Bill usually looked forward to visiting Anna’s Place, but it had already been an immensely long night. Thankfully, the U-Bahn had brought him up to Unter den Linden in at least some comfort and warmth. Bill headed down the famous street. As his footsteps fell into theirs, he could have sworn he felt the presence of Hitler, Napoleon, and other narcissistic parasites around him, like flies around a carcass. However, it could just as likely have been the beer and whisky doing the thinking.
He passed a Russian patrol who had stopped in the awkwardly named but once-grand Kaiser-Franz-Josef-Platz and tipped his hat. The smaller of the two greeted him in German, and then the pair continued conversing in their alien dialect. The colossal structure of St. Hedwig’s Cathedral stood forlorn in the devastated square. The eighteenth-century Catholic church was little more than a shell. The roof and interior had been destroyed by allied bombing. The front mock-Roman pillars were covered with patches of bare stone where the Russians had blasted away the ornate, carved sculptured facade during the final fighting.
The ubiquitous rubble surrounded the square. Bill thought perhaps if someone were to design a flag for this strange new fractured city, it ought to be red, with a mountain of rubble as a centrepiece. He walked swiftly through the square, smoking his pipe as he went, feeling numerous Russian eyes burning into his back.
He headed once more over the river. The water smiled unwillingly, full of indignation at the state of her banks, piled up with destruction and squalor. The old river had snaked through the city, bringing life for millennia, only for people to offer up death and destruction as a reward. No wonder she was pissed off.
Anna’s Place was quieter than usual. Perhaps the cold had kept the customers away. There was an amorous couple in the far left-hand corner past the end of the bar and a few other people scattered here and there. The place looked much larger without the throng of patrons and heavy cloud of smoke hanging in the air. Not everyone came to Anna’s to look for unrequited love. Many went for the jazz, excellent vodka and risqué company. Bill could think of no other reasons to want to be in the Russian sector at all.
Anna spotted him as he approached his favoured table, not too far from either the exit or the bar. “Bill. Good to see you again. A bit late for you, isn’t it? You usually like to start your drinking by eight o’clock at the latest. Not always the one that’s in the evening.”
“I had a head start,” Bill replied as he slumped into a trendy, modern, bucket chair.
“Well, don’t let that slow you down.”
Bill grinned. “I never normally do. I believe Katya is working tonight. Is she busy?”
“Never is these days. Most of her regulars stopped coming to see her. I don’t know what’s up with her. She won’t tell me anything. I’m going to have to ask her to leave soon.”
Anna seemed too keen to get Katya out of her hair. For one as protective as she was, it curiously only seemed to extend as far as the girls who were still financially viable. But then, she had never claimed to be running a charity.
“Let her know I would like some time with her in half an hour.”
Anna nodded and then raised her eyebrows at the tall, gorgeous waitress from before, who was standing behind the bar. She winked at Bill, then jotted down something in the prominent red leather-bound journal which stood on a plinth, like a guestbook at Windsor Castle. The spine was finished in gold leaf, and there was a large velvet bookmark with a yellow rope lanyard embellishment. It was hilariously ostentatious and far more than is required to keep a record of bookings in a knocking shop—even one this classy.
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think Katya is your type. Buxom, but too plain in the face.” Anna smirked.
“You know I only need to speak to her. It’s business.”
“All our clients are here on business, Bill. It’s the oldest business there is.”
“Fighting is the oldest business there is, and this city has seen more than enough of it.”
“Fighting, fucking, drinking. It’s all the same to me. War has been an excellent business opportunity. Maybe I should expand and add a pay-to-play boxing ring too?”
“Katya, my name is Bill. I need to ask you a few questions.”
“Your face is very familiar.”
“I come in here a lot.”
“Yes, I’ve seen you around in the bar, but I could have sworn I have seen you somewhere else. You looked younger. Perhaps from somewhere before.”
“I doubt it. I think I just have a familiar face. I need to talk to you.”
“You only want to talk?” she asked, surprised.
Katya’s date room was just as ludicrously over-embellished as the journal downstairs. The old wood panelling was covered with faded purple velvet, and the window was blocked up as if the blackout in the city had never ended. The whole room was depressingly dingy and smelt strongly of disinfectant. The floor was bare, with a sheepskin rug at the foot of a large double bed before a large standing dress mirror. The sheets were all pristine, pressed white cotton, and a grey woollen blanket was placed neatly on top. The whole thing reminded Bill of his days at Sandhurst, where it was all ironing, pressing, polishing and hospital corners.
