The Butchers of Berlin

by Chris Petit

  Morgen was no more forthcoming when he came in. His mood was foul.

  ‘What are you doing anyway?’ he asked, accusatory.

  ‘Thinking about where you were when you were away.’

  Morgen gave him a look of warning.

  ‘The Reichsführer’s office wishes to speak to you. I have never seen Frau Pelz excited.’

  He pointed to her note, supposing Morgen would take the news in his stride.

  Instead his hands shook as he reached for the inevitable cigarette. Morgen slowly picked up the receiver and told Frau Pelz to place the call, which had to be the most thrilling moment of her desiccated life.

  Morgen announced himself and was told to wait while he was put through. He looked tight and tense. His voice was hoarse when he spoke.

  Not only was the call to Himmler’s private office, it was to Heine himself. Seeing Schlegel studying him, Morgen stood and turned his back.

  Himmler; no wonder Nebe was worried.

  Morgen stood for the call, answering in a series of affirmatives. Schlegel counted eight. He had never seen the underling in Morgen before, so clipped and wary.

  Morgen hung up and said, ‘Fuck.’

  He sat down and stared for a long time at the replaced receiver. Frau Pelz came into the room in a dither. Morgen said not now, shooed her out and shut the door. Hanging on the back of it was the reprimanding sight of the yellow suit made by Sybil for Schlegel’s mother’s friend, which he had failed to deliver.

  Schlegel pretended to work, thinking he needed to sort out the suit. It reminded him of the attic above the shop where Sybil had hidden Lore. A place with sentimental associations, worth checking. He could take the suit back as well. He must have been mad to think he would get around to delivering it.

  Morgen’s apathy lifted and he seemed visibly to shift up several gears.

  ‘I had intended to spend the day taking Haager from the slaughterhouse apart, a pleasure that will have to wait, as I now have to go out. Get him in and sweat him in the cells. Say we have evidence linking him to the death of Keleman.’ Morgen nodded at the stun gun on the top of the desk. ‘I am sure Lipchitz will oblige us with whatever forensics we need. And while you are about it, issue a warrant for Gersten’s arrest, citing financial irregularities.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on with that business just now?’

  ‘You mean as partners?’ Morgen snapped.

  ‘No,’ said Schlegel coldly, addressing the papers on his desk. ‘You are a temporary associate. Go and attend to whatever you have to.’

  Morgen pointed to the telephone as the real object of his anger.

  ‘We are talking about rarefied levels of stupefying intrigue here, and it has to do with us.’

  ‘Us!’ exclaimed Schlegel.

  Morgen looked around the room and gestured for him to follow. He led the way to the washroom. After checking the cubicles were empty he ran the basin taps.

  ‘Excuse the precaution. I’ve heard that the whole of the Ministry of Propaganda is bugged, as well as the Foreign Press Club, so one can’t be too careful.’

  Reichsführer Himmler had a new whim. It had come to his attention that an occasional clandestine smuggling service had been operating whereby a few Jews were allowed to buy their way to safety.

  Schlegel presumed Himmler wanted Gersten brought to book, given the arrest warrant.

  ‘Quite the opposite. The Reichsführer wishes privately to sponsor one such train himself.’

  Schlegel cast around in disbelief.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Morgen, as though such a volte face was obvious. ‘It’s called hedging your bets.’

  Schlegel continued to flounder.

  Morgen said, ‘It’s astonishing how it all clicks. Gersten will provide the service as usual, in exchange for his slate being wiped clean.’ He paused. ‘I agree, it is an upside-down world. On the other hand, Gersten will have to resurface. We have maybe forty-eight hours, maybe as little as twenty-four, to get to the bottom of this.’

  ‘Metzler’s dead. There’s no broker.’

  ‘The money will be paid in US dollars.’

  Schlegel could not believe what he was hearing. A grubby deal involving fake money and a venal Gestapo man had been piggybacked by none other than the Reichsführer-SS with US money now being waved around.

  ‘Who’s the broker?’

  ‘Not the right question. I am appointing you.’

  ‘The world has gone crazy.’

