Berlin: A Novel (62 page)

He entered the veranda workshop on Ithweg, filled with anticipation. 'Just a moment, please, Herr Dietrich.' Rodel was busy brushing a heavy ulster. I forgot about it all these years, it was hanging in mothballs at the back of the storeroom. Professor Simon, the distinguished surgeon brought it in to be pressed in '38. They took him and his family away next day.' Ben was hardly listening. His eyes were searching the workshop. 'I'll mothproof the coat again afterwards, just in case Herr Simon has survived. A few have come back from the camps. Little Rademann from Schmidt's drug store, for instance. He doesn't talk about it, but it must have been terrible. Now they're trying to turn it against him, but he was only the commandant's orderly. Heidi - Heidi! Bring Herr Dietrich's suit.'

Heidi took her time. Through the open doorway Ben could see her tidying her hair in front of the mirror and undoing the top button of her blouse, perhaps because it was quite a warm day. She disappeared from his field of vision, and soon afterwards came into the workshop with the suit over her arm.

'Hi.' Ben put out his hand, but Heidi was too busy putting the jacket on the black tailor's dummy. She handed Ben the trousers and stood there waiting.

'Heidi, please!' Her father gestured impatiently. She tossed her hair back with a challenging air and went out.

The trousers were long and narrow, with sharp creases in them, high turn-ups, and a perfect fall to the velvety brown suede shoes. Ben felt like whooping out loud, but a man of the world didn't break into cries of delight just because of a pair of well-fitting trousers. He coolly noted that the jacket was Al - the prefix which since time immemorial had distinguished car registration plates in the capital from those of lesser beings in the provinces, a synonym for all that was first-class and metropolitan.

A masterpiece. You don't see this kind of thing every day.' Herr R6 del helped Ben into the jacket and straightened his tie. 'Finest pre-war horsehair and ivory-nut buttons. My last reserves.' The tailor looked in a drawer.

Heidi reappeared. Another button on her blouse had undone itself. Ben could see the pale glimmer of her breasts. 'Suits you really well.' She came close to him and stroked the lapels. Aren't they soft?' Her warm, sweet breath wafted over his face. 'Sunday at two in the hollow by the lake,' she said softly. Ben took a deep breath. His suit seemed to have finally routed Gerd Schlomm's short lederhosen.

R6del had found what he was looking for. 'Here, a little extra.' He tucked a decorative silk handkerchief into the breast pocket of the jacket. And please recommend me elsewhere, Herr Dietrich.' Ben got into his old clothes. The master tailor wrapped the suit in a grey cloth and draped it over the boy's arm.

Once home, Ben got upstairs unseen and hid his treasure in the locker in the attic. Even his fertile imagination wouldn't have stretched to devising an explanation for this surprising addition to his wardrobe that would satisfy his parents. The suit disappeared behind the district councillor's black frock coat, last worn for his son's funeral. Lance-Corporal Werner Hellbich had died in a German field hospital of burns suffered while training a Volks- sturm civil defence brigade. A seventy-year-old conscript had aimed the rear fire jet of his bazooka at him by mistake.

Grandmother Hellbich was polishing the hall floor. 'You're early home today,' she said in surprise

'Our maths teacher is off sick,' he lied. 'I'm going to the barber's.'

'Tell him to cut it shorter this time, will you?'

'Medium length with a parting,' Ben told Herr Pagel. The barber had moved his business premises to his own apartment. His salon was out of reach, in the American prohibited zone at Onkel Toms Hiitte U-Bahn station. A GI from Brooklyn was giving his comrades crew cuts there.

'Yes, sir. Want a magazine to read?' Herr Pagel had salvaged several years' issues of the Berliner Illustrierte. Ben picked an old number celebrating the first flight to New York of the airship Hindenburg.

And a packet of condoms,' he added casually as he was paying for the haircut.

