‘OTA transmission intercepts. OTA is the codeword for all the intercepts.’
‘You mean radio broadcasts to the British, by the Czechos.’
‘No, no. That’s what made this interesting. The Czechos were receiving broadcasts, and what’s more, from somewhere in the Fatherland. Intelligence tip-offs. Abendschoen reckoned that the Czechos were sending the information on, to Benes, in London, so that he could boost his standing with Churchill and the Tommy intelligence community.’
‘A Czech spy in Germany.’
Kahlo shook his head. ‘No, a German spy in Germany. As I’m sure you know, there’s nothing worse than that. I’m not entirely privy to all of this, you understand, sir; it goes well above my pay grade. But here in Prague the word on the cobbles is that there’s a high-level traitor in Berlin who’s behind the OTA transmissions; who’s been feeding the Czechos with top-grade information about Reich policy on a number of things. Heydrich wanted everything we had on OTA so that he could hand it all over to a special search group he’s setting up inside the SD. The Traitor X Group it’s called, or VXG, for short.
Catching Moravek, the third of the Three Kings, is just half the game. You catch him then you stand a better chance of identifying traitor X.’
‘Yes, I see. I think I’m going to need to know more about Kuttner’s movements in the days leading up to his death.’
‘Very good, sir. But right now all I’ve got are his movements in the hours leading up to his death.’
‘Let’s hear them.’
We sat back in our chairs as the SS waiters cleared away. Kahlo found his notebook and flicked through several pages until a wet thumb found his place. He was about to read when the waiters returned with dessert. Kahlo’s eyes were out on stalks.
‘That’s Mish-Mash,’ he said, groaning with anticipated pleasure. ‘With real cherry-sauce.’
I tasted the sauce. ‘Actually, it’s cranberry,’ I said.
‘No,’ he breathed.
‘I’ll eat while you talk.’
Kahlo looked at his shredded pancake pudding, licked his lips and hesitated. ‘You won’t finish all that sauce, will you, sir?’
‘No, of course not. Now, let’s hear it.’
Reluctantly, Kahlo started to read out his notes.
‘Yesterday lunchtime you know about because you were here. According to Elisabeth Schreck, Heydrich’s secretary, at three p.m. Kuttner made a couple of telephone calls. One to Carl Maria Strasse — sorry, sir, that’s Kripo HQ — and one to the Pecek Palace: Gestapo HQ. At around four, you saw him again, sir, on the road to the Upper Castle. At five he spent an hour in General Heydrich’s office. I don’t yet know what that was about. Then he went to his room: Kritzinger saw him go through the door. At eight o’clock there were drinks in the library and then all of you listened to the Leader’s speech on the radio. Fleischer’s telephone call from Gestapo headquarters was put through just after nine, and that’s when you saw Kuttner outside, having an argument with Captain Kluckholn. Do you know what that was about, sir?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Kuttner helps to bring some champagne into the library after the speech and after that things are understandably vague. Just after one a.m. there is some sort of altercation between Kuttner and General Henlein and Colonel Bohme. I’m not quite sure what that was about.’
‘General Henlein made a pass at one of the maids. Her name is Rosa Steffel. Kuttner was her champion.’
‘I see. Then he’s in Heydrich’s office for a while with the General and Colonel Jacobi.’ Kahlo lowered his voice. ‘He’s the one who I find to be the most sinister of the lot.’
‘Then Kritzinger sees Kuttner just before two and wishes him a good night. Says he seemed dog-tired.’
Kahlo made a note of that and then continued reading his notes.
‘At six o’clock this morning Kuttner fails to awaken Captain Pomme, as arranged. Nothing new there. He often overslept because he was taking sleeping pills. At six-thirty Pomme says he’s still knocking on Kuttner’s door, trying to awaken him. At six-forty-five Pomme goes to fetch Kritzinger to see if there’s some other means of opening the door, which is locked from the inside. There isn’t. Kritzinger tells one of the footmen to go and fetch a ladder and see if he can’t get in from the outside.’
‘And did he?’
‘Yes. But the ladder was locked up and the footman had to go and fetch the gardener, so it was seven-fifteen a.m. by the time he brought it around to the window. Coming back a bit, though: at seven a.m. Heydrich is also outside Kuttner’s door, and that’s when he tells Pomme and the butler to break it down. Entering the room they find Kuttner dead and Captain Pomme is dispatched to fetch Doctor Jury. Jury arrives in the room just as the footman arrives with the ladder.’
‘We shall want to speak to that footman. Maybe he saw something.’
‘His name is Fendler, sir.’
‘Then at seven-thirty I get the call from Ploetz in my room at the Imperial. And at eight-thirty we viewed the scene of the crime.’
‘What were you doing at the Imperial anyway? Why weren’t you staying here in your room, sir?’
‘I was sleeping. What do you know about Veronal?’
‘It’s barbital. Sleeping pills. Take too many and you don’t wake up. That’s about it really.’
‘Ever use them yourself?’
‘The wife did. She’d been working nights at the Park and couldn’t sleep in the day. So the doctor gave her some Veronal. But she didn’t care for the stuff at all. They always left her feeling like she’d been coshed.’
‘Strong then.’
‘Very.’
‘Kuttner goes to bed at around two a.m. having told the butler that he intended to take some sleeping pills. Nobody sees him enter his room.’
‘I’m not sure if I’d take sleeping pills knowing I had to be up at six,’ observed Kahlo. ‘Then again, you do get used to them, so it’s possible he didn’t see that as a problem.’
‘Which may be why he doesn’t undress for bed. He’s still dressed when we found him.’
‘Looked like he took one boot off and then got tired. Or dead. So then maybe he was shot before he entered his room.’
‘In the corridor.’ But I was shaking my head even as I said it. ‘Sure. After he’s shot — and by the way nobody hears the shot-’
‘Perhaps the murderer used a sound suppressor.’
‘For a P38? Hasn’t been invented yet. So, after he’s shot in the corridor and no one hears anything, he staggers along to his room without mentioning it to anyone or shouting for help, locks the door carefully behind him, as you do when you’ve just been shot, lies down on the bed just to get his breath back, removes a boot, and then dies sometime between two and five-thirty a.m.’
‘It’s a mystery, isn’t it?’
‘No, not really. I solve this kind of case all the time. Usually in the penultimate Chapter. I like to keep the last few pages for restoring some sort of normality to the world.’
‘You know what I reckon, sir? I reckon that if you solve this case Heydrich will probably promote you.’
‘That’s what I’m worried about.’
‘And then you won’t ever get to Bremen to live there without an owner.’
‘Shut up and eat your Mish-Mash.’
Kahlo’s mention of the Traitor X Group and a top-level spy in Germany who had been transmitting information to the Czechos got me wondering about Arianne and her friend Gustav, the man she claimed to have met in the Jockey Bar.
A smooth type with a thin prick accent and spats. Or so she had described him. A civil servant with a gold cigarette holder and a little gold eagle in his lapel. A man whose nerves had prevented him from meeting Franz Koci, a former lieutenant of Czech artillery and possibly one of the last members of the Three Kings group operating in Berlin — at least he had been until a collision with a taxi cab in the blackout had terminated his career as a
