A Man Without Breath (Bernie Gunther Mystery 9)

  ‘They’re legs,’ she said. ‘A matching pair, last time I looked.’

  ‘You say that like I was paying them too much attention.’

  ‘Weren’t you?’

  ‘Not in the least. If I see a nice pair of legs, then naturally I just have to take a look at them. Darwin called it natural selection. You might have heard of that.’

  She smiled.

  ‘I should have listened to the pilot and put them safely away in a rifle case where they can’t do any harm.’

  ‘I certainly don’t mind getting shot in a good cause,’ I said.

  ‘That can be arranged. But for now, I’ll take that as a compliment.’

  ‘I wish you would. It’s been a while since I handed one out with such alacrity.’

  I collected her bags from the top of the steps and carried them to the car, but only just – they were heavy.

  ‘If this is more shoes in here,’ I said, ‘I should warn you. The field marshal isn’t planning any regimental balls.’

  ‘It’s mostly scientific equipment,’ she said. ‘And I’m sorry it’s so hard to carry.’

  ‘Really, I don’t mind at all. I could fetch and carry for you all day long.’

  ‘I’ll remember that.’

  ‘You know, Professor Buhtz didn’t tell me he was expecting a lady in Smolensk.’

  ‘I spit a little too much tobacco juice for him to think of me as that,’ she said. ‘But I imagine he did tell you he was expecting a doctor. Oddly enough, it’s possible to be both of those things, even in Germany.’

  ‘You remind me I should go back there sometime.’

  ‘Been down here long?’

  ‘I dunno. Is Hindenburg still the president?’

  ‘No. He died. Nine years ago.’

  ‘I guess that answers your question.’

  I finished putting her bags in the back of the Tatra and she offered me a cigarette from a little tin of Caruso.

  ‘Haven’t seen any of these in a while,’ I said, and let her light me.

  ‘A friend in Breslau keeps me in good cigarettes. Although for how much longer I don’t know.’

  ‘That’s some friend you have there.’ I nodded at the bags. ‘Is that all of them?’

  ‘Yes. And thanks. Now all you have to do is help me with them at wherever it is we’re going now. I’m just praying there’s a bath.’

  ‘Oh there is. There’s even hot water to pour into it. I could scrub your back if you like.’

  ‘I see the car comes with its own spade,’ she said. ‘Is that to crack the driver over the head with if he gets any amorous ideas?’

  ‘Sure. You could use it to bury me, too. One way or another there’s a lot of that going on in this part of the world.’

  ‘So I’ve heard.’

  ‘I don’t know if it counts as an amorous idea, but if I’d known it was you that was coming I’d have grabbed us a better ride.’

  ‘You mean with windows? And a seat instead of a saddle?’

  ‘Let me know if you want the top down.’

  ‘Would it make any difference?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  Dr Kramsta collected a black fur stole around her neck with one hand and gathered the lapels of her matching coat with the other. Underneath a little black-beaded cloche her hair was red, but not as red as her mouth, which was as full as a bowl of ripe cherries. Her chest was no less full, and for some reason I was reminded of the two churches on either side of Gendarmenmarkt – the French church and the New church, with their perfect matching domes. I narrowed my eyes and gave her a sideways, blurry look, but no matter how many times I did this and actively tried my best to make her look ugly she still came out looking beautiful. She knew it of course, and while in most women this would be a demerit, she knew that I knew that she knew it, and somehow that seemed to make it just fine.

  When she was as comfortable as she was ever going to be I started the car and set off.

  ‘You know my name,’ she said. ‘But I don’t seem to know yours.’

  ‘My name is Bernhard Gunther and I haven’t talked to anyone I wanted to talk to for almost three weeks. That is until you got off that plane. It now seems to me I’ve been waiting for you to show up or the world to end. For a while back there I really didn’t mind which, but now that you’re here I have this sudden inexplicable urge to keep going a while longer. Maybe even long enough to make you laugh – if that doesn’t sound presumptuous.’

  ‘Make me laugh? In my line of work, that’s not so easy to do, Herr Gunther. Most men give up when they get a nose of my usual brand of perfume.’

  ‘And what might that be, doctor? Just in case I’m passing a branch of Wertheims.’

