Текст книги "Rosa"

Автор книги: Jonathan Rabb

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

Unlike the others, however, her neck was horribly distended. Hoffner jabbed the end of his pen into the swollen flesh. That was more of the dog’s handiwork. Its teeth marks were still fresh in the fleshy skin just below the chin, yet the back had gone untouched. Instinct, thought Hoffner. Even the animal had sensed the depravity there and had kept clear.

He looked up and scanned the surrounding area. He knew he would find nothing: Wouters, or Wouters’s surrogate-Fichte would have to clear that up-was always far too careful to leave anything behind. Luxemburg and Mary Koop had been diversions: the killer was now back on form.

Hoffner placed a finger on her skin. It was cold and tough and greaseless. He ran his hand along the diameter-cut. The ridges of hardened flesh bent back easily against the pressure of his thumb. There was something oddly consoling in its familiarity, in the shape and texture of a pattern that he had known so well up until a week ago. Now there was far more to it than that: jagged ruts, and gloves, and grease, and a name, and a revolutionary, and on and on and on. It was all supposed to bring him closer to a solution, and yet, with each new “discovery,” Hoffner felt himself being drawn toward something that had little to do with the deaths of his five unremarkable and unconnected Berlin women. He was beginning to wonder where the diversion really lay.

Ten minutes later, Hoffner stepped back out into the raw air of Senefelderplatz. The chill settled on his face and, for an instant, let him forget all of the pieces that were flying through his head. Sadly, the first image that made its way back in was of Kvatsch. Hoffner knew that the first explosion of articles would appear in tomorrow’s papers. A lovely sense of panic would sweep over the city as the story jumped from the BZto the Morgenpost,and up and down the Ullstein line, until, like a brush fire, it would leap across the avenue to the Mosse and Scherl presses, and blaze across the headlines of all of their high– and low-end papers. Kvatsch had probably come up with some clever name for the murders already. It was irrelevant what he had seen: he would invent what he needed. And a million eyes would now be peering over Hoffner’s shoulder, waiting and wondering.

The ambulance was still nowhere in sight. Hoffner knew there was no reason to wait; there was nothing else he could do here tonight. He had started across the square when he heard the sound of the sergeant running up from behind him. Hoffner dug his hands into his coat pockets and continued in the other direction. He spoke over his shoulder: “The ambulance,” he said. “Make sure she gets back to the Alex.” A mumbled, “Yes, Herr Krim. .” faded into the distance as Hoffner picked up his pace.

It was only then that he realized how quiet the square had become. Hoffner glanced over at the lamppost. He noticed that a small, horse-drawn wagon had pulled up under the light; a rifle was propped up against its back wheel. The horse stood content with a bag of oats, while the driver struggled to untie the leash from the post. Hoffner stopped.

The leash was now heavy from the weight of the dog’s lifeless body. The man had shot it once, in the throat. Save for an occasional bob of the head from each yank on the line, the dog lay quiet in a pool of its own blood. This time there had been no Franz to save it. Hoffner waited until the man had freed the dog. He then slowly headed off.

Van Acker checked the bottle before pouring out three more shots of whiskey.

The Bruges Stationspleinbar was not perhaps best known for its quality of stock, but it always kept enough of it flowing freely to satisfy the detectives of the city Politie.The rest of the station clientele had to be content with a Tarwebier or Chimay, tasty beers to be sure, but neither with enough of a kick to smooth over a ride out of town. Whiskey, on the other hand, always let you sleep. Mueller took his glass and raised it in a toast. Fichte was having trouble finding his.

“To your left, Detective,” said van Acker; he brought his own up to meet Mueller’s. Fichte eventually got hold of his and, spilling most of it on his pants, reached up to join them. “That’s very good, Detective,” said van Acker. He finished with the toast: “To finding one’s glass.”

Mueller and van Acker tossed theirs back. Fichte thought for a moment, let out a long breath, then placed his untasted back on the bar.

Mueller said, “Well, at least you tried.”

The last train to Berlin was set to leave Bruges in the next twenty minutes; it promised an eleven-o’clock arrival in Berlin tomorrow morning, and, with any luck, would get there by two. Still, it was quicker than waiting for first light; at best, Mueller could get Fichte to Berlin by early evening, and that was not accounting for weather or stops for fuel and oil. No, the train was the best bet. Van Acker had insisted. He had also used his pull with a certain transportation minister-a man whose wife had yet to learn about a young lady he was keeping in a lovely gabled house near the Begijnhof-to make sure that Fichte would have no trouble with any military delays at the German border.

