Prague Fatale

CHAPTER 13

Arianne was pleased to see me, of course, although not as pleased as I was to see her, in our bed, alone, naked and willing to use her body to help divert my thoughts from Heydrich, Jungfern-Breschan, the Three Kings and Pecek Palace. I told her nothing of my worries. Where Heydrich was concerned, it was best to know very little, as I was beginning to discover myself. What did I tell her as, exhausted by our love-making, we lay intertwined like two primitive figures carved from the same piece of antler-horn? Only that my duties kept me out of Prague, in Jungfern-Breschan, otherwise I should certainly have visited her at the Imperial Hotel before now.

‘That’s all right,’ she said. ‘Really, I’m quite happy here on my own. You’ve no idea how nice it is just to sit and read a book, or to walk around the city by myself.’

‘I do,’ I muttered. ‘I can imagine, anyway.’

‘I left a message for my brother. And there are plenty of other Germans in Prague I can talk to. As a matter of fact, this hotel is full of Germans. There’s a very beautiful girl in a suite on the same floor as us who’s having an affair with some SS general. And she’s a Jew. Doesn’t that sound romantic?’

‘Romantic? It sounds dangerous.’

Arianne shrugged that off. ‘Her name is Betty Kipsdorf and she’s utterly sweet.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘The general? Konrad something. He’s more than twice her age but she says you really wouldn’t know it.’ She laughed. ‘On account of the fact that he used to be a gymnastics teacher.’

I said I didn’t know who that could be. And I didn’t. I wasn’t exactly on first-name terms with any SS generals, even the ones I knew.

‘He’s very vigorous, apparently. For a general. Me, I always say that if you want a job done and done properly it’s a captain you want. Not some effete flamingo with clockwork heels.’

Flamingos were what the ranks called officers of the General Staff, a reference to the red stripes on their trouser legs.

‘What do you know about flamingos?’

‘You’d be surprised who we get through the doors of the Jockey Bar.’

‘No. But I’m still surprised that you’d prefer a captain to one of them.’

‘And perhaps a little suspicious.’

‘That’s probably no fault of yours.’

‘We’d get on like a house on fire if you weren’t a cop, don’t you think so, Parsifal?’

‘These are the times we live in, I’m afraid. All sorts of things make me suspicious, angel. Two aces in a row. Double-sixes. A sure thing for the state lottery. A kind word or a compliment. Venus rising from the sea. I’m the kind of Fritz who’s apt to look for a maker’s mark on the scallop shell.’

‘I might get insulted if I knew what any of that was about. After all, there’s a little part of you that’s still in me.’

‘Now it’s my turn to get insulted.’

‘Don’t be, Gunther. I enjoyed it, a lot. I think that maybe you underestimate yourself.’

‘Perhaps. I might even call it an occupational hazard except that, so far, it’s helped to keep me alive.’

‘Is staying alive so very important to you?’

‘No. Then again I’ve seen the alternatives, and at close quarters. In Russia. Or twenty years ago, back in the trenches.’

She gave me a little squeeze, the kind that feels like a wonderful sort of conjuring trick and that doesn’t need any limbs. Whenever a woman holds me tight like that it’s the best argument there is against the solipsistic idea that one can be truly certain only of the existence of one’s own mind.

‘How much more suspicious would you get if I said I’d fallen for you, Gunther?’

‘You’d have to say it a lot for me to believe it might be true.’

‘Maybe I will.’

‘Yeah. Maybe. When you’ve said it the first time we can review the situation. But right now it’s just a hypothetical.’

‘All right, I—’

She paused for a moment, uttering a sigh that was as unsteady as a whippet’s hind leg as I nudged up deep against the edge of her latest thought.

‘Go on. I’m listening.’

‘It’s true, Parsifal. I’m falling for you.’

‘You’re a long time in the air, angel. By now anyone else would have hit the ground.’ I nudged into her again. ‘Hard.’

‘Damn you, Gunther.’

Her breath was hot in my ear except it sounded cold and erratic, like someone laughing silently.

I prompted her a little more and said, ‘Go on. Let’s hear what it sounds like.’

‘All right. I love you. Satisfied?’

‘Not by a long way. But I will be, if this keeps up.’

She hit me on the shoulder but there was pleasure on her face. ‘You sadistic bastard.’

‘I’m a Nazi. You said so yourself. Remember?’

‘No, but you’re also rather wonderful, Gunther. All the more so because you don’t realize it. Since Karl, my husband, there have been other men. But you’re the first man I’ve cared anything about since he died.’

‘Stop talking.’

‘Go ahead and make me.’

I didn’t say anything. Conversation between us had become unnecessary. We didn’t need speech to act out a story that many others had told before. It wasn’t original but it felt like it was – an almost silent film that seemed both familiar and new. We were still performing our own highly stylized homage to German expressionism when the telephone rang on the bedside table.

‘Leave it,’ I said.

‘Is that wise?’

‘It sounds like trouble.’

It stopped ringing.

When our own motion picture finished, she got up to fetch one of my cigarettes.

I rolled onto my back and stared out of the window at the little pepper-pot dome on top of the building opposite.

The telephone started to ring again.

‘I told you,’ I said. ‘It always rings again when it’s trouble. Especially first thing in the morning, before breakfast.’

I picked up the receiver. It was Major Ploetz, Heydrich’s first adjutant. He sounded shaken and angry.

‘A car is coming to pick you up and bring you back here, immediately.’

‘All right. What’s up?’

‘There’s been a homicide,’ said Ploetz. ‘Here, at the Lower Castle.’

‘A homicide? What kind of homicide?’

‘I don’t know. But you should be outside your hotel in fifteen minutes.’

And then he hung up.

For one glorious moment I allowed myself to hope it was Heydrich who was dead. That one of those officers and gentlemen of the SS and the SD, jealous of Heydrich’s success, had shot him. Or perhaps there had been a machine-gun attack by Czech terrorists while Heydrich was out for his early morning ride in the countryside around Jungfern-Breschan. Perhaps even now there was a horse lying on top of his lifeless body.

And yet surely if it had been Heydrich who was dead, Ploetz would have said so. Ploetz wouldn’t ever have used the phrase ‘a homicide’ for someone as important as his very own general. The victim had to be someone of lesser importance or else Ploetz would have said ‘Heydrich has been murdered’ or ‘The General has been murdered’ or ‘There’s been a catastrophe, General Heydrich has been assassinated.’ A homicide didn’t begin to cover the lexicon of words that would probably be used by the Nazis if ever Heydrich was unfortunate enough to meet with a well-deserved but premature death.

‘Is it?’

‘Is it what?’ I answered her absently.

‘Trouble,’ said Arianne.

‘I have to go back to Jungfern-Breschan, immediately. There’s been a death.’

‘Oh? Who?’

‘I don’t know. But I’m sure it’s not Heydrich.’

‘Some detective you are.’ She shrugged. ‘Well, it certainly won’t be the gardener who’s dead if they want you to go back immediately. It must be someone important.’

‘I can dream, I suppose.’

Fifteen minutes later I was washed and dressed and standing outside the Imperial Hotel as a black sedan drew up. The driver wearing an SS uniform – it wasn’t Klein – stepped smartly out of the car, saluted, opened the door, and pulled down the middle row of seats because there were two men wearing plain clothes who were already seated in the back.

They were well-fed, hefty types, probably the kind who couldn’t run very fast but who could hand out a beating without breaking the skin on their knuckles.

‘Commissar Gunther?’

The man who spoke had a head as big as a stonemason’s bucket but the face carved on the front of it was small, like a child’s. The eyes were cold and hard, even a little sad, but the mouth was a vicious tear.

‘That’s right.’

A grappling iron of a hand came across the back of the seat.

‘Kurt Kahlo,’ said the man. ‘Criminal Assistant to Inspector Willy Abendschoen, from Prague Kripo.’

He looked at the other man and grinned, unkindly.

‘And this is Inspector Zennaty, of the Czech Police. He’s only along for the sake of appearances, aren’t you, sir? After all, technically speaking this is a Czech matter, isn’t it?’

Zennaty shook my hand but he didn’t say anything. He was thin and hawklike, with shadowy eyes and a hair style that looked like an extension of a short stubbly beard.

‘I’m afraid our Czecho friend doesn’t speak much German, do you, Ivan?’

‘Not very much,’ said Zennaty. ‘Sorry.’

‘But he’s all right, is our Ivan.’ Kahlo patted Zennaty on the back of the hand. ‘Aren’t you, Ivan?’

‘Very much.’

‘Mister Abendschoen would have attended himself,’ said Kahlo, ‘but almost everyone in Prague is now looking for this Moravek fellow. General Heydrich has made his apprehension the number one police priority in the whole of the Protectorate.’

I nodded. ‘So who’s dead? They didn’t say.’

‘One of General Heydrich’s adjutants. A captain named Kuttner, Albert Kuttner. Did you know him at all, sir?’

‘I met him for the first time yesterday,’ I said. ‘How about you?’

‘I only met him a couple of times. To me, one adjutant looks like another adjutant.’

‘I’d expect this one might look a bit different now, don’t you?’

‘Good point.’ Kahlo’s eyebrows were almost permanently at an angle, like a sad clown’s, but somehow he managed to raise them even higher up his forehead.

‘How about you?’ I asked Zennaty politely. ‘Did you know Captain Kuttner?’

‘Not very much,’ said Zennaty.

Kahlo grinned at this, which helped persuade Zennaty to stare out of the window. It was a kinder view than Kahlo’s sneering, ugly mug.

We drove east for a while, to Kripo headquarters in Carl Maria von Weber Strasse, where Zennaty briefly left the car and Kahlo informed me he had gone to fetch an evidence box. He and Zennaty had been across the river at the Justice Ministry when Abendschoen, Kahlo’s boss, had telephoned telling him to pick me up and then go to Jungfern-Breschan.

After a few minutes Zennaty returned and we drove north again.

To see Prague in the autumn of 1941 was to see a crown of thorns with extra points, as painted by Lukas Cranach. A city of church spires it certainly was. Even the spires had smaller spires of their own, the way little carrots sometimes grow bigger ones. These lent the unfeasibly tall Bohemian capital an unexpectedly sharp, jagged feel. Everywhere you looked it was like seeing a Swiss halberd in an umbrella stand. This sense of medieval discomfort was accentuated by the city’s omnipresent statuary. All over Prague there were statues of Jesuit bishops spearing pagans, heavily muscled Titans stabbing each other with swords, agonized Christian saints horribly martyred, or ferocious wild animals tearing each other to pieces. To that extent Prague appeared to suit the cruelty and violence of Nazism in a way Berlin never did. The Nazis seemed to belong here – especially the tall, spindly figure of Heydrich, whose austere pale face reminded me of a flayed-alive saint. The red Nazi flags that were everywhere looked more like blood dripping down the buildings that they hung on; the polished bayonets on German rifles at sentry points across the city glittered with an extra steely edge; and goose-stepping jackboots on the cobbles of the Charles Bridge seemed to have a louder crunch, as if beating down the hopes of the Czechs themselves.

That was shameful if you were a German but worse if you were a Czech, like the impotent Inspector Zennaty. Worst of all if you were one of Prague’s Jews. Prague was home to one of the largest communities of Jews in Europe, and even now there were still plenty of them left for the Nazis to kick around. Kick them around they duly did; and it remained to be seen if the legendary Golem that was reputed to dwell in the city’s Old New Synagogue would, as legend supposed, emerge from the attic one night and climb down the outside wall to avenge the persecution of Prague’s Jews. Part of me hoped that he had already put in an appearance at Jungfern-Breschan and that Captain Kuttner’s unexplained death was just the beginning. If things were anything like the silent movie called The Golem I’d seen not long after the Great War, then we Germans were in for some fun.

Twenty minutes later the car stopped outside the front door of the Lower Castle and we went inside.

Kritzinger, the butler, ushered Kahlo, Zennaty and me upstairs to Heydrich’s study, where he was waiting, impatiently, with Major Ploetz and Captain Pomme. Heydrich and Pomme were wearing fencing jerkins and it was clear from their flushed and still-perspiring faces that they had not long finished their absurd sport.

Since I was the only one wearing uniform I saluted and then introduced Kahlo and Zennaty.

Heydrich looked coldly at Zennaty. ‘You can wait downstairs,’ he told the Czech policeman.

Zennaty nodded curtly and left the room.

‘You took your time getting here,’ said Heydrich, sourly.

The remark appeared to be directed at me so I glanced at my watch and said, ‘I received the call from Major Ploetz in my hotel just forty-five minutes ago. I came as quickly as I could, sir.’

‘All right, all right.’

Heydrich’s tone was testy. There was a cigarette in his hand. His hair looked dishevelled and uncombed.

‘Well, you’re here now, that’s the main thing. You’re here and you’re in charge, d’you hear? You’re the experienced man in this situation. Incidentally, I don’t want that fucking Czech involved at all. D’you hear? This is a German matter. I want this thing investigated quickly and discreetly, and solved before it can reach the ears of the Leader. I’ve every confidence in you, Gunther. If any man can solve this case, it’s you. I’ve told everyone that you enjoy my complete confidence.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ I said, although this wasn’t at all how I felt or indeed what he meant. I wasn’t about to enjoy Heydrich’s confidence for any longer than he took to say it.

‘And that I expect everyone to cooperate fully with your inquiry. I don’t care what you ask and who you upset. D’you hear? As far as I’m concerned everyone in this house is under suspicion.’

‘Does that include you, sir?’

Heydrich’s blue eyes narrowed, and for a moment I thought I’d gone too far and that he was going to bawl me out. I was relieved he wasn’t holding a sword. I had gone too far, of course, and it was clear the two adjutants thought so too, but just for now, neither man was prepared to protest my insolence. Unpredictable as always, Heydrich took a deep breath and nodded, slowly.

‘I don’t see why not,’ he said. ‘If it helps. Anything that will get this sorted out as quickly as possible, before my tenure in this position descends into farce and I become a fucking laughing stock in Berlin.’

He shook his head and then stubbed out his cigarette, irritably.

‘That this should happen now when we’re just about to put paid to UVOD.’

‘UVOD?’ I shook my head. ‘What’s that?’

‘UVOD? It’s the Central Leadership of Home Resistance,’ said Heydrich. ‘A network of Czech terrorists.’

He leaned down on the desk with both fists and then hammered the glass surface hard enough for the model plane to shift several centimetres nearer the lamp. ‘Damn it all.’

I lit a cigarette and drew down a lungful of smoke and blew it back at him hard, hoping it might help to distract him a little from what I was about to say and the way I meant to say it.

‘Why don’t you take it easy, General? This isn’t helping me and it’s certainly not helping you. Instead of beating up the furniture and biting my head off why don’t you or whoever else has the best grip on the story tell me exactly what happened here? The whole once-upon-a-time in a town called Hamelin. And then I can do what I do.’

Heydrich looked at me and I sensed he knew I was taking advantage of him. Everyone else was looking at me too, as if surprised that I should dare to speak to the General in this way; but just as surprised that he should continue to hold off shouting me back into my shell. I was a bit surprised about that myself, but sometimes it can be interesting just how wide the door can open.

For a moment he bit his fingernails.

‘Yes. You’re absolutely right, Gunther. This isn’t getting us anywhere. I suppose, well, it’s a great shame that’s all. Kuttner was a promising young officer.’

‘Yes, he was,’ said Pomme.

Heydrich looked at him strangely and then said, ‘Why don’t you fill in some of the details for the Commissar?’

‘Yes sir. If you wish.’

‘Mind if I sit down?’ I said. ‘Like any copper I listen better when I’m not thinking about my feet.’

‘Yes, please gentlemen, be seated,’ said Heydrich.

I picked a chair in front of the Leader’s bust and, almost immediately, regretted it. I didn’t care for Hitler staring at the back of my head. If ever he learned about what was at the back of my mind I was in serious trouble. I reached into my fart-catcher’s pocket and took out my officer’s diary. It was more or less the same kind of diary the Gestapo had found on Franz Koci’s dead body in Kleist Park.

‘If you don’t mind,’ I said to Pomme, ‘I’ll make some notes.’

Pomme shook his head. ‘Why should I mind?’

I shrugged. ‘No good reason.’ I paused. ‘Whenever you’re ready, Captain Pomme.’

‘Well, Albert, that’s to say Captain Kuttner, was supposed to awaken me at six o’clock this morning. As usual. He awakens me, or Major Ploetz, or Captain Kluckholn, because it’s our job to awaken the General at six-thirty. I suppose that’s just the pecking order. Him being the fourth adjutant, you understand. However, this was no longer a satisfactory arrangement. Kuttner was never a good sleeper, and lately he’s been dosing himself with a sleeping pill, which meant he started to over-sleep in the morning. This made me late, and that made the General late. This morning was fairly typical in that respect. And anticipating some sort of a problem, I managed to awaken myself at six and then went to see if Kuttner was awake. He wasn’t; or so it seemed at the time. I knocked on the door several times, without success. Again, that wasn’t so very unusual. When he’s taken a pill it can be a while before he can be roused. But after ten minutes I was still knocking without a reply and, well, I suppose I began to worry a little.’

‘Couldn’t you just have gone in there and shaken him awake?’ I asked.

‘I’m sorry, Gunther, I didn’t make myself clear. He always locked his door. He was quite a nervous person, I think. Something to do with what happened to him in Latvia, he said. I don’t know. Anyway, the door was locked and when I bent down to take a look through the keyhole I saw that the key was still in the lock.’

Pomme was a handsome little martinet, not much more than thirty years old, lugubrious, with a wide but narrow-lipped mouth. In his white fencing jerkin he resembled a nervous dentist.

‘Having failed to awaken Kuttner I quickly awoke the General and then went to find Herr Kritzinger, to see if there was perhaps some other means of gaining entry to Kuttner’s room.’

‘What time was this?’ I asked.

‘It would have been about six-forty-five,’ said Pomme. He glanced at the butler, who was the only man in the room who remained standing, for verification.

The butler looked at me. ‘That is correct, sir,’ he said. ‘I went to find the spare key. I keep spare keys for all of the doors in my safe. I noticed the time on the clock on my mantelpiece when I was opening the safe. I went back upstairs with the room keys, but I was unsuccessful in using the spare to push the key out of the lock so that I could open Captain Kuttner’s door from the outside.’

I considered telling him about the key-turners we’d used at the Adlon Hotel for just such a situation but it hardly seemed relevant now.

‘I then instructed one of the footmen to go and find the gardener,’ said Kritzinger, ‘and have him fetch a ladder to take a look through the window and perhaps open it from outside the house.’

‘Meanwhile I resumed knocking on the door,’ explained Pomme. ‘And calling Captain Kuttner’s name. And by now I was late for my fencing bout with the General.’

Heydrich nodded. ‘Every morning I fence with one of the adjutants before breakfast. Kuttner was the best – he was outstanding with the sabre – but, of late, he had too much on his mind to be competitive. This morning when I arrived at the gymnasium there was no sign of Pomme, so I went to look for him and met the footman who’d been sent to fetch the gardener. When I asked him if he’d seen Captain Pomme he explained the situation. That would have been around six-fifty-five. So I went to see if I could assist and found Pomme still knocking on Kuttner’s door. It was now seven o’clock. I suppose I also became a little concerned for Kuttner’s safety. The fact is, he’d been rather depressed of late. And I ordered Pomme and Kritzinger to break down the door. Which they proceeded to do.’

‘That can’t have been very easy,’ I said. ‘The doors here are thick.’

Instinctively Pomme rubbed his shoulder. ‘It wasn’t. It took us all of five or ten minutes.’

‘And when the door was open what did you see?’

‘Very little,’ said Pomme. ‘The curtains were drawn and the room was quite dark.’

‘Was the window closed or open?’

‘Closed, sir,’ said Kritzinger. ‘The General ordered me to pull back the curtains so that we could see and I noticed then that the window was closed and bolted.’

‘Then I called Kuttner’s name,’ said Heydrich. ‘And hearing no reply I approached the bed. It was immediately clear to us all from his position that something was very wrong. He was still wearing his uniform and his sleep seemed abnormally sound to me. What with the sound of the door coming down and our voices, it didn’t seem right that he shouldn’t even stir. So I pressed my fingers on the side of his neck to look for a pulse and I noticed straight away that his skin was cold to the touch. Colder than it ought to have been. And then I noticed that there was no pulse. No pulse at all.’

‘Have you been trained to take a pulse like that?’ I asked.

Heydrich frowned. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘It’s a straightforward question, sir. You’d be amazed how many dead men turn up fit and well after someone has taken their pulse and pronounced them dead.’

‘Very well, yes, I have. During my Luftwaffe training at the Werneuchen Aerodrome, in 1939, I received basic training in first aid. And again in May 1940. That was in Stavanger.’ He shook his head. ‘There’s no question about it, Gunther. The man was quite dead. That would have been at approximately ten minutes past seven.’

Kritzinger was nodding.

‘What happened next?’ I asked him.

‘The General ordered me to telephone for an ambulance.’

‘Where did you call?’

‘The Bulovka Hospital is the nearest,’ he said. ‘It’s on the north-east outskirts of Prague, about ten kilometres away.’

‘I drive past it every morning,’ said Heydrich.

‘A Czech doctor called Honek attended,’ said Kritzinger. ‘In fact he’s still downstairs.’

‘And what did you do?’ I asked Pomme.

‘General Heydrich told me to go and fetch General Jury right away.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he’s a doctor, too,’ said Pomme.

‘Yes, I remember now. He was a specialist in tuberculosis, I believe. Before he joined the SS.’ I nodded. ‘So, you went to fetch him. What happened then?’

‘I’m afraid he was feeling rather the worse for wear after last night. It was at least another fifteen minutes before he was dressed and on the scene.’

I looked at Heydrich. ‘Meanwhile, sir, you were still in the room with Kuttner, isn’t that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did you do while you were waiting for Doctor Jury?’

‘Let’s see now. I opened the window, to get some air. I was feeling a little queasy for some reason. No, that’s not fair. He was a friend of mine. I lit a cigarette, to calm my nerves. But I tossed the end out of the window when I was finished. The crime scene is substantially uncontaminated.’ He shook his head and then ran a thin hand through his short hair. ‘I can’t think of anything else. After a while Doctor Jury turned up with Pomme. The doctor was, as Pomme says, very hung over. But not so hung over that he was incapable of pronouncing poor Kuttner dead. After that I had Ploetz call you and the local police right away. At approximately seven-thirty.’

‘Where’s Doctor Jury now?’ I asked.

‘In the library, sir,’ said Kritzinger. ‘With Doctor Honek. He asked for a pot of strong black coffee to be brought to him there.’

‘Has Doctor Honek examined the body?’

‘No,’ said Heydrich firmly. ‘I decided that there was no urgency about doing so. I thought it might be better if he waited until you had had a chance to examine the body yourself.’

I nodded. ‘I’ll do that now, if I may.’

‘Of course,’ said Heydrich.

‘Mister Kritzinger,’ I said. ‘Would you ask Doctor Jury to join us in Captain Kuttner’s room?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Captain Pomme? Perhaps you’d like to lead the way.’

I stood up and looked at Kahlo, the Criminal Assistant from Prague Kripo. ‘You’d better fetch the evidence kit that Zennaty brought,’ I said.

‘Right you are, sir.’

‘General? If you’d care to join us?’

Heydrich nodded. ‘Major Ploetz? You’d better inform the rest of my guests of what has happened. And that they will be required to answer the Commissar’s questions before anyone is allowed to leave. And that includes everyone at the Upper Castle.’

‘Yes sir.’

Kuttner’s room was on the same floor as mine, but it was in the south wing and overlooked a little glass winter garden. On the pink-papered walls were some pictures of English hunting scenes that made a welcome change from the Czech ones with which I was more familiar. The fox, who appeared to be smiling, must have believed he stood a good chance of escaping from the hounds, and that was all right with me. Lately I’m the kind of antisocial type who cheers when the fox makes a clean getaway.

Before I looked at the body I made my way around the room, noting a large pile of books by the bed and a bottle of Veronal beside a water carafe on the desk. The screw cap was still off the bottle. There were several pills on the floor but, oddly, the bottle was upright. Kuttner’s belts and the holster containing his Walther automatic were hanging on the back of his chair.

Heydrich saw me pick up the open bottle of Veronal. ‘Until I realized the true nature of his injuries I assumed that the Veronal was the culprit,’ he said. ‘It was only when Doctor Jury opened the tunic of his uniform to examine Captain Kuttner that we realized he’d suffered a lethal wound to his abdomen.’

‘Mmm hmm.’

Kuttner lay at an angle across the bed, as if he’d collapsed there. His eyes were closed. One of his arms lay neatly alongside his torso; the other was sticking straight out at right angles to the rest of his body, like a dead Christ. Well, half of a dead Christ anyway. But both hands were unscathed and empty. There were four buttons on his captain’s fart-catcher tunic with three of them unbuttoned from the top. He was wearing a white collarless shirt, unbuttoned at the neck, and no tie. It was easy to see how anyone could have missed the fact he’d been shot. It was only when you lifted the flap of the tunic that you could see the blood covering the shirt. He was still wearing his riding breeches, and just one boot. The monkey-swing – his adjutant’s braided rope – was off his top button but still attached to the right epaulette. He looked like a man who had been shot while he was still undressing.

