The Man from Berlin (23 page)

Becker still managed to have the last word, though. ‘My best to Major Freilinger,' he called. ‘And to Captain Thallberg.'

Padelin glanced in at Becker as he closed the door after Reinhardt. ‘Old history,' said Reinhardt, shortly, willing himself to unwind. ‘Forget about
it.'

Padelin shrugged. ‘This way,' he said. He led him through the building to an office. It was a dark, dingy affair, overlooking what must have been the building's internal courtyard. There was a desk, obviously shared by two people, covered in files and bits of paper, a ragged bit of carpet. Shelves held more files, books, folders, and ­assorted bits of junk. Several chunks of blackened metal sat on the desk, and Padelin picked one of them up and handed it to Reinhardt. It was warped, blackened, and twisted by what must have been considerable heat, but it still retained a roundish shape, as did the other pieces.

‘You remember that fire, in Ilijaš, on Sunday?' Padelin asked. ‘You saw the entry of the fire engines in the traffic records I showed you yesterday morning. These are from that fire. They are film cases.'

Reinhardt's eyes widened. ‘You're sure?'

Padelin shrugged. ‘Sure as we can be. The fire brigade found them at the fire. It was a big fire. Very hard to control. I am told film burns very intensely.'

‘I think I remember hearing about that,' Reinhardt said, quietly. He put the piece of metal back on the desk, thinking. ‘Where was the fire?'

‘In the forest, near an abandoned farm.'

Reinhardt pursed his lips. ‘Last night,' he said, after a moment, ‘I talked with one of our doctors. He said he treated a couple of soldiers for burns…' He trailed off, glancing at Padelin. ‘What do you think?'

‘I think these are the films from Vukić's house. Whoever took them destroyed them.'

Reinhardt nodded again. ‘Becker. The Feldgendarme I was just talking to? He is looking for a reported deserter, called Peter Krause. A lieutenant. I think he thinks Krause has a film. The one' – he gestured at the metal pieces – ‘these people are looking for, and perhaps thought they had. Almost certainly the one from that camera we found.'

‘Why would he think this Krause has this film?'

Reinhardt hesitated. There was only so much he could tell Padelin about the GFP. ‘It's complicated,' he said, finally. ‘Hendel was Abwehr. Apparently, he worked with Krause from time to time.' It sounded weak to Reinhardt, but Padelin seemed to accept it. ‘So, where does this leave
you?'

‘Leave me?' repeated Padelin, frowning at Reinhardt.

‘Your culprit is dead. Where does that leave your investigation?'

‘Oh,' said Padelin. He began stacking the pieces of metal. ‘Well, he confessed before dying. We'll see if that's enough for Zagreb. I think it will
be.'

‘Padelin,' insisted Reinhardt. ‘You know, you must, that that man did not have anything to do with Vukić's death.'

Padelin paused in what he was doing and straightened up. Again, Reinhardt felt that sensation of something heavy bearing down on him, and again felt that irrational twitch that he had to look
up
into Padelin's eyes. ‘I don't know why this is so hard for you to understand, Reinhardt,' said Padelin. ‘You were a policeman once, under the Nazis. You should know, better than me.' He went back to what he was doing. ‘The man was a Serb. A Communist. People like him will commit crimes, just like Gypsies and Jews. Frau Hofler identified him from photos we showed her. If he did not kill her, he did something else. Besides,' he continued, ‘we know he was a senior Partisan. So, at a… how do you say… at a minimum? We have given the Partisans a loss. Who knows? Maybe he was Senka. The Shadow.'

It took a moment for Reinhardt to realise Padelin had actually tried to be funny. He stared back at the detective, remembering that conversation with Begović outside Vukić's house. The doctor calmly smoking his cigarette, sitting contentedly on his rock. ‘And the nephew?'

Padelin narrowed his eyes at Reinhardt's tone, then shrugged. ‘Nothing, I think. He will be set free.'

‘So what becomes of
our
investigation?' he asked. He pointed at the film casings. ‘This proves there was more to the murder, no? Someone was trying to cover something up, here.'

Padelin frowned. It seemed to Reinhardt it was the frown of a man trying to be patient with a child, trying to explain something obvious and evident. ‘My part is over, I think,' he replied. His frown deepened. ‘Yours too. Was that not what you were talking about with Major Becker?'

‘No. Are you telling me Becker has received instructions on this case?'

Padelin shrugged. ‘I don't know. Putković may have talked with him. I know the police are talking with your army at higher levels.'

Higher levels, thought Reinhardt. That could mean anything, and anyone. He gave a long, slow sigh, then nodded. ‘Very well,' he said. He offered his hand, which Padelin shook after a moment, his frown deepening even further. Reinhardt turned and left, feeling the air thicken with confusion behind him. He walked back down the corridors, down into the foyer, past the press of men still waiting for ­answers, and outside. The air was hot already, heavy with a weight of stone and concrete, but it was fresh and clean after the stale atmosphere inside.

