March Violets Read Free

pocket and I didn’t even shift, which shows you how blue I must have been. As it was he only took out his wallet.
    â€˜I have made inquiries about you and I am informed that you offer a reliable service. I need you now for a couple of hours, for which I will pay you 200 Reichsmarks: in effect a week’s money.’ He laid his wallet on his knee and thumbed two blues onto his trouser-leg. This couldn’t have been easy, since he had only one arm. ‘And afterwards Ulrich will drive you home.’
    I took the notes. ‘Hell,’ I said, ‘I was only going to go to bed and sleep. I can do that anytime.’ I ducked my head and stepped into the car. ‘Let’s go, Ulrich.’
    The door slammed and Ulrich climbed into the driver’s seat, with Freshface alongside of him. We headed west.
    â€˜Where are we going?’ I said.
    â€˜All in good time, Herr Gunther,’ he said. ‘Help yourself to a drink, or a cigarette.’ He flipped open a cocktail cabinet which looked as though it had been salvaged from the Titanic and produced a cigarette box. ‘These are American.’
    I said yes to the smoke but no to the drink: when people are as ready to part with 200 marks as Dr Schemm had been, it pays to keep your wits about you.
    â€˜Would you be so kind as to light me, please?’ said Schemm, fitting a cigarette between his lips. ‘Matches are the one thing I cannot manage. I lost my arm with Ludendorff at the capture of the fortress of Liege. Did you see any active service?’ The voice was fastidious, suave even: soft and slow, with just a hint of cruelty. The sort of voice, I thought, that could lead you into incriminating yourself quite nicely, thank you. The sort of voice that would have done well for its owner had he worked for the Gestapo. I lit our cigarettes and settled back into the Mercedes’s big seat.
    â€˜Yes, I was in Turkey.’ Christ, there were so many people taking an interest in my war record all of a sudden, that I wondered if I hadn’t better apply for an Old Comrades Badge. I looked out of the window and saw that we were driving towards the Grunewald, an area of forest that lies on the west side of the city, near the River Havel.
    â€˜Commissioned?’
    â€˜Sergeant.’ I heard him smile.
    â€˜I was a major,’ he said, and that was me put firmly in my place. ‘And you became a policeman after the war?’
    â€˜No, not right away. I was a civil servant for a while, but I couldn’t stand the routine. I didn’t join the force until 1922.’
    â€˜And when did you leave?’
    â€˜Listen, Herr Doktor, I don’t remember you putting me on oath when I got into the car.’
    â€˜I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I was merely curious to discover whether you left of your own accord, or . . .’
    â€˜Or was pushed? You’ve got a lot of forehead asking me that, Schemm.’
    â€˜Have I?’ he said innocently.
    â€˜But I’ll answer your question. I left. I dare say if I’d waited long enough they’d have weeded me out like all the others. I’m not a National Socialist, but I’m not a fucking Kozi either; I dislike Bolshevism just like the Party does, or at least I think it does. But that’s not quite good enough for the modern Kripo or Sipo or whatever it’s called now. In their book if you’re not for it you must be against it.’
    â€˜And so you, a Kriminalinspektor, left Kripo,’ he paused, and then added in tones of affected surprise, ‘to become the house detective at the Adlon Hotel.’
    â€˜You’re pretty cute,’ I sneered, ‘asking me all these questions when you already know the answers.’
    â€˜My client likes to know about the people who work for him,’ he said smugly.
    â€˜I haven’t taken the case yet. Maybe I’ll turn it down just to see your face.’
    â€˜Maybe. But you’d be a