A Quiet Flame (27 page)

“Do they hurt?”

“Only when I laugh, which is not so much since I’ve been here, oddly enough.”

“You may have a couple of broken ribs,” he said. “Really, you need an X-ray.”

“Thanks, but what I really need is a cigarette.”

He examined the bruises on my ribs, gave me a cigarette, and asked me for my clothes.

“I don’t think they’ll fit you,” I said, but I took them off all the same. I just wanted to go home.

“We’ll get these things cleaned,” he said, handing my clothes to the custody officer. “You, too, if you’re up to it. There’s a shower at the end of the corridor. Soap and a razor.”

“Kind of late to be handing out hospitality, isn’t it?” But I had the shower and the shave all the same.

When I was clean, the short man handed me a blanket and took me into an interview room to await the return of my clothes. We sat down at opposite ends of a table. He opened a leather cigarette case and put it in front of me. Then someone brought me a cup of hot, sweet coffee. It tasted like ambrosia.

“I am Commissar Wowereit,” he said. “I’ve been instructed to inform you that no charges are to be made and that you are free to go.”

“Well, that’s very generous of you,” I said, and took one of his cigarettes. He lit it for me with a match and then sat back on his chair. He had slim, delicate hands. They didn’t look like they’d ever thrown a tomato, let alone a punch. I couldn’t imagine how he fitted in with the rest of the Munich polenta with hands like his. “Very generous,” I repeated. “Considering I was the one who got roughhoused.”

“A report of the incident that occurred has already been sent to your new police president and his deputy.”

“What do you mean, my new police president and his deputy? What the hell are you talking about, Wowereit?”

“Of course. I’m sorry. How could you know?”

“Know what?”

“Ever heard of Altona?”

“Yeah. It’s a dump outside Hamburg that’s notionally part of Prussia.”

“Much more important than that, it’s a Communist town. The day you arrived in Munich, a group of uniformed Nazis staged a parade there. There was a brawl. Actually, it was more of a riot. And seventeen people were killed, and several hundred people wounded.”

“Hamburg’s a long way from Berlin,” I said. “I don’t see how—”

“The new chancellor, von Papen, with the support of General von Schleicher and Adolf Hitler, drafted a presidential decree, signed by von Hindenburg, to seize control of the Prussian government.”

“A putsch.”

“In effect, yes.”

“I assume the army did nothing to stop any of this.”

“You assume correctly. General Rundstedt has imposed martial law on Greater Berlin and the province of Brandenburg, and taken control of the city’s police force. Grzesinski has been removed. Weiss and Heimannsberg have been placed under arrest. Dr. Kurt Melcher is the new police president of Berlin.”

“Never heard of him.”

“I believe he was formerly the police president of Essen.”

“Where’s the new deputy come from? Toytown?”

“I believe the new deputy is someone called Dr. Mosle.”

“Mosle,” I exclaimed. “What does he know about policing? He’s the head of Berlin’s traffic police.”

“Colonel Poten is the new head of the uniformed police in Berlin. I believe he was director of the police academy, in Eichen. All Prussian law enforcement officers are now directly subordinate to the army.” Wowereit allowed himself a thin hint of a smile. “I suppose that also includes you. For the moment.”

“The Berlin police won’t stand for it,” I said. “Weiss wasn’t popular, it’s true. But Magnus Heimannsberg’s a different story. He’s hugely popular with the rank and file.”

“What can they do? To believe that the army won’t use force to put down any resistance is wishful thinking.” He shrugged. “But none of this is of any immediate concern to us here in Munich. And has little relevance to the case at hand. Namely, yours. The report we sent to your superiors describes in detail what we believe happened here. Doubtless, you will present your own side of the story to your superiors when you get back to Berlin.”

“You can bet on it.”

“A storm in a water glass, wouldn’t you agree? Compared with what has happened. Politically speaking.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You didn’t get beaten up and tossed in the hole for several days. And perhaps you’ve forgotten the reason for the fight. A murdered police officer was defamed by one of your colleagues. I wonder if that’ll be in your damn report.”

