The Divided City

by Luke McCallin

  “Inspector Weber,” Ganz shouted, before Schmidt shoved his pistol into the back of the elderly detective’s neck for emphasis.

  “Quiet, I said.” Weber’s color was higher, his breathing quick. In the corner of his eye, Reinhardt saw Markworth tense, as if he sought to join his weight to this confrontation. “And I told you, Ganz, it’s not ‘inspector.’ It’s chief inspector. Kommisariat 5.” Weber’s eyes gleamed as his secret came out, and suddenly things made sense to Reinhardt. Weber’s youth, his apparent self-assurance, where he might have come from: He was protected. That, or he was part of something that would cover him, and he knew that Collingridge’s information of rumors of a new Soviet-backed secret police force were true, and he knew who it was who had spoken to Skokov of Reinhardt’s activities.

  “K5?” It was Markworth who spoke. His eyes pushed hard at Weber, flicked up and down him, steadied on Weber’s face, and although Reinhardt could not see it, he knew Weber was flushing with embarrassment because Markworth had found him wanting.

  “K5,” Weber blurted, as if too full of self-pride to keep the word in. “A new police for a new era. A police force to stop any drift back to the ways of the past.”

  “Same shit, different shovel,” Markworth said, and Weber jerked as if struck. “Let me guess. You’re one of those who came back from Moscow following the Red Army. Better yet, given your evident callowness, you were born there. Born in exile. I can hear it in your voice.”

  “We shall love talking to you, Mr. Markworth,” Weber hissed. “We shall love putting you on display too. A Fascist officer and war criminal in disguise. A Fascist officer at the service of the West. Of the British. Hiding within their ranks. Or allowed to prosper. And I don’t exclude you from all this, Reinhardt,” Weber said derisively, and Reinhardt knew he was remembering his humiliation at Reinhardt’s hands outside von Vollmer’s factory. “You have a lot of explaining to do. Another Fascist officer, another little placeman showing his true sympathies.”

  “Weber, you . . .” Reinhardt began.

  “I suppose you had better bring me in then, young man,” Markworth interrupted, and the challenge was evident in his words. He held out his wrists to be shackled, but Weber shifted, and his companions shifted with him. “What, no manacles? No cuffs? Not even a bit of rope?” he mocked them. “Such foresight. You’ll go far, young man.”

  “Be quiet, pig, or I’ll shoot you where you kneel.”

  “And where’s the glory and advancement in that, eh? And what about these pesky witnesses? One body you could explain. Three would be a bit harder, especially with the Americans about. For they are nearby, aren’t they, Reinhardt?” Reinhardt could only nod, latching on to the hook Markworth was offering. “That’s Reinhardt’s deal with them. He caught me, fair and square, and they’re standing back for now, but they won’t forever. So if you want me,” he said, raising one knee, and pushing himself slowly to his feet, his hands outstretched at his side, “you’d better save the speeches for later and take me while things are quiet.”

  How quickly the authority and initiative in the room had shifted, Reinhardt realized, wondering if Weber could feel it too. He glanced at Ganz and saw he had felt it as well.

  “Hands up!” Weber snapped.

  “They’re already up, young man,” Markworth mocked him, his arms up and fingers linked behind his back. Weber nodded to Frohnau, and while he kept his pistol aimed at Markworth, the other detective patted him down, pulling, as Reinhardt had guessed, a bag from one of the pockets of Markworth’s coat. He emptied it on the bed, a quick rush of sand and a length of rubber pipe. Reinhardt looked at Markworth, and he saw the twitch that went across Markworth’s face, almost a snarl, as if of frustration at vengeance so nearly complete but frustrated. And he reminded himself—because he realized he had forgotten it—that before him stood a cold-blooded murderer. But Markworth was also a man he had come to like, even admire, and he was a man who was subtly engineering the present circumstances to some kind of advantage for both himself and Reinhardt. He was doing that, Reinhardt knew, but he was doing something else. He had done something else. Markworth had done something, right in front of them, but Reinhardt could not work out what it might have been.

  “He’s clean,” Frohnau said.

