by Chris Petit
‘They insisted on getting rid of the chaff.’
Morgen remembered the commandant describing the Slovak deal as Kammler’s. Maybe it was. That didn’t make him responsible for the Slovaks changing their terms.
‘The onus fell on the commandant. He exploited an existing medical category.’
‘14f13. Unfit for work.’
‘You have done your homework. The commandant had a site in mind, which he required me to inspect. We rode out, early one morning, accompanied by Fegelein.’
‘Fegelein!’
‘I told you I trained at the man’s riding academy and knew him slightly. I was surprised by his presence, then decided it had to do with his position in the Chancellery.’
Kammler was clever at painting himself as along for the ride. The commandant had earmarked a remote abandoned farmhouse for conversion. According to Kammler, all subsequent discussion was between the commandant and Fegelein.
Morgen asked its location. Kammler’s answer put it in the vicinity of the burning pits; so Schulze had been right.
‘And your role?’ asked Morgen.
‘Insurance, I suspect. I was the ranking officer. If called to account, the commandant could always point to me as the senior man, therefore responsible for the initiative.’
‘What were you told?’
‘The commandant required the job to be done under wraps. He asked me to provide a secret workforce for it.’ Kammler gave a disarming laugh. ‘It allowed me to push for something I otherwise would not have got. To comply, I needed my own private technicians, which I didn’t have.’
Schulze had said it happened very fast, with Kammler being given control of all slave labour, from which he created his mobile brigades, leaving the commandant outmanoeuvred and ceding his entire workforce to Kammler’s central command.
Morgen still found it impossible to apportion blame. He supposed Kammler had an equally convincing alternative, when it suited, in which he took executive control, with the commandant seen as scared of what history had in mind for him.
Had it all been a waste of time? Morgen asked himself. Whatever Kammler had required of them probably no longer applied. In terms of his own contribution, he was sure it lay beyond any ripple effect, and was of no point or consequence.
Kammler enquired blandly, ‘What are your plans now?’
Morgen said he didn’t know.
‘Come and work for me.’
‘As what?’ he asked, thinking, out of the frying pan . . .
‘Security. A lot of the work I oversee is at the forefront of technology. Exciting stuff. Think about it. The camps have been bypassed. The real work is much less centralised. It takes place in satellites and is far more entrepreneurial. It will be the post-war model. In the meantime we need new and advanced forms of security. With the enemy bombing we enter our Jules Verne phase. We are going deep underground. The world is on the point of being transformed. Technology will win us the war. Rockets to the moon!’
Kammler looked drunk on power.
And thus, Morgen supposed, the case of Ingeborg Tanner was closed, without getting even close to a solution. Fegelein would no doubt talk his way out of the homicidal driving charge, as he always did. Pohl was right: the cases of Grabner and Wirths would take years to reach court. And the commandant would be protected by being shifted sideways or up. They had achieved nothing.
The sun was already high when Schlegel awoke, immediately aware something was wrong. He looked around and couldn’t see Sybil. Not in the empty stretch of field ahead nor in the surrounding trees.
He supposed her gone after seeing how much starker everything was by day – their lack of option, his curtailed mobility, their vulnerability, the slim chance of him bringing her to safety.
The best they had managed for hiding was a clump of silver birches, more grove than wood, with no undergrowth, which anyone passing would search.
Until twisting his ankle Schlegel had felt cautiously optimistic, despite his sickness, or perhaps because it left him so light-headed. Luck appeared to be with them and he had dared to believe in their deliverance.
He scanned in vain for any sign of Sybil’s return, knowing she wouldn’t be back. He would have to wait out the day before attempting to move. Whether any of the sparse ground growth or tree bark was edible he had no idea. A few spindly mushrooms growing by trees he feared were poisonous. Dehydration worried him more. All he could do was preserve what little energy he had. He marked the edge of the trees as his boundary. If no one encroached on it he would be safe at the end of the day.
He sweated and shivered, coughed into the ground, passed out and woke, noting the sun’s numb climb. He slept again, with one eye open, or so he thought until he found a hand pressed to his mouth and Sybil’s face close to his. She put a warning finger to her lips.
Schlegel, confused, was aware of singing. A passing work gang was belting out its marching song. He was surprised they could sing the chorus: ‘Have you up there forgotten about us?’
When it had gone Sybil said, ‘They have patrols out looking, motorbikes on the roads and men on horseback searching the land.’
She had gone to a low hill in the distance. She thought they were safer staying where they were. The hillock had no shelter and they would burn.
Schlegel sensed no connection from her, yet was pathetically grateful for her return.
She produced two small raw beetroot and a curly green-leafed vegetable, which she thought was cattle feed. The stalk needed a lot of chewing and the first taste of the leaf was bitter but it became quite sweet. Schlegel’s beetroot tasted earthy. He told her as a child he hadn’t liked them. She looked at him as though the remark was meaningless. He realised she considered memories useless, and words too, unless essential. Nothing was embellished. Schlegel still saw their plight as a shared experience where he suspected she didn’t, which made her return with food the more surprising, until he realised he was the one with the escape route.
