The Pale Criminal

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The Pale Criminal Page 24

by Philip Kerr


  However, it occurs to me that we can actually turn this to our advantage. Another Project Krist incident while this Jew is incarcerated will not only effect this man’s release, but will accordingly embarrass Heydrich very badly indeed. Please see to it.

  Heil Hitler,

  Weisthor

  SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Richard Anders,

  Order of Knights Templar, Berlin

  Lumenklub, Bayreutherstrasse 22 Berlin W.

  To SS-Brigadeführer K. M. Weisthor

  Berlin Grunewald

  27 August 1938

  STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL

  Dear Brigadefiihrer,

  My inquiries have confirmed that Police Headquarters, Alexanderplatz, did indeed receive an anonymous telephone call. Moreover a conversation with the Reichsführer’s adjutant, Karl Wolff, indicates that it was he, and not the Reichsfuhrer, who made the said call. He very much dislikes misleading the police in this fashion, but he admits that he can see no other way of assisting with the inquiry and still preserve the necessity of the Reichsführer’s anonymity.

  Apparently Himmler is very impressed.

  Heil Hitler,

  Yours, Richard Anders

  SS-Hauptstürmführer Dr Lanz Kindermann

  Am Kleinen Wannsee

  Berlin West

  To Karl Maria Wiligut

  Caspar-Theyss Strasse 33,

  Berlin West

  29 September

  STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL

  My dear Karl,

  On a serious note first of all. Our friend Reinhard Lange has started to give me cause for concern. Putting aside my own feelings for him, I believe that he may be weakening in his resolve to assist with the execution of Project Krist. That what we are doing is in keeping with our ancient pagan heritage no longer seems to impress him as something unpleasant but none the less necessary. Whilst I do not for a moment believe that he would ever betray us, I feel that he should no longer be a part of those Project Krist activities which perforce must take place within this clinic.

  Otherwise I continue to rejoice in your ancient spiritual heirloom, and look forward to the day when we can continue to investigate our ancestors through your autogenic clairvoyance.

  Heil Hitler,

  Yours, as ever,

  Lanz

  The Commandant,

  SS-Brigadeführer Siegfried Taubert,

  SS-School Haus,

  Wewelsburg, near Paderborn,

  Westphalia

  To SS-Brigadeführer Weisthor

  Caspar-Theyss Strasse 33,

  Berlin Grunewald

  3 October 1938

  STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL: COURT OF HONOUR PROCEEDINGS, 6 — 8 NOVEMBER 1938

  Herr Brigadeführer,

  This is to confirm that the next Court of Honour will take place here in Wewelsburg on the above dates. As usual security will be tight and during the proceedings, beyond the usual methods of identification, a password will be required to gain admittance to the school house. At your own suggestion this is to be GOSLAR.

  Attendance is deemed by the Reichsfuhrer to be mandatory for all those officers and men listed below:Reichsführer-SS Himmler

  SS-Obergruppenführer Heydrich

  SS-Obergruppenführer Heissmeyer

  SS-Obergruppenführer Nebe

  SS-Obergruppenführer Daluege

  SS-Obergruppenführer Darre

  SS-Gruppenführer Pohl

  SS-Brigadeführer Taubert

  SS-Brigadeführer Berger

  SS-Brigadeführer Eicke

  SS-Brigadeführer Weisthor

  SS-Oberführer Wolff

  SS-Sturmbannführer Anders

  SS-Sturmbannführer von Oeynhausen

  SS-Hauptsturmführer Kindermann

  SS-Obersturmbannführer Diebitsch

  SS-Obersturmbannführer von Knobelsdorff

  SS-Obersturmbannführer Klein

  SS-Obersturmbannführer Lasch

  SS-Unterscharführer Rahn

  Landbaumeister Bartels

  Professor Wilhelm Todt

  Heil Hitler,

  Taubert

  There were many other letters, but I had already risked too much by staying as long as I had. More than that, I realized that, for perhaps the first time since coming out of the trenches in 1918, I was afraid.

  21

  Friday, 4 November

  Driving from Weisthor’s house to the Alex, I tried to make some sense out of what I had discovered.

