Philip Kerr - Berlin Noir

‘Ask your damned questions.’

‘Ah, you’re in a hurry to answer. That’s good. Tell me then: who is this American policeman? The one who helped you dispose of Heim’s body.’

‘His name is John Belinsky. He works for Crowcass.’

‘How did you meet him?’

‘He knew that I was working to prove Becker’s innocence. He approached me with an offer to work in tandem. Initially he said that he wanted to find out why Captain Linden had been murdered, but then after a while he told me that he really wanted to find out about you. If you had anything to do with Linden’s death.’

‘So the Americans aren’t happy that they have the right man?’

‘No. Yes. The military police are. But the Crowcass people aren’t. The gun used to kill Linden was one which they traced back to a killing in Berlin. A corpse which was supposed to be you, Müller. And the gun checked back to SS records at the Berlin Documents Centre. Crowcass didn’t inform the military police for fear that they might spook you out of Vienna.’

‘And you were encouraged to infiltrate the Org on their behalf?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are they so certain that I’m here?’

‘Yes.’

‘But until this morning you had never seen me before. Explain how they know, please.’

‘The information that I supplied on the MVD was designed to draw you out. They know you like to consider yourself an expert in these matters. The thinking was that with information of such quality, you yourself would take charge of the debrief. If I saw you at this morning’s meeting I was to signal to Belinsky from the toilet window. I had to pull down the blind three times. He would be watching the window through binoculars.’

‘And then what?’

‘He was supposed to have brought agents to surround the house. He was meant to have arrested you. The deal was that if they were successful in arresting you, then they would let Becker go free.’

Nebe glanced over at one of his men, and jerked his head at the door. ‘Get some men to check the grounds. Just in case.’

Müller shrugged. ‘So you’re saying that the only reason they know I’m here in Vienna is because you made some signal to them from a lavatory window. Is that it?’ I nodded. ‘But then why didn’t this Belinsky have his men move in and arrest me, as you had planned?’

‘Believe me, I’ve been asking myself the same question.’

‘Come now, Herr Gunther. This is inconsistent, is it not? I ask you to be fair. How am I supposed to believe this?’

‘Would I have gone looking for the girl if I didn’t think there were going to be agents arriving?’

‘What time were you supposed to make your signal?’ asked Nebe.

‘Twenty minutes into the meeting I was supposed to excuse myself.’

‘At 10.20 then. But you were looking for Fräulein Zartl before seven o’clock this morning.’

‘I decided that she might not be able to wait until the Americans showed up.’

‘You’re asking us to believe that you would have risked a whole operation for one -’ Müller’s nose wrinkled with disgust ‘ – for one little chocolady?’ He shook his head. ‘I find that very hard to believe.’ He nodded at the man controlling the wine press. This man pushed a second button and the machine’s hydraulics cranked into gear. ‘Come now, Herr Gunther. If what you say is true, why didn’t the Americans come when you signalled to them?’

‘I don’t know,’ I shouted.

‘Then speculate,’ said Nebe.

‘They never meant to arrest you,’ I said, putting into words my own suspicions. ‘All they wanted to know was that you were alive and working for the Org. They used me, and after they found out what they wanted, they dumped me.’

I tried to wrestle free of the Latvian as the press began its slow descent. Veronika lay unconscious, her chest swelling gently as she continued breathing, oblivious to the descending plate. I shook my head. ‘Look, I honestly don’t know why they didn’t turn up.’

‘So,’ said Müller, ‘let’s get this clear. The only evidence that they have of my continued existence, apart from this rather tenuous piece of ballistic evidence you mentioned, is your own signal.’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

‘One more question. Do you – do the Amis – know why Captain Linden was killed?’

‘No,’ I said, and then reasoning that negative answers were not what was wanted, added: ‘We figured that he was being supplied with information about war-criminals in the Org. That he came to Vienna to investigate you. At first we thought that König was supplying him with the information.’ I shook my head, trying to recall some of the theories I had come up with to explain Linden’s death. ‘Then we thought that he might somehow have been supplying the Org with information in order to help you to recruit new members. Switch that machine off, for God’s sake.’

Veronika disappeared from sight as the press closed over the edge of the vat. There were only two or three metres of life left to her.

‘We didn’t know why, damn you.’

Müller’s voice was slow and calm, like a surgeon’s. ‘We must be sure, Herr Gunther. Let me repeat the question -’

‘I don’t know -’

‘Why was it necessary for us to kill Linden?’

I shook my head desperately.

‘Just tell me the truth. What do you know? You’re not being fair to this young woman. Tell us what you found out.’

The shrill whine of the machine grew louder. It reminded me of the sound of the elevator in my old offices in Berlin. Where I should have stayed.

‘Herr Gunther,’ Müller’s voice contained a gramme of urgency, ‘for the sake of this poor girl, I beg you.’

‘For God’s sake…’

He glanced over at the thug by the control panel and shook his squarely-cropped head.

‘I can’t tell you anything,’ I shouted.

The press shuddered as it encountered its living obstacle. The mechanical whine briefly rose a couple of octaves as the resistance to the hydraulic force was dealt with, and then returned to its old pitch before finally the press came to the end of its cruel journey. The noise died away at another nod from Mxiller.

‘Can’t, or won’t, Herr Gunther?’

“You bastard,‘ I said, suddenly weak with disgust, ’you vicious, cruel bastard.‘

‘I don’t think she’ll have felt much,’ he said with studied indifference. ‘She was drugged. Which is more than you will be when we repeat this little exercise in say – ’ he glanced at his wristwatch ‘ – twelve hours. You have until then to think it over.’ He looked over the edge of the vat. ‘I can’t promise to kill you outright, of course. Not like this girl. I might want to squeeze you two or three times before we spread you on the fields. Just like the grapes.

‘On the other hand, if you tell me what I wish to know, I can promise you a rather less painful death. A pill would be so much less distressing for you, don’t you think?’

I felt my lip curl. Müller winced fastidiously as I started to swear, and then shook his head.

‘Rainis,’ he said, ‘you may hit Herr Gunther just once before returning him to his quarters.’

Back in my cell I massaged the floating rib above my liver which Nebe’s Latvian had selected for one stunningly painful punch. At the same time I tried to douse the lights on the memory of what had just happened to Veronika, but without success.

I had met men who had been tortured by the Russians during the war. I remembered them describing how the most awful part of it was the uncertainty – whether you would die, whether you could withstand the pain. That part was certainly true. One of them had described a way of reducing the pain. Breathing deeply and gulping could induce a light-headedness that was partly anaesthetic. The only trouble was that it had also left my friend prone to bouts of chronic hyperventilation which eventually caused him to suffer a fatal heart-attack.