The Man from Berlin by Luke McCallin Page B

All divisional commanders. Hotel Austria, in Ilidža.’
    â€˜Why do you need that?’
    â€˜I have Vukić’s murder taking place close, far too close, to a gathering of soldiers who could have stepped out of her photos. I find it hard to believe she would not have known of such a gathering and taken steps to attend it. Personally and professionally, it would have been well worth her while to have done so. Additionally, I must assume the murderer was affected by what he had done. Emotionally, and physically. It would have been next to impossible for a civilian to move around unseen out there at that time. But a soldier might have been ableto.’
    Freilinger watched him from under hooded eyes. ‘That information could be useful, and I could get it for you. But I will not give it to you until you can satisfy me more that there is a link.’
    â€˜Sir, I must protest,’ replied Reinhardt. He clenched his fingers hard around his notebook. ‘How can I make a link if information is denied to me simply because of whom it might importune?’
    â€˜Reinhardt,’ said Freilinger, as he shook a mint from his tin, holding it between the tips of his fingers. ‘I will not have you pestering every officer of general staff rank as to his whereabouts and whether he was familiar, or even intimate, with a woman like Vukić. Not without very good information that such questioning would be merited. Certainly not at this time.’
    â€˜Sir, what you call “pestering” I would call –’
    â€˜Call it what you want, Reinhardt,’ Freilinger interrupted. Reinhardt felt a rush of blood rise to his face and knew that it showed. ‘Find out she was there; that would be a start. Establish that she knew any of the officers attending. That would be another. But I’m not having you pestering senior officers and their staff with this. Not until you have a lot more to pester them with.’ He fixed Reinhardt with his cold blue eyes as he popped the mint into his mouth. ‘Dismissed.’

8
    R einhardt drove himself back to the barracks. The duty officer gave him a letter that, from the handwriting, was from Brauer, and he turned the envelope in his hands as he went back up to his room, feeling suddenly drained. He flopped onto his bed, watching the long light of the sun as it shone through his window, resting the envelope on his chest. A drink would be nice. In the little park in front of the barracks, down by the river. Or maybe on the square. He closed his eyes.
    T he grass is heavy with a night’s rain. The smoke from a thousand cook fires drifts through the trees like mist. The rustle and creak of the accoutrements on the men around the terrified young officer sound like thunder. Across the meadow, shapes move in the trees, commands shouted in a strange language. Somewhere, artillery rumbles across the sky. Grey-clad infantry are drawn up in ranks to either side, and the young Reinhardt tries desperately to swallow, finds he cannot. The rustling and shifting of the men suddenly quiets, and Reinhardt feels someone behind him. He turns, and the colonel is looking at him with those grey eyes. From across the meadow comes a guttural roar.
    â€˜Ouraaah! Ouraaaaaaah!’
    The colonel rests a gloved hand on the lieutenant’s shoulder. ‘Are you frightened, sir?’ All the lieutenant can do is nod. The colonel nods back, squeezes his shoulder firmly, leather gloves creaking softly. ‘Remember,’ he says, as another battle cry rolls from the woods opposite, and the dim shapes swell and coalesce into a mass of men, rifles tipped with bayonets swaying into the wind of their passage, ‘so are they.’
    Reinhardt gasped and sat up, the letter falling to the floor. A thin film of sweat covered his head, and the light had lengthened, but not by much. He could have been asleep only a few minutes, but the dream… He had not dreamed that one in a long