Luke McCallin - The Man from Berlin

‘It may be, sir,’ interrupted Reinhardt, thinking of that collective farm at Yagodnyy, the Sonderkommando, the Jews, the Red Army. He held back, though, wanting to see what Verhein would say.

‘It was an operational issue,’ said Verhein after a moment, turning and walking slowly to a trestle table and leaning his weight back against it. ‘She travelled with my division a while, but she would head off on her own from time to time. She was in the propaganda companies, you know? So, once, she went out with a Sonderkommando and my unit passed through its operational area, and I found her -’ He paused, suddenly and obviously upset. His mouth twisted, and he looked down and away. ‘I found her torturing someone. A Jew. A woman. In front of her children. I knew she had strong feelings about Jews. She had strong feelings about a lot of things. And I knew she sometimes… expressed… well, it went beyond words. I knew of one incident with captured Red Army soldiers. I had heard of others. I didn’t believe it. Not really. But I saw it with my own eyes.’

His own had fallen away, gone somewhere else, to that wet field at Yagodnyy. ‘You could almost say it drove me quite mad. I wanted nothing more to do with her. We fought, and I sent her away. She was furious, incandescent with rage. She swore I would regret it, but when I came here, she contacted me. We met, and we agreed to let bygones be bygones. I had no wish for a relationship with her, although God knows I was still attracted to her. We met once or twice for drinks. That was it. Then she asked me to her house the night the conference for Schwarz ended…’

‘Go on.’

‘Marija was in a strange mood. Very hyperactive. She was very aroused. And, God help me, she was arousing. We had sex. It was… quite something. Then she kept talking about Russia, about what she’d seen there. She kept talking about Jews. What she had seen done to them. And then – she seemed unable to help herself, like a child who knows a secret she ought not to – she revealed to me she understood everything. She told me I was finished, that people in Berlin knew everything. I did not know what she was talking about, she had me so confused, but it was clear her mind was not quite all there. She began to scrape at herself, at her arms, her shoulders, at her… at her sex. She said she was dirty, unclean, that I made her that way.

‘I began to feel afraid, but I still did not know what she was talking about. Then she laughed, and said my sister would pay the same price as me. Only she would pay it first. At that… I felt enraged and… panicked. I demanded she tell me what she was talking about. She only laughed harder, taunted me further. I struck her. She laughed, told me I hit like an old woman. I hit her again. And again. And again. I could not stop myself.’ Verhein drew in a long, slow breath, and his gaze reeled itself back in from wherever it had been. He turned and looked at Reinhardt. ‘And then… nothing. Just coming to my senses standing over her.’

Reinhardt drew in his own breath. ‘Then what did you do?’

‘Then?’ Verhein shifted on the table. ‘Then I left. For the front. First thing on Sunday morning.’

Reinhardt knew there was an untruth in what the general had just said. It was his old policeman’s instinct. The suspect answering a question with a question. The hesitation. The shift in position. ‘She was dead?’ Verhein nodded. ‘You knew this how?’

‘I have… beaten men to death, Captain. I know how it looks. How it feels .’

‘You were sure you had killed her?’

Verhein nodded, his eyes narrowing now. ‘I was.’

‘You are sure you beat her to death?’

Verhein shifted, his big hands gripping the edge of the trestle. ‘Captain,’ he growled. ‘If this is a game… ?’

‘It was Colonel Ascher who told you, wasn’t it? Confirmed it.’

‘Yes,’ said Verhein, after a moment.

‘You sent him back. To clean things up. To make sure you had killed her.’ The air felt thick to Reinhardt, so thick he could hardly breathe.

‘He said she was dead,’ Verhein said, finally. ‘That I had killed her.’

‘That you beat her to death.’

‘Yes!’

‘Marija Vukic was stabbed to death, sir.’

‘Enough.’

Both Reinhardt and Verhein jerked around at the sound of the voice. Ascher was standing at the entrance, a pistol aimed at Reinhardt. Mamagedov stepped out from behind him, sidling over to stand behind Reinhardt, his stink filling Reinhardt’s nose. The trestle table creaked as Verhein shifted his bulk off it. ‘Is this true?’ The pistol snapped around at him before slipping back onto Reinhardt. The angles of Ascher’s face were pale, drawn tight, and the tendons of his hand were stretched taut around the pistol’s grip.

‘It’s true, sir,’ said Reinhardt, locking eyes with the colonel. ‘Marija Vukic liked to film herself with her lovers. There’s a film of you and her. It shows you beating her, but not killing her. The colonel has been searching for it ever since he found out about it.’

‘Clemens, is this true?’

Ascher looked back at the general, and Reinhardt could see the stress he was under. Verhein’s influence was strong; the words were damming up in the colonel’s mouth, but he somehow swallowed them back, his chin butting forward.

‘The colonel has been working with a major in the Feldgendarmerie to find this film. They’ve been following me. Getting in my way. And last night they killed a fellow officer to get information about what I am doing.’

‘Captain,’ grated Ascher, shaking his head. ‘You know nothing of what you are saying.’

‘I know what you did, though,’ countered Reinhardt. ‘You thought you were just covering up for the general, but you ended up doing more than that. Vukic was a risk to him, and to you. She knew things that would ruin him and you. Guilt by association. It’s a common enough theme in this Reich of ours. For someone like you who has hitched his wagon to someone like the general, it can be fatal.’

‘Clemens,’ hissed Verhein, taking a step forward. He stopped as a soldier appeared at the door. Ascher hid the pistol against his chest, but the soldier must have picked up on something of the atmosphere in the room, as he hesitated.

‘Sir, combat action report from Captain Tiel.’

‘Later, Sergeant.’ The soldier hesitated again, then left.

‘Clemens…’ Verhein said, again.

‘General,’ snapped Ascher, spearing the air with the pistol. He was left-handed, noted Reinhardt. ‘Just sit quietly, and this will soon be over.’ Verhein’s eyes went wide, but he subsided, and Reinhardt was again reminded of husband and wife. How many couples played out roles like this, he wondered? The position of strength switching according to circumstance? ‘She was going to destroy you, sir. I couldn’t let that happen.’

‘What happened? Did she run her mouth off? Say things that horrified you?’ Reinhardt forced a sneer into his voice. ‘Did you panic at the sight of her in her underwear?’

Ascher flushed. ‘She was uncontrollable. Like she usually was,’ he said, speaking to the general. ‘She attacked me. I had to defend myself.’

‘By stabbing her nearly twenty times?’ Verhein made a small noise in his throat and turned away. Ascher flushed again. ‘Vukic was working with an SD officer, Lieutenant Hendel,’ continued Reinhardt, focusing on the general. ‘They were supposed to confront you together about evidence he had that could damn you, but she could not wait.’

‘Quiet, Captain,’ snapped Ascher.

‘Hendel had a file of evidence against you. That Feldgendarmerie major was looking for it, as well as the film. I’m fairly sure the colonel knows about the file -’