Philip Kerr - The Lady from Zagreb

“I’m Gunther,” I said.

Heckholz brought his heels together silently and he bowed.

“Herr Gunther,” he said, “it’s good of you to come here at such short notice. I am Heinrich Heckholz.”

“There were five good reasons to come, Herr Doctor. Or perhaps a hundred, depending on how you look at it.”

“Surely you’re forgetting the pancakes. Will you join me?”

“I’ve been thinking about nothing else since midnight.”

We went along a corridor floored with white boards and lined with law books and box files, all of which carried the same little drawing of Justitia that appeared on his letterhead. He led me into a small kitchen where the mixture was already made, and immediately he put on a clean white apron and set about making the pancakes, but I felt him sizing me up out of the corner of his eye.

“Have you just finished your shift?”

“Yes. I came straight here.”

“Somehow I thought you’d be wearing your uniform,” he said.

“Only in the field,” I said, “or on ceremonial occasions.”

“In which case I wonder how you ever find the time to take it off. Berlin has more ceremonial occasions than imperial Rome, I fancy. The Nazis do like a good show.”

“You’ve got that right.”

He’d heated some cherry sauce in a small copper saucepan that he poured generously onto the finished pancakes and we carried Meissen plates into a meeting room. There was a round Biedermeier table and four matching chairs; on the yellow-papered wall was a portrait of Hitler, and on a sideboard in the window a large pot of white orchids. Through another open door on a white-wood floor was a partners desk, a large filing cabinet, and a safe. On the desk I spied a bronze head of the leader. Heckholz didn’t look like he was taking any chances with appearances. A third door was partly open, and I had half an idea that behind it was a room and that there was someone in that room; someone wearing the same perfume as the redhead in the waiting room.

Heckholz handed me a napkin and we ate the pancakes in silence. They were predictably delicious.

“I’d offer you an excellent schnapps with that but it’s a little early, even for me.”

I nodded, but it was just as well he didn’t twist my arm as it’s never too early for a glass of schnapps, especially when you’ve just finished work for the day.

He saw me looking at the picture on the wall and shrugged. “That’s good for business,” he said. “If not necessarily good for the digestion.” He shook his head. “Our leader has a very hungry look. Doubtless a result of his many years of struggle in my hometown of Vienna. Poor man. He almost looks as if he has been forbidden any pancakes and sent to bed early, don’t you think?”

“I really couldn’t say.”

“Still, his is an inspiring story. To come so far, from nothing. I’ve been to Braunau-on-the-Inn where he was born. It’s completely unremarkable. Which makes his story all the more remarkable when you think about it. Although, to be quite frank with you, as an Austrian I prefer not to think about it at all. It’s true that we Austrians will have to take the blame for giving the world Hitler. But I’m afraid it’s you Germans who must take the blame for giving him absolute power.”

I said nothing.

“Oh, come now,” said Heckholz, “there’s no need to be so coy, Herr Gunther. We both know you’re no more a Nazi than I am. Despite all the evidence to the contrary. I was a member of the Christian Social Party, but never a Nazi. The Nazis are all about show, and a show of loyalty to the leader is usually enough to deflect suspicion. How else can you explain the fact that so many Austrians and Germans who hate the Nazis give the Hitler salute with such alacrity?”

“I usually find that the safer explanation is to believe that they’re Nazis, too.”

Heckholz chuckled. “Yes, I suppose it is. Which probably explains why you’ve stayed alive for so long. You’ll remember Herr Gantner, who used to drive for Friedrich Minoux — he said that when you were working for Herr Minoux, as a private investigator, all those years ago, you told him you’d been a dedicated Social Democrat, right up until the moment that the Nazis gained power in 1933, when you had to leave the police.”

“So, it was him who recommended me to you.”

“Indeed it was. Only, now you’re in the SD.” Dr. Heckholz smiled. “How is that possible? I mean, how does someone who supported the SPD end up as a captain of SD?”

“People change,” I said. “Especially in Germany. If they know what’s good for them.”

“Some people. But not you, I think. Gantner told me what you said to him. In Wannsee. He told me that you virtually apologized for wearing the uniform. Like you were ashamed of it.”

“People see the scary SD badge on my sleeve and become alarmed. It’s a bad habit of mine, that’s all. Trying to put people at their ease.”

“That’s certainly unusual in Germany.”

Heckholz cleared away the plates, removed the apron, and then sat down; it was obvious he didn’t believe a word of what I’d said.

“All the same, Herr Gantner thought your remarks noteworthy enough to mention you to me in the hope that you might be able to provide us with some assistance.”

“What kind of assistance?”

“With a problem that results from what happened to Herr Minoux.”

“You mean the Berlin Gas Company fraud.”

“The Berlin Gas Company fraud. I do mean that, yes.”

“Thank you for the pancakes,” I said, standing up. I tossed the five Albrechts back onto his table. “But whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested.”

“Please don’t go just yet,” he said. “You haven’t heard about my handsome proposition.”

“I’m beginning to believe your handsome proposition is about to turn into a rather ugly frog. Besides, I’m all out of kisses.”

“How would you like to make ten thousand reichsmarks?”

“I’d like it fine just as long as I was able to live to spend it. But if I’ve stayed alive for so long it’s because I’ve learned not to have conversations like this with strangers, especially when it’s next to an open door. If you want me to stay and hear you out, Herr Doctor Heckholz, then you’d better ask your friend wearing the Arabian Nights perfume to come in here and join us.”

Heckholz grinned and stood up. “I should have realized the difficulty of trying to trick a famous detective from the Alex.”

“No, that’s remarkably easy. You just send them a hundred marks in an envelope.”

“Lilly, darling, will you please come in here?”

A minute later the redhead was in the meeting room. She was taller than I had supposed, with larger breasts, and as Heckholz made the introductions she took my hand as if she’d been handing alms to Lazarus.

“Herr Gunther, this is Frau Minoux.”

“That’s a bad habit, Frau Minoux. Listening outside doors like that.”

“I wanted to see what kind of man you are before I made my mind up about you.”

“And what’s the conclusion?”

“I still haven’t decided.”

“You’re not alone there.”

“Anyway, it’s a bad habit I learned from you, Herr Gunther. It was you my husband paid to spy on me at my home in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, wasn’t it? When was that exactly?”

I nodded. “Nineteen thirty-five.”

“Nineteen thirty-five.” Frau Minoux rolled her eyes and sighed. “So much has happened since then.”

“Well, I guess he didn’t find anything,” Heckholz told her, “otherwise you’d hardly be here now, would you? Still married to Friedrich.”

“You’d have to ask Herr Gunther that,” said Frau Minoux.

“I didn’t find anything, no. But strictly speaking, Frau Minoux, I never actually listened outside your door. As it happens, I subcontracted the job in Garmisch to a local detective — an Austrian named Max Ahrweiler. He was the one who was looking through your keyhole, not me.”