The Divided City

by Luke McCallin

  “He was in contact with another member of the Group, and we found him that way. He was one of the last ones we found. And one of the hardest. He was not very interested in any contact.”

  “There is a question I have for you, Mr. Bochmann. Do you know when Noell was promoted to colonel?”

  Bochmann frowned, shook his head. “Noell was a captain, Inspector.”

  “At Noell’s apartment, when I found his body, I also found a colonel’s air force uniform.”

  “That must have been his brother’s.” Bochmann nodded. “Noell had an elder brother. He was a senior officer in the air force’s research division.”

  Reinhardt had needed to ask. He had needed to double-check the medical technician’s assertions of two brothers. Something seemed to snap inside. “Mr. Bochmann, think. Please. Think what links these men.”

  “How can I think, Inspector?” Bochmann was flustered, angry, his eyes flashing, like choppy water, and his words rose into Reinhardt’s like two tides surging against each other. “I cannot be expected to remember everything. Do you? Do you remember every shot you fired? Every man who passed in front of you that you . . . that you condemned?” Reinhardt went cold, then felt a flush climb his back, seeing himself suddenly, seeing himself staring back at himself over a flat desk of chipped wood, a harsh light carving shadows down and away as he signed something. An order? A condemnation . . . ? God knows, the last days of the war had seen enough of those as the Feldjäegers strove to maintain order behind a front line collapsing into chaos. “Well? Can you? So why, why should I be expected to remember everything the Group did? Everything each squadron did? Every mission, every botched raid . . .” He stopped, a deathly pale swelling up over his face.

  “Bochmann?” Reinhardt waited with bated breath.

  Bochmann shook his head, his eyes far away. “No, Reinhardt. No. I will not say any more. Just. Please, give me some time.”

  “You have until tomorrow morning, Mr. Bochmann. I expect you at the station on Gothaerstrasse at eight o’clock with your lists.” Bochmann nodded, distracted, but his eyes cleared suddenly at Reinhardt’s next words. “And you will tell me what the British have to do with the Ritterfeld Association.”

  35

  Reinhardt cycled to Uhlandstrasse, where he showed his warrant disc and persuaded the stationmaster to let him on the U-Bahn with his bicycle, unable to face the thought of riding all the way home. He settled onto a bench in the all-but-empty carriage, stretching his leg out, feeling the tension loosen in his knee. He leaned his head against the window, closing his eyes and slowing his breathing until a guard blew a whistle, and the train’s doors slid shut and it jerked into movement. Reinhardt opened his eyes, reaching out to steady the bicycle, and saw Kausch’s reflection in the glass of the carriage’s interconnecting door.

  Reinhardt twisted round. Kausch was sitting a few benches down, two other men with him. When he saw he had been seen, Kausch came and sat opposite Reinhardt. The man was tall, well-built, his hair brushed back from a stern countenance, like something one might see in marble or stone, or staring determinedly out from a propaganda poster, out over a glittering future of red and black.

  Leena had been right, Reinhardt thought.

  He did look like he should have been wearing black.

  “I see you’re looking much better, Mr. Kausch. Or should I call you Kessel?”

  “Inspector Reinhardt. I understand you are an old comrade. We wore the same uniform. We may speak man-to-man, soldier-to-soldier.”

  “I don’t think you were ever a soldier, Kausch,” said Reinhardt, missing his baton more than ever, “and I’m certain we never wore the same uniform.”

  “We took the same oath then. We are German patriots and members of its resistance. We have friends in many places. We have not forgotten our oaths—once taken, they may never be relinquished, save by him to whom they were given—and do not accept the occupation of our sacred country.”

  “What you mean is you all have something to hide, and you’ve gone to ground and can’t get out of Berlin because the Ivans’ll have you up against a wall.”

  Kausch let nothing show on his face, and only a suggestion of movement made Reinhardt realize one of the other two men was sitting right behind him. “Inspector Reinhardt, there is someone who would like to speak to you. Be thankful that person has some weight in our considerations, because I have had men’s tongues for less impertinence than you have shown me tonight.”

