Prague Fatale

by Philip Kerr

  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, exper
imentally. ‘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 ca
n 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.