The Butchers of Berlin (15 page)

Stoffel prodded his lapel and stood so close Schlegel could smell meat on his breath.

‘This means the one or ones doing the murders must have avoided arrest.’

‘Are you saying same killer both times?’

Stoffel famously had a sixth sense for such things.

‘You can put your tongue in my mouth if it isn’t. Get me the names of any Jewish butchers not arrested.’

Schlegel wanted to say bureaucracy didn’t work like that. Without saying so, Stoffel made it plain he didn’t care. He was concerned only with avoiding a personal reprimand, and was
giving the problem to Schlegel.

Stoffel moved on to chew the fat with the generally shifty bunch from the local station, about how this case was like a nastier version of the one where some Kike kid had dismembered a female
and disposed of the bits. Legs in the stairwell of a block in the same street that Schlegel lived in, arms in a yard elsewhere, torso in a restaurant bin.

‘The head we never found because the kid baked it in his oven. Nor were her breasts and internal organs. And what did the kid perform his surgery with? A penknife!’

Stoffel gave a shrill bark, a signal for the rest to join in.

Stoffel stared back at Schlegel, inviting him to laugh. Schlegel smiled with difficulty, feeling useless.

Stoffel pointed at the body tent. ‘At least your man here uses the proper tools. Clean cuts. Surgical precision.’

The light started to fade. Feet and hands grew numb. They all slapped themselves to keep warm and passed a flask around. Morgen was standing smoking on his own. The moment seemed right for
Schlegel to pass on what Morgen had said about being Internal Affairs.

Stoffel’s exaggerated double take put Schlegel in an unexpectedly good mood. He wondered what Stoffel’s misdemeanours were for him to look so worried.

A car approached across the grass. Three men got out. One was the useless doctor from before. Schlegel was surprised that the second man was Gersten and even more when he recognised the smart
whipcord coat of his companion.

Stoffel jerked his head in Morgen’s direction and said, ‘Get ready for the cold wind of retribution,’ and went off to sort out the doctor.

Schlegel’s good mood survived being taken aside by Gersten to tell him Lazarenko might be able to help with this latest body.

‘Tell Stoffel. It’s his case.’

Gersten said, ‘We would rather speak to you and your friend.’ He meant Morgen. ‘Confidentially.’

Schlegel supposed Lazarenko was Gersten’s lapdog. Entourages were popular. He decided Lazarenko probably had more influence than he had credited. The Gestapo wouldn’t have many
Russian speakers.

Gersten beckoned Morgen over. Schlegel saw Stoffel watching. Gersten was keen they give Lazarenko another chance.

‘Intelligence we’re picking up from the Russian community says these killings have a Bolshevik angle. We’re only trying to help. Stop panic in the ranks.’

Community, thought Schlegel; was that what they called it?

Morgen said, ‘It has nothing to do with us, other than Stoffel being too idle to do the work himself.’

‘Exactly. He’s only interested in his stories.’ Stoffel was cracking up the men again. ‘He retires in two weeks anyway.’

Schlegel didn’t know. He was surprised. Most of the older ones hung on because of shortages, unless they were ill. Talk of any leaving party usually started at least six weeks before. For
the last one there had been a futile search for an old-fashioned stripper.

Gersten said to Lazarenko, ‘Show them.’

Lazarenko had a briefcase. He stooped to rest it on his knee so he could open the lock. What came out was a malevolent object of frightening design, more the size of an axe than a household
hammer, though a hammer it was, with a black metal spike and a wedged striking edge.

‘I have kept it as a reminder of what happened to my people. A bad souvenir, you might say.’

On 25 June, two years before, retreating Russians quelled a local uprising with extreme cruelty.

‘They were not satisfied with just killing. They cut off women’s breasts and men’s genitals. Jews crucified children to walls and slit their guts so they stared at their
insides spilling out as they died. This mallet is for slaughtering cattle, but its blows killed many men and women and smashed their bones. They did it to German prisoners too. Tied them up and cut
off their noses, tongues, cocks and balls, then beat their brains out with this.’

Schlegel stared at the horizon as he struggled to imagine the conspiracy Gersten had in mind, how it really worked and was transmitted.

Gersten said, ‘A rogue agent. Someone with the knowledge of that experience. I would say that’s what we’re dealing with.’

