Philip Kerr - Berlin Noir

‘Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, it was stolen from his home. Which is where I fit in. I’ve been hanging around some of the dealers, and the word I hear is that Hermann Goering is a keen art buyer – that somewhere in the depths of Karinhall he has a collection of old masters, not all of them acquired legitimately. I heard that he had an agent, Herr Von Greis, in all matters relating to the purchase of art. So I decided to come here and see if I could speak to him. Who knows, the picture I’m looking for might very well be one of the ones stacked up against that wall.’

‘Maybe it is,’ said Rienacker. ‘Always supposing I believe you. Who’s the painting by, and what’s the subject?’

‘Rubens,’ I said, enjoying my own inventiveness. ‘A couple of nude women standing by a river. It’s called The Bathers , or something like that. I’ve a photograph back at the office.’

‘And who is your client?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.’

Rienacker wielded a fist slowly. ‘I could try persuading you perhaps.’

I shrugged. ‘I still wouldn’t tell you. It’s not that I’m the honourable type, protecting my client’s reputation, and all that crap. It’s just that I’m on a pretty substantial recovery fee. This case is my big chance to make some real flea, and if it costs me a few bruises and some broken ribs then that’s the way it will have to be.’

‘All right,’ said Rienacker. ‘Take a look at the pictures if you want. But if it is there I’ll have to clear it first.’ I got back onto my wobbly legs and went over to the paintings. I don’t know a great deal about Art. All the same, I recognize quality when I see it, and most of the pictures in Goering’s apartment were the genuine article. To my relief there was nothing that had a nude woman in it, so I wasn’t required to make a guess as to whether Rubens had done it or not.

‘It’s not here,’ I said finally. ‘But thanks for letting me take a look.’ Rienacker nodded.

In the hallway I picked up my hat and placed it back on my throbbing head. He said: ‘I’m at the station on Charlottenstrasse. Corner of Französische Strasse.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I know it. Above Lutter and Wegner’s Restaurant, isn’t it?’ Rienacker nodded. ‘And yes, if I hear anything, I’ll let you know.’

‘See that you do,’ he growled, and let me out.

When I got back to Alexanderplatz, I found that I had a visitor in my waiting room.

She was well-built and quite tall, in a suit of black cloth that lent her impressive curves the contours of a well-made Spanish guitar. The skirt was short and narrow and tight across her ample behind, and the jacket was cut to give a high-waisted line, with the fullness gathered in to fit under her substantial bust. On her shiny black head of hair she wore a black hat with a brim turned up all the way round, and in her hands she held a black cloth bag with a white handle and clasp, and a book which she put down as I came into the waiting room.

The blue eyes and perfectly lipsticked mouth smiled with disarming friendliness.

‘Herr Gunther, I imagine.’ I nodded dumbly. ‘I’m Inge Lorenz. A friend of Eduard Müller. Of the Berliner Morgen-post ? We shook hands. I unlocked the door to my office.

‘Come in and make yourself comfortable,’ I said. She took a look around the room and sniffed the air a couple of times. The place still smelt like a bartender’s apron.

‘Sorry about the smell. I’m afraid I had a bit of an accident.’ I went to the window and pushed it open. When I turned round I found her standing beside me.

‘An impressive view,’ she observed.

‘It’s not bad.’

‘Berlin Alexanderplatz. Have you read Doblin’s novel?’

‘I don’t get much time for reading nowadays,’ I said. ‘Anyway, there’s so little that’s worth reading.’

‘Of course it’s a forbidden book,’ she said, ‘but you should read it, while it’s in circulation again.’

‘I don’t understand,’ I said.

‘Oh, but haven’t you noticed? Banned writers are back in the bookshops. It’s because of the Olympiad. So that tourists won’t think things are quite as repressive here as has been made out. Of course, they’ll disappear again as soon as it’s all over but, if only because they are forbidden, you should read them.’

‘Thanks. I’ll bear it in mind.’

‘Do you have a cigarette?’

I flipped open the silver box on the desk and held it up by the lid for her. She took one and let me light her.

‘The other day, in a café on Kurfürstendamm, I absent-mindedly lit one, and some old busybody came up to me and reminded me of my duty as a German woman, wife or mother. Fat chance, I thought. I’m nearly thirty-nine, hardly the age to start producing new recruits for the Party. I’m what they call a eugenic dud.’ She sat down in one of the armchairs and crossed her beautiful legs. I could see nothing that was dud about her, except maybe the cafés she frequented. ‘It’s got so that a woman can’t go out wearing a bit of make-up for fear of being called a whore.’

‘You don’t strike me as being the type to worry much about what people call you,’ I said. ‘And as it happens, I like a woman to look like a lady, not a Hessian milkmaid.’

‘Thank you, Herr Gunther,’ she said smiling. ‘That’s very sweet of you.’

‘Müller says you used to be a reporter on the D A Z.’

‘Yes, that’s right. I lost my job during the Party’s “Clear Women out of Industry” campaign. An ingenious way of solving Germany’s unemployment problem, don’t you think? You just say that a woman already has a job, and that’s looking after the home and the family. If she doesn’t have a husband then she’d better get one, if she knows what’s good for her. The logic is frightening.’

‘How do you support yourself now?’

‘I did freelance a bit. But right now, well frankly, Herr Gunther, I’m broke, which is why I’m here. Müller says you’re digging for some information on Hermann Six. I’d like to try and sell what I know. Are you investigating him?’

‘No. Actually, he’s my client.’

‘Oh.’ She seemed slightly taken aback at this.

‘There was something about the way he hired me that made me want to know a lot more about him,’ I explained, ‘and I don’t just mean the school he went to. I suppose you could say that he irritated me. You see, I don’t like being told what to do.’

‘Not a very healthy attitude these days.’

‘I guess not.’ I grinned at her. ‘Shall we say fifty marks then, for what you know?’

‘Shall we say a hundred, and then you won’t be disappointed?’

‘How about seventy-five and dinner?’ ‘It’s a deal.’ She offered me her hand and we shook on it. ‘Is there a file or something, Fräulein Lorenz?’ She tapped her head. ‘Please call me Inge. And it’s all up here, down to the last detail.’ And then she told me.

‘Hermann Six was born, the son of one of the wealthiest men in Germany, in April 1881, nine years to the day before our beloved Führer entered this world. Since you mentioned school, he went to the König Wilhelm Gymnasium in Berlin. After that he went into the stock exchange, and then into his father’s business, which, of course, was the Six Steel Works.

‘Along with Fritz Thyssen, the heir to another great family fortune, young Six was an ardent nationalist, organizing the passive resistance to the French occupation of the Ruhr in 1923. For this both he and Thyssen were arrested and imprisoned. But there the similarity between the two ends, for unlike Thyssen, Six has never cared for Hitler. He was a Conservative Nationalist, never a National Socialist, and any support he may have given the Party has been purely pragmatic, not to say opportunistic.