The Man from Berlin

by Luke McCallin

  ‘A highly placed one. One that you should never have started to piss off. One that you know something about, and I want to know it, too.’

  ‘You’re not making sense, Becker,’ said Reinhardt, dismissively, allowing his eyes to roam away from the major. There was not much, just a couple of rickety-looking chairs, a battered table with a tin water bottle on it, and a stack of chopped wood piled next to a blackened iron stove. The scent of earth and wood smoke mixed and merged in the humid atmosphere in the house.

  ‘Look, I’m going to put this away,’ Becker said, making a show of holstering his pistol. He took his glasses off, holding the frames in his two hands, facing to his left with his head up. ‘You were right, the other day at police headquarters. I am looking for my ticket out of here. I’ve got a good one, but I think I see a better one with you, and what I reckon you’ve got.’

  ‘Sense, Becker,’ snapped Reinhardt, using the tone he used to use when he was Becker’s superior in Kripo. ‘Make sense. Start naming names. Or this is all so much hot air.’

  ‘Names are dangerous, Gregor,’ Becker snapped back. ‘You know that.’ Becker bit his lip, and Reinhardt could see the perspiration that lined his hair on either side of his parting. ‘Look, I can tell you this much. Someone asked me to help them. Someone you don’t say no to.’

  ‘I never knew what to think when you opened your mouth, Becker. I still don’t. So stop pissing around the pot. I’ll give you a name, Becker. General Paul Verhein. How’s that?’

  ‘That’s not a bad name, and he’s part of it but not all of it.’ Becker twisted his glasses in his hands, his stance shifting to his right, looking down. ‘So this someone offered to help me in return. They didn’t need much. They needed Lieutenant Krause found, and they needed whatever they thought he had. That’s all.’

  ‘And for that, you impeded an investigation into the murder of a German officer.’

  ‘Oh, get off your high horse, Gregor, for fuck’s sake,’ Becker snapped. ‘Yes, I impeded your investigation. So bloody what? You should never have had it in the first place.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘Then what?’ Becker paused, as if he were about to say something else and thought better of it. ‘Then things began getting out of hand. I couldn’t find Krause, then there was the film, then you got in on the act and began making waves. Making people uncomfortable.’ His stance shifted again.

  ‘Tell me about Thallberg. And try to keep still, will you?’

  Becker’s mouth made an O of surprise. ‘Keep… ?’

  ‘Forget it. Thallberg.’

  Becker shrugged. ‘That wasn’t supposed to happen like that.’

  ‘Well, it did.’

  ‘He came to me last night, accused me of… well, accused me of what I’d been doing, I suppose,’ he said, nonchalantly, the old Becker starting to reemerge. ‘Tempers flared, and he let slip that this was much bigger than covering up how some tart of a journalist met a sticky end. I told the people I was working for, and they told me to get what Thallberg knew. By any means.’

  ‘You killed him.’

  ‘I tried to make him a deal, but he was having none of it. Things… got out of hand. He didn’t say much, actually. I got more out of his corporal. Like Hendel being SD, maybe Krause too, and actually after Verhein as well. What’re the odds, eh?!’ Becker giggled, suddenly. ‘You can imagine my position, Gregor. Trying to get Verhein out of a sticky patch was my ticket out of here. Actually being able to get him into an even stickier patch might even be better for me. What’s an honest cop to do?!’ He giggled again, an edge to his hilarity like rust on a blade. ‘I don’t know exactly what Hendel and Krause had on Verhein, but I think you do, and I want to know what it is.’

  ‘How did this “someone” know to ask you for your help?’

  Becker shook his head, a little grin on his face, and he turned again. ‘No. You don’t get to know tha –’

  ‘I said keep still. Still want to play silly games with the names? You were out at Ilidža the night Vukić was killed. Trying to calm Stolić down.’ Becker maintained his grin, but it went tight at the edges. ‘An officer with a history of violence. You were last seen out there with him. And Vukić turns up dead shortly afterwards.’

  Becker swallowed, moved his mouth a few times. ‘That’s good, Reinhardt. Very good. But you can’t pin her murder on me.’ He shook his head. ‘No. You have something I need. A file, on Verhein, I believe. I’ll trade for it. They’ll kill you for it.’

