'Yes,' he said. 'Want to know what they had for dinner?'
'No,' I said firmly. 'Tell me about the safe instead. Was it open or shut?'
'Open.' He paused. 'You know, it's interesting, you didn't ask me how it was opened. Which leads me to suppose that you already knew that beyond a bit of scorching, the safe was undamaged; that if the safe was opened illegally, then it was done by someone who knew what he was doing. A Stockinger safe is no pushover.'
'Any piano players on it?' Illmann shook his head.
'It was too badly scorched to take any prints,' he said.
'Let us assume,' I said, 'that immediately prior to the deaths of the Pfarrs, the safe contained what it contained, and that it was, as it should have been, locked up for the night.'
'Very well.'
'Then there are two possibilities: one is that a professional nutcracker did the job and then killed them; and the other is that someone forced them to open it and then ordered them back to bed where he shot them. Still, it's not like a pro to have left the safe door open.'
'Unless he was trying hard to look like an amateur,' said Illmann. 'My own opinion is that they were both asleep when they were shot. Certainly from the angle of bullet entry I would say that both of them were lying down. Now if you were conscious, and someone had a gun on you, it's more than likely you would be sitting up in bed. And so I would conclude that your intimidation theory is unlikely.' He looked at his watch and finished his beer. Patting my leg, he added warmly, 'It's been good, Bernie. Just like the old days. How pleasant to talk to someone whose idea of detective work does not involve a spotlight and a set of brass knuckles. Still. I won't have to put up with the Alex for much longer. Our illustrious Reichskriminaldirektor, Arthur Nebe, is retiring me, just as he's retired the other old conservatives before me.'
'I didn't know you were interested in politics,' I said.
'I'm not,' he said. 'But isn't that how Hitler got elected in the first place: too many people who didn't give a shit who was running the country? The funny thing is that I care even less now than I did before. Catch me joining those March Violets on the bandwagon. But I won't be sorry to leave. I'm tired of all the squabbling that goes on between Sipo and Orpo as to who controls Kripo. It gets very confusing when it comes to filing a report, not knowing whether or not one should be involving our uniformed friends in Orpo.'
'I thought Sipo and the Gestapo were in the Kripo driving seat.'
'At the higher levels of command that is the case,' Illmann confirmed. 'But at the middle and lower levels the old administrative chains of command still operate. At the municipal level, local police presidents, who are part of Orpo, are also responsible for Kripo. But the word is that Orpo's head is giving undercover encouragement to any police president who is prepared to frustrate the thumbscrew boys in Sipo. In Berlin, that suits our own police president. He and the Reichskriminaldirektor, Arthur Nebe, hate each other's guts. Ludicrous, isn't it? And now, if you don't mind, I really must be going.'
'What a way to run a fucking bullring,' I said.
'Believe me, Bernie, you're well out of it.' He grinned happily. 'And it can get a lot worse yet.'
Illmann's information cost me a hundred marks. I've never found that information comes cheap, but lately the cost of private investigation does seem to be going up. It's not difficult to see why. Everyone is making some sort of a twist these days.
Corruption in one form or another is the most distinctive feature of life under National Socialism. The government has made several revelations about the corruption of the various Weimar political parties, but these were as nothing compared to the corruption that exists now. It flourishes at the top, and everyone knows it. So most people figure that they are due a share themselves. I don't know of anyone who is as fastidious about such things as they used to be.
And that includes me. The plain truth of it is that people's sensitivity to corruption, whether it's black-market food or obtaining favours from a government official, is about as blunt as a joiner's pencil stub.
Chapter 6
That evening it seemed as though almost all of Berlin was on its way to Neuk/lln to witness Goebbels conduct the orchestra of soft, persuasive violins and brittle, sarcastic trumpets that was his voice. But for those unlucky enough not to have sight of the Popular Enlightener, there were a number of facilities provided throughout Berlin to ensure that they could at least have the sound. As well as the radios required by law in restaurants and cafTs, on most streets there were loudspeakers mounted on advertising pillars and lamp-posts; and a force of radio wardens was empowered to knock on doors and enforce the mandatory civic duty to listen to a Party broadcast.