Van Acker had come to this decision just after he and Fichte had stripped the asylum clean of every piece of paper having to do with Wouters: correspondence logs, visitor logs, psychiatric reports, staff interviews, medical files, the last of which had included details of Wouters’s eating and digestive habits-Fichte had been amazed to discover just how many varieties shit came in-all dating from the beginning of September. Plus, van Acker had taken them back via his office so as to pick up his personal case files on Wouters.

The train, though, was another matter. Fichte had wanted to send a wire to Berlin, just in case Hoffner had any other instructions. Van Acker had convinced him otherwise: better to bring all the necessary documents to Berlin by tomorrow morning than to lose valuable time to the drawn-out exchange of cables. “Don’t you agree, Detective?” Fichte had nodded quietly. The more he drank, however, the less he was looking forward to having to ask that question of Hoffner in person.

They had rounded up Mueller about an hour ago. Mueller, of course, had been disappointed to hear that he would be making the return flight solo, but once the invitation had been extended to join them for a few farewell drinks, all was forgiven.

“I still don’t see why you don’t come along,” said Fichte to van Acker. “Your case. You know the man better than anyone.” It was the first coherent thing Fichte had said in the last half-hour.

“I appreciate the offer,” van Acker said, “but not my jurisdiction. I had my chance.” He stared down at his glass. “I’m also guessing Herr Hoffner wouldn’t be that keen on the company.” Fichte tried to disagree, but van Acker continued: “I don’t want our friend back in Belgium,” he said with a sudden resolve. “And I don’t think you’ll want him in Germany, either.”

Fichte understood. Van Acker had failed to kill Wouters; he was telling Hoffner not to make the same mistake.

An amplified voice announced the train’s final boarding. Mueller tossed back Fichte’s untouched whiskey, and the three men headed out to the platform.

“They won’t wake you at the border,” van Acker said to Fichte as they walked. “I’ve seen to that.”

Fichte nodded his thanks.

Van Acker continued. “Tell Herr Hoffner-” He tried to find the words. “Tell him I would have loved the chance.”

The men stopped at the steps up to Fichte’s car, and, placing his valise on the platform, Fichte said, “My guess is, so would he, Monsieur Le Chef Inspecteur.” Van Acker appreciated the gesture. He said nothing.

“All right,” said Mueller impatiently. “If he’s going to be sleeping the whole way there, you and I’ll need to make up for his lack of commitment.”

Van Acker had known Mueller for less than an hour and was already a devotee. “One of us has a wife, Mueller,” said van Acker with a grin.

Mueller said, “Well, don’t look at me.”

The whistle blew, and Fichte gathered up his things. “I leave you in good hands, Chief Inspector,” he said. He shot a glance at Mueller. “Well, at least a few good fingers.”

Mueller laughed. He then turned to van Acker. “You do keep your pants on until the second course, don’t you, Inspector? Not like the Berlin boys?”

Fichte mounted the steps and van Acker said, “I’ll expect cables.” Fichte turned back and nodded. “Safe journey,” said van Acker. Another nod from Fichte. Van Acker then slapped Mueller on the back and started off. “Come on, Toby. I’ll introduce you to my wife.”

Fichte was out cold by the time the train had reached the outskirts of town.

At ten-thirty, Hoffner stopped by the wire room to send Sascha up to the attic for the night. It was too late for a cable now, not that he needed one to tell him what they had found. Anything other than Wouters would have caused a minor panic. Fichte, no doubt, had his hands full. Still, Hoffner would have liked to make sure that Fichte was loading them down with the right material. That, however, would have to wait for tomorrow.

It was nearly eleven, then, when Hoffner finally turned onto Kremmener Strasse.

He had long ago dispensed with the empty distinctions between character and weakness, at least when it came to decisions like these. To his mind, only men who claimed to have no choice struggled with those labels: to them, lack of choice granted a kind of freedom from consequence, or at least a softening of responsibility. Their angst, their wailing, their mea culpas of self-betrayal, all stemmed from that initial claim of powerlessness. Hoffner had never been that stupid or that impotent. He knew there was nothing inevitable about his seeing Lina. He was making the choice to venture back into the familiar of the unknown, and she was willingly inviting him in. Of course, had he seen Lina as anything more than that, he might have persuaded himself to hope for more, and that would have been dangerous. Hope fostered despair, and Hoffner had no desire for either.

