They made them into heroes.
The announcement came on Friday, the day of Hoffner’s scheduled return. Rumors had been circulating, but nothing had been confirmed. “You don’t rush these things, Nikolai.” Prager was famous for his timing. “You have to let the city set the tone.” Evidently the city wanted Friday. And so, with the hysteria at just the right pitch, Prager presented Berlin with her new saviors.
From that moment on, Hoffner and Fichte lived on the front pages of every daily in town. Photographs of Wouters’s body-his chest laid bare, the tiny charred hole where the bullet had entered-sat side by side with images of a beaming Fichte and a less than enthusiastic Hoffner. Prager insisted: Hoffner would be a good little soldier. The last of the interviews dragged on into Saturday.
What was worse was how the papers were harping on the fact that Wouters was a Belgian: still more reason to cheer. Some speculated that he might have been an agent sent in during the last days of the war to create mayhem in the capital. Others took it as a sign that German savvy-if not for the incompetence of the generals-would surely have gained the ultimate victory in the war. Even Kvatsch managed to write something mildly favorable. To a paper, though, all agreed on one incontrovertible truth: that Hoffner and Fichte now stood for all that was right with Germany.
Naturally, the directors of Ganz-Neurath invited them to a special luncheon on the following Monday to thank them for their outstanding work. Chancellor Ebert himself put in an appearance to express his faith in the fine men of the Kripo. Ebert, too, needed to align himself with what was right with Germany.
But the crowning moment came on the Tuesday-one week after all the excitement at the Ochsenhof-when the Kripo whipped together an elaborate promotion ceremony outside the old Royal Palace: Fichte to detective sergeant, Hoffner to chief inspector. The Alex was still a shambles and hardly the image that Prager wanted to convey. More photographs, more beaming from Fichte, and all the while, the Polpo remained curiously silent.
Martha, on the other hand, was enjoying it all immensely. The neighbors down the hall had sent over a small bottle of kirsch-dreadful stuff, and not even a premium brand-in congratulations. All that business about the flat had been a misunderstanding. No reason to let it spoil things. An invitation to tea was extended. “Certainly,” Martha said. “When my husband can find time in his very important schedule, Frau Rimmler. We should be delighted.”
Sascha, too, was reaping the benefits. Herr Zessner, his physics teacher, had cited Sascha as “a model for us all” in front of the entire class. Herr Zessner lived alone with his mother, and had been hearing the poor woman’s torments over the “chisel murders” ever since the news had broken: she was the same age as the rest; she spent time outside the flat. “You know the boy’s father, Heinrich. Have him do something!” Detective Hoffner had saved Herr Zessner from an early mental breakdown. Young Hoffner would therefore be finishing the year at the top of his class. Good feelings all around, Sascha even managed to put in an appearance at the air show at Johannisthal: a few cold moments, to be sure, but, all in all, the thaw was progressing quite nicely.
And Georgi-the dailies spread out on the kitchen floor-was making a habit of pointing out his own last name in the papers every morning. “Hoffner. Like Georgi Hoffner.” He cut out each one-not the articles, just the names-and kept them in a cigar box under his bed. If Hoffner was being kept from the office, at least Kreuzberg was radiating a very comforting mood.
When Hoffner did finally get back to the Alex in that first week of February, Prager was prepared for him. Cases Fichte would have handled on his own as a detective sergeant suddenly required Hoffner’s expertise. Pimps and whores, bar-front brawls, lowlifes ending up dead, and Hoffner would be called in to clean up the obvious mess. It was a week into it before he began to wonder whether Prager’s intention was to keep him in the papers or out of the office.
Through it all, the snow returned-again and again-as if it knew that Berlin had something to hide. A hint of grime would peek up through the streets, and a new dusting of white would quickly settle from above. Better not to know what lay beneath. It was a popular attitude.
All that began to change on the twelfth when Leo Jogiches-from somewhere in hiding-printed his account of Rosa’s death. The article had appeared in the communist Die Rote Fahne almost a week ago. The rest of the city’s papers had failed to pick up on it. Hoffner had seen it for the first time only this morning.
It was a startling tale of Liebknecht and Luxemburg on the run. Hunted down by members of the Cavalry Guards Rifle Division-those charming soldiers who had taken such joy in beating students to death in the last days of the revolution-Karl and Rosa had been snatched from an apartment on the outskirts of town and then brought to the Hotel Eden near the zoo, where a Captain Pabst and a rifleman named Runge had seen to the killings. Jogiches had even included a photograph of the drinking bout at which the murderers had celebrated the deaths. It was all very dramatic, very shocking, and, as Hoffner well knew, not even half the story.
Not surprisingly, the government was showing little interest. They preferred the original reports from mid-January: that an angry mob had ambushed the Reds and killed them in a wild frenzy, a tragedy of the revolution, to be sure, but not all that much of a tragedy. “The proper expiation for the bloodbath that they unleashed,” the Tgliche Rundschau had written at the time. “The day of judgment on Luxemburg and Liebknecht is over.” Ebert and his cronies were more than willing to agree. They had no intention of dredging it all up again. There was mention of a possible trial, but no one was all that keen to pursue it, especially as the accusations were coming from the people who had started all the trouble in the first place.
Meanwhile, the Polpo-still silent, and still with Rosa’s body somewhere up on the fourth floor-continued to say nothing. They seemed happy enough to let it all fall at the feet of Pabst and Runge. The Wouters case was closed. Weigland even made a special trip down to the third floor to remind Prager of proper jurisdiction. Luxemburg was a Polpo matter. The men of IA would handle it as they saw fit.
Prager had nodded. He liked a victory-along with the good press-as much as anyone else. However, he also liked his victories clean. Two minutes after Weigland had scuttled back upstairs, Prager called Hoffner into his office.
The photograph that Jogiches had printed now stared up at Hoffner from his desk. It was a dreary affair, twenty or so men in gray uniform, another few in black, one little barmaid in white standing at the center with a tray in her hands. Hoffner had been studying the faces for almost an hour. It was the first such block of time he had been able to devote to the case in almost three weeks.
They had let him see the bodies on that first Friday after he returned to work: the woman inside the trunk had been no different from the others, another lonely seamstress with no family to claim her; Wouters had not been much of a surprise, either, except for his hands. Even lifeless, they had shown remarkable strength, especially on so small a man.
More than that, however, was no longer available. The bodies were in the ground; Weigland had made sure of that during Hoffner’s extended absence. It seemed only appropriate given the speed with which the case had resolved itself: Tamshik’s single shot, all discussion closed. Why bother with the evidence?
Hoffner’s eyes continued to drift to the girl in the photo. It was clear that she had been persuaded to pose with the men: she seemed uncomfortable in their presence. The soldiers, however, needed a symbol for what they had been fighting to protect. The entire group stared grimly into the lens, except for one fellow who was seated at the front. He was sporting a tight smirk, with one hand in his coat pocket, the other around a thick cigar. His had been a job well done.
Rifleman Otto Runge and his cohorts looked to be the perfect dupes, posed over a few buckets of beer, and without a spark of intelligence among them. Runge himself had the air of a halfwit, with his drooping moustache and narrow eyes: not difficult to see that the best these men could have managed was a quick crack on the head, or a bullet to the ribs. Hoffner had no doubt that they had killed Liebknecht and Luxemburg, but the etchings on Rosa’s back-and her connection to Wouters and beyond-were clearly far too involved for their simple minds. Like Tamshik in the pit rooms, someone had set them on their task. The question remained: Who?
And yet, the more Hoffner studied the photo, the more he realized that Jogiches was trying to tell him something with it. There was a certain arrogance in the assumption, but Hoffner had not been wasting all of his time in recent weeks. Stealing a few minutes here and there, he had begun to dig deeper into Herr Jogiches’s past. Last Thursday, while rummaging through it, Hoffner had stumbled upon his K.
