Luke McCallin - The Man from Berlin

‘What about the wounds? The stabbing, and the mutilations?’ called an officer.

Reinhardt nodded. ‘Yes. As we suspected, Dresner’s medical training indicated where to stab into the heart. He then said that, although he killed in cold blood, he was afterwards taken by rage. Rage at what these men had done to him with their fists, and… in other ways. So he took his revenge on them as best he could.’

‘So, tell us more about this investigation you are on now,’ asked Faber. ‘Another drink?’

‘What’s that, then?’ asked several officers.

‘Well, it’s not advisable for me to talk too much about the case. No, thank you, nothing more for me to drink,’ Reinhardt demurred.

‘Ah, come now. You can talk with us, surely?’ said Faber, clearly enjoying himself. Over by the bar, Ascher raised his hand to someone behind Reinhardt, gesturing him over.

‘Well, I am working with a detective from the Sarajevo police. He is investigating the journalist, while I am concentrating on our officer.’

‘Journalist? What’s going on?’ asked an officer.

‘Any leads, then?’ interjected Lehmann.

‘What’s this about a journalist?’ demanded a couple of officers. Lehmann turned to them, keeping an eye on Reinhardt as he briefly outlined the murders in Ilidza.

‘No leads, not really.’

‘Where were they found?’ someone called.

‘At her house.’

‘Where’s the house, then?’

Over at the bar, Reinhardt saw Standartenfuhrer Stolic join Ascher and Eichel. His throat clenched, and he swallowed. He had to get out of there, but that giddy sense of invulnerability pulled him on. The feeling he got when on the trail of good evidence that things were right, just right. ‘In Ilidza. Behind the Hotel Austria.’

‘When were they killed?’

‘Late on Saturday night.’

There was a babble of excited talk.

‘Wasn’t there a party there that night?’

‘You were there, weren’t you?’

‘Yep. The high point of that bloody planning conference.’

‘Hey, just think, boys, a murder like that happening next door!’

‘Saturday night?’ repeated one of the officers, with mock relief, clapping his hand over his heart. ‘Thank heavens, that counts me out. I was in Rogatica. Just ask the ladies at Petko’s bar!’ Several other officers joined in the laughter.

‘But that doesn’t rule you out, Ascher,’ blurted a colonel with ruddy cheeks, quite obviously some way into his cups. ‘You were there, weren’t you? You and Kappel, and… and…’ He trailed off, looking around the assembled officers with watery eyes.

‘Where what?’ asked Ascher, turning from his conversation with Stolic and Eichel. Stolic looked over his shoulder. His eyes, as Reinhardt had guessed from the dim light of the bar last night, were indeed very pale. They fastened on Reinhardt, and he saw recognition jolt through them, followed by what could only be fury.

‘Careful now,’ joked one of the officers. ‘Do we need alibis?’

Reinhardt smiled back. ‘I don’t know. Do some of you think you might ?’

Conversation just died away from the men around him. At the bar, Stolic and Ascher exchanged glances. Reinhardt breathed shallowly over the awful lump that sat sodden and heavy in his chest, aghast at what he had just said.

Faber’s eyes narrowed. ‘Captain,’ said Ascher, from where he stood against the bar. ‘I am sure you cannot be insinuating anything.’

‘Nothing at all, sir,’ he replied, forcing a tone of levity into his voice.

‘Good. Then I am quite sure you are stating nothing, either.’

‘Correct, sir.’ God, what had he been thinking to say what he did? Was it the drink? Recounting the past? From a time when he was someone, when what he did counted for something? Things were just right. They were always just right , until the moment they were not.

‘Just a minute,’ said Stolic, coming forward. As they had last night, his cheeks bore a high flush. Ascher half raised a hand to stop him, but the Standartenfuhrer ignored it. ‘Just a bloody minute. You say you are investigating a murder that occurred in and around the same place and time that some here were present? And you told us nothing of this? What, you tried to insinuate yourself into our confidence? To sound us out?’ Stolic’s face became further suffused, his eyes becoming even paler as a result, and his voice rising as he spoke. He took a step, then another, until he loomed over Reinhardt. All conversation stopped, all heads turned. To Reinhardt, they were nothing but a row of pale ovals in his periphery. ‘Just who the hell do you think you are, Captain ?’ In the face of Stolic’s aggression, Reinhardt froze. Coming to attention was all he could do, directing his gaze to a point just behind Stolic’s head, ignoring the blaze of humiliation that roared through him.

‘A captain of the Abwehr, apparently,’ said Ascher. ‘An ex- shy;policeman. Of course he was sounding you out. He was sounding all of us out.’

‘Is this true, Reinhardt?’ grated Faber.

Reinhardt had not been the focus of so many men who could do him harm in a long time. ‘No, sir,’ he said, with as much confidence as he could muster, keeping his eyes front and focused on nothing. He had wanted to sound them out, but God knew the way things were progressing it would have been a terrible idea. It was bad enough now, when he had not even meant for any of it to come out. ‘If you will recall, sir, I came upon your invitation.’

‘That’s true,’ said Faber, half to himself, half to Stolic.

‘Don’t be so bloody gullible, Faber,’ Stolic snarled. His teeth, shy;Reinhardt suddenly noticed, were in bad shape, and the man’s breath was pinched, acidic. ‘The man’s a policeman. Deception’s in his blood. I’ll bet he planned it all.’ He stepped back, raking him up and down with his eyes, then swinging them around to look over the others. ‘I caught him sniffing around the Ragusa last night. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to spring him on us?’ The officers shifted and muttered, looking left and right, most of them looking to Faber and Lehmann. Faber looked hard at the tank officer, who went red with embarrassment.

‘Who is your superior, Reinhardt?’ demanded Ascher.

‘Major Freilinger, sir.’

‘Good. He will be hearing from me about this.’

‘Now,’ said Stolic, stabbing Reinhardt’s chest with a finger, right on his Iron Cross, and then pointing over his shoulder. ‘Fuck off.’

Reinhardt forced himself to walk back through the halls to the courtyard. He looked straight ahead, praying he would meet no one he knew, but as he approached the door to the parking lot, he paused; checking that there was no one behind him, he collapsed backwards against the wall, feeling his knees trembling as if they were about to give way on him. He breathed deeply, a slow, ragged, shuddering breath. ‘Gregor,’ he whispered. ‘Gregor, why couldn’t you have left it alone?’

Voices had him standing straight, tugging at the hem of his tunic as he walked briskly back out into the courtyard, into the blaze of heat and light to his car. He drove back to his office, where he found Claussen and Hueber waiting.

‘Hueber has that translation you were asking for,’ said Claussen as they followed Reinhardt into his office.

Reinhardt sat in his chair and folded his hands in his lap. ‘Proceed, Corporal,’ he said, tightly.

Hueber shuffled some sheets in his hand, glancing down at a page of handwritten notes, and began reading. It was a fairly standard pathology report. Dates, times, places, findings of the autopsy, which, it seemed, barely qualified as one as the pathologist had stopped at the knife wounds and gone no further. The corporal finished, saw Reinhardt staring hard at him, and blushed.