Philip Kerr - A Man Without Breath

‘Tell me something, corporal, would you have shot him again if you’d known he was still alive?’

‘You mean me, sir? Yes, I was so scared I would have.’

‘Now tell me about when you murdered the two women.’

‘Not me, sir. I told you. It was the sarge.’

‘All right. He cut their throats, didn’t he?’

‘Yes, sir. With his bayonet.’

‘Why did he do that, do you think? Instead of shooting them the way you say he’d shot the priest.’

The corporal thought for a moment and then tossed his cigarette end onto the floor, where he ground it underneath the heel of his boot.

‘Sergeant Kuhr is a good soldier, sir. And brave. I never knew a braver one. But he’s a cruel man, so he is, and he likes to use a knife. It’s not the first time I saw him use a blade on a man – on someone. We took an Ivan prisoner near Minsk and the sarge murdered him in cold blood with his knife, although I don’t remember if he used his bayonet or not. He slit the Ivan’s throat before cutting his whole fucking head off. Never seen anything like it.’

‘When you saw that, did you have the impression that he’d done that before? I mean, cut a man’s throat.’

‘Yes sir. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing. Well that was bad, but this time – with the two girls I mean – that was worse. And it wasn’t the sight that lives with me, sir. It was the sound. You can’t explain that, the way they kept on breathing through their throats. It was horrible. I couldn’t believe it that he killed them that way. The two girls, I mean. I really couldn’t believe it. I threw up. That’s how bad it was. They were still breathing through their throats like a couple of slaughtered pigs when the sarge poured the gasoline on them.’

‘Did he set them alight? Or did you?’ I paused. ‘It was your lighter that the field police found near the scene of the crime. With your name on it, Erich?’

‘My nerves were gone. I’d lit a cigarette to get something inside myself. The sarge snatched the nail out of my hand and tossed it onto the bodies. But he used so much gasoline that it almost took my fucking eyebrows off when they went up. I fell over backwards to get away from the flames. Must have dropped the lighter then. In some long grass. Looked for it, but by then the sarge was back on the bike and starting it up. I thought he’d drive away without me so I just left it.’

I nodded, lit a cigarette and sucked hard on the loosely packed end. The smoke helped to cure the degraded feeling I had from listening to this sordid story. I’d come across many evil bastards and heard some loathsome stories in my time with Kripo – the Alex wasn’t known as Grey Misery for nothing – but there was something about this particular crime I found more ghastly than I could ever have imagined. Perhaps it was just the idea of the two Russian women – Akulina and Klavdiya Eltsina – surviving the battle for Smolensk that had killed Akulina’s husband, Artem, and keeping themselves alive by doing the laundry of their gentlemanly German conquerors, two of whom would rape and murder them both in the most squalid, inhuman way. I’d come across the sensation if not the facts that were peculiar to this case many times before, of course: I suppose it’s just the curse of hindsight, the way you see the fate that was always hanging over people like the Eltsinas – the way it seemed they were meant to meet two bastards like Hermichen and Kuhr and then be raped and murdered in a snow-covered cemetery in Smolensk. Suddenly I wanted to leave, to go outside and throw up and then breathe some fresh air, but I forced myself to sit there with Corporal Hermichen, not because I thought I could help him but because I had more questions – questions about another pair of murders that had been nagging at me ever since I’d been back from Berlin.

‘I believe your story. It’s just dirty enough to smell right. Naturally, Sergeant Kuhr will pay you the same compliment you paid him: that it was all your idea. But that’s the thing about three stripes and a first class hero badge. It’s generally assumed you’re not so easily led.’

‘I’m telling you the truth.’

‘Let me ask you something, corporal. Almost two weeks ago – on March thirteenth – two army telephonists from the 537th Signals Regiment were murdered near the Hotel Glinka.’

‘I heard.’

‘Their bodies were found on the riverbank. Their throats had been cut from ear to ear. With a German bayonet. A witness reported a possible suspect leaving the scene on a BMW motorcycle and heading west along the road to Vitebsk. Which might easily have taken him to Krasny Bor.’

Corporal Hermichen was nodding.

‘You can see why I’m asking,’ I said. ‘The obvious similarity between those murders and the murders of the Eltsinas.’

The corporal frowned. ‘The who?’

‘The two women who were raped and murdered. Did you forget why I’m here? Don’t tell me you don’t know their names?’

He shook his head, and then seeing the look on my face, said: ‘Does it make it worse if I don’t?’ The sarcasm in the corporal’s voice was obvious and perhaps understandable. He was right: it shouldn’t have made it worse and yet somehow it did.

‘Ever go to that brothel at the Hotel Glinka?’

‘Every enlisted man in Smolensk has been to the Hotel Glinka,’ he said.

‘What about on Saturday March thirteenth? Did you go there then?’

‘Nope.’

‘You seem very sure of that.’

‘March thirteenth was the weekend of Hitler’s visit,’ said Hermichen. ‘How could I forget? All leave was cancelled.’

‘But after he’d flown back home?’

He shook his head. ‘Needed special permission of the CO, didn’t you? Those two fellows from the 537th must have been the classroom favourites. Most fellows stayed in the barracks casino that weekend.’ He shrugged. ‘Easy enough to check my story, I’d have thought. I played cards until late.’

‘And Sergeant Kuhr?’

Hermichen shrugged. ‘Him, too.’

‘Being a sergeant, could he have slipped out without permission?’

‘Maybe. But look, even if he did, the sarge just isn’t the type to murder two of our own. Not over a whore. Not over anything. Look, he hated Jews – well, everyone hates the Jews – and he hated Ivans, but that was it. He’d have done anything for another German. He certainly wouldn’t have cut some Fritz’s throat. Kuhr may be a bastard but he’s a German bastard.’ Hermichen smiled and shook his head. ‘Oh, I can see how tempting it would be to bolt a couple of unsolved murders on the end of these ones – kind of like making a new tapeworm German word. Well, it won’t work. Take it from me, Captain Gunther, you’re carving the wrong piece of wood.’

‘Maybe,’ I said.

‘As a matter of fact, I’m certain of it.’

‘How so?’

‘Look, sir, I’m in a tight spot, I can see that now. I appreciate you trying to help me. Who knows, maybe I can help you in return. For example, maybe I can give you some information that might help you catch your murderer – the one what really killed those two army telephonists.’

‘What sort of information?’

‘Oh no. I couldn’t tell you while I’m in this place. I’d have nothing to trade if I told you what I know now.’ He shrugged. ‘You know, the way I heard it, they weren’t killed by partisans.’

‘What did you hear?.’

‘The field police like to keep a tight lid on the pickle jar in case some of the vinegar spills. The Gestapo hanged some locals just to make the Ivans think we thought they did it. Doesn’t do to let the Ivans know how easy it is to kill us. Something like that. But it wasn’t the partisans, was it?’

‘So I get you out of here and you tell me some important truth you claim you know, is that it?’