Naturally, it was Rosa who had led the way: her 1912 journal had held the key. Several of the entries detailed a period during which Jogiches had been living under an assumed name somewhere in the city. Rosa, of course, had never given up the name-Hoffner had admired her discretion-but she had let slip the address of a hotel in two of the passages. Hoffner had paid a visit to the hotel: what he had unearthed was a story worthy of a Rossini libretto.
Years ago-long before her move to Berlin-Rosa had told her family that she and Jogiches had been married in Switzerland. It wasn’t true, and by 1911, when the two were no longer together, it had become something of an embarrassment whenever members of Rosa’s family came to visit. While she had been willing to concoct a sham marriage so as to save face, she was not so eager to present her family with a sham divorce. To maintain the fiction, Jogiches had agreed to leave his name on the lease and to rent a room at the Hotel Schlosspark under an assumed name. Unfortunately, Jogiches’s tailor had never been fully apprised of the arrangement. Hoffner had discovered a receipt-still in the hotel files-for a pair of trousers that had been delivered to the room of a K. Kryzysztalowicz, on the fourteenth of March, 1912. The name on the receipt, Leo Jogiches.
Further proof of the alias came from a much earlier entry devoted to Leo’s brother, Osip, that dated from 1901. According to that journal, Osip had been dying of tuberculosis since the early nineties and, in the last weeks of his life, was advised by his doctors to take a trip to Algiers for his health; naturally, Leo had insisted that he join him. Hoffner had checked the ship’s manifest and, once again, had found meticulous German paperwork up to the task. Osip had indeed sailed for Algiers. Oddly enough, Leo had not accompanied him. A Dr. Krystalowicz, however, had.
Spelling variations aside, Jogiches was his K.
More than just the name, though, Hoffner’s digging had begun to lay bare the man himself, one obsessed with hidden meanings and ciphers. Jogiches inhabited a world built on secrecy and intrigue, and, more often than not, used them as tools to test those closest to him. Not surprisingly, Rosa had been his favorite target over the years. Resilient as she was, however, his incessant goading had ultimately torn them apart.
Why, then, thought Hoffner, would Jogiches treat the recent article and photograph any differently? They were simply the latest pieces in his puzzle: the note to return to her flat; the papers waiting there; the creased letters that had led Hoffner to Jogiches in the first place? Presumptuous as it might sound, Hoffner believed that Jogiches was now testing him, that he had been testing him all along. Jogiches’s inclusion of the photograph-hardly a damning piece of evidence on its own-could only mean that he knew far more than he was willing to print, or that he thought safe to expose. He was simply waiting for Hoffner to contact him. At least that was the theory.
Unfortunately, Hoffner was now alone in his speculations, for while he had been busy unpacking Jogiches, Fichte had been occupied elsewhere.
Most nights, Fichte could be found at the White Mouse, drinking too much and allowing himself to be photographed with any number of popular faces. Last week, the BZ had included the young detective sergeant in a candid photo with three of the Haller Revue girls, lots of thighs and teeth, along with a leering grin from Fichte. Fichte had become the new image of the Kripo, vibrant and charming-it was a Fichte whom Hoffner had never known-and Prager seemed only too happy to encourage it. Fichte was now irresistible to the night-crawl crowd. In fact, Fichte could hardly resist himself. Even his knock on Hoffner’s door had grown in stature. Where before, several light taps had signaled his approach, now two rapid-fire raps announced his presence.
Hoffner looked up from behind his desk. Fichte had been given an office of his own down the hall, but the files remained here.
“We’re done with this one, yes?” said Fichte. He placed the pages on Hoffner’s desk: a drunk had stabbed his wife and then confessed; it was hardly a case. Fichte already had his hat in hand.
“New suit?” said Hoffner.
Fichte glanced down at the jacket. One of the shops along Tauentzienstrasse had given it to him as a gift, the least they could do for a hero of the Kripo. Fichte smiled. He had been working on this particular smile for a week now. “Sure. You should get one for yourself. They want to know when you’re coming in.”
Hoffner took the sheets and moved over to the filing cabinet. “You don’t think about it anymore, do you?”
Fichte had trained himself to look mildly amused whenever his old confusion reared its head. A furrowed brow was hardly in keeping with his new image. “Think about what?” he said.
“I sent a wire to van Acker.” Hoffner flipped through the files. “See if they’ve come up with anything on that body. Wouters’s replacement.”
Fichte stayed with amusement. “The man’s dead, Nikolai. That usually means a case is closed.”
Hoffner replaced the file and closed the drawer. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Prager’s satisfied. Why shouldn’t I be?”
Hoffner nodded indifferently. He found something else on his desk. “Off to Maxim’s?”
“White Mouse,” said Fichte as he watched Hoffner shuffle through more pages.
“With your Lina?”
Fichte hesitated before answering. “She doesn’t like the crowds.”
Hoffner was still focused on the papers. “And you’re a magnet for them, are you?”
There was a momentary crack in Fichte’s otherwise effortless stare. Just as quickly the lazy smile returned. “Can’t help it if they want to meet me.”
Hoffner looked up. There was no point in prodding at him; Fichte was too far gone. Hoffner only hoped that the boy would survive the road back. Not that Hoffner was encouraging him to find it any time soon. There was still the pull of Kremmener Strasse, and Hoffner had been taking full advantage of Fichte’s inattention. Lina had become something of a regular indulgence, high times in Kreuzberg notwithstanding. She had even started allowing him to smoke in her flat. It was an intimacy Hoffner had yet to give much thought to. “No, I’m sure you can’t,” he said. “You tell that shop of yours I’ll be coming in for my suit, all right?”
Fichte’s eyes widened. “Naturally.” He spoke with the enthusiasm of a first infatuation. “They’ll be very pleased, Nikolai.”
Hoffner bobbed his head once.
It was all Fichte could have hoped for. “You have a good night, Nikolai.” He placed his hat on his head.
Hoffner kept busy with whatever it was that was on his desk. “Good night, Hans.”
She was a “word city.”
Hoffner had heard it, or read it, somewhere. Not just in her newspapers, but in her advertisements, her signs, her schedules, and most important, in her Litfassulen-those pillars that appeared on almost every corner of every neighborhood-Berlin breathed as a metropolis of language. It was the pillars, however, that stood apart. They were the modern town criers, filled with the chaos of endless messages: sell a bed, post at the corner; workers’ meeting tonight, post at the corner; find a girl, post at the corner. Capped by their crowns of green wrought iron, the pillars rose two meters higher than anything else on the street, and thus demanded attention. Even the figures in their posters were more garish than anything to be found in a window or on a billboard. Couples decked out in glaring reds and greens screamed out in aggressive poses to passersby: everything angular, sharp, and desperate for recognition. The pillars indulged their own disorder and thus mirrored the life of the streets even as they catered to it.
Find K, post at the corner.
Hoffner had used the Alex’s hectograph to make copies of a single sheet of paper, which he had plastered throughout the Mitte district over the last few days. His two index fingers were still stained with the aniline dye from the ink. It was always something of an adventure using the machine, pressing the sheet to the gelatin pad, waiting the few minutes for the page to absorb the ink, and then hoping not to smear anything in the removal. Hoffner could stomach only forty or so such tries. His patience and the dye usually gave out at about the same time. He was trusting that the simplicity of his note, and not its beauty, would make it stand out among all the more elaborate postings: Krystalowicz. Cafe Dalles. 10 o’clock. I’ll bring the brandy this time.
Hoffner had been at the cafe for the past two nights. Jogiches had yet to make an appearance.
