riot that the SS was likely to tolerate. The lawn was as green and smooth as a python’s eyeball. Crystal glasses clinked, heels clicked, and somewhere someone was playing a piano. A soft breeze in the trees sounded like an enormous silk dress. They had turned off the sprinklers but there was strawberry cup with real strawberries and delicious Sekt so I managed to get nicely wet all the same.
About eighteen of us went in for lunch. With only another four we could have tossed a coin for kick-off. The white tablecloth was as stiff as a sail on a frozen schooner and there was enough silver on it for an army of conquistadores. Otherwise things were informal, as Captain Kuttner had promised, and I was glad we had abandoned crossbelts as the food was as spectacular as it was plentiful: pea soup with real peas and bacon, liver dumplings with real liver and real onions, Holstein Schnitzel with real veal, a real egg and real anchovies served with a real Leipziger Everything. I hardly had room for the real strudel and the real cheese that followed. The wines were equally impressive. There was a box on the table for food coupons, but no one was paying any attention to that and I figured it was just for show. I looked at it and wondered about the two Fridmann sisters in the apartment beneath mine back in Berlin and how they were getting on with the canned food I’d given them, but mostly I just kept on filling the hole in my face with food and wine and cigarette smoke. I didn’t say much. There wasn’t much need to say anything very much. Everyone paid close attention to Heydrich’s table talk, which was the usual Nazi twaddle, and it was only when he started talking about the stupidity of trying to turn Czechs into Germans that I gave my jaws a rest and let my ears take over:
‘People of good race and good intentions, they will be Germanized. Those we can’t Germanize and educate to think differently from the way they think now, we’ll have to put up against the wall. The rest — that’s potentially at least half the population of Bohemia and Moravia — they will have to be moved out and resettled in the East where they can live out their miserable days in Arctic labour camps. However, whenever we can we must act with fairness. When all is said and done, the Czechs should be made to see the advantages of cooperation over opposition. And when the current state of emergency has ended, I will increase the local food ration and do everything in my power to hunt down black-market profiteers.’
There was a lot more of this guff, and I looked at the fat faces of my fellow officers to see if anyone felt the same way about it that I did, but I saw only consent and agreement. Probably they looked at me and thought the same thing.
Among these faces there was only one, apart from Heydrich’s long, thin witch-doctor’s mask, that I recognized and this was the former Foreign Minister and ex-Reichsprotector, Konstantin von Neurath. At almost seventy, he was the oldest person at the table and easily the most deserving of respect. Not that his ambitious young successor, Heydrich, accorded him much of this. From time to time he would pat the old man on the hand like a pet dog and speak to him in a louder voice, as if the Baron were deaf, although it was quite plain to anyone who had talked to him that there was nothing at all wrong with his hearing. I suspected that von Neurath was only present to make the new Reichsprotector’s triumph complete.
Heydrich avoided conversation with me until well after we had risen from the table and were out on the terrace again with brandies and cigars — or in my case, coffee and cigarettes. It was there that he caught my eye and, having walked me down the Upper Castle’s back garden, finally explained the point of my being there.
‘You remember our conversation at my office in Berlin, the day we defeated the French. In June 1940.’
‘I remember it very well. How could I forget the day when Germany defeated France? So that’s what this is all about.’
‘Yes. Again, someone is trying to kill me.’
I shrugged. ‘Any number of Czechos must want you dead, sir. I assume that we’re not discussing one of them.’
‘Naturally.’
‘Has there been a recent attempt on your life?’
‘You mean, am I imagining this?’
‘All right then. Are you?’
‘No. There was an attempt made to kill me just days ago. A serious attempt.’
‘When, where and how?’
‘At the Wolf’s Lair. Hitler’s own field headquarters, in East Prussia. Yes, I thought that would surprise you. As a matter of fact I was surprised myself. It was September 24th. I had been summoned to Rastenburg to be told by Hitler that he was appointing me as von Neurath’s successor, here in Bohemia. Well that’s the when and where. The how is that someone tried to poison me. Toxicologists in the SD’s laboratories are still trying to isolate the particular substance that was used. However, they’re inclined to believe that it may have been a protein-based toxin called botulinum. From Latin botulus, meaning sausage.’
‘That sounds especially lethal, for a German.’
‘It’s a bacterium that often causes poisoning by growing in improperly handled meat. I might have assumed it was just a simple case of food poisoning were it not for the fact that some of our SS doctors have been trying to synthesize it and other antibiotic compounds such as sulphanilamide. As a means of treating wound infection. But also as a compound neurotoxin. Or to put it another way, as a poison.’
‘Perhaps it was a simple case of food poisoning,’ I said. ‘Have you considered that possibility?’
‘I’ve considered it. And I’ve rejected it. You see mine was the only food that was contaminated. Fortunately I wasn’t hungry and didn’t eat. Instead I fed the food off my plate to Major Ploetz’s dog, which subsequently died. Obviously the Leader could not have been the target because he is vegetarian. Naturally, all inquiries that could be made without alarming the Leader were made; and all of the foreign workers at the Wolf’s Lair were replaced, as a precaution. But so far, nothing has been discovered that sheds any light on who was responsible for the incident. And there I feel we have to leave the matter. At least as far as Rastenburg is concerned. As I say, I have no wish to alarm or embarrass the Leader. But here in Prague I am able to take other precautions. You, Gunther, are to be one of these precautions, if you agree.’
‘So you want me to do what? Be your food taster?’ I shrugged. ‘You should have mentioned this before lunch. I’d have sat beside you.’
Heydrich shook his head.
‘Keep a lookout for someone who might be trying to kill you? Is that it?’
‘Yes. In effect I want you to be my personal bodyguard,’ said Heydrich.
‘You mean you have four adjutants and no bodyguard?’
‘Klein, my driver, is quite capable of pulling out a gun and shooting at some witless Czecho. As am I. But I want someone around me who understands murder and murderers, and who can handle himself, to boot. A proper detective who is trained to be suspicious.’
‘The Gestapo isn’t known to be naive in my experience.’
‘I want someone who is usefully suspicious as opposed to officious.’
‘Yes, I see the difference.’
‘And since I can’t offer the position to Hercule Poirot naturally I thought of you.’
‘Hercule Poirot?’
Heydrich shook his head. ‘A fictional detective created by an English lady novelist. It doesn’t matter. You’re obviously not a reader. He’s very popular. And so is she.’
I shook my head. ‘You know that most bodyguards are supposed to care about what happens to their employers, don’t you?’
Heydrich grinned. This didn’t happen very often, and when it did his youngish, beaky face looked more like a nasty schoolboy’s.
‘Meaning you’re not qualified, is that it?’
‘Something like that.’
‘I can get any number of “yes” men from the SD,’ said Heydrich. ‘The trouble is, will they be honest with me? Will they tell me unpalatable truths? What I need to know? And can I trust them?’
‘It’s true, sir. Without a gun in my hand you’re not an easy man to contradict.’
‘You, I’ve known for five years. I know you’re not Himmler’s man. I know you’re not even a Nazi. I know you probably hate my guts. But while you almost certainly dislike me I don’t believe you would actually murder me. In other words, I can trust you, Gunther; trust you not to kill me; and trust you to tell me those unpleasant truths that others would shrink from. That seems to me to be essential for what I need from a bodyguard.
‘Of course, in many ways you’re a fool. Only a fool would continue to remain in the police without joining the
