from now. His gaze went round the assembled reporters. I know, he said with a sigh. Believe me, I know.

Not long after, as he laid himself out on one of the camping beds supplied for overnighters on the fourth floor, Russell could still see the look in his editor’s eyes. He could also hear and feel the presses in the basement far below as they pounded out copies of the official version. Sensible caution or the latest in a line of surrenders? Probably both.

It was still dark and very early when he woke, but he knew he wouldn’t get back to sleep. After pulling his outer clothes back on and visiting the toilet he climbed the stairs to the roof. The city was still there, and quieter than he expected. Seeing a cigarette flare in the gloom, he walked across to find Johannes Oertel leaning against a balustrade.

You could almost believe you were somewhere else, Russell observed.

The calm before the you-know-what, Oertel replied.

The two of them stood there, smoking their cigarettes and staring out across the barely visible city, finding nothing else to say.

Back on the third floor Hiedler was already at his desk. You carry on with the missing scientist, he told Russell, referring to the story he was already working.

This seemed small beer after the events of the previous evening, and Russell said as much.

Not to the scientist’s wife, was Hiedler’s response.

Russell nodded, and went back to his desk on the other side of the newsroom. It was still too early for interviews, so he grabbed his coat and hat, and took the short walk across the street to the Jädickes Konditorei, Kochstrasse’s other great magnet for newspapermen. Their coffee wasn’t quite as good as the Café Friedrichshof’s, but the pastries more than made up for it.

The place was already almost full, the conversation predictably focused. They’ll take out the communists first, one man said to a colleague who feared for the Jews. And no one’ll lift a finger. He lifted five of his own: the socialists, the unions, big business, the churches, the army. They all hate the communists worse than the Nazis, and they don’t seem to realise that once the communists are gone there’ll be no one left to take the Nazis on. With more than words, on the streets, where it matters.

Maybe the Generals will step in, someone suggested.

Only if the Nazis threaten them with the SA, and Hitler won’t be that stupid. No, the Army’ll wait and see, and so will business. They’ll wait and see which Hitler comes out on top, the nationalist or the socialist. If it’s the socialist . . .

It won’t be . . .

The discussion went on. This was what the seasoned professional journalists lived for, Russell thought. Exciting times. Only this was the sort of excitement that might well prove fatal to some of them. He wondered if his predecessor on the crime desk had already left Germany. An extraordinary number of the country’s writers and artists were known or rumoured to have done so in the month since Hitler’s accession.

He drained his second cup of coffee and looked at his watch. It was only just gone seven. His son, Paul, would still be bed, and he felt a sudden need to see him, to make sure he was all right. There was no real reason he shouldn’t be, but still. He could telephone the boy—his ex-wife’s new partner, needless to say, already had one installed at their home—but for reasons he couldn’t explain he actually needed to see him.

The quickest way was by U-Bahn, so he strolled down to Potsdamer Platz, where a street cleaner was scrubbing what looked like a large splash of blood from the sidewalk. One passing woman looked and quickly turned her face away, a couple stopped, stared and bravely asked the cleaner to satisfy their curiosity. Well it ain’t paint, he told them.

Down on the U-Bahn platform Russell watched two Ruhleben trains go through before his own arrived. Alighting fifteen minutes later at Fehrbelliner Platz, he climbed the stairs to the surface and started down Brandenburgische Strasse. Wilmersdorf was one of Berlin’s more affluent districts, and there was no sign of overnight trouble, no pools of blood staining these tree-lined streets. If it wasn’t for the smoke still smudging the sky behind him, he might have been thinking he’d had a bad dream.

Wilhelmsaue, the street that Ilse and Paul now lived on, was prettier than most. The maid answered the door, and as usual Russell wondered how Ilse squared the communist principles she still proclaimed with having a servant. One day he’d ask her.

He was not invited in—he was, after all, only ever here to collect and return his five-year-old boy.

Ilse came to the door, the surprise in her eyes a welcome change from the usual annoyance. What are you doing here?

He asked if she’d heard about the Reichstag.

Yes, but . . .

I know I’m being foolish, but I just felt like seeing Paul.

No, she said. I don’t think it’s foolish. You can walk him to school if you like.

As if on cue, Paul came rushing down the staircase. Papa!

