A Man Without Breath (Bernie Gunther Mystery 9)

by Philip Kerr

  ‘Yes, I know, I was just talking to Peshkov. And before that, to Dyakov.’

  ‘Shifty characters both, in my opinion. I keep raising the matter of the sheer number of Ivans who are working for us inside the perimeter of the safe zone we’ve established at Krasny Bor, but Von Kluge won’t hear of any changes to these arrangements. He’s a man who’s always had lots of servants, and since most of those who were German servants are now in the army that means having Russians on the staff. When we first came out here, he brought his butler from Poland, but the poor bastard was killed by a partisan sniper not long after he got here. So now he makes do with his Putzer, Dyakov. But as it happens it’s not the Russians Von Kluge is suspicious of, it’s other Germans. In particular the Gestapo. And although I hate to say it, that does make things extra difficult when it comes to maintaining tight security at Krasny Bor. Even the Gestapo has its uses.

  ‘We’ve tried to have the Gestapo run checks on the backgrounds of some of these Russians, but it’s more or less impossible. Most of the time we have to go on the local mayor’s word that such and such a person is trustworthy, which is hopeless of course. So I prefer to do my encoding and decoding down here at the castle. Colonel Ahrens is a decent fellow. He gives me the exclusive use of a room here so I can send my stuff in private. I’d just come out of the castle when I saw you trailing up here with the spade in your hand.’

  ‘The ground is softening.’

  ‘So we can start digging. Tomorrow perhaps.’

  ‘I never was much for waiting on tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Not when I can make a start today.’

  I took off my coat and my jacket and handed them to him. ‘D’you mind?’

  ‘My dear fellow, not at all.’ Von Gersdorff folded them over his arm and lit a cigarette. ‘I love to watch another man work.’

  I rolled up my sleeves, collected the shovel off the ground, and started to dig.

  ‘So why is Von Kluge suspicious of Germans?’ I asked him.

  ‘He’s scared, I suppose.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Do you remember a Military Court Official called Von Dohnanyi?’

  ‘Yes, I met him in Berlin. He’s Abwehr, too, isn’t he?’

  Von Gersdorff nodded. ‘He’s the deputy head of the Abwehr’s central section under Major-General Oster. A few weeks ago – just before the leader visited Von Kluge at group headquarters – Von Dohnanyi came down here to meet with Von Kluge and General von Tresckow.’

  ‘I was on the same plane as him,’ I said, stabbing at the ground with the spade.

  ‘I didn’t know that. Von Dohnanyi is back in Berlin now, but he was here in Smolensk to add his voice to my own and the general’s and to those of some other officers who would like to see Hitler dead.’

  ‘Let me guess: Von Schlabrendorff and Von Boeselager.’

  ‘Yes, how did you know?’

  I shook my head and carried on digging. ‘A lucky guess, that’s all. Go on with your story.’

  ‘We asked the field marshal to join us in a plan to assassinate Hitler and Himmler when they came down here on the thirteenth. The idea was that we would all of us draw our pistols and shoot them both dead in the officers’ mess at Krasny Bor. Something like that is a lot easier here than it would be at Rastenburg. At the Wolf’s Lair, he’s more or less untouchable. Officers have to give up their pistols before they can be in a room with Hitler. Which is why he remains there so much, of course. Hitler’s not stupid. He knows there are plenty of people in Germany who would like to see him dead. Anyway, Von Kluge agreed to join the conspiracy, but when Himmler didn’t show up with Hitler, he changed his mind.’

  ‘I really can’t fault the field marshal’s logic,’ I said. ‘You know, if someone does kill the leader they’d better make sure to shoot Himmler and the rest of the gang. When you decapitate a snake the body keeps on writhing and the head remains deadly for quite a while afterward.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right.’

  ‘I have to hand it to you people. Three attempts to kill Hitler in as many weeks and all of them botched. You would think that a group of senior army officers would know how to kill one man. It’s what you’re supposed to be good at, damn it. None of you seemed to have any trouble slaughtering millions during the Great War. But it seems beyond any of you to kill Hitler. Next thing you’ll be telling me you were planning to use silver bullets to shoot the bastard.’