“Germany is for the Germans now,” said Wowereit. “Not a bunch of immigrants who are only here for what they can get. And this stupid putsch in Berlin will solve nothing. It’s the last desperate act of a republic trying to forestall what is inevitable. The election of a National Socialist government on July 31. Von Papen hopes to prove he is strong enough to stop Germany from sinking into the mess the Jews and the Communists have made for us. But everyone knows there’s only one man who is equal to that historical task.”

I said I hoped he was wrong. I said it quietly and I said it politely. Saint Augustine would probably have approved of that. There’s a lot to be said for turning the other cheek when you’ve been in receipt of a severe beating. You stay alive longer. You get to go back to Berlin. I just hoped that when I did get back there, I would still recognize the place.

 

 

I FOUND THE THIRD ARMY all over Berlin. Armored cars outside the public buildings, and platoons of soldiers enjoying the July sunshine in all of the main parks. It was as if the clock had been turned back to 1920. But there seemed little chance of Berlin’s workers organizing a general strike to defeat this particular putsch, as had happened then. Only inside the Alex did there appear to be any appetite for resistance. Police major Walter Encke, who lived in the same apartment building as Commander Heimannsberg and was his close friend, was the focus for a counterputsch. The Alex was full of Nazi spies, however. And Encke’s plan to use uniformed SCHUPO riot brigades to arrest all of the Nazis in the Berlin police came to nothing when a rumor began to go around that he and Heimannsberg were lovers. Later on, the rumor proved to be entirely without foundation, but by then it was too late. Fearing for the loss of his reputation as a policeman and as a man, Encke quickly wrote and circulated a letter in which he condemned all talk of a counterputsch using riot brigades and assured the army of his loyalty “as a former officer of the imperial army.” Meanwhile, no less than sixteen KRIPO officials, among them four commissars, denounced Bernard Weiss for alleged improprieties in office. And I was summoned to the office of the new Berlin Police president, Dr. Kurt Melcher.

Melcher was a close associate of Dr. Franz Bracht, the former mayor of Essen and now deputy Reichskommissar of the Prussian government. Melcher was originally a lawyer, from Dortmund, and was the author of a well-known but turgidly written history of the Prussian police, which only made what happened next all the more remarkable. Ernst Gennat was present at my meeting with the new police president. So was the new deputy police president, Johann Mosle. But it was the fifty-four-year-old Melcher who did most of the talking. An obviously irascible man, he lost little time in coming to the point with the assistance of an accusatory and nicotine-stained forefinger.

“I will not have officers of the Berlin police force brawling with other policemen. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m sure you think you had a good reason but I don’t want to hear it. The political differences that have existed between various officers are now over. All disciplinary proceedings against officers with Nazi affiliations are to be dropped, and the ban on membership of the Nazi Party for officials in the service of the Prussian state is to be lifted. If you can’t live with these changes, then there’s no place for you in this force, Gunther.”

I was about to say that I’d been living and working with men who were openly Nazi for a while. But then I caught sight of Gennat. He closed his eyes and, almost imperceptibly, shook his head, as if counseling silence.

“Yes, sir.”

“There’s a greater enemy than Nazism abroad in this country. And this city in particular. Bolshevism and immorality. We’re going to go after the Communists. And we’re going to crack down on vice of all kinds. The meat-market shows are going to close. And the whores are going to be kicked off our streets.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And that’s not all. KRIPO is going to operate more like a team. There will be no more star detectives giving press conferences and getting their names in the newspapers.”

“What about police officers writing books, sir?” I asked. “Will that be permitted? I’ve always wanted to write a book.”

Melcher smiled a toadlike smile and leaned forward as if taking a closer look at some kind of grubby schoolboy.

“You know, it’s plain to see how you got those bruises on your face, Gunther. You’ve got a smart mouth. And I don’t like detectives who think they’re smart.”

“Surely there would be no point in employing stupid detectives, sir.”

“There’s smart and there’s smart, Gunther. And then there’s clever. The clever cop knows the difference. He knows when to shut his strudel hole and listen. He knows how to put his personal politics aside and get on with the job at hand. I’m not sure that you know how to do any of that, Gunther. I can’t see how else you ended up spending three days and nights in a Munich police cell. What the hell were you doing there, anyway?”

