Текст книги "Rosa"

Автор книги: Jonathan Rabb

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

Pimm said with a smile, “Not with us in an official capacity, are you, Inspector?” The men laughed again, and Hoffner pointed to a spot on the lower step. “Be my guest,” said Pimm. “And this is. .” Pimm needed another moment to find the name. “Herr Jogiches, isn’t it?” Jogiches said nothing as the two men sat. “Odd little pairing.” More laughter.

Hoffner said, “I need to talk to you.”

“You are talking to me.”

“Alone.”

“Ah.” Pimm was enjoying this. He took a drink from a small wooden box that sat at his side. “A bull and a Red,” he said. “What times we live in.” He took a second drink and then bobbed his head toward the door: the men began to take their towels and file out. The last in line was a long, lanky fellow with the most angular face Hoffner had ever seen: there looked to be just enough skin on the cheeks and nose to cover the bone, although the eye sockets seemed to be wanting a bit more. “Zenlo,” Pimm said. The man turned. “Stay by the door.” The man nodded and stepped outside.

Hoffner was now dripping with sweat. He pulled his hand across his face to clear his eyes. Pimm slid the box across the tile toward him and said, “That’s how the Japanese drink their water. The wood keeps it cool. Clever little people.”

“I could do with something a bit stronger,” said Hoffner.

“Not in here you couldn’t. That’s what you’re pissing out. Trust me, take the water.” Pimm watched as Hoffner reached up for the box and drank; he then said, “I don’t know who’s doing all the killing, if that’s why you’re here. Bad for business all around. I thought you’d finished it with the Belgian.”

Hoffner slid the box back. “Bad for more than business.”

Pimm nodded slowly. “Yah.” He picked up a bowl of water and, leaning forward, tipped it over his head. “I was sorry to hear about that.” He remained stooped over. “That revolution of yours didn’t do me much good, either, Herr Spartakus.”

Jogiches was feeling the heat in his beard. He dabbed a bit of water onto his cheeks. “My apologies,” he said.

Pimm laughed to himself and spat. He tipped a second bowl over himself and sat up. “So, what is it you gentlemen want?”

Hoffner had propped his elbows on his knees. He felt the sweat drip from his chin, and watched as it splattered on the tile between his feet. “I want you to break into the fourth floor of the Alex and steal a body.” Hoffner took a bowl of his own and tipped it over his head.

Again Pimm laughed. “You want what?” Hoffner remained bent over in silence. It took Pimm another few seconds to realize that Hoffner was serious. The laughter stopped. “And why would I do that?”

Hoffner continued to gaze at the floor. “Because it would be good for business.”

Five minutes later Pimm was no more convinced. “No one’s going to believe that,” he said.

Hoffner agreed. “You’re probably right.”

“ Idon’t believe it.” Pimm was picking at something on his chest. “You’ve been spending too much time with your friend here.” Pimm looked over at Jogiches. “You don’t say much, do you, Herr Spartakus?”

Jogiches returned the stare.

Pimm said, “You know, I’ve always wondered-why are so many of you Reds Jews? Why make people hate you twice?”

Jogiches answered without hesitation: “Persistence.”

Pimm smiled and flicked something onto the floor. He said, “Trust me, I want to see Weigland hanging by his balls as much as anyone-”

Hoffner cut in. “I never said it was Weigland.”

Pimm nodded. “No. You never did.” He stood and moved over to the valve. He turned it twice and the steam hissed back into action. “You cramp up without it,” he said. “The Japanese have girls who rub your legs while you sit. Keeps the blood moving. We tried it, but German girls sweat too much and stink up the place. Plus they thought it was for sex. They didn’t understand the aesthetic.” He was back at his towel. “And you’re sure it’s her? Our little Rosa?” Hoffner nodded. Pimm tugged at his ear. “And this helps me how, again?”

“How much sugar are you planning to move with the Freikorpsbreathing down your neck?” said Hoffner. “Ebert makes things a good deal easier.”

“Order makes things easier,” Pimm said bluntly. The steam was already beginning to rise; he waved a cloud from his face. “That’s something your second-story safecracker doesn’t follow. A little anarchy works just fine for him; the bulls are occupied elsewhere and he makes a killing. But an organization-that needs routine. That needs people settled, safe. Right, left-makes no difference to me.”

“Then why chance another bump in the road when things are moving so smoothly now?”

