The Man from Berlin

by Luke McCallin

  Reinhardt shook his head. ‘No. Nothing quite so rewarding for me.’

  ‘Perhaps not anymore,’ Petar said. He motioned at Reinhardt’s Iron Cross. ‘But once it was.’

  ‘Thank you, Father. You have been most helpful.’ Reinhardt paused, looking back into the church. There really was nothing here anymore for him. Such a long road he had walked from the days of the boy he was, the boy he was brought up to be. Of the comfort he had once taken in the rote and ritual of the church, war, the years he had spent policing the filth and squalor of Berlin, and of watching his wife pulled away from him, had driven a wedge between then and now. ‘You must excuse me, Father,’ he said, with a smile meant as self-deprecating. ‘God and I have drifted quite far apart, but I like to think we were once close enough.’ He opened the big door and stepped outside into bright sunlight.

  Petar followed him out. ‘God is never far from you, my son. You only have to reach out to him wherever you are. But it is funny how often I hear such similar things from your fellow soldiers.’

  ‘Who said what to you, Father?’ Claussen was standing just outside, his hands clasped loosely behind his back.

  ‘That many of you feel that you have drifted too far from our Lord.’ Petar paused, looking down at the flagstones that lined the church’s entrance. ‘I talked not long ago, Sunday in fact, and again yesterday, with an officer who felt like that. A very erudite man who had a very Catholic upbringing. A most remarkable knowledge of the Bible. We talked of much. He seemed… troubled. Borne down by a great weight.’

  ‘Well, if he was heading for the front, I suppose that’s only to be expected before battle.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. Doing God’s work is never easy on mortal men.’ Reinhardt had heard this kind of speech in the trenches. Us against them. God with us. Except here, it had taken on a measure of virulence he had never known. ‘No, it was not fear of battle. It was something else. Some inner demon he needed to exorcise. A fear that there was no way back for him. For those like him. We spoke much of forgiveness, and absolution. I offered him confession, but he refused.’

  ‘Perhaps he knew its limits.’ Petar frowned at him. ‘The limits of forgiveness,’ Reinhardt repeated. ‘What some of us have seen, and heard, and done, here in this country, will remain with us as long as we live.’

  The priest smiled, but something seemed to shift behind his face, and for a moment Reinhardt caught a glimpse of someone else – ­something else – behind his eyes. ‘I am sure it must be difficult, my son. But what you do is for a great cause. The Serbs. The Jews. Communism. These are most terrible afflictions. They must be swept away by men of courage and iron conviction. What you do in that cause, you will be forgiven.’

  ‘Father. There is perhaps one way you can help me.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Father, please think about this. Did you notice if any of the Germans who came to mass on Sunday, or since, acted strange?’

  ‘Strange, Captain?’

  ‘Nervous. Withdrawn. Panicked. Perhaps someone acting un­towards. Someone who seemed distressed. Or perhaps a new face… ?’

  Petar frowned, shook his head. ‘I am not sure what you are getting at, Captain.’

  ‘May I tell you something in confidence? Yes? I have a reason to believe Marija was killed by a German soldier. And I have reason to believe that soldier may well have come here. Perhaps to confess. Perhaps to seek solace in prayer. Of course, the confessional is sacrosanct. But, perhaps, did you notice anything in church that Sunday?’

  The priest’s eyes had gone flat at Reinhardt’s words. ‘What are you alleging, Captain?’

  ‘Nothing, Father. I am following up a line of inquiry. A feeling. Marija’s murder was horrible but her killer arranged her body as if she were at rest, afterwards. It seemed to me an act of remorse. And that such a man might seek… solace… in a place like this.’

  ‘I had read the Partisans were to blame for Marija’s death.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Reinhardt, noncommittally. ‘But for instance, I would be more interested in hearing about that soldier you talked with.’

  ‘No, Captain. You will not get that from me. I know what you Nazis have done to men of the faith. You will not hound that man for it, nor for his doubts.’ Reinhardt made to speak, but Petar cut him off. ‘Enough, Captain. I feel you have misled me. That you manoeuvred me into speaking of such things.’