  ‘Formaldehyde number one.’

  ‘My favourite.’ I shrugged. ‘No really. I used to be a homicide cop at the police praesidium on Berlin Alexanderplatz.’

  ‘That explains your strange taste in perfume. So what are you doing in Katyn Wood? From what I hear, this isn’t exactly a whodunit. Everyone in Europe knows who the killer is.’

  ‘Right now I’m walking a tightrope between the Bureau of War Crimes and the Ministry of Enlightenment. What’s more, I’m working without a net.’

  ‘Sounds like quite an act.’

  ‘It is. I’m supposed to make sure that everything here goes smoothly. Like a real police investigation. Of course, it doesn’t. But then, that’s Russia for you. A man who is afraid of failure should never come to Russia. It’s just as well that they tried to make Bolshevism work here or we’d really be in trouble.’

  ‘That’s an interesting way of looking at it.’

  ‘I’ve got a lot of interesting ways of looking at all sorts of things. You got anything special to do tonight?’

  ‘I was hoping for some dinner. I’m starving.’

  ‘Dinner’s at seven-thirty. And there’s a good chef. From Berlin.’

  ‘After that I was hoping you might show me the cathedral.’

  ‘It’d be my pleasure.’

  ‘Cathedrals always look their best at night. Especially in Russia.’

  ‘You sound like you’ve been in Russia before, Dr Kramsta.’

  ‘My father was a diplomat. As a child I lived in many interesting places: Madrid, Warsaw and Moscow.’

  ‘And which of them did you like the best?’

  ‘Madrid. But for the civil war, I’d probably be living there now.’

  ‘I’d have thought there were plenty of opportunities for a good doctor after a civil war.’

  ‘It will take more than a box of Traumaplast to fix that country, Herr Gunther. Besides, who ever said I was a good doctor? My bedside manner was always lacking, to say the least. I was never any good with patients. I haven’t got the patience for all their aches and pains and imaginary ills. I much prefer working with the dead. The dead never complain about your lack of compassion, or that you’re not giving them the right medicine.’

  ‘Then you should fit right in here in Smolensk. We estimate there are as many as four thousand bodies buried in Katyn Wood.’

  ‘Yes, I heard the announcement on Radio Berlin, on Tuesday night. Only they seemed to suggest it was more like twelve thousand.’

  I smiled. ‘Well, you know how Radio Berlin is with facts and figures.’

  At group HQ in Krasny Bor I took Dr Kramsta to her quarters, carried the luggage through the door, and handed her a crude little map of the compound.

  ‘That’s my hut over there, in case you need me for anything,’ I told her. ‘Right now I’m going over to the site. That’s where Professor Buhtz is nearly always to be found these days. But if you like I can wait fifteen minutes and then you can come with me. Otherwise I’ll see you at dinner.’

  ‘No, I’ll come with you,’ she said. ‘I’m anxious to get started.’

  When I returned she had changed into white trousers, a white turban, a white coat and black boots; she looked like the Sarotti chocolate Moor, but on her that was still becoming as hell: I al
ways did have a soft spot for women in white coats. I drove back to the wood and parked the Tatra. Straightaway she took out her handkerchief, sprinkled some Carat perfume onto it and held it to her nose and mouth.

  ‘You really have been down here for a while, haven’t you?’ she said.

  ‘I was sorry to hear about Hindenburg.’

  ‘Gnezdovo,’ she said as we walked up the slope to the edge of grave number one. ‘That means Goat’s Hill, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but you won’t see any goats around here. There are wolves in these woods. And before you say it, I don’t mean me. Real ones.’

  ‘You’re just saying that to scare me.’

  ‘Believe me, doctor, there are many scarier things around here than a few wolves.’

  Near the top of the slope we came in sight of the recently constructed wooden shed. Several dozen corpses were laid out, and with the help of Lieutenant Sloventzik’s translating, Buhtz was talking to a group of lean, grim-faced civilians who were the members of the Polish Red Cross.

  Voss came over as soon as he saw me. I introduced him to Dr Kramsta, who quickly excused herself and went to join Professor Buhtz.

  ‘Is she the new pathologist Buhtz has been expecting?’

  ‘Mm hmm.’

