Free The Butchers of Berlin by Chris Petit Page B

leered. Schlegel pinched the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger and passed it to the doctor, who didn’t want it. He flicked it aside for someone to pick
up. Stoffel was laughing hard as he did.
    ‘Give us a proper look, boy. Tell us what you see.’
    Schlegel pulled the fly wider.
    Gersten said in disbelief, ‘He’s got no cock!’
    Stoffel found the whole thing side-splitting.
    Where the man’s penis should have been was a bloody hole. A clean cut at the shaft indicated surgical precision, in contrast to the money stuffed messily into the mouth.
    The doctor was about to keel over. Gersten’s eyes bulged like the dead man’s. The doctor sat down, breathing hard through his mouth. The rest of the crew stood around in varying
degrees of disbelief. Only Morgen appeared unconcerned.
    Schlegel found the sight not frightening as such. It didn’t involve smashed bone or enormous gouts of blood. The disturbing aspect was what these highly personal acts represented, one
seemingly spontaneous, the other so calculated.
    Stoffel interrupted to ask crudely, ‘Have the balls been cut off? Are we talking castration too?’
    Schlegel had had enough. He stood up, failing to provide the smart answer Stoffel required. Backchat was seen as essential to the job.
    Stoffel told the orderlies to remove the body. Morgen puffed away. Gersten continued to look put out. Maybe he was squeamish. Most of the men were standing protectively with their hands in
trouser pockets.
    Morgen said, ‘You realise the body was probably killed elsewhere and dumped here.’
    ‘What makes you say that?’ said Stoffel, looking not at all pleased.
    ‘There should be much more blood, and it would have been impossible to get such a clean cut if the man had been struggling.’
    Stoffel looked unimpressed. ‘Strangled here first, I would say, and a sharp knife. What’s the point of bringing him here?’
    Morgen didn’t bother to answer.
    Stoffel said, ‘In that case you and your albino friend can do the door-to-door.’
    Outside Stoffel asked Schlegel, with a poke of his thumb in the direction of Morgen, ‘Who the fuck is he?’
    ‘I’ve no idea. He turned up this morning.’
    ‘More to the point, who does he think he is?’
    Schlegel shrugged. Stoffel leaned in confidentially. ‘Find out what he’s doing here. That’s an order. It can’t be anything good.’
    Schlegel excused himself and went over to Gersten.
    ‘About the old man who shot himself, who telephoned us about the shooting?’
    Gersten patted his pockets for his lip salve. ‘It must have been a Jewish marshal.’
    ‘The shooting occurred before the area was sealed. We think there was a witness.’
    ‘We had other things on our minds.’ It was said in a vague, confiding way.
    Schlegel wasn’t sure. Gersten, for all his affected air, struck him as a man to be in full possession of the facts.
    Schlegel asked if Gersten knew any more about the old man.
    ‘That he worked at the slaughterhouse, for instance.’
    Schlegel was aware of Morgen coming over and staring as Gersten said, ‘Are you sure? That’s not what we heard.’
    ‘Did you know he might have been working for us?’
    ‘Really?’ Gersten repeated his act with the lip salve. ‘Who says?’
    ‘We’ve had a tip-off that he was an informer.’
    Schlegel wanted to see Gersten’s reaction. Informers invariably worked for the Gestapo. Not a flicker, which left him wondering how reliable Nebe’s information was.
    Morgen appeared endlessly interested in the idea of the dead body turning up in an apartment that had been sealed by the Gestapo, especially if it had been taken there after
being killed.
    ‘Why there?’
    Schlegel wanted to ask why on earth should he know.
    They spoke to the local district warden, who confirmed the original complaint had been over a blackout infringement, an anonymous call. It was the sort of place where people kept to themselves
and were quick to inform on any