It was easier to hear Heydrich now that we weren’t going quite so fast, and once again I tried to question him about Albert Kuttner.
‘Did you like Albert Kuttner?’
‘Is that your way of asking if I killed him?’
‘Did you?’
‘No. And to answer your other question, no, I didn’t like him. Not any more. Once I did. A while ago. But not lately. He was a disappointment to me. And to some extent he was becoming something of a liability. Since you mentioned Colonel Jacobi, I assume you know the details of what happened there. The quarrel they had. To be frank, Gunther, I am not at all sorry that Kuttner is dead. But my conscience is clear. I gave the man every opportunity to atone for his inadequacies. At the same time I can’t have people murdering my staff just because they don’t like them. Christ, if you and I were to murder all of the people back at the Lower Castle I didn’t like, then we should have hardly anyone left in the local SD: Jacobi, Fleischer, Geschke, von Neurath. I wouldn’t shed a tear if any of them caught a bullet.’
‘That’s straightforward enough, I suppose.’
‘Henlein and Jury are particularly awful, don’t you think? Cunts. The pair of them.’
‘When first we talked, sir. In the garden, yesterday. You mentioned an attempt on your own life. Do you think Kuttner’s murder might be related? A case of mistaken identity, perhaps? Kuttner was tall and blond, much like you. His voice and accent were not unlike yours either.’
‘You mean, high?’
‘Yes sir. In the dark, who knows? The killer might simply have shot the wrong person.’
‘The thought had occurred to me, of course.’
‘In which case I might very well be wasting my time looking for one of our colleagues with a good reason to murder Captain Kuttner, when my energies might be better spent looking for one of them who badly wants you dead.’
‘Interesting idea. And of my dear friends and esteemed colleagues back at my new home, which of them would you say has the best reason to want me dead?’
‘You mean, apart from me?’
‘You have an alibi, don’t you? You weren’t actually in the house at the time when Kuttner was murdered.’
‘Thoughtful of you to have provided me with one,’ I said.
‘Isn’t it?’
‘I should have thought that Frank or von Neurath have the best reasons, from a professional point of view. Von Neurath might like to be revenged on you for the sake of it. Although he doesn’t strike me as a murderer. But Frank does. With you dead, Frank probably gets your job.’
‘This is intriguing. Anyone else?’
‘Henlein and Jury probably hate you too, don’t you think?’
‘Almost certainly.’
‘And I wouldn’t trust Jacobi as far as I could kick him.’
‘He does make the flesh creep, does he not?’
‘Geschke and Fleischer are hardly my idea of good friends, either.’
‘Not friends, perhaps. But colleagues. And good Nazis. And since we are discussing those among my staff who might hate me, there’s Kritzinger, too. I’m not suggesting that he might kill me, but I shouldn’t be at all surprised if he hates me. He’s an Austrian, from Vienna, and before the war he worked for the Jew who used to run the estate.’
‘Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer. Kuttner told me.’
‘After the Anschluss he and his master fled here from Vienna hoping to escape the inevitable before Bloch-Bauer finally took off for Switzerland, in 1939.’
‘But Kritzinger is in the SS. Most of the staff are in the SS, aren’t they?’
‘Of course. But very few of them were in the SS until the Reich acquired the Lower Castle.’
‘I thought that’s why they were hired. Because you knew you could trust them.’
‘They are all in the SS because it means the Reichsprotector doesn’t have to pay them out of his own pocket, Gunther. Otherwise I should never be able to keep a house as big as that, not on my salary.’
That made me sit up a little: Heydrich had never struck me as mean with money; mean-spirited, yes, but not an embezzler. And to be so honest about it, too! Of course, I knew he’d never have told me if Himmler didn’t know about it and approve. Which meant that they were all in it. The whole rotten crew. Living high on the hog while the ordinary Fritz went without his beer and his sausage and his cigarettes.
‘Oh, I’m sure Kritzinger is a good German,’ continued Heydrich. ‘But it has to be faced, he was devoted to the Bloch-Bauers.’
‘Then why on earth do you keep him on?’
‘Because he’s an excellent butler, of course. Good butlers like him don’t grow on trees, you know. Especially now that we’re at war. I wouldn’t expect someone like you to understand what that means, but Kritzinger puts his professional duties as a butler ahead of his own personal opinions, always. He sincerely believes that it is his duty to provide good service and concentrate only on that which lies within his realm, as a butler. If you were to question him he would probably tell you that he wouldn’t care to say, or something else that was courteously evasive.’
‘And yet you said that he might hate you.’
‘Of course. I have to recognize that it’s a possibility. It would be stupid not to consider it. Doing what I do, Gunther, it’s wise not to trust anyone. All I ask of people is that they do their duty, and in that respect at least, Kritzinger is beyond reproach.’ He looked impatient for a moment. ‘That may be too subtle a distinction for a man like you, but there it is. Such are the dilemmas that afflict everyone who finds himself in a position of great authority.’
‘All right, General. Whatever you say.’
‘Yes. It had better be.’
When we were still several blocks east of the Imperial Hotel, Klein drew up outside an apartment building with massive, fierce-looking atlantes, Jugendstil windows, and a roof like a Bavarian castle. The portal was covered in mosaic and topped with a decorative filigree balcony. The building looked as if it had been designed by someone whose architectural influences were Homer and the Brothers Grimm. But the address was chiefly remarkable for the absence of any SS or even regular Army sentries, and it was immediately clear to me that this was not an official building.
‘What’s this place?’ I asked.
‘The Pension Matzky. A brothel run by the Gestapo for the entertainment of important Czech citizens. It’s staffed by twenty of the most beautiful amateur courtesans in all of Bohemia and Moravia. You need a password just to get through the door.’
‘I bet that keeps the tone up.’
‘Occasionally I visit the place myself. Or when I wish to reward the men who work for me with something special. And everything at the Pension Matzky is special.’
As we were sitting there a furtive-looking man went through the front door; but he was not so furtive that I didn’t recognize him. It was Professor Hamperl, the man who had carried out the autopsy on Captain Kuttner.
‘Who’s he?’ I asked. ‘One of these important citizens of Prague?’
‘I really have no idea,’ said Heydrich. ‘But I expect so. Incidentally, the password is Rothenburg. Now ask me why I told you that, Gunther.’
‘Why did you tell me that?’
‘So that you’ll be thinking about what you’re missing when you see that whore you brought from Berlin. I ask you, Klein, with the thousands of very willing girls there are in this town, can you imagine such a thing?’
Klein grinned. ‘No sir.’