  ‘If I had such a file, you would be the last person I would give it to,’ Reinhardt replied, with a confidence he was not sure he felt. It was so hot in the house. He picked up the water bottle, keeping Becker in his line of sight as he swigged from it.

  ‘Help yourself,’ murmured Becker.

  ‘I didn’t say I was trying to pin her murder on you. Hendel’s, ­perhaps… A bit of a stretch, but I could probably do it.’ His turn to grin now.

  ‘You might,’ Becker said after a moment. ‘How about this, though? As much as you think you’ve got me over a barrel, I know I’ve got you over one. Disobeying orders. Consorting with the enemy. Interfering with a Feldgendarmerie investigation. Oh,’ he said, looking down at the paper, ‘and I’ll want to talk to you about the deaths of Captain Hans Thallberg and Corporal Jürgen Beike.’

  ‘Not interested.’

  Becker held his eyes as he calmly tore the paper in two, then again. ‘Still want to play silly buggers, Gregor?’

  ‘Still not interested,’ said Reinhardt, forcing a smirk as he held Becker’s gaze.

  ‘What exactly do you hope to achieve, here?’ Becker’s tone seemed honestly intrigued. ‘You’re trying to bring down a general. People like him don’t sit still waiting for someone like you to prick them on the arse. Nor do the people around them. They’ll swat you aside, especially at a time like this. Normally,’ he grinned, ‘I’d stand aside and enjoy that, but if you go down, I end up with a losing hand. Rather, I end up with a winning hand – I get that either way – but marginally less good,’ he giggled.

  Something in what Becker was saying sparked something in ­Reinhardt’s mind. Something similar to what he and Thallberg had talked about. ‘You keep saying “someone”, referring to “they”. You’re not hiding Verhein from me. So he’s not the one you’re dealing with. Is he?’ Becker’s grin went tight again, and Reinhardt knew he had hit a nerve, and he had to keep hitting it. ‘What do you have on them? Or what do they have on you? What happened in Ilidža that night? How did they bring you into this? Who is it, Becker?’

  ‘You’re fishing again, Gregor.’

  ‘Ilidža,’ repeated Reinhardt.

  Becker turned to his right, lowering his head as he put his glasses back on. He drew his pistol, and although Reinhardt’s breath hitched a second, Becker only held it down by his leg. ‘I can wait a little longer for you to see sense. In the meantime, someone wants a quiet word with you. He may be able to help you see the relative merits of your position.’ He gestured with the pistol. ‘Outside.’

  Reinhardt backed through the door, blinking in the bright daylight. Becker followed him through, and Reinhardt could see the strain he was under. His hair was soaked with sweat, and he opened his mouth to breathe, panting like a dog. Casting his eyes around quickly, Reinhardt could see no sign of Claussen, and he dared not ask about him in case he put him in more danger.

  ‘Take Captain Reinhardt,’ Becker said to his Feldgendarmes, nodding over to the other houses. ‘Someone wants to talk to him.’ One of the guards smiled. ‘And when Captain Reinhardt is done, bring him back here.’

  37

  They ordered him up a rutted earthen track towards the cluster of houses Reinhardt had seen earlier. A couple of vehicles were parked outside them, one of them a Horch staff car with open sides. As Reinhardt came closer, he could see the SS plates and decals identifying them as
belonging to 7th Prinz Eugen. He had not realised he had slowed until the guard who had smiled poked him in the back with the muzzle of his MP 40. More cars were parked in the trees, black-suited soldiers lounging around them. Ustaše, and one of them was Ljubčić. He looked back at Reinhardt, his eyes glittering.

  Two SS troopers stood guard over a group of prisoners lined up outside a house. Some of the prisoners were obviously soldiers – ­Partisans – but others just seemed to be peasants. Farther on, an army truck was parked with a squad of soldiers standing around it, most of them smoking with their heads down and their hands in their pockets, and unless Reinhardt was very mistaken they were not happy with what was going on. Something caught his eye on the Horch’s front seat. A tube, white with red caps, fetched up against the angle of the seat and its back.

