The Pale Criminal (36 page)

By any standard it was an impressive-looking place, with rather more of the horror film about it than was entirely comfortable a proposition for the intendant trespasser. This so-called schoolhouse looked like home from home for Dracula, Frankenstein, Orlac and a whole forestful of Wolfmen — the sort of occasion where I might have been prompted to re-load my pistol with nine millimetre cloves of snub-nosed garlic.

Almost certainly there were enough real-life monsters in the Wewelsburg Castle without having to worry about the more fanciful ones, and I didn't doubt that Himmler could have given Doctor X quite a few pointers.

But could I trust Heydrich? I thought about this for quite a while. Finally I decided that I could almost certainly trust him to be ambitious, and since I was effectively providing him with the means of destroying an enemy in the shape of Weisthor, I had no real alternative but to put myself and my information in his murdering white hands.

The little church bell in the clock-tower was striking midnight as I steered the Mercedes to the edge of the esplanade and beyond it, the bridge curving left across the empty moat towards the castle gate.

An S S trooper emerged from a stone sentry-box to glance at my papers and to wave me on.

In front of the wooden gate I stopped and sounded the car horn a couple of times. There were lights on all over the castle, and it didn't seem likely that I'd be waking anyone, dead or alive. A small door in the gate swung open and an S S corporal came outside to speak to me. After scrutinizing my papers in his torchlight, he allowed me to step through the door and into the arched gateway where once again I repeated my story and presented my papers, only this time it was for the benefit of a young lieutenant apparently in command of the guard-duty.

There is only one way to deal effectively with arrogant young SS officers who look as though they've been specially issued with the right shade of blue eyes and fair hair, and that is to outdo them for arrogance. So I thought of the man I had killed that evening, and fixed the lieutenant with the sort of cold, supercilious stare that would have crushed a Hohenzollern prince.

‘I am Kommissar Gunther,' I rapped at him, ‘and I'm here on extremely pressing Sipo business affecting Reich security, which requires the immediate attention of General Heydrich. Please inform him at once that I am here. You'll find that he is expecting me, even to the extent that he has seen fit to provide me with the password to the castle during these Court of Honour proceedings.' I uttered the word and watched the lieutenant's arrogance pay homage to my own.

‘Let me stress the delicacy of my mission, lieutenant,' I said, lowering my voice. ‘It is imperative that at this stage only General Heydrich or his aide be informed of my presence here in the castle. It is quite possible that Communist spies may already have infiltrated these proceedings. Do you understand?'

The lieutenant nodded curtly and ducked back into his office to make the telephone call, while I walked to the edge of the cobbled courtyard that lay open to the cold night sky.

The castle seemed smaller from the inside, with three roofed wings joined by three towers, two of them domed, and the short but wider third, castellated and furnished with a flagpole where an SS penant fluttered noisily in the strengthening wind.

The lieutenant came back and to my surprise stood to attention with a click of his heels. I guessed that this probably had more to do with what Heydrich or his aide had said than with my own commanding personality.

‘Kommissar Gunther,' he said respectfully, ‘the general is finishing dinner and asks you to wait in the sitting-room. That is in the west tower. Would you please follow me? The corporal will attend to your vehicle.'

‘Thank you, Lieutenant,' I said, ‘but first I have to remove some important documents that I left on the front seat.'

Having recovered my briefcase, which contained Weisthor's medical case-history, Lange's statement and the Lange-Kindermann letters, I followed the lieutenant across the cobbled courtyard towards the west wing. From somewhere to our left could be heard the sound of men singing.

‘Sounds like quite a party,' I said coldly. My escort grunted without much enthusiasm. Any kind of party is better than late-night guard-duty in November. We went through a heavy oak door and entered the great hall.

All German castles should be so Gothic; every Teutonic warlord should live and strut in such a place; each inquisitorial Aryan bully should surround himself with as many emblems of unsparing tyranny. Aside from the great heavy rugs, the thick tapestries and the dull paintings, there were enough suits of armour, musket-stands and wall-mounted cutlery to have fought a war with King Gustavus Adolphus and the whole Swedish army.

