A Quiet Flame

by Philip Kerr

  That might just have been true. And maybe it wasn’t. But out of respect for his two million pesos I was prepared to let the bird go. Sometimes, to take hold of the money, you have to let go of the bird. That’s what they call politics.

  We returned to the sitting room, where the baroness had started crying again. I’ve made a close study of women crying. In my line of work it comes with the truncheon and the handcuffs. On the eastern front, in 1941, I saw women who could have won Olympic gold medals for crying. Sherlock Holmes used to study cigar ash and wrote a monograph on the subject. I knew about crying. I knew that when a woman is crying it doesn’t pay to let her get too close to your shoulder. It can cost you a clean shirt. Tears are, however, sacred, and you violate their sanctity at your peril. We left her to get on with it.

  AFTER WE LEFT the von Bader house, I insisted the colonel and I go to Recoleta Cemetery. We were, after all, very close. I wanted to see the place Fabienne had been visiting when she disappeared.

  Like the Viennese, rich porteños take death very seriously. Enough to spend large sums of money on expensive tombs and mausolea. But Recoleta was the only cemetery I’d ever been where there weren’t any graves. We went through a Greek-style entrance into what was a little city of marble. Many of the mausolea were classically designed and looked almost habitable. Walking around the neat and parallel stone streets was like touring some ancient Roman town swept clean of its human inhabitants by a cataclysmic natural disaster. Looking up at the bright blue sky, I half expected to see the smoking crater of a volcano. It was hard to imagine a fourteen-year-old girl coming to such a place. The few living people we saw were old and gray. I expect they had the same thought about me and the colonel.

  We got back in the car and headed for the Casa Rosada. It was a while since I’d driven a car. Not that anyone would have noticed. I had seen worse drivers than porteños, but only in Ben-Hur. Ramón Novarro and Francis X. Bushman would have felt quite at home on the streets of Buenos Aires.

  “Nice and handy for the president to have his secret police headquartered in the Casa Rosada,” I said, catching sight of the distinctive pink building again.

  “It has some advantages. Incidentally, you’ve already seen the boss. The youngish man in the pinstripe suit who was with us when you met Perón? That’s him. Rodolfo Freude. He’s never very far away from the president.”

  “Freude. Von Bader mentioned a banker called Ludwig Freude. Any relation?”

  “Rodolfo’s father.”

  “Is that how he got the job?”

  “It’s a long story, but yes, in effect.”

  “Was he in the Abwehr, too?”

  “Who? Rodolfo? No. But Rodolfo’s deputy was. Werner Koennecke. Werner is married to Rodolfo’s sister, Lily.”

  “It all sounds very cozy.”

  “That’s Buenos Aires for you. It’s just like the cemetery at Recoleta. You have to know someone to get in.”

  “Who do you know, Colonel?”

  “Rodolfo knows some important people, it’s true. But I know people who are really important. I know an Italian woman who is the best whore in the city. I know a chef who makes the best pasta in South America. And I know a man who can kill someone and make it look like a suicide, with no questions asked. These are the important things to know in our strange profession, Herr Hausner. Don’t you agree?”

  “I don’t often awake and feel the need to have someone murdered, Colonel. If I did I’d probably do it myself. But I guess I’m just a little bit strange that way. Besides, I’m too old to be impressed by anything very much. Except perhaps an Italian woman. I always did like Italian women.”

  8

  BERLIN, 1932

  DEPARTMENT IV, the ordinary criminal police, was supposed to stand apart from Department Ia, the political police. DIa was charged with the investigation of all political crime, but it did not operate secretly. The political police was supposed to work discreetly to forestall political violence of whatever hue. Given the situation in Germany, it was easy to understand why the Weimar government had thought it necessary to bring such a police force into being. In practice, however, neither the regular police force nor the German public liked the politicals; and DIa had proved to be spectacularly unsuccessful at preventing political violence. What was more, the point of having two separate police departments became all but meaningless as the majority of the murders we investigated turned out to be political: a storm trooper murdering a Communist, or vice versa. As a result, DIa struggled to establish its proper jurisdiction and to justify its continued existence. True republicans considered its functions undemocratic and potentially ripe for exploitation by any unscrupulous government that might wish to establish a police state. It was for this reason that Professor Hans Illmann, the pathologist handling the Schwarz case, preferred to meet away from the Alex, in his laboratory and office at the Institute for Police Science in Charlottenburg. Department IV and Department Ia might have existed on different floors of the Alex, but that was still too close for the politically sensitive nostrils of KRIPO’s leading forensic scientist.