  Vogelmann’s part was explained, and to some extent that of Reinhard Lange. And perhaps Kindermann’s clinic was where they had killed the girls. What better place to kill someone than a hospital, where people were always coming and going feet first. Certainly his letter to Weisthor seemed to indicate as much.

  There was a frightening ingenuity in Weisthor’s solution. After murdering the girls, all of whom had been selected for their Aryan looks, their bodies were hidden so carefully as to be virtually impossible to find: the more so when one took into account the lack of police manpower available to investigate something as routine as a missing person. By the time the police realized that there was a mass-murderer stalking the streets of Berlin, they were more concerned with keeping things quiet so that their failure to catch the killer did not look incompetent — for at least as long as it took to find a convenient scapegoat, such as Josef Kahn.

  But what of Heydrich and Nebe, I wondered. Was their attendance at this SS Court of Honour deemed mandatory merely by virtue of their senior rank? After all, the S S had its factions just like any other organization. Daluege, for instance, the head of Orpo, like his opposite number Arthur Nebe, felt as ill-disposed to Himmler and Heydrich as they felt towards him. And quite clearly of course, Weisthor and his faction were antagonistic towards ‘the Jew Heydrich’. Heydrich, a Jew. It was one of those neat pieces of counter-propaganda that relies on a massive contradiction to sound convincing. I’d heard this rumour before, as had most of the bulls around the Alex, and like them I knew where it originated: Admiral Canaris, head of the Abwehr, German Military Intelligence, was Heydrich’s most bitter opponent, and certainly the most powerful one.

  Or was there some other reason why Heydrich was going to Wewelsburg in a few days? Nothing to do with him was ever quite what it seemed to be, although I didn’t doubt for a minute that he would enjoy the prospect of Himmler’s embarrassment. For him it would be nice thick icing on the cake that had as its main ingredient the arrest of Weisthor and the other anti-Heydrich conspirators within the SS.

  To prove it, however, I was going to need something else besides Weisthor’s papers. Something more eloquent and unequivocal, that would convince the Reichsfuhrer himself.

  It was then that I thought of Reinhard Lange. The softest excrescence on the maculate body of Weisthor’s plot, it certainly wasn’t going to require a clean and sharp curette to cut him away. I had just the dirty, ragged thumbnail that would do the job. I still had two of his letters to Lanz Kindermann.

  Back at the Alex I went straight to the duty sergeant’s desk and found Korsch and Becker waiting for me, with Professor Illmann and Sergeant Gollner.

  ‘Another call?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Gollner.

  ‘Right. Let’s get going.’

  From the outside the Schultheiss Brewery in Kreuzberg, with its uniform red brick, numerous towers and turrets, as well as the fair-sized garden, made it seem more like a school than a brewery. But for the smell, which even at two a.m. was strong enough to pinch the nostrils, you might have expected to find rooms full of desks instead of beer-barrels. We stopped next to the tent-shaped gatehouse.

  ‘Police,’ Becker yelled at the nightwatchman, who seemed to like a beer himself. His stomach was so big I doubt he could have reached the pockets of his overalls, even if he had wanted to. ‘Where do you keep the old beer-barrels?’

  ‘What, you mean the empties?’

  ‘Not exactly. I mean the ones that probably need a bit of mending.’

 
The man touched his forehead in a sort of salute.

  ‘Right you are, sir. I know exactly what you mean. This way, if you please.’

  We got out of the cars and followed him back up the road we had driven along. After only a short way we ducked through a green door in the wall of the brewery and went down a long and narrow passageway.

  ‘Don’t you keep that door locked?’ I said.

  ‘No need,’ said the nightwatchman. ‘Nothing worth stealing here. The beer’s kept behind the gate.’

  There was an old cellar with a couple of centuries of filth on the ceiling and the floor. A bare bulb on the wall added a touch of yellow to the gloom.

  ‘Here you are then,’ said the man. ‘I guess this must be what you’re looking for. This is where they puts the barrels as needs repairing. Only a lot of them never get repaired. Some of these haven’t been moved in ten years.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Korsch. ‘There must be nearly a hundred of them.’

