Philip Kerr - Prussian Blue

“That can only help,” I said through my teeth.

“How?”

“To keep my big mouth shut.”

I walked along to the Türken Inn where, in the officers’ mess, I found Rattenhuber and Högl drinking champagne and looking very pleased with themselves. SS-Untersturmführer Dietrich — the young duty officer I’d met before — was there, as was a muscular RSD sergeant.

“Congratulations, Gunther,” said Rattenhuber, pouring me a glass. “Have some champagne. We’re celebrating. He’s been arrested. Your very own number one suspect. Johann Brandner. We’ve got him in a cell downstairs.”

He handed me the glass but I didn’t drink it.

“So I hear. Only he’s no longer my number one suspect. I hate to spoil your party, Colonel, but I’m more or less sure it was someone else who killed Karl Flex.”

“Nonsense,” said Högl. “He’s already admitted it. We have his signed confession to everything.”

“Everything? Then it’s a pity he’s not Polish, too, and we’d have a good reason to invade Poland.”

Rattenhuber thought that was funny. “Very good,” he said.

But Högl’s face remained as straight as the seams on his black tunic pockets.

“All right,” I said, “tell me everything he’s admitted to and then I’ll tell you if he’s just talking to save his skin.”

“He did it all right,” insisted Högl. “He even told us why.”

“Surprise me.” I sipped the champagne through gritted teeth and then put the glass down again. I wasn’t in the mood to drink for any reason other than the anesthetic effect it might have on my jaw.

“The same reason he was sent to Dachau. He blamed Dr. Flex for the compulsory purchase order. For the loss of his photographic business here in Obersalzberg.”

“Maybe he did. But that’s not exactly front-page news. Not up here. And to be quite frank with you, I doubt he killed anyone.”

“Look, Gunther,” said Rattenhuber. “I can see why you might be sore with us. This was your case after all. And perhaps we should have waited for you before we interrogated him. But, as I’m sure I don’t need to remind you, time is of the essence here. As of now, the Leader can come to the Berghof and enjoy his fiftieth birthday in total safety. Bormann will be delighted when he hears a man has signed a confession. That the status quo has been returned. And surely that’s all that matters.”

“You can call me old-fashioned, sir, but I prefer to believe that what matters most is finding the real culprit. Especially in this case where the Leader’s security is concerned. And it’s not me who’s sore. I don’t imagine Brandner told you any of this voluntarily. My guess is that you had this orangutan smack him around a bit. Which is a poor way to solve any crime, in my experience.”

The sergeant bristled a bit at hearing this description but that was all right. I was sort of hoping he might take a swing at me so I could hit someone. After what had happened to Aneta Husák, I was desperate to hit someone, even an orangutan.

“Be careful, Gunther,” said Högl, grinning unpleasantly. “It looks as though someone already hit you today.”

“I slipped. On the ice. There’s a lot of it about up here. But if I do want someone to hit me, then I figure I’m in the right place for it. Which makes me think his confession is about as reliable as an Italian army. Nuremberg is three hundred kilometers away. It’s just about possible Johann Brandner murdered Karl Flex but I don’t think there’s any way he could have murdered Captain Kaspel and got back there in time to be arrested yesterday. Or, for that matter, that he could have killed Udo Ambros, either.”

“Ambros — he’s the assistant hunter, isn’t he?” said Rattenhuber. “At the Landlerwald.”

“He was,” I said, “until someone removed his head with a shotgun. I discovered his body earlier today when I went to speak to him at his house in Berchtesgaden. I suspect Ambros had a shrewd idea of who really murdered Karl Flex. Not least because he owned the Mannlicher rifle that was used to shoot him. So someone else tried to make it look like a suicide. But it was murder. Suicides don’t normally write neat legible letters that answer all of your questions except perhaps the meaning of life.”

“Maybe it was suicide,” said Högl. “Maybe you’re wrong. Like any Murder Commission detective, it seems to me that you’ve got murder on the brain.”

“Well, at least I’ve got a brain,” I said pointedly. “Unlike Udo Ambros.”

“And I still don’t believe that Captain Kaspel’s death was anything but an accident.”

“Then there’s the small matter of an alibi,” I continued, ignoring Högl’s objections. “From what I hear, Johann Brandner was in hospital when he was arrested. In which case I expect that there are lots of people — some of them doctors, German doctors — who might be prepared to say that Brandner was never out of bed. So unless he was hospitalized for persistent sleepwalking, I can’t say that I think much of your confession, gentlemen.”

“Nevertheless he did sign a full confession,” said Högl. “And in spite of what you might believe, it was all done with an absolute minimum of force. It’s true. The sergeant was going to hit him at one stage. But the fact is he fell down the stairs.”

“I’ve certainly not heard that one before. Can I read this confession?”

Rattenhuber handed me a typed sheet of paper on which was an almost illegible scrawl of a signature.

“What the major says is absolutely true,” he said, while I glanced over Brandner’s confession. “He fell. But when we did question him, frankly, the threat of returning him to a concentration camp was more than enough to persuade him to volunteer the truth. He claims he’s been suffering from malnutrition ever since Dachau.”

“That ought to be an easy claim to substantiate,” I said handing back the confession, which made no mention of Kaspel or Ambros, not that I had really expected it would. “I’d like to see him, if I may. Speak to the man myself. Look, Colonel, maybe he did kill Karl Flex. I don’t know. Nothing would give me more pleasure than going straight back to Berlin right now, knowing that the Leader was safe. But I do have a number of questions I need to satisfy myself about before I can rubber-stamp this confession and turn it over to General Heydrich at Gestapo headquarters.”

I could see that this mention of Heydrich troubled them both, which was of course why I’d invoked his name; nobody in Germany wanted to incur his displeasure, least of all Rattenhuber.

“Yes, of course,” he said. “We wouldn’t want the general to think we’ve swept anything under the carpet here. Would we, Peter?”

But it was immediately clear that Högl felt his association with Hitler as old comrades from the Sixteenth Bavarian could trump my association with Heydrich; it was a reasonable assumption. I could almost see the Leader with his hand on his former NCO’s shoulder. This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased; listen to him; he’s a real fucking Nazi .

“There’s no question of that, sir,” he said. “But to me it’s beginning to seem very much as if the famous Commissar Gunther from the Berlin Murder Commission is much more interested in satisfying himself and rescuing his professional reputation than in apprehending the culprit. We have a confession from a local man with a proven grudge who knows the area and is a trained marksman. Frankly it seems like an open-and-shut case to me.”

“Then the Leader should be counted as fortunate that Reichs Leader Bormann and Heydrich put me in charge of this investigation, Major, not you.”

“It was Gunther who identified Brandner as the number one suspect,” said Rattenhuber. “You have to hand it to him, Peter. Until he got here we were all half-inclined to believe that the shooting might have been an accident. A poacher’s stray shot, perhaps. I think we owe the commissar a great deal.”