Philip Kerr - Prussian Blue

“Correctly, you assume a certain license because of your presence here in my office,” said Heydrich. “I daresay you have already formed the conclusion that you are about to be useful to me again.”

“It crossed my mind.”

“I wouldn’t make too much of that, Gunther. I find I have a very short memory where favors are concerned.”

Heydrich’s voice was quite high-pitched for so large a man, almost as if his riding breeches were too tight.

“I’ve found it’s generally wise to forget quite a bit I used to believe was important, myself, General. In fact, more or less everything I used to believe in, now I come to think about it.”

Heydrich smiled his thinnest smile, which was almost as narrow as his pale blue eyes. Otherwise his long face remained so devoid of expression he resembled a burn victim at the Charité.

“You’ll have to forget quite a bit after this job, Gunther. Almost everything. With the exception of the men in this room you’ll be forbidden to discuss this case with anyone. Yes, I think we must now call this a case. Don’t you agree, Arthur?”

“Yes, sir. I do. After all, a crime has been committed. A murder. A very uncommon kind of murder, given the place where it has occurred and the absolute importance of the person to whom he will be reporting.”

“Oh? Who’s that?” I asked.

“No less a figure than the Leader’s deputy chief of staff, Martin Bormann himself,” said Nebe.

“Martin Bormann, eh? Can’t say that I’ve heard of him. But I assume he must be someone important, given the man he works for.”

“Please don’t allow that ignorance to interfere with your appreciation of the paramount importance of this case,” explained Heydrich. “Bormann may not occupy any governmental position, but his close proximity to the Leader makes him one of the most powerful men in Germany. He has asked me to send him my best detective. And since Ernst Gennat is not well enough to travel any distance, right now that would appear to be you.”

I nodded. My old mentor, Gennat, had cancer and was rumored to have less than six months to live although, given my present situation, that was beginning to seem like a long time; Heydrich was not someone who had a tolerance of failure. Once before, he’d sent me to Dachau, and he could easily do it again. It was time for my body-swerve. “What about Georg Heuser?” I asked. “Aren’t you forgetting him? He’s a good detective. And altogether better qualified than I am. For one thing, he’s a Party member.”

“Yes, he is a good detective,” agreed Nebe. “But right now Heuser has some explaining to do about those qualifications he’s claimed. Something to do with pretending to have a PhD in law.”

“Really?” I tried to tamp down a smile. I was one of the few detectives at the Alex who was not a doctor of law, and so this news was rather satisfying to someone who only had his Abitur. “You mean he’s not a doctor after all?”

“Yes, I thought that would please you, Gunther. He’s suspended, pending an inquiry.”

“That is a pity, sir.”

“We could hardly send a man like that to Martin Bormann,” said Nebe.

“Of course, I could send Werner here,” said Heydrich. “It’s true his skills lie more in crime prevention than in detection. But I shouldn’t like to lose him if he screws this up. The plain fact of the matter is you’re expendable and you know it. Werner is not. He’s essential to the development of radical criminology in the new Germany.”

“Since you put it like that, sir, I can see your point.” I looked at Werner and nodded. He was the same rank as me — a commissar, which meant I could speak to him with greater license. “I think I read your paper, Paul. Juvenile delinquency as the product of criminal heredity — wasn’t that your last offering?”

Werner removed the cigarette from his mouth and smiled. With his dark, shifty eyes, swarthy features, and trophy-handle ears, he looked no less criminal than almost anyone I’d ever arrested.

“So you do read these things in the Murder Commission? I’m surprised. Actually, I’m surprised you read anything at all.”

“Sure I do. Your papers on criminology are essential reading. Only, I seem to remember that most of the juvenile delinquents you identified were Gypsies, not ethnic Germans.”

“And you disagree with that?”

“Maybe.”

“On what basis?”

“It’s not been my experience, that’s all. Berlin criminals come in all shades and sizes. In my eyes, poverty and ignorance always seemed to be a better explanation for the reason why one Fritz picks the pocket of another than his race, or how big his nose might be. Besides, you look like you’ve got a touch of the Gypsy yourself, Paul. How about it? You a Sinti?”

Werner kept smiling, but only on the outside. He was from Offenburg, which is a city in Baden-Württemberg on the French border, famous for burning witches and the home of a notorious metal chair with spikes that could be heated until it was hot. He had the face of a Swabian witch finder and I suspect he’d have cheerfully seen me burned to death.

“I’m just joking.” I looked at Heydrich. “We’re just swelling necks here, like a couple of tough guys. I know he’s not a Sinti. He’s a smart fellow. I know he is. You’ve got a doctorate, too, haven’t you, Paul?”

“Keep talking, Gunther,” said Werner. “One day you’ll talk yourself onto the guillotine at Plötzensee.”

“He’s right, of course,” said Heydrich. “You’re an insolent fellow, Gunther. But as it happens this is all to the good. Your independent spirit bespeaks a certain resilience that will come in handy here. You see, there’s another reason Bormann wants you in preference to Werner, or even Arthur here. Since you’ve never been a Party member he believes that you’re not anyone’s man, and more importantly, that you’re not my man. Only, please don’t make that mistake yourself, Gunther. I own you. Like your last name was Faust and mine was Mephisto.”

I let that one go; there was no arguing with Heydrich’s fat pants but it was still comforting to believe that God in his grace might yet persuade a few angels to interfere on my behalf.

“Anything that you can find out about that bastard while you’re in Obersalzberg, I want to know about it.”

“I take it you mean the Leader’s deputy chief of staff.”

“He’s a megalomaniac,” said Heydrich.

I didn’t offer an opinion on that one. I’d already let my mouth run a bit too much.

“In particular I want you to see if there’s any truth in an intriguing rumor here in Berlin that he’s being blackmailed by his own brother, Albert. Albert Bormann is adjutant to Adolf Hitler and chief of the Leader’s Chancellery in Obersalzberg. As such he’s almost as powerful down there as Martin Bormann himself.”

“Is that where I’m going sir? Obersalzberg?”

“Yes.”

“That’ll be nice. I could use a little Alpine air.”

“You’re not going there for a holiday, Gunther.”

“No, sir.”

“Any opportunity to get some dirt on that man — on either man — you take it. You’re not just a detective while you’re there, you’re my spy. Is that clear? When you’re there you’ll think that yours is a choice between pestilence and cholera. But it isn’t. You’re my Fritz, not Bormann’s.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And in case you might still be laboring under the misapprehension that your miserable soul is still your own, then you might like to know that the police in Hannover are investigating the discovery of a body in a forest near Hamelin. Remind me of the details, Arthur.”

“He was a fellow called Kindermann — a doctor who ran a private clinic in Wannsee, and who was a colleague of our mutual friend Karl Maria Weisthor. It seems he was shot several times.”