Luke McCallin - The Man from Berlin

He sighed and stirred himself. Feeling sorry for his lot would get him precisely nowhere. And nowhere was where he was. No suspect. No investigation. No support. He took the stairs up to Freilinger’s office slowly and found the major much as he had found him the night before, standing by his window, looking west. Freilinger turned as he came in, and Reinhardt was struck by how tired he looked, the lines on his face long and deep. The two of them stared at each other a moment, and then the major gestured to the chair in front of his desk. ‘So,’ he said, pointing to his telephone. ‘I’ve just spoken to Putkovic. I understand things have come to a pass?’

‘They think their suspect was murdered by one of their own doctors, whom they’re now searching for as a Partisan agent.’

‘So I hear.’

‘Even if he didn’t kill Vukic, Topalovic must’ve been important to them,’ said Reinhardt, staring out the window. He turned back to Freilinger. ‘I mean, Topalovic must have been pretty important if an agent as apparently well placed as Begovic was blown just to shut him up.’

‘Hmm,’ said Freilinger, rolling one of his ubiquitous mints in his fingers. He fixed Reinhardt with those blue eyes. ‘Putkovic seems to have it in his head you had something to do with it.’

Reinhardt was too tired to muster up a protest. ‘I met the doctor last night when I went to police HQ. I -’

‘What were you doing there?’ interrupted Freilinger.

‘I was angry, sir,’ replied Reinhardt. ‘What you told me seemed so wrong. I went to try and talk to Padelin, to…’ He paused, ran a hand over his face, swallowed. ‘It’s not important why I went, I suppose. I couldn’t find Padelin. The doctor escorted me out of the building and walked me as far as the Latin Bridge. That was it.’

‘So it was some sort of mercy killing?’ Reinhardt nodded. ‘Well, so might this be, I suppose.’ Reinhardt straightened in the chair. ‘It’s over. The investigation. I’ve been told to bring it to an end.’

‘By whom, sir?’

‘Staff, up at Banja Luka. It would seem the telephone lines have been buzzing. Some colonel on the commander’s staff seems to have a dim view of us wasting resources, getting in the way of senior officers, distracting attention, sowing confusion within our own forces, upsetting our allies…’ He rolled the mint around the front of his mouth. ‘Seems you’ve stirred up quite the hornet’s nest, Reinhardt.’

Reinhardt nodded once, slowly, closing his eyes as he did so. ‘So it would seem, sir,’ he said quietly.

Freilinger frowned at him, his lips pursing and moving as he swallowed his mint. He drummed his fingers quietly on the table, one after the other, a rolling little beat that came to an abrupt stop. He leaned forward on his elbows, looking hard at him. ‘My God. This has really got to you, hasn’t it?’

Reinhardt opened his mouth to reply and found nothing. Freilinger seemed willing to wait, so he tried again. ‘It has got to me, sir. You’re right. I think… I think it’s because you held the door open to a past that meant something to me. And, for whatever reason, I could not seem to join that past up with this present.’ He looked away, down at the floor, then back. ‘Naive of me, I know.’ He found he had nothing more to say and gave a twitch of a smile in place of the words that would not come.

‘Reinhardt,’ Freilinger said, after a moment. ‘I’ve no written orders for you yet, but I know you are supposed to stand ready to transfer down to Foca. That’s where they’re setting up the holding area for prisoners, and they’ll want you for interrogations.’ He leaned back. ‘I’m being reassigned. My replacement’s on his way from Belgrade, and I’m off to Italy.’

Reinhardt knew there were consequences here. Implications. For both of them, but he could not think them through, could only feel them, waiting like steps in a road he would have to take. He wondered whether this was what Becker’s parting shot had been about. ‘It was the Feldgendarmerie making the calls,’ Freilinger continued. ‘The colonel at army HQ referred specifically to the commandant of the Feldgendarmerie.’

‘The commandant? He only knows what Becker tells him.’ Reinhardt shifted. ‘Is your transfer because of… this?’

‘It’s been on the cards a while. This has probably sped things up, is all.’ He looked down at something on his desk. ‘Last night, I promised you some information.’ He held up a sheet of paper. ‘Recent transfers of general staff officers to Bosnia in the last six months.’ Freilinger considered it a moment, then held it out to Reinhardt. ‘Not much use to you now, I suppose, but I marked the three officers who served in the USSR.’ Glancing at the paper, Reinhardt saw that it listed about a half dozen names and folded it into his pocket. Freilinger watched him, twisted his lips, and sat back in his chair.

‘Sir, you talk as if it’s over for me. I know that’s what Banja Luka told you, but you seemed to be hinting that I ought to continue until orders come telling me otherwise. Was I wrong about that?’

‘When I referred to written orders, Reinhardt, I indeed only referred to myself. I have none for you. You may very well consider that licence to pursue your inquiries. Or you may not. Perhaps it would be safer not to.’

‘Yes, sir. I ask because I met with someone last night. A Captain Thallberg. Ostensibly an infantry captain, he is GFP. He told me Hendel was as well, as was Krause. They were working for him.’

Freilinger looked back at him. ‘What?’ he said.

If Reinhardt had been in that kind of mood, he might have taken pleasure in the look on Freilinger’s face. One of complete surprise, written blankly across his drawn features. ‘They were GFP. Hendel was on some kind of surveillance mission. He was tasked to it by someone senior, not in country. This Thallberg doesn’t know who, but he’s trying to find out.’

Freilinger seemed to deflate in his chair. His mouth moved. ‘GF…’ He paused, swallowed, passed a hand across his face, then began to rub his hands together under his chin. That slow movement, back and forth and around and around.

‘The GFP are often involved in court martials, aren’t they?’ Freilinger nodded, slowly. ‘Maybe that’s the case here. Maybe Hendel was building up a case against someone.’

‘Do you know who he was after?’

Reinhardt shook his head. ‘I would’ve hoped to find out eventually. But sir, it has to have been the man Vukic was seeing, who was at her house that night. My belief remains the same. She knew something about a senior member of our armed forces. She had revealed all, or part, to Hendel, who was after the same person. How they met, I do not know. Probably at the nightclub. They arranged a confrontation. It went wrong. Probably, she tried to control too much of it and lost the control she sought. He ended up killing both of them, and Krause is on the run. He knows who did this, and he’s terrified.’ He tapped the list in his pocket. ‘With any luck, he’s one of those names you found.’

Freilinger’s eyes followed Reinhardt’s hand, then drifted away. The silence lengthened. ‘Do you think the GFP’s involvement shy;really changes things?’ Reinhardt asked. He knew it did. It was a nonsensical question. It was just that the silence made him suddenly uncomfortable.

The major’s eyes hardened, as if they focused on something, and swung back to Reinhardt. ‘Of course it does. Reinhardt, if the GFP are involved, this isn’t a murder investigation anymore. It’s something else. Who knows what… ? But I do know the stakes will be much higher.’ Freilinger paused, swallowing slowly. ‘And if you felt strongly before about trying to do this right, then you’ll have to fight doubly hard with the GFP. They can do anything.’