'Top quality peacetime wares. Guaranteed not to split.' Herr Pagel pushed what he wanted over the table. 'To keep the most precious part of you warm.' He winked at Ben, who pocketed the box and got out of there. He would have liked to ask a couple of questions about how to use the condoms, but he felt embarrassed. He hoped there were instructions with them.

Inspector Dietrich had ordered several officers to keep watch on Frau Kalkfurth's garage round the clock. No luck. 'Killers like our man have a sixth sense,' said Franke gloomily.

'More likely he goes through some macabre cycle of compulsion.' Klaus Dietrich had been reading several works of criminal psychology covering similar cases. 'He'll be back when the mood takes him again.'

Vollmer put his head round the door. 'Captain Ashburner, sir.'

'Come in, captain. How are you?'

'Fine, thanks.' Ashburner put a small, gleaming metallic box down on the desk. It was about the size of a matchbox. 'Know what that is?'

'No idea.'

'Come on, I'll show you.'

There were two jeeps parked out in the road. Corporal Miller was sitting in the front vehicle smoking a pipe. Ashburner bent down and fixed the box under Miller's jeep. A magnet. Sticks like glue. OK, corporal, drive on.' Miller stepped on the gas. Ashburner strolled over to his own jeep. 'Get in, inspector. Here, take this.' He handed Dietrich a canvas bag.

'Would you tell me what's going on?'

'Open it.' Ashburner drove off.

The bag contained a rectangular grey object the size of a cigar box, with switches and buttons, rather like a radio. A radar device?'

'Not a bad shot, inspector. Throw the left-hand switch and turn the middle button to the right.' Loud beeping was heard, and soon became weaker. 'That's the little transmitter under Miller's jeep. The corporal's driving faster than us. The signal gets weaker as the distance increases. So let's step on it a bit.' Ashburner accelerated. The beeping tone grew louder, and then suddenly softer again. Ashburner braked. They reversed a little way and turned into the side street they had just passed. The beeping was more and more insistent. They stopped. Miller's jeep was waiting for them, concealed in the entrance to a building. Ashburner bent down and fished the little box out from under the other jeep.

Amazing.' Dietrich was enthusiastic.

A loan from our strategic services people. They're already working on a smaller version, one you can stick under a suspect's shoe.'

'No one's going to believe this.'

And it's no one's business to know about it either. My role as an adviser doesn't stretch to helping out the German police with electronic toys.' The captain put the little transmitter in the bag with the receiver. 'There's a pair of headphones in there too. You put them on and throw the right-hand switch. OK, I'll take you back to the station.'

'There's no need. A little walk will do me good.'

'Well, good luck, inspector.'

Dietrich took the bag by its shoulder strap and got out. Ashburner, shaking his head, watched him go: a thin, prematurely grey-haired man in a suit too big for him, dragging his left leg slightly.

And he thinks he's going to catch a killer.' said Corporal Miller, putting his superior officer's thoughts into words.

'I want to get into the garage and look at that motorbike unobserved. Any ideas?'

'Diversionary tactics: said Vollmer, and came up with some suggestions.

'Excellent,' the inspector praised him. 'Tomorrow morning here at eightthirty, then.'

At nine they were at Am Hegewinkel. Vollmer went knocking on doors, making out that he was an inspector from the power station making sure no one was illegally tapping into the electricity. Dietrich and Franke, meanwhile, were behind the buildings collecting bits of wood. The inspector wore an old parka and a greasy sailor's cap. Franke had got himself up in a sweater full of holes and was pulling a small handcart. They were slowly approaching the Kalkfurth property.

'Get to the back of the line,' said the queuing women crossly as Vollmer pushed past them into the shop.

'Berlin Electricity.' Vollmer showed an official-looking piece of paper. 'Show me all the power points you have in the place,' he told the well-fed Winkelmann, who was serving hungry customers.

'You go with him. I'll take over here.' Martha Kalkfurth steered her wheelchair round behind the counter. 'Well, what'll it be, Frau Kruger?'