  There was a scream from inside the house. Long, drawn out, the choking sounds of a creature in agony. Then nothing. A sigh went through the prisoners, and the soldiers around the truck seemed to huddle closer together. The door to the house banged open and two more SS dragged a body outside and dumped it on the ground. At least two other bodies already lay there, but Reinhardt could not be sure because following the two SS out, a long, bloodied blade in his fist, was Standartenführer Mladen Stolić. He had a blank expression on his face, but his eyes were wide and staring over a smear of blood across one cheek, like the war paint of a red Indian. He saw Reinhardt and smiled. His teeth were very yellow in the gash of his mouth.

  ‘I could get to like this liaison work,’ leered Stolić. He was wearing a black shirt with his sleeves rolled up. His hands and forearms and the front of his shirt were bloodied and gored, and he carried the knife – the Bowie – in one fist, red to the hilt. He washed it in a rain bucket, wiping it clean and dry with a ragged cloth, breathing quick and light. There was a light in his eyes, the whites visible all around. Reinhardt could see the signs of his addiction clearly now, and wondered that he had not spotted them before.

  ‘Let’s talk, you and I,’ Stolić said. ‘Why don’t we go inside? After you.’ His hand trembled slightly, the blade quivering.

  Reinhardt looked at the darkened doorway, at Stolić and his two SS, standing immobile and dough-faced. ‘After you.’

  ‘I insist,’ grinned Stolić.

  Reinhardt knew, somehow, he had to win this, this small test of wills. ‘Make an old man happy.’

  The Standartenführer chuckled again. He told his two men to wait outside, then stepped into the house, the rough boards of the floor creaking underfoot. Stolić made a grand gesture, a sort of cross between a genuflection and a bow, his arm spread wide, inviting Reinhardt in. ‘Beauty before age, eh?’ he smirked.

  ‘In the trenches, we always used to say, “Shit before paper”.’

  Stolić stiffened, then turned, shutting the door. The corner of his eye twitched as he smiled. ‘You’re very funny, Reinhardt.’

  ‘I’ve been told that, you know.’

  Stolić blinked, his smile fading away. ‘You’ve been asking questions again, haven’t you?’ He held the big knife by the pommel, twirling it back and forth between the tips of his fingers. ‘Telling tales out of school. Old man,’ he said, with a lazy sneer. A long flash of light went up the Bowie as he spun it back, then forth. The blade had a curl at the end, the last part of the top edge curving sharply down to the point, and Reinhardt remembered that pathology report, the strange shape of the wounds on Vukić’s body. Stolić stepped closer to Reinhardt. ‘I often wonder what you old timers’re made of,’ he said. He tapped the tip of his blade on Reinhardt’s Iron Cross. Tick tick tick. ‘What would you have to do these days to get one of these?’ Tick tick. ‘A bit more than floundering around in the mud. No?’ Tick. The blade paused, that wickedly curved point resting on the medal. Stolić pushed slightly, then harder. Reinhardt let himself be pushed to the side, then back. Stolić’s eyes widened, brightened, vanished behind a slow blink. ‘I mean, really, how hard could it have been?’

  Reinhardt breathed long and slow, feeling a flush of anger creeping up his back, and that light-headedness that presaged something reckless. ‘A bit harder than putting on a black uniform and pretending it makes you German.’

  Stolić’s face tightened. ‘Don’t piss me off any more than you’ve done already, Reinhardt.’

  ‘Heaven forbid.’

  The light in Stolić’s eyes hardened, then lightened. ‘What’ve you got there in your pocket? Not fiddling with yourself, are you?!’

  Reinhardt had not realised he was holding the Williamson, and held it up. Stolić stepped closer and peered at the inscription on the casing. ‘What does it say?’

  Reinhardt did not have to read it. He knew the words by heart. By feel. ‘It says, “To Lieutenant Terence Blackwell-Gough, 5th Somerset Rifles, from his father, Michael Blackwell-Gough. November 1917”.’ He realised as he spoke them that he rarely said them out loud. They took on a different rhythm and weight, he realised. He looked at the old watch, as if seeing it anew.

  ‘I didn’t know you spoke any English.’

  Reinhardt shrugged noncommittally. ‘A few words.’

  ‘Tell me its story.’

  ‘Why?’

  Stolić grinned. ‘Something to pass the time. Break the ice. ’Cause I’m asking nicely. Take your pick.’

  Reinhardt shook his head. ‘I took it off a dead Englishman. That’s all you need to know.’