‘Has anyone been over the floor yet?’ I asked Heydrich. ‘To look for evidence?’

‘No,’ said Heydrich.

I nodded at Kahlo who, without complaint, dropped onto his hands and knees and began to look for a bullet-shell, or perhaps something as yet unimagined.

I collected the P38 from Kuttner’s holster, sniffed the barrel and then checked the magazine. The gun was dirty and not well maintained, but clearly it hadn’t been fired in a while.

‘Your conclusions?’ asked Heydrich.

‘Beyond the fact that he was shot in the torso and that it hardly looks like a suicide I don’t yet have any,’ I said.

‘Why do you think it doesn’t look like a suicide?’ asked Pomme.

‘It’s unusual to shoot yourself and then neatly replace the weapon in the holster,’ I said. ‘Especially when you weren’t being neat about so much else. If you were going to shoot yourself, you would take off both boots, or neither of them. Quite apart from that his own pistol has a full magazine and hasn’t been fired in a while.’

I shrugged.

‘Then again there is no other gun in the room. But all the same it’s hard to imagine that he was shot, returned to his room, locked the door, lay down on the bed, took off one boot, and then quietly died. Even if that’s what it looks like.’

‘What I can’t understand,’ said Heydrich, ‘is why nobody seems to have heard a shot.’

‘Well, we don’t know that until we ask everyone,’ I said.

‘I can ask around, if you like,’ offered Pomme.

‘What I mean,’ Heydrich said firmly, ‘is that the sound of a shot would surely have raised the alarm. Especially here, in a house full of policemen.’

I nodded. ‘So the chances are that somehow the shot was muffled. Or someone did hear the shot and either chose to ignore it, or thought that it was something else.’

I went to the open window and put my head outside.

‘Today I can’t hear anything,’ I said. ‘But yesterday when I arrived here, at around the same time, someone was out there shooting birds. Rather a lot of birds.’

‘That would have been General von Eberstein,’ said Captain Pomme. ‘He likes to shoot.’

‘But not this morning,’ I observed.

‘This morning, he has a hangover,’ said Pomme. ‘Like General Jury.’

Kahlo stood up. ‘Apart from all of these pills, there’s nothing on this floor, sir,’ he said. ‘Not so much as a bloodspot.’

‘What, nothing at all?’ I frowned.

‘No sir. I’ll organize a more thorough search, after the body’s gone. But this floor is clean, sir.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s a mystery. Maybe he shot himself, threw the gun out of the window, closed it again, and then collapsed on the bed and died.’

‘Good thinking,’ said Heydrich, sarcastically. ‘Or maybe Captain Kuttner was just shot by a man who could pass through solid walls.’

‘You’d better check outside, anyway,’ I told Kahlo.

He nodded and left the room.

Heydrich shook his head. ‘That man is an idiot.’

‘How well do you know this house, General?’

‘You mean, are there any false walls and secret passages?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea. I’ve not been here for very long at all. Von Neurath had the house before I did. He knows this place much better than me, so you’d better ask him that.’

Absently I drew open Kuttner’s drawers and found several shirts, a toilet bag, some underwear, a shoe-cleaning kit, some Der Führer magazines, a clay pipe, a book of poems, and a framed picture of a woman.

‘Can I ask von Neurath something like that?’

‘As I told you already, Gunther, I expect everyone to cooperate. No matter who or what they are.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ I smiled. ‘Do I have to be polite? Or can I just be myself?’

‘Why change the habit of a lifetime? You’re the most insubordinate fellow I know, Gunther, but sometimes that yields results. It might however be a good idea if, while you were conducting your investigation, and practising your habitual impertinence, you wore civilian clothes. So that you can’t be accused of something that would get you court-martialled in a uniform. Yes. I think that might be best. Have you any civilian clothes with you?’

‘Yes sir. They’re in my room.’

‘Good. And that reminds me, Gunther. You’ll need a suitable space from which to conduct your investigations. You can use the Morning Room. See to it will you, Captain Pomme?’

‘Yes, Herr General.’

‘Pomme will be your liaison officer for the inquiry. For SD, SS, Gestapo or military matters, go through him. Anything else speak to Kritzinger. Come to think of it, he’s the real Lower Castle expert, not von Neurath.’

Kritzinger bowed his head in Heydrich’s direction.

General Jury appeared in the doorway, breathing heavily. He was perspiring and looked pale, as if he really did have a severe hangover. He closed his eyes for a moment and let out a sigh.

‘Ah, Jury, you’re here.’

Heydrich was trying to keep the smirk out of his voice but without success; it was obvious that he was enjoying the other general’s hangover as another man might have taken pleasure at watching someone slip on a banana skin.

‘What else would you like to know about the Captain?’ Jury asked biliously. ‘Beyond the fact that he’s dead and that there appears to be a gunshot wound in his abdomen, I can tell you very little, without examining his body in the morgue. And it’s been many years since I did that kind of thing.’

‘What made you think it was a gunshot wound?’ I asked. ‘Rather than a knife wound?’

‘There’s what looks like a neat bullet hole in his shirt,’ explained Jury. ‘Not to mention a neat hole on his body. And yet there’s very little blood on the Captain’s torso. Or for that matter, elsewhere. It’s rare in my experience that a man who is stabbed doesn’t bleed more. I saw no blood on the floor or the bed. But it was only an educated guess. And I could yet turn out to be wrong.’

‘No, I think you’re right,’ I said. ‘He was shot all right.’

‘Well then, Commissar,’ he said stiffly. ‘I fail to see the need for the question. Indeed, I’m inclined to consider it impertinent. I am a doctor, after all.’

I decided to let Jury have it between his oyster eyes. In his present, crapulous state – assuming it was for real – he was weak and vulnerable and it might take a while to find him like that again. Besides, I thought it important that I make a very early test of Heydrich’s declaration that I enjoyed his full confidence and that he didn’t care what I asked or indeed who I upset, just as long as I solved the case. If Heydrich stood by and let me bully General Jury then it would surely send out an early message to other senior officers in the Lower Castle that I was to be taken seriously.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘You’re a doctor. But that doesn’t mean you didn’t kill him. Did you kill him?’

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘You heard me, Doctor Jury. Was it you who shot Captain Kuttner?’

‘If that’s your idea of a joke, Commissar Gunther, then kindly take note of the fact that no one in this room is laughing. Including myself.’

This wasn’t quite true. Heydrich was smiling, almost as if he approved of me putting Jury on the spot in this way, which at least told me he was serious about my investigating the murder.

‘I can assure you it’s no joke, sir. Yesterday afternoon, when we talked on the road up to the Upper Castle, you told me that you hated Captain Kuttner.’

‘Nonsense,’ spluttered Jury.

‘You told me you thought he was a cunt. And that you detested him. That was before you went on to describe Captain Kuttner as General Heydrich’s golem.’

Jury coloured with embarrassment.

‘Golem,’ said Heydrich. ‘That’s an interesting choice of words. Remind me, Gunther. What exactly is a golem?’

‘A sort of creature created long ago by a local Jewish mystic called Rabbi Loew, sir. To do his bidding on behalf of Prague’s Jews.’

Jury was still protesting his innocence, but, for the moment, Heydrich ignored him.

‘If Captain Kuttner was the golem, then I suppose that makes me comparable to this Jewish mystic. Rabbi Loew.’

‘That was certainly my impression, sir.’

‘General Heydrich, sir,’ said Jury. ‘I can assure you that I meant nothing of the sort. Commissar Gunther is entirely mistaken. In no way did I mean to compare you to – that person.’

‘Leaving that aside for a moment,’ I said, roughly. ‘Why did you detest Captain Kuttner?’

Jury advanced on Heydrich. Though I was the one asking the questions, all of his answers were directed, a little desperately, at the Reichsprotector.

‘It was an entirely private matter,’ he insisted. ‘And nothing at all to do with the Captain’s death. It’s true I did dislike the man. However, if the Commissar is suggesting that it was a reason for killing him then I really must protest.’

‘A man has been murdered,’ I said. ‘An officer of the SS, in circumstances that compel investigation, regardless of personal feelings. I’m afraid there is no such thing as a private matter in a situation like this, General Jury. You know that as well as anyone else. This is now a criminal investigation and I’ll decide if your reason was sufficient reason to kill him.’

‘And who made you judge and jury, Captain?’ demanded the doctor.

‘I did,’ said Heydrich. ‘Commissar Gunther is one of the most competent detectives in Kripo, with an admirable forensic record. He is only doing the job that I have asked him to do. And doing it rather bravely, I think.’

‘Can I see your gun, Doctor Jury?’

‘What?’

‘Your pistol, sir. I notice you’re wearing it, this morning. May I examine it, sir?’

Jury glanced at Heydrich, who nodded firmly.

‘I’m not sure why I put on my belts this morning,’ he muttered. ‘I suppose it was because I was suddenly roused from sleep by Captain Pomme. I mean, I wouldn’t normally—’

He unbuttoned his holster and handed over the Walther P38, standard issue for most SS officers unless, like me, they were anything to do with the criminal police, in which case they were given the PPK. He checked the safety, ejected the magazine quickly, and placed both in my hands. It was an impressively competent display for a man who was a doctor and an SS bureaucrat.

I inspected the breech, which was empty, sniffed the barrel, and then glanced at the single-stack magazine in the palm of my hand.

‘Only three rounds,’ I said. ‘And it’s been fired. Recently.’

‘Yes. I did some shooting practice with my gun yesterday afternoon. In the woods near the Upper Castle. It was just to keep my hand in. It’s my belief that one cannot be too careful, what with all these Czech terrorists from UVOD running around.’

‘And are you a good shot, sir?’

‘No. Not good. Competent, perhaps.’

I nodded at Kuttner’s body. ‘Obviously we won’t know the kind of gun that was used to kill the Captain until a postmortem has been performed. However, I’m afraid I will have to keep your weapon for now, sir.’

‘Is that really necessary?’

‘Yes. I may need to try to match the bullet that killed Captain Kuttner with a bullet fired from your gun. What were you using for target practice yesterday?’

‘Songbirds. Pigeons.’

‘Hit anything?’

‘No.’

‘Did anyone see you? Baron Neurath perhaps?’

‘I don’t know. You’d have to ask him, I suppose.’

‘I will.’

‘I didn’t kill Captain Kuttner,’ he repeated.

I said nothing.

‘But I think that perhaps I could explain my opinion of him to you and the General in private.’

‘I think that’s an excellent idea, Hugo,’ said Heydrich. He glanced at Kritzinger and Pomme. ‘Gentlemen. If you would excuse us for a moment, please.’

The butler and the Captain left the bedroom. I closed the door as best I could given the fact that it had been broken in. I stayed there for a moment, running my fingers over the splintered wood and broken brass-work while Jury blustered his way through an explanation of why he had disliked the dead man.

‘The matter is a delicate one, involving a lady I know. She is a woman of probity and reputation, you understand. However, the other day I overheard Captain Kuttner talking about her in a way I considered extremely distasteful. I’m sure you’ll understand if I don’t mention her name or the specific details of the scurrilous gossip that was being relayed.’ Jury cleared his throat nervously, removed his glasses and started to polish the lenses with a handkerchief. ‘But I can assure you it was not the sort of thing one would expect to hear from an officer and gentleman.’

‘It’s true,’ admitted Heydrich. ‘Kuttner had an unfortunate tendency to be indiscreet. Even outspoken. I had occasion to speak to him about this.’

I nodded. ‘Exactly who did Kuttner tell about your affair with this little opera singer?’ I asked him bluntly.

‘Well, I really must protest.’ Jury proceeded to give me a look as if he wished it was me lying on the bed with a bullet hole in my torso.

‘What was her name again? Elizabeth something. Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, wasn’t it?’

‘Suppose we just leave her name out of this,’ said Jury.

‘All right. Suppose we do. Only that’s going to make it a little difficult to try to clear your name, General. You see I’ll need to speak to this other officer that Kuttner was speaking to. About your girl friend. Who was he?’

Jury bit his lip. This took some doing given how thin it was. ‘Major Thummel,’ he said.

‘And by the way, you were right,’ I said. ‘Captain Kuttner was a gossip. He told me the same thing. About you and Fräulein Schwarzkopf and Doctor Goebbels. Kuttner seemed to think that there might be some other reason behind the Minister’s patronage than just her singing.’

‘You are impertinent, Captain Gunther.’

‘There’s no question about that, sir. The question is what else was said. And whether any of that is enough of a motive for murder.’

‘Need I remind you that you are speaking to a general?’

‘You can sit on the highest branch if you want, sir. But it certainly won’t stop me from shaking the tree. And I can shake it quite hard if I have to. Hard enough to dump you on your backside.’

‘I’m afraid Gunther is right, Hugo,’ said Heydrich. ‘This is really no time to be sensitive. I must have this situation cleared up as soon as possible if I am to avoid any embarrassment. That’s embarrassment to me and my office, you understand, not to you, Hugo. I can’t allow anything to get in the way of an early conclusion to this unfortunate matter. Even if that does mean us riding roughshod over your feelings and quite possibly your whole future, too, if you refuse to cooperate with the Commissar’s inquiry.’

Heydrich looked at me now.

‘The fact is, Gunther, that Captain Kuttner heard this story from me. It was I who told him about General Jury’s affair with Fräulein Schwarzkopf. I’m sorry, Hugo, but everyone in Berlin knows what’s been going on. Except perhaps the Leader, and your wife, Karoline. Let us hope that she above all people can remain in ignorance of all this.

‘But, Herr Commissar, I think that the part of the story at which poor General Jury will have taken most offence relates not to her talents in the bedroom, which I assume are considerable, but to her talent as a singer. I’m afraid it’s true, Hugo. If the Fräulein was really any good as a soprano she’d be singing with the Berlin State Opera and not the German Opera. And you may not know it for sure but the Commissar is quite right that she has been sharing her sexual favours with the Minister of Propaganda. I have the incontrovertible proof of that, which at some future stage I would be happy to show you. So there’s no need to get on your high horse about all of this. You’ve both been fucking her and that’s all there is to it. I mean, how else do you think she was made a principal soprano so soon after joining the chorus? It was Goebbels who fixed that for her. In return for services that she rendered to him horizontally.’

Jury’s cheeks were now quite red and his hands were fists. I wondered if that showed a man who was angry enough to kill a brother officer in cold blood.

‘I don’t care for your manners, General Heydrich,’ said Jury.

‘That is of small account to me, Hugo.’ Heydrich paused. ‘Well, how about it? Did you kill Captain Kuttner?’ He paused. ‘If you did then I promise that we can arrange things so as to avoid too much of a scandal. You can resign, quietly, and go back to your loyal wife, Karoline. Perhaps you can even pick up your medical career again. But I can promise that if you deny it and it turns out to be you after all who murdered the Captain, then it will go very hard for you. We have plenty of filthy prison cells in Terezin Castle where even a distinguished man such as you can be forgotten for years, right up until the moment when I sign his death-warrant and have him hanged the old Austro-Hungarian way. By strangulation from a pole.’

‘I didn’t kill him,’ insisted Jury and then, with a short click of his heels and a bow of the head, he left the room abruptly.

‘I hope you enjoyed that capricious demonstration of your new powers,’ said Heydrich. ‘I know I did.’

A few seconds later there was a knock on the open door. It was Kurt Kahlo.

‘I searched underneath the window, sir,’ he told me. ‘Nothing. But I found this lying on the floor further down the corridor. I marked the spot, so don’t worry.’

He placed a small brass object in my hand.

‘What is it?’ asked Heydrich.

I held the object up in my fingers. It looked like a metallic cigarette end.

‘Unless I’m very much mistaken, sir, it’s a shell case from a Walther P38.’

Heydrich tossed the shell case back to me.

‘Well, Gunther. Much as I should like to stay and observe you destroy the character of another of my guests, I do have urgent business to attend to. The rather more urgent matter of finding Vaclav Moravek.’

‘Yes, of course, sir.’

‘I’ve told Major Ploetz that no one is to leave until you’ve had a chance to question him. No one, apart from him and me and Klein, my driver.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘I shall see you this evening when you can tell me of the progress you’ve made.’

‘All right, sir.’

When he was gone I opened Captain Kuttner’s tunic and pulled up his bloody shirt to inspect the bullet wound and was surprised to find not one but two holes, both in the centre of his chest and each about the size of the nail on a man’s little finger. Kahlo was searching the floor again. I didn’t say anything about there being two gunshot wounds. After a minute or so I turned the dead man onto his side so that I could inspect his back.

‘There’s no exit wound,’ I said, carefully using the singular. I rubbed my hand up and down the dead man’s back. ‘But sometimes you can find the bullet just underneath the skin. I’ve seen bullets just fall out of people who’d been shot, after which they can end up just about anywhere. But I think this poor sonofabitch is still carrying metal.’

I pushed Kuttner onto his back again and stood up.

‘Show me where you found that shell case.’

Kahlo led the way out of Kuttner’s bedroom and in the corridor outside he pointed to a box of matches on the floor that he’d used to mark the spot where he’d discovered the shell casing.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘You cut along to the Morning Room and make it look as much like an interview room as possible. On second thought, no. Leave it as it is. But we’ll need pencils and paper, a jug of water, some liquor, some glasses, a fresh pot of coffee every hour, a telephone, some cigarettes, and a typewriter.’

‘Yes, boss.’

‘And tell Doctor Honek that the ambulance men can remove the body to the hospital. And have him arrange an autopsy, will you? Today, if possible.’

‘Yes, boss.’

I glanced back to Kuttner’s door, about twenty metres away, and once Kahlo had gone, dropped onto my hands and knees and made my way slowly along the corridor. After a few minutes a door opened and out of a bedroom stepped the only officer in the Lower Castle who wasn’t a member of the SS or the SD. He was wearing the uniform of a major in the German Army.

‘You look how I feel,’ he observed.

‘Hmmm?’

‘Last night. I drank far too much. But on top of all that there was the champagne, which never agrees with me at the best of times. Still, under the circumstances I didn’t want to turn it down. We were celebrating after all, weren’t we? All the same I do regret it now. Woke up with a bit of a head this morning. I felt like I wanted to curl up and die.’

‘You have to be alive to feel like that, I suppose.’

‘What’s that? Oh, yes. I heard one of the adjutants got Stalin’s greatcoat. A terrible business.’

Stalin’s greatcoat was a coffin.

‘Which one was he? All of these adjutant fellows sort of look the same to me.’

I found what I was looking for: the second shell casing. I stood up and found myself facing a man of about the same age as me.

‘Captain Kuttner.’

He shook his head as if he couldn’t remember him. ‘And you’re the detective fellow, from Berlin, aren’t you? Gunther, isn’t it?’

‘That’s correct, sir.’

‘I suppose that accounts for why you’re crawling around the place on your hands and knees.’

‘I do quite a lot of that anyway, sir. Even when I’m not hunting for evidence. I like to drink, you see, sir. That is, when I can get it.’

‘There’s no shortage of it here, Gunther. If this keeps up I shall need a new liver. Major Paul Thummel, at your service. If there’s anything I can do to help, just let me know. Major Ploetz says that you want to interview everyone who was staying here last night. Fine by me. Just say when. Always glad to help the police.’

I pocketed the little shell casing. ‘Thank you, sir. Perhaps we could speak later on. I’ll have Captain Pomme contact you to arrange a time.’

‘Sooner the better, old man. Ploetz says that none of us can leave the house until we’ve given a statement. Frankly it all sounds a bit excessive. After all, it’s not like any of us is going to run away, is it?’

‘I think it has rather more to do with remembering details that might seem unimportant anywhere else. In my experience, it’s always better if you can interview witnesses as close to the crime scene as possible.’

‘Well, you know your job, I suppose. Just don’t interview people in alphabetical order that’s all. You’ll find that puts me last, I think.’

‘I’ll certainly bear that in mind, sir.’

Investigating the murder of one young SD officer who had almost certainly participated in the murders of hundreds, perhaps thousands of Latvian Jews, Gypsies and ‘other undesirables’ struck me as absurd, of course. A mass murderer who’d been murdered. What was wrong with that? But how many had I killed myself? There were the forty or fifty Russian POWs I knew about for sure – nearly all of them members of an NKVD death squad. I’d commanded the firing squad and delivered the coup de grâce to at least ten of them as they lay groaning on the ground. Their blood and brains had been spattered all over my boots. During the Great War there had been a Canadian boy I’d put the bayonet into when it was him or me, only he’d died hard, with his head on my shoulder. God knows how many others I’d killed when, another time, I’d taken over a Maxim gun and squeezed the trigger as I pointed it at some brown figures advancing slowly over No Man’s Land.

But it seemed that Albert Kuttner’s death mattered because he’d been a German officer and a close colleague of General Heydrich’s. That was supposed to make a difference, only it didn’t. At least not to me. Investigating a murder in the autumn of 1941 was like arresting a man for vagrancy during the Great Depression. But I did what I was told and started to go through the motions the way a proper policeman would have done. What choice did I have? Besides, it kept my mind off what I knew was happening out there, in the East. Most of all it kept my mind off the growing sense that I’d been to the worst place on the planet only to realize that the worst place of all was inside me.

‘I’ve prepared a list of everyone who stayed at the Lower Castle last night and therefore who you will want to interview,’ said Major Ploetz.

He handed me a sheet of neatly typed, headed notepaper.

‘Thank you, Major.’

We were in the Morning Room. With its greenish silk Chinoise wallpaper, the room felt like an extension of the garden and a little more natural than the rest of the house. There were a couple of big sofas facing each other like very fat chess-players across a polished wooden coffee-table. In the window was a grand piano and in the fireplace there was a fire that cheered the room. Either side of the marble fireplace was a mosaic of picture frames featuring Heydrich and his family. Kahlo was inspecting these, one at a time, as if looking to judge a winner. Now wearing my civilian clothes, I was seated on one of the sofas, smoking a cigarette.

‘Here is your mail, Commissar, forwarded from the Alex in Berlin. And here is a copy of Albert Kuttner’s SD personnel file. The General thought it might help you to get a better sense of the man and what he was like and – you never know – perhaps why he was killed. The personnel files of everyone staying here this weekend are being sent over from Hradschin Castle this morning.’

‘That’s very efficient of you, Major.’

It was easy to see why Ploetz was Heydrich’s Chief Adjutant. There was no doubting his efficiency. With his lists and memoranda and facts and figures Achim Ploetz was a real electric Nazi. Before the war I’d been to a town called Achim. It was near Bremen in a nice part of the country that, in its natural state, is mostly moorland. But there was nothing natural about Achim Ploetz, and in that respect at least, Doctor Jury was right: all of Heydrich’s adjutants were a bit like the golem of Prague.

Outside the Morning Room window a Mercedes drew up and Heydrich’s driver got out and opened the passenger door expectantly.

Ploetz saw him out of the corner of his eye.

‘Well, I’d better go and tell the General that our car is here,’ he said. ‘If there is anything you want, just ask Pomme.’

‘Yes. I will.’

Then he was gone and Kahlo and I were standing at the window peering around the heavy drapes like two comedians getting ready to take a curtain call. The convertible’s top was down and the engine was purring smoothly like some green metal dragon. Ploetz climbed aboard first and sat in the rear. Heydrich sat up front with the driver as if that might help him to control the car despite the fact someone else was at the wheel. He was just like that, I guess. As we watched them drive away there was no sign of an armed escort.

‘So, what do you make of it, sir?’

‘Bloody fool,’ I muttered.

‘How’s that, sir?’

‘Heydrich. The way he drives around the city like he’s invulnerable. Like Achilles. As if daring the poor bastards to come and have a go.’

‘The Czechos are just mad enough to do it, too.’

‘You think so?’

Kahlo nodded.

‘How long have you been in Prague?’

‘Long enough to know that the Czechos have got guts. More than we like to give them credit for.’

‘Kurt, isn’t it?’

Kahlo nodded.

‘Where are you from, Kurt?’

‘Mannheim, sir.’

‘How did you become a cop?’

‘I’m not exactly sure. My dad was a car-worker at the Daimler-Benz factory. But I never much fancied being stuck in a factory myself. He wanted me to become a lawyer, only I wasn’t clever enough, so becoming a cop seemed like the next best thing.’

‘So what do you make of it?’

‘It’s a puzzle, sir. A man is found shot dead inside a first-floor bedroom that’s locked from the inside. The windows are bolted and there’s no murder weapon present. Down the corridor there’s a spent nine-millimetre Parabellum round on the floor, so clearly a gun was fired at some time between the hours of midnight and, say, five o’clock this morning. And yet you’d also expect someone to have remarked on that, because a P38 wasn’t picked as the Army’s choice of firearm because it’s so bloody quiet. They can’t all have been so pissed they didn’t hear anything. The staff weren’t pissed. Not with Kritzinger in charge. Why didn’t they hear something? And not just a gunshot, either. I can’t imagine Kuttner standing on the landing upstairs and saying nothing as someone is about to shoot him. Me I’d have shouted “Help” or “Don’t shoot”, or something like that.’

