Philip Kerr - Prussian Blue

“It’s not up to me,” I said. “It’s General Heydrich’s decision. And they’re none too fond of each other.” I gave each of them a cigarette and lit them both.

“No one told us you were working for him.”

“I think I did, but that hardly matters now, does it?”

“Look, it was nothing personal. We were only obeying orders. You know that. You’re a cop, just like us. You do what you’re told, right? That’s the job. Kaltenbrunner says jump, you say, how high? Sounds to me like the three of us got caught in the middle of a feud between your boss and ours. To hell with them both, that’s what I say.”

“We can agree about their destination anyway,” I said. “If not much else.”

“What is going to happen to us?” said the other. “Seems to me like you’re sidestepping the question.”

I was. So I told them what Neumann had in mind. And not because I wanted to give them grief but because I’d ducked the truth one too many times that day already. It was easily done in Germany and a bad habit I was quickly developing. But how else was I going to stay alive?

“I think they mean to put you in front of a firing squad.”

“They can’t do that. Not without a court-martial.”

“I’m afraid they can. They can do anything they like. Especially here on Hitler’s mountain. But I don’t think it will come to that. I’m going to ask General Heydrich to change his mind. Not because I like you, either. But because — well, let’s just say that I don’t want anyone to be shot on my account. One way or the other, I’ve seen a bit too much killing of late. And I’d rather not see any more.”

“Thanks, Gunther. You’re all right. For a Berliner.”

I went back to the stairs and started to go up, but I could just as easily have gone the other way. The stairs continued down as well as up. Far below my feet I could hear and feel the sound of men working with drills and the cold, damp air was thick with masonry dust.

“What’s down there?” I asked Dietrich. “More cells? Torture chambers? Secret weapons? The seven dwarves?”

“Bunkers. Tunnels. Power generators. Storage rooms. This whole mountain would look like a rabbit warren if you were to see it in cross-section. From Göring’s house you can walk all the way to the Platterhof Hotel without seeing the light of day.”

“I guess that’s the way these people like it. The Nazis always were a bit too nocturnal for my taste.”

“Sir, please. I’ve been a Party member myself since 1933.”

“You don’t look old enough. But did you ever ask yourself what all these bunkers are for? Maybe someone knows something we don’t. About our real chances for keeping that peace treaty we signed with the Franzis and the Tommies at Munich.”

Back in the officers’ mess upstairs, Rattenhuber and Högl were waiting for me. Rattenhuber put down his champagne and stood up, a little unsteadily; Högl carried on reading a copy of the Völkischer Beobachter as if my opinion of the suspect’s guilt or innocence mattered not at all.

“Well?” asked Rattenhuber. “What do you think?”

“Johann Brandner couldn’t possibly have murdered Karl Flex.” I was looking at Högl as I continued with my answer. “In case you’re interested.”

“You see?” Högl was speaking to Rattenhuber from behind the newspaper. “I told you he’d make trouble, sir. In my opinion, the commissar wants all the glory for himself.”

“Why do you say this, Gunther?” Rattenhuber sounded exasperated. “You said yourself he was suspect number one. Johann Brandner has the right background. A substantial and previously documented motive. The local knowledge. Everything. When the Gestapo arrested him in Nuremberg he even had a rifle at home. And we have a confession. Why would he confess to something he didn’t do?”

“All sorts of reasons. But mostly there’s only one that counts these days. Fear. Fear of what you people might do to him if he said he didn’t kill Karl Flex. Look, nothing of what he just told me agrees with any of the forensic evidence I found up at the Berghof or the Villa Bechstein and that’s what counts here.”

“Perhaps he was trying to mislead you,” said Rattenhuber. “By contradicting his previous statement he hopes to muddy the investigative waters, so to speak.”

“Look, Colonel, if you and the major here care to take the trouble, you’ll easily see that the man is innocent. If you want to inform Bormann that he’s your murderer, then go right ahead. That’s fine by me. I haven’t asked him to retract his confession and I’m not going to. But I don’t believe a word of it and I’m going to keep on hunting for the real killer until the Reichs Leader or General Heydrich tells me to stop.”

Högl put down his newspaper and stood up as if I had finally said something important enough to get his attention.

“Very well,” said Högl. He pointed out the window across the parade ground at the enormous four-story house that sat at the top of the snow-covered field above the Türken Inn; with the Untersberg mountains behind, it looked more like a luxury Alpine hotel than the home of one man. “Let’s go and ask the Boss what he thinks. He’s there now. I can see the light on in his office. I’ll telephone Martin Bormann this very minute and ask if we can walk up there and speak to him. We’ll let him decide on the guilt of this man, shall we?”

“You must really want to be rid of me, Major,” I said. “But I wonder why you want to be rid of me so badly.”

We were ushered into Bormann’s ground-floor study to await the arrival of the Reichs leader. The house smelled strongly of rosemary, as if someone was roasting lamb, and suddenly I was hungry. The whitewashed room we were in had a vaulted ceiling with a brass chandelier and a large red marble fireplace that was a smaller version of the one I’d seen up at the tea house. The blond oak doors had huge strap hinges that made you think you were back in church and, in truth, the three of us were just as quiet as if we were sitting in a row of pews instead of some richly upholstered armchairs, but the rest of the house was noisy with children, as if the huge building also housed a kindergarten. The Nazis liked big families; they gave mothers with lots of children medals for producing more Nazis. Mrs. Bormann probably had an Iron Cross First Class.

Under the window was a set of shelves with lots of books that seemed like they’d been bought for how they looked and not how they read, several silver beer tankards, and various pictures of Hitler in his rare unguarded moments. In one of these he was seated in a deck chair on a hillside in a forest; over his left shoulder was a black dog that might have been his familiar. The wooden floor was covered with a thick red Persian rug and on the walls were a couple of broadswords, some choice tapestries, and several oil paintings of a dark-haired woman I assumed was Bormann’s fecund wife, Gerda. None of the paintings did her any favors; she looked tired. Then again, having six children to look after all day would tire the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

The refectory table-desk was home to an equestrian bronze, a small swing-arm lamp, a thick leather blotter, and another photograph of Hitler. But the room was dominated not by the hive-like ceramic stove, nor by a statue of Adolf Hitler, nor even by a suit of armor, but by a piece of electrical equipment from Telefunken the likes of which I’d never seen before. The center of the machine was dominated by a piece of curved gray glass about the size of a dinner plate. And I was still looking at it, and trying to work out what it was, when Bormann bustled into the room. He was wearing a brown Party tunic and this helped me to form an impression of what a clean-shaven Hitler might look like if he’d not been a vegetarian. Bormann halted in the doorway for a moment, and shouted back over his shoulder: “And tell the crown prince to get on with his homework.”