BERLIN BURNING
a Weimar Republic Murder Mystery novella
Damien Seaman
Published by Blasted Heath, 2014
copyright © 2014, Damien Seaman
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission of the author.
Damien Seaman has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cover design by Blasted Heath
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ISBN: 978-1-908688-77-4
Version 2-1-3
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
About this book
Introduction by James Oswald
Berlin, 21 July 1932 – 7pm
21 July 1932 – Fifteen hours earlier
Berlin, 23 July 1932 – 2.57pm
Also by Damien Seaman
About Blasted Heath
About this book
Berlin, 1932...
Roving gangs of Nazi thugs terrorise the streets.
A weak government looks the other way.
A divided police force struggles against a rising tide of crime.
It’s a powder keg waiting to explode. And when the brutal slaying of a young Nazi provides the spark, Berlin detectives Trautmann and Roth must put aside their political differences to solve the murder.
Before the city they love succumbs to the flames of brutal retribution...
Introduction by James Oswald
Weimar Republic. Two words that to a student of modern history mean a great deal, to the rest of us very little. Something to do with Germany after the first world war, a descent into decadence, followed by the rise of the Nazi party and the ascendance of Adolf Hitler. The birthing of the evil that would lead to the Holocaust and World War Two.
I’ve never been a great fan of historical fiction, so I don’t quite know what drew me to a curious book called The Killing of Emma Gross. I’d only just dipped a toe in the whole ebook thing myself, self-publishing a couple of my own novels after they’d failed to find a publisher over a number of years. Allan Guthrie, a writer I very much admire (and not just because of his Maine Coon cats), had just set up the ebook publishing house Blasted Heath, along with Kyle MacRae. Keen to help this enterprise, I picked up some of their early titles and loaded them onto my phone. I even meant to read them.
One of them was by this fellow called Damien Seaman. It didn’t look all that promising – see my earlier comment about historical fiction – but an unexpected wait for a train, with no phone signal to fritter the time away on social media, left me with nothing better to do than read The Killing of Emma Gross.
I was entranced. I knew nothing about the setting beyond vague memories of Liza Minnelli and Michael York in Cabaret. I’d never heard of Peter Kürten, the Vampire of Düsseldorf and the true story on which the book was based. It didn’t really matter. The characters were so vividly drawn, between-the-wars Germany so deftly described, that I raced through. The trick of any fiction, perhaps historical fiction more than most, is to construct your world - paint your picture - in such a way that it seems entirely natural to the way the story unfolds. It’s a hard skill to master, so easy to jar the reader out of the story by labouring some unnecessary point or including some inconsequential detail. Damien Seaman makes it look easy.
And so we move forward to Berlin Burning. I first read an early draft of this novella almost a year ago, and was again struck by how seamlessly the story and setting are woven together. On the face of it, this is an enjoyable murder mystery with enough subtle twists to keep the most die-hard whodunnit fan happy. But it is the characterisation and setting that, like The Killing of Emma Gross, raise the story above the ordinary. Trautmann is a fresh take on the dysfunctional copper, his problems as much to do with the rise of the Brownshirts as the traditional conflict between a need for justice and the uncaring nature of bureaucracy. The machinations of the Kripo and Schupo given more menace by the knowledge of what is to come.
It’s not a long story, Berlin Burning, which makes it all the more impressive. Pour yourself a glass of schnapps, put some Kurt Weill on the gramophone and immerse yourself in inter-war Germany for a while. You won’t regret the trip.
James Oswald
author of the Inspector McLean series of detective mysteries
Berlin, 21 July 1932 – 7pm
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t bring you better news. But I thought you should know.’
The girl on the couch masked her emotions so well it was hard to tell what she felt. Her face was in shadow, so that made it harder, of course. But still it was disconcerting for Kriminalkommissar Trautmann, being unable to read someone like this.
Perhaps he was tired. He’d been through so much in the preceding hours. Enough for a dozen cases, never mind just one.
