I glanced over at Dietrich, who was already nursing a glass. “They finally admitted it?”
“We just heard from the police. They both put their hands up to everything.”
“Took longer than I thought,” I said, raising my glass to the news. “In my day we’d have had a confession within forty-eight hours. And I’m not talking about any strong-arm stuff, either. You keep someone awake for twenty-four hours with a Kaiser lamp in their face and pretty soon they’ll forget even the most well-rehearsed story.”
“These days criminals have rights, unfortunately,” said Alzheimer.
“And don’t forget, Frau Dorpmüller suffered a heart attack,” said Dietrich. “The police weren’t allowed to question her until she was out of the hospital.”
I pulled a face and laughed.
“You think she was putting it on?” asked Alzheimer.
“There are plenty of ways to feign a heart attack,” I said. “Especially when you’re an experienced nurse like she was. I think she was stalling for time until she’d got her story straight. Or until she found an opportunity to escape. Probably both. I’m surprised the cops still have her in custody.”
“That’s right,” said Dietrich. “She was a nurse, wasn’t she?”
“As a matter of interest,” said Alzheimer, “how would you pull something like that off? I mean it sounds like something we ought to be aware of in our industry, don’t you think, Philipp?”
For a moment I hesitated to tell them the full story; it wasn’t one of my proudest moments as a Berlin detective, but then there weren’t many of us who’d lived through the war who didn’t have something to hide. According to Max Merten, Alois Alzheimer and MRE’s previous chairman, Kurt Schmitt, had been close friends of Hermann Göring and were both taken into custody by the Americans after the war; it was generally held that Schmitt had even been in the SS, so it really didn’t seem the moment to be coy about my own record. I swallowed the whiskey and prepared to open the ancient Gunther family crypt just a crack.
“I was once obliged to arrest a doctor for being a Quaker,” I said. “This would have been 1939, probably. He was a pacifist, you see. We had him in custody and then he had his heart attack, so-called. Very convincing he was, too. We were completely fooled and took him to hospital, where they confirmed our diagnosis. But he’d faked it. Mostly it’s down to your breathing. You breathe fast deep breaths through the mouth, not the nose, and you hyperventilate and poison yourself with too much CO2. Chances are you’ll faint, like he did. When you come to, you pretend to mix up your words, complain of a pain in the arm and the throat, but crucially not the chest, and maybe affect the paralysis of an eyelid, or even your tongue. Once he was in hospital, a doctor friend got hold of some adrenaline and used it to keep up the deception. At least until the doctor’s wife, who’d decided she didn’t like him or the Quakers anymore, showed us a paper he’d written on the subject of feigning a heart attack in order to avoid military service, which he’d been handing out to students at Humboldt University, in Berlin. Luckily for him we weren’t yet at war, which meant he narrowly escaped the death penalty, for which I admit I was relieved. As it was he got two years in prison. I wasn’t a Nazi myself but I fought in the trenches during the first lot and so I’ve always strongly disagreed with pacifism. When it comes to war I tend to think in terms of ‘my country, right or wrong.’”
Ignoring this mention of the Nazis—nobody ever mentioned the Nazis unless it was absolutely unavoidable, especially in Munich—Alzheimer said, “Your candor is very much appreciated. And may I say, admired. I had no idea that such a thing was even possible. Did you, Philipp?”
Dietrich smiled. “No, but I’m not surprised, sir. You know what a cynic I am. Still, people never cease to surprise me. The things they’ll do to make a quick mark. I was, however, surprised about Friedrich Jauch. The man came to my home on more than one occasion. I must say I feel very let down by him.”
“So do we all, Philipp, so do we all. His had been a most promising career. They’ll certainly miss him in sales.”
“To think I even offered him a job in claims. I thought I was a good judge of character.”
“But you are,” insisted Alzheimer. “It was you who found Herr Ganz, was it not?”
“I suppose so.”
“Which is in itself a subject for congratulation, given that Herr Ganz here has taken to the insurance business with such obvious alacrity. One door closes and another opens. It’s most opportune. You must certainly write something for the company magazine on this fake heart attack business. Don’t you think so, Philipp?”
“Absolutely he must, sir.”
“I’m asking myself if there is anything else we might learn from him. What do you say, Herr Ganz? Can you teach two old dogs like Dietrich and me something new?”
I swallowed more of the whiskey, let Alzheimer refill my glass, and lit one of his cigarettes.
“I wouldn’t presume to teach you your business, sir.”
“Presume away,” he said. “No one learns without making mistakes.”
“You might care to consider having all new life policies witnessed by
