A German Requiem

by Philip Kerr

  I thanked him for his kind thought and, tipping him generously, asked him first from where I might send a telegram, and then where Berggasse was.

  ‘The Central Telegraph Office is on Börseplatz,’ he answered, ‘on the Schottenring. You’ll find Berggasse just a couple of blocks north of there.’

  An hour or so later, after sending my telegrams to Kirsten and to Neumann, I walked up to Berggasse, which ran between the police prison where Becker was locked up and the hospital where his girlfriend worked. This coincidence was more remarkable than the street itself, which seemed largely to be occupied by doctors and dentists. Nor did I think it particularly remarkable to discover from the old woman who owned the building in which Abs had occupied the mezzanine floor that only a few hours earlier he had told her he was leaving Vienna for good.

  ‘He said his job urgently required him to go to Munich,’ she explained in the kind of tone that left me feeling she was still a bit puzzled by this sudden departure. ‘Or at least somewhere near Munich. He mentioned the name but I’m afraid that I’ve forgotten it.’

  ‘It wasn’t Pullach, was it?’

  She tried to look thoughtful but only succeeded in looking bad-tempered. ‘I don’t know if it was or if it wasn’t,’ she said finally. The cloud lifted from her face as she returned to her normal bovine expression. ‘Anyway, he said he would let me know where he was when he got himself settled.’

  ‘Did he take all his things with him?’

  ‘There wasn’t much to take,’ she said. ‘Just a couple of suitcases. The apartment is furnished, you see.’ She frowned again. ‘Are you a policeman or something?’

  ‘No, I was wondering about his rooms.’

  ‘Well why didn’t you say? Come in, Herr —?’

  ‘It’s Professor, actually,’ I said with what I thought sounded like a typically Viennese punctiliousness. ‘Professor Kurtz.’ There was also the possibility that by giving myself the academic handle I might appeal to the snob in the woman. ‘Dr Abs and myself are mutually acquainted with a Herr König, who told me that he thought the Herr Doktor might be about to vacate some excellent rooms at this address.’

  I followed the old woman through the door and into the big hallway which led to a tall glass door. Beyond the open door lay a courtyard with a solitary plane tree growing there. We turned up the wrought-iron staircase.

  ‘I trust you will forgive my discretion,’ I said. ‘Only I wasn’t sure how much credence to place on my friend’s information. He was most insistent that they were excellent rooms, and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, madam, how difficult it can be for a gentleman to find an apartment of any quality in Vienna these days. Perhaps you know Herr König?’

  ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I don’t think I ever met any of Dr Abs’ friends. He was a very quiet man. But your friend is well informed. You won’t find a better set of rooms for 400 schillings a month. This is a very good neighbourhood.’ At the door to the apartment she lowered her voice. ‘And entirely Jew-free.’ She produced a key from the pocket of her jacket and slipped it into the keyhole of the great mahogany door. ‘Of course, we had a few of them here before the Anschluss. Even in this house. But by the time the war came most of them had gone away.’ She opened the door and showed me into the apartment.

  ‘Here we are,’ she said proudly. ‘There are six rooms in total. It’s not as big as some of the apartments in the street, but then not as expensive either. Fully furnished as I think I said.’

  ‘Lovely,’ I said looking about me.

  ‘I’m afraid that I haven’t yet had time to clean the place,’ she apologized. ‘Doctor Abs left a lot of rubbish to throw out. Not that I mind really. He gave me four weeks’ money in lieu of notice.’ She pointed at one door which was closed. ‘There’s still quite a bit of bomb damage showing in there. We had an incendiary in the courtyard when the Ivans came, but it’s due to be repaired very soon.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s fine,’ I said generously.

  ‘Right then. I’ll leave you to have a little look around on your own, Professor Kurtz. Let you get a feel for the place. Just lock up after you and knock on my door when you’ve seen everything.’

  When the old woman had gone I wandered among the rooms, finding only that for a single man Abs seemed to have received an extraordinarily large number of Care parcels, those food parcels that came from the United States. I counted the empty cardboard boxes that bore the distinctive initials and the Broad Street, New York address and found that there were over fifty of them.

