Philip Kerr - A Man Without Breath

I threw my cigarette onto the ground angrily and then felt angrier for wasting a good cigarette.

‘That’s good coming from you, colonel. You wake me up to help out the local field police with an extra set of cop’s eyes and then you put on your spurs and try to get stiff when the cop’s eyes see something they don’t like. If you ask me, your damned boys had it coming if they were in there. I feel bad enough just going through the door of a wurst-hut like that, see? But then I’m peculiar that way. Maybe you’re right. Sometimes I forget that I’m a German soldier.’

‘Look, I only asked about my men – they were murdered after all.’

‘You got stiff with me, and if there’s one thing a Berliner hates it’s someone who gets stiff with him. You might be a colonel but don’t ever try to push a ramrod up my ass, sir.’

‘Captain Gunther, you have a most violent temper.’

‘Maybe that’s because I’m tired of people thinking that any of this shit really matters. Your men were murdered. That would be laughable if this whole situation in Russia wasn’t so tragic. You talk about murder like it still means something. In case you hadn’t noticed, colonel, we’re all of us in the worst place in the world with one boot in the fucking abyss, and we’re pretending that there’s law and order and something worth fighting for. But there isn’t. Not now. There’s just insanity and chaos and slaughter and maybe something worse that’s yet to come. It’s only a couple of days since you told me that sixteen thousand Jews from the Vitebsk ghetto ended up in the river or as human fertilizer. Sixteen thousand people. And I’m supposed to give a damn about a couple of off-duty Fritzes who got their throats cut outside the local sausage counter.’

‘I can see that you are a man under strain, sir,’ said the colonel.

‘We all are,’ I allowed. ‘It’s the strain of constantly having to look the other way. Well, I don’t mind telling you, the muscles in my neck are getting tired.’

Colonel Ahrens seethed quietly. ‘I’m still awaiting an answer to a perfectly reasonable question, captain.’

‘All right, I’ll tell you what I think, and you can tell me that I’m deluded and then the lieutenant here can take me to the airport. Colonel, your men were killed by a German soldier. Their side arms were still holstered so they didn’t believe they were in any danger, and in this moonlight it’s highly unlikely the murderer could have surprised them. Could be they even knew their killer. It’s an uncomfortable forensic fact, but most people do know the person who murders them.’

‘I can’t believe what you’re saying,’ said Ahrens.

‘I’ll give you some more reasons why I believe what I do in a moment,’ I said. ‘But if I may? The initial attack probably occurred on the street. The murderer hit them on the head with a blunt instrument and most likely threw it into the river. He must have been quite powerful because that’s how it looks from their head injuries – I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Ribe and Greiss might eventually have died from those blows alone. Then he dragged them down to the river. His doing that is another reason to assume he was strong. He made damn sure of what he was doing, too, from the size of the bayonet cuts. I’ve seen carthorses with smaller mouths than those wounds. He cut their throats while they were still unconscious, so he must have wanted to make sure they were dead. And I think that’s significant. Also I had the impression that the laceration ends higher on one side of each man’s neck than the other. The left side of the neck as you look at it, which might suggest a left-handed man.

‘Now then: maybe he was disturbed and maybe he wasn’t. It’s possible he meant to push the bodies into the water and let them float away to give him more time to escape. That’s what I would have done. With or without a head, a body that’s been in the water takes a while to start talking back to a pathologist – even an experienced one, and I don’t imagine there are too many of those in Smolensk right now.

‘When he got on his toes and made a run along the riverbank, he was running for his motorcycle – yes, I don’t doubt the SS sergeant was right about that. There’s nothing else sounds like an air-cooled BMW. Not even Glinka. Partisans can steal motorcycles, of course, but they’d hardly be brazen enough to ride one around right here in Smolensk, with so many checkpoints around the city. If he parked the bike to the west his name wouldn’t appear on a field policeman’s checklist either. And let’s not forget that it was a German murder weapon, too. According to the witness, the bike drove west along the road to Vitebsk. And given that the west bridge is down it’s certain that he didn’t cross the river. Which means your murderer must be stationed out that way. To the west of Smolensk. I expect you’ll find the bayonet somewhere on that road, lieutenant. Without the spring in the scabbard it might even have fallen out.’

‘But if he drove west,’ said the colonel, ‘that would mean you think he must have been going to the 537th at the castle, the General Staff at Krasny Bor, or the Gestapo at Gnezdovo.’

‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘If I were you, lieutenant, I’d check out the vehicle logs at all three. Chances are that’s how you’ll catch your man. German bike, German knife, and the perpetrator stationed along the road to Vitebsk.’

‘You’re not serious,’ said the colonel. ‘About where the perpetrator is now serving, I mean.’

‘I can’t say that I envy you the job of unsticking some of those damned alibis, lieutenant. But like it or not, that’s just how it is with murder. It rarely ever unravels as neatly as an unwanted woollen pullover. Now as to why he killed them, well that’s harder to answer. But since we’ve eliminated robbery and a fight over a favourite whore, that suggests this was murder with a detestable motive, according to the way the law writes it – in other words, it was killing with intent. That’s right, gentlemen, he set out to kill them both. The question is, why today? Why today and not yesterday, or the day before, or last weekend? Was it just opportunity, or could there have been some other reason? You’ll only find that out, lieutenant, when you look into these two lives much more closely. Discover who they really were and you’ll find your motive, and when you find that you’ll be a damn sight nearer to finding their killer.’

I lit another cigarette and smiled. I felt calmer now that I’d let off some steam.

‘You could find them,’ said the colonel. ‘If you stayed on a while, here in Smolensk.’

‘Oh, no,’ I said. ‘Not me.’ I looked at my watch. ‘In eight hours I’m going back to Berlin. And I’m not coming back again. Not ever. Not even if they put a bayonet to my throat. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to return to the castle. It’s possible I can still get a little sleep before my journey.’

*

Six hours later Lieutenant Rex was outside the front door of the castle waiting to drive me to Smolensk airport. It was a beautiful clear morning with a sky as blue as the cross on a Prussian imperial flag and – if there was such a thing – surely a perfect day for flying. After almost four days in Smolensk, I was actually looking forward to spending twelve hours aboard a freezing plane. The regimental cook from Dnieper Castle had prepared a large flask of coffee and some sandwiches for me, and I’d even managed to get a Capuchin hood from army stores to wear under my crusher to help keep my ears warm. Life felt good. I had a book and a recent newspaper and the whole day to myself.

‘The colonel presents his compliments,’ said Rex, ‘and apologizes for not seeing you off himself, but he was unavoidably detained at Group headquarters.’