The Allies in question had a car, a big American vehicle with seats as wide and deep as a sofa. A British sergeant drove, the other man sitting in the front, Reinhardt in the back with Ganz. No one spoke all the way back to the station, and Reinhardt was content enough to sit and be driven, watching Berlin unfurl in front of him. The driver sped down Luisenstrasse, then through Pariserplatz and under the Brandenburg Gate, past the Soviet sentries, skirting the eastern edge of the Tiergarten Park, which, devoid of its trees and with its vast expanse turned over to cultivation, looked profoundly wrong. They swung across and through the blasted acreage of Potsdamerplatz, round the swirling edges of the permanent black market, and then the driver floored it down Potsdamerstrasse, and finally back to the station in Schöneberg.
They followed Ganz up to the chief’s office, which occupied a corner of one of Gothaerstrasse’s upper floors, in one of the building’s corner turrets looking across the road to the Magistrates’ Court. It was spartan in terms of decoration—just a desk, a pair of chairs in front of it, an old table for conferences, nothing on the walls—and it usually gave a sense of space, but not when Reinhardt stepped into it followed closely by Ganz and the other man.
Tanneberger sat near one end of the conference table, Ganz taking the place to his right. The other man took a seat on the side that ran down the wall, where another man was already sitting. He placed Berthold’s and Endres’s files in front of him. Between the two of them sat a young woman with a purse on her lap, the lines of her body and clothes severe, straight, all seeming to rise up to the point at the back of her head where her hair was tightly bound back. A third man was sitting with his back to him, but Reinhardt knew him anyway from the roundness of his shoulders to the brilliantined sheen of his hair.
Two other men made up the group. Walter Neumann, Schöneberg’s chief of police, and Bruno Bliemeister, the sector assistant chief. Neumann was a grizzled old copper, a no-nonsense character who had walked a beat in Weimar Berlin and had been a bit of a living legend when Reinhardt was a young detective. Bliemeister was a political appointee, one of four assistants the Allies had imposed upon Margraff—upon the Soviets, if truth be told—during the big reform of the police in October 1946, the same reform that had brought Reinhardt back. The assistants were supposed to stay out of operational police work, but they did have a responsibility to keep an eye on issues of potential concern to the Allied sector commanders. The pair of them, Bliemeister and Neumann, had been dredged up out of the pre-Nazi past where the Allies went looking for anyone perceived to be uncorrupted or untainted. If Bliemeister was here, whatever this was that Reinhardt had been called to was political, or had the potential to be.
“Reinhardt, at last,” Tanneberger barked. “Sit there, please,” he pointed at the end of the table. The supplicant’s place, all eyes focused upon him. “These gentlemen have been waiting to speak with you.”
“No harm, no foul, Councilor,” the man with his back to Reinhardt drawled, his German heavily accented. He turned and flashed a smile at Reinhardt, his teeth very white and even, as the woman whispered a translation to the two other men. “The inspector and myself are old friends.”
“That’s right, you and Mr. Collingridge know each other,” said Tanneberger. Ganz said nothing, his chin sunk on his chest as he stared at Reinhardt. If Collingridge noted anything in the mood of the Germans, he ignored it, carrying on brightly.
“I’m just here as a courtesy, purely a courtesy,” smiled Collingridge.
“And as a liaison,” murmured Ganz, his head still sunk low. Bliemeister said nothing, his face stiff. He looked, to Reinhardt, like a stenographer in a court. Right in the middle of it all, but detached.
“That, too, seeing as the bodies were found in the US sector. Inspector Reinhardt, these are two esteemed colleagues from the British authorities.” Collingridge smiled at them, his hand coming palm up toward the man who had already been waiting for them when they arrived.
“Harry Whelan,” he said, around a slight cough, as if he were uncomfortable. He was a middle-aged man, hefty and round in a tweed suit, his cheeks flushed high over a tightly knotted tie, banded in what Reinhardt took to be regimental colors.
“James Markworth,” the third man introduced himself, looking up from the files. He sat very still with his eyes steady and narrow on Reinhardt, before dropping them back down to his reading. His eyes were peculiarly hard, like chips of stone or colored glass. His skin was quite tight across his face and his hands hard-edged where they lay next to the files. Markworth’s right hand was rippled with scars along the outer edge, from the tip of his little finger to where his sleeve began, as if his hand had been held to a fire.
“A pleasure, gentlemen,” said Reinhardt. He had only a vague idea of what was going on. “What exactly is it you do in the Occupation authorities?”
As the woman translated, Markworth’s head came up from the files, his eyes heavy, a deep glitter of consideration in them.
“I work for the British representative on the Public Security Committee of the Allied Control Council in the Kammergericht,” answered Whelan through the translator, referring to the old Prussian supreme court building where the council met.
Reinhardt’s eyes flicked to Markworth, who was still looking back at him, and there was a different cast to them, as if he challenged Reinhardt to question what Whelan had said. “Are we to wait for a French and Soviet representative as well?” he asked, somewhat disingenuously. He watched Bliemeister as he said it, but the old man showed no reaction, even as Neumann’s jaw clenched at Reinhardt’s insolence and Tanneberger colored. Collingridge chuckled.
