by Philip Kerr
“Herr Gunther, this is Frau Minoux.”
“That’s a bad habit, Frau Minoux. Listening outside doors like that.”
“I wanted to see what kind of man you are before I made my mind up about you.”
“And what’s the conclusion?”
“I still haven’t decided.”
“You’re not alone there.”
“Anyway, it’s a bad habit I learned from you, Herr Gunther. It was you my husband paid to spy on me at my home in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, wasn’t it? When was that exactly?”
I nodded. “Nineteen thirty-five.”
“Nineteen thirty-five.” Frau Minoux rolled her eyes and sighed. “So much has happened since then.”
“Well, I guess he didn’t find anything,” Heckholz told her, “otherwise you’d hardly be here now, would you? Still married to Friedrich.”
“You’d have to ask Herr Gunther that,” said Frau Minoux.
“I didn’t find anything, no. But strictly speaking, Frau Minoux, I never actually listened outside your door. As it happens, I subcontracted the job in Garmisch to a local detective—an Austrian named Max Ahrweiler. He was the one who was looking through your keyhole, not me.”
Frau Minoux sat down, and as she crossed her legs the wraparound dress she was wearing fell from her thigh to reveal a lilac-colored garter; I turned politely away to give her time to fix this but when I looked again, I could still see the garter. I told myself that if she didn’t mind me looking then I didn’t mind, either. It was a nice garter. But the length of smooth, creamy white thigh over which it was stretched was better. She screwed a cigarette into her holder and allowed Heckholz to light her.
“Is it Arabian Nights?” he asked. “The perfume you’re wearing, Lilly? Just out of interest.”
“Yes,” she said.
Heckholz put away his lighter and looked at me. “I’m impressed. You have a good nose, Herr Gunther.”
“Don’t be. My nose for perfume is the same as the one I use for trouble. And right now I’m getting a strong scent of it from both of you.”
But I sat down anyway. It wasn’t like I had very much to do at home except stare at the walls and sleep, and I’d already done quite enough of that at work.
“Please,” she said. “Put the money back in your pocket and at least hear us out.”
I nodded and then did as she had asked.
“First,” said Heckholz, “I should explain that my main offices are in Austria, which is where Frau Minoux is still primarily a resident. However, she also rents a house here in Berlin-Dahlem. I act for both her and for Herr Minoux, who is of course currently languishing in Brandenburg Prison. I take it that you’re familiar with the basic facts of the Berlin Gas Company case.”
“He and two others defrauded the company of seven and a half million reichsmarks and now he’s doing five years.” I shrugged. “But before that he helped steal a company—the Okriftel Paper Company—from a family of Jews in Frankfurt.”
“That company had already been Aryanized by the Frankfurt Chamber of Commerce,” said Frau Minoux. “All Friedrich did was buy a company the owners were legally obliged to sell.”
“Maybe. But if you ask me, he had it coming. That’s what I know about Herr Friedrich Minoux.”
Frau Minoux didn’t flinch. Clearly she was made of stronger stuff than her husband. For a minute I let my imagination play around in her pants; maybe they smell something in the air, but it’s surprising how often women guess what I’m up to; it’s a technique I use sometimes to let them know that I’m a man. But she finally woke up to the fact that she was showing a garter and tugged the dress back over her thigh.
“The rights and wrongs of the Berlin Gas Company case are not in dispute,” said Heckholz. “And it might interest you to know that several million reichsmarks have already been repaid by the three convicted men. No, it’s what happened afterwards that is a matter of some concern to the Minouxes. Are you perhaps acquainted with a Berlin private detective by the name of Arthur Müller?”
“I know him.”
“Tell me about him, if you would.”
“He’s efficient. A little lacking in imagination. Used to be a cop at the Police Praesidium here in Charlottenburg, but he’s from Bremen, I think. He got stabbed in the neck by an SA man once, so he has no great love for the Nazis. Getting stabbed—sometimes it just works that way. Why?”
