by Philip Kerr
‘And so Ribe decided to tape-record it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Jesus.’ I sighed. ‘What was he thinking?’
‘He wanted a souvenir. Of Hitler’s voice. You get used to hearing him making a speech, but no one ever hears what he’s like when he’s relaxed.’
‘A signed photograph would have been less dangerous.’
‘Yes. About halfway through the tape Von Kluge guesses that he and Hitler could have been overheard, because he lifts the receiver and then bangs it down hard several times before the line is terminated.’
‘And so, what – Hitler and Von Kluge were worried that the army’s plans for a summer campaign in 1943 were compromised? Yes, I can see why that might bother them a bit.’
‘Oh, it’s worse than that,’ said Quidde.
I shook my head. I couldn’t think of anything that was worse than giving away military secrets; then again, those were the days in which my ideas of what was worse and what was worst were limited by a naïve faith in the inherent decency of my fellow Germans. After almost twenty years in the Berlin police, I thought I knew all about corruption, but if you are not corrupt yourself, then I think you cannot ever know just how corrupt others can be in their pursuit of wealth and favour. I think then I must still have believed in things like honour and integrity and duty. Life had yet to teach me the hardest lesson of all, which is that in a corrupt world about the only thing you can rely on is corruption and then death and yet more corruption, and that honour and duty have little place in a world that has had a Hitler and a Stalin in it. And perhaps the most naïve thing about my reaction was that I was actually surprised at what Quidde told me next.
‘On the tape you can clearly hear Adolf Hitler and Günther von Kluge talking for almost fifteen minutes. They talk about the new summer campaign, but only in passing, before Hitler starts asking Von Kluge about his family estates in Prussia, and it very soon becomes more apparent that Hitler is visiting headquarters in Smolensk largely because in spite of his declared previous generosity to the field marshal he has heard a few rumours back in Berlin that Von Kluge is somewhat dissatisfied with his leadership. Von Kluge then proceeds to make a few weak denials and insists he is committed to the future of Germany and to defeating the Red Army, before Hitler comes to the real point of his being there. First of all, Hitler mentions a cheque for one million marks that the German Treasury gave Von Kluge in October 1942 to help improve his estates. He mentions that he’d given a similar sum to Paul von Hindenburg in 1933. He also reminds Von Kluge that he’d promised to help with any future costs of running these estates, and to this end he has brought his own personal chequebook with him. What you then hear is Hitler writing out another cheque, and while the amount isn’t actually mentioned on the recording, you can hear from what the field marshal says when the leader hands it over that this time it’s at least as much as a million marks again, perhaps even more. Either way, at the end of the recorded conversation Von Kluge assures the leader of his unswerving loyalty and insists that the rumours of his own dissatisfaction were much exaggerated by those in the High Command who were jealous of his relationship with Hitler.’
For a moment I closed my eyes. Almost everything was now explained – why a German had murdered the two signallers. It seemed obvious to me that the reason they had been killed was to silence them both about the discovery of this huge bribe. Someone acting for Hitler or Von Kluge or perhaps both of them had murdered the two signallers. It was also clear exactly why Von Kluge had decided to withdraw from an Army Group Centre plot to murder Hitler while he was in Smolensk: this would have had nothing to do with the absence of Heinrich Himmler in Smolensk and everything to do with a cheque for approximately one million marks.
No less clear than any of this however was the gut-liquefying certainty that Martin Quidde had now put me in the same grave danger as himself.
I rolled my eyes and lit a cigarette. For a second the wind caught the smoke and blew it in my eyes and made them water. I wiped them with the back of my hand and then contemplated using it to try to slap some sense into Corporal Quidde. Maybe it was too late for that, but I hoped not.
‘Well, that’s a hell of a story,’ I said.
‘It’s true. It’s all on the tape.’