  Kausch glanced at the second man, nodded, and the man walked up to the connecting door. He waved at something or someone and stood back to pull the door open. There was a clattering blast of air, and another man stepped into the carriage and, even though he knew, Reinhardt still felt a thrill of fear, of superstitious recognition, as if he had seen a ghost, or a revenant.

  “Andreas Noell, I presume,” Reinhardt said, surprised to find his voice steady.

  The train slowed and stopped for Wittenbergplatz. The men—there were five of them now, and one woman—gathered close around, sitting on the benches behind and on either side. They gave off an air of menace, and the one or two people who entered the carriage took seats far away from them.

  “You are the man leading the investigation into my brother’s murder, is that right? Tell me, then, who killed him?”

  “I don’t know yet. Why don’t you tell me what happened that night? It might help me to understand.”

  “Sturmbannführer, if you would be so kind as to give me and the inspector some privacy.”

  “Of course, Captain,” Kausch replied, with his flat gaze, as he rose and moved over to one of the other benches. Reinhardt watched him go, imagining him all in black with a swastika around his arm. Sturmbannführer. An SS major.

  “There were two Noells, Inspector,” Andreas Noell said, leaning forward into the space between them. Seemingly on the cusp of middle age, he was a small, dark man, wiry, with hair thinning on the top of his head. “Twins. One was called Andreas, a pilot. He just wanted to fly. The other was a scientist, called Theodor. Very driven, to both his research and to the Nazis,” Noell said, a flick of his eyes at Kausch and the others. His voice lowered, and he spoke to Reinhardt from beneath his brows. “The two brothers did not always see eye to eye, but they were brothers. They looked out for each other. During the war, when I needed him, Theodor took me away from front-line service and arranged a transfer to a test unit. Other pilots from other squadrons were there. We all had extensive experience flying and fighting over water and extreme conditions.”

  “Like the desert,” Reinhardt said.

  Noell nodded, his eyes coming up to play over Reinhardt’s face a moment, then going back down. He glanced out as the train stopped at Nollendorfplatz, but this late at night the big interchange station was quiet. Nevertheless, several of Kausch’s men took up positions near the doors until the train lurched off.

  “You weren’t the only one transferred.”

  “No. There were two others. Prellberg and Gareis.”

  “Why were you transferred?”

  “Theodor thought he was doing me a favor, but when I found out what the test unit was all about—testing equipment that was itself tested on human beings—I went slightly mad. Enraged, I confronted my brother who, so caught up in his research and so committed to the Nazi cause, did not understand my qualms. I dismissed myself from the test unit, on my own request I was transferred to search and rescue, in Norway. I chose it . . . I chose it to try and atone in some way for what I had seen.

  “When the war ended, Theodor and I found each other again, here. I had made my way back. I had been captured by the British, then released. I had papers. Theodor had none. He was with these—like-minded—men. Men who had been together at the test unit. Men who had not laid down the flame of the Nazi cause, styling themselves ‘resistance’ fighters, patriots, who claimed to be fighting to keep something back
for Germany for when she would rise again.” Reinhardt had to strain to listen to him. With his voice low and his head down, Noell seemed to heave the words up from somewhere deep within himself. “They were in the shadows, often on the move. They were trapped here in Berlin. They could not get out, or dared not. Most of them are wanted men,” Noell said, a nod of his head toward the others. “The Ivans would shoot half of them on sight, and probably kidnap the rest to work in the USSR. The war never really ended for them. But we . . . Theodor and me, we were brothers. Even if Theodor dragged me into hiding with him. So, who, Inspector? Who killed my brother?”

  Reinhardt waited as the train stopped at Gleisdreieck. “I don’t know yet. I believe it is someone from your past. I think it may be someone you knew in Africa. In 1942. Does that ring any bells?” Noell shook his head. “Do you remember an incident with a soldier? A man called Leyser?” Noell shrugged, shook his head again. “Try and think, Noell. Prellberg and Gareis were involved in an incident with this Leyser. In October.”

