The Man from Berlin (12 page)

‘The maid was the last person to see
her.'

‘So she says,' replied Reinhardt, willing Padelin to tell him about the Ragusa and whatever else was going
on.

Padelin pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘She didn't lie to
me.'

‘No,' replied Reinhardt. ‘She probably didn't. But that doesn't mean she's right. About being the last person to see her. What about before that? We have all of Saturday to account for, at least.'

Padelin nodded ponderously and raised a placating hand next to his coffee cup. ‘Saturday, yes. Friday, she was working. I have confirmation of that from this man we're going to see now. She worked late with her film crew, then told them she was going home.'

‘So, apart from the maid, the last time anyone saw her we know of would have been Friday evening. That's a lot of time to account
for.'

‘She was at home. The maid confirmed
it.'

‘When did the maid arrive?'

‘Saturday morning.' A frown touched Padelin's face.

‘And she can testify Vukić was there all day, until she left?'

‘Yes.'

‘She had no visitors?'

‘No.'

‘She made or received no telephone calls?'

‘I don't know.'

‘So we still have two gaps. Friday evening to Saturday morning. And from when the maid left until she came back and found the body.'

‘Reinhardt.' There was an edge to Padelin's voice, people looking up from other tables. Reinhardt felt a sudden wash of fear as the big detective's eyes sparked. ‘What point are you trying to make here?'

Reinhardt looked back at him. The fear was gone as fast as it came, replaced by something much colder and more calculating. This was the first reaction he had really elicited from Padelin. He leaned in close. He had to get close. He could not afford to show fear in front of Padelin. Especially not here, in this bar. ‘That it's a bit too soon to be
interrogating
suspects,' he said, with an edge to his own voice, ‘and celebrating closing a case, when we can't even begin to account for something so simple as her movements.' He stared hard at Padelin, then sat back, shaking his head slightly. ‘When were you going to tell me about the Ragusa?'

‘What?'

‘Ragusa. You arrested one of the waiters. Zoran Zigić. Last night.'

Padelin stared back at him for a long moment. ‘
Jebi ga
,' he muttered, finally, and then belched softly for a man of his size, to which a couple of the policemen at the nearer tables offered what must have been pithy comments as it set off a new round of laughter in the bar. The ghost of a smile touched Padelin's lips during all this, and Reinhardt could not help but smile back, but Padelin's next words wiped it away. ‘I think I said before, I don't need to be told how to do my job. I am satisfied in my knowledge of Vukić's movements, and her death is my affair. That part of the investigation I take care of myself.' He stopped and swirled his coffee before knocking the rest of it back. ‘Zigić is part Serb. We also think he's closely related to a senior member of the Communist Party, here in Sarajevo. Someone we've been after for a while. And we think the Communists are involved. So, arresting him, we – how do you say? We take two birds with one stone,' he said, sitting back in his chair. ‘Are you afraid we will solve this before
you?'

Reinhardt shook his head, the skin around his eyes crinkling in frustration. ‘Padelin, it's not a race.' Then he thought of the Feld­gendarmerie. Becker's stalling. A day ahead of him, and Padelin filled in what was suddenly racing through his mind.

‘Of course it's a race, Reinhardt,' he said, shaking his head. ‘Maybe you just don't know it yet, but you should.' Reinhardt stared back at him, struck speechless. ‘You are fortunate, in a way, that this case has not attracted so much attention on your side. Still, you are hoping your investigation does not lead you into trouble with your commanders, right? That you can solve this in the proper way. The way you would like.'

‘
My
investigation?' repeated Reinhardt. It was all he could manage. Any thought of telling him about Krause was gone, at least for
now.

‘My mistake,' said Padelin, placidly, and not at all sincerely. ‘I misspoke.'

‘All right. So now, we're going to see Vukić's film crew, correct?'

‘Just one. Her sound recorder.'

‘Sound engineer?' Padelin nodded, covered a yawn with his hand, and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Ready when you are, champ.'

Padelin endured a series of loud farewells as they left. Picking up Reinhardt's car, the detective directed Reinhardt towards Bjelava, to a relatively new area of housing and businesses at the western entrance of the town, constructed between the two wars, laid out in blocks. They stopped in front of a five-storey building. Following Padelin into the foyer through a door that squealed on rusty hinges, he scanned the address boxes for what he wanted. ‘Second floor,' he said. The door was opened to their knock by a thin young man with floppy blond hair and glasses. He was what Reinhardt took to be fashionably dressed, with a burgundy knitted waistcoat on top of a blue shirt, its top button undone over a loosened, dark blue
tie.

