A Man Without Breath

She rubbed on some alcohol and then let me alone. The hypodermic went into a little velvet-lined black leather case with a latch in the front.

‘But I wasn’t ever a boy scout,’ I said, buttoning my trousers. ‘And I was never a Nazi.’

‘Did you consider the possibility that maybe it’s why someone was trying to shoot you?’

I left off my shirt and put my tunic back on. ‘It’s not something I generally tell people. So, no.’

‘I think that’s where the problem started, don’t you? Too many people keeping quiet about what they really think?’ She collected her still unlit cigarette and put a match to it, but nervously, like it was about to go off in her mouth.

‘What do you think?’

‘Me?’ She tossed the match on the floor. ‘I’m a Nazi through and through, Gunther. SA brown on the outside and falangist black in the middle. I hate the stab-in-the-back politicians who betrayed Germany in 1918 and I hate the Weimar republican fools who bankrupted the country in 1923. I hate communists and I hate the people who live in Berlin West and I hate the Jews. I hate the bloody British and the god-damned Americans and the traitor Rudolf Hess and the tyrant Josef Stalin. I hate the French and I hate defeatists. I even hate Charlie Chaplin. Is all that clear enough for you? Now, if you don’t mind, let’s change the subject. We can talk politics all you like when we’re both banged up in a concentration camp.’

‘You’re all right,’ I said. ‘I like you a lot, you do know that, don’t you?’

Ines frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘What do you mean, what do I mean?’

‘Yes. I didn’t tell you anything about what I think.’

‘Maybe not then, but just now, when you frowned, your face told me plenty, doctor. Like you meant not a word of what you said.’

We both looked around as somewhere outside in the Krasny Bor forest we heard a police whistle blowing.

‘You’d best stay here,’ I said, reaching for the door handle.

‘I should have pushed that needle right down to your hip bone,’ she said, pushing past me. ‘Don’t you get it? I’m a doctor, not a delicate Meissen figurine.’

‘We’ve got plenty of doctors at Krasny Bor,’ I said, and went after her. ‘Most of them are ugly and old and quite expendable. But delicate Meissen figurines are in shorter supply.’

*

The police whistle had stopped blowing but the cops were easy to find – they usually are. There were two field police under-officers standing in the forest: the army-issue flashlights suspended from their greatcoat buttons looked like the eyes of an enormous wolf. At their feet was what looked like a discarded raincoat and a lost Homburg hat. In the air was a strong smell of cigarettes – as if someone had just put one out – and little Pez breath mints that nearly every man in the German army ate when he was going to see a girl or he had nothing better to do but suck on his own thoughts.

‘It’s Captain Gunther,’ said one.

‘We’ve found a body, sir,’ said the other, and shone his flashlight onto a man lying on the ground as other uniformed men arrived with more lights, and the scene soon resembled some arcane midsummer-night ritual with all of us standing in a circle, our heads bowed in what might have looked like prayer. But it was too late for the man lying on the ground: no amount of prayer was ever going to bring him back to life. He was about sixty years old; most of the blood had dyed his grey hair red; one of his eyes was closed but his mouth was open and his tongue was hanging out of his bearded mouth as if he was pushing it out to taste something – maybe he’d been sucking a mint, too. It appeared he’d been shot in the head. I didn’t recognize him.

‘That’s Professor Berruguete,’ said Ines. ‘From the International Commission.’

‘Jesus. Which country?’

‘From Spain. He was Professor of Forensic Medicine at the University of Madrid.’

I groaned loudly. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I’m quite sure.’

‘This could be the end of everything. The Poles are already in fear of their lives. If the commission gets wind of this they might never come out of their damned hut.’

‘Then you’ll have to try to contain the situation,’ she said, coolly. ‘Won’t you?’

‘That’s not going to be easy.’

‘No, it isn’t. But what else can you do?’

‘Gentlemen, this is Dr Kramsta,’ I said to the field police. ‘She’s been assisting Professor Buhtz at Katyn Wood. Look, you’d best fetch Lieutenant Voss from Grushtshenki right away. And General von Tresckow’s adjutant, Lieutenant von Schlabrendorff. The field marshal will have to be told, of course. Next, I shall want the immediate vicinity of this crime scene cordoned off. No one from the international commission is to see or hear about this. No one. You understand?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘If any of them ask about the police whistle, it was a false alarm. And if anyone asks about the professor, he had to return to Spain unexpectedly.’

‘Yes sir.’