Philip Kerr - Prussian Blue

“That’s not likely to be a problem for a man like Diesbach who owns a salt mine and who’s spent half of his life underground.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“And quite a bit before that, when he was in the army, of course. I’m probably half troll myself after four years in the trenches.”

“He’d probably be quite at home in there. It’s warm and dry, and I think you’d be reasonably comfortable on the sandy floor.”

“Where are these Schlossberg Caves?”

“Farther up the same hill as the brewery.”

“Then that’s where we’re going first. And if we don’t find him in the caves, we’ll take a look in the brewery, as you suggested. Maybe they’ve got a beer barrel as big as the Heidelberg Tun and we’ll find him hiding inside it.”

“I hope you’re not expecting me to go in the caves with you,” Zander said nervously. “I told you before. I suffer from claustrophobia. Besides, it’s like a rabbit warren in there, with multiple ways in and out.”

I said nothing.

“Shouldn’t we go and fetch some of those uniformed policemen to help us?”

“I want to catch the rabbit. Not scare him away.”

“With one important difference surely,” said Zander. “This particular rabbit is by your own admission armed and extremely dangerous.”

“He’s in there all right,” I said quietly.

“How can you be sure?”

I pointed to a trail of wet footprints on the dry red sand that covered the ground near the cave entrance and led into the silent darkness.

“Those could belong to anyone,” objected Zander.

“True. But smell the air.”

Zander took a tentative step farther into the cave entrance, lifted his long thin nose a little higher, and sniffed quietly, like an experienced perfumer from Treu & Nuglisch. The air inside the Schlossberg Caves was warm and dry and carried the scent of something sweet and aromatic. “What is it?” he asked.

“Pipe tobacco,” I said. “To be exact, Von Eicken pipe tobacco. Diesbach smokes it.”

I lit a cigarette; our previous talk about Hutier tactics had left me feeling on edge, as if I’d been about to go over the top of the trench on a midnight wire-cutting mission in no-man’s-land. My hand was shaking a little as I held the lighter up to my cigarette and sucked in the volatile, hot hydrocarbon gases I needed to calm my fraying nerves. I was always better at physics than philosophy.

He frowned. “Are you going in there?”

“That’s the general idea.”

“By yourself?”

“Unless you’ve changed your mind about coming with me.”

Zander shook his head. “No, this is as far as I go.”

“Sure about that?” I grinned and offered him the police flashlight I’d taken from the trunk of the car. There were two leather tabs on the back of the light to allow the bearer to attach it to his belt or tunic so the unit could be used hands free. “You can have this, if you like. Just button it on your greatcoat.”

“And make myself a nice target?” He shook his head firmly. “I might as well paint a bull’s-eye on my chest. There are a lot of things I’ll do for Martin Bormann — some of them I’m not very proud of — but I have no intention of getting myself killed for that man.”

“Spoken like a true National Socialist.”

“I’m made of different stuff than you, Gunther. I’m a bureaucrat, not a hero. A pen feels a lot more comfortable in my pocket than this stupid gun.”

“Haven’t you heard? The pen is mightier than the sword, Wilhelm. Especially since January 1933. If you only knew the damage a Pelikan can do these days. Just ask Dr. Stuckart. Besides, neither one of us is going to get killed.”

“You sound very sure of yourself, Gunther.”

“With any luck I’ll get a chance to reason with this Fritz. Talk him out of there. Tell him that I’ll make sure they go easy on his wife and son if he gives himself up. Which they certainly won’t if he doesn’t. I wouldn’t put it past Bormann to dynamite his salt mine in Rennweg and take the roof off Diesbach’s house in Kuchl. A compulsory purchase, he’d probably call it.”

“You’re right. It’s just the sort of vindictive thing he would do. Sell the house to some Party hack and make a nice fat profit.” Zander looked sheepish. “I’ve organized one or two of those compulsory purchases myself. Frankly I was quite happy to hand over those particular duties to Karl Flex. It’s not very pleasant to have to throw someone out of their house and put them on the street. Especially in a small place like Obersalzberg.” He winced. “Believe me, I know how much I’m hated there.”

“What’s this I hear? A Nazi with a conscience?”

“We all have to do things we’d perhaps rather not do, in the way of working toward the Leader. That’s what Bormann calls it. You’re a good man, Gunther, but before this year’s out you may also find yourself having to do things you regret. We all will.”

“I’m way ahead of you there, Wilhelm.”

I slipped the flashlight into my coat pocket, took out my gun, worked the slide to put a round in the breech, and eased off the hammer. “Just in case he’s not open to reason.”

“Aren’t you going to switch that flashlight on?”

“Not until I have to.”

“But it’s pitch-dark in there. How on earth will you find him?”

“Very carefully. At least he won’t hear me coming. This sand is like a living room carpet.” I grinned and flicked my cigarette out of the cave into the damp undergrowth that shrouded the entrance. From the narrow path that led to it you could see the whole of Homburg laid out below like a miniature wonderland, with the accent on miniature. “I dunno. Maybe he’ll have a torch on the wall. A fire to keep warm. Some limelight and a couple of half-naked girls from the Tingel-Tangel. Any last words of advice?”

“Sound doesn’t carry very far in there. Not much echo. The ceiling is vaulted and, in parts, much higher than you think. It’s actually rather beautiful, although you won’t be able to appreciate that much in darkness. In other places the ceiling and the ground are still joined, like a column. And here and there are some buttresses to help keep the ceiling up. But there’s not much likelihood of a collapse. I certainly never heard of one when I was a boy. There are also stairs that lead down from one level to another, so watch your step. And as far as I remember there are no open holes. So it should be safe enough underfoot. There’s a light switch on the wall of one of the larger, more colorful chambers but I really don’t remember which one.”

I nodded. “All right. You stay here and guard the entrance.” I pointed at the dark tunnel in front of me. It looked like the entrance to Helheim.

“If everything goes all right in there I’ll call out the code words ‘Prussian blue’ when I’m about to come outside. Don’t worry. You’ll hear me. I’ll certainly say it more than once. But if you don’t hear me say it, then assume it’s him and start shooting. Got that?”

Zander took out his Walther P38 and thumbed back the hammer, almost as if he knew what he was doing.

“Prussian blue. Got that.”

I stood outside the Karlsberg Brewery frowning and shaking my gray head in wonder as I stared up at the big blue company logo on the dirty stucco wall: a man in a leather apron shifting a beer barrel inside a blue star of David, dated 1878. On the face of it, nothing in Homburg had changed very much; nothing except me, and the surprising thing was I felt surprised by this. It seemed almost impossible that seventeen years had passed since I’d last been there and yet none of those years had had any effect on Homburg itself. It still looked like a small and very boring town in Germany and I hadn’t missed the place more than I’d missed a lost sock. But time lost was something else; that was gone forever. And this brought me up short, as if I’d just driven an express train straight into the buffers of my own past. For everyone, the future arrives at a thousand miles an hour but for a moment I took that personally as if this was some kind of hilarious game the Chancellor of Heaven had chosen to play with me, and only with me. Like I was nothing more than five dice in a game of Yahtzee. I’d always thought there was plenty of time to do a lot of things and yet, now I really thought about it, there had been not a moment to spare. Perhaps that was why people chose to live in a dump like Homburg in the first place: the pace of life just seems slower in a town like that, and maybe that’s the secret of a long life, to live in a place where nothing ever happens. Then something did happen; it started to rain heavily.