  ‘Quite some time ago.’ Morgen caught Schlegel’s eye in the mirror. ‘Yes. Lampshades made of human skin. The thought disgusts the Reichsführer. He is a fastidious man. He hates cruelty. When they showed him firing squads in the east he went green and raved. The closed door, Schlegel, the closed door. What exactly goes on behind it we may never know. There is no time to lose.’

  He walked out, leaving Schlegel to stare at his reflection and see the dangling man; he was unable to decide whether Morgen was responsible, prior to letting him drop.

  The yellow suit hung reprovingly on the back of the door. Schlegel was alone in the office. Morgen had not said where he was. Whatever was going on, it could play out too many ways, none good.

  Like a man facing long exile, he decided to put his affairs in order.

  He applied for a fortnight’s leave.

  He ordered the local flatfoots to arrest Haager and hold him until he could send a van from headquarters.

  He took pleasure in drawing up the warrant for Gersten’s arrest.

  He had a brainwave about Nebe’s trap for Nöthling.

  He decided to take the yellow suit back to Sybil’s employer, embarrassing as that was, and see if Sybil had used the attic. He even had the crazy notion of staying there himself until she showed up, as he was sure she would.

  First he went to Grosse Hamburger Strasse to speak with Stella Kübler. They talked outside again, sitting on a garden bench in the spring sun. She thought he couldn’t get enough of her. When he said he needed someone to set up a trap she didn’t look surprised. He told her who the target was and it needed a compromising rendezvous.

  ‘You want it to be a race thing, is that why you are asking?’

  Yes, he said a bit desperately. ‘He will be charged with protecting you, and the other thing.’

  ‘Carnal relations, darling. Don’t be shy. Call a spade a spade. I’m racial defilement.’

  ‘We need proof.’

  ‘A big brute of a photographer kicking down the door?’

  The woman was impossible. He was out of his depth.

  ‘No. We have technical people who can rig a room.’

  ‘Whatever you say, darling. It will make a change. I must say, I didn’t have you down for a sex intriguer. What’s in it for me?’

  ‘You will remain safe of course.’ How pompous he sounded.

  ‘I am safe as it is.’

  He supposed he could find her something from the contraband deposits.

  She asked what was in the bag he was carrying. It was the suit Sybil had made; Stella was all over it in seconds.

  ‘It’s beautiful! Look at the stitching. It must be worth a fortune.’

  Schlegel had never seen anyone covet something so nakedly.

  ‘You can’t find anything like this now. Where did you get it? Who made it?’

  He thought it better not to say.

  Stella shrugged off her jacket and put the other on.

  ‘I’m an absolute fit.’

  Looking around conspiratorially, she reached out for his hand as she removed her shoes. She took off her skirt so she was standing in her slip. Schlegel glimpsed white thigh above stocking top as she changed into the yellow skirt. He experienced a stab of desire and saw it register as she reached for his hand to slip her shoes back on.

  The sad thing was the suit didn’t look that good on her. The yellow was all wrong for her hair, but she twirled for him like a model.

  ‘Perfect,’ she said. ‘So clever of you to thi
nk of it and know my size. And so much more tasteful and personal than the financial transaction, don’t you think? We should go on a date and I’ll wear it for you.’ She looked at him, all innocence, and said, ‘You are sweet,’ as though they had agreed all along the suit was the price of the transaction.

  Sybil lay on her back with Grigor on top, her eyes shut, the better to transport herself to other places while he poked away. For all his finesse, she sometimes felt like a field being ploughed. Her body no longer seemed particularly hers any more, connected to inner feelings. She thought of it as preparing for a withdrawal that would end with her leaving; in other words, she was getting ready to die.

  She opened her eyes and saw a movement in the skylight above. No more than a bird, she thought. Then it was there again and gone. She covered her eyes with her arm and looked under it. As for the others, Gersten seemed to have disappeared, the Kübler woman wasn’t in any of her haunts. She was cut off except for Grigor, insisting on making sad love. His behaviour swung between threats of violence, rage and sex, which seemed only to edge him closer to despair. Seeing the pressure build in him, she supposed that was how he would reach the killing point.