“I went there at the invitation of a brother police officer. To look at the case notes on a murder I’ve been investigating. The Anita Schwarz case. There were some striking similarities between that case and a murder they’d been investigating. I had hoped to find a new lead. But when I arrived in Munich, I discovered that this police officer, Commissar Herzefelde, a Jew, had been murdered.”

I used the word “brother” with emphasis, in an attempt to provoke Melcher into some sort of anti-Semitic outburst. I hadn’t forgotten Izzy Weiss and the lies that were now being spread about my old boss and friend.

“All right. What did you find out?”

“Nothing. Commissar Herzefelde’s case notes were placed under an interdiction by those detectives now investigating his murder. As a result, I wasn’t able to do what I set out to do, sir.”

“And so you took out your frustration at being forbidden to look at Herzefelde’s case notes on a fellow officer.”

“It wasn’t like that at all, sir. The sergeant in question—” Melcher was shaking his head. “I told you I don’t want to hear your reasons, Gunther. There’s no excuse for hitting another officer.” He glanced Mosle’s way for a moment.

“No excuse,” echoed the DPP.

“So where are you with this case?”

“Well, sir, I think our murderer might be from Munich. Something brought him to Berlin. Something medical, perhaps. I think he’s been having treatment for venereal disease. A new treatment that’s being pioneered here in the city. Anyway, when he got here, he met Anita Schwarz. Possibly he was a client of hers. It seems that she was an occasional prostitute.”

“Nonsense,” said Melcher. “A man with a venereal disease does not usually go and have sex with a prostitute. It just doesn’t make sense.”

“With all due respect, sir, that’s how venereal disease is spread.”

“And this notion that Anita Schwarz was a whore. That’s nonsense, too. I tell you frankly, Gunther, it’s my belief, and the belief of several senior detectives around the Alex, that you’ve cooked up this whole line of inquiry just to embarrass the Schwarz family. For political reasons.”

“That’s just not true, sir.”

“Do you deny that you eluded the oversight of the political officer who was assigned to this case?”

“Arthur Nebe? No, I don’t deny it. I just didn’t think it was necessary. I was satisfied in my own mind that I wasn’t remotely biased against the Schwarz family. All I’ve ever wanted to do was catch the lunatic who killed their daughter.”

“Well, I’m not satisfied. And you’re not going to catch her murderer. I’m taking you off the case, Gunther.”

“If you’ll permit me to say so, sir, you’re making a big mistake. Only I can catch this man. If you could arrange for me to see Herzefelde’s files, sir, I’m sure I can wrap this case up in less than a week.”

“You’ve had all the time you’re going to get on this one, Gunther. I’m sorry but that’s how it is. I’m also reassigning you. I’m taking you out of the A Inspectorate.”

“Off Homicide? Why? I’m good at my job, sir.” I looked at Gennat.

“Tell him, Ernst. Don’t just sit there looking like a meat pie. You know I’m good. It was you who trained me.”

Gennat shifted awkwardly on his enormous bottom. He looked pained, as if his hemorrhoids were giving him trouble. “It’s out of my hands, Bernie,” he said. “I’m sorry. Really I am. But the decision has been made.”

“Sure, I get it. You want a quiet life, Ernst. No trouble. No politics. And by the way, is it true? That you were one of the detectives who turned up in Izzy’s office with a bottle of wine to toast Dr. Mosle here, when he got Izzy’s job?”

“It wasn’t like that, Bernie,” insisted Gennat. “I’ve known Mosle for longer than I’ve known you. He’s a good man.”

“So was Izzy.”

“That remains to be seen, I think,” said Melcher. “Not that your opinion really matters here. I’m transferring you from the A Inspectorate to J. With immediate effect.”

“J? That’s the criminal records department. It’s not even a proper inspectorate, damn it. It’s an auxiliary inspectorate.”

“The move is a temporary one,” said Melcher. “While I decide which of the other seven inspectorates can best use a man of your investigative experience. Until that happens, I want you to use that experience to suggest some ways in which the records department might be improved. By all accounts, the trouble with Records is that it has no real appreciation of how a real investigation works. It’ll be your job to put that right, Gunther. Is that clear?”