“Yes, only talk. I will, of course, pay for your time. I’m sorry if that message wasn’t passed on to you. I will wait here, and you can get dressed if you like.”
Katya perched on the edge of the bed. Her sheer floor-length purple robe was half-open and had fancy feather trim. It looked like something you would find draped around the mistress of some member of the aristocracy. It held its colour better than the wall coverings. However, it did little to hide her body, but it was designed to titillate, not throw on when collecting the morning milk. Although Bill supposed, it would depend entirely on how you felt about the milkman.
She wore white lace knickers beneath the transparent robe, but her ample breasts were entirely on show. In the light, Bill could see her hair was indeed a dirty blonde colour but well-kept and clean. She certainly took good care of her appearance, no doubt a requirement for the job. Bill could certainly see nothing at all that might put off her clients.
“I’m fine, thank you. I am used to men seeing me naked. Most aren’t as handsome as you, though.”
“May I sit?”
“Please, be my guest.”
Bill dragged the wooden chair out of the corner towards the bed and noticed the sign above stating that all financial agreements and physical inspections are made before any contact. The euphemistic language seemed pretty redundant if you had already made it this far. The physical examination was undoubtedly due to the current epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases in Berlin. Much like the bitter cold, it was another unwelcome gift brought by the Russians.
“Would you care for a drink? Smoke?” Bill asked. He noticed a slight trace of the dead-eyed stare evident in the pornographic photographs they had obtained from the tall, skinny bookbinder.
“I would take a smoke. Unless they are Russian?”
“No, you’re safe. Here,” Bill replied as he handed her a pack of Luckies.
She placed one between her pale red lips and accepted the flame Bill held out to her. Some of the raspberry-coloured lipstick came away with the cigarette as she perched it between two manicured fingers.
“Do you like working here, Katya?”
“The money is easy enough. The Russians will hump you anyway, so it’s better to charge them than get a punch in the jaw first.”
“I’m not a fan of them either. Are they as bad as everyone says?”
“You really don’t know? You obviously haven’t been in Berlin long,” she scoffed. “I came here looking for work after the war but had my fair share of trouble from the Ivans. I came here thinking I could get work but just found misery. They raped anything in a skirt. On my way into town, I met two little girls, six and nine years old. They had lost their mother. I promised to help them find her. Sure enough, we did a couple of hours later, on the way into the city on the road through Spandau. On the ground, dead, totally naked with her throat cut. She had died thrashing around on the street while a group of Soviet soldiers looked on. When they saw the girls screaming and crying over the still-warm body of their dead mother, they started laughing and shouting insults at them. Then they came over. I tried to get them away. By God, I tried. But …” She stared into some invisible middle distance, and her voice trailed off.
“I don’t know what to say. You have been through a lot.”
“That’s not even the half of it, Bill. Anyway, all I know is I have a roof, a bed and food in my belly. If I have to let a few drunks hump me now and again, so be it.”
“Anna said your business is down lately.”
“Most of my clients change their mind once they are up here and ask to see one of the other girls.”
“How come?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged off the question.
Bill changed the subject. “Do you remember seeing a man with a fancy curled-up moustache like Hindenburg? He would have been well-dressed, perhaps wearing a maroon-coloured scarf? He was a queer, but he came in to look for the house down the street.”
Katya shook her head. “They only come in downstairs the first time. After that, they cater for those Johns across the back square, the house with the red door. I go over there sometimes, on my nights off. Sometimes when I ought to be working. The men are kind, and there is precious little of that left in Berlin. The back of this building opens into a small garden courtyard, shared with the other buildings on this block, including that one. You can also find it by walking straight past Anna’s Place’s main entrance. A few doors along, there is an open alleyway. Once Anna sends them the first time, they book appointments directly in future. It’s not really hers as such. I must not have been around that night, as I normally remember faces.”
“What about the tall, skinny man? I know he was here and took photos of you.” Bill pulled out the one he had brought with him.
Katya stared at the ground.
“Sorry, Katya, did I embarrass you?”
“No. Nothing like that. It’s just that man.”
“Has he been here previous to the photography visit?”
“No. But I know him. From before.”
Just then, there was a single gunshot outside somewhere, then, a few moments later, a shout, followed by a loud piercing scream. Bill rushed to the window and pulled off the blackout board. But there was very little to see. The window looked out onto the courtyard, which was in almost total darkness, except for a tiny slither of light coming from a doorway just out of view. The yard was neatly bordered by flower beds, although the vegetation was dead or dying, like the dark mound at the courtyard’s edge.