  ‘The only Englishmen I ever met in Spain weren’t worth all that much. Most of them finished up on the end of this,’ Stolić drawled, sloughing through Reinhardt’s memory, his eyes focusing on the tip of his knife.

  ‘Most Englishmen I came up against would have snapped you in two without thinking about it.’ Stolić put the Bowie’s point back on Reinhardt’s Iron Cross, pushed. It slipped, caught up against the medal’s edge. ‘What is with you and the knife?’

  Stolić smiled at it. ‘Part of an Ustaša’s holy triptych, Reinhardt. “Knife, revolver, bomb.” The most effective and suitable means to an end. You know, we took our oaths in front of a crucifix, a knife, and a revolver.’

  ‘Except now you’re SS. And you’re still playing with boys’ toys like knives?’ Stolić pushed hard again on the Cross, but this time Reinhardt took a quick step back, let Stolić’s weight pull him forward. ‘And what is it with you and medals? You want one?’

  The Standartenführer’s face went white, then red. ‘Tell me, Reinhardt, have you actually killed anyone in this war? Or have you spent it behind your desk while others did it for you?’

  ‘I’m sure my body count’s not as high as yours, but most of the ones I killed could shoot back.’

  Stolić snorted. ‘Why have them shoot back? An unfair fight’s a fair fight by me.’ He flipped the knife, caught it by the handle. He grinned, yellow teeth like filthy nails. ‘It’s like a drug. All this.’

  ‘And I did my killing with a clear head.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How long have you been addicted to Pervitin?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re addicted to Pervitin, Stolić. Addicted to speed. I saw the pills in your car. I can see the signs of addiction all over you.’

  ‘Wha… ?’

  ‘It takes more than popping pills and butchering unarmed men to make you a brave man, Stolić.’

  Stolić’s face creased into a snarl. ‘I don’t need any fucking pills to make me –’

  ‘You take them because you’re weak, Stolić. Because they make you feel better about yourself. About missing out on all the action in Russia. About not being more like Grbić,’ said Reinhardt, remembering the name of that Croatian Army colonel Stolić seemed to despise so.

  ‘Grbić? What do you –’

  ‘Did you kill Marija Vukić?’

  A flush crept up Stolić’s neck, the planes of his cheeks going red. ‘You arrogant little shit,’ he hissed
. ‘You accuse me… ?’

  Reinhardt felt cold and focused, but a part of him gibbered at the risks he was taking. He pushed that part away, the weak part, the part that had cowered in the corner of Meissner’s house all those years ago, the part that had run away from his life as it was then instead of trying, however futilely, to make it right. He forced himself to smile at Stolić and then found that it felt right, and he did not have to force it after all. ‘Vukić was really something.’ Stolić’s face went blank. ‘She’d have got an Iron Cross if she were a man. That drove you mad, didn’t it?’

  Stolić made a sound, as if he were gagging. ‘You don’t –’

  ‘She was more of a man than you’ll ever be,’ Reinhardt slashed across Stolić’s words.

  Stolić hefted the knife, holding it out in front of him in his right hand. ‘I don’t care what Becker said,’ he muttered, seeming to talk to himself. ‘I’m going to cut you up, you miserable turd.’ He stopped, frowned. Reinhardt drew his baton and extended it. Stolić sniggered. ‘What the fuck is that? A magic wa –’ Reinhardt flicked the baton at Stolić’s fist. The tip flexed and slashed into Stolić’s knife hand. He squalled in surprise and pain, and the knife flashed and clanged to the floor. Reinhardt whipped the baton up and slashed it down into the junction of Stolić’s neck and shoulder. The Standartenführer slumped to his knees with another cry.

  ‘You piece of shit,’ Reinhardt snarled, hoarsely, as he smashed the baton into Stolić’s upper arm. ‘I ate people like you’ – he struck him again – ‘for fucking’ – he struck him again, across the ribs – ‘breakfast’ – again, across the thighs, the knees – ‘in the trenches.’ The rage encompassed him, filled him. He was ice all through. Stolić rolled into a ball on the floor, his breath rasping. Reinhardt stood over him, the baton raised in his quivering fist. ‘You prick!’ he rasped. ‘You think I got this Iron Cross by being a fucking choirboy?!’ He beat Stolić again across the back of his thighs.

  Stolić whimpered, raised his arms over his head. ‘Stop, please. No more.’