20

H
e slumped into the car, staring down at the pedals, his mind empty. After the momentary high of
finding out the police had lost their suspect, he could feel himself sliding back into the depression that had seized him since last night. Padelin's complacency, Becker's assurance of knowledge that Reinhardt did not have… He raised his head, tracked his eyes along the spartan lines of the Austrian façades without really seeing them. He had no idea what to do now, so he started the engine and began driving.

On purpose, he swung the car left and right more or less at random, taking streets he rarely, if ever, took. The few shops he passed were mostly shut, and the inhabitants of this city had long perfected ways of looking at people like him without seeming to, or avoiding him altogether. People stared ahead, bent their heads closer together in conversation, found the most interesting things in half-empty shop windows, hugged walls, pulled children closer. Like last night on Kvaternik, he thought of water. As if he moved through water, a bow wave of apprehension moving ahead of him, altering behaviour and trajectories, all of it swirling and washing back and forth in his wake, emotions and intentions coming back together.

There were noticeably fewer troops in the city. The endless convoys were gone, off down to the east and south, and a large part of the city's garrison had followed them. Of the soldiers who were left, most were from the Croatian Army, many of them Bosnian Muslim conscripts, incongruous in their German Army pattern uniforms with black fez on their heads. The hats were supposedly a cultural exception. Reinhardt thought they looked like extras in some children's matinee production.

His feet felt like blocks of lead as he climbed the stairs to his office. The day was barely begun and he wanted it over in a way he had not felt for a long time, but there was a note on his desk requesting him to report to Freilinger soonest. He flipped his cap onto a chair and sat on the edge of the desk. As always, in these moments when his mind seemed to drift, he looked without really seeing at the big map of Sarajevo on his wall. East to west, all the way from Hrasnica, on the long, winding road down through Jablanica to Mostar and on to the sea, to Lapisnica and its old Ottoman footbridge where the mountains pinched off the city. North and south of the city were hills and mountains, where he had rarely been. Green rolling country to the north, hills folded and rucked like a bed that had been slept in, but to the south they bulked high, swelling into the great stone bulwarks of the south and east.

It was down there, hidden in fastnesses of stone and wood, moving freely as they wished, that the Partisans had their bases. And it was down there, clustering along the few roads and around the few towns and villages, that the Germans and their allies had mustered their forces. Almost, Reinhardt wished he were with them. This war had, for him, been one of paper and shadows. The war he had known, the first war, had been one of sludge and clay, a blasted horizon slashed and barbed by wire, and the sky at times so full of iron and steel it seemed there could be room for nothing else. But he had sometimes found an honesty in warfare he had found nowhere else. A comfort in the company of men exposed to the same dangers, running the same risks. It was better, sometimes, to face open danger than skulk through the shadows like this.

He sighed and stirred himself. Feeling sorry for his lot would get him precisely nowhere. And nowhere was where he was. No suspect. No investigation. No support. He took the stairs up to Freilinger's office slowly and found the major much as he had found him the night before, standing by his window, looking west. Freilinger turned as he came in, and Reinhardt was struck by how tired he looked, the lines on his face long and deep. The two of them stared at each other a moment, and then the major gestured to the chair in front of his desk. ‘So,' he said, pointing to his telephone. ‘I've just spoken to Putković. I understand things have come to a pass?'

‘They think their suspect was murdered by one of their own doctors, whom they're now searching for as a Partisan agent.'

‘So I hear.'

‘Even if he didn't kill Vukić, Topalović must've been important to them,' said Reinhardt, staring out the window. He turned back to Freilinger. ‘I mean, Topalović must have been pretty important if an agent as apparently well placed as Begović was blown just to shut him
up.'

‘Hmm,' said Freilinger, rolling one of his ubiquitous mints in his fingers. He fixed Reinhardt with those blue eyes. ‘Putković seems to have it in his head you had something to do with
it.'

Reinhardt was too tired to muster up a protest. ‘I met the doctor last night when I went to police HQ.
I –'

‘What were you doing there?' interrupted Freilinger.

‘I was angry, sir,' replied Reinhardt. ‘What you told me seemed so wrong. I went to try and talk to Padelin, to…' He paused, ran a hand over his face, swallowed. ‘It's not important why I went, I suppose. I couldn't find Padelin. The doctor escorted me out of the building and walked me as far as the Latin Bridge. That was
it.'

‘So it was some sort of mercy killing?' Reinhardt nodded. ‘Well, so might this be, I suppose.' Reinhardt straightened in the chair. ‘It's over. The investigation. I've been told to bring it to an
end.'

‘By whom,
sir?'

‘Staff, up at Banja Luka. It would seem the telephone lines have been buzzing. Some colonel on the commander's staff seems to have a dim view of us wasting resources, getting in the way of senior officers, distracting attention, sowing confusion within our own forces, upsetting our allies…' He rolled the mint around the front of his mouth. ‘Seems you've stirred up quite the hornet's nest, Reinhardt.'

Reinhardt nodded once, slowly, closing his eyes as he did so. ‘So it would seem, sir,' he said quietly.

Freilinger frowned at him, his lips pursing and moving as he swallowed his mint. He drummed his fingers quietly on the table, one after the other, a rolling little beat that came to an abrupt stop. He leaned forward on his elbows, looking hard at him. ‘My God. This has really got to you, hasn't
it?'