Dietrich looked at his watch and nodded to Franke. The gate in the fence was no obstacle. A few steps and they were at the back door of the garage. Franke took a bunch of skeleton keys out of his pocket. Minutes later he had cracked the simple lock.

The light inside was dim. Two metres ahead of them lumber towered up to the ceiling, barring the way to the front of the garage. On the right, a garden hose hung on the wall, and a lawn mower was propped against it. On the left you could just make out the shape of a motorbike under a shabby old eiderdown. The inspector raised the quilt. A 1936 NSU 300 was revealed. The tank was half full, and several damp leaves clinging to the front tyre showed that the bike had recently been used.

Dietrich bent down, as if checking the number plate, and fixed the little metal box under the back mudguard. It was his own personal weapon in his duel with the murderer, and there was no need for the others to know about it.

'What did I say. sir?' asked the sergeant triumphantly once they were outside.

Dietrich grinned. 'You said you'd help to deliver any wood we collected to my home. Which is just around the corner.'

Vollmer was back in the police station soon after them. 'Huge long line of customers outside the shop, Frau Kalkfurth and her assistant Winkelmann inside,' he reported. 'I made out I was examining every power point from the cellar to the attic, and I took a good look around the place. There's no sign that anyone is living in that house except for Frau Kalkfurth, or that anyone's been hiding there.'

As usual he waited for nightfall. Night was his hunting ground. He went into the garage around ten and switched on his torch, took the quilt off the motorbike and stopped short. Something was different. The top of the fuel tank! He always screwed it on so that the maker's logo was vertical. Now it was over to one side. It didn't take him a minute to find the little metal box under the back mudguard. Wondering what to do, he turned it back and forth, fitted it to the lawn mower, took it off again and thought. Grinning, he put it in his pocket. He got the message. He did up the chinstrap of the leather helmet and put his goggles on.

'They're on your trail, son,' said a voice through the lumber.

He laughed dryly. 'The inspector's thought up something special. He thinks I don't know.'

'They'll find you wherever you hide. I can't help you now. Times have changed. Leave your motorbike here, son, and get out before they chop your head off. Though that might be best for both of us.'

'Mother, you're going too far,' he said, indignant.

Klaus Dietrich slung the bag containing the receiver over his shoulder and cycled out into the dark, a rather odd figure. The headphones gave him an owlish look. This was the third night, and Inge was wondering anxiously how long his exhausted and undernourished frame could keep it up.

His route took him first to Am Hegewinkel, where on the last two nights a steady beeping tone had told him that the motorbike was in the garage. Tonight there was no beep. The killer was on the prowl.

Her father's self-righteous monologues and her mother's constant complaints got on Jutta's nerves. She set off for home two days earlier than she had planned. It took her for ever to get from Kopenick to Berlin Mitte. The total collapse of the capital was just four months in the past, and the transport system still left much to be desired. But from Wittenbergplatz on, the U-Bahn ran normally. The line had hardly been damaged at all in the western suburbs.

On the way she thought about John. She felt a shameless, delicious desire for him. She imagined taking him by surprise, and felt herself get damp. The elderly man opposite gave her a little wink, as if he guessed her thoughts.

She reached Onkel Toms Hiitte on the last train, hurried up the steps and left the station down the narrow alley lined with barbed wire that the Americans had left for Germans to use. At the barrier, she showed the guard her pass. Full of happy anticipation, she entered the brightly lit prohibited zone. The music of Benny Goodman was swinging from a window somewhere, accompanied by laughing voices. She pressed the bottom bell outside Number 47 Wilskistrasse.

What seemed like endless seconds of waiting heightened her excitement. She thought she could already feel his firm body and her tongue between his lips. At last the door opened. She had the words 'John, darling' on the tip of her tongue. But the woman in the doorway got in first. 'John, darling,' she called over her shoulder.

She instantly knew the identity of this woman in the housecoat standing in front of her, hair rather dishevelled, a glass in her hand, and she knew the woman had come to claim her property. Like a wounded deer, Jutta turned and ran.