by Philip Kerr
FOURTEEN
April 1939
“Well, he certainly wasn’t much help,” objected Kaspel. “The long streak of piss.”
It was three thirty in the morning and we were in the Berchtesgaden hospital dispensary, going through Flex’s personal effects, which I’d already photographed, collectively, several times. Kaspel had compiled a list of the dead man’s possessions, which I now had in my hand.
“It’s cold fish like him that give the SS a bad name, right enough,” I said. “But as it happens, Dr. Brandt was a lot more help than you might think.”
“How? It was you who found the entry wound, wasn’t it?”
“Not for what he told us, but maybe for what he didn’t tell us. For example, Flex had a bad case of gonorrhea. Brandt didn’t mention that, although if it was obvious to me then it must have been obvious to him.”
“So that’s why you took a photograph of his cock. And I thought it was for your own personal smut collection.”
“You mean the pictures I keep of your wife and sister?”
“So you’re the Fritz who’s got them.”
“A bad dose of jelly would certainly explain the presence of a bottle of Protargol on the list of Flex’s personal effects. Except that there’s no Protargol here now. It would seem that someone’s already removed it. That and the Pervitin, which also appears on your list. On the other hand, the dead man’s money clip—rather a lot of money, several hundred marks, wasn’t it?—that’s still here. Along with all his other valuables.”
“Oh, yes. You’re right. The drugs are gone, aren’t they? Pity. I was going to have that Pervitin myself.”
“My guess is that Brandt removed them. Certainly he had more than enough opportunity while he was waiting for us to get here. Obviously he didn’t know that like any good copper, you’d already compiled this list.” I took one of Kaspel’s cigarettes and let him light me with Flex’s lighter. “Now, as far as the Protargol is concerned, it may just be that as Flex’s friend he wanted to spare him the embarrassment of us discovering the deceased was taking silver proteinate for a venereal disease. I suppose I can understand that. Just. I might do the same for someone I knew. If he was married, perhaps.”
“I can explain the meth,” offered Kaspel. “There used to be a plentiful supply of the magic potion here in Berchtesgaden. They used to give it to the local P&Z workers to help them meet their construction deadlines. But lately the supply seems to have dried up. At least for anyone who isn’t in a uniform. I’ve heard that right now there are lots of civilians in Berchtesgaden who are desperate for some magic potion. Like I said, Pervitin can be quite addictive.”
“So why has the supply dried up?”
“Unofficially the word around Hitler’s mountain is that they’re stockpiling the stuff for our armed forces, in case there’s a war. That the German military is going to need methamphetamine to stay awake long enough to beat the Poles. And presumably the Ivans when they come in on the Polack side.”
I nodded. “Then that would also explain the presence of Losantin and natron in this clinic.” I pointed these out on the shelves and, when Kaspel shrugged, I added: “Losantin is used to treat skin burns caused by poison gas. Natron is used to neutralize chlorine gas. At least it was when I was in the trenches. It looks like someone is preparing for the worst, even in Berchtesgaden.”
“I’ll tell you something else that’s missing,” said Kaspel. “At least according to the list I made yesterday morning with Major Högl. There was a little blue notebook and a small set of keys on a little gold chain that was around his neck. They’re gone, too.”
“Can you remember what was in the book?”
“Numbers. Just numbers.”
“So let’s see what’s left. Packet of Turkish 8—”
“Everyone in the Leader’s Territory smokes them. Me included.”
“A set of house keys, some loose change, a tortoiseshell comb, a pair of reading glasses, a leather wallet, civilian driving license, weapons permit, employment identification document, hunting permit, NSDAP Personal Identity Document, Aryan Family Tree Record, a Party badge, some business cards, a gold signet ring, a gold Imco lighter, a little gold hip flask, a gold wristwatch—this is a Jaeger-LeCoultre, which is really expensive—a pair of gold cuff links, gold Pelikan fountain pen—”
“Karl Flex liked his gold, didn’t he? Even the money clip is eighteen carat.” Kaspel unscrewed the top of the hip flask and sniffed the contents.