“Herr Müller’s currently engaged by the Berlin Gas Company to find out if Herr Minoux has any hidden assets in the hope that even more money can be recovered from him. And more pertinently, Frau Minoux also. To this end he and his own operatives have been keeping Frau Minoux and her daughter Monika under surveillance at her home here in Berlin and at Frau Minoux’s home in Garmisch. And very likely this office, as well.”
“There’s a man watching your front door. But it’s certainly not Arthur Müller. This fellow looks like he learned the job from reading Emil and the Detectives. My guess is that he’s keeping a mark on you while Arthur gets some sleep.”
“We assumed the Gestapo might also be involved until you explained the position with regard to telephone tapping. So then. The plain fact of the matter is that Frau Minoux has substantial works of art and furnishings of her own that were in the matrimonial home in Wannsee that she has been obliged to hide at a warehouse in Lichtenberg, for fear that these would also be confiscated by the government.”
“I begin to see your problem.”
“Would you say that Herr Müller was honest?”
“I know what it used to mean. To be honest. But I’ve got no idea what it means today. At least not in Germany.”
“Could he be bribed, perhaps?”
“Maybe. I guess it would depend on the bribe. If it was ten thousand reichsmarks then the answer would almost certainly be yes, possibly. Who wouldn’t? But it makes me wonder why it’s my nose you’re riffling these bills in front of and not his.”
“Because he’s only half the problem, Herr Gunther. Have you heard of a company called Stiftung Nordhav?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“I don’t hang around the Börse Berlin. I was never much interested in the financial pages. And the only figures I’m interested in are wearing swimsuits right now. Or not. Depending on which end of the beach they like.”
Heckholz lit a small cigar and, smiling, puffed it lightly, as if he liked the taste more than the sensation it delivered.
“This isn’t the kind of company that has a listing. It’s a so-called charitable foundation that was set up by your old boss, Reinhard Heydrich, in 1939, ostensibly to build rest-and-recreation centers for members of the RSHA. In fact, it’s a very powerful company that makes all kinds of business deals designed to profit the directors, of whom Heydrich was the chairman. Since his death there are five directors left: Walter Schellenberg, Werner Best, Herbert Mehlhorn, Karl Wilhelm Albert, and Kurt Pomme. It was the Stiftung Nordhav that bought Herr Minoux’s Wannsee villa in November 1940 for 1.95 million reichsmarks, which was a great deal less than what it was worth. Most of that money was used by Herr Minoux to pay fines, compensation, and legal fees. Since then the Nordhav Foundation has bought several properties including Heydrich’s own summer home, in Fehmarn, using money stolen from disenfranchised and murdered Jews. It’s our strong suspicion that none of this money goes to the government and that all of it is used to benefit the remaining five directors.”
“In other words,” said Frau Minoux, “these men are guilty of the very same crime for which my husband is now doing five years in prison.”
“We believe the Wannsee villa was earmarked to become Heydrich’s new home here in Berlin,” explained Heckholz. “It isn’t so very far away from his old home, on Augustastrasse, in Schlachtensee. Of course, now that he’s dead it has little real use to the Foundation other than as a venue f
or the IKPK conference that’s about to take place. Which is the day after tomorrow, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “You’re well informed.”
“Herr Gantner lives with Katrin, a maid who still works at the villa.”
“Yes, I think he mentioned her.”
“After that’s over it’s hard to see what they can do with it, the Berlin property market being what it is.”
“Our aim is simple,” said Frau Minoux. “To find evidence of malfeasance and wrongdoing against any of the five remaining directors of the Nordhav Foundation. Once we have that we shall attempt to recover the house, at a fraction of what we paid for it. But if the existing directors fail to cooperate, we shall have no alternative but to put what we know before State Secretary Wilhelm Stuckart at the Ministry of the Interior. And if that fails, to get the story into the international press.”