  I found Illmann staring out of a deep bay window at a garden that had nothing to do with the police or pathology. It and the villa it surrounded came from a gentler time when scientists had more hair on their cheeks than a mandrill baboon. It was easy to see why he preferred being here instead of at the Alex. Even with a couple of bodies in the basement, the place felt more like an expensive retirement home than a forensic science institute. He was as lean as a scalpel, with rimless glasses and a little Dutch chin-beard that made him everyone’s idea of what an artist ought to look like. Toulouse-Lautrec in his much taller period.

  As we shook hands, I jutted my chin at a copy of Der Angriff lying on his desk. “What, are you turning Nazi on me? Reading shit like that.”

  “If more people read this garbage then perhaps they wouldn’t vote for these intellectual pygmies. Or at least they would know what Germany can expect if they ever come to power. No, no, Bernie. Everyone should read this. You especially should read it. Your card has been well and truly stamped, my young republican friend. And in public, too. Welcome to the club.”

  He picked up the newspaper and started to read aloud:

  “ ‘The symbol of the Iron Front, which was designed by a Russian Jew, is three arrows pointing southeast inside a circle. The meaning of the arrows has been interpreted differently. Some say that the three arrows stand for the opponents of the Iron Front: Communism, monarchism, and National Socialism. Others say that these arrows stand for the three columns of the German workers’ movement: party, trade union, and Reichsbanner. But we say it stands for one thing only: the Iron Front is a political alliance that is full of pricks.

  “ ‘Chief among the Iron Front pricks that pollute the Berlin police force are Police President Grzesinski, his yid deputy Bernard Weiss, and their KRIPO lackey Bernhard Gunther. These are the policemen who are supposed to be investigating the murder of Anita Schwarz. You would think that they would be sparing no effort to catch this monster. Far from it! Commissar Gunther astonished those attending yesterday’s press conference when he informed this stunned reporter that he hopes the murderer will be spared the death penalty.

  “ ‘Let me tell Commissar Gunther this: that if he and his liberal-minded mates somehow scrape together the competence to apprehend the murderer of Anita Schwarz, there is only one sentence that will satisfy the German people. Death. The fact is, only brutality can now be respected in this country. The German people demand that criminals feel good, wholesome fear. Why get so worked up about the execution and torture of a few law-breakers? The masses want it. They are shouting for something that will give criminals a proper respect for the law. That is why we need the strong governance of National Socialism, as opposed to this bleeding-heart SDP government that is afraid of its own corrupt shadow. If Commissar Gunther spent more time worrying about catching killers and less time worrying about their rights, then, perhaps, this city wo
uld not be the sink of iniquity it is now.’ ”

  Illmann tossed the paper across the desk at me and started rolling a perfect cigarette with the fingers of one hand.

  “To hell with those bastards,” I said. “I’m not worried.”

  “No? You should be. If this July election doesn’t prove conclusive one way or the other, there might be another putsch. And you and I could find ourselves floating in the Landwehr Canal, just like poor Rosa Luxemburg. Be careful, my young friend. Be careful.”

  “It won’t come to that,” I said. “The army won’t stand for it.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t share your touching faith in our armed forces. I think they’re just as likely to fall in behind the Nazis as they are to stand up for the republic.” He shook his head and grinned. “No, if the republic is to be saved, I’m afraid there’s just one thing for it. You’ll just have to solve this murder before July 31.”

  “Fair enough, Doc. So what have you got?”

  “Death was from asphyxia, caused by chloroform. Anita Schwarz swallowed her tongue. I found traces of chloroform in her hair and in her mouth. It’s a common enough death in hospitals. Heavy-handed anesthesiologists have killed many a patient in this way.”