Morgen said, ‘Today’s Tuesday. Herr Lazarenko said the Russians can only kill on Sundays, and we don’t believe his previous suspect was up to the job.’

He doubted if this new body had been lying there since Sunday.

Gersten said, ‘We think they work at night and have access to transport.’

‘Prove it then. I thought they were all locked up after work.’

‘Not in any meaningful way,’ said Lazarenko. ‘There are women in other barracks.’

He thrust his hips obscenely and said guards made use of them too. They were all in it together.

Gersten stepped forward, assuming a confidential manner. ‘You were in Lublin when it was known as Dodge City.’

Morgen looked irritated.

‘You know the score. We know your reputation.’

Morgen turned to go. ‘See Stoffel.’

‘You know the terrain. He doesn’t. He’s barely interested. They’re all as thick as shit. This needs someone with your skills.’

Morgen walked away.

Gersten didn’t appear greatly put out and said to Schlegel, ‘He won’t be able to resist a challenge like this.’

‘What happened in Lublin?’

‘He was known as the bloodhound. He had an eye for big, sensitive cases. But he always ended up offending someone. That’s why they got rid of him.’

Lazarenko claimed to have seen Morgen in Lublin.

‘He wouldn’t remember. I was just a refugee. I worked as a barman in the mess where he ate.’

Schlegel considered Morgen’s new reputation as a supersleuth. He was damned if he would tell Stoffel.

Gersten said Morgen had a habit of getting into trouble. A big investigation into a racket involving stolen Jewish furs became an embarrassment when it was discovered the main suspect was the
brother of the mistress of a top official and she was fencing the goods in Berlin.

‘He’ll come round. He needs it as badly as we need him.’

‘In four days, gentlemen, four days, we have had a double shooting, two bodies butchered beyond any hope of recognition, and a corpse with its penis cut off. Five bodies
in four days. What are we to make of this?’

They were in what Nebe called an emergency conference and everyone else just another boring meeting. There were about ten detectives in the room, the stale old farts; all the good ones had
either volunteered or been conscripted.

Despite the indifference of his audience, the occasion showed Nebe at his best: rhetorical, sarcastic, difficult to fathom, possibly vacuous. His best trick was to keep everyone guessing.

Morgen interrupted Nebe’s flow by strolling in late, sitting down and lighting up. Nebe watched with exaggerated disbelief before reasserting himself.

‘This is what Minister Goebbels said to me. “Why, just as I am about to declare the city Jew-free, do the police allow a Jewish maniac to go on the rampage?” ’

Nebe looked around. No answer was forthcoming.

‘I was told this was unacceptable on top of the public relations disaster already faced because of the SS arresting a load of the wrong Jews. These botched arrests have led to an
unprecedented demonstration, and Minister Goebbels will not tolerate a second scandal, with news getting out of a Jewish mass killer. Already he has been asked by a Swedish journalist if the city
now has its equivalent to London’s Jack the Ripper.’

Schlegel thought it might secretly suit Dr Goebbels to have his Ripper, because it would serve to underline the dangerous and unstable nature of those he wished to be rid of.

Nebe went on to say it had been Dr Goebbels’ greatest wish to declare the city Jew-free after the latest action, which was now not the case because thousands had avoided arrest and gone
into hiding.

‘The SS has been given a deadline of six weeks to round up all the strays. Jew-free means what it says. You have a lot less time. Dr Goebbels will not have his plans for a clean sweep
undermined by rumours of this Jewish Ripper.’

A wag at the back asked if anyone had found the missing penis. Faced with suppressed titters, Nebe sensed an uphill battle.

‘Help me here. Is this man killing for sadistic pleasure or in desperate protest against the deportations? How many killers are you talking about anyway?’

‘One, sir,’ said Stoffel, quickly.

Morgen said no. While the first two killings – the old man and the warden – cancelled each other out, the others had involved transportation and extra hands to carry the bodies.

Stoffel wanted to know what Morgen and Gersten had been talking about in the park. Morgen said Gersten was given to wild theories and he had told him to take them up with Stoffel.

