The Emperor's Exile (Eagles of the Empire 19)

by Simon Scarrow

  Kittel’s bushy eyebrows shot up and he gestured towards the man’s body. ‘Sir, if it wasn’t the fumes that killed them, then what? Murder, I say. This is the work of some sick, degenerate pervert. That’s why I put the call in to Kripo. That’s why you’re here.’ He continued with a faint sneer. ‘You’re supposed to be the smart-arses. The ones who know better than the rest of us. If you can’t see a crime when there’s evidence of one right under your nose, then what good are you to the police force, and to the Reich?’

  Schenke forced himself not to react. Most of the officers and men of Kripo still regarded themselves as professionals who were above politics. It was an attitude that did not endear them to the many in the capital’s police force who supported the party and its leader. Since they had come to power, the National Socialists had set about getting rid of those police officers who failed to embrace their ideology. But Kripo’s expertise and experience was hard-won, and its officers had proved more difficult to replace. That said, even the legendary abilities of their former commander, Dr Bernard Weiss, had not been enough to save him. The fact that he was a Jew outweighed all his brilliance and the long list of successes he had enjoyed against the capital’s criminals. Now Schenke found himself confronted by one of the party’s supporters. The kind of man who sneered at intellectuals and took satisfaction in seeing their ideals crushed by the new regime. It would be best not to confront Kittel’s politics. It would be better to simply pull rank.

  ‘Sergeant, you forget yourself. I am your superior and you will respect that. I will not tolerate insubordination from any man. And I tell you now that no crime has been committed.’ He turned to the bodies. ‘You are correct that their deaths were not caused by fumes. But you are wrong in every other respect. There is no sign of burglary. Not one hint of any search for valuables. And one of the first things a thief would have taken is the photograph frame. No, not the Führer. That silver one next to the clock. There is no evidence of any assault.’

  Kittel snorted. ‘But the cut to the head . . .’

  ‘. . . is the result of a fall. No doubt caused when Herr Oberg was in a delirious state before his death. Perhaps when he was tearing his clothes off.’

  ‘Now you are talking utter nonsense, Inspector. What kind of person would take off their clothes in the middle of this freezing weather?’

  ‘Someone who is dying from hypothermia.’ Schenke looked from one body to the other with pity in his expression. ‘They died from the cold. There’s no fuel for the stove. It’s likely they had burned the last of their coal some days before. Look at the window latch there; it’s useless. I dare say it’s been swinging open and shut for some time. It’s probable that Oberg tried to secure the window when he was in a confused state thanks to the cold. Sometimes, not long before the end, the dying feel they are burning up and so they strip. Of course, it only hastens the end, as it did here. And if the temperature stays this low for much longer, we will be seeing more of these cases.’

  He drew himself up and nodded. ‘It was the cold, Sergeant. Not thieves, or gypsies. Just the cold. This is not a job for Kripo. You’ll have to write the report. And next time, I hope you’ll think twice before you call us out.’

  He inclined his head in farewell and the policeman stepped back to let him pass, shaping to raise his arm. ‘Heil . . .’

  But Schenke had already strode off, quickening his pace to avoid any exchange of the salute the party had introduced. It had always struck him as cheaply theatrical, like so many of the trappings of national socialism that strove to achieve drama and spectacle to excite their followers.

  As he made his way down the stairs, he frowned. By the time he returned to his office at the precinct, over two hours would have been wasted. Time he could have spent dealing with the ongoing investigation into a ring of ration coupon forgers. All because the sergeant wanted a fresh excuse to target those gypsies who remained in the district.

  At the bottom of the stairs, he passed the open door of the concierge’s apartment. Frau Glück stood on the threshold. He touched the brim of his hat and stepped out into the bright street.