‘He called for you,’ he added. ‘On the way to the hospital. Yours was the only name. And I couldn’t find any other family, or friends. So...’
‘We were hardly family, kommissar.’
‘But you were... lovers?’ Trautmann cast about the room. There were no photographs, no clues as to who this woman might have been with now; no wedding ring on her finger.
‘Roth is a very proud man, kommissar,’ she said, tucking a strand of her red hair behind an ear. ‘Or he was. He left me after he lost his arm. Didn’t want me to have to be seen in public with a cripple, he said.’
‘There must have been something between you.’
She gave him a self-conscious smile. ‘What did that matter when he had so little love for himself?’
Trautmann tried to make out the colour of her eyes, hoping if he could just do that she might start to respond. ‘I’m sorry if my coming here is unwelcome.’
She shifted on the couch and tucked her legs underneath her body. ‘It’s... a shock. I mean... two years. And now you’re telling me he could die, just like that, out of nowhere. How should I react?’
‘I understand.’ Trautmann rose and put on his hat. The skin on one side of his face was still tight and raw from his burns. ‘I should go.’
She got up then and came to him, stepping into the light from the room’s single corner lamp and putting out a restraining hand. Up close her eyes were hazel and the light picked out the freckles on her nose.
‘Rose red,’ he said to himself, ‘and half as old as time.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing, my dear. Just something I said to him shortly before it happened.’
‘Please don’t leave right now,’ she said. ‘I... I want to know. Won’t you tell me about it?’
He didn’t want to go through the details of Roth’s accident. Not for her or for himself.
‘I’m... sorry. This was a mistake.’
‘I would have stayed with him, you know,’ the girl said, her eyes searching his.
She was looking for a sign that he believed her. He gave it gladly, clasping her hands in his. ‘Then visit him, won’t you?’
She leaned back a little, as though to get a better view of his face. ‘You feel responsible.’
‘Yes.’ He broke away from her and made for the door.
‘Please don’t.’
‘Just say you’ll visit,’ he said over his shoulder as he reached for the doorknob.
‘I’m sure it wasn’t your fault,’ she said.
He paused, door open, wanting to find some words but failing. Instead he tipped his hat and left, her words echoing in the hallway.
It wasn’t your fault...
21 July 1932 – Fifteen hours earlier
Chapter 1
The teletype ran hot through the night shift, spewing its litany of crimes from the precinct houses of Berlin for the detectives at the Alex.
At 00.21 a runner brought the latest to the Kripo squad room – Precinct 87, possible murder in a tenement.
Kriminalkommissar Trautmann and Kriminalassistant Roth took the call and Roth cursed their luck. Trautmann knew what the younger man was thinking.
Precinct 87 meant a small-time pimp or a KPD agitator; the odds of finding the culprit were long. They’d have to talk to Fleischer, see what the usual noses were picking up.
Trautmann sent the runner to requisition an auto and then run on a little further and inform the lab.
The kommissar expected a long night. Little did he know how long.
When they arrived on the scene they saw the 87th had sent a whole squad, some of the men outside going door to door under the flickering street lamps. Word from the Schupo on the tenement door was Kessler was running things inside.
‘Not any more,’ Trautmann said, tasting sweat on his lips from the warmth of the night air. ‘Where is he?’
‘One floor up,’ said the Schupo. He smoked a cigarette, raising it to his mouth with trembling fingers. It was unprofessional but he didn’t seem to care. He chugged the smoke without pause.
‘A whole squad?’ Roth said, as they passed into the dusty tenement hallway. ‘What the hell’s going on?’
The Schupo ignored the question, eyeing a Jew who passed by on the other side of the street. A couple of the uniformed officers stopped the man and began asking questions. Trautmann shifted his attention inside.
Scuffed blood droplets on the stairs and the squeak of heavy shoes on bare floorboards overhead told Trautmann to expect a mess. Sure enough, when they entered the brightly lit apartment there were far too many uniforms in there. A crime scene needed the rigour of a Bach prelude; this was more the chaos of a Stravinsky score.