  For a moment Von Gersdorff looked embarrassed.

  ‘And let me guess – now Von Kluge is scared that someone will talk,’ I said. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Yes. There’s a rumour going around Berlin that Hans von Dohnanyi is going to be arrested. If he is, then of course the Gestapo may find out a lot more than even they were expecting.’

  ‘What kind of a rumour?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Generally speaking, the Gestapo likes to keep who they’re planning to arrest under their black hats – at least until the small hours of the morning when they call. You know – it stops people from escaping and that kind of thing. If there is a rumour it could mean they started it because they want him to run and maybe flush out another rabbit they’re interested in pursuing. That kind of rumour: a rumour with foundation. Yes, they’re not above doing that from time to time. Or it could just be the kind of rumour that’s spread by a man’s enemies to make him feel insecure and undermine him at work. It’s what the English call “a Roman holiday”, when a gladiator was butchered for the pleasure of others. You’d be surprised at the damage a rumour like that can do to a man. It takes nerves of steel to withstand the Berlin gossip-mongers.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, Captain Gunther, it was you who started this rumour.’

  ‘Me?’ I stopped digging for a moment. ‘What the hell are you talking about, colonel? I never started any rumour.’

  ‘Apparently, when you met Von Dohnanyi in Judge Goldsche’s office in Berlin three weeks ago, you mentioned that the Gestapo had been to see you – I believe it was while you were in hospital – to ask you questions about some Jew you knew called Meyer; who his friends were, that kind of thing.’

  I frowned, remembering the air raid by the RAF on the night of the first of March that had almost killed me.

  ‘That’s right. Franz Meyer was going to be witness in a war-crimes investigation. Until the RAF dropped a bomb on his apartment and took half of his head off. The Gestapo seemed to think Meyer might have been mixed up in some sort of currency-smuggling racket in order to help persuade the Swiss to offer asylum to a group of Jews. But I don’t see—’

  ‘Did the Gestapo mention someone called Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It was Pastor Bonhoeffer and Hans von Dohnanyi who were smuggling foreign currency to bribe the Swiss to take refugee Jews from Germany.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And it was that meeting between Von Dohnanyi and Judge Goldsche at the War Crimes Bureau that prompted him to help lend his weight to persuading Von Kluge that a group of like-minded army officers—’

  ‘By which you mean Prussian aristocrats, of course.’

  Von Gersdorff was silent for a moment. ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right. Is that why you think we bungled it? Because we’re aristocrats?’

  I shrugged. ‘It crossed my mind.’

  I spat on my hands and started digging again. It was hard work but the ground came away on the flat of my spade in heavy, half-frozen lumps that I hoped would turn out to be layers of peaty history. Von Gersdorff kicked carelessly at one near the toe of his boot and watched it roll slowly down the slope like a very muddy football. For all either of us knew it might have been a mud-encrusted skull.

  ‘If you think it was snobbery that kept the plot within a small circle of aristocrats, you’re wrong,’ he said. ‘It was simply the overriding need for total secrecy.’

  ‘Yes, I can see how that was an advantage. And you felt more comfortable placing your trust in a man with a von in his name, is th
at it?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound a little like snobbery?’

  ‘Perhaps it does at that,’ admitted Von Gersdorff. ‘Look, trust is something that’s very hard to find these days. You find it where you can.’

  ‘Talking of snobbery,’ I said, ‘I spent the morning trying to persuade the field marshal to sign some papers that would allow a local Russian doctor to go and live in Berlin. He works at the Smolensk State Medical Academy and he claims to have documentary evidence of who’s buried here. Ledgers, photographs – he’s even got an Ivan hidden in a private room who was part of the NKVD murder squad that carried out this atrocity. Bit of a soft pear alas, after some significant roof damage – but the doctor is straight out of the prayer book: every wish comes true if he gives us what we want. But he won’t do it if he has to stay on in Smolensk. I can’t think of a more deserving case for a homeland pass, but Clever Hans seems to have his blue eyes dead set against it. I just don’t understand. I thought if anyone would be on side about this it would be a man with a Russian servant. But the field marshal seems to think Dyakov is an exception and that Slavs are not much better than farmyard animals.’

