Prague Fatale

by Philip Kerr

  ‘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. B
ut 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?’