“This is where you come in,” said Heckholz. “As a captain in the SD, with access to the villa, and the higher echelons of the SS, it’s possible you will perhaps overhear some information pertinent to the sale of the villa and by extension our case. Perhaps you could even be persuaded to conduct a search of the place while you’re staying there. At the very least we are asking only that you keep your ears and eyes open. We would put you on a cash retainer; say, a hundred marks a week. However, there is a ten-thousand-reichsmark bonus if you do find something significant.”
“Something that can get us justice,” she added.
I lit one of my own cigarettes and smiled sadly. I almost pitied them for thinking that they still lived in a world where ideas like justice were even possible. I thought there was probably less chance of him bringing prosecutions against the directors of the Nordhav Foundation than there was of him winning the Nobel Peace Prize and then donating all of the prize money to the World Jewish Congress.
“We should also very much welcome your assistance in handling Arthur Müller,” added Frau Minoux.
“Now that you’ve told me what you’ve got in mind I think it even less likely I could live to spend that bonus. These people you’re up against—they’re dangerous. Albert is currently the chief of police in Litzmannstadt, in Poland. There’s a ghetto in Litzmannstadt with more than a hundred thousand Jews in it. Have you any idea what happens in a place like that?”
When I saw them look at each other and look blank I wanted to bang their heads together.
“No, I thought not. Best and Schellenberg aren’t exactly shy flowers, either. Most of their friends are dangerous, too: Himmler, Gestapo Müller, Kaltenbrunner. Not to mention extremely powerful. Maybe the directors of this Nordhav Foundation do have some sort of racket going but then so does everyone else in the RSHA. Everyone except me, that is. My advice is that you should give this up. Forget this idea of taking on Nordhav. It’s much too dangerous. If you’re not careful you’ll end up in the cement alongside Herr Minoux. Or worse.”
Frau Minoux took out a tiny square of cotton that was laughingly called a handkerchief and dabbed either side of her perfect nose. “Please, Herr Gunther,” she said with a sniff. “You simply have to help us. I don’t know what else to do. Who else to turn to.”
Heckholz sat beside her for a moment and put his arm around her in an attempt to stop her from crying any more. It was a job I wouldn’t have minded having myself.
“At least say you’ll keep your ears and eyes open while you’re at the conference,” said Frau Minoux. “My hundred reichsmarks ought to buy me that much. And there’s another two hundred in it if you just come back here and tell Dr. Heckholz about anything you’ve learned about the sale of the villa. Anything at all. I won’t be here, myself. I’m going back to Austria this afternoon.”
It was the tears, I suppose. A woman cries and it cracks something open inside me, like Rapunzel’s tears, only they were supposed to restore her handsome prince’s sight, not blind him to the risks of snooping around a villa owned by the SS. I should have laughed and told them both to go to hell and walked straight out the door. Instead I thought about it for a moment, which was a mistake; you should always trust your first instincts in these matters. Anyway, I told myself there seemed little risk involved in just poking around a bit when I was at Wannsee and that was all I intended to do. Besides, Frau Minoux looked like she could afford to lose another hundred marks. So what did it matter? I’d make my speech, drink my coffee, steal a few cigarettes, and then leave and neither Frau Minoux nor Dr. Heckholz would be any the wiser.
“All right. I’ll do it.”
“Thank you,” she said.
I stood up and walked to the door.
“And Arthur Müller?” asked Heckholz. “The private detective? What about him?”
“You want him to lay off, right?”
They nodded.
“Just long enough for me to get my property out of the country,” she said. “Across the border into Switzerland.”
“Let me take care of it.” I shrugged. “But I get ten percent of whatever payoff I can negotiate.”
“That’s fair,” said Heckholz.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“What’s so funny?” asked Heckholz.
“Because fair’s got nothing to do with it,” I said. “That’s a word for children. When are people going to wake up and realize what’s happening in Germany? People like you. Worse than that, what’s happening in the east. In the so-called swamps. In places like Litzmannstadt. Believe me, fair’s got absolutely nothing to do with anything. Not anymore.”