Pimm bobbed his head as if conceding the point. He then took a towel and wiped his face. When he spoke, it was with a focus that was wholly unexpected: “The reason so many of you Reds are Jews, Herr Spartakus, is that a Jew is told to create heaven on earth. The next world, messiahs, fear of hell-never really been the point, has it? The Jew is meant to do it here, now. And the ones who get tired of waiting become Reds because for them, socialism isheaven on earth. The perfect world, and with no God telling them what to do this time. Everyone just as good as the rest. Everyone looking out for the rest. The Red can’t tell you how you’re supposed to get there-in fact, all he can tell you is what you’re notsupposed to do and what won’tbe there-but, still, he thinks he can build it. Sound familiar, does it?” Pimm paused. “Your Red never loses what makes him a Jew; he simply shifts his focus.” Pimm held Jogiches’s gaze and then turned to Hoffner. “You get my help, Inspector, not because it’s good for business, or because the devil I know is better than the devil I don’t, but because, even if nothing else of what you’re saying is true, I have no interest in having one more lunatic tell me that my elimination is part of his grand plan.” He shouted to the door. “Zenlo.” The man appeared instantly. “We’re going east. Tell the boys.”

Pimm a Jew, and a political one at that, thought Hoffner: the world was full of surprises. At least this one was working in their favor.

Back at Pimm’s offices-two large rooms above a repair garage, furniture, a telephone-Pimm produced a series of remarkably accurate layouts of the Alex’s third and fourth floors. He had had enough boys inside for a night or two, he explained. Someone was bound to remember something.

Equally remarkable was the ease with which Pimm and Jogiches got down to the planning of the thing. For Hoffner, it was like listening to a book being read in reverse: they were beginning where he always ended-with the inception of a crime-and they were leading to the moment that was his first. Hoffner was too tired to reconfigure his mind. He found a couch, sat back, and let it all pass in front of him.

The sun was just coming up, and a stream of men began to make their way up the stairs and into the offices. They were an odd collection of shapes and sizes-swindlers and thieves-and each with something to show for a night’s work. Most carried a battered cigar box, the telltale appendage of Berlin’s underbelly. Not that any of these men could have afforded the fine Dutch tobacco advertised on the top flaps. No, these boxes were filled with “jimmies” and “little aldermen”-always arranged in order of size-and, most important, a few S-hooks. After all, even housebreakers’ tools deserved their nicknames: a jimmy your crowbar, a little alderman your picklock. An S-hook needed no such distinction. It was what it was, and could have you through a door in close to ten seconds if you knew what you were doing. For the less adept, a “ripper”-that ancient drilling tool-would get you in, but it was never as elegant. Those who worked for Pimm were S-hook men: they walked with a certain swagger.

Odder still was the businesslike efficiency with which everything was managed: one of the titans from the steam baths was behind a desk writing out slips for money and goods received, the men patiently waiting in line, all with a deferential nod for Pimm, who was too busy with Jogiches across the room to take any notice. The titan passed on the slips to a man who was tallying them up, who then passed them to a third who was writing feverishly into a ledger. No doubt those who were missing this morning’s accounting would be visited later, but for now the process seemed far removed from the world that these men usually inhabited. Hoffner recognized a face here and there: it was nice to see that the men had found steady work.

Jogiches called over: “Which room on the floor?” Hoffner realized the question was for him, and he pushed himself up and stepped over to the table that was already thick with sheets of paper filled with diagrams and notes: they might just as well have been in Chinese for all that Hoffner could make of them. Jogiches pulled over one of the layouts and repeated the question.

“I don’t know,” said Hoffner.

Pimm and Jogiches exchanged a glance. Pimm said, “That’s something we have to know.”

Hoffner understood.

Jogiches said, “You can’t go back in yourself, you know.”

Hoffner nodded. Even he had known that from the start.

K riminaldirektorGerhard Weigland kept himself buttoned up to the neck as he peered out from the rear seat of his Daimler sedan. The automobile was an older model-a gift to himself on the occasion of his daughter’s wedding-but it was still in excellent condition. Weigland had made sure to hire a good man to see to its upkeep: a former mechanic with the Kripo. A man to be trusted. That man was now seated behind the wheel and in full chauffeur’s attire, awaiting instructions.

“You’re sure you saw her go in?” said Weigland. He had arrived by cab five minutes ago after getting the call.

The man had been very clear on the telephone. He was no less certain now. “Yes, mein Herr.”

“And she hasn’t come out?”

“No, mein Herr.”

