'Nevertheless, the files were important to Linden. Whoever it was that killed him also arranged to have a couple of amateur detectives he knew murdered. Two Jews who had survived the camps and were out to settle a few scores. I found them dead a few days ago. They'd been that way a while. Perhaps the files were for them. So it would help if you could try and remember some of the names.'
'Sure, anything you say, Bernie. I'll try to fit it into my busy schedule.'
'You do that. Now tell me about K/nig. What did he look like?'
'Let's see: he was about forty, I'd say. Well-built, dark, thick moustache, weighed about ninety kilos, one- ninety tall; wore a good tweed suit, smoked cigars and always had a dog with him a little terrier. He was Austrian for sure. Sometimes he had a girl around. Her name was Lotte. I don't know her surname, but she worked at the Casanova Club. Good-looking bitch, blonde. That's all I remember.'
'You said that you talked about the war. Didn't he tell you how many medals he won?'
'Yes, he did.'
'Then don't you think you should tell me?'
'I didn't think it was relevant.'
'I'll decide what's relevant. Come on, unpack it, Becker.'
He stared at the wall and then shrugged. 'As far as I remember, he said he had joined the Austrian Nazi Party when it was still illegal, in 1931. Later he got himself arrested for putting up posters. So he escaped to Germany to avoid arrest and joined the Bavarian police in Munich. He joined the SS in 1933, and stayed in until the end of the war.'
'Any rank?'
'He didn't say.'
'Did he give you any indication of where he served and in what sort of capacity?'
Becker shook his head.
'Not much of a conversation you two had. What were you reminiscing about, the price of bread? All right. What about the second man the one who came to your home with K/nig and asked you to look for Linden?'
Becker squeezed his temples. 'I've tried to remember his name, but it just won't come,' he said. 'He was a bit more of the senior officer type. You know, very stiff and proper. An aristocrat, maybe. Again he was aged about forty, tall, thin, clean-shaven, balding. Wore a Schiller jacket and a club-tie.' He shook his head. 'I'm not very good on club-ties. It could have been Herrenklub, I don't know.'
'And the man you saw come out of the studio where Linden was killed: what did he look like?'
'He was too far away for me to see much, except that he was quite short and very stocky. He wore a dark hat and coat and he was in a hurry.'
'I'll bet he was,' I said. 'The publicity firm, Reklaue & Werbe Zentrale. It's on Mariahilferstrasse, isn't it?'
'Was,' Becker said gloomily. 'It closed not long after I was arrested.'
'Tell me about it anyway. Was it always K/nig you saw there?'
'No. It was usually a fellow called Abs, Max Abs. He was an academic-looking type, chin-beard, little glasses, you know.' Becker helped himself to another of my cigarettes. 'There was one thing I was meaning to tell you. One time I was there I heard Abs take a telephone call, from a stonemason called Pichler. Maybe he had a funeral. I thought that maybe you could find Pichler and find out about Abs when you go to Linden's funeral this morning.'
'At twelve o'clock,' Liebl said.
'I thought that it might be worth a look, Bernie,' Becker explained.
'You're the client,' I said.
'See if any of Linden's friends show up. And then see Pichler. Most of Vienna's stonemasons are along the wall of the Central Cemetery, so it shouldn't be all that difficult to find him. Maybe you can discover if Max Abs left an address when he ordered his piece of stone.'
I didn't much care for having Becker describe my morning's work for me like this, but it seemed easier to humour him. A man facing a possible death sentence can demand certain indulgences of his private investigator. Especially when there's cash up front. So I said, 'Why not? I love a good funeral.' Then I stood up and walked about his cell a bit, as if I were the one who was nervous about being caged in. Maybe he was just more used to it than me.
'There's one thing still puzzling me here,' I said after a minute's thoughtful pacing.
'What's that?'
'Dr Liebl told me that you're not without friends and influence in this city.'
'Up to a point.'
'Well, how is it that none of your so-called friends tried to find K/nig? Or for that matter his girlfriend Lotte?'
'Who's saying they didn't?'
'Are you going to keep it to yourself, or do I have to give you a couple of bars of chocolate?'
Becker's tone turned placatory. 'Now, it's not certain what happened here, Bernie, so I don't want you getting the wrong idea about this job. There's no reason to suppose that '
'Cut the cold cabbage and just tell me what happened.'
'All right. A couple of my associates, fellows who knew what they were doing, asked around about K/nig and the girl. They checked a few of the nightclubs.
And ' he winced uncomfortably ' they haven't been seen since. Maybe they double-crossed me. Maybe they just left town.'
'Or maybe they got the same as Linden,' I suggested.
'Who knows? But that's why you're here, Bernie. I can trust you. I know the kind of fellow you are. I respect what you did back in Minsk, really I did. You're not the kind to let an innocent man hang.' He smiled meaningfully. 'I can't believe I'm the only one who's had a use for a man of your qualifications.'
'I do all right,' I said quickly, not caring much for flattery, least of all from clients like Emil Becker. 'You know, you probably deserve to hang,' I added. 'Even if you didn't kill Linden, there must have been plenty of others.'
'But I just didn't see it coming. Not until it was too late. Not like you. You were clever, and got out while you still had a choice. I never had that chance.
It was obey orders, or face a court martial and a firing squad. I didn't have the courage to do anything other than what I did.'
I shook my head. I really didn't care any more. 'Perhaps you're right.'
'You know I am. We were at war, Bernie.' He finished his cigarette and stood up to face me in the corner where I was leaning. He lowered his voice, as if he meant Liebl not to hear.
'Look,' he said, 'I know this is a dangerous job. But only you can do it. It needs to be done quietly, and privately, the way you do it best. Do you need a lighter?'
I had left the gun I'd taken off the dead Russian in Berlin, having had no wish to risk arrest for crossing a border with a pistol. I doubted that Poroshin's cigarette pass could have sorted that out. So I shrugged and said, 'You tell me.
This is your city.'
'I'd say you'll need one.'
'All right,' I said, 'but for Christ's sake make it a clean one.'
When we were outside the prison again Liebl smiled sarcastically and said: 'Is a lighter what I think it is?'
'Yes. But it's just a precaution.'
'The best precaution you can take while you're in Vienna is to stay out of the Russian sector. Especially late at night.'
I followed Liebl's gaze across the road and beyond, to the other side of the canal, where a red flag fluttered in the early morning breeze.
'There are a number of kidnapping gangs working for the Ivans in Vienna,' he explained. 'They snatch anyone they think might be spying for the Americans, and in return they're given black-market concessions to operate out of
