Philip Kerr - A Quiet Flame

“Something like that, yes.”

“My first duty, Commissar, is to my patients. Some of whom are very dangerously ill. Suppose for a moment that I did share information regarding their true identities with you. And suppose you chose to interview some of them. All of them. I don’t know. They might very well feel I’d betrayed their confidence. They might never again return to the clinic to complete their treatment. In which case they might very easily go and infect someone else. And so on, and so on.” He shrugged. “You do see what I mean? I regret the murder of anyone. However, I do have to be mindful of the bigger picture.”

“Here’s my bigger picture, Dr. Kassner. The person who killed Anita Schwarz is a psychopath. She was horribly mutilated. The kind of person who kills like that usually does it again. I want to find this maniac before that happens. Are you prepared to have another murder on your conscience?”

“You make a very fair point, Commissar. It’s quite a dilemma, isn’t it? Perhaps the best thing would be to put the matter before the Prussian Medical Ethics Committee and let them decide.”

“How long would that take?”

Kassner looked vague. “A week or two? Perhaps a month.”

“And what do you think they would decide?”

He sighed. “I would never like to second-guess a medical ethics committee. I’m sure it’s the same in the police. There are always proper procedures to be observed. Although they don’t really seem to have been observed here. I wonder what your superiors would make of your conduct toward me?” He shook his head. “But let us suppose that the committee turns down your request. That’s a realistic possibility, I think. What could you do then? I suppose you could try to interview everyone coming in and out of the clinic. Of course, it’s only a small percentage who are in the clinical trial. The vast majority of my patients-and I do mean a vast majority, Commissar-is still using neosalvarsan. And what would happen then? Why, you would frighten people away, of course. And we would have an epidemic of venereal disease in Berlin. As things stand now, we are barely controlling the disease. There are tens of thousands of people in this city suffering from jelly, as you call it. No, Commissar, my own suggestion to you would be to try to find a separate line of inquiry. Yes, sir, I do believe that would be the best thing for all concerned.”

“You make some good points, Doctor,” I said.

“I’m so glad you think so.”

“However, when I was in your office, I couldn’t help noticing that one of the addresses on your list of patients using protonsil is this address. Perhaps you’d care to comment on that.”

“I see. That was very sharp of you, Commissar. I suppose you think that might make me a suspect.”

“It’s a possibility I can’t afford to ignore, sir.”

“No, of course not.” Kassner finished his drink and got up to pour himself another. But I still wasn’t on his list of people he wanted to have a drink with. “Well, then, it’s like this. It’s not uncommon for doctors to infect themselves with a disease they’re trying to cure.” He sat down again, burped discreetly behind his glass, and then toasted me silently.

“Is that what you’re saying, Doctor? That you deliberately infected yourself with a venereal disease to test protonsil on yourself?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Sometimes it’s not enough to test the side effects of a drug on other people. They are less able to describe the full effects of a drug on the human body. As I believe I stated when first we met, it’s rather difficult to keep tabs on patients in these cases. Sometimes the only patient one can really trust is oneself. I’m sorry if you think that makes me a suspect. But I can assure you that I’ve never murdered anyone. As it happens, though, I believe I can supply an alibi for the day and night of that poor girl’s death.”

“I’m delighted to hear it.”

“I was attending a urologists’ conference, in Hannover.”

I nodded and took out my cigarettes. “Do you mind?”

He shook his head and sipped some of his drink. The alcohol hit his stomach and made it start rumbling.

“Here’s what I’d like to suggest, Doctor. Something that might help this inquiry. Something you might like to do voluntarily that wouldn’t offend your sense of ethics.”

“If it’s within my power.”

I lit my cigarette and leaned forward so I was in range of the scallop-edged ashtray.

“Have you ever had any psychiatric training, sir?”

“Some. As a matter of fact, I did my medical training in Vienna and went to several lectures on psychiatry. Once I even considered working in the field of psychotherapy.”

“If you are agreeable, I’d like you to look over all your own patient notes. See if there’s any one of them who perhaps stands out as a possible murderer.”

“And supposing there was? One patient who stood out. What then?”

“Why, then we could discuss the matter. And perhaps discover some mutually acceptable way forward.”

“Very well. I can assure you I’ve no desire to see this man kill again. I have a daughter myself.”

I glanced around the apartment.

“Oh, she lives with her mother, in Bavaria. We’re divorced.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“And the man who was here when I called earlier on today?”

“Ah, you must mean Beppo. He’s a friend of my wife’s and came to collect some of her things in his car. He’s a student, in Munich.” Kassner yawned. “I’m sorry, Commissar, but it’s been a very long day. Is there anything else? Only I’d like to take a bath. You can’t imagine how much I look forward to taking a bath after a day in the clinic. Well, perhaps you can imagine.”

“Yes, sir, I can imagine it quite well enough.”

We parted, more or less cordially. But I wondered just how cordial Kassner would have been if I’d mentioned Josef Goebbels. There was nothing around the apartment to indicate Kassner was a Nazi. On the other hand, I couldn’t imagine Goebbels taking the risk of being treated by anyone other than a trusted Nazi Party member. Joey wasn’t the type to put much faith in things like ethics and professional confidence.

Sadly, there was nothing to suggest that the Nazi Party leader in Berlin might actually be a psychopathic murderer, either. A dose of jelly was one thing. The murder and mutilation of a fifteen-year-old girl was quite another.

IDID NOT OPEN the old KRIPO files that Colonel Montalban had somehow obtained from Berlin. In spite of what I had told him, the details of the case were still quite familiar to me. I knew perfectly well why it was I had been unable to apprehend Anita Schwarz’s murderer. But I started work all the same.

I was looking for a missing girl who just might be dead. And I was keeping an eye out for one of my old comrades who just might be a psychopath.

Neither of the investigative questions I had been set by the hero-worshipping Argentine policeman seemed likely to get the answer he was looking for. Mostly, I was just looking out for myself. But I went along with his idea, of course. What other choice did I have?

At first, I was nervous about playing the part the colonel had written for me. For one thing, I wanted as little to do with other ex-SS men as possible; and, for another, I was convinced that, in spite of Montalban’s assurances, they would be hostile to someone asking a lot of questions concerning events most of them probably wanted to forget. But, more often than not, the colonel turned out to be right. As soon as I mentioned the word “passport,” it seemed there was nothing that Europe’s most wanted war criminals were not prepared to talk to me about. Indeed, sometimes it seemed that many of these creatures actually welcomed the chance to unburden themselves-to talk about their crimes and even to justify them, as if they were meeting a psychiatrist or a priest.