The Man from Berlin (18 page)

15

F
reilinger's offices were one floor up, in the corner looking west along King Aleksander Street. The sun was low, barely over
Mount Igman, and the light was short and bright. Freilinger was standing at his window again. He looked around, moved his mouth around as if there were something in it, then motioned Reinhardt to take the seat in front of the desk and turned to look back
out.

‘There's something about this city. In the evenings,' Freilinger said, the rasp in his voice low and leathery. ‘Sometimes it seems like a labyrinth. No way out. And then, there's times like this when it seems there's openness and light.' Reinhardt looked at Freilinger, hearing the echo of thoughts he had had himself, so often, since he first came here. Freilinger was looking out the window, into the light. His eyes, always so pale, were almost invisible, and with a lurch Reinhardt saw Freilinger's face as he saw it in his nightmares, awash in the blaze from the fire, and he stiffened in his seat as he imagined the acrid stench of smoke. He looked down, breathing slow and deep to cover his fear, and when he looked up Freilinger was staring hard at
him.

‘Reinhardt, was I not clear enough last night?'

‘Sir?'

Freilinger walked back to his desk, never shifting his gaze. ‘Do not “sir” me like some damned sergeant,' he snapped. ‘Was I not clear enough last night?'

‘You were, sir,' said Reinhardt.

‘Remind me, what was it I was clear about?'

‘That I was not to go pestering officers about this investigation.'

‘Correct,' said Freilinger. ‘And so
why
,' he shouted, with a hoarse roar, slamming his hand on the desktop, ‘do I find myself dealing with a half dozen complaints about your inappropriate behaviour this afternoon in the officers' mess? Accusations. Insinuations.' He picked up a piece of paper by its corner. ‘
Alibis?
For
Christ's
sake.'

‘Sir, if I may explain?'

‘It was a rhetorical question, Reinhardt,' replied Freilinger. ‘I'm not interested in explanations. I'm only interested in dealing with the consequences, which so far,' he said, fingering through some of the pages on his desk, ‘have involved me talking to four colonels, an SS Standartenführer, and a general. Put up to the task by his chief of staff, Colonel Forster. A civilised sort of dressing-down. Nevertheless, dressing-down and complaint it was. From a general.'

He stopped, screwing up his mouth and swallowing hard against the tightness in his throat. Reinhardt sat as still as he could, feeling the cold sweat in the small of his back and the flush he knew was colouring his cheeks.

‘Reinhardt, I gave you this investigation for several reasons. The first is that Hendel was one of ours. The second was that I am not blind to what you are going through here.' Reinhardt locked eyes with the major. ‘You are not happy.' He paused. ‘None of us is. We have all seen, and done, things that might make lesser men weep. I thought, perhaps wrongly, that work similar to what you did in the past, and did well, might be of some help. The third… well, Reinhardt, have you forgotten so quickly the consequences to the local population for the death of a German soldier? Have
you?'

‘No, sir,' he managed, finally.

‘Perhaps you will remind me of them,' said Freilinger, quietly, sitting down. His eyes bored into Reinhardt. They both knew what the other was thinking. ‘Remind me of General Kuntze's directive.'

‘Sir. When a German soldier is wounded, the lives of fifty prisoners or civilians are forfeit as a reprisal. When a German soldier is killed, the lives of one hundred prisoners or civilians are forfeit.'

‘Correct, Captain,' said Freilinger, picking up a piece of paper. ‘Let me perhaps
refresh
your memory further. Directive of 19 March 1942, from the commander of 12th Army, Belgrade. I quote: “
No false sentimentalities! It is preferable that fifty suspects are liquidated than one German soldier lose his life. If it is not possible to produce the people who have participated in any way in the insurrection or to seize them, reprisal measures of a general kind may be deemed advisable, for instance, the shooting to death of all male inhabitants from the nearest villages, according to a definite ratio.
” ' He put the paper down. ‘One wounded German, fifty dead Serbs. One dead German, one hundred dead Serbs.'

Freilinger sighed and looked down for a moment. ‘I wanted you on this case because I thought we could avoid something like this,' he said, pointing at Kuntze's directive, ‘coming to pass if you found me a suspect, or the one who pulled the trigger. Not that I thought such reprisals were that likely. Not here. There aren't enough Serbs in any case, and it's not as if Hendel was killed in an uprising. Still' – he swallowed – ‘stranger things have happened. And now, thanks to this incident in the mess, I am being asked why the directive is not being applied. I know that at least one, if not two, of the colonels you offended this afternoon are making these points to the army staff in Banja Luka.'

