‘People do love a good mystery, don’t they? You included, General. Perhaps you more than most. On your bookshelves I found a well-read copy of a detective novel by that writer you mentioned to me when I arrived here: Agatha Christie. It’s a novel called
‘But my neck and my head hurt and I just can’t figure out why. Why would you murder your mother’s favourite piano pupil? It couldn’t be that, could it? Jealousy? No, not you. That would be much too human of you, General Heydrich, sir. No, there has to be some other reason. Something much more important than personal revenge.’
I paused and lit another cigarette.
‘Well, don’t stop there,’ said Heydrich. ‘You’re doing so well and I have to confess I’m actually quite impressed. This is more than I had expected of you, Gunther.’ He nodded firmly. ‘Keep going. I insist.’
‘For old time’s sake, you’d rescued Albert Kuttner’s career. That was oddly sentimental of you. And quite out of character, if you don’t mind me saying so, sir. Or perhaps you did it at someone else’s request. Kuttner’s father. Your mother, perhaps.’
‘You’d best leave my mother out of this, Gunther, if you don’t mind.’
‘Gladly. You’d rescued Albert Kuttner’s career only to discover that, as you told me yourself, he was a disappointment. More than just a disappointment, he’d become something of a nuisance, even an embarrassment. Kuttner was insubordinate. For example, there was that scene at the Officers’ Training School with Colonel Jacobi. And what was worse, you had found out he was quite possibly homosexual, too. After what happened to Ernst Röhm and some of his warmer friends in the SA, that was too much. Did you worry that you might be tainted with an association like that? I wonder. In Germany it’s one thing to be suspected of being a Jew, as you are, and quite another to be suspected of being soft on homosexuals. Even then, however, you could have sent Kuttner quietly back to Berlin. To one of those nice private clinics in Wannsee where top Nazis go to dry out or be weaned off drugs. Some of them even claim they can cure you of homosexuality. So you must have had an important reason to murder him in cold blood like that. There must have been some sort of gain in it for you. But what?’
‘Excellent. You’re almost there.’
Heydrich lit a cigarette and looked very amused, as if I was telling him a very funny story. It made me suspect that he had a better punch-line than the one I had written myself. But I was in too far now to stop.
‘Everything you do has a reason, doesn’t it, General? Whether it’s murdering Jews or murdering your own adjutant.’
Heydrich shook his head. ‘Don’t get sidetracked,’ he said. ‘Keep to the point.’
‘But why have me investigate the murder? At first I assumed it was because you thought I wasn’t up to the job; that you wanted me to screw up; but that was too obvious. You could have picked anyone for the job. Willy Abendschoen from the local Kripo is a good man, I hear. Clever. Efficient. Or you could have picked someone more pliable than either of us. Unless of course that was exactly what you wanted. Someone who doesn’t care about his future in the SD. Someone who is just pig-headed enough to ask the difficult questions that the cauliflowers might not care to answer. Someone for whom advancement and promotion is not an issue. Me. Yes, that must be it. You picked me to handle the investigation of Kuttner’s murder because you really wanted me to search for your spy. You used the murder of Kuttner as a pretext for a secret spy hunt.’
‘Now you’re on to it,’ said Heydrich.
‘You couldn’t risk some flat-footed idiot questioning all of your spy suspects about being the traitor X, or A54, or whatever he’s called; not without putting them on their guard. But if I questioned them all about something else, something serious that necessitated their being detained here, then all of them might relax, more or less, since each knew he was innocent of murder. And of course my conversations with them were being recorded, transcribed, picked over by your own SD analysts for something small, an inconsistency, perhaps. A clue. Real evidence. You didn’t know exactly what it was, but you thought you would recognize it when you saw it. And you’re right. That’s all a clue really is. I have to hand it you, sir; it’s clever. Utterly ruthless, but clever.’
Heydrich clapped his hands three times. To me it sounded almost ironic, but there was it seemed some genuine appreciation in his congratulations.
