‘Corporal, did you know that you’re obstructing a police officer in the execution of his duty? I have no intention of leaving until I have a full explanation of what’s going on in here.’
By now voices were raised, my own included, and there had been a certain amount of chest-on-chest pushing and shoving. I was angrier at myself than at the corporal – frustrated at having missed finding the loose floorboards before and now irritated to discover what looked to me like a listening post for eavesdropping on the house guests – only the corporal didn’t know that, and when someone appeared behind me in the door I had just come through and I turned around to see who this was, the corporal hit me. Hard.
I didn’t blame him. I didn’t blame anyone. Like raising your voice and arguing and pointing, blaming people is not something you can do when you’re heading down through the black hole that suddenly appears underneath your shoes. Doctor Freud didn’t give it a name and, strictly speaking, you only know what being unconscious really means if a thug with a hardwood fist like a Zulu’s knobkerrie has used this same lethal object to hit you expertly on the back of the neck, as if trying to kill a large and argumentative and rather gullible rabbit. No, wait, I did blame someone. I blamed myself. I blamed myself for not listening to the eavesdropping SS corporal in the first place. I blamed myself for missing the trick with the floorboards in Kuttner’s bedroom. I blamed myself for taking Heydrich at his word and thinking I really did have the run of the house to pursue my investigation. But mostly I just blamed myself for thinking it was even possible to behave like a real detective in a world that was owned and run by criminals.
I don’t suppose I was unconscious for longer than a couple of minutes. When I came to I could have wished it had been a lot longer. Another thing you can’t do when you’re unconscious is feel sick or have a splitting headache or wonder if you should dare to move your legs in case your neck really is broken. Ignoring the severe pain of opening my eyelids I opened my eyelids, and found myself staring down the blunderbuss-barrel of a large brandy balloon. It was a big improvement on a real blunderbuss, or the pistol that these circumstances usually produce. I took a deep, heady breath of the stuff and let it toast my adenoids for a moment before taking the glass from the hand that was holding it in front of me and then pouring all of the contents carefully – tipping my head meant moving my neck – down my throat.
I handed the glass back and found it was Kritzinger who took it from me.
I was in a neat little sitting room with a window onto the basement corridor, a small desk, a couple of easy chairs, a safe, and the chaise-longue I was lying on.
‘Where am I?’
‘This is my office, sir,’ said Kritzinger.
Behind him were two SS men, one of whom was the corporal who had argued with me a few minutes before. The other was Major Ploetz.
‘Who hit me?’
‘I did, sir,’ said the corporal.
‘What were you trying to do? Make a bell ring?’
‘Sorry about that, sir.’
‘No, don’t apologize. Kritzinger?’
‘Sir?’
‘Give this boy a piece of sugarloaf. I reckon he won it fair and square. The last time I got hit like that I was wearing a pointy hat and sitting in a trench.’
‘If only you’d listened to me, sir,’ said the corporal.
‘It looked to me as if that’s exactly what you’ve been doing.’ I rubbed the back of my neck and groaned. ‘To me and everyone else in this house.’
‘Orders are orders, sir.’
Ploetz put his hand on my shoulder. ‘How are you feeling, Captain?’ He sounded oddly solicitous, as if he really did care.
‘Really, sir,’ insisted the corporal. ‘If I’d known it was you, sir—’
‘It’s all right, Corporal,’ Ploetz said smoothly. ‘I’ll handle things from here.’
‘Sure, doc, sure,’ I said. ‘You can pretend there’s a perfectly innocent explanation for all that recording equipment and while you’re at it, I’ll pretend I’m a proper detective. Right now the only thing I am absolutely certain of is the quality of that brandy. Better pour me another, Kritzinger. I pretend better when I’ve had a drink.’
‘Don’t give him any,’ Ploetz told Kritzinger. And then: ‘Your tongue is quite loose enough as it is, Gunther. We wouldn’t want you to say something to your own detriment. Especially not now you’re in the General’s good books.’
I ignored this. It didn’t sound right. Clearly the blow on the back of my neck had affected my hearing.
