A Man Without Breath

‘No,’ she said. ‘I never spoke to him. I told you. But I knew of him, of course. His reputation went before him. As I said before, he held some rather extreme views on racial hygiene. On everything probably.’ She took a closer look at the chest bullet now in her forceps. ‘Ballistics is not my thing, I’m afraid. Can’t tell if that’s from a broom-handle Mauser or not. You should give the slug to Professor Buhtz. See what he makes of it. He’s the expert on ballistics.’

‘So I believe.’

‘Probably tell you what batch of ammunition it came out of, knowing him.’

‘Yes. I expect so.’

‘One through the heart, one plumb between the eyes; whoever shot this man must have been a marksman. That Mauser they found was at least seventy-five metres from the body. Assuming he dropped it at the spot where he fired from, that’s good shooting in failing light, isn’t it?’

‘With the stock on? I don’t know.’

‘I don’t think I could have made a shot like that. Besides, the stock wasn’t on the gun when they found it.’

‘It wasn’t in the car either,’ I said. ‘I expect he disassembled the rig, meaning to fit the gun back inside the stock, and then panicked, dropped the gun and simply threw the stock away.’

‘The shooter doesn’t sound to me like the kind of person to panic. He steals the gun from Von Gersdorff’s car, and then calmly shoots Berruguete inside a secure area that is patrolled by Wehrmacht soldiers. You need a cool head to do something like that. He even manages to get off a third shot in your direction before making his escape.’

‘Only that one wasn’t accurate.’

‘That all depends, doesn’t it?’ she said. ‘On whether he was trying to hit you or not.’

‘Yes, good point. I didn’t think of that.’

‘Sure you did. It’s been scratching your ear ever since it happened.’

Ines lifted Berruguete’s head by the hair. The plum-sized exit wound at the back of the skull was clear enough. ‘I don’t suppose there’s much point in carrying out a brain obduction,’ she said. ‘The bullet that hit him in the head is obviously gone. We’re not going to find out anything other than the fact that he was shot.’

‘No, I suppose not.’

She dropped his head back onto the table with a thud as if she didn’t much care what happened to it. He was dead, of course, and it couldn’t have mattered less to Berruguete, but all the same I was used to seeing pathologists treat their cadavers with just a little more respect.

‘Makes a change, I suppose,’ she said.

‘How’s that?’

‘Everybody in Katyn Wood was shot in the back of the head, with a commensurate exit wound in the forehead. This is the other way around.’

‘I guess you find a novelty where you can.’

‘Sure,’ she said, grimly. ‘You could call it that, if you want. You know, either one of these bullets would have been enough to have killed him.’

‘Impossible to say which was first, I suppose. The head shot or the chest shot.’

She shook her head. ‘Impossible. Anyway, it would seem the shooter wanted to make sure of his victim.’

She rinsed off her rubber gloves with the length of rubber tube and peeled them off, although Berruguete’s chest cavity was still open. It looked like a small volcano had erupted out of his insides.

‘Isn’t it customary to put some of the liver and bacon back in and sew him up again?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ she said, coldly lighting a cigarette. ‘But what would be the point of that here? It’s not like his family are going to see him. There’s no way they’re ever going to send him all the way back to Spain from Smolensk. No, I should have thought they’ll box him up and bury him, don’t you? In which case, sewing him up is just a waste of my time.’

I shrugged. ‘I suppose you’re right.’

‘Of course I’m right.’

‘All the same, it seems just a shade disrespectful. To him.’

‘Maybe I didn’t make it quite clear to you, Gunther, but this was not a good man. In fact, I’d go so far as to say this man was a monster.’

‘I can’t disagree with that description. Forced sterilization is about as bad as it gets.’

‘You could be forgiven for thinking so,’ she said. ‘But if I said that this man had republican people shot so that he could carry out autopsies to see if there was anything peculiar about their brains – what would you say to that? Would you still want me to sew him back up neatly out of respect for his cadaver?’

‘I think maybe I would. I’m the old-fashioned type, I suppose. I like to do things by the book if I can. You know? The proper way. The way things were done before 1933. Sometimes I think I’m the only truly honest man I know.’

‘I’d no idea you were quite so particular, Gunther.’

‘Yes, that’s true; more and more so, I think, while everyone else it seems becomes rather less so. These days I don’t even cheat at solitaire if I can help it. Last week I reported myself to the adjutant for having a second helping at dinner.’

Ines sighed. ‘Oh, very well.’