Reinhardt’s mouth twisted. ‘Yes. A show trial and an execution. Very quick, if it’s done properly.’
Begović blinked at him past his thick glasses. For a moment, it seemed to Reinhardt he wanted to say something else. Share something. ‘I wish you a good night, Captain. Until the next time we meet.’ He tipped his hat and was gone, a small, thin shape disappearing into the night.
17
Reinhardt ate alone in the officers’ mess, making a point of not staying away as much as he wanted to. He sat at a table facing the bar and the corner with the easy chairs. Kurt served him in silence with his usual impeccable style. Pork again, in some sort of cream sauce. The bar was not as full as it might have been, with so many troops gone to the front. It was mostly officers from the Sarajevo garrison, most of whom ignored him, a couple looking his way just long enough for him to be sure that word of what had happened that afternoon had spread. A couple of times he heard whispering, barely restrained snorts of laughter, but he ignored it, even if it did make the flush rise that bit higher in his cheeks and neck.
When he had finished his meal, he made himself go to the bar, but the only other person he exchanged a few words with was Paul Oster, a captain he knew in the medical corps, who sat slumped against the bar, exhausted by the preparations for Schwarz.
‘Now all we can do is wait for the casualties to come in,’ he muttered into his beer. ‘Got everything ready. From here to Mostar. Clean sheets. Soft pillows. Sharp saws. A train ticket home for the lucky ones,’ he giggled, staring into the bottom of his empty beer glass. ‘But those badly wounded will be lucky to get up those bloody roads out of the valleys and through all these damn mountains. And as if that weren’t enough, the idiots have to keep getting themselves hurt,’ he said, as he nodded thanks to the beer Reinhardt bought him.
‘What’s that?’
‘Oh, you know. Carelessness. Idiocy. Self-inflicted wounds. Treated a pair of infantrymen for burns the other day. Quite bad ones, actually. Stupid buggers. They said it was an accident but I’ll bet they were burned siphoning fuel for the black market or some other brainless bloody stunt.’ Oster slurped from his beer, his eyes glazed with fatigue and booze. He left soon after, waving a bleary goodbye as he weaved off.
Reinhardt stayed a while longer with his drink, absently tracing his fingernail through the wood grain on the bar top. There was a pile of magazines and newspapers at one end of the bar, and he flicked through back copies of Signal and Das Schwarze Korps, half hoping to find something by Vukić. He thought back to what Padelin had said about her work. He remembered the sparkle she brought to that Christmas party when she had danced with him and could imagine the light and warmth she must have brought to the lives of soldiers far from home. He could easily see her posing for a photo sitting on a tank with her arms around a couple of lucky men or leading them all in a song.
‘Are you Reinhardt?’ He jerked slightly. A captain of infantry stood behind him, a cloth-covered helmet under his arm with a pair of goggles strapped to them. An unloaded MP 40 hung across his chest and a long pair of leather gloves were shoved behind his belt. His uniform, with the red stripe of the Winter Campaign medal, was covered in dust and his face was dirty, his cheeks showing the crescents of his goggles. ‘Reinhardt?’ he asked, unscrewing the top button of his uniform. Reinhardt nodded, cautiously. ‘Hans Thallberg. Good to meet you,’ he said, offering his hand. ‘Barman,’ he called. ‘Give me a wet cloth. Been driving most of the day,’ he said to Reinhardt as he dropped his helmet on the bar. ‘Come on, man, quickly now,’ he snapped as he was handed a towel. He wiped his face and hands on it vigorously, wadded it up, and tossed it back over the bar. ‘Anyone drinking that?’ he asked Reinhardt, pointing to Oster’s half-empty glass. Reinhardt shook his head and Thallberg knocked it back. ‘Barman, don’t go away. A beer. Tall and cold. And… another slivovitz?’ His nose wrinkled. ‘You’ve a taste for that stuff, do you? A slivo for the captain.’
Reinhardt watched him, somewhat bemused by all the breeze and bluster. Their drinks arrived and Thallberg’s beer went down his throat in three gusty swallows. ‘If you’ve a moment, I’d appreciate a word,’ he gasped, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Table over there? Barman,’ he barked. ‘Another beer.’