In the meantime, Hoffner had decided to track down the one living link he still had to the diameter-cut: the engineer from the Rosenthaler station, the man who had helped to design the site under the tutelage of the great Grenander himself. In the last week, Hoffner had stopped in at three of the city-run shelters for the homeless. So far, no Herr Tben or his wife and two boys. Hoffner scanned the new map he had hung on his wall. He had been making his way east. Tonight it was Frbelstrasse, and the heart of Prenzlauer Berg.
Durable and cold was how the red brick of state institutions always announced themselves to Hoffner. Situated next to a bit of open ground, with a few trees planted about-not by nature, but by a bureaucrat’s pen-the shelter and its adjacent hospital showed little in the way of life. Even the long line of huddled bodies waiting for admission gave off nothing that might have been construed as flesh and blood. They were cracked faces, etched by hunger and resentment, and buried beneath the dust of decades. The snow seemed a starker white in their presence. Hoffner moved past them and up to the main door.
Several desks were laid out inside to process the line of applicants. Hoffner showed his badge, and a man motioned him over to one of the far desks. The chief administrator, a Herr Mitleid, was tending to one of his charges.
“You’ve come at our busiest time, Chief Inspector,” said Mitleid when Hoffner had introduced himself. The place reeked of sterility, with the tangy odor of ammonia emanating from every corner. It mixed uneasily with the smells of cooking and drying clothes and digestion. “You see us at our best and at our worst.”
This was not the typical administrator, at least not from Hoffner’s recent experience. Unlike the other directors, Mitleid seemed in tune with his own humanity. It was as if the man knew what it was to carry his life in a small sack on his back, or to feel the weight of a refugee’s thousand-kilometer walk in his legs, or to sense what gives a man a look of both fear and confrontation in his every gaze. Mitleid was a man of pure compassion. Hoffner wondered where they had found him within the ranks of officialdom.
“We open the doors at four, close them at nine. Takes about two hours to fill each of the dormitories. You find us in mid-filling, Herr Inspector.”
Hoffner explained what he was looking for: the name, two sons, a former engineer, sometime in the last month and a half. Mitleid thought for a moment. He seemed to recall something, and then brought Hoffner into his office. The two men sat, and Mitleid began to run through a roll of filing cards on his desk.
Hoffner noticed a stack of empty application documents. He took one and was astounded to see how bad things had gotten:
Case No. -- P.B.Was heard by the court in Berlin, on — 1919.Mr. -- was instructed to find himself alternative accommodation within five days, failing which, notwithstanding the most strenuous efforts on his behalf to do so, he would be punished for making himself homeless. The appellant was further warned that in accordance with #361, subsection 8, of the Criminal Law of the German Empire, such punishment will consist of up to six weeks in prison, and in accordance with #362 ibid., transferred to the police authorities, for placement in a workhouse.Approved and signed.Signature of the homeless man in question — Signature of the police case worker —
“Dreadful, isn’t it?” Mitleid was still searching. “Five days to find housing. Can you imagine?”
Hoffner replaced the sheet. “You show me someone who can find a flat that quickly in Berlin these days, I’ll show you your criminal.”
Mitleid tried a smile, but the topic was too close to home. He pulled out a card and said, “Here it is.” He read through it quickly. “I knew it sounded familiar.” His brow furrowed. “You’re sure about the name?”
“Tben,” Hoffner repeated.
Mitleid continued to look puzzled. “This is a Teplitz. A Willem Teplitz. Wife, two boys. I thought for sure.” He shook his head and began to replace the card; Hoffner stopped him and took the card. He read as Mitleid spoke. “Clever man, Teplitz. Helped us rework the placement of the beds. Gave us room for four more each night. Never said he was an engineer, but you could tell.”
According to the card, Herr “Teplitz” had arrived on the night of January 16, the night Hoffner and Fichte had come across Mary Koop.
“Who fills out this card?” said Hoffner.
“I do.”
“Do you have anything Herr Teplitz might have signed?”
Mitleid stood and moved across to a large filing cabinet. He returned with a small folder and handed a sheet to Hoffner. It was a form to request that the family be kept together while inside the shelter. “Another abomination,” said Mitleid. “But the Reichs Ministry insists we have it.”
Hoffner scanned down to the signature, where the lettering was deliberate and uneven. Teplitz had labored with his own name. Hoffner had seen the same hesitation many times before. This was Tben. He had been scared enough to take a false name, and Hoffner was guessing that his fears had had nothing to do with the body his son had discovered at the site. “How long did they stay with you?” he asked.
Mitleid took the card again and flipped it over. “Their last day was the twelfth,” he read. “Last Wednesday.” He looked across at Hoffner. “You believe this is your Herr Tben?”
Hoffner was thinking about the date. February 12: the day Jogiches’s article had appeared. Frau Tben and her boys were five days gone from Berlin: they could be anywhere now. “Was there anyone here that he was particularly friendly with?”
Mitleid again studied the card. “Dormitory three.” He thought for a moment, and his eyes lit up. “Oh, yes. Of course.” He began to get up. “The Colonel.” Mitleid started for the door and then motioned Hoffner through. “Marvelous fellow. A Russian. Fought for the Tsar. You’ll like him at once.”
Dormitory 3 was like all the others, long and narrow, and with two rows of beds jutting out from the walls, barracks-style. There were also a few stray cots that had been placed down the center aisle, the extras Herr Tben had managed to reconfigure. More than half of the beds were filled with men, flat on their backs, here and there a cocked elbow drawn across the eyes. The few who did look up did so with vacant stares. Hoffner knew they were looking directly at him; he just couldn’t feel their gaze.
Beyond a partition was another hall: here, instead of beds, small wooden cubicles-large enough to accommodate four or five people-appeared at intervals along the walls. These were for families. A gas burner and range stood in each of the corners of the hall, places for the women to do their cooking. Washing hung where it could, the cleverest of the women having placed their lines over the gas burners so as to help with the drying. The clothes might have picked up the sour smell of cabbage broth, but better dry and pungent than damp and fresh.
At the end of the row, Mitleid came to a stop. Unlike the other cubicles, this one had managed to keep its clutter in check. It was also far roomier, with only one bed inside and a little chair: evidently, rank had its privileges. A few photos hung on the inside walls, along with an officer’s cap. Below, a stack of books and papers rose to nearly a meter high, while on the bed, a large man, somewhere in his late sixties, lay stiffly on the tissue-thin linens with his eyes closed. His boots pointed to the ceiling, while his pant legs disappeared into the cracked leather just below the knees. Even in sleep, the Colonel looked as if he were on parade.
Mitleid seemed reluctant to disturb him. “Colonel Stankevich?” he said quietly.
At once, Stankevich’s eyes opened. He peered over, and just as quickly, offered a gracious smile. “Ah, Herr Mitleid.” Stankevich was sitting upright, his feet firm on the ground, before Mitleid could make the introductions. Years of interrupted sleep had prepared the Colonel well.
“May I present Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar Nikolai Hoffner of the Kriminalpolizei?”
Stankevich peered straight ahead for another moment. All signs to the contrary, he was still in the last grasp of sleep. With a sudden clearing of his throat, he stood and offered a bow. Hoffner bowed as well, and then insisted that the Colonel retake his seat. Mitleid waited until the two men were seated across from each other before taking his leave.
“Very German, our Herr Mitleid,” said Stankevich with a wry smile as he watched Mitleid go. “Very perfect.” He turned to Hoffner. “Are you also so perfect in your Kripo, Herr Inspector?” His German was flawless, but Hoffner recognized the accent.
“No worries on that front, Herr Colonel,” said Hoffner. “Kiev?” he added.
Stankevich showed a moment’s surprise. He then spoke in Russian. “You know Ukraine?”
“Once, to visit, as a boy,” said Hoffner. His Russian was not quite as fluid as he remembered.