The car was parked at the edge of a narrow alleyway. Weigland’s eyes were fixed on the side mirror, which had been reangled so as to keep the building behind them in its sites. “Maybe we turn the motor on to get a bit of heat, don’t you think?”

The man in the front seat pressed the starter and the car came to life.

“Much better,” said Weigland.

“Yes, mein Herr.”

They sat in silence for another ten minutes before Weigland saw the front door to the building pull open. The girl appeared. Weigland hitched forward on his seat, but waited until she was out of view before reaching for the handle. “Take the car home,” he said as he pushed the door open. He stepped to the cobblestones and quietly shut the door behind him. He then made his way to the edge of the alley and peered out. Finding the girl halfway down the street, Weigland began to follow.

It was a quarter to seven when Hoffner stepped from the tram. The fruit and vegetable carts were already up and running, as was a tinker’s stand that was directly in front of Fichte’s building. The man was hammering away at an old pot as a woman looked on: unlikely that Fichte was sleeping through that.

Hoffner bought an apple and remained by the carts. Fichte had picked a nice spot, just right for a bachelor detective. The street denizens probably felt safer knowing that a young Kripo man was living here; or at least they had felt that way until this week.

Hoffner was tossing away his third core when he saw Fichte emerge at the top of his stoop. The boy was a shadow of himself, his face pale and sunken, his eyes wrecked from nights without sleep. Hoffner waited until Fichte had reached the bottom of the steps before making his way over. Fichte was keeping his head down as he walked. He nearly walked past Hoffner, but for some reason looked up at the last moment. He stopped.

Hoffner thought he saw a moment of relief in the boy’s eyes, as if Fichte had finally found someone with whom to share his burdens. An equally quick flash of disgust followed, then pity, all of which dissolved into a look of resigned exhaustion. Fichte hadn’t the energy to feel anything lasting for Hoffner.

“Hello, Nikolai.”

“Hans.”

They stood silently until Fichte said, “She hasn’t been in touch with me, if that’s what you want. I don’t know where she is.” He began to move off, but Hoffner stopped him.

“That’s not why I’m here, Hans.”

Fichte was too tired to find the reason. He said, “Look, I was sorry. . I mean, I amsorry. . about all of that. . your Martha. . ” Fichte was floundering.

Hoffner cut him off. “Can we get a coffee somewhere?”

Fichte hesitated. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why? Because your Herr Braun might disapprove?”

Fichte looked as if he might answer; instead he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his inhaler. He took a quick suck.

“That bad, is it?” said Hoffner.

Fichte coughed once and spat. “It’s not that simple.”

“I’ve been reading the papers, Hans. It looks pretty simple to me.”

Fichte said nothing; he hadn’t the will to argue.

They found a cafe and settled in at a table amid the morning rush, men behind papers, girls lost in chatter. No one was taking any notice of the two detectives.

“This is what they had in mind all along, isn’t it?” said Fichte. He kept his hands cupped around his coffee for warmth.

Hoffner had no reason to make the boy feel any worse than he already did. He shrugged and said, “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“It’s all the second carver, you know.” Fichte spoke in a hushed tone. “Braun won’t let me release it. He says it would only make things worse. I don’t understand that. It wouldn’t make things worse for you or me.” Hoffner took a sip of his coffee and let Fichte talk. “It’s all going to fall on me, isn’t it? The idiot in the papers. The bull who’s been covering up something. I don’t even know what they’re talking about.” Fichte was slowly unraveling. “A member of the Reichs Ministry was by to have a chat with me. There might have to be formal charges if things don’t get wrapped up quickly.” Again Fichte shook his head to himself. “Formal charges.”

“They won’t do that,” said Hoffner with as much reassurance as he could. “They’d come after me first.” He saw a glimmer of hope in Fichte’s eyes and said, “The minister’s name wasn’t Nepp by any chance, was it?”

Surprise quickly turned to relief. The glimmer grew. “Yes,” said Fichte. “Why?”

Hoffner nodded. There was no point in rattling the boy further. He said, “Where are they keeping her?” Fichte was too tired to follow. “Rosa,” said Hoffner. “Where is she?”

The pain returned to Fichte’s eyes; he shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Hoffner had expected Braun to toss the boy at least this bone. “Can you find out?”

“Why are they doing this?” Fichte said with a child’s incredulity. “If they want me to look stupid, I can do that just fine on my own.”

“It’s not you, Hans.”

“Then, what?”

