A Man Without Breath (Bernie Gunther Mystery 9)

  ‘In most cases, gentlemen, we shall attempt to remove bodies intact,’ said Buhtz. ‘However, in the meantime …’

  He approached the corpse I had uncovered with a spade just forty-eight hours earlier and drew back the piece of sacking I had used to cover it up again.

  ‘I propose to make an immediate start with this fellow.’

  He probed the bullet hole in the back of the skull with his forefinger for a moment.

  ‘Judge Conrad,’ he said, ‘I wonder if you would be kind enough to make a contemporaneous note for me, while I make a preliminary examination of this cadaver’s skull.’

  ‘Certainly, professor,’ said Conrad, and taking out pencil and paper, he prepared to write.

  Buhtz dug around the skull with his fingers to make enough room to lift it clear of the earth it was lying in. He peered closely at the top and the front of the skull and then said: ‘Victim A appears to have suffered a bullet wound to the occipital bone, close to the opening of the lower part of the skull, consistent with his being shot, execution-style, in the back of the head and at close range. There appears to be a point of exit in the forehead, which leads me to suppose that the bullet no longer remains within the skull cavity.’

  He unwrapped his bundle of surgical instruments on the ground and selecting the large amputation knife I had seen earlier, he began to cut into the bones of the neck.

  ‘However, by measuring the size of these holes we may be able to arrive at an early determination of the calibre of the weapon that was used to execute this man.’

  There was no hesitation in the way he used the knife and I wondered if he could have removed the head of a living man with such skill and alacrity. When the head was completely severed he lifted the skull, wrapped it carefully in the piece of sacking and laid it on the ground by Lieutenant Voss’s feet.

  Meanwhile I glanced at Judge Conrad, who caught my eye and nodded silently, as if the professor’s actions here in Katyn Wood confirmed the curious story he had told me about the removal of the SS corporal’s head in Buchenwald.

  It was Dyakov’s keen eyes that spotted the shell casing. It was lying on the ground in the spot that had been recently occupied by the dead Polish officer’s skull. He dropped down on his haunches and rubbed in the dirt for a moment before coming up with the small object in his thick fingers.

  ‘What’s that you’ve found?’ asked Buhtz.

  ‘Sir, it looks like a shell casing,’ said Dyakov. ‘Perhaps the same shell that contained the very bullet that killed this poor Polish man.’

  Buhtz took the shell casing from Dyakov and held it up to the light. ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Well done, Dyakov. We’re off to a flying start, I think. Thank you gentlemen. If anyone needs me I will be in my laboratory at Krasny Bor. With any luck, this time tomorrow we’ll already be able to say what kind of weapon killed this fellow.’

  I had to admit that Buhtz was more impressive than I had been expecting. We watched him walk back down the slope to his motorcycle. He was carrying the skull under his arm and looked like a referee walking away from a game of soccer with the football.

  Conrad sneered after him. ‘What did I tell you?’ he murmured.

  ‘Oh I don’t know,’ I said, ‘he seemed to know what he was about.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Conrad said grudgingly. ‘Maybe he does. But he’ll boil that head tonight and make a soup out of it. Just you see if I’m wrong.’

  Lieutenant Voss sniffed the air. ‘It smells bad already,’ he said.

  ‘Plenty bad,’ agreed Dyakov. ‘And if we smell it, then so will the wolves. It might not just be the looters we have to worry about. Maybe they’ll come back for a free meal. It might even be dangerous. Believe me, you don’t want to meet a pack of hungry wolves at night.’

  ‘Would a wolf really eat something that’s been dead for this long?’ asked Lieutenant Voss.

  Dyakov grinned. ‘Sure. Why not? A wolf is not so particular if his meat is kosher or not. Filling his stomach with something – anything – is more important. Even if he throws most of it up, for sure something will stay down, you can guarantee it. Hey colonel, maybe you should increase the guard on the wood from tonight.’

  ‘Please don’t tell me my duty, Dyakov,’ said Ahrens. ‘You might enjoy the field marshal’s confidence, but you don’t yet enjoy mine.’ With a face like a thundercloud he walked down the slope just as we heard Buhtz’s motorcycle start up and then roar away.

