Philip Kerr - Berlin Noir

I cursed the lift’s lack of speed as I saw Gruber’s door open just enough to permit his peppered-mackerel of a face to peer down the corridor.

‘Ah, Herr Gunther, it’s you,’ he said, coming out of his office. He edged towards me like a crab with a bad case of corns.

‘Good morning, Herr Gruber,’ I said, avoiding his face. There was something about it that always reminded me of Max Schreck’s screen portrayal of Nosferatu, an effect that was enhanced by the rodent-like washing movements of his skeletal hands.

‘There was a young lady who came for you,’ he said. ‘I sent her up. I do hope that was convenient, Herr Gunther.’

‘Yes-’

‘If she’s still there, that is,’ he said. ‘That was at least half an hour ago. Only I knew Fräulein Lehmann is no longer working for you, so I had to say that there was no telling when you would turn up, you keeping such irregular hours.’ To my relief the lift arrived and I drew open the door and stepped in.

‘Thank you, Herr Gruber,’ I said, and shut the door.

‘Heil Hitler,’ he said. The lift started to rise up the shaft. I called: ‘Heil Hitler.’ You don’t miss the Hitler Salute with someone like Gruber. It’s not worth the trouble. But one day I’m going to have to beat the crap out of that weasel, just for the sheer pleasure of it.

I share the fourth floor with a ‘German’ dentist, a ‘German’ insurance broker, and a ‘German’ employment agency, the latter having provided me with the temporary secretary who I now presumed was the woman seated in my waiting room. Coming out of the lift I hoped that she wasn’t battle-scarred ugly. I didn’t suppose for a minute that I was going to get a juicy one, but then I wasn’t about to settle for any cobra either. I opened the door.

‘Herr Gunther?’ She stood up, and I gave her the once-over: well, she wasn’t as young as Gruber had led me to believe (I guessed her to be about forty-five) but not bad, I thought. A bit warm and cosy maybe (she had a substantial backside), but I happen to prefer them like that. Her hair was red with a touch of grey at the sides and on the crown, and tied back in a knot. She wore a suit of plain grey cloth, a white high-necked blouse and a black hat with a Breton brim turned up all around the head.

‘Good morning,’ I said, as affably as I could manage on top of the mewling tomcat that was my hangover. ‘You must be my temporary secretary.’ Lucky to get a woman at all, and this one looked half-reasonable.

‘Frau Protze,’ she declared, and shook my hand. ‘I’m a widow.’

‘Sorry,’ I said, unlocking the door to my office. ‘What part of Bavaria are you from?’ The accent was unmistakable.

‘Regensburg.’

‘That’s a nice town.’

‘You must have found buried treasure there.’ Witty too, I thought; that was good: she’d need a sense of humour to work for me.

I told her all about my business. She said it all sounded very exciting. I showed her into the adjoining cubicle where she was to sit on that backside.

‘Actually, it’s not so bad if you leave the door to the waiting room open,’ I explained. Then I showed her the washroom along the corridor and apologized for the shards of soap and the dirty towels. ‘I pay seventy-five marks a month and I get a tip like this,’ I said. ‘Damn it, I’m going to complain to that son-of-a-bitch of a landlord.’ But even as I said it I knew I never would.

Back in my office I flipped open my diary and saw that the day’s only appointment was Frau Heine, at eleven o’clock.

‘I’ve an appointment in twenty minutes,’ I said. ‘Woman wants to know if I’ve managed to trace her missing son. He’s a Jewish U-Boat.’

‘A what?’

‘A Jew in hiding.’

‘What did he do that he has to hide?’ she said.

‘You mean apart from being a Jew?’ I said. Already I could see that she had led quite a sheltered life, even for a Regensburger, and it seemed a shame to expose the poor woman to the potentially distressing sight of her country’s evil-smelling arse. Still, she was all grown-up now, and I didn’t have the time to worry about it.

‘He just helped an old man who was being beaten up by some thugs. He killed one of them.’

‘But surely if he was helping the old man -’

‘Ah, but the old man was Jewish,’ I explained. ‘And the two thugs belonged to the S A. Strange how that changes everything, isn’t it? His mother asked me to find out if he was still alive and still at liberty. You see, when a man is arrested and beheaded or sent to a K Z, the authorities don’t always bother to inform his family. There are a lot of MPs – missing persons – from Jewish families these days. Trying to find them is a large part of my business.’ Frau Protze looked worried.

‘You help Jews?’ she said.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘It’s perfectly legal. And their money is as good as anyone’s.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Listen, Frau Protze,’ I said. ‘Jews, gypsies. Red Indians, it’s all the same to me. I’ve got no reason to like them, but I don’t have any reason to hate them either. When he walks through that door, a Jew gets the same deal as anyone else. Same as if he were the Kaiser’s cousin. But it doesn’t mean I’m dedicated to their welfare. Business is business.’

‘Certainly,’ said Frau Protze, colouring a little. ‘I hope you don’t think I have anything against the Jews.’

‘Of course not,’ I said. But of course that is what everybody says. Even Hitler.

‘Good God,’ I said, when the U-Boat’s mother had left my office. ‘That’s what a satisfied customer looks like.’ The thought depressed me so much that I decided to get out for a while.

At Loeser & Wolff I bought a packet of Murattis, after which I cashed Six’s cheque. I paid half of it into my own account; and I treated myself to an expensive silk dressing-gown at Wertheim’s just for being lucky enough to land as sweet an earner as Six.

Then I walked south-west, past the railway station from which a train now rumbled forth heading towards the Jannowitz Bridge, to the corner of Königstrasse where I had left my car.

Lichterfelde-Ost is a prosperous residential district in southwest Berlin much favoured by senior civil servants and members of the armed forces. Ordinarily it would have been way out of a young couple’s price league, but then most young couples don’t have a multi-millionaire like Hermann Six for a father.

Ferdinandstrasse ran south from the railway line. There was a policeman, a young Anwarter in the Orpo, standing guard outside Number 16, which was missing most of the roof and all of its windows. The bungalow’s blackened timbers and brickwork told the story eloquently enough. I parked the Hanomag and walked up to the garden gate, where I flipped out my identification for the young bull, a spotty-looking youth of about twenty. He looked at it carefully, naively, and said redundantly: ‘A private investigator, eh?’

‘S’right. I’ve been retained by the insurance company to investigate the fire.’ I lit a cigarette and watched the match suggestively as it burned towards my fingertips. He nodded, but his face appeared troubled. It cleared all of a sudden as he recognized me.

‘Hey, didn’t you used to be in Kripo up at the Alex?’ I nodded, my nostrils trailing smoke like a factory chimney. ‘Yes, I thought I recognized the name – Bernhard Gunther. You caught Gormann, the Strangler, didn’t you? I remember reading about it in the newspapers. You were famous.’ I shrugged modestly. But he was right. When I caught Gormann I was famous for a while. I was a good bull in those days.

The young Anwarter took off his shako and scratched the top of his squarish head. ‘Well, well,’ he said; and then: ‘I’m going to join Kripo. That is, if they’ll have me.’