A Man Without Breath

‘He’s alive,’ murmured the Oberfeldwebel. ‘But his breathing is shallow. Of course, that could be the booze. And either way he’s going to have a hell of a headache. Feels like a duck egg on the side of his crown.’

‘We’d best take him to the hospital and have them keep an eye on him,’ I said, feeling a little guilty.

‘That might be a good idea,’ said Von Schlabrendorff.

‘Let me know how he is in the morning,’ I said. ‘Would you?’

‘Of course. I’ll have them telephone the office first thing.’

‘Don’t for Christ’s sake tell Professor Buhtz about this,’ I said to no one in particular. ‘If he finds out that we just trampled through his crime scene to fetch this Ivan out of there he’ll go nuts.’

‘You manage to upset everyone, don’t you Gunther?’ said Colonel Ahrens. ‘Sooner or later.’

‘You noticed that too, eh?’

*

At the castle Von Gersdorff sent a telemessage to the Abwehr in Berlin asking for information about Dr Berruguete. We sat in the neat little sitting room Ahrens had created for officers awaiting a reply, under an Ilya Repin print of Russian men hauling a barge along a bit of coastline. They were making heavy going of it, and their hopeless bearded faces reminded me of the Red Army prisoners we were using to carry the bodies out of the graves. I don’t know what it is about Russians, but I can’t look at any of them without my soul, and then my back, beginning to ache.

‘Quite a night,’ observed Von Gersdorff.

‘It is when you’ve been shot at,’ I said. ‘Twice.’ I told him about the gunshots in Krasny Bor.

‘That explains why you’re not wearing a shirt,’ he said, offering me a cigarette. ‘And why there’s dirt on your tunic.’

‘Yes, but it certainly doesn’t explain why I was shot at.’

‘I wouldn’t have thought it was one of life’s greatest mysteries. Not from one who is as insubordinate as you, my friend.’

‘I’m not always insubordinate. It’s a little special service I provide everyone with a red stripe on his trouser leg.’

‘Then how about a case of mistaken identity?’ Von Gersdorff lit us both with his lighter and leaned back in his chair. He was the most elegant smoker I ever saw: he held the cigarette between his middle fingers so as to minimize the amount of staining on his well-manicured nails, and consequently everything he said seemed to have a similarly measured aspect to it. ‘Perhaps the murderer intended shooting you and managed to hit Dr Berruguete instead. Colonel Ahrens perhaps. And by the way, what have you done to offend him so egregiously, Gunther? The man seems to have taken a very personal dislike to you which goes well beyond simple insubordination.’

‘The sleeping dogs outside,’ I said, nodding at the window. ‘I rather think he wishes I’d let them lie there.’

‘Yes. I can imagine. This used to be a nice little post until we started digging it up. Certainly the air was a lot easier to breathe.’

‘I think it’s safe to assume that one of the first two shots accounted for Dr Berruguete and that only the third was meant for me; or not, given that the shooter missed – perhaps deliberately, perhaps I was just further away. Berruguete was on the opposite side of the wood, after all. Which is one reason I’m not buying a case of mistaken identity. How accurate is that broom-handle of yours anyway?’

‘With the stock attached? It’s very accurate to about a hundred metres. But the sights are more optimistic. They say a thousand metres; a hundred metres is about right in my opinion. But, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, why would someone shoot at you intending to miss?’

‘Perhaps to make me keep my head down until they’d made their escape.’

‘Yes, the Mauser is good at that. Keep your trigger tight and it’s like a garden hose of bullets.’

‘Been a while since I used one. And never with nine-mill ammo. Much of a kick to it?’

Von Gersdorff shook his head. ‘Hardly any at all. Why?’

I shook my head, but being an intelligence officer Von Gersdorff wasn’t so easily fobbed off or treated like an idiot. He smiled.

‘What you really mean is – could a woman have fired it?’

‘Did I say that?’

‘No, but it’s what you meant. Dammit Gunther, are you suggesting Dr Kramsta could have killed Dr Berruguete?’

‘I wasn’t suggesting it,’ I insisted. ‘I think you were. All I asked was if the C96 has much of a kick on it.’

‘She’s a doctor,’ he said ignoring my evasion. ‘And a lady. Although one could be forgiven for thinking otherwise since, unaccountably, she seems to have singled you out for particular favour.’

‘I’ve met some doctors who were as lethal as any Mauser. Those fancy clinics in Wannsee are full of them. Only there it’s the bill that packs a kick, not the ammunition. As for the ladies, colonel, my policy is simple: if they can bang a door shut to end an argument, they can bang a gun to the same effect.’

‘So you do think she’s a suspect?’

‘We’ll see, won’t we?’