  It sounded so much like what Stolić had said in the officers’ mess that Reinhardt blinked. ‘I am sorry you think that, Father.’

  Petar nodded, his eyes considering. ‘Well, even if I cannot applaud your line of reasoning, there are enemies all around, Captain. Where we least expect them. And even if you have, as you say, drifted far from your faith, go with my blessing.’

  He touched Reinhardt on the shoulder. It felt like something caustic, and something seemed to come apart then, deep inside. Reinhardt was not sure what it was, only that something small, but something important, broke. Snapped. ‘You know, this medal,’ he said, jerking his thumb at his Iron Cross. ‘I got it taking a British redoubt at Amiens, in France. 1918. I attacked it, and then I defended it. I lost nearly all my men. At the end, there were just a few of us standing. Three, in fact. We all got the Iron Cross. One of them was a Jew. His name was Isidor Rosen.’

  He lit an Atikah and blew smoke at the sky, feeling Claussen’s eyes heavy on him. Isidor Rosen. Big and bluff. A shock of red hair. A real prankster who fought like the devil, who used to joke he liked fighting the English because at least with them he knew where the enemy was, and whom Reinhardt had tried to save after the war, using Becker’s illegal network. ‘After the war, Isidor became a fireman. He died, trapped in a burning house, while his fellow firemen just stood around outside. A house someone set fire to deliberately, in order to kill him. I know that, you see, because I conducted the investigation into his death.

  ‘Do you wonder what I mean by all this? I wonder myself, actually. A few things I know. The last war was easier than this one. Just us against them. And the Jews? Funny thing about Jews is,’ he said, inhaling deeply, ‘there’s really nothing mysterious about them, once you’ve seen one blown in two, his guts mixed up with any other German’s. Or a Tommy’s. I hear a lot of people say they’re all around. Behind all this, manipulating us.’ He shrugged with his mouth. ‘Could be the conspiracies are right. Or could be people will believe anything they want. But I know that in 1918 I knew where to find a lot of them, and that was in the trenches with me.’ He looked hard into the priest’s eyes, searching for the utter conviction that drove the man. Searching, so he could do what? Crush it?

  As fast as it came, whatever drove him was gone. Perhaps what was broken inside had mended. Perhaps he had needed to say what he had just said. But whatever it was Reinhardt fancied looked out from the priest’s eyes was still there. Nothing he said or did would ever drive what motivated the priest away.

  So he turned and left, motioning to Claussen, a sudden lift in his step. The lift lasted as long as it took his knee to twinge painfully as he took the steps down to the square too fast. As he got into the kübelwagen he looked back. The priest was still standing by the door looking down at him. ‘Back to the barracks, Sergeant.’ Reinhardt resisted the urge to wave a cheery goodbye as Claussen drove away from the church.

  ‘You heard all that?’ he asked Claussen, hooking his arm over the door and staring up at the hills. He looked over at the sergeant. ‘Well?’

  ‘I heard, sir,’ replied Claussen, flicking his eyes up at the mirror.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And what, sir?’

  ‘What do you think, Sergeant? Was I unkind to a priest? Did I say anything that shocked you?’

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘I’m sure you do, Claussen,’ snapped Reinhardt. ‘You were in the last lot. You were a copper. In Dusseldorf, weren’t you? We�
�re not so different.’ Down in the river, boys were playing on the rocks again. One of them watched him go by. Reinhardt waved, but the boy did not wave back.

  Claussen was silent a moment, his lower lip moving as he chewed it. ‘I can’t say I was shocked, sir,’ he said, finally. ‘I heard what you said, about Jews and the trenches. I can’t say I ever had much use for a Jew, sir, but they were there right with us then.’ Claussen swung the car up to the main entrance to the barracks. A soldier swung the striped barrier pole up, and Claussen drove through, the tyres thumping on the cobbles of the courtyard, and parked. He turned the engine off and sat looking down, then turned to Reinhardt. ‘After the war, in Dusseldorf, there were a couple on the force. I got friendly with one of them. Walked a beat with him. Got drunk with him. In and out of scraps. Played football together. Went to his house. A couple of Passovers, things like that. Funny thing, though,’ he said, a small, tight smile on his face. ‘He would never come to mine. For Christmas, or Easter. Still,’ he continued, after a moment. ‘He was a good copper. He was kicked off the force in thirty-four, I think. He took on whatever work he could find, managed to get his family out, but he didn’t make it. He got beaten half to death by a group of SS one night. He was brought into the police station where I was watch sergeant. Died in the cells from his injuries.’ Claussen paused, looking emptily out across the parking area. ‘I suppose that was it for me, really.’

