A ladder lay on the ground, and assuming that this was probably the one Kritzinger had ordered Fendler, the footman, to fetch around to Captain Kuttner’s window, I spent the next ten minutes propping it up against the wall of the house. Then I climbed up to take a look at the window ledge. But that told me only that the glass roof needed cleaning, that the sun was still strong for the first week in October, and that I was not at all certain to kill myself cleanly if I threw myself from the top. I descended the ladder and found one of the footmen waiting at the bottom.
‘Fendler, sir,’ he said, unprompted. ‘Herr Kritzinger saw you were out here and sent me to see if I could be of any assistance, sir.’
He was not far off being two metres tall. He wore a white mess jacket with SS collar patches, a white shirt, a black tie, black trousers, a white apron, and grey over-sleeves, as if he might have been cleaning something before receiving his order from the butler to wait on me. He was lumpish in appearance, with an expression that suggested he was none too bright, but I’d gladly have changed places with him. Polishing silver or removing the ash from a fireplace looked like more rewarding work than the domestic task I had been set.
‘You’re the one who Kritzinger told to fetch the ladder to look in Captain Kuttner’s window, are you not?’
‘That’s right, sir.’
‘And what did you see, when eventually you got up there? By the way, what time was that, do you think?’
‘About a quarter past seven, sir.’
I tugged my shirt off the sweat on my chest.
‘I was about to ask you why it took so long to fetch a ladder and prop it up against the window, but I think I know the answer to that already. It’s heavy.’
‘Yes sir. But it wasn’t in the Winter Garden like it is now, sir.’
‘That’s right. It was locked up, wasn’t it?’
‘Bruno, the gardener – Bruno Kopkow – he helped me carry it around here and prop it up.’
‘How did you know which window to choose?’
‘Kritzinger told me it was the room overlooking the Winter Garden, sir. And to be careful I didn’t drop it on the glass roof, sir.’
‘So, you prop the ladder up against the window. Then what? Tell me everything you saw and did.’
Fendler shrugged. ‘We – Kopkow and I – we heard a loud bang, sir, and then just as I was stepping on the lowest rung, sir, General Heydrich looks out of the window, and seeing me and Bruno tells us that there’s no need to bother coming up now as they had just broken down the Captain’s bedroom door.’
‘And what did you say? If anything?’
‘I asked him if everything was all right and he said that it wasn’t, because it looked as if Captain Kuttner had probably killed himself with an overdose.’
‘Then what did you do?’
‘We took the ladder down and left it where you found it, sir, just in case anyone decided they needed it again.’
‘How did he seem? The General.’
‘A bit upset, I suppose. Like you would be, sir. He and the Captain were friends, I believe.’ The footman paused. ‘I knew he must be upset because he was smoking a cigarette. Usually the General doesn’t smoke at all in the morning and never before he fences, sir. Mostly he only smokes in the evening. He’s very disciplined that way, sir.’
I glanced up at the window of Kuttner’s room and nodded. ‘I don’t doubt it.’
‘Will there be anything else, sir?’
‘No. That’s all, thank you.’
I went back to the Morning Room. Kahlo was waiting for me.
‘Police Commissar Trott telephoned while you were out, sir. From the Alex. He said to tell you that he went to see Lothar Ott at Captain Kuttner’s apartment in Petalozzi Strasse and told him that the Captain was dead. Apparently Ott wept like a baby. The Commissar’s exact words. That would seem to confirm it, wouldn’t you say? That the Captain was warm?’
I nodded. It only confirmed what I already knew.
‘Who’d have thought it?’ said Kahlo. ‘I mean, the fellow seemed quite normal in a lot of ways. Like you or me, really.’
‘I guess that’s the point. That maybe they are just like you or me.’
‘Speak for yourself, sir.’
‘I used to think like you. But the Nazis have taught me to think differently. I’ll say that for them. These days I say live and let live, and if we can learn to do that, then maybe we can behave like a civilized country again. But I suspect it’s already too late for that.’
I glanced at my wristwatch. A cheap Bulova, it had two ways to remind me that we had an autopsy to view at the Bulovka Hospital at four and that only one of them was the time.
‘Come on,’ I said to Kahlo. ‘We’d better get going. You’re about to discover just how like you and me Albert Kuttner really was.’
Sergeant Klein had returned from Hradschin Palace in Prague to drive us out to the hospital. He’d read the Leader’s Sports Palast speech in the morning newspaper and, instead of depressing him, Hitler’s ‘facts and figures’ had left him feeling optimistic about our prospects in the East.