It was only a five-minute walk to the junior school that his son had been attending for the last six months. Paul had been told about the fire, but seemed unconvinced of its significance—it was only a building, wasn’t it? And no one had been killed, had they?

Russell agreed, and changed the subject to what they would do the next day. A couple of hours with his son after school on Wednesdays, and an overnight stay each Saturday, were what he and Ilse had compromised on when they separated.

Could we go to Siggi’s? Paul asked. The konditorei on Brandenburgische Strasse was one of their regular treats.

We could, Russell accepted.

Paul had already moved on. When can we go to see Hertha?

Soon, Russell promised. If your mother agrees. The boy had been begging to see his first football match for weeks, and the fact that no one in his family thought him old enough had not left much of an impression.

They were at the school gate, and Russell was pleased to see several other boys happily greeting his son. Paul had changed schools when Ilse moved in with Matthias, and Russell was glad the boy had landed on his emotional feet, at least in this regard.

The missing scientist had lived and worked in Dahlem, which was five stops farther on the same U-Bahn line. On the train Russell’s thoughts drifted back to Ilse, and how they were going to sort out their future. She had told him she wanted to marry Matthias, which was fair enough in itself. But she couldn’t without a divorce, which would probably mean Russell losing his right to live and work in Germany. Ilse didn’t want Paul to lose his father, so she and Matthias were prepared to wait, but not forever. As far as Russell could see, a painless resolution of the issue was unlikely.

Then again, there was always the chance the Nazis would throw him out anyway.

It now seemed somewhat ironic that he and Ilse had been thinking of leaving Germany before their marriage collapsed and she met Matthias.

The train reached Dahlem-Dorf, where the inbound platform was packed with Borse traders and high-ranking government bureaucrats. On the streets outside it felt slightly less chilly, thanks to a pale-looking sun. The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, where Professor Richard Wackerhagen had worked until his disappearance, was a ten-minute walk away.

Russell spent most of the morning there, interviewing any colleague, porter, cleaner or canteen worker who would speak to him. He interviewed the distraught Frau Wackerhagen for a second time, but she had nothing new to suggest. Neither did the neighbours. The man had simply vanished, and for no apparent reason. He had no politics to speak off, no obvious enemies at the Institute. His work seemed academic to the point of parody, and there wasn’t the slightest whiff of illicit romance.

In mid-afternoon Russell walked back to the station. The sun was still shining, the suburban streets as placid and smug as those Women’s Institute meetings his American mother had bravely hosted in Guildford before the war. He wondered how things had gone today in working class districts like Neukölln, Friedrichshain and Wedding. He would soon find out.

First, though, he had to write and submit his copy. Five hundred words when three would do: It’s a mystery!

Back at the office on Kochstrasse, the latest news was that President Hindenburg had signed a decree at his Chancellor’s request. The details arrived soon after Russell, and were enough to sober the most inebriated journalist. Reading through the liberties stripped away, Russell looked in vain for any chink of light. From this day on the German people would do without freedom of speech or association, would lose their hitherto unfettered press and any rights to privacy by post or phone.

It’s the end of any judicial oversight, as a clearly shaken Hiedler put it. Now they can do whatever they want.

They still have to win Sunday’s election, Russell suggested hopefully.

Hiedler gave him a withering look. With most of the communists in jail how can they not?

Russell shrugged his acceptance and went to write his five hundred words. They came surprisingly easy, mostly, he supposed, because they didn’t matter. After handing the copy in, he could think of no reason not to go home. He decided to walk the three miles—after nine years in Germany he still hadn’t switched to kilometres—and get some much-needed exercise. He opted for the straightest route rather than the longer and quieter way he usually preferred. The more people there were around him the safer he’d feel.

The brownshirts were certainly out in force. Lorries full of stormtroopers on Unter den Linden, a squad on foot outside the entrance to Friedrichstrasse Station. More lorries went by as he waited to cross Invaliden Strasse, and he risked eye contact for a glimpse of the triumphant faces. This was their moment—as Hiedler had said, now they were free to do what they wanted. They could beat up, arrest, even kill, anyone whose face they didn’t like; they could steal whatever took their fancy, be that an item of jewellery or someone’s wife or daughter.

