Philip Kerr - Berlin Noir

‘You seem a bright enough fellow. You should do all right.’

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Hey, how about a tip?’

‘Try Scharhorn in the three o’clock at the Hoppegarten.’ I shrugged. ‘Hell, I don’t know. What’s your name, young fellow?’

‘Eckhart,’ he said. ‘Wilhelm Eckhart.’

‘So, Wilhelm, tell me about the fire. First of all, who’s the pathologist on the case?’

‘Some fellow from the Alex. I think he was called Upmann or Illmann.’

‘An old man with a small chin-beard and rimless glasses?’ He nodded. ‘That’s Illmann. When was he here?’

‘Day before yesterday. Him and Kriminalkommissar Jost.’

‘Jost? It’s not like him to get his flippers dirty. I’d have thought it would take more than just the murder of a millionaire’s daughter to get him off his fat arse.’ I threw my cigarette away, in the opposite direction from the gutted house: there didn’t seem any point in tempting fate.

‘I heard it was arson,’ I said. ‘Is that true, Wilhelm?’

‘Just smell the air,’ he said.

I inhaled deeply, and shook my head.

‘Don’t you smell the petrol?’

‘No. Berlin always smells like this.’

‘Maybe I’ve just been standing here a long time. Well, they found a petrol can in the garden, so I guess that seals it.’

‘Look, Wilhelm, would you mind if I just took a quick look around? It would save me having to fill out some forms. They’ll have to let me have a look sooner or later.’

‘Go right ahead, Herr Gunther,’ he said, opening the front gate. ‘Not that there’s much to see. They took bags of stuff away with them. I doubt there’s anything that would be of interest to you. I don’t even know why I’m still here.’

‘I expect it’s to watch out in case the murderer returns to the scene of the crime,’ I said tantalizingly.

‘Lord, do you think he might?’ breathed the boy.

I pursed my lips. ‘Who knows?’ I said, although personally I had never heard of such a thing. ‘I’ll take a look anyway, and thanks, I appreciate it.’

‘Don’t mention it.’

He was right. There wasn’t much to see. The man with the matches had done a proper job. I looked in at the front door, but there was so much debris I couldn’t see anywhere for me to step. Round to the side I found a window that gave onto another room where the going wasn’t so difficult underfoot. Hoping that I might at least find the safe, I climbed inside. Not that I needed to be there at all. I just wanted to form a picture inside my head. I work better that way: I’ve got a mind like a comic book. So I wasn’t too disappointed when I found that the police had already taken the safe away, and that all that was left was a gaping hole in the wall. There was always Illmann, I told myself.

Back at the gate I found Wilhelm trying to comfort an older woman of about sixty, whose face was stained with tears.

‘The cleaning woman,’ he explained. ‘She turned up just now. Apparently she’s been away on holiday and hadn’t heard about the fire. Poor old soul’s had a bit of a shock.’ He asked her where she lived.

‘Neuenburger Strasse,’ she sniffed. ‘I’m all right now, thank you, young man.’ From her coat pocket she produced a small lace handkerchief which seemed as improbable in her large, peasant hands as an antimacassar in those of Max Schmelling, the boxer, and quite inadequate for the task which lay before it: she blew her pickled-walnut of a nose with the sort of ferocity and volume that made me want to hold my hat on my head. Then she wiped her big, broad face with the soggy remnant. Smelling some information about the Pfarr household, I offered the old pork chop a lift home in my car.

‘It’s on the way,’ I said.

‘I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble.’

‘It’s no trouble at all,“ I insisted.

‘Well, if you are sure, that would be very kind of you. I have had a bit of a shock.’ She picked up the box that lay at her feet, each one of which bulged over the top of its well-polished black walking shoe like a butcher’s thumb in a thimble. Her name was Frau Schmidt.

‘You’re a good sort, Herr Gunther,’ said Wilhelm.

‘Nonsense,’ I said, and so it was. There was no telling what information I might glean from the old woman about her late employers. I took the box from her hands. ‘Let me help you with that,’ I said. It was a suit-box, from Stechbarth’s, the official tailor to the services, and I had the idea that she might have been bringing it for the Pfarrs. I nodded silently at Wilhelm, and led the way to the car.

‘Neuenburger Strasse,’ I repeated as we drove off. ‘That’s off Lindenstrasse, isn’t it?’ She confirmed that it was, gave me some directions and was silent for a moment. Then she started weeping again.

‘What a terrible tragedy,’ she sobbed.

‘Yes, yes, it’s most unfortunate.’

I wondered how much Wilhelm had told her. The less the better, I thought, reasoning that the less shocked she was, at least at this stage, the more I would get out of her.

‘Are you a policeman?’ she asked.

‘I’m investigating the fire,’ I said evasively.

‘I’m sure you must be too busy to drive an old woman like me across Berlin. Why don’t you drop me on the other side of the bridge and I’ll walk the rest. I’m all right now, really I am.’

‘It’s no trouble. Anyway, I’d quite like to talk to you about the Pfarrs – that is, if it wouldn’t upset you.’ We crossed the Landwehr Canal and came onto Belle-Alliance Platz, in the centre of which rises the great Column of Peace. ‘You see, there will have to be an inquest, and it would help me if I knew as much about them as possible.’

‘Yes, well I don’t mind, if you think I can be of assistance,’ she said.

When we got to Neuenburger Strasse, I parked the car and followed the old woman up to the second floor of an apartment building that was several storeys high.

Frau Schmidt’s apartment was typical of the older generation of people in this city. The furniture was solid and elaborate -Berliners spend a lot of money on their tables and chairs – and there was a big porcelain-tiled stove in the living room. A copy of an engraving by Dürer, which was as common in the Berliner’s home as an aquarium in a doctor’s waiting room, hung dully above a dark red Biedermeier sideboard on which were placed various photographs (including one of our beloved Führer) and a little silk swastika mounted in a large bronze frame. There was also a drinks tray, from which I took a bottle of schnapps and poured a small glassful.

‘You’ll feel better after you’ve drunk this,’ I said, handing her the glass, and wondering whether or not I dared take the liberty of pouring myself one too. Enviously, I watched her knock it back in one. Smacking her fat lips she sat down on a brocaded chair by the window.

‘Feel up to answering a few questions?’

She nodded. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Well for a start, how long had you known Herr and Frau Pfarr?’

‘Hmm, let’s see now.’ A silent movie of uncertainty flickered on the woman’s face. The voice emptied slowly out of the Boris Karloff mouth, with its slightly protruding teeth, like grit from a bucket. ‘It must be a year, I suppose.’ She stood up again and removed her coat, revealing a dingy, floral-patterned smock. Then she coughed for several seconds, tapping herself on the chest as she did so.

All this time I stood squarely in the middle of the room, my hat on the back of my head and my hands in my pockets. I asked her what sort of couple the Pfarrs had been.

‘I mean, were they happy? Argumentative?’ She nodded to both of these suggestions.

‘When I first went to work there, they were very much in love,’ she said. ‘But it wasn’t long after that that she lost her job as a schoolteacher. Quite cut up about it, she was. And before long they were arguing. Not that he was there very often when I was. But when he was, then more often than not they’d have words, and I don’t mean squabbles, like most couples. No, they had loud, angry arguments, almost as if they hated each other, and a couple of times I found her crying in her room afterwards. Well, I really don’t know what it was they had to be unhappy about. They had a lovely home – it was a pleasure to clean it, so it was. Mind you, they weren’t flashy. I never once saw her spending lots of money on things. She had lots of nice clothes, but nothing showy.’