The Man from Berlin

by Luke McCallin

  41

  Reinhardt had gone cold, as if he had been doused. A piece of the truth had suddenly flared and bloomed here, and the pattern of the case as he understood it had shifted. Reinhardt knew his confusion was showing, but he could not help it, and he saw something sparkle in Ascher’s eyes. A part of the truth was here, right here among them. Reinhardt could feel it, feel the way into that explanation that was bunched tight and only needed the right tug on it to unravel, but the way was fading, the shape of the case slumping back into the dull glow of its embers.

  Reinhardt followed Verhein under the awning. An aide-de-camp offered the general a clipboard covered in signals, which he glanced at cursorily before telling him he did not want to be disturbed. He went inside the little house, dropped his PPSh and the signals on a table, then walked to a window, just an empty frame of splintered wood. The sound of gunfire came again, staccato bursts, the dull crump of explosions. He put his hands in the small of his back and stretched, sighing, then turned to Reinhardt, the light washing over his mane of white hair. ‘You know, in a way, I’m glad you came. It’s been… difficult.’ He stared at Reinhardt, waiting as if for a reaction. Reinhardt could see that, but he was still feeling his way cautiously around the new shape of the investigation.

  ‘Sir, why don’t you just tell me what happened?’ he managed after a moment.

  ‘You know I met her in Russia?’ Reinhardt nodded. ‘We quarrelled there. Over… an incident. It’s not important.’

  ‘It may be, sir,’ interrupted Reinhardt, thinking of that collective farm at Yagodnyy, the Sonderkommando, the Jews, the Red Army. He held back, though, wanting to see what Verhein would say.

  ‘It was an operational issue,’ said Verhein after a moment, turning and walking slowly to a trestle table and leaning his weight back against it. ‘She travelled with my division a while, but she would head off on her own from time to time. She was in the propaganda companies, you know? So, once, she went out with a Sonderkommando and my unit passed through its operational area, and I found her –’ He paused, suddenly and obviously upset. His mouth twisted, and he looked down and away. ‘I found her torturing someone. A Jew. A woman. In front of her children. I knew she had strong feelings about Jews. She had strong feelings about a lot of things. And I knew she sometimes… expressed… well, it went beyond words. I knew of one incident with captured Red Army soldiers. I had heard of others. I didn’t believe it. Not really. But I saw it with my own eyes.’

  His own had fallen away, gone somewhere else, to that wet field at Yagodnyy. ‘You could almost say it drove me quite mad. I wanted nothing more to do with her. We fought, and I sent her away. She was furious, incandescent with rage. She swore I would regret it, but when I came here, she contacted me. We met, and we agreed to let bygones be bygones. I had no wish for a relationship with her, although God knows I was still attracted to her. We met once or twice for drinks. That was it. Then she asked me to her house the night the conference for Schwarz ended…’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Marija was in a strange mood. Very hyperactive. She was very aroused. And, God help me, she was arousing. We had sex. It was… quite something. Then she kept talking about Russia, about what she’d seen there. She kept talking about Jews. What she had seen done to them. And then – she seemed unable to help herself, like a child who knows a secret she ought not to – she revealed to me she understood everything. She told me I was finished, that people in Berlin knew everything. I did not know what she was talking about, she had me so confused, but it was clear her mind was not quite all there. She began to scrape at herself, at her arms, her shoulders, at her… at her sex. She said she was dirty, unclean, that I made her that way.

  ‘I began to feel afraid, but I still did not know what she was talking about. Then she laughed, and said my sister would pay the same price as me. Only she would pay it first. At that… I felt enraged and… panicked. I demanded she tell me what she was talking about. She only laughed harder, taunted me further. I struck her. She laughed, told me I hit like an old woman. I hit her again. And again. And again. I could not stop myself.’ Verhein drew in a long, slow breath, and his gaze reeled itself back in from wherever it had been. He turned and looked at Reinhardt. ‘And then… nothing. Just coming to my senses standing over her.’

  Reinhardt drew in his own breath. ‘Then what did you do?’

  ‘Then?’ Verhein shifted on the table. ‘Then I left. For the front. First thing on Sunday morning.’

