policemen waving their arms or chasing after me, the road I had just driven down, the car that had been following me, a row of shops, a plate glass window. The car danced sideways on two wheels like a mechanical Charlie Chaplin and then there was a cataract of glass as I crashed into one of the shops. I rolled helplessly across the passenger seat and hit the door as something solid came through the other side. I felt something sharp underneath my elbow, then my head hit the frame and I must have blacked out.
It could only have been for a few seconds. One moment there was noise, movement, pain and chaos; and the next there was just quiet, with only the sound of a wheel spinning slowly to tell me that I was still alive. Mercifully the car had stalled so my first worry, which was of the car catching fire, was allayed.
Hearing footsteps on shards of glass and American voices announcing that they were coming to get me I shouted my encouragement, but to my surprise it came out as little more than a whisper. And when I tried to raise my arm to reach for the door handle I lost consciousness again.
Chapter 37
'Well, how are we feeling today?' Roy Shields leaned forward on the chair beside my bed and tapped the plaster cast on my arm. A wire and pulley kept it high in the air. 'That must be pretty handy,' he said. 'A permanent Nazi salute? Shit, you Germans can even make a broken arm look patriotic.'
I took a short look around. It appeared to be a fairly normal hospital ward but for the bars on the windows and the tattoos on the nurses' forearms.
'What kind of hospital is this?'
'You're in the military hospital at the Stiftskaserne,' he said. 'For your protection.'
'How long have I been here?'
'Almost three weeks. You had quite a bump on your square head. Fractured your skull. Busted collarbone, broken arm, broken ribs. You've been delirious since you came in.'
'Yes? Well, blame it on the f/hn, I guess.'
Shields chuckled and then his face grew more sombre. 'Better hold on to that sense of humour,' he said. 'I've got some bad news for you.'
I riffled through the card index inside my head. Most of the cards had been thrown on the floor, but the ones I picked up first seemed somehow especially relevant. Something I had been working on. A name.
'Emil Becker,' I said, recalling a manic face.
'He was hanged, the day before yesterday,' Shields shrugged apologetically. 'I'm sorry. Really I am.'
'Well you certainly didn't waste any time,' I remarked. 'Is that good old American efficiency? Or has one of your people cornered the market in rope?'
'I wouldn't lose any sleep about it, Gunther. Whether he murdered Linden or not, Becker earned that collar.'
'That doesn't sound like a very good advert for American justice.'
'Come on, you know it was an Austrian court that dropped his cue-ball.'
'You handed them the stick and the chalk, didn't you?'
Shields looked away for a moment and then rubbed his face with irritation. 'Aw, what the hell. You're a cop. You know how it is. These things happen with any system. Just because your shoes pick up a bit of shit doesn't mean you have to buy a new pair.'
'Sure, but you learn to stay on the path instead of taking short-cuts across the field.'
'Wise guy. I don't even know why we're having this conversation. You've still not given me a shred of evidence why I should accept that Becker didn't kill Linden.'
'So you can order a retrial?'
'A file is never quite complete,' he said with a shrug. 'A case is never really closed, even when all the participants are dead. I still have one or two loose ends.'
'I'm all cut up about your loose ends, Shields.'
'Perhaps you should be, Herr Gunther.' His tone was stiffer now. 'Perhaps I ought to remind you that this is a military hospital, and under American jurisdiction. And if you remember, I once had occasion to warn you about meddling in this case. Now that you've done exactly that, I'd say you've still got some explaining to do. Possession of a firearm by a German or Austrian national. Well, that's contrary to the Austrian Military Government's Public Safety Manual for a start. You could get five years for that alone. Then there's the car you were driving. Quite apart from the fact that you were wearing handcuffs and that you don't appear to be in possession of a valid driving licence, there's the small matter of driving through a military checkpoint.' He paused and lit a cigarette. 'So what's it to be: information or incarceration?'
'Neatly put.'
'I'm a neat kind of fellow. All policemen are. Come on. Let's have it.'
I sank back on my pillow resignedly. 'I'm warning you, Shields, you're likely to have as many loose ends as you started with. I doubt if I could prove half of what I could tell you.'
The American folded his brawny arms and leaned back on his chair. 'Proof is for the courtroom, my friend. I'm a detective, remember? This is for my own private casebook.'
I told him nearly everything. When I had finished his face adopted a lugubrious expression and he nodded sagely. 'Well, I can certainly suck a bit of that.'
'That's good,' I sighed, 'but my tits are getting a little sore right now, babe.
If you've got questions, how about you save them till next time. I'd like to take a little nap.'
Shields stood up. 'I'll be back tomorrow. But just one question for now: this guy from Crowcass '
'Belinsky?'
'Belinsky, yeah. How come that he quit the game before the period was up?'
'Your guess is as good as mine.'
'Better maybe.' He shrugged. 'I'll ask around. Our relations with the Intelligence boys have improved since this Berlin thing. The American Military Governor has told them and us that we need to present a united front in case the Soviets try the same thing here.'
'What Berlin thing?' I said. 'In case they try what here?'
Shields frowned. 'You don't know about that? No, of course, you wouldn't, would you?'
'Look, my wife is in Berlin; hadn't you better tell me what's happened?'
He sat down again, only on the edge of the chair, which added to his obvious discomfort. 'The Soviets have imposed a complete military blockade on Berlin,' he said. 'They're not letting anything in or out of the Zone. So we're supplying the city by plane. Happened the day your friend got his own personal airlift. 24
June.' He smiled thinly. 'It's kind of tense up there from what I hear. Lots of folk think that there's going to be one almighty great showdown between us and the Russkies. Me, I wouldn't be at all surprised. We should have kicked their asses a long time ago. But we're not about to abandon Berlin, you can depend on it. Provided everybody keeps their heads, we should get through it all right.'
Shields lit a cigarette and put it between my lips. 'I'm sorry about your wife,' he said. 'You been married long?'
'Seven years.' I said. 'What about you? Are you married?'
He shook his head. 'I guess I never met the right girl. Do you mind me asking: has it worked out all right for you both? You being a detective and all.'
I thought for a minute. 'Yes,' I said, 'it's worked out just fine.'
Mine was the only occupied bed in the hospital. That night a barge slipping down the canal woke me with its bovine-sounding horn, and then abandoned me to stare sleeplessly at the dark as the echo of it fled into eternity like the bray of the last trump. Staring into the void of the pitch-black darkness, my whispered breathing serving only to remind me of my own mortality, it seemed that, seeing nothing, I could see beyond to what was most tangible: death itself, a lean, moth-eaten figure shrouded in heavy black velvet, ever ready to press the silent, chloroformed pad over the victim's nose and mouth, and to carry him to a waiting black sedan to some dreadful zone and DP camp where darkness never ends and whence no one ever escapes. As light returned to press against the window bars, so too did courage, although I knew that Death's Ivans held no high regard for those who met them without fear. Whether a man is ready to die or not, his requiem always sounds the same.
It was several days before Shields returned to the hospital. This time he was accompanied by two other men who from their haircuts and well-fed faces I took to be Americans. Like Shields they wore loudly cut suits. But their