The two of them took their seats at a table in the corner of the mess, a couple of battered armchairs arranged around it. Thallberg put his helmet on the table, unstrapped his MP 40, and laid it with a metallic clack on the floor next to him. His equipment belt followed, and he sank into his chair and stretched his legs out. His second beer arrived, and half of it went straight down. He sighed in pleasure, scrubbing fingers through his cropped blond hair. ‘By Christ, I needed that. This is not bad stuff,’ he said, twirling his glass in his hands. ‘They make it here, you know. Sarajevo Brewery. Just up the hill, in fact. Built it right on top of a freshwater spring. Haven’t got a cigarette, have you?’ Reinhardt lit one for each of them and sat back.
‘What do you want, Captain?’
‘Hans, please.’ He sat up in his chair, sipped from his beer, and spoke quietly, the happy-go-lucky demeanour suddenly gone and replaced by something more serious. ‘I understand you’re investigating the murder of Stefan Hendel?’
‘That’s not common knowledge, Captain,’ said Reinhardt, looking straight at him.
‘Not common knowledge?’ Thallberg snorted. ‘After your little rumpus in the mess this afternoon with the colonels? How quick do you think word like that gets around? Relax, Gregor,’ he said, quietly. ‘I’m not here about whose toes you might have trodden on.’ He shoved his cigarette into the corner of his mouth and, reaching inside his jacket pulled out a small, green booklet. Reinhardt knew what it was but opened it anyway, seeing the two photos of Thallberg inside, one of him in uniform, a second of him in civilian clothes. ‘I’m Geheime Feldpolizei. Hendel was one of mine.’
Reinhardt flipped the ID shut and handed it back. ‘Let me see your warrant disc as well.’ Thallberg handed it over. Reinhardt twisted it in his fingers, flipping it over to see Thallberg’s number stamped under Geheime Feldpolizei, and Oberkommando Des Heeres above that. Save for that, it looked just like the one he used to carry as a Berlin detective and, he thought morosely, was probably stamped in the same factory that had once made his. ‘Secret field police? You are secret field police? As was Hendel?’ he asked as he gave it back. Christ, that explained a lot, he thought as pieces of the investigation slid and clicked into place.
‘I was down near Foča when word reached me this morning he’d been killed. I came back as soon as I could. He was working on something pretty secret. I didn’t know exactly what. His tasking came direct from Berlin, but he was after someone senior, I think. The last I heard from him, he was following up a lead given him by this Vukić.’
‘Where would Marija Vukić get information like that?’
‘The girl got around, if half the stories about her are to be believed,’ replied Thallberg. ‘Maybe she got it from someone she was banging. If that’s in fact what she had. Hendel wasn’t all that clear about it.’
‘Did she know Hendel was GFP?’
‘The idiot probably told her. No doubt he was trying to impress her. Can’t think why he’d want to do that,’ he muttered into his beer glass, raising his eyebrows suggestively at Reinhardt.
Reinhardt was finding Thallberg’s lurches between levity and seriousness somewhat disconcerting, as it was probably meant to be. Nothing was ever spontaneous, not with the GFP. ‘And she was planning on giving him this information when?’
‘Apparently, she wanted him to have it at the same time she confronted the person with it. It sounded like a bit of an elaborate setup, if you ask me. Bit too much like the way it happens in the movies. Which, seeing as she was a film director or what have you, shouldn’t surprise us, I suppose. Those sorts of things have a habit of going a bit pear-shaped in real life, though, bu
t I was too far away, and too tied up with work for this attack, so I left it with him.’
‘So, what you’re saying,’ Reinhardt said, eventually, ‘is Vukić may have had information about someone senior in German military circles and she wanted Hendel to have this information, but wanted to give it to him in the presence of another person. Who may or may not have been the person Hendel was investigating. Or she might have had information about something or someone completely unconnected to all that, but who was guilty of something or other.’
Thallberg grinned brightly. ‘Sounds about right,’ he said as he finished his beer. ‘What has Krause said about all this? I haven’t talked to him yet.’
‘Krause?’ repeated Reinhardt.
Thallberg looked straight at him. ‘Krause. Lieutenant Peter Krause. He usually partnered Hendel in any operations. I told Hendel to take someone with him.’
Reinhardt stared back at Thallberg. ‘Krause was GFP as well?’
Thallberg frowned. ‘ “Was”?’ he repeated.
