Luke McCallin - The Man from Berlin

‘There was just one time when there was trouble. There was an officer who always tried to talk to Vukic. She did not like him. When she did not like someone, it was very clear, but this officer was persistent. The last time Dragan saw Vukic and Lieutenant Hendel together, this officer tried to join them. She told him to go away, and he was insulting to her, and apparently he tried to pull rank on the lieutenant. It did not work, and he came to the bar angry, talking with friends and asking what he did not have that a mere lieutenant did. He tried to cause trouble for Lieutenant Hendel, but his friends persuaded him out of it, and Vukic threatened to make his life a misery if he persisted in his attentions. This was on Thursday, last week.’

‘Yes,’ said Dragan. ‘Then Vukic, she go in back room with Hendel. To be private.’

‘Back room?’

‘Is private room. She go there sometimes.’

‘Does he know who the officer was?’

Hueber looked desperately uncomfortable. ‘Only that he is SS.’ At the mention of that, Dragan looked hard at Reinhardt, as if imparting to him how much this information could cost him.

‘No name?’

Hueber turned to look at Dragan, but the barman shook his head. ‘I don’t know name. But he is one of us.’

‘Not a German?’ Dragan shook his head again. ‘A Yugoslav? A Croat?’ Dragan paused, then shrugged, a movement that meant more yes than no but still managed to convey his discomfort. ‘What unit?’ asked Reinhardt, pointing to his collar and shoulder boards.

Dragan shrugged again, switching back to Serbo-Croat. It did not really matter, thought Reinhardt. There were not that many SS units around Sarajevo at the moment. That could be checked fairly easily.

‘Sorry, sir,’ said Hueber. ‘He does not know.’

‘He is not good guy, this SS.’ Dragan polished a glass hard, glancing up. ‘ Pomalo. He crazy,’ he finished, tapping a finger on his head. ‘He take knife, stick it hard into the bar. Just there,’ he said, pointing at a scar of whiter wood in the bar’s surface.

‘A knife?’

‘Big knife,’ said Dragan, measuring out a distance with his hands. Reinhardt thought for a moment, digesting what he had learned. Hendel was a frequent guest, as was Vukic. According to everything he knew of the journalist, Hendel was not her type, however much he might have wanted to be. They met here several times, the last time two days before her murder. Someone, an SS officer, was sufficiently annoyed at her spending time with a lieutenant to get threatening about it. Not that there was no truth in any of it, but it all seemed a little obvious. ‘Was there anyone else here who knew Hendel? Who spent some time with him?’

Dragan had gone back to his glasses, another one vanishing into the folds of his cloth. ‘Are singers. With band,’ he said, motioning with his head over to the ensemble. ‘Florica and Anna.’

‘Tonight?’ asked Reinhardt, hearing himself slow down in his speech to match the barman. ‘Are they here, tonight?’

‘No,’ replied Dragan. He frowned as he put yet another glass away and leaned forward with both hands on the counter. ‘But why you asking these questions again?’

‘Again?’ He frowned and turned to Hueber. ‘What is he talking about? Has someone already been asking questions?’

As they talked, Reinhardt looked over his shoulder back into the club. From out of the gloom was a gleam of eyes from beneath shadowed brows, the crescents of faces over the angles of hunched shoulders. And here, there, faces looking back at him, like moons.

‘Sir,’ said Hueber. Reinhardt turned back, feeling more and more exposed down here at the bar. ‘Someone has already been asking questions about Lieutenant Hendel. From the description, it sounds like the Feldgendarmerie. He says we should talk to the two ladies he mentioned. Apparently the Feldgendarmerie roughed them up a bit.’ Reinhardt looked at Dragan as Hueber spoke. The barman’s eyes were fixed on the young corporal and swivelled to Reinhardt when Hueber had finished, then back to Hueber.

‘ I policije. Don’t forget to say about police.’

Hueber gave a distracted nod. ‘Yes. Da. The Sarajevo police were also here. It was Padelin.’

‘Padelin was here?’ Reinhardt said it more as a statement. He looked at Dragan. ‘When?’

‘Was today. After lunch. They took Zoran. One of the waiters.’

‘Did they say why?’ Dragan shrugged, his eyes dull and flat. shy;Reinhardt sighed, slowly. ‘Where are the girls now?’

‘At home,’ shrugged Dragan, again.

‘I want to see them. Do you have an address?’

‘You ask manager.’ He motioned over to the other side of the bar, where a small door stood almost unnoticed. Reinhardt walked back along the bar, past the Ustasa, who looked at him over his friend’s shoulder, and over to the door. Dragan pointed at a small brass handle, which Reinhardt pushed down on. A crack of dim light arrowed up the side of the door, widening as he pushed it open and stepped into a short corridor.

Like the bar itself, the corridor was red. Red wallpaper on the walls, red shades on the lights. Photographs hung on the walls, pictures of guests seated around tables, the photographer’s flash caught in wide liquid eyes and on the stems of glasses and the necks of bottles. Reinhardt paused in front of one of them. Vukic was seated in the centre, slightly side on to the camera. Her dress rode high and tight up her thighs, and she had one arm around the shoulders of a rather self-conscious-looking general. Again, Reinhardt found himself taken with the sheer animal attraction of her. He remembered that one dance with her, at Christmas, the giddy sensation she had left him with. He could only imagine the effect she must have had when she focused the searchlight blaze of herself on someone she was truly after.

There were three doors at the end, one in front of him and one to each side. The one in front was slightly ajar, and the sound of a wireless playing music came through softly. Reinhardt walked up to the door, knocked, and pushed it open, stepping into a small office. It was neatly kept, with a small wooden desk behind which sat a dark-haired man in a suit tapping a pencil against the top of the table, his head propped on his other hand. The man looked up from the papers he was going through as they came in, a slight frown of annoyance at the interruption swiftly replaced by a more neutral expression at the sight of a pair of German soldiers. The pencil went still in his hand.

‘Yes?’

‘You are the manager of this club?’

‘I am Robert Mavric. Can I help you?’ he asked in heavily accented German.

‘I am conducting an investigation into the death of a German officer. This officer was a frequent guest here.’ The manager’s face narrowed, took on a pinched and haunted look, and he slumped back in his chair. ‘Two people who work for you were friends with this officer. I need to question them, and so need their addresses.’

Mavric’s eyes moved between the pair of them. ‘You know, I gave you this information yesterday morning.’

Reinhardt stared back at him, letting the silence grow. He hated to do it, but there were times when the uniform, and the weight of oppression implicit in it, were useful, like now. That, and the fact he was digesting what Mavric had just said. Yesterday morning was Sunday. Vukic was not discovered until today, Monday morning. Mavric tapped his pencil a few more times and then tore a piece of paper from a pad. He scribbled down an address and handed it to Reinhardt.

‘Where is it?’ Reinhardt asked.

Mavric pursed his lips. ‘It’s in Terezija. Just over the Cobanija Bridge. Five minutes from here.’

Reinhardt turned to Hueber. ‘Go and give this to Claussen. Tell him we’re going straight there and that he knows how to find it.’ Hueber took the paper and turned smartly on his heel and left.