He resented being involved with such duties more so because Ingrid had frequently expressed her contempt for the SS, which she viewed as fascistic and brutal. He also resented them because what he had been promised, eighteen months ago, would be aeronautical intelligence gathering for the SS technical branch had in fact turned out to be secret service intelligence gathering against, and the arresting of, all those who opposed Hitler's National Socialist Party.

Ernst had escorted more unfortunate souls into Stadelheim Prison and Gestapo headquarters than he cared to remember and there were stories about both of those places that he preferred to forget.

Suddenly filled with the nervousness that always a.s.sailed him when he thought of his SS duties, he had a quick bath, dressed even more urgently in his gleaming black SS uniform, looked fondly in on his nine-month-old daughter, Ula, where she was sleeping in her cot in her own brightly painted room, then went into the kitchen to have coffee with Ingrid. She was sitting at the table, a steaming mug in her hands, her short-cropped blonde hair attractively dishevelled around her delicate features. Having Ula had not made her lose her figure, which remained slim and sensual; and Ernst, as he took the chair facing her, was grateful for that.

'I'd forgotten I had to be there so early,' he said, sipping his coffee. 'I also forgot to tell you that I may not be coming home tonight. It could be a long duty.'

'What is it this time?' Ingrid asked him, her green gaze steady over her steaming mug.

'I don't know,' he lied, because he had been ordered to do so and did not dare do otherwise. 'They only said that it was some kind of police action that could take a long time.'

In fact, he had been told in confidence the previous day by Gruppenfhrer Josef Dietrich, commander of Hitler's elite SS bodyguard, the Leibstandarte, that for months the SA, under the command of the notorious h.o.m.os.e.xual, Captain Roehm, had been in growing, increasingly open revolt against Hitler in particular and Himmler's SS in general, and now that conflict was coming to a head. According to Dietrich, Goring, SS chief Heinrich Himmler, and the dreaded SD chief Reinhard Heydrich had formed a secret alliance to get rid of Roehm and were going to act soon.

Ernst dreaded the form such an action might take, but tried to look unconcerned.

'Another police action,' Ingrid said, putting his previous thoughts into words and imbuing them with soft sarcasm. 'Before we married I said you'd end up as a policeman - and that's what you are.'

'I'm not a policeman,' Ernst insisted too loudly, aware that he had to do this too often. 'I'm not a member of the Gestapo, so stop suggesting I am.'

'You do the Gestapo's work,' Ingrid replied, not perturbed by his outrage, 'and that's just as bad.'

'I obey orders,' he said, 'and that's all I do. It's not the kind of work I wanted, it's certainly not what I expected, and although I don't always like what I'm told to do, I must obey orders.'

'You could try refusing.'

'That's nonsense, and you know it. I'm an SS officer, a German officer, and you know what that means.'

'It means you work as a policeman.'

'It means that if I don't do what I'm told, I'll be imprisoned myself

or possibly shot. Is that what you want?'

Ingrid placed her cup back on the table and gazed down at her coffee, perhaps trying to hide the blush he could see on her cheeks.

'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I know you're not really a policeman. I also know you don't like what you're doing and my attacks make it worse. I hate saying these things, but I can't help myself. I hate the SS and I can't bear the thought that you, who should have been an engineer, are doing their dirty work. It makes me feel sick.'

'It sometimes makes me feel sick as well,' Ernst said, 'but what else can I do? I'm an officer in Heinrich Himmler's SS and it's too late to get out.'

Ingrid raised her head again. 'Are you sorry you joined?'

He shrugged. 'I'm not sure. Sometimes I feel betrayed they said I'd be in technical intelligence but at other times, and I certainly can't deny it, I want to surrender my own feelings to the general good.'

'And you think that what's happening at present is for the general good?'

Ernst heard his own sigh like a soft wail of defeat. 'We can only hope,' he said. 'At the moment, things certainly look ugly, even shameful, but one hopes that the end will justify the means and that's all one can hope for.'

Ingrid had just been about to take his hand, but she froze, glanced at him, then sat back and stared distractedly around her, as if looking for exits.

'Everything's changed so quickly,' she said, shaking her head in bewilderment. 'Nothing's been the same since that night outside the Chancellery. It's only been fifteen months, yet now we live in a city ruled by brown-shirted brutes, secret police, intimidation and fear. It's been like a bad dream.'

Ernst knew what she meant and rarely stopped thinking about. it. He, too, remembered that wonderful moment in Wilhelmstra.s.se, when Hitler had appeared at the window of the Chancellery to salute his cheering men. It had been a great moment, a transcendental experience, one that had seemed to offer the promise of a magical future. A mere fifteen months ago...

And since then?

Ernst could not forget that he had been one of the truckloads of SS men, hastily sworn in as auxiliaries to the SA, who had, in March 1933, just a few days before he'd married Ingrid, swarmed through the city to round up known Reds and Social Democrats and take them into 'protective custody' a term that, even then, was rumoured to mean imprisonment, torture, or execution. Nor could he forget that he had been one of the many proud SS guards who sang the 'Horst Wessel' song in the Kroll Opera House, temporary site of the new Reichstag, the tumultuous night that Hitler, wearing his brown SA uniform and standing on a stage decorated with a huge swastika flag, made the speech that expunged democracy from the German parliament. Nor could he forget that while the midnight calls and arrests increased, along with the whispers about torture and murder in SA and SS prison cells, he had been one of the many loyal 'policemen' who had seized union offices throughout the nation, arrested labour leaders, confiscated union files and bank accounts, shut down their newspapers, and in one awful day obliterated organized labour in the whole country.

Now the Fhrer, Adolf Hitler, was ruling a totalitarian state known as the Third Reich and he, Ernst Stoll, once a mere technical student, had aided his ruthless climb to power. Naturally, Ingrid was right: he had a lot to be ashamed of. But though he sometimes acknowledged this to himself, the shame and despair in which he writhed secretly made him loathe her for saying it.

'I have to go now,' he said.

Feeling like someone being sucked into quicksand, and filled with the feeling that today would be a nightmare, he walked around the table, kissed Ingrid's cheek, and started out of the house.

'Don't do anything you' ll be ashamed of,' Ingrid joked, trying to lighten the depression he was clearly showing.