  In as much as she thought about it, she had always presumed murderers were murderous all the time rather than dull, ordinary people, difficult to be with, until driven to pointless destruction. Was there any reason to murder? Even Stella Kübler? Her own desire for the woman’s obliteration was probably part of a complicated sexual jealousy and perhaps a way of channelling her grief for Lore.

  Still looking under her arm, Sybil saw first one face in the skylight then a second: two boys goggle-eyed, popping up and ducking down like pecking birds, growing bolder, nudging and sniggering in awe.

  She considered warning Grigor then decided, what if they gawped? It made the whole thing less lonely. She thought of the boys’ excitement as they ogled the stark image of their entwined bodies, while knowing nothing about her, or her abstraction as Grigor ground on, leaving her as numb as a patient under anaesthetic.

  Schlegel had his eye glued to a tiny crack in the rough, uneven planks of the attic door. He could make out Sybil with her arm over her face and Grigor’s naked buttocks pumping.

  Schlegel carefully got out his gun. Whatever he had been expecting it wasn’t this. He dithered between stealth and charge. If he barged in, Grigor might have a weapon on the floor and get a shot off first.

  The door was on a latch. He remembered there was no lock. If it squeaked he would have to take his chances.

  He slipped in and took what felt like an age to close the door. He levelled his pistol, as he had been taught in weapons training, gun raised and sighted, drawing a bead on the target, double-handed grip, right elbow out. Point and squeeze, the armoury master said. Schlegel hoped it wouldn’t come to shooting. His scores on the range were akin to being unable to hit the barn door.

  He crept forward, heel to toe, praying the boards wouldn’t creak, gambling on surprise to give him an edge.

  Sybil started to turn towards him. Her arm was still over her face but she seemed to be looking under it and straight at him. He thought her about to scream. Grigor stopped thrusting and was about to raise his head. Schlegel could not shoot for fear of hitting her. She stared for a moment before she turned back, dug her nails in Grigor’s shoulders and drove her body into his. Schlegel blushed to his roots as he watched the object of his fantasy enacting the primal scene.

  He thought she must be using Grigor to show her contempt for him. She had looked at him like he was a Peeping Tom. He wanted to leave and go quietly out. He didn’t want to see them uncoupling, didn’t want to face her.

  Sybil started to moan. Grigor paused again and tried to lift his head. She cradled it with her arm, stopping him, and Schlegel saw she was trying to help after all.

  Three or four more paces. He had to get the gun to Grigor’s neck, or too much was left to chance. Sybil’s moaning turned to rhythmic groaning as Schlegel took another step. He was about to rush, thinking he would club Grigor and stun him, when a loud yell came from above outside, followed by a clattering down the roof, a crash and scream of pain.

  Schlegel’s pistol automatically went up to the source of the commotion. He saw a shape and his nervous trigger-finger fired off a round, putting a hole in the skylight.

  Grigor was already on his feet, holding Sybil in front of him, both hands around her neck, lifting her off the ground. Schlegel couldn’t fire. Grigor was using her as a shield. It seemed to take him no effort to hold her in the air at arm’s length. Sybil was in danger of being choked as she struggled to loosen his grip. Schlegel was distracted and embarrassed by Sybil’s nakedness and Grigor’s still half-hard cock.

  He traced their progress to the door with his gun, with no way to shoot. Grigor told Schlegel to throw him his clothes. Sybil thrashed for air.

  Schlegel shouted for Grigor to put Sybil down. Grigor bared his teeth. Sybil started turning blue. Schlegel fired once, wide, hoping to make Grigor drop her.

  An explosion came from above Schlegel’s head and a blurred shape crashed through the skylight, landed on the floor, in a shower of broken glass, and propelled itself at Grigor, who let go of Sybil out of surprise. Schlegel fired off two shots as Sybil fell to the floor, gasping.

  Grigor roared and began hopping in pain, all the while being pushed, pummelled and kicked by what Schlegel saw was a boy of no more than twelve or thirteen. He fired another shot in the air, which stopped everything, except Sybil’s laboured breathing, which turned to screams of terror. Schlegel ordered Grigor to move from the door and lie face down in the middle of the room. Grigor glowered, looking like he would refuse. He would shoot again, Schlegel said, and Grigor could see he meant it and the fight went out of him. The cause of Grigor’s agitation, Schlegel saw, was that one of his shots had hit him square in the buttock.

