The Widow Killer Read Online Free PDF Page B

it?
    Was he exaggerating his skepticism? Or was he dangerously deformed by a profession that made him disbelieve everything he heard?
    Why not give it a try? Admit, for a start, that the Furhrer could be preparing a gigantic trap, part of which was a false retreat on all fronts?
    If victory destroyed Europe’s existing social order and made way for a new era in history, what would it bring for Chief Inspector Erwin Buback?
    If that fateful After came soon (it would have to, he thought, since they were running out of places to retreat to), it would find him just past forty, with a high-placed police job, an excellent salary—and alone.
    On the day an unfamiliar voice, callused by years of these messages, had informed him briskly that the two reasons for his existence had perished, a large part of him died as well. The women who tried to comfort him hit a wall of ice. It was his awkward attempt to strike a bargain with Fate, as if his faithfulness would allow Hilde and Heidi to rise miraculously from the ashes.
    Today’s noonday bomb had made him whole again. When the building shook, his long sleep ended, and he realized that over the past few months Hilde and Heidi had quietly become part of his living self. Interrupted contacts met again, like severed nerves. He began to feel once more.
    If the Reich actually won the war—and if he himself did not die in it—he could not spend the rest of his life mourning them. The dead had to be replaced. Germany was paying a terrible price for victory (the lot of all great nations, he supposed) and would need new blood. If Hilde and Heidi had survived him, they would definitely have felt the same way. But which way was that?
    The bar was filling up quickly, the noise grew louder. To stay meant risking the company of one of Meckerle’s thugs. They had the disturbing habit of drowning out their own fear with proclamations about the Final Victory; it would instantly make him doubt the very thing he was trying so hard to believe in. And starting tomorrow, he would be taking concrete steps to help bring it about.
    He gave a wide berth to the deserted, reeking remains of the corner building and walked as slowly as he dared past his house, guided by the balustrade that ran along the sheer drop down to the towpath. In the black of night no one would recognize him, but still he only glanced quickly up at the top floor. The memory of his achievement filled him with contentment. Now he would eliminate the remaining threat to his continued success.
    They were still working feverishly on the nearby bridge. Apparently a bomb had fallen there and tipped over a few statues. A crane lifted one of them off the tram tracks; it looked like a giant corpse. He halted and looked around. He was alone on the embankment.
    He set his bag down on the sidewalk, opened it, and rummaged deep inside for it. The wax-paper package was still soft; carefully he placed IT back in the corner of the bag, where it would be better protected. Then he groped with his fingers for the handle of the knife sheathed beneath his shirt. As he placed it under his jacket he took care not to cut himself. That was how his failure in Brno had begun.
    Across the street, a thin streak of light lined the bottom of the windowshade in the ground-floor window. He had it all thought out. He would ring the bell and say—if necessary—
Luftschutzkontrole!
Air-raid control! Better take off his hat and modify his voice, since he’d been stupid enough to speak to the man earlier. What else would he need? His foot, as a wedge; his elbow, as a crowbar; and, to be on the safe side, two quick blows. He had just stepped into the street when the sirens went off.
    The freshly wounded city reacted quickly. Shadows hurried from the bridge down to the shelters. The last echo had barely faded into the distance when the sirens wailed yet again, their strange rising and falling glissandos prophesying an air raid.
    Those fucking policemen!
    A few yards farther