Philip Kerr - Berlin Noir

I opened the Air Ministry envelope. It contained several typewritten pages that made up the transcript of calls Jeschonnek and Haupthändler had made the previous day. Of the two, Jeschonnek, the diamond dealer, had been the busier, speaking to various people regarding the illegal purchase of a large quantity of American dollars and British sterling.

‘Bulls-eye,’ I said, reading the transcript of the last of Jeschonnek’s calls. This had been to Haupthändler, and of course it also showed up in the transcript of the other man’s calls. It was the piece of evidence I had been hoping for: the evidence that turned theory into fact, establishing a definite link between Six’s private secretary and the diamond dealer. Better than that, they discussed the time and place for a meeting.

‘Well?’ said Inge, unable to restrain her curiosity a moment longer.

I grinned at her. ‘My ace in the hole. Someone just dug it out. There’s a meet arranged between Haupthändler and Jeschonnek at an address in Grünewald tonight at five. Jeschonnek’s going to be carrying a whole bagful of foreign currency.’

‘That’s a hell of an informant you have there,’ she said, frowning. ‘Who is it? Hanussen the Clairvoyant?’

‘My man is more of an impresario,’ I said. ‘He books the turns, and this time, anyway, I get to watch the show.’

‘And he just happens to have a few friendly storm-troopers on the staff to show you to the right seat, is that it?’

‘You won’t like it.’

‘If I start to scowl it will be heartburn, all right?’

I lit a cigarette. Mentally I tossed a coin and lost. I would tell it to her straight. ‘You remember the dead man in the service-lift?’

‘Like I just found out I had leprosy,’ she said, shuddering visibly.

‘Hermann Goering hired me to try and find him.’ I paused, waiting for her comment, and then shrugged under her bemused stare. ‘That’s it,’ I said. ‘He agreed to put a tap on a couple of telephones – Jeschonnek’s and Haupthändler’s.’ I picked up the transcript and waved it in front of her face. ‘And this is the result. Amongst other things it means that I can now afford to tell his people where to find Von Greis.’

Inge said nothing. I took a long angry drag at my cigarette and then stubbed it out like I was hammering a lectern. ‘Let me tell you something: you don’t turn him down, not if you want to finish your cigarette with both lips.’

‘No, I suppose not.’

‘Believe me, he’s not a client that I would have chosen. His idea of a retainer is a thug with a machine-pistol.’

‘But why didn’t you tell me about it, Bernie?’

‘When Goering takes someone like me into his confidence, the table stakes are high. I thought it was safer for you that you didn’t know. But now, well, I can’t very well avoid it, can I?’ Once again I brandished the transcript at her. Inge shook her head.

‘Of course you couldn’t refuse him. I didn’t mean to appear awkward, it’s just that I was, well, a bit surprised. And thank you for wanting to protect me, Bernie. I’m just glad that you can tell someone about that poor man.’

‘I’ll do it right now,’ I said.

Rienacker sounded tired and irritable when I called him.

‘I hope you’ve got something, pushbelly,’ he said, ‘because Fat Hermann’s patience is worn thinner than the jam in a Jewish baker’s sponge-cake. So if this is just a social call then I’m liable to come and visit you with some dog-shit on my shoes.’

‘What’s the matter with you, Rienacker?’ I said. ‘You having to share a slab in the morgue or something?’

‘Cut the cabbage, Gunther, and get on with it.’

‘All right, keep your ears stiff. I just found your boy, and he’s squeezed his last orange.’

‘Dead?’

‘Like Atlantis. You’ll find him piloting a service-lift in a deserted hotel on Chamissoplatz. Just follow your nose.’

‘And the papers?’

“There’s a lot of burnt ash in the incinerator, but that’s about all.‘

‘Any ideas on who killed him?’

‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘but that’s your job. All I had to do was find our aristocratic friend, and that’s as far as it goes. Tell your boss he’ll be receiving my account in the post.’

‘Thanks a lot, Gunther,’ said Rienacker, sounding less than pleased. ‘You’ve got -’ I cut across him with a curt goodbye, and hung up.

I left Inge the keys to the car, telling her to meet me in the street outside Haupthändler’s beach house at 4.30 that afternoon. I was intending to take the special S-Bahn to the Reich Sports Field via the Zoo Station; but first, and so that I could be sure of not being followed, I chose a particularly circuitous route to get to the station. I walked quickly up Königstrasse and caught a number two tram to Spittel Market where I strolled twice around the Spindler Brunnen Fountain before getting onto the U-Bahn. I rode one stop to Friedrichstrasse, where I left the U-Bahn and returned once more to street level. During business hours Friedrichstrasse has the densest traffic in Berlin, when the air tastes like pencil shavings. Dodging umbrellas and Americans standing huddled over their Baedekers, and narrowly missing being run over by a Rudesdorfer Peppermint van, I crossed Tauberstrasse and Jägerstrasse, passing the Kaiser Hotel and the head office of the Six Steel Works. Then, continuing up towards Unter den Linden, I squeezed between some traffic on Französische Strasse and, on the corner of Behrenstrasse, ducked into the Kaiser Gallery. This is an arcade of expensive shops of the sort that are much patronized by tourists and it leads onto Unter den Linden at a spot next to the Hotel Westminster, where many of them stay. If you are on foot it has always been a good place to shake a tail for good. Emerging on to Unter den Linden, I crossed over the road and rode a cab to the Zoo Station, where I caught the special train to the Reich Sports Field.

The two-storey-high stadium looked smaller than I had expected, and I wondered how all the people milling around its perimeter would ever fit in. It was only after I had gone in that I realized that it was actually bigger on the inside than on the outside, and this by virtue of an arena that was several metres below ground level.

I took my seat, which was close to the edge of the cinder track and next to a matronly woman who smiled and nodded politely as I sat down. The seat to my right, which I imagined was to be occupied by Marlene Sahm, was for the moment empty, although it was already past two o’clock. Just as I was looking at my watch the sky released the heaviest shower of the day, and I was only too glad to share the matron’s umbrella. It was to be her good deed of the day. She pointed to the west side of the stadium and handed me a small pair of binoculars.

‘That is where the Führer will be sitting,’ she said. I thanked her, and although I wasn’t in the least bit interested, I scanned a dais that was populated with several men in frock-coats, and the ubiquitous complement of S S officers, all of them getting as wet as I was. Inge would be pleased, I thought. Of the Führer himself, there was no sign.

‘Yesterday he didn’t come until almost five o’clock,’ explained the matron. ‘Although with weather as atrocious as this, he could be forgiven for not coming at all.’ She nodded down at my empty lap. ‘You don’t have a programme. Would you care to know the order of events?’ I said that I would, but found to my embarrassment that she intended not to lend me her programme but to read it aloud.

‘The first events on the track this afternoon are the heats of the 400-metre hurdles. Then we have the semi-finals and final of the 100-metres. If you’ll allow me to say so, I don’t think the German has a chance against the American negro, Owens. I saw him running yesterday and he was like a gazelle.’ I was just about to start out on some unpatriotic remark about the so-called Master Race when Marlene Sahm sat down next to me, so probably saving me from my own potentially treasonable mouth.