“Odessa, actually. But close enough.”
Hoffner nodded.
“Your mother?”
Another nod.
“Always the mothers who ran off,” said Stankevich. “Find a nice German boy, give him nice German babies.”
Hoffner’s mother’s story was not quite as charming as Stankevich imagined, but Hoffner had no interest in muddying the illusion with mention of Cossacks and rifles and burning villages. Instead, he continued in Russian: “You’re a long way from Odessa, Colonel.”
“Yes.” The word seemed to carry the weight of the man’s history with it. “Someone decided to turn the world on its head, Inspector.”
Hoffner knew it would be a mistake to go down this road. “I’m told you knew Herr Teplitz, the engineer.”
Stankevich looked as if he might answer. Instead he reached across and pulled the cap from its hook. He held it in his hands like a boy caressing a new toy train, a tender blend of pride and reverence. “They let me keep this, you know,” he said as he gazed at the cap, its crimson band all but faded. “Ripped the epaulettes from my shoulders, the citations from my chest, but this-this they thought would be humorous to leave me with.” He paused. “A corporal. A boy in my company. Tired of taking orders.” Stankevich looked up. “Laziness. That’s what made him a revolutionary, Inspector. And here I sit in a shelter in Berlin.” He placed the cap back on its hook. “Yes, I knew Teplitz.”
Hoffner did his best to console. “The world will find its way back, Colonel.”
“Yes, but not while I’m here to see it.” Stankevich stood. He needed to distance himself from the cap. “Always better to walk, Inspector. Frees the mind. Shall we?”
Stankevich strode as if he were on inspection, his left leg hitching every third or fourth step from some hidden ailment. He nodded to the families as he passed by. Everyone knew the Colonel. A moment’s recognition from him was enough to spark some life into the line of tired eyes: his gift to them, Hoffner imagined.
“They have no past,” Stankevich said quietly. “So they have no hope.”
Hoffner nodded even though he had no idea what the Colonel meant.
“You think it’s the other way round, don’t you?” said Stankevich. “No future, no hope. But the future is fable, air. How can you draw faith from that?”
“It’s an interesting way of looking at things, Colonel.”
“It’s a very Russian way of looking at things, Inspector. Only the past gives you something to stand on. Without it, how do you know where your feet are when you’re looking to the heavens?” Stankevich’s leg buckled momentarily. “They are without hope because their past has been taken from them. It’s been rendered meaningless, and so, like me, they have nothing to build their hope on.”
Hoffner waited before answering. “And Herr Teplitz? Was he also without a past?”
Everything about Stankevich moved stiffly, which made the ease of his smile all the more surprising. “I’m passing on great wisdom, and all you want to know about is Teplitz.”
Hoffner smiled with him. “Unfortunately, yes.”
Stankevich let go with a throaty, quiet laugh. “It’s nice to hear Russian again. Yours is quite good, but it’s the eyes that give you away. Too dark. That’s your past, Inspector. Germans don’t have such depth. And how can you trust that?” He waited, then continued. “A war in China, another in Japan, the Great War, and a boy of nineteen tells me that my country is no longer mine. And you want to hear about a little German engineer.” Stankevich shook his head slowly. “Seems a bit frivolous, don’t you think?” They moved through to the next hall. “My corporal had weak eyes. I remember that.”
An attendant was mopping up something in one of the corners. A boy, in stocking feet and short pants, stood staring at the swirling motion of the mop. Hoffner noticed that Stankevich was gazing over, as well. Stankevich showed no pity for the boy, only a stifled despair. This was what his life had come to, thought Hoffner, watching a boy fascinated by a mop.
“So you chose Berlin,” said Hoffner.
Stankevich stayed a moment longer with the boy, then fixed his gaze straight ahead as he walked. “So I became a burden on your city? Is that what you mean? Yes. They don’t employ old men here, Inspector.”
“They’re having trouble with the young ones as well, Colonel.”
“Little consolation.” A pot of something brown was boiling over on a nearby range. No one seemed to be taking any notice. Stankevich stepped over and removed the pot from the burner. “I came to Berlin seven months ago. There was a woman. A friend from before the war. She took me in. Brest-Litovsk. We were no longer enemies, after all.” The water in the pot settled. Someone had been boiling socks. “She died from the influenza a little over three months ago. Herr Mitleid was kind enough to house me without the usual paperwork. A generous man.” Stankevich peered down at the floating wool. “You know, of course, that Teplitz’s real name was Tben.” Hoffner said nothing. “Quite popular, as well. A colleague of yours was here asking for him.”
Hoffner showed no reaction. “Another policeman?”
Stankevich began to walk. “If you try to sound so uninterested, Inspector, it gives the game away.” Stankevich swung his arm as if he were remembering what it was to have a crop in his hand. “This other policeman, this man wasn’t like you.”
“The eyes not as deep?”
Stankevich allowed himself a smile. “That, too, but no. He wasn’t the kind to hunt down little Belgians who kill old women.”
Hoffner was impressed. “So you actually read those newspapers?”
“Nothing to do but read in here, Inspector.”
“The political police?”
Stankevich nodded.
“Herr Mitleid didn’t mention it,” said Hoffner.
Stankevich had anticipated the response. “This man didn’t waste his time with Herr Mitleid, Inspector. He simply appeared at my bed.”
“And you told him what you knew about Herr Tben?”
Again, Stankevich stopped and turned to Hoffner. “Now, why would I have done that?”
Stankevich liked his Russians, even his half-Russians. The man from the Polpo-Kommissar Hermannsohn, from the description-had merited no such consideration. Hoffner and his dark eyes, on the other hand, were another matter entirely.
According to Stankevich, Tben had left the shelter nearly a month ago, alone and with no explanation. His only request had been that Stankevich act as his conduit: Tben had thought it unsafe to address his letters directly to his wife, who had remained behind with the boys. Two letters had arrived prior to the twelfth, both postmarked from Zurich, which Frau Tben had read and then destroyed. Stankevich knew nothing of their contents. A third had come after the twelfth, but by then, the entire family had gone.
Back at his cubicle, Stankevich produced the letter. Hoffner read: MY DEAREST ONE,All sinks deeper into despair. Access to the account remains an impossibility if we are to keep our whereabouts a secret from our friends in Munich. I have no concern for my own well-being, but I fear that they would not be satisfied with my life alone. It seems that the monies promised for my designs were never intended as payment, but more as a lure should circumstances require my silencing. I will not play the mouse to their cheese. It is something of a miracle that we have managed to elude them for this long.You, of course, had the good sense from the start. These were not men to be trusted and, if not for my navet, you should not be in such distress now. I have failed in the most fundamental of my obligations-the security of my family-and have only my constant remorse and loneliness to show for my efforts.I will wait until the 23rd as agreed, and hope that by some good fortune you are able to accompany me. If not, then I hope you can forgive me for the destruction of our lives. Choose your friends wisely, and may they deliver you to me.IN CONSTANT ADORATION, P.
Hoffner asked Stankevich for the envelope. The postmark was also from Zurich, dated the fourth of February. Hoffner examined the envelope’s flap, then brought it up to his nose and sniffed. There was no residue of talc, nor were the edges crimped by steam: the letter had not been opened and then resealed. Whatever Hoffner might have thought of the Polpo-and whoever else those “friends” might be in Munich-he could at least rest easy that neither had been so thorough as to intercept the letter before it arrived at the shelter. Hermannsohn might have tracked down Stankevich, but he was not monitoring the Colonel’s mail.
Hoffner continued to scan the letter as he spoke: “How much money did you give her, Colonel?”
Stankevich pretended not to have heard. “Pardon?”
“Frau Tben,” Hoffner said, “or whatever her real name is. My guess would be something a bit more Russian. Where did you send them, Colonel?”