The posse used whistles to communicate. They saw them about a kilometre off, approaching in a flat line, taking their time. Schlegel counted fifteen riders.
It was too late to run. Schlegel whispered to Sybil she should slip away while she could. He said he would shoot to give her more time. She shook her head. Schlegel supposed he would take out the men nearest, then her; they would rape her otherwise before killing her. Then he would shoot himself.
He slid the safety catch off. He was about to raise his head when a distant gunshot sounded, then another, followed by a blast on the whistle and the commotion of riders moving off at speed. Schlegel watched them go, doubting whether his nerve would have held.
Afterwards, they sat hunched in silence. He watched the shadow of leaves play on her unreadable face and had never felt more alone.
Time dragged ever more slowly. Schlegel feared they would not be as lucky next time but the day passed. They rested as much as possible and set off at last light. Sybil led. Schlegel struggled to find a rhythm, using something between a hop and a limp. Another bright night, with a moon and high cloud. They heard a train pass on its slow way south.
When they reached the railway Schlegel stood mesmerised by the sight of the hard metal gleaming into the distance, all the way to Prague and Vienna. With everything so still they may as well have been the only living creatures. In that deceptive idyll, the moon caught Sybil’s face and its beauty caused him to catch his breath.
He was dogged by faintness. His body shook. His mouth was as dry as sandpaper. A splitting headache left him wanting only to give up. His greatest fear remained that he had been contaminated, making escape pointless as death was already waiting.
The ground gave way to meadows and clumps of trees. It grew cooler. Schlegel sensed the change of atmosphere but the lakes were a long time coming; then suddenly he saw the silver sheet, sinister and otherworldly.
They found the water surrounded by a complex network of reedy creeks. Schlegel reasoned the more lost the harder t
o find they were. It was not the sort of terrain that lent itself to mounted searches. Someone could stay there days without anyone knowing.
Sometimes they had no way forward and were forced to retrace their steps. A spit of land took them down another channel, its water green in the first of the light. The air grew tainted with marsh gas. They found an abandoned canoe, dragged into the reeds. The scum on the water lay undisturbed, showing it hadn’t been used recently. The creek widened and they came to a tiny wooden jetty, from which a path led through high grass to a small clearing in which stood a low wedge-shaped hut, like an upturned flat-bottomed boat. They approached cautiously. The structure was only waist-high, with one end higher and a hatch for an entrance. What its purpose was Schlegel had no idea. The ground inside was dry and sandy, the material woven from long thin branches; willow, he thought; as good as anywhere for a refuge.
Despite staying in a palace, Morgen was given a simple bedroom with a cot and a basin, in what felt like servants’ quarters. He had plenty to think about but soon fell asleep, the only welcome part of the day.
He turned up for breakfast with a large and ungainly scrap of lavatory paper stuck to his face after cutting himself shaving. There was no sign of his brother.
When Morgen realised who the only other diner was the situation grew even more unreal. It was the shrink, Krick.
Morgen presumed the man’s presence was no more coincidence than Kammler’s, and again he wondered what his brother’s real business was.
Krick greeted him as though it were perfectly normal they should run across each other in the leadership’s secret lair. He invited Morgen to join him.
It was a proper breakfast too. White tablecloth, linen napkins, plates with a crest, silverware, fresh bread rolls, cold meats, cheese, jams and real coffee.
Trying to sound casual, Morgen asked Krick what brought him there.
Krick said he was on his way back from Switzerland.
‘Psychiatric conference. Carl Jung was the principal speaker.’
There was little Morgen could say to that.
‘Are you on your way back to the garrison?’
‘Alas. Not the most salubrious posting. They neither know what to do with me nor where to put me. I am stuck in the commercial sector in an office by a delivery yard where they whistle and crash about all day.’
He produced a pipe and asked if it was all right while Morgen was eating.
Morgen found the man a bit too polished, with his cool, modern demeanour, as if to say psychiatry was over its fusty Jewish connotations.
Krick surprised him by bringing up the subject of Ingeborg Tanner.
‘Your colleague asked and I said I had spoken to her on the telephone when she made an appointment, which she didn’t keep.’
Now he remembered they had met after all.
‘Under what circumstances?’
‘A party.’
‘What makes you remember now?’
‘I happen to be treating one of the garrison wives, just had a baby and is depressed. It happens quite a lot and I was reminded of talking to this other woman at a party about her wanting a child and being upset it wasn’t happening.’
‘Tanner, you think now?’
‘I am pretty sure.’
‘Pretty sure?’
‘We were drunk.’ Krick gave a worldly smile. ‘The unusual part of the conversation I recall was she asked me to give her the baby.’
Morgen wondered why Krick was telling. Had Tanner been pregnant when she died?
‘Anyway, I didn’t take her up.’
Morgen thought: Really, such a catch?
‘A lot of young women are trying,’ Krick went on, in a way that suggested he wasn’t short of choice. ‘Perhaps because so many young men are being killed.’
Krick stared at the smoke from his pipe and said, ‘Wouldn’t you say the world divides now between men who have killed and those that haven’t?’
Given the question, Morgen felt bound to ask if he had.
Krick answered evenly. ‘I remain a curious observer.’
‘Tempted?’