  Even though the sky was overcast, the glare of the snow caused him to wrinkle his eyes. The driver had left the engine running, against fuel-saving regulations, in order to keep the car’s heater going. Schenke slipped into the passenger seat without comment, grateful for the heat inside the vehicle. As the driver put the Opel into gear, the inspector took one last look at the grey facade of the apartment block. The concierge had emerged from her doorway to stand at the entrance, and their eyes met. He could not be sure, but he thought there was a touch of guilt in her expression. As well there should be. A terrible winter had come to Berlin. It was the duty of all the capital’s inhabitants to look out for each other in the freezing days to come. If nothing else had been achieved in this pointless diversion, Schenke hoped that Frau Glück and her husband would take better care of their neighbours.

  ‘Back to the precinct, sir?’

  ‘Yes. And take it slowly. There’s ice on the streets.’

  There was no sense in adding fresh names to the list of victims claimed by this harshest of winters, thought Schenke. No sense at all.

  Chapter Two

  The Kripo section at the Pankow precinct had a modest staff of less than ten men under Schenke’s command, four of whom were still in training or serving out their probation period before they qualified. There were also two women, whose duties included dealing with children and vulnerable females involved in investigations. In normal circumstances there would have been another six investigators, but the exigencies of war had demanded the transfer of men away from peacetime duties. The section’s offices were on the top floor of the precinct building, overlooking the yard containing garages, workshops, storerooms and a small barrack block. It was up three flights of stairs, and Schenke grimaced as he made the climb, favouring his bad leg. Although it was over six years since the motor-racing accident that had nearly killed him, his left knee was still stiff and painful, especially during the cold, damp winter months. Although he could walk without difficulty, climbing stairs or any attempt to run more than a hundred metres caused a shooting pain in the joint. It was enough to render him unfit for military service.

  That was a cause of shame to him, since many of his colleagues had been drafted into the forces to serve Germany in the recent war with Poland. With luck, peace would soon return to the continent, the men would resume their old occupations and Schenke would no longer have to be conscious of his failure to contribute to the Reich’s war effort.

  He paused at the top of the stairs, glanced down the corridor to make sure he was alone and bent over to massage the muscles around the knee, easing the stiffness and pain. Straightening, he made himself stride to the entrance of Kripo’s offices, and entered a room ten metres in length by four. Desks were arranged on either side, paired face to face. On the wall opposite the door was a line of windows, the glass covered in condensation and patches of ice on the inside. Noticeboards hung along the side wall. Less than half his staff were at their desks, and they looked up as he entered. The rest were out on duty. In other branches of the police force they would have stood up for a superior officer, but the men and women belonging to Kripo were plain-clothes professionals and were content to eschew such formalities and get on with the job.

  His second in command, Sergeant Hauser, a veteran policeman of nearly thirty years, turned his chair to face Schenke. He was sturdily built from his days boxing in the army, and his cropped hair looked like a sprinkling of pepper across the crown of his head.

  ‘Got a new case for us, sir?’

  Schenke shook his head. ‘Thankfully not, Hauser. Nothing suspicious. Almost a complete waste of time, in fact.’

  ‘Almost?’

  ‘It gave me the chance to teach one of the uniformed boys not to waste our time.’

  Hauser smiled. There was always an edge to relations between criminal investigators and the beat polic
e known as Orpo.

  Schenke took off his coat and folded it over his arm but kept his hat and scarf in place. ‘Any news from the technical lab about the ration coupons we found at the Oskar warehouse?’

  ‘Sure.’ Hauser turned to his desk and reached for a buff folder. ‘This came in while you were out. I’ve only had time to look at the summary. But it makes for interesting reading.’

  ‘Bring it through to my office. I’ll have a look over some coffee.’ Schenke caught the eye of the most junior member of the section, a chubby youth with slicked-back blond hair. ‘Brandt!’

  The young man stood up. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Coffee for me and Hauser. Right away.’

  Brandt nodded and hurried out of the office towards the staff room at the end of the corridor.

  ‘You always pick on the kid. Why not ask one of the girls?’ Hauser muttered.

  ‘He’s fresh out of Charlottenberg and needs to pay his dues. Like you and I both did.’