  ‘It’s the Poles he really hates.’

  ‘Yes. He told me. But Poles aren’t Russians. That’s rather the point of who and what’s buried here, I imagine.’

  ‘In Von Kluge’s eyes, Polacks, Ivans, Popovs, they’re all the same.’

  ‘Which seems to be the exact opposite of the way the Russians think – about the Polacks I mean. As far as they’re concerned, Polacks and Germans are virtually the same thing.’

  ‘I know. But that’s just how this story is. It doesn’t make your job any easier, but I doubt Von Kluge is going to grant a homeland pass to anyone, with the possible exception of Dyakov.’

  ‘So what’s the story with Dyakov?’

  Von Gersdorff shrugged. ‘The field marshal has only the one hunting dog. I suppose he felt there was no reason why he couldn’t have another.’

  ‘I never did like dogs much, myself. Never even owned one. Still, from what I gather it’s relatively easy to know all about a dog. You just buy them when they’re puppies and throw them a bone now and then. But with a man – even a Russian – I imagine it’s maybe a little more complicated than that.’

  ‘Lieutenant Voss of the field police is the man to speak to about Dyakov, if you’re interested in him. Are you interested in him?’

  ‘It’s only that the field marshal recommended I speak to Von Schlabrendorff and Dyakov about drafting in some Hiwi labour to dig up this whole damn wood. I like to know who I’m working with.’

  ‘Von Schlabrendorff is a good man. Did you know that he’s—’

  ‘Yes, I know. His mother’s the great-great-granddaughter of Wilhelm the first, the Elector of Hesse, which means that he’s related to the present king of Great Britain. That kind of pedigree should come in very useful when it comes to exhuming several thousand bodies.’

  ‘Actually I was about to tell you that he’s my cousin.’ Von Gersdorff smiled with good grace. ‘But I certainly think you can trust Dyakov to find a few Ivans to do the digging.’

  I stopped digging for a moment and leaned forward to take a closer look before scraping at what looked to be a human skull and the back of a man’s coat.

  ‘Is that what I think it is?’ asked Von Gersdorff. He turned and waved one of the sentries over.

  The man arrived at the double, came to attention and saluted.

  ‘Fetch some water,’ Von Gersdorff ordered. ‘And a brush.’

  ‘What sort of brush, sir?’

  ‘A hand brush,’ I said. ‘From a dustpan, if you can find one.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The soldier went away at the double in the direction of the castle.

  Meanwhile I kept on scraping at the half-covered cadaver with the point of my spade, finally revealing two twisted hands bound tight together with a length of wire. I’d never seen anyone who’d been run over and flattened by a tank, but if I had I supposed that this is what it would have looked like. In the Great War I’d stumbled across the bodies of men buried in the mud of Flanders, but somehow this felt very different. Perhaps it was the certainty that there were so many other bodies buried there; or perhaps it was the wire wound around the almost skeletal wrists of the corpse that left me lost for words. There are no good deaths, but perhaps some are better than others. There are even deaths – execution by firing squad, for example – that seem to give the victim a little bit of dignity. The man lying face-down in the dirt of Katyn Wood had certainly died a death that was a long way from that. A more wretched sight would have been hard to imagine.

  Von Gersdorff was already crossing himself solemnly.

  The soldier arrived back with a brush and a canteen of water. He handed them to me and I started brushing the mud away from the skull before washing it with the water to reveal a small hole in the back of the skull, and then probing it with my forefinger. Von Gersdorff squatted down beside me and touched the perfect bullet hole experimentally.

  ‘A standard NKVD vyshka,’ he remarked. ‘A nine-gram airmail from Stalin.’

  ‘You speak Russian?’

  ‘I’m an intelligence officer. It’s sort of expected.’ He stood up and nodded. ‘I also have French, English and some Polish.’

  ‘How does that come about?’ I asked. ‘You speaking Polish?’

  ‘I was born in Silesia. In Lubin. You know, if it hadn’t been for Frederick the Great bringing Lubin back into Prussia in 1742, I might well have been one of the Polish officers lying in this mass grave.’