‘I agree.’

‘Kuttner was under the influence of a sleeping pill,’ he said. ‘Maybe he didn’t realize quite how much peril he was in. Maybe it was dark and he didn’t see the gun. Maybe he was shot outside and because he was drugged he didn’t realize the severity of his injury. So he comes back in the house, goes back to his room, locks the door, lies down, and dies. Maybe.’

I shook my head. ‘You’ve got more maybes there than Fritz bloody Lang.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘Frankly, I wouldn’t know where to start with this one, sir. However, I’m keen to learn from someone who does, such as you. That is, if General Heydrich is to be believed. Anyway, you have my full cooperation, sir. Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it, with no questions asked.’

‘Questions are good, Kurt. It’s obedience I have a problem with. In particular, my own.’

Kahlo grinned. ‘Then I think yours should be an interesting career, sir.’

I opened Kuttner’s SD file and glanced over the details of the dead man’s short life.

‘Albert Kuttner was from Halle-an-der-Saale. Interesting.’

‘Is it? I can’t say I know the place.’

‘What I mean is, Halle is where Heydrich is from.’

‘So he could be taking this personally.’

‘Yes. True. Kuttner was born in 1911. That makes him seven years younger than Heydrich. His father was a Protestant pastor at a local church. But instead of pursuing a career in the Church, or in the Navy – like his boss—’

‘Heydrich was in the Navy? I didn’t know that.’

‘It’s said he got kicked out of it for conduct unbecoming when he knocked up some admiral’s daughter. But don’t tell anyone I said so.’

‘This admiral’s daughter. Is that the present Frau Heydrich?’

‘No. It’s not.’

‘So he is human, after all.’

‘I wouldn’t go that far.’

‘Kuttner studied law at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg and the Humboldt University of Berlin, where it seems he was a brilliant student. He received his doctor of laws in 1935 and worked for the ministries of justice and the interior before joining the SD.’

‘So far, so predictable.’

‘Hmm. Near the top of his class in officer school. Highly praised by everyone who assessed him; he was being groomed for one of the top jobs in Berlin. In May this year he was transferred to the Einsatzgruppen and ordered to Pretzsch, where he was assigned to Group A and sent east. Nothing unusual about that. Lots of decent men have been sent east. Decent men and some lawyers. On June 23rd he and the group were ordered to proceed to Riga, in Latvia, to help with “the resettlement of the indigenous Jewish population”.’

‘Resettlement. Yes, I know what that entails.’

‘Good. It will save me having to explain the distinction between “resettlement” and “mass murder”.’

‘Am I to assume that your appreciation of the distinction is based on personal experience, sir?’

‘You are. But please don’t assume that I did a good job. There are no good jobs out east. Albert Kuttner didn’t take to his work any more than I did. Which is why he felt guilty. Like me. And why he wasn’t sleeping.’

‘Thus the Veronal in his room.’

I turned the page in Kuttner’s file and read on a little before speaking again.

‘That guilt appears to have manifested itself for the first time just three weeks into his tour of Latvia when he put in for a transfer to the Army. But the request was refused by his commander, Major Rudolf Lange. Well, that hardly surprises me. I knew Rudolf Lange when he was with the Berlin police. The cat never stops catching mice. He was a bastard then and he’s a bastard now. Reason given for refusal of request for transfer: personnel shortages. But a week later he puts in for another transfer. This time he’s given an official reprimand. For conduct likely to damage morale.’

‘It’s a dirty job so someone has to do it, right?’

‘Something like that, I suppose.’

I turned another page in Kuttner’s file.

‘By August however, Albert is back in Berlin facing a disciplinary inquiry. It seems he threatened a superior officer with a pistol – it doesn’t say who, but I hope it was Lange, I’ve often wanted to stick a gun in that fat fucker’s face. Kuttner’s placed under close arrest, but not close enough because he then attempts suicide. No details on that either. But he’s sent back to Berlin for that disciplinary inquiry. A so-called SS court of honour. Only the disciplinary inquiry is suspended. No reason given.’

‘Do you think Heydrich might have pulled some strings?’

‘That’s what it looks like, because the next thing is that Albert is on the General’s staff in Berlin. Lighting his cigarettes, booking seats at the opera, and fetching coffee.’

‘Now that is a good job,’ said Kahlo.

‘You don’t strike me as an opera fan.’

‘Not the opera. The cigarettes.’ His eyes were on my cigarette. ‘The tobacco ration being what it is.’

‘Sorry.’ I opened my cigarette case. ‘Help yourself.’

Kahlo took one, lit up and then puffed with obvious satisfaction. Holding the cigarette in front of his eyes, like a rare diamond, he grinned happily.

‘I’d forgotten how good a cigarette can taste,’ he said.

‘There’s a page missing from this file,’ I said. ‘In my own SD file there’s a page headed “Personal Remarks”. I’ve only ever seen it upside down but it’s full of things my superiors have said about me like “insubordinate” and “politically unreliable”.’

‘You read good upside down.’ Kahlo grinned. ‘I’m a bit of a beefsteak Nazi myself, sir. Brown on the outside but red in the middle. Although I’m not as rare as my old dad. Being a car-worker he was red all the way.’

‘Mm hmmm.’

I handed Kahlo the file.

‘It’s not much to go on,’ he said, flicking through it.

‘Let’s see what we can find out for ourselves.’

I picked up the telephone and asked the Lower Castle switchboard to connect me with the Alex in Berlin. A few minutes later I was able to speak with the Records Division. I asked them if they had a file on Albert Kuttner. They didn’t. So I had them run a check on his address, which was always something you could do in Berlin because it wasn’t just individuals who generated records in Prussia, it was places, too. The Prussian State Police were nothing if not thorough. And a few minutes later Records called back to tell me that Flat 3, 4 Pestalozzi Strasse, in Charlottenburg was home to another man besides Albert Kuttner.

And when I had the Records people check him out, I started to believe I had something.

‘Lothar Ott,’ I said, reading aloud my notes of these several telephone conversations. ‘Born Berlin February 21st 1901. Two convictions for male prostitution, one 1930, the other 1932. Not only that but his previous address was number one Friedrichsgracht, near Berlin’s Spittelmarkt. That won’t mean much to a cop from Mannheim but to a bull from Berlin it means a lot. Until 1932, number one Friedrichsgracht was a notorious homosexual club called the Burger Casino. Either the late Captain Kuttner was very tolerant of homosexuals or—’

‘Or he was maybe a bit warm himself.’ Kahlo nodded. ‘I mean, you wouldn’t live with someone like that unless you were, would you?’

‘What do you think? You met him.’

‘You’re asking if Kuttner struck me as the type? I dunno. A lot of officers strike me that way. It’s possible, I suppose. He could have been the type. You know, a bit fastidious. A bit too careful about his appearance. A bit too much Cologne on his hair. The way he walked. Now I come to think of it, yes, I can see it. When he shrugged it looked just like my brother’s daughter.’

‘I agree.’

‘Someone ought to give this other fellow, Ott, a knock and see how he takes the news that Kuttner’s dead.’

‘That’s an idea.’

So I telephoned the Alex again and explained Kahlo’s idea to an old friend in Kripo called Trott, who promised to go and see Lothar Ott and give him the bad news in person and then report back on the show.

As soon as I replaced the receiver, the telephone rang. Kahlo answered it.

‘It’s Doctor Honek,’ he said, handing me the candlestick. ‘Calling about the autopsy.’

I took the phone.

‘This is Gunther.’

‘I managed to find someone to perform an autopsy on Captain Kuttner,’ said Honek. ‘Today. Like you asked me, Commissar. In view of the circumstances, Professor Hamperl, from the Pathological Institute of the German Charles University in Prague, has agreed to carry out the procedure at four o’clock this afternoon. He’s most distinguished.’

‘Where?’

‘At the Bulovka Hospital.’

‘All right. We’ll be there at four.’

After I hung up, Kahlo said, ‘We? What’s this “we”? You don’t want me there, do you?’

‘You said you were keen to learn, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, but well, the thing is, I’ve never seen an autopsy before.’

‘There’s nothing to it. Besides, we have a distinguished professor to perform the autopsy.’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, anxiously. ‘I mean, dead people. I don’t know. They look like they’re dead, right?’

‘It’s best that way. When they look alive it puts the pathologist a bit off his knife.’ I shrugged. ‘It’s your choice. Now let’s have a look at that list of names that Major Ploetz gave us. I think some of them look like they’re people.’

My eyes slid off the page and landed on the floor with a loud sigh.

‘If one were to assume that anyone at the Lower Castle might have had the opportunity and the motive to kill Captain Kuttner,’ I said, ‘that leaves us with thirty-one suspects.’

‘Christ,’ muttered Kahlo. ‘That’s at least one for every day of the month.’

‘Thirty-nine including the personnel at the Upper Castle with von Neurath. It’s only a short walk from there to the Upper Castle, so I don’t see how they can be excluded.’

‘And God knows how many if we include all of the SS up at the guard house.’

I grunted.

‘Do you want to include them?’

‘How many are in the garrison?’

‘At least two hundred.’

‘I don’t want to include them, no. No. But I hardly see how I can exclude them given the possibility that Albert Kuttner may have been warm. A bit of rough trade with an enlisted man in the woods might have been just his beer. The first thing we have to do—’

‘You mean apart from interviewing the senior ranks.’

I paused.

‘So far no one’s complained about being kept waiting by you,’ said Kahlo. ‘But it won’t be long.’

I nodded. ‘All right. While I start with the formal interviews, the first thing you have to do is to try and speak to everyone informally and get a sense of Kuttner’s movements last night. Who was the last person to see him alive and at what time? That kind of thing. Now, I saw him at about nine o’clock when he was having a fairly heated discussion in the garden with one of the other adjutants – Captain Kluckholn, I think. Then about half an hour later, after Heydrich had made a speech, he appeared in the library with some champagne. So you might start with that in mind. I want times and places. And see if you can’t get a plan of the house. That way we can start plotting his various positions.’

‘Yes, I suppose that might help.’

‘Any suggestions of your own will be gratefully considered.’

‘Then a clairvoyant with a crystal ball couldn’t do any harm. Strikes me that’s the only way we’re going to find a murderer who walks through locked doors and shoots people without making a sound.’

‘You make me begin to wonder what I’m doing here, Kurt.’

‘By the way, sir, if you don’t mind me asking. What are you doing here? What I mean is: all this damned cauliflower. It’s like a market garden in this house.’

He was referring to the oak-leaf collar patches that distinguished SS generals, brigadiers, and colonels from lesser mortals.

‘What’s it all about? What’s the reason for it?’

‘You ask some pretty good questions for a man who promised to work for me, no questions asked.’

‘So what’s the answer?’

‘I believe General Heydrich wanted a quiet weekend with friends to celebrate his appointment as the new Reichsprotector of Bohemia.’

‘I see.’

‘You sound surprised. But not as surprised as I was to be asked along on this jaunt. The General and I, we’ve grown apart, you understand. Schiller once wrote a pretty good poem to his friends. When I was at school we were obliged to learn all five verses. I used to think he said all there was to say about what friendship means in Germany. Only I don’t remember a verse covering the kind of friend I have in General Heydrich. Goethe did it better, I think. You know? What happens when Mephistopheles invites you over for real coffee and American cigarettes.’

Even as I said it Arianne came into my mind; it was she who had made the comparison between Heydrich and Mephistopheles on the train from Berlin, and ever since then I’d been wondering just how long I had to work for Heydrich before my soul was forfeit.

‘Oh yeah,’ said Kahlo. ‘Temptation. And temptation like real coffee and American cigarettes. Well that’s very tempting.’

‘I figure that the alternative is worse. I can’t answer for why all the cauliflower is here, but that’s why I’m on board. Because the General asked me to dance. Because he doesn’t like it when you say no.’

‘All right. I’ll buy that.’

‘Good. Now let’s see what we can do about getting a bead on the invisible man.’

SS Obergruppenführer Richard Hildebrandt was the Higher Police Leader in Danzig and commander of a large unit of SS that was stationed in West Prussia. In the event of the citizens of Berlin rising up against Hitler, Hildebrandt would be in charge of suppressing that particular revolution.

Born at Worms in 1897, he was an old friend of Heydrich’s. Smooth, neat, fastidious, and of only average height, he had the look and manner of a prosperous businessman. Certainly he had the best tailoring of any officer who was staying at the Lower Castle. On his left breast pocket he wore a Knight’s Cross of the War Merit Cross with Swords – a silver Nazi medal that had nothing to do with the proper Knight’s Cross, and everyone who’d seen proper combat thought of this decoration as a substitute Iron Cross; but I suppose a general has to have some kind of furniture on his tunic if ever people are going to listen to him. But the gold Party badge he wore next to the faux Knight’s Cross was the real hallmark of his sterling Nazi status and near-untouchability. That little gewgaw occupied pride of place on his uniform and was the cynosure of anyone who knew what was what in Nazi Germany.

He sat down on the sofa opposite me, lit a cigarette and crossed his legs. ‘Will this take long, Commissar?’

‘Not long, sir.’

‘Good. Because I have some important paperwork I need to get through.’

‘How well did you know Captain Kuttner?’

‘I didn’t know him at all. Until I arrived here the day before yesterday I had perhaps spoken to him twice, and only on the telephone.’

‘How did you find him?’

‘He struck me as efficient. Well educated. Diligent. As one might expect of an officer working for a man like General Heydrich.’

‘Did you like him?’

‘What kind of stupid question is that?’

‘A fairly easy one, I’d say. Did you like him?’

Hildebrandt shrugged. ‘I did not dislike him.’

‘Can you think of any reason why someone would want to kill him?’

‘No, and my own opinion is that a Czech must have committed the crime. There are Czechs working here, in the house and grounds. My advice, Commissar, would be to start by questioning them, not senior generals in the SS.’

‘My apologies, Herr General. I was led to believe by Major Ploetz that I should conduct these interviews in strict order of seniority, so as not to keep anyone important – such as yourself – hanging around.’

Hildebrandt shrugged. ‘I see. My apologies, Commissar.’

I shrugged back.

‘However, I still fail to see why senior ranks should be questioned at all. In my opinion my word should be good enough.’

‘And what word is that, sir?’

‘That I had nothing at all to do with this man’s death, of course.’

‘I don’t doubt it, sir. However, it is not the point of this interview to find out if you murdered Captain Kuttner. The immediate purpose of this inquiry is to build a detailed picture of the man’s last few hours. And having done so, to identify some genuine suspects. You do see the difference.’

‘Of course. Do you take me for an idiot?’

I didn’t answer that. ‘You were with us all, in the library, to listen to the Leader’s speech, were you not?’

‘Naturally.’

‘And then to hear Heydrich’s speech.’

Hildebrandt nodded, impatiently. He took a last puff of his cigarette and then extinguished it in a heavy glass ashtray that lay on the table between us.

‘Do you remember Captain Kuttner bringing in some champagne after that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you stay celebrating very long?’

‘Yes. I confess I drank rather too much, I think. Like everyone else I have a bit of a headache this morning.’

‘Yes sir. Only I have a bigger one. I have to solve this murder. That won’t be easy. You do see that, don’t you? At some stage it’s possible I’m going to have to accuse a brother officer of killing Kuttner. Perhaps even a senior officer. I think you might try to be a little more understanding of my position, sir.’

‘Don’t tell me my duty, Commissar Gunther.’

‘With the scary badge in your lapel? I wouldn’t dream of it, sir.’

Hildebrandt glanced down at his gold Party badge and smiled. ‘You mean this, don’t you? I’ve heard that’s what some people call it. Although I can’t imagine why anyone would be scared of this.’

‘It means that you joined the Party very early on, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes. In my case it was 1922. The following year I took part in the Munich putsch. I was right behind the Leader as we left the beer hall.’

‘You must have been very young, sir.’

‘I was twenty-six.’

‘If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to you, sir? After the putsch failed.’

His eyes misted over for a moment before he answered.

‘Things were difficult for a while. Very difficult. I don’t mind telling you. Apart from the harassment I received at the hands of the police, I was short of money and I had little choice but to go and work abroad.’

He seemed relieved to be talking about something that was nothing to do with Kuttner; relaxed even, which, momentarily, was my intention.

‘Where did you go?’

‘America. There I tried my hand at farming for a while. But after that failed I became a bookseller, in New York.’

‘That’s quite a switch, sir. Did you fail at being a bookseller, too?’

Hildebrandt frowned.

‘Or did you come back to Germany for another reason, sir?’

‘I came back because of the wonderful things that were happening in Germany. Because of the Leader. That was 1930.’

‘And you joined the SS when, may I ask?’

‘1931. That is when I first met Heydrich. But I don’t see what any of this has to do with the death of Captain Kuttner.’

‘I’m coming to that, if you’ll bear with me. I suppose you must have a high regard for the standards of the SS, having joined as early as 1931.’

‘Yes, I do. Of course I do. What kind of a question is that?’

‘Do you suppose that Captain Kuttner lived up to those standards?’

‘I’m sure he did.’

‘Are you sure he did, or do you suppose he did?’

‘What are you driving at, Gunther?’

‘If I told you that Captain Kuttner was a practising homosexual, what would your reaction be?’

‘Nonsense. General Heydrich would never have tolerated such a thing. I’ve known him long enough to be quite sure of that.’

‘What if General Heydrich didn’t know about it?’

‘There are no secrets from Heydrich,’ said Hildebrandt. ‘You should be aware of that. And if you’re not, you soon will be. What he doesn’t know, probably isn’t worth knowing.’

‘Would it surprise you if I told you that there are some things even Heydrich doesn’t know?’

‘Nonsense,’ he repeated. ‘This whole line of questioning is nonsense, Commissar. Kuttner was artistic, at worst. But we don’t condemn a man for enjoying good music and appreciating good paintings.’

‘With respect, I don’t think it is nonsense, sir. Kuttner was living with a man in Berlin. A man with convictions for male prostitution. A man who used to frequent a notorious homosexual bar called the Burger Casino, dressed in a schoolboy sailor-suit, and who used to take his clients to a nearby pier on the river in order to have sex with them.’

‘Rubbish. I just don’t believe it. And I think it very poor taste on your part to malign a fellow officer who is no longer in a position to defend himself from that kind of defamation.’

‘Let us assume for one minute that I’m right about this.’

‘Why?’

‘Please, sir. Indulge me for a moment.’

‘Very well.’

‘What would your opinion be of a man like that?’

‘My opinion?’

‘Yes, sir. What do you think of an SS captain who shares his bed with a male prostitute?’

Hildebrandt’s smooth face darkened. The lips tightened and the jaw turned pugnacious.

‘I mean, sir, it’s said it was Ernst Röhm’s homosexuality that was one of the reasons the Party turned on him, why he was executed.’

‘That’s probably true,’ admitted Hildebrandt. ‘Röhm was a degenerate. As were some of the others. Edmund Heines. Klausener. Schneidhuber. Schragmüller. They were loathsome specimens and richly deserved their fate.’

‘Of course they did.’

I wasn’t sure they had deserved their fate, not all of them. Erich Klausener had been the leader of the police department at the Prussian interior ministry in Berlin and not a bad fellow at all. But I wasn’t there to debate with Hildebrandt.

‘Do you think that sort of thing should be tolerated in the SS?’

‘Of course it shouldn’t. And it isn’t tolerated. Never has been.’

‘Do you think it brings dishonour to the SS? Is that why?’

‘Certainly it brings dishonour to the SS, Commissar Gunther. What a fucking question. It’s obvious. If the man was, as you say, homosexual – although I still don’t believe Kuttner was – then I’d go further than that. Such a man should be put in front of a firing squad. Like Röhm and those other queers. It’s the pansies and the Jews who almost destroyed Germany during the Weimar Republic.’

‘Oh, surely,’ I said.

‘Who continue to threaten the moral fibre of our country. We are cultivating increasingly healthy blood for Germany and it must be kept pure. As the father of three children myself, two of them boys, I say it quite emphatically. If such a man was under my command I should not hesitate to denounce him to the Gestapo. Not for a minute. No matter how serious the consequences.’

‘Well, of course,’ I said, ‘I know it’s illegal under paragraphs 174 and 175 of the Criminal Code. But I thought that homosexuals could only be sent to prison for up to ten years. So, let me get this straight. There are extra punishments that apply to such people in the SS, is that right? Like being shot, as you say. I assume you would know, sir.’

He lit another cigarette.

‘As a matter of fact I do know. And in the strictest confidence I will tell you what happens. In the SS we have about one case of homosexuality a month. When they are uncovered, by order of the Reichsführer-SS himself they are degraded, expelled, and handed over to the courts; and following completion of the statutory punishment, which you mentioned, they are then sent to a concentration camp, where they are most often shot, while attempting to escape.’

‘I see.’

‘Personally, I can’t see the need for the camp. If it was up to me, it would be the commanding officer who would shoot such a man. Summarily.’

‘So, let me get this straight. If you had absolute incontrovertible proof that Captain Kuttner was a homosexual, and he’d been your junior officer, you’d have shot him yourself. Is that right?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Thank you, General. That will be all, sir. I do appreciate your candour in this matter.’

Hildebrandt paused. ‘Are you playing games with me, Commissar?’

‘I was merely testing a theory, sir.’

‘And what theory is that?’

‘Only that it’s quite possible he wasn’t murdered by a Czech after all, as you insisted earlier. But by another German. I dare say you’re not the only man who thinks Kuttner was probably murdered by a Czech. It’s a common enough prejudice we Germans have: a suspicion of other lesser races. Take Berlin’s S-Bahn murderer, this summer. Paul Ogorzow. Remember him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Before he was caught everyone thought the murderer was a foreign worker. But Paul Ogorzow was a German. Not only that, but he was a Party member. Not as early a member as you, sir, but I think he joined well before Hitler became Reich Chancellor.’

I shrugged. ‘When it comes to murder, I like to keep an open mind.’

Hildebrandt got up to leave. He straightened his immaculate riding-breeches, which were the expensive kind – with the suede inside legs, as if he actually went riding – and moved toward the Morning Room door.

‘By the way, sir. How did you find living in America?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Did you enjoy living in America, sir?’

‘Yes. I did.’

‘I’d love to work in a foreign country. So far it’s been France, Bohemia and the Ukraine. And I didn’t much like the Ukraine. And I certainly didn’t like the work.’

Hildebrandt remained silent.

‘Neither did Captain Kuttner,’ I said. ‘Did you know that?’

‘No.’

‘Yes. He told me that himself. It bothered him. A lot. Made him feel disgusting.’

‘There’s no doubt that it’s difficult work,’ said Hildebrandt. ‘Not everyone is suitable for this kind of duty. However, there’s no shame in that, I think. No shame for you anyway, Commissar.’

‘Thank you, sir. I’ll try to bear that in mind.’

I had about thirty minutes before my next appointment in the Morning Room so I went upstairs to search Kuttner’s room. I wanted to do this without anyone else looking over my shoulder just in case I found something interesting that I had to show Ploetz or Heydrich or whoever else took it upon themselves to scrutinize my work.

But Kuttner’s bed had already been stripped. The sheets and blankets lay in a heap on the floor. The window had been opened wider than before and the room was full of the scent of freshly cut grass. The gardener at Jungfern-Breschan was forever tending the lawns. Outside the window the motorized lawnmowers were already at work.

Seated on the end of Kuttner’s bed was a girl of about twenty-five. She had blond hair and a handkerchief in her hand and was wearing a sleeveless grey pinafore and a regulation SS black dress – the one with the big floppy collar trimmed with white piping. She was an SS Helferin: a helper and, in this case, a maid.

I watched her silently from the doorway for several minutes. And not noticing me she didn’t move except, now and then, to press the handkerchief to her nose as if she had a head cold. Finally my curiosity could no longer be contained and, clearing my throat, I advanced into the dead man’s room.

Abruptly the Helper stood up and looked the other way – at least she did until I caught hold of her arm.

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean any harm coming in here. Mister Kritzinger sent me to strip the bed and I was just overcome for a moment, at the thought of that poor man being murdered.’

She was older than I had first supposed and not particularly good-looking – too thin and highly strung for my taste. Her skin was clear as tissue paper and you could see the little blue veins at the side of her forehead like the maker’s mark on good porcelain. The mouth was wider and sadder than it ought to have been perhaps, but it was her big eyes I was really interested in because they were red and full of tears.

‘I’m Commissar Gunther.’

‘Yes sir. I know who you are. I saw you when you arrived here, yesterday.’

She gave a little curtsy.

‘I’m investigating Captain Kuttner’s murder.’

She nodded. She knew that, too.

‘Did you know him?’

‘Not really, sir. We talked a few times. He was kind to me.’

‘What did you talk about?’

‘Nothing really, sir. Nothing important. It was just incidental talk, you might say. Idle conversation about nothing very much.’

‘It’s all right. I’m not going to tell anyone. I’m just trying to get the handle on what kind of a fellow he was. Maybe when I’ve done that I’ll have a better grip on why someone killed him.’ I pointed at the bed where she’d been sitting. ‘Can we sit down and talk? Just for a minute.’