Stankevich did his best to sound convincing. “I don’t know what you mean, Inspector.”
Hoffner nodded to himself as he continued to look down at the letter. “We both know German isn’t his first language. ‘The destruction of our lives.’ ‘You are able to accompany me.’” He looked up. “He means ‘join me.’ The syntax and language are wrong throughout. It’s also much too formal. He gives himself away, as you knew he would when you let me read it. So now that I’ve passed your test, Colonel, where did you send them?”
Stankevich looked as if he might try another dodge; instead he simply smiled. “They made you out to be quite brilliant in the newspapers,” he said. “I thought it was all something of a joke.”
“It was.”
“No, I think, in spite of themselves, they managed to get that right.”
Hoffner spoke deliberately: “Where is Tben, Herr Colonel?”
Again, Stankevich waited. It was now a matter of trust. “Sazonov,” he said. “His name is Pavel Sazonov. The wife’s maiden name was Tben.”
Hoffner had guessed as much. “So sometimes it was the fathers who ran off and wanted nice German babies?”
“What do you want with them, Inspector?”
“The same as you. To help them.”
Stankevich was not yet convinced. “Your colleague said the same thing.”
“Yes,” said Hoffner more pointedly, “but you didn’t show him the letter, did you?” Hoffner held the single sheet out to Stankevich.
It was an obvious point. Still, Stankevich hesitated. “No,” he said. “I didn’t.” He peered down at the letter. Then, as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, he said, “Better for you to keep it, don’t you think?”
Hoffner pocketed the letter.
Stankevich now spoke as if to a longtime confidant. “I don’t think he knew what he was doing, Sazonov. Not that he explained any of it to me. He did mention once that he had been clever, something about hiding in the last place they would look, but more than that he never said.”
Clever until his son had discovered Mary Koop’s body, thought Hoffner. “And his wife?”
“She knew less than I did. She simply wanted a roof over their heads. I don’t think she’d slept in weeks.”
“And he never mentioned his ‘friends’ in Munich?”
Stankevich shook his head. “The letter was the first I heard of them. Or of an account. Or a rendezvous. The man was terrified, Inspector. I did what I could. I had a few marks. It was enough to get him wherever he was going. Evidently that was Zurich. He said he would send more for his wife and the two boys, but the money never came. And then, last week, Frau Sazonov informed me that it was no longer safe for her to stay in Berlin. I don’t know why. I didn’t ask.” Stankevich paused. “I don’t care how long he had been in this country, Inspector, he was still a Russian. This was a good man.”
“And one, no doubt, with a past worth saving?” said Hoffner.
For the first time in minutes, a warmth returned to Stankevich’s eyes. “Yes.”
Hoffner nodded slowly. There was nothing else to be learned here. He stood and pulled his wallet from his jacket pocket.
The Colonel’s reaction was instantaneous. His hand shot up. “Really, Inspector, there’s no need-”
“My card, Colonel,” said Hoffner. He had no intention of embarrassing the man. “Nothing else.” Hoffner held it out. “Over the years, my wife has learned to make a very nice walnut dumpling-Kiev style, I’m sorry to say-but close enough. An expert’s opinion would please her to no end.”
Stankevich cleared his throat; he was not particularly fond of his emotions. He took the card.
The stink of ammonia was still with Hoffner as he drew up to the Cafe Dalles’s front doors: two steps down, and a bit of sawdust to keep the ice at bay.
It was always tough going, getting the weight of a place like Frbelstrasse out of one’s system. Hopelessness, whether informed by a past or a future, was all the more stark when projected against a backdrop of cold white tile and yellow light, more acute when seen through the faded red of an officer’s cap: Hoffner doubted the Colonel would be joining them for dumplings in Kreuzberg any time soon. At least the desperation inside the cafe had a nice jaunty feel to it, small tables and dim lights, with a prostitute or two catching up with her pimp. These were always pleasant reunions, money handed over, a few drinks into her system as she sat like a queen atop his lap. New stockings invariably demanded attention.
The band-a violin and piano-plunked out something that blended easily into the haphazard spray of conversation, nothing to take focus, though the air would have grown stale without it. Hoffner began to navigate his way across to the far corner and what had become his usual table. Like a distant shore under mist, it was obscured by clouds of smoke. He checked his watch and saw that it was a quarter to ten. The place was just revving up as he passed by a waiter and told the man to bring over a bottle of Mampe’s, no doubt the watered-down stock, but why should tonight be any different, he thought.
Hoffner loosened his tie, settled in, and pulled a cigarette from his pack. He knew he could have sat like this for hours, a full glass, watching the little dramas play themselves out at the nearby tables: parry, thrust, parry, thrust, and always at a safe distance.
He was taking in one such performance-the muffled pleadings of a heavyset girl to her indifferent lover-when the bottle arrived. Still intent on the scene, Hoffner pulled a few coins from his pocket.
“Very kind, Herr Inspector.”
Hoffner looked up to see Leo Jogiches pouring out the second of two glasses. For an instant, Hoffner thought he recognized Jogiches, not from Rosa’s photographs, but from somewhere else, something more immediate. The sensation passed, and Hoffner returned the coins to his pocket.
Jogiches was no longer a handsome man. His beard, a silky brown in the photos, had grown gray and knotted, as if a cat had been grooming him. Worse was the hairline that rose just too high on one side and made everything seem to droop to the left. His skin sagged as well, especially under the eyes, where sleeplessness and beatings collided in an array of dark blotches and fading bruises. Only the eyes themselves recalled the past: they showed that same deep calculation and fierceness that Rosa had known. This was a man who had lived his life on the run, and the uncertainty of his world-the inherent danger in his very presence-was like an intoxicant to him. Ancient photographs aside, Jogiches was exactly what Hoffner had expected.
“But again, my treat,” said Jogiches. He capped the bottle and took a seat. “To your health, Inspector.” He tossed back the brandy and settled in.
Any sense of validation Hoffner might have felt at seeing the man-the theoretical K, now flesh and blood-quickly fell away. Jogiches’s presence confirmed far more than just good detective work.
Hoffner held up his pack. “Cigarette?” Jogiches took one and Hoffner continued: “I didn’t see you when I came in.”
“You weren’t meant to,” said Jogiches. He lit up and explained, “Two nights. By the bar. To make sure you were as determined as you seemed.”
“And tonight you got your answer?
Jogiches took a deep pull. “We’ll see, won’t we?” The smoke trailed slowly from his mouth as he gazed out into the crowd: “The man there is a thief,” he said with certainty. “The woman there doesn’t want us to know she’s a whore, but she’s a whore just the same. And the couple there”-the indifferent lovers Hoffner had been tracking-“that boy will kill someday. Look at how he crushes his cigarette into the pile of ash, over and over. There’s no satisfaction in it. The wonderful tension in his hand. He wants to crack the girl across the face, but he keeps digging the little butt into the ashtray.” Jogiches’s gaze seemed to intensify. “One day he’ll have the courage.” He watched a moment longer, and then turned to Hoffner. “And then, Herr Inspector, you’ll have to hunt him down.”
“Quick to judge, aren’t you?”
Jogiches’s smile was unlike any Hoffner had ever seen: the mouth conveyed the requisite joy, but the eyes remained cold. It was as if even his face was keeping secrets from itself. “No judge, Herr Inspector, just the accuser. I’ll leave the judging to someone else.”
Hoffner flicked a bit of ash onto the floor. “I enjoyed your article.”
Jogiches poured out a second glass for himself. “Not nearly the entire story, but then someone had to prod your case into life again.”
“And what is my case?”