  ‘At least,’ laughed our guide.

  ‘Well, we’d better get started then, hadn’t we?’ I said.

  ‘What exactly are you looking for?’

  ‘A bottle-opener,’ said Becker. ‘Now be a good fellow and run along, will you?’ The man sneered, said something under his breath and then waddled off, much to Becker’s amusement.

  It was Illmann who found her. He didn’t even take the lid off.

  ‘Here. This one. It’s been moved. Recently. And the lid’s a different colour from the rest.’ He lifted the lid, took a deep breath and then shone his torch inside. ‘It’s her all right.’

  I came over to where he was standing and took a look for myself, and one for Hildegard. I’d seen enough photographs of Emmeline around the apartment to recognize her immediately.

  ‘Get her out of there as soon as you can, Professor.’

  Illmann looked at me strangely and then nodded. Perhaps he heard something in my tone that made him think my interest was more than just professional. He waved in the police photographer.

  ‘Becker,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘I need you to come with me.’

  On the way to Reinhard Lange’s address we called in at my office to collect his letters. I poured us both a large glass of schnapps and explained something of what had transpired that evening.

  ‘Lange’s the weak link. I heard them say so. What’s more, he’s a lemon-sucker.’ I drained the glass and poured another, inhaling deeply of it to increase the effect, my lips tingling as I held it on my palate for a while before swallowing. I shuddered a little as I let it slip down my backbone and said: ‘I want you to work a Vice-squad line on him.’

  ‘Yes? How heavy?’

  ‘Like a fucking waltzer.’

  Becker grinned and finished his own drink. ‘Roll him out flat? I get the idea.’ He opened his jacket and took out a short rubber truncheon which he tapped enthusiastically on the palm of his hand. ‘I’ll stroke him with this.’

  ‘Well, I hope you know more about using that than you do that Parabellum you carry. I want this fellow alive. Scared shitless, but alive. To answer questions. You get it?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’m an expert with this little india rubber. I’ll just break the skin, you’ll see. The bones we can leave until another time you give the word.’

  ‘I do believe you like this, don’t you? Scaring the piss out of people.’

  Becker laughed. ‘Don’t you?’

  The house was on Lutzowufer-Strasse, overlooking the Landwehr Canal and within earshot of the zoo, where some of Hitler’s relations could be heard complaining about the standard of accommodation. It was an elegant, three-storey Wilhelmine building, orange-painted and with a big square oriel window on the first floor. Becker started to pull the bell as if he was doing it on piecework. When he got tired of that he started on the door knocker. Eventually a light came on in the hall and we heard the scrape of a bolt.

  The door opened on the chain and I saw Lange’s pale face peer nervously round the side.

  ‘Police,’ said Becker. ‘Open up.’

  ‘What is happening?’ he swallowed. ‘What do you want?’

  Becker took a step backwards. ‘Mind out, sir,’ he said, and then stabbed at the door with the sole of his boot. I heard Lange squeal as Becker kicked it again. At the third attempt the door flew open with a great splintering noise to reveal Lange hurrying up the stairs in his pyjamas.

  Becker went after him.

  ‘Don’t shoot him, for Christ’s sake,’ I yelled at Becker.

  ‘Oh God, help,’ Lange gurgled as Becker caught him by the bare ankle and started to drag him back. Twisting round he tried to kick himself free of Becker’s grip, but it was to no avail, and as Becker pulled so Lange bounced down the stairs on his fat behind. When he hit the floor Becker gripped at his face and stretched each cheek towards his ears.

  ‘When I say open the door, you open the fucking door, right?’ Then he put his whole hand over Lange’s face and banged his head hard on the stair. ‘You got that, queer?’ Lange protested loudly, and Becker caught hold of some of his hair and slapped him twice, hard across the face. ‘I said, have you got that, queer?’

  ‘Yes,’ he screamed.

  ‘That’s enough,’ I said pulling him by the shoulder. He stood up breathing heavily, and grinned at me.

  ‘You said a waltzer, sir.’

  ‘I’ll tell you when he needs some more of the same.’

  Lange wiped his bleeding lip and inspected the blood that smeared the back of his hand. There were tears in his eyes but he still managed to summon up some indignation.