Reinhardt shook his head, annoyed at himself. ‘I misspoke. You’re telling me Krause, Lieutenant Peter Krause, transport company, is a GFP agent?’ Thallberg nodded, frowning at him. ‘No, I haven’t talked to Krause,’ Reinhardt said, finally. So that was the link. Obvious, really. Once you had all the pieces. ‘He’s missing. Hendel drove out to Ilidža with a motorcycle and sidecar. I presume Krause went with him. If he was killed there, his body hasn’t shown up, and he’s now reported as a deserter by the Feldgendarmerie. They’ve been looking for him since Sunday.’
Thallberg ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth and raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, well, well. More work for you?’ Reinhardt stared at the tabletop as Thallberg began picking up his equipment and made to get to his feet. ‘Me, I need a shower and some food. I’m here tomorrow then I’ve got to get back to Foča. I presume you’ve had someone look at Hendel’s files, but this stuff wouldn’t have been in them. I’ll see what we’ve got and get back to you.’
‘Unless you know of a secret place where Hendel stashed his good stuff, good luck finding it. And watch your back,’ said Reinhardt.
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning the Feldgendarmerie are after whatever Hendel had. They think Krause might have it and have been kicking in doors since Sunday.’
Thallberg grunted, curling his lower lip under his teeth. It was the first apparently unconscious gesture Reinhardt had noticed him make. ‘Well, when Krause turns up he’ll be able to explain it all.’
‘Thallberg, I may be wrong on this, but I wouldn’t give a pfennig for Krause’s chances if the Feldgendarmerie, or whoever is behind this, gets to him before we do.’
‘Oh?’ said Thallberg. He put his helmet back on the table and rested the MP 40 against his leg. ‘You have someone in mind?’
Reinhardt looked at him a moment, then breathed in deeply and shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve given you enough. You bring me something tomorrow, and we’ll talk more, but I’m not saying anything else.’
Thallberg looked back at him expressionlessly, then flashed his grin. ‘Fair enough,’ he exclaimed, slapping his thighs. He took a little notebook from his pocket, jotted down his office and extension, tore the page out, and left it on the table. ‘You can find me at State House.’
Reinhardt ran his eyes over Thallberg’s uniform. His unit insignia marked him down as 118th Jäger Division, and he wore the close combat clasp in gold, and on his right arm the patch that signalled he had destroyed at least one enemy tank with handheld explosives. ‘Captain, are those awards real?’ said Reinhardt suddenly. He pointed at Thallberg’s Winter Campaign medal, fishing in his pocket for his handkerchief. ‘Were you in Russia?’
‘That’s what the frozen meat medal says,’ he replied, brightly, referring to the award by its army slang. ‘Although I’ll grant you, as GFP can wear any uniform we like, it’s a pertinent question.’
Reinhardt rose and proffered the filter from the papirosa. ‘Do you know what this is?’
Thallberg leaned over and sniffed, then put his helmet down again and took the handkerchief in his hand, looking closely at it. ‘There’s a blue smudge down the side… I’d say that’s a Belomorkanal papirosa. The authentic poor man’s cigarette.’ He handed it back.
‘It was found at the scene of the murder. A witness reported a man, possibly a chauffeur, smoking them outside the victim’s house shortly before the estimated time of death.’
‘None of my chaps smokes anything like that. I suppose if you find the smoker, you’re halfway there.’ He hefted his equipment, flipping his belt over his shoulder, and paused. ‘Dreadful stuff, that papirosa tobacco. You’ve got to really love that to smoke it out here. Can you believe, of all the things a man could bring back from Russia, he’s got to bring that? Something on your mind, Reinhardt?’
Reinhardt stared at him, at his Winter Campaign medal. He hesitated, running his tongue along the bottom of his teeth. ‘Look, there is strong reason to believe Vukić was killed by someone she met in Russia. And that that person has recently transferred here.’
‘Oh? You know that how?’
‘Never mind that. You gave me something, about the papirosa. I’m giving you something back, that you can do something about. Get a list of recent senior transfers. Officers who have served in the USSR. Something along those lines. And get a list of all officers who attended the recent planning conference in Ilidža. The one they just held for Schwarz.’
Thallberg grinned. ‘Sounds like good old-fashioned detective work to me.’
Reinhardt almost smiled back. ‘It is. It’s slow. Methodical. Sometimes it pays off.’
