Philip Kerr - Field Grey

'Show me a Blue who doesn't like to shout and I'll show you a pink unicorn.'

'He wants me to do something about it. About Gebhardt, I mean.'

'We could always bury him, I suppose.' I sighed. 'Look, sir, I think I ought to tell you. I didn't kill him. And I don't know who did. But they should give whoever did it the Iron Cross.'

'Major Savostin sees things differently. He's given me seventy- two hours to produce the murderer, or twenty-five German soldiers will be selected at random to stand trial at an MVD court in Stalingrad.'

'Where an acquittal seems unlikely.'

'Exactly.'

I shrugged. 'So, you appeal to the men and ask the guilty man to step up for it.'

'And if that doesn't work?' He shook his head. 'Not all of the plenis here are German. Just the majority. And I did remind the major of this fact. However, he's of the opinion that a German had the best motive to kill Gebhardt.'

'True.'

'Major Savostin has a low opinion of German moral values but a high opinion of our capacity for reasoning and logic. Since a German had the best motive for the murder, then he thinks it seems reasonable that we should have the most to lose if the killer is not identified. Which he believes is now the best incentive for us to do his job for him.'

'So what are you telling me, sir?'

'Come on, Gunther. Everyone in Krasno-Armeesk knows you used to be a detective at Berlin's Alexanderplatz Praesidium. As the SGO, I'm asking you to take charge of a murder investigation.'

'Is that what this is?'

'Maybe none of this will be necessary. But you should at least take a look at the body while I parade the men and ask the guilty man to step forward.'

I walked across the camp in the stiffening wind. Winter was coming. You could feel it in the air. You could hear it, too, as it rattled the windows of Gebhardt's private hut. A depressing sound it was, almost as loud as the noise of my own rumbling belly, and I was already reproaching myself for not exacting a price for my forensic services. A extra piece of chleb. A second bowl of kasha. No one at KA volunteered for anything unless there was something in it for him, and that something was nearly always food.

A starshina, a Blue sergeant named Degermenkoy, standing in front of Gebhardt's hut, saw me and walked slowly in my direction.

'Why aren't you at work?' he yelled and hit me hard across the shoulders with his walking stick.

Between blows I explained my mission, and finally he stopped and let me get up off the ground.

I thanked him and went into the little hut, closing the door behind me in case there was anything in there I could steal. The first thing I saw was a bar of soap and a piece of bread. Not the shorni that we plenis received but belii, the white bread, and before I even looked at Gebhardt's body I stuffed my mouth full of what should have been his last meal. This would have been reward enough for the job I was doing, except that I saw some cigarettes and matches and as soon as I had swallowed the bread I lit one and smoked it in a state of near-ecstasy. I hadn't smoked a cigarette in six months. Still ignoring the body on the bed, I looked around the hut for something to drink. My eyes fell on a small bottle of vodka, and finally, smoking my cigarette and taking little bites off Gebhardt's bottle, I started to behave like a real detective.

The hut was about ten feet square, with a small window that was covered with an iron grille meant to keep the occupant safe from the rest of us plenis. It hadn't worked. There was a lock on the wooden door but the key was nowhere to be seen. There was a table, a stove and a chair, and feeling a little faint – probably from the cigarette and the vodka – I sat down. On the wall were two propaganda portraits: cheap, frameless posters of Lenin and Stalin and, collecting some phlegm at the back of my throat, I let the great leader have it.

Then I drew the chair up to the bed and took a closer look at the body That he was dead was obvious, since there were stab wounds all over his body, but mainly around the head, neck and chest. Less obvious was the choice of murder weapon – a piece of elk horn that was sticking out of the dead man's right eye socket. The ferocity of the attack was remarkable, as was the brutal instrumentality of the elkhorn. I'd seen violent crime scenes before in my time as a detective but rarely as frenzied as this. It gave me a new respect for elks. I counted sixteen separate stab wounds, including two or three protective wounds on the forearms, and from the blood spatter on the walls it seemed clear that Gebhardt had been murdered on the bed. I tried to raise one of the dead man's hands and discovered rigor was already well set in. The body was quite cold and I formed the conclusion that Gebhardt had met his well-deserved death between the hours of midnight and four o'clock in the morning. I also discovered some blood underneath his fingernails and I might even have taken a sample of this if I'd had an envelope to put it in, not to mention a laboratory with a microscope that might have analysed it.

I did however take the dead man's wedding ring, which was so tight and the finger so badly swollen that I had to use the soap to get it off. Any other man's ring would have fallen off his finger, but Gebhardt drew better rations than any of us and was a normal weight. I weighed the ring in the palm of my hand. It was gold and would certainly come in useful if I ever needed to bribe a Blue. I looked closely at the inscription on the inside but it was too small for my weakened eyes. I didn't put it in my pocket, however; for one thing, the trousers of my uniform were full of holes, and for another, there was the starshina outside the door who might have taken it upon himself to search me. So I swallowed it, in the certainty that with my bowels as loose as vegetable soup I could easily retrieve the ring later.

By now I could hear the SGO addressing all the German plenis outside. There was a cheer as he confirmed what most of them knew: that Gebhardt was dead. This was followed by a loud groan as he told them how the MVD were planning to handle the matter. I got up and went to the window in the hope that I might see one brave soul identify himself as the culprit, but no one moved. Fearing the worst, I took another bite off the vodka bottle and laid my hand on the stove. It was cold but I opened it all the same, just in case the killer had thought to burn his signed confession; but there was nothing – just a few pages from an old copy of Pravda and some bits of wood, ready for when the weather turned colder.

A shallow closet, no deeper than a shoe box, was fixed against the corner of the hut, and in it I found the Waffen SS uniform that Gebhardt had ceased wearing when he'd switched sides. It would hardly have done for an anti-fascist officer to have carried on wearing an SS uniform. His new Russian gimnasterka was hanging on the back of the chair. Quickly I searched the pockets and found a few kopecks, which I pocketed, and some more cigarettes, which I also pocketed.

With time growing short now I took off my own threadbare uniform jacket and tried on Gebhardt's. Ordinarily it wouldn't have fitted, but I'd lost so much weight that this was hardly a problem, so I kept it on. It was a great pity his boots were too small but I took his socks – those were an excellent fit and, as with the jacket, in much better condition that my own. I lit another cigarette and, on my hands and knees, went hunting around the floor for something other than the dust and the splinters I found down there. I was still searching for clues when the hut door opened and Colonel Mrugowski came in.

'Did anyone come forward?'

'No. As a result, I can't believe it was a German who did this. Our men aren't so lacking in honour. A German would have given himself up. For the good of the others.'