The Prime Minister's Secret Agent(38)
“What?” Mark read over the paper. “The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries? They have no jurisdiction here.” He handed it back.
“They had the right documents,” Findlay insisted.
A vein in Mark’s forehead began throbbing. “This is unacceptable! The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries? This is a murder! Not a bloody fish fry!” He looked to Maggie. “Sorry.”
“I’ve heard worse.” Dizzy from the stench, Maggie had an idea. “They came and gave the orders, but has the body really been destroyed?”
“Yes, o’ course,” Mr. Findlay snapped. Then he looked up at the clock on the wall. “Er … maybe not. Bus crashed today. Lots of bodies. More than usual.”
“Well,” said Maggie, breathing hard with the effort not to be sick. “Shouldn’t we check?”
The smell turned Maggie’s stomach, but she was not about to take out her handkerchief in front of the two men. The feeling of nausea only increased, however, as they reached a large waiting area, filled with sheet-draped bodies on gurneys.
“Let’s get on with it,” she said, with as much bravado as she could muster. She went to the first in a line of gurneys and began pulling back the sheets to see the faces of the dead. Surely the deceased have nothing to fear from me.
Or I from them.
“And here she is,” Maggie said, reading a toe tag and pulling back a sheet.
Estelle Crawford was lying on her back. Her stage makeup hadn’t been removed, and her face looked Kabuki-like under the lights. The corpse was naked, her breasts and hips slight, and the muscularity of her legs imposing. She was white as marble, except for the open, black oozing sores on one hand and up the slender arm to her chest, where the makeup had worn away.
Oh, poor Estelle, Maggie thought. You poor, poor girl.
“Well, shall we begin?” Findlay said, rubbing his hands together.
“Yes, let’s,” Mark Standish said.
“By all means,” managed Maggie, with far more enthusiasm than she felt.
Later in the day, after Frain had left, Dr. Carroll tried again to induce a trance state in Clara Hess. This time, he was surprised to hear a different voice—an older, rougher voice—coming from her lips.
It’s as if yet another woman has slipped into Hess’s body. This is definitely not Agna Frei, the doctor wrote in his notebook. Could it be one of Freud’s dissociation disorders, triggered by some sort of trauma?
“What are you writing? Are you writing about me?” the voice asked.
“What do you think?”
Clara turned and looked through the cage bars and out the window. “I think I want a cigarette. But I know you don’t like it when I smoke in your office.”
“Whose office is this?”
“Why, yours, of course,” she replied in impatient tones.
“Who am I?”
Clara sneered. “Well, if you don’t know, I don’t know why I should tell you.”
The doctor scratched his head. He didn’t know what office she thought she was in, or who she was—or who she thought he was. All he knew was that this was someone who was neither Agna Frei nor Clara Hess.
“I’m testing your memory,” he told her.
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, for God’s sake, Dr. Teufel, let’s get on with it, shall we?”
“Is this your first time in my office?”
“Of course not.”
“And where is the office?”
Clara barked a laugh. “What a stupid question.”
“Answer, please.”
“It’s in Mitte, of course.” Mitte was in central Berlin.
“What is the date?”
“Please. There’s a calendar on the wall behind you.” The wall behind Dr. Carroll was blank, but apparently Dr. Teufel’s office had a wall calendar.
He tapped his pen on the pad of paper. “Well, then this should be a very easy question for you.”
She answered scornfully, “Fifteen March, 1913.”
“And why are you here in my office?”
“To get my vitamin shot, of course.”
“And what is your name?”
“For God’s sake—you know my name.”
“For my research, please—what is your name?”
The woman threw back her head and laughed. “Clara,” she said.
“Clara what?”
“Clara Schwartz.”
Dr. Carroll looked down at his file, scanning until he found what he was looking for. Clara Schwartz was Agna Frei’s stage name when she was first starting out as an opera singer. “Do you know Agna Frei?”
“Of course,” she answered, sounding bored. “Really, I’d kill for a cigarette, you know.”