“Gentlemen,” Neumann said, his voice deep and scratchy, “I do apologize for keeping you waiting while we searched for Inspector Reinhardt.”
“That’s quite all right. I understand you have the investigation into those murders last night, Inspector,” said Whelan. His translator kept her eyes on the table as she talked, keeping very still. Whelan glanced at Markworth, who nodded, his eyes leaving Reinhardt finally to go back to the files. “What you do not know is that the man you have not identified was, in fact, a British officer. His name was David Carlsen. And it is something of an embarrassment that he was found where he was, and the way he was.”
There was a silence around the table, the Germans looking at one another. Reinhardt waited for any of them to say something, for Tanneberger or Ganz to say something, but they all remained silent, seemingly content to wait on Reinhardt.
“Before I ask why it might be embarrassing,” he said, after a moment, “may I ask how you found out about this?”
“Well, that would be us, Reinhardt,” said Collingridge as he laid a silver cigarette case and lighter on the table. He flipped the lid open and offered it round. “Our MPs had their own photos, and your police department also circulated information throughout the city. Our MPs talked to the Royal Military Police, and they figured out pretty quick that one of your stiffs was Carlsen.”
“And he is British?” asked Reinhardt.
“Yes,” said Whelan.
“Is there a ‘yes, but’ in there, somewhere?”
“Reinhardt!” Neumann snapped. The translator twitched at the noise, sitting up straighter as she talked quietly.
“It’s quite all right, Chief,” said Whelan, a placatory hand raised, but Markworth’s head came up from the files again, and this time his eyes stayed focused on Reinhardt. “No, there is no ‘yes, but,’ Inspector. Carlsen worked for us in the Occupation authorities. He was a military lawyer. Rather a good one, worked very hard, but had a bit of a weakness for the bottle, and the ladies, you see. They sort of went to his head.” He paused.
“All that freedom and responsibility,” said Reinhardt.
“Quite. All that. I shall have to write to his father. Poor chap,” Whelan said again, although if he was referring to Carlsen or Carlsen’s father was not clear.
“Bottles and women?” prompted Reinhardt into the short pause.
“Why do I get the sense you are being rather flippant about this, Inspector?”
It was Markworth who spoke, and his voice was a bit like the way he moved: restrained, but with a coiled impression of energy behind it. Markworth’s eyes were very hard now, and Reinhardt knew them for judging eyes, eyes that measured him, people like him, Germans, and found them wanting every time. He stared back, stared past, through Markworth, his mind working over the fact that Markworth had spoken before the translator had.
“Indeed,” spluttered Neumann. “Please accept my apologies.”
“No, it’s quite all right,” said Whelan, for the third time. The eternally apologizing Englishman, Reinhardt thought, distantly, as he struggled to push back the weight of Markworth’s eyes. The woman, confused, translated hesitantly, her words falling out into silence.
Whelan gave his little cough, shifted in his chair. “So we’d like to help you with your inquiries, Chief. Councilor,” he said, his eyes moving between Neumann and Tanneberger.
“We appreciate that,” said Tanneberger.
“Very much so,” said Reinhardt. “Perhaps I can start by asking why Carlsen was in the apartment of the other victim. Mr. Noell?”
“I can give you no clue as to why he was there, but he most probably wasn’t,” said Markworth, firmly, closing the files, glancing at the translator for a moment. He took a sheet of paper from his coat and his eyes hesitated across the Germans, not knowing to whom it should go. He handed it to Bliemeister, eventually. The elderly man, who still had not said a word, handed it silently to Neumann. The chief glanced at it before handing it to Tanneberger, as if he wanted nothing to do with it. “That is a signed statement by one Rosa Gieb, a prostitute, given to our military police, who swears Carlsen was with her on Sunday night, until well past midnight.”
“What about the blood? In the apartment?” interrupted Reinhardt, then bit his tongue as he realized he had spoken before the translator, and had revealed he had at least some English.
“A smear of blood is no proof of anything, least of all that it was Carlsen’s. Your Professor Endres only confirms it was the same blood type.” If Markworth had noted Reinhardt’s lapse, he paid it no attention. He had a very different manner to Whelan’s, a kind of blunt efficiency about his speech and movements that cut straight to the point and came clearly through the translator’s words. “Mrs. Gieb stated that when Carlsen left her, he was rather drunk. For Carlsen, that meant not very much. The man could not hold his alcohol. Endres confirms there was some in his system. Gieb claims he got into an altercation with another customer at a bar they had a habit of frequenting, that he was insulting. The last the prostitute saw, Carlsen was arguing with this man.”
“And you think . . . ?” prompted Reinhardt.
Markworth moved slightly, his hard-edged hands folding over each other atop the files. “I think, Inspector, that Carlsen got himself into trouble. The kind that leaves you beaten to death on a flight of stairs.”