The moon had broken through, and the houses melded into one another like a wide sheet of chalky gray stone. Lina’s building stood in the middle of the row, six wide steps leading up to its stoop, which boasted two flower boxes, each with a clump of frozen mud and a few gnarled twigs as reminders of some distant strains of life. Like the street itself, the boxes lay barren. Kremmener was one of the last outposts of the city’s Mitte district, a single street removed from the criminal haunts of Prenzlauer Berg. Ten years ago the gulf between the two would have been immeasurable; now it was a distinction only in name.

Lina had found a room on the top floor of Number 5, and although a woman living alone was far less of a shock these days-especially in this part of town-she had taken a roommate. Elise worked the coat-check room at the White Mouse. She was someone to know, according to Lina, a girl who was moving up. She was also rarely home before 2:00 a.m., and was infamous for forgetting her keys. A ring of the bell and the sound of scurrying feet up the stairs no longer drew the watchful eye of the landlord. He had grown fond of Elise and equally accustomed to her late-night, keyless returns.

Hoffner, with no inkling of a roommate, rang the bell anyway. He suspected that Lina had taken care of any possible awkwardness, and he was right. Two minutes into his wait, she appeared through the glass and opened the door. She was wearing a long lilac dressing gown that pretended to be silk, with tatty little ruffles at the sleeves and collar. On anyone else, they might have seemed vulgar; on her, they looked playful. She had kept her hair up, the tight ringlets along her forehead holding firm in a little row of Os that, from a certain angle, seemed to be oohing at him. She was wearing a bit more rouge than he remembered from this afternoon. Hoffner liked that.

She quickly put a finger to her lips. In a loud voice she said, “Nice and early tonight, Elise. That’s a lucky break.” Lina stifled a laugh and motioned for Hoffner to head up the stairs. He did as he was told; she followed.

The room was more cluttered than he had imagined. The slant of the roof left little space for windows. Two small ones, recessed into narrow alcoves, peered up more than out, and gave a cropped view of the starless sky. Everything else also came in twos-bed, dresser, chair-except for the small stove and washstand. Those the girls shared. Hoffner noticed a large rectangular gap on one of the walls. A picture had clearly hung there for years. He wondered what could have been so offensive as to merit its removal.

“A bare-bosomed slave girl,” said Lina, having followed his gaze. “Horrible. She was being sold to some old letch, or something like that. We hated it.” Lina closed the door. She saw Hoffner reaching for his cigarettes. “Not in the room, please,” she said. Hoffner found the request charming. Or perhaps Lina was more concerned with Fichte’s highly developed sense of smell. Hoffner returned the pack to his pocket.

She moved past him and over to an icebox that he had failed to see until now. She opened it and pulled out a plate of various goodies: crackers and pastes and cheeses, and something that looked like chocolate. Hoffner knew otherwise; Lina could never have afforded the real thing. She placed the plate on a small side table by the bed. Two glasses and a bottle of kmmel already stood at the ready.

Hoffner said, “I wasn’t expecting all of this.”

Lina continued to organize the treats. “So you were thinking it would be off with your pants and into bed,” she said with a smile as she pulled open a drawer and retrieved a few more crackers. She placed them along the rim of the plate. “I thought you’d be hungry.” She licked at a bit of paste that had grazed one of her fingers. “I also thought you’d be here a bit earlier. The paste’s too cold now. Oh, well.” She smoothed out the blanket on her bed and sat. She motioned for Hoffner to join her.

Hoffner took off his coat.

“Just there on the chair,” she said, pointing across the room.

Hoffner laid his coat across the chair and then joined her on the bed. He sat with his hands on his thighs. He said nothing. Lina reached over and poured out two glasses of the liqueur. A bit dripped on her hand, and again she quickly lapped it up. She handed Hoffner his, and they toasted. Lina then placed hers back on the table before bringing the plate to the bed and setting it between them.

“The other bed,” he said. “I’m assuming that one belongs to Frulein Elise.”

Lina handed him a cracker with a thin slice of cheese. “She knows not to come home before two. We’ve plenty of time.”

Hoffner was unsure how to react to the precision of the night’s planning. He took a bite; the cheese had no taste, at all. He said, “She’s used to this sort of thing, your Elise? Does it on a regular basis?”

Lina looked up. The implication was obvious. She smiled disingenuously. “She’s at the White Mouse most nights.” She took a cracker for herself. “And she does it only for Hans. There haven’t been any others.”

“I didn’t imagine there were,” he said.

