The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fic - By Mike Ashley Page 0,219

in the other, the pins substituted a swastika for the cogwheel.

The symbol was everywhere. There was even a table near the door where a couple of functionaries proffered sign-up sheets to new arrivals, and sold eagle-and-swastika pins and lavallières. Andy bought a pin for himself and a lavallière for Rose. The insignia stood out against the tasteful lavender of her silk-covered torso. She leaned against Winslow and whispered in his ear as she lovingly attached the pin to his lapel. “If we ever get out of here alive I’m going to have to take twenty showers before I feel clean again.”

The chairman, a thin-faced, thin-haired individual, whose personality matched his slightly shabby grey suit, rapped for attention and asked everyone to take their places. He stood at a speaker’s lectern decorated with the eagle-and-swastika symbol. Andy and Rose found seats at a table far from the centre of action. Jacob Maccabee and Lisalotte Schmidt placed themselves near the head table.

They sang The Star-Spangled Banner and then Deutschland Über Alles. The chairman gave a half-embarrassed-looking Nazi salute and everyone sat down. A beefy individual at their table seemed determined to dominate the conversation. That was fine with Winslow. The beefy guy was an importer. All he could talk about was how great the newest Telefunken and Blaupunkt radios and phonographs were. He could get you a deal, he could get you a great deal on either brand. You’ve never heard anything like it. The music made you believe you were in the Berlin Opernhaus. Ach, Schumann, Von Suppe, Abel, Johann Sebastian Bach and all his sons, Praetorius, Gluck. And opera – why, you would think you were at Bayreuth in person! And did you know what was coming soon? Yes – he wasn’t supposed to tell you about this yet, it was very hush-hush, but … the German engineers under the inspired leadership of the Führer were developing television; yes, television, and soon you would be able to see great drama and important political rallies in your own home. Yes! It was true!

Winslow ate Kavalierspitz mit Sauerkraut und rote Kartoffel and drank a couple of glasses of zweigelt umathum. Rose Palmer nibbled at a frisée salad with a poached egg. The importer kept talking and Andy hung on every word, relieved not to have to say anything except for an occasional Ach, ja? or Nicht wahr, or Wunderschön!

They’d just started on coffee and Schnapps when someone stood up and started singing. Andy Winslow blinked in astonishment. It was Jacob Maccabee. He was swaying drunkenly, leaning on Lisalotte Schmidt’s shoulder, singing “Es zittern die morschen Knocken”.

Lisalotte joined in, then a couple of people at Maccabee’s table. The grey-suited chairman stood up and rapped his gavel a couple of times, then realized it wasn’t going to work and started waving the gavel like a conductor’s baton. Now the whole room was singing. When the song ended, Jacob swung into “Kampflied der Nationalsozialisten”. The songs came to a roaring conclusion, followed by men jumping up at one table after another giving the stiff-armed salute and Sieg heil-ing.

Jacob sat down to a round of applause.

Rose Palmer leaned over and whispered in Winslow’s ear, “I thought he would try to make himself inconspicuous in the middle of all these Aryans.”

“Leave it to Jacob,” Winslow whispered back. “Right into the lion’s den, and challenge anybody to call him out on it!” He couldn’t help grinning.

Once the singing had died down, the diminutive, grey-suited chairman rapped his gavel again. “Ladies and Gentleman, Damen und Herren, Kameraden—” a round of applause at the last word. He went on like that, mixing English and German, and all the while it was obvious that he was leading up to the boffo introduction of the special guest of the evening.

“But, first, a special treat!”

He reached under the speaker’s lectern and came up with something the size of a movie poster. He studied it himself. The side turned towards the audience was blank.

“In case any of you missed this recent newspaper, I want you all to see it.”

With a grin, he turned the poster towards the audience. It was a huge enlargement of the Mirror front page with the photo of the Essex Street synagogue, blown up and burning. He made a clucking sound with his tongue, the kind your mother does when you’re just mildly naughty. “Isn’t that a pity.”

The audience howled with laughter and applause.

“And now, Damen und Herren, the noble leader of our movement in Sudetenland, a comrade-in-arms in the