‘You have evidence, of course?’ asked Becker.
‘Other than what’s in front of me?’
‘This?’ Lemke said. ‘This is… material… seized…’ He trailed off, looked desperately at Becker.
Reinhardt ignored him, looking at Becker. ‘I’m not sure where you fit in… ?’
Becker’s mouth moved, and then he smiled again, as if he knew a particular secret was out. ‘Me? I suppose I’m a talent scout. You might say my forte’s organisation. And persuasion.’
‘Yes, I’ve proof,’ said Reinhardt to Becker. ‘But more to the point, it’s who you know more than what you know, these days. Wouldn’t you agree?’
Becker nodded. He took off his glasses, tilting his head down and to the right, keeping Reinhardt in sight, considering the implications that Reinhardt’s contacts would outweigh his.
‘Everyone’s got to make a living, I suppose,’ he said, eventually.
‘The truth is I need your scam.’ Becker smiled, and the others seemed to relax, tension draining out of the lines of their shoulders. This was what they had been expecting. ‘Make it a good one, Becker. Nice and honest.’
‘Four hundred marks.’ Becker grinned.
‘So you pay.’ Reinhardt put a piece of paper on the table, ignoring the protestations from Lemke, watching Becker. ‘You can keep your scam going. For as long as you can manage it. You charge the price you just mentioned. I’ll be checking. But whoever I send you, you take out for free. Consider it as reinvesting back into the business.’
‘You’re fucking crazy,’ hissed Lemke.
‘If you renege, I’ll expose you,’ said Reinhardt, ignoring him. ‘If you roll this scam up within six months, I’ll expose you. If you harm a hair on the heads of anyone, especially those I send, I’ll kill you.’
Becker wormed his glasses back on, picked up the paper. ‘Isidor and Hilda Rosen,’ he read.
Reinhardt nodded. ‘They’re next. And that’s it. I’ll be in touch. And I’ll be watching. A pleasant evening, gentlemen.’
‘I’ll find you,’ snarled Lemke. Becker only looked at him, eyes steady behind his glasses.
Reinhardt walked out, Brauer stepping backwards, keeping the Bergmann trained on them. They walked quickly back downstairs and out, over to another street to the car where another of his men was waiting. He slumped in the back, lighting a cigarette with a hand that suddenly trembled.
‘Christ,’ breathed Brauer, removing the Bergmann’s magazine as the car sped away. He craned his head back around from the front. ‘How long do you give ’em?’
‘Before they find us? Not long. I’m not worried about that. It’s what we know, against what they can do…’ He closed his eyes. He felt light-headed, giddy, like he used to feel after action in the old days, like he used to feel back in the trenches. Truth was, he had no idea how long he could ride that particular tiger. But it felt like the first decent thing he had done in a long time.
Reinhardt took a long draw on the cigarette, then nodded. ‘We were both in Kripo. I was a chief inspector, and he worked Gestapo liaison, among other things. He was a bad officer.’ Very bad. Corruption. Brutality. Incompetence. Becker was so bad, even the Nazis did not know what to do with him, but he was connected. And clever, although cunning was more the word. Always managing to get away with it, until the day when he messed up one case too many – including one that involved the death of the daughter of a Party official who had Goering’s ear, and Becker was gone. Reinhardt had happily forgotten him, until the day he arrived in Sarajevo and found him here, second in command of the city’s Feldgendarmerie detachment.
‘What now?’
Reinhardt screwed his eyes shut, rubbed his forehead, and exhaled long and loud. ‘Christ, I don’t know.’
‘Maybe he does.’
‘What?’ Claussen was staring across the parking area towards where Kessler was coming out of Feldgendarmerie headquarters. The captain looked at them across the yard a moment as he put his cap on his head, then turned away down the side of the building, over to a row of parked vehicles. Reinhardt exchanged a quick look with Claussen, then straightened up, dropping his cigarette and screwing it into the ground with his boot, and went walking after Kessler.
The Feldgendarme was checking out a vehicle as Reinhardt came up. He looked expressionlessly at him, signed off the form, and returned it to a waiting NCO. ‘I am sorry it has to be so formal between us,’ he said.
‘Likewise.’
‘Look,’ said Kessler, after a moment. ‘I cannot give you the files, but I have seen them. There really is not much in them that I think can be of interest to you.’
‘That is kind of you, Captain,’ Reinhardt replied. ‘I would need to come to that conclusion myself, though.’
The two of them were silent a moment. Reinhardt waited, hoping Kessler would feel the silence as an urge to say something more. ‘Becker is a stickler for the rules, it’s true,’ Kessler said, finally. ‘What he’s really afraid of is that the records will show the killer went right through our controls, and the Feldgendarmerie are culpable in some way. And he may be right. We certainly had our hands full over the weekend.’
‘Why’s that?’ Reinhardt asked, rubbing at his right eye, and then clenching his fist as his finger stole treacherously towards his temple and the imagined mark of his pistol’s muzzle.
Kessler cleared his throat, a slight frown creasing his forehead. ‘Because of the planning conference. At the spa, in Ilidza.’
Reinhardt remembered suddenly the staff cars parked outside the hotel. ‘Of course. Yes.’ He had known of the conference. He remembered it being mentioned at the daily briefing late last week. A planning meeting, the finishing touches to Operation Schwarz. How could he have forgotten that? ‘Thank you, Captain. So there was much traffic?’ He knew he sounded inane, but he needed to keep Kessler talking.
‘Especially in the early part of the evening of Saturday. The conference ended on Saturday afternoon. Most of the attendees were returning to their units at the time.’
‘Most?’
‘Some stayed on at the hotel, I believe,’ replied Kessler. There had been staff cars parked at the hotel this morning. Maybe connected to the conference. Maybe not. ‘During an event such as the conference, we receive a copy of the list of authorised attendees. We check their arrival off against the list. On such occasions, unless the incident is egregious, normal traffic duties can be suspended or superseded. Therefore, what is listed will be only unusual incidents. Not improperly inflated tyres, or smudged or illegible registration, or overloading. That is why I can assure you no incident was reported that would seem to impact upon your investigation.’
Reinhardt looked down at the ground, at oil stains and gravel and the marks of tyres, but what he saw was the investigation withering away in a series of dead ends, or foregone conclusions. He ran his fingers around the back of his neck, where the muscles were still tight, and thought of photographs of soldiers. ‘Whom do I ask for a list of the attendees at that conference?’
There was a pause. ‘You would need to check with the commandant’s office, Captain,’ replied Kessler. ‘If you think that information would be of some use.’ The Feldgendarmerie captain kept his voice flat, but Reinhardt heard the question in his words. He had no idea if the information would be useful. It would certainly be risky to ask for it, and certainly risky to do anything with it, but it was all he had at the moment. This case was bundled tight; any loose thread was something he could hang on to, pull on, see what unravelled with it, and hope it did not unravel all over him.