  “Good. We’re going downstairs. Me first, and our friend,” Weber said, looking at Markworth. “Then you, Schmidt. Frohnau, you keep Reinhardt company.”

  “What about him,” Frohnau asked, pointing at Noell.

  “Cut him loose and leave him. We’ve got bigger fish,” Weber grinned.

  Weber put his pistol to Markworth’s back and pushed him out of the room, swearing at him to move faster as Markworth’s limp had reappeared, much exaggerated. Schmidt followed with Ganz. Frohnau fumbled Noell’s bindings loose, then pointed Reinhardt out.

  “You can’t just leave him here. He’s not safe. And he’s a witness.”

  “Shut up and move,” was all Frohnau had to say. They caught up with the others as they clattered down the stairs after the first four, and found them on one of the building’s lower landings as Markworth hobbled down slowly and with a group of men coming up the stairs. The newcomers had the hangdog look of exhausted men, covered in the dust and filth of whatever labor they had been able to find. They stood to one side as Weber waved them away, their eyes flat and lidded.

  “What’s going on then?” one of them asked, a man with white hair and white stubble that creased the contours of his weathered and lined face.

  “Never you fucking mind. Just stay out the way,” Weber ordered.

  “Big city manners, is it? And there I was, thinking people were more polite here.” By his accent he was from the east, and Reinhardt marked him as a displaced person forced out of his home by the war’s end.

  “Shut it, old man.”

  “They’re taking me back,” Markworth blurted. “They’re taking me back to Königsberg, and I’ve done nothing.” His accent was suddenly pure Pomeranian. “I can’t go back, I can’t, I can’t!” He had changed again, subtly. His posture, his voice, everything spoke desperation and terror, such that Reinhardt would hardly have recognized him.

  “What you doin’ with him?” one of the DPs demanded.

  “I said shut it,” Weber snarled, shoving the man back with his free hand. The man allowed himself to be pushed, but his belligerence was plain.

  “Sod that,” the man retorted. “I put up with that enough back home from the fucking Poles and the fucking Ivans. I’m not fucking putting up with it here.”

  “What?” Weber lashed, pushing his face into the other’s. “You think this place is some paradise for you lot to just waltz in, is it?”

  “Do you have any idea what you’re sending him back to?” the older man asked. “And anyway, just who are you?”

  “They’re secret police,” Markworth wailed, his accent flawless to Reinhardt’s ears. Weber tightened his grip on him, pushing the pistol harder against the back of his neck, but his face betrayed its fear and its indecision. “Secret police, like the old days. They’re sending me back. They’ll send you back, too. I’ve done nothing wrooong,” he keened.

  “Is it true, then?” the old man asked.

  There was no answer, because Markworth was moving to his own rhythm in the distraction he had just made. He slid one leg back between Weber’s and spun himself around so that Weber’s pistol was suddenly pointing past his head, not at the back of it. Before Weber could do more than gape, Markworth had steadied him by his lapels and head-butted him. From farther up the stairs, Reinhardt heard the crack of bone. There was an explosion of blood, and Weber collapsed to the floor like a marionette with its strings cut.

  Schmidt gurgled with fear as Markworth dipped his right hand into his left sleeve and pulled out a long, slim blade from what must have been a hidden sheath. Reinhardt recognized it as a British Commando knife, its steel
a lustrous gleam as he cut it at Schmidt’s face, and part of Reinhardt recognized it for the blade that must have killed Stresemann. Schmidt squalled and reeled backward as the knife opened the skin across his forehead, and his face was flooded with blood. His pistol clattered to the floor as he flailed against the side of the stairwell, Ganz dropping his weight away to one side. Markworth flowed past them, his limp hardly bothering him, and there was death in his eyes for Frohnau beneath the Red Indian splash of Weber’s blood across his forehead.

  He was too far away, though, and Frohnau’s pistol was coming up as he shoved Reinhardt to one side. Reinhardt grabbed it and pushed it hard into the wall, grinding his weight onto it, onto Frohnau’s knuckles until his fingers spasmed open. He turned into the policeman and punched up and into his groin. Frohnau’s eyes gaped wide like a fish’s as the breath whooshed out of him. Reinhardt felt Markworth behind him, and fumbled Frohnau’s pistol into his own hand, turning, ducking, but Markworth was too close.