Six
Early on the first morning of the conference I took the S-Bahn back to Wannsee and walked to the villa. It was another warm day and by the time I arrived there my white shirt was sticking to my back and I almost wished I had my own staff Mercedes. I was certainly the only officer arriving at the villa who seemed not to have one. Well-polished cars played tag in the driveway, delivering their self-important passengers while, at the back of the house, on a terrace that faced the lake, thirty or forty officers wearing lounge suits and a variety of foreign bandbox uniforms were smoking cigarettes, talking, and drinking cups of coffee. It was all very clubbable and you’d hardly have believed there was a war on.
In front of the Greek Revival entrance there were flower beds full of blue geraniums. In the conservatory the fountain had been turned back on but someone had thoughtfully removed all copies of Das Schwarze Korps from the library, as even a cursory glance through its morbid pages might have encouraged any reader to doubt that Germany was winning the war in the east, as Dr. Goebbels insisted it was.
On display underneath the curving staircase in the main hall was a bronze of Heydrich’s death mask, which made him seem oddly benign. With eyes closed, his head looked as if it had been on display at the old panopticum in Lindenpassage, or perhaps recovered from the basket under the guillotine at Brandenburg, for display in a glass case at the police museum. On an easel next to the death mask was a large facsimile of the sixty-pfennig stamp featuring a photograph of the death mask that the occupation government planned to use on letters in Bohemia and Moravia, which was a bit like hanging a portrait of Bluebeard in a girls’ school dormitory.
Staring critically at the mask and the giant stamp was a very tall man and next to him was a junior officer; from the monkey swing on his shoulder I took him to be the taller man’s aide-de-camp. I advanced a short way up the staircase until I was standing immediately above them and, in the vague hope of hearing something interesting about Stiftung Nordhav, I started to eavesdrop on their conversation. My conscience might be getting a bit dull these days, but there’s nothing wrong with my hearing. Their wisecracks were all taken from the SS joke book, which—take my word for it—only the SS think is funny.
“That’s one stamp I won’t be putting on my fucking Christmas cards,” said the senior officer. I guessed him to be almost two meters in height.
“Not if you want the card t
o get there in time for Christmas,” said the aide.
“Hardly matters, does it? We’ve made Christmas illegal in Bohemia.”
Both men laughed unpleasantly.
“They were going to put a picture of Lidice on the ten-pfennig stamp,” said the aide, “until someone told them that there was nothing actually left to photograph. Just a lost shoe and a lot of empty brass cartridges.”
“I just wish he was here to see it,” said the senior officer. “Just so I could see the look on his goat’s face. Strange-looking bugger, Heydrich. Didn’t you think so? He looks like a Paris perfumer, inhaling some rare scent.”
“Death, probably. The scent which fills that long nose. His death, thank God.”
The senior officer laughed. “Very good, Werner,” he said. “Very good.”
“Do you think he really was a Jew, sir? Like they say?”
“No, it was Himmler who put that rumor into circulation. To deflect attention from his own very questionable origins.”
“Really?”
“Keep it under your hat, Werner, but his real name is Heymann, and he’s half Jew.”
“Christ.”
“Heydrich knew that. He had a whole file on the Heymann family. The slippery bastard. Still, anyone could be forgiven for thinking Heydrich was a Jew. I mean, look at that fucking nose. It’s straight out of Der Stürmer.”
I’d never liked Heydrich, but I’d certainly feared him. It was impossible not to fear a man like Heydrich. And I wondered if these two would have made such openly critical remarks about the former Protector of Bohemia if the general had still been alive. I rather doubted it. At least I did until the senior officer looked around and I realized exactly who he was. I’d only ever seen a picture of him but he was a hard man to forget: there were so many scars on the bedrock of his craggy face that they might almost have been left there by a glacier retreating from the moraine of his forbidding personality. It was Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the man rumored to be the next head of the RSHA. The Swiss clinic had dried him out sooner than anyone would have supposed possible.