Free The Pale Criminal by Philip Kerr Page B

would lose my private investigator’s licence–’
    â€˜Naturally . . .’
    â€˜ — gun permit, driving licence–’
    â€˜No doubt we’d find some excuse . . .’
    â€˜ — then probably I would be forced to accept.’
    â€˜Excellent.’
    â€˜On one condition.’
    â€˜Name it.’
    â€˜That for the duration of the investigation, I be given the rank of Kriminalkommissar and that I be allowed to run the investigation any way I want.’
    â€˜Now wait a minute,’ said Nebe. ‘What’s wrong with your old rank of inspector?’
    â€˜Quite apart from the salary,’ said Heydrich, ‘Gunther is no doubt keen that he should be as free as possible from the interference of senior officers. He’s quite right of course. He’ll need that kind of rank in order to overcome the prejudices that will undoubtedly accompany his return to Kripo. I should have thought of it myself. It is agreed.’
    We walked back to the Palais. Inside the door an SD officer handed Heydrich a note. He read it and then smiled.
    â€˜Isn’t that a coincidence?’ he smiled. ‘It would seem that my incompetent police force has found the man who murdered your partner, Herr Gunther. I wonder, does the name Klaus Hering mean anything to you?’
    â€˜Stahlecker was keeping a watch on his apartment when he was killed.’
    â€˜That is good news. The only sand in the oil is that this Hering fellow would appear to have committed suicide.’ He looked at Nebe and smiled. ‘Well, we had better go and take a look, don’t you think, Arthur? Otherwise Herr Gunther here will think that we have made it up.’
    Â 
    It is difficult to form any clear impression of a man who has been hanged that is not grotesque. The tongue, turgid and protruding like a third lip, the eyes as prominent as a racing dog’s balls — these things tend to colour your thoughts a little. So apart from the feeling that he wouldn’t be winning the local debating-society prize, there wasn’t much to say about Klaus Hering except that he was about thirty years old, slimly built, fair-haired and, thanks in part to his necktie, getting on for tall.
    The thing looked clear-cut enough. In my experience hanging is almost always suicide: there are easier ways to kill a man. I have seen a few exceptions, but these were all accidental cases, where the victim had encountered the mishap of vagal inhibition while going about some sado-masochistic perversion. These sexual nonconformists were usually found naked or clothed in female underwear with a spread of pornographic literature to sticky hand, and were always men.
    In Hering’s case there was no such evidence of death by sexual misadventure. His clothes were such as might have been chosen by his mother; and his hands, which were loose at his sides, were unfettered eloquence to the effect that his homicide had been self-inflicted.
    Inspector Strunck, the bull who had interrogated me back at the Alex, explained the matter to Heydrich and Nebe.
    â€˜We found this man’s name and address in Stahlecker’s pocket,’ he said. ‘There’s a bayonet wrapped in newspaper in the kitchen. It’s covered in blood, and from the look of it I’d say it was the knife that killed him. There’s also a bloodstained shirt that Hering was probably wearing at the time.’
    â€˜Anything else?’ said Nebe.
    â€˜Stahlecker’s shoulder-holster was empty, General,’ said Strunck. ‘Perhaps Gunther might like to tell us if this was his gun or not. We found it in a paper bag with the shirt.’
    He handed me a Walther PPK. I put the muzzle to my nose and sniffed the gun-oil. Then I worked the slide and saw that there wasn’t even a bullet in the barrel, although the magazine was full. Next I pulled down the trigger-guard. Bruno’s initials were scratched neatly on the black