Philip Kerr - Prussian Blue

Somewhere a telephone was ringing and a few moments later an SS man stepped out onto the terrace, saluted smartly, handed me the Leica and several rolls of film, and announced that Dr. Brandt was now awaiting our arrival at the hospital down in Berchtesgaden.

“We’d better not keep the doctor waiting,” I said. “Let’s hope he’s using this stuff, too. I hate a sloppy postmortem. Will you drive me down the mountain, please?”

We walked down the steps of the Berghof terrace to where we’d left Kaspel’s car parked in front of the garage. I thought about asking him to stop at the Villa Bechstein to pick up Korsch and then decided against it; if he had any sense he was in bed by now, which seemed a long way off for me.

“And don’t expect me to hold a kidney dish, either,” added Kaspel. “I don’t much like the sight of blood before bed. It keeps me awake.”

“Well, you’re in the wrong Party, aren’t you?”

“Me?” Kaspel laughed. “My God, that’s rich coming from a bastard like you, Gunther. How does an old social democrat like you come to be a police commissar working for a man like Heydrich, anyway? I thought you’d been fired in 1932.”

“I’ll tell you sometime.”

“Tell me now.”

“No, but I’ll tell you this. Something that directly affects you, Hermann.”

It was a twelve-minute drive back down the mountain to Berchtesgaden and, finally alone with Kaspel, I gave him Heydrich’s letter and told him that in spite of our shared history, the general expected nothing less than the captain’s total cooperation with my present mission. He pocketed the letter, unread, and said nothing for a while.

“Listen, Hermann, I know you hate my guts. You’ve got every reason to feel that way. But look here, you’ll hate me even more if I have to tell Heydrich you were obstructive. You know how he hates to be disappointed in the people who work for him. If I were you, I’d forget how much you dislike me and throw in your lot with Gunther, for now.”

“You know, Commissar, I was thinking the same thing.”

“There’s all that and there’s this, too. You should remember from our time in Berlin that I’m cursed with being an honest cop. I’m not the type to take all the credit myself. So if you help me, I promise I’ll make sure that it’s recognized by Heydrich. Me, I couldn’t care less if there’s any career advancement at the end of this. But you might think differently about your own future.”

“That’s fair enough. But honestly? I had nothing to do with what happened back then. I might have been a Nazi, and an SA organizer, but I’m not a murderer.”

“I’ll buy that. So, then. We’re looking out for each other. Right? Not friends. No. Too much laundry there. But perhaps — perhaps we’re Bolle boys from Berlin. Agreed?”

Bolle was a Berliner’s word for the kind of pal you made when you were drunk, on a Kremser van day trip to Schönholzer Heide park in Pankow — the kind of pal that had inspired a dozen cruel folk songs mocking the Franz Biberkopfs of this world who put no limits on drinking or pleasure, or violence, or all three at once. Now, that’s what I call a worldview.

“Agreed.” Kaspel stopped the car for a moment on a wider bend of the meandering mountain road and then offered me his hand. I took it. “ Bolle boys from Berlin,” he said. “In which case, as one Bolle boy to another, let me fill you in about our friend Dr. Karl Brandt. He’s Hitler’s personal physician here in Obersalzberg. That means that he’s a member of the Leader’s inner circle. Hitler and Göring were the principal guests at his wedding, in 1934. Which means he’s as arrogant as they come. Given that Bormann has asked Brandt to carry out this postmortem, he won’t have had any choice in the matter, but he certainly won’t like having to perform the procedure in the middle of the night. So you’d be well advised to handle him with velvet gloves.”

Kaspel produced a packet of cigarettes, lit us both, and then started driving again. At the foot of the mountain road, we crossed over the river and drove into Berchtesgaden, which was predictably deserted.

“Is he up to this? Brandt?”

“You mean is he competent?”

“Surgically speaking.”

“He used to be a specialist in head and spinal injuries, so my guess is yes, probably, given that Karl Flex was shot in the head. But I’m not so sure about the hospital. Really, it’s not much more than a clinic. There’s a brand-new SS hospital under construction at the Stanggass — that’s what we call the Reichs Chancellery — but that won’t open for another year.”

“What do you mean — the Reichs Chancellery?”

Kaspel looked at me and laughed. “That’s all right. I was the same when I got here. A typical Berliner. That’s why this place is run by a Bavarian mafia. Because Hitler doesn’t trust anyone but Bavarians. Certainly not Berliners like you and me who are automatically suspect in the Leader’s eyes of leaning to the left. Look, there’s something you have to understand right now, Gunther. Berlin isn’t the capital of Germany. Not any longer. No, really, I’m perfectly serious. Berlin is just for showcase diplomacy and propaganda purposes — the big set-piece parades and speeches. This crummy little Bavarian town is the real administrative capital of Germany now. That’s right. Everything is run from Berchtesgaden. Which is why this is also the largest construction site in the country. If you didn’t already know that after seeing the Kehlstein House — which cost millions by the way — then let me underline it for you. There’s more new building being done here in Berchtesgaden and Obersalzberg than in the rest of Germany put together. If you can’t believe that, then just look through those witness statements and see who was on that terrace yesterday morning. All of the country’s leading civil engineers.”

Hermann Kaspel drew up outside the only building in Berchtesgaden where the lights were on and stopped the engine. For someone who was in any doubt that this might be a hospital, they need only have looked at the wall and its mural of a woman wearing a nurse’s uniform in front of a black Nazi eagle.

“Here we are.”

He took out his cigarette case, opened it, and then found a banknote, which he rolled into a tube.

“Give me one of those magic tablets,” he said. “Time to go to work.”

“You’re coming inside?”

“I thought I might help.”

“I thought you were squeamish about the sight of blood.”

“Me? Whatever gave you that idea? Anyway. We’re Bolle boys, right?”

“Right.”

“Bit of blood is par for the course when you’re out on the piss in Pankow, right?”

I nodded and handed him one of the Pervitin tablets, only he didn’t swallow it; instead he crushed it on the flat metal of his cigarette case with the car key and then separated the powder into two small parallel white lines.

“One of the Luftwaffe pilots from the local airport showed me this little trick,” he explained. “When they have to make a night flight and they need to wake up or sober up in a real hurry, the best and quickest way to do it is with a hot rail, like this.”

“You’re full of surprises, do you know that?”

Kaspel laid the end of the tube in the powder and then inhaled it noisily through one nostril and then the other, at which point he shuddered, uttered a series of loud expletives, blinked furiously several times, and then hammered the steering wheel with the flat of his hand. “Go and fuck yourself!” he yelled. “Go and fuck yourself. I am on fire. I am on fire. Now, that’s what I call a fucking air force.”

He shook his head and then let out a loud whoop that had me feeling more than a little alarmed and wondering what effect Hermann Temmler’s magic potion was having on my own body.