The Divided City

by Luke McCallin

  “He died in a suspected fall down an embankment.”

  “His wife writes that he was carrying home a heavy sack of potatoes. They said it was a heart attack. Too much effort. They found him on a stretch of road. They thought he must have fallen down into the ditch.”

  Reinhardt looked at Bochmann, looked through him. He thought of the man who had come to his house with a sack of potatoes. Who had ingratiated himself into Mrs. Meissner’s house with offers of food. He thought of a man who might have lured someone out with promises of sustenance. Who might have lured him out at night, who might have finished him off on some road. Rolled the body into a ditch. He thought of Hauck and Stucker, just two more bodies found on ruins. Who paid any attention to men killed on bomb sites, killed by falling rubble?

  “Prellberg,” said Reinhardt, his mouth a grim line.

  “Yes. Prellberg. He was murdered. That we know because his son wrote to us. He was murdered at Bad Oeynhausen in February 1946. There was something of a scandal apparently. I have his letter. Here,” Bochmann said, thrusting a paper at Reinhardt, which fluttered in the air between them from his trembling hand.

  Reinhardt read it slowly, the son’s prose terse and factual. Prellberg had been captured by the British at the end of the war, and interned, but before year’s end, he was out of the camp and helping them track down certain military and Nazi Party personnel, but for what, the son could not say. Prellberg was accommodated in Bad Oeynhausen when he was not at home, and that was where he was found dead along with another man, a Dr. Lütjens. Prellberg’s son did not say much about his father, only that he was one of those men from the war whom the Allies had taken an interest in. The son did not know why, but Reinhardt could guess. What was it he had said to Collingridge? “A race for what glitters in the rubble.” Both Prellberg and Lütjens had been beaten to death, the son saying the British had not classed the affair as murder, rather as some kind of settling of accounts. The son also described a British administration that, in his opinion, was more interested in covering up the deaths than actually investigating them.

  “Did they find the person who did it? Any leads, or suspicions?” Bochmann shook his head, then dipped his face into his coffee cup. Reinhardt’s gaze went back and forth between the lists, his and Bochmann’s. “Right, we’re going to do this methodically. I’ve got fourteen names, all men who were serving in IV./JG56’s second squadron in North Africa at the same time. We’re going to check them off your lists, starting with those killed in action during the war. Albrecht, Kastel, and Meurer.” Bochmann nodded. “Then we have Jürgen, Noell, and Zuleger, murdered in the last few days. We have yourself. Group executive officer. Very much alive. Thurner. Vanished. No contact with him ever. And we have Hauck, Osterkamp, Prellberg, and Stucker, all killed in 1946. That leaves Gareis, who you say is living in the Soviet Zone, and . . . Fenski?”

  “Yes. Umm. He was supposed to have come to the gathering, but he did not. We’ve not heard from him, and we didn’t get any RSVP from him, either.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Bochmann.” Reinhardt shook his head, lit a cigarette, and took a long pull of his coffee. “Did it occur to none of you what might have been going on?”

  “Safety in numbers, Inspector,” Bochmann snapped back. He waved his lists at Reinhardt. “There’s over a hundred names here. Men who served with IV./JG56 during nearly six years of war. So no, the deaths of a few of them did not register with us.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m being unfair.”

  Bochmann’s eyes clouded over suddenly. “That means . . . that means it’s just me and Gareis left. From North Africa.”

  “No. I may as well come clean, as well. Noell’s alive. I’ve spoken with him.” He nodded at Bochmann’s surprise. “The body we found was his brother. Theodor Noell.”

  “I think Noell talked of him, but I never met him.”

  “There’s something else. All the men you have listed as dead—Hauck, Osterkamp, Prellberg, and Stucker—died or were killed in the places they lived in before the war. My information from the WASt has the same addresses.”

  “So?”