With the Ringbahn bridge just up ahead, he turned up Reinickindorfer Strasse, and then worked his way through the side streets that crossed and ran either side of the Panke. This large stream with its sylvan banks was one of Wedding’s few scenic treasures, and on more than one occasion in the last few months Russell had found himself enjoying the view from a bridge parapet. He might have lost his wife, his son and his political faith, he might have been all but unemployed in a country in thrall to barbarism, but moonlight still rippled in water and sunlit trees were always a joy to behold.

Not this evening, though. Looking down from the bridge on Schönwalder Strasse he saw two bodies—two corpses—lying in the shallow water. Any blood had long been washed away, but bullet holes were visible in one man’s neck and the other’s shirt.

Russell was shocked, although he didn’t know why. Not by the violent deaths—he’d seen enough of them in the trenches. Not by the casual disposal, or even the realisation that there were no authorities left who could be relied on to take the corpses away. For who in their right mind would walk into the police fortress on Müllerstrasse and report the dumping of these two murdered men? They couldn’t be brought back to life, so why take the risk of bringing oneself to the police’s attention? Russell certainly had no intention of doing so, and after a last guilty glance strode briskly away from the stream and its human debris.

Gerichtstrasse, when he reached it, looked almost shockingly normal. Admittedly, the Nazi flags were more numerous than ever, but that was to be expected. The one hanging over the entrance to his own building had been replaced by a larger version only a few days before, Frau Löffner apparently deeming it prudent to be one step ahead of her fellow Portierfrauen.

Aware of how well-informed the woman usually was about the local situation, Russell was happy to find her lurking in the hallway. And she did have news to share. Hitler’s lads—her usual sobriquet for the brown-shirted Stormtroopers—had been overactive the previous night in the nearby streets to the north. So much noise—I don’t know how we got any sleep.

She stifled a yawn, as if in proof. And this morning they were here! There must have been ten of them charging up the stairs! Herr Habicht wouldn’t answer his door so they broke it down, and the owners will be furious. I mean, I liked Herr Habicht, I did, but why give them the excuse? Anyway, they took them away . . .

Them?

Oh. They arrested Herr Klausener as well, but he went like a lamb. He looked more shocked than upset. Which didn’t make any more sense than Herr Habicht refusing to answer his door. I mean, how did the two of them expect the Nazis to react after something like that?

You mean the Fire?

Of course the Fire.

You think the communists did it? Russell asked. Frau Löffner was many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them.

The government says so.

Governments have been known to lie.

She looked doubtful. Not on something as big as this. Not when the lie will probably come out.

Maybe. Russell wondered if the Portierfrau had unwittingly put a finger on what was new about the Nazis—that they actually didn’t care if the lie came out. Shame to them was a foreign concept. Probably invented by Jews.

There’s a letter for you, Frau Löffner was saying. She ducked back inside her door and returned with it. It came yesterday. I should have taken it up, but my knees . . .

It was an official letter, which didn’t bode well. Seeing her look of expectation, he put it in his pocket. I don’t suppose the boiler’s been repaired, he asked.

They said they would come yesterday, she told him. But of course they didn’t. I begged them but they don’t care. Now they’re saying Friday, and they sound like they mean it. We’ll see. But now that we have these new people in charge maybe others will find they need to shape up.

Russell let that go, marvelling anew at the high expectations so many working-class people seemed to have of Hitler and his cronies.

He wished her a good evening and climbed the stairs. Herr Habicht’s broken door had been nailed shut, presumably to protect his Marxist library, but Herr Klausener’s was gaping open, revealing an unmade bed and a bed stand crowded with photos of his children. Russell hadn’t known either man well—communists and ex-communists were rarely friends—but both had seemed decent enough. Over the next few days they would all find out how well or badly the arrested communists were being treated.

His own door was still in one piece. After letting himself into the two-room apartment, he closed the door behind him and tore the envelope open. A man named Mechnig required Russell’s presence at his office on the Bendlerstrasse at 11:15 a.m. on March 1. Which was tomorrow. According to the letterhead Herr Mechnig worked for the Resident Foreign Nationals section of the Prussian Interior Ministry, and it was Russell’s right to residence that he wanted to discuss.

It had to be better than a visit from Hitler’s lads, was Russell’s first thought on waking with the interview in prospect. Not that the one precluded the other.

The room was frigid, his breath alarmingly visible, and climbing out from under the mountain of blankets took some resolution. After pulling on the rest