Philip Kerr - Berlin Noir

‘Yes, that’s possible,’ I admitted. I rubbed a perfectly circular area of smooth skin on my otherwise stubbly face: it’s where a mosquito bit me when I was in Turkey, and ever since then I’ve never had to shave it. But quite often I find myself rubbing it when I feel uneasy about something. And if there’s one thing guaranteed to make me feel uneasy, it’s a client playing detective. I didn’t rule out what he was suggesting might have happened, but it was my turn to play the expert: ‘Possible, but messy,’ I said. ‘I can’t think of a better way of raising the alarm than making your own private Reichstag. Playing Van der Lubbe and torching the place doesn’t sound like the sort of thing a professional thief would do, but then neither does murder.’ There were a lot of holes in that of course: I had no idea that it was a professional; not only that, but in my experience it’s rare that a professional job also involves murder. I just wanted to hear my own voice for a change.

‘Who would have known she had jewels in the safe?’ I asked.

‘Me,’ said Six. ‘Grete wouldn’t have told anyone. I don’t know if Paul had.’

‘And did either of them have any enemies?’

‘I can’t answer for Paul,’ he said, ‘but I’m sure that Grete didn’t have an enemy in the world.’ While I could accept the possibility that Daddy’s little girl always brushed her teeth and said her prayers at night, I found it hard to ignore how vague Six was about his son-in-law. That made the second time he was uncertain about what Paul would have done.

‘What about you?’ I said. ‘A rich and powerful man like yourself must have your fair share of enemies.’ He nodded. ‘Is there anyone who might hate you bad enough to want to get back at you through your daughter?’

He re-kindled his Black Wisdom, puffed at it and then held it away from him between the tips of his fingers. ‘Enemies are the inevitable corollary of great wealth, Herr Gunther,’ he told me. ‘But these are business rivals I’m talking about, not gangsters. I don’t think any of them would be capable of something as cold-blooded as this.’ He stood up and went to attend to the fire. With a large brass poker he dealt vigorously with the log that was threatening to topple out of the grate. While Six was off-guard I jabbed him with one about the son-in-law.

‘Did you and your daughter’s husband get on?’

He twisted round to look at me, poker still in hand, and face slightly flushed. It was all the answer that I needed, but still he tried to throw some sand in my eyes. ‘Why ever do you ask such a question?’ he demanded.

‘Really, Herr Gunther,’ said Schemm, affecting shock at my asking such an insensitive question.

‘We had our differences of opinion,’ said Six. ‘But what man can be expected sometimes not to agree with his son-in-law?’ He put down the poker. I kept quiet for a minute. Eventually he said: ‘Now then, with regard to the conduct of your investigations, I would prefer it if you would confine your activities specifically to searching for the jewels. I don’t care for the idea of you snooping around in the affairs of my family. I’ll pay your fees, whatever they are -’

‘Seventy marks a day, plus expenses,’ I lied, hoping that Schemm hadn’t checked it out.

‘What is more, the Germania Life Assurance and Germania Insurance Companies will pay you a recovery fee of five per cent. Is that agreeable to you, Herr Gunther?’ Mentally I calculated the figure to be 37,500. With that sort of money I was set. I found myself nodding, although I didn’t care for the ground rules he was laying down: but then for nearly 40,000 it was his game.

‘But I warn you, I’m not a patient man,’ he said. ‘I want results, and I want them quickly. I have written out a cheque for your immediate requirements.’ He nodded to his stooge, who handed me a cheque. It was for 1,000 marks and made out to cash at the Privat Kommerz Bank. Schemm dug into his briefcase again and handed me a letter on the Germania Life Assurance Company’s notepaper.

‘This states that you have been retained by our company to investigate the fire, pending a claim by the estate. The house was insured by us. If you have any problems you should contact me. On no account are you to bother Herr Six, or to mention his name. Here is a file containing any background information you may need.’

‘You seem to have thought of everything,’ I said pointedly.

Six stood up, followed by Schemm, and then, stiffly, by me. ‘When will you start your investigations?’ he said.

‘First thing in the morning.’

‘Excellent.’ He clapped me on the shoulder. ‘Ulrich will drive you home.’ Then he walked over to his desk, sat down in his chair and settled down to go through some papers. He didn’t pay me any more attention.

When I stood in the modest hall again, waiting for the butler to turn up with Ulrich, I heard another car draw up outside. This one was too loud to be a limousine, and I guessed that it was some kind of sports job. A door slammed, there were footsteps on the gravel and a key scraped in the lock of the front door. Through it came a woman I recognized immediately as the U F A Film Studio star, Lise Rudel. She was wearing a dark sable coat and an evening dress of blue satin-organza. She looked at me, puzzled, while I just gawped back at her. She was worth it. She had the kind of body I’d only ever dreamed about, in the sort of dream I’d often dreamed of having again. There wasn’t much I couldn’t imagine it doing, except the ordinary things like work and getting in a man’s way.

‘Good morning,’ I said, but the butler was there with his cat-burglar’s steps to take her mind off me and help her out of the sable.

‘Farraj, where is my husband?’

‘Herr Six is in the library, madam.’ My blue eyes popped a good deal at that, and I felt my jaw slacken. That this goddess should be married to the gnome sitting in the study was the sort of thing that bolsters your faith in Money. I watched her walk towards the library door behind me. Frau Six – I couldn’t get over it – was tall and blonde and as healthy-looking as her husband’s Swiss bank account. There was a sulkiness about her mouth, and my acquaintance with the science of physiognomy told me that she was used to having her own way: in cash. Brilliant clips flashed on her perfect ears, and as she got nearer the air was filled with the scent of 4711 cologne. Just as I thought she was going to ignore me, she glanced in my direction and said coolly: ‘Goodnight, whoever you are.’ Then the library swallowed her whole before I had a chance to do the same. I rolled my tongue up and tucked it back into my mouth. I looked at my watch. It was 3.30. Ulrich reappeared.

‘No wonder he stays up late,’ I said, and followed him through the door.

The following morning was grey and wet. I woke with a whore’s drawers in my mouth, drank a cup of coffee and went through the morning’s Berliner Borsenzeitung , which was even more difficult to understand than usual, with sentences as long and as hard-to-incomprehensible as a speech from Hess.

Shaved and dressed and carrying my laundry bag, I was at Alexanderplatz, the chief traffic centre of east Berlin, less than an hour later. Approached from Neue Königstrasse, the square is flanked by two great office blocks: Berolina Haus to the right, and Alexander Haus to the left, where I had my office on the fourth floor. I dropped off my laundry at Adler’s Wet-Wash Service on the ground floor before going up.

Waiting for the lift, it was hard to ignore the small notice-board that was situated immediately next to it, to which were pinned an appeal for contributions to the Mother and Child Fund, a Party exhortation to go and see an anti-Semitic film and an inspiring picture of the Führer. This noticeboard was the responsibility of the building’s caretaker, Herr Gruber, a shifty little undertaker of a man. Not only is he the block air-defence monitor with police powers (courtesy of Orpo, the regular uniformed police), he is also a Gestapo informer. Long ago I decided that it would be bad for business to fall out with Gruber and so, like all the other residents of Alexander Haus, I gave him three marks a week, which is supposed to cover my contributions to whichever new money-making scheme the D A F, the German Labour Front, has dreamed up.