Philip Kerr - Berlin Noir

‘All right, Rainis, that’s all. You were only doing your job. I suggest that you go and get yourself some breakfast.’

The monster nodded and walked back towards the house, with the cat following him.

‘I’ll bet he can eat his weight in peanuts.’

Nebe smiled thinly. ‘Some people keep savage dogs to protect them. I have Rainis.’

‘Yes, well I hope he’s house-trained.’ I took off my hat and wiped my brow with my handkerchief. ‘Me, I wouldn’t let him past the front door. I’d keep him on a chain in the yard. Where does he think he is? Treblinka? The bastard couldn’t wait to shoot me, Arthur.’

‘Oh, I don’t doubt it. He enjoys killing people.’

Nebe shook his head to my offer of a cigarette, but he had to help me light mine as my hand was shaking like it was talking to a deaf Apache.

‘He’s a Latvian,’ Nebe explained. ‘He was a corporal at the Riga concentration camp. When the Russians captured him they stamped on his head and broke his jaw with their boots.’

‘Believe me, I know how they must have felt.’

‘They paralysed half his face, and left him slightly soft in the head. He was always a brutal killer. But now he’s more like an animal. And just as loyal as any dog.’

‘Well, naturally I was thinking he’d have his good points too. Riga eh?’ I jerked my head at the open pit and the incinerator. ‘I bet that little waste-disposal set-up makes him feel quite at home.’ I sucked gratefully at my cigarette and added, ‘If it comes to that, I bet it makes you both feel at home.’

Nebe frowned. ‘I think you need a drink,’ he said quietly.

‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Just make sure it doesn’t have any lime in it. I think I lost my taste for lime, for ever.’

I followed Nebe into the house and up to the library where we had talked the day before. He fetched me a brandy from the drinks-cabinet and set it down on the table in front of me.

‘Forgive me for not joining you,’ he said, watching me down it quickly. ‘Normally I quite enjoy a cognac with my breakfast but this morning I must keep a clear head.’ He smiled indulgently as I replaced the empty glass on the table. ‘Better now?’

I nodded. ‘Tell me, have you found your missing dentist yet? Dr Heim?’ Now that I no longer had to worry about my own immediate prospects for survival, Veronika was once again at the front of my mind.

‘He’s dead, I’m afraid. That’s bad enough, but it’s not half as bad as not knowing what had happened to him was. At least we now know that the Russians haven’t got him.’

‘What did happen to him?’

‘He had a heart attack.’ Nebe uttered the familiar, dry little laugh I remembered from my days at the Alex, the headquarters of Berlin’s criminal police. ‘It seems that he was with a girl at the time. A chocolady.’

‘You mean it was while they were -?’

‘I mean precisely that. Still, I can think of worse ways to go, can’t you?’

‘After what I’ve just been through, that’s not particularly difficult for me, Arthur.’

‘Quite.’ He smiled almost sheepishly.

I spent a moment searching for a frame of words that might enable me to innocently inquire as to Veronika’s fate. ‘So what did she do? The chocolady, I mean. Phone the police?’ I frowned. ‘No, I expect not.’

‘Why do you say that?’

I shrugged at the apparent simplicity of my explanation. ‘I can’t imagine she’d have risked a run-in with the vice squad. No, I’ll bet she tried to have him dumped somewhere. Got her garter-handler to do it.’ I raised my eyebrows questioningly. ‘Well? Am I right?’

‘Yes, you’re right.’ He sounded almost as if he admired my thinking. ‘As usual.’ Then he uttered a wistful sort of sigh. ‘What a pity that we’re no longer with Kripo. I can’t tell you how much I miss it all.’

‘Me too.’

‘But you, you could rejoin. Surely you’re not wanted for anything, Bernie?’

‘And work for the Communists? No thanks.’ I pursed my lips and tried to look rueful. ‘Anyway, I’d rather stay out of Berlin for a while. A Russian soldier tried to rob me on a train. It was self-defence, but I’m afraid I killed him. I was seen leaving the scene of the crime covered in blood.’

‘ “The scene of the crime”,’ quoted Nebe, rolling the phrase round his mouth like a fine wine. ‘It’s good to talk to a detective again.’

‘Just to satisfy my professional curiosity, Arthur: how did you find the chocolady?’

‘Oh, it wasn’t me, it was König. He tells me that it was you who told him how best to go about looking for Doctor Heim.’

‘It was just routine stuff, Arthur. You could have told him.’

‘Maybe so. Anyway, it seems that König’s girlfriend recognized Heim from a photograph. Apparently he used to frequent the nightclub where she works. She remembered that Heim used to be especially keen on one of the snappers who worked there. All Helmut had to do was persuade her to come clean about it. It was as simple as that.’

‘Getting information out of a snapper is never “as simple as that”,’ I said. ‘It can be like getting a curse out of a nun. Money is the only way to get a party-girl to talk that doesn’t leave a bruise.’ I waited for Nebe to contradict me, but he said nothing. ‘Of course, a bruise is cheaper, and leaves no margin for error.’ I grinned at him as if to say that I had no particular scruples when it came to slapping a chocolady in the interests of efficient investigation. ‘I’d say König wasn’t the type to waste money: am I right?’

To my disappointment, Nebe merely shrugged and then glanced at his watch. ‘You’d better ask him yourself when you see him.’

‘Is he coming to this meeting too?’

‘He’ll be here.’ Nebe consulted his watch again. ‘I’m afraid I have to leave you now. I’ve still one or two things to do before ten. Perhaps it would be better if you stayed in here. Security is tight today, and we wouldn’t want another incident, would we? I’ll have someone bring you some coffee. Build a fire if you like. It’s rather cold in here.’

I tapped my glass. ‘I can’t say that I’m noticing it much now.’

Nebe regarded me patiently. ‘Yes, well, do help yourself to some more brandy, if you think you need it.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, reaching for the decanter, ‘I don’t mind if I do.’

‘But stay sharp. You’ll be asked a lot of questions about your Russian friend. I wouldn’t like your opinion of his worth to be doubted merely because you had too much to drink.’ He walked across the creaking floor to the door.

‘Don’t worry about me,’ I said, surveying the empty shelves, ‘I’ll read a book.’

Nebe’s considerable nose wrinkled with disapproval. ‘Yes, it’s such a pity that the library is gone. Apparently the previous owners left a superb collection, but when the Russians came they used them all as fuel for the boiler.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘What can you do with subhumans like that?’

When Nebe had left the library I did as he had suggested and built a fire in the grate. It helped me to focus my mind on my next course of action. As the flames took hold of the small edifice of logs and sticks I had constructed, I reflected that Nebe’s apparent amusement at the circumstances of Heim’s death seemed to indicate that the Org was satisfied Veronika had told the truth.

It was true, I was no wiser as to where she might be, but I had gained the impression that König was not yet at Grinzing, and without my gun I did not see that I could now leave and look for her elsewhere. With only two hours to go before the Org’s meeting, it appeared that my best course of action was to wait for König to arrive, and hope that he could put my mind at rest. And if he had killed or injured Veronika, I would settle his account personally when Belinsky arrived with his men.