‘
Jeste li policija?
' he said. His eyes were red, and puffy, as if he had been crying. Padelin showed him his identification and gestured at Reinhardt as they talked. ‘
Jeste
, I can speak German,' the man said, as he let them in into a broad, open room. Filmmaking equipment was scattered all around: screens hanging from the walls, projectors, film reels, tripods and lights and other gear standing in corners. At one end of the room was a huge mirror, a tatty old couch under it covered in newspapers, magazines, and photos, like the kind of glossy prints film stars had made of themselves. On a big table in the middle of the room lay a disassembled camera, one of the big ones used for making films, surrounded by parts and tools. An overflowing ashtray and a pack of cigarettes sat next to a pile of newspapers. Beneath the smell of tobacco was a sharp chemical tang, as in Vukić's darkroom.

The young man motioned them towards some high stools at the end of the big table. He lit himself a cigarette without offering one. He held his right forearm vertically, his elbow cupped in his left hand, and held the cigarette lightly between his fingers, wrist tilted back. It was a strangely effeminate gesture. Reinhardt wondered if Vukić had smoked, and if she had, had she held her cigarettes like that. ‘I am Duško Jelić. What can I do for
you?'

‘You were told we are investigating the murder of Marija Vukić?' asked Padelin.

Jelić nodded, his eyes welling up again. ‘I am sorry,' he sniffled. ‘I cannot seem to stop crying. You know? Since I heard.'

‘Yes,' said Padelin. ‘We are sorry for your loss. Did you work with her a long time?'

‘About two years,' said Jelić, around a deep drag of his cigarette. ‘I was the sound engineer. It was Branko took care of the cameras and films. He's not here. He had to go back to Zagreb on Friday.'

‘And when was the last time you saw
her?'

‘Friday as well. She was here.' He motioned towards one of the doors that led off from the central space. ‘She has… had an editing studio. Just a small one. We were cutting the film we took in Višegrad. She sat just there.' He pointed at the couch. ‘We talked, and laughed, and had coffee.' His eyes watered over.

‘How did she seem to you?' Reinhardt looked at the mirror and the couch, remembering the room in the club, and for a moment he imagined Vukić sitting there. Her legs crossed at the ankles as she read a magazine. No, too demure. Too like her mother. Crossed with one leg on her knee, like a man, and she was slumped back in the couch, one hand around a cup of coffee as she laughed and joked.

Jelić shrugged and looked at them with wide eyes. ‘What can I say? She was normal. Happy. Funny. She was looking forward to the weekend. There was a man coming, I think. But she was also very engaged in this film. She wanted it to be right,' he continued, ‘because they were going to show it in Zagreb, to Pavelić. She kept Branko here so late, I was sure he would miss his train, but she drove him down to the station herself.'

‘This man you just mentioned,' said Padelin. ‘Did you know who it
was?'

Jelić shook his head as he stubbed out his cigarette with short, sharp movements.
‘No.'

‘Nothing at
all?'

‘I wasn't her keeper.'

‘No,' agreed Padelin. ‘No one is saying you were. But you were close to her. You knew her. And we believe this man may have been the one who killed her.' Reinhardt blinked at that. They had no reason to think that yet, least of all Padelin. The Sarajevo police already had their suspect, so what was this line of questioning? Just stringing things along? Keeping the nosy German happy?

The technician squashed the butt flat and looked up at them with rebellious eyes. Almost adolescent eyes. Reinhardt had seen that look in the eyes of his son, many times. Padelin seemed to see something too, because he sat up straighter. The sniffling man was gone, replaced by something that looked more like a jilted lover. ‘Look, I didn't keep track of her men. You know what they say about sailors, right? A girl in every port? That was Marija for
you.'

Reinhardt leaned forward. ‘We understand she had a thing for older
men.'

Jelić laughed. ‘Yeah. And in uniform if she could get them. The truth was, though, she would fuck anything she took a fancy to that could move its hips fast enough and that wasn't dead.'