  Reinhardt knew there was an untruth in what the general had just said. It was his old policeman’s instinct. The suspect answering a question with a question. The hesitation. The shift in position. ‘She was dead?’ Verhein nodded. ‘You knew this how?’

  ‘I have… beaten men to death, Captain. I know how it looks. How it feels.’

  ‘You were sure you had killed her?’

  Verhein nodded, his eyes narrowing now. ‘I was.’

  ‘You are sure you beat her to death?’

  Verhein shifted, his big hands gripping the edge of the trestle. ‘Captain,’ he growled. ‘If this is a game… ?’

  ‘It was Colonel Ascher who told you, wasn’t it? Confirmed it.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Verhein, after a moment.

  ‘You sent him back. To clean things up. To make sure you had killed her.’ The air felt thick to Reinhardt, so thick he could hardly breathe.

  ‘He said she was dead,’ Verhein said, finally. ‘That I had killed her.’

  ‘That you beat her to death.’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Marija Vukić was stabbed to death, sir.’

  ‘Enough.’

  Both Reinhardt and Verhein jerked around at the sound of the voice. Ascher was standing at the entrance, a pistol aimed at Reinhardt. Mamagedov stepped out from behind him, sidling over to stand behind Reinhardt, his stink filling Reinhardt’s nose. The trestle table creaked as Verhein shifted his bulk off it. ‘Is this true?’ The pistol snapped around at him before slipping back onto Reinhardt. The angles of Ascher’s face were pale, drawn tight, and the tendons of his hand were stretched taut around the pistol’s grip.

  ‘It’s true, sir,’ said Reinhardt, locking eyes with the colonel. ‘Marija Vukić liked to film herself with her lovers. There’s a film of you and her. It shows you beating her, but not killing her. The colonel has been searching for it ever since he found out about it.’

  ‘Clemens, is this true?’

  Ascher looked back at the general, and Reinhardt could see the stress he was under. Verhein’s influence was strong; the words were damming up in the colonel’s mouth, but he somehow swallowed them back, his chin butting forward.

  ‘The colonel has been working with a major in the Feldgendarmerie to find this film. They’ve been following me. Getting in my way. And last night they killed a fellow officer to get information about what I am doing.’

  ‘Captain,’ grated Ascher, shaking his head. ‘You know nothing of what you are saying.’

  ‘I know what you did, though,’ countered Reinhardt. ‘You thought you were just covering up for the general, but you ended up doing more than that. Vukić was a risk to him, and to you. She knew things that would ruin him and you. Guilt by association. It’s a common enough theme in this Reich of ours. For someone like you who has hitched his wagon to someone like the general, it can be fatal.’

  ‘Clemens,’ hissed Verhein, taking a step forward. He stopped as a soldier appeared at the door. Ascher hid the pistol against his chest, but the soldier must have picked up on something of the atmosphere in the room, as he hesitated.

  ‘Sir, combat action report from Captain Tiel.’

  ‘Later, Sergeant.’ The soldier hesitated again, then left.

  ‘Clemens…’ Verhein said, again.

  ‘General,’ snapped Ascher, spearing the air with the pistol. He was left-handed, noted Reinhardt. ‘Just sit
quietly, and this will soon be over.’ Verhein’s eyes went wide, but he subsided, and Reinhardt was again reminded of husband and wife. How many couples played out roles like this, he wondered? The position of strength switching according to circumstance? ‘She was going to destroy you, sir. I couldn’t let that happen.’

  ‘What happened? Did she run her mouth off? Say things that horrified you?’ Reinhardt forced a sneer into his voice. ‘Did you panic at the sight of her in her underwear?’

  Ascher flushed. ‘She was uncontrollable. Like she usually was,’ he said, speaking to the general. ‘She attacked me. I had to defend myself.’

  ‘By stabbing her nearly twenty times?’ Verhein made a small noise in his throat and turned away. Ascher flushed again. ‘Vukić was working with an SD officer, Lieutenant Hendel,’ continued Reinhardt, focusing on the general. ‘They were supposed to confront you together about evidence he had that could damn you, but she could not wait.’

