Philip Kerr - Berlin Noir

‘I’m sure it’s fine,’ I said generously.

‘Right then. I’ll leave you to have a little look around on your own, Professor Kurtz. Let you get a feel for the place. Just lock up after you and knock on my door when you’ve seen everything.’

When the old woman had gone I wandered among the rooms, finding only that for a single man Abs seemed to have received an extraordinarily large number of Care parcels, those food parcels that came from the United States. I counted the empty cardboard boxes that bore the distinctive initials and the Broad Street, New York address and found that there were over fifty of them.

It didn’t look like Care so much as good business.

When I had finished looking around I told the old woman that I was looking for something bigger and thanked her for allowing me to see the place. Then I strolled back to my pension in Skodagasse.

I wasn’t back very long before there was a knock at my door.

‘Herr Gunther?’ said the one wearing the sergeant’s stripes.

I nodded.

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to come with us, please.’

‘Am I being arrested?’

‘Excuse me, sir?’

I repeated the question in my uncertain English. The American MP shifted his chewing-gum around impatiently.

‘It will be explained to you down at headquarters, sir.’

I picked up my jacket and slipped it on.

‘You will remember to bring your papers, won’t you, sir?’ he smiled politely. ‘Save us coming back for them.’

‘Of course,’ I said, collecting my hat and coat. ‘Have you got transport? Or are we walking?’

‘The truck’s right outside the front door.’

The landlady caught my eye as we came through her lobby. To my surprise she looked not at all perturbed. Maybe she was used to her guests getting pulled in by the International Patrol. Or perhaps she just told herself that someone else was paying for my room whether I slept there or in a cell at the police prison.

We climbed into the truck and drove a few metres north before a short turn to the right took us south down Lederergasse, away from the city centre and the headquarters of the IMP.

‘Aren’t we going to Kärtnerstrasse?’ I said.

‘It isn’t an International Patrol matter, sir,’ the sergeant explained. ‘This is American jurisdiction. We’re going to the Stiftskaserne, on Mariahilferstrasse.’

‘To see who? Shields or Belinsky?’

‘It will be explained -’

‘- when we get there, right.’

The mock-baroque entrance to the Stiftskaserne, the headquarters of the 796 thMilitary Police, with its half-relief Doric columns, griffins and Greek warriors, was situated, somewhat incongruously, between the twin entrances of Tiller’s department store, and was part of a four-storey building that fronted onto Mariahilferstrasse. We passed through the massive arch of this entrance and beyond the rear of the main building and a parade ground to another building, which housed a military barracks.

The truck drove through some gates and pulled up outside the barracks. I was escorted inside and up a couple of flights of stairs to a big bright office which commanded an impressive view of the anti-aircraft tower that stood on the other side of the parade ground.

Shields stood up from behind a desk and grinned like he was trying to impress the dentist.

‘Come on in and sit down.’ he said as if we were old friends. He looked at the sergeant. ‘Did he come peaceably, Gene? Or did you have to beat the shit out of his ass?’

The sergeant grinned a little and mumbled something which I didn’t catch. It was no wonder that one could never understand their English, I thought: Americans were forever chewing something.

‘You better stick around a while, Gene,’ Shields added. ‘Just in case we have to get tough with this guy.’ He uttered a short laugh and, hitching up his trousers, sat squarely in front of me, his heavy legs splayed apart like some samurai lord, except that he was probably twice as large as any Japanese.

‘First of all, Gunther, I have to tell you that there’s a Lieutenant Canfield, a real asshole Brit, down at International Headquarters who would love somebody to help him with a little problem he’s got. It seems like some stonemason in the British sector got himself killed when a rock fell on his tits. Mostly everyone, including the lieutenant’s boss, believes that it was probably an accident. Only the lieutenant’s the keen type. He’s read Sherlock Holmes and he wants to go to detective school when he leaves the army. He’s got this theory that someone tampered with the dead man’s books. Now I don’t know if that’s sufficient motive to kill a man or not, but I do remember seeing you go into Pichler’s office yesterday morning after Captain Linden’s funeral.’ He chuckled. ‘Hell, I admit it, Gunther. I was spying on you. Now what do you say to that?’

‘Pichler’s dead?’

‘How about it you try it with a little more surprise? “Don’t tell me Pichler is dead!” or “My God, I don’t believe what you are telling me!” You wouldn’t know what happened to him, would you, Gunther?’

I shrugged. ‘Maybe the business was getting on top of him.’

Shields laughed at that one. He laughed like he had once taken a few classes in laughing, showing all his teeth, which were mostly bad, in a blue boxing-glove of a jaw that was wider than the top of his dark and balding head. He seemed loud, like most Americans, and then some. He was a big, brawny man with shoulders like a rhinoceros, and wore a suit of light-brown flannel with lapels that were as broad and sharp as two Swiss halberds. His tie deserved to hang over a café terrace, and his shoes were heavy brown Oxfords. Americans seemed to have an attraction for stout shoes in the same way that Ivans loved wristwatches: the only difference was that they generally bought them in shops.

‘Frankly, I don’t give a damn for that lieutenant’s problems,’ he said. ‘It’s shit in the British backyard, not mine. So let them sweep it up. No, I’m merely explaining your need to cooperate with me. You may have nothing at all to do with Pichler’s death, but I’m sure that you don’t want to waste a day explaining that to Lieutenant Canfield. So you help me and I’ll help you: I’ll forget I ever saw you go into Pichler’s shop. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with your German,’ I said. All the same it struck me with what venom he attacked the accent, tackling the consonants with a theatrical degree of precision, almost as if he regarded the language as one which needed to be spoken cruelly. ‘I don’t suppose it would matter if I said that I know absolutely nothing about what happened to Herr Pichler?’

Shields shrugged apologetically. ‘As I said, it’s a British problem, not mine. Maybe you are innocent. But like I say, it sure would be a pain in the ass explaining it to those British. I swear they think every one of you krauts is a goddam Nazi.’

I threw up my hands in defeat. ‘So how can I help you?’

‘Well, naturally, when I heard that before coming to Captain Linden’s party you visited his murderer in prison, my inquiring nature could not be constrained.’ His tone grew sharper. ‘Come on, Gunther. I want to know what the hell is going on between you and Becker.’

‘I take it you know Becker’s side of the story.’

‘Like it was engraved on my cigarette-case.’

‘Well, Becker believes it. He’s paying me to investigate it. And, he hopes, to prove it.’

‘You’re investigating it, you say. So what does that make you?’

‘A private investigator.’

‘A shamus? Well, well.’ He leaned forwards on his chair, and taking hold of the edge of my jacket, felt the material with his finger and thumb. It was fortunate that there were no razor blades sewn on that particular number. ‘No, I can’t buy that. You’re not half greasy enough.’