“And then there’s this Ortgies .32 automatic,” I said. “Where was he keeping this, anyway? Under his waistband? In his sock? Around his neck on a gold chain?”
“It was in his jacket pocket,” said Kaspel.
I tugged out the magazine and inspected it. “Loaded, too. It would seem that our tall friend may have been expecting some trouble after all. You wouldn’t carry this little hedge trimmer unless you thought you might actually need it.”
“Especially up here. If he’d been found carrying that at the Berghof he’d have been arrested, even with the civilian permit. Bormann’s orders. Only the RSD are allowed to carry weapons in the Leader’s Territory. And never inside the Berghof or the Kehlstein, where the only person allowed to carry a gun is Bormann himself. Check it out if you want. There’s always a lump in the right-hand pocket of his jacket.”
I pointed at the hip flask. “What’s the poison?”
Kaspel took a bite from the hip flask and nodded his smiling appreciation. “That’s the good stuff. Same as Bormann drinks.”
I took a bite myself and then a deep breath. Grassl has that effect on you. On top of the methamphetamine it felt like a dose of electric current running down my insides. “I do love a job that lets me drink the best schnapps when I’m on duty.”
Kaspel laughed and pocketed the hip flask. “I think we’d better make sure this doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”
“A Hermann Scherrer suit, Lingel shoes, cashmere socks, silk underwear, a plutocrat’s watch, and more gold than King Solomon’s temple—he lived well, didn’t he? For a civil engineer.” I shrugged. “What does a civil engineer do, anyway?”
“He does very well, that’s what he does.” Kaspel pulled a face. “At least until he gets shot in the back of the head. That’s right, isn’t it? He was shot in the back of the head, not the front like everyone thought before. Which means the shooter could have been in the woods at the back of the Berghof, like everyone thought.” He shook his head. “Beats me how we didn’t find anything.”
“You were there? In the woods?”
“I commanded the search detail. You wouldn’t get Rattenhuber or Högl getting their boots dirty. No, that was me and my men.”
“I’m going back there. Now that I’ve seen the body I want to read all the witness statements in my new office—supposing that I do have an office—and then take a closer look at that terrace.”
“I don’t know what you expect to find. But I’ll come with you.”
“Don’t you want to go home, Kaspel? It’s three thirty in the morning.”
“I do. But I’m flying now, since I snorted the magic potion. Like I was in an Me 109. It’ll be ages before I can even close my eyelids, let alone get some sleep. Besides, we’re Bolle boys, right? From Pankow. We keep going until one of us collapses or gets thrown in jail. That’s the way this thing works now. I’ll drive you back up the mountain to the Berghof and along the way I’ll give you a few hard lumps of truth about this place.”
FIFTEEN
April 1939
It had stopped snowing and the night felt as if it were holding its breath. My own billowed in front of my face like a cloud over one of the mountaintops. Even at night it was a beautiful, magical place but as with all stories involving magic in Germany, there was always a sense that my lungs and liver were already on someone’s menu—that behind the lace curtains of
one of these quaint little wooden houses, a local huntsman was sharpening his ax and preparing to carry out his orders to have me quietly killed. I shivered and, still holding the Leica, I pulled the collar of my coat up and wished that I’d also asked for a pair of warm gloves. I decided to add gloves to my list of requirements. Bormann—the Lord of the Obersalzberg, as Kaspel had called him—seemed willing to let me have almost everything else. Kaspel opened the car door for me politely, his attitude now entirely different from that of the man I’d met an hour or two before. It was already clear that he’d changed a lot since leaving the Berlin police. The Nazis could do that to a man, even if he was Nazi. I was almost starting to like him.
“What’s he like, Heydrich?” he asked.
“Haven’t you met him?”
“Briefly. But I don’t know him. I report direct to Neumann.”
“I’ve met the general several times. He’s smart and he’s dangerous, that’s what he’s like. I work for him because I have to. I think even Himmler’s afraid of him. I know I am. That is why I’m still alive.”