Nebe held up his hand. ‘One, two, three killers, I don’t care how many. Forty-eight hours to sort it out before you explain yourself in person to Dr Goebbels, who will not view the
matter lightly. I want a daily update and you’d better have some news. Dismissed. Schlegel and Morgen to remain behind.’

Nebe didn’t invite them to sit. He placed a fifty-mark note on the desk in front of him.

‘This note is counterfeit. Find out where it comes from.’

Schlegel presumed it came from the money found in the dead man’s mouth, but he deferred to Morgen as the ranking officer, who said nothing and stood looking insolent.

‘You are Financial Crimes, aren’t you?’ asked Nebe, with an attempt at his usual sarcasm.

Morgen fielded with blank sincerity. ‘I believe so, yes, sir, as of Monday morning.’

‘With a history of rank insubordination.’

‘Six months’ Prussian amusements and another six at the front. In winter, sir.’

Schlegel watched out of the corner of his eye. Prussian amusements meant penal colony. Such detention wasn’t unheard of but for it to be followed by combat duty meant Morgen must have
annoyed someone very much.

Nebe said, ‘Find out where the money is coming from. That’s all.’

Morgen continued to stand there. Nebe gestured to say they were dismissed.

‘Permission to speak, sir,’ Morgen finally said. ‘To find out we will almost certainly need to know who killed the man, as I presume we are talking about money found about his
person.’

Nebe did his best to look stupid.

Morgen said he had no expertise in forgery and it would be helpful to know what they were dealing with.

Nebe consulted a file on his desk, making a show of opening the folder a crack. He said the forgery was passable to the untrained eye. Fifty-mark notes had a portrait of a woman in a headscarf
on the front and Marienburg Castle on the back. Half a dozen flaws pertained to both images, including a missing window in the detailing of the castle.

‘A speck, but absent nevertheless,’ said Nebe. ‘The print dye doesn’t quite match. Some of the tailing of the italic lettering is shorter than the original. The clearest
error can be found in the frame around the woman’s head.’

Its detailing included a series of points along the edge of the frame. In the original there were none at the corners, but in the forgery there were.

‘And the verdict, sir?’ asked Morgen.

‘The overall quality is very good and would be much harder to spot were it not for the basic error of the corner points.’

As they were leaving Nebe said to Morgen, ‘I hear your reputation is for rocking the boat.’

‘Isn’t that what I am supposed to do, sir?’

Morgen looked bored. The impression Nebe gave, for all his slipperiness, was of an ineffectual man.

‘Not here. Not with us. What is the real purpose of your assignment?’

‘I have no idea, sir.’

‘Well, we didn’t ask for you.’

‘Nor I to come here.’

‘Can we be honest for a moment?’

That was rich coming from him, Schlegel thought.

Nebe went on. ‘Can we hypothesise?’

Schlegel wanted to say that Morgen did not look like a hypothetical man.

Nebe ploughed on. ‘Do you think it’s possible you are in a situation where you don’t know yet on what it is you are supposed to report?’

Morgen shrugged and said he couldn’t possibly say.

Nebe seized on that. ‘Can’t or won’t?’

Morgen sighed. ‘Are you saying I might be on one of those assignments where the investigator goes in essentially clueless, apart from being nudged to stumble across whatever it is he is
supposed to investigate?’

‘Precisely!’

‘I can’t say I have ever heard of such an assignment, but thank you for warning me.’

‘Life would be much easier if I knew,’ Nebe said with consummate vagueness.

‘Me too, sir.’

‘Here’s what I think. All you know is you have been allowed back from Russia on condition you do nothing. This you will ignore because your reputation is as a troublemaker. We both
know that. What worries me is that whatever you dig up will be on your own initiative, which will be of benefit to others, possibly this department’s enemies, but you will not find out who
they are. Do you understand what I am saying?’

‘That I will get into trouble without understanding why.’

Nebe nodded, looking pleased. ‘Yes, I can work with that. Be careful you don’t turn out to be the mad dog that bites us in the pants.’ He gave a strange whinny that passed for
a laugh. He seemed very taken by the idea. ‘Keep me informed of your every move on this and if you discover who you are answering to, tell me immediately.’

‘Who are your enemies, sir, so I know?’

The remark was delivered with sufficient deadpan insolence for him to get away with it. Nebe laughed unexpectedly and waved them from the room.