‘Well, that’s a hell of a story,’ I said.
‘It’s true. It’s all on the tape.’
‘Oh, I don’t doubt it. Nor do I doubt the fact that I may never sleep again. I like a scary story now and then. I even liked Nosferatu when it was in the cinema. But your little tale is too scary even for me. What the hell do you expect me to do with this, corporal? I’m a cop, not fucking Lohengrin. And if I want to commit suicide I’ll take a nice little holiday in Solingen before I jump off the Müngsten bridge.’
‘I thought, maybe, you might get a starting handle on the case,’ said Quidde. ‘Those men were murdered after all. What’s the point in having a war-crimes bureau and a field police if you don’t investigate real crimes?’
I handed back the dispatch case.
‘Do you need me to draw you an Euler diagram? The Nazis are in charge of Germany. They kill people who get in their way. The bureau is just window dressing, corporal. And the field police are there to handle the rank and file when they’ve been on the beer – even sometimes when they’ve raped and murdered a couple of Russian girls. But not this. Never this. What you’ve just told me is the best reason I’ve heard so far for me to drop the case altogether. And so, there is no case. Not any more. Not as far as I‘m concerned. In fact, I may never ask another awkward question in this freezing cold, fucked-up Ivan city again.’
‘Then I’ll speak to someone else.’
‘There is no one else.’
‘Listen, two friends and comrades of mine were murdered in cold blood. Their throats were cut like farmyard animals. Whatever they did there was no excuse for that. Friedrich Ribe made a mistake. He should have been subject to military discipline. Even a court martial. But not cold-blooded murder. So maybe I’ll take this somewhere else.’
‘There is nowhere else, you idiot.’
‘To the High Command, in Berlin. To Reichsführer Himmler, perhaps. Think about it. This tape is the evidence that could finish Hitler. When people hear what kind of man is leading them, they won’t want to be led by him. Yes, Himmler might be just the man.’
‘Himmler?’ I laughed. ‘Don’t you get it, bird-brain? No one is going to touch this thing with a bargepole. They’ll sweep this shit into the nearest mousehole and you with it. Not only will you be condemning yourself to a concentration camp, very likely you’ll also be exposing all sorts of other people to danger. Better men than you, perhaps. Suppose Himmler questions Von Kluge. What then? Maybe Von Kluge will think to save his skin by dropping someone else in the crap. Have you thought about that?’
I was thinking of Von Gersdorff’s aristocratic little group of conspirators.
‘Then perhaps the underground movement will be interested in publishing this,’ said Quidde. ‘I heard about this group of people in Munich who’ve been publishing leaflets against the Nazis. Some students. Maybe they could do a leaflet with a transcript of this tape.’
‘For a man who was wise enough to be scared stiff about all this ten minutes ago, you’re showing a remarkably stupid lack of concern for your welfare now. The group of people you were talking about are already dead. They were arrested and executed in February.’
‘Who said I was scared stiff? And who said I care anything about my own welfare? Look, sir, I believe in the future of Germany. And Germany won’t have any kind of future unless someone does something with this tape.’
‘I want a future for Germany just like you do, corporal, but I promise you, this isn’t the way to bring that about.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ said Quidde. He replaced his helmet on his head, tucked the dispatch case under his arm and started to walk away.
I took his arm. ‘No, that’s not good enough,’ I said. ‘I want your word you’ll keep your mouth shut about this. That you’ll destroy that tape.’
‘Are you kidding?’
‘No, I’m not. I’m perfectly serious, corporal. This has gone way beyond a joke, I’m afraid. You’re behaving like a fool. Look, if you’ll only listen to me. Maybe there is someone who would listen to the tape, a colonel in the Abwehr I know, but honestly I don’t think it’s going to make much difference in the short term.’
Quidde sneered his contempt and snatched his arm away and then kept on walking, with me walking after him like a supplicant lover. ‘Then you’re in the way, aren’t you?’ he said.
For a moment I thought about Von Gersdorff and Von Boeselager, Judge Goldsche and Von Dohnanyi, General von Tresckow and Lieutenant Colonel von Schlabrendorff. They might have been effete, even incompetent, but they were about the only opposition there was to Hitler and his gang. So long as these aristocrats were free there was every chance that they might make a successful attempt on the leader’s life. And if Himmler was presented with an excuse to interrogate Field Marshal von Kluge there was always the equal possibility that he might give up Von Gersdorff and the others just to get Himmler off his back.
And if Von Gersdorff was arrested, who might he eventually give up? Me, perhaps?
‘I mean it,’ I said. ‘I want your word that you’ll keep silent, otherwise – otherwise I’ll kill you myself. There’s too much at stake here. You can’t be allowed to risk the lives of some good men who have already tried to kill Hitler and who – God willing – may try to kill him again. That is if they’re allowed an opportunity.’
‘What men? I don’t believe you, Gunther.’
‘Men better placed than you and me to stand a chance of doing it, too. Men who are in and out of the Wolf’s Lair at Rastenburg, and the Werewolf HQ at Vinnitsa. Men from the High Command of the German army.’
‘Fuck you,’ said Quidde, and turned his back on me. ‘And fuck them, too. If they were any good they’d have done it by now.’
I shook my head in exasperation. There was an important decision to be made now and absolutely no time to think it through. That’s how it is with a lot of crime. It’s not that you mean to commit one, it’s just that you’ve run out of viable options. One minute you’ve got some stupid young fool snarling his contempt and telling you to go and fuck yourself and threatening to compromise the only extant source of viable conspiracy against Adolf Hitler, and the next you’ve pressed a Walther automatic against the back of his thick head and pulled the trigger and the young fool has collapsed on the wet ground with blood spraying out of his helmet like a new oil well and you’re already thinking how you can make his necessary but regrettable murder look like a suicide – so that maybe the Gestapo won’t hang another six innocent Russians in retaliation for the death of one German.
I glanced around the little park. The drunks were too soaked to notice or to care – it was hard to tell which. From his lofty stone pedestal Glinka had seen the whole damn thing, of course; and it was odd, but for the first time I realized that the way the sculptor had caught the composer he appeared to be listening to something. It was clever: it almost looked as if Glinka had heard the shot. Quickly I made my own pistol safe and pocketed it, then I took Corporal Quidde’s own identical Walther. I worked the slide to put one in the breech and fired another shot into the ground close by before placing the automatically cocked pistol carefully in his hand. I felt very little for the dead man – it’s hard to feel sorry for a fool – but I did feel half a pang of regret that I’d been forced to kill one damn fool for the sake of several others.
Then I picked up the second empty bullet casing and the dispatch case with the incriminating tape – leaving it there was not an option – and walked quickly away, hoping that no one would hear the sound of my loudly beating heart.