Even now it was all beyond Fichte; Braun had chosen wisely. Hoffner wondered if in fact that choice had been made as early as last November: had Prager been encouraged to assign Fichte to him all those months ago? Hoffner said, “Can you find out where she is?” Fichte thought for a moment and then nodded. “No heroics, Hans. Just the room.”

Again Fichte nodded. “Where do I send the information?”

“You don’t. You bring it in person.” Hoffner checked his watch. “Two hours. Rcker’s bar.” He stood and left a coin on the table. “She’s gone to live with an uncle in Oldenburg.” Hoffner saw the hope in the boy’s eyes. “You go and find her when this is over.” Hoffner placed his hat on his head and made his way to the door.

Twenty minutes later he stood on the tree-lined Sterner Strasse. It was over a year since he had seen the place, the pleasant little street, the playful curtains in the windows. It was not the Berlin he knew. Here, life actually sprouted in the flowerpots; there might even have been friends among the neighbors, an accountant’s wife, a bachelor schoolteacher with whom to share a tea or a chocolate now and then. No doubt Giselle and Eva had long ago given up trying to find the man a wife: he preferred the company of his students. They had left it at that.

Giselle had come to Kreuzberg on the afternoon of the funeral to take the boys. By then, Sascha had already gotten to her, and even if Giselle might have known more about her sister’s marriage than she had been willing to let on, death had a way of hardening the heart. The exchanges had been brief.

Hoffner pulled a wire cord and heard a bell ringing beyond. Half a minute later he heard the sound of several locks being unbolted, then a second series of locks, and finally the door coming open.

Giselle stood in a tile foyer, a glass-paned door behind her that was opened to a hallway. Her skirt and bodice were thick wool, with just a hint of cotton creeping out at the stiff neckline.

“You look dreadful, Nikolai,” she said.

“Thank you. May I come in?”

With a certain reluctance she motioned him through; she then went back to her locks before joining him in the hall. “Georgi’s asleep,” she said. “I don’t want to wake him.”

Hoffner had expected as much; it was not why he had come. “Your lawyer is making do without you?”

“Herr Schmidt has been most kind, yes. He understands the situation.” She corrected herself. “Not the entirety of the situation. Herr DoktorKeubel has been equally considerate with Eva. Until Georgi returns to school, we are to be here with him.”

“Good,” said Hoffner. “Then I need you to take the boys away for a few days. Into the country.” He gave her no time to respond. “Not to friends or relatives. A train, an hour away. It doesn’t need to be more than that. Find a small hotel and sign with a different name, not your own. Do you understand?”

Confusion registered as disdain in her face. “What are you talking about, Nikolai?”

Hoffner had no interest in pacifying her. “What wasn’t clear in what I just said?” He had never spoken to her in this tone; her shock stifled any further questions. “You need to go this morning. Wake Georgi, get Sascha.” She blanched at the suggestion. “What?” he said briskly.

For several seconds, she seemed uncertain how to respond. Finally the resolve drained from her. “I have something for you,” she said. “Wait here.” She left him in the hall and half a minute later returned with an envelope, which she handed to him. His full name was written across the front in Sascha’s hand. “He left one for us, as well,” she said, trying to explain. “Two days ago. We tried to find you-”

Hoffner put up a hand to stop her. He continued to stare at the envelope. “Two days ago?” he said, more to himself than her.

“Yes.”

Hoffner tore open the envelope and read:

There is no reason for you to come after me if that is something that is even in your mind. I would not come home with you and you would not want to have me back, so let us save ourselves that unpleasantness.I have signed on with a unit of the volunteer corps. I have decided this because I know a few more months of school will be of no use to me when I can be of greater use to my country. These are things you have never understood because you do not see anything but yourself. The Germany I am fighting for will have no place for people like that.You will say that I am still not yet sixteen, but Krieger’s uncle has been of great help in securing a place for me even though I am still a few weeks away from proper age. HerrKommissar Tamshik has been a true friend to me and has called on a colleague from his army days on my behalf.I am telling you this so that when my brother wishes to visit me he knows where I am. You are not to accompany him when he decides to do this, nor are you to influence his decision in any way. I have tried to explain to Georg what you have done and why I have acted as I have, but, because of you, he is still unable to understand. He has said things to me that are confused and entirely untrue because his mind has been so harmed by the death of our mother. He might never recover from this and you will be the only one to take the blame for that.I am sure you are hoping that I despise you for this, but I have no such feelings. I am without them because you are in my mind no longer a person. It is the same way you have thought about me and my brother and my mother for so long, and now you know what that is like, as well.This will be our last communication. Do not consider me your son. I no longer consider you my father.ALEXANDER KURTZMAN

Hoffner stared at the page. Kurtzman. Sascha had taken his mother’s family name just in case the message had not been clear enough.

