A German Requiem

'I'm investigating the murder of Captain Linden,' he said.

'What a coincidence. So am I.'

'We want to try and find out what it was that brought him to Vienna in the first place. He liked to keep things pretty close to his chest. Worked on his own a lot.'

'Was he in the CIC too?'

'Yes, the 970th, stationed in Germany. I'm 430th. We're stationed in Austria.

Really he should have let us know he was coming on to our patch.'

'And he didn't send so much as a postcard, eh?'

'Not a word. Probably because there was no earthly reason why he should have come. If he was working on anything that affected this country he should have told us.' Belinsky let out a balloon of smoke and waved it away from his face.

'He was what you might call a desk-investigator. An intellectual. The sort of fellow you could let loose on a wall full of files with instructions to find Himmler's optical prescription. The only problem is that because he was such a bright guy, he kept no case notes.' Belinsky tapped his forehead with the stem of his pipe. 'He kept everything up here. Which makes it a nuisance to find out what he was investigating that got him a lead lunch.'

'Your MPs think that the Werewolf Underground might have had something to do with it.'

'So I heard.' He inspected the smouldering contents of his cherrywood pipe bowl, and added: 'Frankly, we're all scraping around in the dark a bit on this one.

Anyway, that's where you walk into my life. We thought maybe you'd turn up something that we couldn't manage ourselves, you being a native, comparatively speaking. And if you did, I'd be there for the cause of free democracy.'

'Criminal investigation by proxy, eh? It wouldn't be the first time that it's happened. I hate to disappoint you, only I'm kind of in the dark myself.'

'Maybe not. After all, you already got the stonemason killed. In my book that rates as a result. It means you got someone upset, Kraut.'

I smiled. 'You can call me Bernie.'

'The way I figure it, Becker wouldn't bring you into the game without dealing you a few cards. Pichler's name was probably one of them.'

'You might be right,' I conceded. 'But all the same it's not a hand I'd care to put my shirt on.'

'Want to let me take a peek?'

'Why should I?'

'I saved your life, kraut,' he growled.

'Too sentimental. Be a little more practical.'

'All right then, maybe I can help.'

'Better. Much better.'

'What do you need?'

'Pichler was more than likely murdered by a man named Abs, Max Abs. According to the MPs he used to be SS, but small-time. Anyway, he boarded a train to Munich this afternoon and they were going to have someone meet him: I expect that they'll tell me what happens. But I need to find out more about Abs. For instance, who this fellow was.' I took out Pichler's drawing of Martin Albers' gravestone and spread it on the table in front of Belinsky. 'If I can find out who Martin Albers was and why Max Abs was willing to pay for his headstone I might be on my way to establishing why Abs thought it necessary to kill Pichler before he spoke to me.'

'Who is this Abs guy? What's his connection?'

'He used to work for an advertising firm here in Vienna. The same place that K/nig managed. K/nig's the man that briefed Becker to run files across the Green Frontier. Files that went to Linden.'

Belinsky nodded.

'All right then,' I said. 'Here's my next card. K/nig had a girlfriend called Lotte who hung around the Casanova. It could be that she sparkled there a bit, nibbled a little chocolate, I don't know yet. Some of Becker's friends crashed around there and a few other places and didn't come home for tea. My idea is to put the girl on to it. I thought I'd have to get to know her a bit first of all.

But of course now that she's seen me on my white horse and wearing my Sunday suit of armour I can hurry that along.'

'Suppose Veronika doesn't know this Lotte. What then?'

'Suppose you think of a better idea.'

Belinsky shrugged. 'On the other hand, your scheme has its points.'

'Here's another thing. Both Abs and Eddy Holl, who was Becker's contact in Berlin, are working for a company that's based in Pullach, near Munich. The South German Industries Utilization Company. You might like to try and find out something about it. Not to mention why Abs and Holl decided to move there.'

'They wouldn't be the first two krauts to go and live in the American Zone,' said Belinsky. 'Haven't you noticed? Relations are starting to get a shade difficult with our Communist allies. The news from Berlin is that they've started to tear up a lot of the roads connecting the east and west sectors of the city.' His face made plain his lack of enthusiasm, and then added: 'But I'll see what I can turn up. Anything else?'

'Before I left Berlin I came across a couple of amateur Nazi-hunters named Drexler. Linden used to take them Care parcels now and again. I wouldn't be surprised if they were working for him: everyone knows that's how the CIC pays its way. It would help if we knew who they had been looking for.'

'Can't we ask them?'

'It wouldn't do much good. They're dead. Someone slipped a tray-load of Zyklon-B pellets underneath their door.'

'Give me their address anyway.' He took out a notepad and pencil.

When I had given it to him he pursed his lips and rubbed his jaw. His was an impossibly broad face, with thick horns of eyebrows that curved halfway round his eye-sockets, some small animal's skull for a nose and intaglio laugh-lines which, added to his square chin and sharply angled nostrils, completed a perfectly septagonal figure: the overall impression was of a ram's head resting on a V-shaped plinth.

'You were right,' he admitted. 'It's not much of a hand, is it? But it's still better than the one I folded on.'

With the pipe clenched tight between his teeth, he crossed his arms and stared down at his glass. Perhaps it was his choice of drink, or perhaps it was his hair, styled longer than the crew-cut favoured by the majority of his countrymen, but he seemed curiously un-American.

'Where are you from?' I said eventually.

'Williamsburg, New York.'

'Belinsky,' I said, measuring each syllable. 'What kind of a name is that for an American?'

The man shrugged, unperturbed. 'I'm first-generation American. My dad's from Siberia originally. His family emigrated to escape one of the Tsar's Jewish pogroms. You see, the Ivans have got a tradition of anti-Semitism that's almost as good as yours. Belinsky was Irving Berlin's name before he changed it. And as names for Americans go, I don't think a yid-name like that sounds any worse than a kraut-name like Eisenhower, do you?'

'I guess not.'

'Talking of names, if you do speak to the MPs again it might be better if you didn't mention me, or the CIC, to them. On account of the fact that they recently screwed up an operation we had going. The MVD managed to steal some US

Military Police uniforms from the battalion HQ at the Stiftskaserne. They put them on and persuaded the MPs at the 19th Bezirk station to help them arrest one of our best informers in Vienna. A couple of days later another informant told us that the man was being interrogated at MVD headquarters in Mozartgasse. Not long after that we learned he had been shot. But not before he talked and gave away several other names.

'Well, there was an almighty row, and the American High Commissioner had to kick some ass for the poor security of the 796th. They court-martialled a lieutenant and broke a sergeant back to the ranks. As a result of which me being CIC is tantamount to having leprosy in the eyes of the Stiftskaserne. I suppose you might find that hard to understand, you being German.'

'On the contrary,' I said. 'I'd say being treated like lepers is something we krauts understand only too well.'

Chapter 17