  ‘What’s up with Ahrens?’ asked Judge Conrad. ‘The silly ass.’

  ‘He’s all right,’ insisted Dyakov. ‘He just doesn’t like it that this nice place is already starting to look and smell like a shit heap.’ He laughed a big vulgar laugh. ‘That’s the trouble with you Germans. You have such sensitive noses. We Russians don’t even notice it when things smell bad. Eh, Peshkov?’ He elbowed the other man, who winced uncomfortably and then moved away.

  ‘That’s why we’ve got the same rotten government we’ve had since 1917,’ added Dyakov. ‘Because we have no sense of smell.’

  *

  Back in the signals room at Dnieper Castle there was a message for me from Berlin. Martin Quidde had already gone off duty and it was his junior signaller, Lutz – the man he believed was working secretly in the 537th for the Gestapo – who handed me the yellow envelope. He knew what the message said of course, because it was he who had decoded it, but I could see he was keen to ask me a question, and because when I can I like to keep the Gestapo as close as possible I offered him a Trummer from my little cigarette case and acted as if I was happy to talk for a while. But what I really wanted was to have someone in the Gestapo looking out for me, and sometimes, when you’re looking for a man to cover your back, it’s best to recruit the very person whose job it might be to put a knife in it.

  ‘Thanks very much, sir,’ he said, puffing with obvious enthusiasm. ‘These are the best cigarettes I’ve tasted in a while.’

  ‘Don’t mention it.’

  ‘Quidde says you’re not in the army at all but in the SD.’

  ‘That should tell you something.’

  ‘It should?’

  ‘It should tell you that you can trust me. That you can be frank with me.’

  Lutz nodded, but it was plain I was going to have to let him have the run of the line for a while before I could land him at my feet.

  ‘This is not something that would be true of everyone in the 537th,’ I said, carefully. ‘Not everyone is committed to the Party the way you and I are, Lutz. In spite of all evidence to the contrary, loyalty – real loyalty – is a comparatively rare thing these days. People say “Heil Hitler” with alacrity, but for most of them it doesn’t mean a damn thing.’

  ‘That’s very true.’

  ‘It’s just a figure of speech, a trope. Do you know what a trope is, Lutz?’

  ‘I’m not sure I do, sir.’

  ‘It’s a word or phrase that has almost become a cliché. It implies that for some people the words no longer mean anything very much; that the words have been turned away from their normal meaning. A lot of people say “Heil Hitler” and make the salute merely as a way of ensuring that they don’t get into trouble with the Gestapo. But Adolf Hitler doesn’t mean much for these men, and certainly not what he means for you and me, Lutz. By which I mean SD men and Gestapo men. I’m right, aren’t I? That you’re with the Gestapo? No, you don’t need to answer that. I know what I know. But what I don’t yet know is if I can rely on you, Lutz. That I can count on you in a way I can count on no one else in this regiment. That I can talk to you in confidence perhaps, and that you can speak to me in the same way. Do I make myself plain?’

  ‘Yes sir. You can count on me, sir.’

  ‘Good. Now tell me something, Lutz, did you know those two dead signallers well?’

  ‘Yes, well enough.’

  ‘Were they good Nazis?’

  ‘They were—’ He hesitated. ‘They were good signallers sir.’

  ‘That’s not what I asked
you.’

  Lutz hesitated again, but this time it was only for a moment. ‘No, sir. Neither of them could ever have been described as that, I think. In fact I had already reported them to the Gestapo because I suspected them of being involved in some local black market.’

  I shrugged. ‘That’s not uncommon with people who work in signals and in stores.’

  ‘I also reported them for certain remarks I considered to be disloyal. This was a couple of months ago. In February. Immediately after Stalingrad. What they said seemed especially disloyal after Stalingrad.’

  ‘You reported them to the Gestapo station at Gnezdovo, here in Smolensk?’

  ‘Yes. To a Captain Hammerschmidt.’

  ‘And what did he do?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’ Lutz coloured a little. ‘Ribe and Greiss weren’t even questioned, and I asked myself why I had bothered. I mean, it’s no small thing to denounce someone for treason, especially when it’s a comrade.’

  ‘Is that what it was, do you think? Treason?’