‘All right.’

She sat down and I sat beside her.

‘Albert was a very sweet, gentle man. Well, he was more of a boy, really. Such a handsome boy. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt him. Let alone kill him. He was thoughtful and considerate, and very sensitive.’

‘You liked him then.’

‘Oh, yes. Much more than some of these other officers. He was different.’

‘He certainly was.’

Thinking I might have sounded insincere, I added, ‘I liked him, too.’ Even as I said this I realized for the first time since hearing about Kuttner’s death that I really had liked him. Probably it was mostly the fact we had both shared a terrible experience in the East; but more than that, I had also liked his wit and candour, which bordered on the indiscreet.

To that extent at least Kuttner reminded me of me, and I wondered if I had started to take his murder a little more personally than seemed appropriate.

‘Go on.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t want to get in any trouble.’

‘I can promise you that you won’t. But if there’s anything you know that sheds any light on what happened here last night then I think I need to know about it, don’t you? General Heydrich is very determined that I find out who murdered the Captain. And the only way that is going to happen is if I persuade people like you to have confidence enough in me to tell the truth.’

‘All right, sir.’

‘Good. What’s your name?’

‘Steffel. Rosa Steffel.’

‘Well, Rosa, why don’t you tell me what happened?’

‘Last night,’ she said, ‘when all of the officers started to go to bed, he insisted on helping me collect up the glasses, even though I could see he was dead tired.’

‘That was kind of him,’ I said. ‘What time was that?’

‘It must have been after one o’clock. I heard the clock chime in the hall. Some of the cauliflowers were still up, of course, swigging brandy in the library. And one or two were drunk. One in particular. I wouldn’t like to say who he was but he got a bit too familiar with me, if you know what I mean. You see, there’s something about this uniform. When some of the cauliflowers get drunk they think we’re little better than camp-followers and they take liberties with us. This particular officer touched my breasts, and he tried to put his hand up my dress. I didn’t care for it and told him so; but he’s my senior officer and it’s not easy trying to put a man in his place when he’s a general. It was Captain Kuttner who came to my assistance. Rescued me, if you like. He told the General off, in so many words. The General was furious and swore a lot at the Captain and told him to mind his own effing business. But Captain Kuttner was wonderful, sir. He ignored the General and escorted me back below stairs before the General could touch me again.’

I shook my head. ‘Some of these SS generals are loath-some,’ I said. ‘I’ve just come out of a rather rough meeting with General Hildebrandt. And he really put me back in my shell. Was it he who touched you?’

‘No.’

I sighed. ‘Rosa. Please. I’m in a real spot here. One of these men – yes, maybe even one of these cauliflowers – murdered a man in cold blood. Right here in this room. The room was locked from the inside and the window was bolted, which means that this investigation is already difficult. Don’t make it impossible. You need to tell me who it was who touched you last night.’

‘It was General Henlein.’

‘Thank you.’

‘What happened when Captain Kuttner escorted you below stairs, Rosa?’

‘We talked a bit. Like we usually did. About nothing much, really.’

‘Tell me one of the things you used to talk about, Rosa.’

She shrugged. ‘Prague. We talked about Prague. We both agreed that it’s very beautiful. And we also talked about our home town.’

‘You’re not from Halle-an-der-Saale, too?’

‘Sort of. I’m from Reidesburg, which is just outside Halle.’

‘It seems as though everyone but me is from Halle. General Heydrich is from Halle, do you know that?’

‘Of course. Everyone knows about the Heydrichs in Halle. Someone else here is from Halle, too; at least that’s what Albert told me, but I’m afraid I don’t remember who that is.’

‘What else did he tell you?’

‘That he went to the same school as the General. The Reform Real-gymnasium. My brother Rolf went there, too. It’s the best school in town.’

‘Sounds like they had a lot in common. Albert and the General.’

‘Yes. He said things had been difficult for him, lately. But that the General had been very kind to him.’

The idea of Heydrich being kind was not something I felt like contemplating. It was like hearing that Hitler liked children, or that Ivan the Terrible had owned a puppy.

‘Did he elaborate on any of that? On why things had been difficult? On exactly how the General had been kind to him?’

Rosa looked at her handkerchief as if the answer lay crushed inside its sodden interior.

‘Albert made me promise not to tell anyone about it. He said that people in the SS were not supposed to talk about such things. And that it might get me into trouble.’

‘So why was he telling you about it?’

‘Because he said he had to tell someone. To get it off his chest.’

‘Well, he’s dead now and so is that promise, I think.’

‘I suppose so. But do you promise not to tell anyone that I spoke about this with you?’

‘Yes. I promise.’

Rosa nodded. And hesitantly, she gave voice to what Kuttner had told her.

‘He said he was in our Latvian provinces during the summer and that Germany had done terrible things there. That lots of people, thousands of people, had been killed for no other reason than that they were Jews. Old men, women and children. Whole villages full of defenceless people who had nothing to do with the war. He said that, at first, he carried out his orders and commanded the firing squads that murdered these people. But after a while, he’d had enough and refused to have anything more to do with these killings himself. Only this landed him in trouble with his superior officers.’ She shook her head. ‘It seemed unbelievable to me, but when he talked about it he started to cry and so I couldn’t help but believe him, at the time. I mean a man – especially an officer – he doesn’t cry for nothing, does he? But now, I don’t know. Do you really think it can be true what he told me, Commissar Gunther? About the killings?’

‘I’m afraid it’s true, Rosa. Every word of it. And not just in Latvia. It’s going on everywhere east of Berlin. For all I know it’s even going on here in Bohemia. But he was wrong about one thing. Within the SS and the SD, it’s an open secret what’s been going on in the eastern territories. And just to put your mind at rest, I’m almost certain it wasn’t his talking about this that got him killed, but something else.’

Rosa nodded gratefully. ‘Thank you, Commissar. I was worried about that.’

‘Tell me something. When Captain Kuttner intervened on your behalf, with General Henlein, you said the General swore at Albert.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Did he threaten him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you remember his exact words?’

‘Perhaps not exactly. As well as a lot of horrible words I don’t want to repeat, the General said something along the lines of “I’ll remember you, Kuttner, you worthless little coward.” And “I’ll make you pay for this, just see if I don’t.”’

‘Did anyone else hear that besides you, Rosa?’

‘Mister Kritzinger. General Heydrich. They must have heard it. And I suppose some of the others too, but I don’t remember their names. In their uniforms they all look the same to me.’

‘I have the same problem. And that’s partly why I took mine off. Sometimes, when I’m playing detective, it’s necessary to put myself apart from everyone else. But frankly I hope I never have to put the uniform on again.’

‘You’re beginning to sound a lot like Albert.’

‘I suppose that’s why I liked him.’

‘You’re a strange one, too, Commissar. For a policeman.’

‘I get a lot of that. Remember that wild kid they found walking around Nuremberg during the last century? The one who claimed he’d spent his early life alone in a darkened cell?’

‘Kaspar Hauser. Yes, I remember. He ended his days in Ansbach, didn’t he? Everyone knows that old story.’

‘The only difference between me and Kaspar is that I have a terrible feeling I’m going to end my days in a darkened cell. So, for that reason alone, it might be best if you made me a promise not to tell anyone that we’ve had this conversation.’

‘I promise.’

‘All right, you can run along now. I’m going to search Albert’s room.’

‘I thought you already did.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that the other two adjutants, Captains Kluckholn and Pomme, were here already when I came in to strip the bed. They’d emptied the drawers into some cardboard boxes and took them away.’

‘No, that was nothing to do with me. However, they probably wanted to collect Albert’s personal effects to send back home to his parents. The way your pals do when you catch the last bus home.’

‘Yes, I expect so.’

But Rosa Steffel didn’t sound any more convinced of this than I was.

On the way back to the Morning Room I found Kritzinger winding the long-case clock. I looked at it and checked my wristwatch but the butler was shaking his head.

‘I wouldn’t ever set your watch by this clock, sir,’ he said. ‘It’s running very slow.’

‘Is that well-known in the house?’ I was thinking of the approximate times that had been given to me in Heydrich’s study earlier on.

‘Generally, yes. The clock urgently needs to see a clock-maker.’

‘There must be plenty of those in Prague. This city’s got more clocks than Salvador Dali.’

‘You would think so, sir. But so far my own inquiries have revealed that all of them seem to be Jews.’

‘A Jew can’t fix a clock?’

‘Not in this house, sir.’

‘No, I suppose not. That was naïve of me, wasn’t it? This is an interesting time we live in, wouldn’t you say? Even if it is always the wrong one.’

I glanced at the gold pocket watch in Kritzinger’s hand.

‘How about your watch, Herr Kritzinger? Can that be relied upon?’

‘Yes sir. It’s a Glashütte and belonged to my late father. He was a station master, on the railways in Posen. A good watch is essential for a railwayman in Prussia, if the trains are to run on time.’

‘And did he? Get the trains to run on time?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Me, I always thought it was the Leader who did that.’

Kritzinger regarded me with polite patience. ‘Was there something I could help you with, sir?’

‘According to that Glashütte of yours, Kritzinger, what time did the party in the library fold last night?’

‘The last gentlemen went up to bed just before two, sir.’

‘And they were?’

‘I believe it was General Henlein and Colonel Bohme.’

‘I believe General Henlein made himself a late-night snack out of Captain Kuttner. Is that right?’

‘I’m not sure what you mean, sir.’

‘Sure you do. The General cut the Captain off at the tops of his boots, didn’t he?’

‘I believe the General might have said something to the Captain, yes sir.’

‘Didn’t he threaten him?’

‘I wouldn’t like to say, sir.’

Kritzinger snapped the lid shut on the gold pocket watch and dropped the timepiece into his vest pocket. It was an impatient action, quite at odds with his general demeanour, which was always to be of service even when it was in the face of the provocation I offered, like asking him apparently frivolous or trivial questions that bordered on the impertinent or the unpatriotic.

‘I can understand that. Nobody likes a Petzer. Especially when the Petzer is the butler. In relation to their employers and perhaps their guests, too, good butlers are expected to behave like the three wise monkeys, right?’

Kritzinger’s head bowed almost imperceptibly. ‘That describes my position vis à vis my superiors, only up to a point, sir. As you suggest, I am obliged always to observe. But I never judge. One must always guard against such unnecessary distractions in service.’

‘Particularly now, I’d have thought. Working for General Heydrich.’

‘I really couldn’t say, sir.’

‘Herr Kritzinger? I respect you. And I wouldn’t ever try to bully a man who wears an Iron Cross ribbon in his lapel. The way I figure it, you probably won yours the same way I won mine: in hell. Fighting a real war against real soldiers who fought back, most of them. So you’ll know that I’m not likely to be a man who makes idle threats. But this is a murder inquiry, Kritzinger, and that means I’m supposed to behave like a very nosy fellow and take a peep between the pots on everyone’s window ledge. I don’t like doing it any more than you do, but I will do it even if I have to throw every fucking pot through your window. Now what did General Henlein say?’

The butler stared at me for a long moment, blinking with silent disapproval, like a cat in an empty fishmonger’s.

‘I can assure you, I do appreciate your position. There’s no need for profanity, please, sir.’

I sighed and thumbed a cigarette into my mouth.

‘I think there’s every fucking reason for profanity when someone is murdered. Profanity helps to remind us that this isn’t something that happened politely and with good manners, Kritzinger. You can polish the silver on this all you want, but a man was shot last night, and every time I put a cigarette near my mouth I can still taste his blood on my fingers. I see a lot of bodies in my line of work. Sometimes it looks like I brush it off, but “fuck” is what I still say to myself every time I see some poor bastard with a leaky hole in his chest. It helps to focus on the true profanity of what happened. Do I have to swear more loudly and twist your face in my hand while I’m doing it or are you going to heave it up? What did General Henlein say to Captain Kuttner?’

Kritzinger coloured and then glanced around nervously.

‘The General did threaten the Captain, sir.’

‘With what? A blanket bath? A kiss on the cheek. Come on, Kritzinger, I’m through dancing with you.’

‘General Henlein had taken a fancy to one of the maids, sir. Rosa. Rosa Steffel. She’s a good girl and she certainly did not encourage him. But the General had consumed a little too much alcohol.’

‘You mean he was drunk.’

‘That’s not for me to say, sir. But I do believe he was not quite himself. He made a pass at Rosa, that left the girl embarrassed, and I would have intervened had not the Captain done so first. This earned him a reprimand from General Henlein. More than just a reprimand, perhaps. He was abusive. But I recall it wasn’t just General Henlein, sir, who spoke so violently. Which is another reason, perhaps, I did not interfere, sooner. Colonel Bohme had something to say as well, and between them they straightened the unfortunate Captain’s tie for him.’

‘Give me some verbs, here, Kritzinger. What were they going to do to him when they were sober?’

‘I do believe that the General called the Captain a filthy coward and said he’d make him pay for his damned interference. Then the Colonel came in with his two pfennigs’ worth. He accused Captain Kuttner of insubordination and of being a Jew lover.’

‘What did Captain Kuttner say to that?’

‘Mostly nothing at all, sir. He just took it as you might have expected given their difference in ranks.’ Pointedly, he added, ‘The way a butler might have to take abuse from one of his employer’s more uncouth and loutish house guests.’

That made me smile. It was easy to see how Kritzinger had won his Iron Cross.

‘Colonel Bohme also mentioned something about sending Captain Kuttner to the eastern front where his cheek and insubordination would receive short shrift from his commanders. Captain Kuttner replied – and I believe I’m quoting him here – that “it would be a privilege and an honour to serve with real soldiers in a real army commanded by real generals”.’

‘He said that?’

‘Yes sir. He did.’

‘Good for him.’

‘I thought so too, sir.’

‘Thank you, Herr Kritzinger. I’m sorry if I was loutish with you.’

‘That’s all right, sir. We both of us have jobs to do.’

I glanced at my wristwatch again and saw that I had five minutes before I was supposed to see General von Eberstein in the Morning Room.

‘One more thing, Kritzinger. Did you see Captain Kuttner before he went to bed?’

‘Yes sir. It was after two. By my watch. Not this clock.’

‘How did he seem?’

‘A little depressed. And tired. Very tired.’

‘Oh?’

‘I remarked upon it. And wished him a good night.’

‘What did he say to that?’

‘He gave a bitter sort of laugh, and said that he thought he’d probably had his last good night for a long while. I confess this struck me as an unusual thing to say, and when I asked him what he meant he said that the only way he would sleep would be if he were to take some sleeping pills. Which he intended to do.’

‘So you had the impression that he hadn’t yet taken them?’

Kritzinger paused and thought about this. ‘Yes. But as I say, he certainly didn’t look like a man who needed sleeping pills.’

‘Because he looked so tired already?’

‘That’s right, sir.’

‘Did you see him drink very much last night?’

‘No. He hardly drank at all. He had a glass of beer in his hand before he went to bed, but now I come to think of it that was all I saw him drink the whole evening. He seemed to be a most abstemious sort of person, if I’m honest.’

‘Thank you. By the way I should like to have a plan of the house, with an indication of who was in each of the bedrooms. Is that possible?’

‘Yes, sir. I’ll see to it.’

‘All right, Kritzinger. That’ll be all for now.’

‘Thank you, sir. Will you be lunching with everyone, sir?’

‘I really hadn’t thought about it. But I missed breakfast and now I find I’m ravenously hungry, so yes, I will.’

SS Obergruppenführer Karl von Eberstein was chatting with Kurt Kahlo when I came into the Morning Room. He was a genial type for an aristocrat.

‘Ah, Commissar Gunther, there you are. We were beginning to think you’d forgotten me.’

He was early and he knew it, but he was also a general and I wasn’t yet ready to start contradicting him.

‘I hope I haven’t kept you waiting for long, sir.’

‘No, no. I was just admiring General Heydrich’s grand piano. It’s a Blüthner. Very fine.’

He was standing right in front of the instrument – which was as big and black as a Venetian gondola – and touching the keys, experimentally, like a curious child.

‘Do you play, sir?’

‘Very badly. Heydrich is the musical one. But of course it runs in that family. His father, Bruno, was something of a star at the Halle Conservatory. He was a great man and of course a great Wagnerian.’

‘You sound as if you knew him, sir.’

‘Bruno? Oh, I did. I did. I’m from Halle-an-der-Saale myself.’

‘Someone else from Halle. That’s a coincidence.’

‘Not really. My mother was Heydrich’s godmother. It was me who introduced the General to Himmler and set him on his way.’

‘Then you must feel very proud of him, sir.’

‘I do, Commissar. Very much so. He’s a credit to his country and to the whole National Socialist movement.’

‘I had no idea that you and he were so close.’

Von Eberstein came away from the piano and stood beside me in front of the fire, warming his backside with conspicuous enjoyment.

He was in his late forties. On his grey tunic was an Iron Cross first and second class, indicating he’d been given it twice, no small feat, even for an aristocrat. Still, there was a pious air about him – a bit like a hypocritical priest.

‘I like to think of him as my protégé. I’m certain he wouldn’t mind me saying that.’

The way he said this made me think that Heydrich just might mind him saying that.

‘How about Captain Kuttner?’ I asked. ‘He was from Halle, too. Did you know him well?’

‘Well enough. His father I know rather better. We were in the Army together. During the last war. Pastor Kuttner was our regimental chaplain. But for him I’m not sure I’d have fared as well as I did. He was a tremendous comfort to us all.’

‘I’m sure.’

Von Eberstein shook his head. ‘It’s a great pity that this happened. A great pity.’

‘Yes. It is, sir.’

‘And you’re quite certain it was murder and not suicide?’

‘Of course we’ll have to wait for the autopsy this afternoon to be completely sure. But I’m more or less certain, yes.’

‘Well, you know your business, I suppose.’

‘Why do you mention suicide?’

‘Only because of what happened to Albert in Latvia. He tried to kill himself there. Or at least threatened to kill himself.’

‘Exactly what did happen? I’m still a little unclear about that.’

‘I believe he suffered a nervous breakdown brought on by the difficulty of his war assignments. I mean, of course, the evacuation of the Jews in the eastern territories. Not everyone is equal to the tasks that have been set before us as a people.’

‘I wonder if you might be a little more specific, sir. Under the circumstances I think I should know all there is to know.’

‘Yes, I agree with you, Commissar. Perhaps you should.’

Von Eberstein proceeded to explain, using words and phrases that made the whole filthy business of murdering thousands of people sound like an engineering job, or perhaps an exercise in crowd control after a large game of football. It was typical of the Nazis that they should call a spade an agrarian implement; and as I listened to one weasel word after another, I felt I wanted to slap him.

‘Responding to fundamental orders issued in Berlin, Lieutenant Kuttner was assigned the task of tactically coordinating the activities of a special detachment of SS that was made up of units of Latvian auxiliary police. Throughout the summer this same detachment carried out many extensive special actions in and around the Riga area. Principally, Kuttner’s function was to perform a rudimentary census for the purpose of apprehending communists as well as identifying provincial Jews. After the census, Jews were ordered to assemble at a given location and from there they were evacuated. It was later found that some of these evacuations were carried out with unnecessary brutality, and this seems to have occasioned feelings of guilt and depression in poor Kuttner. He started drinking heavily, and following one protracted bout of drinking he threatened a superior officer with his pistol. Subsequent to that, he tried but was prevented from shooting himself. Because of these incidents he was sent home to face a court martial.’

‘Well, that’s clear enough,’ I said and watched Kahlo cover the smile on his face with a hand and its cigarette.

‘Yes, it was an unfortunate business and might have severely blighted what was a very promising career. Albert was a brilliant young lawyer. But the Reichsführer is not an insensitive man and fully understands the problems that are sometimes provoked by these special actions. I talked it over with him at some length—’

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ I interrupted. ‘To clarify what you said just now. You mean you discussed Lieutenant Kuttner’s case with Reichsführer Himmler, on an individual basis?’

‘That’s right. He and I agreed that it should not be held against a man that he was too sensitive for such psychologically arduous duties. Given his legal talents it was a waste of a fine mind just to allow him to be cashiered without a second chance to redeem himself. Consequently, Heydrich agreed to take Kuttner onto his personal staff; and if he had not, then I would certainly have done so. Captain Kuttner was far too able an officer to let go.’

‘You were referring to Lieutenant Kuttner, sir. This is only a few weeks ago and now he is a Captain. Am I to understand that not only was there no court martial, but that Lieutenant Kuttner was promoted Captain upon joining General Heydrich’s staff?’

‘For reasons of administrative efficiency it’s usually best if adjutants are all of an equal rank. It saves any petty bickering.’

‘If you don’t mind me saying so, sir, but Kuttner was lucky to have that kind of vitamin B. I mean, to have two patrons who can count the Reichsführer-SS as a friend.’

‘Yes. Perhaps.’

‘How long have you and Reichsführer Himmler been friends, sir?’

‘Oh, let’s see now. I joined the Party in 1922. And the SS in 1925.’

‘That explains the gold Party badge,’ observed Kahlo. ‘It seems as if you’ve been part of the movement since the very beginning, sir. If I’d had the good sense you had then I might be something better than a Criminal Assistant now. No disrespect intended, sir.’

‘Oh, I wasn’t always so resolute in my devotion to the Party.’

‘Go on, sir.’ Kahlo grinned.

‘No, really. There was a time – after the failure of the Beer Hall putsch and despairing of our cause – when I even left the Party.’

Von Eberstein wagged a finger at Kahlo.

‘So, you see, we all make mistakes. For three years I was—’

He paused and looked thoughtful for a moment.

‘Well, I was doing other things.’

‘Like what, sir?’

‘It doesn’t matter now. What matters now is that we find the person who murdered Captain Kuttner. Is that not so, Commissar?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Have you any ideas on that score?’

‘I’ve got plenty of ideas, sir. We Germans have never been short of those. But mostly what I know is limited by the terms in which the mind can think, which means it’s probably best I don’t try to explain what those ideas are. Not yet, anyway. What I can tell you is that not everyone liked the young Captain as much as you and General Heydrich. And I’m not talking about the Czechs, sir. I figure that given half a chance they’d shoot any one of us wearing a German uniform. No, I’m talking about—’

‘Yes, I know what you’re talking about.’ Von Eberstein sighed. ‘No doubt you’ve heard about that unfortunate incident in the library last night. When General Henlein spoke with unnecessary harshness to Captain Kuttner.’

‘I’m not saying it demonstrates a motive for murder, but when you’ve seen men murdered for no motive at all, as I have, it gives pause for thought. Henlein was drunk. He was armed. Clearly he didn’t like Kuttner. And he certainly had the opportunity.’

‘All of us had that, Commissar. You’ve a difficult job to do here and no mistake. But I’ve known Konrad Henlein ever since I was the Police President of Munich. And I can tell you this: he’s no murderer. Why, the man used to be a teacher in a school.’

‘What kind of teacher?’

‘A gymnastics teacher.’

‘So he’s the one,’ I said, thinking of the girl in the suite at the Imperial Hotel – the one Arianne had spoken to.

‘What?’

‘I was just thinking. The gym teacher at my school was a regular sadist. Now I come to think of it, I can’t imagine a man who was more likely to murder someone than him.’

Von Eberstein smiled. ‘I’m sure that Henlein isn’t like that. Indeed I’m confident that none of the senior ranks here in Heydrich’s own house could have committed such a heinous crime.’

But I didn’t share his confidence.

‘When this is all over, Commissar; when you have – as I’m sure you will – solved the crime, I believe we’ll find that the solution is much less remarkable than we might suppose right now. Isn’t that usually the case?’

‘I might agree with you, except for the very singular circumstances of this particular case. Most murders are simple, it’s true. Simple, sordid, violent crimes of passion, greed, or most likely alcohol. This isn’t anything like that. There appears to be no love interest here. Nothing was stolen. And if the murderer was drunk then he was an unusually thoughtful drunk who was very careful not to leave a trace of his presence in Captain Kuttner’s room. It’s only an opinion at this stage, however I have the feeling that someone is playing a game here. Possibly to embarrass General Heydrich.’

‘It’s true there are those who are jealous of Heydrich,’ admitted von Eberstein.

‘Possibly to embarrass all of you.’

‘In which case I wonder that you can write off the Czechs as possible culprits quite so quickly, Commissar. Perhaps you’ve forgotten how fond the Three Kings were of teasing the local Gestapo. One of them even left a provocative and embarrassing message in poor Fleischer’s coat pocket. And it strikes me that this is just the sort of stunt they might pull. Especially now, when their organization is under threat. If I were you I’d be trying to examine the backgrounds of the house staff in closer detail. They may be in the SS but some of them have a German–Czech background. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that throws up something that wasn’t found when they were checked the first time.’

‘General von Eberstein’s got a point, sir,’ said Kahlo. ‘It could be them thumbing their noses at us. Just like before. And nothing would give those bastards more pleasure than to have us chasing our own tails.’

I grinned. ‘That’s what it feels like, doesn’t it?’