  ‘There’s an amusing thought.’

  ‘Well, it looks like you’ve found what everyone has been looking for, Gunther.’

  ‘Not me,’ I said.

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Maybe I didn’t make myself clear,’ I said. ‘I’m not really here. Those are my orders. The SD and the ministry of propaganda are supposed to be a hundred miles from this site. Which is why I’m wearing an army uniform instead of an SD one.’

  ‘Yes, I was wondering about that.’

  ‘Even so, that might not stand close inspection. So I haven’t found anything. I think the report had better state that you found this body. All right?’

  ‘All right. If that’s what you want.’

  ‘Who knows?’ I said. ‘You might need to make yourself popular with all the people you let down when you didn’t blow yourself up at the Arsenal.’

  ‘When you put it like that it’s a wonder I can look myself in the eye every morning.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know about that. It’s a long time since I so much as glanced at a mirror.’

  *

  With its chintz-curtained window, oak farmhouse chairs, open fireplace and framed watercolours of Berlin’s historic sites, the signals office was as neat as an old maid’s parlour. Underneath a shelf full of books and steel helmets there was a large table where plain-text messages could be written out on sheets of lined yellow paper. On this was a clean white tablecloth, a vase of dried flowers, a samovar full of hot Russian tea and a polished onyx ashtray. Ranged along the wall were a twenty-four- line switchboard, a five-watt Hagenuk transceiver, a big Magnetophon reel-to-reel tape-recorder, a Siemens Sheet-writer teletype machine, and an Enigma rotor-cipher machine with a Schreibmax printer attachment that could print all the letters of the alphabet onto a narrow paper ribbon, which meant the signal officer operating the Enigma didn’t have to see the decrypted plain-text information.

  The under-officer in charge of the signals room was an open-faced young man with reddish hair and amber-framed spectacles. His hands were delicate and his touch on the massive Torn’s transmitting key was – according to Colonel Ahrens – as sure as a concert pianist’s. His name was Martin Quidde and he was assisted by an even younger-looking radio master recently arrived from the signals kindergarten in Lübeck, who had a nervously twitching thigh that looked as if it was permanently
receiving a telegraph transmission from home. The pair of them regarded me with watchful respect, as though I were a chunk of raw pitchblende.

  ‘Relax boys,’ I said. ‘I’m not in an SD uniform now.’

  Quidde shrugged as if such a thing hardly mattered to him, and he was right of course, it didn’t, not in Nazi Germany, where a uniform was a guarantee only that a man was afflicted with duties and superiors, and everyone – from some squirt in a pair of leather shorts to an old lady in a housecoat – could prove to be the Gestapo informer who revealed some careless word or patriotic shortcoming that put you in a concentration camp.

  ‘I’m not Gestapo and I’m not Abwehr. I’m just a prick from Berlin who’s here to do some amateur archaeology.’

  ‘Are there really four thousand Poles buried in our front garden, sir?’ Quidde was quoting the figure I had included in my telemessage to Goebbels.

  ‘That’s what it said on my message to the ministry, didn’t it?’

  ‘Do you reckon they murdered them out there?’

  ‘That’s certainly what it looks like,’ I said. ‘Brought them to the side of an open grave in twos and threes and shot them in the back of the head.’

  The younger signaller, whose name was Lutz and who was manning the switchboard, answered a call only he heard and began to shift the cables in the switchboard around like so many chess pieces.

  ‘General von Tresckow,’ he said into his headset. ‘I have General Goerdeler for you, sir.’

  ‘Makes you think what we’re fighting, eh, sir?’ said Quidde.

  ‘Yes, it certainly does,’ I said. ‘We certainly can’t teach Ivan anything about cruelty, murder and deceit.’

  ‘You know, I’ve often had a peculiar feeling that something was not quite right about this place,’ said Quidde.

  ‘I get that feeling back in Berlin, sometimes,’ I said, being deliberately ambiguous again; it was up to Quidde what he chose to hear. ‘When I’m visiting friends who live near the old Reichstag. I don’t believe in ghosts myself, but it’s easy to understand why so many others do.’