“Rosa.” He spoke the name as if it were part of some incantation, hushed and filled with meaning. Then, too casually, he added, “You’ve heard, of course, that tomorrow’s Lokalanzeiger will say she’s in Russia, plotting with Herr Lenin to overthrow the Ebert government.” Jogiches was too busy reordering the ashtray, table lamp, and salt shaker to allow a response. “‘Where’s the body, Berlin?’ they’ll ask. ‘Rosa dead? Nonsense. Watch yourselves. For she’ll sweep in and rip your hearts out when she brings her revolution back again.’” No less intent on his task, he added, “But then, we both know she’s dead, lying on a slab on the fourth floor of the Alexanderplatz. Still, it’ll make for a good bit of press.”
Hoffner had his glass to his lips when Jogiches let go with this little tidbit; Hoffner wondered how many other items Jogiches might be holding in reserve. He tossed back the brandy and set his glass on the table. “No reason for me to play coy, is there?” said Hoffner.
“No.”
“You have someone inside the Alex.”
“Yes.” Jogiches seemed satisfied with his redecorations: order had been achieved. He sat back.
Hoffner said, “So who’s been working for you?”
For the first time, Hoffner was aware that Jogiches was studying him. He wondered which crime Jogiches might be imagining for his own future. Hoffner was about to ask when Jogiches’s eyes suddenly seemed to lose themselves, as if they were looking directly through him.
“You know,” Jogiches said vacantly, “she was much cleverer than all of us.” It was as if he were admitting to some long-held secret. His gaze remained distant.
Hoffner had spent enough time with Rosa now to come to her defense. “Shame you never told her,” he said.
“Yes,” said Jogiches. His gaze refocused and he looked directly into Hoffner’s eyes. “I suppose it was.”
Guilt, thought Hoffner, had an uncanny way of exposing itself. Jogiches, however, had spent too many years denying his own faults to allow any instinct for atonement to take hold for more than a few seconds.
Jogiches said, “You’ve never read any of her work, have you? Her real work, I mean.” Hoffner shook his head. “I didn’t think so. No, no, I don’t mean it that way. I’m sure you could have understood it. She was quite superb in that way. Theories only the geniuses could master, and she made them simple. Marx’s Capital-a morass, completely impenetrable, and then Rosa writes her Accumulation and suddenly Marxist economics has a place in the twentieth century. She even improved on the old man, with a little help, of course.”
“Of course,” said Hoffner.
Jogiches liked the challenge. “You think she could have done it without me?”
Hoffner had neither the inclination nor the ammunition to take on Jogiches. “That story about the gun,” he said. “Did she really pull it on you?”
Jogiches seemed surprised by the question. His answer came with a bit more bite. “She wrote about that?”
“In great detail,” said Hoffner. “I would have thought that you’d have been the first to read through the journals, cover to cover.”
“Evidently you have.”
“But not you?”
Jogiches tapped out his cigarette. “And slog through an endless tirade of revisionist history, Inspector? I’ll take a pass.”
Hoffner heard the self-rationalization in his tone. “So she never pulled the gun?”
“Of course she pulled it. Why not? She couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t permit her to continue seeing that idiot Zetkin.”
Hoffner could feel Jogiches rising to the bait. “You wouldn’t permit her?” he said.
“Something like that.” Jogiches took a last pull, then crushed out his cigarette; he continued to play with the stub. “She thought she could make him into a novelist or a painter, or something equally ludicrous. You’ve read through it. I forget which. Waste of time.” He let go of the stub and brushed off his hands. “She couldn’t accept the man for what he was, and when she tried to make me into something that was her fantasy-” Jogiches caught himself. It was only a momentary hitch, but it was enough to sour his tone. “Zetkin. When she insisted Zetkin could be all of her marvelous romantic ideals-it was pathetic. A woman her age. I told her so. She became very dramatic. Rosa loved the drama. And so out came the little revolver.” He shrugged it off with too much indifference. “She said she never wanted to see me again, which made it even more ridiculous.”
Even now, Jogiches had no idea what the drama had been masking. Hoffner poured himself a second glass and said, “The journals said you promised to kill her if she stayed with Zetkin.”
Jogiches tried an unsuccessful laugh. “That again. The woman was obsessed.”
“She seemed to think it was the other way round.”
“Did she?” Jogiches was now fully engaged. “I’ll tell you something about obsession, Inspector. A nine-year sentence in Mokotw-and we both know what goes on inside those walls-and she thinks I’m having an affair with some woman halfway across the country? I don’t see daylight for five months, and I’m the one carrying on. Guilt is a remarkable thing, don’t you think? She should have shot me when she had the chance. Would have served her right.”
Crushing out his cigarette, Hoffner said blandly, “So who’s in Munich?”
For just an instant, Jogiches winced. It was hardly a movement, the recovery as immediate, but it was enough to tell Hoffner that he had hit a nerve. In that moment, Jogiches knew that he had been outmaneuvered. His eyes grew cold. Hoffner said nothing.
“I see,” said Jogiches icily. “You let me ramble on like a fool, and I give you Munich. Well done, Inspector.”
Hoffner had known to hook Jogiches by his pride-Rosa had told him as much in the journals-but he had never expected this level of self-reproach. “I’m not sure I’d have used the word ‘fool,’ mein Herr,” said Hoffner, “but I think we’re at the point where you can volunteer a little something.”
Jogiches answered cagily, “Am I so easily manipulated?”
“I don’t imagine anything of the kind.”
Jogiches was still cold: “And you think I’m eventually going to trust you, don’t you, Inspector?”
Hoffner pulled a second cigarette from his pack. “I wouldn’t want to set a precedent, mein Herr.”
“No,” said Jogiches, eyeing him more closely. “That would be dangerous, wouldn’t it?”
A clarinet had joined the band. There was hardly space between the tables, yet someone had decided that that meant dancing. Luckily, all the bouncing was keeping itself to the other side of the room.
Jogiches said, “It’s when the smoke clears that the trouble begins, Inspector.” He was on his fourth glass of brandy, though as sober as when he had first sat down. “Berlin wants to dictate to the rest of Germany, but the rest of Germany isn’t all that keen to listen. Communists in Bremen, Social Democrats in Hamburg, royalists in Stuttgart, God knows what else in Berlin, and on and on and on. The revolution isn’t over. It’s simply waiting to see who has the will to see it through.”
“And Munich?” said Hoffner.
Jogiches spoke with absolute certainty. “Munich will make all the difference, even if Berlin doesn’t know that, just yet.”
“But you do.”
Jogiches had a habit of staring at the ember of his cigarette as he held it by his glass. “Did you ever ask yourself why they’re keeping Rosa’s body on a slab of ice in Alexanderplatz?”
“Every day.”
“Yes, but you’ve been asking for the wrong reasons.” He looked across at Hoffner. “You think it’s something to do with your little Belgian.”
“No, I think it extends far beyond that, but I have nothing to tell me why. Isn’t that the reason we’re having this little chat?”
Jogiches conceded the point. He took a pull on the cigarette. “There’s the obvious answer.”
“Which is?”
“She makes your murder case political.”
Hoffner disagreed. “That’s not enough. She’ll be forgotten the moment these idiots they’re rounding up get a slap on the wrist. You don’t actually think anyone’s going to pay for her death?”
Hoffner was expecting a bit of fire in the answer, but Jogiches was no longer biting. “That would be something, wouldn’t it?” said Jogiches, his eyes drifting for a moment. “Justice for a socialist.” He again stared across at Hoffner. “They’re keeping her so as to use her. This is about taking the reins, Inspector, and the when and the how are what matter. The why is far too obvious.”
It made Hoffner uneasy to see how much pleasure Jogiches took in the prospect of something so far-reaching. Men like him saw conspiracies and revolutions at every turn, but the more Hoffner sifted through the pieces he himself had brought together, the less implausible those possibilities seemed. “Munich,” he said, still unsure why.
