Philip Kerr - Berlin Noir

‘You’re getting as bad as Deubel. Where’s he, as a matter of interest? Doing a bit of gardening? Shopping with the wife?’

‘I think he’s with the missing girl’s mother, sir.’

‘I’ve just come from seeing her myself. Never mind. Tell me what you found out and then you can clear off.’

He sat down on the edge of my desk and folded his arms.

‘I’m sorry, sir, I was forgetting to tell you something else first.’

‘Were you indeed? It seems to me that bulls forget quite a lot round the Alex these days. In case you need reminding, this is a murder investigation. Now get off my desk and tell me what the hell is going on.’

He sprang off my desk and stood to attention.

‘Gottfried Bautz is dead, sir. Murdered, it looks like. His landlady found the body in his apartment early this morning. Korsch has gone over there to see if there’s anything in it for us.’

I nodded quietly. ‘I see.’ I cursed, and then glanced up at him again. Standing there in front of my desk like a soldier, he was managing to look quite ridiculous. ‘For God’s sake, Becker, sit down before rigor mortis sets in and tell me about your report.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ He drew up a chair, turned it around and sat with his forearms leaning on the back.

‘Two things,“ he said. ’First, most of Emmeline Steininger’s classmates thought she had spoken about running away from home on more than one occasion. Apparently she and her stepmother didn’t get along too well -‘

‘Her stepmother? She never mentioned that.’

‘Apparently her real mother died about twelve years ago. And then the father died recently.’

‘What else?’

Becker frowned.

‘You said that there were two things.’

‘Yes, sir. One of the other girls, a Jewish girl, remembered something that happened a couple of months back. She said that a man wearing a uniform stopped his car near the school gate and called her over. He said that if she answered some questions he’d give her a lift home. Well, she says that she went and stood by his car, and the man asked her what her name was. She said that it was Sarah Hirsch. Then the man asked her if she was a Jew, and when she said that she was he just drove off without another word.’

‘Did she give you a description?’

He pulled a face and shook his head. ‘Too scared to say much at all. I had a couple of uniformed bulls with me and I think they put her off.’

‘Can you blame her? She probably thought you were going to arrest her for soliciting or something. Still, she must be a bright one if she’s at a Gymnasium. Maybe she would talk if her parents were with her, and if there weren’t any dummies with you. What do you think?’

‘I’m sure of it, sir.’

‘I’ll do it myself. Do I strike you as the avuncular type, Becker? No, you’d better not answer that.’

He grinned amiably.

‘All right, that’s all. Enjoy yourself.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ He stood up and went to the door.

‘And Becker?’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Well done.’

When he’d gone I sat staring into space for quite a while wishing that it was me who was going home to take my children out for a Saturday afternoon at Luna Park. I was overdue for some time off myself, but when you’re alone in the world, that sort of thing doesn’t seem to matter as much. I was balanced precariously on the edge of a pool of self-pity when there was knock at my door and Korsch came into the room.

‘Gottfried Bautz has been murdered, sir,’ he said immediately.

‘Yes, I heard. Becker said you went to take a look. What happened?’

Korsch sat down on the chair recently occupied by Becker. He was looking more animated than I had ever seen him before, and clearly something had got him very excited.

‘Someone thought his brains were lacking a bit of air, so they gave him a special blow-hole. A real neat job. Between the eyes. The forensic they had down there reckoned it was probably quite a small gun. Probably a six millimetre.’ He shifted on his chair. ‘But this is the interesting part, sir. Whoever plugged him first knocked him cold. Gottfried’s jaw was broken clean in two. And there was a cigarette end in his mouth. Like he’d bitten his smoke in half.’ He paused, waiting for me to pass it between my ears a little. ‘The other half was on the floor.’

‘Cigarette punch?’

‘Looks like it, sir.’

‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’

Korsch nodded deliberately. ‘I’m afraid I am. And here’s another thing. Deubel keeps a six-shot Little Tom in his jacket pocket. He says that it’s just in case he ever loses his Walther. A Little Tom fires the same size of round as killed the Czech.’

‘Does he?’ I raised my eyebrows. ‘Deubel was always convinced that even if Bautz had had nothing to do with our case, he still belonged in the cement.’

‘He tried to persuade Becker to have a word with some of his old friends in Vice. He wanted Becker to get them to red tab Bautz on some pretext and have him sent to a K Z. But Becker wasn’t having any of it. He said that they couldn’t do it, not even on the evidence of the snapper he tried to cut.’

‘I’m very glad to hear it. Why wasn’t I told about this before?’ Korsch shrugged. ‘Have you mentioned any of this to the team investigating Bautz’s death? I mean about Deubel’s cigarette punch and the gun?’

‘Not yet, sir.’

‘Then we’ll handle it ourselves.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘That all depends on whether or not he still has that gun. If you’d pierced Bautz’s ears, what would you do with it?’

‘Find the nearest pig-iron smelter.’

‘Precisely. So if he can’t show me that gun for examination then he’s off this investigation. That might not be enough for a court, but it will satisfy me. I’ve no use for murderers on my team.’

Korsch scratched his nose thoughtfully, narrowly avoiding the temptation to pick it.

‘I don’t suppose you’ve any idea where Inspector Deubel is, do you?’

‘Someone looking for me?’ Deubel sauntered through the open door. The beery stink that accompanied him was enough to explain where he had been. An unlit cigarette in the corner of his crooked mouth, he stared belligerently at Korsch and then, with unsteady distaste, at me. He was drunk.

‘Been in the café Kerkau,’ he said, his mouth refusing to move quite as he would have normally expected. ‘It’s all right, you know. It’s all right, I’m off duty. Least for another hour, anyway. Be fine by then. Don’t you worry about me. I can take care of myself.’

‘What else have you been taking care of?’

He straightened like a puppet jerking back on its unsteady legs.

‘Been asking questions at the station where the Steininger girl went missing.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘No? No? Well, what did you mean, Herr Kommissar?’

‘Someone murdered Gottfried Bautz.’

‘What, that Czech bastard?’ He uttered a laugh that was part belch and part spit.

‘His jaw was broken. There was a cigarette end in his mouth.’

‘So? What’s that to do with me?’

‘That’s one of your little specialities, isn’t it? The cigarette punch? I’ve heard you say so yourself.’

‘There’s no fucking patent on it, Gunther.’ He took a long drag on the dead cigarette aid narrowed his bleary eyes. ‘You accusing me of canning him?’

‘Can I see your gun, Inspector Deubel?’

For several seconds Deubel stood sneering at me before reaching for his shoulder holster. Behind him Korsch was slowly reaching for his own gun, and he kept his hand on its handle until Deubel had laid the Walther PPK on my desk. I picked it up and sniffed the barrel, watching his face for some sign that he knew Bautz had been killed with a gun of a much smaller calibre.