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Authors: Philip Kerr
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Schlactensee we have a fine garden with its own croquet lawn. Are either of you familiar with the game?’
‘No,’ we said in unison.
‘It’s an interesting game; I believe it’s very popular in England. It provides an interesting metaphor for the new Germany. Laws are merely hoops through which the people must be driven, with varying degrees of force. But there can be no movement without the mallet — croquet really is a perfect game for a policeman.’ Nebe nodded thoughtfully, and Heydrich himself seemed pleased with this comparison. He began to talk quite freely. In brief about some of the things he hated — Freemasons, Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals and Admiral Canaris, the head of the Abwehr, German Military Secret Intelligence; and at length about some of the things that gave him pleasure — the piano and the cello, fencing, his favourite nightclubs and his family.
‘The new Germany,’ he said, ‘is all about arresting the decline of the family, you know, and establishing a national community of blood. Things are changing. For instance, there are now only 22,787 tramps in Germany, 5,500 fewer than at the start of the year. There are more marriages, more births and half as many divorces. You might well ask me why the family is so important to the Party. Well, I’ll tell you. Children. The better our children, the better the future for Germany. So when something threatens those children, then we had better act quickly.’
I found a cigarette and started to pay attention. It seemed like he was coming to the point at last. We stopped at a park bench and sat down, me between Heydrich and Nebe, the chicken-liver in the black-bread sandwich.
‘You don’t like gardens,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘What about children? Do you like them?’
‘I like them.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘It’s my own personal opinion that it is essential to like them, doing what we do — even the things we must do that are hard because they seem distasteful to us — for otherwise we can find no expression for our humanity. Do you understand what I mean?’
I wasn’t sure I did, but I nodded anyway.
‘May I be frank with you?’ he said. ‘In confidence?’
‘Be my guest.’
‘A maniac is loose on the streets of Berlin, Herr Gunther.’
I shrugged. ‘Not so as you would notice,’ I said.
Heydrich shook his head impatiently.
‘No, I don’t mean a stormtrooper beating up some old Jew. I mean a murderer. He’s raped and killed and mutilated four young German girls in as many months.’
‘I haven’t seen anything in the newspapers about it.’
Heydrich laughed. ‘The newspapers print what we tell them to print, and there’s an embargo on this particular story.’
‘Thanks to Streicher and his anti-Semitic rag, it would only get blamed on the Jews,’ said Nebe.
‘Precisely so,’ said Heydrich. ‘The last thing I want is an anti-Jewish riot in this city. That sort of thing offends my sense of public order. It offends me as a policeman. When we do decide to clear out the Jews it will be in a proper way, not with a rabble to do it. There are the commercial implications too. A couple of weeks ago some idiots in Nuremberg decided to tear down a synagogue. One that just happened to be well-insured with a German insurance company. It cost them thousands of marks to settle the claim. So you see, race riots are very bad for business.’
‘So why tell me?’
‘I want this lunatic caught, and caught soon, Gunther.’ He looked drily at Nebe. ‘In the best traditions of Kripo a man, a Jew, has already confessed to the murders. However, since he was almost certainly in custody at the time of the last murder, it seems that he might actually be innocent, and that an overzealous element in Nebe’s beloved police force may quite simply have framed this man.
‘But you, Gunther, you have no racial or political axe to grind. And what is more you have considerable experience in this field of criminal
‘No,’ we said in unison.
‘It’s an interesting game; I believe it’s very popular in England. It provides an interesting metaphor for the new Germany. Laws are merely hoops through which the people must be driven, with varying degrees of force. But there can be no movement without the mallet — croquet really is a perfect game for a policeman.’ Nebe nodded thoughtfully, and Heydrich himself seemed pleased with this comparison. He began to talk quite freely. In brief about some of the things he hated — Freemasons, Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals and Admiral Canaris, the head of the Abwehr, German Military Secret Intelligence; and at length about some of the things that gave him pleasure — the piano and the cello, fencing, his favourite nightclubs and his family.
‘The new Germany,’ he said, ‘is all about arresting the decline of the family, you know, and establishing a national community of blood. Things are changing. For instance, there are now only 22,787 tramps in Germany, 5,500 fewer than at the start of the year. There are more marriages, more births and half as many divorces. You might well ask me why the family is so important to the Party. Well, I’ll tell you. Children. The better our children, the better the future for Germany. So when something threatens those children, then we had better act quickly.’
I found a cigarette and started to pay attention. It seemed like he was coming to the point at last. We stopped at a park bench and sat down, me between Heydrich and Nebe, the chicken-liver in the black-bread sandwich.
‘You don’t like gardens,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘What about children? Do you like them?’
‘I like them.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘It’s my own personal opinion that it is essential to like them, doing what we do — even the things we must do that are hard because they seem distasteful to us — for otherwise we can find no expression for our humanity. Do you understand what I mean?’
I wasn’t sure I did, but I nodded anyway.
‘May I be frank with you?’ he said. ‘In confidence?’
‘Be my guest.’
‘A maniac is loose on the streets of Berlin, Herr Gunther.’
I shrugged. ‘Not so as you would notice,’ I said.
Heydrich shook his head impatiently.
‘No, I don’t mean a stormtrooper beating up some old Jew. I mean a murderer. He’s raped and killed and mutilated four young German girls in as many months.’
‘I haven’t seen anything in the newspapers about it.’
Heydrich laughed. ‘The newspapers print what we tell them to print, and there’s an embargo on this particular story.’
‘Thanks to Streicher and his anti-Semitic rag, it would only get blamed on the Jews,’ said Nebe.
‘Precisely so,’ said Heydrich. ‘The last thing I want is an anti-Jewish riot in this city. That sort of thing offends my sense of public order. It offends me as a policeman. When we do decide to clear out the Jews it will be in a proper way, not with a rabble to do it. There are the commercial implications too. A couple of weeks ago some idiots in Nuremberg decided to tear down a synagogue. One that just happened to be well-insured with a German insurance company. It cost them thousands of marks to settle the claim. So you see, race riots are very bad for business.’
‘So why tell me?’
‘I want this lunatic caught, and caught soon, Gunther.’ He looked drily at Nebe. ‘In the best traditions of Kripo a man, a Jew, has already confessed to the murders. However, since he was almost certainly in custody at the time of the last murder, it seems that he might actually be innocent, and that an overzealous element in Nebe’s beloved police force may quite simply have framed this man.
‘But you, Gunther, you have no racial or political axe to grind. And what is more you have considerable experience in this field of criminal
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