by Philip Kerr
“That’s the trouble with cops. You people think you own every meter of the moral high ground between here and the Vatican. So he goes to court. And then what happens? A smart Jew lawyer invokes paragraph fifty-one and before you know it another sharp-witted murderer like your pal Bruno Gerth is serving out his sentence weaving baskets in a home for the bewildered instead of getting the sentence he deserves. I couldn’t risk that happening.”
“You better let me have it, Angerstein. And don’t give me that crap about you being a father. After seeing you in action with a cane I figure you haven’t got a kindly bone in your crooked body, let alone one that resembles anything paternal. I want the whole story beginning with when you picked him up in your car. Otherwise you’ll be picking these little slugs out of your teeth for the rest of the week.”
* * *
—
“ALL RIGHT. You guessed what happened between me and Prussian Emil. I’ll give you that. While you were out of the room I gave him a few extra hard ones with the cane and then told him he was a dead man unless he told me exactly what he knew about the man who killed Eva. Which is when he dropped the bombshell and said it was a cop called Reichenbach. But here’s the real reason I didn’t let you in on that. With you being a cop, I asked myself if Reichenbach being a cop might persuade you to go easy on him, the same way it went for Bruno Gerth, and concluded it might and I couldn’t take that risk. So I stuffed the handkerchief back in Emil’s mouth and told him that I didn’t want you to know the name, just that it had been a cop who’d killed her. I figured that by the time you could put a name to the description, I’d have Reichenbach safely in the bag. I couldn’t have told you any more than I did about what I was planning. You wouldn’t have stood for it.”
“You were right about that much anyway.”
“I didn’t have time to figure all the angles, but it seemed like a good idea. I still think you should let things lie the way they are.”
“I can’t. It’s just not in me. I’ve got standards and I try to live up to them. Whereas you’ve got no standards at all, and you certainly live up to those. I should have realized that. So. Let’s have the rest of it. The whole story. Exactly what happened to Kurt Reichenbach.”
“If you insist. Just don’t shoot me again.”
* * *
—
“LIKE MOST COPS in Berlin you actually know very little about it. The city, I mean. For people like you, German society is very simple. It’s the one familiar social order that has existed since time immemorial, a hierarchy in which everyone knows his or her place. The reality is very different. For more than a century there has existed another world that lies beyond the bounds of this hierarchy—a world of outcasts and people who belong to no recognized social class—which, for better or worse, people like you call the underworld. At the center of this underworld are professional criminals, bandits, robbers, thieves, and murderers. Oh, some of you—Ernst Engelbrecht, perhaps—they think they know this netherworld, but believe me, they don’t. No one does who is not a part of it.
“This underworld exists deep beneath this city, like an intricate labyrinth of old mine shafts and tunnels. A criminal society, yes, but one with its own rules and institutions: a professional brother-and sisterhood that is restricted to those who’ve done time in the cement and that severely punishes not just those who inform on one another to the police, but also those who scorn our influence, or whose crimes are considered so heinous that they are beyond the merely criminal; crimes that fly in the face of what it is to be human, such as compulsive murder. In short, it’s the Middle German Ring that brings a bit of order and stability to the criminal world.”
I laughed. “If you’re telling me that there’s honor among thieves, I don’t believe it.”
“Oh, it’s much more than honor, I can assure you. It’s about organization where otherwise there would be chaos. The Middle German Ring imposes statutes on the local gangs and clubs, controls their activities, exacts money tributes, and punishes those who break our laws, which are as binding as anything a German jurist would recognize. We even have our own court to judge what sanctions and punishments are to be inflicted on those who have broken our laws.”
“Next thing you’ll be telling about Esmerelda and Quasimodo and the court of the gypsies.”
“You asked me to tell you what happened to Reichenbach and I’m telling you now. It’s your business what you believe.”
“Go on.” I tossed him my handkerchief to mop some of the blood off his thigh and shoulder. “I’m listening.”