  “So the killer was able to find them through their prewar addresses. It means he had access to them.” It almost certainly meant he had access to them through the WASt. Reinhardt could think of no other source that might have contained that information. “All of them were killed between February and July 1946. Prellberg was the first, along with this Lütjens. Then Hauck. Then Stucker and Osterkamp. Then there’s a gap. Then someone called Haber, in January, in Hamburg. Not one of your pilots, probably linked to whatever group Lütjens is from, which means the killer is after two sets of people with some kind of common link. Then there’s Fenski who was, according to your lists, living in Kempfen, although he was from a town near Augsburg. He was alive until recently?”

  “We had a letter from him in January.”

  “Zuleger, Noell, and Jürgen. How was he able to find them?” Bochmann shook his head, his chin bunching. Reinhardt looked over the association’s list, then his own, and it leaped out at him. Or rather, it revealed itself from where it had been hiding in plain sight. “What do they have in common, those four? No? No guesses? None of them were living in their prewar addresses. Therefore, the killer couldn’t find them. Your list,” he said, pointing at it, “your association . . . was all the killer needed to find his last victims, with the last three all murdered here. In Berlin. And all in the space of a couple of days.”

  “You cannot suspect us?”

  “No. I want to talk to your British backers.” Reinhardt threw the words into the conversation, darting them at Bochmann. “Don’t try to lie. I know there is a connection. There must be. You would not try to form a veterans’ association without some form of backing, and the only backing that counts nowadays is Allied. Von Vollmer has gone to the British to complain about me. And I know nothing would bring men so far afield as Kempfen for Fenski, and . . .” he fumed, feeling anger suddenly rising in him, “and Cologne for Jürgen, to Berlin, to occupied Berlin, for a simple veterans’ reunion. And I know Carlsen was at your event on the weekend. Noell saw him there. So don’t treat me as if I’m as dumb as a loaf of bread, and start talking.”

  —

  But Bochmann did not talk. He stubbornly refused to do so, his face firming even as his eyes silted up, becoming watery and unfocused leaving Reinhardt, a short while later, back in Mrs. Dommes’s office with an update for her lists and a clogged sense of frustration in his throat.

  “Fenski, address in Kempfen. He’s missing. Can you contact the local police and see what they might have? Then the same for Hauck and Osterkamp. Police reports, doctors’ reports, anything they might have on those deaths. Keep looking for Thurner. Anything you can think of. Then a call to the police in Bad Oeynhausen with a request for information, and if there was an investigating officer or anyone with knowledge, could they call me? Then can you ask your ladies to kindly go back through the papers for me? I’m looking for news of a death—it may have been reported as a murder—in Bad Oeynhausen in February 1946. There may or may not have been Allied involvement.” Dommes arched her eyebrows at him, but nodded, pen poised over her writing pad. “Lastly, can you have a call placed to this number, please,” he finished, handing over a business card.

  Reinhardt returned to his desk where he seethed, quietly, smoking cigarette after cigarette until he sat in a sluggish swirl of smoke. He stared straight ahead, and for once he was left alone. Perhaps it was the image he gave off, of distant but furious concentration, or the way his chin bunched as he stroked the gap in his teeth with his tongue. When the telephone rang on his desk, he looked at it as he ground out his cigarette before lifting the receiver.

  “’alloo? Inspecteur Reinhardt?”

  “Lieutenant De Massigny. Thank you for taking my call.”

  “Not at all, Inspecteur. I have some news for
you.” Reinhardt heard the rustle of papers. “Alors. For this Kausch person, I have nothing. No record. He was in the Wehrmacht, this person? He was armed forces?”

  “No. SS. I recently found out.”

  “Ah, alors, he is not here. You might look for him in the Document Center. They have all the Nazi files. But for Leyser, I have something, and nothing. I think you should come to the WASt.”

  38

  Reinhardt had to wait at the entrance to the WASt. A pair of vehicles with French army plates and starred pennants were parked in front of the building when he arrived, and the soldiers on duty kept him back. He waited on the street, smoking, until a flurry of activity at the entrance turned into a coterie of staff officers who scurried down the steps to the cars, opening doors and gesticulating at one another. One of them, a lieutenant, saw him. He stalked over to Reinhardt, looking him up and down, then pointed at Reinhardt’s hat.