  It didn’t look like Care so much as good business.

  When I had finished looking around I told the old woman that I was looking for something bigger and thanked her for allowing me to see the place. Then I strolled back to my pension in Skodagasse.

  I wasn’t back very long before there was a knock at my door.

  ‘Herr Gunther?’ said the one wearing the sergeant’s stripes.

  I nodded.

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to come with us, please.’

  ‘Am I being arrested?’

  ‘Excuse me, sir?’

  I repeated the question in my uncertain English. The American MP shifted his chewing-gum around impatiently.

  ‘It will be explained to you down at headquarters, sir.’

  I picked up my jacket and slipped it on.

  ‘You will remember to bring your papers, won’t you, sir?’ he smiled politely. ‘Save us coming back for them.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, collecting my hat and coat. ‘Have you got transport? Or are we walking?’

  ‘The truck’s right outside the front door.’

  The landlady caught my eye as we came through her lobby. To my surprise she looked not at all perturbed. Maybe she was used to her guests getting pulled in by the International Patrol. Or perhaps she just told herself that someone else was paying for my room whether I slept there or in a cell at the police prison.

  We climbed into the truck and drove a few metres north before a short turn to the right took us south down Lederergasse, away from the city centre and the headquarters of the IMP.

  ‘Aren’t we going to Kärtnerstrasse?’ I said.

  ‘It isn’t an International Patrol matter, sir,’ the sergeant explained. ‘This is American jurisdiction. We’re going to the Stiftskaserne, on Mariahilferstrasse.’

  ‘To see who? Shields or Belinsky?’

  ‘It will be explained —’

  ‘— when we get there, right.’

  The mock-baroque entrance to the Stiftskaserne, the headquarters of the 796th Military Police, with its half-relief Doric columns, griffins and Greek warriors, was situated, somewhat incongruously, between the twin entrances of Tiller’s department store, and was part of a four-storey building that fronted onto Mariahilferstrasse. We passed through the massive arch of this entrance and beyond the rear of the main building and a parade ground to another building, which housed a military barracks.

  The truck drove through some gates and pulled up outside the barracks. I was escorted inside and up a couple of flights of stairs to a big bright office which commanded an impressive view of the anti-aircraft tower that stood on the other side of the parade ground.

  Shields stood up from behind a desk and grinned like he was trying to impress the dentist.

  ‘Come on in and sit down,’ he said as if we were old friends. He looked at the sergeant. ‘Did he come peaceably, Gene? Or did you have to beat the shit out of his ass?’

  The sergeant grinned a little and mumbled something which I didn’t catch. It was no wonder that one could never understand their English, I thought: Americans were forever chewing something.

  ‘You better stick around a while, Gene,’ Shields added. ‘Just in case we have to get tough with this guy.’ He uttered a short laugh and, hitching up his trousers, sat squarely in front of me, his heavy legs splayed apart like some samurai lord, except that he was probably twice as large as any Japanese.

  ‘First of all
, Gunther, I have to tell you that there’s a Lieutenant Canfield, a real asshole Brit, down at International Headquarters who would love somebody to help him with a little problem he’s got. It seems like some stonemason in the British sector got himself killed when a rock fell on his tits. Mostly everyone, including the lieutenant’s boss, believes that it was probably an accident. Only the lieutenant’s the keen type. He’s read Sherlock Holmes and he wants to go to detective school when he leaves the army. He’s got this theory that someone tampered with the dead man’s books. Now I don’t know if that’s sufficient motive to kill a man or not, but I do remember seeing you go into Pichler’s office yesterday morning after Captain Linden’s funeral.’ He chuckled. ‘Hell, I admit it, Gunther. I was spying on you. Now what do you say to that?’

  ‘Pichler’s dead?’

  ‘How about it you try it with a little more surprise? “Don’t tell me Pichler is dead!” or “My God, I don’t believe what you are telling me!” You wouldn’t know what happened to him, would you, Gunther?’