Trautmann disliked Stravinsky. He disliked procedural laxity even more. He managed a glimpse of a body lying on a blood-soaked rug near the fireplace at the end of the room before calling for Kessler.
‘So they sent me the Mule,’ said Schupo-sergeant Kessler, coming through from a connecting room with his shako dangling from his left fist. Sweat dripped from him and made dark patches in the underarms of his uniform jacket. Trautmann itched to bring out a handkerchief and mop his own face.
As Kessler came nearer, he glanced at Roth: ‘I see you brought Admiral Nelson with you.’
Roth touched the stump where his right arm had once been.
‘That’s enough of that, Kessler,’ Trautmann said, pulling the sergeant’s gaze back to him. ‘I need you to clear this apartment. There are too many people in here.’
‘We’re trying to solve this one before word gets out.’
‘You don’t solve a crime by ruining the evidence,’ Roth said with a jerk of his pomaded head.
‘Roth,’ Trautmann warned.
Kessler just smiled.
‘What do you mean, before word gets out?’ Trautmann said.
‘Victim’s a brownshirt,’ Kessler said, scratching one of his chins. ‘You know as well as I do there’ll be reprisals by tomorrow lunchtime if we don’t make an arrest...’
‘Yeah, reprisals from who,’ Roth muttered.
‘...It’s a tinderbox out there.’ Kessler led them past the body to the next room, a bedroom. Then he waited for them to catch up. ‘The trail begins in here.’
The sheets on the bed were rumpled. A brass candlestick lay in a pool of drying blood on a patch of floor between the bed and a dresser, and there were red-brown speckles on the sheets and on the walls. A picture frame had toppled from the dresser into the blood; one corner of the frame was stained with it and the glass had cracked.
‘Reckon our boy came in and caught his woman with some other chap, leading to a struggle.’
Trautmann pulled a pair of rubber gloves from his pocket and pointed at the candlestick. ‘The murder weapon?’
Kessler laughed. ‘Slow up there, Mule. I’ve got more...’
Trautmann put on the gloves and picked up the picture frame, angling it to catch the light as Kessler rattled on.
‘...So there’s a fight in here, our boy with his woman, or the gentlemen caller, or maybe both...’
The photograph showed a young woman with dark hair and eyes and a beguiling smile.
‘...Our boy takes a nasty blow to the head that knocks him to the floor. There’s a corresponding mark on his right temple, as you’ll see. Then...’
Kessler paused and made them follow him back to where the body lay. Trautmann brought the picture frame along.
‘...at some point, two shots to the torso.’
‘A gun?’ Roth asked.
‘Well, I may just be a humble Schupo,’ Kessler said, ‘but I reckon I know a fatal gunshot wound when I see one.’
Trautmann looked down at the body, a young blond male dressed in the brown uniform of Hitler’s Sturmabteilung. Dead though he was, he still oozed blood onto the rug. ‘Anyone hear anything?’
‘Round here?’ Kessler made a face. ‘What do you think?’
‘I thought you had your ways,’ Roth said.
‘Now now, Admiral. No need to get jealous because we know how to get results.’
‘So what have you found out?’ Roth snapped. ‘Anything?’
‘Do we have the boy’s name?’ Trautmann cut in.
Kessler referred to a notebook. ‘Jan Meist, according to his landlady.’
‘Who is...?’
‘The old girl on the next landing up. And a real pleasure she is, too. I can’t wait for you to meet her.’
‘And the young woman here?’ Trautmann showed them the photograph. ‘She lived with him, I take it?’
‘That’s the best part.’ Kessler grinned. ‘You’ll never guess who she is. Fair gives us our killer straight out of the gate.’
‘You’re right,’ Trautmann said. ‘I won’t guess who she is. So why don’t you just tell me.’
