‘No, sir,’ he managed, finally.
‘Perhaps you will remind me of them,’ said Freilinger, quietly, sitting down. His eyes bored into Reinhardt. They both knew what the other was thinking. ‘Remind me of General Kuntze’s directive.’
‘Sir. When a German soldier is wounded, the lives of fifty prisoners or civilians are forfeit as a reprisal. When a German soldier is killed, the lives of one hundred prisoners or civilians are forfeit.’
‘Correct, Captain,’ said Freilinger, picking up a piece of paper. ‘Let me perhaps refresh your memory further. Directive of 19 March 1942, from the commander of 12th Army, Belgrade. I quote: “No false sentimentalities! It is preferable that fifty suspects are liquidated than one German soldier lose his life. If it is not possible to produce the people who have participated in any way in the insurrection or to seize them, reprisal measures of a general kind may be deemed advisable, for instance, the shooting to death of all male inhabitants from the nearest villages, according to a definite ratio.” ’ He put the paper down. ‘One wounded German, fifty dead Serbs. One dead German, one hundred dead Serbs.’
Freilinger sighed and looked down for a moment. ‘I wanted you on this case because I thought we could avoid something like this,’ he said, pointing at Kuntze’s directive, ‘coming to pass if you found me a suspect, or the one who pulled the trigger. Not that I thought such reprisals were that likely. Not here. There aren’t enough Serbs in any case, and it’s not as if Hendel was killed in an uprising. Still’ – he swallowed – ‘stranger things have happened. And now, thanks to this incident in the mess, I am being asked why the directive is not being applied. I know that at least one, if not two, of the colonels you offended this afternoon are making these points to the army staff in Banja Luka.’
He sighed again, his throat moving painfully as he fumbled open his tin and popped a mint into his mouth. ‘Why are we wasting manpower and resources on an investigation of this kind, at this time? Why are we not letting the Sarajevo police take care of it? These are the sorts of questions I am fielding. And so, with all that, what can you tell me of your investigation, Captain?’ He clasped his hands under his chin and waited.
Reinhardt licked his lips, thinking carefully. ‘Sir, I can almost certainly confirm one thing. The police only began investigating on Monday morning, when the maid reported it. But Hendel’s death was known to the Feldgendarmerie on Sunday already.’
Freilinger’s brow creased as his hands continued their slow movement. ‘Go on,’ he said.
‘One of the last places Hendel visited was a nightclub, called the Ragusa, also frequented by Vukic. The Feldgendarmerie interrogated staff there on Sunday, and they interrogated two singers who were, apparently, intimate with Hendel. On Sunday, and again on Monday. But they weren’t looking for Hendel, or searching for evidence as to who killed him. They were looking for a Lieutenant Peter Krause, and for something that they thought he might have. Photographs, or film. Someone tipped off the Feldgendarmerie before even the Sarajevo police. I can only believe Major Becker’s stalling tactics from yesterday afternoon were not only bureaucratic, but also deliberate.’
Freilinger sighed, running a palm up and then down each side of his face. ‘You see, that is what I was afraid you might say.’ He raised a hand to forestall Reinhardt’s protest. ‘I’m not saying you’re wrong, Captain. I’m just saying you’ve no proof to make such an accusation. I know you and he have a long and tortured history and I know he is not always quite what we would expect in our Feldgendarmerie, but why would he do that? What would be his motivation? Who might ask him to do that? Becker will tell you he was looking for a deserter, this Peter Krause. Perhaps it is simply coincidence Krause was a friend of Hendel’s. For now you cannot place Krause at the murder scene. Although…’ He trailed off. ‘Although I will admit it is strange. Very strange…’ His hands resumed their dry-washing. ‘What else?’
‘Sir, I have come across one common element between Hendel’s death, his work, and my investigation.’ Freilinger raised his eyebrows. ‘An SS officer. Standartenfuhrer Mladen Stolic. 7th Prinz Eugen.’
Freilinger nodded, his eyes slipping sideways. ‘Go on.’
‘He has been hostile and vocal in opposing my inquiries. It would seem he objected to, or was jealous of, whatever relationship Hendel had with Vukic. In addition, he seemed to take an instant dislike to me.’
Freilinger smiled, a faint twitch of his lips. ‘Yes, he would. I know of him. Stolic is an angry man. And a rather violent one. He’s Volksdeutsche, on his mother’s side. He joined the Ustase in the thirties, hung around Italy with Pavelic and the other exiles, then came back with them in 1941 and joined the Croatian Army. When the Seventh was formed, though, he transferred out, and there’s the problem. He’s angry not to have seen enough action. If he’d stayed with the Croatian Army, he’d have gone to the USSR, and probably gone out in a blaze of glory at Stalingrad like the rest of them are supposed to have done. He tried to leave the Seventh but was refused. No action, or not enough. No decorations.’ Freilinger’s eyes strayed to Reinhardt’s Iron Cross. ‘He won’t have liked you on sight just because of that. And he wouldn’t have liked Vukic because she was a woman who refused him. To make matters worse, she was a woman who followed the Croats in the USSR almost to the end, and he was jealous of that, too. She went where he could not.’
‘Sir, how do you know this?’
‘I have my sources,’ responded Freilinger, simply. ‘I speak to my counterparts in the Domobranstvo, even in the Ustase. Stolic is well known to them. Mostly for the wrong reasons. And don’t forget, Hendel was Abwehr. He reported to me.’
‘I see.’
‘The case Hendel was working on, involving that Croatian Army colonel… ?’
‘Grbic, sir,’ supplied Reinhardt.
‘Grbic was anathema to Stolic because of his service record and because he was a decorated veteran. Stolic detested him. There was always trouble between them.’
‘I see,’ said Reinhardt, again. It seemed to be all he could manage.
‘So you keep saying,’ said Freilinger, drily. Reinhardt flushed. ‘You might find this interesting. The only real action Stolic has ever seen was in Spain, back in thirty-seven. He volunteered for the nationalists and came back with a reputation for being rather brutal with captured prisoners. A reputation he has wasted no time expanding upon here in Bosnia. He favours knives and hatchets, apparently, and is known to frequent a particularly nasty Ustase officer, called Ljubcic. One of those Black Legion men -’ Freilinger paused, and Reinhardt wondered whether that could have been the Ustasa at Stolic’s table at the Ragusa the other night. ‘What else?’
‘We interviewed Dusko Jelic, a member of Vukic’s film crew, with Inspector Padelin. He provided a lot of background information on Vukic’s movements over the past few months, as well as some personal details on her… predilections. Apparently she had rather distinctive tastes in men, preferring older men, especially decorated soldiers.’ Freilinger raised his eyebrows, and there was the ghost of a smile at the edge of his mouth that Reinhardt affected not to notice. ‘She also had particular sexual tastes and a rather voracious sexual appetite. According to what Jelic said, and from what I have been able to determine, neither Hendel nor Stolic would have been attractive to her, and I know Stolic took that badly.
‘The reason I mention her sexual activity,’ he continued, ‘is after the interview with Jelic I found a hidden room in her house containing a film camera but no film. Her darkroom had been ransacked – that, I noticed on my initial visit to the scene – and I believe the Feldgendarmerie, and whoever has asked them to assist, know or suspect Krause has the film and the film shows her with her murderer.’