Philip Kerr - Prussian Blue

This “everyone” didn’t include me, obviously, but I nodded all the same. What would have been the point of arguing? I could even see how they’d shot the three men in the Türken before Hitler’s arrival so as to spare the Leader the distressing sound of loud gunshots from across his back garden. The Nazis were never very difficult to understand; their logic was always impeccably fascistic.

“But most of all it has to satisfy Martin Bormann,” said Rattenhuber. “And by extension, the Leader, of course.”

Of course I was angry, and tremendously sorry, and as I stood there brooding on the true nature of the new order that was being created in Germany I felt a haunting sense of the man I’d once been — the detective who would have protested such an outrageous demonstration of tyranny, at the expense of his own career, perhaps even at the expense of his own life — and all I kept thinking was, You have to do something to stop these people, Gunther, even if it means shooting Adolf Hitler. You have to do something . Rattenhuber’s mouth was still moving inside his fat red face and I saw that what had happened to Diesbach and the two Gestapo men from Linz and Brandner was, to him, entirely justifiable. It was also very brutal and ruthless. These were brutal and ruthless men, Martin Bormann and his dwarves — they destroyed people and then they sat around the red marble fireplace at the tea house or wherever they talked about such things, and planned the destruction of others. No doubt the subject of a Polish invasion would be part of the Leader’s fascinating table talk at his own birthday party. To think I’d been so close to Hitler’s study at the Berghof. Couldn’t I have done something then? Planted a bomb, perhaps, or placed a land mine under his bathroom rug? Why hadn’t I acted then? Why had I done nothing?

“I daresay Heydrich will congratulate you in his own way,” said Rattenhuber. “But Bormann and I were discussing how he might honor you and we concluded that this was perhaps the most appropriate way of recognizing your excellent work.” He started to fumble in his tunic pocket for something. “After all, you did exactly what you were asked to do, in double-quick time, and against considerable odds. I still find it hard to understand how you worked out who the culprit was. But then I’m not a detective. Just a policeman.”

“A detective is just a policeman with a dirty mind,” I muttered. “And maybe mine is dirtier than most.”

Rattenhuber removed a shiny leather medal-presentation case from his pocket and handed it to me. On the velvet cushion was a little bronze badge featuring a sword placed down across the face of a swastika within an oval wreath.

“It’s the Coburg Badge,” he explained. “The Party’s highest civilian order. It memorializes the famous date in 1922 when Hitler led eight hundred stormtroopers to Coburg for a weekend rally where a very important battle was fought with the communists.”

He made it sound like Thermopylae but I had no memory of such a significant historical event.

“I take it we won,” I said drily.

Rattenhuber laughed nervously. “Of course we won. Did we win?” Rattenhuber laughed again and clapped me on the shoulder. “You’re such a joker, Gunther. Always kidding. Look here, at the top of the wreath you can see Coburg Castle and village. And the wreath contains the words ‘With Hitler in Coburg 1922–32.’ Of course, that’s not literally true in your case, but the great honor is in the implied assumption that you were there after all, do you see?”

“Yes, I do see that. I think Leibniz had a word for that. Fortunately I don’t remember what that word is. Anyway, thanks a lot, Colonel. Whenever I look at it I shall always be reminded of exactly how great a man Hitler is.”

I closed the box and laid it on the dresser, telling myself that in the Bavarian Alps at least there were plenty of good places to throw away my Coburg Badge so that it might never be found.

“Also, I have a railway warrant for you,” said Rattenhuber, laying an envelope on the sideboard beside my decoration. “And some expenses. There’s a train to Munich first thing in the morning, and then the express to Berlin. Might I recommend the Hofbraustübl for your dinner tonight? The pork knuckle is excellent. As is the beer, of course. There’s nothing to beat Bavarian beer, is there?”

“No, there certainly isn’t.”

But my plans for the evening didn’t include pork knuckle and beer. I had an appointment with Gerdy Troost and Martin Bormann’s brother, Albert. I don’t know how else I could have listened to Rattenhuber’s bullshit and kept my mouth shut.

I drove west out of Berchtesgaden toward the suburb of Stanggass. The new Reichs Chancellery stood at the end of the Urbanweg, off Staatsstrasse, a three-story Alpine-style building about the size of an aircraft hangar, with a red-shingled roof, a parade ground, and a flagpole. It was after two a.m., but important-looking cars were still coming and going and the lights in several high windows were burning; smoke billowed from several squarish chimneys and somewhere a dog was barking. It seemed as if the whole area was now on Hitler time, and that until he decided to go to bed, nobody else would, either, even down here at the Chancellery, which was almost eight kilometers away from Obersalzberg and the Berghof.

I found Gerdy Troost standing inside the main entrance in an arched doorway as big as a U-Bahn tunnel. Above the doorway was a large red eagle holding a wreath that displayed a swastika. She was wrapped in a thick white fur that must have troubled the tenderhearted, animal-loving Hitler, and smoking a cigarette that would have troubled him even more. On her head was a white beret and over her arm a cream-colored ostrich leather handbag. Being that I am a shallow sort of fellow who always appreciated the scent of expensive perfume and the sight of a perfectly straight stocking seam, the fashionably groomed Gerdy reminded me strongly of why I was keen to return to Berlin.

We went and sat in my car to get out of the cutting east wind and to talk for a few moments in private and, for no good reason I could think of, other than my most recent brush with death in the Schlossberg Caves, I kissed her almost as soon as my car door was shut. Gerdy tasted of white wine, lipstick, and the cigarette that was still burning between the fingers of her white-gloved hand. She felt slight in my arms, like a child, and almost breakable, and I had to remind myself that it had taken a lot of strength and courage to do what she was doing, that this was a woman who — by her own account anyway — had contradicted Hitler, and that wasn’t something you did without pause for thought. The thin and very bony back I could feel against the palm of my hand must have been made of iron.

“You’re full of surprises, do you know that?” she said. “I certainly wasn’t expecting that, Gunther.”

“Neither was I. I think the absence of any SS guards on duty here probably went to my head. Either that or I’m just pleased to see you again.”

“You’re just nervous,” she said. “It’s not every day you enter a conspiracy to bring down the second-most powerful man in Germany. And not that I’m complaining, mind. But it’s been a while since anyone held me like that.”

“I’m not surprised, given the company you keep and the place where you sleep.”

“You don’t know the half of it. I had to sneak out the back door and collect my own car from the garage. But the Leader’s full of plans tonight, which makes him very exhausting. Of course, he doesn’t get up until midday, so it’s all right for him. But everyone else at the Berghof is now operating on half as much sleep as before.”