‘And that’s possibly the reason Major Thummel is suspected of being the traitor X. He was in charge of the Abwehr section that was supposed to have investigated von Neurath. He may be a friend of Heinrich Himmler and he may wear a gold Party badge, but he’s also a close friend of the Abwehr’s boss, Admiral Canaris, who is Himmler’s most bitter rival. Heydrich’s too.
‘Let’s see now. Who else was on that list? Brigadier Voss? He commands the SS Officer School at Beneschau. Until 1938, he was in charge of the officers’ training school at Bad Tolz where there’s a powerful radio transmitter. When officers from that school were mobilized for the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938, someone tipped off the Czech Intelligence Service about it. Voss was one of only a handful of people who knew the invasion was about to happen. He’s also a keen amateur radio enthusiast. Who better to broadcast secrets to the Czechos? He even speaks the language.
‘Walter Jacobi was dismissed from the SD in 1937 by his then boss, General Werner Lorenz. I’m afraid I don’t know why. In the spring of 1938, he took a holiday in Marienbad, in the Sudetenland. Coincidentally perhaps, or perhaps not, one of the other guests taking the cure at the Spa was a retired British naval commander who is currently believed to be the head of an operational Czech section within the British SIS. After his holiday, Jacobi rejoined the SD.’
‘Guilt by association.’
‘Possibly.’
Kahlo nodded.
‘Henlein – well, you heard what I said to him. And Fleischer’s been under suspicion for a while now because of his failure to arrest the third of the Three Kings. You probably know as much about that as I do. It’s common knowledge that the Czechos were making a fool of him for a while. The rest of the cauliflower, I really don’t remember or I don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine.’
‘I doubt that very much,’ I said. ‘And by the way, what happened to “I’m keen to learn” and “You have my full cooperation” and “It’s a puzzle, sir”?’
‘You don’t think it’s a puzzle?’
‘Of course it is. I just don’t much like the fact you’ve had one of the pieces in your trouser pocket all along.’
‘And I don’t suppose you’ve ever kept your mouth shut about something?’ Kahlo shook his head. ‘Come on, sir. We both know that saying one thing and thinking another is what this job is all about. Tell me it’s not like that for you. Go on.’
I found myself silent.
‘Tell me that you’ve told
Still I didn’t answer. How could I when Arianne was back at the hotel? If I’d told him less than half of what I knew about Arianne Tauber there was no telling what might happen to her.
Kahlo grinned. ‘No, I thought not. You see, when it comes right down to it, Commissar, I reckon your piss is just as yellow as mine.’
I sighed and fetched myself a brandy from the decanter. Suddenly I felt very tired and I knew the brandy wasn’t going to help.
‘Maybe you’re right.’
‘Look, sir. You want to know what I think? I think we should go through the motions of trying to find Kuttner’s killer, just like you were told to do. We ask the right questions, we do our duty, right? Like regular cops. That’s all we can do and it’s pointless thinking we can do any more than that. But when it comes right down to it, what does it fucking matter, eh? You tell me. Who cares who killed the bastard? Not me, not you. From what I heard, he did his own fair share of murder out east. And the chances are he had it coming. Probably we all do. But what’s one more murder, eh? One tiny drop in a very tall glass of beer, that’s what it is. Take my advice, sir. Don’t sweat it. Enjoy the free forage and the booze and the cigarettes. For as long as we can, eh?’
‘Maybe.’
‘That’s the spirit, sir. And who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky. Even a blind chicken finds the corn now and again.’
I needed a walk and some fresh air after all that information, although it might have been the brandy and the Mish-Mash. I went around the house to the little Winter Garden that Kuttner’s room looked out on. Inside the glass house was a fountain shaped like a shrine with a water nymph’s head spouting water and above him a bronze statue of a centaur with a winged cherub on his back. On either side of the fountain was a veritable jungle of sago palms and geraniums. It seemed an odd place to find a centaur, or a cherub, but I wasn’t surprised at anything any more. The water nymph could have told me my fortune lay in farming guinea pigs and I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid. Anything looked like a better bet than being a detective in Jungfern-Breschan.