‘I don’t believe it,’ said Kahlo. ‘Krautwickel. I thought that was it after the potato soup. That had real bacon in it. And real potatoes, too. But this is even better. I haven’t had Krautwickel since the war started. If this keeps up, sir, I might just have to kill someone myself just so that we keep this investigation going for a good while longer.’

‘That’s as good a motive for murder as any I’ve heard today,’ I said. ‘I may even have to put you down on my list of suspects after that remark.’

We were in the Dining Room, but with Heydrich and Ploetz and some Gestapo officers away in pursuit of Vaclav Moravek, there were fewer of us for lunch at the Lower Castle than there had been for dinner. At my direction, Kahlo and I were seated at the opposite end of the table from everyone else; not because I disliked their company – which of course I did – but mostly because I wanted to avoid discussing the case with any of them. Besides, I hoped that our position at the table would set us apart and help to remind the cauliflower that a murder investigation was being conducted. Doubtless that suited Doctor Jury very well, and probably General Hildebrandt too, who, following their interviews, now regarded me as they would have regarded a large and verminous dog.

Another reason I wanted to sit apart from the SS cauliflower was to give me a chance to get to know Kurt Kahlo, who to my surprise I liked more than I had ever expected to like anyone at Heydrich’s house.

‘Why do they call Mannheim the chequerboard?’

‘Because it’s the most regularly built city in Germany, that’s why. The city centre is divided into one hundred and thirty-six neat squares and the blocks of houses are only distinguished by letters and numerals. My dad used to live at K4. He was a factory foreman at Daimler but he got hit hard by the inflation. Me and my brother had to go to work to help supplement the family income and so that we could stay on at school, if that doesn’t sound like a contradiction.’

‘You married?’

‘Five years, to Eva. She works at a local hotel.’

‘Which one?’

‘The Park.’

‘Any good?’

‘Too pricey for me.’

‘I was in the hotel business for a while. I was the house bull at the Adlon.’

‘Nice.’

‘How does Eva like the hotel business?’

‘She likes it. The guests can be a bit much sometimes. Especially the English, at least when they were still coming to Germany. They used to try it on a bit, and give themselves airs, you know?’

‘Sounds a lot like this place.’

‘Yeah.’ Kahlo looked sideways at the cauliflower. ‘How’d you come to know General Heydrich?’

‘The way you know a dangerous dog. Most of the time I just cross the road or walk the other way when I see him coming. But sometimes he corners me and I have to humour him or end up badly bitten. Really, I’m like one of those four animals on his way to the town of Bremen. A donkey, probably. And like the donkey I’d just like to live without an owner and become a musician.’

‘What instrument do you play?’

‘Nothing, of course. Whoever heard of a donkey that could play a musical instrument? But I seem to be in the robbers’ house, all the same; just like in the story.’

Kahlo grinned. ‘It’s not what you’d call a relaxing place, is it? Some of these bastards would frighten Himmler himself.’ He shook his head. ‘I almost feel sorry for Captain Kuttner.’

‘Almost?’

‘I met him, remember?’

‘What did you think of him?’

Kahlo shrugged. ‘Hardly matters now, does it? He’s dead.’

‘If you think that’s going to save you from telling everything to your barber, you’re wrong.’

‘All right. I thought he was an arrogant little prick. Like all these fucking adjutants, he thought he was more than just his master’s voice. He turned up at Kripo headquarters here in Prague a few days ago demanding this and that and as soon as possible. My boss, Willy Abendschoen, had to deal with him and that meant to some extent I did, too. A right little cunt he was.’

‘A few days ago?’

‘Monday. Heydrich wanted a report on something.’

‘Specifically?’

‘OTA transmission intercepts. OTA is the codeword for all the intercepts.’

‘You mean radio broadcasts to the British, by the Czechos.’

‘No, no. That’s what made this interesting. The Czechos were receiving broadcasts, and what’s more, from somewhere in the Fatherland. Intelligence tip-offs. Abendschoen reckoned that the Czechos were sending the information on, to Benes, in London, so that he could boost his standing with Churchill and the Tommy intelligence community.’

‘A Czech spy in Germany.’

Kahlo shook his head. ‘No, a German spy in Germany. As I’m sure you know, there’s nothing worse than that. I’m not entirely privy to all of this, you understand, sir; it goes well above my pay grade. But here in Prague the word on the cobbles is that there’s a high-level traitor in Berlin who’s behind the OTA transmissions; who’s been feeding the Czechos with top-grade information about Reich policy on a number of things. Heydrich wanted everything we had on OTA so that he could hand it all over to a special search group he’s setting up inside the SD. The Traitor X Group it’s called, or VXG, for short. Catching Moravek, the third of the Three Kings, is just half the game. You catch him then you stand a better chance of identifying traitor X.’

‘Yes, I see. I think I’m going to need to know more about Kuttner’s movements in the days leading up to his death.’

‘Very good, sir. But right now all I’ve got are his movements in the hours leading up to his death.’

‘Let’s hear them.’

We sat back in our chairs as the SS waiters cleared away. Kahlo found his notebook and flicked through several pages until a wet thumb found his place. He was about to read when the waiters returned with dessert. Kahlo’s eyes were out on stalks.

‘That’s Mish-Mash,’ he said, groaning with anticipated pleasure. ‘With real cherry-sauce.’

I tasted the sauce. ‘Actually, it’s cranberry,’ I said.

‘No,’ he breathed.

‘I’ll eat while you talk.’

Kahlo looked at his shredded pancake pudding, licked his lips and hesitated. ‘You won’t finish all that sauce, will you, sir?’

‘No, of course not. Now, let’s hear it.’

Reluctantly, Kahlo started to read out his notes.

‘Yesterday lunchtime you know about because you were here. According to Elisabeth Schreck, Heydrich’s secretary, at three p.m. Kuttner made a couple of telephone calls. One to Carl Maria Strasse – sorry, sir, that’s Kripo HQ – and one to the Pecek Palace: Gestapo HQ. At around four, you saw him again, sir, on the road to the Upper Castle. At five he spent an hour in General Heydrich’s office. I don’t yet know what that was about. Then he went to his room: Kritzinger saw him go through the door. At eight o’clock there were drinks in the library and then all of you listened to the Leader’s speech on the radio. Fleischer’s telephone call from Gestapo headquarters was put through just after nine, and that’s when you saw Kuttner outside, having an argument with Captain Kluckholn. Do you know what that was about, sir?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Kuttner helps to bring some champagne into the library after the speech and after that things are understandably vague. Just after one a.m. there is some sort of altercation between Kuttner and General Henlein and Colonel Bohme. I’m not quite sure what that was about.’

‘General Henlein made a pass at one of the maids. Her name is Rosa Steffel. Kuttner was her champion.’

‘I see. Then he’s in Heydrich’s office for a while with the General and Colonel Jacobi.’ Kahlo lowered his voice. ‘He’s the one who I find to be the most sinister of the lot.’

‘Then Kritzinger sees Kuttner just before two and wishes him a good night. Says he seemed dog-tired.’

Kahlo made a note of that and then continued reading his notes.

‘At six o’clock this morning Kuttner fails to awaken Captain Pomme, as arranged. Nothing new there. He often overslept because he was taking sleeping pills. At six-thirty Pomme says he’s still knocking on Kuttner’s door, trying to awaken him. At six-forty-five Pomme goes to fetch Kritzinger to see if there’s some other means of opening the door, which is locked from the inside. There isn’t. Kritzinger tells one of the footmen to go and fetch a ladder and see if he can’t get in from the outside.’

‘And did he?’

‘Yes. But the ladder was locked up and the footman had to go and fetch the gardener, so it was seven-fifteen a.m. by the time he brought it around to the window. Coming back a bit, though: at seven a.m. Heydrich is also outside Kuttner’s door, and that’s when he tells Pomme and the butler to break it down. Entering the room they find Kuttner dead and Captain Pomme is dispatched to fetch Doctor Jury. Jury arrives in the room just as the footman arrives with the ladder.’

‘We shall want to speak to that footman. Maybe he saw something.’

‘His name is Fendler, sir.’

‘Then at seven-thirty I get the call from Ploetz in my room at the Imperial. And at eight-thirty we viewed the scene of the crime.’

‘What were you doing at the Imperial anyway? Why weren’t you staying here in your room, sir?’

‘I was sleeping. What do you know about Veronal?’

‘It’s barbital. Sleeping pills. Take too many and you don’t wake up. That’s about it really.’

‘Ever use them yourself?’

‘The wife did. She’d been working nights at the Park and couldn’t sleep in the day. So the doctor gave her some Veronal. But she didn’t care for the stuff at all. They always left her feeling like she’d been coshed.’

‘Strong then.’

‘Very.’

‘Kuttner goes to bed at around two a.m. having told the butler that he intended to take some sleeping pills. Nobody sees him enter his room.’

‘I’m not sure if I’d take sleeping pills knowing I had to be up at six,’ observed Kahlo. ‘Then again, you do get used to them, so it’s possible he didn’t see that as a problem.’

‘Which may be why he doesn’t undress for bed. He’s still dressed when we found him.’

‘Looked like he took one boot off and then got tired. Or dead. So then maybe he was shot before he entered his room.’

‘In the corridor.’ But I was shaking my head even as I said it. ‘Sure. After he’s shot – and by the way nobody hears the shot—’

‘Perhaps the murderer used a sound suppressor.’

‘For a P38? Hasn’t been invented yet. So, after he’s shot in the corridor and no one hears anything, he staggers along to his room without mentioning it to anyone or shouting for help, locks the door carefully behind him, as you do when you’ve just been shot, lies down on the bed just to get his breath back, removes a boot, and then dies sometime between two and five-thirty a.m.’

‘It’s a mystery, isn’t it?’

‘No, not really. I solve this kind of case all the time. Usually in the penultimate chapter. I like to keep the last few pages for restoring some sort of normality to the world.’

‘You know what I reckon, sir? I reckon that if you solve this case Heydrich will probably promote you.’

‘That’s what I’m worried about.’

‘And then you won’t ever get to Bremen to live there without an owner.’

‘Shut up and eat your Mish-Mash.’

Kahlo’s mention of the Traitor X Group and a top-level spy in Germany who had been transmitting information to the Czechos got me wondering about Arianne and her friend Gustav, the man she claimed to have met in the Jockey Bar.

A smooth type with a thin prick accent and spats. Or so she had described him. A civil servant with a gold cigarette holder and a little gold eagle in his lapel. A man whose nerves had prevented him from meeting Franz Koci, a former lieutenant of Czech artillery and possibly one of the last members of the Three Kings group operating in Berlin – at least he had been until a collision with a taxi cab in the blackout had terminated his career as a spy.

Was it possible that Gustav and Heydrich’s traitor X were one and the same person?

Arianne struck me as an unlikely sort of spy. After all, hadn’t she confessed to being Gustav’s unwitting courier before I had told her that I was a cop? And, having told her I was a Commissar from the Alex, what kind of spy was it who, instead of disappearing the very next day, chose to begin a relationship with someone who very probably ought to have seen it as his duty to inform the Gestapo about her? What kind of spy was it who was prepared to risk so much for so little? After all, I was privy to no secret information she could have passed to anyone. Surely she was just what she seemed to be: a good-time girl with a dead husband and a brother who was a kennel hound with the Field Military Police. I’d checked him out, too. What else did she want but a chance to see a bit of what life had to offer before the Nazis turned her into yet another dutiful little German wife producing children for her first-class rabbit medal – the Honour Cross for the German Mother?

All the same, now that I knew about the local SD’s VXG, it had become very obvious that bringing Arianne along to Prague for my own pleasure had helped put her in considerable danger; and it seemed imperative that she return to Berlin as soon as possible.

It was while I was deciding to send Arianne back to Berlin that I remembered Major Ploetz had given me a letter forwarded from the Alex. Sitting in the Morning Room with a coffee and a cigarette awaiting the next senior officer on my list, I read it.

The letter was from a girl I knew in Paris; her name was Bettina and she worked at the Lutetia Hotel. I’d stayed there during my posting to the French capital. I had fixed her up with a better job at the Adlon and she was writing to thank me and to tell me that she would be coming to Berlin before Christmas. She hoped to see me then. She wrote a lot of other things besides, and since I didn’t get many letters, least of all from attractive girls, I read it again. I even passed it under my nose a couple of times, as it seemed to be scented – then again, that might have been my own imagination.

I was reading the letter a third time when Kahlo ushered General Henlein into the Morning Room.

Henlein wore round metallic-framed glasses that flashed in the firelight like newly minted coins. His hair was dark and wavy but the wave was on the ebb-flow. His mouth was sulky, and facially he was not unlike Doctor Jury. It was hard to connect this 43-year-old from Maffesdorf and the leader of the Sudeten German Movement with the vigorous gymnastics teacher described by Arianne’s girl friend at the Imperial.

Kahlo handed me the plan of the house that Kritzinger had given him, and while Henlein made himself comfortable I glanced over it briefly and, for the moment, noted only that Henlein had occupied the room immediately next to Captain Kuttner’s.

Kahlo sat down on the piano stool. Henlein, seated on the sofa opposite me, picked some fluff off his breeches, checked the cutlery on his tunic lapel – another War Merit Cross with swords – and smiled nervously several times. He had good teeth, I’ll say that for him; they were the only vigorous-looking thing about him.

‘Let me say something before we go any further.’ He spoke quietly, as if he was used to being listened to. ‘It’s no secret that I was blue last night. I think we all were, after the Leader’s speech and the good news about the Three Kings.’

He paused for a moment, as if waiting for me to agree with him; but I didn’t say anything. I just lit another cigarette and let him hang there.

Momentarily discomfited, he swallowed noticeably and then continued:

‘Toward the end of the evening I believe I may have made certain remarks to the unfortunate Captain Kuttner that I now regret. They were spoken in the heat of the moment and under the influence of alcohol. I have never been much of a drinker. Alcohol does not agree with my constitution. I try to keep myself fit, you understand, as all of us should who are in the SS. It is an elite, after all, and a higher standard is expected of us. Not just physically, but in matters of behaviour, too. Consequently, it seems to me that my own behaviour was not all that it could have been. And in retrospect the poor Captain was quite right to remonstrate with me. Indeed, it is very much to that officer’s credit that he did so.

‘Of course when I heard what had happened I was shocked and saddened. I deeply regret this brave young officer’s passing and also the fact that I was unable to apologize to him in person. In my own defence I should like to reiterate that it is quite out of character for me to behave in such an inappropriate fashion. But the circumstances of his death being what they are, I feel it is incumbent on me to state, upon my word as a German officer, that I did not shoot Captain Kuttner. Nor do I have any knowledge of his death. After returning to my own room at around two o’clock this morning, I have very little knowledge of anything except that I went to bed and awoke with a filthy hangover. It was after nine when Major Ploetz informed me of what had happened and explained that you were handling the official inquiry at the request of General Heydrich. And let me assure you, Commissar Gunther, that I will cooperate with your investigation in any way I can. I’m sure that this can’t be easy for you.’

‘I appreciate your candour.’

Almost to my amusement, Henlein got up to leave. I let him get as far as the door before throwing a grappling hook after him.

‘However, there are a few questions I should like to ask you.’

Henlein smiled again. This time the smile was sarcastic.

‘Do I take it that you intend to cross-examine me?’

You would have thought he was Hitler himself the way Henlein pronounced that personal pronoun.

I shrugged. ‘If that’s what you want to call it. But look here, I’m only taking you at your word. You just offered to cooperate with my investigation in any way you can. Or am I mistaken?’

‘I know what I said, Commissar Gunther,’ he said, crisply, his glasses flashing angrily as his head moved with jerky indignation. ‘I assumed that my word as a German officer – and not just any German officer – would suffice.’

He straightened a little and put his fists on his hipbones as if challenging me to knock him over. I wouldn’t have minded punching him on the nose at that, if only to find out for myself how vigorous he really was.

‘You’re quite right, sir.’ I paused to achieve the full amount of mockery that was implied in my next remark. ‘That was an assumption, I’m afraid. And it isn’t correct. As you also said yourself, General Heydrich has authorized me to handle an official inquiry, and that does necessitate my asking a lot of questions, some of which might very well sound impertinent to a man of your high standing. But I’m afraid that can’t be helped. So, perhaps you’d like to sit down again. I’ll try not to keep you too long.’

Henlein sat down and regarded me with some disfavour.

‘According to a plan I have here of all the officer accommodations in the Lower Castle, which has been prepared by Herr Kritzinger, you were in the room right next door to Captain Kuttner.’

‘What of it?’

I smiled, patiently. ‘Whenever a man is murdered I usually go and speak to his neighbours to ask if they heard or saw anything suspicious, that’s what of it.’

Henlein sighed and then leaned back against the cushion and made a little steeple out of his fingers, which he tapped together with a pedant’s impatience.

‘Weren’t you listening? I already said. I went to bed, drunk. I saw nothing and heard nothing.’

‘You’re sure about that?’

Henlein tutted loudly. ‘Really, this is too much. I had assumed Heydrich had chosen you because you were a detective. Now I find you’re nothing but a stupid policeman.’

I was getting tired of all this. I was tired of a lot of things, but being made to feel I was lucky to breathe the same air as the regional governor of the Sudetenland was close to the top of the whole tiresome heap. I decided to take Heydrich at his word and dispense with good manners; for me this was never particularly difficult, but when I let go I took even myself by surprise.

I sprang to my feet and coming around the back of the sofa Henlein was sitting on I pushed my jaw into his face.

‘Listen, you pompous shit-curl, a man was murdered in that room. And in case you’d forgotten while you were sitting behind your nice desk on that lazy fat arse of yours, guns make loud noises when you pull the trigger.’ I clapped my hands hard in front of his nose. ‘They go “bang” and “bang” and “bang”, and other people are supposed to do something about that noise when they hear it.’

Henlein was colouring now, lip quivering in anger.

‘So don’t give me “What of it?” and make like you were a hundred miles away with a cast-iron alibi. You were right next door to a man you had earlier threatened in front of several witnesses. That’s just a brick’s width away from being in the same room with him, see? So, you may be a senior officer, you might even be a gentleman for all I know, but you’re also a goddamn suspect.’

‘How dare you speak to me like that, Commissar Gunther?’

‘Ask me that again,’ I snarled back.

‘How dare you speak to me like that?’

He stood up with the look of a man who was about to challenge me to a duel.

‘I’ve a very good mind to punch you on the nose,’ he said.

‘I suppose that counts as brave coming from a man with that kind of tinfoil on his chest.’ I pointed at his War Merit Cross. I said, flicking his Party badge with my forefinger, ‘Well, I’m not scared.’

‘I am going to make a point of breaking you, Commissar. I am going to take great pleasure in making sure that by the time this weekend has ended you will be directing traffic on Potsdamer Platz. I’ve never been insulted like this in all my years as a German officer. How dare you?’

Henlein walked toward the Morning Room door.

‘That deserves an answer, General. I’ll tell you how. You see, I know all about your little friend on the top floor of the Imperial Hotel. Betty, isn’t it? Betty Kipsdorf? Apparently you and she get along very well. And why not? She’s a real sweet girl, from what I hear.’

Henlein had stopped in his tracks as if commanded to do so on a parade ground by a particularly tough drill sergeant.

‘I haven’t seen her myself but my source tells me she thinks you’re very vigorous. Somehow I doubt she means that you and she like to go for energetic walks in the countryside. And I do wonder how our host will greet the news that dear Betty is a Jew.’

He turned slowly and then sat down on a chair by the door, like a man awaiting a doctor’s appointment. He took off his glasses and turned several shades of white before settling on the colour of a goat’s cheese that seemed to reflect the greenish wallpaper.

‘Yes. Sit down. Good move, General.’

‘How did you find out?’ he whispered.

For one glorious moment I thought I was about to hear a confession of murder.

‘About the girl.’

‘You idiot, I’m a cop not a brass monkey. If you’re going to keep a joy-lady in a hotel then make sure she’s the kind of girl who can keep her peep shut.’

It was good advice. I hoped I was paying attention to it myself.

The spectacles in his hand were trembling. Four years later, while being held by the Americans at the military barracks in Pilsen, Konrad Henlein would use the glass in those spectacles to cut open his veins and kill himself. But for now they were just a pair of harmless, trembling specs. Then he started to cry, which was tough because I’d put him through all of that without the least suspicion he’d shot Captain Kuttner. You get a feel for these things: Henlein was a lot of things – a pompous ass, a Nazi agitator, a womanizer – but he wasn’t a murderer. It takes a lot of nerve to pull the trigger on a man in cold blood, and if his tears proved anything, it was that he didn’t have what it takes.

‘Relax. We’re not going to tell anyone, are we, Kurt?’

I went over to the piano and offered Kahlo a cigarette. He took one, stood up and lit us both.

‘No sir,’ he said. ‘Your little secret is quite safe with us, General. Provided of course that you cooperate.’

‘Of course. I’ll do anything you want. Anything. But I am telling you the truth, Herr Commissar. I didn’t kill the Captain. It’s as I told you. I was drunk. I went to bed around two. Even that’s a blur, I’m afraid. I’m only aware of what I said to the unfortunate Captain because one of my brother officers drew it to my attention this morning. I feel terrible about what happened. But the first I knew that Captain Kuttner was dead was when Major Ploetz came and told me this morning. I’m not the type of person to kill anyone. Honestly. I’m almost a vegetarian, like the Leader, you know. It’s true I do have a gun. It’s in my room. But I am certain it’s never been fired while it’s been in my possession. I can fetch it now if you like and then perhaps you can check for yourself. I believe that we have scientists in police laboratories who can determine such things.’

Somewhere during the course of Henlein’s miserable, pleading speech I stopped listening. I stared at the keys of the piano for a moment and then I stared out of the window, all the while wondering what the hell I was doing with my life. At least the cigarette tasted good. I’d reacquired a taste for good tobacco, and I told myself that when this was all over and Heydrich had Kuttner’s murderer I was probably going to have to get used to the ration line again, and three Johnnies a day. Because I had the strong feeling that finding Kuttner’s killer was going to impact upon my becoming Heydrich’s bodyguard after all. I couldn’t see how I was going to keep a job like that when I’d finished insulting all of his closest colleagues; at least, that was my earnest hope.

Then Kahlo was talking again and Henlein was answering him and it was another moment or two before I realized that the subject had changed. We were no longer speaking about Captain Kuttner or even Betty Kipsdorf but something entirely different.

‘Your friend Heinz Rutha,’ said Kahlo. ‘The furniture designer. He hanged himself in prison, didn’t he? In 1937, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Henlein.

‘Because he was queer, too.’

‘I wouldn’t know about that.’

‘Is that why you decided to work for Admiral Canaris and the Abwehr? Because of what happened to your friend? Because you held the Nazis responsible for that?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘But maybe not just Canaris, eh? Maybe because of that you went to work for the British. Maybe you’re a British spy. Maybe you’ve always been a British spy, General Henlein. You help to destabilize the Czech Sudetenland for Hitler while all the time you’re really working for the Tommies. Good cover, I’d have thought. I mean it doesn’t get better than that, does it? Frankly I can’t really say that I blame you. The way you were passed over first by Frank and then by Heydrich, you’ve every reason to feel aggrieved, haven’t you, sir? So, how about it? Are you spying for the Tommies?’

‘Please.’ Henlein looked desperately at me. ‘I really don’t know anything about this.’

‘Neither do I,’ I said.

‘I’m no more a spy than I am a murderer.’

‘Says you,’ said Kahlo.

‘That’s quite enough,’ I told Kahlo.

‘Suppose we let the Gestapo find out,’ persisted Kahlo. ‘Suppose we were to hand you over to Sergeant Soppa. You’ve heard of him, haven’t you, General? He’s the specialist they brought in to question the Three Kings. I haven’t seen him in action myself but apparently he uses this technique he calls the Bascule. They strap you onto a wooden board, just like the one they use on a guillotine—’

‘Thank you General Henlein, that will be all for now, sir.’

Kahlo was still speaking, only now I was talking over him. Not only that but I had Henlein by the arm and I was steering him out to the door of the Morning Room.

‘If there’s anything else you think we need to know then please don’t hesitate to contact me, sir. As for your friend at the Imperial, my advice would be to get her out of there. Find somewhere else for your trysts. An apartment, perhaps. But not a hotel, General. If I know about Betty, it won’t be long before someone else does, too.’

‘Yes, I understand. Thank you, Herr Commissar. Thank you very much indeed.’

Henlein glanced uncertainly at Kahlo and then he was gone.

I closed the door behind him and, for a moment or two, Kahlo and I faced each other in awkward silence.

‘What the hell was all that about?’

‘You heard.’

‘I guess I did at that.’

‘You had him on the ropes.’ Kahlo shrugged. ‘It seemed a pity not to take advantage of that, sir. I thought that there might never be a better opportunity to ask him some questions that needed asking.’

‘It’s those questions that I’m interested in, Kurt. You see, I thought I was supposed to kick the ball. Only it turns out that you’re allowed to pick it up and run with it. That makes me wonder what kind of game we’re playing here.’

Kahlo looked sheepish. ‘We’re on the same side, sir. That’s all that matters, isn’t it?’

