World War 2 Thriller Collection: Winter, The Eagle Has Flown, South by Java Head. Jack Higgins

inspections. The young man offered the drawings at a cheaper price. The Swedish man shook his head, the woman laughed; the drawings were gathered up. Some said the young man merely sold the drawings; others said he was the artist. But no one knew the truth about it, just as no one knew the truth about anything in Berlin. It was better not to know.

      There were newspapers hanging on sticks near the door. Pauli didn’t take the Nationalist Socialist paper – from its pristine condition he guessed that no one else had read it, either. He selected the Berliner Zeitung am Mittag, an undemanding tabloid, and sat down. His usual waitress brought a glass of lemon tea and schnapps. He always came here for tea after the lunch of sandwiches that he ate at his desk. He usually sat here for thirty minutes before returning to his office. It was the only way he got a break from work. All day long at his office people put their heads round the door: ‘I don’t want to interrupt you, Pauli, but…’

      And the office had not got any better since the Nazis’ new Gauleiter, Josef Goebbels, had taken over Berlin. He was too damned enthusiastic, and the rank and file didn’t like the levy of three marks a month that he demanded from them. There were fewer than a thousand Nazi Party members in Berlin; it wasn’t the way to get recruits, and Goebbels’s Rhineland accent – which sounds funny to the ears of Berliners – hadn’t helped him. Strasser, the Regional Chief, opposed almost everything Goebbels suggested, and SA Leader Kurt Daluege – with his army of brownshirts – wouldn’t cooperate with either of them. With three bosses trying to run the Berlin office, very little got completed, but there was no way that any of them would listen to Pauli Winter’s suggestions. Especially when – as Goebbels reminded him – he’d not even bothered to join the party.