  ‘Then I think I just decided to leave my body to science.’

  ‘Well, don’t die yet. I need you here in Smolensk.’

  ‘Maybe you do at that,’ he said. ‘I think I have a lead in the death of those signalsmen.’

  Containing my own alarm for a moment, I nodded. ‘Let’s hear it.’

  ‘It’s rather awkward, sir.’

  Behind my back I clenched a fist. It wasn’t that I was getting ready to hit Voss. I was trying to steel myself for what was coming.

  But Voss had a very different explanation for what might have happened to Ribe and Greiss.

  ‘Last night my men busted an army driver on his way into Krasny Bor who had a Russian girl hidden in the back of the truck. Her name is Tanya. At first the driver said he’d just stopped to give the girl a lift, but the girl was quite a looker and dressed up to the peel – nice dress, shoes, silk stockings, and she spoke a bit of German, too. Which is unusual for a Popov peach. Also when we searched her we found a bottle of Mystikum in her handbag. That’s a pretty expensive perfume, sir, even back home.’

  ‘Yes, I begin to see. You’re saying she was a silk.’

  ‘A half-silk anyway. She had a day job. Anyway we questioned Tanya, and at first we got the Kremlin wall, but after we threatened to hand her over to the Gestapo, she started to talk; and when he found out what Tanya had told us, the driver gave us the rest of the set-up. His name is Reuth, Viktor Reuth. It seems as if some of the boys on the switchboard have been running a ring of call girls. For officers. Normally all you had to do was speak to Ribe or Quidde and they would call the Glinka Hotel, where the doorman – the fellow in the Cossack coat – would go around the corner to an apartment on Olgastrasse and arrange for one of the girls to go the department store on Kaufstrasse where they were smuggled in the back door. But on this occasion Tanya was told to wait outside the apartment for a driver from the Third Motorized Infantry to pick her up and bring her straight here.’

  I nodded. The GUM department store on Kaufstrasse was where most of the German officers were billeted in Smolensk. Krasny Bor was only for the general staff.

  ‘The girls from Olgastrasse were a cut above the whores at the Glinka. They were chosen because they were amateurs and because they were always Aryan-looking with nice clothes and good manners. The clothes seem to have been supplied by the members of the ring, or by German officers. Tanya – the one we picked up last night – had a day job as a nurse at the Smolensk State Medical Academy. And here’s the thing that’s really interesting, sir. The doorman at the Glinka, it turns out his name is Rudakov. Just like the fellow you reported as missing from the hospital, the fellow who might be a suspect in the death of Dr Batov and his daughter. I did some checking and it seems that Oleg Rudakov has a brother who was in the NKVD. At least, according to some of the other girls we found living at the apartment in Olgastrasse.’

  ‘I see. And where is he now?’

  ‘That’s the thing, sir. He’s disappeared, too. When we went to his apartment on Glasbergstrasse the closet was empty and all his clothes were gone.’

  ‘I think that now would probably be a good time for you to tell me who the officer was that Tanya was meant for.’

  ‘It was Captain Hammerschmidt, from the Gestapo. Every Wednesday night he was the duty officer in the Gestapo office at Krasny Bor.’

  ‘The Gestapo? Well, that explains something.’

  I was thinking of what Lutz had told me, about how Hammerschmidt had refused to investigate the signaller’s allegations of Ribe’s disloyalty; but this wasn’t what I told Voss.

  ‘It explains why he didn’t have Tanya brought to the Gestapo’s local headquarters at Gnezdovo,’ I said. ‘I mean, it’s one thing doing something illicit under the eyes of the Wehrmacht; it’s something else to be doing it under the eyes of your own Gestapo colleagues.’

  ‘There’s really no way of asking a question like that, is there?’ said Voss. ‘Not of the local Gestapo chief.’

  ‘It would seem you’re learning how to be a cop in modern Germany. It’s best never to ask a question unless you think you already know the answer. Who else have you told about this? Among our own people, I mean.’

  ‘So far there’s just me, an assistant secretary in the field police, and you. And Viktor Reuth knows, of course.’

  ‘And the signalsman who called the Glinka to arrange for a girl last night. By the way, who was that?’