  ‘Oh yes. They were always making jokes about the leadership. I asked them to stop but they took no notice. If anything, it got worse. When the leader was here a few weeks ago, I suggested we go down to the road and watch out for his car as it drove past on the way to headquarters at Krasny Bor. They just laughed and proceeded to make more jokes about the leader. Which made me really angry, sir. These were capital crimes, after all. I mean here we are, in the midst of a war for our very survival, and these two bastards were undermining the nation’s will to self-defence. Frankly I’m not at all sorry they are dead, sir, if it means I no longer have to listen to that kind of crap.’

  ‘Do you remember any of these jokes?’

  ‘Yes sir. One. Only I’d rather not repeat it.’

  ‘Come now, Lutz. No one is going to assume that it was your joke.’

  ‘Very well, sir. It goes like this. A bishop is visiting a local church and in the vestibule he notices three pictures hanging on the wall. There’s one of Hitler and one of Göring and there’s a picture of Jesus in the middle. The bishop questions the pastor of the church about this arrangement and the pastor tells the bishop that these three pictures help to remind him of what it says in the Bible – that Christ was nailed up between two criminals.’

  I smiled to myself. I’d heard many permutations of this joke before, but not for a while. Most people who made jokes about the Nazis were just letting off steam, but for me, it always felt like an act of political resistance.

  ‘Yes, I can see why that would make anyone very angry,’ I told him. ‘Well, you did the right thing all the same. I imagine the Gestapo had more pressing matters to deal with ahead of the leader’s visit to Smolensk. I shall certainly make a point of seeking out this Captain Hammerschmidt and asking him why he didn’t think to question these men.’

  Lutz nodded, but he hardly looked convinced by my explanation.

  ‘However, the next time you hear something you think affects our morale or security here in Smolensk, it might be best if you spoke to me first.’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘There is one thing I wanted to ask you, sir.’

  ‘Go ahead, Lutz.’

  ‘This Doctor Batov who the Ministry of Enlightenment have told you can come to live in Germany. Can that be right, sir? He’s a Slav, isn’t he? And Slavs are racially contaminated. I thought that the whole point of our drive toward the East is to expel these inferior races, not to assimilate them into German society.’

  ‘You’re right, of course, but sometimes exceptions must be made, for the greater good. Dr Batov is going to perform a very important propaganda service for Germany. A very important service that might help to change the course of this war. I don’t exaggerate. As a matter of fact, I’m going to see him now, to tell him the good news. And for him to perform this service I was speaking of.’

  Once again Lutz hardly looked convinced by my arguments. I wasn’t surprised: that’s the trouble with dyed-in-the-wool Nazis – stupidity, ignorance and prejudice always get in the way of them seeing the bigger picture. But for that they might be impossible to deal with.

  *

  Glinka Park was a landscaped garden with trees and stupid little paths just inside the southern wall of the Kremlin, with the Luther church and the town hall a stone’s throw to the east. You could smell the circus and hear the complaints of some of the animals from its menagerie further to the west; then again, that might just have been the effect of some town drunks who were making a horizontal party of it with some booze and a little campfire and some pet dogs on the Rathausstrasse side.

  In the centre of the park was a large statue of Glinka; around his size fifty-six bronze shoes was a wrought-iron fence that had been made to look like music paper, with notes in positions that you just knew without being able to read music were probably from his most popular symphony. With the Nazis in charge of a large part of the country, it was hard to imagine a Soviet composer finding very much to write a symphony about, unless some modern maestro felt inspired to write a new overture to victory complete with real cannon and bells and a triumphant Russian army, and now that I’d thought about it, that wasn’t hard to imagine at all: 1812 and the Grand Army’s disastrous retreat from Moscow was beginning to seem much more contemporary than felt comfortable. I just hoped I wasn’t going to be another frozen body lying in the snow on the long road back to Berlin.

  I saw Martin Quidde before he caught sight of me. He was wandering around with a leather dispatch case in one hand and a cigarette in the other, looking like he didn’t have a care in the world, when in fact it wasn’t like that at all; as soon as he saw me he looked one way and then the other like a cornered dog, as if wondering where to run.

