Luke McCallin - The Man from Berlin

‘They are labyrinthine, indeed. But you said you’d be in Serbia, and my area of operations is Bosnia, so I’m not so sure what use I’d be to you.’

‘Well, there’s Serbs here, and Serbs in Serbia. Right… ?’

‘Granted, but it doesn’t mean they’ve the same motivations.’

‘Does my head in,’ said Lehmann, putting his empty beer glass on the bar top. He pointed at Reinhardt’s glass. ‘Another?’ Reinhardt hesitated a moment, then nodded, glancing quickly at his watch as Lehmann called the barman over for their drinks. ‘So, in Bosnia you’ve got Serbs, Muslims, and Croats. No Croats in Serbia, right? For which I’ve been made to understand I should be eternally grateful. Then you’ve got all these damn organisations. Cetniks, Ustase. I’m still trying to get that straight. I went through it all again at that conference the other day. It made sense then, but now it’s fading. Here, cheers,’ he said, handing Reinhardt his slivovitz.

Reinhardt clinked glasses with him. ‘Firm ground under your tank,’ he said, running what Lehmann had just said back over in his mind to make sure he had understood.

Lehmann snorted. ‘ “Firm ground”. I like that,’ he said, taking a swig from his beer. ‘What it all means,’ he continued, ‘is that a simple tanker like myself can’t make head nor tail of it all. It was easier in Russia. There, it was just us and them.’

‘History is layered here, like anywhere else, really,’ said Reinhardt. ‘Each people’s version of the past, and the present, like the carpets you see for sale in the market. But the layers don’t just lie one atop the other. They clash and rub up against each other as each side’s fortunes wax, then wane, and the versions compete for the truth to the exclusion of any other. Compromise is not easy in such situations, and each side invariably expects – and receives – the worst from the other.’

‘Well, what do you expect?’ mused Lehmann into his beer. ‘Always been the way.’

That did not seem right. It seemed… easy. Stereotypical. And coming from a German soldier… ‘Well,’ Reinhardt said, finally, looking inward at himself and feeling disappointed he could not come up with more. He sounded weak. ‘It’s not, actually. Relations have often been strained, but actually they aren’t any more prone to fighting themselves than anyone else, and often when they’ve fought its because they’ve been dragged into something bigger.’

‘What?’ snorted Lehmann. ‘Like this war, y’mean? So it’s our fault these people keep falling out with each other?’

Reinhardt smiled, feeling it strained and shallow. ‘Some might say that. But, for instance, here, in Sarajevo, the communities help each other more than not. Serbs in the countryside massacre Muslims, but the Muslim authorities here have often defended the city’s Serbs against Ustase depredations. And the Ustase are Croat, but many of the city’s Croats resent their behaviour.’

‘So it’s complicated.’

‘It’s complicated,’ agreed Reinhardt. ‘Like I said, this war in Bosnia is many wars all piled up. You need to understand the many to understand the whole.’

‘But the Muslims are with us, right?’

Reinhardt sighed, sympathising with Lehmann’s need for simplicity in the face of complexity even if he did not agree with it. ‘The Muslims don’t have a big brother to look after them, and they have nowhere else to go. So, the way they see it, to survive this they keep their heads down, or they ally up either with the Croats or, more and more, with the Partisans, or with us.’ Lehmann’s eyes seemed to glaze over. ‘You said you were here on a conference?’ asked Reinhardt, sipping his slivovitz.

‘Yep,’ Lehmann replied, licking foam off his lip. ‘Senior officers planning for Schwarz. I was there as advance liaison for the division, as part of the area that the op will cover is in Serbia.’

‘That’s right,’ said Reinhardt. He felt nervous, hesitant, like someone on a high diving board for the first time, screwing up the courage to jump. This might take him somewhere. It might take him nowhere. ‘I’m hopeful for some good material coming out of this operation. Counterintelligence has been a bit slow lately.’ He winced as he said it, it sounded so weak.

‘Ah, well, some of them are here. The chaps from the conference. You could try to talk to them now, couldn’t you?’

‘I’m sure they have better things to do than chat with a captain of the Abwehr.’

‘Nonsense, come on. I’ll introduce you.’

Caution got the better of him, clenching a firm hand around his innards. That, and the memory of Freilinger’s ice-cold eyes. ‘No, shy;really, sir, you’ve been very kind to offer. I wouldn’t want to bother any of them.’

‘Well, fine then. But come, let me introduce you to a couple of my men, at least. I’d like you to meet them. Tomas, Pieter,’ he called. Two other panzer officers in the huddle of uniforms at the far end of the bar turned. Lehmann ushered Reinhardt down to them, a pair of lieutenants. ‘An old acquaintance from our first time in France. Gregor Reinhardt, of the Abwehr.’

Reinhardt shook hands with them, exchanging pleasantries. The two officers laughed when Lehmann recounted Reinhardt’s joke about firm ground under their tanks. More jokes followed. Reinhardt listened with half an ear, his eyes scanning the officers sitting around the reading corner, and found himself holding a glass of beer as well as his slivovitz.

‘What’s all this, Johannes?’ The four of them turned to see a colonel standing behind them. Reinhardt and the two lieutenants came to attention. ‘Share the joke, why don’t you?’

‘Faber, hello. Meet Gregor Reinhardt, an old friend from France. 1940! Fancy meeting him here, eh? We used to do prisoner interrogations together.’

Reinhardt looked at the colonel’s unit insignia. He was from the 118th Division.

‘Prisoner interrogations?’ repeated Faber, sipping from a glass of wine. ‘We don’t get too many of them around here, eh?’

‘Yes, sir,’ replied Reinhardt.

‘Oh?’ said Lehmann, looking between them. ‘Why’s that, then?’

‘Partisans tend not to surrender,’ said Faber. ‘And when they do, they tend not to get taken prisoner. And what is Abwehr’s take on this operation?’

‘Bound to be successful, sir.’

‘What are you working on now?’

Reinhardt took a deep breath inside and took the step he had avoided taking earlier. ‘I’m actually working on a murder case at the moment.’ Lehmann and his two lieutenants went quiet, and Faber’s eyebrows went up.

‘Somewhat outside the normal writ of the Abwehr, no?’

‘Normally, yes, sir. However, given the priority the coming operation is taking in terms of manpower, I was given this assignment.’

‘Come now,’ said Faber. ‘I find it hard to believe the Abwehr has nothing better to do.’

‘Quite the contrary, sir. Partly for the reason I just mentioned, and partly because one of the victims was a German officer. In fact, an Abwehr officer. There are standing arrangements for investigating such things.’

‘One?’ interjected Lehmann. ‘You mean there’s more than one?’

‘The second was a journalist. A Bosnian Croat. A woman. Apparently well connected.’

The calm had attracted other officers, who began to gather around. One or two of them he knew by name, a couple more by sight, members of the garrison. Others he did not know at all. Reinhardt began to sweat, and he put his glass back down on the bar, partly in order to stop himself from drinking, and partly to show he was ready to go, but if any of the officers caught his intentions they ignored it.

‘Well, apart from whether it makes operational sense, what would you know about investigating such a crime?’ asked Faber.