‘Those mallet-heads are good for arresting drunks and garter-handlers,’ I said. ‘But this is a job requiring intelligence. That’s all.’
Pulling another face, Deubel stubbed out his cigarette in a way that let me know he wished the ashtray could have been my face, and dragged himself reluctantly out of my office.
‘Better mind what you say about Orpo to Deubel, sir,’ said Becker. ‘He’s a friend of Dummy Daluege’s. They were in the same Stettin Freikorps regiment.’ The Freikorps were paramilitary organizations of ex-soldiers which had been formed after the war to destroy Bolshevism in Germany and to protect German borders from the encroachments of the Poles. Kurt ‘Dummy’ Daluege was the chief of Orpo.
‘Thanks, I read his file.’
‘He used to be a good bull. But these days he works an easy shift and then pushes off home. All Eberhard Deubel wants out of life is to live long enough to collect his pension and see his daughter grow up to marry the local bank manager.’
‘The Alex has got plenty like him,’ I said. ‘You’ve got children, haven’t you, Becker?’
‘A son, sir,’ he said proudly. ‘Norfried. He’s nearly two.’
‘Norfried, eh? That sounds German enough.’
‘My wife, sir. She’s very keen on this Aryan thing of Dr Rosenberg’s.’
‘And how does she feel about you working in Vice?’
‘We don’t talk much about what happens in my job. As far as she is concerned, I’m just a bull.’
‘So tell me about these sexual-deviant informers.’
‘While I was in Section M2, the Brothel Surveillance Squad, we only used one or two,’ he explained. ‘But Meisinger’s Queer Squad use them all the time. He depends on informers. A few years ago there was a homosexual organization called the Friendship League, with about 30,000 members. Well, Meisinger got hold of the entire list and still leans on a name now and then for information. He also has the confiscated subscription lists of several pornographic magazines, as well as the names of the publishers. We might try a couple of them, sir. Then there is Reichsführer Himmler’s ferris-wheel. It’s an electrically powered rotating card-index with thousands and thousands of names on it, sir. We could always see what came up on that.’
‘It sounds like something a gypsy fortune-teller would use.’
‘They say that Himmler’s keen on that shit.’
‘And what about a man who’s keen on nudging something? Where are all the bees in this city now that all the brothels have been closed down?’
‘Massage parlours. You want to give a girl some bird, you’ve got to let her rub your back first. Kuhn — he’s the boss of M2 — he doesn’t bother them much. You want to ask a few snappers if they’d had to massage any spinners lately, sir?’
‘It’s as good a place to start as any I can think of.’
‘We’ll need an E-warrant, a search for missing persons.’
‘Better go and get one, Becker.’
Becker was tall, with small, bored, blue eyes, a thin straw-hat of yellow hair, a doglike nose, and a mocking, almost manic smile. His looked a cynical sort of face, which was indeed the case. In Becker’s everyday conversation there was more blasphemy against the divine beauty of life than you would have found among a pack of starving hyenas.
Reasoning that it was still too early for the massage-trade, we decided to try the dirty-book brigade first, and from the Alex we drove south to Hallesches Tor.
Wende Hoas was a tall, grey building close to the S-Bahn railway. We went up to the top floor where, with manic smile firmly in place, Becker kicked in one of the doors.
A tubby, prim little man with a monocle and a moustache looked up from his chair and smiled nervously as we walked into his office. ‘Ah, Herr Becker,’ he said. ‘Come in, come in. And you’ve brought a friend with you. Excellent.’
There wasn’t much room in the musty-smelling room. Tall stacks of books and magazines surrounded the desk and filing cabinet. I picked up a magazine and started to flick through it.
‘Hallo, Helmut,’ Becker chuckled, picking up another. He grunted with satisfaction as he turned the pages. ‘This is filthy,’ he laughed.
‘Help yourselves, gentlemen,’ said the man called Helmut. ‘If there’s anything special you’re looking for, just ask. Don’t be shy.’ He leant back in his chair and from the pocket of his dirty grey waistcoat he produced a snuff box which he opened with a flick of his dirty thumbnail. He helped himself to a pinch, an indulgence which was effected with as much offence to the ear as any of the printed matter that might have been available was to the eye.
In close but poorly photographed gynaecological detail, the magazine I was looking at was partly given over to text that was designed to strain the fly-buttons. If it was to be believed, young German nurses copulated with no more thought than the average alley-cat.
Becker tossed his magazine on to the floor and picked up another. “‘The Virgin’s Wedding Night”,’ he read.
‘Not your sort of thing, Herr Becker,’ Helmut said.
‘“TheStoryofaDildo”?’
‘That one’s not at all bad.’
“‘Raped on the U-Bahn”.’
‘Ah, now that is good. There is a girl in that one with the juiciest plum I’ve ever seen.’
‘And you’ve seen a few, haven’t you, Helmut?’
The man smiled modestly, and looked over Becker’s shoulder as he gave the photographs close attention.
‘Rather a nice girl-next-door type, don’t you think?’
Becker snorted. ‘If you happen to live next door to a fucking dog kennel.’
‘Oh, very good,’ Helmut laughed, and started to clean his monocle. As he did so, a long and extremely grey length of his lank brown hair disengaged itself from a poorly disguised bald-patch, like a quilt slipping off a bed, and dangled ridiculously beside one of his transparent red ears.
‘We’re looking for a man who likes mutilating young girls,’ I said. ‘Would you have anything catering for that sort of pervert?’
Helmut smiled and shook his head sadly. ‘No, sir, I’m afraid not. We don’t much care to deal for the sadistic end of the market. We leave the whipping and bestiality to others.’
‘Like hell you do,’ Becker sneered.
I tried the filing cabinet, which was locked.
‘What’s in here?’
‘A few papers, sir. The petty-cash box. The account books, that sort of thing. Nothing to interest you, I think.’
‘Open it.’
‘Really, sir, there’s nothing of any interest -’ The words dried in his mouth as he saw the cigarette lighter in my hand. I thumbed the bezel and held it underneath the magazine I’d been reading. It burned with a slow blue flame.
‘Becker. How much would you say this magazine was?’
‘Oh, they’re expensive, sir. At least ten Reichsmarks each.’
‘There must be a couple of thousands’ worth of stock in this rat-hole.’
‘Easily. Be a shame if there was a fire.’
‘I hope he’s insured.’
‘You want to see inside the cabinet?’ said Helmut. ‘You only had to ask.’ He handed Becker the key as I dropped the blazing magazine harmlessly into the metal wastepaper bin.
There was nothing in the top drawer besides a cash box, but in the bottom drawer was another pile of pornographic magazines. Becker picked one up and turned back the plain front cover.
“‘Virgin Sacrifice”,’ he said, reading the title page. ‘Take a look at this, sir.’
He showed me a series of photographs depicting the degradation and punishment of a girl, who looked to be of high-school age, by an old and ugly man wearing an ill-fitting toupee. The weals his cane had left on her bare backside seemed very real indeed.