“It’s the same all over. If anything, it’s worse here than in Berlin.”
“So tell me how that works.”
He winced. “Hmm. I don’t know, Gunther. Bolle boys from Pankow and all that, yes. And I want to help you and the general. But I think we both know that there are things of which we cannot and should not speak. That’s why I’m alive, too. It’s not just P&Z workers who can end up having an accident. And if that doesn’t work, Dachau concentration camp is less than two hundred kilometers from here.”
“I’m glad you mentioned Dachau, Hermann. Three years ago Heydrich sent me there to look for a man who was a convict, a fellow named Kurt Mutschmann, which meant I had to pose as a camp inmate myself. But after several weeks the pose felt real enough. I was only able to get out of there by finding Mutschmann, and not until. Heydrich thought it was all very amusing. But I didn’t. Look, I think you know I’m no Nazi. I’m useful to him because I don’t put politics before common sense, that’s all. Because I’m good at what I do, although I wish I wasn’t.”
“All right. That’s fair enough.” Kaspel started the car. “So, then. This is not the harmonious rural idyll that Martin Bormann has described to you, Gunther. Nor is the Leader popular here, in spite of all those flags and Nazi wall murals. Far from it. The whole of Hitler’s mountain is riddled with disused tunnels and old salt mines. That’s where the mountain gets its name, of course. From the salt. But the local geology provides a very good metaphor for how things are in Obersalzberg and Berchtesgaden. Nothing is what it looks like on the surface. Nothing. And underneath—well, there’s nothing sweet going on here.”
Hermann Kaspel steered across the river and drove us back up the mountain to the Berghof. It was a winding road but in the moonlight we soon encountered a construction crew engaged in widening it to make things easier for anyone coming to see Hitler. Most of them were wearing traditional Tyrolean hats and thick jackets and one or two of them even gave the Hitler salute as we drove by, which Kaspel returned, but their expressions were churlish and wary.
“In the summer there are as many as three or four thousand workers like those around here,” explained Kaspel. “But right now there are probably only about half that number. Most of them are accommodated in local work camps at Alpenglühen, Teugelbrunn, and Remerfeld. Only, don’t make the mistake of thinking these men are forced into the work. Believe me, they’re not. It’s true that in the beginning the Austrian employment offices were ordered to refer all available workers to this site. The men they sent were wholly unsuitable to work in the Alps—hotel clerks, hairdressers, artists—and lots of them got sick, so now it’s just local Bavarians who are used, men with experience of working in the mountains. Even so, we’ve had a lot of trouble at the work camps. Drinking, drugs, gambling. Fights about money. The local SS has its work cut out keeping order with some of these fellows. Still, there is no problem getting workmen. These Obersalzberg Administration workers are all very well paid. In fact, they’re on triple time. And that’s not the only attraction. Construction work in this area has been declared by Bormann to be a reserved occupation. In other words, if you work on Hitler’s mountain, you won’t have to serve in the armed forces. That’s especially attractive right now, given that everyone thinks there’s going to be another war. So you can imagine there’s no shortage of volunteers. In spite of all that, the construction work up here is very dangerous. Even in the summer. Explosions—like the one you heard earlier—are often used to create tunnels through mountains and there have been lots of accidents. Fatal accidents. Men buried alive. Men who fall off mountaintops. Only three days ago there was a big avalanche that killed several men. Then there are the constant delays caused by Hitler’s regular presence in the area—he likes to sleep late and doesn’t care for the sound of construction work. That means the work, when it does take place, has, of necessity, been around the clock. God knows how many men were killed building that fucking tea house on the Kehlstein; considerable risks were taken to get it ready in time for his fiftieth birthday. So there are a lot more widows around here than there need have been. That’s caused a lot of resentment in Berchtesgaden and the surrounding area. Anyway, Flex worked for P&Z. And just to work for that company around here might provide someone with a pretty good motive for murder.
