Prussian Blue

TWELVE

Once upon a time the Berghof—or the Haus Wachenfeld, as it was then called—had been a simple two-story farmhouse with a long, sloping roof, overhanging eaves, a wooden porch, and a picture-postcard view of Berchtesgaden and the Untersberg. These days it was a much-expanded and rather less cozy structure, with a vast panoramic window, garages, a terrace, and a recently built low wing to the east of the house that resembled a military barracks. I wasn’t sure who stayed in the east wing, but it probably wasn’t the military, because a large contingent of SS already occupied a former hotel, the Türken Inn, less than fifty meters farther to the east of the Berghof and immediately below Bormann’s own house in Obersalzberg, which seemed to command a better position than Hitler’s.

The Berghof’s front terrace was about the size of a tennis court, with a low wall; it backed onto a larger, secondary terrace, which in turn bordered a lawn to the west. Behind the secondary terrace were what looked like additional living quarters, styled in the local vernacular, which is to say they looked like a row of cuckoo clocks. On my instructions, several SS men were erecting a number of arc lights on the front terrace so that I might inspect the crime scene, although the only evidence of a crime was the chalk outline of a man’s fallen body just behind the low wall. On Bormann’s instructions, any blood from Flex’s corpse had been washed away. Playing the part of the dead man and muffled in his black SS greatcoat, Captain Kaspel took up a position on the terrace to help me understand where Flex had been standing when he’d been shot. The light snow and the wind did not encourage lingering and he stamped his boots to help keep warm, although he might just have been imagining he was stamping on my face. Not very tall, shaven-headed, hook-nosed, and with a wide mouth, Kaspel was a thinner, more sensitive, and better-looking version of Benito Mussolini.

“Flex was standing about here,” explained Kaspel. “According to the witness statements, he was in a group of three or four men, most of whom were looking at the Reiteralpe, to the west. Several of the witnesses are sure that the shooter must have fired from a group of trees on a mountain slope behind the house, over there to the west.”

In the arc light I glanced over one of the witness statements and nodded. “Except that no one seems to have heard a thing,” I said. “The first any of them really know about the shooting is when the victim is lying on this terrace with blood pouring from his head.”

Kaspel shrugged. “Don’t ask me, Gunther. You’re the great detective.”

I hadn’t yet been alone with Kaspel, which meant I hadn’t had a chance to give him Heydrich’s letter ordering him to put himself under my command, so he was still treating me with understandable disdain. It was clear he hadn’t forgotten or forgiven anything about 1932 and how I’d helped to get him fired from the Berlin police.

“What were the weather conditions like when Flex was shot?”

“Clear and sunny.” Kaspel blew on his hands. “Not like this.”

I might have felt the cold more myself except for the fact that the pills I’d taken seemed to be having an effect on my body temperature, too. I was as warm as if I’d still been in the car.

“Were any of these men wearing a uniform?”

“No, it seems they were all civilians.”

“Then I wonder how the shooter picked him out,” I said.

“Telescopic sight? Binoculars. A hunter, perhaps.”

“Perhaps.”

“Good eyesight? I don’t know. Go figure.”

“It seems to have been at least a minute or two before any of them worked out that Flex had been shot. At which point they finally retreated indoors.”

For a moment I lay down beside the chalk outline and stretched out on the cold paving stones.

“Did you know the dead man? Flex?”

“Only by sight.”

“Seems as if he was tall.” I got up again and dusted the snow off my coat. “I’m one hundred and eighty-eight centimeters but it looks to me as if Flex was possibly seven or eight centimeters taller.”

“Sounds about right,” said Kaspel.

“Have you ever used a rifle scope?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

“Even the best Ajack rifle scope will only put you four times nearer your target. So perhaps the victim’s height helped the shooter. Perhaps he knew that all he had to do was shoot the tallest man. But we’ll have a clearer view of what happened when it’s daybreak.” I glanced at my wristwatch, saw that it was two a.m., and realized I didn’t feel the least bit tired. “Which is in five or six hours from now.”

I took the tube of Pervitin out of my pocket and regarded it with some incredulity.

