Philip Kerr - Berlin Noir

The real fear here is that this will all turn into a full-scale siege of the city in an effort to push the Americans, the British and the French out of Berlin – although I don’t suppose anyone would mind if we saw the back of the French. Nobody objects to the Amis and the Tommies bossing us around – at least they fought and beat us. But Franz? They are such hypocrites. The fiction of a victorious French army is almost too much for a German to bear.

People say that the Amis and the Tommies won’t stand by and see Berlin fall to the Ivans. I’m not so sure about the British. They’ve got their hands full in Palestine right now (all books on Zionist Nationalism have been removed from Berlin bookshops and libraries, which seems only too familiar). But just when you think that the British have more important things to do, one hears that they’ve been destroying more German shipping. The sea is full of fish for us to eat, and they’re blowing up boats! Do they want to save us from the Russians in order that they can starve us?

One still hears rumours of cannibalism. There’s a story going around Berlin that the police were called to a house in Kreuzberg where downstairs neighbours had heard the sounds of a terrible commotion, and found blood seeping through their ceiling. They burst in and found an old couple dining off the raw flesh of a pony that they had dragged off the street and killed with rocks. It may or may not be true, but I have the terrible feeling that it is. What is certain is that morale has sunk to new depths. The skies are full of transport planes and troops of all four Powers are increasingly jumpy.

You remember Frau Fersen’s son, Karl? He came back from a Russian POW camp last week, but in very poor health. Apparently the doctor says that his lungs are finished, poor boy. She was telling me what he’d said about his time in Russia. It sounds awful! Why ever didn’t you talk to me about it, Bernie? Perhaps I would have been more understanding. Perhaps I could have helped. I am conscious that I haven’t been much of a wife to you since the war. And now that you are no longer here, this seems harder to bear. So when you come back I thought that maybe we could use some of the money you left – so much money! did you rob a bank? – to go on holiday somewhere. To leave Berlin for a while, and spend time together.

Meanwhile, I have used some of the money to repair the ceiling. Yes, I know you had planned on doing it yourself, but I know how you kept putting it off. Anyway, it’s done now, and it looks very nice.

Come home and see it soon. I miss you.

Your loving wife,

Kirsten.

So much for my imaginary graphologist, I reflected happily, and poured myself the last of Traudl’s vodka. This had the immediate effect of melting my nervousness of telephoning Liebl to report on my almost imperceptible progress. To hell with Belinsky, I said to myself, and resolved to solicit Liebl’s opinion as to whether Becker would or would not be best served by trying to obtain König’s immediate arrest in order that he be forced to give evidence.

When Liebl finally came on the line he sounded like a man who had just come to the telephone after falling down a flight of stairs. His normally forthright and irascible manner was cowed and his voice was balanced precariously at the very edge of breakdown.

‘Herr Gunther,’ he said, and swallowed his way to a more decorous silence. Then I heard him take a deep breath as he took control of himself again. ‘There’s been the most terrible accident. Fräulein Braunsteiner has been killed.’

‘Killed?’ I repeated dumbly. ‘How?’

‘She was run over by a car,’ Liebl said quietly.

‘Where?’

‘It happened virtually on the doorstep of the hospital where she worked. Apparently it was instantaneous. There was nothing they could do for her.’

‘When was this?’

‘Just a couple of hours ago, when she was coming off duty. Unfortunately the driver did not stop.’

That part I could have guessed for myself.

‘He was scared probably. Possibly he had been drinking. Who knows? Austrians are such bad drivers.’

‘Did anyone see the – the accident?’ The words sounded almost angry in my mouth.

‘There are no witnesses so far. But someone seems to recollect having seen a black Mercedes driving rather too fast much farther along Alser Strasse.’

‘Christ,’ I said weakly, ‘that’s just around the corner. To think I might even have heard the squeal of those car-tyres.’

‘Yes, indeed, quite so,’ Liebl murmured. ‘But there was no pain. It was so quick that she could not have suffered. The car struck her in the middle of her back. The doctor I spoke to said that her spine was completely shattered. Probably she was dead before she hit the ground.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘In the morgue at the General Hospital,’ Liebl sighed. I heard him light a cigarette and take a long drag of smoke. ‘Herr Gunther,’ he said, ‘we shall of course have to inform Herr Becker. Since you know him so much better than I – ’

‘Oh no,’ I said quickly, ‘I get enough rotten jobs without contracting to do that one as well. Take her insurance policy and her will along if it makes it any easier for you.’

‘I can assure you that I’m every bit as upset about this as you are, Herr Gunther. There’s no need to be – ’

‘Yes, you’re right. I’m sorry. Look, I hate to sound callous, but let’s see if we can’t use this to get an adjournment.’

‘I don’t know if this quite qualifies as compassionate,’ Liebl hummed. ‘It’s not as if they were married or anything.’

‘She was going to have his baby, for Christ’s sake.’

There was a brief, shocked silence. Then Liebl spluttered, ‘I had no idea. Yes, you’re right, of course. I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Do that.’

‘But however am I going to tell Herr Becker?’

‘Tell him she was murdered,’ I said. He started to say something, but I was not in a mood to be contradicted. ‘It was no accident, believe me. Tell Becker it was his old comrades who did it. Tell him that precisely. He’ll understand. See if it doesn’t jog his memory a little. Perhaps now he’ll remember something he should have told me earlier. Tell him that if this doesn’t make him give us everything he knows then he deserves a crushed windpipe.’ There was a knock at the door. Belinsky with Traudl’s travel papers. ‘Tell him that,’ I snapped and banged the receiver back onto its cradle. Then I crossed the floor of the room and hauled the door open.

Belinsky held Traudl’s redundant travel papers in front of him and gave them a jaunty wave as he came into the room, too pleased with himself to notice my mood.

‘It took a bit of doing, getting a pink as quickly as this,’ he said, ‘but old Belinsky managed it. Just don’t ask me how.’

‘She’s dead,’ I said flatly, and watched his big face fall.

‘Shit,’ he said, ‘that’s too bad. What the hell happened?’

‘A hit-and-run driver.’ I lit a cigarette and slumped into the armchair. ‘Killed her outright. I’ve just had Becker’s lawyer on the phone telling me. It happened not far from here, a couple of hours ago.’

Belinsky nodded and sat down on the sofa opposite me. Although I avoided his eye I still felt it trying to look into my soul. He shook his head for a while and then produced his pipe which he set about filling with tobacco. When he had finished he started to light the thing and in between fire-sustaining sucks of air, he said, ‘Forgive me – for asking – but you didn’t -change your mind – did you?’

‘About what?’ I growled belligerently.

He removed the pipe from his mouth and glanced into the bowl before replacing it between his big irregular teeth. ‘I mean, about killing her yourself.’