Luke McCallin - The Man from Berlin

‘Yes, sir. She was found dead with the officer. Therefore, she forms part of my inquiries as well.’

‘Right,’ said the officer, his glass held to his mouth and only his eyes visible over its rim. ‘And what have you learned?’

‘With all due respect, sir, I am not at liberty to divulge such shy;details.’

The Standartenfuhrer snorted, and the others around the table made various motions of amusement, like a ripple across a pond and him the source of it, like a rock tossed into water. ‘Sounds like a Jew, don’t you think?’ he asked his companions. ‘ “ Not at liberty to… ” ’ he repeated, with a little whine in his voice. He said something to the Ustasa and the man laughed, his cheeks quivering like slabs of suet. Reinhardt flushed under their gaze. The officer’s fingers tap-tapped on his holster, and he looked for a moment at Reinhardt’s Iron Cross, his eyes narrowing. ‘Are you Feldgendarmerie, Captain? You don’t look like a chain dog.’

‘Abwehr.’

The Standartenfuhrer smiled, a wet gleam that slid rather naturally into a sneer. ‘Yes. Well, would you like to ask me anything, Captain? I knew Miss Vukic rather well, you know.’

‘By all means, sir. Are you able to shed any light on her movements in her last days, or perhaps offer information as to the motive behind her death?’

The Standartenfuhrer’s nose twitched. ‘Marija Vukic was a slut, Captain. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.’

‘Come on, Mladen,’ said one of the other officers. ‘Take it easy.’

The Standartenfuhrer ignored him. ‘I saw you come out from the private rooms. I presume you saw the mirrored room? Yes? They told you, that was her hideaway? Her little sex parlour, for the fortunate few. And I say that with a pinch of irony, Captain. She’d fuck just about anything.’ There was a snicker of laughter around the table.

‘Present company excluded, of course, Standartenfuhrer,’ said Reinhardt. The table went still, but the SS officer’s fingers continued their tap-tapping. Although Reinhardt felt himself break out in a shy;sudden, icy sweat, he refused to be cowed, turning a deaf ear to the voice within that, aghast at his temerity, was urging him to back away. No good came of provoking men like this.

The Standartenfuhrer stared back at him with dead eyes, then snorted. ‘What was it I said?’ Half to himself, half to his friends. ‘Just like a Jew. Picking up the little details. Sniff-sniffing around.’ He leaned forward, a sudden shift. The officer sitting behind him reached out a hand, left it hanging. Reinhardt saw it all from a distance. They were obviously used to a certain kind of behaviour from this man. Violent, probably unpredictable. ‘No, Captain. I never had that dubious honour. Thank God. I’ll bet you can still smell the stink of her rutting in there.’

Reinhardt allowed himself to breathe a little easier and gave that note of inner caution its head. ‘There was something, indeed, sir,’ he agreed. He needed to get away from there, and placating this officer was the best way out.

‘A word of advice to you, Captain. This is a respectable club. Don’t come back here asking questions and spreading rumours. And don’t let me hear of you bringing noncoms in again.’

‘Thank you, sir. And may I have the honour of knowing to whom I have been speaking?’

The officer took a long drink from his beer before answering. ‘Standartenfuhrer Mladen Stolic.’

‘My thanks to you, Standartenfuhrer. With your permission?’ Stolic nodded a lazy dismissal, watching through heavy-lidded eyes as Reinhardt clicked his heels and inclined his head in salute.

‘And you can take your salute and shove it up your arse. We did away with that in the SS a long time ago,’ Stolic said, rising to his feet. ‘This is the way it’s done.’ He slammed his heels together, his right arm pistoning up. ‘ HEIL HITLER! ’ he bellowed. It felt as if the bar had come to a standstill. He held the pose a moment, then relaxed, his right hand coming to rest on his belt buckle. He smiled. ‘Now. Your turn, Captain.’

Reinhardt stared back at him, then blanked his mind. ‘Heil Hitler!’ he returned, fixing his eyes on the wall behind Stolic’s head. For a panicked moment Reinhardt thought Stolic would make him do it again, but he just smiled, took his seat, and resumed his conversation. Reinhardt took a step back and turned for the door. Stern came around from behind his lectern to open the door, handing him his cap and inclining his head courteously as Reinhardt went past.

‘I trust your inquiries were successful, sir,’ he murmured. ‘A very good night to you. Do come again.’

Reinhardt stood out in the street; holding his cap by the visor, he flipped it onto his head, working his mouth around the memory of those words. Hueber waved at him from a little farther down the street, where Claussen had parked the kubelwagen . Reinhardt acknowledged him, taking the time to light himself a cigarette and calm down. The night was hot, though far cooler than the club had been. Reinhardt could smell the smoke and sweat stink of it on his clothes. He wondered what someone as glamorous as Marija Vukic found in it. Maybe it was the only place like it in town. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, he thought as he climbed into the car.

Claussen wound his way through a series of narrow roads until he came to Kvaternik, where he darted over and across a bridge, turning right at the end of it. He glanced at a map scrawled hastily on a piece of paper he held in one hand, counting off streets to his left before hauling the kubelwagen into one of them and bringing it to a stop, the engine clattering into silence.

The neighbourhood was one of those built by the Austrians not long after they began their occupation. Designed along functional rather than ascetic lines, the houses and buildings were blocky, most of them two floors, some with three. There was no street lighting, only a few lights were on or visible, and there was the smell of wood smoke and cooking in the air. Voices drifted through the night. A child cried somewhere, a woman shouted, a man answered back.

‘What was the address?’ asked Reinhardt. Claussen flicked on a torch, shining it onto Mavric’s piece of paper. ‘No number,’ said shy;Reinhardt. ‘Fourth on the left. Claussen, stay with the car again. Hueber, with me.’

The sergeant took an MP 40 machine pistol from between the seats, cocking it as Reinhardt and Hueber set off down the street. The arrival of the car could not go unnoticed. Faces appeared at windows only to vanish just as fast. Curtains twitched. A door cracked open as Reinhardt walked past, a child peering out. There was a frantic burst of whispering, and the child was pulled backwards and the door pushed shut. There was the sound of a blow, and the child began to cry.

The fourth house was a two-storey affair, with a wooden staircase up one side of it. Not knowing which floor to take, Reinhardt knocked on the front door. From behind the curtains drawn across a small window next to the door, he could see a line of light, so someone was home. He knocked again, heavier. A quavering voice came from behind the door, an old woman by the sounds of it. Hueber stepped up to the door and called through it. The voice answered back, and Hueber motioned up with his eyes.

The wooden staircase creaked alarmingly under their feet as they climbed. It ended in a small landing with a carved wooden railing. There was a door, slightly ajar, a wash of light like a candle’s playing across it. The sounds of women’s voices came from the apartment within. Two women, singing together softly, then a pause, and laughter. Soft and crystalline, the sound of something metallic shaking, like chains. The sound made him stop, made his heart suddenly clench. How long had it been since he had heard a woman laugh?