  Schenke glanced towards the two desks where his female officers sat. Frieda Echs was in her mid forties and solidly built. She wore her brown hair in a short, almost manly cut. Opposite her sat Rosa Mayer, ten years younger, with blonde hair and the kind of finely structured face that made her look like a film star. Plenty of men in the precinct had tried to win her affection, but she had rebuffed any advances by saying she had a suitor who worked in Reichsführer Himmler’s private office. Whether she was telling the truth or not, it served to ensure she was never troubled more than once by the same man.

  ‘Besides,’ he continued, ‘Frieda and Rosa have earned their place in our little world here at Pankow. Until Brandt completes his probation, he makes the coffee.’

  Hauser shrugged his heavy shoulders and ran a large hand over his head. ‘That’s not how it was back in the day.’

  ‘Then chalk up a win for progress, my friend. Let’s have a look at this report.’

  Schenke led the way through the room to the glassed-in cubicle at the far end, nodding a greeting to the officers he passed along the way. A neat brass plate with his rank and name inscribed in a gothic style was screwed to the door frame. He opened the door. There was a bookcase and a filing cabinet against the wall opposite the window; in between was his desk, a battered and worn-looking relic from the previous century. He had been offered a replacement when he took up the post, but had declined, preferring to keep the old one. It was large, solid and redolent of tradition and good service; somehow reassuring and imposing. Because of its size, there was barely enough room for the two chairs for visitors set to the right of the door.

  Behind the desk, a portrait of the Führer in a gleaming black frame stared down the length of the section’s office. Unlike the desk, it had not been a feature of the office during the time of Schenke’s predecessor. It had been hung there shortly after Schenke’s arrival, on the orders of the precinct commander, a corpulent man who had been appointed out of loyalty to the party rather than any proven competence. Schenke had left the picture in place and tried to ignore it, taking some pleasure at having his back turned to the Führer.

  Pausing to hang his coat on a hook and slip off his leather gloves, he sat in his chair and waved Hauser to one of the others.

  ‘So, what have the lab boys got for us?’

  Hauser set the folder down and slid it across to his superior. Flipping the cover open, Schenke quickly read the summary, then leafed through the following pages. As he got to the end, there was a tap at the door and he looked up to see Brandt on the other side of the glass, a steaming mug in each hand.

  ‘Come!’

  The probationer frowned helplessly, until Hauser chuckled and turned the handle for him. Brandt flushed and set his burdens down before retreating, closing the door behind him.

  ‘Initiative isn’t his strong point,’ Hauser said. ‘Be a minor miracle if he ever qualifies.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Schenke reached for his coffee as he considered what he had just read. ‘It seems that our friend Leopold Kopinski has been more industrious than we thought. Those forged coupons we found at his place are from the same source as others turning up all across the city, according to the ink dye tests and analysis of the paper.’ He opened the folder and took out the samples, holding them up for close examination. There was a small perforated sheet of blue meat coupons and a purple one for sweets and nuts, the most prized of the coupons issued to the population of the capital. ‘They’re good . . . very good.’

  He reached into his jacket and took out his ration book, setting some of his own coupons down beside the two sheets. ‘I’m not sure I’d be able to pick out the forgeries if I didn’t know.’ He glanced at Hauser. ‘It’s tempting to pocket a few and see if they work, eh?’

  The sergeant grimaced. ‘Sure, if you want to risk being thrown into the cells at the Alex for a few months, or sent to the camps. That’s what they did to a coupon forger the Karlshiff precinct took down. I don’t fancy spending a winter like this in some flimsy hut. Mind you, his work looked like his kid had forged them with crayons. Kopinski’s stuff is much better. Could fool almost anyone.’

  ‘Which brings us to the question of whether this is Kopinski’s own work, or bought in from another Berlin gang. If it is his work, and he confesses to it, then we can nip this in the bud.’

  ‘We’ve got to find him first,’ Hauser responded. ‘He went to ground after the raid.’

