The Pale House (44 page)

T
hey just killed him.

Reinhardt turned the words over and over in his mind on the short drive back to the barracks. The firing had started up again to the north, just beyond the humped line of the hills. The firing was still light enough, staccato bursts, but it was sustained, a rolling crackle across the lightening sky.

They just killed him.

He had needed to say them to believe it, he realized, as he followed Scheller and Lainer through the halls of the barracks. Neither of them had said anything on the drive back, nor during the walk through the barracks halls. Reinhardt's mind lurched back and forth, slopping around the thought of his friend sprawled dead in a chair, washing up against thoughts of
, the boy, conjuring up images of the Greeks dead against a pitted wall, Valter sitting hunched over a table in a dusty attic, an Ustaša vanishing back into the darkness, the darkness flowing over him, the lines and curves of the man's face vanishing last.

He had to shake out of this, he knew, as they walked into the Feldjaeger operations room. So early in the morning it was still quiet, but there was a rhythm there, a hum to the place, and heads lifted here and there to watch them go past, Scheller thumping his door open with the heel of his hand. He waited until Reinhardt and Lainer walked in, then shoved it closed. He looked at Reinhardt, who took a long, low breath, steeling himself for what was about to come.

“So? Where
do
you stand with your investigation?” Scheller asked, finally.

“I don't have anyone in custody, if that's what you are asking, sir.”

“That's what he's asking,” grated Lainer.

“I don't know who killed your men, Lainer. I do know killing them was part of something much bigger, and it's got something to do with the activities of that penal battalion and its commander, a Major Jansky.”

“The one you've just been ordered to leave the hell alone?” Lainer muttered.

“Go on,” said Scheller, his eyes flat.

“It's complicated . . .” he began.

“Then make it simple,” interrupted Lainer.

“I can't,” Reinhardt shot back.

“Well, maybe if you spent less time with tarts, and more time trying to find who killed my men . . .”

“. . . and it won't help if you take that attitude,” Reinhardt slashed back, squaring up to the big Feldjaeger, his face burning again. Lainer's head went down and his eyes slitted, but he nodded after a moment, an appraising light in his eyes as if he had found something he had been looking for.

“Let's start at the beginning,” said Reinhardt.

“Let's sit,” said Scheller, pointing at the chairs. “Keep going, Reinhardt.”

“The Feldjaeger were killed investigating a disturbance in the early morning at a construction site, which was being run by elements from a penal battalion constructing an anti-aircraft emplacement,” said Reinhardt, looking at Lainer, then letting his eyes bring Scheller in. “The disturbance was probably the killers disposing of five bodies, all of which are unidentifiable. Although I suspect they might have been soldiers, I still don't have proof of it. Remember, we have no witnesses to what happened, only conjecture. Remember as well, the day before that, I came across a massacre in the forest, and I found what I took to be the three burned bodies of German soldiers, because of some uniform remnants at the scene. At the time, I thought I had found the bodies of deserters, because I found evidence that soldiers from different units were there, infrantrymen and artillerymen.

“I questioned Major Jansky about the construction site. His answers, and those of his men, were fairly consistent, and he was cooperative enough. But on leaving, one of the soldiers serving in the unit sought me out and swore he had information about foul play afoot in the battalion. I was unsure how to treat him, partly because the man was clearly unstable, and because he admitted he was a Feldgendarmerie informant within the ranks.

“Because I was thinking of the UstaÅ¡e as primarily responsible, I sought out the survivors of that massacre in the forest to see if I could get anything more from them. The UstaÅ¡e had come for them, first, and they had vanished. My inquiries at the Pale House . . .”

“You were at the Pale House?” Scheller queried, his brows furled.

“I was, sir. I went where the investigation took me,” he said, willing the colonel to remember those same words he had said the first time they had met, in Vienna. “With Captain Langenkamp's assistance, I questioned the UstaÅ¡e and was told no one of the refugees' description had been brought in. I had the description as well of the UstaÅ¡a who arrested them, and was told he was missing.”

He took a deep breath. The waters were deep and treacherous from here on—
,
, Alexiou, even Dreyer—and he could not afford a slip. “Later that night, the UstaÅ¡e brought me to another murder scene—this is the third, after the forest, and the construction site—and showed me the mutilated bodies of four of their men, and claimed the Partisans had done it.”

“Had they?”

“I very much doubt it. Too much was wrong with the scene. It was staged. And one of the bodies was the UstaÅ¡a I wanted to interview over the disappearance of the refugees.”

“You think they killed one of their own men to stop him from talking to you?” Lainer asked, incredulously.

“I think they may have killed him because he was a liability,” said Reinhardt.