‘Oh, I don’t doubt it. Nor do I doubt the fact that I may never sleep again. I like a scary story now and then. I even liked Nosferatu when it was in the cinema. But your little tale is too scary even for me. What the hell do you expect me to do with this, corporal? I’m a cop, not fucking Lohengrin. And if I want to commit suicide I’ll take a nice little holiday in Solingen before I jump off the Müngsten bridge.’
‘I thought, maybe, you might get a starting handle on the case,’ said Quidde. ‘Those men were murdered after all. What’s the point in having a war-crimes bureau and a field police if you don’t investigate real crimes?’
I handed back the dispatch case.
‘Do you need me to draw you an Euler diagram? The Nazis are in charge of Germany. They kill people who get in their way. The bureau is just window dressing, corporal. And the field police are there to handle the rank and file when they’ve been on the beer – even sometimes when they’ve raped and murdered a couple of Russian girls. But not this. Never this. What you’ve just told me is the best reason I’ve heard so far for me to drop the case altogether. And so, there is no case. Not any more. Not as far as I‘m concerned. In fact, I may never ask another awkward question in this freezing cold, fucked-up Ivan city again.’
‘Then I’ll speak to someone else.’
‘There is no one else.’
‘Listen, two friends and comrades of mine were murdered in cold blood. Their throats were cut like farmyard animals. Whatever they did there was no excuse for that. Friedrich Ribe made a mistake. He should have been subject to military discipline. Even a court martial. But not cold-blooded murder. So maybe I’ll take this somewhere else.’
‘There is nowhere else, you idiot.’
‘To the High Command, in Berlin. To Reichsführer Himmler, perhaps. Think about it. This tape is the evidence that could finish Hitler. When people hear what kind of man is leading them, they won’t want to be led by him. Yes, Himmler might be just the man.’
‘Himmler?’ I laughed. ‘Don’t you get it, bird-brain? No one is going to touch this thing with a bargepole. They’ll sweep this shit into the nearest mousehole and you with it. Not only will you be condemning yourself to a concentration camp, very likely you’ll also be exposing all sorts of other people to danger. Better men than you, perhaps. Suppose Himmler questions Von Kluge. What then? Maybe Von Kluge will think to save his skin by dropping someone else in the crap. Have you thought about that?’
I was thinking of Von Gersdorff’s aristocratic little group of conspirators.
‘Then perhaps the underground movement will be interested in publishing this,’ said Quidde. ‘I heard about this group of people in Munich who’ve been publishing leaflets against the Nazis. Some students. Maybe they could do a leaflet with a transcript of this tape.’
‘For a man who was wise enough to be scared stiff about all this ten minutes ago, you’re showing a remarkably stupid lack of concern for your welfare now. The group of people you were talking about are already dead. They were arrested and executed in February.’
‘Who said I was scared stiff? And who said I care anything about my own welfare? Look, sir, I believe in the future of Germany. And Germany won’t have any kind of future unless someone does something with this tape.’
‘I want a future for Germany just like you do, corporal, but I promise you, this isn’t the way to bring that about.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ said Quidde. He replaced his helmet on his head, tucked the dispatch case under his arm and started to walk away.
I took his arm. ‘No, that’s not good enough,’ I said. ‘I want your word you’ll keep your mouth shut about this. That you’ll destroy that tape.’
‘Ar
e you kidding?’
‘No, I’m not. I’m perfectly serious, corporal. This has gone way beyond a joke, I’m afraid. You’re behaving like a fool. Look, if you’ll only listen to me. Maybe there is someone who would listen to the tape, a colonel in the Abwehr I know, but honestly I don’t think it’s going to make much difference in the short term.’
Quidde sneered his contempt and snatched his arm away and then kept on walking, with me walking after him like a supplicant lover. ‘Then you’re in the way, aren’t you?’ he said.
For a moment I thought about Von Gersdorff and Von Boeselager, Judge Goldsche and Von Dohnanyi, General von Tresckow and Lieutenant Colonel von Schlabrendorff. They might have been effete, even incompetent, but they were about the only opposition there was to Hitler and his gang. So long as these aristocrats were free there was every chance that they might make a successful attempt on the leader’s life. And if Himmler was presented with an excuse to interrogate Field Marshal von Kluge there was always the equal possibility that he might give up Von Gersdorff and the others just to get Himmler off his back.
