March Violets (11 page)

‘My, but you're a well-built man.'

‘Mother was a blacksmith,' I said. ‘She used to hammer a nail into a horse's shoe with the flat of her hand. I get my build from her.' She giggled.

‘You don't say much, but when you do you like to joke, don't you?'

‘There are an awful lot of dead people in Germany looking very serious.'

‘And so very cynical. Why is that?'

‘I used to be a priest.'

She fingered the small scar on my forehead where a piece of shrapnel had creased me. ‘How did you get this?'

‘After church on Sundays I'd box with the choirboys in the sacristy. You like boxing?' I remembered the photograph of Schmelling on the piano.

‘I adore boxing,' she said. ‘I love violent, physical men. I love going to the Busch Circus and watching them train before a big fight, just to see if they defend or attack, how they jab, if they've got guts.'

‘Just like one of those noblewomen in ancient Rome,' I said, ‘checking up on her gladiators to see if they're going to win before she puts a bet on.'

‘But of course. I like winners. Now you . . .'

‘Yes?'

‘I'd say you could take a good punch. Maybe take quite a few. You strike me as the durable, patient sort. Methodical. Prepared to soak up more than a little punishment. That makes you dangerous.'

‘And you?' She bounced excitedly on my chest, her breasts wobbling engagingly, although, for the moment at least, I had no more appetite for her body.

‘Oh, yes, yes,' she cried excitedly. ‘What sort of fighter am I?'

I looked at her from the corner of one eye. ‘I think you would dance around a man and let him expend quite a bit of energy before coming back at him with one good punch to win on a knock-out. A win on points would be no sort of contest for you. You always like to put them down on the canvas. There's just one thing that puzzles me about this bout.'

‘What's that?'

‘What makes you think I'd take a dive?'

She sat up in bed. ‘I don't understand.'

‘Sure you do.' Now that I'd had her it was easy enough to say. ‘You think your husband hired me to spy on you, isn't that right? You don't believe I'm investigating the fire at all. That's why you've been planning this little tryst all evening, and now I imagine I'm supposed to play the poodle, so that when you ask me to lay off I'll do just what you say, otherwise I might not get any more treats. Well, you've been wasting your time. Like I said, I don't do divorce work.'

She sighed and covered her breasts with her arms. ‘You certainly can pick your moments, Herr Sniffer Dog,' she said.

‘It's true, isn't it?'

She sprang out of bed and I knew that I was watching the whole of her body, as naked as a pin without a hat, for the last time; from here on in I would have to go to the cinema to catch those tantalizing glimpses of it, like all the other fellows. She went over to the cupboard and snatched a gown from a hanger. From the pocket she produced a packet of cigarettes. She lit one and smoked it angrily, with one arm folded across her chest.

‘I could have offered you money,' she said. ‘But instead I gave you myself.' She took another nervous puff, hardly inhaling it at all. ‘How much do you want?'

Exasperated, I slapped my naked thigh, and said: ‘Shit, you're not listening, spoon-ears. I told you. I wasn't hired to go peeking through your keyhole and find out the name of your lover.'

She shrugged with disbelief. ‘How did you know I had a lover?' she said.

I got out of bed, and started to dress. ‘I didn't need a magnifying glass and a pair of tweezers to pick that one up. It stands to reason that if you didn't already have a lover, then you wouldn't be so damned nervous of me.' She gave me a smile that was as thin and dubious as the rubber on a secondhand condom.

‘No? I bet you're the sort who could find lice on a bald head. Anyway, who said I was nervous of you? I just don't happen to care for the interruption of my privacy. Look, I think you had better push off.' She turned her back to me as she spoke.

‘I'm on my way.' I buttoned up my braces and slipped my jacket on. At the bedroom door, I made one last try to get through to her.

‘For the last time, I wasn't hired to check up on you.'

‘You've made a fool of me.'

I shook my head. ‘There's not enough sense in anything you've said to fill a hollow tooth. With all your milkmaid's calculations, you didn't need my help to make a fool of yourself. Thanks for a memorable evening.' As I left her room she started to curse me with the sort of eloquence you expect only from a man who has just hammered his thumb.

