Philip Kerr - Prague Fatale

I don’t suppose I was unconscious for longer than a couple of minutes. When I came to I could have wished it had been a lot longer. Another thing you can’t do when you’re unconscious is feel sick or have a splitting headache or wonder if you should dare to move your legs in case your neck really is broken. Ignoring the severe pain of opening my eyelids I opened my eyelids, and found myself staring down the blunderbuss-barrel of a large brandy balloon. It was a big improvement on a real blunderbuss, or the pistol that these circumstances usually produce. I took a deep, heady breath of the stuff and let it toast my adenoids for a moment before taking the glass from the hand that was holding it in front of me and then pouring all of the contents carefully — tipping my head meant moving my neck — down my throat.

I handed the glass back and found it was Kritzinger who took it from me.

I was in a neat little sitting room with a window onto the basement corridor, a small desk, a couple of easy chairs, a safe, and the chaise-longue I was lying on.

‘Where am I?’

‘This is my office, sir,’ said Kritzinger.

Behind him were two SS men, one of whom was the corporal who had argued with me a few minutes before. The other was Major Ploetz.

‘Who hit me?’

‘I did, sir,’ said the corporal.

‘What were you trying to do? Make a bell ring?’

‘Sorry about that, sir.’

‘No, don’t apologize. Kritzinger?’

‘Sir?’

‘Give this boy a piece of sugarloaf. I reckon he won it fair and square. The last time I got hit like that I was wearing a pointy hat and sitting in a trench.’

‘If only you’d listened to me, sir,’ said the corporal.

‘It looked to me as if that’s exactly what you’ve been doing.’ I rubbed the back of my neck and groaned. ‘To me and everyone else in this house.’

‘Orders are orders, sir.’

Ploetz put his hand on my shoulder. ‘How are you feeling, Captain?’ He sounded oddly solicitous, as if he really did care.

‘Really, sir,’ insisted the corporal. ‘If I’d known it was you, sir-’

‘It’s all right, Corporal,’ Ploetz said smoothly. ‘I’ll handle things from here.’

‘Sure, doc, sure,’ I said. ‘You can pretend there’s a perfectly innocent explanation for all that recording equipment and while you’re at it, I’ll pretend I’m a proper detective. Right now the only thing I am absolutely certain of is the quality of that brandy. Better pour me another, Kritzinger. I pretend better when I’ve had a drink.’

‘Don’t give him any,’ Ploetz told Kritzinger. And then: ‘Your tongue is quite loose enough as it is, Gunther. We wouldn’t want you to say something to your own detriment. Especially not now you’re in the General’s good books.’

I ignored this. It didn’t sound right. Clearly the blow on the back of my neck had affected my hearing.

‘That’s right, doc. We’ve got to be careful what we say. What is it that the sign says? Attention! The enemy is listening. Well, they are. And they’re pretty good at it, too. Aren’t you, boys? What were you listening to anyway? And don’t tell me it was the Leader talking about the Winter Relief. Something in the Meeting Room? Something in the bedrooms? Maybe you’ve got a recording of Kuttner getting shot. That might come in useful. For me, anyway. Something in the Morning Room? Me, perhaps. Only what would be the point in that? I don’t mind calling you all crooks and liars to your ugly faces. Just see if I don’t.’

Ploetz moved his head in the direction of the door and the two SS men started to leave.

‘Look, Gunther,’ Ploetz said, ‘I think it might be better if you returned to your room and had a lie-down. I’ll inform the General of what’s happened. Under the circumstances, he’ll want to know you’re all right.’

At this moment a lie-down looked very appealing.

Ploetz went outside while Kritzinger helped me to my feet.

‘Are you all right, sir? Would you like me to help you back to your room?’

‘Thanks no, I’ll manage. I’m used to it. It’s an occupational hazard for a policeman, being hit. It comes of sticking my nose in where it’s not wanted. I should know better by now. It used to be that a detective could turn up at a country house, question everyone, find some recognizable clues, and then arrest the butler over chilled cocktails in the library. But it hasn’t worked out like that, I’m afraid, Kritzinger. I’m afraid you won’t be getting your big moment when everyone realizes what a clever fellow you’ve been.’

‘That is disappointing, sir. Perhaps you would care for another brandy after all.’

I shook my head. ‘No. I expect Doctor Ploetz is right. I do talk too much. It comes of not having any answers. I don’t suppose you know who shot Captain Kuttner.’

‘No, sir.’

He smiled a fleeting smile and then scratched the back of his head, awkwardly.

‘Pity.’

‘You understand, sir, that there are lots of things in this house I prefer not to hear, but if these things had included a shot, or perhaps a snippet of conversation that might shed some light on his unfortunate death, then I should certainly tell you, Commissar. Really I would. However, I am certain there’s nothing I can tell you.’

I nodded. ‘Well, that’s very good of you to say so, Kritzinger. I really think you mean that. And I appreciate you saying it.’

‘Really?’ The smile flickered on again for just a second. ‘I wonder.’

‘No, I do.’

‘I flatter myself that perhaps I know your own independent cast of mind. One can’t help but hear things in a house like this.’

‘So I noticed.’

‘Consequently, I know you believe that I think in a certain way only, for what it’s worth, I don’t. I never have. I am a good German. Like you, perhaps, I don’t know what else to be. But unlike you, I am not a courageous man, if you follow me.’

‘That Iron Cross ribbon in your buttonhole says otherwise, Mister Kritzinger.’

‘Thank you, sir. But that was then. I think things were simpler in that war, were they not? Courage was perhaps easier to recognize not only in oneself but in others as well. Well, I was younger then. I have a wife now. And a child. And long ago I concluded that the only practical course of action available to me was simply to do as I’m told.’

‘Me, too.’

I headed for the stairs a little unsteadily. It had been a very German conversation.

As I passed the dining room I noticed that lunch was finishing. Seeing me, Heydrich made his excuses to the other cauliflower and, smiling, nodded toward the Drawing Room.

It wasn’t every day that Heydrich smiled at me. I followed him, and he led me to the French windows and out onto the terrace where he offered me one of his cigarettes and even condescended to light it for me. He did not smoke one himself. And he seemed oddly cheerful considering that Vaclav Moravek continued to elude the Gestapo. I had only ever seen him like this once before, and that had been in June 1940, after the French capitulation.

‘Major Ploetz told me what happened to you below stairs,’ he said, almost apologetically. ‘I should have informed you about the SD listening station but really, I’ve had so much on my plate. As if I didn’t have enough to do here in Bohemia with the Three Kings and UVOD and the traitor X. Reichsmarshal Goring has tasked me to submit to him a comprehensive draft as to how we can sort out the way the Jews are being handled in all new territories under German influence. Well, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what things are like in the East. It’s nothing short of chaos. But that’s hardly your concern.

‘But to come back to the traitor X: as you know, all of the guests in this house were under suspicion in that respect. However, by a simple process of elimination our intelligence analysts had narrowed down the search for the traitor’s identity to one of six or seven officers. Consequently everything these men said on the least of subjects was of interest to us. Which is why some of the rooms in the Lower Castle have concealed microphones, just in case one of them should let something important slip.’