‘On a professional level, one is bound to wonder about experiencing extremes as told by others.’
Morgen was tiring of the man, suspecting it was all mind games. He reminded Krick that he technically remained a suspect in the Tanner case as he grumpily attacked his roll, thinking his breakfast was being spoiled.
‘Of course. I found her body and my name was in her book. Does that make me a suspect?’
‘The coincidence of you finding her made us wonder.’
Krick warmed to the game. ‘Aha, you mean my arrogance is such that having committed the crime I could not bear it going unreported because the fuss is half the fun. And I have a low opinion of investigators, knowing you are too stupid to make the connection between the person who found the body being the murderer.’
Morgen wondered about the man’s superior tone. Had he killed Tanner he would know they could prove nothing.
‘Anyway, it’s not so much of a coincidence as I cycle that way every day. What is your best theory?’
Morgen ignored that he was being patronised.
‘An act of retaliation by an ex-lover, carried out by a proxy, which I am sure can be arranged for a pittance.’
‘For sure. Everyone is bored enough to kill.’
Krick remained intrigued by the prospect of his own guilt. Morgen wished the man would shut up.
‘Well, I suppose I could have done it, like the tempted priest who hears too many confessions and is drawn to experience the sin, in a theological way.’
Morgen spread an unhealthy amount of butter on his roll, not knowing when he would see any again.
Krick went on. ‘We live in a time where the usual constraints no longer apply, so I am surprised more of the likes of her haven’t been done in.’
Morgen grunted. ‘Quite understandable. Men generally loathe women. There is a history of violence in the garrison towards them.’
Krick rewarded Morgen with what looked like his practised secretive smile.
‘Of course I didn’t kill Tanner.’
Morgen asked brusquely, ‘Then what are you saying?’
‘That killing has become so commonplace it has lost its taboo. The few men who do consult me worry they have become inured. Medical history has been a process of advance. Perhaps with ethics it works the other way around.’
‘You mean what was once considered forbidden has been transcended. The more advanced, the less ethical.’
‘Sophistication is a process of adaption. Everything becomes technical not moral. Do you wonder what it’s like to kill someone?’
Morgen saw the man was trying to get a rise out of him and obliged by saying, ‘Present circumstances apart, no, not really.’
Krick chose to treat the remark as a joke, which annoyed Morgen more.
‘In fact, I have news of Tanner. I should have told you before. It may look like I have been dallying when I show you this.’
He had a briefcase, from which he produced a letter. He made the most of his pause. ‘A confession.’
‘Whose?’
‘Not mine.’ Again the deflecting laugh. ‘The matter seems to have resolved itself quite easily in the end, almost disappointingly so. I should not really be showing you.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it is confidential to my investigation.’
Morgen wasn’t sure he had heard correctly.
Krick handed the letter over. Written in a shaky hand and black ink, Morgen read: Since I killed that woman I cannot go on.
‘Short and to the point.’
The letter was dated and signed, with the name spelled out in capitals.
Morgen said, ‘I am no connoisseur of suicide notes, but it strikes me as not at all the last words anyone would write. It doesn’t specify Tanner.’
‘Perhaps he didn’t know her name. A random attack. I can’t see it being anyone else.’
&
nbsp; ‘Confidential to your investigation, you said.’
‘Yes. The powers that be take suicide seriously. I have been asked to write a report.’
Morgen looked at the name under the signature. ‘Who was Hertz?’
‘Security police. One of the torturers. I presume he became demoralised and coarsened. Many in that department do.’
Morgen remembered the attic where they had found Haas’s body. So Hertz was part of the torture machine, part of the system.
Krick went on, with an air of academic authority. ‘I believe it makes sense. It is psychologically stressful work, this business of breaking bodies. They’re always in and out of the staff infirmary, nerves shot. The droll thing is, they are thinking of stopping torture of prisoners because of the adverse effect it has on the practitioners.’
Krick refired his pipe. ‘Dishing it out comes at price. Panic attacks, nervous cramps, loss of weight, anxiety and persecution complexes.’
‘In the case of this man Hertz, what do we suppose?’
Morgen chided himself for the ‘we’.
Krick raised his hands in what appeared a benediction.
‘A man who holds life and death in his hands, and practises it every day. Perhaps he did know Tanner and she wouldn’t sleep with him. Perhaps the back of her head was too tempting to resist . . . crack goes the skull, like an eggshell. If you break people’s spirits for a living it must be hard to be refused. We have become lovers of the dead.’
The anticlimax of solution, Morgen thought. He could still picture Krick the likelier perpetrator.
Theodore came in and nodded at Krick in such a way that Morgen couldn’t tell if they knew each other or it was the polite acquaintance of two strangers. Nor could Morgen make out the point of Krick’s presence. Perhaps he answered to Kammler too, but why would Kammler want Morgen to be aware of that, unless some new scheme was being hatched.
Theodore ate in silence, ruminating. Krick looked like he was about to make his excuses when Theodore said, ‘Tell my brother about your recent trip.’
Krick looked surprised by the fraternal reference. Morgen wondered what his professional assessment would be. A pathological case of sibling rivalry, no doubt.