  “That’s a comforting thought. Any sign that she was interfered with sexually?”

  “Impossible to tell, given her lack of plumbing. That could be why he did it, of course. To conceal evidence of intercourse. He knew what he was about, too. A very sharp curette was used calmly and confidently. This was no frenzied attack, Bernie. The killer took his time. Perhaps that’s why he used the chloroform. In which case, her fear was not a factor in his motivation. She was probably unconscious and almost certainly dead when he butchered her. You remember the Haarmann case, of course. Well, this is something very different.”

  “Someone with medical experience, perhaps,” I said, thinking aloud. “In which case, the proximity of the state hospital might be relevant.”

  “Very likely it is,” said Illmann. “But not for the reason we’ve just been discussing. No, I’d say it’s the pill you found near the body that makes it relevant.”

  “Oh? How? What is it?”

  “It’s nothing I’ve seen before. In chemical terms, it’s a sulfone group connected to an amine group. But the synthesis is new. I don’t even know what to call it, Bernie. Sulfanamine? I don’t know. It certainly doesn’t exist in the current pharmacopoeia. Not here. Not anywhere. Which means it’s new and experimental.”

  “Have you any idea what it might be for?”

  “The active sulfa molecule was first synthesized in 1906 and has been widely used in the dye-making industry.”

  “Dye-making?”

  “My guess is that there’s a smaller active compound that’s contained inside the dye-making molecule. About fifteen years ago the Pasteur Institute in Paris was using the sulfa molecule as the basis for some kind of antibacterial agent. Sadly, the work came to nothing. However, this pill would seem to indicate that someone, possibly here in Berlin, has successfully synthesized a sulfa-based drug.”

  “Yes, but what could you use it for?”

  “You could use it against any kind of bacterial infection. Any streptococci. However, you would have to test the drug on some volunteers before publishing any results. Especially given the Pasteur’s previous failures using dye-based drugs.”

  “An experimental drug being tested at the state hospital, perhaps?”

  “Could be.” Illmann finished his cigarette, stubbing it out in a little porcelain ashtray made for the Police Exhibition of 1926. He seemed about to say something and then checked himself.

  “No, go on,” I said.

  “I was only trying to think what might make Berlin interesting to someone conducting a drug trial.” He shook his head. “Because there are no drug companies based here in Berlin. And it’s not like we suffer from anything more than anywhere else in Germany.”

  “Ah, well now, that’s where you’re wrong, Doc,” I said. “You want to read your police gazette, instead of worrying about the shit that’s in Der Angriff. There are more than one hundred thousand prostitutes working in Berlin today. More than anywhere else in Europe. And that’s just the straight ones. God knows how many warm boys there are in this city. My sergeant, Heinrich Grund, is always going on about it.”

  “Of course,” said Illmann. “Venereal disease.”

  “Since the war the figures have gone through the roof,” I said. “Not that I’d know, never having had a dose of jelly myself. But the current treatment is neosalvarsan, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right. It contains organic arsenic, which makes its use somewhat hazardous. Even so, in its time it was such an important discovery and efficacious remedy—no proper remedy had existed before—that neosalvarsan was called ‘the magic bullet.’ That was a German discovery, too. Paul Ehrlich won the Nobel Prize for it in 1908. An exceptionally gifted man.”

  “Could he—?”

  “No, no, he’s dead, alas. Interestingly, salvarsan and neosalvarsan are dye-based compounds, too. Which is where the problem with them lies. In the color. And that must be where this new compound scores. Someone must have worked out how to remove the color without compromising the antibacterial activity.” He nodded, as if imagining the chemistry appearing on an invisible blackboard in front of his eyes. “Ingenious.”

  “So let’s say we have a drug trial, here in Berlin,” I said. “For patients suffering from big jelly and little jelly? Syphilis and gonorrhea.”

  “If it was effective against one, it might well be effective against the other, too.”

  “How many patients would we be talking about? For a trial?”