‘Actually I wonder about that, too. This VXG. The Traitor X Group you mentioned. The one that Heydrich was setting up to find the high-level spy who’s been giving information to the Czechos. You wouldn’t be part of that group, would you, Kurt?’

‘Didn’t I say?’

‘You know you damn well didn’t.’

‘I should have thought it was obvious after what I told you over lunch about the VXG. About how Captain Kuttner came down to Kripo HQ to brief us about it. How would I have known about those OTA radio intercepts if I wasn’t part of the group? That stuff is highly sensitive. By rights I shouldn’t have told you about that at all.’

‘So what else haven’t you told me?’

‘Frankly, I thought that enjoying General Heydrich’s confidence as you do, you knew about traitor X yourself. That you knew that and that you knew—’

‘What?’

‘That everyone in this house is under suspicion.’

‘Of being traitor X?’

‘Yes sir. I assumed you would certainly know that much, at least.’

I shook my head. ‘Let me get this straight. Everyone in this house is suspected of being a spy for the Czechos.’

Kahlo nodded. ‘I don’t think you are. And I know I’m not. And I’m damned sure Heydrich isn’t. Or his three adjutants. Everyone else, well there’s a question mark against everyone else, yes.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I really thought you knew about all this.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘Well that’s hardly my fault is it? I just do what I’m fucking told. It’s up to Heydrich what he tells you, not me. I’m just a Criminal Assistant.’ He kissed his cigarette and continued: ‘Maybe it slipped his mind. Maybe he assumed that I would tell you. Which I have.’

‘When we were discussing a possible motive for someone murdering Captain Kuttner—’

‘No sir,’ he said firmly. ‘You never discussed that with me. You discussed that with General Henlein.’

‘Well, don’t you think you might have mentioned it before now? In passing? I mean, if someone suspects you of being a spy, then that would be a pretty powerful fucking motive for murder, don’t you think? Maybe Kuttner was onto someone in this house. Maybe that’s why he was killed. But why should I have to know about that? I’m just the investigating detective. Jesus, I feel like a parrot with a cloth over my cage.’

‘Try to look at it from my point of view, Commissar. Kuttner turns up at Prague Kripo on Monday. Several of us are picked out to join Heydrich’s Traitor X Group. But Kuttner tells us that on no account are we to talk about this to anyone. It’s all top-secret, he says. Anyone opens his pie hole about this group to anyone, the reward is a ticket on the partisan express. Then he gets killed and you’re in charge of the investigation. Heydrich’s clever dick. That’s what Ploetz says. Christ, that’s what everyone says. And the way you speak to the General. Like you had a special licence. How am I to know that you’re not fully in the picture, sir? I’m used to being told this but not that, see? I’m just a foot-soldier, sir. All this fucking cauliflower, I’m not familiar with it. And I’m certainly not used to hearing them getting roughed up by a mere captain like you.’

‘Everyone in the house?’ I repeated dumbly.

‘More or less. Like I said, it’s everyone except me and you and the adjutants. And Heydrich, of course. There’s a list, see. Of suspects. I haven’t got a copy myself, but I can remember who was on it. And Henlein’s name was certainly one of them.’

I poured myself a cup of coffee and sipped it thoughtfully.

‘Hildebrandt?’

Kahlo nodded.

‘But he’s an old friend of Heydrich’s,’ I said. ‘To say nothing of the fact that he’s an old friend of Hitler. Von Eberstein? What about him? Is he suspected, too?’

Kahlo nodded again.

‘But how? How can they be under suspicion? That little gold Party badge is supposed to mean something.’

‘I only know what I’ve been told. And that’s not everything. Hildebrandt is a suspect because for two years, from 1928 until 1930, he was in America. While he was there he went bankrupt as a farmer but someone paid off all his debts and then helped to set him up as a bookseller in New York. The suspicion in the SD is that it was the British Secret Service. And that it was them who persuaded him to return to Germany and join the SS in 1931 to spy for the British.

‘Von Eberstein was a banker after the war and a bit of a weekend Nazi, if you know what I mean. He actually quit the Party after the putsch, which automatically makes him suspect. For three years he had no Party affiliation at all. And during this time he goes from being a banker with the Commerce and Private Bank to running his wife’s factory in Gotha; but when that goes belly up his debts are paid off anonymously and he starts a travel agency. That business takes him to London for much of 1927 and 1928. But by 1929 he’s back in the Party again. So did the Tommies set him up with the travel agency and train him to operate a radio while he was in London? That’s the sort of thing Heydrich wants to know.’

Kahlo grinned and wagged his finger.

‘You see how easy it is to fall under suspicion? And it doesn’t matter who you are, or how high up in the Party you have flown. Doctor Jury is a suspect because before he joined the Austrian Nazi Party in 1932 he attended several medical conferences in Paris and London. While he was in Paris he had an affair with a woman who also had an affair with a French colonel in their intelligence service. Also his friendship with Martin Bormann automatically makes him a suspect in Himmler’s eyes, since it seems Himmler would love to discredit any friend of Bormann’s in the eyes of Hitler.

‘General Frank is a suspect because of something his exwife Anna has told her new husband, Doctor Kollner. He succeeded Frank as the deputy governor of the Sudetenland and he has made certain allegations based on what Anna Kollner told him about his loyalty to the Leader. And also because his new wife, Karola Blaschek, is suspected of having contact with several Czech resistance figures. She comes from the local town of Brux and there’s a suspicion that some of her friends and relations in that town may have been part of UVOD. The Home Resistance.’

‘What about von Neurath? Not him, surely. He was the Foreign Minister for Christ’s sake.’

‘Konstantin von Neurath is suspected of being recruited as a British spy as early as 1903, when he served as a diplomat at the German Embassy in London; or possibly when he was at the German Embassy in Denmark in 1919. While he was German Ambassador to London in 1930 he came under the suspicion of the Abwehr but he was cleared after an investigation; but in 1937 the Abwehr was burgled by a special SS team and certain papers were removed that showed the whole investigation to have been a sham. Subsequent to this, von Neurath joined the Nazi Party for the first time, as a sign of his loyalty. As if he suddenly needed to underline his loyalty. Instead of which it seems to have put him under suspicion.’

Kahlo stubbed out his cigarette and helped himself to coffee. But he wasn’t yet finished.

‘And that’s possibly the reason Major Thummel is suspected of being the traitor X. He was in charge of the Abwehr section that was supposed to have investigated von Neurath. He may be a friend of Heinrich Himmler and he may wear a gold Party badge, but he’s also a close friend of the Abwehr’s boss, Admiral Canaris, who is Himmler’s most bitter rival. Heydrich’s too.

‘Let’s see now. Who else was on that list? Brigadier Voss? He commands the SS Officer School at Beneschau. Until 1938, he was in charge of the officers’ training school at Bad Tolz where there’s a powerful radio transmitter. When officers from that school were mobilized for the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938, someone tipped off the Czech Intelligence Service about it. Voss was one of only a handful of people who knew the invasion was about to happen. He’s also a keen amateur radio enthusiast. Who better to broadcast secrets to the Czechos? He even speaks the language.

‘Walter Jacobi was dismissed from the SD in 1937 by his then boss, General Werner Lorenz. I’m afraid I don’t know why. In the spring of 1938, he took a holiday in Marienbad, in the Sudetenland. Coincidentally perhaps, or perhaps not, one of the other guests taking the cure at the Spa was a retired British naval commander who is currently believed to be the head of an operational Czech section within the British SIS. After his holiday, Jacobi rejoined the SD.’

‘Guilt by association.’

‘Possibly.’

Kahlo nodded.

‘Henlein – well, you heard what I said to him. And Fleischer’s been under suspicion for a while now because of his failure to arrest the third of the Three Kings. You probably know as much about that as I do. It’s common knowledge that the Czechos were making a fool of him for a while. The rest of the cauliflower, I really don’t remember or I don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine.’

‘I doubt that very much,’ I said. ‘And by the way, what happened to “I’m keen to learn” and “You have my full cooperation” and “It’s a puzzle, sir”?’

‘You don’t think it’s a puzzle?’

‘Of course it is. I just don’t much like the fact you’ve had one of the pieces in your trouser pocket all along.’

‘And I don’t suppose you’ve ever kept your mouth shut about something?’ Kahlo shook his head. ‘Come on, sir. We both know that saying one thing and thinking another is what this job is all about. Tell me it’s not like that for you. Go on.’

I found myself silent.

‘Tell me that you’ve told me everything. That there’s something you’re not keeping from me.’

Still I didn’t answer. How could I when Arianne was back at the hotel? If I’d told him less than half of what I knew about Arianne Tauber there was no telling what might happen to her.

Kahlo grinned. ‘No, I thought not. You see, when it comes right down to it, Commissar, I reckon your piss is just as yellow as mine.’

I sighed and fetched myself a brandy from the decanter. Suddenly I felt very tired and I knew the brandy wasn’t going to help.

‘Maybe you’re right.’

‘Look, sir. You want to know what I think? I think we should go through the motions of trying to find Kuttner’s killer, just like you were told to do. We ask the right questions, we do our duty, right? Like regular cops. That’s all we can do and it’s pointless thinking we can do any more than that. But when it comes right down to it, what does it fucking matter, eh? You tell me. Who cares who killed the bastard? Not me, not you. From what I heard, he did his own fair share of murder out east. And the chances are he had it coming. Probably we all do. But what’s one more murder, eh? One tiny drop in a very tall glass of beer, that’s what it is. Take my advice, sir. Don’t sweat it. Enjoy the free forage and the booze and the cigarettes. For as long as we can, eh?’

‘Maybe.’

‘That’s the spirit, sir. And who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky. Even a blind chicken finds the corn now and again.’

I needed a walk and some fresh air after all that information, although it might have been the brandy and the Mish-Mash. I went around the house to the little Winter Garden that Kuttner’s room looked out on. Inside the glass house was a fountain shaped like a shrine with a water nymph’s head spouting water and above him a bronze statue of a centaur with a winged cherub on his back. On either side of the fountain was a veritable jungle of sago palms and geraniums. It seemed an odd place to find a centaur, or a cherub, but I wasn’t surprised at anything any more. The water nymph could have told me my fortune lay in farming guinea pigs and I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid. Anything looked like a better bet than being a detective in Jungfern-Breschan.

A ladder lay on the ground, and assuming that this was probably the one Kritzinger had ordered Fendler, the footman, to fetch around to Captain Kuttner’s window, I spent the next ten minutes propping it up against the wall of the house. Then I climbed up to take a look at the window ledge. But that told me only that the glass roof needed cleaning, that the sun was still strong for the first week in October, and that I was not at all certain to kill myself cleanly if I threw myself from the top. I descended the ladder and found one of the footmen waiting at the bottom.

‘Fendler, sir,’ he said, unprompted. ‘Herr Kritzinger saw you were out here and sent me to see if I could be of any assistance, sir.’

He was not far off being two metres tall. He wore a white mess jacket with SS collar patches, a white shirt, a black tie, black trousers, a white apron, and grey over-sleeves, as if he might have been cleaning something before receiving his order from the butler to wait on me. He was lumpish in appearance, with an expression that suggested he was none too bright, but I’d gladly have changed places with him. Polishing silver or removing the ash from a fireplace looked like more rewarding work than the domestic task I had been set.

‘You’re the one who Kritzinger told to fetch the ladder to look in Captain Kuttner’s window, are you not?’

‘That’s right, sir.’

‘And what did you see, when eventually you got up there? By the way, what time was that, do you think?’

‘About a quarter past seven, sir.’

I tugged my shirt off the sweat on my chest.

‘I was about to ask you why it took so long to fetch a ladder and prop it up against the window, but I think I know the answer to that already. It’s heavy.’

‘Yes sir. But it wasn’t in the Winter Garden like it is now, sir.’

‘That’s right. It was locked up, wasn’t it?’

‘Bruno, the gardener – Bruno Kopkow – he helped me carry it around here and prop it up.’

‘How did you know which window to choose?’

‘Kritzinger told me it was the room overlooking the Winter Garden, sir. And to be careful I didn’t drop it on the glass roof, sir.’

‘So, you prop the ladder up against the window. Then what? Tell me everything you saw and did.’

Fendler shrugged. ‘We – Kopkow and I – we heard a loud bang, sir, and then just as I was stepping on the lowest rung, sir, General Heydrich looks out of the window, and seeing me and Bruno tells us that there’s no need to bother coming up now as they had just broken down the Captain’s bedroom door.’

‘And what did you say? If anything?’

‘I asked him if everything was all right and he said that it wasn’t, because it looked as if Captain Kuttner had probably killed himself with an overdose.’

‘Then what did you do?’

‘We took the ladder down and left it where you found it, sir, just in case anyone decided they needed it again.’

‘How did he seem? The General.’

‘A bit upset, I suppose. Like you would be, sir. He and the Captain were friends, I believe.’ The footman paused. ‘I knew he must be upset because he was smoking a cigarette. Usually the General doesn’t smoke at all in the morning and never before he fences, sir. Mostly he only smokes in the evening. He’s very disciplined that way, sir.’

I glanced up at the window of Kuttner’s room and nodded. ‘I don’t doubt it.’

‘Will there be anything else, sir?’

‘No. That’s all, thank you.’

I went back to the Morning Room. Kahlo was waiting for me.

‘Police Commissar Trott telephoned while you were out, sir. From the Alex. He said to tell you that he went to see Lothar Ott at Captain Kuttner’s apartment in Petalozzi Strasse and told him that the Captain was dead. Apparently Ott wept like a baby. The Commissar’s exact words. That would seem to confirm it, wouldn’t you say? That the Captain was warm?’

I nodded. It only confirmed what I already knew.

‘Who’d have thought it?’ said Kahlo. ‘I mean, the fellow seemed quite normal in a lot of ways. Like you or me, really.’

‘I guess that’s the point. That maybe they are just like you or me.’

‘Speak for yourself, sir.’

‘I used to think like you. But the Nazis have taught me to think differently. I’ll say that for them. These days I say live and let live, and if we can learn to do that, then maybe we can behave like a civilized country again. But I suspect it’s already too late for that.’

I glanced at my wristwatch. A cheap Bulova, it had two ways to remind me that we had an autopsy to view at the Bulovka Hospital at four and that only one of them was the time.

‘Come on,’ I said to Kahlo. ‘We’d better get going. You’re about to discover just how like you and me Albert Kuttner really was.’

Sergeant Klein had returned from Hradschin Palace in Prague to drive us out to the hospital. He’d read the Leader’s Sports Palast speech in the morning newspaper and, instead of depressing him, Hitler’s ‘facts and figures’ had left him feeling optimistic about our prospects in the East.

‘Two and a half million Russian prisoners,’ he said. ‘No country could ever recover from losing that many men. If that was all, it would be enough; but as well, fourteen thousand Russian planes have been shot down and eighteen thousand of their tanks destroyed. It’s hard to imagine.’

‘And yet the Leader still believes we have a fight on our hands,’ I remarked.

‘Because he’s wise,’ insisted Klein. ‘He’s saying that so as not to raise our hopes in case the impossible should happen. But it’s obvious, the Ivans are as good as beaten, that’s what I think.’

‘Let’s hope you’re right,’ said Kahlo.

‘I hate to think what we’re going to do with two and a half million Russian prisoners if he’s wrong,’ I said. ‘If it comes to that I hate to think what we’re going to do with them if he’s right.’

I paused for a moment before adding what was sometimes called ‘the political postscript’ – something that was usually said for the purposes of self-preservation.

‘Not that I expect him to be wrong, of course. And I don’t doubt that the Leader will be delivering a victory speech in Moscow before very long.’

Then I bit off the end of my tongue and spat it onto the road, only I did it subtly so that Klein didn’t notice.

Set on a hill overlooking the north-east of the city, Bulovka Hospital was a four- or five-storey building made of beige-coloured stone with a red mansard roof and a greenish little bell-tower that stuck up in the air like an infected finger. Built before the Great War, the hospital was surrounded with lush gardens where recuperating patients could sit on wooden benches, enjoy the many blooms in the flower beds and generally appreciate the democratic ideals of the sovereign state of Czechoslovakia; at least they could have done when there had still been a sovereign state of Czechoslovakia. Like every other public building in Prague the hospital was now flying the flag of the least democratic European state since Vlad the Third impaled his first Wallachian Boyar.

Klein drew up in front of the entrance. Two men wearing surgical gowns were already waiting for us, which only seemed excessively servile until you remembered Heydrich’s reputation for obsessive punctuality and ruthless cruelty. One of the men was Honek, the Czech doctor who had attended the crime scene at the Lower Castle earlier that day. He introduced the other man, a handsome German-Czech in his early forties.

‘This is Professor Herwig Hamperl,’ said Honek, ‘who is most distinguished in the field of forensic medicine. He has kindly agreed to take charge of this autopsy.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ I said.

Swiftly, as if he wanted us to be gone and out of his hair as quickly as possible, Hamperl muttered a curt ‘good afternoon’ and led the way upstairs and along a wide bright corridor with walls that showed the grimy blank squares where signs and posters written in Czech had been displayed until German became the official language of Bohemia. Hamperl might have been a German Czech, but I soon discovered he was no Nazi.

‘Has either of you two gentlemen attended an autopsy before?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Many.’

‘This is my first,’ said Kahlo.

‘And you’re feeling nervous about it, perhaps?’

‘A little.’

‘Being dead is like being a whore,’ said Hamperl. ‘You spend most of your time on your back while someone else – in this case, me – gets on with the business in hand. The procedure can seem embarrassing, sometimes even a little preposterous, but it is never disgusting. My advice to anyone who hasn’t witnessed an autopsy before is to try to see only the lighter side of things. If it starts to seem disgusting then that’s the cue to leave the room before an accident occurs. The smell of a dead body is usually quite bad enough without the smell of vomit to cope with. Is that clear?’

‘Yes sir.’

Hamperl unlocked a wooden door with smoked windows and led us into an autopsy suite where a stout-looking body lay under a sheet on a slab. As Hamperl started to draw back the sheet to reveal Kuttner’s head and shoulders I saw Kahlo’s eyes widen.

‘Jesus,’ he muttered. ‘I don’t remember his stomach being that big.’

Hamperl paused.

‘I can assure you it’s not big with fat,’ he said. ‘The man might be dead but the enzymes and bacteria in his belly are still very much alive and feeding on whatever still remains in his stomach. Probably last night’s dinner. In the process, these enzymes and bacteria produce gas. Here, let me demonstrate.’

Hamperl pressed hard on the sheet still covering Kuttner’s stomach which caused the body to fart, loudly.

‘See what I mean?’

Hamperl’s behaviour was a piece of crude theatre that seemed intended to make us feel uncomfortable. In a way I didn’t blame him for this at all. The Nazis were past masters at making others feel uncomfortable. Doubtless, the Professor was just paying us back, in kind. A fart from a dead Nazi was as eloquent a comment on the German presence in Czechoslovakia as I was ever likely to hear, or indeed smell. But Kahlo winced noticeably, and then bit his lip as he tried, vainly, to steady his nerves.

Hamperl collected a long sharp curette off a neatly prepared instrument table and held it at arm’s length, like a conductor’s baton. The light from the abbey-sized windows caught the flat of the curette and it glittered like a bolt of lightning. Instinctively Kahlo turned away, and noting his discomfort at the symphony of destruction he was about to begin, Hamperl grinned wolfishly, exchanged a meaningful look with Doctor Honek, and said:

‘There’s one thing you can say about the dead, my dear fellow. They have an extraordinary ability to deal with pain. Any pain. No matter how bad it might seem to you. Believe me, this poor fellow won’t feel a thing as I seem to do my absolute worst. Much worse than perhaps you have ever seen inflicted on any human being before. However, do try not to let your imagination run away with you. The most terrible thing that could happen to this man happened several hours before he arrived in this hospital.’

Kahlo shook his head and swallowed loudly, which sounded as if a very large frog had taken up residence in his throat.

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said to me. ‘I just can’t do this. I really can’t.’

He covered his mouth, and left the room quickly.

‘Poor fellow,’ said Hamperl. ‘But probably it’s just as well he’s gone. We need all our attention for the task that now lies before us.’

‘Surely, that was your intention,’ I said. ‘To scare him off.’

‘Not at all, Commissar. You heard me try to reassure him, didn’t you? However, it’s not everyone who can witness this procedure with a cool head. Are you sure about yourself?’

‘Oh, I have no feelings at all, Professor Hamperl. None whatsoever. I’m like that curette in your hand. Cold and hard. And best handled with extreme care. Just one slip would be most unfortunate. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Quite clear, Commissar.’

Hamperl threw back the remainder of the sheet covering Kuttner’s body and went quickly to work. Having photographed the two entry wounds on the dead man’s chest, and then probed them both, first with his finger and then with a length of dowel, he made a Y-shaped incision from Kuttner’s porcelain-pale shoulders, across his hairless chest and down to the pubic area which, unusually, appeared to have been shaved, and recently, too.

Hamperl remarked upon this.

‘Well, you don’t see that every day. Not even in my profession. I wonder why he should have done this.’

‘I’ve a good idea,’ I said. ‘But it will wait.’

Hamperl nodded. Then he was cutting through subcutaneous fat and muscle, and the speed of his scalpel was something to behold, with the flesh swiftly shrugged off the bone like the skin of a very large snake; and within only a few minutes there was just a mess of intestines and prime rib that might have been the envy of any good Berlin butcher. Especially in wartime.

‘There appears to be something lodged at the top of the oropharynx,’ said Hamperl. He looked up at me and added, ‘That’s the part of the throat just behind the mouth.’

He collected a small white object, flicked it off his fingers’ ends into a kidney dish and then held it up for our joint inspection.

‘It appears to be a troche, perhaps,’ he said. And then: ‘No, this was not designed to dissolve in the throat, but in the stomach. It has hardly dissolved at all. A pilule. A tablet, perhaps.’

‘He was taking Veronal,’ I said. ‘A barbiturate.’

‘Is that so?’ Hamperl’s voice was dripping with sarcasm. ‘Well then, that is probably what it is. Only it could not have affected him very much in the condition you see it in now. Although this would be quite consistent with a case of overdose where someone has swallowed several pills all at once. Doctor Honek said there was initially some suspicion that this might have been a barbiturate overdose.’

‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Until I found the bullet wounds.’

‘Quite.’

At an almost imperceptible nod from Professor Hamperl, Doctor Honek stepped forward with a set of surgical bolt cutters and began to cut the ribs, which, under the steel jaws, snapped loudly like thick twigs, one by one, in order to expose the chest cavity. But there was one he hesitated to cut.

‘One of these ribs looks damaged, don’t you think so, sir?’ asked Honek.

Hamperl bent down to take a closer look. ‘Chipped,’ he said. ‘Like a tooth. But not from a Veronal pilule. Most probably from a bullet.’

Honek went back to work. He was even quicker than the Professor and within a couple of minutes Hamperl was slicing through the remains of the diaphragm and reflecting back the whole chest-plate, like the top of a boiled egg, to expose the dead man’s heart and the lungs.

‘Quite a lot of blood has pooled inside the diaphragm,’ he murmured.

By now Albert Kuttner was hardly recognizable as a human being. His intestines – most of them – were resting on the upturned palm of his own hand as if, like the perfect aide-de-camp he had possibly hoped to become, he might assist even in the process of his own dissection.

Hamperl placed the chest-plate on a nearby table where it remained like the remains of a Christmas goose.

I cleared my nose, noisily.

‘Commissar? Are you all right?’

‘I’m just trying to see the lighter side of things that you were talking about earlier, sir.’

‘Good.’

But the Professor sounded almost disappointed that I was not yet lying on the floor.

‘Cutting the pulmonary artery,’ he said to Honek. ‘Checking for blood clots. Which we have. Probably a post-mortem blood-clot.’ He slashed some more of the lungs and then squeezed the heart. ‘Feels like something hard in here. A bullet probably. See if you can find it, will you, Doctor Honek?’

He handed the heart to the other man and got to work with the scalpel again, slashing at the flesh holding what looked like a shiny red football.

‘The liver, is it?’ I asked.

‘Very good, Commissar Gunther. The liver it is.’ Hamperl laid the liver in another dish before removing the spleen as well.

‘Looks like this got hit, too,’ he said. ‘It’s almost in pieces.’

I went over to the table where Honek was still palpating the heart to isolate the bullet, and glanced briefly at the spleen.

‘It’s a mess all right.’

‘That certainly covers all of what’s in the medical dictionary,’ observed Hamperl.

Honek had isolated the bullet. He cut it out and laid it in a separate metal tray like a gold-prospector putting aside a precious nugget. This was easier on the eye than watching Hamperl clamp Kuttner’s small intestine so that he could haul it out in one block. I’d seen one too many of my comrades in the freezing cold of the trenches with their steaming guts hanging out of their tunics to view that particular sight with any equanimity.

So far we had been there for less than thirty minutes and already the kidneys were being removed.

The second bullet was lodged deep in the spine and took several minutes to gouge out.

When that was done Hamperl asked, ‘Do you wish me to remove the brain?’

