Philip Kerr - Berlin Noir

‘What made you think of it, Bernie?’ Illmann had asked.

‘Not everyone rolls up as good as you, Professor. Sometimes a little flake will stay on your tongue, or under your lip. When the Jewish girl who said she saw our man said he was smoking something sweet-smelling, like bay-leaves or oregano, she had to be talking about hashish. That’s probably how he gets them away quietly. Treats them all grown-up by offering them a cigarette. Only it’s not the kind they’re expecting.’

Illmann shook his head in apparent wonder.

‘And to think that I missed it. I must be getting old.’

Becker slammed the car door and joined me on the pavement. The apartment was above a pharmacy. I had a feeling I was going to need it.

We walked up the stairs and knocked on the door. The man who opened it was dark and bad-tempered looking. Recognizing Becker he uttered a sigh and called to his wife. Then he glanced back inside and I saw him nod grimly.

‘You’d better come in,’ he said.

I was watching him closely. His face remained flushed, and as I squeezed past him I could see small beads of perspiration on his forehead. Further into the place I caught a warm, soapy smell, and I guessed that he’d only recently finished taking a bath.

Closing the door, Herr Ganz overtook and led us into the small sitting-room where his wife was standing quietly. She was tall and pale, as if she spent too much time indoors, and clearly she had not long stopped crying. The handkerchief was still wet in her hand. Herr Ganz, shorter than his wife, put his arm around her broad shoulders.

‘This is Kommissar Gunther, from the Alex,’ said Becker.

‘Herr and Frau Ganz,’ I said, ‘I’m afraid you must prepare yourselves for the worst possible news. We found the body of your daughter Liza early this morning. I’m very sorry.’ Becker nodded solemnly.

‘Yes,’ said Ganz. ‘Yes, I thought so.’

‘Naturally there will have to be an identification,’ I told him. ‘It needn’t be right away. Perhaps later on, when you’ve had a chance to draw yourselves together.’ I waited for Frau Ganz to dissolve, but for the moment at least she seemed inclined to remain solid. Was it because she was a nurse, and rather more immune to suffering and pain? Even her own? ‘May we sit down?’

‘Yes, please do,’ said Ganz.

I told Becker to go and make some coffee for us all. He went with some alacrity, eager to be out of the grief-stricken atmosphere, if only for a moment or two.

‘Where did you find her?’ said Ganz.

It wasn’t the sort of question I felt comfortable answering. How do you tell two parents that their daughter’s naked body was found inside a tower of car tyres in a disused garage on Kaiser Wilhelm Strasse? I gave him the sanitized version, which included no more than the location of the garage. At this there occurred a very definite exchange of looks.

Ganz sat with his hand on his wife’s knee. She herself was quiet, vacant even, and perhaps less in need of Becker’s coffee than I was.

‘Have you any idea who might have killed her?’ he said.

‘We’re working on a number of possibilities, sir,’ I said, finding the old police platitudes coming back to me once again. ‘We’re doing everything we can, believe me.’

Ganz’s frown deepened. He shook his head angrily. ‘What I fail to understand is why there has been nothing in the newspapers.’

‘It’s important that we prevent any copy-cat killings,’ I said. ‘It often happens in this sort of case.’

‘Isn’t it also important that you stop any more girls from being murdered?’ said Frau Ganz. Her look was one of exasperation. ‘Well, it’s true, isn’t it? Other girls have been murdered. That’s what people are saying. You may be able to keep it out of the papers, but you can’t stop people from talking.’

‘There have been propaganda drives warning girls to be on their guard,’ I said.

‘Well, they obviously didn’t do any good, did they?’ said Ganz. ‘Liza was an intelligent girl, Kommissar. Not the kind to do anything stupid. So this killer must be clever too. And the way I see it, the only way to put girls properly on their guard is to print the story, in all its horror. To scare them.’

‘You may be right, sir,’ I said unhappily, ‘but it’s not up to me. I’m only obeying orders.’ That was the typically German excuse for everything these days, and I felt ashamed using it.

Becker put his head round the kitchen door.

‘Could I have a word, sir?’

It was my turn to be glad to leave the room.

‘What’s the matter?’ I said bitterly. ‘Forgotten how to boil a kettle?’

He handed me a newspaper cutting, from the Beobachter . ‘Take a look at this, sir. I found it in the drawer here.’

It was an advertisement for a ‘Rolf Vogelmann, Private Investigator, Missing Persons a Speciality’, the same advertisement that Bruno Stahlecker had used to plague me with.

Becker pointed to the date at the top of the cutting: ‘3 October,’ he said. ‘Four days after Liza Ganz disappeared.’

‘It wouldn’t be the first time that people got tired waiting for the police to come up with something,’ I said. ‘After all, that’s how I used to make a comparatively honest living.’

Becker collected some cups and saucers and put them on to a tray with the coffee pot. ‘Do you suppose that they might have used him, sir?’

‘I don’t see any harm in asking.’

Ganz was unrepentant, the sort of client I wouldn’t have minded working for myself.

‘As I said, Kommissar, there was nothing in the newspapers about our daughter, and we saw your colleague here only twice. So as time passed we wondered just what efforts were being made to find our daughter. It’s the not knowing that gets to you. We thought that if we hired Herr Vogelmann then at least we could be sure that someone was doing his best to try and find her. I don’t mean to be rude, Kommissar, but that’s the way it was.’

I sipped my coffee and shook my head.

‘I quite understand,’ I said. ‘I’d probably have done the same thing myself. I just wish this Vogelmann had been able to find her.’

You had to admire them, I thought. They could probably ill-afford the services of a private investigator and yet they had still gone ahead and hired one. It might even have cost them whatever savings they had.

When we had finished our coffee and were leaving I suggested that a police car might come round and bring Herr Ganz down to the Alex to identify the body early the following morning.

‘Thank you for your kindness, Kommissar,’ said Frau Ganz, attempting a smile. ‘Everyone’s been so kind.’

Her husband nodded his agreement. Hovering by the open door, he was obviously keen to see the back of us.

‘Herr Vogelmann wouldn’t take any money from us. And now you’re arranging a car for my husband. I can’t tell you how much we appreciate it.’

I squeezed her hand sympathetically, and then we left.

In the pharmacy downstairs I bought some powders and swallowed one in the car. Becker looked at me with disgust.

‘Christ, I don’t know how you can do that,’ he said, shuddering.

‘It works faster that way. And after what we just went through I can’t say that I notice the taste much. I hate giving bad news.’ I swept my mouth with my tongue for the residue. ‘Well? What did you make of that? Get the same hunch as before?’

‘Yes. He was giving her all sorts of meaningful little looks.’

‘So were you, for that matter,’ I said, shaking my head in wonder.

Becker grinned broadly. ‘She wasn’t bad, was she?’

‘I suppose you’re going to tell me what she’d be like in bed, right?’