“Where was this bar?”
Markworth named a bar on a street a few blocks away from where Carlsen’s body was found.
“That’s a bit off the beaten track for an Allied officer,” said Reinhardt.
“I rather think that was the point, Inspector,” said Whelan, a faint blush to his cheeks.
“Discretion,” murmured Bliemeister. His first words. Whelan gave him a tight smile of thanks as Neumann’s jaw clenched hard.
Reinhardt ignored them.
“How did he get where he was found?”
“I have no idea, Inspector,” said Markworth, quietly, the translator echoing him quietly. “That would be your job. To find out. Maybe Gieb took Carlsen to a room there, or nearby. Maybe the man followed them.”
“Any idea who this ‘man’ is?”
Markworth’s eyes narrowed, as if he heard Reinhardt’s emphasis of the words. “Ask Mrs. Gieb. But judging from what she does and where she does it, what she told me, and what we know of circumstances in this city, we suspect the man was either one of her regulars, or a pimp, or a member of a criminal gang engaged in protection or extortion.”
“Has she said as much herself?” Reinhardt egged Markworth on, sensing Neumann winding himself up.
“No. Probably because she is too scared, or too cautious.”
“So protect her.”
“That would be your job.”
“And you feel Mrs. Gieb is familiar with criminal gangs?”
“She’s a prostitute.”
“Your point being?”
“It’s all about tact, gentlemen,” Whelan intervened. “Just a little tact.” He gave a small wince of a smile at the translator, who gave a small wince of a smile back. “Carlsen was a bit of a wild card. The poor chap just needed to work off steam from time to time.”
“And he was allowed to do it on German women,” Reinhardt interjected, Collingridge snorting out a cloud of smoke.
“Reinhardt! For the last time,” snapped Neumann, but Ganz’s head came up, and he looked carefully at Reinhardt.
Whelan’s expression was now distinctly distasteful as he looked at Reinhardt. “We’re rather keen to avoid any embarrassment, you see. Yes, Carlsen had a habit of drinking, and . . . well, yes, he liked the ladies.”
“He’s talking about fraternization, Reinhardt,” supplied Collingridge, grinning from behind a cloud of smoke.
“Precisely. Well, yes,” muttered Whelan, another glance at the translator. The eternally embarrassed Englishman, Reinhardt added in his mind. “Allied personnel are not encouraged to fraternize with German women, and Carlsen knew that. Added to which he occupied a sensitive position.”
“You can say that again,” murmured Collingridge, stubbing out his cigarette.
Whelan blushed as the American sniggered at his own double entendre. Markworth seemed unmoved, and he had not shifted the weight of his gaze from Reinhardt. “The description of this man offered by the prostitute is, I will admit, somewhat anodyne, but you are free to interrogate the prostitute yourselves. Her name and address are on the statement, as is the address of the bar they were at.”
“Are you giving us orders?”
There was a silence around the table, broken finally by Whelan as he leaned forward to speak with Bliemeister and Neumann. “I regret if this appears peremptory, but the British demand the German police’s attention to this case. A British officer has been killed and although we do not suspect it is political, what we do not want is a great deal of publicity. We want efficiency and transparency. Consider it a test of your new credentials as a police force worthy of this new Germany. We will not interfere and will render what assistance we can, but we will require regular reports, and close liaison. Mr. Markworth, here, will be our point of contact, and you are required to keep us informed of any further developments that might cast new light on Carlsen’s death.”
“The Americans would also appreciate being kept informed,” drawled Collingridge into the sudden silence, sweeping his cigarettes and lighter off the tabletop. “Seeing as these bodies have popped up in our sector, you understand.”
“That is quite acceptable, of course,” said Bliemeister, but his eyes flickered at Neumann, as if checking or asking permission. Ganz, though, had his eyes fixed on Reinhardt, and what was that in them? Permission? Encouragement . . . ?
“Why is it acceptable, sir?” asked Reinhardt.
“What?”
“Why are the German police doing the Allies’ work for them?”
“Reinhardt . . .” snapped Tanneberger.
“Are they going to want to know about Noell’s death as well? I presume not, seeing as Noell and Carlsen never met, according to them.”
“This Noell’s death is of no particular concern to the British authorities,” said Whelan.
“Germans should do whatever’s asked of them,” grated Markworth over Neumann’s squawk of protest, “and be thankful they are not living in the Soviet zone.” That coiled energy in Markworth’s voice licked out, just a little, and its touch was caustic. The British rose to their feet, Whelan shrugging his arms into an expensive-looking, fawn-colored gabardine overcoat. “Although, I’ll be honest,” said Markworth, as if only he and Reinhardt were in the room. “There’s some bite in your bark, Inspector. It makes it a pleasure from working with the other spineless wonders that call themselves men in this city.”
Bliemeister and Neumann followed them out. At the door, Neumann turned, his jaw clenched tight and his eyes fixed and hard on Tanneberger. “Him,” he said, pointing at Reinhardt. “Sort him out.”