“This people’s court meets once a month or by special session in the cellar of an old disused brewery in Pankow.”
“Which one?”
“The Deutsches Bauernbrauerei near the water tower on Ibsenstrasse.”
“I know it. There’s a hole in the west wall as tall as the Brandenburg Gate from when they took the copper fermentation tanks out.”
“That’s right. It’s the kind of place where we can meet without disturbance. The court’s judges are the ring’s most senior bosses, but the jury is made up of some of the city’s thieves, pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers, yokel catchers, illegal gamblers—all of whom are paying members of the local clubs—in short, all those men and women who can’t go to the police for protection.”
“Hell of a country club you have there.”
“Just give your mouth a rest and listen. You might learn something. So, as you surmised, this morning I kidnapped Kurt Reichenbach outside his own apartment and took him before a specially convened people’s court. In your world this has no official standing, of course, but in mine, it is a legitimate judicial authority, as important as the Imperial Court of Justice in Leipzig. As many as a hundred people were present to see that true justice was done. I myself acted as his prosecutor, and Prussian Emil was my chief witness. Reichenbach was given a defense attorney appointed by the court and allowed to argue his case. But the evidence—more evidence than you were aware of, perhaps—was compelling, not to say overwhelming.
“The chief witness told the court he saw the accused enter the courtyard with my daughter, and not soon after, he saw him again, with blood on his hands. And if that wasn’t enough to convince the court he was Winnetou, a second witness, a prostitute, came forward to say that months before any of the Winnetou murders, she’d met with the accused and they’d agreed to have sex, but he’d changed his mind and started calling her the vilest names and said it was wrong that decent men like him could be tempted in this way, and how it was high time someone cleaned up the streets.
“A few days later, she said she was attacked from behind by someone who hit her on the back of the head with a stone in a sock and that she was only alive because her attacker had been interrupted, as she was quite certain he’d meant to kill her. The man ran away leaving the sock and the stone. She is convinced it had been Reichenbach because she recognized the sweet smell of his cigars. Not only that, but one of the women who saved her life found a cigar stub at the scene and she’d kept it in her handbag intending to give it to the police when she reported the attack, but she changed her mind and never did. Decided she didn’t need police attention. Well, who does? Anyway, she told the court she had thrown away the cigar but remembered the brand on the wrapper clearly enough because it was such a beautiful name: Dominican Aurora. It was this information that truly sealed his fate, since a summary search of the accused’s personal effects had revealed some unsmoked Dominican Aurora cigars in his breast pocket, which, one of the judges informed the court, could only be obtained in Germany as an import from Amsterdam.
“In the face of this damning evidence, Reichenbach’s defense attorney then argued a simple case of diminished responsibility: only a lunatic could have killed so many people. The court was not persuaded. At that point, the accused, asked if he had anything to say for himself before sentence was pronounced, demanded to know by what r
ight the scum of Berlin were putting him on trial—his words, not mine—and it was then that he confessed to his crimes, which he justified by saying he’d intended first to drive Berlin’s whores out of business, and then to make the city’s streets fit for decent law-abiding citizens to walk in. It seems he had a closer acquaintance with Bruno Gerth than even you did. It was when Gerth got arrested that Reichenbach decided to carry on the good work.”
“Did he say why he scalped them?”
“No, but I should have thought it was obvious; he wanted to cause the maximum amount of terror among the city’s whores. And he succeeded, too. After all, it was this part—the scalping—that made the killings newsworthy. Let’s face it: Whores being murdered in this town is almost commonplace.”
“This is what I was afraid might happen. I now have a hundred questions that will very likely never be answered.”
“Such as?”
“Such as why did he wait until he’d killed Werner Jugo before he wrote a taunting letter to the newspapers? And why didn’t he admit to killing any of the girls in either of those two letters? He suggested he might get around to killing some prostitutes, but that’s not the same as admitting he’d already killed three. It’s almost as if he wanted to make sure we didn’t establish a connection between Winnetou and Gnadenschuss. Which, of course, would have doubled our chances of catching him.”