  ‘Quiet, Captain,’ snapped Ascher.

  ‘Hendel had a file of evidence against you. That Feldgendarmerie major was looking for it, as well as the film. I’m fairly sure the colonel knows about the file –’

  ‘Quiet, Captain.’

  ‘File?’ asked Verhein.

  ‘– but neither of them really knows what’s in it. Only I do. They just want to use it against you. The film was bad enough, but they could handle that, just about. The file, though, was something else.’

  Ascher snarled something at Mamagedov as Reinhardt was talking, and the Kalmyk slammed the butt of his MP 40 into Reinhardt’s kidneys. The world went red, and Reinhardt collapsed to his hands and knees. He looked up at the ring of faces around him and gasped as he went back onto his haunches. From outside, the distant thunder of gunfire rolled down over the clearing.

  ‘The thing I couldn’t figure, Colonel, is what Becker had on you. He had to have something. What was it? Dirt from the past?’ He managed to duck his head just in time, taking Mamagedov’s swipe across the back of his neck instead of across the ear. The blow still floored him, though.

  ‘I’m guessing it’s the knife. Stolić’s knife.’ Ascher’s mouth went firm. ‘You killed her with Stolić’s knife.’ Mamagedov kicked him in the thigh. ‘You took it from him when he caused all that trouble in the bar. Then put it back in his room when you’d finished with it.’ Ma­magedov kicked him again, then stamped on his calf. ‘Did Becker suggest you pin it on him? Or did you think that one up yourself?’

  ‘Clemens, what is going on?’ breathed Verhein. ‘What is this about a file? A knife?’

  ‘General, it’s under control. You have nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Oh I doubt that,’ muttered Reinhardt from the floor. Mamagedov’s kick flopped him onto his stomach, where he curled slowly into a ball. ‘It’s blackmail, sir,’ wheezed Reinhardt. He raised an arm to fend off another kick and took the blow on the biceps. It knocked him over again. ‘Vukić was going to blackmail you with what Hendel had. Ascher was blackmailing you with thinking you’d killed Vukić. Becker was blackmailing Ascher over the cover-up. But the file trumps everything.’ Mamagedov’s boot thudded into his back, and pain flared along his ribs. The Kalmyk had a kick like a mule, and this was the second beating he had taken in the last hour or so. He did not know how much more he could take, not this close to the end. He made himself small, raising a hand he did not have to force to shake. ‘Please. Make him stop.’

  ‘Mamagedov, enough,’ whispered Verhein, but it was at Ascher that Mamagedov looked for direction, and only after a moment did the colonel nod. The Kalmyk stood back, his heavy fists at his sides and his flat, round face blank. Reinhardt put one hand in the small of his back, wincing, and carefully as he could, drew his baton out, letting it lie up the inside of his palm and into his sleeve.

  ‘Stand him up,’ said Ascher.

  Mamagedov hauled Reinhardt to his feet and kept him steady with a hand in his collar. His body ached from the blows, but he managed to look at Verhein. ‘There is a file on you, which Major Becker is after, and as he and Colonel Ascher have been working together, I see no reason to doubt that he,’ he said, jerking his thumb at Ascher, ‘is after it too. It’s his ticket out of here.’

  ‘And here I was thinking you were about to start making sense,’ erupted Ascher, furiously. He jerked his head at Mamagedov, and the Kalmyk rammed his boot into the back of Reinhardt’s knee. It was the old injury, and there was an agonising wrench as it seemed to tear, and Reinhardt dropped with a cry. ‘I’ve had enough of this. Mamagedov, go and find Geiger and Ullrich and see if they’re finished.’ The Kalmyk grunted and turned for the door. ‘I’ve had them preparing the ground for you, so to speak. Just in case things turned out… well, turned out the way they have.’

  ‘Just tell me one thing, Colonel,’ said Reinhardt, tamping down on the pain and desperation he felt. ‘What was it between you and Becker?’

  Ascher chewed his lower lip, glancing at Verhein. ‘He was there when I brought the knife back. He was putting Stolić to bed. He agreed to cover things up, help out, in return for… unspecified favours that he would call in when it suited him.’