  “In the beginning? A few dozen. A hundred at the most. And all highly confidential, mind you. No doctor’s going to tell you which of his patients is suffering from a venereal disease. Not only that, but if it works, a drug like this could be worth millions. The clinical trials are very likely top secret.”

  “How would you recruit your volunteers?”

  Illmann shrugged. “Neosalvarsan treatment is no ice cream treat, Bernie. Its reputation precedes it. And most of the horror stories you’ve heard are true. So I’d have thought there would be no shortage of volunteers for a new drug.”

  “All right. Suppose some T-girl gives our man a dose of jelly. Which makes him hate women enough to want to kill one. Meanwhile he volunteers for a drug trial to get his meat and two veg sorted.”

  “But if a T-girl gives him a dose,” said Illmann, “then why not kill a T-girl? Why kill a child?”

  “T-girls are too savvy. I saw one the other night. Built like a wrestler, she was. Some fritz came in and wanted her charged with assault. She’d hit the bastard with her riding crop.”

  “Some men would pay good money for that kind of thing.”

  “My point is this. He kills Anita Schwarz because she’s easier prey. She’s crippled. Makes it hard for her to get away. Could be he didn’t even notice it. After all, it was dark.”

  “All right,” allowed Illmann. “That’s just about possible. Just.”

  “Well then, here’s another thing. Something I haven’t told you yet. On account of the fact that I’ve only just remembered I can trust you. And this is hot stuff, mind. So keep it under your hat. Anita Schwarz may have been disabled. And she may have been just fifteen. But she wasn’t above earning herself some pocket money on the side.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “One of her neighbors told me the girl had a major morals problem. The parents won’t talk about it. And I didn’t dare mention it at the press conference after the lecture Izzy gave me about trying to keep the Nazis sweet. But we found quite a bankroll in her coat pocket. Five hundred marks. She didn’t get that from running errands to the local shop.”

  “But the girl was crippled. She wore a caliper.”

  “And there’s a market for that, too, believe me, Doc.”

  “My God, there are some evil bastards i
n this city.”

  “Now you sound like my sergeant, Grund.”

  “Then maybe you are right. You know I never thought to test her for syphilis and gonorrhea. I’ll do it, immediately.”

  “One more thing, Doc. What kind of dyes are we talking about here? Food dyes, cloth dyes, hair dyes, what?”

  “Organic dyes. Direct or substantive dyeing. Direct dyes are used on a whole host of materials. Cotton, paper, leather, wool, silk, nylon. Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t know.” But somewhere, at the bottom of the sock drawer I called my mind, there was something important. I rummaged around for a moment and then shook my head. “No. It’s probably nothing.”

  MY ROUTE BACK from Charlottenburg took me in a straight line all the way from Kaiserdamm to the Tiergarten. There were wild boars in the Tiergarten. You could hear them grunting as they wallowed in their enclosure, or sometimes squealing like the brakes on my old DKW as they fought with one another. Whenever I heard that sound, I thought of the Reichstag and German party politics. The Tiergarten was full of animal life—not just boars. There were buzzards and woodpeckers and pied wagtails and siskins and bats—there were lots of bats. The smell of cut grass and blossom that came through the open window of my car was wonderful. It was the clean, uncorrupted smell of early summer. At this time of year, the Tiergarten was open until early dusk, which also made it popular with grasshoppers—the amateur prostitutes with no room money, who did it with their fritzes lying down on the grass or in the shrubbery. Nature is wonderful.

  I looked at my watch as I came through the Brandenburg Gate and onto Pariser Platz. There was time for lunch as long as lunch came in a brown bottle. I could have stopped almost anywhere south of Unter den Linden. There were lots of stand-ups around Gendarmen Market, where I might easily have got myself a sausage and a beer. But anywhere wasn’t where I wanted to go. Not when I was right outside the Adlon Hotel. It was true, I’d been there only a day or two before. And a day or two before that. The fact was, I liked the Adlon. Not for its ambience and its gardens and its whispering fountain and its palm court and its fabulous restaurant, which I couldn’t have afforded anyway. I liked it because I liked one of the house detectives. She was called Frieda Bamberger. I liked Frieda a lot.