The paragraphs were precisely spaced, the letters exact. How many drafts had the boy written before completing this perfect page, Hoffner wondered. There was only one flaw: a slight swelling of ink at the end of the word “untrue.” Had a moment of conscience prompted the hesitation with the pen? Hoffner hoped not. It would be better for Sascha to forget his own last moments with his mother. The same might not be so easy for Georgi.

An anxious Giselle said, “Does he tell you where he’s gone?”

Hoffner was still with the letter. He turned to her: Tamshik would have to wait. He said calmly, “I need you to wake Georgi and get to the station.” He folded the letter and dug it into his pocket.

She pressed, “All he said was that he was leaving.”

Hoffner was growing impatient. “He’ll be fine.”

She said more pointedly, “He said he saw you with a girl.” When Hoffner’s silence became too much, she began to shake her head angrily. “Fine. Yes. We’ll take him out of the city. Now get out of this house.” She ushered him toward the door.

Hoffner stopped her. “I need to see Georgi.”

Her eyes went wide. “You are some piece of work.” She began to push him into the foyer, when a voice broke through at the far end of the hall. “Let him be, Giselle.”

Both turned to see Eva holding Georgi by the hand. The boy was gazing at his father. He showed almost no reaction, such emptiness on so small a face. Hoffner walked over and went down on a knee. He watched as the vacant little eyes stared back at him. In a soft voice, Hoffner said, “Hello there, Georgi.”

They stood like this for perhaps half a minute before the boy’s brow furrowed and his eyes became heavy with tears; still he stood staring. When his lips pursed, Hoffner reached out and pulled him in. He felt the little body shake as Georgi’s face wedged deep into his neck. He felt the sobbing in the boy’s tiny-ribbed back, the small hands clasped tightly around his neck. Hoffner picked him up and began to walk slowly, back and forth, whispering in his ear, over and over, until Georgi began to catch his breath, his body calming, his head resting back on Hoffner’s shoulder. The boy’s cheeks were streaked and red. Hoffner felt the wetness on his own neck. A little hand came up and rested on Hoffner’s cheek, and Georgi said, “Are we going home, Papi?”

The boy’s hope was like an island in the current. Hoffner could see it: real, graspable, and completely uncharted. It was simply a matter of will to carry himself to it. Hoffner placed his hand over the boy’s and said, “Soon.” He pulled Georgi in tight and kissed him, the taste of tears on his cheek. Hoffner turned and saw a kindness in Eva’s gaze, and he handed him to her.

She said brightly, “So how about a little trip today, Georgi?”

The boy kept his eyes on his father. “Are you coming, Papi?”

The current was growing stronger. Hoffner said, “Tomorrow. I’ll come tomorrow.”

“And then we’ll go home?”

For just a moment, Hoffner let himself imagine something beyond the frailty, something of what could be. Surprisingly, it carried no hint of self-disgust. He placed a hand on the boy’s cheek and then turned for the door.

Fichte tried the handle. It was locked and oddly cold, which gave him hope.

His choices had been limited: he needed something large enough for an examining table and storage, but isolated enough to keep it beyond the flow of everyday business. Two archive halls and a conference room later, he arrived at this, an office at the end of a long corridor at the back of the building. The spacing between its door and the next was sufficiently wide. Fichte scanned the corridor and then went to work. The lock was proving a bit more difficult than the others, but he finally managed to get it open. He had kept an S-hook as a souvenir from one of his first arrests: such things were always going missing from the evidence room, badges of honor among the junior officers. Fichte was now pleased to have found a use for it. It also made him feel better about what he was doing: things happened for a reason; no other way to explain why he had taken the hook in the first place, he thought.

The room was pitch black and much colder than the hallway, but it was the odor of formaldehyde that told him he had found her. Fichte shut the door and flicked on the light, and a dull yellow filled the white-tiled space. The windows had been bricked in and, although it was a good deal smaller, the place had the same look and feel of the morgue rooms in the basement: an examining table, shelves for instruments and bottles. The only additions were a woman’s apparel-skirt, bodice, shoes-that hung on various hooks across the room, and a single metal tank that stood against the far wall, underneath one of the absent windows. It was there that Fichte turned his attention.