 

I drove home feeling like a ventriloquist's mouth ulcer. I was sore at the way things had turned out. It's not every day that one of Germany's great film stars takes you to bed and then throws you out on your ear. I'd like to have had more time to grow familiar with her famous body. I was a man who had won the big prize at the fair, only to be told there had been a mistake. All the same, I said to myself, I ought to have expected something like that. Nothing resembles a street snapper so much as a rich woman.

Once inside my apartment I poured myself a drink and then boiled some water for a bath. After that, I put on the dressing-gown I'd bought in Wertheim's and started to feel good again. The place was stuffy, so I opened a few windows. Then I tried reading for a while. I must have fallen asleep, because a couple of hours had passed by the time I heard the knock at the door.

‘Who is it?' I said, going into the hall.

‘Open up. Police,' said a voice.

‘What do you want?'

‘To ask you some questions about Ilse Rudel,' he said. ‘She was found dead at her apartment an hour ago. Murdered.' I snatched the door open and found the barrel of a Parabellum poking me in the stomach.

‘Back inside,' said the man with the pistol. I retreated, raising my hands instinctively.

He wore a Bavarian-cut sports coat of light-blue linen, and a canary-yellow tie. There was a scar on his pale young face, but it was neat and clean-looking, and probably self-inflicted with a razor in the hope that it might be mistaken for a student's duelling scar. Accompanied by a strong smell of beer, he advanced into my hallway, closing the door behind him.

‘Anything you say, sonny,' I said, relieved to see that he looked less than comfortable with the Parabellum. ‘You had me fooled there with that story about Fraulein Rudel. I shouldn't have fallen for it.'

‘You bastard,' he snarled.

‘Mind if I put my hands down? Only my circulation isn't what it used to be.' I dropped my hands to my sides. ‘What's this all about?'

‘Don't deny it.'

‘Deny what?'

‘That you raped her.' He adjusted his grip on the gun, and swallowed nervously, his Adam's apple tossing around like a honeymoon couple under a thin pink sheet. ‘She told me what you did to her. So you needn't try and deny it.'

I shrugged. ‘What would be the point? In your shoes I know who I would believe. But listen, are you sure you know what you're doing? Your breath was waving a red flag when you tiptoed in here. The Nazis may seem a bit liberal in some things, but they haven't done away with capital punishment, you know. Even if you're hardly old enough to be expected to hold your drink.'

‘I'm going to kill you,' he said, licking his dry lips.

‘Well, that's all right, but do you mind not shooting me in the belly?' I pointed at his pistol. ‘It's by no means certain that you'd kill me, and I'd hate to spend the rest of my life drinking milk. No, if I were you I'd go for a head shot. Between the eyes if you can manage it. A difficult shot, but it would kill me for sure. Frankly, the way I feel right now, you'd be doing me a favour. It must be something I've eaten, but my insides feel like the wave machine at Luna Park.' I farted a great, meaty trombone of a fart in confirmation.

‘Oh, Jesus,' I said, waving my hand in front of my face. ‘See what I mean?'

‘Shut up, you animal,' said the young man. But I saw him raise the barrel and level it at my head. I remembered the Parabellum from my army days, when it had been the standard service pistol. The Pistol .08 relies on the recoil to fire the striker, but with the first shot the firing mechanism is always comparatively stiff. My head made a smaller target than my stomach, and I hoped that I'd have enough time to duck.

I threw myself at his waist, and as I did so I saw the flash and felt the air of the 9 mm bullet as it zipped over my head and smashed something behind me. My weight carried us both crashing into the front door. But if I had expected him to be less than capable of putting up a stiff resistance, I was mistaken. I took hold of the wrist with the gun and found the arm twisting towards me with a lot more strength than I had credited it with. I felt him grab the collar of my dressing-gown and twist it. Then I heard it rip.

‘Shit,' I said. ‘That does it.' I pushed the gun towards him, and succeeded in pressing the barrel against his sternum. Putting my whole weight onto it I hoped to break a rib, but instead there was a muffled, fleshy report as it fired again, and I found myself covered in his steaming blood. I held his limp body for several seconds before I let it roll away from me.