  “Enlevez-moi ça, sale Boche,” he snarled, and with a snap of his arm he knocked Reinhardt’s hat off his head. The lieutenant curled himself back as he did, as if awaiting or even afraid of a reaction, but somehow sure of his rights to humiliate another man in this fashion. Reinhardt blinked, taken aback by the ferocity in the man’s tone, too surprised to feel any embarrassment. The lieutenant turned and left as a general came out of the WASt. Reinhardt recognized General Ganeval, the commander of the French sector. If the general noticed anything of what had happened, he gave no sign. In his wake came De Massigny, who exchanged a rapid flurry of what sounded like mutually accusatory sentences with the lieutenant, before coming over to Reinhardt as he picked his hat up.

  “I do apologize. Please come. Come.”

  Reinhardt felt that oppressive weight as he entered the building, following De Massigny down echoing halls into a small room that had been converted into an office.

  “Now, Inspecteur. I will tell you of my searches for this Leyser. I looked for his file, and there was no record. No soldbuch. No Wehrpass either. But I found this strange. The name was in the files you found, so he must have existed. I checked with names spelled in a similar way. Nothing. I did some cross-checking of the army units in North Africa at the time of IV./JG56, and still found nothing. I checked with the navy. Nothing. I checked even with the air force. I checked the pay lists. I checked the ration lists. Nothing! Ça alors, I think to myself. Un mystère. I was hooked, as you say. This man, I was determined to find him. And I did.

  “I am thinking, where can I look else for this man. I am stuck. A dead end. Un cul-de-sac, as we French call it. I think it is time for help, so I ask Semrau. He is our most experienced archivist. I tell him my problem, and he asks me if I checked the prisoner returns for the Afrika Korps. I check them. They were filed when they evacuated North Africa. But still, there I do not find this Leyser. Then Semrau, he says to look in the section on prisoner exchanges. These are the lists exchanged between the Allies and the Germans of prisoners who are deemed appropriate to give back. Par exemple, because they are wounded and not able anymore to fight.” Reinhardt nodded at De Massigny to continue, the Frenchman visibly excited.

  “And there, I find Leyser. He was on a list from the armed forces high command that was exchanged through the Red Cross to the British forces in Cairo. But he was not given back. The British kept him. But I have his name, at last. His name was Marius Christian Leyser. He was born in Potsdam, in 1911. He was taken prisoner by the British at Tobruk, in November 1942. That is all the personal information I could find. Voilà! What do you say to that?”

  “I say that’s rather impressive detective work, Lieutenant.”

  “N’est ce pas?” De Massigny agreed.

  “Somebody removed his records, then?”

  “Oui! Somebody, how do you say . . . ?”

  “Redacted the records.”

  “‘Redacted’? A new word for me.” De Massigny sounded happy, and Reinhardt’s mouth twitched in a grin despite his mood. “I think someone redacted the records. To erase the traces of him. Intéressant, non?”

  “Yes, very intéressant. Who could manage such a thing?”

  “It would have to be someone with complete access to the records. And time. And knowledge. The person would have to know where to look. And not to have been disturbed. A member of the occupying forces, par exemple?”

  “Or someone in the WASt.” There was silence in the room.

  “I am not surprised to hear you say that, Inspecteur. I am thinking, it makes some sense. How could we find out?” Reinhardt had his idea but he shook his head, waiting for the Frenchman to say his piece. De Massigny seemed very serious as he nodded and turned to look at the door. “Entrez!” he called.

  The door opened, and Semrau stepped inside.

  “Sit down, Monsieur Semrau, and tell the inspecteur what we talked about.”

  Semrau looked abashed, like a boy brought before his schoolmasters. He sat, placing his hands folded one within the other on the table, then lifted his eyes to Reinhardt. “I may not have been completely open with you, Inspector. I met a man in here, about a year ago, maybe a little more. He was searching for information similar to yours. Information on air force units and postings. He said he worked for the British authorities, but the man was a German.”

