Philip Kerr - Field Grey

'And among all of the bastards he could have killed, he just chose me at random, is that it?' I shook my head, which seemed to provoke another violent fit of coughing.

Kestner poured a glass of water and handed it to me.

I drank it and caught my breath.

'Thanks. Besides, the kind of staff a grand hotel employs? It goes against everything they believe in to kill a guest. Even a guest they might despise.'

Kestner went to the window and looked out. We were in a third-floor room in the high mansard roof of the hospital. You could see and sometimes hear the Gare du Nord just across the Rue Maubeuge.

'But why would any German officer want to kill you? They would have to have a damn good motive.'

For a moment I considered suggesting one: anyone who had already denounced me to the Gestapo as a Mischling would, I thought, have reason enough to kill me. Instead, I said:

'I wasn't always held in such good odour by our political masters. You remember what it was like in Kripo, before 1933? Well, of course you do. You're about the one person in Paris I can talk to about this, Paul. Who I can trust.'

'I'm relieved to hear it, Bernie. But just for the record I spent most of last night at the One-Two-Two. The brothel.'

'You forget,' I said, 'everyone has to sign in and out of the hotel. I could easily check if you were in the hotel last night.'

'Yes, you're right. I did forget that. You always were a better detective than I was.' He came away from the window and sat on the edge of my bed.

'You're alive, that's the main thing. And you needn't worry about Mielke. I'm sure we'll find him. You can tell Heydrich that if he's in one of those French concentration camps we'll find him as sure as there's an Amen in a church service. You can go back to Berlin confident in the knowledge that when we fly down there tomorrow, we'll take proper care of it.'

'What makes you think I'm not coming with you?'

'Your doctor said that it would be several days before you were fit enough to resume your duties,' said Kestner. 'Surely you'll want to get home and recuperate?'

'I'm working for Heydrich, remember? He's a bit like the God of Abraham. It's never a good idea to risk his wrath because retribution is often direct. No, I'll be on that plane tomorrow even if you have to tie me on the undercarriage. Not a bad idea at that. The doc says I need plenty of fresh air.'

Kestner shrugged. 'All right. If you say so. It's your luck that's as black as pitch, not mine.'

'Exactly. Besides, what would I do here in Paris except go to Maison Chabanais or One-Two? Or one of those other puff- houses.'

'The car leaves the Hotel du Louvre for Le Bourget at eight o'clock tomorrow morning.' Kestner shot me an exasperated, weary sort of look and smacked the side of his thigh with his cap. Then he went away.

I closed my eyes for a moment and submitted to a long fit of coughing. But I wasn't worried. I was in a hospital. In hospital people get better all the time. Some of them anyway.

It was early the next morning when an SS staff car arrived to drive me back to the hotel to collect my things and then to the airport. Paris still wasn't awake, but for any decent Frenchman the city probably looked better with eyes closed. A detachment of soldiers was marching along the Champs-Elysees; German trucks were pouring in and out of the army garage that was located in the Grand Palais; and, in case anyone was still in any doubt about it, on the facade of the Palais Bourbon they were erecting a large V for victory and a sign that read 'GERMANY IS EVERYWHERE VICTORIOUS'. It was a sunny summer's day but Paris looked almost as depressing as Berlin. Still, I was feeling better. At my request the hospital doctor had shot me full of dope to put some raspberry into my beer. Amphetamines, he said. Whatever it was I felt like St Vitus was holding my hand. It didn't stop the pain in my chest and throat from all the retching I'd done, but I was ready to go flying. All I had to do was go back to the hotel, get into my uniform and find a nice tall building for a take-off.

The hotel manager was pleased to see me standing up. He'd have been glad to see me in a flower vase. It's bad for business when guests die in their rooms. I was alive and that was all that mattered. My old room was closed up because of the strong smell of chemicals in there and my clothes had been taken to a suite on another floor. He seemed relieved when I told him I was going south to Biarritz for a few days. I said I was going up to my new room and that I wanted to thank the maid who'd saved my life, and he said he'd arrange this immediately.

Then I went upstairs and took my field-grey uniform out of the closet. It carried a strong smell of chemicals or gas and brought on a strong feeling of nausea as I recalled breathing the stuff. I opened the French window, hung my uniform there for a minute and then rinsed my face with cold water. There was a knock at the door and I went to open it with shaking knees.

The maid was prettier than I remembered. Her nose wrinkled a little when she caught the smell of chemicals on my uniform, although it could just as easily have been the sight of it. But in truth it probably was the smell; in the summer of 1940 it was still only Germans, Czechs and Poles who had good reason to fear the field-grey uniform of an SD captain.

'Thank you, mademoiselle. For saving my life.'

'It was nothing.'

'Nothing to you. But quite a bit to me.'

'You don't look very well,' she observed.

'I feel better than I look, I think. But that's probably down to what was in the needle I had for breakfast this morning.'

'Which is all very well, but what's going to happen at dinner time?'

'If I live that long I'll let you know. Like I said, my life means quite a bit to me. So I'm going to do you a favour. Relax. It's not that kind of favour. Underneath this uniform I'm really not a bad fellow. How would you like to get some real hotel experience? I don't mean making beds and cleaning toilets. I mean in hotel management. I can fix that for you. In Berlin. At the Adlon. There's nothing wrong with this place, but it strikes me that Paris is going to be fine if you're German and not so fine if you're anything else.'

'You'd do that? For me?'

'All I need from you is a little information.'

She smiled a coy little smile. 'You mean about the man who tried to kill you?'

'See what I mean? I knew you were too smart to be cleaning toilets.'

'Smart enough. But also confused. Why would one German officer want to murder another? After all, Germany is everywhere victorious.'

I smiled. I liked her spirit. 'That's what I mean to find out, mademoiselle-?'

'Matter. Renata Matter.' She nodded. 'All right, Major.'

'Captain. Captain Bernhard Gunther.'

'Maybe they'll promote you. If they don't kill you first.'

'There's always that possibility. Unfortunately I think I'm a lot harder to promote than I am to kill.' I started to cough again and kept it going for the sake of effect; at least that's what I told myself.

'I can believe that.' Renata fetched me a glass of water. She moved gracefully, like a ballerina. Looked like one, too, being small and slim. Her hair was dark and quite short and a little boyish, but I liked that. What I previously saw as being homeliness now looked more like a very natural girlish beauty.

I drank the water. Then I said, 'So what makes you think someone tried to kill me?'

'Because there shouldn't have been a fire extinguisher in your room.'

'Do you know where it is now?'

'The manager, Monsieur Schreider, he took it away.'

'Pity.'

"There's one the same on the wall along the corridor. Would you like me to fetch it for you?'