  ‘What was?’ asked Reinhardt.

  Claussen pursed his lips as he shrugged. ‘The end of being a copper. I mean, what was the point?’ He glanced around. ‘The lunatics had taken over the asylum, hadn’t they? It must have been the same in Berlin.’

  Reinhardt nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose it was.’

  ‘What about you, sir?’

  ‘The last straw?’ Claussen nodded. ‘I tried to arrest an SA man who had thrown a homosexual out of a fifth-floor window. He was known for it. Everyone knew who did it. They knew nothing would come of it. It was not as if it was the first time, but something snapped that night. It was… not long after my wife died. I got blind drunk and tried to arrest him in the bar he always went to…’ He trailed off.

  ‘And… ?’ prompted Claussen.

  ‘They laughed at me until I pulled a gun on him, and then they beat the shit out of me. Dumped me on the street. Spent the night in jail. Official reprimand for breaching the peace. Drunk on duty. Conduct unbecoming, et cetera, et cetera… The writing was on the wall for me, so I jumped before I was pushed.’

  ‘And now, here we both are,’ said Claussen, after a moment. He stared at his hands as he ran them up and over the steering wheel. The engine tinkled as it cooled. Reinhardt thought back over what he had said and how easy it had been to tell it to this bluff man. He listened to the tone he thought he could hear in Claussen’s voice. The one that matched his own feelings. That here was a chance to do the right thing, and that doing the right thing was not something he could do on his own. He needed someone with him, and it might as well be Claussen because there was no one else.

  ‘Hendel was GFP,’ Reinhardt said, after a moment. ‘So was… is… Krause. Hendel was investigating someone senior. This someone was a friend of Vukić’s, almost certainly her lover. Whoever this someone is, Vukić had something on him. Some kind of blackmail. She was working with Hendel to expose him, but it went wrong, and they both ended up dead and Krause is on the run. Krause has a film, or photographs, and the Feldgendarmerie are chasing him because someone’s told them to get that evidence back.’

  Claussen puffed his cheeks and blew his breath out. ‘God,’ he muttered.

  ‘Quite,’ added Reinhardt. ‘And to finish it off, it seems I’ve pissed off enough people that they’ve told Freilinger to bring the investigation to a close. He’s being transferred to Italy, effective immediately.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Orders’ll come, for sure.’ Reinhardt got out of the car and paused with his hands on the door. ‘In the meantime, I’m working with this GFP captain. Or maybe for him. Who the hell knows with that lot?’

  ‘What about Krause, sir? Where is he, do you think?’

  ‘Sergeant, if you were Krause. If you were on the run. Where would you go?’

  Claussen looked back at him, unblinking. ‘The Reds,’ he said, firmly, with barely a pause for thought.

  ‘The Partisans,’ nodded Reinhardt. ‘I think you’re right.’ He tapped his hands on the door frame. ‘I want you to go over to the main hospital. Ask for Dr Oster, on my behalf. Remind him he told me about a couple of soldiers he treated for burns the other day. See if he’s got records of them. Names. Units. Bring them back to me here if you get anything.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Captain. Just one thing, sir. I’d like to understand. About the church.’

  ‘It’s a guess, Sergeant. It’s the first church on the way in from Ilidža. I thought if my hunch about the killer’s remorse was true, he might have wanted to pray. That would have been the first place he came to.’

  ‘What time do you think?’

  ‘Seven o’clock would have been too early and too noticeable.’ He looked at Claussen, saw the tightness in the corner of the sergeant’s eyes, the bunch of his chin. ‘Ten o’clock would have been more likely. Is there something you want to add, Sergeant?’