And if Von Gersdorff was arrested, who might he eventually give up? Me, perhaps?
‘I mean it,’ I said. ‘I want your word that you’ll keep silent, otherwise – otherwise I’ll kill you myself. There’s too much at stake here. You can’t be allowed to risk the lives of some good men who have already tried to kill Hitler and who – God willing – may try to kill him again. That is if they’re allowed an opportunity.’
‘What men? I don’t believe you, Gunther.’
‘Men better placed than you and me to stand a chance of doing it, too. Men who are in and out of the Wolf’s Lair at Rastenburg, and the Werewolf HQ at Vinnitsa. Men from the High Command of the German army.’
‘Fuck you,’ said Quidde, and turned his back on me. ‘And fuck them, too. If they were any good they’d have done it by now.’
I shook my head in exasperation. There was an important decision to be made now and absolutely no time to think it through. That’s how it is with a lot of crime. It’s not that you mean to commit one, it’s just that you’ve run out of viable options. One minute you’ve got some stupid young fool snarling his contempt and telling you to go and fuck yourself and threatening to compromise the only extant source of viable conspiracy against Adolf Hitler, and the next you’ve pressed a Walther automatic against the back of his thick head and pulled the trigger and the young fool has collapsed on the wet ground with blood spraying out of his helmet like a new oil well and you’re already thinking how you can make his necessary but regrettable murder look like a suicide – so that maybe the Gestapo won’t hang another six innocent Russians in retaliation for the death of one German.
I glanced around the little park. The drunks were too soaked to notice or to care – it was hard to tell which. From his lofty stone pedestal Glinka had seen the whole damn thing, of course; and it was odd, but for the first time I realized that the way the sculptor had caught the composer he appeared to be listening to something. It was clever: it almost looked as if Glinka had heard the shot. Quickly I made my own pistol safe and pocketed it, then I took Corporal Quidde’s own identical Walther. I worked the slide to put one in the breech and fired another shot into the ground close by before placing the automatically cocked pistol carefully in his hand. I felt very little for the dead man – it’s hard to feel sorry for a fool – but I did feel half a pang of regret that I’d been forced to kill one damn fool for the sake of several others.
Then I picked up the second empty bullet casing and the dispatch case with the incriminating tape – leaving it there was not an option – and walked quickly away, hoping that no one would hear the sound of my loudly beating heart.
Later on it occurred to me that I had shot – or to be more exact, executed – Martin Quidde in the exact same way as the NKVD had murdered all those Polish officers. It’s fair to say that this gave me some cause for reflection. I also learned that the music on the fence around Glinka’s feet was from his opera A Life for the Tsar. That’s not a great title for an opera. But then A Life for a Group of Posh Traitors doesn’t have much of a ring to it either. And on the whole, I much prefer solving a murder to committing one.
*
After what had happened in Glinka Park I didn’t feel much like going to see Doctor Batov. I’m peculiar like that. When I kill a man in cold blood it unsettles me a little, and the good news I had to tell the doctor – that the ministry had approved his resettlement to Berlin – might have sounded rather less like good news than it ought to have done. Besides, I was half expecting Lieutenant Voss of the field police to come around to Krasny Bor and take me on in the role of a consulting detective just like before. That’s certainly what I wanted to happen. The fact of the matter is, I was hoping to steer his simple mind away from any wild theories he might have had about murder. I wasn’t back in my tiny little wooden bungalow for very long when true to form, he came calling.
