‘Two and a half million Russian prisoners,’ he said. ‘No country could ever recover from losing that many men. If that was all, it would be enough; but as well, fourteen thousand Russian planes have been shot down and eighteen thousand of their tanks destroyed. It’s hard to imagine.’
‘And yet the Leader still believes we have a fight on our hands,’ I remarked.
‘Because he’s wise,’ insisted Klein. ‘He’s saying that so as not to raise our hopes in case the impossible should happen. But it’s obvious, the Ivans are as good as beaten, that’s what I think.’
‘Let’s hope you’re right,’ said Kahlo.
‘I hate to think what we’re going to do with two and a half million Russian prisoners if he’s wrong,’ I said. ‘If it comes to that I hate to think what we’re going to do with them if he’s right.’
I paused for a moment before adding what was sometimes called ‘the political postscript’ – something that was usually said for the purposes of self-preservation.
‘Not that I expect him to be wrong, of course. And I don’t doubt that the Leader will be delivering a victory speech in Moscow before very long.’
Then I bit off the end of my tongue and spat it onto the road, only I did it subtly so that Klein didn’t notice.
Set on a hill overlooking the north-east of the city, Bulovka Hospital was a four- or five-storey building made of beige-coloured stone with a red mansard roof and a greenish little bell-tower that stuck up in the air like an infected finger. Built before the Great War, the hospital was surrounded with lush gardens where recuperating patients could sit on wooden benches, enjoy the many blooms in the flower beds and generally appreciate the democratic ideals of the sovereign state of Czechoslovakia; at least they could have done when there had still been a sovereign state of Czechoslovakia. Like every other public building in Prague the hospital was now flying the flag of the least democratic European state since Vlad the Third impaled his first Wallachian Boyar.
Klein drew up in front of the entrance. Two men wearing surgical gowns were already waiting for us, which only seemed excessively servile until you remembered Heydrich’s reputation for obsessive punctuality and ruthless cruelty. One of the men was Honek, the Czech doctor who had attended the crime scene at the Lower Castle earlier that day. He introduced the other man, a handsome German-Czech in his early forties.
‘This is Professor Herwig Hamperl,’ said Honek, ‘who is most distinguished in the field of forensic medicine. He has kindly agreed to take charge of this autopsy.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ I said.
Swiftly, as if he wanted us to be gone and out of his hair as quickly as possible, Hamperl muttered a curt ‘good afternoon’ and led the way upstairs and along a wide bright corridor with walls that showed the grimy blank squares where signs and posters written in Czech had been displayed until German became the official language of Bohemia. Hamperl might have been a German Czech, but I soon discovered he was no Nazi.
‘Has either of you two gentlemen attended an autopsy before?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Many.’
‘This is my first,’ said Kahlo.
‘And you’re feeling nervous about it, perhaps?’
‘A little.’
‘Being dead is like being a whore,’ said Hamperl. ‘You spend most of your time on your back while someone else – in this case, me – gets on with the business in hand. The procedure can seem embarrassing, sometimes even a little preposterous, but it is never disgusting. My advice to anyone who hasn’t witnessed an autopsy before is to try to see only the lighter side of things. If it starts to seem disgusting then that’s the cue to leave the room before an accident occurs. The smell of a dead body is usually quite bad enough without the smell of vomit to cope with. Is that clear?’
‘Yes sir.’
Hamperl unlocked a wooden door with smoked windows and led us into an autopsy suite where a stout-looking body lay under a sheet on a slab. As Hamperl started to draw back the sheet to reveal Kuttner’s head and shoulders I saw Kahlo’s eyes widen.
‘Jesus,’ he muttered. ‘I don’t remember his stomach being that big.’
Hamperl paused.
‘I can assure you it’s not big with fat,’ he said. ‘The man might be dead but the enzymes and bacteria in his belly are still very much alive and feeding on whatever still remains in his stomach. Probably last night’s dinner. In the process, these enzymes and bacteria produce gas. Here, let me demonstrate.’
Hamperl pressed hard on the sheet still covering Kuttner’s stomach which caused the body to fart, loudly.
‘See what I mean?’
