Philip Kerr - Prussian Blue

When she’d finished reading, Gerdy Troost bowed her head as if she couldn’t bear to meet my cold blue eyes. I let her take my hand and that was all right; I didn’t have a drink or a smoke so I wasn’t using it. Her grip was surprisingly strong. I didn’t say anything. After a letter like that, what could I say except that the Nazis were bastards, and for obvious reasons I didn’t want to say that. I still wanted her help. She was an intelligent woman, a lot smarter than me and she probably knew what I was thinking. It was time for Gunther to give his silver tongue a rest and let the silence turn to gold, perhaps. All the same I twisted the ring on her finger for good measure, as if tightening the nut on a bolt, trying to remind her that she was part of a vicious tyranny that persuaded German Jews to kill themselves, and perhaps threatened the fragile peace of Europe.

It was Gerdy who broke the silence.

“What do you want to know?” she asked tearfully.

After a light supper, Gerdy Troost looked at the ledger I’d taken from Karl Flex’s safe. Mary Astor she wasn’t, but Gerdy was better-looking than I’d led Friedrich Korsch to believe. A little thin to my taste, but well-tailored and elegant with the kind of good manners you would have expected of an educated woman from Stuttgart. It’s the kind of town where people say hello when you walk into a bar, as opposed to Berlin, where they try their best to ignore you. Her mouth wasn’t much more than a slit; at least until she smiled, when she revealed a set of small, uneven but very white teeth that reminded me of the perforation on a stamp. She turned the pages of the ledger slowly, and with great concentration, while sipping at a glass of Moselle. After a while she said, “You know, a lot of the names in this ledger are listed as employees of the Obersalzberg Administration. Polensky & Zöllner. Sager & Woerner. It strikes me that you’d be better off asking the state engineer August Michahelles about them. Or perhaps Professor Fich.”

“He’s in Munich.”

“Then perhaps Ludwig Gross? Otto Staub? Bruno Schenk? Hans Haupner? I’ll bet they could tell you about some of these names in minutes. They have files on almost everything.”

“So far, none of these officials have proved to be very helpful. It’s my guess that they’ve been told to keep quiet about whatever the hell is going on here. And I’m forced to conclude that perhaps they have the same misgivings about helping the police with their inquiries that you did. But that’s hardly a surprise. Law enforcement has ceased to mean very much to anyone these days. I had to get quite rough with the first administrator, Bruno Schenk, and polish my damn warrant disc with his nose before he would even give me the time of day.”

“Nevertheless, that’s where your answers are to be found, I think. At the Obersalzberg Administration building in Berchtesgaden. But Schenk’s not your man. Whenever I go there he’s somewhere else. And even when he is there his nose is ten meters up in the air. You want someone like Staub or Haupner, someone who’s in the office a lot and has regular access to the personnel files.”

“How often are you there?”

“Several times a week. Thanks to the Leader I have my own little office at OA where I do most of my design work when I’m here in Obersalzberg. Whereas Albert Speer has a whole architectural studio near his house. He never designs anything of interest but he’s kissed the Leader’s backside so often that Hitler imagines he has talent. Mostly he’s just copying a simple, very German style perfected by my late husband, Paul. The Leader offered me a house and a studio of my own but I don’t need much more than a desk and a chair for my own designs, so I declined.”

“Those all-important medals and decorations you’ve been designing for Hitler.”

“Exactly. I sometimes work down there in the evening when no one else is around and I can concentrate. I’m also asked my opinion on all sorts of local construction issues.”

She was beginning to sound self-important but then that was hardly surprising given where we were. Even the dogs in Obersalzberg seemed to have dynastic plans.

“Professor Bleeker wanted my opinion on almost all his ideas for the tea house. And I’m always on the telephone to Fritz Todt. He’s the director of the Head Office for Engineering, you know.”

I didn’t, but that was hardly a surprise, either; the Nazis had so many jobs for their boys, it was hard to keep abreast of the full extent of the NSDAP’s nepotism. They had more “nephews” than the Roman Catholic Church.

“I’d be glad to take you down there in the morning, if you like.”

“The last thing I need now is more Nazi bureaucrats closing ranks against me. A line of SA men with their arms linked couldn’t have provided a more solid cordon to my inquiry than they’ve done. Besides, I see better at night. What’s wrong with taking me there right now?”

Gerdy Troost glanced at her watch. “I’m not sure the state engineer would approve of you being there. And I happen to know there are some architectural plans on the drawing board in the meeting room that might be confidential. Really, I should ask Dr. Michahelles’s permission first before taking you there.”

“Frankly I’d prefer it if you didn’t. Not until I have half an idea of what I’m really looking for.”

“It doesn’t seem right, somehow. I don’t know.”

I let her waver like this for a while and then took out the last of the categorical imperative I was still carrying in my pockets. It was a long time since I’d read Kant but I still knew how to play a few of his angles. Any cop does. “Sure you do. But if you’ve forgotten, then you’ll probably find the reason on page two of Dr. Wasserstein’s prescription on how to be a decent German.”

“Is that what it was? I thought it was a suicide note.”

“It amounts to the same thing. And you know that helping me is the right thing to do, so why even argue about it?”

“What are you expecting to find?”

“Would you believe me if I said I don’t think I will know for sure until I find it? Gathering evidence is like finding truffles. The pig has to stick its nose to the ground and sniff around for quite a while before it ever digs up anything interesting. And even then it’s sometimes hard to distinguish a piece of fungus that’s worth anything from a bit of shit.”

“You’ve made your point. But you don’t act like a pig. And believe me, I should know. Martin Bormann is the biggest pig on the pork farm. You’re more of a hound, I think. A Weimaraner. A gray ghost from Weimar. Yes, that’s you.”

“The ghost sounds about right. My feet are sore, and ever since I got here my heart feels like a clenched fist and I think I will be gray by the time I finish investigating this case. So you’ll take me there? To Obersalzberg Administration’s offices?”

“All right. Only, do you mind if we go there in my car? I like to drive but I prefer not to when Hitler’s here at the Berghof. He doesn’t approve of women drivers. I’m not sure he approves of women doing anything very much except having babies and frying some Fridolin’s schnitzel. He often says that a woman who drives is a woman who dies.”

“I guess that counts double if you’re smoking at the wheel.”

“Probably.”

Professor Troost telephoned the Berghof duty officer and asked him to have her car brought around to the front. A few minutes later we were seated in a nice blue Auto Union Wanderer and heading down the mountain at the sort of speed that made me think Hitler was probably right about women drivers. By the time we reached Berchtesgaden I had him down as a pretty sensible sort of fellow who put a high value on his life. The dog, Harras, seemed to enjoy the ride, however; he sat behind us with a big stupid grin on his muzzle, pawing the air uselessly.