Philip Kerr - A Man Without Breath

Blobel smiled again. ‘Well, I can’t stay here chatting, I have to catch a plane.’

‘Leaving so soon?’

He nodded. ‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Need a lift to the airport?’ I was anxious to make sure I was rid of him before the arrival of the Polish delegation.

‘That’s very kind of you.’

‘It’s not a problem. Where are you going to now?’

‘Kiev. Then Riga. And then back to Kulmhof. Or Chelmno, as the locals call it.’

‘What’s in Kulmhof?’

‘Nothing good,’ said Blobel, ‘like a Titian painting gone very wrong,’ and I believed him; much later on I came to the conclusion it was the only true thing he said all morning.

The Polish Red Cross had arrived in Katyn Wood the previous day – the whole football team of eleven representatives, including Dr Marian Wodzinski, a stone-faced forensic specialist from Krakow, and three lab assistants. In Germany Marian tends to be a man’s name, and when Lieutenant Sloventzik learned that Dr Marian Kramsta was flying in the next day from Breslau to assist Professor Buhtz, naturally he assumed that Dr Kramsta would be as hard on the eyes as Dr Wodzinski and asked if I wouldn’t mind fetching him from the airport. I minded less when I took a closer look at the passenger list and discovered Dr Kramsta was a Marianne. I minded not at all when I saw her patent-leather pumps with pussycat gros-grain bows coming down the steps of the plane from Berlin. Her legs were no less elegant than her shoes, and the general effect, which I found to be particularly graceful, was only marred by the clumsy fool greeting her on the tarmac, who managed momentarily to allow his admiration to master his manners.

‘They’re legs,’ she said. ‘A matching pair, last time I looked.’

‘You say that like I was paying them too much attention.’

‘Weren’t you?’

‘Not in the least. If I see a nice pair of legs, then naturally I just have to take a look at them. Darwin called it natural selection. You might have heard of that.’

She smiled.

‘I should have listened to the pilot and put them safely away in a rifle case where they can’t do any harm.’

‘I certainly don’t mind getting shot in a good cause,’ I said.

‘That can be arranged. But for now, I’ll take that as a compliment.’

‘I wish you would. It’s been a while since I handed one out with such alacrity.’

I collected her bags from the top of the steps and carried them to the car, but only just – they were heavy.

‘If this is more shoes in here,’ I said, ‘I should warn you. The field marshal isn’t planning any regimental balls.’

‘It’s mostly scientific equipment,’ she said. ‘And I’m sorry it’s so hard to carry.’

‘Really, I don’t mind at all. I could fetch and carry for you all day long.’

‘I’ll remember that.’

‘You know, Professor Buhtz didn’t tell me he was expecting a lady in Smolensk.’

‘I spit a little too much tobacco juice for him to think of me as that,’ she said. ‘But I imagine he did tell you he was expecting a doctor. Oddly enough, it’s possible to be both of those things, even in Germany.’

‘You remind me I should go back there sometime.’

‘Been down here long?’

‘I dunno. Is Hindenburg still the president?’

‘No. He died. Nine years ago.’

‘I guess that answers your question.’

I finished putting her bags in the back of the Tatra and she offered me a cigarette from a little tin of Caruso.

‘Haven’t seen any of these in a while,’ I said, and let her light me.

‘A friend in Breslau keeps me in good cigarettes. Although for how much longer I don’t know.’

‘That’s some friend you have there.’ I nodded at the bags. ‘Is that all of them?’

‘Yes. And thanks. Now all you have to do is help me with them at wherever it is we’re going now. I’m just praying there’s a bath.’

‘Oh there is. There’s even hot water to pour into it. I could scrub your back if you like.’

‘I see the car comes with its own spade,’ she said. ‘Is that to crack the driver over the head with if he gets any amorous ideas?’

‘Sure. You could use it to bury me, too. One way or another there’s a lot of that going on in this part of the world.’

‘So I’ve heard.’

‘I don’t know if it counts as an amorous idea, but if I’d known it was you that was coming I’d have grabbed us a better ride.’

‘You mean with windows? And a seat instead of a saddle?’

‘Let me know if you want the top down.’

‘Would it make any difference?’

‘Probably not.’

Dr Kramsta collected a black fur stole around her neck with one hand and gathered the lapels of her matching coat with the other. Underneath a little black-beaded cloche her hair was red, but not as red as her mouth, which was as full as a bowl of ripe cherries. Her chest was no less full, and for some reason I was reminded of the two churches on either side of Gendarmenmarkt – the French church and the New church, with their perfect matching domes. I narrowed my eyes and gave her a sideways, blurry look, but no matter how many times I did this and actively tried my best to make her look ugly she still came out looking beautiful. She knew it of course, and while in most women this would be a demerit, she knew that I knew that she knew it, and somehow that seemed to make it just fine.

When she was as comfortable as she was ever going to be I started the car and set off.

‘You know my name,’ she said. ‘But I don’t seem to know yours.’

‘My name is Bernhard Gunther and I haven’t talked to anyone I wanted to talk to for almost three weeks. That is until you got off that plane. It now seems to me I’ve been waiting for you to show up or the world to end. For a while back there I really didn’t mind which, but now that you’re here I have this sudden inexplicable urge to keep going a while longer. Maybe even long enough to make you laugh – if that doesn’t sound presumptuous.’

‘Make me laugh? In my line of work, that’s not so easy to do, Herr Gunther. Most men give up when they get a nose of my usual brand of perfume.’

‘And what might that be, doctor? Just in case I’m passing a branch of Wertheims.’

‘Formaldehyde number one.’

‘My favourite.’ I shrugged. ‘No really. I used to be a homicide cop at the police praesidium on Berlin Alexanderplatz.’

‘That explains your strange taste in perfume. So what are you doing in Katyn Wood? From what I hear, this isn’t exactly a whodunit. Everyone in Europe knows who the killer is.’

‘Right now I’m walking a tightrope between the Bureau of War Crimes and the Ministry of Enlightenment. What’s more, I’m working without a net.’

‘Sounds like quite an act.’

‘It is. I’m supposed to make sure that everything here goes smoothly. Like a real police investigation. Of course, it doesn’t. But then, that’s Russia for you. A man who is afraid of failure should never come to Russia. It’s just as well that they tried to make Bolshevism work here or we’d really be in trouble.’

‘That’s an interesting way of looking at it.’

‘I’ve got a lot of interesting ways of looking at all sorts of things. You got anything special to do tonight?’

‘I was hoping for some dinner. I’m starving.’

‘Dinner’s at seven-thirty. And there’s a good chef. From Berlin.’

‘After that I was hoping you might show me the cathedral.’

‘It’d be my pleasure.’

‘Cathedrals always look their best at night. Especially in Russia.’

‘You sound like you’ve been in Russia before, Dr Kramsta.’