Lina chewed as she stared at him. Her smile softened. “So,” she said. “Do you like my little place?”

Hoffner took another quick scan. “Very nice.” He reached for a piece of the faux chocolate. To his amazement, it was real.

“Not expecting that, either, were you?”

“No,” he said. “Not that, either.”

He was enjoying the chocolate’s sweetness when, very gently, she reached over and started to undo his tie. No less gently, Hoffner reached up and took hold of her arm. He held it there. Lina peered at him, unsure why he had stopped her. For a moment she looked almost fragile.

“Why?” he said calmly. There was nothing uncertain in his question, no need for affirmation. He simply wanted to know. “Why me?”

She brought her hand back to her lap. It was something she had never considered. It took her a moment to answer. “Does it matter?” she said.

Hoffner held her gaze. “Yes. It does. Why?”

Again she waited. “Don’t look at me that way,” she said. Hoffner said nothing; he continued to stare. “With your eyes like that.” Her smile grew uncomfortable. “It’s too much. . looking.”

Hoffner waited, then dropped his eyes to the plate. He took another wedge of cheese. “Better?”

“Much.”

He brought the cracker to his mouth. “So. . how much do you pay for this place, you and your Elise?”

Lina once again had her glass. “Are you planning on helping out?” she said with a coy smile. She took a sip.

Hoffner laughed quietly. “I don’t imagine that’s the way this is going to work.”

“The way what’s going to work?” she said with mock innocence. “Oh, this. No, I don’t imagine it will.”

“You split it?”

Lina said, “You’re awfully concerned with how I’m getting on. At tea today, wondering whether the flowers were enough, now my rent.”

“Sorry,” said Hoffner. “I won’t ask anymore.”

“No. It’s nice.”

“Good.” Hoffner finished off his cracker. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

She casually placed her glass back on the table. “Forty. Yes. We split it. Twenty each.”

Hoffner watched as her neck twisted with the movement. It was almost a perfect neck. “That’s not the question I meant.”

She turned back. “I know. I haven’t come up with an answer for that one, yet.” Without waiting for him, she reached over and took his glass. She set it on the table, then did the same with the plate. Hoffner knew exactly what was coming, yet he did nothing. He sat there as she moved closer, as she untied her dressing gown and let it drop off her shoulders. It spilled into a pool of silk by her thighs. She was wearing a nightgown beneath, pale white and thin, with two ribbon straps over her shoulders. Her small breasts were almost lost, save for the deep crimson of her nipples that puckered at the cloth.

Hoffner could smell the tangy sweetness of the rosewater in her hair. Her neck arced slightly, and he could see a thin ridge of powder that had gone unsmoothed by her chin. He felt a distant weakness in his arms and legs.

She slowly took his hand and placed it on her waist. “How many do I make, Nikolai?” she said. Hoffner felt a heat below the gown, the suppleness of her skin. “Girls like me,” she said. “The ones that mattered. How many?”

Hoffner followed the moisture of her lips. Without warning, he pulled her into him. He saw her eyes widen as she let out a sudden breath. She showed no vulnerability, no guile. He could taste the saltiness of her breath.

“How many?” she said.

“Six,” he answered without having to consider the number for even a moment.

Lina’s smile returned. The total was irrelevant. All she had wanted was an answer. She placed her hand on his cheek and brought him into her.

Twenty minutes later, Hoffner was asleep, his naked backside still glistening from the exertion. Lina pulled the blanket over him. She liked the weight of his arms and chest on her, the thick flesh of his back as his breathing grew heavier. He had taken her without reserve, and had left her spent. She had never felt such hunger in a partner. She could still feel him inside her, a deep vacancy where he had been. She imagined what it would be like to be loved by this man. She felt no less empty.

At one o’clock she woke him. Hoffner roused himself slowly. He had been dreaming, something to do with wild dogs and Georgi. He felt as if he had been running for hours. He dressed quietly and finished off his glass. Lina sat and watched him from the bed; she was relieved that there would be no need for a repeat performance. She held the blanket around her naked shoulders as she brought him to the door.

“You don’t ask any questions about Hans,” she said.

Hoffner half smiled and shook his head. “No.”

She ran her hand along his chest. “That’s good.” She kissed him.

An hour later, Hoffner dropped his pants and shirt at the foot of his bed and crawled in next to Martha; she hardly seemed to breathe. With the scent of Lina still fresh on him, Hoffner placed his arm around Martha’s back and was asleep within minutes. No dreams. Instead, for the first time in weeks, he slept through the night.

