Philip Kerr - Prussian Blue

For me the driving pleasure was entirely sadistic; in that little Bavarian town, Flex’s car sounded as if a Messerschmitt had lost its way in the valley, like one of the drones from the Landlerwald apiary. At midday the car would have been loud enough; but at almost one a.m., a bass alphorn would have seemed quieter. When we got to Waechter’s address, just around the corner from the local hospital in Locksteinstrasse, I told Korsch to rev the engine a bit, just to make sure his neighbors were awake.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because when Rothman and his family were obliged to leave town I doubt any of these people lost any sleep about it.”

“You’re probably right,” said Korsch, and grinning again, he hit the gas pedal several times before allowing the engine revs to drop. “That’s what I like about you, boss. You’re such a bastard sometimes.”

Korsch switched off the engine and followed me up the path.

The house was a large wooden one with a wraparound wooden balcony and a covered stairway up the side; it was the kind of place where they grew leather shorts in window boxes. All it lacked was a couple of clockwork figures with beers in their hands. I knocked loudly on the front door but the lights had already come on thanks to the Maserati. The man who came to the door was fat and very white, although that was probably with rage at being woken up. He was wearing a red silk dressing gown and had neat gray hair and a little gray mustache that was bristling indignantly. It looked like a whole regiment of tiny soldiers getting ready to march off his face and onto mine to deliver me with a set of stiff ears. He started to bluster and yell about the noise like a tyrannical schoolmaster but soon piped down when I showed him my warrant disc although I’d much prefer to have slapped him with one of the skis on the wall.

“Police Commissar Gunther.” I pushed past him the way I’d seen the Gestapo often do and we stood in his hallway out of the cold, idly picking up photographs and opening a few drawers. I came straight to the point.

“Rothman’s Silver on Maximilianstrasse,” I said curtly. “You’re the current owner, I believe.”

“That’s correct. I acquired the property when the previous owners vacated it last November.”

He made it sound as if they’d done this willingly. But I recognized the significance of this date, of course. November 1938. Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, when Jewish businesses and synagogues all over Germany had been attacked, had been on November 9. It went without question that Jacob Rothman would have been obliged to sell his property at a knockdown price, which is to say that when you’ve been knocked down in the street on a regular basis you begin to know you’re not welcome.

“That would be Herr Jacob Rothman, right?”

“Couldn’t this have waited until morning?”

“No, it couldn’t,” I said coldly. “The garage next door to the property. That’s yours, too, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve been renting it to Dr. Karl Flex.”

“That’s correct. Twenty marks a month. In cash. At least until I find a new tenant for the shop.”

“There’s a safe, in the back wall. It’s my guess it was used by Rothman to store his silver. Do you have the combination?”

“No. It was on a piece of paper that I gave to Dr. Flex, with the keys. I’m afraid I didn’t make a copy. Look, surely he’d be the best person to ask about this, not me.”

“The fact that I’m asking you means I can’t ask him.”

“Why?”

“What about Rothman himself?” I said, ignoring Waechter’s question. “Would you happen to know where he went after leaving Berchtesgaden? Munich, perhaps? Or somewhere else?”

“No, I don’t.”

“He left no forwarding address?”

“No.”

“Pity.”

“What do you mean — a pity? He’s a Jew. And even if he had left an address, I’m afraid I’m not in the business of forwarding mail to some greedy Jew. I’ve got much better things to do.”

“I thought as much. And yes, it is a pity. For me. You see, that Jew could have saved me a lot of time. Maybe even helped to solve a crime. That’s the trouble with pogroms. One day you realize that the people you’ve been persecuting have something you urgently need. That I need. That Martin Bormann needs.”

“There was nothing in the safe when the Rothmans left. It was empty. I checked.”

“Oh, I bet you did. Well, it’s locked now and no one seems to have the number.”

“Is there something important inside it?”

“It’s a safe. There’s usually something important inside a safe, especially when it’s locked. Anyway, it seems that Dr. Flex won’t be paying you any more rent for the garage. I’d say your agreement is over. Permanently.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“He’s dead.”

“My God. The poor fellow.”

“Yes. Poor fellow. That’s what everyone says.”

“What happened to him? How?”

“It was natural causes,” I said. Now that I’d drawn a blank on the combination with both Waechter and Rothman, the last thing I needed was for anyone to know that the safe in the garage even existed, and I was already thinking that it hadn’t been the cleverest thing I’d done since arriving in Obersalzberg to drive around in a car that had been kept hidden in a garage that perhaps only a few people knew Flex was renting. Certainly I didn’t want the same person who’d already burgled Flex’s house trying the same with the garage. For all I knew, that person might even know the safe combination. There was only one thing for it. Much as I hated doing this, I needed to scare Waechter into silence about the garage, the safe, Flex’s death, everything.

“You’re a lawyer, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Then you understand the need for confidentiality in a case like this.”

“Of course.”

“Under no circumstances are you to mention anything to anyone about Karl Flex, the garage you’ve been renting to him, or the fact that there’s a safe in that building. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Herr Commissar. I can assure you I won’t mention anything.”

“Good. Because if you do, then I should certainly have to mention it to Deputy Chief of Staff Martin Bormann, and he would take a very dim view of a matter like this. The dimmest view possible. Do I make myself clear, Dr. Waechter?”

“Yes, Herr Commissar. Very clear indeed.”

“This is a matter of national security. So keep your mouth shut. People have ended up in Dachau for much less.”

As we walked back to the car, Korsch laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“Natural causes,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s a good one, boss.”

“It’s how Bormann wants this thing played,” I said. “Besides, they were natural causes. I don’t know what else you could call it. When someone blows your brains out with a rifle then naturally you die.”

Back at Rothman’s Silver in Maximilianstrasse there was no sign of Hermann Kaspel, and the note I’d left for him, threaded through the door handle like a scroll, remained untouched. If the cat in the doorway of the Franciscan monastery opposite knew what had happened to him, it didn’t say; you can’t trust cats, especially when they’re with the Franciscans. Korsch returned the Maserati to the garage and, reluctantly, locked it up again. But his mind was still in the car.

I looked at my watch. “Are you sure Kaspel had the right address?”

“Absolutely,” said Korsch. “I heard him repeat it. Besides, it’s not like you can get lost in a place like this.”

“Jacob Rothman did.” I stamped my feet against the cold. “He should have been here by now. Something must have delayed him. If we go back to the Villa Bechstein via the road to Buchenhohe then maybe we’ll see him. There won’t be many cars on the road at this time of night. Perhaps he broke down.”