  “You are sure of that?” Reinhardt interjected.

  “Positive, sir. He was a Berliner. He was polite enough for one, in any case,” Semrau said, daring a little smile at Reinhardt, but it fell back and away when he saw nothing reciprocated. “This would have been in July 1946, I think. It was after the WASt had moved back to Berlin from Fürstenhagen, after the Americans had handed it over to the French in June.” Reinhardt nodded at him to go on. “I received a request to help someone do some research. The man introduced himself as Marius Leyser.”

  Reinhardt went cold, tensing up inside. “Describe him.”

  Semrau shook his head. “It is difficult, Inspector. The man was . . . the man was the very definition of nondescript. Can you understand that? He was of medium height and medium build. He had short, dark hair. Dark eyes. He wore a little mustache. I remarked on that with him, you see. During the day, as we worked together. I asked him why would any German want to wear a little, dark mustache, and he laughed, and said his British masters often affected one, particularly the officer class, and so he did too. Then he said something strange, about aping ones betters, wanting to fit in more, and he looked at me queerly. As if he knew something I did not. Or as if he knew something about me.” Reinhardt laid his cigarettes and matches on the table. Semrau shook his head at the offer of one, and Reinhardt indicated he should carry on.

  “It turned out, it was the latter, Inspector. Leyser knew something about me, and he dropped hints about it both times he came. They were subtle, but they were there, and he couched them inside little remarks about himself. About what he had done and why he found himself doing what he did. Working for our new masters. Perhaps . . . perhaps I will have that cigarette. Thank you, Inspector.”

  Semrau’s voice had begun to quiver, trembling round the edges of something he still kept inside. Reinhardt said nothing, only pushed the packet of Luckies toward him. De Massigny lit one of his Gauloises, and the light from outside was suddenly sectioned and pillared through a veritable fogbank of smoke.

  “What did Leyser say he was after?”

  “He said he was doing research on air force units. The one you came looking for. He did research on the unit, on the pilots, and he left.” Semrau drew on his cigarette, blowing smoke across his knuckles, and he nodded slightly, as if giving himself permission. “He came back. A second time, at the end of last year, looking for something else. Some kind of test unit. It was a secret unit. There was nothing here about it, and the only time he showed any emotion was when we came across the information the records had been transferred to the Document Center. He seemed to . . . he seemed to become all still, like he was frozen. He made me d
o what research we could in here about the unit, following up ideas, other avenues of research, but there was nothing. The Americans must have moved it all to the center before handing over the WASt to the French.” He tilted his head to draw on his cigarette, blowing out a long stream of contemplative smoke.

  “Go on,” Reinhardt murmured.

  Semrau started, blinking. “Leyser changed tack late in the day. By that time, I was uncomfortable with him. He said, all of a sudden, he wanted to find his own records. For fun. So we did. We found his soldbuch and then, without so much as a . . . as a by your leave, he took it out. The whole file.” For a moment, the bureaucrat in Semrau peeped his head up, the outrage of a man who lived in the angular confines of rules and regulations and records and who saw those certainties questioned, those angles filed off just a little. “He said to me it was our secret. I asked him, of course, to put it back, and why should I keep such a secret for him. He said it was because he knew a secret of mine, and mine was worse than his.” Semrau stopped, breathing lightly but rapidly.

  “Allez, mon vieux,” De Massigny murmured. “Just tell it like you told me.”

  “You see, Inspector, I denounced some of my coworkers to the Gestapo. I had not wanted to. I never thought I would . . . ever have to do anything like that. But I did. There were two archivists. They were half-Jewish, both of them, and I . . . denounced them. I don’t know why I did it. It seemed everyone was.” Semrau said it all calmly, but his fingers, where he held the cigarette over the ashtray, shook.

  “You do know why,” Reinhardt said suddenly. It was not the banality of what Semrau had said that convinced him. There was more. There had to be, otherwise Leyser would not have used it against him.