Reinhardt opened his mouth to reply and found nothing. Freilinger seemed willing to wait, so he tried again. ‘It has got to me, sir. You're right. I think… I think it's because you held the door open to a past that meant something to me. And, for whatever reason, I could not seem to join that past up with this present.' He looked away, down at the floor, then back. ‘Naïve of me, I know.' He found he had nothing more to say and gave a twitch of a smile in place of the words that would not come.

‘Reinhardt,' Freilinger said, after a moment. ‘I've no written orders for you yet, but I know you are supposed to stand ready to transfer down to Foča. That's where they're setting up the holding area for prisoners, and they'll want you for interrogations.' He leaned back. ‘I'm being reassigned. My replacement's on his way from Belgrade, and I'm off to Italy.'

Reinhardt knew there were consequences here. Implications. For both of them, but he could not think them through, could only feel them, waiting like steps in a road he would have to take. He wondered whether this was what Becker's parting shot had been about. ‘It was the Feldgendarmerie making the calls,' Freilinger continued. ‘The colonel at army HQ referred specifically to the commandant of the Feldgendarmerie.'

‘The commandant? He only knows what Becker tells him.' Reinhardt shifted. ‘Is your transfer because of… this?'

‘It's been on the cards a while. This has probably sped things up, is all.' He looked down at something on his desk. ‘Last night, I promised you some information.' He held up a sheet of paper. ‘Recent transfers of general staff officers to Bosnia in the last six months.' Freilinger considered it a moment, then held it out to Reinhardt. ‘Not much use to you now, I suppose, but I marked the three officers who served in the USSR.' Glancing at the paper, Reinhardt saw that it listed about a half dozen names and folded it into his pocket. Freilinger watched him, twisted his lips, and sat back in his chair.

‘Sir, you talk as if it's over for me. I know that's what Banja Luka told you, but you seemed to be hinting that I ought to continue until orders come telling me otherwise. Was I wrong about that?'

‘When I referred to written orders, Reinhardt, I indeed only referred to myself. I have none for you. You may very well consider that licence to pursue your inquiries. Or you may not. Perhaps it would be safer not
to.'

‘Yes, sir. I ask because I met with someone last night. A Captain Thallberg. Ostensibly an infantry captain, he is GFP. He told me Hendel was as well, as was Krause. They were working for
him.'

Freilinger looked back at him. ‘What?' he said.

If Reinhardt had been in that kind of mood, he might have taken pleasure in the look on Freilinger's face. One of complete surprise, written blankly across his drawn features. ‘They were GFP. Hendel was on some kind of surveillance mission. He was tasked to it by someone senior, not in country. This Thallberg doesn't know who, but he's trying to find
out.'

Freilinger seemed to deflate in his chair. His mouth moved. ‘GF…' He paused, swallowed, passed a hand across his face, then began to rub his hands together under his chin. That slow movement, back and forth and around and around.

‘The GFP are often involved in court martials, aren't they?' Freilinger nodded, slowly. ‘Maybe that's the case here. Maybe Hendel was building up a case against someone.'

‘Do you know who he was after?'

Reinhardt shook his head. ‘I would've hoped to find out eventually. But sir, it has to have been the man Vukić was seeing, who was at her house that night. My belief remains the same. She knew something about a senior member of our armed forces. She had revealed all, or part, to Hendel, who was after the same person. How they met, I do not know. Probably at the nightclub. They arranged a confrontation. It went wrong. Probably, she tried to control too much of it and lost the control she sought. He ended up killing both of them, and Krause is on the run. He knows who did this, and he's terrified.' He tapped the list in his pocket. ‘With any luck, he's one of those names you found.'

Freilinger's eyes followed Reinhardt's hand, then drifted away. The silence lengthened. ‘Do you think the GFP's involvement ­really changes things?' Reinhardt asked. He knew it did. It was a nonsensical question. It was just that the silence made him suddenly uncomfortable.

The major's eyes hardened, as if they focused on something, and swung back to Reinhardt. ‘Of course it does. Reinhardt, if the GFP are involved, this isn't a murder investigation anymore. It's something else. Who knows what… ? But I do know the stakes will be much higher.' Freilinger paused, swallowing slowly. ‘And if you felt strongly before about trying to do this right, then you'll have to fight doubly hard with the GFP. They can do anything.'

‘Well. What do I have to lose?'

‘We always have a lot to lose, Reinhardt. I would have thought someone like you would know better than to make a flippant remark like that.'

Reinhardt flushed. ‘Yes, sir. Will there be anything else?'

Freilinger shook his head, looking away. ‘No. Dismissed.'

At the door, Reinhardt paused as Freilinger called out to him. ‘Captain. If you will continue with this, with the GFP…' He paused, the words trailing
off.

‘I will be careful, sir,' replied Reinhardt, stepping into the breach. Freilinger's expression gave no hint as to whether that was what he had wanted to say. If he felt any frustration, if he felt Reinhardt was being obtuse, he showed no sign of it, and only nodded and looked away.