Philip Kerr - Berlin Noir

‘Some cloth we found underneath his bed could be stained with blood from one of his victims. Equally, it could be menstrual blood, as he claims. He has access to a van in which he could have transported and killed his victims relatively easily. I’ve got some of the boys checking it over now, but so far it appears to be as clean as a dentist’s fingers.

‘And then of course there is his record. We’ve locked his door once before for a sexual offence – a statutory rape. More recently he probably tried to strangle a snapper he’d first persuaded to be tied up. So he could fit the psychological bill of the man we’re looking for.’ I shook my head. ‘But that’s more “could-be” than Fritz fucking Lang. What I want is some real evidence.’

Nebe nodded sagely and put his boots on the desk. Tapping his fingers’ ends together, he said: ‘Could you build a case? Break him?’

‘He’s not stupid. It will take time. I’m not that good an interrogator, and I’m not about to take any short-cuts either. The last thing I want on this case is broken teeth on the charge sheet. That’s how Josef Kahn got himself folded away and put in the costume-hire hospital.’ I helped myself from the box of American cigarettes on Nebe’s desk and lit one with an enormous brass table lighter, a present from Goering. The prime minister was always giving away cigarette lighters to people who had done him some small service. He used them like a nanny uses boiled sweets.

‘Incidentally, has he been released yet?’

Nebe’s lean face adopted a pained expression. ‘No, not yet,’ he said.

‘I know it’s considered only a small detail, the fact that he hasn’t actually murdered anyone, but don’t you think it’s time he should be let out? We still have some standards left, don’t we?’

He stood up and came round the desk to stand in front of me.

‘You’re not going to like this, Bernie,’ he said. ‘No more than I do myself.’

‘Why should this be an exception? I figure that the only reason there aren’t any mirrors in the lavatories is so that nobody has to look himself in the eye. They’re not going to release him, right?’

Nebe leant against the side of the desk, folded his arms and stared at the toes of his boots for a minute.

‘Worse than that, I’m afraid. He’s dead.’

‘What happened?’

‘Officially?’

‘You can give it a shot.’

‘Josef Kahn took his own life while the balance of his mind was disturbed.’

‘I can see how that would read nicely. But you know different, right?’

‘I don’t know anything for certain.’ He shrugged. ‘So call it informed guesswork. I hear things, I read things and I make a few reasonable conclusions. Naturally as Reichskriminaldirektor I have access to all kinds of secret decrees in the Ministry of the Interior.’ He took a cigarette and lit it. ‘Usually these are camouflaged with all sorts of neutral-sounding bureaucratic names.

‘Well then, at the present moment there’s a move to establish a new committee for the research of severe constitutional disease -’

‘You mean like what this country is suffering from?’

‘- with the aim of encouraging “positive eugenics, in accordance with the Führer’s thoughts on the subject”.’ He waved his cigarette at the portrait on the wall behind him. ‘Whenever you read that phrase “the Führer’s thoughts on the subject”, one knows to pick up one’s well-read copy of his book. And there you will find that he talks about using the most modern medical means at our disposal to prevent the physically degenerate and mentally sick from contaminating the future health of the race.’

‘Well, what the hell does that mean?’

‘I had assumed it meant that such unfortunates would simply be prevented from having families. I mean, that does seem sensible, doesn’t it? If they are incapable of looking after themselves then they can hardly be fit to bring up children.’

‘It doesn’t seem to have deterred the Hitler Youth leaders.’

Nebe snorted and went back round his desk. ‘You’re going to have to watch your mouth, Bernie,’ he said, half-amused.

‘Get to the funny bit.’

‘Well, it’s this. A number of recent reports, complaints if you like, made to Kripo by those related to institutionalized people leads me to suspect that some sort of mercy-killing is already being unofficially practised.’

I leant forward and grasped the bridge of my nose.

‘Do you ever get headaches? I get headaches. It’s smell that really sets them off. Paint smells pretty bad. So does formaldehyde in the mortuary. But the worst are those rotten pissing places you get where the dozers and rum-sweats sleep rough. That’s a smell I can recall in my worst nightmares. You know, Arthur, I thought I knew every bad smell there was in this city. But that’s last month’s shit fried with last year’s eggs.’

Nebe pulled open a drawer and took out a bottle and two glasses. He said nothing as he poured a couple of large ones.

I threw it back and waited for the fiery spirit to seek out what was left of my heart and stomach. I nodded and let him pour me another. I said: ‘Just when you thought that things couldn’t get any worse, you find out that they’ve always been a lot worse than you thought they were. And then they get worse.’ I drained the second glass and then surveyed its empty shape. ‘Thanks for telling me straight, Arthur.’ I dragged myself to my feet. ‘And thanks for the warmer.’

‘Please keep me informed about your suspect,’ he said. ‘You might consider letting a couple of your men work a friend-and-foe shift on him. No rough stuff, just a bit of the old-fashioned psychological pressure. You know the sort of thing I mean. Incidentally, how are you getting on with your team? Everything working out there? No resentments, or anything like that?’

I could have sat down again and given him a list of faults there that were as long as a Party rally, but really he didn’t need it. I knew that Kripo had a hundred bulls who were worse than the three I had in my squad. So I merely nodded and said that everything was fine.

But at the door to Nebe’s office I stopped and uttered the words automatically, without even thinking. I said it, and not out of obligation, in response to someone else, in which situation I might have consoled myself with the excuse that I was just keeping my head down and avoiding the trouble of giving offence. I said it first.

‘Heil Hitler.’

‘Heil Hitler.’ Nebe didn’t look up from whatever it was that he had started writing as he mumbled his reply, so he didn’t see my expression. I couldn’t say what it would have looked like. But whatever my expression, it was born of the realization that the only real complaint I had at the Alex was going to be against myself.

Monday, 19 September

The telephone rang. I wrestled my way across from the other side of the bed and answered it. I was still registering the time while Deubel was speaking. It was two a.m.

‘Say that again.’

‘We think we’ve found the missing girl, sir.’

‘Dead?’

‘Like a mouse in a trap. There’s no positive identification yet, but it looks like all the rest of them, sir. I’ve called Professor Illmann. He’s on his way now.’

‘Where are you, Deubel?’

‘Zoo Bahnhof.’

It was still warm outside when I went down to the car, and I opened the window to enjoy the night air, as well as to help wake me up. For everyone but Herr and Frau Hanke asleep at their home in Steglitz, it promised to be a nice day.

I drove east along Kurfürstendamm with its geometric-shaped, neon-lit shops, and turned north up Joachimstaler Strasse, at the top of which loomed the great luminous greenhouse that was the Zoo Station. In front were several police vans, a redundant ambulance and a few drunks still intent on making a night of it, being moved on by a bull.