Driving west on Leipzigerstrasse, I met the torchlight parade of Brownshirt legions as it marched south down Wilhelmstrasse, and I was obliged to get out of my car and salute the passing standard. Not to have done so would have been to risk a beating. I guess there were others like me in that crowd, our right arms extended like so many traffic policemen, doing it just to avoid trouble and feeling a bit ridiculous. Who knows? But come to think of it, political parties were always big on salutes in Germany: the Social Democrats had their clenched fist raised high above the head; the Bolshies in the K P D had their clenched fist raised at shoulder level; the Centrists had their two-fingered, pistol-shaped hand signal, with the thumb cocked; and the Nazis had fingernail inspection. I can remember when we used to think it was all rather ridiculous and melodramatic, and maybe that's why none of us took it seriously. And here we all were now, saluting with the best of them. Crazy.
Badenschestrasse, running off Berliner Strasse, is just a block short of Trautenau Strasse, where I have my own apartment. Proximity is their only common factor. Badenschestrasse, Number 7 is one of the most modern apartment blocks in the city, and about as exclusive as a reunion dinner for the Ptolemies.
I parked my small and dirty car between a huge Deusenberg and a gleaming Bugatti and went into a lobby that looked like it had left a couple of cathedrals short of marble. A fat doorman and a storm-trooper saw me, and, deserting their desk and their radio which was playing Wagner prior to the Party broadcast, they formed a human barrier to my progress, anxious that I might want to insult some of the residents with my crumpled suit and self- inflicted manicure.
'Like it says on the sign outside,' growled Fatso, 'this is a private building.'
I wasn't impressed with their combined effort to get tough with me. I'm used to being made to feel unwelcome, and I don't bounce easily.
'I didn't see any sign,' I said truthfully.
'We don't want any trouble, Mister,' said the storm-trooper. He had a delicate-looking jaw that would have snapped like a dead twig with only the briefest of introductions to my fist.
'I'm not selling any,' I told him. Fatso took over.
'Well, whatever it is you're selling, they don't want any here.'
I smiled thinly at him. 'Listen, Fatso, the only thing that's stopping me from pushing you out of my way is your bad breath. It'll be tricky for you, I know, but see if you can work the telephone, and ring up FrSulein Rudel. You'll find she's expecting me.' Fatso pulled the huge brown-and-black moustache that clung to his curling lip like a bat on a crypt wall. His breath was a lot worse than I could have imagined.
'For your sake, swanktail, you'd better be right,' he said. 'It'd be a pleasure to throw you out.' Swearing under his breath he wobbled back to his desk and dialled furiously.
'Is FrSulein Rudel expecting someone?' he said, moderating his tone. 'Only, she never told me.' His face fell as my story checked out. He put the phone down and swung his head at the lift door.
'Third floor,' he hissed.
There were only two doors, at opposite ends of the third. There was a velodrome of parquet-floor between them and, as if I was expected, one of the doors was ajar. The maid ushered me into the drawing room.
'You'd better take a seat,' she said grumpily. 'She's still dressing and there's no telling how long she'll be. Fix yourself a drink if you want.' Then she disappeared and I examined my surroundings.
The apartment was no larger than a private airfield and looked about as cheap a set as something out of Cecil B. de Mille, of whom there was a photograph jostling for pride of place with all the others on the grand piano. Compared with the person who had decorated and furnished the place, the Archduke Ferdinand had been blessed with the taste of a troupe of Turkish circus dwarves.
I looked at some of the other photographs. Mostly they were stills of Lise Rudel taken from her various films. In a lot of them she wasn't wearing very much swimming nude or peering coyly from behind a tree which hid the