“My God, what is this stuff? I have to admit, it’s kind of wonderful. I could have used some Pervitin when I was still pounding the beat.”

“It’s methamphetamine hydrochloride. It packs quite a punch, doesn’t it? Frankly, I’ve learned to be a bit wary of the local magic potion. After a while there are side effects.”

“Such as?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

“Go ahead and scare me, Hermann. I can take it.”

“For one thing, it’s addictive. A lot of people on this mountain have come to rely on Pervitin. And after two or three days solid on that stuff there’s always the risk that you’ll have violent mood swings. Heart palpitations. Or even cardiac arrest.”

“Then I’ll just have to hope for the best. Now that Bormann’s got my ears stiff about this I really don’t see any other way of working around the clock, do you?”

“No.” Kaspel grinned. “Sounds like Heydrich’s really dropped you in the shit with this case. And I’m going to enjoy watching you fall on your ugly face, Gunther. Or worse. Just don’t expect me to give you the kiss of life. The only people Mrs. Kaspel likes me to kiss is Mrs. Kaspel.”

Farther up the mountain, or so it seemed, I heard what sounded like an explosion; and seeing my head turn, Kaspel said: “Construction workers on the other side of the Kehlstein. I think they’re digging another tunnel through the mountain.”

Somewhere a telephone was ringing and a few moments later an SS man stepped out onto the terrace, saluted smartly, handed me the Leica and several rolls of film, and announced that Dr. Brandt was now awaiting our arrival at the hospital down in Berchtesgaden.

“We’d better not keep the doctor waiting,” I said. “Let’s hope he’s using this stuff, too. I hate a sloppy postmortem. Will you drive me down the mountain, please?”

We walked down the steps of the Berghof terrace to where we’d left Kaspel’s car parked in front of the garage. I thought about asking him to stop at the Villa Bechstein to pick up Korsch and then decided against it; if he had any sense he was in bed by now, which seemed a long way off for me.

“And don’t expect me to hold a kidney dish, either,” added Kaspel. “I don’t much like the sight of blood before bed. It keeps me awake.”

“Well, you’re in the wrong Party, aren’t you?”

“Me?” Kaspel laughed. “My God, that’s rich coming from a bastard like you, Gunther. How does an old social democrat like you come to be a police commissar working for a man like Heydrich, anyway? I thought you’d been fired in 1932.”

“I’ll tell you sometime.”

“Tell me now.”

“No, but I’ll tell you this. Something that directly affects you, Hermann.”

It was a twelve-minute drive back down the mountain to Berchtesgaden and, finally alone with Kaspel, I gave him Heydrich’s letter and told him that in spite of our shared history, the general expected nothing less than the captain’s total cooperation with my present mission. He pocketed the letter, unread, and said nothing for a while.

“Listen, Hermann, I know you hate my guts. You’ve got every reason to feel that way. But look here, you’ll hate me even more if I have to tell Heydrich you were obstructive. You know how he hates to be disappointed in the people who work for him. If I were you, I’d forget how much you dislike me and throw in your lot with Gunther, for now.”

“You know, Commissar, I was thinking the same thing.”

“There’s all that and there’s this, too. You should remember from our time in Berlin that I’m cursed with being an honest cop. I’m not the type to take all the credit myself. So if you help me, I promise I’ll make sure that it’s recognized by Heydrich. Me, I couldn’t care less if there’s any career advancement at the end of this. But you might think differently about your own future.”

“That’s fair enough. But honestly? I had nothing to do with what happened back then. I might have been a Nazi, and an SA organizer, but I’m not a murderer.”

“I’ll buy that. So, then. We’re looking out for each other. Right? Not friends. No. Too much laundry there. But perhaps—perhaps we’re Bolle boys from Berlin. Agreed?”

Bolle was a Berliner’s word for the kind of pal you made when you were drunk, on a Kremser van day trip to Schönholzer Heide park in Pankow—the kind of pal that had inspired a dozen cruel folk songs mocking the Franz Biberkopfs of this world who put no limits on drinking or pleasure, or violence, or all three at once. Now, that’s what I call a worldview.

