Philip Kerr - If the Dead Rise Not

“Stay at the Palace Hotel Russia House,” she said. “I believe it’s the best hotel in the state. Have a rest. Catch up on some sleep. You look tired. Put your feet up. If you like, I’ll telephone the hotel manager and get you a special rate.”

“Thanks. I will.” But I didn’t tell her that the last thing I intended to do was put my feet up. Not now that Noreen was gone out of my life for good.

LEAVING THE ADLON, I walked east to the Alex. The railway station was bristling with SS, and yet another military band was getting ready to welcome some self-important government bonzo. There are times when I swear I think we have more military bands than the French and the English put together. Maybe it’s just a lot of Germans playing it safe. No one ever accused you of being unpatriotic when you were playing a flugelhorn or a tuba. Not in Germany.

Tearing myself away from the palpable excitement in the air around the station, I walked into the Alex. Seldte, the smart young fellow from SCHUPO, was still on duty at the front desk.

“I see your career is leaping ahead.”

“Isn’t it?” he said. “If I stay here for much longer, I’ll turn into one of these freaks myself. If you’re looking for Herr Trettin, I saw him head out of here about twenty minutes ago.”

“Thanks, but I was hoping to see Liebermann von Sonnenberg.”

“Would you like me to call his office?”

Fifteen minutes later I was sitting opposite the Berlin chief of KRIPO and smoking one of the Black Wisdom cigars Bernhard Weiss had been obliged to leave behind when he left.

“If this is about that unfortunate business involving August Krichbaum,” said von Sonnenberg, “then you needn’t worry, Bernie. You and the other cops who were in the frame as possible suspects are in the clear. Everything has been brought to a sort of conclusion. It was a lot of nonsense, of course.”

“Oh? How’s that?” I tried to contain the relief I felt. But after Noreen’s departure, I hardly cared nearly as much. At the same time, I hoped they hadn’t framed someone for the killing. That would really have given my conscience something indigestible to chew on for a while.

“Because we no longer have a reliable witness. The hotel doorman who saw the culprit was an ex-policeman, as you probably know. Well, it turns out that he is also a queer and a communist. It seems that this was why he left the police in the first place. Indeed, we now think his evidence may even have been motivated by malice against the police in general. Anyway, all of that’s irrelevant, since the Gestapo has had him on an arrest list for several months. Not that he knew, of course.”

“So where is he now?”

“In the concentration camp, at Lichtenberg.”

I nodded, wondering if they’d made him sign a D-11.

“I’m sorry you had to go through all of that, Bernie.”

I shrugged. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to do a bit more for your protégé, Bömer.”

“You did all you could under the circumstances.”

“I’d be glad to help out again.”

“These young men today,” said von Sonnenberg. “They’re in too much of a hurry, if you ask me.”

“I got that impression. You know, there’s a bright young fellow wearing green on the desk in the entrance hall downstairs. Name of Heinz Seldte. You might give him a lick. Fellow’s too smart to be left with his balls in a desk drawer like that.”

“Thanks, Bernie. I’ll have a look at him.” He lit a cigarette. “So. Are you here to play the accordion, or is there some business you and I can do?”

“That all depends.”

“On what?”

“On your opinion of Count von Helldorf.”

“You might as well ask if I hate Stalin.”

“I hear the count’s trying to rehabilitate himself by tracking down anyone the SA ever had a grudge against.”

“That would certainly look commendably loyal, wouldn’t it?”

“Maybe he still wants to be your boss here in Berlin.”

“Have you got a way of making sure that couldn’t happen?”

“I might have.” I puffed the strong cigar and aimed the smoke at the high ceiling. “You remember that stiff we had in the Adlon a while ago? The one you gave to Rust and Brandt.”

“Sure. Natural causes. I remember.”

“Suppose it wasn’t?”

“What makes you think different?”

“Something von Helldorf said.”

“I didn’t know you were cozy with that queer, Bernie.”

“For the last six days I’ve been his houseguest at the police praesidium in Potsdam. I’d like to repay his hospitality, if I can.”

“They say he’s still holding on to some of Hanussen’s dirt, as an insurance policy against arrest. The films he shot on that boat of his. The Ursel . I’ve also heard that some of the dirt comes from underneath some very important fingernails.”

“Like whose, for instance?”

“Ever ask yourself how he managed to get on that Olympic committee? It’s not his love of riding, I can tell you that much.”

“Von Tschammer und Osten?”

“Small fry. No, it was Goebbels who got him the job.”

“But he was the one who broke Hanussen.”

“And it was Goebbels who saved von Helldorf. But for Joey, von Helldorf would have been shot alongside his warm friend, Ernst Röhm, when Hitler settled the SA’s hash. In other words, von Helldorf is still connected. So I’ll help you get him, if you can. But you’ll have to find someone else to put the stake through his heart.”

“All right. I’ll leave your name out of it.”

“What do you need from me?”

“The case file on Heinrich Rubusch. I’d like to check a few things out. Go and see the fellow’s widow, in Würzburg.”

“Würzburg?”

“It’s near Regensburg, I believe.”

“I know where the hell it is. I’m just trying to remember why I know where the hell it is.” Liebermann von Sonnenberg flicked a switch on his desk intercom to speak to his secretary. “Ida? Why does Würzburg mean something to me?”

“You had a request from the Gestapo in Würzburg,” said a woman’s voice. “In your capacity as Interpol liaison officer. Requesting that you contact the FBI in America about a suspect living here in Germany.”

“And did I?”

“Yes. We sent them what we got from the FBI a week or so ago.”

“Wait a minute, Erich,” I said. “I’m beginning to think this bone might make a lot more than just soup. Ida? This is Bernie Gunther. Can you remember the name of that suspect the Gestapo in Würzburg wanted to know about?”

“Wait a minute. I think I still have the Gestapo’s letter in my tray. I haven’t filed it yet. Yes, here we are. The suspect’s name is Max Reles.”

Von Sonnenberg flicked off the intercom and nodded. “You’re smiling like that name means something, Bernie,” he observed.

“Max Reles is a guest at the Adlon and a good friend of the count’s.”

“Is that so?” He shrugged. “Maybe it’s just a small world.”

“Sure it is. If it was any bigger, we’d have to hunt for clues like they do in the stories. You’d have a magnifying glass and a hunting hat and a definitive collection of cigarette ends.”

Von Sonnenberg stubbed out his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray. “Who says I don’t?”

“This information you had from the FBI. Any chance you kept a copy?”

“Let me tell you about being the Interpol liaison officer, Bernie. It’s extra sauerkraut. I’ve got plenty of meat and potatoes on my plate already, and what I don’t need is extra sauerkraut. I know it’s on the table because Ida tells me it is. But mostly it’s her that eats it, see? And the fact is that she wouldn’t keep a copy of Luther’s ninety-five theses unless I told her to. So.”