‘Becker, can you hear me?’
The Feldgendarme’s mouth moved, his lips blue in the pallor of his face. ‘Thirsty,’ he whispered.
‘You’re dying, Becker. I can’t help you. But you can help me. Can you do that? Can you tell me who is behind this?’
‘Yes,’ Becker whispered.
‘Tell me.’
‘Yes.’ Just a thread. His eyes quivered open, wet, slack, searching for Reinhardt, finding him. ‘The knife. It was the knife.’
‘What about the knife, Becker?’
‘Caught him. Putting… it… back. Red…’
‘Caught who?’
‘… red-handed. Caught him…’
‘Who, Becker? Tell me.’
Becker’s head lurched. His eyes cleared. ‘You?’ He stared up. ‘I could… tell you. But… I won’t.’ Then the focus in his gaze bled away and, amazingly, at the edge of his life, he laughed, a stuttering high in his throat. ‘If you… could see… your face. Gregor… the crow… Always…’ His eyes turned up, and he was gone.
Reinhardt paused there, staring down at him. He tried to care, but there was nothing. Not even any sense of triumph at having outlasted Becker, he who was the master manipulator, always managing to find the right angle to any situation.
He poured water over his hands again, scrubbing his face and smearing his hands dry on his uniform, painfully flexing his fingers, still not wanting to look. He paused, searching around the tangle of bodies, spotting the Bowie where it had been dropped, shoving it point down between the floorboards. Standing, he put his heel on the pommel and pushed. He strained, his knee twitching. He pushed harder, but the knife only bent against the floorboards. He gritted his teeth in anger, then reached down and flung it skittering away across the floor. The guard shouted, peering at him nervously as Reinhardt walked to the door. The guard stood to one side, distrust writ large across his broad features. Reinhardt stepped carefully outside and looked around the clearing. The surviving Ustase and SS were lined up in front of what clearly were firing squads. A small group of German soldiers, mostly Feldgendarmerie – Claussen among them – made up a separate group huddled under the guns of a circle of Partisans, and there was a hush in the clearing, a clear focus of attention.
Stolic and Ljubcic were kneeling in front of a tree from which dangled two nooses while a Partisan read something from a piece of paper. Stolic looked dazed, Ljubcic contemptuous, and he had eyes only for Goran even as the Partisan commander gave the order to put the ropes around their necks and made them stand. There was a pause, and then Partisans hauled on the ropes. The two men arched up, then jerked like puppets, legs flailing as they fought to breathe. A hideous wet croaking slipped past the swell of their tongues, a macabre counterpoint to the gentle rustle of the tree’s branches. The bodies bumped and snapped off each other, and with their popping eyes and contorted faces it was as if they played some childish game.
It seemed to take them a long time to die, but after they stilled two men jerked down on the bodies to make sure. Reinhardt looked up at Stolic. He had fouled himself as he died, and the stench was awful, but Reinhardt only saw him as an absence, the second man who needed to die. He realised Goran was standing next to him, looking at him.
‘You object to our justice?’
Reinhardt swallowed hard. ‘Is that what it was?’
‘They were condemned by a people’s court a long time ago for crimes against the citizens of Yugoslavia. This was their sentence, and it was more justice than they deserved or ever gave.’ He turned and looked back at the bodies as he spoke.
‘What was it between you and Ljubcic?’
Goran looked back at him, at the bodies where they hung like carcasses. ‘You noticed?’ His mouth twisted. ‘We grew up together. Then he became that. An Ustasa. Obsessed with a world that had no room for those not like him, and a future that never will be.’
‘And what of them?’ Reinhardt indicated the other Ustase and SS. ‘What of them?’ The Germans. ‘And me?’
‘What about you, Captain?’
‘Dr Begovic was helping me. He believed doing that was helping you. Your cause.’ Goran said nothing, and Reinhardt felt as if he scrabbled across a pane of glass.
‘Muamer is a good comrade. One of the best. If he believed that…’ The Partisan shook his head. ‘He believes that whatever it is you are doing, it is causing confusion in your ranks.’ He looked around the clearing. ‘And I must admit I have seen many things, but never a German soldier being tortured by a collection of Ustase, Feldgendarmerie, and SS. So he may have a point. I need more than that, though.’ He turned those flinty eyes back on Reinhardt. ‘He believes you are a member of the German resistance.’
‘I am,’ said Reinhardt, and he felt the truth of it as he said it. It settled around him, through him, and it felt right.
‘Somehow, I have my doubts.’
‘I cannot prove it to you. But we do fight the same fight, if in different ways.’ He could see Goran still hesitating. ‘You have nothing to lose,’ Reinhardt continued. ‘You can send me on my way and hope I will do and act as Dr Begovic thinks. Or you may keep me here. Either way, I am no threat to you or your men. But my way – Begovic’s way – I am… I am in your enemy’s camp.’ He swallowed around the word he should have said. Ally was the word, but he could not bring himself to say it. Not yet.
Someone called from the forest, and Goran waved a hand in acknowledgment, never taking his eyes off Reinhardt, as if he could hear the word Reinhardt could not say. He had never in his life, Reinhardt realised, been the focus of such attention. Just like that moment in his dream, Goran’s eyes were pivots around which his life might turn, or they were nails from which it would hang.
‘Very well. You may go.’
‘Please, I need him,’ said Reinhardt, pointing at Claussen, needing to make Goran turn and look somewhere else, if just for a moment, so he could escape the pressure of his gaze. ‘He is one of us.’
Goran sighed, then nodded. He called something to the guards, who pulled Claussen out of the group, pushing him over to where shy;Reinhardt stood. Reinhardt watched the faces of the others, saw the hope in their eyes that faded as only one of them was culled from their number, and he turned away from the voiceless expression of their need.
‘Go, now,’ said Goran. Across the clearing, Partisans were filtering back into the forest, save for those guarding the prisoners.
Claussen said nothing as he walked next to Reinhardt, a huge bruise darkening the side of his head, an ugly, red welt. Two Partisans escorted them back to the road, to where the kubelwagen was parked behind the ruined wall, still loaded. A dead Feldgendarme lay there, flies already crawling over a wound in his neck. The Partisans melted back into the trees, and they were alone. Behind them, suddenly, came a rattle of gunfire, then, after a moment, the crack of single shots. The two of them looked at each other.
‘You look…’ said Claussen, trailing off.
‘You should see the other chap,’ mumbled Reinhardt, thickly. He searched through the packs, finding the first-aid kit. He poured sulfanilamide over his fingers then bandaged them, wrapping three fingers together. He flexed them, wincing at the pain, and looked at Claussen.
‘I don’t know what you said, or did… but, thank you,’ said Claussen.
‘Let’s get going, Sergeant,’ replied Reinhardt, hoping a measure of formality would give him time to consider what had just happened.