‘Did she give you a description?’
He pulled a face and shook his head. ‘Too scared to say much at all. I had a couple of uniformed bulls with me and I think they put her off.’
‘Can you blame her? She probably thought you were going to arrest her for soliciting or something. Still, she must be a bright one if she’s at a Gymnasium. Maybe she would talk if her parents were with her, and if there weren’t any dummies with you. What do you think?’
‘I’m sure of it, sir.’
‘I’ll do it myself. Do I strike you as the avuncular type, Becker? No, you’d better not answer that.’
He grinned amiably.
‘All right, that’s all. Enjoy yourself.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ He stood up and went to the door.
‘And Becker?’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Well done.’
When he’d gone I sat staring into space for quite a while wishing that it was me who was going home to take my children out for a Saturday afternoon at Luna Park. I was overdue for some time off myself, but when you’re alone in the world, that sort of thing doesn’t seem to matter as much. I was balanced precariously on the edge of a pool of self-pity when there was knock at my door and Korsch came into the room.
‘Gottfried Bautz has been murdered, sir,’ he said immediately.
‘Yes, I heard. Becker said you went to take a look. What happened?’
Korsch sat down on the chair recently occupied by Becker. He was looking more animated than I had ever seen him before, and clearly something had got him very excited.
‘Someone thought his brains were lacking a bit of air, so they gave him a special blow-hole. A real neat job. Between the eyes. The forensic they had down there reckoned it was probably quite a small gun. Probably a six millimetre.’ He shifted on his chair. ‘But this is the interesting part, sir. Whoever plugged him first knocked him cold. Gottfried’s jaw was broken clean in two. And there was a cigarette end in his mouth. Like he’d bitten his smoke in half.’ He paused, waiting for me to pass it between my ears a little. ‘The other half was on the floor.’
‘Cigarette punch?’
‘Looks like it, sir.’
‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’
Korsch nodded deliberately. ‘I’m afraid I am. And here’s another thing. Deubel keeps a six-shot Little Tom in his jacket pocket. He says that it’s just in case he ever loses his Walther. A Little Tom fires the same size of round as killed the Czech.’
‘Does he?’ I raised my eyebrows. ‘Deubel was always convinced that even if Bautz had had nothing to do with our case, he still belonged in the cement.’
‘He tried to persuade Becker to have a word with some of his old friends in Vice. He wanted Becker to get them to red tab Bautz on some pretext and have him sent to a KZ. But Becker wasn’t having any of it. He said that they couldn’t do it, not even on the evidence of the snapper he tried to cut.’
‘I’m very glad to hear it. Why wasn’t I told about this before?’ Korsch shrugged. ‘Have you mentioned any of this to the team investigating Bautz’s death? I mean about Deubel’s cigarette punch and the gun?’
‘Not yet, sir.’
‘Then we’ll handle it ourselves.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘That all depends on whether or not he still has that gun. If you’d pierced Bautz’s ears, what would you do with it?’
‘Find the nearest pig-iron smelter.’
‘Precisely. So if he can’t show me that gun for examination then he’s off this investigation. That might not be enough for a court, but it will satisfy me. I’ve no use for murderers on my team.’
Korsch scratched his nose thoughtfully, narrowly avoiding the temptation to pick it.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve any idea where Inspector Deubel is, do you?’
‘Someone looking for me?’ Deubel sauntered through the open door. The beery stink that accompanied him 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 Café 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 and 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.’