There was something mutt-like about Voss. That might just have been the brightly polished metallic gorget he wore on a chain around his thick neck to show that he was on duty – this was the reason why most Fritzes referred to the field police as kennel hounds or attack dogs – but Voss had such a lugubriously handsome face it would have been easy to confuse him with the real thing. His earlobes were as long as his leather coat and his big brown eyes contained so much yellow that they resembled the distinctive field police badge he wore on his left arm. I’ve seen pure-bred bloodhounds that looked more human than Ludwig Voss. But he was no amateur soldier: the Eastern Front ribbon and infantry assault badge told a more heroic story than simple law enforcement. He’d seen a lot more action than manning the barrier on a turnpike.
‘A fire, a kettle, a comfy chair, it’s a nice place you have here, Captain Gunther,’ he said, glancing around my cosy room. He was so tall he’d had to stoop to come through the door.
‘It’s a bit Uncle Tom’s cabin,’ I said. ‘But it’s home. What can I do for you, lieutenant? I’d open a bottle of champagne in your honour but I think we drank the last fifty bottles last night.’
‘We’ve found another dead signaller,’ he said, brushing aside the wisecrack.
‘Oh, I see. This is becoming an epidemic,’ I said. ‘Was his throat cut, too?’
‘I don’t know yet. I just picked up the report on the radio. A couple of my men found the body in Glinka Park. I was hoping you might come and take a look at the scene with me. Just in case there’s some sort of pattern to all this.’
‘Pattern? That’s a word we cops only use back in civilization. You need sidewalks to see a pattern, Ludwig. There’s no pattern to anything out here. Haven’t you figured that out yet? In Smolensk everything is fucked up.’
How fucked up, I was only just beginning to understand, thanks to Martin Quidde and Friedrich Ribe.
‘It’s Corporal Quidde.’
‘Quidde? I was speaking to the poor man just the other day. All right. Let’s go and take a look at him.’
It felt curious to be standing over the dead body of a man I had murdered myself not two hours before. Investigating the death of my own victim wasn’t something I’d ever done – and would prefer never to do again – but there’s a first time for everything and the novelty of it helped sustain my interest long enough to inform Voss that to my rheumy but experienced eye, the deceased gave every appearance of having committed suicide.
‘The gun in his mitt looks ready to fire,’ I said. ‘Actually I’m surprised he’s still holding it at all. You’d think some Ivan would have pinched it. Anyway, after careful consideration of all the available facts that can be observed here, suicide would seem to be the most obvious explanation.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Voss. ‘Would you keep your tin helmet on if you were planning to shoot yourself?’
That ought to have given me pause, but it didn’t.
‘And would he have shot himself in the back of the head like that?’ continued Vo
ss. ‘I had the impression that most people who shoot themselves in the head put one through the side of the head.’
‘Which is exactly why a lot of people who do that, survive,’ I said, authoritatively. ‘Temple shots are like a sure thing at the races. Sometimes it just doesn’t finish. For future reference, if you want to do it, then shoot yourself in the back of the head. The same way those Ivans killed those Poles. Nobody ever survives a shot that goes through the occipital bone like this one has. It’s why they do it that way. Because they know what they’re doing.’
‘I can see how that works, yes. But is it even possible to do it in this way – to yourself, I mean?’
I took out my own Walther – the very gun that had killed Quidde – checked the safety, lifted my elbow and placed the muzzle of the automatic against the nape of my own neck. The demonstration was eloquent enough. It was easily possible.
‘There was no need even to remove his helmet,’ I said.
‘All right,’ said Voss. ‘Suicide. But I don’t have your Alexanderplatz experience and training.’
‘I never mind the obvious explanation. Sometimes it’s just too damned hard to be clever – clever enough to ignore what’s obvious. Well, I’m not sufficiently clever to offer an alternative in this case. It’s one thing shooting yourself in the head, it’s something else altogether to cut your own throat. Besides, this time we even have the weapon.’
Voss tugged off Quidde’s helmet to reveal a hole in the man’s forehead. ‘And it looks like we have the bullet, too,’ he said, inspecting the inside of the signaller’s tin hat. ‘You can see it embedded in the metal.’
‘So you can,’ I said. ‘For all the good it will do us out here in Smolensk.’