  ‘Both the girl and the driver claimed this was a long-standing arrangement between Hammerschmidt and Tanya. Every Wednesday night. There was no call from the 537th switchboard to the Glinka last night because there was no need for one.’

  I told myself I could always try and check this with Lutz – my new Gestapo source in the signals office.

  Voss shook his head. ‘Look, sir. I don’t want to go up against the Gestapo with this. The fact is, I don’t want them checking too closely into my own background. There are one or two things – small things – I wouldn’t like anyone to know about. I mean, it’s nothing serious. It’s not like I have a Jewish parent or anything like that it’s just that—’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I have the same problem. I think everyone does. That’s what they rely upon. That kind of fear. Normal human frailty makes cowards of us all.’

  Voss nodded. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘So, what do we do now?’

  ‘I don’t know. I really don’t. The fact is, I think I know too much already. And I wish I didn’t. I thought I had a pretty good reason why Ribe and Greiss were murdered.’

  ‘Oh? You didn’t tell me. What is it, if you don’t mind me asking?’

  I shook my head. ‘Take my word for it, lieutenant, this is another thing you don’t want anyone to know about. Especially the Gestapo. Anyway, now I find there’s another equally good but very different reason that could have got them killed. They were in a vice racket. With any racket it’s easy for things to go wrong: maybe someone thinks they’ve been short-changed on a deal. Money’s the best reason in the world to hold a grudge and commit murder. When Ribe and Greiss were found with their throats cut near the Hotel Glinka, perhaps they’d been collecting the money from the doorman who’d had it off the girls. And that’s another motive for murdering them, of course. If someone saw the doorman handing them large handfuls of cash, well that might have got their throats cut for them, too.

  ‘And then there’s the Rudakov connection. Dr Batov was going to give me documentary evidence of what happened here at Katyn Wood. Only someone tortured and murdered him to prevent that from happening. His patient, Lieutenant Rudakov, was one of the NKVD men who had carried out this massacre. But now he’s missing, and so is a man who might have been his brother who was a doorman and pimp
at the Glinka.’

  ‘I just thought of something, sir,’ said Voss. ‘Those two NCOs from the panzer grenadiers we hanged for the rape and murder of two Russian women.’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘They were from the Third Division,’ explained Voss. ‘The third absorbed the 386th Motorized Division, which more or less ceased to exist after Stalingrad.’

  ‘So they might have been driving for the signals racket, too,’ I said. ‘Like Viktor Reuth. Earning a little extra cash on the side. And they’d have had a better reason than the signals boys to be on the road.’

  ‘Perhaps that was what your Corporal Hermichen wanted to trade for his life,’ said Voss. ‘That they were part of the same racket as the two dead men.’

  ‘Yes, it might,’ I said. ‘It just might.’

  I lit a cigarette and let the sweet tobacco smoke exorcise my nostrils of the loathsome stink of death that hung in the air. Unlike Dr Kramsta, I didn’t have any Carat to sprinkle on my handkerchief; I didn’t even have a handkerchief.

  ‘I’ll want to speak to this Tanya,’ I said. ‘I’d like to find out how many more girls from the house on Olgastrasse were nurses who had day jobs at the Smolensk State Medical Academy. Where is she now?’

  ‘Cooling her heels at the prison on Gefängnisstrasse. And probably trying to charm the guards into letting her go. Very beautiful is our Tanya. And very seductive.’

  ‘A blonde you say?’

  ‘Blonde and blue-eyed with skin like honey. Like a girl on the front page of New People.’

  ‘I like her already. All the same, sometimes I think attractive women in this part of the world are just like trams, lieutenant.’

  ‘How do you mean, sir?’

  ‘I don’t see one in weeks and then I meet two in one day.’

  *

  There was no women’s wing at Gefängnisstrasse, but some of the holding cells – in which several prisoners were held at once – were for women only, which counted for something, I suppose. All of the guards were men from the army or the field police, and while they treated their female charges with respect that was only in comparison with their male prisoners. Thanks to the many female soldiers who fought for the Red Army, it was generally held among Germans that Russian women were as potentially deadly as Russian men. Perhaps more so. The weekly Wehrmacht newspaper often had a story of a honey-trap sklyukhu going off with some unsuspecting Fritz who ended up losing more than just his virginity.