was enough to explain where he had been. An unlit cigarette in the corner of his crooked mouth, he stared belligerently at Korsch and then, with unsteady distaste, at me. He was drunk.
‘Been in the cafe Kerkau,’ he said, his mouth refusing to move quite as he would have normally expected. ‘It’s all right, you know. It’s all right, I’m off duty. Least for another hour, anyway. Be fine by then. Don’t you worry about me. I can take care of myself.’
‘What else have you been taking care of?’
He straightened like a puppet jerking back on its unsteady legs.
‘Been asking questions at the station where the Steininger girl went missing.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘No? No? Well, what did you mean, Herr Kommissar?’
‘Someone murdered Gottfried Bautz.’
‘What, that Czech bastard?’ He uttered a laugh that was part belch and part spit.
‘His jaw was broken. There was a cigarette end in his mouth.’
‘So? What’s that to do with me?’
‘That’s one of your little specialities, isn’t it? The cigarette punch? I’ve heard you say so yourself.’
‘There’s no fucking patent on it, Gunther.’ He took a long drag on the dead cigarette aid narrowed his bleary eyes. ‘You accusing me of canning him?’
‘Can I see your gun, Inspector Deubel?’
For several seconds Deubel stood sneering at me before reaching for his shoulder holster. Behind him Korsch was slowly reaching for his own gun, and he kept his hand on its handle until Deubel had laid the Walther PPK on my desk. I picked it up and sniffed the barrel, watching his face for some sign that he knew Bautz had been killed with a gun of a much smaller calibre.
‘Shot, was he?’ He smiled.
‘Executed, more like,’ I said. ‘It looks like someone put one between his eyes while he was out cold.’
‘I’m choked.’ Deubel shook his head slowly.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘You’re just pissing on the wall, Gunther, and hoping that some of it will splash my fucking trousers. Sure, I didn’t like that little Czech, just like I hate every pervert that touches kids and hurts women. But that doesn’t mean that I had anything to do with his murder.’
‘There’s an easy way of convincing me of that.’
‘Oh? And what’s that?’
‘Show me that garter-gun you keep on you. The Little Tom.’
Deubel raised his hands innocently.
‘What garter gun? I haven’t got a gun like that. The only lighter I’m carrying is there on the table.’
‘Everyone who’s worked with you knows about that gun. You’ve bragged about it often enough. Show me the gun and you’re in the clear. But if you’re not carrying it, then I’ll figure it’s because you had to get rid of it.’
‘What are you talking about? Like I said, I don’t have -’
Korsch stood up. He said: ‘Come on, Eb. You showed that gun to me only a couple of days ago. You even said that you were never without it.’
‘You piece of shit. Take his side against one of your own, would you? Can’t you see? He’s not one of us. He’s one of Heydrich’s fucking spies. He doesn’t give two farts about Kripo.’
‘That’s not the way I see it,’ Korsch said quietly. ‘So how about it? Do we get to see the gun or not?’
Deubel shook his head, smiled and wagged a finger at me.
‘You can’t prove anything. Not a thing. You know that, don’t you?’
I pushed my chair away with the backs of my legs. I needed to be on my feet to say what I was going to say.
‘Maybe so. All the same, you’re off this case. I don’t particularly give a damn what happens to you, Deubel, but as far as I’m concerned you can slither back to whichever excremental corner of this place you came from. I’m choosy about who I have to work with. I don’t like killers.’
Deubel bared his yellow teeth even further. His grin looked like the keyboard of an old and badly out of tune piano. Hitching up his shiny flannel trousers he squared his shoulders and pointed his belly in my direction. It was all I could do to resist slamming my fist right into it, but starting a fight like that would probably have suited him very well.
‘You want to open your eyes, Gunther. Take a walk down to the cells and the interrogation rooms and see what’s happening in this place. Choosy about who you work with? You poor swine. There are people being beaten to death here, in this building. Probably as we speak. Do you think anyone really gives a damn about what happens to some cheap little pervert? The morgue is full of them.’
I heard myself reply, with what sounded even to me like almost hopeless naivete, ‘Somebody has to give a damn, otherwise we’re no better than criminals ourselves. I can’t stop other people from wearing dirty shoes, but I can polish my own. Right from the start you knew that was the way I wanted it. But you had to do it your own way, the Gestapo way, that says a woman’s a witch if she floats and innocent if she sinks. Now get out of my sight before I’m tempted to see if my clout with Heydrich goes as far as kicking your arse out of Kripo.’
Deubel sniggered. ‘You’re a renthole,’ he said, and having stared Korsch out until his boozy breath obliged him to turn away, Deubel lurched away.
Korsch shook his head. ‘I never liked that bastard,’ he said, ‘but I didn’t think he was -’ He shook his head again.
I sat down wearily and reached for the desk drawer and the bottle I kept there.
‘Unfortunately he’s right,’ I said, filling a couple of glasses. I met Korsch’s quizzical stare and smiled bitterly. ‘Charging a Berlin bull with murder…’ I laughed. ‘Shit, you might just as well try and arrest drunks at the Munich beer festival.’
13
‘Is Herr Hirsch at home?’
The old man answering the door straightened and then nodded. ‘I am Herr Hirsch,’ he said.
‘You are Sarah Hirsch’s father?’
‘Yes. Who are you?’
He must have been at least seventy, bald, with white hair growing long over the back of his collar, and not very tall, stooped even. It was hard to imagine this man having fathered a fifteen-year-old daughter. I showed him my badge.
‘Police,’ I said. ‘Please don’t be alarmed. I’m not here to make any trouble for you. I merely wish to question your daughter. She may be able to describe a man, a criminal.’
Recovering a little of his colour after the sight of my credentials, Herr Hirsch stood to one side and silently ushered me into a hall that was full of Chinese vases, bronzes, blue-patterned plates and intricate balsa-wood carvings in glass cases. These I admired while he closed and locked the front door, and he mentioned that in his youth he had been in the German navy and had travelled widely in the Far East. Aware now of the delicious smell that filled the house, I apologized and said that I hoped I wasn’t disturbing the family meal.
‘It will be a while yet before we sit down and eat,’ said the old man. ‘My wife and daughter are still working in the kitchen.’ He smiled nervously, no doubt unaccustomed to the politeness of public officials, and led me into a reception room.
‘Now then,’ he said, ‘you said that you wished to speak to my daughter Sarah. That she may be able to identify a criminal.’
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘One of the girls from your daughter’s school has disappeared. It’s quite possible she was abducted. One of the men, questioning some of the girls in your daughter’s class, discovered that several weeks ago Sarah was herself approached by a strange man. I should like to see if she can remember anything about
