Luke McCallin - The Man from Berlin

There was an awkward silence. Padelin indicated with his eyes for Reinhardt to go ahead. The big policeman shifted in his chair as Rein shy;hardt cleared his throat. ‘What do you mean, Mrs Vukic?’

Vukic’s eyes rose from her cup, first to Padelin, then to Reinhardt, blinking as if surprised to find him there. She held his gaze for a long moment, then sighed. ‘I mean that Marija liked men. Men with power, authority. She liked older men. She had a lot of them. I could not… did not try… to keep track of them. I cannot say I liked her behaviour. But… Marija was strong-willed. What I liked and wanted stopped being important to her a long time ago. I mean, she lived by herself, out there in Ilidza, instead of here with me. How many good Bosnian girls do that to their mothers? She always said she was a “modern” girl. She wanted her own place. Her father indulged her.’ Just for a moment her eyes strayed to the photos on the piano. ‘He always did. He gave her his father’s house, the one in Ilidza. And when we divorced, he moved out there with her.’

She looked at the two of them. ‘Understand, I love her.’ Her voice hitched as she caught herself, swallowed, and then it seemed that a conscious refusal to talk of her love for her daughter in the past crept over her face. ‘But she was complicated. She could be close at times. She was distant more often.’ She looked far away. ‘Especially since Vjeko – my husband – passed away. Distant. But always dutiful,’ she said, her hand passing over the folder and its letters, cards, and snapshots from faraway countries. ‘She was her father’s daughter. More than she was ever mine.’

Reinhardt, who knew something of complicated family relationships, especially with children, said nothing. He felt a stab of embarrassment for Vukic but screwed it down tight. Vukic seemed to realise she might have said too much of the wrong thing and breathed in deeply, her back straightening. Padelin cleared his throat, but she had not finished talking.

‘You know, lots of people liked Marija. Lots of people liked being with her. But I also think there were people who did not like her. What she was. What she did.’ She looked directly at Reinhardt as she talked. ‘You know, she was not afraid to say what some said was the truth about our situation – that is, the situation of Croats – before the war. But she was not afraid to say some things about women, and what some could and should say about what women did with their lives.’

Reinhardt thought Padelin looked uncomfortable with this, although whether it was the extra detail about an icon he had admired from afar or the talk about disloyalty towards the Party was not clear. He made a valiant effort to bring the conversation back to the case. ‘Mrs Vukic, what can you tell us about the guests your daughter had?’

‘Nothing,’ she said, shortly. ‘I don’t know who she might have entertained. But just be sure,’ she said, again focusing on Reinhardt, ‘just be sure that when you look for whoever did this, you look close to home, not just far from it. Those who would hold her highest are those who would drop her furthest.’ She sat back, an expression of satisfaction on her face.

Padelin looked even more uncomfortable with that, to the extent that Reinhardt stepped in for him. ‘What do these friends of hers do?’

‘I’m afraid I really don’t know.’ Her eyes were far away again, the shock catching up with her. There seemed to be little more they could do here, now. Reinhardt leaned forward to place his saucer on the table and froze as Vukic began talking again.

‘My husband called her feisty,’ she said, in little more than a whisper. ‘Independent-minded. Very political. Very… involved with the Party. And she liked having a good time. Parties. Dancing. Drinking. Smoking. The men.’ Her cup rattled slightly in her hand, but she did not seem to notice.

‘Mrs Vukic,’ said Padelin. ‘Did your daughter have any ad shy;dictions?’

Vukic seemed to rouse herself. ‘No. Heavens, no,’ she gushed, a mother roused to automatic defence of a child. If that was what it was, it faded fast, the sudden show of spirit falling back into the increasing emptiness in her eyes. ‘She knew how to separate business from pleasure. Another thing my husband taught her. No, no addictions. Her work, perhaps. And the Party.’ She sipped from her cup, and the silence grew. The two policemen exchanged looks, and Padelin put his hands on the arms of his chair but stopped, again. ‘You know, if I’m honest, I should say I don’t know. I don’t know anything about the details of her life. I know she worked hard. And she liked to have a good time when she was not working.’

Reinhardt felt an echo of her grief deep inside, the memories of Carolin and Friedrich stirring and shifting. One dead, one as good as dead. He watched her, this woman struggling with herself, her feelings. He felt a stir of admiration for her, for her elegance and composure in the face of her grief. He knew what awaited her, what awaited those left behind by their loved ones, but he showed nothing. It was not difficult anymore, to show little or nothing in the face of another’s pain, but there was still a little part of him that reminded him it was not always that way, and he was not always like this.

Reinhardt nodded at Padelin that he was finished. For all his imposing appearance, the inspector could be, it seemed, a gentle man. He put his card down on the table. ‘Mrs Vukic, you will need to identify the body. When you are feeling better, please call me at that number, and we will arrange for you to come in.’ Padelin nodded to Reinhardt that he had finished his questions, and the two of them rose to their feet. Vukic stayed sitting, looking small and fallen in on herself. ‘Please accept our condolences. Do not get up. We will see ourselves out.’ They left her there in the middle of her perfumed living room with its ticking clock and the old dog wheezing at her feet.

Reinhardt left Padelin in front of police headquarters, the big detective tight-lipped and taciturn on the drive back down from Vukic’s mother’s house. Getting out, Padelin suggested they meet the next morning, giving him enough time to track down any members of Vukic’s production team in the city, and Reinhardt time to start following up on the German side of the investigation. He barely gave Reinhardt time to agree before he was turning away, walking stiffly up into the building.

It was going on three o’clock anyway and those of the city’s inhabitants who had jobs mostly worked a seven-to-three-o’clock shift. shy;Reinhardt could feel Sarajevo entering that early-evening phase of relaxation when people downed their tools and came out to visit friends or went for coffee in the old town. He drove the kubelwagen back around Kvaternik Street for what seemed the umpteenth time that day. As he had said to Padelin, you often had that feeling with this city, of going around and around in circles.

Sarajevo was a grim place, sometimes. Crammed in between its mountains, hemmed in between the Ustase on one side and the Germans on the other, it always seemed to find a way to push the weight of the war to one side, at least once a day. More and more with each passing day, Reinhardt found himself waiting for that time, when even someone like himself, even someone who wore the uniform he wore, could simply sit and watch and listen and be around people who made an effort to put their cares aside.

Turning left off Kvaternik, he drove up a narrow street that dead-ended in a guard post. Showing his identification to the soldiers on duty, he parked the car in front of the building the Abwehr used in Sarajevo. Inside, he asked the duty officer for an appointment with Freilinger, only to be told the major was out and not expected back that day, but instructions had been left for Reinhardt to prepare him a report on the day’s events. Sighing, Reinhardt sat at his desk and picked up a note from Claussen that told him he had arranged an shy;appointment with the Feldgendarmerie traffic commander for four o’clock.