“Should I park now or wait to drive us off the road with shock and horror?”
“It is kind of horrible, Elli.”
“So don’t tell me. This is a dress I’m wearing, not a surplice.”
“Believe me, I like it a lot. Especially with you in it.”
“I wonder about that.”
“Do you ever wonder what I did during the war?”
“I’m not naïve. You’re a German. I didn’t think you were running an orphanage or working for Walt Disney. Just don’t tell me you used to have a small mustache.”
“Look, I was never a Nazi but, for a while, I was a detective in the security service of the SS. I honestly didn’t have much choice about it. Luckily I wasn’t stationed here in Greece. But my war is not something I feel proud of. Which is why Christof Ganz isn’t my real name. Things were difficult for me after the war. Changing my name was a quick way to a fresh start. Or at least that’s what I hoped. I still have a lot of sleepless nights because of the war. And once or twice a bit more than just a sleepless night.”
“Meaning what, exactly?”
“There’s an old Hungarian song called ‘Gloomy Sunday’ that was banned by the Nazis. Goebbels thought it was bad for morale. So did the Hungarians. It was even banned by the BBC because it’s been blamed for more suicides than any other song in history. But the fact is that despite Goebbels forbidding it, I used to like that song. Lots of men in uniform liked that song. You might say the song performed a useful service because some of those men aren’t around anymore, if you know what I mean. But I almost wasn’t around myself.”
“All right. You feel bad about it. Maybe you even feel guilty. I get that. Lots of people feel guilty about what happened during the war. Even a few Greeks. What of it? Why are you telling me and not your psychiatrist?”
“Let me finish my own horrible story. Then you can judge me. I joined the Berlin police not long after the Great War. The first war, that is. There was nothing great about it except perhaps the extraordinary numbers of men who fought and died. Millions. For four years I woke up every morning with the smell of death in my nostrils. Do you have any idea what that’s like? Let me tell you, the amazing thing is not that so many of your comrades die, but the fact that you get used to it. Death becomes something routine. Every man who came out of the trenches was like that. Some were finished forever as human beings, their nerves shot to pieces. Others were angry and wanted to blame someone for what had happened—communists, fascists, Jews, the French, anyone. Me, I wasn’t angry, but I needed to do something useful with my life. In spite of everything I’d seen in the trenches, I still believed in law and order and, yes, justice. What kind of a cop doesn’t believe in that? So when people were murdered, we tried to do something about it, you know, like investigate the crime and then arrest the man who did it. That was the contract we made with the people who employed us. We protected them and when I did that, being a detective felt like something decent and good. For a long time I had a sense of pride in myself and life felt like it meant something. Well, most of the time. I had a few low spots along the way: 1928 wasn’t such a good year.
“But then the Nazis came along and made nonsense out of all that, which was bad for me and bad for detectives everywhere in Germany. Because of that, it’s been a long, long time since I had a chance to feel like I was on the side of anything clean and good. Too long, really. Most of the time I feel bad about myself. I don’t expect you to know what that’s like but I’m asking you to understand that this might be my last chance to do something about it. The fact is, I agree with Lieutenant Leventis. I want to help put a real criminal in the dock, instead of some damn Greek who was unlucky enough to speak fluent German and steal some office stationery. And I want to do it not for Leventis, not for the people of Greece, no, not even so I can get my passport back and go home; I’ve just realized I want to get Max Merten so that I can feel like I’ve done something good again. Perhaps for the last time I can feel like a real cop again. Redemption is a pretty grand idea for a Fritz like me, but that’s what I’m after. So if you are after your own personal reckoning with Max Merten, I’d like to know now so I can be sure I don’t get between you and your ladies’ pocket pistol.”
Elli pulled up at the side of the mountain road and switched off the Rover’s V8 engine. She kept a hold of the wheel for a while almost as if she didn’t risk letting it go in case she hit me. Then she peeled off her gloves, reached for her handbag, took out her cigarettes, and lit one; after a couple of puffs she left it on her lip, fumbled around in her handbag some more, and this time when the hand came out again it was pointing the Beretta at me.
“So we can’t all be good girls,” she said.
“You’re joking.”
She thumbed back the hammer. “Does it look like I’m joking?”
“Take it easy with that thing,” I said. “At this range you could hardly miss.”
“Then you’d better bear that in mind. Get out of the car.”
I reached for the door; it