  ‘Was he a great composer, do you think?’ I asked him. ‘Did he really deserve this? Or were they just short of a nice statue to put in this park whenever it was that some boyar locked the lid on his piano for good?’ I checked Glinka’s dates on the pedestal. ‘1857. Seems like only yesterday. Back then Germany was just a twinkle in Bismarck’s blue eye. If old blood and iron had known then what we know now, would he have done it, d’you think? Unified all the German states into one big happy family? I wonder.’

  Quidde hurried me away into the trees as though we were more likely to fall under suspicion if we remained near the statue. Several times he glanced anxiously back, almost as if he expected Glinka to climb down off the pedestal and come after us with a baton and a couple of bars of serious music in his hand.

  ‘You know, I don’t think Herr Glinka minds very much what I say about him,’ I said. ‘Not as much as a lot of other people I can think of. But then that’s true of nearly everyone these days.’

  ‘You’ll feel a lot less sanguine about things when I’ve told you what I know,’ he said.

  I lit a cigarette and flicked the match onto the slush-covered ground. I was smoking too much again, but then Russia does that to you. It was hard to pay much attention to your health after Stalingrad, knowing that so many Russians were hoping soon to kill you.

  ‘Then maybe I just don’t want to know,’ I said. ‘Maybe I should be more like Beethoven. It seems to me like he managed to do well enough when he didn’t hear a damn thing. Going deaf is probably very good for your health in Germany. These days I get the impression that listening to what other people say can be lethal. Especially listening to our leaders.’

  ‘Don’t I know it?’ Quidde said bitterly. He removed his helmet and rubbed his head furiously.

  ‘Now I begin to see and hear, and I think I might be looking at a man who maybe heard a lot more than just Midge Gillars on Radio Berlin.’

  ‘If Midge knew what I know, she’d play some very different tunes. Only this time they won’t be the devil’s.’

  ‘Still, those tunes are the good ones, right? I should know. I’m the apostle of cheap music. Just don’t tell the fellow on the pedestal.’

  ‘Did you come alone
?’ he asked anxiously.

  I shrugged. ‘I was thinking of bringing a couple of show girls. But then again, you did ask me to come alone. Now what’s this all about?’

  Quidde lit another cigarette unsteadily with the stub of the old one. This did nothing for his nerves: the smoke plumed from his twitching mouth and flaring nostrils like the puff from a runaway train.

  ‘You’d better let some hydrogen out, corporal, or you’ll float away. Take it easy. Anyone would think you’re nervous.’

  Quidde handed me the dispatch case.

  ‘What’s this?’ I asked.

  ‘A reel of recording tape,’ he said.

  ‘What do I want with this? I don’t own a tape recorder. I wouldn’t even know how to work one.’

  ‘That tape was made by Friedrich Ribe,’ said Quidde. ‘And it might just be what got him killed. Only two people knew what was on that tape, and one of them is dead.’

  ‘Ribe.’

  Quidde nodded.

  ‘So how did your throat escape getting cut?’

  ‘I’ve asked myself the same question. I think Ribe and Greiss were killed because they were on the same duty roster. Whoever killed them must have figured they both heard what in fact only Friedrich Ribe had heard. And me, of course. Ribe wouldn’t ever have let Werner Greiss listen to what’s on this tape. At the time we all thought it was Greiss who was the Gestapo’s canary, when in fact it was Jupp Lutz all along. I only found out myself a couple of weeks ago when a friend from Lübeck wrote and told me about it.’

  ‘But Ribe played it for you,’ I said.

  Quidde nodded. ‘We were friends. Good friends. Looking out for each other since way back.’

  I glanced inside the dispatch case, which contained a box with the letters of the German Electricity Company – AEG – printed on it.

  ‘All right. It’s not the MDR Symphony Orchestra and it’s not the lost chord. So what’s on this tape?’

  ‘You remember when the leader came to Smolensk a few weeks ago?’

  ‘I still treasure the memory.’

  ‘Hitler had a meeting with Clever Hans in his office at Krasny Bor. In private. It was real cosy apparently – no aides, no adjutants, just the two of them. Only the telephone in the office hasn’t been working properly. It doesn’t always hang up when you drop the receiver back in the cradle, with the result that the operator continues to hear everything that’s said. Well, more or less everything.’