‘I can do that. You used to be a big shot in Kripo, didn’t you?’ Reinhardt blinked at him, taken aback by the question. Thallberg grinned at his discomfort. ‘I’ve read your file. Gregor Sebastian Reinhardt. One of the best criminal inspectors in the Alexanderplatz. A half dozen big crooks to your name. We liked the look of you for the GFP at one point. That’s how I know. Brauer was your partner, wasn’t he? You two went through the first war together. Eastern Front. Western Front. Iron Cross First Class. At Amiens, right? 1918? You got the first- and second-class Crosses the same day, didn’t you?’ he said, answering his own question. Thallberg looked at him, his eyes bright and inquisitive in the white patch of clean skin his goggles had left. ‘Quite something. How does Brauer take being a sergeant again? You were both inspectors, weren’t you? Now here’s you, a captain, and him, a sergeant.’
Reinhardt sat back down and reached for his glass. He looked up at Thallberg as he took a careful sip from it and put it back down. ‘You’re right about Kripo.’ He felt a flush of anger, remembering his conversation with Claussen about being an NCO. Christ, was it only yesterday? He acknowledged nothing else. Nothing about the east in 1916, the transfer to the stormtroopers and the Western Front in 1917, the attacks of 1918 when they seemed to have victory in their grasp, the wound that saw him hospitalised for the last months of the war and almost cost him his leg, the riotous years following it. To do so, it seemed, was an admission that it was fine to distill a man’s life down to a few choice nouns, but it grated on him that he was allowing this Captain Thallberg to draw his own conclusions about him. ‘As to how Master Sergeant Brauer feels, you’d have to ask him.’ His voice seemed to come from far away.
Thallberg grinned that boyish grin. ‘I’ll be in touch tomorrow,’ he said, and with that he was gone.
Reinhardt stayed in his chair a while longer after Thallberg had gone. The man was something of a whirlwind, for sure. He was certainly different from most of the officers around here, and Reinhardt could not but feel strangely attracted to the thought of working with someone like him. As GFP, he would be of invaluable assistance, as long as Reinhardt could manage him and for as long as the GFP saw value in a partnership. The GFP could do pretty much anything. Go anywhere. Be any
one. Wear any uniform, or none at all. Use whatever they needed, when they needed it. What was that English expression… ? Holding a tiger by the tail… ?
All of a sudden, he realised he was shaking, and a spasm ran through his stomach. He glanced quickly around the bar, but no one was paying him any attention, and he folded his arms tightly, pressing his hands to his sides. He hunched around the blaze of stress and confusion and frustration that burned in the pit of his belly and drew a long, ragged breath through his clenched teeth. It was coming up to midnight, and he realised how tired he was and how much he had absorbed that day.
‘Enough,’ he said to himself. ‘Enough.’ When he felt steady, he left and crossed the courtyard over to his wing and took the stairs up to his second-floor room. With a trembling hand he pushed the door open to the bathroom and pulled on the light. The bulb flickered on, steadying slowly. Showers to the left, behind a wall of cracked white tiles. Toilet stalls to the right, the toilets mere squats, holes with footrests to either side. A line of sinks down the middle of the room with mirrors in front of them.
His stomach cramped, and he winced. He hunched over a sink, but nothing came up. He ran water and splashed his face, wetting the back of his neck, and drank his fill. Settling his fists, he stared at himself in the dull mirror. He looked dreadful. His face was drawn and lined, a drab fuzz of stubble furring his cheeks, his eyes sunk far back and the whites yellow in the vapid glow of the bulb.
He felt the bile rising again and hung his head over the sink, breathing hoarsely through his nose, waiting. Nothing came up, but he felt something. His skin began to crawl. He lifted his head, sniffing the air like an animal, and found it. That acrid tang. The same one he had smelled outside Vukić’s house. He drew his pistol as he lurched around, his eyes stabbing along the line of stalls. One by one, he pushed the doors open onto nothing, only the stained round hole in the floor, until he came to the end, to the one he often used. There was a window there, there was light during the day, and the smell of men’s waste and the carbolic slop the cleaners used was not quite so strong. He pushed the door open. The smell was there. There was a sprinkling of ash down the angle of floor and wall, and there, floating in the water at the bottom of the hole, a finger’s length of what looked like cardboard. He fished it out with two fingers. A cardboard filter. A Belomorkanal papirosa.
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