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They stopped and one of the policemen knocked sharply on a door. Neither of the men reached for the handle to open it, until a voice from inside gave them permission.
She was pushed in roughly enough to feel the tweak of a muscle in her shoulder, but she tried to give no sign that it hurt.
Beimler, if it was he behind the desk, stood up, looking first at her, then at the two policemen who had brought her. He was tall with fair hair and strong features, the perfect Aryan type. He held out his hand.
“Sir?” The younger policeman gestured.
“Keys,” Beimler said a little impatiently. “You have her manacled. I want the key.”
“Sir, she could be violent. She already shot Herr Scharnhorst, and from a considerable distance. She’s probably trained in unarmed combat, too.”
“I don’t see any bruises on your face, while there’s a pretty large one on hers. Looks as if you won that fight,” Beimler responded with a twisted smile, more irritation than humor.
“I’ve more sense than to let her trick me,” the man replied tartly.
“So have I,” Beimler snapped back. “Keys!”
He handed them over.
“Thank you. You may go. I’ll send for you if I need you.”
“We can wait outside, sir.”
“No, you cannot. You will go back and continue with your duties.”
Reluctantly, they both saluted, perhaps not quite as smartly as they could have, and went out, closing the door behind them with a sharp snap.
Beimler released Elena from the manacles. “Sit down,” he invited, relaxing and resuming his own seat. “Do you prefer to speak in English or German? I’m afraid my English is not very fluent.”
“German is fine, thank you.” She sat down, but well toward the front of the chair, uncomfortably. She did not know if his outward good manners made him better, or worse.
He sat quite still, apparently studying her. She did not stare back at him; it would be bold, and challenging. Instead she looked around the room. It was sunny. Outside, beyond the window, the sky was blue. The office was very tidy. No papers lying around, but lots of books on the pale wooden shelves. Presumably they were all books the Führer approved of. There would be nothing dangerous to the mind, no new or uncensored ideas.
She saw on the shelf nearest to his desk, where he could see it every time he looked up, a photograph of a pretty blond woman, holding a little girl of perhaps two, who was smiling at whoever had been holding the camera, showing white ba
by teeth.
Elena found herself looking away. She could not think of this man having a wife and a child who looked at him with such trust.
She waited to be interrogated, perhaps hit again. She glanced at the smiling child. Elena was not so close to her father. She had never felt she knew him well. Margot was his favorite, just as Elena was Lucas’s. It might be too late now to mend that. It was a shame, a part of her life that would always be missing.
She thought of all the things she had shared with Lucas: the laughter, the exploration of ideas, the freedom of being safe and certain of love.
Would Lucas even know what had happened to her? If he did, at least she would not have to say she had betrayed anyone—not even herself.
She looked at Beimler again.
“Why did you come back to Germany, Miss Standish? Why now?” he asked.
What was he looking for? A reason for her to have killed Scharnhorst? “I had the opportunity,” she replied. “I was photographing people at an economic conference in Italy. I decided not to go straight home.”
“Ah yes, the photographs.” He gave a bleak smile.
She thought she could see actual humor in it, not something Hitler’s followers were known for. If you could laugh, you had a sense of proportion, and of absurdity.
“You’ve seen them?” she asked. She dared not hope. And yet she did! She felt a lurch of pain inside her as she thought again of what she could lose. And there was a burning anger as well, rage for everyone who had been terrified and humiliated.
“Yes. You took them?” the man continued.