POINT TUDE

On his third time through the notes, Hoffner wrote: “No pleasure or purpose in it; no imperative; kills because he can.” Fichte was on his knees at the foot of the desk, busy with one more stack of papers that he had just pulled from his valise. He had come directly from the train and had been pleasantly surprised to find Hoffner in an almost buoyant mood. There was nothing to apologize for; van Acker had been right: best to get it all here as quickly as possible. Fichte had decided not to question his good fortune. For Hoffner, though, the clear evidence of van Acker’s hand in the choice of documents had been far more important than the speed. As far as he could tell, the Belgian had sent along everything they might need. Unfortunately, it would be another hour before Fichte would have the papers in any kind of presentable order, but at least they were here.

Unwilling to wait, Hoffner had started in on what looked to be the most self-contained and thus coherent of the packets. It was the transcript of van Acker’s first interview with Wouters, dated October 7, 1916, two days after Wouters had been taken into custody. Not surprisingly, it was making for some rather interesting, if disturbing, reading:

REPORT CASE #: 00935

SUSPECT: WOUTERS

INTERROGATOR: ACKERS

7 OCTOBER 1916

CI van Acker: So you killed your grandmother. Anne Wouters.

M. Wouters: Yes.

CI van Acker: Because of the way she treated you.

M. Wouters: Because I had the bristle.

CI van Acker: So you deserved the beatings?

M. Wouters: (Pause) I don’t know. I don’t think so.

CI van Acker: And you were pleased to kill her. As you said, to “watch the blood flow down her neck.”

M. Wouters: (Pause) I don’t think I understand.

CI van Acker: You liked watching her die.

M. Wouters: No. Why should I like watching her die?

CI van Acker: Because she had been beating you. Because of the scars on your back.

M. Wouters: I don’t think so. I don’t know. (Pause) Would it be better if that was why?

CI van Acker: If what was why, Mr. Wouters?

M. Wouters: Would it be better if it was because of the scars on my back? Would that be right?

CI van Acker: (Pause) Are you sorry your grandmother is dead?

M. Wouters: You’re asking the same question again.

CI van Acker: No, I haven’t asked that question.

M. Wouters: Yes. Yes, you did.

CI van Acker: I can assure you, I didn’t.

M. Wouters: Yes. You asked if I was pleased to kill her. “To watch the blood flow down her neck.” You see.

CI van Acker: (Pause) And you buried her outside the city.

M. Wouters: Yes.

CI van Acker: “In the soft earth near the Shripte factory.”

M. Wouters: Yes. The dirt smelled like coal, there.

CI van Acker: Like coal. I see. (Pause) So if there was nothing wrong with what you did, Mr. Wouters, why not tell the police when they asked you about her disappearance?

M. Wouters: Tell them? (Pause) They didn’t find the blood. I cleaned that. With a brush.

Hoffner reread the last line, then sat back and peered across at the map. He continued to think. “Kills because he can.” It was the same conclusion van Acker had drawn two years ago; Hoffner saw no reason to question it now. For Wouters, brutality carried no moral weight, no meaning beyond the act itself. His answers made that abundantly clear: there was no remorse, no pride, no delight in the killing. And yet, strangely enough, Wouters was neither cold nor detached in his responses. Van Acker’s notes said as much. It was as if Wouters had been genuinely confused by van Acker’s horror and disbelief.

CI van Acker: And, after that, you lived on the streets and in the almshouses.

M. Wouters: Yes. I moved about.

CI van Acker: Until the day you decided to kill another woman.

M. Wouters: Yes.

CI van Acker: You waited nine years, and then just went out to kill another woman.

M. Wouters: Yes. Nine. If you say it was nine.

CI van Acker: Nine years, and then three more women.

M. Wouters: Yes. Three more. One, two, three.

CI van Acker: And you decided to carve out these designs on their backs.

M. Wouters: Yes.

CI van Acker: I see. (Pause) Why so long, Mr. Wouters? And why so many at once?

M. Wouters: (Pause) It took time to find the ideal.

CI van Acker: To find the what?

M. Wouters: (Pause) It seemed the right thing to do.

It was that last answer the Belgian doctors had fallen in love with. To them, it had made everything crystal clear. Here was the created madman.

