Philip Kerr - Prague Fatale

Kahlo sighed and shook his head ruefully.

‘Sorry, sir, that’s not helping, I know.’

Even as Kahlo spoke I was trying to put up a fight against the rampaging contagion of his utter confusion. In my mind I seemed to hear a lost chord and see some words underneath the palimpsest. An elusive fragment of real insight flashed like a pan of magnesium powder inside the dark chamber that was my skull and then all was black again. For a brief moment everything was illuminated and I understood all and I was on the cusp of articulating exactly what the problem was and where the solution might lie and didn’t he, Kahlo, know that what he was describing was precisely the intellectual dilemma that afflicted every detective? But the very next moment a grey mist descended behind my eyes and, before I knew it, this same thought that looked like an answer was slowly suffocating like a fish landed by an angler on a riverbank, its mouth opening and shutting with no sound emerging.

I told him I needed to get away from the Lower Castle so that I might order my own thinking. That’s what I also told myself. I’d had enough of them all for one day and suddenly that included Kahlo, too. I decided that I wanted to go back to the hotel and devote my energies to Arianne for a while and that we could spend our last night together before I sent her home in the morning.

‘Ask Major Ploetz to find a car that will take me back into Prague,’ I said.

Kahlo looked sad for a moment, as if disappointed I was not ready to be honest with him about where I was going.

‘Yes sir.’

I did not have long to wait before a car became available but I was less than pleased to discover that I was to share a ride with Heydrich himself.

‘Now you can tell me what conclusions you’ve come to,’ he said as Klein steered us left out of the Lower Castle’s infernal gates and onto the picture-postcard country road.

‘I haven’t any, yet.’

‘I was rather hoping you would have everything wrapped up by this weekend. Before my wife, Lina, gets here.’

‘Yes. I know. You told me that before.’

‘And before my guests are obliged to leave. They do have duties to perform.’

‘Mmm-hmm.’

‘I must say I find it rather odd than you think you can just take the evening off while a murderer remains at liberty in my house. Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear this morning. It is urgent that this case is solved before news gets back to Berlin.’

‘No, you made that perfectly clear, sir.’

‘And yet you’re still going to see that whore of yours.’

I nodded. ‘Tell me something, sir. Do you play chess?’

‘Yes. But I don’t see what that has to do with this. Or your whore.’

‘Well then you might know that in major tournaments it isn’t uncommon for players to get up and leave the board between moves. Reading, sleeping, or indeed any pleasant distraction can refresh the human mind, enabling the player to perform at a higher intellectual level. Now, while I don’t expect to do any reading this evening, I do expect my lady friend will provide some very pleasant distractions, after which it’s perfectly possible that I may get some sleep. All of which is a long way of saying that I need some time away from you and your house in order to try to make sense of everything I’ve discovered today.’

‘Such as?’

Reaching the main road at last, Klein stepped hard on the accelerator leaving Jungfern-Breschan behind, and we sped toward Prague at almost eighty kilometres an hour, obliging me to raise my voice to answer the General.

‘I know of at least three people who are staying at the Lower Castle who hated Captain Kuttner. Henlein, Jacobi and Kluckholn. I can’t yet say if they hated him enough to kill him. They hated him for a variety of reasons that mostly come down to the fact that Kuttner was insubordinate and clever and perhaps a bit conceited and really not quite the senior officer’s toady that a good adjutant ought to be. But there were other reasons, too — probably more important reasons — that might have got him murdered. Principally the fact that he was your liaison officer for the SD’s Traitor X Group. If he’d found out something concerning the identity of the traitor, that would have been a pretty good reason for someone to kill him. You might have told me about that yourself, General.’

‘When?’

‘This morning. When we were in your office. When you handed me this case.’

‘I hardly wanted to broadcast the news about the existence of such a squad in front of my own butler. Besides, I had assumed your Criminal Assistant would inform you about that. Major Ploetz tells me Kahlo is part of the VXG.’

‘He assumed it was a secret. I’ve only just found out about it.’

‘Well, you know now.’

‘Is everyone who has been invited to your house under suspicion?’

‘Until the traitor is apprehended? Yes. Of course. What a ridiculous question. Oddly enough, Gunther, traitors have a habit of turning out to be the people we trusted most. It would be foolish to assume that there are some people who are simply above suspicion merely by virtue of a long acquaintance with the Leader or me, or their continuing demonstration of Party loyalty. A Czech spy would be no good if he was suspected of being a Czech spy, would he? However, I do agree that this might conceivably have been the reason why Kuttner was murdered. Which makes it all the more imperative that we catch the bastard as soon as possible, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘I have another reason why he might have been murdered.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘Captain Kuttner was homosexual.’

‘Nonsense. Whatever gave you such a ridiculous idea? Let me tell you, I knew Kuttner for more than a decade. And I would have known. It’s impossible that I wouldn’t have known such a thing.’

‘Nevertheless it’s a fact.’

‘You’d better have some damned good evidence for an assertion like that, Gunther.’

‘I’ll spare you the details, sir, but you can take it from me that I would hardly have told you in front of your butler; and I wouldn’t mention it now, in front of your driver, unless I was damned sure about what I’m saying. Moreover I think we can agree that being homosexual, especially in the SS, is, in these enlightened times that we live in, more than enough reason to get you killed. I suspect any number of SS officers would feel entirely justified in shooting that kind of man. Equally, I suspect one or two would have felt quite justified in having Kuttner shot for — what shall we call it, sir? — his dereliction of duty with that Special Action Group in Latvia.’

‘That’s something you should know quite a bit about yourself, Gunther. Perhaps you have asked yourself why you were allowed to leave your own police battalion in Minsk so easily. If you have not done so already then perhaps you should.’

I nodded. ‘Arthur Nebe said something to me at the time, by way of an explanation.’

‘And Nebe takes his orders from me. Wouldn’t you agree?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘You remind me of someone, Gunther. A rather stubborn Belgian by the name of Paul Anspach. He used to be President of the International Fencing Association. After Belgium was defeated, in June 1940, Anspach, who had acted as a military judge advocate, was arrested for alleged war crimes and put in prison. After he was released I had him summoned to Berlin, where I ordered him to surrender the Presidency to me. He refused. I can’t tell you how irritating that was; however, I admired his courage and sent him home.’

‘Not even you can always get what you want, General.’

‘I can actually. With the help of the Italian President of Fencing, I managed to have him stripped of the International Presidency anyway. It’s pointless being stubborn with me, Gunther. I always get what I want in the end. You should know that by now. That it’s not wise to oppose me. In case you didn’t understand, that’s the point of the fucking story.’