The Pale Criminal Read Online Free

indeed. The women prefer a ten-minute head on it, just like the men, and they don’t mind paying for it themselves. Nearly everyone who drives a car drives much too fast, but nobody would ever dream of running a red light. They’ve got rotten lungs because the air is bad, and because they smoke too much, and a sense of humour that sounds cruel if you don’t understand it, and even crueller if you do. They buy expensive Biedermeier cabinets as solid as blockhouses, and then hang little curtains on the insides of the glass doors to hide what they’ve got in there. It’s a typically idiosyncratic mixture of the ostentatious and the private. How am I doing?’
    Frau Lange nodded. ‘Apart from the comment about Berlin’s ugly women, you’ll do just fine.’
    â€˜It wasn’t pertinent.’
    â€˜Now there you’re wrong. Don’t back down or I shall stop liking you. It was pertinent. You’ll see why in a moment. What are your fees?’
    â€˜Seventy marks a day, plus expenses.’
    â€˜And what expenses might there be?’
    â€˜Hard to say. Travel. Bribes. Anything that results in information. You get receipts for everything except the bribes. I’m afraid you have to take my word for those.’
    â€˜Well, let’s hope that you’re a good judge of what is worth paying for.’
    â€˜I’ve had no complaints.’
    â€˜And I assume you’ll want something in advance.’ She handed me an envelope. ‘You’ll find a thousand marks in cash in there. Is that satisfactory to you?’ I nodded. ‘Naturally I shall want a receipt.’
    â€˜Naturally,’ I said, and signed the piece of paper she had prepared. Very businesslike, I thought. Yes, she was certainly quite a lady. ‘Incidentally, how did you come to choose me? You didn’t ask your lawyer, and,’ I added thoughtfully, ‘I don’t advertise, of course.’
    She stood up and, still holding her dog, went over to the desk.
    â€˜I had one of your business cards,’ she said, handing it to me. ‘Or at least my son did. I acquired it at least a year ago from the pocket of one of his old suits I was sending to the Winter Relief.’ She referred to the welfare programme that was run by the Labour Front, the DAF. ‘I kept it, meaning to return it to him. But when I mentioned it to him I’m afraid he told me to throw it away. Only I didn’t. I suppose I thought it might come in useful at some stage. Well, I wasn’t wrong, was I?’
    It was one of my old business cards, dating from the time before my partnership with Bruno Stahlecker. It even had my previous home telephone number written on the back.
    â€˜I wonder where he got it,’ I said.
    â€˜I believe he said that it was Dr Kindermann’s.’
    â€˜Kindermann?’
    â€˜I’ll come to him in a moment, if you don’t mind.’ I thumbed a new card from my wallet.
    â€˜It’s not important. But I’ve got a partner now, so you’d better have one of my new ones.’ I handed her the card, and she placed it on the desk next to the telephone. While she was sitting down her face adopted a serious expression, as if she had switched off something inside her head.
    â€˜And now I’d better tell you why I asked you here,’ she said grimly. ‘I want you to find out who’s blackmailing me.’ She paused, shifting awkwardly on the chaise longue. ‘I’m sorry, this isn’t very easy for me.’
    â€˜Take your time. Blackmail makes anyone feel nervous.’ She nodded and gulped some of her gin.
    â€˜Well, about two months ago, perhaps a little more, I received an envelope containing two letters that had been written by my son to another man. To Dr Kindermann. Of course I recognized my son’s handwriting, and although I didn’t read them, I knew that they were of an intimate nature. My son is a