“Is that all you’ve got?”
“Not by a long chalk. In the first letter he suggests that the veterans were not only a disgrace to the uniform, they also reminded everyone of the shame of Germany’s defeat. But in the second letter it seems the mission has changed and he’s intent merely on cleaning up Berlin’s streets. These are important questions to which I should like to have had some answers. Only, I don’t suppose he left a written confession.”
“You know he didn’t. A verdict of guilty was delivered by the people, a sentence of death—to be carried out immediately—was then pronounced and Kurt Reichenbach was hanged in the brewery yard. He made a poor end. Fear got the better of him: He tried to resist and then begged for his life, which reduced him even more in the eyes of those who were present. No one likes a coward. The body was cut down and taken away for disposal. I say disposal; I’m more or less certain the body was not buried. So I very much doubt that you could be taken to see it. The last time the people’s court carried out a capital sentence, the body was burned in secret. But if you’d been there you would have been convinced of his guilt, I can assure you.”
“Oh, I am. As a matter of fact I was convinced of his guilt before I came here tonight. Earlier this evening I found enough evidence in his car to send Reichenbach straight to the guillotine: principally the murder weapon—a hammer—and a scalping knife. I even have the pistol with which he shot those disabled war veterans. Short of seeing the word murderer chalked on his back, it couldn’t be more obvious.”
“Then I really don’t understand. What are you doing here? If you knew all that, why the hell did you shoot me?”
“Because I don’t believe in lynchings.”
“He got what he deserved. And how often can you say that these days? Do you honestly think the end result would have been different in the courts you serve?”
“You can dress it up any way you like, Angerstein, but that’s what it was. A lynching. And what he deserved most was a fair trial.”
“Because he was a cop?”
“Because he was a citizen. Even a rat like you deserves a fair trial.”
“And you say that even though you say you had ample evidence of his guilt.”
“Because I had evidence of his guilt. Sometimes being a cop is difficult because the law says the guilty get treated the same way as the innocent. It sticks in the throat a bit to respect the rights of a man who’s a piece of shit. But this republic will fall apart if we don’t stick to the legal process.”
“On the contrary. In this case I think there’s every chance the republic would fall apart if the legal process was observed. Can you imagine the scandal that would have resulted from the news that it was a serving police officer who carried out these murders? Moreover, a serving police officer who was a Jew? The nationalists would assume Christmas had come early this year. I can almost see the headlines in Der Angriff and the Völkischer Beobachter. Bernhard Weiss would be out. Maybe even Gennat. Albert Grzesinski, too, probably. And I doubt the SPD could hope to keep a government together for more than a few hours. Very probably there would have to be another federal election. With all the economic uncertainty that such a thing entails.
“Of course, it’s up to you what you tell the commissars. But if you’ll take my advice, Gunther, you’ll keep your mouth shut. This way everything can be swept neatly away and forgotten. In three months nobody will remember him or any of the people he killed. Not that you could use any of this against me in court, anyway. My lawyer would get any charges thrown out in a matter of minutes.”
“I don’t doubt that, either.”
“Then there’s the dead man’s wife. She’s a nurse, isn’t she? What do you think she’d prefer? To be known as the spouse of a multiple murderer? Or as the poor wife of a cop who disappeared, heroically, in the line of duty? Maybe you should ask her opinion before you go blundering down the road of absolute truth, Gunther. Can you imagine what her life would be like with every one of her friends knowing what her husband has done? Many would assume that she must have known something. Perhaps she did, at that. How could a wife not know that kind of thing? Take it from me, very soon she wouldn’t have any friends at all.
“And lastly, there’s the great German people. Do you think any of them give a damn if someone like Kurt Reichenbach gets a fair trial? Nobody thinks in terms of justice and the rule of law, so why should we? Ask a bus driver or a boot boy if he thinks it’s a good idea to spend thousands of taxpayers’ reichsmarks putting a man like that on trial, or if it’s better just to put him to death quietly. I think I know what they’d say.