  I shrugged. ‘Maybe the business was getting on top of him.’

  Shields laughed at that one. He laughed like he had once taken a few classes in laughing, showing all his teeth, which were mostly bad, in a blue boxing-glove of a jaw that was wider than the top of his dark and balding head. He seemed loud, like most Americans, and then some. He was a big, brawny man with shoulders like a rhinoceros, and wore a suit of light-brown flannel with lapels that were as broad and sharp as two Swiss halberds. His tie deserved to hang over a Café terrace, and his shoes were heavy brown Oxfords. Americans seemed to have an attraction for stout shoes in the same way that Ivans loved wristwatches: the only difference was that they generally bought them in shops.

  ‘Frankly, I don’t give a damn for that lieutenant’s problems,’ he said. ‘It’s shit in the British backyard, not mine. So let them sweep it up. No, I’m merely explaining your need to cooperate with me. You may have nothing at all to do with Pichler’s death, but I’m sure that you don’t want to waste a day explaining that to Lieutenant Canfield. So you help me and I’ll help you: I’ll forget I ever saw you go into Pichler’s shop. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with your German,’ I said. All the same it struck me with what venom he attacked the accent, tackling the consonants with a theatrical degree of precision, almost as if he regarded the language as one which needed to be spoken cruelly. ‘I don’t suppose it would matter if I said that I know absolutely nothing about what happened to Herr Pichler?’

  Shields shrugged apologetically. ‘As I said, it’s a British problem, not mine. Maybe you are innocent. But like I say, it sure would be a pain in the ass explaining it to those British. I swear they think every one of you krauts is a goddam Nazi.’

  I threw up my hands in defeat. ‘So how can I help you?’

  ‘Well, naturally, when I heard that before coming to Captain Linden’s party you visited his murderer in prison, my inquiring nature could not be constrained.’ His tone grew sharper. ‘Come on, Gunther. I want to know what the hell is going on between you and Becker.’

  ‘I take it you know Becker’s side of the story.’

  ‘Like it was engraved on my cigarette-case.’

  ‘Well, Becker believes it. He’s paying me to investigate it. And, he hopes, to prove it.’

  ‘You’re investigating it, you say. So what does that make you?’

  ‘A private investigator.’

  ‘A shamus? Well, well.’ He leaned forwards on his chair, and taking hold of the edge of my jacket, felt the material with his finger and thumb. It was fortunate that there were no razor blades sewn on that particular number. ‘No, I can’t buy that. You’re not half greasy enough.’

  ‘Greasy or not, it’s true.’ I took out my wallet and showed him my ID. And then my old warrant disc. ‘Before the war I was with the Berlin Criminal Police. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that Becker was too. That’s how I know him.’ I took out my cigarettes. ‘Mind if I smoke?’

  ‘Smoke, but don’t let it stop your lips moving.’

  ‘Well, after the war I didn’t want to go back to the police. The force was full of Communists.’ I was throwing him a line with that one. There wasn’t one American I had met who seemed to like Communism. ‘So I set up in business on my own. Actually, I had a period out of the force during the mid-thirties, and did a bit of private work then. So I’m not exactly new at this game. With so many displaced persons since the war, most people can use an honest bull. Believe me, thanks to the Ivans they’re few and far between in Berlin.’

  ‘Yeah, well it’s the same here. Because the Soviets got here first they put all their own people in the top police jobs. Things are so bad that the Austrian government had to look to the chief of the Vienna Fire Service when they were trying to find a straight man to become the new vice-president of police.’ He shook his head. ‘You’re one of Becker’s old colleagues. How about that? What kind of cop was he, for Christ’s sake?’

  ‘The crooked kind.’

  ‘No wonder this country’s in such a mess. I suppose you were SS as well then?’

  ‘Briefly. When I found out what was going on I asked for a transfer to the front. People did, you know.’

  ‘Not enough of them. Your friend didn’t, for one.’

  ‘He’s not exactly a friend.’

  ‘So why did you take the case?’

  ‘I needed the money. And I needed to get away from my wife for a while.’