With the last twitch of an arm, the body lay still. Bill dropped the blackout board, perched his hat on his head and moved toward the door.
“How do I get out there to that courtyard?”
“Back the way you came, down the stairs, then turn left. The door at the end of the corridor. You won’t be able to get back in that way without a key, though.”
Bill was already through the door and halfway down the hall.
Turning back as he ran, he replied, “Keep everyone in here. Don’t open that door again once I’m outside.”
He sprinted down the stairs, skipping every other step, and rounded the bottom like an acrobat. He made the twenty yards through the long corridor in mere seconds, pulling out his revolver as he barged the back door open. Keeping low, he crouched and moved around the outside wall towards the body. He dared not show he was armed in case a nervous vigilante or a Russian patrol were watching. Holding a gun over a dead body, in the dark, among the Russians in Berlin was a guaranteed one-way ticket to, well, probably somewhere better than Berlin among the Russians.
Bill looked up to see panic-stricken faces all around at the upper floor windows. Curtains twitched, and doors creaked open. Everyone was trying to get a glimpse of the city’s latest victim. Another name to the ever-growing list of those who met a grisly end in these godforsaken streets.
With a quick look about him, Bill saw no threats, ominous shadows or bystanders at all. He carefully placed his gun back in his pocket and cautiously made his way over to the victim. The body lay just in front of a narrow opening in the buildings. Bill looked to his left as he reached the body and saw three men standing in a doorway. One was sobbing, and one had his arm around him. The third man was standing behind, slightly in shadow, just looking out. The door of the building was painted red. Some other people gathered at the far end of the alleyway on the main street.
Bill knelt and took the dead man’s hand, checking for a pulse. The lack of one confirmed what Bill already knew by the copious amount of dark, sticky blood around the body. He had taken a direct shot to the heart. He would have been dead in a matter of seconds, although the shock probably rendered him incapacitated instantly. Bill grabbed the head by the back with a fistful of hair and gently lifted it. He peered at the face of a man with a curled-up moustache like the late Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg used to have. In his lifeless hand was clamped a maroon scarf.
Bill knew he had maybe five minutes before the police or the Russians would be here. It didn’t matter which it was. Bill would undoubtedly be arrested for questioning. He quickly checked the dead man’s pockets, finding a small amount of US dollars, a relatively large amount of marks, an old, half-torn ID document, a Nazi party membership badge, and a brand-new, freshly printed ID card with a very recent photograph.
Bill replaced a small amount of the marks and pocketed the rest. As he looked up at the men in the doorway, the calmer of the two at the front used a shaking arm and outstretched finger to point Bill in the direction of the main street. Following the man’s lead, Bill scanned the group of unknown faces and then spotted one very out of place. As the face realised Bill had clocked him, he turned away, pulled up his coat collar and quickly disappeared from view.
The killer. That was the killer, Bill told himself. Get up and run, you stupid bastard!
He bounced to his feet and sprang into a full-tilt sprint down the alleyway. The shocked gathering crowd gasped and parted as Bill carved through them, clipping one in a glancing blow to the shoulder, sending the youngish man sprawling to the ground. There was no time to slow. He spotted the killer running into an opening across the wide street. Bill grabbed for his Colt once more as he followed him. He checked up the road as he entered the battered stone archway of the old brewery building and saw two uniformed policemen heading to the alleyway from which he had just escaped.
He ran across the stone courtyard and through an open door. Bill came to a halt in an old, damp, paved warehouse. Ahead of him stood the killer, silhouetted by a small amount of moonlight shining in through a barred window in the far wall. He was calmly pointing a pistol at Bill’s chest. The killer coaxed his face into a twisted, demonic grin and pulled the trigger. Bill inhaled sharply, but there was only a metallic click. The gun had jammed.
The killer barely had time to look shocked, as Bill had already closed the ten-foot gap between them. In the next half a second, Bill thrust his open palm up into an angular jaw while he snaked his left arm over his opponent’s right shoulder and squeezed with the power of his own. With an audible crunch, the killer’s arm went limp, the Luger he was holding falling to the ground and clattering away. The unconscious man dropped, too, as Bill released the pressure. He knelt briefly to check he was still breathing.
Bill collected the gun, cleared it, putting it and the magazine into his pocket, and then moved to the barred window to check out on the street. Over at the alleyway, the crowd had grown larger, as everyone wanted to get in on the latest drama. The man Bill had knocked over was shouting and waving his arms around, trying to be heard. He was so far failing. It would not be long before he directed the police over to the brewery building. Bill needed to get out of prying eyes. More importantly, he needed to get the killer safely detained.
