Luke McCallin - The Man from Berlin

‘What?’

‘I’m talking about Vukic. The Ustase’s sex symbol.’

‘Quiet,’ Padelin grated.

‘Maybe I’m wrong, though. She had one friend so far as I can see, and that was Tomic. The one you’re after. The one you think Jelic can lead you to.’ Padelin shifted his hands where they lay on his lap. Reinhardt forced a smile. The sort of shit-eating grin he had seen countless suspects make. The one guaranteed to make a policeman’s blood begin to boil.

‘Why didn’t you say this about Tomic before?’

‘I told you. Why should I trust you? But I digress.’ Padelin frowned. ‘I’m changing the subject. We were talking about Vukic. Tomic told me a lot about her. You know, he was her father’s best friend. He was wounded in the war. He got his balls blown off. Imagine that…’ Reinhardt shook his head, taking another long pull on his cigarette. ‘I know I can’t. And God knows I’ve seen a lot of injuries in my time…’ He looked at the tip of his cigarette and tapped ash on the floor. Padelin’s eyes twitched. ‘He told me she treated him like her father. I suppose because her real one was too busy being an Ustasa, or whatever. He never quite said it, but I got the sense the father was no angel. Didn’t treat her too well. Probably tried to pass her around some of his friends. Tomic said she once tried to have sex with him, but, of course, he couldn’t. Once she found out, that was when she began to sort of treat him like a father. But of course one she tried to fuck. At least once.’

Padelin breathed in slowly, his chest rising like a bellows. ‘Reinhardt, is there any point to this? If not, then please be quiet.’

‘I’m just thinking out loud, really. No harm in that, is there?’ He smiled, seeing Padelin’s eyes tighten again. ‘Funny, isn’t it? Here we have this beautiful woman. Marija Vukic. Probably pimped out by her own father. Seeking solace from a eunuch. I think a lot of people wanted to have sex with her. She only wanted to have sex with older men. Men of maturity.’

‘Reinhardt.’

‘Men like me, for instance. You know, if she walked in here now, and she had to choose one of us, she’d choose me.’ Reinhardt grinned, swallowing at the back of it against a dry throat. There was another thud from the front room, a rumble of laughter like an engine heard through a wall. ‘Man of experience that I am. A touch of grey up here,’ he said, fluffing at his hair. ‘Medals. I’ve even got a war wound,’ he said, tapping his knee. He dragged his foot a little more, tautening the wire as it led into the wall. He forced his grin wider. ‘I think she’d be all over me.’

‘Reinhardt, if you don’t shut up… ’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Padelin. We’re just talking ,’ he said, finishing his cigarette. He stubbed it out on the table. ‘But I have to ask, what did you think when you saw her dead? Did you think about what it might have been like? You know? To fuck her?’ The skin along the collar of Padelin’s shirt went white. Danger sign. Reinhardt’s blood thudded and pounded through his chest. Padelin filled the room with his immobile menace. Slowly, carefully, Reinhardt pulled on the wire. The cord tautened against the wall, went stiff against his foot.

He looked the big detective in the eyes. ‘Jelic was probably right about Vukic. She was a complete fucking slut.’ He saw the glaze come over Padelin’s eyes, as if a screen had swung shut somewhere inside him. ‘What was it he said about her?’ Reinhardt leaned forward, let that smile come over his face again, widened his eyes as if in merriment. ‘You remember? You do, come on.’ He tested his foot again, breathing over and around the fear that squatted in his chest. He leaned to the right, towards the door, watched the slight shift in Padelin’s weight as the detective mirrored his movement. ‘She’d fuck anything, right? Anything that could move its hips fast enough. But do you think she fucked the dead?’

Reinhardt knew Padelin moved without expression. No sneering, no roaring, no twisting of features. Just movement. Implacable, like a boulder coming downhill. He saw it begin as Padelin’s feet went firm to the floor, lifting his big frame in one smooth movement. Reinhardt allowed himself to show fear, real fear, and then he leaned towards the right and slid his foot hard across the floor, feeling the cord come popping out of the wall.

The room was plunged into absolute blackness. Reinhardt flung himself back against the wall, back where he had come from, scooping up the baton where it had lain against his thigh, flicking it up into the air, feeling it extend and snap into place. He felt Padelin go past him, felt the heat and weight of the man, like a swimmer might feel a leviathan pass beneath him in dark waters. Reinhardt swung his knee up, heard the detective give an astonished wheeze even as his arms scrabbled apelike across Reinhardt’s tunic and under his chin, his thick fingers searching for a grip, twisting up and over his face and grasping at his eyes. Reinhardt jerked his head back and away and hacked down with all his strength. He felt the baton thump across Padelin’s back, heard the man’s gasp of breath as it bent around and across his ribs, the weighted ball at its tip digging deep. Reinhardt jerked his knee up again, connecting with Padelin’s chest, and smashed down with the baton once more, and again, across the shoulders.

He felt the ball bite into something soft, and he kicked and thrashed with his knees and feet. This was trench fighting, the kind that left you no room except what you could hack out with your arms and legs. Hack, stab, thrust, swing, and never stop until your man is down, or you are, and the fear was gone, only emptiness where it had been. He felt a sickening familiarity of movement, a vestigial memory of stumbling and brawling through earthen trenches with Russians in brown tunics and Frenchmen in blue uniforms and British in their round tin hats.

Padelin collapsed to the floor, but even as he did, he punched shy;Reinhardt in the side, just below the ribs. His breath sawing in his throat over the blare of pain from where he had been hit, Reinhardt fell on Padelin’s back with both his knees digging down, and beat him over the back of the thighs with the baton. He did not want to kill him, although he knew Padelin had had his death in his eyes. With his free hand he gripped Padelin’s hair and struck his head against the floor once, twice. He stopped, breathing raggedly, and felt Padelin through his legs, listened to his breathing. Padelin twitched, his torso moving. Taking the haft of the baton in his fist, he placed it on the back of Padelin’s neck and drew it back. Judging as best he could in the dark, he struck Padelin across the back of the neck and felt him go stiff, then limp under him.

He remained kneeling on Padelin’s back for a few moments, but the detective was still. Light was bleeding into the room. The shutters were limned in a faint brush of silver from outside, a rectangle of white around the door. Drenched in a cold sweat, Reinhardt leaned over, close to Padelin’s face, and heard the thread of his breathing. He ran his hands over Padelin’s jacket, finding his pistol, and taking the detective’s as well. Standing, his hand searching blindly, he found the wall, and he leaned against it a moment. Remembering where the table was, he picked up his cap and, wiping his sweaty face on his sleeves, screwed it onto his head. Feeling calmer, he cracked the door open, listening, before opening it wider and looking out into the shy;corridor.

There was no one. He collapsed the baton, pocketed it, and slipped out, turning for the door at the end, opening it as quietly as he could. There was a thud, a mutter of a man’s voice, and then another man’s, swearing. Two men began arguing. Footsteps, and Bunda came into sight. A tap ran, and he walked back with a jug. Water spilled across the floor. Using the noise as cover, Reinhardt peered around the door frame, seeing Bunda and Putkovic standing over Jelic’s body.