I stood up and took a look at him. There was no doubt that he was dead, although blood continued to bubble up from the hole in his chest. Then I went through his pockets. You always want to know who's been trying to kill you. There was a wallet containing an ID card in the name of Walther Kolb, and 200 marks. It didn't make sense to leave the money for the boys from Kripo, so I took 150 to cover the cost of my dressing-gown. Also, there were two photographs; one of these was an obscene postcard in which a man was doing things to a girl's bottom with a length of rubber tube; and the other was a publicity still of Ilse Rudel, signed, ‘with much love'. I burned the photograph of my former bedmate, poured myself a stiff one and, marvelling at the picture of the erotic enema, I called the police.

A couple of bulls came down from the Alex. The senior officer, Oberinspektor Tesmer, was a Gestapo man; the other, Inspektor Stahlecker, was a friend, one of my few remaining friends in Kripo, but with Tesmer around there wasn't a chance of an easy ride.

‘That's my story,' I said, having told it for the third time. We were all seated round my dining table on which lay the Parabellum and the contents of the dead man's pockets. Tesmer shook his head slowly, as if I had offered to sell him something he wouldn't have a chance of shifting himself.

‘You could always part exchange it for something else. Come on, try again. Maybe this time you'll make me laugh.' With its thin, almost non-existent lips, Tesmer's mouth was like a slash in a length of cheap curtain. And all you saw through the hole were the points of his rodent's teeth, and the occasional glimpse of the ragged, grey-white oyster that was his tongue.

‘Look, Tesmer,' I said. ‘I know it looks a bit beat up, but take my word for it, it's really very reliable. Not everything that shines is any good.'

‘Try shifting some of the fucking dust off it then. What do you know about the canned meat?'

I shrugged. ‘Only what was in his pockets. And that he and I weren't going to get along.'

‘That wins him quite a few extra points on my card,' said Tesmer.

Stahlecker sat uncomfortably beside his boss, and tugged nervously at his eyepatch. He had lost an eye when he was with the Prussian infantry, and at the same time had won the coveted ‘pour le mérite' for his bravery. Me, I'd have hung onto the eye, although the patch did look rather dashing. Combined with his dark colouring and bushy black moustache, it served to give him a piratical air, although his manner was altogether more stolid: slow even. But he was a good bull, and a loyal friend. All the same, he wasn't about to risk burning his fingers while Tesmer was doing his best to see if I'd catch fire. His honesty had previously led him to express one or two ill-advised opinions about the NSDAP during the '33 elections. Since then he'd had the sense to keep his mouth shut, but he and I both knew that the Kripo Executive was just looking for an excuse to hang him out to dry. It was only his outstanding war record that had kept him in the force this long.

‘And I suppose he tried to kill you because he didn't like your cologne,' said Tesmer.

‘You noticed it too, huh?' I saw Stahlecker smile a bit at that, but so did Tesmer, and he didn't like it.

‘Gunther, you've got more lip than a nigger with a trumpet. Your friend here may think you're funny, but I just think you're a cunt, so don't fuck me around. I'm not the sort with a sense of humour.'

‘I've told you the truth, Tesmer. I opened the door and there was Herr Kolb with the lighter pointing at my dinner.'

‘A Parabellum on you, and yet you still managed to take him. I don't see any fucking holes in you, Gunther.'

‘I'm taking a correspondence course in hypnotism. Like I said, I was lucky, he missed. You saw the broken light.'

‘Listen, I don't mesmerize easy. This fellow was a professional. Not the sort to let you have his lighter for a bag of sherbet.'

‘A professional what — haberdasher? Don't talk out of your navel, Tesmer. He was just a kid.'

‘Well, that makes it worse for you, because he isn't going to do any more growing up.'

‘Young he may have been,' I said, ‘but he was no weakling. I didn't bite my lip because I find you so damned attractive. This is real blood, you know. And my dressing-gown. It's torn, or hadn't you noticed?'