  The Englishman battered aside Reinhardt’s arm, and there was a moment when their eyes met, just a moment, long enough for Reinhardt to know what was coming, and then Markworth’s fist slammed into the side of his knee. Reinhardt screamed with the pain as it erupted up and through him, and maybe he screamed more with the betrayal of it, and the pistol fell away. Almost mute with the pain, his movements the flailing panic of a drowning man, Reinhardt scrabbled with his arms at Markworth’s legs, thinking only to pull him down, but he was left empty-handed on the stairs as Markworth stamped upward, the DPs’ shouts and Schmidt’s screams following.

  “Markworth! Markworth!” Reinhardt bellowed over his pain. Someone lifted him to his feet, pushed the pistol into his hands.

  “Go,” Ganz wheezed, pushing him on.

  The first steps up were agony, the remainder little better, as Reinhardt forced himself almost on all fours past the pain of his knee, the palms of his hands scraping across the gritted filth of the stairs, and he knew he would not be in time. He reached the top floor with his breathing like a bellows, limping with his weight against the wall, pushing past people as they emerged from their rooms, and heard the cry from the room they had left

  “Markworth! Markworth, don’t!”

  He lurched into the doorway, saw Noell on the bed with his head twisted awry and sand scattered about his mouth, and the window hauled up and open. He fell into the window frame, one hand on the scarred wood for balance, looking out into the night. A hand gripped the collar of his coat and hauled him half outside, his feet scrabbling wildly inside the room. A blow to his elbow, and the pistol fell away into the night.

  There was a small ledge outside, wide enough to walk on, coated thickly with dirt and grime. Markworth stood there, his knife against Reinhardt’s throat. Reinhardt went as still as his breathing would allow.

  “You cannot follow me, Reinhardt. I don’t want to hurt you, but you can’t follow me, and you can’t stop me.”

  “Markworth, this must end.”

  “It has. I’m finished, now. Noell was the last.”

  Reinhardt felt him move and closed his eyes, cringing from the blow that would come. Markworth hit him behind the ear with the pommel of the knife. Reinhardt’s world went black, and he hardly felt it as Markworth shoved him back into the room. The blackness faded, starred agony replacing it. He heaved himself onto hands and knees, his cheek dragging wetly up the wall as he pulled himself up to rest his head upon the sill. His tongue lolled, and he felt like a dog that puts its head into the wind, mouth agape.

  It was darkness down in the alley. He could not tell what was down there, or who, or how much time had passed.

  “Br . . .” he croaked. “Brra . . .” But his voice failed him.

  Down in the alley something flashed, a stutter of light. Sound billowed up, the ripping crash of a gun and some distant part of him—the same part, perhaps, that had recognized Markworth’s knife—recognized the noise of Brauer’s Bergmann.

  “Brauer,” Reinhardt whispered, then slid back down the wall into unconsciousness.

  PART FIVE

  The Devil Is Never So Black

  49

  On a cold and crisp morning a few days later, Mrs. Meissner asked Reinhardt to escort her to Schlesischer Station. She was excited about her art commissions, about meeting up with former colleagues coming in on the train to discuss the hunt for looted treasures, but nervous about going into the Soviet sector alone. There was a gleam in her eye, something pleasingly conspiratorial, and he smiled as he escorted her down the street, her hand nestled on his forearm. On the U-bahn, he chased a pair of children out of the seats reserved for the elderly and wounded, and she sat primly, her hands folded over her handbag as the train bounced her along.

  At the station, there was already something of a crowd, mostly elderly men and women, and she waved gaily to people of her acquaintance, colleagues and friends from the art world. Inside the station, policemen formed a cordon at the head of the platforms, and there was a welcoming committee of more people she knew. Mrs. Meissner pushed a newspaper into Reinhardt’s hands, and he drifted over to a bench as she joined her friends. He scanned the headlines, noting the arrival of a commission from Belgrade, in the new Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia that Tito’s Partisans had created from the wreckage of the war, come to inquire as to what it would take to hunt down and reclaim all the art and treasure the Nazis had looted from their country.