‘No. I don’t think it will be necessary.’

‘Then that would appear to be that, for now.’ He shrugged. ‘Of course, it will take a while to analyse the organs, the haematology, and the contents of the stomach. Naturally I will test the quantities of Veronal present then.’

‘At this moment in time I must ask you both not to make any verbal reference to a second bullet,’ I said. ‘As far as anyone else is concerned, just the one shot was fired.’

‘Am I to understand that you plan on using this subterfuge as the basis for some incriminating piece of cross-examination?’ said the Professor.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I am. You can mention your real findings in your written report, of course.’

‘Very well,’ said the Professor. ‘It’ll be our little secret until you say otherwise, Commissar.’

When both bullets were lying in a tray I took a closer look. I’d seen enough spent lead in my time to recognize metal from a thirty-eight when I saw it.

‘Right now, I’d be grateful if you were to indulge me with your first thoughts, sir.’

‘All right.’

Professor Hamperl sighed and then thought for a moment.

‘Both shots seem to have been fired at fairly close range,’ he said. ‘Of course I should have to check the shirt for powder burns to give you an accurate distance, but the size of the entry wounds persuades me, strongly, that the shooter could not have been more than half a metre away when these shots were fired. The angle of the entries would seem to indicate that the person who fired the shots was immediately in front of him. The grouping of the shots was tight, as if the two shots were fired in very quick succession before the victim moved very much.’

‘If the shooter fired at only half a metre’s distance, why didn’t the slugs go straight through him?’

‘One clipped the rib and lost most of its velocity before it penetrated the heart, I shouldn’t wonder,’ Hamperl said thoughtfully. ‘And the other lodged deep in the spine, as you saw. That’s why.

‘As I say, we’ll have to see how much barbiturate was absorbed by his organs but on the basis of the organ damage and the amount of blood that was in the diaphragm, I’d say it was the shots that killed him, not the Veronal.’

‘What do you know about that stuff?’

‘Barbital? It’s been around for a good while. Almost forty years. It was first synthesized by two German chemists. Bayer sells the stuff as a soluble salt or in tablet form. Ten to fifteen grammes would be a safe dose; but fifty or sixty could be lethal.’

‘That’s not much of a margin for error,’ I said.

‘Of course for someone using it regularly, they would soon develop a tolerance of the drug and possibly require a higher dose, which they might easily accommodate without any mishap. But if they left off taking it for a while, it’d be a mistake to start again with a high dose. Possibly a lethal one.’

‘So it has to be handled with care.’

‘Oh yes. It’s powerful stuff. My own sleep would have to be very disturbed to want to take it myself. All the same it’s a lot better than its predecessor: bromides. There’s no unpleasant taste with Veronal. In fact, there’s not much taste at all.’

‘Any side effects?’

‘It would certainly affect the heart rate, the pulse, and the blood pressure. And of course that would substantially affect the bleeding. Perhaps there would have been more blood exiting from the wounds if this man hadn’t sedated himself. As it is, most of the blood from the wounds was in the diaphragm.’

‘Anything else?’

‘You wouldn’t want to mix the stuff with alcohol. It reacts badly in the stomach. I’ve seen cases of people who mixed it and were choked to death when they vomited in their sleep.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Will there be anything else?’

‘I believe there’s a way that you can find out if he was homosexual.’

Hamperl didn’t bat an eyelid.

‘Ah, yes, I see. The shaven pubic area. Yes, it is unusual for a man to shave himself down there. It might indicate an effeminate inclination, yes. I see what you mean. Intriguing, isn’t it?’

‘There were other things that make me think he might be homosexual,’ I added. ‘Things I can’t tell you about. But I would like to know for sure.’

‘Sometimes,’ agreed Hamperl, ‘in a habitual sodomite the anus becomes dilated. It loses its natural puckered orifice and develops a thicker, keratinized skin. Or even becomes like an open shutter on a camera. I assume you’re referring to that. Would you like me to take a look?’

‘Yes.’

Doctor Honek, would you help me to turn the cadaver over, please?’

The two men wrestled the gutted body onto what there was of its front and spread the dead man’s buttocks.

After a moment or two Hamperl started to shake his head.

‘The anus looks all right to me. Of course, the fact that there has been no apparent interference doesn’t indicate that he wasn’t homosexual. But I could always swab the anus for semen when I do some of the other tests. And swab his penis for traces of faecal matter.’

‘Please do that.’

Hamperl was trying to conceal a gleeful, triumphant smile. ‘An SS officer who was homosexual. Perhaps that’s why he was murdered. I can’t imagine this sort of thing goes down well in Berlin.’

Hamperl exchanged a look with Doctor Honek, who was looking equally amused.

‘Of course one hears things. About Berlin and transvestitism.’

I nodded. ‘All the same, if I were you I wouldn’t mention this either. The SS doesn’t have much of a sense of humour about that sort of thing. It would be a shame to find that out the hard way.’

‘You’ll have my histological report on the organs and my pathological diagnosis in forty-eight hours, Commissar.’

‘Thanks, again.’

The Professor escorted me to the door.

‘So, Commissar, will you be leaving your own body to science do you think? For medical students to use in the anatomy lab.’

I glanced at the shambles that was a man I had been speaking to about a painting by Gustav Klimt at Jungfern-Breschan just twenty-four hours earlier.

‘No, I don’t think I will.’

‘Pity. A man as tall as you must have a fine skeleton. I sometimes think that the real fun stuff for our bodies doesn’t start until we’re dead.’

‘I’m already looking forward to it.’

Kahlo apologized again as Klein drove us away from the hospital.

‘You get used to it,’ I said.

‘Not me. Not ever. It was the smell of the ether that really got to me I think. Reminded me of when my mother died.’

‘Bad huh?’ said Klein.

Kahlo shook his head, but his expression told a different story and seeing it in his rear-view mirror Klein reached into the leather pocket on the inside of the driver’s door and took out a silver flask.

‘I keep this for cold days,’ he said and handed it to me.

‘It doesn’t get much colder than that,’ I said. ‘Not for Captain Kuttner, anyway.’ I took a bite off the flask, which was full of good schnapps, and handed it back to Kahlo.

‘That bastard.’ Kahlo upended the flask. ‘That bastard Professor was enjoying it, too. My discomfort. Did you hear him, sir? The way he started laying it on. I thought, fuck this. I’m off. He’s having a laugh at my expense.’

‘That he was,’ I said. ‘But a man has to take pleasure in his work where and when he can. Especially in this country.’

I bent forward to the floor of the car, lit a cigarette and handed it back to him.

‘There was a time when I took pleasure in my work, too. When I was good at it. Those were the days when the Berlin Murder Squad was the best in the world. When I was a real detective. A professional. What I didn’t know about the science of murder wasn’t worth knowing. But now.’ I shook my head. ‘Now I’m just an amateur. A rather quaint and old-fashioned amateur.’

It was five-thirty in the afternoon, and back in the library at the Lower Castle irritation and disappointment hung in the air like mustard gas ready to contaminate the lungs of all who were unfortunate enough to breathe it in. SS and Gestapo officers shook their heads and smoked furiously and looked around for someone to blame. Opinions were offered and rejected angrily and offered again until voices were raised and accusations made. There appeared to be several of them in the library, and while ultimately there was only one man whose opinion counted there were others who were determined not to be held responsible for ‘the failure’.

Kahlo and I had crept into the Morning Room so as to avoid being drawn into these recriminations; but we left the door wide open so that we could hear and increase our strength, for a wise man is strong and a man who listens at doors increases his strength.

‘We let him slip through our fingers,’ raged Heydrich. ‘We have at our disposal the most powerful police force ever seen in this city and yet we don’t seem to be able to catch one man.’

‘It’s too early to give up hope, sir.’ This sounded like Horst Bohme, the head of the SD in Prague. His Berlin accent was instantly recognizable to me. ‘We’re continuing to conduct house-to-house searches for Moravek and even now I’m certain that something will turn up.’

‘We know his name,’ said Heydrich, ignoring him. ‘We know what he looks like. We even know he’s somewhere in the city and yet we can’t find him. It’s a total bloody failure. An embarrassment.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘An opportunity thrown away, gentlemen,’ stormed Heydrich. ‘However, I suppose I shouldn’t really be all that surprised, given what happened here in May. At the UVOD safe house in – what was the name of that dumb Czecho street, Fleischer?’

‘Pod Terebkov Street, sir,’ said Fleischer.

‘You had them all in your fucking hands,’ yelled Heydrich. ‘They were trapped in that damned apartment. And still you managed to let two of them escape. Jesus, I should have you shot for incompetence or for being complicit in their evading capture. Either way I should have you shot.’

‘Sir,’ protested Fleischer. ‘With all due respect they were thirty metres off the ground. They used a steel radio aerial to slide out of the window thirty metres down to that courtyard. It was covered in blood when we found it. A man’s fingers were on the ground.’

‘Why didn’t you have men in the courtyard? Is there a shortage of SS and Gestapo here in Prague? Well, Bohme? Is there?’

‘No sir.’

‘Fleischer?’

‘No, Herr General.’

‘So this time you would think we could get it right. This time we have a photograph of Vaclav Moravek. We know the safe house he’s been using for the last five months. And what do we find? A note, addressed to me. Remind me of what Moravek’s note said, Fleischer.’

‘I’d rather not, sir.’

‘It said “Lick my arse, General Heydrich”. It’s even written in German and Czech, as the law says it ought to be, which is an especially insolent touch, don’t you think? “Lick my arse, General Heydrich”. It would seem that I’m an even bigger prick than you are, Fleischer. You’re already a laughing stock after that incident in the Prikopy Bar.’

‘On that particular occasion you mention, sir, the man was wearing a Party badge in the lapel of his jacket.’

‘And that makes all of the difference, does it? I wish I had ten marks for every bastard wearing a Party badge I’ve had to shoot since 1933.’

‘Someone tipped him off, sir. Moravek must have been told we were coming.’

‘That much is obvious, my dear Commissioner. What isn’t fucking obvious is what we’re doing about finding the traitor who might have told him. Major Ploetz?’

‘Sir?’

‘Who is liaising with the special SD squad that I ordered to be set up? The VXG.’

‘It was Captain Kuttner, sir.’

‘I know who it was, Achim. I’m asking who it is now.’

‘Well, sir, you haven’t said.’

‘Do I have to think of everything? Apart from my children, who incidentally will be arriving here in less than forty-eight hours, nothing, I repeat nothing, is more important than finding the man behind the OTA transmissions; traitor X, or whatever you want to call him. Nothing. These are the Reichsführer’s own orders to me. Not even Vaclav Moravek and the Three Kings and the UVOD Home Resistance network are as important as that, do you hear?’

Another voice spoke up, but it was one I didn’t recognize.

‘Frankly, sir, I don’t wish to speak ill of the dead, but Captain Kuttner was not a good liaison officer.’

‘Who’s that speaking?’ I asked Kahlo.

He shook his head. ‘Don’t know.’

‘The fact is, Kuttner was arrogant and rude, and often quite unpredictable; and he managed to piss off the local Kripo and Gestapo in double-quick time while he was here.’

‘Like I said,’ murmured Kahlo. ‘He was a prick.’

‘He did not serve you well, General,’ continued the same voice. ‘And now that he’s gone, might I suggest, sir, that I handle the liaison with the VXG. I can promise you I’ll make a better job of it than he did.’

‘Very well, Captain Kluckholn,’ said Heydrich. ‘If Captain Kuttner was as bad as you say he was—’

‘He was,’ insisted another voice. ‘Sir.’

‘Then,’ said Heydrich, ‘you had better get yourself over to Pecek Palace and then Kripo and try to smooth over any ruffled feathers and make sure they know what they’re supposed to be doing. Clear?’

‘Yes sir.’

I heard a chair move, and then someone – Kluckholn, I imagined – clicked his heels and left the room.

‘Talking of ruffled feathers, sir.’ This was Major Ploetz. ‘Your detective, Gunther, has already managed to upset the whole chicken coop. I’ve already had several complaints about his manner, which leaves a great deal to be desired.’

I nodded at Kahlo. ‘True,’ I said. ‘Too true.’

‘I agree with Major Ploetz, sir.’ This was Colonel Bohme, again.

‘I suppose you think I should have picked you to handle this inquiry, Colonel Bohme.’

‘Well, I am a trained detective, sir.’

Heydrich laughed cruelly. ‘You mean you once went on the detective-lieutenant’s training course at the Police Institute, in Berlin-Charlottenburg, don’t you? Yes, I can easily see how that might make anyone think he was Hercule Poirot. My dear Bohme, let me tell you something. We don’t have any good detectives left in the SD or in the Gestapo. Within the kind of system that we operate we have all sorts of people; ambitious lawyers, sadistic policemen, brown-nosing civil servants, all, I dare say, good Party men, too; sometimes we even call them detectives or inspectors and ask them to investigate a case; but I tell you they can’t do it. To be a proper detective is beyond their competence. They can’t do it because they won’t stick their noses in where they’re not wanted. They can’t do it because they’re afraid of asking questions, they’re not supposed to ask. And even if they did ask those questions they’d get scared because they wouldn’t like the answers. It would offend their sense of Party loyalty. Yes, that’s the phrase they’d use to excuse their inability to do the job. Well, Gunther may be a lot of things but he has the Berlin nose for trouble. A real Schnauz. And that’s what I want.’

‘But surely Party loyalty has to count for something, sir,’ said Bohme. ‘What about that?’

‘What about it? A promising young SS officer is dead. Yes, that’s what he was, gentlemen, in spite of your own reservations. He was murdered and by someone in this house, I shouldn’t wonder. Oh, we can pretend that it might have been some poor Czecho who killed him, but we all of us know that it would take the Scarlet Pimpernel to get past all these guards and to walk into my house and shoot Captain Kuttner. Besides, I flatter myself that if a Czecho did take the trouble to penetrate our security, he would prefer to shoot me instead of my own adjutant. No, gentlemen, this was an inside job, I’m convinced of it and Gunther’s the right man – my man – to find out who did it.’ He paused for a moment. ‘And as for Party loyalty, that’s my job, not yours, Colonel Bohme. I’ll say who is loyal and who isn’t.’

I’d heard enough, for the moment. I stood up and closed the door to the Morning Room.

‘Hardly a ringing endorsement,’ said Kahlo. ‘Was it, sir?’

‘From Heydrich?’ I shrugged. ‘Don’t knock it. That’s as good as it gets.’

I sat down at the piano and fingered a few notes, experimentally. ‘All the same, I get the feeling I’m being played. And played well.’

‘We’re all being played,’ said Kahlo. ‘You, me, even Heydrich. There’s only one man in Europe who has his mitts on the keyboard. And that’s the GROFAZ.’

The GROFAZ was a derogatory name for Hitler.

‘Maybe. All right. Who’s next on our list? I have a sudden desire to ruffle some more feathers.’

‘General Frank, sir.’

‘He’s the one with the new wife, right? The wife who’s a Czech.’

‘That’s right, sir. And believe me, she’s tip-top. A real sweet-heart. Twenty-eight years old, tall, blond, and clever.’

‘Frank must have some hidden qualities.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Or better still some hidden vices. Let’s find out which it is.’

‘Did you know Captain Kuttner very well, General Frank?’

‘Not very well. But well enough. Ploetz, Pomme, and Kluckholn and Kuttner—’ Frank smiled. ‘It sounds like an old Berlin tailor’s shop. Well, they all sort of merge into one, really. That’s what you want from an adjutant, I suppose. Me, I wouldn’t know, I don’t have an adjutant myself. I seem to manage quite well without one, let alone four. But if I did have an adjutant I should want him to be as anonymous as those three are. They are efficient, of course. Heydrich can tolerate nothing less. And being efficient, they stay out of the limelight.

‘I knew Kuttner slightly before his Prague posting. When he was at the Ministry of the Interior. He helped me in some administrative way, for which I was grateful, so when he turned up here I tried to help him out. Consequently he shared a few confidences with me. Which is why I know what I’m talking about.

‘Kuttner was the latest addition to Heydrich’s stable of aides-de-camp. And that meant that he and Heydrich’s third adjutant, Kluckholn, were never likely to get on very well, since the first principle of doing the job well is, I imagine, to make your superior redundant. So Kluckholn resented Kuttner. And feared him, I shouldn’t wonder. Well, that’s understandable; Kuttner was a clever man. Much cleverer than Kluckholn. He was a brilliant lawyer before he went east in June. Kuttner, on the other hand, felt that Kluckholn tried to keep him in his place. Or even to put him down.’

For a moment I picture the two men arguing in the garden the previous evening. Was that what I had witnessed? Kluckholn trying to put Kuttner in his place? Kuttner resisting it? Or something more intimate perhaps.

‘Was Heydrich aware of this rivalry?’

‘Of course. There’s not much that Heydrich’s not aware of, I’ll say that for him. But he likes to encourage rivalry. Heydrich believes it persuades people to try harder. So it wouldn’t have bothered him in the least that these two were vying with each other for his favour. It’s a trick he’s learned from the Leader, no doubt.’

‘No doubt.’

General Karl Hermann Frank looked almost ten years older than his forty-three years. His face was lined and furrowed and there were bags under his eyes, as if he was another Nazi who didn’t sleep very well. He was a heavy smoker, with two of the fingers on the hand holding his cigarette looking like he’d dipped them in gravy, and teeth that resembled the ivory keys on an old piano. It was difficult to see what a beautiful 28-year-old woman saw in this thin, stiff-looking man. Power, perhaps? Hitler might have passed him over to succeed von Neurath but, as SS and Police Leader of Bohemia and Moravia, Frank was effectively the second most important man in the Protectorate. More interesting than that, perhaps, was why a beautiful Czech physician should have married a man who, by his own admission, hated Czechs so much. The hatred I’d heard him articulate about the Czechos the day before was still ringing in my ears. What, I wondered, did Mr and Mrs Frank talk about after dinner? The failure of the Czech banks? Czech-language sentences that didn’t use any vowels? UVOD? The Three Kings?

‘Sir, when you say there was no love lost between Captains Kluckholn and Kuttner, do you mean to say they hated each other?’

‘There was a certain amount of hatred, yes. That’s only natural. However, if you’re looking for a man who really hated Captain Kuttner – hated him enough to kill him, perhaps – then Obersturmbannführer Walter Jacobi is your man.’

‘He’s the SD Colonel who’s interested in magic and the occult, isn’t he?’

‘That’s right. And in particular, Ariosophy. Don’t ask me to explain it in any detail. I believe it is some occult nonsense that’s to do with being German. For me, reading the Leader’s book is enough. But Jacobi wanted more. He was forever badgering me to become more interested in Ariosophy until I told him to fuck off. I wasn’t the only one who thought his interest in this stuff to be laughable. Kuttner, whose father was a Protestant pastor and no stranger to religious nonsense himself, thought that Ariosophy was complete rubbish, and said so.’

‘To Colonel Jacobi’s face?’

‘Most certainly to his face. That’s what made it so very entertaining for the rest of us. It happened when they were both at the SS officer school in Prague. That was last Sunday, the 29th of September. The day after Heydrich arrived here in Prague. The school asked him to come to a lunch in his honour and, naturally, his adjutants accompanied him. Someone, not Kuttner, had asked Colonel Jacobi about the death’s head ring he was wearing – a gift from Himmler, apparently. One thing led to another and before very long Jacobi was talking balls about Wotan and sun worship and the masons. In the middle of this, Captain Kuttner burst out laughing and said he thought all of that German folk stuff was “complete poppycock”. His exact words. For a moment or two there was an embarrassed silence and then Voss – he’s the officer in charge at Beneschau and one of the guests here at the Lower Castle, and, I might add, an idiot – Voss tried to change the subject. But Kuttner wasn’t having any of it and said some other stuff and that’s when Jacobi said it.’

Frank frowned for a moment.

‘Said what?’

‘I’m trying to think of his exact words. Yes. He said something like “If it wasn’t for the fact that you are wearing an SS uniform, Captain Kuttner, I would cheerfully kill you now, and in front of all these people.”’

‘You’re quite sure about that, sir?’

‘Oh, yes. Quite sure. I’m sure Voss will confirm it. Come to think of it, he didn’t say “kill”, he said “shoot”.’

‘What did Kuttner say to that?’

‘He laughed. Which didn’t exactly defuse the situation. And he made some other remark that I didn’t understand at the time but which relates to the fact that there was already some previous bad blood between them. Apparently they knew each other at university. And they were enemies.’

‘I thought Jacobi was from Munich, sir,’ said Kahlo.

‘He is.’

‘And that he studied law at Tübingen University,’ Kahlo added. ‘At least that’s what it said on his file.’

‘Oh, he did. But he also studied law at the Martin Luther University in Halle. The same as Kuttner. He might not look like it, but Jacobi is only a year or two older than Kuttner was. According to Heydrich, they even fought a duel. While they were students.’

‘A duel?’ Kahlo guffawed. ‘What, with swords?’

‘That’s right.’

‘About what, exactly?’ he asked.

‘They were in a duelling society. It doesn’t have to be about anything at all. That’s the whole point of being in a duelling society.’

‘So it might even have been Jacobi who put the Schmisse on Kuttner’s face?’

‘It’s possible. You should certainly ask him.’

‘Given that Jacobi was Kuttner’s superior,’ I said, ‘then surely Kuttner was being grossly insubordinate when he said what he said. Surely there would be repercussions of saying something like that. Why wasn’t Kuttner put on a charge?’

‘For one thing, this was the mess and it wasn’t a formal occasion. As you may know, there is supposed to be a certain amount of leeway in what officers can say to each other upon these occasions. Up to a point. But beyond that, well, that wasn’t a problem either because Kuttner had vitamin B, of course.’

‘You mean with Heydrich.’

‘Of course with Heydrich.’

Frank lit a cigarette with a handsome gold lighter before crossing his legs nonchalantly, affording us a fine view of his spurs. Maybe his Czech wife, Karola, liked the dashing cavalry-officer look. This was certainly better than Frank’s natural look, which was that of a man recently released from a prison. His bony head, drawn features, strong fingers, sad smile and chain smoking were straight out of a French novel.

‘What you also have to understand,’ said Frank, ‘is that after Kuttner’s breakdown in Latvia, and because it was Heydrich and von Eberstein who saved the young man from being cashiered, his brother officers were already cutting him quite a bit of slack. And for Jacobi to have pressed the matter through official channels would have meant taking on Heydrich. And since Heydrich is now the source of all advancement in Bohemia, you would only do that if you were prepared to park your career in the toilet. Jacobi might be a cunt and a complete waxed moustache but he’s not entirely stupid. No, not entirely.’

‘But is he a killer?’ I said. ‘To shoot a fellow officer in cold blood, that does seem stupid.’

Frank’s tired eyes tightened, and a few seconds after that a smile arrived on his lean face, like a winning card. ‘And I thought you were supposed to be a detective.’

‘It’s Jacobi who’s keen on the occult, sir, not me. And generally, I question witnesses because, more often than not, it turns out to be more reliable than a crystal ball, or a set of Tarot cards.’

Leaning forward in a way that made him seem almost simian, Frank played with a ring on his right hand for a moment and kept on smiling as he enjoyed the superiority of knowing something I didn’t, at least for a few seconds longer; it was obvious to both of us that he was going to tell me, eventually, exactly what this was.

‘Heydrich thinks highly of you, Gunther. But I’m not so sure.’

‘To some coppers that might seem like a crushing blow, sir, but I’m sure I’ll get over it, with a drink or two.’

‘I don’t mind if I do.’

Frank glanced at Kahlo, who went over to the drinks tray.

‘Yes sir? What’ll it be?’

‘Brandy.’

‘Me, too,’ I said. ‘And have one yourself, why don’t you?’

I waited until we were all holding a glass and then toasted the General.

‘Here’s to getting over our superiors not thinking as highly of us as we’d like.’

Frank knew that was meant for him – that of course he might have been the new Reichsprotector of Bohemia and not Heydrich if the Leader had thought more of him. To his credit Frank took the jab on his chin without blinking, but he took the drink even better, like he was swallowing a baby’s cordial. I’d seen men drink like that before and it helped explain how we were both the same sort of age but with different maps on our faces. Mine was all right, I guess, but his looked like the Ganges Delta.

‘I think we’d better have the decanter over here, Kurt,’ I said.

‘Good idea,’ said Frank.

When there was a fresh glassful in his fingers Frank studied it carefully for a moment and said, ‘Usually there’s a payoff for a good informer, isn’t there?’

‘Sometimes,’ I said. ‘But with all due respect, you don’t look like a man who’s going to be happy with five marks and a cigarette.’

‘A favour, Commissar. More than one favour perhaps.’

‘What kind of favour?’

‘Information. You see, since being passed over for the top job here in Bohemia – as you were kind enough to remind me – I don’t hear as well as I used to.’

‘And you’d like us to be your ear-trumpet, is that it?’

Frank looked critically at Kahlo. ‘I don’t know about him. But you’ll do for now.’

‘I see.’