“I'm still not seeing this conspiracy with the penal battalion or Jansky in all this.”

“The construction site was being worked by the penal battalion. The forest site was a logging camp, sir. It was run by the penal battalion. That's why there was evidence of more than one type of soldier there, because men from all units get thrown into a penal battalion. And then a serving soldier in the battalion came forward to offer me information, but he was found dead yesterday morning.”

“Bloody hell, Reinhardt!” exclaimed Lainer. “Remind me not to spend too much time with you.”

“Lainer, be a good fellow, and give me some time alone with Reinhardt.”

Scheller's face stayed impassive as Lainer's twisted, but he nodded and walked out of the office, shutting the door behind him. Then, to Reinhardt's surprise, Scheller leaned into a cabinet and clattered a bottle of slivo onto the table, two glasses bunched by the rims between his thick fingers.

“Reinhardt, is there any way of keeping this simple?”

“No, sir,” said Reinhardt, watching the slivo flow into the glasses. “That's because I don't know what's going on. I suspect a lot, but have proof of little. I don't know who killed our men. But in investigating their deaths, I have uncovered something else. I am almost certain Major Jansky is involved in quite significant corruption, to do with selling a form of asylum to foreigners. In return for payment, he accepts them as foreign volunteers—as hiwis—into his battalion. He gives them menial tasks, and he keeps them out of harm's way.”

“You suspect this?”

“I am sure of this,” Reinhardt answered. “I spoke with one of these hiwis—a Greek, who I am sure served in their security battalions—and he confirmed he had paid his way into the unit as a way of escaping his country and throwing off any judicial pursuit after the war.”

“This would be one of the Greeks you said you knew nothing about but that General Herzog had shot tonight?”

Reinhardt nodded. “I'm guessing they tried to make good their escape. With whatever they could carry. The Greek confirmed to me that Jansky had been paid in gold they had stolen, and there was still some of it left.”

Scheller sighed, shook his head. “As if we don't have enough on our plates without something like this. I don't even know if we could start to investigate something like that . . .” He chewed his lower lip, softly. “What about the judge?”

“Judge Marcus Dreyer has—had—an interest in this Major Jansky, as the two of them had quite some history together. Judge Dreyer was convinced of Jansky's corruption and, before the three Feldjaeger were killed, he had asked for my help in investigating him. I had said no. But as the penal battalion and Jansky were appearing too often for coincidence, I offered him my help, which he accepted.”

“And your help was such he decided to kill himself.”

Reinhardt went pale. He felt the blood drain away, a hollow pit form where his stomach was. “That's . . .” was all he managed.

“Harsh?” Scheller had the good grace to look embarrassed.

“He was my friend, sir,” Reinhardt whispered. Scheller made to speak, but Reinhardt shook his head slightly. “I've asked myself the same question, sir, don't worry. Dreyer was killed because of his connection to this . . . investigation. His theories about Jansky and my inquiries into our dead men overlapped. And because of that, he was killed. He didn't commit suicide.”

“That's a stretch, Reinhardt.”

“No, sir, it's not. He had done nothing different to deserve this. The only thing different was me. Somehow, me and him joining together meant we were a threat.”

“What about you? You're a threat, and no one's taken a shot at you.”

“That I know of,” said Reinhardt, grimly, thinking of those two Albanians, and what might have happened if he had arrived just a few minutes earlier.

Scheller looked long and hard at Reinhardt, then sighed. “And that's where you are?”

“That's where I am. Except to add that I suspect some in the UstaÅ¡e are taking advantage of Jansky's ‘offer.' Do you remember Langenkamp briefing us on some of the senior UstaÅ¡e disappearing? Well, I wouldn't be surprised to find they have joined up as hiwis. And I met Jansky at the Pale House, on his way to meet a senior UstaÅ¡a.”

“He sounds like a piece of work, this Jansky.”

“He is. And this . . . this is where I start to wonder at all this. I ask myself, could he do what he's done, what he's doing, without help? Without help from someone higher up, more senior.”

“What, like the two characters we just met this evening?” Reinhardt nodded. “Christ. What the hell am I supposed to do with this, Reinhardt?” Reinhardt shook his head, not knowing what to say. Having recounted the whole thing, he was suddenly appalled at both the complexity of it and its vacuous nature, and that was without imparting what he had held back, like what Neven had said about the German involvement in the killings in the forest. There was a lot there, but not much to go on. Like the contradiction of his nature and his duty as a Feldjaeger. “Everything's coming apart in the city, and I need everyone here and now. I don't know if I can have you on this anymore.” Scheller paused. “What? You've nothing to say? That's hardly like you.”