  ‘So he caught you with the knife. There was nothing more? Nothing to do with an altar boy in Zagreb… ? Or… one in Munich, in 1937?’ Ascher paled, and his eyes narrowed, and he shook his head, but from the surreptitious swallow he made, and the slight twitch from Verhein, somehow Reinhardt knew he was not far from something. He could not help but smile at Ascher. ‘You were had. Becker had you over a barrel.’

  42

  Ascher flushed, but never responded. The light from the door blacked out as Mamagedov walked backwards into the room. There was a blur of movement, the thud of a blow landing; Mamagedov staggered, one hand held to his head. Claussen slid quickly inside, shutting the door and sliding along the wall, covering the room with an MP 40. Seeing his chance, Reinhardt flicked the baton out and slashed it into the side of Mamagedov’s knee, then back across the other. He fell to one side and, lunging forward, Reinhardt whipped the baton’s tip across Mamagedov’s shins, seeing his broad face dimple up as he hissed with pain.

  ‘Stop it!’ barked Ascher, his pistol aimed at Reinhardt but his eyes fixed on Claussen. ‘You. What do you think you’re doing?’

  Claussen’s eyes ran hard around the room. ‘If he’s your man down there, sir, you tell him to keep still, now.’

  ‘Damn your impudence, man,’ snarled the colonel.

  Claussen glanced at Reinhardt. ‘You all right, sir?’ Reinhardt nodded, then struggled to rise to one knee, then to his feet. ‘Let’s just all of us relax, shall we?’ murmured Claussen. ‘You especially, big man,’ he said, nudging Mamagedov’s head with his boot.

  ‘Mamagedov, keep still,’ ordered Ascher. ‘You. Drop that stick.’

  There was a tense silence in the room. Faintly, now, came the sound of fighting from somewhere on the hill. The three of them stared at each other, Reinhardt at Ascher, Ascher at Claussen, and Claussen back at the colonel. Someone cleared his throat, and they all jumped. ‘Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?’ demanded Verhein. The general seemed frozen to the spot. Whatever authority he normally exercised, he had none here.

  ‘What’s going on, General, is you’ve been betrayed by your chief of staff, here –’

  ‘That’s a bloody lie!’

  ‘– and you’re a marked man. You’re in a bad situation. You look good for Vukić’s murder, even though you didn’t do it. He did it,’ he said, pointing at Ascher.

  ‘I told you, I did it for you,’ said Ascher, his eyes flashing at the general.

  ‘Then he killed Hendel…’

  ‘That was Mamagedov,’ blurted Ascher. Mamagedov shifted where he lay, his flat gaze fastening on the colonel.

  ‘… and then you wept and prayed on your knees in a church,’ finished Reinhardt, looking at the colonel. ‘You
prayed for forgiveness for what you’d done.’ He held Ascher’s gaze, looking past the foreshortened barrel of the pistol, seeing him flush and glance at the general.

  ‘It was for you, sir. You deserve better. You deserve better than this… this shithole!’

  ‘Sir, someone in Berlin wants your head,’ said Reinhardt, ‘and it doesn’t matter to him whether you stuck the knife in Vukić or not. Hendel was working for him and had been following you since Russia. This someone’s been watching you, General. Since Chenecourt, July 1940.’ Verhein sucked in a sharp breath. Ascher’s eyes flicked between them, and he knew he was missing something. ‘There’s an SD Stan­dartenführer called Varnhorst who has had it in for you ever since that day in France. You know the one. He thinks he’s found a pattern in your life. One involving –’

  ‘Yes, Captain,’ interrupted Verhein. His face was very white, the line of his jaw etched sharp. From outside came a fresh burst of firing, seemingly closer, the dull thump of explosions and the roll of machine guns.

  There was movement outside the door, the squawk of the radio, the light sliced as men moved around outside. The same sergeant knocked at the door. ‘Out! And stay out!’ Ascher shouted over his shoulder. The soldier paused, then left. The colonel kicked the door shut and turned back to face them. ‘What?’ he demanded. ‘What?! Tell me.’