A Man Without Breath

Gersdorff ordered a bottle of Prince Bismarck. They shouldn’t have had any, but of course they did because it was the German Club and the seventy-seven princes and thirty-eight German counts who were among the members might have wondered what things were coming to when you couldn’t get a decent bottle of schnapps. I dare say that August Nothling wasn’t the only shopkeeper in Berlin who knew how to get around the country’s strict rationing. We drank it neat, cold and quickly, with quiet patriotic toasts that someone eavesdropping on our conversation might have considered treasonable, and it was fortunate that we were in the bowling alley, which was empty.

After a while we were both a little drunk and bowled a few, which was when I informed Von Gersdorff of one aspect to the plot to kill Hitler I found repellent.

‘Something’s been nagging me ever since I got back from Smolensk,’ I said.

‘Oh? And what’s that?’

‘I don’t mind you trying to blow Hitler up,’ I said. ‘But I do mind about the two telephonists in Smolensk who had their throats cut because they overheard something they shouldn’t have.’

Von Gersdorff stopped bowling and shook his head. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said. ‘When did this happen?’

‘In the early hours of Sunday March 14th,’ I said. ‘The day immediately after the leader visited Smolensk. Two telephonists from the 537th were found murdered on the banks of the Dnieper River near a brothel called the Hotel Glinka. I was the investigating officer. Unofficially, anyway.’

‘Really, I know nothing about this,’ he insisted. ‘And I can assure you, Captain Gunther, that there is no one at Army Group HQ who would commit such a crime. Or indeed order such a crime to be carried out.’

‘You’re sure about that?’

‘Of course I’m sure. These are officers and gentlemen we’re talking about.’ He lit a cigarette and shook his head. ‘But, look, this sounds much more like partisans. What makes you so sure it wasn’t some damned Popov who murdered them?’

I gave him the reasons. ‘Their throats had been cut with a German bayonet. And the murderer escaped riding a BMW motorcycle west, in the direction of Group headquarters. Also I suspect the two victims knew their murderer.’

‘God, how awful. But if it happened near a brothel, as you say, then perhaps it was just a soldiers’ argument about a prostitute.’

I shrugged. ‘The local Gestapo hanged some innocent people for the crime, of course. In retaliation. So a proper sense of order has been restored. Anyway, I just thought I’d ask your opinion.’ I shook my head. ‘Perhaps it was an argument about a whore after all.’

I didn’t really believe that. Not that it mattered very much what I believed about the murders now I was back in Berlin. Trying to figure out who murdered the two army telephonists was down to Lieutenant Voss in Smolensk, and I told myself – and told Von Gersdorff – that if I never saw the place until the year 2043 it would be a hundred years too soon.

CHAPTER 12

Monday, March 22nd 1943

It was his right leg. The minister limped into his office in the Leopold Palace at speed, and if the carpet hadn’t been so thick and the distance between the huge door and his desk hadn’t been quite so vast we might not have noticed the shiny special shoe and the even shinier metal brace. Well, almost. We were looking out for it, of course: there were so many jokes told about Joey’s cloven hoof that it was even more notorious than he was – almost a Berlin tourist attraction – and the judge and I kept a close eye on his club foot just so we could say that we’d seen it, in just the same way you wanted to be able to say you’d seen Lotte the bear in the pit at Kollnischer Park, or Anita Berber at the Heaven and Hell Club.

As Goebbels limped into the room the judge and I stood up and saluted in the customary way and he flapped a delicate little hand back over his shoulder in imitation of the way the leader did it – as if swatting an irritating mosquito, or dismissing some sycophant, of which there seemed to be a plentiful supply in the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. I suppose it was just that kind of place: before the ministry took over the building in 1933 the palace had been the residence of the Hohenzollerns, the royal family of Prussia, which had employed more than a few sycophants itself.

Goebbels was all smiles and apologies for keeping us waiting. It made a nice change from the kind of hate that was usually heard spilling out of his narrow mouth.