A Quiet Flame

“Anything in that murder over at the cattle yard?” he asked.

“It looks like an aggravated political killing,” I said.

“Aggravated?”

“They raped her as well.”

Gennat grimaced.

“The DPP wants to see us.” Gennat never called Weiss Izzy. He didn’t even call him Bernard. He called him Weiss or the DPP. “Now.”

“What’s it about?” I asked, wondering if Grund had been stupid enough to report himself for striking a senior officer.

“The Schwarz case,” he said.

“What about it?”

But Gennat had already waddled off, expecting me to follow. As I went after him I reflected that Gennat had the flattest feet of any cop I’d ever seen, which was hardly surprising, given the bulk they had to carry. He must have weighed almost three hundred pounds. He walked with his arms behind him, which was hardly surprising, either, given how much of him was in front.

We went upstairs and along a quieter corridor lined with the pictures of previous Prussian police presidents and their deputies. Gennat knocked on Izzy’s door and opened it without waiting. We went inside. Bright sunshine was streaming through grimy, double-height windows. As usual, Izzy was writing. On the window seat, like a warm-looking cat and smelling lightly of cologne, sat Arthur Nebe.

“What’s he doing here?” I growled, sitting down on one of the hard wooden chairs. Gennat sat on the chair next to it and hoped for the best.

“Now, now, Bernie,” said Izzy. “Arthur’s just here to help.”

“I just came back from the cattle market. There’s a dead girl in one of the pens. Murdered by Nazis, most probably, given that she was a card-carrying Red. He could apply his formidable skills to that case, if he wants. But there’s nothing political about the murder of Anita Schwarz.”

Izzy put down his pen and leaned back. “I thought I made it clear that there is,” he said.

“Whoever killed Anita Schwarz was a nutcase, not a Nazi,” I said. “Although I will concede that it’s not at all uncommon for these two particulars to be coterminous.”

“I believe Commissar Gunther makes the point for me,” said Nebe. “Quite eloquently, as usual.”

“And what point might that be, Commissar Nebe?”

“Look here, Bernie,” said Izzy. “There are certain officials in the General—”

“I’m not in the General,” I said. “I’m in the Official.”

“—have queried your ability to remain impartial,” he continued. “They think your open hostility to the National Socialist Party and its adherents might actually get in the way of solving this murder.”

“Who said I was hostile to Nazism?”

“Oh come on, Bernie,” said Nebe. “After that press conference? Everyone knows you’re Iron Front.”

“Let’s not talk about that press conference,” said Gennat. “It was a disaster.”

“All right,” I said. “Let’s not. After all, what’s any of it got to do with me finding the killer?”

“The dead girl’s parents, Herr and Frau Schwarz, have alleged that you have behaved aggressively and unsympathetically toward them because of their politics,” said Izzy. “Since then, they’ve alleged that you have been acting on some malicious gossip concerning her moral character.”

“Who told you that? Heinrich Grund, I suppose.”

“Actually, they spoke to me,” said Nebe.

“She was a prostitute,” I told Izzy. “An amateur, it’s true, but a prostitute nevertheless. Call me old-fashioned, but I thought that it might just have a bearing on why she was murdered. As well as how. After all, it’s not like prostitutes haven’t been murdered before in this city. And genital mutilation is something we’ve come across in cases of lust murder. Even Arthur would admit that much, surely.” I lit a cigarette. I didn’t ask permission to do it. I wasn’t in that kind of mood. “But if we are talking politics, may I remind everyone—especially you, Arthur—that it’s not against police regulations to be part of the Iron Front. It is against police regulations to be a member of the Nazi Party or the KPD.”

“I’m not a member of the Nazi Party,” said Nebe. “If Bernie’s referring to my belonging to the National Socialist Fellowship of Civil Servants, then that’s something different. You don’t have to be a member of one to be a member of the other.”

“I feel we’re getting off the subject here, a little,” said Izzy. “What I really wanted to talk about was Herr Schwarz’s position as a member of Kurt Daluege’s family. Daluege has been mentioned as a possible future police president. For that reason we’re keen to avoid any possible embarrassment to him.”

“I thought an election had to happen before that was even a possibility, sir,” I said. “As a matter of fact, I was counting on it. I believe lots of people are. You included, if I’m not wrong. But maybe that’s just me being old-fashioned again. I was under the strong impression that our job was to protect the republic, not the reputations of thugs like Daluege and Schwarz.”