When Max Amann left, Fritz went to the precinct to use the hated telephone. He had little time, so he used it as wisely as he could. He called Berlin, spoke to the newspaper office where Otto Strasser worked, and discovered that Strasser spoke the truth, that he had come to Munich after hearing of Geli’s death.
Or, at least, he had set up his alibi before he left.
Fritz had too much to do. He needed Henrich. He found him going over a witness list.
‘I need you to go to Berlin,’ Fritz said. ‘You must check Otto Strasser’s alibi, then check on his followers.’
‘What of Gregor?’ Henrich asked.
Fritz nodded. ‘Check on him when you return.’
‘What will you be doing?’ Henrich asked.
‘Following my only other lead,’ Fritz said.
‘Otto Strasser seems too important for you to have given him to Henrich,’ she says.
Fritz smiles. ‘Otto Strasser was obvious,’ he says, ‘and many people discussed him. What I found important were the silences, the things not said.’
‘The denials,’ she says.
‘And the denials, where none were needed.’
The drive to Nuremberg took two hours. Fritz timed it, deliberately going slow, then adding fifteen minutes to the total time. Hitler’s story, sent to the Kripo through his agents while Fritz was in Vienna, was that he had heard about Geli’s death on Saturday morning, and had hurried back so quickly that he had got a speeding ticket in Ebenhausen on the way back. Fritz had seen the ticket. It was issued on Saturday morning, after Geli’s body had been taken to Dr Zehrt.
No one would talk about Hitler’s role in all of this. His chauffeur, the only other person who knew Hitler’s exact schedule, had disappeared as well.
‘So by this time, you believed Hitler killed her?’
Fritz shakes his head. He does not want to give that impression. ‘I suspected someone in NSDAP, but I did not know who. I had nothing clear, no real reason for anyone to kill the girl.’
‘Except Eva.’
‘Not even Eva. She had no real way in.’
‘I don’t understand why you didn’t investigate those who hated him – the Communists, maybe.’
He likes it better when she is silent. But as he gets deeper into the story, she is silent less and less. ‘It was clear from the first that Geli died at the hands of NSDAP, and not any other way.’
She holds up one hand, then stops the tape and turns it over. As she presses ‘record’, she says, ‘It is not clear to me.’
‘A political murder, especially of a young and beautiful girl, would have helped the NSDAP. Had they been thinking clearly, they would have played it that way from the beginning. But something caused them to panic.’
‘A suicide, perhaps?’
‘With a broken nose?’
‘The nose could have happened in a different incident.’
Fritz nods. ‘It could have. But it didn’t. I did not make those kinds of mistakes ever in my career. And you forget Father Pant.’
‘He was not the expert. You were.’
‘Yes, and I saw a murder victim.’
‘So someone in the NSDAP knew who killed her, and hid it.’
‘Ineffectively.’
‘But why kill a 23-year-old girl who had no interest in politics?’
Fritz shrugs. ‘A hundred reasons. To frighten Hitler. To get him to resign.’
‘That would be the Strassers.’
Fritz nods. ‘Or perhaps she knew something she wasn’t supposed to. She went on many important dinners with Hitler.’
‘What about the paintings?’
‘The paintings suggest blackmail, but who was blackmailing whom?’
‘Hitler’s sexual practices might have created attention.’
‘No.’ Fritz picks up his pack of cigarettes. ‘No, there you are wrong.’
She frowns. ‘Wouldn’t the German people be shocked at what he was doing with his own unmarried niece?’
‘No.’ Fritz puts a cigarette in his mouth, grabs his lighter, and flicks the edge. The flame soars, leaving a butane stench in the air.
‘Come now,’ The girl says. ‘The Germans come from the same Western traditions as the rest of us. You can’t tell me that they were so liberal as to tolerate that kind of behaviour.’
‘It is not liberal.’ Fritz inhales, letting the tobacco cool his throat. He exhales in a big puff of white. ‘We all did things in those days, things we were not proud of. There were live sex shows in Berlin in the Twenties. Good women sold their bodies for bread in the Great Inflation. We did not talk about our private behaviour. If we pointed the finger at one man, we might have to point it at ourselves.’
She studies him for a long time, long enough for him to smoke the entire cigarette and stub the butt in the cut-glass ashtray. ‘You never explored the sexual evidence, did you? You never asked those questions. You let that information go right past you. I bet you never knew who sent you the paintings.’
‘It wasn’t important.’
‘It was important enough to tell me.’
‘It goes to motivation.’
‘Motivation?’ She clicks the top of her pen. ‘You solved the case then.’
‘You doubted that?’ He wonders if he should be offended. Perhaps he is offended too much.
‘You’ve been so cryptic, and then you retired after this case was closed. The more I listen to you, the more I know you are not the kind of man who would take money to remain silent. I thought perhaps you retired in disgrace.’
‘Perhaps I retired because I could no longer make money in my profession. There was a point when the city of Munich could not pay its employees.’
‘And a point when the banks closed. You don’t strike me as the kind of man who would leave then. It would give you even less security.’ Then she blinks. ‘Something robbed you of your security?’
Fritz removes another cigarette from his pack. ‘Long before this,’ he says. ‘Long before this.’