He sighed again, his throat moving painfully as he fumbled open his tin and popped a mint into his mouth. ‘Why are we wasting manpower and resources on an investigation of this kind, at this time? Why are we not letting the Sarajevo police take care of it? These are the sorts of questions I am fielding. And so, with all that, what can you tell me of your investigation, Captain?' He clasped his hands under his chin and waited.

Reinhardt licked his lips, thinking carefully. ‘Sir, I can almost certainly confirm one thing. The police only began investigating on Monday morning, when the maid reported it. But Hendel's death was known to the Feldgendarmerie on Sunday already.'

Freilinger's brow creased as his hands continued their slow movement. ‘Go on,' he said.

‘One of the last places Hendel visited was a nightclub, called the Ragusa, also frequented by Vukić. The Feldgendarmerie interrogated staff there on Sunday, and they interrogated two singers who were, apparently, intimate with Hendel. On Sunday, and again on Monday. But they weren't looking for Hendel, or searching for evidence as to who killed him. They were looking for a Lieutenant Peter Krause, and for something that they thought he might have. Photographs, or film. Someone tipped off the Feldgendarmerie before even the Sarajevo police. I can only believe Major Becker's stalling tactics from yesterday afternoon were not only bureaucratic, but also deliberate.'

Freilinger sighed, running a palm up and then down each side of his face. ‘You see, that is what I was afraid you might say.' He raised a hand to forestall Reinhardt's protest. ‘I'm not saying you're wrong, Captain. I'm just saying you've no proof to make such an accusation. I know you and he have a long and tortured history and I know he is not always quite what we would expect in our Feldgendarmerie, but why would he do that? What would be his motivation? Who might ask him to do that? Becker will tell you he was looking for a deserter, this Peter Krause. Perhaps it is simply coincidence Krause was a friend of Hendel's. For now you cannot place Krause at the murder scene. Although…' He trailed off. ‘Although I will admit it is strange. Very strange…' His hands resumed their dry-washing. ‘What else?'

‘Sir, I have come across one common element between Hendel's death, his work, and my investigation.' Freilinger raised his eyebrows. ‘An SS officer. Standartenführer Mladen Stolić. 7th Prinz Eugen.'

Freilinger nodded, his eyes slipping sideways. ‘Go
on.'

‘He has been hostile and vocal in opposing my inquiries. It would seem he objected to, or was jealous of, whatever relationship Hendel had with Vukić. In addition, he seemed to take an instant dislike to
me.'

Freilinger smiled, a faint twitch of his lips. ‘Yes, he would. I know of him. Stolić is an angry man. And a rather violent one. He's Volksdeutsche, on his mother's side. He joined the Ustaše in the thirties, hung around Italy with Pavelić and the other exiles, then came back with them in 1941 and joined the Croatian Army. When the Seventh was formed, though, he transferred out, and there's the problem. He's angry not to have seen enough action. If he'd stayed with the Croatian Army, he'd have gone to the USSR, and probably gone out in a blaze of glory at Stalingrad like the rest of them are supposed to have done. He tried to leave the Seventh but was refused. No action, or not enough. No decorations.' Freilinger's eyes strayed to Reinhardt's Iron Cross. ‘He won't have liked you on sight just because of that. And he wouldn't have liked Vukić because she was a woman who refused him. To make matters worse, she was a woman who followed the Croats in the USSR almost to the end, and he was jealous of that, too. She went where he could
not.'

‘Sir, how do you know this?'

‘I have my sources,' responded Freilinger, simply. ‘I speak to my counterparts in the Domobranstvo, even in the Ustaše. Stolić is well known to them. Mostly for the wrong reasons. And don't forget, Hendel was Abwehr. He reported to
me.'

‘I
see.'

‘The case Hendel was working on, involving that Croatian Army colonel…
?'

‘Grbić, sir,' supplied Reinhardt.

‘Grbić was anathema to Stolić because of his service record and because he was a decorated veteran. Stolić detested him. There was always trouble between them.'

‘I see,' said Reinhardt, again. It seemed to be all he could manage.