“Agreed.” Kaspel stopped the car for a moment on a wider bend of the meandering mountain road and then offered me his hand. I took it. “Bolle boys from Berlin,” he said. “In which case, as one Bolle boy to another, let me fill you in about our friend Dr. Karl Brandt. He’s Hitler’s personal physician here in Obersalzberg. That means that he’s a member of the Leader’s inner circle. Hitler and Göring were the principal guests at his wedding, in 1934. Which means he’s as arrogant as they come. Given that Bormann has asked Brandt to carry out this postmortem, he won’t have had any choice in the matter, but he certainly won’t like having to perform the procedure in the middle of the night. So you’d be well advised to handle him with velvet gloves.”

Kaspel produced a packet of cigarettes, lit us both, and then started driving again. At the foot of the mountain road, we crossed over the river and drove into Berchtesgaden, which was predictably deserted.

“Is he up to this? Brandt?”

“You mean is he competent?”

“Surgically speaking.”

“He used to be a specialist in head and spinal injuries, so my guess is yes, probably, given that Karl Flex was shot in the head. But I’m not so sure about the hospital. Really, it’s not much more than a clinic. There’s a brand-new SS hospital under construction at the Stanggass—that’s what we call the Reichs Chancellery—but that won’t open for another year.”

“What do you mean—the Reichs Chancellery?”

Kaspel looked at me and laughed. “That’s all right. I was the same when I got here. A typical Berliner. That’s why this place is run by a Bavarian mafia. Because Hitler doesn’t trust anyone but Bavarians. Certainly not Berliners like you and me who are automatically suspect in the Leader’s eyes of leaning to the left. Look, there’s something you have to understand right now, Gunther. Berlin isn’t the capital of Germany. Not any longer. No, really, I’m perfectly serious. Berlin is just for showcase diplomacy and propaganda purposes—the big set-piece parades and speeches. This crummy little Bavarian town is the real administrative capital of Germany now. That’s right. Everything is run from Berchtesgaden. Which is why this is also the largest construction site in the country. If you didn’t already know that after seeing the Kehlstein House—which cost millions by the way—then let me underline it for you. There’s more new building being done here in Berchtesgaden and Obersalzberg than in the rest of Germany put together. If you can’t believe that, then just look through those witness statements and see who was on that terrace yesterday morning. All of the country’s leading civil engineers.”

Hermann Kaspel drew up outside the only building in Berchtesgaden where the lights were on and stopped the engine. For someone who was in any doubt that this might be a hospital, they need only have looked at the wall and its mural of a woman wearing a nurse’s uniform in front of a black Nazi eagle.

“Here we are.”

He took out his cigarette case, opened it, and then found a banknote, which he rolled into a tube.

“Give me one of those magic tablets,” he said. “Time to go to work.”

“You’re coming inside?”

“I thought I might help.”

“I thought you were squeamish about the sight of blood.”

“Me? Whatever gave you that idea? Anyway. We’re Bolle boys, right?”

“Right.”

“Bit of blood is par for the course when you’re out on the piss in Pankow, right?”

I nodded and handed him one of the Pervitin tablets, only he didn’t swallow it; instead he crushed it on the flat metal of his cigarette case with the car key and then separated the powder into two small parallel white lines.

“One of the Luftwaffe pilots from the local airport showed me this little trick,” he explained. “When they have to make a night flight and they need to wake up or sober up in a real hurry, the best and quickest way to do it is with a hot rail, like this.”

“You’re full of surprises, do you know that?”

Kaspel laid the end of the tube in the powder and then inhaled it noisily through one nostril and then the other, at which point he shuddered, uttered a series of loud expletives, blinked furiously several times, and then hammered the steering wheel with the flat of his hand. “Go and fuck yourself!” he yelled. “Go and fuck yourself. I am on fire. I am on fire. Now, that’s what I call a fucking air force.”

He shook his head and then let out a loud whoop that had me feeling more than a little alarmed and wondering what effect Hermann Temmler’s magic potion was having on my own body.

“Now let’s go and find the doctor,” said Kaspel, and hurried inside the hospital.