  ‘Sir. There was someone there at ten. He was there before I arrived. He was still there when I left. On his knees. Hands in front of his head, head right down. Kept himself at the back. Didn’t come for communion. I’d not seen him before and I only now just thought of him, as you were talking to that priest.’

  ‘Rank?’

  ‘Couldn’t really see. An officer, I’m pretty sure. Smallish. Thin hair. Bald at the back.’

  Reinhardt shrugged. ‘It could have been our man. Could equally have been someone else.’

  ‘Yes, sir. He moved his hands a lot.’ Claussen demonstrated, his hands clasping and unclasping, running back and over each other. ‘Like they were dirty.’

  The two of them stared at each other a moment, the one seeing the scene as it was, the other as he imagined it. There was an echo of truth, suddenly, all around. As if a little piece of the puzzle had shifted, revealed itself. Then, without any further words being exchanged, Claussen drove away and Reinhardt went inside and over to the ­administration office. He felt tired. Drained. But in a good way. Like he used to feel sometimes after working a case with Brauer. He ordered a call placed through to Thallberg. He held the receiver in the crook of his shoulder as he shook a cigarette out and lit it. His knee ached, and he reached down to rub it absentmindedly. He thought about the officer the priest described as the line clicked, hummed, and then Thallberg’s voice came on.

  ‘Reinhardt?’

  ‘It’s me,’ he replied. ‘We should talk.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Meet me at the fountain, on Baščaršija.’

  ‘Half an hour,’ came the reply, and the phone went dead.

  Reinhardt unbuttoned his tunic and slipped the file under it, nestling it against his ribs. Giving his knee a last rub, he crossed over the bridge to Baščaršija and sat at the little café where he always went and ordered Turkish coffee. It was that time of day again, the people of the city coming together, pushing away the cares of the war. There was something in the air; Reinhardt could feel it. He always found himself reaching for it, straining, but never managing to experience it, to capture whatever it was the people all around him seemed to feel.

  A man came out of the barber’s next door to the café, brushing his shoulders. He wore a dark suit and a white shirt with no tie, and carried a newspaper, which he folded and put under his arm. He leaned into the café, called his order, then sat down at the table next to Reinhardt, unfolding his paper. Their eyes met for a moment, and the man nodded a cautious greeting, one patron to another. Reinhardt nodded back as his coffee came. The waiter got his finger caught under
the tray, and it clattered as he pulled it out from underneath. Reinhardt glanced at him, and the waiter gave a tight smile of apology as he backed away. Reinhardt dropped some sugar into the pitcher, watched it turn brown and sink. He stirred the coffee, let it sit, absorbed in the ritual, the comfort of the same gestures repeated time after time by him, by those around him, on the square, in houses across the city, in cities across the country.

  ‘Captain Reinhardt.’

  He kept very still, then looked up. The man reading the paper was not looking at him, but Reinhardt could tell all his attention was focused on him. Moving slowly, Reinhardt unfastened the catch on his holster.

  ‘Please do not be alarmed,’ said the man, as he turned a page, tilting his head to read the headlines. ‘I mean you no harm.’

  Forcing himself to move calmly, Reinhardt poured his coffee, waited a moment, then sipped. The man turned another page, tutting at something he read. Another waiter brought the man his coffee. ­Reinhardt glanced at him, and the man looked back. He was big, broad, no subservience in his eyes as he went to stand by the café’s entrance, seemingly relaxed, his hands behind his back, but his eyes roamed over the square.

  ‘How do you know who I am?’ he asked, finally.

  ‘That is not important. If you agree to accompany me, someone would like to talk to you,’ he said, rattling his paper into shape.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I cannot tell you.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Not far.’ The man folded his paper in half, held it in one hand as he put sugar in his coffee and stirred it. His German was strongly accented, but good.

  ‘You do not offer much in the way of assurances.’

  The man poured his coffee, letting it sit while he turned another page. ‘Captain. If we wanted to harm you, we could have done so. For assurances, I do not have any to offer. But,’ he said, folding another page, ‘perhaps this might suffice. Two men have been following you. They followed you out to Ilidža and back. We cut them off at Marijin Dvor. So they don’t know you are here.’