‘So you keep saying,' said Freilinger, drily. Reinhardt flushed. ‘You might find this interesting. The only real action Stolić has ever seen was in Spain, back in thirty-seven. He volunteered for the nationalists and came back with a reputation for being rather brutal with captured prisoners. A reputation he has wasted no time expanding upon here in Bosnia. He favours knives and hatchets, apparently, and is known to frequent a particularly nasty Ustaše officer, called Ljubčić. One of those Black Legion men –' Freilinger paused, and Reinhardt wondered whether that could have been the Ustaša at Stolić's table at the Ragusa the other night. ‘What else?'

‘We interviewed Duško Jelić, a member of Vukić's film crew, with Inspector Padelin. He provided a lot of background information on Vukić's movements over the past few months, as well as some personal details on her… predilections. Apparently she had rather distinctive tastes in men, preferring older men, especially decorated soldiers.' Freilinger raised his eyebrows, and there was the ghost of a smile at the edge of his mouth that Reinhardt affected not to notice. ‘She also had particular sexual tastes and a rather voracious sexual appetite. According to what Jelić said, and from what I have been able to determine, neither Hendel nor Stolić would have been attractive to her, and I know Stolić took that badly.

‘The reason I mention her sexual activity,' he continued, ‘is after the interview with Jelić I found a hidden room in her house containing a film camera but no film. Her darkroom had been ransacked – that, I noticed on my initial visit to the scene – and I believe the Feldgendarmerie, and whoever has asked them to assist, know or suspect Krause has the film and the film shows her with her murderer.'

Freilinger's hands went still again, his eyes narrowing. ‘Now that
is
interesting,' he said quietly.

Pausing a moment to swallow, Reinhardt reviewed the last things he had to say. He knew he needed to be convincing to Freilinger, as he could feel any control he had over this investigation slipping away. ‘Jelić told us Vukić had an affair while she was in the USSR with a senior army officer sometime in September last year. It was apparently rather tempestuous, and ended quite badly, and Vukić bore some kind of grudge. Jelić told me the officer in question recently transferred here, and he and Vukić had met, or were planning to. According to Jelić, Vukić did not play the role of jilted lover very well and it would not have surprised him if she planned some sort of revenge.'

‘A revenge that went wrong, and someone may have the proof of it…' Freilinger grunted, looking away from Reinhardt for a moment.

‘At the moment, it's all I have to go
on.'

‘In any case,' Freilinger sighed, looking back at him, ‘it is all somewhat irrelevant now. I received a call from Major Becker. The Sarajevo police have their suspect. He has admitted to killing Vukić. Becker tells me we can almost certainly pin Hendel's murder on him,
too.'

Reinhardt leaned forward in his chair, shaking his head. ‘Sir, whoever the Sarajevo police are putting forward is a scapegoat. The police are running a purely political investigation and are pretending there is no link between Vukić and Hendel.'

‘Well, you may be right, but after today's little show in the mess and with Schwarz about to kick off, I don't think anyone's going to care. Do you?' Reinhardt stayed mute, if only because he did not dare speak around the swell of frustration in his chest and the feeling of helplessness that threatened to overwhelm him. ‘We are invited tomorrow morning to police headquarters. There's to be some sort of official gathering at which they'll present their findings and suspect. You will go. And then I expect we will be told to bring our investigation to an
end.'

Reinhardt looked back at Freilinger, wanting to protest, to keep him away from that mockery, but the steely look in the major's eyes kept him quiet. As if assuring himself of Reinhardt's quiescence, Freilinger leaned across to the side of his desk and pushed two blue folders towards him. ‘Feldgendarmerie traffic records. As we requested.' ­Reinhardt put the folders in his lap, resisting the temptation to consider them as useless
now.

Freilinger stood and walked over to his window, clasping his hands behind his back. The sun was much lower now. From where Reinhardt was sitting Freilinger seemed outlined in light, his close cap of grey hair shining almost silver, but the rest of him just a dim suggestion of back and arms and legs. ‘It's not over, Reinhardt,' he said, finally. Reinhardt had to strain to hear him. ‘I have not received orders yet to end this. So keep at it, but whatever you're doing, get it done soon, one way or the other. When Schwarz starts, no one will care about a dead lieutenant. But they will care about a captain getting in the way and asking questions.'