Pierre Frei - Berlin - A Novel

'So what's your new girl like?' she asked later, in the dark. 'I've heard these German girls are good in bed. Congratulations.' She laughed softly. 'Our goodbye fuck, Johnny. I hope it was fun for you. I'm going to Chicago with Jesse Rollins. We want to get married. I came to sort out all that divorce stuff with you.'

'You devil!' He turned her over and took her wildly.

Inge Dietrich wrapped up two sandwiches for her husband. He put them in the briefcase that he strapped to the carrier behind his bike. 'Coming home the same time as usual?'

'I don't know. Don't wait up for me.' He kissed her: his thoughts somewhere else entirely. That indefinable feeling wouldn't let go. A feeling that he'd missed something important. He'd run right into it and never noticed. He had lain awake half the night, searching for something he couldn't grasp. Towards morning the answer had seemed close enough for him to reach out for it, before it ran through his fingers again.

Inge was worried. She knew that the murders of those women pursued him into his dreams. He had taken up the gauntlet thrown down by the sinister killer. To him, it was a man to man fight that he had to win.

She cut bread for the others. It was grey and sticky; the baker had stretched the dough with minced potato peelings. Yesterday she had been to Frau Kalkfurth's for a special ration of syrup made from the waste left after processing sugar beet. Her father trickled the thick, dark brown goo on a slice of bread. 'I'm worried about your husband. He's been asking when the security services firm will be starting up again.'

'He wants to go back to his old job once these dreadful crimes have been solved.'

'I wouldn't if I were him,' the district councillor said. 'If he stays with the CID they'll take him on in the police force officially, and that'll give him pension rights. You have to think of the future.' Hellbich helped himself to another spoonful of syrup.

Ben bit into his second slice of bread and inspected the semi-circle stamped in it by his teeth. There was no more, but that couldn't dampen his high spirits. The suit was waiting for him. In half an hour's time he could take that tailor-made dream home.

His mother appeared in headscarf and jacket. 'The pharmacist has peppermint tea off the ration. It'll make a change from the chestnut coffee, and it's good for the bronchial tubes.' In fact no one in the house had bronchial problems except for her father, who was plagued by a permanent smoker's cough, but she liked to look on the bright side of everything. It was her way of countering the bleak misery of everyday post-war life.

The district councillor reached for his hat. Ralf put his school bag under his arm. 'Coming, Ben?'

'You go ahead,' called his brother from upstairs. From out the window, he saw his grandfather, Ralf and his mother leave the house. He took the suede shoes out of their hiding place. His socks had holes in their left toes, but the shoes hid them. The collar of the shirt he'd worn for his confirmation was two sizes too small and wouldn't do up, but the striped tie from Father's wardrobe held it together at the neck. He tucked the shirt into his trousers and put his sweater over it. He deposited his school bag in the garden shed.

He entered the veranda workshop on Ithweg, filled with anticipation. 'Just a moment, please, Herr Dietrich.' Rodel was busy brushing a heavy ulster. I forgot about it all these years, it was hanging in mothballs at the back of the storeroom. Professor Simon, the distinguished surgeon brought it in to be pressed in '38. They took him and his family away next day.' Ben was hardly listening. His eyes were searching the workshop. 'I'll mothproof the coat again afterwards, just in case Herr Simon has survived. A few have come back from the camps. Little Rademann from Schmidt's drug store, for instance. He doesn't talk about it, but it must have been terrible. Now they're trying to turn it against him, but he was only the commandant's orderly. Heidi — Heidi! Bring Herr Dietrich's suit.'

Heidi took her time. Through the open doorway Ben could see her tidying her hair in front of the mirror and undoing the top button of her blouse, perhaps because it was quite a warm day. She disappeared from his field of vision, and soon afterwards came into the workshop with the suit over her arm.

'Hi.' Ben put out his hand, but Heidi was too busy putting the jacket on the black tailor's dummy. She handed Ben the trousers and stood there waiting.

'Heidi, please!' Her father gestured impatiently. She tossed her hair back with a challenging air and went out.

The trousers were long and narrow, with sharp creases in them, high turn-ups, and a perfect fall to the velvety brown suede shoes. Ben felt like whooping out loud, but a man of the world didn't break into cries of delight just because of a pair of well-fitting trousers. He coolly noted that the jacket was Al — the prefix which since time immemorial had distinguished car registration plates in the capital from those of lesser beings in the provinces, a synonym for all that was first-class and metropolitan.

A masterpiece. You don't see this kind of thing every day.' Herr R6 del helped Ben into the jacket and straightened his tie. 'Finest pre-war horsehair and ivory-nut buttons. My last reserves.' The tailor looked in a drawer.

Heidi reappeared. Another button on her blouse had undone itself. Ben could see the pale glimmer of her breasts. 'Suits you really well.' She came close to him and stroked the lapels. Aren't they soft?' Her warm, sweet breath wafted over his face. 'Sunday at two in the hollow by the lake,' she said softly. Ben took a deep breath. His suit seemed to have finally routed Gerd Schlomm's short lederhosen.

R6del had found what he was looking for. 'Here, a little extra.' He tucked a decorative silk handkerchief into the breast pocket of the jacket. And please recommend me elsewhere, Herr Dietrich.' Ben got into his old clothes. The master tailor wrapped the suit in a grey cloth and draped it over the boy's arm.

Once home, Ben got upstairs unseen and hid his treasure in the locker in the attic. Even his fertile imagination wouldn't have stretched to devising an explanation for this surprising addition to his wardrobe that would satisfy his parents. The suit disappeared behind the district councillor's black frock coat, last worn for his son's funeral. Lance-Corporal Werner Hellbich had died in a German field hospital of burns suffered while training a Volks- sturm civil defence brigade. A seventy-year-old conscript had aimed the rear fire jet of his bazooka at him by mistake.

Grandmother Hellbich was polishing the hall floor. 'You're early home today,' she said in surprise

'Our maths teacher is off sick,' he lied. 'I'm going to the barber's.'

'Tell him to cut it shorter this time, will you?'

'Medium length with a parting,' Ben told Herr Pagel. The barber had moved his business premises to his own apartment. His salon was out of reach, in the American prohibited zone at Onkel Toms Hiitte U-Bahn station. A GI from Brooklyn was giving his comrades crew cuts there.

'Yes, sir. Want a magazine to read?' Herr Pagel had salvaged several years' issues of the Berliner Illustrierte. Ben picked an old number celebrating the first flight to New York of the airship Hindenburg.

And a packet of condoms,' he added casually as he was paying for the haircut.

'Top quality peacetime wares. Guaranteed not to split.' Herr Pagel pushed what he wanted over the table. 'To keep the most precious part of you warm.' He winked at Ben, who pocketed the box and got out of there. He would have liked to ask a couple of questions about how to use the condoms, but he felt embarrassed. He hoped there were instructions with them.

Inspector Dietrich had ordered several officers to keep watch on Frau Kalkfurth's garage round the clock. No luck. 'Killers like our man have a sixth sense,' said Franke gloomily.