Jogiches smiled elusively. “Precisely.”
There was nothing remotely satisfying in the answer. Whatever Jogiches thought he had been making clear was as impenetrable as that insufferable smile. “You know I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Hoffner.
“I imagine you have more than you realize, Inspector.”
Impatience was seeping into Hoffner’s tone: “Then tell me what makes Munich so important.”
For the first time, Jogiches hesitated. “I don’t know,” he said with frustration. “In the same way I don’t know why a Prussian business interest, or a discontinued military ointment, or a substitute madman who was willing to kill himself so as to protect your little Belgian, are involved. But I do know they all revolve around Rosa. The when and the how, Inspector. That’s what you need to find out.”
Hoffner was impressed; Jogiches had mentioned virtually everything except, of course, the design of the Rosenthaler station, but then how could he have known about that? Hoffner was the only one to have put it together. It made the link to Munich even more startling: Stankevich’s letter had come from the engineer; the engineer was the only link to the station. Now Jogiches was mentioning Munich without any knowledge of the engineer.
Hoffner measured out two more glasses. “You seem to be doing fine on your own.”
“That has its limitations,” said Jogiches. “A revolutionary crying foul doesn’t exactly provoke a response, especially when the powers that be already consider him dead.”
“Your article.”
“The final nail, as they say. And dead men don’t have much luck catching trains out of Berlin.”
Jogiches was right. There was nowhere he could turn: the Social Democrats would do nothing to protect him; the right-wing troops would stop at nothing to eliminate him; and the police. . well, not really their jurisdiction. His only option had been the truth, and that was something Jogiches had never managed terribly well on his own. “Your source is very thorough,” said Hoffner.
“He has to be. There’s a great deal at stake now.”
And there it was, thought Hoffner. The catchphrase. There was always “a great deal at stake” for men like Jogiches: grand causes tended to subordinate every motivation to a singular truth. Only action mattered, which, as Hoffner now thought about it, made Jogiches’s approach not all that different from his own. The one distinction was in how each of them saw the confluence of events. For Jogiches, the details came together like pieces in a boundless jigsaw whose cover had gone missing, so that the final picture, though dimly imagined, remained forever a mystery: completion was always just another few days off, which made the eternal search all the more compelling. For Hoffner, the pieces produced a finite picture, smaller, of course, and without a sense of the greater totality, but no less coherent: the final product might have been only a tiny segment of the larger puzzle, but it brought resolution, and that, in the end, was all that mattered. There was either truth and causes and sacrifice, or there was practicality and cases and death. Hoffner had never questioned which took precedence.
He said, “So I have an ally inside the Alex?”
From his expression, Jogiches had never thought of it that way. Truth to tell-until this moment-neither had Hoffner. “I suppose you do,” said Jogiches.
Hoffner waited as a lifetime of mistrust stared back at him. Luckily, the dead are quick to realize that they have nothing to lose.
“Groener,” Jogiches finally said. “Detective Sergeant Ludwig Groener.”
Jogiches enjoyed the moment immensely. “Oh, don’t look so surprised, Inspector. Why do you think he never won promotion? Bit of an embarrassment to his uncle the General, I suspect, but then maybe that’s the reason he became one of us in the first place. I never asked. Groener’s far more than you ever imagined.”
In fact, Hoffner had never even conceived of it, not that he had heard much beyond the name. It had come at him like a wave of gibberish, a word in a child’s game with syllables and cadence but no meaning. Groener? The name was, at this moment, completely incomprehensible.
It was the perfect lead-in to the garbled singing that suddenly erupted from one of the tables by the front door. A drunk had taken to his feet and was already at full throttle:
“When lovely eyes begin to wink, when full glasses gleam and clink, there comes once more the call to drink, to drink, to drink, to drink!”
Everyone at the table laughed. It was loud enough to draw half the caf’s attention, Hoffner with them. When he turned back, Jogiches was on his feet. “We’ll do this again, Inspector,” he said as he reached for his hat. “There’s another door through the kitchen. They won’t have anyone there.”
“You still haven’t told me how you know about Munich.”
Jogiches placed his hat on his head. “And you, Herr Inspector, have to leave me some secrets.” Jogiches grabbed his umbrella and, without another word, headed for the back of the cafe.
It was only then that Hoffner remembered where he had seen Jogiches before. Rcker’s bar, the day they had found Mary Koop, the professor with the umbrella. It was a startling image. Hoffner wondered: Had Jogiches been watching him even then?
The front doors opened and a Polpo detective appeared; the man was too obvious to be anything else. Hoffner watched as the singing drunk suddenly maneuvered himself out into the aisle and clumsily blocked the detective’s path. Jogiches had picked his lookout well: the man showed a tremendous dedication to his task.
Taking advantage of the commotion, Hoffner stood and quietly made his way back toward the kitchen.
Martha was asleep by the time he stumbled in. As always, she had left a light on for him.
Hoffner was still mulling over his first encounter with Jogiches as he tossed his clothes in a pile and turned out the light: had Munich been a consideration back in January? Had Jogiches stayed in the shadows and allowed three more women to be killed rather than expose what he knew? Had Groener done worse? Hoffner quietly slipped into bed. His head was still thick from the brandy as he lay back, closed his eyes, and tried to piece it all together.
“Late night.” Martha’s voice filled the darkness.
It had been a long time since she had waited up for him. “You’re awake, then,” he said. He listened for movement; when none came, he added, “Not that late. Go back to sleep.”
There was the hope that she would give in, but they both knew better. She spoke quietly and without any hint of judgment. “Nothing you want to tell me, is there, Nicki?” She kept her back to him.
It always came here, he thought, with no distractions, nothing to run to for a moment of relief: a newspaper lying about, a package recently delivered, a boy passing by the door. Only darkness and conversation and the unbearable weight of the two.
“Tell you what?”
“That’s up to you, isn’t it?”
She had always had the good sense to wait until things had sputtered out before posing the question. It was safe by then, each of them aware of what he had done and how he had chosen not to let it drag on. There was a kind of victory in that for them both. Now, however, it was four years on since his last slip, and her timing had gone off.
“The Wouters case,” he said. “Loose ends.” He did his best to wrap it in the truth, which, of course, only made it more cruel: anything other than his confession signaled her miscalculation.
“Oh,” she said vaguely. She was trying not to sound betrayed.
“Yes. I might have to take a few days in Munich.”
“Munich?” she repeated with false blandness.
The stupidity of what he had just said struck him at once. A few days in Munich? Could anything have been more obvious? The truth had snuck in and was now lashing away. He said, “Two days, at the most. I’m not even sure how the trains are running.” He would have given anything for an outburst of anger or despair or loathing, but Martha always let her strength work its magic.
She said, “Sascha’s friend is coming up at the weekend.” Hoffner had no idea what she was talking about. “Kroll’s niece. The girl from Frankfurt. It’s all planned. So I’m sure the trains are running fine.”
Hoffner wondered if, perhaps, they had moved past the worst of it. Unpleasantness loomed somewhere, but he chose to ignore it. “Geli,” he said: the name came to him like an unexpected gift. Sascha had met the girl on his last summer holiday: she was bright and pretty and thirteen and equally taken with the boy. Hoffner recalled something being said around the table last week. It was all very hazy.
“He’s in such a nice mood about it,” said Martha. She rolled toward him. “And you’ve been very good, Nicki. A boy needs that sort of thing.”
The air was clearing. They were well beyond it now. “He’s a good boy,” said Hoffner. Not that he knew his son well enough to say it, but he knew Martha needed to hear it.
“I saw the Mrike,” she said. It took Hoffner a moment to follow. “I found it in your jacket. You haven’t read him in years.”
