A Quiet Flame by Philip Kerr

Author:Philip Kerr
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.

THE CELLS in the prison below the Munich Police Praesidium were once occupied by Augustine monks. They must have been tough men, those Augustine monks. My cell had a hard bunk and a straw pallet on top, which was about as thick as a blanket. The blanket was made of thin air. Job or Saint Jerome would have been very comfortable down there. There was an open toilet without a seat, and no window in the smooth, porcelain tile wall. The cell was hot and smelly, and so was I. “Love the sinner and hate the sin,” said Saint Augustine. That was easy for him to say. He never had to spend the night in a cell beneath the Munich Police Praesidium.

They left the lights on all the time, and it wasn’t in case you were scared of the dark. I had no idea what time of the day or night it was. A few days of that, and you’re ready to do more or less whatever they tell you, just to see the sky again. That’s the theory, anyway. And after what seemed like a week but was probably only two or three days, a doctor came to look at me—a real Schweitzer type, with a mustache as big as an octopus and more white hair than Liszt’s grandmother. He examined the bruises on my ribs and asked me how I’d come by them. I told him I’d fallen off my bunk when I’d been asleep.

“Do they hurt?”

“Only when I laugh, which is not so much since I’ve been here, oddly enough.”

“You may have a couple of broken ribs,” he said. “Really, you need an X-ray.”

“Thanks, but what I really need is a cigarette.”

He examined the bruises on my ribs, gave me a cigarette, and asked me for my clothes.

“I don’t think they’ll fit you,” I said, but I took them off all the same. I just wanted to go home.

“We’ll get these things cleaned,” he said, handing my clothes to the custody officer. “You, too, if you’re up to it. There’s a shower at the end of the corridor. Soap and a razor.”

“Kind of late to be handing out hospitality, isn’t it?” But I had the shower and the shave all the same.

When I was clean, the short man handed me a blanket and took me into an interview room to await the return of my clothes. We sat down at opposite ends of a table. He opened a leather cigarette case and put it in front of me. Then someone brought me a cup of hot, sweet coffee. It tasted like ambrosia.

“I am Commissar Wowereit,” he said. “I’ve been instructed to inform you that no charges are to be made and that you are free to go.”

“Well, that’s very generous of you,” I said, and took one of his cigarettes. He lit it for me with a match and then sat back on his chair. He had slim, delicate hands. They didn’t look like they’d ever thrown a tomato, let alone a punch.

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