‘She bloody well was. God’s own handful. The sexiest, most passionate, most infuriating creature there ever was. Never a dull moment with her around. Was there, Clemens?’ he asked, peering into the rearview mirror.
‘Never, sir,’ rasped the colonel.
‘Saint and sinner all wrapped up in one delectable package. By Christ, she could stand you on your head. Make you see black when it was white. Day when it was night.’
‘General, if I may?’
‘You may not, Clemens.’
‘Are you trying to tell me something, General?’ asked Reinhardt.
Ascher jerked forward from the back. ‘What the general’s trying to say…’
‘What the general is saying,’ snapped Verhein, whipping his head around to stare back at Ascher, ‘is that what happened to her is the last thing I wanted.’ He braked the Horch outside a wooden-walled house that stood at the edge of a clearing, with the hill pushing up beyond it. A canvas awning hung along one side, overshadowing a trestle table with a radio and other equipment on it. Trucks and cars were parked around the clearing, a field kitchen was dispensing coffee, and a battery of heavy mortars were set up on the far side. The place had the feel of a forward headquarters.
Verhein stayed at the wheel, both hands on it, staring forward as if at nothing. Reinhardt looked at him, forcing himself to ignore Ascher and Mamagedov behind him. His heart hammered that he was suddenly, apparently, so close to the end. ‘But something did happen to her,’ he prompted, quietly.
Verhein seemed to slump in on himself. ‘I know,’ he said, softly.
‘What happened?’
Verhein seemed to revive himself. ‘I lost it, Reinhardt. What else?’
‘Sir…’ began Ascher, again.
Verhein lifted a hand. ‘Leave it, Clemens, please,’ he said. All the fire seemed to have gone out of him.
‘I will not! Mamagedov, take the captain under arrest and -’
Verhein hunched around in his seat as the Kalmyk began to draw his pistol. ‘Disregard that, Mamagedov. Think of it as confession, Clemens,’ he said, swinging his gaze onto the colonel. ‘God knows, I’ve confessed enough to you over the years, no?’ He began picking up his equipment and looked at Reinhardt, gesturing at Ascher with his head. ‘You know we sometimes call him Father Superior? Half the time, I think he ought to have stayed a chaplain.’ He stepped out of the car, looking back at Ascher. The colonel was white-faced, his chin bunched tight at the end of his jaw. ‘Would’ve made things a bit easier, sometimes. This time, I’m not confessing to you, Ascher. But maybe the penance won’t be what you fear it will be. Now,’ he said, ‘Reinhardt and I will have a talk. I need you to check in with Oelker and get an update.’ He looked up the hill at a sudden crackle of gunfire, then at Reinhardt, frowning. ‘You coming or not?’
41
Reinhardt had gone cold, as if he had been doused. A piece of the truth had suddenly flared and bloomed here, and the pattern of the case as he understood it had shifted. Reinhardt knew his confusion was showing, but he could not help it, and he saw something sparkle in Ascher’s eyes. A part of the truth was here, right here among them. Reinhardt could feel it, feel the way into that explanation that was bunched tight and only needed the right tug on it to unravel, but the way was fading, the shape of the case slumping back into the dull glow of its embers.
Reinhardt followed Verhein under the awning. An aide-de-camp offered the general a clipboard covered in signals, which he glanced at cursorily before telling him he did not want to be disturbed. He went inside the little house, dropped his PPSh and the signals on a table, then walked to a window, just an empty frame of splintered wood. The sound of gunfire came again, staccato bursts, the dull crump of explosions. He put his hands in the small of his back and stretched, sighing, then turned to Reinhardt, the light washing over his mane of white hair. ‘You know, in a way, I’m glad you came. It’s been… difficult.’ He stared at Reinhardt, waiting as if for a reaction. Reinhardt could see that, but he was still feeling his way cautiously around the new shape of the investigation.
‘Sir, why don’t you just tell me what happened?’ he managed after a moment.
‘You know I met her in Russia?’ Reinhardt nodded. ‘We quarrelled there. Over… an incident. It’s not important.’
‘It may be, sir,’ interrupted Reinhardt, thinking of that collective farm at Yagodnyy, the Sonderkommando, the Jews, the Red Army. He held back, though, wanting to see what Verhein would say.
‘It was an operational issue,’ said Verhein after a moment, turning and walking slowly to a trestle table and leaning his weight back against it. ‘She travelled with my division a while, but she would head off on her own from time to time. She was in the propaganda companies, you know? So, once, she went out with a Sonderkommando and my unit passed through its operational area, and I found her -’ He paused, suddenly and obviously upset. His mouth twisted, and he looked down and away. ‘I found her torturing someone. A Jew. A woman. In front of her children. I knew she had strong feelings about Jews. She had strong feelings about a lot of things. And I knew she sometimes… expressed… well, it went beyond words. I knew of one incident with captured Red Army soldiers. I had heard of others. I didn’t believe it. Not really. But I saw it with my own eyes.’
His own had fallen away, gone somewhere else, to that wet field at Yagodnyy. ‘You could almost say it drove me quite mad. I wanted nothing more to do with her. We fought, and I sent her away. She was furious, incandescent with rage. She swore I would regret it, but when I came here, she contacted me. We met, and we agreed to let bygones be bygones. I had no wish for a relationship with her, although God knows I was still attracted to her. We met once or twice for drinks. That was it. Then she asked me to her house the night the conference for Schwarz ended…’
‘Go on.’
‘Marija was in a strange mood. Very hyperactive. She was very aroused. And, God help me, she was arousing. We had sex. It was… quite something. Then she kept talking about Russia, about what she’d seen there. She kept talking about Jews. What she had seen done to them. And then – she seemed unable to help herself, like a child who knows a secret she ought not to – she revealed to me she understood everything. She told me I was finished, that people in Berlin knew everything. I did not know what she was talking about, she had me so confused, but it was clear her mind was not quite all there. She began to scrape at herself, at her arms, her shoulders, at her… at her sex. She said she was dirty, unclean, that I made her that way.
‘I began to feel afraid, but I still did not know what she was talking about. Then she laughed, and said my sister would pay the same price as me. Only she would pay it first. At that… I felt enraged and… panicked. I demanded she tell me what she was talking about. She only laughed harder, taunted me further. I struck her. She laughed, told me I hit like an old woman. I hit her again. And again. And again. I could not stop myself.’ Verhein drew in a long, slow breath, and his gaze reeled itself back in from wherever it had been. He turned and looked at Reinhardt. ‘And then… nothing. Just coming to my senses standing over her.’
Reinhardt drew in his own breath. ‘Then what did you do?’
‘Then?’ Verhein shifted on the table. ‘Then I left. For the front. First thing on Sunday morning.’
Reinhardt knew there was an untruth in what the general had just said. It was his old policeman’s instinct. The suspect answering a question with a question. The hesitation. The shift in position. ‘She was dead?’ Verhein nodded. ‘You knew this how?’
‘I have… beaten men to death, Captain. I know how it looks. How it feels.’
‘You were sure you had killed her?’
Verhein nodded, his eyes narrowing now. ‘I was.’
‘You are sure you beat her to death?’