  ‘He can’t hide for long.’ Schenke took a sip from his mug and winced as he found the coffee still too hot to drink. ‘You know how it is. Someone will sell him out soon. For money, or because our Gestapo friends beat the truth out of them. Once we get our hands on him, we’ll know how far these coupons have spread.’

  ‘And if we discover that he’s not behind it?’ Hauser queried. ‘Then it could be any of the gangs with the clout to forge coupons this good on a large scale. And what if the source isn’t here in Berlin? What if it’s one of the Hamburg gangs? If it isn’t Kopinski, I’d say our problems are just beginning. Or, more precisely, they are just beginning for our esteemed department head. Oberführer Nebe is going to be given a tough time of it by Himmler.’

  The new order was keen to sweep away the ills of the era that had followed the end of the last war. Criminality was to be crushed wherever it appeared and the government would not tolerate being embarrassed by having its recently introduced rationing scheme undermined by forgeries. Kopinski’s fate was already determined, whether he was the source of the coupons or not. There would be a swift, highly publicised trial, at which he would be found guilty of crimes against the German people. Since Germany was at war, a death sentence was inevitable in order to set an example to other criminals. And if the forged coupons were the work of someone else, then Reichsführer Himmler was going to demand that Nebe and his investigators find those responsible and put an end to the scandal. It would be wise to take some initiative early on, Schenke reflected.

  ‘All right then, Hauser. I want you to get in touch with the district offices. Start with those closest to Berlin and work out in the direction of the other major cities. Ask the Kripo sections if they have come across any high-quality forgeries. If so, have them send us samples at once. At least it will give us some idea how big the problem is. Nebe will need to provide that kind of intelligence to Himmler as early as possible.’

  Hauser gave a wry smile. ‘And it’ll do us no harm to have been the ones to furnish him with the details, eh?’

  Schenke returned the smile. ‘It’s about time the Pankow section got some credit for our work and stopped being treated like outcasts.’ He spoke with feeling and instantly regretted it.

  There was an awkward pause as he watched Hauser closely, trying to read his response. Hauser was a member of the party, but had shown no desire to accept an SS rank as some had done. Especially as he served under a section commander who was not a Nazi. It was not that Schenke opposed the regime particularly. He was largely indifferent to them, as long as they did not interfere with hi
s work directly. He had joined Kripo after graduating from university in 1934. It had been an unusual choice for someone from a privileged background, albeit a minor aristocratic household, but he was passionate about the work and the moral clarity of pursuing those who traded in crime. Politicians would come and go, but there would always be criminals. At least that was what he used to believe.

  Like so many Germans, he had regarded Hitler and his followers as posturing buffoons peddling obvious lies. Even as their influence spread, like mould in a Petri dish, it was hard to take them seriously. Until it was too late. Ever since Hitler had become chancellor and assumed dictatorial powers, his party’s hold on almost every aspect of life in Germany had been like some great constricting serpent forever tightening its coils. The police had been swept up along with the rest of Germany’s institutions, and now Kripo too was firmly under the control of the party. There was nothing Schenke could do about that. Perhaps the price of social order and the rebuilding of Germany in a bid to make the nation great again was the loss of freedom. But as long as they let him carry out his work, he felt able to claim some moral integrity for himself and his actions. He was a guardian of the true values of the service, even if others were not, and in the fullness of time he believed – he hoped – that the party’s grip would weaken and Germany would revert to a less egregious form of government. Then he would no longer find himself troubled by his doubts.

  That was a view he shared only with his closest friends and family. Here in the office, he kept his opinions guarded, even from Hauser, whom he respected as a fellow professional. Trust was a scarce commodity in Germany, and becoming ever more so with each passing day. Schenke had experienced neighbours informing on neighbours, even children informing on their own parents, and being lionised by the party for doing so. The only loyalty that was tolerated by the regime was that owed to the Führer, the party and the fatherland. Every other form of loyalty was suspect. Even Hauser, who he had served with for over four years, might be forced to choose between his party and his friends and comrades, like Schenke.