‘I guess that’s the point. That maybe they are just like you or me.’
‘Speak for yourself, sir.’
‘I used to think like you. But the Nazis have taught me to think differently. I’ll say that for them. These days I say live and let live, and if we can learn to do that, then maybe we can behave like a civilized country again. But I suspect it’s already too late for that.’
I glanced at my wristwatch. A cheap Bulova, it had two ways to remind me that we had an autopsy to view at the Bulovka Hospital at four and that only one of them was the time.
‘Come on,’ I said to Kahlo. ‘We’d better get going. You’re about to discover just how like you and me Albert Kuttner really was.’
Sergeant Klein had returned from Hradschin Palace in Prague to drive us out to the hospital. He’d read the Leader’s Sports Palast speech in the morning newspaper and, instead of depressing him, Hitler’s ‘facts and figures’ had left him feeling optimistic about our prospects in the East.
‘Two and a half million Russian prisoners,’ he said. ‘No country could ever recover from losing that many men. If that was all, it would be enough; but as well, fourteen thousand Russian planes have been shot down and eighteen thousand of their tanks destroyed. It’s hard to imagine.’
‘And yet the Leader still believes we have a fight on our hands,’ I remarked.
‘Because he’s wise,’ insisted Klein. ‘He’s saying that so as not to raise our hopes in case the impossible should happen. But it’s obvious, the Ivans are as good as beaten, that’s what I think.’
‘Let’s hope you’re right,’ said Kahlo.
‘I hate to think what we’re going to do with two and a half million Russian prisoners if he’s wrong,’ I said. ‘If it comes to that I hate to think what we’re going to do with them if he’s right.’
I paused for a moment before adding what was sometimes called ‘the political postscript’ — something that was usually said for the purposes of self-preservation.
‘Not that I expect him to be wrong, of course. And I don’t doubt that the Leader will be delivering a victory speech in Moscow before very long.’
Then I bit off the end of my tongue and spat it onto the road, only I did it subtly so that Klein didn’t notice.
Set on a hill overlooking the north-east of the city, Bulovka Hospital was a four- or five-storey building made of beige-coloured stone with a red mansard roof and a greenish little bell-tower that stuck up in the air like an infected finger. Built before the Great War, the hospital was surrounded with lush gardens where recuperating patients could sit on wooden benches, enjoy the many blooms in the flower beds and generally appreciate the democratic ideals of the sovereign state of Czechoslovakia; at least they could have done when there had still been a sovereign state of Czechoslovakia. Like every other public building in Prague the hospital was now flying the flag of the least democratic European state since Vlad the Third impaled his first Wallachian Boyar.
Klein drew up in front of the entrance. Two men wearing surgical gowns were already waiting for us, which only seemed excessively servile until you remembered Heydrich’s reputation for obsessive punctuality and ruthless cruelty. One of the men was Honek, the Czech doctor who had attended the crime scene at the Lower Castle earlier that day. He introduced the other man, a handsome German-Czech in his early forties.
‘This is Professor Herwig Hamperl,’ said Honek, ‘who is most distinguished in the field of forensic medicine. He has kindly agreed to take charge of this autopsy.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ I said.
Swiftly, as if he wanted us to be gone and out of his hair as quickly as possible, Hamperl muttered a curt ‘good afternoon’ and led the way upstairs and along a wide bright corridor with walls that showed the grimy blank squares where signs and posters written in Czech had been displayed until German became the official language of Bohemia. Hamperl might have been a German Czech, but I soon discovered he was no Nazi.
‘Has either of you two gentlemen attended an autopsy before?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Many.’
‘This is my first,’ said Kahlo.
‘And you’re feeling nervous about it, perhaps?’
‘A little.’
‘Being dead is like being a whore,’ said Hamperl. ‘You spend most of your time on your back while someone else — in this case, me — gets on with the business in hand. The procedure can seem embarrassing, sometimes even a little preposterous, but it is never disgusting. My advice to anyone who hasn’t witnessed an autopsy before is to try to see only the lighter side of things. If it starts to seem disgusting then that’s the cue to leave the room before an accident occurs. The smell of a dead body is usually quite bad enough without the smell of vomit to cope with. Is that clear?’
‘Yes sir.’
Hamperl unlocked a wooden door with smoked windows and led us into an autopsy suite where a stout- looking body lay under a sheet on a slab. As Hamperl started to draw back the sheet to reveal Kuttner’s head and shoulders I saw Kahlo’s eyes widen.
‘Jesus,’ he muttered. ‘I don’t remember his stomach being that big.’
Hamperl paused.
‘I can assure you it’s not big with fat,’ he said. ‘The man might be dead but the enzymes and bacteria in his belly are still very much alive and feeding on whatever still remains in his stomach. Probably last night’s dinner. In the process, these enzymes and bacteria produce gas. Here, let me demonstrate.’
Hamperl pressed hard on the sheet still covering Kuttner’s stomach which caused the body to fart, loudly.
‘See what I mean?’
Hamperl’s behaviour was a piece of crude theatre that seemed intended to make us feel uncomfortable. In a way I didn’t blame him for this at all. The Nazis were past masters at making others feel uncomfortable. Doubtless, the Professor was just paying us back, in kind. A fart from a dead Nazi was as eloquent a comment on the German presence in Czechoslovakia as I was ever likely to hear, or indeed smell. But Kahlo winced noticeably, and then bit his lip as he tried, vainly, to steady his nerves.
Hamperl collected a long sharp curette off a neatly prepared instrument table and held it at arm’s length, like a conductor’s baton. The light from the abbey-sized windows caught the flat of the curette and it glittered like a bolt of lightning. Instinctively Kahlo turned away, and noting his discomfort at the symphony of destruction he was about to begin, Hamperl grinned wolfishly, exchanged a meaningful look with Doctor Honek, and said:
‘There’s one thing you can say about the dead, my dear fellow. They have an extraordinary ability to deal with pain. Any pain. No matter how bad it might seem to you. Believe me, this poor fellow won’t feel a thing as I seem to do my absolute worst. Much worse than perhaps you have ever seen inflicted on any human being before. However, do try not to let your imagination run away with you. The most terrible thing that could happen to this man happened several hours before he arrived in this hospital.’
Kahlo shook his head and swallowed loudly, which sounded as if a very large frog had taken up residence in his throat.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said to me. ‘I just can’t do this. I really can’t.’
He covered his mouth, and left the room quickly.
‘Poor fellow,’ said Hamperl. ‘But probably it’s just as well he’s gone. We need all our attention for the task that now lies before us.’
‘Surely, that was your intention,’ I said. ‘To scare him off.’
‘Not at all, Commissar. You heard me try to reassure him, didn’t you? However, it’s not everyone who can witness this procedure with a cool head. Are you sure about yourself?’
‘Oh, I have no feelings at all, Professor Hamperl. None whatsoever. I’m like that curette in your hand. Cold and hard. And best handled with extreme care. Just one slip would be most unfortunate. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Quite clear, Commissar.’
Hamperl threw back the remainder of the sheet covering Kuttner’s body and went quickly to work. Having photographed the two entry wounds on the dead man’s chest, and then probed them both, first with his finger and then with a length of dowel, he made a Y-shaped incision from Kuttner’s porcelain-pale shoulders, across his