  Schlegel laboriously extricated his handcuffs while still holding on to his gun and threw them to the boy, who was caught between excitement and shock. He told him to put them on Grigor, who lay writhing and making growling noises.

  He was in the act of covering Sybil’s nakedness when he heard footsteps coming up the outside stairs. Sybil was crying, saying she wanted only to be left alone. The door opened and Schlegel saw Frau Zwicker come to see what was going on. She stood there petrified, with a pair of nail scissors in her hand.

  Schlegel turned back to attend to Sybil when he felt a fierce pain and looking down he saw Frau Zwicker had stabbed him in the leg with her tiny scissors.

  55

  Schlegel was given a tetanus shot, had his leg bandaged, and told to go home. The wound was superficial. The boy who fell off the roof had broken his leg and was in hospital. Grigor’s bullet was extracted and he was downstairs at headquarters, in a cell next to Haager from the slaughterhouse, who had also been brought in.

  Morgen had Sybil spirited away, Schlegel wasn’t sure where.

  The aftermath had offered a tableau of extreme awkwardness. Grigor lay naked and cursing. Sybil retreated to a corner and dressed under a blanket. She avoided looking at Schlegel. Frau Zwicker behaved like a woman trapped on stage and repeated over that she hadn’t meant to. The boy went off to call the cops and Morgen and didn’t come back. Schlegel told Sybil to get away before anyone came but she refused and sat waiting.

  The local police turned up, followed by Morgen, who took charge.

  Schlegel, Grigor and the brat were packed off together in an ambulance, Grigor scowling malevolence, the boy whimpering and Schlegel in an unsteady state of adrenalin rush and prurient embarrassment at the memory of Sybil naked.

  Morgen appeared most amused that Schlegel had been stabbed in the leg by Frau Zwicker, in fact seemed delighted by the choreography of the entire episode, and was able to report that the youthful voyeurs were part of a band used by Gersten for surveillance, inspired by Gersten’s own experience as a young actor in Emil and the Detectives. They had followed Sybil to the cinema where Grigo
r worked and picked them up from there. With Gersten no longer around to report to, they had become distracted by risqué movies and sex snooping.

  The boys struck Morgen as feral, uneducated and already delinquent. Soon there would be a generation of soldiers the army could make nothing of.

  Frau Zwicker’s intemperate moment was attributed to a spasm of blind rage brought about by accumulative frustration, for which Schlegel was to blame, having not delivered the yellow suit as promised, which had led to her being accused of theft by the client. Morgen looked at Schlegel owlishly and asked if any of that made sense. He was merely reporting what he had been told. Schlegel said he would make the necessary recompense. He was too ashamed to say where the suit was now.

  Morgen asked if he wished to press charges against Frau Zwicker. Schlegel said it wasn’t necessary.

  ‘Perhaps you would like to tell her she is free to go.’

  It turned out Morgen also had her locked up downstairs. They went down together. Frau Zwicker scuttled off.

  Morgen dealt with Haager next.

  ‘So, friend from the slaughterhouse,’ Morgen said, ‘I am not asking you to talk, only to listen.’

  Haager looked puzzled.

  Like a man telling a story to a child, Morgen began with how he had been out of town and just come back. Schlegel sensed the account was as much for his benefit.

  ‘Only for a matter of days. Everything was going according to plan until my star witness mysteriously died. It was a corruption case with a lot at stake.’

  Haager asked what did any of this have to do with him.

  Morgen ignored him and went on. He suspected an SS doctor of poisoning his man to stop him testifying but he had no evidence.

  ‘Each of us has his breaking point,’ he said, looking at Haager.

  He invited the doctor to dine at the officers’ mess. Protocol made it impossible for him to refuse as it was a point of honour to accept an invitation by a fellow officer of equal rank or higher.

  ‘I ordered a private dining room and the doctor turned up and went white at the sight of the dead witness on the dining table, opened up for autopsy. The contents of the man’s stomach had been transferred to a tureen. There were also three Russian prisoners in the room. And an armed guard. It was all very formal, silver service and so on.’