“But here’s another. Nearly all of the houses and farms you see up on the mountain have been the subject of government compulsory purchase orders. Göring’s house. His adjutant’s house. Bormann’s house. The Türken Inn. Speer’s house. Bormann’s farm. You name it. In 1933 all of the houses on the mountain were in private hands. Today there’s hardly one that isn’t owned by the German government. It’s what you might call real estate fascism and it works like this. Someone in the government now favored by Hitler or Bormann needs a nice house to be near to the Leader. So Bormann offers to buy such a house from its Bavarian owner; and you might imagine, with so few houses left in private hands, that it’s a seller’s market and a high price for such a house could be obtained. Not a bit of it. Bormann always offers well below the market rate, and God forbid you should ever refuse his first offer, but if you do, here’s what happens. The SS turn up out of the blue, block off your drive, and remove your roof. That is not an exaggeration. And if you still won’t sell to the government, then you might easily find yourself sent to Dachau on some trumped-up charge, at least until you change your mind.
“Take the Villa Bechstein, where you’re staying, Gunther. It was formerly owned by a woman who was a keen supporter of Hitler. She gave him a new car when he came out of Landsberg Prison, not to mention a nice new piano for his house, and probably quite a bit of money on top. But none of this mattered when the Lord of Obersalzberg decided he wanted her house for Nazi VIPs. She was obliged to sell just like everyone else. And for a knocked-down price. That’s how Hitler rewards his friends. It’s a similar story for the Türken Inn. The fact is, the town of Berchtesgaden is full of small houses occupied by local Bavarians who used to own bigger houses on Hitler’s mountain. And all of those people hate Martin Bormann’s guts. In an effort to distance himself from this ill feeling, Bormann sometimes uses a man called Bruno Schenk to deliver his compulsory purchase orders. Or more often Bruno Schenk’s man Karl Flex. You want a motive for murder? There’s another one for you. An excellent one. Bruno Schenk and Karl Flex were two of the most hated men in the area. If anyone deserved a bullet in the head it was them, or Bormann’s adjutant, Wilhelm Zander, whom you’ve already met at the Kehlstein. Which means you’re going to have a hell of a problem solving this case without stepping on Martin Bormann’s corns. It’s my private opinion that the corruption here goes even deeper than that. Perhaps all the way through the mountain, if you see what I mean. Maybe as far as Hitler himself. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Leader is getting his ten percent of everything, because Bormann certainly does. Even from the Türk
en shop where the SS buy their smokes and their postcards. Seriously. Bormann always takes his lead from Hitler and my guess is that it was Hitler put him up to this little moneymaking game.
“But that’s not just idle speculation. Let me tell you a little-known story about the house that Hitler bought. The Haus Wachenfeld. Now called the Berghof, on which many more millions have been spent. Of course, he’s been coming here since 1923, after the putsch, when he couldn’t afford to do much more than rent a room at the Haus Wachenfeld. But in 1928, as his situation started to improve, he was able to rent the whole house from the owner—a widow in Hamburg by the name of Margarete Winter. By 1932, Hitler was rich from the sale of his book, and so he decided to make the widow an offer to buy the place. Because she was living in Hamburg there was very little pressure he could apply to make her sell and, by all accounts, she didn’t want to sell. But she was short of cash. Her husband had lost most of his money in the crash of ’29, and they’d been obliged to sell his leather factory. Some local Jews bought it for a knockdown price. The widow hated those Jews even more than she disliked the idea of Hitler forcing her out of her house in Obersalzberg. So she offered him a deal. She’d sell the house to Hitler for 175,000 reichsmarks if he also did her a favor. The very next day, that same leather factory was struck by lightning and it burned to the ground, although it seems much more likely that it wasn’t Mother Nature who destroyed it but some local SA men. On Hitler’s personal orders. That’s a true story, Gunther. So you see, Hitler always gets what he wants, by hook or by crook. And Martin Bormann does much the same.”
“So if I understand you correctly, Hermann, half of the people I speak to are going to tell me nothing because they’re afraid of Bormann. And the other half aren’t going to tell me anything because they’re hoping the murderer is going to get away with it. Because they think that Karl Flex had it coming. In spades.”