  There was nothing, though, about an incident in a hostel for DPs, nor about the escape of a wanted criminal. That particular headline had been quashed. The case was done, though, and Reinhardt thought that so was he. Done with Berlin’s police, all but persona non grata after the fiasco of the trap laid for Markworth. Not quite a fiasco, he corrected himself, noting his habitual introspection and slide into morbid self-analysis. The trap had worked, it was not his fault, nor Ganz’s, that Weber’s involvement had given Markworth the confusion he needed to make his escape. Weber was gone, and Reinhardt did not know where. Unmasked as a K5 agent, and thus as an infiltrator into a police force already thoroughly infiltrated with Allied agents of varying colors, Weber’s usefulness was at an end. He had vanished upon his release from hospital, probably somewhere east. Schmidt was back at Gothaerstrasse, his head heavily bandaged, and Frohnau watched Reinhardt’s every move with deep suspicion.

  Most of the police looked at him the same way, with suspicion, or askance, maybe a few with admiration. Reinhardt had been subjected to the cold fury of Margraff at a meeting in his offices in Linienstrasse, but Ganz and Bliemeister, and even Tanneberger, had spoken for him, and at least there had been a suspect, even if he had escaped. Something of Reinhardt’s old legend still clung to him, but he also knew none of them really trusted him, and he was sure there was little to no future for him in the force. Not in this city, not in these times.

  “Give it some time,” Collingridge had urged him. He called Markworth a “serial killer,” and Collingridge’s star had risen with the capture of Kausch and his band. The Americans backed him—he had even had the visit of Collingridge’s superior, a veritable caricature of a cigar-chewing Texan—and Bliemeister had spoken to him about coming to work for him as an advisor, but it was hard knowing that your own people, your colleagues, the men who were supposed to go shoulder to shoulder with you, doubted your loyalties.

  The British were furious, but more interested in covering up the involvement of one of their men in so many crimes, and in protecting BOALT from being mentioned too often and too openly. It was hard to know, though, whether Whelan and the British were more embarrassed by Markworth’s betrayal of them—sporting analogies were much in use, “just not cricket” heard once too often, “bad blood will out” almost as much—or more angered by his activities under cover of the British occupation authorities: murder and the encouragement of seditious activities in the formation of the Ritterfeld Association.

  They were more
afraid of being embarrassed, Reinhardt concluded, rattling the newspaper’s sheets into shape as a train pulled into the station, of looking like fools in front of their peers. The Soviets were quietly content where they were not openly satisfied at the situation in which the British found themselves, but it was the opinion of only one of them that mattered to Reinhardt, as he folded the newspaper into his lap and lifted his eyes to the station’s open roof, where the repairs had not yet reached.

  Skokov had found the files, at Güstrow, where Noell had said they had been hidden. Reinhardt did not know what was in them, and could not have cared less. Although he had been unhappy with what had happened to Noell, the Soviet had been true to his word, releasing Friedrich from whatever bondage he had held him in.

  “Be careful, Captain,” he had said, his eyes alight with sardonic amusement, “that the past does not come to haunt you.”

  “It haunts all of us,” Reinhardt had replied.

  “Your son has nothing more to fear from me. What he carries within him, and what his comrades believe he has done, will matter more now. But in that, I can no longer help him.”

  Rumors, and more than rumors, of the war in the east . . . That war that had sucked millions down into its maelstrom. Reinhardt still looked at his son and wondered, and the policeman in him longed to know, but the father in him could wait. One day, his son would speak of it. Reinhardt feared that day, and yet could not wait for it to come. On the way here, Reinhardt and Meissner had passed Red Army women on duty at a crossroads, stocky and blunt in fur hats, brown tunics, skirts and knee-high boots, with submachine guns slung over their backs. They carried traffic-control batons like lollipop sticks, directing vehicles. They were efficient with their movements, coming to attention whenever an Allied vehicle passed, rigorously checking the few German ones. One of the soldiers eyed him up as he passed, tapping her baton against the leather of her boot. She was a heavy, swarthy-faced woman with dark, slanted eyes over slabbed cheekbones and all unbidden, the opening lines of Blok’s poem came tumbling up out of his mind.