Luke McCallin - The Man from Berlin

‘What time do you think?’

‘Seven o’clock would have been too early and too noticeable.’ He looked at Claussen, saw the tightness in the corner of the sergeant’s eyes, the bunch of his chin. ‘Ten o’clock would have been more likely. Is there something you want to add, Sergeant?’

‘Sir. There was someone there at ten. He was there before I arrived. He was still there when I left. On his knees. Hands in front of his head, head right down. Kept himself at the back. Didn’t come for communion. I’d not seen him before and I only now just thought of him, as you were talking to that priest.’

‘Rank?’

‘Couldn’t really see. An officer, I’m pretty sure. Smallish. Thin hair. Bald at the back.’

Reinhardt shrugged. ‘It could have been our man. Could equally have been someone else.’

‘Yes, sir. He moved his hands a lot.’ Claussen demonstrated, his hands clasping and unclasping, running back and over each other. ‘Like they were dirty.’

The two of them stared at each other a moment, the one seeing the scene as it was, the other as he imagined it. There was an echo of truth, suddenly, all around. As if a little piece of the puzzle had shifted, revealed itself. Then, without any further words being exchanged, Claussen drove away and Reinhardt went inside and over to the shy;administration office. He felt tired. Drained. But in a good way. Like he used to feel sometimes after working a case with Brauer. He ordered a call placed through to Thallberg. He held the receiver in the crook of his shoulder as he shook a cigarette out and lit it. His knee ached, and he reached down to rub it absentmindedly. He thought about the officer the priest described as the line clicked, hummed, and then Thallberg’s voice came on.

‘Reinhardt?’

‘It’s me,’ he replied. ‘We should talk.’

‘When?’

‘Meet me at the fountain, on Bascarsija.’

‘Half an hour,’ came the reply, and the phone went dead.

Reinhardt unbuttoned his tunic and slipped the file under it, nestling it against his ribs. Giving his knee a last rub, he crossed over the bridge to Bascarsija and sat at the little cafe where he always went and ordered Turkish coffee. It was that time of day again, the people of the city coming together, pushing away the cares of the war. There was something in the air; Reinhardt could feel it. He always found himself reaching for it, straining, but never managing to experience it, to capture whatever it was the people all around him seemed to feel.

A man came out of the barber’s next door to the cafe, brushing his shoulders. He wore a dark suit and a white shirt with no tie, and carried a newspaper, which he folded and put under his arm. He leaned into the cafe, called his order, then sat down at the table next to Reinhardt, unfolding his paper. Their eyes met for a moment, and the man nodded a cautious greeting, one patron to another. Reinhardt nodded back as his coffee came. The waiter got his finger caught under the tray, and it clattered as he pulled it out from underneath. Reinhardt glanced at him, and the waiter gave a tight smile of apology as he backed away. Reinhardt dropped some sugar into the pitcher, watched it turn brown and sink. He stirred the coffee, let it sit, absorbed in the ritual, the comfort of the same gestures repeated time after time by him, by those around him, on the square, in houses across the city, in cities across the country.

‘Captain Reinhardt.’

He kept very still, then looked up. The man reading the paper was not looking at him, but Reinhardt could tell all his attention was focused on him. Moving slowly, Reinhardt unfastened the catch on his holster.

‘Please do not be alarmed,’ said the man, as he turned a page, tilting his head to read the headlines. ‘I mean you no harm.’

Forcing himself to move calmly, Reinhardt poured his coffee, waited a moment, then sipped. The man turned another page, tutting at something he read. Another waiter brought the man his coffee. shy;Reinhardt glanced at him, and the man looked back. He was big, broad, no subservience in his eyes as he went to stand by the cafe’s entrance, seemingly relaxed, his hands behind his back, but his eyes roamed over the square.

‘How do you know who I am?’ he asked, finally.

‘That is not important. If you agree to accompany me, someone would like to talk to you,’ he said, rattling his paper into shape.

‘Who?’

‘I cannot tell you.’

‘Where to?’

‘Not far.’ The man folded his paper in half, held it in one hand as he put sugar in his coffee and stirred it. His German was strongly accented, but good.

‘You do not offer much in the way of assurances.’

The man poured his coffee, letting it sit while he turned another page. ‘Captain. If we wanted to harm you, we could have done so. For assurances, I do not have any to offer. But,’ he said, folding another page, ‘perhaps this might suffice. Two men have been following you. They followed you out to Ilidza and back. We cut them off at Marijin Dvor. So they don’t know you are here.’

Reinhardt sipped from his coffee and watched the muezzin at the mosque on the corner of the square unlock the door to the minaret. ‘Men?’

‘Germans,’ he replied, sipping his coffee. ‘Soldiers. I am going to get up and leave in a moment. If you wish to come with me, please wait approximately thirty seconds before following me, and keep your distance.’

Folding his paper back under his arm, he rose and strolled across the square, towards one of the little lanes that branched off Bascarsija and into the warren of houses and workshops that clustered tightly around the old mosque and around the back of the Rathaus. The muezzin stepped out at the top of the minaret, his fingers gripping the balustrade. As Reinhardt watched him, he took a deep breath. Reinhardt took one too. He finished his coffee and began to walk across the square, the hoarse cry of the muezzin floating over and behind him.

The alley was very narrow, cobbled, lined with shops with white walls and wooden fronts that hinged down to make benches or shelves upon which the merchants sat or displayed their wares. Several of them had unfolded little mats in their shops and were on their knees, praying. Others called out to him, gesturing him to come in, brandishing little cushions with embroidered swastikas, or cannon shells worked into minarets, but he walked past them, his eyes on the man in front of him, and on the men he went past. It was clear that some of the merchants knew him as their eyes fixed on him a moment, then slid away.

The man turned down another, narrower alley, darker than the first, with no shops on it. Reinhardt hesitated, looking behind him. He could see no one following him. The man was only a silhouette ahead of him. He followed him, his steps echoing on the cobbles. The place smelled of stagnant water and waste. It was quiet all of a sudden. The alley turned, turned again, and then there was brightness at the end of it, and an abrupt wash of colour and noise as a tram went past on the main street. Reinhardt saw the man come to the end of the alley and turn left. Hurrying, he came to where the alley opened onto the street and saw no one.

Reinhardt was standing on King Aleksander Street, not far from where the street turned sharply around the Rathaus, which lifted its ochre walls with their amber bands just a few hundred metres to his right. Across the street was another lane, leading up into Bentbasa, and the man could only have gone in there. Stepping across the tram tracks, trying not to hurry, he walked into the alley. It was very crooked and dark, the cobbles uncertain under his feet. The houses were in the Ottoman style, wooden partitions like boxes with windows protruding from the first floor, hanging over the alley. The doors were low, built into thick walls of stone, or plaster, with heavy knockers or bells hanging from them. He looked back, but King Aleksander Street was lost in the twists and turns of the alley. He felt suddenly more alone than he had felt in a long while. He put his hand on the butt of his pistol and walked carefully on.