Free Prague Fatale by Philip Kerr Page A

story doing the rounds that one of them even stole Oscar Fleischer’s overcoat.’
     
    Fleischer was head of the Gestapo’s Counterintelligence Section in Prague.
     
    ‘And that the same brazen fellow won a bet that he could cadge a light for his cigarette off Fleischer’s cigar.’
     
    ‘There’s always a lot of gossip in a place like this,’ said Sachse.
     
    ‘Oh sure. But that’s how cops work, Herr Commissar. A nudge here. A wink there. A whisper in a bar. A fellow tells you that someone else says that his pal heard this or that. Personally I’ve always put a vague rumour ahead of anything as imaginative as three pipes’ worth of deductive reasoning. It’s elementary, my dear Sachse. Oh yes, and didn’t these Three Kings send the Gestapo a complimentary copy of their own underground newspaper? That’s the gossip.’
     
    ‘Since you appear to be so well informed—’
     
    I shook my head. ‘It’s common knowledge, here on the Third Floor.’
     
    ‘—Then I dare say you will also know that two of the Three Kings – Josef Balaban and Josef Masin – have already been arrested. As have many other of their collaborators. In Prague. And here in Berlin. It’s only a matter of time before we catch Melchior.’
     
    ‘I don’t get it,’ I said. ‘You caught Josef A in April; and Josef B in May. Or maybe it was the other way round. But here we are in September and you still haven’t managed to shake the third King out of their sleeves. You boys must be going soft.’
     
    Of course I knew this couldn’t be true. The Gestapo had moved heaven and earth in search of the third man, but mostly they’d employed a more infernal sort of help. Because there was another rumour around the Alex: that the Prague Gestapo had enlisted the services of their most notorious torturer in Bohemia, a sadist called Paul Soppa, who was the commander of Pankrac Prison in Prague, to work on the two Czechs in his custody. I didn’t give much for their chances but, in the light of the continued liberty of Melchior, the certainty that neither man had talked was proof positive of their enormous courage and bravery.
     
    ‘There are different ways of approaching every problem,’said Wandel. ‘And right now we should like you to help us with this problem. Colonel Schellenberg speaks very highly of you.’
     
    Walter Schellenberg was close to General Heydrich, who was Chief of the whole RSHA, of which Kripo was now one part.
     
    ‘I know who Schellenberg is,’ I said. ‘At least, I remember meeting him. But I don’t know what he is. Not these days.’
     
    ‘He’s the acting chief of foreign intelligence within the RSHA,’ said Sachse.
     
    ‘Is this problem a foreign intelligence matter?’
     
    ‘It might be. But right now it’s a homicide. Which is where you come in.’
     
    ‘Well, anything to help Colonel Schellenberg, of course,’ I said, helpfully.
     
    ‘You know the Heinrich von Kleist Park?’
     
    ‘Of course. It used to be Berlin’s botanical garden before the Botanical Gardens were built in Steglitz.’
     
    ‘A body was found there this morning.’
     
    ‘Oh? I wonder why I haven’t heard about it.’
     
    ‘You’re hearing about it now. We’d like you to come and take a look at it, Gunther.’
     
    I shrugged. ‘Have you got any petrol?’
     
    Sachse frowned.
     
    ‘For your car,’ I added. ‘I wasn’t proposing that we burn the body.’
     
    ‘Yes, of course we have petrol.’
     
    ‘Then I’d love to go to the Park with you, Commissar Sachse.’
     
    Kleist Park in Schöneberg had something to do with a famous German Romantic writer. He might have been called Kleist. There were lots of trees, a statue of the goddess Diana, and,on the western border of the park, the Court of Appeal. Not that Hitler’s Germany had much use for a Court of Appeal. Those who were convicted and condemned in a Nazi court of first instance usually stayed that way.
     
    On the southern border was a