Philip Kerr - A Man Without Breath

Colonel Ahrens groaned. ‘This used to be such a great place to have a billet. And now it’s little better than a charnel house.’ He glanced angrily at me, almost as if he held me personally responsible for what had happened in Katyn Wood.

‘Sorry about that, colonel,’ said Conrad. ‘But it’s now the most important crime scene in Europe. Isn’t that right, Gunther?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Which reminds me,’ said Buhtz. ‘Lieutenant Voss?’

‘Sir.’

‘Your field police will need to organize a team of men to comb this whole area for more graves. I want to know where there are Polish graves, where there are Russian graves, and where there are … something else. If there’s a fucking cat buried within a thousand metres of this spot I want to know about it. This task requires accuracy and intelligence and of course scrupulous honesty, so it should be carried out by Germans, not Russians. As for the digging on the site itself, I understand Russian Hiwis are to be used. Which is fine as long as they can understand orders and work to direction.’

‘Alok Dyakov is organizing a special team of men,’ I said.

‘Yes sir.’ Dyakov snatched off his fur hat and bowed obsequiously to Professor Buhtz. ‘Every day Herr Peshkov and myself will be here in Katyn Wood to act as your foremen, sir. I have a team of forty men I’ve used before. You tell me what you want them to do and we will make sure they do it. Isn’t that right, Peshkov?’

Peshkov nodded. ‘Certainly,’ he said quietly.

‘No problem,’ continued Dyakov. ‘I choose only good men. Good workers. Honest, too. I don’t think you want men who help themselves to what they find in the dirt.’

‘Good point,’ agreed Buhtz. ‘Voss? You’d better organize a round-the-clock team of nightwatchmen. To protect this site from looters. It should be clear that anyone looting this site will suffer the severest penalty. And that includes German soldiers. Them most of all. A higher standard is expected of a German, I think.’

‘I’ll organize some signage to that effect, sir,’ said Voss.

‘Please do that. But more importantly, please organize the team of nightwatchmen.’

‘Sir,’ said Dyakov. ‘If I might make a small request? Perhaps the men digging here could receive some rewards. A small incentive, yes? Some extra rations. More food. Some vodka and cigarettes. On account of the fact that this will be very smelly, very unpleasant work. Not to mention all the mosquitoes there are in this wood in summer. Better that workers are happy than resentful, yes? In Soviet Union no workers are rewarded properly. They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work. But Germans are not like this. Workers are paid well in Germany, yes?’

I glanced at Conrad, who nodded. ‘I don’t see why not,’ he said. ‘After all, we are not communists. Yes, I agree.’

Buhtz nodded. ‘I shall also require the services of a local undertaker. Catafalques for the bodies that we exhume and dissect and eventually rebury. Good ones. Airtight if possible. I feel obliged to remind you once again that the smell here in the wood is going to become very bad. And you make a good point about mosquitoes, Herr Dyakov. The insects are already quite irritating enough in this part of the world, but as the weather improves these will become a severe hazard. Not to mention all the flies and maggots we will find on the cadavers. You will need to make provision for some sort of pesticide. DDT is the most recently synthesized and the best. But you can use Zyklon B if that’s not readily available. I happen to know for a fact that Zyklon B is in plentiful supply in parts of Poland and the Ukraine.’

‘Zyklon B,’ said Voss, continuing to write.

‘In most cases, gentlemen, we shall attempt to remove bodies intact,’ said Buhtz. ‘However, in the meantime …’

He approached the corpse I had uncovered with a spade just forty-eight hours earlier and drew back the piece of sacking I had used to cover it up again.

‘I propose to make an immediate start with this fellow.’

He probed the bullet hole in the back of the skull with his forefinger for a moment.

‘Judge Conrad,’ he said, ‘I wonder if you would be kind enough to make a contemporaneous note for me, while I make a preliminary examination of this cadaver’s skull.’

‘Certainly, professor,’ said Conrad, and taking out pencil and paper, he prepared to write.

Buhtz dug around the skull with his fingers to make enough room to lift it clear of the earth it was lying in. He peered closely at the top and the front of the skull and then said: ‘Victim A appears to have suffered a bullet wound to the occipital bone, close to the opening of the lower part of the skull, consistent with his being shot, execution-style, in the back of the head and at close range. There appears to be a point of exit in the forehead, which leads me to suppose that the bullet no longer remains within the skull cavity.’

He unwrapped his bundle of surgical instruments on the ground and selecting the large amputation knife I had seen earlier, he began to cut into the bones of the neck.

‘However, by measuring the size of these holes we may be able to arrive at an early determination of the calibre of the weapon that was used to execute this man.’

There was no hesitation in the way he used the knife and I wondered if he could have removed the head of a living man with such skill and alacrity. When the head was completely severed he lifted the skull, wrapped it carefully in the piece of sacking and laid it on the ground by Lieutenant Voss’s feet.

Meanwhile I glanced at Judge Conrad, who caught my eye and nodded silently, as if the professor’s actions here in Katyn Wood confirmed the curious story he had told me about the removal of the SS corporal’s head in Buchenwald.

It was Dyakov’s keen eyes that spotted the shell casing. It was lying on the ground in the spot that had been recently occupied by the dead Polish officer’s skull. He dropped down on his haunches and rubbed in the dirt for a moment before coming up with the small object in his thick fingers.

‘What’s that you’ve found?’ asked Buhtz.

‘Sir, it looks like a shell casing,’ said Dyakov. ‘Perhaps the same shell that contained the very bullet that killed this poor Polish man.’

Buhtz took the shell casing from Dyakov and held it up to the light. ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Well done, Dyakov. We’re off to a flying start, I think. Thank you gentlemen. If anyone needs me I will be in my laboratory at Krasny Bor. With any luck, this time tomorrow we’ll already be able to say what kind of weapon killed this fellow.’

I had to admit that Buhtz was more impressive than I had been expecting. We watched him walk back down the slope to his motorcycle. He was carrying the skull under his arm and looked like a referee walking away from a game of soccer with the football.

Conrad sneered after him. ‘What did I tell you?’ he murmured.

‘Oh I don’t know,’ I said, ‘he seemed to know what he was about.’

‘Maybe,’ Conrad said grudgingly. ‘Maybe he does. But he’ll boil that head tonight and make a soup out of it. Just you see if I’m wrong.’

Lieutenant Voss sniffed the air. ‘It smells bad already,’ he said.

‘Plenty bad,’ agreed Dyakov. ‘And if we smell it, then so will the wolves. It might not just be the looters we have to worry about. Maybe they’ll come back for a free meal. It might even be dangerous. Believe me, you don’t want to meet a pack of hungry wolves at night.’

‘Would a wolf really eat something that’s been dead for this long?’ asked Lieutenant Voss.

Dyakov grinned. ‘Sure. Why not? A wolf is not so particular if his meat is kosher or not. Filling his stomach with something – anything – is more important. Even if he throws most of it up, for sure something will stay down, you can guarantee it. Hey colonel, maybe you should increase the guard on the wood from tonight.’