that there might never be a better opportunity to ask him some questions that needed asking.’
‘It’s those questions that I’m interested in, Kurt. You see, I thought I was supposed to kick the ball. Only it turns out that you’re allowed to pick it up and run with it. That makes me wonder what kind of game we’re playing here.’
Kahlo looked sheepish. ‘We’re on the same side, sir. That’s all that matters, isn’t it?’
‘Actually I wonder about that, too. This VXG. The Traitor X Group you mentioned. The one that Heydrich was setting up to find the high-level spy who’s been giving information to the Czechos. You wouldn’t be part of that group, would you, Kurt?’
‘Didn’t I say?’
‘You know you damn well didn’t.’
‘I should have thought it was obvious after what I told you over lunch about the VXG. About how Captain Kuttner came down to Kripo HQ to brief us about it. How would I have known about those OTA radio intercepts if I wasn’t part of the group? That stuff is highly sensitive. By rights I shouldn’t have told you about that at all.’
‘So what else haven’t you told me?’
‘Frankly, I thought that enjoying General Heydrich’s confidence as you do, you knew about traitor X yourself. That you knew that and that you knew-’
‘What?’
‘That everyone in this house is under suspicion.’
‘Of being traitor X?’
‘Yes sir. I assumed you would certainly know that much, at least.’
I shook my head. ‘Let me get this straight. Everyone in this house is suspected of being a spy for the Czechos.’
Kahlo nodded. ‘I don’t think you are. And I know I’m not. And I’m damned sure Heydrich isn’t. Or his three adjutants. Everyone else, well there’s a question mark against everyone else, yes.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I really thought you knew about all this.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Well that’s hardly my fault is it? I just do what I’m fucking told. It’s up to Heydrich what he tells you, not me. I’m just a Criminal Assistant.’ He kissed his cigarette and continued: ‘Maybe it slipped his mind. Maybe he assumed that I would tell you. Which I have.’
‘When we were discussing a possible motive for someone murdering Captain Kuttner-’
‘No sir,’ he said firmly. ‘You never discussed that with me. You discussed that with General Henlein.’
‘Well, don’t you think you might have mentioned it before now? In passing? I mean, if someone suspects you of being a spy, then that would be a pretty powerful fucking motive for murder, don’t you think? Maybe Kuttner was onto someone in this house. Maybe that’s why he was killed. But why should I have to know about that? I’m just the investigating detective. Jesus, I feel like a parrot with a cloth over my cage.’
‘Try to look at it from my point of view, Commissar. Kuttner turns up at Prague Kripo on Monday. Several of us are picked out to join Heydrich’s Traitor X Group. But Kuttner tells us that on no account are we to talk about this to anyone. It’s all top-secret, he says. Anyone opens his pie hole about this group to anyone, the reward is a ticket on the partisan express. Then he gets killed and you’re in charge of the investigation. Heydrich’s clever dick. That’s what Ploetz says. Christ, that’s what everyone says. And the way you speak to the General. Like you had a special licence. How am I to know that you’re not fully in the picture, sir? I’m used to being told this but not that, see? I’m just a foot-soldier, sir. All this fucking cauliflower, I’m not familiar with it. And I’m certainly not used to hearing them getting roughed up by a mere captain like you.’
‘Everyone in the house?’ I repeated dumbly.
‘More or less. Like I said, it’s everyone except me and you and the adjutants. And Heydrich, of course. There’s a list, see. Of suspects. I haven’t got a copy myself, but I can remember who was on it. And Henlein’s name was certainly one of them.’
I poured myself a cup of coffee and sipped it thoughtfully.
‘Hildebrandt?’
Kahlo nodded.
‘But he’s an old friend of Heydrich’s,’ I said. ‘To say nothing of the fact that he’s an old friend of Hitler. Von Eberstein? What about him? Is he suspected, too?’
Kahlo nodded again.
‘But how? How can they be under suspicion? That little gold Party badge is supposed to mean something.’
‘I only know what I’ve been told. And that’s not everything. Hildebrandt is a suspect because for two years, from 1928 until 1930, he was in America. While he was there he went bankrupt as a farmer but someone paid off all his debts and then helped to set him up as a bookseller in New York. The suspicion in the SD is that it was the British Secret Service. And that it was them who persuaded him to return to Germany and join the SS in 1931 to spy for the British.
‘Von Eberstein was a banker after the war and a bit of a weekend Nazi, if you know what I mean. He actually quit the Party after the putsch, which automatically makes him suspect. For three years he had no Party affiliation at all. And during this time he goes from being a banker with the Commerce and Private Bank to running his wife’s factory in Gotha; but when that goes belly up his debts are paid off anonymously and he starts a travel agency. That business takes him to London for much of 1927 and 1928. But by 1929 he’s back in the Party again. So did the Tommies set him up with the travel agency and train him to operate a radio while he was in London? That’s the sort of thing Heydrich wants to know.’
Kahlo grinned and wagged his finger.
‘You see how easy it is to fall under suspicion? And it doesn’t matter who you are, or how high up in the Party you have flown. Doctor Jury is a suspect because before he joined the Austrian Nazi Party in 1932 he attended several medical conferences in Paris and London. While he was in Paris he had an affair with a woman who also had an affair with a French colonel in their intelligence service. Also his friendship with Martin Bormann automatically makes him a suspect in Himmler’s eyes, since it seems Himmler would love to discredit any friend of Bormann’s in the eyes of Hitler.
‘General Frank is a suspect because of something his exwife Anna has told her new husband, Doctor Kollner. He succeeded Frank as the deputy governor of the Sudetenland and he has made certain allegations based on what Anna Kollner told him about his loyalty to the Leader. And also because his new wife, Karola Blaschek, is suspected of having contact with several Czech resistance figures. She comes from the local town of Brux and there’s a suspicion that some of her friends and relations in that town may have been part of UVOD. The Home Resistance.’
‘What about von Neurath? Not him, surely. He was the Foreign Minister for Christ’s sake.’
‘Konstantin von Neurath is suspected of being recruited as a British spy as early as 1903, when he served as a diplomat at the German Embassy in London; or possibly when he was at the German Embassy in Denmark in 1919. While he was German Ambassador to London in 1930 he came under the suspicion of the Abwehr but he was cleared after an investigation; but in 1937 the Abwehr was burgled by a special SS team and certain papers were removed that showed the whole investigation to have been a sham. Subsequent to this, von Neurath joined the Nazi Party for the first time, as a sign of his loyalty. As if he suddenly needed to underline his loyalty. Instead of which it seems to have put him under suspicion.’
Kahlo stubbed out his cigarette and helped himself to coffee. But he wasn’t yet finished.
‘And that’s possibly the reason Major Thummel is suspected of being the traitor X. He was in charge of the Abwehr section that was supposed to have investigated von Neurath. He may be a friend of Heinrich Himmler and he may wear a gold Party badge, but he’s also a close friend of the Abwehr’s boss, Admiral Canaris, who is Himmler’s most bitter rival. Heydrich’s too.
‘Let’s see now. Who else was on that list? Brigadier Voss? He commands the SS Officer School at Beneschau. Until 1938, he was in charge of the officers’ training school at Bad Tolz where there’s a powerful radio transmitter. When officers from that school were mobilized for the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938, someone tipped off the Czech Intelligence Service about it. Voss was one of only a handful of people who knew the invasion was about to happen. He’s also a keen amateur radio enthusiast. Who better to broadcast secrets to the Czechos? He even speaks the language.
