Luke McCallin - The Man from Berlin

‘Yes, sir,’ replied Claussen, slipping the report into a pocket.

‘What about that appointment with Gord?’

Claussen shook his head. ‘Gord’s not here. I left you a message.’ He flipped through some of the papers on the table. ‘Here. Gord and the whole Propaganda Company are in Foca, covering Schwarz from there. Have been since 3rd May.’

Reinhardt remembered that with Brauer, sometimes they would start talking about a case. Just talking, ideas moving back and forth, and sometimes the investigation would take off or move in another direction. ‘The Croats have someone. Someone’s confessed, or is about to.’ He felt, all of a sudden, that he had crossed a line, letting Claussen take the place Brauer once occupied. Still did, even though he was a continent away.

‘A put-up job?’ asked Claussen, quietly.

‘I’m sure of it. There’s tank-sized gaps in the Croat investigation, but they’re not interested in investigating. And they’re certainly not interested in investigating Hendel’s death, or his involvement in all this.’ He paused, chewing softly on his lower lip.

‘So?’ prompted Claussen, after a moment.

‘So, I’m wondering whether our command will be happy with the suspect the Croats present, or whether I should keep investigating.’

‘You think this suspect can carry the weight of two murders?’

‘I’m sure he could if we requested it,’ Reinhardt replied, quietly.

The two of them looked at each other a moment. It was Claussen who shook his head. ‘Kruger works in III H. You should go and see him with that list. He’ll sort you out for commanding officers and whatever else you’ll need.’

And just like that, it was over. Any hesitation Reinhardt had was gone, swept away by Claussen’s simple directness. It was like a weight lifted, a weight Reinhardt had not known was there. ‘No time like the present, I suppose,’ he said, nodding to himself.

Reinhardt walked slowly downstairs, down a corridor of squeaking floorboards and a wall with peeling green paint, until he found the offices of Abteilung III, responsible for the security of the Abwehr and the armed forces. III H was the subsection charged with army security, and Lieutenant Kruger, who ran it, was a genial chap, expansive of girth and appetite. Reinhardt found him peering over his glasses at a file, a single, dim bulb the only illumination in his gloomy office. All four walls were covered in shelves with files with coded numbers up their spines.

‘Captain,’ said the lieutenant, standing and pulling off his pince-nez. ‘What can I do for you, sir?’

‘I need your expertise, Kruger,’ replied Reinhardt. ‘I need some names to go with some units. These,’ he said, placing Claussen’s list on the desk.

Kruger flipped the list around to read it, raising his eyebrows and lowering his mouth at the corners as he placed the pince-nez back on his nose. ‘Pretty easy,’ he said, walking to a row of files. ‘What do you need this for?’ he asked, over his shoulder.

‘Oh, just updating my files,’ replied Reinhardt. ‘In advance of Schwarz.’

‘Right,’ said Kruger. He pulled a file out and flipped it open to a cover sheet that bore a list of typed names, all of which save for the last were crossed out. ‘Here you go. 369th Infantry Division. Lieutenant General Fritz Neidholt commanding.’

‘The same for the others, please?’

Kruger went through the list one by one, adding a commanding officer next to a unit that Reinhardt jotted down into his book. 1st Mountain, Lieutenant General Walter Stettner Ritter von Grabenhofen. 7th SS Prinz Eugen, Obergruppenfuhrer Arthur Phleps, handing over command to Brigadefuhrer Karl Reichsritter von Oberkamp on 15th May. 118th Jager Division, Lieutenant General Josef Kubler. 121st Jager Division, Lieutenant General Paul Verhein commanding.

Reinhardt knew that no self-respecting general would be without his staff officers, and he would have liked to be able to note them down as well. They probably would also have been accompanied to the conference by their intelligence officers, and likely by some of their senior regimental and battalion commanders, but that was asking for too much. This was a good start, but before he went any further he would have to know whether this really was an avenue worth pursuing. shy;Reinhardt stared at his list as Kruger looked over his shoulder. What he really needed was to cross-reference this with service history, to find out who among them had served in Russia.

Kruger snorted. ‘Good luck with that. I don’t have that in shy;formation.’

Reinhardt froze. He had not realised he had spoken out loud. ‘Who might?’ asked Reinhardt, trying to keep his voice normal.

‘Paymaster might.’

Reinhardt sighed long and softly. ‘A lot of bureaucracy involved in getting anything out of them.’

‘Unless you owe them money,’ quipped Kruger, as he began putting his files away. He came back to his desk and paused with his hands on another. ‘I’m sorry, Captain. I’m not sure how else I can help you.’

‘That’s fine, you’ve been very helpful.’

Kruger removed his pince-nez, rubbing the bridge of his nose. ‘What’s an officer’s Russian service history to do with your updating your files, anyway?’

Reinhardt froze, feeling a cold sweat suddenly break out down his back, knowing his mouth had run away with him. He looked at his list a moment longer, then raised his eyes to Kruger, forcing the cold he felt inside out of his gaze. ‘Need-to-know basis, Kruger. Need-to-know.’

‘Right,’ said Kruger with a lopsided grin as he put his file away. ‘Sorry.’

‘No harm done. And thanks again,’ said Reinhardt, through a parched mouth. Reinhardt walked back upstairs to his office, the cold sweat that had risen after Kruger’s question drying away.

Back in his office, Reinhardt tossed his notebook on his desk and paced around his room. The bell at the cathedral began to toll, and he counted off the bells to midday. As the tolling faded away, a muezzin’s call sounded from somewhere to the east, then another, and another. He decided to give Claussen another five or ten minutes to find Hueber, and then he would go for lunch. He thought a moment, then pulled a pencil and paper towards him and began to sketch out what he had so far on the case. He wrote Vukic in the centre of a blank page, and Hendel next to it. Then he jotted down what they knew, which was next to nothing – the car, and the cigarettes, what they knew of Vukic’s life, what he knew of Hendel’s duties. He wrote murderer , and stared at it. Then added a pair of parentheses to the end of murderer and added an s . More than likely there was more than one of them.

More names appeared on the paper – Freilinger’s, Padelin’s, shy;Becker’s – and the various organisations they served – the army, the Ustase, the police, the Feldgendarmerie. Jelic, almost the last person they knew of who had seen Vukic alive. The map took shape, lines connecting names, sundry information jotted down next to names. Motives, such as he assumed them. Facts, such as he knew them. Avenues of investigation… Padelin’s choice of a politically expedient suspect. Reinhardt’s own investigation.

His stomach growled. Glancing at his watch, he saw that nearly three quarters of an hour had gone by while he worked and wrote. He folded the map into his breast pocket and drove out through the heavy midday heat to the barracks. The officers’ mess was a long, narrow room, overlooking the Miljacka and the strip of garden in which the band had played last night, and mercifully cool. Tables with white cloths were spread across most of the space, with a bar at one end of the room and a corner where a motley collection of armchairs and settees had been drawn up into a smoking and reading area. A swastika hung on the wall above the entrance, with a portrait of the Fuhrer to the right. The walls were covered in unit plaques and other memorabilia. The place stank of cigarettes and pork and beer.