noisilyand shifted uncomfortably on his chair, but he wasnât nearly as uncomfortable as poor Captain von Frisch.
âI think I would prefer it if it was just you and I talking about this, Gunther,â he said.
âHerr Stahlecker is one of my operatives and enjoys my complete confidence. You can speak freely in front of him. I rely on him to carry out a lot of my investigative work.â
âI appreciate that. However, I really must insist. This is quite difficult enough as it is.â
I nodded. âBruno, would you be kind enough to step outside for half an hour. Better still, could you fetch me a packet of Murattis?â
âSure, boss, anything you say.â
Stahlecker grabbed his coat off the hat stand and, still smoking his foul-smelling pipe, he went out into the bitter January cold.
When heâd gone, I lit my last cigarette, stoked the fire, tidied my paper clips, polished my fingernails, and waited patiently for Captain von Frisch to come to the point. Patience is the key with every client who is being blackmailed. Theyâre so used to paying someone to keep their dirty little secret that itâs almost unthinkable they should just break the silence and start talking about it, and to someone they havenât seen since the war.
âI donât mind telling you that the last five years have been hell,â he said, and, taking out a handkerchief, he pressed it to the corner of his eye. âOften I have considered ending my life. But my old mother would be dreadfully upset if I did something likethat. Sheâs ninety. And I am forced to employ a nurse to look after me, such has been the decline in my health. Itâs my heart, you see. In time the worry of all this will certainly kill me. I just hope I donât die before she does. That would break her heart.â
In his large gray military coat, which so far he had refused to removeâit wasnât a great fire, and heâd said he felt the cold, abnormally soâvon Frisch resembled an old and venerable German battleship about to be scuttled at Scapa Flow and even now he let out such a profound and hopeless sigh that it was as if this badly damaged ship were already plunging through the depths to a watery grave on the bottom of the freezing North Sea.
âYou should have telephoned, sir. Or written. Iâd have been glad to come to your house. Where are you living these days?â I picked up my pen and prepared to write down a few details.
âSouthwest Berlin. Ferdinandstrasse, twenty-six, in East Lichterfelde. Just around the corner from the S-Bahn station. Thank you, itâs kind of you to say so, but the nurse is a sweet girl and Iâd hate her to overhear anything of my own sordid past. A good nurse is hard to find these days. Although she is becoming rather expensive.â
âSurely the baron is still a rich man.â
âNot anymore. These terrible people have all but bled me dry.â
âI see. Then perhaps youâd better just tell me about it.â
He unbuttoned his coat and started to relax a little.
âI never married. Perhaps you knew that. And if you didnât then perhaps you can understand why I didnât, Gunther. Whena man chooses not to marry he tells his mother that for all kinds of reasons heâs never met the right girl, but mostly thereâs just one reason. The oldest reason of all. That there never could be such a thing as the right girl. If you know what I mean.â He smiled thinly. âI imagine that it canât be the first time youâve encountered this sort of thing.â
âI understand perfectly, sir. During the Weimar Republic, when I was a cop at the Alex, I think I saw every facet of human behavior known to man. And quite a few that were unknown, too. Believe me, Iâm immune to this kind of thing. Moral outrage is something only Nazis seem to suffer from these days.â
This wasnât true, of course, but
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