  ‘Do you mind telling me why?’

  I paused, realizing that it was the first time I had talked about it. ‘She’s been seeing someone else. One of your brother officers. I thought that if I wasn’t around for a while she might decide what was more important: her marriage or this schätzi of hers.’

  Shields nodded and then made a sympathetic-sounding grunt.

  ‘Naturally all your papers are in order?’

  ‘Naturally.’ I handed them over and watched him examine my identity card and my pink pass.

  ‘I see you came through the Russian Zone. For a man who doesn’t like Ivans you must have some pretty good contacts in Berlin.’

  ‘Just a few dishonest ones.’

  ‘Dishonest Russkies?’

  ‘What other kind is there? Sure I had to grease some people, but the papers are genuine.’

  Shields handed them back. ‘Do you have your Fragebogen with you?’

  I fished my denazification certificate out of my wallet and handed it over. He only glanced at it, having no desire to read through the 133 questions and answers it recorded. ‘An exonerated person, eh? How come you weren’t classed as an offender? All SS were automatically arrested.’

  ‘I saw out the end of the war in the army. On the Russian front. And, like I said, I got a transfer out of the SS.’

  Shields grunted and handed back the Fragebogen. ‘I don’t like SS,’ he growled.

  ‘That makes two of us.’

  Shields examined the big fraternity ring which gracelessly adorned one of his well-tufted fingers. He said: ‘We checked Becker’s story, you know. There was nothing in it.’

  ‘I don’t agree.’

  ‘And what makes you think that?’

  ‘Do you think he’d be willing to pay me $5,000 to dig around if his story were just hot air?’

  ‘Five thousand?’ Shields let out a whistle.

  ‘Worth it if your head’s in a noose.’

  ‘Sure. Well, maybe you can prove that the guy was somewhere else when we actually caught him. Maybe you can find something that’ll persuade the judge that his friends didn’t shoot at us. Or that he wasn’t carrying the gun that shot Linden. You got any bright ideas yet, shamus? Like maybe the one that took you to see Pichler?’

  ‘It was a name that Becker remembered as having been mentioned by someone at Reklaue & Werbe Zentrale.’

  ‘By who?’

  ‘Dr Max Abs?’

  Shields nodded, recogni
zing the name.

  ‘I’d say it was him who killed Pichler. Probably he went to see him not long after I did and found out that someone claiming to be a friend of his had been asking questions. Maybe Pichler told him that he’d said I should come back the following day. So before I did Abs killed him and took away the paperwork with his name and address on. Or so he thought. He forgot something which led me to his address. Only by the time I got there he’d cleared out. According to his landlady he’s halfway to Munich by now. You know, Shields, it might not be a bad idea if you were to have someone meet him off that train.’

  Shields stroked his poorly-shaven jaw. ‘It might not be at that.’

  He stood up and went behind his desk where he picked up the telephone and proceeded to make a number of calls, but using a vocabulary and an accent that I was unable to comprehend. When finally he replaced the receiver in its cradle, he looked at his wristwatch and said: ‘The train to Munich takes eleven and a half hours, so there’s plenty of time to make sure he gets a warm hello when he gets off.’

  The telephone rang. Shields answered it, staring at me openmouthed and unblinking, as if there wasn’t much of my story he had believed. But when he put down the telephone a second time he was grinning.

  ‘One of my calls was to the Berlin Documents Centre,’ he said. ‘I’m sure you know what that is. And that Linden worked there?’

  I nodded.

  ‘I asked them if they had anything on this Max Abs guy. That was them calling back just now. It seems that he was SS too. Not actually wanted for any war crimes, but something of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say? You, Becker, Abs, all former pupils of Himmler’s little Ivy League.’

  ‘A coincidence is all it is,’ I said wearily.

  Shields settled back in his chair. ‘You know, I’m perfectly prepared to believe that Becker was just the trigger-man for Linden. That your organization wanted him dead because he had found out something about you.’

  ‘Oh?’ I said without much enthusiasm for Shields’s theory. ‘And which organization is that?’