  “I don’t . . . I don’t remember.” Noell’s eyes turned even further inward, then he looked up. “I think . . . maybe . . . It was something to do with the unit’s pride. Some nonsense like that. Prellberg was the one . . . was the one who started it.” Noell rubbed his head, digging his fingertips into the hollows of his temples. To Reinhardt’s eyes, he looked evasive, but Reinhardt had seen men who struggled to remember things after a war, and if half of what Noell was telling him was true, it was no wonder the pilot was trying to forget what he had seen and done. “There was a hospital. I think they went to talk to someone. But things went bad. There was a fight. Yes, now I remember. This soldier—Leyser, you say?—he was injured, but he was saying bad things about us. Prellberg wanted to teach him a lesson. It went bad, and then we were evacuating the city because the British were approaching.”

  Noell stared into the darkness beyond the windows, then spoke abruptly, with precision. “Prellberg was an idiot. And he was a Nazi. So was Gareis. The pair of them were . . . well let’s say they were good soldiers for the Reich. Efficient and ideological. I lost touch with them long ago. But I want an answer, Inspector. These men with me want an answer. Theodor was close with them. They thought alike in all things. In all things . . .” Noell’s hands tightened against each other. “Someone has killed one of their own, and that person must be made to pay. There is no happenstance in their lives. Only malice and conspiracy.”

  “Who are they?”

  Noell’s eyes twitched, but he did not look into the carriage. “SS, Reinhardt. ‘Cream of the black.’ Guards, mostly. Administrators. The ones who ran the camps and the facilities. Kausch was in charge of the prisoners they sent to Güstrow for the tests. Before that he was . . . busy . . . out east. I think the Poles would like to talk to him. As they take him to pieces. Kausch and his men think Theodor was murdered because of them. Because of who they are, and what they have. To get to them. But he wasn’t, was he?”

  “I don’t know. Truly. Tell me of the association.”

  “Ritterfeld? Dreams of the past, Inspector. Plans for the future. A gathering of old comrades. All of that, and none. Or more. I don’t know what it was, other than a chance to be . . . someone else. To be with others who thought like you. Who had known what you had known.”

  “How did the association find you?”

  “Through a friend. Another pilot. I met him at an old bar we used to go to before the war. Veterans go there. To reminisce. You know how it is.”

  Reinhardt did not. He had never “reminisced” with veterans. With anyone, except Brauer. The train slowed as it passed through the ruined station at Möckernbrücke, then picked up a little speed. Reinhardt craned his neck around, looking for Kausch. “I need to change at the next station. What happened on the weekend? On Saturday night?”

  “I went to a gathering of the Ritterfeld Association. The first one.”

  “What happened there? Anything?”

  “Speeches and toasts. To absent friends. To new friends. We drank. We sang. We ate.”

  “What new friends did you toast?” Noell frowned at him, and Reinhardt felt a burst of impatience as the train began slowing for Hallesches Tor. “You mentioned new friends.”

  “Von Vollmer talked of ‘benefactors.’ Friends in high places. People who knew better than to keep Germany down. People who would not make the same mistakes as at Versailles. The sort of stuff Kausch and his ilk love to hear about. And then, at the end of the party, when von Vollmer had drunk rather a lot, I heard him talking to Bochmann about their English friends.”

  “Kausch,” Reinhardt called quietly. “I need to change here. You should change with me. But you should split up a little. A group of men, and one with a bicycle, will be remembered.”

  At Hallesches Tor, Reinhardt wheeled the bicycle off, Noell walking with him, and Kausch just behind. The others split up and drifted away, moving ahead of them and behind them down the tunnels. Noell seemed not to notice very much, staring ahead of him with flat eyes.

  “Who were these English friends?”

  “I don’t know. There were no Englishmen there.”

