A Man Without Breath

‘Pattern? That’s a word we cops only use back in civilization. You need sidewalks to see a pattern, Ludwig. There’s no pattern to anything out here. Haven’t you figured that out yet? In Smolensk everything is fucked up.’

How fucked up, I was only just beginning to understand, thanks to Martin Quidde and Friedrich Ribe.

‘It’s Corporal Quidde.’

‘Quidde? I was speaking to the poor man just the other day. All right. Let’s go and take a look at him.’

It felt curious to be standing over the dead body of a man I had murdered myself not two hours before. Investigating the death of my own victim wasn’t something I’d ever done – and would prefer never to do again – but there’s a first time for everything and the novelty of it helped sustain my interest long enough to inform Voss that to my rheumy but experienced eye, the deceased gave every appearance of having committed suicide.

‘The gun in his mitt looks ready to fire,’ I said. ‘Actually I’m surprised he’s still holding it at all. You’d think some Ivan would have pinched it. Anyway, after careful consideration of all the available facts that can be observed here, suicide would seem to be the most obvious explanation.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Voss. ‘Would you keep your tin helmet on if you were planning to shoot yourself?’

That ought to have given me pause, but it didn’t.

‘And would he have shot himself in the back of the head like that?’ continued Voss. ‘I had the impression that most people who shoot themselves in the head put one through the side of the head.’

‘Which is exactly why a lot of people who do that, survive,’ I said, authoritatively. ‘Temple shots are like a sure thing at the races. Sometimes it just doesn’t finish. For future reference, if you want to do it, then shoot yourself in the back of the head. The same way those Ivans killed those Poles. Nobody ever survives a shot that goes through the occipital bone like this one has. It’s why they do it that way. Because they know what they’re doing.’

‘I can see how that works, yes. But is it even possible to do it in this way – to yourself, I mean?’

I took out my own Walther – the very gun that had killed Quidde – checked the safety, lifted my elbow and placed the muzzle of the automatic against the nape of my own neck. The demonstration was eloquent enough. It was easily possible.

‘There was no need even to remove his helmet,’ I said.

‘All right,’ said Voss. ‘Suicide. But I don’t have your Alexanderplatz experience and training.’

‘I never mind the obvious explanation. Sometimes it’s just too damned hard to be clever – clever enough to ignore what’s obvious. Well, I’m not sufficiently clever to offer an alternative in this case. It’s one thing shooting yourself in the head, it’s something else altogether to cut your own throat. Besides, this time we even have the weapon.’

Voss tugged off Quidde’s helmet to reveal a hole in the man’s forehead. ‘And it looks like we have the bullet, too,’ he said, inspecting the inside of the signaller’s tin hat. ‘You can see it embedded in the metal.’

‘So you can,’ I said. ‘For all the good it will do us out here in Smolensk.’

‘Perhaps we should search his billet for a suicide note,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘Perhaps there was a woman. Or perhaps there wasn’t a woman. Either one of those can seem like a good enough reason for some Fritzes. But even if there’s not a note, it won’t make a difference. Who’d read it anyway, apart from you and me and maybe Colonel Ahrens?’

‘Still it’s curious, don’t you think? Three fellows from the one signals regiment meeting an untimely end in as many weeks.’

‘We’re at war,’ I said. ‘Meeting an untimely end is what being in this crummy country is all about. But I take your point, Ludwig. Maybe there’s something dodgy in those radio waves after all. That’s what some people think isn’t it? That they’re hazardous? All that energy heating up your brain? It would certainly explain what’s been happening at the Ministry of Enlightenment.’

‘Radio waves – yes, I never thought of that,’ said Voss.

I smiled; I was taking to obfuscation like a duck to water, and I wondered how much muddier my wings and webbed feet could make that water before flying away from the scene of my crime.

‘Those signals boys are living right next to a powerful transmitter, day in, day out. The mast at the back of the castle looks just like the lanky lad. It’s a wonder they haven’t sprouted aerials on their damn heads.’

Voss frowned and then shook his head. ‘The lanky lad?’

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘That’s what we Berliners call the radio tower in Charlottenburg.’ I shook my head. ‘So maybe radio waves gave poor Quidde’s brain an itch that he decided he had to scratch with a bullet from a Walther automatic. Probably while he was standing up, too, from the way the blood’s splattered across the grass.’

‘It’s an interesting theory,’ admitted Voss. ‘About the radio waves. But you’re not serious.’