Philip Kerr - Prussian Blue

I wondered how many carnivals Rattenhuber had been to; the prospect of a war in Poland surely wouldn’t make anyone inclined to run around a maypole.

“On behalf of Martin Bormann I’m authorized to congratulate and thank you for your excellent work, Herr Commissar. Not to mention your bravery. He’s already telephoned General Heydrich in Berlin to express his gratitude that this whole business has been handled with such enormous discretion on your part and is now concluded satisfactorily.”

“Who told you that?” I asked bluntly.

“Wilhelm Zander, of course.”

“So he’s back in Obersalzberg, is he?”

“Yes.”

“Exactly what did he tell you, Colonel?”

“Only that the two of you traced Johann Diesbach all the way to Homburg, and that when he resisted arrest you were obliged to shoot and kill him. He said you acted with great bravery.”

I smiled thinly. “That was kind of him.”

“No doubt about it, you acted for the best. A public trial would only have drawn unwelcome attention to this regrettable lapse in security. For the Leader’s sake, it’s expedient that we should now proceed on the assumption that Karl Flex was never shot on the terrace of the Berghof. That no one was. That there was no sniper on the roof at the Villa Bechstein. And that Johann Diesbach never even existed. As a corollary of all that, we should like to make it quite clear that your investigation never took place. Indeed, that you were never really here in Berchtesgaden. So as not to alarm the Leader unnecessarily. For this reason, the fewer people who see a Kripo detective from Berlin’s Murder Commission around the Berghof and the Villa Bechstein, the better for all concerned. And even though you can’t talk about this matter — no, you really shouldn’t talk about this, and perhaps I need to remind you of the confidentiality agreement you signed up at the tea house — you still have the satisfaction of knowing that you have given a great service to the Leader and to Germany. So then, your orders are to return to Berlin as soon as possible and report to General Heydrich. Your assistant, Korsch, has already left by train, on Arthur Nebe’s orders.”

Wilhelm Zander had done his job well. I saw that my earlier plan — to confront him in front of Martin Bormann — was now pointless. After all, I could hardly accuse Zander of the murder of someone no one was prepared to admit had ever even existed; besides, Martin Bormann had sanctioned Diesbach’s murder. As for Zander’s attempt on my own life, it would be his word against mine, and it wasn’t difficult to see who would be believed: an expendable Berlin cop who wasn’t even a Party member, or Martin Bormann’s trusted servant? I guess I wasn’t surprised by any of that. After all, I wasn’t even there. Never had been. I already felt like the Invisible Man.

“How is your jaw, by the way?” asked Rattenhuber.

“Better, thanks. I had a doctor in Kaiserslautern take a look at it. It’s not broken. Just badly bruised. Like my feelings, I guess.”

“You’re tougher than you think, Gunther. But what happened there?” He pointed at the bandage now swathing my hand.

“I was shot,” I said lightly. “It’s just a graze really.”

“Shot while you were arresting Diesbach?”

“You might say that.”

“Foolish fellow.”

I smiled again, uncertain if Colonel Rattenhuber was talking about Diesbach or me.

“It’s an occupational hazard for a man like you, I suppose, Herr Commissar. Being shot.”

I changed the subject. “What about the widow?” I asked uncomfortably. With three men in the Türken Inn already facing a firing squad it didn’t take much imagination to see that a fourth name could easily be added. “Surely Frau Diesbach will have something to say about her husband’s disappearance from Berchtesgaden.”

“She’s to be resettled,” said Rattenhuber. “Permanently. In Berlin. The house in Kuchl and the salt mine are to be purchased by the OA. In a few weeks no one will know they ever lived in the area.”

“I suppose that’s an occupational hazard, too. But suppose she doesn’t want to move?” In view of what I already knew about the OA, this was a naïve question, perhaps, but I still wanted to see how Rattenhuber dealt with it. “Suppose she wants to stay put exactly where she is.”

“She doesn’t have a choice in the matter. There’s her son, you see. Shall we say he’s not like other men? I think you know what I mean by that. And I’m sure I don’t have to remind you about what paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code says about acts of severe lewdness, Herr Commissar, and those who are likely to commit them. Major Högl has already informed her that it would be best, for both mother and son, if they didn’t make any waves.”

“I agree about that, anyway.”

I lit a cigarette, blew some of the smoke at Rattenhuber’s desperate nostrils and, more important, onto his uniform, and went to the window of my hotel room. Outside, it was busy with black staff cars going up and down the left bank of the Ache. I might have been looking at the Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin; Berchtesgaden really did look more like Germany’s second capital city than a sleepy little market town of just four thousand natives. I wondered how long it would take Bormann to get rid of them, too. I said, “I don’t much care what happens to mother or son, to be honest. All I care about is that an innocent man is released. I’m referring to Johann Brandner. There’s absolutely no reason to hold him now the real culprit is dead. Frankly, he belongs in a hospital. Besides, Bormann promised to let him go. He also promised to consider releasing those two Gestapo officers from Linz, who are also being held in the Türken Inn cells under sentence of death.”

“It’s very magnanimous of you to plead for them,” said Rattenhuber, “in view of the fact that they meant to kill you.”

“They made an unfortunate mistake that can be cleared up very easily. It was nothing personal, I’m sure. With so many different agencies for law enforcement now operating in the new Germany, these things are bound to happen, wouldn’t you agree? Gestapo, Abwehr, Kripo, SS, SD, RSD — it’s not just the left hand that doesn’t know what the right is doing, it’s all the fingers and toes as well.”

Rattenhuber looked awkward. “Yes, I do agree. Policing is a bit of a jurisdictional mess. But I regret to have to inform you, Commissar Gunther, that all three of the men you mentioned were shot by a firing squad at six o’clock this morning. Major Högl took charge of the execution. It was carried out before the Leader’s arrival. The two Gestapo men were shot on Heydrich’s explicit orders, of course, and, given the exemplary service afforded by his office to the government leader, Martin Bormann hardly wished to disappoint him in this respect. As for Brandner, Bormann felt that he already knew far too much about Karl Flex and the shooting on the Berghof terrace, if only because of the questioning to which he’d been subjected by myself and Peter Högl. We could hardly go to such enormous lengths to ensure Frau Diesbach’s silence if Johann Brandner were allowed to remain in the area and say what he liked to anyone who cared to listen. As he has done on previous occasions. Besides, it has since been discovered that his release from Dachau was an administrative error. He was supposed to have been transferred to Flossenburg concentration camp. So you see, really, there’s not much harm done at the end of the day. The status quo is restored.”

“Is that what you’d call it?”

“This is all that one requires in a case like this, is it not? For the furniture to be put back the same way it was arranged before. These days it’s only the lawyers and the pedants and the foreign correspondents who worry about how one conducts a case. The proper procedures, the gathering of evidence — these things mean nothing, not anymore. Not since Hitler. He cuts through these decadent superfluities and shows us that the conclusion is everything, Gunther. You of all people should understand this. The important thing in concluding a case successfully is actually concluding it. Not postponing it. Not allowing for the possibility of compromise, or appeal, or a faulty verdict. The end has to satisfy everyone, does it not?”