In contrast, the sitting-room, which we reached by a wooden spiral staircase, was furnished plainly and commanded a spectacular view of a small airfield's landing lights a couple of kilometres away.

‘Help yourself to a drink,' said the lieutenant, opening the cabinet. ‘If there's anything else you need, sir, just ring the bell.' Then he clicked his heels again and disappeared back down the staircase.

I poured myself a large brandy and tossed it straight back. I was tired after the long drive. With another glass in my hand I sat stiffly in an armchair and closed my eyes. I could still see the startled expression on Kindermann's face as the first bullet struck between the eyes. Weisthor would be missing him and his bag of drugs badly by now, I thought. I could have used an armful myself.

I sipped some more of the brandy. Ten minutes passed and I felt my head nodding.

I fell asleep and my nightmare's terrifying gallop brought me before beast men, preachers of death, scarlet judges and the outcasts of paradise.

By the time I finished telling Heydrich my story the general's normally pale features were flushed with excitement.

‘I congratulate you, Gunther,' he said. ‘This is much more than I had expected. And your timing is perfect. Don't you agree, Nebe?'

‘Yes indeed, General.'

‘It may surprise you, Gunther,' Heydrich said, ‘but Reichsführer Himmler and myself are currently in favour of maintaining police protection for Jewish property, if only for reasons of public order and commerce. You let a mob run riot on the streets and it won't just be Jewish shops that are looted, it will be German ones too. To say nothing of the fact that the damage will have to be made good by German insurance companies. Goering will be beside himself. And who can blame him? The whole idea makes a mockery of any economic planning.

‘But as you say, Gunther, were Himmler to be convinced by Weisthor's scheme then he would certainly be inclined to waive that police protection. In which case I should have to go along with that position. So we have to be careful how we handle this. Himmler is a fool, but he's a dangerous fool. We have to expose Weisthor unequivocally, and in front of as many witnesses as possible.' He paused. ‘Nebe?'

The Reichskriminaldirektor stroked the side of his long nose and nodded thoughtfully.

‘We shouldn't mention Himmler's involvement at all, if we can possibly avoid it, General,' he said. ‘I'm all for exposing Weisthor in front of witnesses. I don't want that dirty bastard to get away with it. But at the same time we should avoid embarrassing the Reichsfuhrer in front of the senior SS staff. He'll forgive us destroying Weisthor, but he won't forgive us making an ass of him.'

‘I agree,' said Heydrich. He thought for a moment. ‘This is Sipo section six, isn't it?' Nebe nodded. ‘Where's the nearest SD main provincial station to Wewelsburg?'

‘Bielefeld,' Nebe replied.

‘Right. I want you to telephone them immediately. Have them send a full company of men here by dawn.' He smiled thinly. ‘Just in case Weisthor manages to make this Jew allegation against me stick. I don't like this place. Weisthor has lots of friends here in Wewelsburg. He even officiates at some of the ludicrous SS wedding ceremonies that take place here. So we might need to mount a show of force.'

‘The castle commandant, Taubert, was in Sipo prior to this posting,' said Nebe. ‘I'm pretty certain we can trust him.'

‘Good. But don't tell him about Weisthor. Just stick to Gunther's original story about KPD infiltrators and have him keep a detachment of men on full alert. And while you're about it, you'd better have him organize a bed for the Kommissar. By God, he's earned it.'

‘The room next to mine is free, General. I think it's the Henry I of Saxony Room.' Nebe grinned.

‘Madness,' Heydrich laughed. ‘I'm in the King Arthur and the Grail Room. But who knows? Perhaps today I shall at least defeat Morgana le Fay.'

 

The courtroom was on the ground floor of the west wing. With the door to one of the adjoining rooms open a crack, I had a perfect view of what went on in there.

The room itself was over forty metres long, with a bare, polished wooden floor, panelled walls and a high ceiling complete with oak beams and carved gargoyles. Dominating was a long oak table that was surrounded on all four sides with high-backed leather chairs, on each of which was a silver disk and what I presumed to be the name of the SS officer who was entitled to sit there. With the black uniforms and all the ritualistic ceremony that attended the commencement of the court proceedings, it was like spying on a meeting of the Grand Lodge of Freemasons.