  Conversation ceased as Reinhardt hauled the bicycle up stairs and then down, the wheels and frame clattering, drawing the stares of curious passersby and pithy comments from a few of them. Reinhardt spotted one of Kausch’s men on the platform of the southbound C line train when he wheeled the bicycle out of the pedestrian tunnel, but a whistle and shout turned him around the other way.

  “All right then, what the bloody hell’s all this?” an irate platform attendant came stalking toward Reinhardt, his eyes fixed on Reinhardt’s bicycle. “You must be missing a few planks from your fence to bring a bloody bike into the U-bahn. How’d you get that thing down here?”

  Kausch had vanished, and Noell stood close to Reinhardt as he pulled out his warrant disc and calmed the irascible attendant.

  “I’ve seen it all now,” the man muttered, stalking away as a train pulled into the station. “Say what you like about bloody Adolf, you’d not have seen coppers with bikes in the bloody U-bahn . . .”

  “Keep talking about the party,” Reinhardt said as they sat down in a carriage. “About friends in high places.”

  “I don’t know, Inspector. It just sounded like talk.”

  “All right, then. After the party. What happened?”

  “I didn’t come home until early on Sunday morning, and then I slept most of the day. Theodor was not there. We sometimes tried to alternate being in and out, so it would not seem there were two of us. And, lately . . . we had been arguing more and more, and he had taken to spending more time with Kausch,” Noell said, looking up. Reinhardt followed his eyes, seeing that Kausch and some of his men had reappeared from seemingly out of nowhere. The train stopped at Mehringdamm. Flughafen was the next stop. Paradestrasse the one after that. There was not much more time, unless Noell planned to accompany him home.

  “Go on,” Reinhardt prompted him, as the train pulled out.

  “Theodor asked me to leave the apartment on Sunday evening. He said he had to meet someone. I thought it was another one of his contacts from the war. We argued again. Our last words were sour words, Inspector.” Noell’s eyes went deader still. “And when I came back, I found . . . I found Theodor dead.”

  “Was there another body in the apartment?”

  “Yes.”

  “Had you seen that person before?”

  “Yes. Just once. He was at the party, but only briefly. He came for a short while. It was . . .” Noell paused, lifting his eyes. “Now I remember, it was after he left that von Vollmer began talking about his English benefactors. But that man wasn’t English. He was as German as you and I.”

  “You talked to him?”

  “Just the once. It was a strange conversation. Only a few words. But it seemed as if . . . as if he knew me.”

 
“He thought he did. But it was your brother he knew.”

  “But how did he know about my brother in the first place?”

  “His name was Carlsen. A British war crimes investigator.”

  Noell’s face tightened up, his eyes flicking out to search for Kausch. “He gave me a photograph. At the party . . .”

  “Carlsen?” Noell nodded. Reinhardt remembered a photograph, crumpled up down the back of the sofa in the Noells’ apartment. “Of your brother?”

  Noell nodded again. “Dachau,” he whispered. “I showed it to him when I got back. I was drunk, and tired. That’s what made us argue. I told him . . . I told him I was so ashamed of him. I told him . . .” He screwed his eyes shut, his head swiveling down onto his chest.

  “Noell. You said Kausch and his men are concerned they will be hunted for who they are, but also for what they have. What do they have?”

  “All the records and equipment they could salvage from the test site,” Noell said, his eyes lost somewhere outside the train’s window. “Toward the end, Theodor and some others thought they could use it all as bargaining chips. Against a future when we would all join forces against the Soviets. They stored it safely, but then that area fell to the Red Army, not the Americans or the British, and then they saw there really would be little accommodation with the occupiers. They went into hiding, and then I suppose one day led to the next, and they never made their deal.”

  “Where, Noell? Where was the test site?”

  “Gustrow. Near Rostock. On the Baltic. They needed to be near the sea. For the experiments . . .”

  Outside Paradestrasse, the night was cold and clear, and the angled lines of the neighborhood’s rooftops marched against the glow from Templehof.

  “I will need to speak with you again,” Reinhardt said to Noell. “How will I find you?”

  “We will find you,” said Kausch.