‘Maria Fleischer.’
Trautmann looked at Roth and Roth looked at Trautmann.
‘She’s related to Fleischer?’ Trautmann said.
Kessler clapped his hands. ‘I know. Great, isn’t it? I can have my squad ready to pick him up as soon as the lab boys are done here.’
Roth clicked his tongue in disgust.
‘No, you don’t,’ Trautmann said. ‘Not without we’ve spoken to him first.’
‘Oh, come on, Mule!’ Kessler said. ‘What more do you want? Meist beats up his girl, makes her go out pros-pec-ting’ – he drew out the word – ‘to pay the rent. She tells her uncle, who comes and puts two bullets in him for her. Simple.’
‘Whoa, not so simple,’ Trautmann said. ‘Beats up his girl?’
‘Ask the landlady. She’s full of it. You’ll get all you need from her.’
‘And what about this man she was supposedly with when Meist came in here?’ Roth said. ‘Anyone see what happened to him?’
‘Who else but Fleischer would be able to get hold of a gun in this part of town?’ Kessler said.
‘Maybe they didn’t get the gun in this part of town,’ Roth said. ‘Maybe this gentleman caller was an army officer. Or a pol...’ He cut himself off and regarded the knot of uniformed patrolmen standing close by.
‘Or a what?’ Kessler said.
‘We can soon settle this,’ Trautmann said. ‘Do you have the gun?’
‘Sarge,’ bellowed a voice; a young Schupoman entered the apartment with a pistol in his hand. ‘We found it! In the drains outside.’
Trautmann couldn’t contain his anger. ‘Kessler! Tell me that man isn’t contaminating evidence!’
Kessler blushed.
‘That’s it!’ Trautmann shouted. ‘Everybody out – RIGHT NOW!’
Chapter 2
‘Have a loo
k at this,’ Roth said. He stood by the fireplace, reading a newspaper clipping fixed to the mantelpiece.
Trautmann straightened from his examination of the body. As well as the wound at the dead man’s temple, he’d found some bruising on the knuckles and the arms.
He hoped the pretty girl from the photograph would not turn out to have been abused – or to be the killer. Still, this wouldn’t have been the first time domestic violence had lain behind a murder. He pulled off his rubber gloves as he went over to the fireplace.
‘The bullets passed through the torso,’ he told Roth, ‘so the lab boys will need to locate them. The casings too. I can’t bloody well find them.’
He’d analysed the pistol Kessler’s man had smeared with his prints: a clunky model 8 Walther that took 6.35mm rounds. Matching the spent bullets would clinch it as the murder gun; most Walthers were now 7.65mm, including the standard issue PPK he carried.
‘Think you can work up a sketch before we touch anything else?’
Roth said he could.
‘Much as I hate to say it, I think Kessler was right about the sequence of events,’ Trautmann said. ‘Which means we likely have an as-yet unknown third party roaming the streets.’
Roth grunted. ‘No wonder the 87th are so keen to get this solved,’ he said. ‘Our friend there is practically one of them.’
‘Come now, Roth, let’s not go through this again.’
‘No – you come now. You know that precinct is honeycombed with Nazis.’
Trautmann longed for his pipe. But he couldn’t smoke it at the scene for fear of contamination, so his irritation grew.
‘Politics should be left at the door, Roth.’
‘How can you be so naïve? I wouldn’t be surprised if Kessler was hauling his troglodytes off to Bülowplatz this very second looking for Reds to assault.’
Trautmann thought of Fleischer’s sometime-association with the KPD. The links between communism and organised crime ran deep in those parts, but Trautmann was determined to keep from reaching too hasty a conclusion.
He took in the patch of blue-black stubble beneath his assistant’s jaw, the bloodshot eyes that spoke of beer hall intrigues with his Reichsbanner comrades before work. How old was Roth? Trautmann didn’t know. But he couldn’t have been more than thirty; hardly older than the boy lying dead on the rug with his guts shot up.
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