Resembling an enormous pressure cooker, the tank sported several circular valves on its lid. As Fichte turned the last of them, the hiss of a releasing vacuum-along with an ungodly smell that struck him as rotting cabbage-seeped from the tank. Bringing the tail of his jacket up to his nose and mouth, Fichte pushed open the lid and saw a naked Rosa lying on several planks of wood, which were in turn set atop a bed of ice. Her skin was still remarkably intact and, save for a few tiny decayed bits on her thigh, she looked as if she had been dead for three days at most, not the seven weeks Fichte knew to be the case. Her entire body was covered in a thick layer of grease; even her hair was matted down in the stuff.

It was only then that Fichte thought to examine more closely the contents of the shelves across the room. Almost at once he noticed the collection of jars filled with what he knew to be the same grease. He stepped over and took one. It was labeled ASCOMYCETE 4, and had the eagle crest of the army medical corps stamped above it. A few days ago he might have been surprised, even overwhelmed, to find it here; the greater shock would have been the link to the military corps, but Fichte was beyond such reactions. Instead he opened the jar and sniffed at its contents. It was the same as they had found on Mary Koop, except that this batch had a bit more bite to it: it was in its pure form, having yet to be applied to the skin. Fichte thought of taking a jar for Hoffner, but he knew that would be too dangerous. He closed the lid, placed the jar back on the shelf, and then wrote the name in his notebook, making sure to copy it letter for letter. He then sketched the medical corps insignia and wrote down the number of bottles. Hoffner would be pleased with the work.

Fichte stepped again to the tank. There was really nothing to examine: Rosa was pale and slick and seemed peaceful enough. Fichte closed the lid and resealed the valves. He then took one final look at the room and realized that the label on the jar that he had taken was out of line with the rest. He stepped over and adjusted it. Another nice touch, he thought. Half a minute later he was pulling the door shut as he checked the area around the latch: only someone looking for them would have noticed the hairline scratches. Even so, Fichte licked his thumb-the faint stink of the grease on it-and rubbed a bit of saliva over the wood.

He was feeling quite good about himself as he headed down the corridor: no heroics or missteps, and he had uncovered the name of the grease along with a connection to the army corps. Maybe there was a way out of this, after all?

Any sense of redemption, however, was short-lived, as Herr OberkommissarBraun appeared at the top of the stairs, coming up from the third floor. Fichte did what he could with a casual nod.

“Herr Bezirkssekretr,” said Braun, with a tight-lipped smile. “Were you looking for me?”

Fichte waited a moment too long to sound convincing. “Yes. . Yes, I was, Herr Oberkommissar.” Braun waited for more. Fichte said, “I was hoping to go over the second-carver theory again-”

Braun cut him off with a frustrated hand. “We’ve been through all of this, Herr Bezirkssekretr.As I said, when that information is necessary you will be told.”

Fichte had no interest in lingering. “Certainly, Herr Oberkommissar,” he said. “I won’t trouble you with it again.”

“And this was the only reason you came up to see me?”

“Yes, Herr Oberkommissar.”

Braun was about to answer when it seemed as if something had just occurred to him-a wince for something he couldn’t quite place-but he dismissed it quickly. “Fine. Any word from Herr Hoffner?”

“No, Herr Oberkommissar.Nothing.”

“And you’ll tell me when he contacts you?”

“Of course, Herr Oberkommissar.”

“Good.” Braun nodded. Fichte offered a clipped bow and headed down the stairs.

It was only when Braun was halfway down the corridor that he realized what it was that had struck him: he had recognized the smell.

At just after eleven, Lina stepped onto the platform. She had done as Hoffner had asked: the train was due to leave in another eight minutes.

Hoffner had been standing in shadow for the past twenty-five-the corridor to the men’s toilet offering an ideal vantage point-when he saw her. She was holding two small valises and was again wearing the blue hat. A porter took her bags and then helped her up. At the top step, she glanced around once, perhaps hoping to see him, and then stepped into the car.

Safe, he thought: he had needed to see it.

Hoffner began to move off when he saw another familiar figure on the platform. KriminaldirektorGerhard Weigland had been trailing after her and was now making his way to the train.

Hoffner’s first reaction was to run out and stop him, but Weigland seemed less interested in Lina than in the surrounding crowds. Hoffner pressed farther back into the shadow as Weigland glanced nervously along the platform. It was obvious whom he was looking for; what was less clear was why he had come alone: Hoffner could see no one who looked even remotely like a Polpo detective anywhere on the platform.