‘Because the old bastard drinks too much at lunch-time. By the time he reels back from the SS Officers’ Club in the afternoon he can’t remember a word of English except, “tomorrow, tomorrow!”’
Harry Woods noted with satisfaction the way that Douglas Archer glanced round the empty chairs and desks, just in case anyone had overheard this pronouncement. ‘Whatever the truth of that may be,’ said Douglas cautiously, ‘the fact remains that he’ll want his briefing. And solving a murder that we’ve not yet been invited to investigate will not be thought sufficient excuse for my not being upstairs on time.’ Douglas got to his feet and collected together the documents that the General might want to see.
‘I’d tell him to go to hell,’ said Harry. ‘I’d tell him the job comes first.’
Douglas Archer nipped out his cheroot carefully, so as to preserve the unsmoked part of it, then put it into the top drawer of his desk, together with a magnifying glass, tickets for a police concert he’d not attended, and a broken fountain pen. ‘Kellerman’s not so bad,’ said Douglas. ‘He’s kept the Metropolitan Force more or less intact. Have you forgotten all the talk of putting German Assistant Commissioners upstairs? Kellerman opposed that.’
‘Too much competition,’ muttered Harry, ‘and Kellerman doesn’t like competition.’
Douglas put his report, and the rest of the papers, into his briefcase and strapped it up. ‘In the unlikely event that West End Central ask for us, have the murder bag ready and order a car. Tell them to keep the photographer there until I tell him to go and to keep the Divisional Surgeon there, as well as the pathologist.’
‘The doctor won’t like that,’ said Harry.
‘Thanks for telling me that, Harry. Send the doctor a packet of wait-about tablets with my compliments, and remind him you are phoning from Whitehall 1212, Headquarters of Kriminalpolizei, Ordnungspolizei, Sicherheitsdienst and Gestapo. Any complaints about waiting can be sent here in writing.’
‘Keep your shirt on,’ said Harry defensively.
The phone rang; the calm impersonal voice of General Kellerman’s personal assistant said, ‘Superintendent Archer? The General presents his compliments and asks if this would be a convenient time for you to give him the CID briefing.’
‘Immediately, Major,’ said Douglas, and replaced the phone.
‘Jawohl, Herr Major. Kiss your arse, Herr Major,’ said Harry.
‘Oh for God’s sake, Harry. I have to deal with these people at first hand; you don’t.’ ‘I still call it arse-licking.’
‘And how much arse-licking do you think it needed to get your brother exempted from that deportation order!’ Douglas had been determined never to tell Harry about that, and now he was angry with himself.
‘Because of the medical report from his doctor,’ said Harry but even as he was saying it he realized that most of the technicians sent to German factories probably got something like that from a sympathetic physician.
‘That helped,’ said Douglas lamely.
‘I never realized, Doug,’ said Harry but by that time Douglas was hurrying up to the first floor. The Germans were sticklers for punctuality.
General – or, more accurately in SS parlance, Gruppen-führer – Fritz Kellerman was a genial-looking man in his late fifties. He was of medium height but his enthusiasm for good food and drink provided a rubicund complexion and a slight plumpness which, together with his habit of standing with both hands in his pockets, could deceive the casual onlooker into thinking Kellerman was short and fat, and so he was often described. His staff called him ‘Vater’ but if his manner was fatherly it was not benign enough to earn him the more common nickname of ‘Vati’ (Daddy). His thick thatch of white hair had beguiled more than one young officer into accepting his invitation for an early morning canter through the park. But few of them went for the second time. And only the greenest of his men would agree to a friendly game of chess, for Kellerman had once been the junior chess champion of Bavaria. ‘Luck seems to be with me today,’ he’d tell them as they became trapped into a humiliating defeat.
Before the German victory, Douglas had seldom visited this office on the first floor. It was the turret room used hitherto only by the Commissioner. But now he was often here talking to Kellerman, whose police powers extended over the whole occupied country. And Douglas – together with certain other officers – had been granted the special privilege of entering the Commissioner’s room by the private door, instead of going through the clerk’s office. Before the Germans came, this was something permitted only to Assistant Commissioners. General Kellerman said it was part of das Führerprinzip; Harry Woods said it was bullshit.
The Commissioner’s office was more or less unchanged from the old days. The massive mahogany desk was placed in the corner. The chair behind it stood in the tiny circular turret that provided light from all sides, and a wonderful view of the river. There was a big marble mantelpiece and on it an ornate clock that struck the hour and half-hour. A fire blazed in the bow-fronted grate between polished brass fire-irons and a scuttle of coal. The only apparent change was the shoal of fish that swam across the far wall, in glass-fronted cases, stuffed, and labelled with Fritz Kellerman’s name, and a place and date, lettered in gold.
There were two men in army uniform there when Douglas entered the room. He hesitated. ‘Come in, Superintendent. Come in!’ called Kellerman.
The two strangers looked at Douglas and then exchanged affirmative nods. This Englishman was exactly right for them. Not only was he reputed to be one of the finest detectives in the Murder Squad but he was young and athletic looking, with the sort of pale bony face that Germans thought was aristocratic. He was ‘Germanic’, a perfect example of ‘the new European’. And he even spoke excellent German.
One of the men picked up a notebook from Kellerman’s desk. ‘Just one more, General Kellerman,’ he said. The other man seemed to produce a Leica out of nowhere and knelt down to look through its viewfinder. ‘You and the Superintendent, looking together at some notes or a map…you know the sort of thing.’
On the cuffs of their field-grey uniforms the men wore ‘Propaganda-Kompanie’ armbands.
‘We’d better do as they say, Superintendent,’ said Kellerman. ‘These fellows are from Signal magazine. They’ve come all the way from Berlin just to talk to us.’
Awkwardly Douglas went round to the far side of the desk. He posed self-consciously, prodding at a copy of the Angler’s Times. Douglas felt foolish but Kellerman took it all in his stride.
‘Superintendent Archer,’ said the PK journalist in heavily accented English, ‘is it true that, here at Scotland Yard, the men call General Kellerman “Father”?’
Douglas hesitated, pretending to be holding still for the photo in order to gain time. ‘Can’t you see how your question embarrasses the Superintendent?’ said Kellerman. ‘And speak German, the Superintendent speaks the language as well as I do.’
‘It’s true then?’ said the journalist, pressing for an answer from Douglas. The camera shutter clicked. The photographer checked the settings on his camera and then took two more pictures in rapid succession.
‘Of course it’s true,’ said Kellerman. ‘You think I’m a liar? Or do you think I’m the sort of police chief who doesn’t know what goes on in my own headquarters?’
The journalist stiffened and the photographer lowered his camera.
‘It’s quite