Hoffner was not so convinced. He had never cottoned to the theory that every beaten boy was destined for violence, or that every act of violence was traceable back to a beaten boy. People did what they did because they chose to. The motivations were ultimately irrelevant, inevitability merely an excuse. And yet, even in Berlin, the proceedings at the Reichstadt Court were beginning to sound more like medical seminars than legal prosecutions. In the hands of a clever attorney, the predilections for stealing, maiming, and raping were no longer criminally inspired; instead, they were all symptoms of some hidden disease. That disease, as far as Hoffner could make out, was called childhood. Luckily, most of the judges were, as yet, unwilling to accept the sins of the father as a legitimate defense: they still believed in the culpability of the individual.

Except, of course, when it came to a deeper depravity, that special brand of horror that tore at the very cloth of humane society. Then the judges, whether German or Belgian, were told to step aside so that the doctors could explain away the birth of psychosis. Hoffner imagined that it made them all feel so much safer to think that men such as Wouters could not simply be brought into this world; that, instead, they had to be malformed by it. Hoffner was not sure which painted the world in a more feeble light: the fact that it could not defend itself against a pure evil, or that it alone was responsible for every act of corruption.

Either way, it made no difference. The act itself was all that concerned him. That Wouters had killed Mary Koop-a youngMary Koop-clearly threw the doctors’ theories out the window. Wouters was not reenacting his grandmother’s murder. He was simply weak. And as the weak do, he preyed on the weak. There was nothing more profound to it than that. That he had found most of his victims in older, solitary women; that he had chosen to etch his markings onto the area where he himself had been beaten-naturally there was a link, but those elements could in no way mitigate Wouters’s decision to embrace his own infamy.

What they did provide, however, was a view into the logic of the killings. Wouters might not have had access to the rational world, but that did not mean that he had not constructed one for himself.

A few points were obvious: the drag marks at each of the murder sites made it clear that the placement of the bodies was essential; otherwise, why go to the trouble of bringing them out into the open? Wouters had buried his grandmother in the “soft earth.” He had meant for her to remain hidden. Not so with these women. Hoffner was hoping that van Acker could shed some light on the placement issue with some more information on the three victims he had discovered in Bruges.

More than that, Hoffner was now reasonably certain-ever since the discovery of the gloves-that the diameter-cut design was some kind of lace mesh itself. Wouters’s eight years cooped up in an attic room, working a needle and thread, confirmed it. The trouble was, the more Hoffner stared at the design, the less it seemed to jibe with the pins sticking out from his map. He knew there had to be another piece, something that could make sense of the design in the context of the city’s layout.

“He’s remarkably small,” said Fichte. He was still on his knees, staring at a single sheet. “Just over a meter and a half.” He looked over. “Weren’t some of the women taller than that?”

Hoffner kept his eyes on the map. “All of them.” He was fixated on one of the pins; it had begun to sag. “Tell me,” said Hoffner. “How does he move them, a man that small? How does he move a healthy-sized woman?”

“A trunk. Something like that. Isn’t that what the marks showed?”

Hoffner nodded distractedly as he stood and moved over to the map. “But how does such a little man maneuver a trunk? Up and down stairs? A ramp? A ladder?” Hoffner readjusted the pin. He could still smell the formaldehyde on his fingers from this morning’s session with victim number six. She had been of little help. As of now, they still had no name for her. “How does he do that without drawing attention? In fact”-Hoffner was now straightening each of the pins-“how does he do it at all without breaking his own back?”

Fichte thought for a moment. “The second carver.” Fichte knew he had gotten it right.

Hoffner looked over at him. His eyes widened as he nodded. “Not the way he worked in Bruges, was it?” Fichte shook his head. “You haven’t been at the pins, have you, Hans?” Another shake of the head. Hoffner turned back to the map. “No, I didn’t think so.”

Still preoccupied with the growing piles of paper, Fichte said, “Mueller knows how to have a good time.”

The comment caught Hoffner off-guard. He turned. “Does he?” Fichte’s smile was answer enough. “Yes. . our Toby’s not one to let an opportunity slip by.”

“I never knew a man who could drink that much and still-” Fichte stopped himself with a little laugh.

Hoffner had felt a mild discomfort at Fichte’s arrival this afternoon: another consequence to be considered. Now, hearing of Toby’s exploits, he felt a similarly mild dose of relief. “So you had company?” he said. Fichte looked up. He was sporting a fifteen-year-old’s grin. Hoffner returned the smile. “Toby never disappoints on that score.” For a moment, Hoffner wondered if that was the reason he had sent Fichte off with Mueller in the first place; Hoffner, however, had never considered himself quite that clever, if, in fact, “clever” was the right word.