Philip Kerr - Berlin Noir

I hadn’t met senior S S officers before and so I was not certain as to the rank of the two who faced me; but I guessed that one was probably a colonel, and the other, the one who continued speaking, was possibly a general. Neither one of them seemed to be any older than about thirty-five.

‘Smoke?’ said the general. He held out a box and then tossed me some matches. I lit my cigarette and smoked it gratefully. ‘Please help yourself if you want another.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Perhaps you would also like a drink?’

‘I wouldn’t say no to some champagne.’ They both smiled simultaneously. The second officer, the colonel, produced a bottle of schnapps and poured a glassful.

‘I’m afraid we don’t run to anything so grand round here,’ he said.

‘Whatever you’ve got, then.’ The colonel stood up and brought me the drink. I didn’t waste any time with it. I jerked it back, cleaned my teeth and swallowed with every muscle in my neck and throat. I felt the schnapps flush right the way down to my corns.

‘You’d better give him another,’ said the general. ‘He looks as though his nerves are a bit shaky.’ I held out my glass for the refill.

‘My nerves are just fine,’ I said, nursing my glass. ‘I just like to drink.’

‘Part of the image, eh?’

‘And what image would that be?’

‘Why, the private detective of course. The shoddy little man in the barely furnished office, who drinks like a suicide who’s lost his nerve, and who comes to the assistance of the beautiful but mysterious woman in black.’

‘Someone in the S S perhaps,’ I suggested.

He smiled. ‘You might not believe it,’ he said, ‘but I have a passion for detective stories. It must be interesting.’ His face was of an unusual construction. Its central feature was its protruding, hawk-like nose, which had the effect of making the chin seem weak; above the thin nose were glassy blue eyes set rather too close together, and slightly slanting, which lent him an apparently world-weary, cynical air.

‘I’m sure that fairy-stories are a lot more interesting.’

‘But not in your case, surely. In particular, the case you have been working on for the Germania Life Assurance Company.’

‘For which,’ the colonel chipped in, ‘we may now substitute the name of Hermann Six.’ The same type as his superior, he was better-looking if apparently less intelligent. The general glanced over a file that was open on the desk in front of him, if only to indicate that they knew everything there was to know about me and my business.

‘Precisely so,’ he murmured. After a short while he looked up at me and said: ‘Why ever did you leave Kripo?’

‘Coal,’ I said.

He stared blankly at me. ‘Coal?’

‘Yeah, you know, mouse, gravel… money. Speaking of which, I had 40,000 marks in my pockets when I checked into this hotel. I’d like to know what’s happened to it. And to a girl who was working with me. Name of Inge Lorenz. She’s disappeared.’

The general looked at his junior officer, who shook his head. ‘I’m afraid we know nothing about any girl, Herr Gunther,’ said the colonel. ‘People are always disappearing in Berlin. You of all people should know that. As to your money, however, that is quite safe with us for the moment.’

‘Thanks, and I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but I’d sooner leave it in a sock underneath my mattress.’

The general put his long, thin, violinist’s hands together, as if he was about to lead us in prayer, and pressed their fingertips against his lips meditatively. ‘Tell me, did you ever consider joining the Gestapo?’ he said.

I figured it was my turn to try a little smile.

‘You know, this wasn’t a bad suit before I was obliged to sleep in it for a week. I may smell a bit, but not that badly.’

He gave an amused sort of sniff. ‘The ability to talk as toughly as your fictional counterpart is one thing, Herr Gunther,’ he said. ‘Being it is quite another. Your remarks demonstrate either an astonishing lack of appreciation as to the gravity of your situation, or real courage.’ He raised his thin, gold-leaf eyebrows and started to toy with the German Horseman’s Badge on his left breast-pocket. ‘By nature I am a cynical man. I think that all policemen are, don’t you? So normally I would be inclined to favour the first assessment of your bravado. However, in this particular case it suits me to believe in the strength of your character. Please do not disappoint me by saying something really stupid.’ He paused for a moment. ‘I’m sending you to a K Z.’

My flesh turned as cold as a butcher’s shop-window. I finished what was left of my schnapps, and then heard myself say: ‘Listen, if it’s about that lousy milk bill…’

They both started grinning a lot, enjoying my obvious discomfort.

‘Dachau,’ said the colonel. I stubbed out my cigarette and lit another. They saw my hand shake as I held the match up.

‘Don’t worry,’ said the general. ‘You’ll be working for me.’ He came round the desk and sat on its edge in front of me. ‘And who are you?’

‘I am ObergruppenFührer Heydrich.’ He waved his arm at the colonel and folded his arms. ‘And this is StandartenFührer Sohst of Alarm Command.’

‘Pleased to meet you, I’m sure.’ I wasn’t. Alarm Command, were the special Gestapo killers that Marlene Sahm had talked about.

‘I’ve had my eye on you for some time,’ he said. ‘And after that unfortunate little incident at the beach house in Wannsee I have had you under constant observation, in the hope that you might lead us to certain papers. I’m sure you know the ones I mean. Instead you gave us the next best thing – the man who planned their theft. Over the past few days, while you’ve been our guest, we’ve been checking your story. It was the autobahn worker, Bock, who told us where to look for this Kurt Mutschmann fellow – the safecracker who now has the papers.’

‘Bock?’ I shook my head. ‘I don’t believe it. He wasn’t the sort to turn informer about a friend.’

‘It’s quite true, I can assure you. Oh, I don’t mean he told us exactly where to find him, but he put us on the right track, before he died.’

‘You tortured him?’

‘Yes. He told us that Mutschmann had once told him that if he were ever really wanted so that he was desperate, then he should probably think of hiding in a prison, or a K Z. Well, of course, with a gang of criminals looking for him, not to mention ourselves, then desperate is exactly what he must have been.’

‘It’s an old trick,’ explained Sohst. ‘You avoid arrest for one thing by having yourself arrested for another.’

‘We believe that Mustchmann was arrested and sent to Dachau three nights after the death of Paul Pfarr,’ said Heydrich. With a thin, smug smile he added: ‘Indeed, he was almost begging to be arrested. It seems that he was caught red-handed, painting K P D slogans on the wall of a Kripo Stelle in Neukölln.’

‘A K Z isn’t so bad if you’re a Kozi,’ chuckled Sohst. ‘In comparison with the Jews and the queers. He’ll probably be out in a couple of years.’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t understand,’ I told them. ‘Why don’t you simply have the commandant at Dachau question Mutschmann? What the hell do you need me for?’

Heydrich folded his arms and swung his jackbooted leg so that his toe was almost kicking my kneecap. ‘Involving the commandant at Dachau would also mean having to inform Himmler, which I don’t want to do. You see, the ReichsFührer is an idealist. He would undoubtedly see it as his duty to use these papers to punish those he perceived to be guilty of crimes against the Reich.’

I recalled Himmler’s letter to Paul Pfarr which Marlene Sahm had shown me at the Olympic Stadium and nodded.