Luke McCallin - The Man from Berlin

The captain looked it over. ‘So, where will you start with that?’

‘Well,’ said Reinhardt, as he sat back and lit a cigarette, ‘I would start with connections. Someone put the Feldgendarmerie onto this case. Had Becker looking for Krause. What would make Becker do that?’

‘Self-interest?’ asked Thallberg, his eyebrows raised.

‘Possibly,’ replied Reinhardt, his voice noncommittal.

‘Blackmail?’

‘Maybe. Although that’s always tricky, blackmail. You might have something on someone and get them to do something against their will. But in doing it, they in turn have something on you. It can get out of hand quite quickly.’

‘Friendship?’ asked Thallberg. He looked, for a moment, like a boy who had answered a trick question posed by a teacher, and expected any second to be ridiculed for it.

Reinhardt nodded. ‘Friendship. That’s a powerful force. They all are, in their way. Self-interest. Blackmail. Friendship. Could be any of the three, or something else, but from what I know about Becker, it’ll be self-interest. What we’re looking for is a connection between one, or more, of these men and Becker.’ He drew on his cigarette, then pointed it at the list of names. ‘Very likely, someone in this lot murdered Hendel and Vukic, and then brought in Becker to start clearing it all up.’

‘Or Becker heard about it, and got involved in return for something?’

Reinhardt inhaled, holding the smoke in his mouth, then exhaled slowly. The smoke drifted up into his eyes, making him narrow them and squint. He nodded. ‘Could well be.’ Thallberg looked absurdly pleased with himself. ‘Makes our life a lot harder, though. If that’s what happened, then we’re never going to find a connection.’

‘So what, then?’

‘So we assume there is one, and work off that assumption for now.’

Thallberg rubbed his eyes, and yawned. ‘What do we need?’

‘We need to match up Becker with Verhein’s staff. For that, we need service histories. I can pretty much lay out Becker’s, but I don’t know anything about these others.’

‘Right, then, let’s see what we can do here,’ said Thallberg, sighing the words out, almost talking to himself. ‘Army administrative files are over at the Kosevo Polje barracks.’ He looked at Reinhardt, but Reinhardt felt Thallberg was looking through him. ‘Want to take a chance? Let’s see what we’ve got here. Gestapo might have something. The boys in the security police might have, too…’ His voice trailed off as he jotted something down on the piece of paper Reinhardt had given him and walked over to the door. ‘Beike!’ he called. Thallberg handed over his piece of paper with some muttered instructions, then took the coffee from another soldier and pushed the door shut with his foot.

‘Now what?’ asked Reinhardt. Maybe it was because he had worked alone so long, with people he knew either meant him harm or would not stand in the way of any harm which came his way, but shy;Reinhardt could not get over an unease he felt at the way he saw Thallberg sharing tasks and information around without any apparent qualms.

‘Now we wait.’ Which was what Thallberg did, feet up on the desk, mug held to his lips, eyebrows lowered. He rocked himself slowly back and forth on the two back legs of his chair, apparently lost in thought. Reinhardt would have liked to relax like that, but his mind kept bumping around, back and forth over the events of the day. The morning’s depression, the revelations, the elation… the day seemed to be never-ending. He yawned, abruptly. More to keep his hands busy, he began to jot down what he knew – postings and dates – of Becker’s career since he had been kicked out of Kripo.

Becker was off the force and out of Berlin by the end of 1936. shy;Reinhardt heard he had gone south, to Munich, tried to set himself up as a private investigator, and then nothing more about him for several years after that. When the war started, he learned Becker was a police instructor at the Feldgendarmerie training centre. How he managed that with his record, and what favours he had called in to secure that post, Reinhardt had no idea. It did not save him from frontline postings, however. Reinhardt knew Becker had been in the invasion of Poland as a company commander in a police battalion. Then Yugoslavia. He had come in behind the initial invasion, back in April 1941, then on to Greece, then back to Serbia. Postings in Belgrade, then Nis, then Sarajevo.

‘You know, if we can’t find anything here, we might have to call Berlin,’ said Thallberg. He looked at Reinhardt over the rim of his cup. ‘Ready for that?’

Reinhardt was saved from having to answer by a knock at the door. Corporal Beike stepped inside with several files and papers in his hands, which he handed to Thallberg. ‘This is all?’ the captain asked.

‘Just what we’ve got. I’m still talking to the Gestapo about what they might have.’

‘Any trouble?’

‘The usual, sir. No need for you to get involved just yet.’

‘ ‘Trouble’?’ asked Reinhardt. He stood and came around to Thallberg’s side of the desk. There really was not much. Three flimsy cardboard files with loose papers inside them. Ascher, Nadolski, and Jahn.

‘The Gestapo doesn’t always like to share. It’s a common failing of most bureaucracies, I’ve found. Especially feudal ones like ours,’ he said, winking ironically as he passed Reinhardt two folders, those of Majors Jahn and Nadolski.

There was not much. Major Jahn was suspected of being addicted to morphine, of siphoning off supplies of it for his own use and trafficking it to other units. Major Nadolski had been reprimanded for misusing official transport on several occasions, including once to transport a load of women (the women were down as entertainment for the officers). He looked at Thallberg. ‘Nothing,’ he said, his mouth twisted with frustration. He got up, putting his hands in the small of his back, and looked out the window. ‘You?’

Thallberg shrugged without looking up, leafing over a page. ‘Ascher apparently put his hand up an altar boy’s cassock in Zagreb.’ He frowned at the last page. ‘There’s reference to a previous inquiry, before the war,’ he muttered. ‘There’s a note here about a police investigation in Munich. Something similar, back in thirty-seven. Nothing else.’ He tossed the folder down on the desk.

‘Jahn likes morphine, and Nadolski misuses divisional transport.’

Thallberg chuckled. ‘So Verhein’s staff consists of a suspected bum bandit, a morphine addict, and a transport officer who transports things of dubious military value. Pretty tame stuff for these times, don’t you think?’

Reinhardt nodded, despite not liking Thallberg’s levity. There shy;really was not very much.

‘Excuse me, sir.’ Reinhardt looked around. Beike was looking at the list of names, the officers from the 121st. He picked it up, and looked over at Thallberg. ‘Sir, excuse my intervention, but I believe there is a name missing.’

‘Missing?’ asked Thallberg, glancing at Reinhardt.

‘I believe there is one more officer who should be on the list. shy;Colonel… that is, Standartenfuhrer… Stolic.’

Reinhardt frowned, walking slowly towards Beike. ‘Stolic? He’s 7th SS.’

‘Yes, sir,’ the corporal replied. ‘He is also the liaison officer to Verhein. Between the 121st and the Ustase. He was assigned to that duty last week.’

Chance , thought Reinhardt, the first thing that came into his mind. Chance again. What are the odds that a clerk, a corporal, would see that list… ? And know that information… ? And the second thing he thought, he thought about the odds that Freilinger did not know that. Had not known it, all the time Reinhardt had been investigating this.