Without saying anything, Padelin rose and calmly struck him a thunderous blow across the ear with the flat of his hand. The slap reverberated around the room, followed by the crash and clatter of Jelić and his stool hitting the floor together. Jelić groaned in pain, his hand to the side of his ear. ‘
Picku materinu!
' he croaked. He sat up on the floor, his head down between his knees, gasping and swearing in Serbo-Croat. Padelin sat down as if nothing had happened and folded his big hands on the table. Jelić looked up and seemed to remember Reinhardt, and that he had an audience. ‘
Fuck!
What the
fuck
did you do
that
for?' he moaned, switching back to German. ‘Did you see that?' he said to Reinhardt. ‘Did you see what he just did to me?' Reinhardt nodded. ‘And you're just going to let him do
it?'

Reinhardt raised his eyebrows, more shocked than he wanted to let on. Padelin's sudden ferocity had awakened a slew of bad memories, of the last months and weeks of his service in Berlin, when that sort of casual violence had become commonplace, accepted. ‘He's your problem, not mine.'

Jelić sneered. ‘Fucking cops. You're all the
fucking
same.'

‘Keep a civil tongue,' said Padelin, heavily. ‘Or I'll give you another one to go with it. Sit down.' The technician picked up his stool and righted it, sitting down a respectful distance from Padelin's hands. ‘And tell us about Marija Vukić, and what you know about the men she frequented.'

Jelić worked his jaw and winced. He straightened his glasses on his nose, and his hand crawled across the table to his cigarettes. He lit one, all the while keeping Padelin in sight out of the corner of his eyes. His hand shook as he held it. ‘Look, all I know is Marija liked them… mature. And she liked to hurt, and to be hurt. That was her thing.'

‘Masochism, is that what you're saying?' said Reinhardt.

‘Right, that's it,' Jelić replied, still working his jaw. ‘She was into pain. Watching it. And giving it. She got some sort of kick out of it. Some of the stuff we saw in Russia. And here. Jesus.' He trailed off, his eyes far away. ‘Look, there was this story, right? I don't know if it's true. It was before I joined her crew. But I heard it like this. There was this Serb, rich, good-looking, someone important in Banja Luka. Banja Luka's a nice enough town. Nice river. Mostly Serbs. Rather, it was a nice town in which a lot of Serbs used to live. Until we came along, right?' He suddenly giggled. ‘So, this Serb, he was famous before the war for something or other, I don't know. Music, maybe.' He took a furious drag on his cigarette, his other hand cupping his cheek. ‘So, he's got nothing, he's due for deportation, and she sees him. In a line, or a queue, whatever, and he's with his family, and she takes a fancy to him, and she tells the Ustaše to give him to her. For something like a week, she takes him. Takes care of him, dresses him, feeds him, and she's fucki –' He flinched, looking at Padelin. ‘And at the end of the week, they're in bed, and she cuts his throat, and leaves the body there and walks away.'

There was silence. Reinhardt and Padelin looked at each other, and each knew the other was thinking of that bedroom in Ilidža, and the knife wounds that had killed her. Could it be, wondered Reinhardt? Could it be that Padelin was right, and this was vengeance, pure and simple? ‘Like I said,' Jelić said with his mouth all stretched out, eyes looking inward, trying to work out where it hurt the most, ‘it's a story I heard. Might not be true. I never worked up the guts to ask her, even though we'd been through all kinds of hell together. But it's got enough of the Marija I knew for me to believe it. Angel and demon. Light and dark. Someone who cares for you, and someone who takes away all you have. Shows you the highs, and leaves you in the lows.' Reinhardt looked at the couch, and imagined Vukić on it, and something began to gnaw at
him.

‘Where were you before you came back to film in Bosnia?' asked Reinhardt.

Jelić got up and went over to a small stove. ‘You want coffee?' he asked. They both shook their heads, and Jelić continued. ‘Russia, until November last year,' he said, pouring a cup, then taking a small sip. ‘Then back to North Africa, but that didn't last long because the Afrika Korps was getting kicked out by the British. That made her cross, as she had designs on Rommel.' Despite what was gnawing at him, Reinhardt could not suppress the grin he felt at her audacity. Jelić grinned sheepishly as he came back to the table, wrinkling his glasses on his nose. Only Padelin stayed expressionless. ‘She wanted to go back to Russia. Thank Christ that one was turned down. She was angry about that, so we went to Stokerau, in Austria. We interviewed some of the surviving Croat soldiers from Stalingrad, watched the training for the new 369th Division. They're here now, you know. We filmed some of them up in Višegrad. Some of them remembered Marija from Stokerau. God, they were happy to see her…'