  ‘Look here,’ he yelled, ‘what the hell is this all about? What do you mean by barging in here like this?’

  ‘Tell him,’ I said.

  Becker grabbed the collar of Lange’s silk dressing-gown and twisted it against his pudgy neck. ‘It’s a pink triangle for you, my fat little fellow,’ he said. ‘A pink triangle with bar if the letters to your bottom-stroking friend Kindermann are anything to go by.’

  Lange wrenched Becker’s hand away from his neck and stared bitterly at him. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he hissed. ‘Pink triangle? What does that mean, for God’s sake?’

  ‘Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code,’ I said.

  Becker quoted the section off by heart: ‘Any male who indulges in criminally indecent activities with another male, or who allows himself to participate in such activities, will be punished with gaol.’ He cuffed him playfully on the cheek with the backs of his fingers. ‘That means you’re under arrest, you fat butt-fucker.’

  ‘But it’s preposterous. I never wrote any letters to anyone. And I’m not a homosexual.’

  ‘You’re not a homosexual,’ Becker sneered, ‘and I don’t piss out of my prick.’ From his jacket pocket he produced the two letters I’d given him, and brandished them in front of Lange’s face. ‘And I suppose you wrote these to the tooth-fairy?’

  Lange snatched at the letters and missed.

  ‘Bad manners,’ Becker said, cuffing him again, only harder.

  ‘Where did you get those?’

  ‘I gave them to him.’

  Lange looked at me, and then looked again. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘I know you. You’re Steininger. You were there tonight, at — ’ He stopped himself from saying where he’d seen me.

  ‘That’s right, I was at Weisthor’s little party. I know quite a bit of what’s been going on. And you’re going to help me with the rest.’

  ‘You’re wasting your time, whoever you are. I’m not going to tell you anything.’

  I nodded at Becker, who started to hit him again. I watched dispassionately as first he coshed him across the knees and ankles, and then lightly once, on the ear, hating myself for keeping alive the best traditions of the Gestapo, and for the cold, dehumanized brutality I felt inside my guts. I told him to stop.

  Waiting for Lange to stop sobbing I walked around a bit, pe
ering through doors. In complete contrast to the exterior, the inside of Lange’s house was anything but traditional. The furniture, rugs and paintings, of which there were many, were all in the most expensive modern style — the kind that’s easier to look at than to live with.

  When eventually I saw that Lange had drawn himself together a bit, I said: ‘This is quite a place. Not my taste perhaps, but then, I’m a little old-fashioned. You know, one of those awkward people with rounded joints, the type that puts personal comfort ahead of the worship of geometry. But I’ll bet you’re really comfortable here. How do you think he’ll like the tank at the Alex, Becker?’

  ‘What, the lock-up? Very geometric, sir. All those iron bars.’

  ‘Not forgetting all those bohemian types who’ll be in there and give Berlin its world-famous night-life. The rapists, the murderers, the thieves, the drunks — they get a lot of drunks in the tank, throwing-up everywhere–’

  ‘It’s really awful, sir, that’s right.’

  ‘You know, Becker, I don’t think we can put someone like Herr Lange in there. I don’t think he would find it at all to his liking, do you?’

  ‘You bastards.’

  ‘I don’t think he’d last the night, sir. Especially if we were to find him something special to wear from his wardrobe. Something artistic, as befits a man of Herr Lange’s sensitivity. Perhaps even a little make-up, eh, sir? He’d look real nice with a bit of lipstick and rouge.’ He chuckled enthusiastically, a natural sadist.

  ‘I think you had better talk to me, Herr Lange,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t scare me, you bastards. Do you hear? You don’t scare me.’

  ‘That’s very unfortunate. Because unlike Kriminalassistant Becker here, I don’t particularly enjoy the prospect of human suffering. But I’m afraid I have no choice. I’d like to do this straight, but quite frankly I just don’t have the time.’

  We dragged him upstairs to the bedroom where Becker selected an outfit from Lange’s walk-in wardrobe. When he found some rouge and lipstick Lange roared loudly and took a swing at me.

 

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