Philip Kerr - The Lady from Zagreb

“What can I do for you, Bernie?”

“I was just visiting one of your prisoners. Friedrich Minoux.”

“The Gas Company fraudster. I know. I’m supposed to write your name down in the log of people who’ve been to see him.” He opened a file. “This log, here.”

“Minoux is not doing so well.”

“Better than his partners. Max Kessler and Hans Tiemessen are both doing a five stretch in Luckau, and from what I hear, they’re having a tough time.”

“He’s sixty-five years old, Ernst. I’m not sure I could do five years in this place.”

“There’s nothing I can do, Bernie. I can’t make his time any easier. A lot of people on the outside are watching to make sure he doesn’t get any special treatment because of his wife’s wealth. Perhaps, when the attention on him dies down a bit, I’ll see what I can do, but until then, my hands are tied.”

“Thanks, Ernst.” I shrugged. “One more thing. When I saw him just now, he seemed nervous about something. Scared, even.”

“Scared?”

“Is he being bullied, do you think?”

Kracauer shook his head. “Discipline in this place is good. If he was being bullied, believe me I’d know about it. The punishment for that kind of thing is harsh, to say the least.”

“What about pressure from the outside? Has he had any visitors — apart from his driver, Gantner, the one who brings him his breakfast every day? Someone who might have threatened him, perhaps?”

“Is this official?”

“No.”

“Then you know I’m not allowed to tell you. But I tell you what. I won’t write your name down in this file. How’s that?”

“Thanks, Ernst. I appreciate it.” I smiled. “How are the wife and kids?”

“Fine. Fine. My eldest has just joined the Luftwaffe.”

“You must be very proud of him.”

“I am. Look, would you excuse me for just a minute? I have to use the men’s room. Help yourself to another drink if you want it.” He pointed vaguely at the bottle on the desk. It was beside Friedrich Minoux’s still-open file.

“Thanks,” I said. “I think I will.”

I waited until he was out of the room and poured myself another brandy and, while I was doing so, I took a look at Minoux’s file, as Kracauer had meant me to, of course. There wasn’t time to do much more than check the visitor’s log. The previous morning, Minoux had received two visitors: Gantner, bringing him his breakfast, and then Captain Horst Janssen, of the RSHA.

I sat down and lit a cigarette, and a few minutes later, Ernst Kracauer returned.

“Well, I must get on,” he said, rubbing his hands. “I trust your visit here has been satisfactory?”

“Yes, Ernst. Thanks. And look after yourself.”

With much to think about, I drove slowly back to Berlin and the offices of the RSHA’s Foreign Intelligence section, on Berkaerstrasse. Janssen, who was probably already a mass murderer, worked for Schellenberg, who was a director of Stiftung Nordhav. Had Janssen put the Schreck on Minoux? It seemed highly likely. Not only that, but hadn’t I dropped him off at the military court in Charlottenburg the very same day? There was that to consider, too. Witzlebenstrasse was a fifteen-minute walk from Heckholz’s office on Bedeuten Strasse. He could have given evidence in a trial and then murdered Heckholz on his way home for the day. All in a day’s work for a man like Janssen. I certainly liked him better for Heckholz’s murder than my only other suspect, who was Lieutenant Leuthard. I liked Janssen better for it because, in spite of himself, I liked Leuthard. Any man who could fall asleep during an opera was all right by me. Besides, if you’ve just killed a man in cold blood it’s not easy to take a nap, even at the German Opera House. It spoke of a clear conscience. By contrast it was all too easy to see Captain Janssen murdering Dr. Heckholz on Schellenberg’s orders. I knew a bit about doing someone else’s dirty work myself. I’d done my fair share of it for Heydrich and Nebe.

I walked the keys into the office and met Janssen coming down the stairs.

“You finished taking those two Swiss around Berlin with my car?” he said.

“Finished.”

“What did you do with them anyway?”

“Took them to the German Opera.”

“The opera? That’s nice.”

“It might have been but there was a murder around the corner on Bedeuten Strasse and the police sirens got in the way of the music. At least I think it did. I’m never too sure with modern opera. Some lawyer got his head bashed in with a length of lead pipe. I mean, for real. This wasn’t in the opera.”

I was never much of a card player but I can bluff a bit, and I can tell when, just for a second, a man checks his mouth.

“Is that so?” Janssen frowned. “Only, the way I heard the splash this morning, the killer used a bust of Hitler to smash the man’s head in. Kind of funny when you think about it. Killed by Hitler like that. And the victim wasn’t even a Jew.”

“Hilarious, when you put it like that.” I smiled.

“Are you the investigating officer?”

“No. As it happens I’m leaving Kripo and the RSHA. I have a new job. I’m joining the War Crimes Bureau next week.”

“You surprise me. I didn’t know there was such a thing.”

“You mean such a thing as a war crime? Or a bureau that investigates them?”

“Both.”

“I’ve a feeling it’s going to be more important than you think.” I smiled patiently. “Anyway, thanks for the car.”

“Can I give you a lift somewhere?”

“No, I’ll walk. Around this time of day I generally need some air. Especially when I’m in uniform.”

“It is rather warm today,” he said.

I walked back to Grunewald Station. I told myself that I’d gone as far as I could with my inquiries without ending up like Friedrich Minoux or even Dr. Heckholz, and I felt an enormous sense of relief that I could just walk away from it all. What did I care who was profiting from Stiftung Nordhav? Or Export Drives GMBH? It certainly wasn’t any of my business. I wouldn’t have minded a little taste of some real money myself. And as it happened there was even less chance of State Secretary Wilhelm Stuckart at the Ministry of the Interior listening to their evidence of malfeasance and wrongdoing than even I had imagined. For I had since discovered Stuckart was also an honorary general in the SS.

Like so much of what happened with the Nazis, the whole thing was best left well alone. Life was already too short to go sticking my nose into the affairs of people like Walter Schellenberg and Werner Best. With any luck, no one would know that I’d ever been involved. All that mattered now was that I was away from the Alex and out of the RSHA and working for men to whom honor wasn’t just a word on a ceremonial belt. It wasn’t like the Murder Commission — at least not the one that used to exist when Bernhard Weiss was in charge of Kripo; and I didn’t honestly think that any of the cases I might be asked to handle would matter for very much in Justitia’s scales, but it would do for now.

French Riviera, 1956

Up on the screen Dalia unzipped her beautiful red mouth to reveal a row of perfect teeth, laughed, and stared into the camera with those big blue eyes, and I was in love all over again. After more than ten years it was as if we had never been parted. Well, almost. Cinema is cruel like that. So cruel that it must have been invented by a German, or at least imagined by one. Nietzsche, perhaps, with his idea of eternal recurrence; I can’t think of a more cinematic idea than that because, to be honest, it’s highly probable that, for obvious reasons, I’ll see this film more than once. Well, why not? I could almost smell her.