“You’re guarding an empty safe, my friend. No one cares. The only people who profit from a trial are the lawyers and the newspapers. Not you. Not me. Not the ordinary man in the street.
“Well, that’s what happened. There isn’t anything else. You can take it or leave it.”
Erich Angerstein stood up and walked painfully to the telephone. “And now if you don’t mind, I’m going to call a doctor.” He gave me a quizzical look. “Unless you’re going to shoot me again. Are you going to shoot me again?” He gave me a cynical smile; it was the only type he seemed to have. “No, I thought not.”
That’s the trouble with listening to the devil; it turns out that his most impressive trick is to tell us exactly what we want to hear.
Angerstein picked up the candlestick and started to dial a number, which is when I started to walk out of there.
“Hey, stick around, Gunther. I’ll make it up to you. You’ll need another collar to help deflect the criticism that will come Kripo’s way when you don’t solve the Gnadenschuss case. I said if you helped me find Eva’s killer I’d give you the true facts about the Wolfmium factory fire. And I will. This will help you make commissar.”
But I was shaking my head.
“What’s the matter, Gunther? Don’t you want to be a commissar? Don’t you want to know the truth about what really happened back there?”
“I don’t want anything from you, Angerstein. Especially when it’s something as precious as the truth. Even truth sounds like a damned lie when it’s in your mouth. So I’d hate to have to rely on it or use it in any way to advance myself. If ever I make commissar, which I doubt, it will be as the result of my own doing.”
“Have it your own way. You’re a stubborn bastard if ever I met one. I almost admire you for it. It seems it’s true what they say: There’s no fool quite as foolish as an honest fool. But ask yourself this: One day, one day soon if I’m not mistaken, wh
en you’re the only honest man left in Germany, who’ll know?”
* * *
—
I WAS BACK at the Alex the next day, going through the slippery motions of investigating a series of murders I had already solved, just for the sake of appearances. I didn’t doubt for a minute the truth of what Erich Angerstein had told me, not with two bullets in him; nor the cold pragmatic wisdom of my not telling Weiss or Gennat anything of what I’d discovered about Kurt Reichenbach. Angerstein was just as right about that in daylight as he’d been the previous night; identifying Reichenbach as Winnetou and Dr. Gnadenschuss looked like a quick way of bringing down not just Kripo, but also the fragile government coalition; another federal election so soon after the last one would have been a great opportunity for the German National People’s Party, the communists, the Workers’ Party, or even the Nazis. So I spent a dull, quiet afternoon in Records, as ordered, compiling a list of five potential suspects from the Stahlhelm for Ernst Gennat. It was a total waste of time, of course, but then again, so much of my job in the Murder Commission looked like it was going to be a waste of time, at least for the next few weeks. And the longer I spent going through the motions, the more I came to realize that my deception could only end when there occurred another unrelated murder for us to investigate. But when, after forty-eight hours none came, I told myself that the quickest way to divert attention from Dr. Gnadenschuss was by solving an existing murder case, if I could. It was fortunate that I had half an idea which case this might be.
* * *
—
IT WAS SOON OBVIOUS that Reichenbach had done nothing about arresting Hugo “Mustermann”—the man I’d recognized from Sing Sing, the same man who’d shot Willi Beckmann. Arresting him was now my secret priority. I telephoned the Office for Public Conveyances in Charlottenburg and asked them to check the owner of the yellow BMW Dixi, registration IA 17938. They told me that the car was owned by a man called Hugo Gediehn. On the face of it, this now looked like a straightforward bit of detective work. I’d seen the murder myself, and it doesn’t get much more straightforward than that. But there was something about it—a minor detail—I wanted to check out first with Brigitte Mölbling before I called on Hugo Gediehn.
