Deadly Secrets (Detective Erika Foster #6)(89)

‘Yes, my babies,’ she said, peering at them and holding them up to the light.

‘We also need you to sign a form, which states that your property has been returned to you,’ said Erika. ‘If you could make sure everything is in order and that they are in fact your earrings.’

There was a rattling sound as Charles brought in a stack of teacups on a tray. His hands shook as he took them off and placed them on the table.

‘Charles, I need you to cast your expert eye over these,’ said Mrs Fryatt, handing him the earrings in the box. ‘I have to sign that they are mine. I can tell the difference between a diamond and a zircon, but I need to be sure these officers aren’t taking me for a ride.’ She smiled across at Erika and Moss, but the smile didn’t quite make it to her eyes. Charles took a jeweller’s eyepiece from his pocket, and peered through it at the earrings.

‘He always comes prepared.’ Mrs Fryatt grinned indulgently. Charles peered at them, breathing heavily, and then went to the window to catch them in the light. The clock ticked.

‘Everything okay?’ asked Erika.

‘Yes,’ he said coming back and placing the box on the table. Moss opened the folder she was carrying and took out a pre-filled form, and put it in front of Mrs Fryatt.

‘Check we have your name and address correct, and sign underneath,’ she said.

Mrs Fryatt took a pen from a corner of the table and scanned the form, then signed her name at the bottom.

Erika leaned over and placed the scanned identity papers for Elsa Neubukov on top of the form. Mrs Fryatt stared at the sepia photograph and the swastika stamp of the Third Reich for a long moment, frozen in shock. Then she looked up at Erika. Her eyes moved to Moss, and then to Charles, whose mouth was also agape. She sat back and put a shaking hand to her mouth.

‘We found these papers concealed in a print on the wall of Marissa Lewis’s bedroom,’ said Erika. ‘Along with these…’ She placed a copy of the Austrian passport for Elsa Becher, dated six years later, beside the identity papers. Then she produced a copy of a marriage certificate, for Elsa Becher and Arnold Fryatt, and placed it beside the Austrian passport. ‘You can see we have a paper trail from Elsa Neubukov, to Elsa Becher and then Elsa Fryatt. All of them are you.’

‘This is absurd,’ Mrs Fryatt said. All the colour had drained from her face, and her hands shook. She leant forward and took the scan of the German identity papers. ‘This isn’t an original. This is a sick joke. That girl was a liar, and you can do all sorts of things on computers these days…’

‘You’ll see there’s a phone number written on the back,’ said Erika. ‘Marissa’s mother has confirmed that is Marissa’s handwriting. It’s the phone number for a Dr Arnold Schmidt, who works in Hamburg at an office responsible for investigating historical Nazi war crimes.’

Charles had slumped against the wall by the door, and he looked pale and ill.

‘You should sit down, Charles,’ said Erika. He moved to the sofa and sat at the opposite end to his mother. ‘Dr Schmidt wasn’t aware of your identity, Mrs Fryatt, but Marissa was. Or she put two and two together when she found these identity papers. She called him a few weeks before Christmas, making some vague enquiries. She said she had seen an article in one of the tabloid newspapers that these so-called Nazi hunters were offering a reward for information about anyone who worked in concentrations camps during the war. He says he told her that the reward was two thousand euros… I think Marissa realised that she could make much more money from blackmailing you.’

‘Lies!’ she hissed. ‘That little bitch; she made this up. Where are the originals? Tell me? Where?’

Moss opened the file again and gave Erika a sheet of paper.

‘Mrs Fryatt, or can I call you Elsa Neubukov? Elsa, you worked at the Mauthausen–Gusen concentration camp in upper Austria.’

‘Lies! Austria was never a willing participant in the war. We were annexed into the German Third Reich. The people didn’t have a choice, we just became part of it all, on the whims of politicians.’

‘Dr Schmidt was able, very quickly, to access records from the Mauthausen-Gusen camp. You worked there, Elsa,’ said Erika.

‘Don’t call me that,’ she cried, putting her hands to her ears.

‘You took part in the extermination of people. based purely on the race they were born. They were used for slave labour, experimented on, tortured.’

Elsa slammed a hand down on the coffee table. ‘You think we were responsible for this? You think the Austrian people wanted this? We had no choice!’ she cried, her eyes blazing.

‘Mauthausen was one of the biggest concentration camp complexes in the German-controlled part of Europe,’ said Erika.

‘I don’t need a fucking history lesson!’ cried Elsa. Charles was staring blankly at the paperwork on the table.

Erika went on, ‘Prisoners at Mauthausen–Gusen were forced to work building arms, quarrying stone. The conditions were horrific. What did you do, exactly? The records state that you were a guard, which is very broad, but it was your job to control the prisoners, yes? To move them from place to place, to dole out discipline and order, to carry out orders. And what were those orders? They were from Hitler and the Third Reich. Orders to reshape Europe to their Aryan ideals. Do you see yourself as part of a superior race? What do you think of me, Elsa? I’m Slavic, and we were thought of by the Third Reich as a subhuman inferior race.’