Philip Kerr - Prussian Blue

Korsch handed her another glass. His eyes asked me if I wanted one myself but I shook my head. I needed to keep a clear head if I was going to speak to Albert Bormann and then, perhaps, his brother, Martin. Johann Brandner’s life probably depended on a careful use of German grammar and some thoughtful advocacy on my part.

“Of course as soon as I heard that Karl had been murdered I knew it was Johann who’d done it. Our salt mine is in Rennweg. The entrance is between the River Ache and Obersalzberg. That part is well known to me. But where it goes inside the mountain is anyone’s guess. Well, anyone except my husband. There are old tunnels that go hundreds of meters straight under Obersalzberg. I confronted him about it, and he admitted it, more or less. Apparently there’s an old salt mine tunnel that comes out of the mountain in the forest very close to the Villa Bechstein. You could walk straight past it and not even know it was there. Udo must have guessed that, too. Anyway, he and my husband were always borrowing rifles and things from each other. They were in the army together. The Second Bavarian Corps. Johann was a Jäger marksman and, like lots of local men, the best shot in his battalion. Udo was the same. Some of these men grow up with a rifle in their hands. The day before Karl was shot, I saw Johann putting a rifle with a scope in the trunk of his car and while I’m not an expert, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a gun I’d seen before. And there was something stuck on the end of it. Like a can of something. Odd really. I even asked Udo about it the last time I saw him, and he didn’t say anything. Which worried me as well.”

“Does your husband have a workshop?” I asked. “With a working lathe?”

“Yes. He often has to bring pipes back from the mine for repair. How did you know?”

“It’s not important. You were saying. About Udo Ambros?”

“I didn’t know Johann had shot Udo, too. It’s unthinkable, really. Udo would never have turned Johann in. Not without giving him plenty of good warning first.” She shrugged. “So maybe that’s what happened. Johann must have shot him when Udo said he was going to have to tell the police that Johann had borrowed his rifle. And used it to shoot Karl.”

Frau Diesbach sipped the second glass of spirits, winced as if she really didn’t like the stuff, and let out a deep sigh.

“It’s all my fault, really. If I hadn’t paid Karl to get Benno on that list of OA workers none of this would have happened.”

“All right,” I said. “No point in tiptoeing around that saucer of milk. Where’s he gone?”

“I honestly don’t know,” she said. “He didn’t say. I asked him, of course. And he said it was probably better I didn’t know. That way I couldn’t tell anyone.”

“Have a guess,” said Korsch. “You knew him better than anyone. Pony included.”

She shrugged. “In many ways Johann was a secretive man. A lot of the time I didn’t know where he was. And he was on the road a great deal. Selling our salt. He has friends in Salzburg, Munich, and as far afield as Frankfurt and Berlin. He could have gone almost anywhere. He has lots of friends in the local area, of course.”

“What about his car?” I asked.

“The car is a new one. A 1939 black four-door Auto Union Wanderer. I don’t know the license plate off the top of my head. But I could find out, I suppose.”

“Does he have much money on him? Passport?”

“There was plenty of money in his wallet when I saw it earlier today. He gave me twenty reichsmarks for housekeeping. But there must have been two hundred more in there. And he has a German passport. That more or less lived in the car, for obvious reasons.”

“Come on, missus,” said Korsch. ‘We’re going to need more than that if we’re going to help you and your son. Where is Benno, by the way?”

“He went to stay with some friends. Until the coast was clear, so to speak. I’m not sure who they are. But he was on his bicycle so he can’t have gone very far. You won’t arrest him, will you? You promised me my son.”

“It’s your husband we’re interested in, not your son,” said Korsch. “But whatever Johann’s excuses for doing it were, he’s a murderer. So don’t even think of protecting him. It’s not just his neck, see? It’s ours, too, if we don’t catch him soon.”

“He’s right,” I said. “It’s the Leader’s birthday on the twentieth. And Martin Bormann wants the murderer of Karl Flex safely in custody before Hitler turns up at the Berghof to unwrap his presents. If only your husband had thought to shoot him somewhere else, Frau Diesbach, this whole thing might have been brushed under the rug. But as it is we’re under a great deal of pressure to close this case before the candles on the cake can be lit. The party’s canceled unless we find the culprit.”

“I think it was probably quite deliberate that he shot him where he did,” said Frau Diesbach. “On the terrace at the Berghof, I mean. I hope I won’t get into any more trouble for saying this, Commissar, but Martin Bormann is hated on this mountain. With him gone, a lot of people think a lot of things would be better around here. Johann blamed Martin Bormann for employing people like Karl Flex, Brandt, Zander, the whole rotten bunch of them. He wanted to embarrass Bormann. Leave him looking like a fool in Hitler’s eyes. Enough maybe for Hitler to get rid of him. Lots of people who know Johann would be inclined to help him escape, for that reason alone.”

“Where’s he gone, missus?” said Korsch. “I’m running out of patience here.”

“I can’t tell you what I don’t know, can I?”

“I suppose you think we’re stupid, missus.”

“I don’t suppose that,” she said in a way that made me think she was about to make another smart remark.

“Don’t get clever with us, missus,” said Korsch. “We don’t like people who get clever with us. It reminds us that we’re due a lot of overtime and expenses we won’t ever get. And what kind of man doesn’t tell his wife where he’s headed when he’s going on the run from the police?”

“The clever kind, obviously.”

“I’d tell my wife if it was me.”

“Yes, but would she care?”

That was when Friedrich Korsch slapped her face, twice. Hard. Hard enough to knock her off the chair she was sitting on. A good forehand and then a backhand, like his name was Gottfried von Cramm. Each slap sounded like a firecracker going off and he couldn’t have slapped her better if he’d been auditioning for a job with the Gestapo.

“You need to tell us where he’s gone,” shouted Korsch.

I’m not one for hitting people, normally. Most suspects who agree to tell the police everything figure that we won’t notice when they try to hold just one thing back. And it always shocks them when they realize that isn’t going to work. Me, I’d probably have questioned her for a while longer, but we were short of time, Korsch was right about that. Brandner’s only chance of avoiding a short haircut was us catching Karl Flex’s killer and soon. I picked her up off the floor and sat her down, which was a good way of making sure I was in the way of Korsch hitting her again. She looked shocked, as well she might. And while I disapproved of what Korsch had done I thought it was too late to complain about it.

“Sorry about that.” I took out my handkerchief, knelt down at the woman’s feet, and wiped her mouth. “Only, my friend here is the crusading type. You see, there’s an innocent man in a prison cell in Obersalzberg who could go to his death for Flex’s murder and that makes Korsch a bit physical. I don’t think he’ll do it again, but if you have any idea of where your husband’s gone, you’d best tell us now. Before he starts to feel a sense of real injustice.”