‘I just want to be kept in the loop, that’s all. Right now I’m the last to know everything. It’s Heydrich’s little way of reminding me he’s in charge. You saw the way he dealt with von Neurath the other evening. Well, I get the same treatment.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s not like I’m asking very much, Commissar. After all—’ He poured the second brandy on top of the first and then licked his lips loudly. ‘It’s not like I’m a spy or anything.’

Kahlo and I exchanged a swift look.

Smiling, I poured myself another drink. ‘Are you sure about that, sir?’ I kept on smiling, to make him think I might be joking and to keep him listening without taking offence. ‘Let’s look at it logically. A man with an axe to grind like you. I think you’d make a pretty good spy.’

Frank ignored me. ‘Don’t change the subject. Not now when we’re making progress. Just tell me this: do we have a deal?’

‘To trade information now and in the future? Yes, I think so. I could use a few friends in Prague. Right now I don’t have any. Come to that, I don’t have any at home either.’

Frank nodded, his eyes glistening.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘You first. Some information. A sign of good faith.’

‘Yes. If you like.’

‘What’s the name of this bit of mouse that Henlein has got stashed in the Imperial Hotel? I hear you know all about her.’

‘Her name is Betty Kipsdorf.’

‘Is it now?’

‘Now tell me why you want to know.’

‘Maybe I just wanted to see if you were prepared to keep your end of the bargain before I told you about Lieutenant Colonel Jacobi’s interesting past.’

‘What, more interesting than fighting a duel with my murder victim? And threatening to shoot him?’

‘Oh this is very much more interesting than that, Commissar. That was merely an appetizer. Here is the main dish.

‘Jacobi joined the SA in 1930, while he was still a law student in Tübingen. Nothing unusual about that, of course, but I would suggest that there are not many law students who get themselves arrested for murder in the same week that they graduate.

‘Yes, I thought that would catch your breath. In 1932, Jacobi murdered someone in Stuttgart, which is only twenty kilometres from Tübingen. The victim was a KPD cadre, although it seems that might not be the real reason the boy was killed. There was it seems some suspicion he was queer and that this was the real motive for the murder. Now I don’t have to tell you of all people what things were like in 1932. In some ways von Papen’s government was every bit as right-wing as Hitler’s. The Stuttgart prosecutor’s office was rather slow in putting together a case against Walter Jacobi. So slow, in fact, that the case was never actually brought because, of course, in January 1933 the Nazis were elected and nobody was interested in bringing a case against a loyal Party member like Jacobi any more. All the same it’s no wonder he joined the SS and then the SD soon afterward; it was probably the best way of staying out of jail. And of course one of the very first things he did when he achieved a certain position of authority within the SS was to have the papers in the case destroyed. That almost got him kicked out of the SD, in 1937; but Himmler stepped in and pulled his nuts out of the nosebag.’

‘And you were thinking that a good detective might have found that out for himself, sir?’

‘Something like that.’

‘You overestimate me, General. Then again there’s only so much I can find out in less than twelve hours. That’s how long I’ve been on this case. And of course there’s a limit to how much I can ask my superior officers without bringing down a charge of gross insubordination on my head.’

Frank laughed. ‘We both know that’s not true.’

He laughed again in a way that made me think that there were probably a lot of things he found funny that I would have felt very differently about.

‘We both know that it suits General Heydrich to have you humiliate us all. Especially at this particular moment as he becomes Reichsprotector of Bohemia. It becomes an object lesson in power for us all. Perhaps to test our loyalty. Hitler admires Heydrich because he suspects everyone of everything. Me included. Me especially.’

‘And why would he suspect you, General?’

Frank looked at Kahlo almost as if he knew it had been Kahlo who told me about the VXG.

‘Don’t pretend to be naïve. I’m married to a Czech woman, Commissar. Karola. My first wife, Anna, hates my guts and is married to a man who affects to look like the Leader and now makes it his business to tell lies about me and my new wife. Just because she’s German Czech. Between them they have already turned my two sons against me. And now they’re doing their best to allege that the only reason my wife married me was because she is a Czech spy and that when I go home at night she persuades me to part with state secrets. Well, it’s simply not true. And it’s why I didn’t think your joke was funny. I’m loyal to Germany and the Party, and one day I hope that I will have the opportunity to demonstrate to the whole world just how devoted to the Leader and the cause of National Socialism I really am. Until then I hope I can count on your help – yes, both of you – to put paid to this baseless innuendo.’

He stood up and I shook hands with him and, in my defence, so did Kurt Kahlo. It was Frank’s idea that we should, not mine, and at the time I thought nothing of it – a handshake seemed like a small price to pay for some important information about a potential new suspect. It was another eight or nine months before I realized I’d shaken hands with the man who had ordered the destruction of the small town of Lidice and the murder of everyone in it, in reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich.

I glanced at my watch. It was seven o’clock.

‘If I wasn’t confused before,’ admitted Kurt Kahlo, ‘I’m certainly confused now. Every time we speak to someone we find out a little bit more. The only trouble is that it leaves me a little bit less enlightened. It’s curious, really. You might even call it a paradox. Even as I think I’m getting a proper grip on this case I find there’s something interrupting my thoughts, as though someone had built a wall between the two halves of my brain. Just as I find a big enough chair to stand on and look over at the other side, I forget what I’m supposed to be looking for anyway. And then, before you know it, I’ve even forgotten why I’m standing on the chair in the first place.’

Kahlo sighed and shook his head ruefully.

‘Sorry, sir, that’s not helping, I know.’

Even as Kahlo spoke I was trying to put up a fight against the rampaging contagion of his utter confusion. In my mind I seemed to hear a lost chord and see some words underneath the palimpsest. An elusive fragment of real insight flashed like a pan of magnesium powder inside the dark chamber that was my skull and then all was black again. For a brief moment everything was illuminated and I understood all and I was on the cusp of articulating exactly what the problem was and where the solution might lie and didn’t he, Kahlo, know that what he was describing was precisely the intellectual dilemma that afflicted every detective? But the very next moment a grey mist descended behind my eyes and, before I knew it, this same thought that looked like an answer was slowly suffocating like a fish landed by an angler on a riverbank, its mouth opening and shutting with no sound emerging.

I told him I needed to get away from the Lower Castle so that I might order my own thinking. That’s what I also told myself. I’d had enough of them all for one day and suddenly that included Kahlo, too. I decided that I wanted to go back to the hotel and devote my energies to Arianne for a while and that we could spend our last night together before I sent her home in the morning.

‘Ask Major Ploetz to find a car that will take me back into Prague,’ I said.

Kahlo looked sad for a moment, as if disappointed I was not ready to be honest with him about where I was going.

‘Yes sir.’

I did not have long to wait before a car became available but I was less than pleased to discover that I was to share a ride with Heydrich himself.

‘Now you can tell me what conclusions you’ve come to,’ he said as Klein steered us left out of the Lower Castle’s infernal gates and onto the picture-postcard country road.

‘I haven’t any, yet.’

‘I was rather hoping you would have everything wrapped up by this weekend. Before my wife, Lina, gets here.’

‘Yes. I know. You told me that before.’

‘And before my guests are obliged to leave. They do have duties to perform.’

‘Mmm-hmm.’

‘I must say I find it rather odd than you think you can just take the evening off while a murderer remains at liberty in my house. Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear this morning. It is urgent that this case is solved before news gets back to Berlin.’

‘No, you made that perfectly clear, sir.’

‘And yet you’re still going to see that whore of yours.’

I nodded. ‘Tell me something, sir. Do you play chess?’

‘Yes. But I don’t see what that has to do with this. Or your whore.’

‘Well then you might know that in major tournaments it isn’t uncommon for players to get up and leave the board between moves. Reading, sleeping, or indeed any pleasant distraction can refresh the human mind, enabling the player to perform at a higher intellectual level. Now, while I don’t expect to do any reading this evening, I do expect my lady friend will provide some very pleasant distractions, after which it’s perfectly possible that I may get some sleep. All of which is a long way of saying that I need some time away from you and your house in order to try to make sense of everything I’ve discovered today.’

‘Such as?’

Reaching the main road at last, Klein stepped hard on the accelerator leaving Jungfern-Breschan behind, and we sped toward Prague at almost eighty kilometres an hour, obliging me to raise my voice to answer the General.

‘I know of at least three people who are staying at the Lower Castle who hated Captain Kuttner. Henlein, Jacobi and Kluckholn. I can’t yet say if they hated him enough to kill him. They hated him for a variety of reasons that mostly come down to the fact that Kuttner was insubordinate and clever and perhaps a bit conceited and really not quite the senior officer’s toady that a good adjutant ought to be. But there were other reasons, too – probably more important reasons – that might have got him murdered. Principally the fact that he was your liaison officer for the SD’s Traitor X Group. If he’d found out something concerning the identity of the traitor, that would have been a pretty good reason for someone to kill him. You might have told me about that yourself, General.’

‘When?’

‘This morning. When we were in your office. When you handed me this case.’

‘I hardly wanted to broadcast the news about the existence of such a squad in front of my own butler. Besides, I had assumed your Criminal Assistant would inform you about that. Major Ploetz tells me Kahlo is part of the VXG.’

‘He assumed it was a secret. I’ve only just found out about it.’

‘Well, you know now.’

‘Is everyone who has been invited to your house under suspicion?’

‘Until the traitor is apprehended? Yes. Of course. What a ridiculous question. Oddly enough, Gunther, traitors have a habit of turning out to be the people we trusted most. It would be foolish to assume that there are some people who are simply above suspicion merely by virtue of a long acquaintance with the Leader or me, or their continuing demonstration of Party loyalty. A Czech spy would be no good if he was suspected of being a Czech spy, would he? However, I do agree that this might conceivably have been the reason why Kuttner was murdered. Which makes it all the more imperative that we catch the bastard as soon as possible, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘I have another reason why he might have been murdered.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘Captain Kuttner was homosexual.’

‘Nonsense. Whatever gave you such a ridiculous idea? Let me tell you, I knew Kuttner for more than a decade. And I would have known. It’s impossible that I wouldn’t have known such a thing.’

‘Nevertheless it’s a fact.’

‘You’d better have some damned good evidence for an assertion like that, Gunther.’

‘I’ll spare you the details, sir, but you can take it from me that I would hardly have told you in front of your butler; and I wouldn’t mention it now, in front of your driver, unless I was damned sure about what I’m saying. Moreover I think we can agree that being homosexual, especially in the SS, is, in these enlightened times that we live in, more than enough reason to get you killed. I suspect any number of SS officers would feel entirely justified in shooting that kind of man. Equally, I suspect one or two would have felt quite justified in having Kuttner shot for – what shall we call it, sir? – his dereliction of duty with that Special Action Group in Latvia.’

‘That’s something you should know quite a bit about yourself, Gunther. Perhaps you have asked yourself why you were allowed to leave your own police battalion in Minsk so easily. If you have not done so already then perhaps you should.’

I nodded. ‘Arthur Nebe said something to me at the time, by way of an explanation.’

‘And Nebe takes his orders from me. Wouldn’t you agree?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘You remind me of someone, Gunther. A rather stubborn Belgian by the name of Paul Anspach. He used to be President of the International Fencing Association. After Belgium was defeated, in June 1940, Anspach, who had acted as a military judge advocate, was arrested for alleged war crimes and put in prison. After he was released I had him summoned to Berlin, where I ordered him to surrender the Presidency to me. He refused. I can’t tell you how irritating that was; however, I admired his courage and sent him home.’

‘Not even you can always get what you want, General.’

‘I can actually. With the help of the Italian President of Fencing, I managed to have him stripped of the International Presidency anyway. It’s pointless being stubborn with me, Gunther. I always get what I want in the end. You should know that by now. That it’s not wise to oppose me. In case you didn’t understand, that’s the point of the fucking story.’

‘I’ve never believed it was wise to oppose you,’ I said, ‘even when I was doing it. No more than I think it’s wise for you to drive without an escort in an open-top car. You are an invitation to any would-be Gavrilo Princip to have a go. In case you had forgotten, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria also travelled in an open car.’

Heydrich laughed, and although such a thing seemed almost impossible, I found I disliked him even more than before.

‘If I should ever gain the impression that my conduct in this respect was wise or ill-considered – if ever someone were to attack this car – I would not hesitate to respond with unheard-of violence. I suspect that the population of Prague is well aware of this fact. And while your concern is touching, Gunther, I think it unlikely that I will ever need to take your advice about this.’

‘Oh, I don’t mean to sound like I care what happens to you, sir. Any more than I mean to sound touching. What I mean to say is what your detective ought to say. Your bodyguard. Whatever it is you choose to call me. I don’t know a hell of a lot about fencing, but if it’s anything like boxing, then a fighter is told to protect himself at all times. That’s not weakness, General. Any more than it’s weakness to look out for a fellow officer from Halle-an-der-Saale who went to the same school with you.’

‘It’s clear to me by now that not everyone agreed with that.’

‘Tell me, sir, was Kuttner any good at his job?’

‘In so far as it went.’

‘Meaning?’

‘I have three other adjutants, all of whom are quite competent. I had thought that one more wouldn’t make any difference. One is enough for most people, of course. Of course I am not most people. However, the only reason I have four adjutants – correction, three adjutants – is to remind me to delegate more. I have a great problem trusting people to carry out my orders.

‘Ordinarily there’s nothing any of them do that I couldn’t do better myself. But seeing them at my every beck and call reminds me that there are other more important tasks that require my attention. Having three adjutants makes me more productive, more efficient. Frankly, however, I can’t stand the sight of any of them. Kuttner was at least someone I thought I liked. But adjutants are a necessary evil for a man in my position. Much like yourself.’

‘I’m flattered.’

‘That certainly was not my intention.’

‘Your father knew Kuttner’s father. Is that right?’

‘Yes. But, since you ask, what is more relevant, perhaps, is that my mother gave Albert Kuttner music lessons.’

‘Is that how you met?’

‘I think it must have been. I seem to recall seeing him when I was back on leave from the Reichsmarine. I couldn’t have been more than twenty at the time. Kuttner was much younger, of course. I may even have tried to talk Albert into joining the naval academy, just like me. After all, he went to the same school that I did. But his father was less of a nationalist than my own, which might be why he chose to pursue a legal career instead. Not that any of this is relevant.’

‘I disagree. Finding out everything there is to know about a man who has been murdered and a lot more besides is, in my opinion, always the best way to discover why he was murdered. And once I find out why, it’s often a very simple matter to discover who.’

Heydrich shrugged. ‘Well, it’s your business. You know best in these matters. You must do what you think fit, Gunther.’

About halfway between Jungfern-Breschan and Prague the road ran between recently ploughed fields. It was a desolate scene with little in the way of other traffic until, nearing Bulovka Hospital, we encountered an ambulance and, further on, a tram grinding up the hill that led to the city suburbs. Crossing Troja Bridge the car slowed and rounded a corner, and a man snatched off his cap and bowed as he caught sight of a German staff car.

It was easier to hear Heydrich now that we weren’t going quite so fast, and once again I tried to question him about Albert Kuttner.

‘Did you like Albert Kuttner?’

‘Is that your way of asking if I killed him?’

‘Did you?’

‘No. And to answer your other question, no, I didn’t like him. Not any more. Once I did. A while ago. But not lately. He was a disappointment to me. And to some extent he was becoming something of a liability. Since you mentioned Colonel Jacobi, I assume you know the details of what happened there. The quarrel they had. To be frank, Gunther, I am not at all sorry that Kuttner is dead. But my conscience is clear. I gave the man every opportunity to atone for his inadequacies. At the same time I can’t have people murdering my staff just because they don’t like them. Christ, if you and I were to murder all of the people back at the Lower Castle I didn’t like, then we should have hardly anyone left in the local SD: Jacobi, Fleischer, Geschke, von Neurath. I wouldn’t shed a tear if any of them caught a bullet.’

‘That’s straightforward enough, I suppose.’

‘Henlein and Jury are particularly awful, don’t you think? Cunts. The pair of them.’

‘When first we talked, sir. In the garden, yesterday. You mentioned an attempt on your own life. Do you think Kuttner’s murder might be related? A case of mistaken identity, perhaps? Kuttner was tall and blond, much like you. His voice and accent were not unlike yours either.’

‘You mean, high?’

‘Yes sir. In the dark, who knows? The killer might simply have shot the wrong person.’

‘The thought had occurred to me, of course.’

‘In which case I might very well be wasting my time looking for one of our colleagues with a good reason to murder Captain Kuttner, when my energies might be better spent looking for one of them who badly wants you dead.’

‘Interesting idea. And of my dear friends and esteemed colleagues back at my new home, which of them would you say has the best reason to want me dead?’

‘You mean, apart from me?’

‘You have an alibi, don’t you? You weren’t actually in the house at the time when Kuttner was murdered.’

‘Thoughtful of you to have provided me with one,’ I said.

‘Isn’t it?’

‘I should have thought that Frank or von Neurath have the best reasons, from a professional point of view. Von Neurath might like to be revenged on you for the sake of it. Although he doesn’t strike me as a murderer. But Frank does. With you dead, Frank probably gets your job.’

‘This is intriguing. Anyone else?’

‘Henlein and Jury probably hate you too, don’t you think?’

‘Almost certainly.’

‘And I wouldn’t trust Jacobi as far as I could kick him.’

‘He does make the flesh creep, does he not?’

‘Geschke and Fleischer are hardly my idea of good friends, either.’

‘Not friends, perhaps. But colleagues. And good Nazis. And since we are discussing those among my staff who might hate me, there’s Kritzinger, too. I’m not suggesting that he might kill me, but I shouldn’t be at all surprised if he hates me. He’s an Austrian, from Vienna, and before the war he worked for the Jew who used to run the estate.’

‘Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer. Kuttner told me.’

‘After the Anschluss he and his master fled here from Vienna hoping to escape the inevitable before Bloch-Bauer finally took off for Switzerland, in 1939.’

‘But Kritzinger is in the SS. Most of the staff are in the SS, aren’t they?’

‘Of course. But very few of them were in the SS until the Reich acquired the Lower Castle.’

‘I thought that’s why they were hired. Because you knew you could trust them.’

‘They are all in the SS because it means the Reichsprotector doesn’t have to pay them out of his own pocket, Gunther. Otherwise I should never be able to keep a house as big as that, not on my salary.’

That made me sit up a little: Heydrich had never struck me as mean with money; mean-spirited, yes, but not an embezzler. And to be so honest about it, too! Of course, I knew he’d never have told me if Himmler didn’t know about it and approve. Which meant that they were all in it. The whole rotten crew. Living high on the hog while the ordinary Fritz went without his beer and his sausage and his cigarettes.

‘Oh, I’m sure Kritzinger is a good German,’ continued Heydrich. ‘But it has to be faced, he was devoted to the Bloch-Bauers.’

‘Then why on earth do you keep him on?’

‘Because he’s an excellent butler, of course. Good butlers like him don’t grow on trees, you know. Especially now that we’re at war. I wouldn’t expect someone like you to understand what that means, but Kritzinger puts his professional duties as a butler ahead of his own personal opinions, always. He sincerely believes that it is his duty to provide good service and concentrate only on that which lies within his realm, as a butler. If you were to question him he would probably tell you that he wouldn’t care to say, or something else that was courteously evasive.’

‘And yet you said that he might hate you.’

‘Of course. I have to recognize that it’s a possibility. It would be stupid not to consider it. Doing what I do, Gunther, it’s wise not to trust anyone. All I ask of people is that they do their duty, and in that respect at least, Kritzinger is beyond reproach.’ He looked impatient for a moment. ‘That may be too subtle a distinction for a man like you, but there it is. Such are the dilemmas that afflict everyone who finds himself in a position of great authority.’

‘All right, General. Whatever you say.’

‘Yes. It had better be.’

When we were still several blocks east of the Imperial Hotel, Klein drew up outside an apartment building with massive, fierce-looking atlantes, Jugendstil windows, and a roof like a Bavarian castle. The portal was covered in mosaic and topped with a decorative filigree balcony. The building looked as if it had been designed by someone whose architectural influences were Homer and the Brothers Grimm. But the address was chiefly remarkable for the absence of any SS or even regular Army sentries, and it was immediately clear to me that this was not an official building.

‘What’s this place?’ I asked.

‘The Pension Matzky. A brothel run by the Gestapo for the entertainment of important Czech citizens. It’s staffed by twenty of the most beautiful amateur courtesans in all of Bohemia and Moravia. You need a password just to get through the door.’

‘I bet that keeps the tone up.’

‘Occasionally I visit the place myself. Or when I wish to reward the men who work for me with something special. And everything at the Pension Matzky is special.’

As we were sitting there a furtive-looking man went through the front door; but he was not so furtive that I didn’t recognize him. It was Professor Hamperl, the man who had carried out the autopsy on Captain Kuttner.

‘Who’s he?’ I asked. ‘One of these important citizens of Prague?’

‘I really have no idea,’ said Heydrich. ‘But I expect so. Incidentally, the password is Rothenburg. Now ask me why I told you that, Gunther.’

‘Why did you tell me that?’

‘So that you’ll be thinking about what you’re missing when you see that whore you brought from Berlin. I ask you, Klein, with the thousands of very willing girls there are in this town, can you imagine such a thing?’

Klein grinned. ‘No sir.’

Heydrich shook his head. ‘That’s like taking an owl to Athens.’

‘Maybe I just like German owls.’

Heydrich smiled his wolf’s smile, stepped out of the car and went inside the Pension without another word.

‘Oh, good. You’re back. Now we can go out somewhere.’

It was seven-forty-five, but a short while later when I looked at my watch it seemed like it was nine o’clock. With her head in shadow, Arianne was just a naked torso lying on the bed like a piece of marble sculpture. Dominated by light and form, she herself was almost secondary and not a person at all, so that I was reminded, a little, of what I’d seen during my time at the Bulovka Hospital.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and laid my hand on the curving white ski-slope that was the summit of her behind, descending the broad field of her thigh to her near-invisible knee.

‘It’s not that I don’t want you here.’

‘I know you want me, all right,’ said a disembodied voice. ‘You’ve made that perfectly clear. All you do is fuck me.’

‘It’s no longer safe for you here in Prague. I told you. There’s a special group of SD that’s been set up to look for Gustav. If they had any idea you’d actually met him, no matter how innocently – well, you can’t imagine what would happen. At least, I hope you can’t imagine what would happen. You’re in danger, Arianne. Real danger. That’s why you urgently have to go back to Berlin. First thing tomorrow. For your own protection.’

‘And you. What will you be doing?’

‘I’ll be going back to Heydrich’s house in Jungfern-Breschan.’

‘Is that his car? The Mercedes you went away in yesterday morning?’ She paused. ‘I followed you downstairs to say goodbye and changed my mind when I saw those other men in the car.’

‘Yes. That’s his car. One of them anyway.’

‘What are you doing there, anyway? At Heydrich’s house. You don’t tell me anything.’

‘There’s nothing to tell. Not yet. I had a couple of rather boring meetings with some very boring generals.’

‘Including him.’

‘Heydrich is a lot of things but he’s never boring. Most of the time I’m much too afraid of him to be bored.’

Arianne sat up and put her arms about my neck.

‘You? Scared? I don’t believe it, Parsifal. You’re brave. I think you’re very brave.’

‘To be brave you first have to be scared. Take my word for it. Anything else is just foolhardy. And it’s not bravery that keeps people alive, angel. It’s fear.’

She started to cover my head and neck with kisses. ‘Not you,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe it.’

‘I’m afraid of him, yes. I’m afraid of all of them. Afraid of what they might do to me. Afraid of what they might do to Germany. But right now I’m afraid of what they might do to you. That’s why I went to the Masaryk Station before I came here and bought you a ticket back to Berlin.’

Arianne sighed and wiped a tear from her eye.

‘Will I see you again?’

‘Of course.’

‘When?’

‘Soon, I hope. But right now everything is confused. You’ve no idea how confused.’

‘And sending me back to Berlin makes things simpler?’

‘Yes. But I told you, that’s not the reason you have to go back home. All the same I’ll sleep a lot sounder knowing you’re all right.’

She stroked my head for a moment and then said: ‘On one condition.’

‘No conditions.’

‘That you tell me you love me, Parsifal.’

‘Oh, I love you all right. As a matter of fact I love you very much, Arianne. That’s why I have to send you away. It was a mistake bringing you here, I can see that now. It was selfish of me. Very selfish. I did it for me and now I have to do this for you, see? I don’t in the least want you to go home. But because I love you I really do have to send you away.’

Maybe I did love her at that. Only it didn’t matter very much one way or another. Not now that she was leaving Prague. And somewhere inside me I knew that I couldn’t ever see her again. So long as she knew me she would be in danger because of who and what I was. After she had gone home she would be safe because I was the only person who could connect her with Gustav and Franz Koci. I knew I was going to feel bad about losing her, but this was nothing to how I knew I would feel if ever being with me put her into Heydrich’s cold white hands. He’d gut her for information the way Hamperl had gutted poor Albert Kuttner on the slab at Bulovka..

‘I’ll always love you,’ I said, for effect.

‘And I love you, too.’

I nodded. ‘All right. Let’s go and find some dinner.’