Philip Kerr - Berlin Noir

‘I’ll kill him,’ he said, flinging the case notes across the office.

‘Not before I do,’ I said, finding Weisthor’s file at last. I slammed the drawer shut. ‘Right. I’ve got it. Now we can get out of this place.’

I was about to reach for the door-handle when a heavy revolver came through the door, followed closely by Lanz Kindermann.

‘Would you mind telling me what the hell’s going on here?’

I stepped back into the room. ‘Well, this is a pleasant surprise,’ I said. ‘We were just talking about you. We thought you might have gone to your Bible class in Wewelsburg. Incidentally, I’d be careful with that gun if I were you. My men have got this place under surveillance. They’re very loyal, you know. That’s the way we are in the police these days. I’d hate to think what they’d do if they found out that some harm had come to me.’

Kindermann glanced at Lange, who hadn’t moved, and then at the files under my arm.

‘I don’t know what your game is, Herr Steininger, if that is your real name, but I think that you had better put those down on the desk and raise your hands, don’t you?’

I laid the files down on the desk and started to say something about having a warrant, but Reinhard Lange had already taken the initiative, if that’s what you call it when you’re misguided enough to throw yourself on to a man who is holding a.45-calibre pistol cocked on you. His first three or four words of bellowing outrage ended abruptly as the deafening gunshot blasted the side of his neck away. Gurgling horribly, Lange twisted around like a whirling dervish, grasping frantically at his neck with his still-manacled hands, and decorating the wallpaper with red roses as he fell to the floor.

Kindermann’s hands were better suited to the violin than something as big as the.45, and with the hammer down you need a carpenter’s forefinger to work a trigger that heavy, so there was plenty of time for me to collect the bust of Dante that sat on Kindermann’s desk and smash it into several pieces against the side of his head.

With Kindermann unconscious, I looked round to where Lange had curled himself into the corner. With his bloody forearm pressed against what remained of his jugular, he stayed alive for only a minute or so, and then died without speaking another word.

I removed the handcuffs and was transferring them to the groaning Kindermann when, summoned by the shot, two nurses burst into the office and stared in terror at the scene that met their eyes. I wiped my hands on Kindermann’s necktie and then went over to the desk.

‘Before you ask, your boss here just shot his pansy friend.’ I picked up the telephone. ‘Operator, get me Police Headquarters, Alexanderplatz, please.’ I watched one nurse search for Lange’s pulse and the other help Kindermann on to the couch as I waited to be connected.

‘He’s dead,’ said the first nurse. Both of them stared suspiciously at me.

‘This is Kommissar Gunther,’ I said to the operator at the Alex. ‘Connect me with Kriminalassistant Korsch or Becker in the Murder Commission as quickly as possible, if you please.’ After another short wait Becker came on to the line.

‘I’m at Kindermann’s clinic,’ I explained. ‘We stopped to pick up the medical case history on Weisthor and Lange managed to get himself killed. He lost his temper and a piece of his neck. Kindermann was carrying a lighter.’

‘Want me to organize the meat wagon?’

‘That’s the general idea, yes. Only I won’t be here when it comes. I’m sticking to my original plan, except that now I’m taking Kindermann along with me instead of Lange.’

‘All right, sir. Leave it to me. Oh, incidentally, Frau Steininger called.’

‘Did she leave a message?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Nothing at all?’

‘No, sir. Sir, you know what that one needs, if you don’t mind me saying?’

‘Try and surprise me.’

‘I reckon that she needs -’

‘On second thoughts, don’t bother.’

‘Well, you know the type, sir.’

‘Not exactly, Becker, no. But while I’m driving I’ll certainly give it some thought. You can depend on it.’

I drove west out of Berlin, following the yellow signs indicating long-distance traffic, heading towards Potsdam and beyond it, to Hanover.

The autobahn branches off from the Berlin circular road at Lehnin, leaving the old town of Brandenburg to the north, and beyond Zeisar, the ancient town of the Bishops of Brandenburg, the road runs west in a straight line.

After a while I was aware of Kindermann sitting upright in the back seat of the Mercedes.

‘Where are we going?’ he said dully.

I glanced over my right shoulder. With his hands manacled behind his back I didn’t think he’d be stupid enough to try hitting me with his head. Especially now it was bandaged, something the two nurses from the clinic had insisted on doing before allowing me to drive the doctor away.

‘Don’t you recognize the road?’ I said. ‘We’re on our way to a little town south of Paderborn. Wewelsburg. I’m sure you know it. I didn’t think you would want to miss your S S Court of Honour on my account.’ Out of the corner of my eye I saw him smile and settle back in the rear seat, or at least, as well as he was able to.

‘That suits me fine.’

‘You know, you’ve really inconvenienced me, Herr Doktor. Shooting my star witness like that. He was going to give a special performance for Himmler. It’s lucky he made a written statement back at the Alex. And, of course, you’ll have to understudy.’

He laughed. ‘And what makes you think I’ll take to that role?’

‘I’d hate to think what might happen if you were to disappoint me.’

‘Looking at you, I’d say you were used to being disappointed.’

‘Perhaps. But I doubt my disappointment will even compare with Himmler’s.’

‘My life is in no danger from the ReichsFührer, I can assure you.’

‘I wouldn’t place too much reliance on your rank or your uniform if I were you, HauptSturmFührer. You’ll shoot just as easily as Ernst Rohm and all those S A men did.’

‘I knew Rohm quite well,’ he said smoothly. ‘We were good friends. It may interest you to know that that’s a fact which is well-known to Himmler, with all that such a relationship implies.’

‘You’re saying he knows you’re a queer?’

‘Certainly. If I survived the Night of Long Knives, I think I can manage to cope with whatever inconvenience you’ve arranged for me, don’t you?’

‘The ReichsFührer will be pleased to read Lange’s letters, then. If only to confirm what he already knows. Never underestimate the importance to a policeman of confirming information. I dare say he knows all about Weisthor’s insanity as well, right?’

‘What was insanity ten years ago merely counts as a treatable nervous disorder today. Psychotherapy has come a long way in a short time. Do you seriously believe that Herr Weisthor can be the first senior S S officer to be treated? I’m a consultant at a special orthopaedic hospital at Hohenlychen, near Ravensbruck concentration camp, where many S S staff officers are treated for the prevailing euphemism that describes mental illness. You know, you surprise me. As a policeman you ought to know how skilled the Reich is in the practice of such convenient hypocrisies. Here you are hurrying to create a great big firework display for the ReichsFührer with a couple of rather damp little crackers. He will be disappointed.’

‘I like listening to you, Kindermann. I always like to see another man’s work. I bet you’re great with all those rich widows who bring their menstrual depressions to your fancy clinic. Tell me, for how many of them do you prescribe cocaine?’