Freilinger’s hands went still again, his eyes narrowing. ‘Now that is interesting,’ he said quietly.
Pausing a moment to swallow, Reinhardt reviewed the last things he had to say. He knew he needed to be convincing to Freilinger, as he could feel any control he had over this investigation slipping away. ‘Jelic told us Vukic had an affair while she was in the USSR with a senior army officer sometime in September last year. It was apparently rather tempestuous, and ended quite badly, and Vukic bore some kind of grudge. Jelic told me the officer in question recently transferred here, and he and Vukic had met, or were planning to. According to Jelic, Vukic did not play the role of jilted lover very well and it would not have surprised him if she planned some sort of revenge.’
‘A revenge that went wrong, and someone may have the proof of it…’ Freilinger grunted, looking away from Reinhardt for a moment.
‘At the moment, it’s all I have to go on.’
‘In any case,’ Freilinger sighed, looking back at him, ‘it is all somewhat irrelevant now. I received a call from Major Becker. The Sarajevo police have their suspect. He has admitted to killing Vukic. Becker tells me we can almost certainly pin Hendel’s murder on him, too.’
Reinhardt leaned forward in his chair, shaking his head. ‘Sir, whoever the Sarajevo police are putting forward is a scapegoat. The police are running a purely political investigation and are pretending there is no link between Vukic and Hendel.’
‘Well, you may be right, but after today’s little show in the mess and with Schwarz about to kick off, I don’t think anyone’s going to care. Do you?’ Reinhardt stayed mute, if only because he did not dare speak around the swell of frustration in his chest and the feeling of helplessness that threatened to overwhelm him. ‘We are invited tomorrow morning to police headquarters. There’s to be some sort of official gathering at which they’ll present their findings and suspect. You will go. And then I expect we will be told to bring our investigation to an end.’
Reinhardt looked back at Freilinger, wanting to protest, to keep him away from that mockery, but the steely look in the major’s eyes kept him quiet. As if assuring himself of Reinhardt’s quiescence, Freilinger leaned across to the side of his desk and pushed two blue folders towards him. ‘Feldgendarmerie traffic records. As we requested.’ shy;Reinhardt put the folders in his lap, resisting the temptation to consider them as useless now.
Freilinger stood and walked over to his window, clasping his hands behind his back. The sun was much lower now. From where Reinhardt was sitting Freilinger seemed outlined in light, his close cap of grey hair shining almost silver, but the rest of him just a dim suggestion of back and arms and legs. ‘It’s not over, Reinhardt,’ he said, finally. Reinhardt had to strain to hear him. ‘I have not received orders yet to end this. So keep at it, but whatever you’re doing, get it done soon, one way or the other. When Schwarz starts, no one will care about a dead lieutenant. But they will care about a captain getting in the way and asking questions.’
He turned back to face him. ‘I will look into recent transfers of senior army officers. You think of general’s rank? This year?’ Freilinger scribbled a note, then fastened his gaze on Reinhardt. ‘You know this is the beginning of the deep water? If you’re not already in it, you soon will be if you keep this up.’ Reinhardt nodded as Freilinger straightened up. ‘I can protect you so far and no further. Very well, then. Dismissed.’
16
Reinhardt managed to control himself on the walk back downstairs to his office, but once there he shut the door and then let his frustration boil out. He flung the Feldgendarmerie files at the wall and slammed his fists up against his map, keeping his teeth clenched hard against the scream raging in the pit of his belly. Putting his head on the wall, he rolled his forehead from side to side, pressing it hard, breathing deep and ragged.
When his head began to hurt more than he could bear, he turned and slumped against the wall, sitting with his legs splayed out in front of him. He looked at his desk, wanting that bottle in the drawer, but put his head back, staring at the wiring and the light fitting in the ceiling. He scrubbed his hand through his hair, then jerked it down as his fingers stole treacherously to his temple and the memory of the bruise left by his pistol. He flinched from the sudden acrid tang of smoke, knowing he was only imagining it, but it was enough to pull him back.
He thought of Freilinger’s last words, about protecting him so far and no further. Was there another meaning there that he had not caught? Something Freilinger had wanted to say but could not? He let his hands drop to the floor, and they brushed up against the Feld shy;gendarmerie files. He looked down where the paper had spilled out, and he sniffed and hauled himself up and onto his haunches and began picking everything up. He tossed the files onto his desk and looked at them. If what Reinhardt suspected about Becker was true, if there was anything that would have been of use to him in those rec shy;ords, then he would probably have had it removed.
But still. Standing in front of his desk, he leafed through the pages. There were only a couple of sheets per file, one file for Saturday and the second for Sunday, and it was, as far as he could tell, fairly anodyne. Going through them, he found no trace of Hendel. No report of a motorcycle going either way. He took the Sarajevo police traffic rec shy;ords for the same period, intending to compare them, but he realised his heart was not in it and put it to one side. Trying to do this now, in the state he was in, he would miss something. Overlook something. What he wanted to do, and where he needed to be, was over in police headquarters.
Once he realised that, he straightened and went down outside. He walked past his car, past the sentry, and into the narrow street that led to Kvaternik. He needed to walk. Needed the time to think, or he would arrive and do something stupid, or ridiculous. He walked fast, feeling his knee twinge, down the street as it curved gently, following the channel of the Miljacka to his left. It was early evening. A curfew had been announced that morning, and it would be coming into effect in an hour or so. People were strolling quite briskly along the street: couples, families, mostly walking away from Bascarsija behind him, back to their homes. He felt their eyes, their whispers, feeling it run off him, for once, leaving him uncaring. Perhaps because of the uniform, perhaps because of the expression that might have been on his face, perhaps both, they parted in front of him. Or rather, he thought, as he strode through the orange light, with the sun low in the sky in front of him, it was he who stayed still and life that parted around him, like a branch poking up above the water in a river. A branch, twisted and ragged, the ends split and splayed like fingers, he thought, with that sense of macabre self-consciousness that had saved him in the past, usually from himself.
He arrived with his head no clearer than when he had set out, and the frustration that simmered in his gut had spread all through him. At police headquarters, he ignored the guards who made a half step towards him and he stopped inside, looking left and right. There was a big set of double doors in front of him, two doors to his left, and a flight of stairs leading upward on his right. There was a receptionist’s booth under the angle of the staircase, with a policeman behind the counter, looking back at him.
‘I want to see Inspector Padelin.’ The policeman gestured with his arms, a shrug as if to say he did not understand. ‘Padelin,’ repeated Reinhardt, slowly. ‘Padelin. Your new hero.’
The policeman’s face lit up with a smile. ‘Da, da, Inspektor Padelin.’ His smile became something of a grimace. ‘Zao mi je, nece biti moguce da ga vidi.’ He shook his head. ‘Nije dostupno.’