ahead of anything as imaginative as three pipes’ worth of deductive reasoning. It’s elementary, my dear Sachse. Oh yes, and didn’t these Three Kings send the Gestapo a complimentary copy of their own underground newspaper? That’s the gossip.’
‘Since you appear to be so well informed-’
I shook my head. ‘It’s common knowledge, here on the Third Floor.’
‘-Then I dare say you will also know that two of the Three Kings — Josef Balaban and Josef Masin — have already been arrested. As have many other of their collaborators. In Prague. And here in Berlin. It’s only a matter of time before we catch Melchior.’
‘I don’t get it,’ I said. ‘You caught Josef A in April; and Josef B in May. Or maybe it was the other way round. But here we are in September and you still haven’t managed to shake the third King out of their sleeves. You boys must be going soft.’
Of course I knew this couldn’t be true. The Gestapo had moved heaven and earth in search of the third man, but mostly they’d employed a more infernal sort of help. Because there was another rumour around the Alex: that the Prague Gestapo had enlisted the services of their most notorious torturer in Bohemia, a sadist called Paul Soppa, who was the commander of Pankrac Prison in Prague, to work on the two Czechs in his custody. I didn’t give much for their chances but, in the light of the continued liberty of Melchior, the certainty that neither man had talked was proof positive of their enormous courage and bravery.
‘There are different ways of approaching every problem,’ said Wandel. ‘And right now we should like you to help us with this problem. Colonel Schellenberg speaks very highly of you.’
Walter Schellenberg was close to General Heydrich, who was Chief of the whole RSHA, of which Kripo was now one part.
‘I know who Schellenberg is,’ I said. ‘At least, I remember meeting him. But I don’t know what he is. Not these days.’
‘He’s the acting chief of foreign intelligence within the RSHA,’ said Sachse.
‘Is this problem a foreign intelligence matter?’
‘It might be. But right now it’s a homicide. Which is where you come in.’
‘Well, anything to help Colonel Schellenberg, of course,’ I said, helpfully.
‘You know the Heinrich von Kleist Park?’
‘Of course. It used to be Berlin’s botanical garden before the Botanical Gardens were built in Steglitz.’
‘A body was found there this morning.’
‘Oh? I wonder why I haven’t heard about it.’
‘You’re hearing about it now. We’d like you to come and take a look at it, Gunther.’
I shrugged. ‘Have you got any petrol?’
Sachse frowned.
‘For your car,’ I added. ‘I wasn’t proposing that we burn the body.’
‘Yes, of course we have petrol.’
‘Then I’d love to go to the Park with you, Commissar Sachse.’
Kleist Park in Schoneberg had something to do with a famous German Romantic writer. He might have been called Kleist. There were lots of trees, a statue of the goddess Diana, and, on the western border of the park, the Court of Appeal. Not that Hitler’s Germany had much use for a Court of Appeal. Those who were convicted and condemned in a Nazi court of first instance usually stayed that way.
On the southern border was a building I had half an idea might once have been the Prussian State Art School, but given that the Gestapo was now headquartered in the old Industrial Art School on Prinz Albrechtstrasse, there seemed to be little or no chance that anyone was being taught how to paint someone’s portrait in the Prussian State Art School; not when they could more usefully be taught how to torture people. It was a fact that the Gestapo had always taken its share of the city’s best public buildings. That was to be expected. But lately they’d started confiscating the premises of shops and businesses that had been abandoned as a result of the shortages. A friend of mine had gone into the Singer Sewing Machine salesroom on Wittenberg Platz looking for a new treadle-belt only to discover that the place was now being used as an arsenal by the SS. Meyer’s Wine Shop, on Olivaer Platz, where once I’d been a regular customer, was now an SS ‘Information Bureau’. Whatever that was.
In the centre of the park was a curving promenade where you could walk, or perhaps sit, but only on the grass, since all of the city’s many wooden park benches had been taken away for the war effort; sometimes I imagined a fat Wehrmacht general conducting the siege of Leningrad while warming his hands over a brazier that was fuelled with one of these. On the eastern edge of this promenade, and bordering Potsdamer Strasse, was an area of shrubs and trees that had been closed off to the public by several uniformed policemen. The dead body of a man lay under a huge rhododendron that was in late flower, but only just, since he was covered with red petals that looked like multiple stab wounds. He was wearing a dark blouson-type jacket, a lighter brown pair of flannel trousers, and a pair of severely down-at-heel brown boots. I couldn’t see his face as one of my new Gestapo friends was blocking the sun, as was their habit, so I asked him to move and, as he stepped out of the way, I squatted down on my haunches to take a closer look.
It was a typical mortuary photograph: the mouth wide open as if awaiting the attentions of a dentist — although the teeth were in remarkably good condition and certainly better than mine — the wide eyes staring straight ahead so that, all things considered, he looked more surprised to see me than I was to see him. He was about twenty-five with a small moustache, and on the front of his left forehead below the line of his dark hair a contusion that was the shape and colour of an outsized amethyst and which more than likely was the cause of death.
‘Who found the body?’ I asked Sachse. ‘And when?’
‘A uniformed cop on patrol. From the Potsdamer Platz station. About six o’clock this morning.’
‘And how is it that you picked up the order?’
‘The duty detective from Kripo telephoned it in. Fellow named Lehnhoff.’
‘That was clever of him. Lehnhoff’s not usually so quick on his toes. And what did this Fritz have in his pocket that marked him out as your meat? A Czech passport?’
‘No. This.’
Sachse dipped into his pocket and then handed me a gun. It was a little Model 9 Walther, a palm-sized. 25 calibre automatic. Smaller than the Baby Browning I had at home for when I wasn’t expecting visitors, but quite accurate.
‘A bit more lethal than a set of door keys, wouldn’t you say so?’ said Sachse.
‘That will open a door for you,’ I agreed.
‘Be careful. It’s still loaded.’
I nodded and handed the gun back to him.
‘This makes it a Gestapo matter.’
‘Automatically,’ I said. ‘I can see that. But I still don’t see how this connects him with the Three Kings.’
‘One of our officers from the Documentation Section looked over his papers and found some discrepancies.’
Wandel handed me a yellow card with the dead man’s photograph in the top left-hand corner. It was his Employment Certificate. He said, ‘Notice anything wrong with it?’
I shrugged. ‘The staples in the picture are a bit rusty. Otherwise it looks all right to me. Name of Victor Keil. Doesn’t ring any bells.’
‘The impression of the rubber stamp on the corner of the photograph can hardly be seen,’ said Wandel. ‘No German official would have permitted that.’ Then he handed me the dead man’s identity card. ‘And this? What do you make of this, Herr Commissar?’
I rubbed the document in my fingers, which drew a nod of approval from Sachse.
‘You’re right to check it that way first,’ he said. ‘The forgeries just don’t feel right. Like they’re made of linen. But that’s not what gives this one away as a fake.’
I opened it up and took a closer look at the contents. The photograph on the ID card had two corner stamps, one on the top right-hand corner and the other on the top left, and these both looked clear enough. The two fingerprints were similarly clear, as was the police precinct stamp. I shook my head. ‘Beats me what’s wrong with it. It looks completely right.’
‘The quality is actually quite good,’ admitted Sachse. ‘Except for one thing. Whoever made that can’t spell