Bill turned back towards the helpless man on the ground, then decided, as an afterthought, to apply Sykes’ training. So, with the bound of a rugby player approaching for a conversion attempt, he sent a swift kick into the man’s groin. He barely moved, but Bill was satisfied he would get to suffer it later.
The apartment was cramped and untidy. The plaster ceiling was cracked and nicotine-stained. Newspapers were scattered around the floor, and a single, old wingback chair stood in front of a small, black metal stove. On top of the stove was a heavy iron pan, half-filled with water.
“What you will do with him now?” Igor asked in his usual, broken German.
“I really don’t know. Let’s keep this between us, though. I’ll pay you back for the trouble.”
“Yes, you will. Although, I owe you for helping me before and getting me work.”
Igor checked the rope ties on the killer’s legs and wrists were good and tight, then opened a small, olive-green canvas kit bag that he had stood near the front door next to a large rusty but sharp-looking hatchet and thrust a large fist down into it. Then, pulling out a slightly damp half-log, he gave Bill a broad smile and placed it in the fire.
“Get a little warm in here. They don’t cost me anything. I’d better get back to the club. I hope no one saw you drag your friend up here. You know how the Russians be.”
“Of course, you had better get back before Anna notices you are gone.”
“I hope you know what you do, Bill. I come home around five, for to sleep.”
“We’ll be gone by then. This is the best way. There will be no justice if he winds up in the hands of the Russians. I need to get him back to the British, but first, I need things to quiet down outside. What are your neighbours like? If they saw something, might they report us?”
“No, they not talk to police, and they more scared of me than the Russians. Make some calls and get him gone from here, Bill.”
“Thank you, Igor.”
Igor left the apartment, and Bill locked the door and pushed across the large bolt. He then settled back into the chair and gathered up the telephone. He dialled the number for Albie’s office. Silence. He replaced the telephone, tried calling his own building, and finding it able to ring out, decided to speak directly to the operator.
The killer groaned and stirred in the corner. Bill looked up, then continued to ignore him. He thought briefly about simply cutting his throat and letting him bleed out but didn’t want to dirty his knife and also realised he would be worth far more alive and in custody.
As Bill waited for the operator, the killer lifted his head. Blood trickled from his mouth and down his chin like the drool of a baby. Bill and Igor hadn’t tried particularly hard not to bash his head along every tread of the stairs coming up. Bill grinned and narrowed his eyes, pulling his F-S knife from his inside pocket and admiring its thin blackened blade as it glinted slightly in the dull glow from the bare filament lamp hanging by a flex from the discoloured ceiling.
“May I help you, caller?”
“Yes, hello, I’m trying to contact a number in Wilmersdorf.”
Bill gave the operator the number, and she asked him to wait. The killer tried to look out through his bruised, half-closed eyes. His neck gave up trying to hold up the weight of his head and dropped it back onto his chest.
“Hello, sir. Thank you for holding. I’m afraid the phone lines are down in that vicinity. An engineer is due out early tomorrow to investigate.”
“Right, thanks.” Bill hung up. “For nothing.”
He watched the twitching killer trying to either escape or, more likely, work out if he was even still alive. He couldn’t just hold him here forever. Bill stood, moved over to the small window, and looked out onto the street. He could see Igor back at his post outside Anna’s. Fabian was just coming back upstairs from the bar to join him. Bill had been lucky Fabian was taking a break. There was something about him he didn’t entirely trust.
Who could he ask for help? Jack was with Albie and his colleague at their office, and the phones were down. He didn’t fancy his chances out on the street trying to drag the killer around bleeding and in his catatonic stupor.
Bill lit up his pipe and sat back down to think. He also readied his tobacco pouch and matches. This would be more than a one-pipe problem. Gazing up at the dim lightbulb, he had an idea but realised it might be dangerous. He lifted the telephone receiver, paused, and then dialled anyway. All his ideas were dangerous ones.
“Hello?”
“Irene, it’s me. I need your help, fast.”
“What do you need?”
“It’s dangerous. Bring a gun. I can’t tell you any more. There is no one else I trust right now. I know I shouldn’t involve you in my work, but I’m in a real fix here. I have a prisoner who is in no state to be easily moved alone, and I need a car.”
“Who is it?”
“It’s Klaus Barbie.”