First on the agenda that morning was the Reichsführer's approval of plans for the development of the derelict north tower. These were presented by Landbaumeister Bartels, a fat, owlish little man who sat between Weisthor and Rahn. Weisthor himself seemed nervous and was quite obviously feeling the lack of his cocaine.

When the Reichsfuhrer asked him his opinion of the plans, Weisthor stammered his answer: ‘In, er . . . in terms of the, er . . . cult importance of the . . . er . . . castle,' he said, ‘and, er ... its magical importance in any, er ... in any future conflict between, er . . . East and West, er . . .'

Heydrich interrupted, and it was immediately apparent that it was not to help the Brigadefuhrer.

‘Reichsführer,' he said coolly, ‘since this is a court, and since we are all of us listening to the Brigadefuhrer with enormous fascination, it would I believe be unfair to you all to permit him to go any further without acquainting you of the very serious charges that have to be made against him and his colleague, Unterscharfuhrer Rahn.'

‘What charges are these?' said Himmler with some distaste. ‘I know nothing of any charges pending against Weisthor. Nor even of any investigation affecting him.'

‘That is because there was no investigation of Weisthor. However, a completely separate inquiry has revealed Weisthor's principal role in an odious conspiracy that has resulted in the perverted murders of seven innocent German schoolgirls.'

‘Reichsführer,' roared Weisthor, ‘I protest. This is monstrous.'

‘I quite agree,' said Heydrich, ‘and you are the monster.'

Weisthor rose to his feet, his whole body shaking.

‘You lying little kike,' he spat.

Heydrich merely smiled a lazy little smile. ‘Kommissar,' he said loudly, ‘would you please come in here now?'

I walked slowly into the room, my shoes sounding on the wooden floor like some nervous actor about to audition for a play. Every head turned as I came in, and as fifty of the most powerful men in Germany focused their eyes on me, I could have wished to have been anywhere else but there. Weisthor's jaw dropped as Himmler half rose to his feet.

‘What is the meaning of this?' Himmler growled.

‘Some of you probably know this gentleman as Herr Steininger,' Heydrich said smoothly, ‘the father of one of the murdered girls. Except that he is nothing of the kind. He works for me. Tell them who you really are, Gunther.'

‘Kriminalkommissar Bernhard Gunther, Murder Commission, Berlin-Alexanderplatz.'

‘And tell these officers, if you will, why you have come here.'

‘To arrest one Karl Maria Weisthor, also known as Karl Maria Wiligut, also known as Jarl Widar; Otto Rahn; and Richard Anders, all for the murders of seven girls in Berlin between 23 May and 29 September 1938.'

‘Liar,' Rahn shouted, jumping to his feet, along with another officer whom I supposed to be Anders.

‘Sit down,' said Himmler. ‘I take it that you believe that you can prove this, Kommissar?' If I'd been Karl Marx himself he couldn't have regarded me with more hatred.

‘I believe I can, sir, yes.'

‘This had better not be one of your tricks, Heydrich,' Himmler said.

‘A trick, Reichsführer?' he said innocently. ‘If it's tricks you're looking for, these two evil men had them all. They sought to pass themselves off as mediums, to persuade weaker-minded people that it was the spirits who were informing them where the bodies of the girls they themselves had murdered were hidden away. And but for Kommissar Gunther here, they would have attempted the same insane trick with this company of officers.'

‘Reichsführer,' Weisthor spluttered, ‘this is utterly preposterous.'

‘Where is the proof you mentioned, Heydrich?'

‘I said insane. I meant exactly that. Naturally there is no one here who could have fallen for such a ludicrous scheme as theirs. However, it is characteristic of those who are insane to believe in the right of what they are doing.' He retrieved the file containing Weisthor's medical case history from underneath his sheaf of papers and laid it in front of Himmler.

‘These are the medical case notes of Karl Maria Wiligut, also known as Karl Maria Weisthor, which until recently were in the possession of his doctor, Hauptsturmfuhrer Lanz Kindermann–'