Again, he needed a moment. “No. I-just came across it.”
“You were always so fond of him.”
“Yes.”
She continued to stare up at him. “You don’t love her, do you?”
And there it was, the banality of the question so much more painful than its answer. It might have been comical had Martha known the book’s source, but then again, he had chosen to keep it. Perhaps the question wasn’t as absurd as he thought. “No,” he said with quiet certainty. “I don’t.” Hoffner waited, wondering if she might drag them back into it; instead, she rolled away and onto her side.
She said, “I saw the gloves. They’re lovely. Thank you, Nicki.”
He had left them for her this morning with a little note on her pillow. “With warm affection,” or some such thing. It would have been too much on poor Herr Taubmann to return them now.
“Does everyone have a partner!”
Tamako-he might have been Japanese, but it was anybody’s guess-called out from high above on his catwalk to the throng of dancers below. As always, he was immaculately togged in silk tuxedo and vest, and stood shouting into his now-infamous white megaphone, which he had named “Trubo.” Tonight, Tamako was keeping his dyed ginger-blond hair greased back to show his inordinately high forehead, which, for some reason, was powdered in white.
“You!” he said, leaning over the railing and pointing an accusatory finger at no one in particular. “Higher knees! Herr Trrrrrubo wants higher knees!”
A woman at the edge of the floor began to lift her legs with greater abandon. Her dress flew up and she laughed as the men around her helped to hike it up farther each time she kicked.
“I see knickers!” shouted Tamako. “Black and gold knickers! Oh, those lovely knickers! Three cheers for the lady in blue!”
The dance floor erupted, and the orchestra took it as its cue to raise the decibel level. Everything grew more feverish, while Fichte, seated at the bar with a vodka and orange, watched in delight.
He enjoyed the view from the bar. More than that, he enjoyed how he could be viewed from the bar. Hardly a quarter-hour passed without a handshake or a drink for the young detective. The girls had grown less attractive over the weeks-after all, who could keep a Haller Girl interested for more than a few days? — but some of the middling ones were still coming by. Tonight a buxom counter girl from one of the stores along the Kurfrstendamm was on his arm: she had a flat of her own; she had made that very clear early on in the evening. She was drinking champagne, but Fichte was figuring it would be worth the extras.
She pulled away from him and showed a bit of thigh as she flapped her skirt. “I want to dance, Hans. Let’s dance.”
Fichte imagined the treats in store for him. He placed his drink on the bar and followed her out as a photographer flashed a shot. It was a slow night. Who knew? Fichte might even make it back into the morning papers.
The girl was all thrusts and kicks, and she liked it when Fichte kept his hand clamped around her buttocks. He bent closer in and placed his cheek on hers, and little beads of sweat started where their skin touched. She smelled of talc and matted hair as Fichte reached up and stole a squeeze of her breast. She slapped at him playfully, and the cloth clung momentarily to his palm as he pulled it away.
Back at the bar he bought her another champagne. He was handing it over when a familiar voice from behind broke through the crowd.
“Something of a madhouse tonight, isn’t it?” said the voice.
Fichte turned to see Polpo Oberkommissar Gustav Braun reaching out for two glasses of his own. Fichte took a moment to process the image. Smiling, and with his hair mussed at the front, Braun looked almost human.
Fichte’s girl was growing impatient. “Hans-my drink?”
Fichte recovered and handed her the champagne. Braun, however, remained no less perplexing. With a false camaraderie, Fichte said, “Herr Oberkommissar. What a surprise.”
Braun was handing one of the drinks to a lady friend of his own. “We’re not at the Alex now. It’s Gustav, please. Allow me to present Frulein Tilde Raubal. Frulein Raubal, Herr Fichte. This is the young detective I’ve been telling you so much about.” The woman extended her hand.
Fichte took it and brought it to his lips. “A pleasure,” he said. “This is-” He had forgotten the girl’s name. There were several moments of uncomfortable silence before the girl said with an unflattering tartness, “Frulein Dimp. Vicki Dimp.” She extended her hand, though not with quite the same grace as her counterpart.
Suffering through the girl’s sweaty little hand, Braun said, “You must come and join us. Wouldn’t want to drag you away from the cameras, but we do have a table away from the noise, unless you prefer the bar.”
Fichte answered instantly. “Wonderful.” He motioned for Braun to lead the way. Frulein Dimp, though less than enthusiastic, followed Frulein Raubal into the crowd.
The air was slightly less steamy away from the bar, which made squeezing into the half-moon booth more pleasant than it might have been. Even so, the women were forced to sit shoulder to shoulder, while Fichte kept most of his heft teetering on the edge of the banquette: he placed a hand on the side of the table for balance. He smiled awkwardly at Frau Raubal, who seemed expertly bored.
“He might be a she,” said Braun, gazing up at the catwalk and a strutting Tamako. “There are rumors.” Fichte peered up with him. “Then again,” said Braun, “he might just be a diseased homosexual.”
Fichte found Braun’s chumminess thrilling. If only for a few moments, he was being invited into the inner circle. Fichte had guessed at Tamako’s darker secrets. Now here was a man who could more than merely speculate. Fichte said eagerly, “If only Herr Trubo could speak.”
Braun was momentarily confused by the response-seeing that Herr Trubo was, in fact, a megaphone whose sole purpose was to speak-but he nodded anyway and raised his glass. “To the times ahead,” he said.
The four toasted, and Fichte turned to his girl. “Herr Braun”-he corrected himself-“Gustav is very high up with the Polpo. They handle the more complex cases at the Alex.”
Frulein Dimp needed no coaching “I know what the Polpo does, Hans. I read the papers, too.”
Braun said genially, “We don’t spend a lot of time in the papers, Frulein.” He was becoming more human by the minute. “We leave that to heroes like Hans, here.”
Fichte would have blushed, but his face was too busy sweating.
“What we do,” continued Braun, “is always less interesting to the public.”
Fichte perked up. “Not true at all. You manage what’s most interesting to them without their even knowing it. The Polpo keeps a different kind of peace.”
Braun said, “You’ve been talking with Walther Hermannsohn, from the sound of it. Good man, Hermannsohn. Knows his business.”
Fichte had in fact spent more than a little time chatting with the young Kommissar over the last few weeks: a few chance meetings at a lunch spot around the corner from the Alex. Hermannsohn was, as Braun said, quite a good fellow. Fichte said, “Yes, not what one expects, really.”
Braun gave him no time to backtrack: “And what did you expect?”
Fichte was suddenly on the spot. “Well, you know,” he said, trying to buy some time. “What people imagine goes on inside the Polpo.”
“Uninformed people,” said Braun.
“Yes. Exactly,” said Fichte, trying not to show his relief. “The common misconceptions.”
Braun raised his glass and with a knowing look-one that only confused Fichte-downed his whiskey in one swallow. He then reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his wallet. “Why don’t you two girls have a spin at the roulette wheel? Give Herr Fichte-”
“Hans,” corrected Fichte enthusiastically.
“-Hans and me a chance to talk.” Braun pulled a five-mark bill from his wallet.
Frulein Raubal looked relieved, as if she had been waiting for the suggestion all along; Frulein Dimp simply marveled at the amount of money.
Braun was on his feet. The women slid over, and Frau Raubal placed a nice kiss on Braun’s cheek as she took the bill.
“You talk as long as you want,” said Frulein Dimp as she reached across the table for her drink. She made sure to give Fichte a nice view of her cleavage. “We’ll be just fine, Hans, darling. Don’t you worry about us.”
And like that, the girls were gone. Braun settled back into his seat and managed to wave down a passing waiter. He ordered two whiskeys. He said, “Nice-looking girl, Hans. Very enthusiastic.”
Fichte tried his best to keep up. “I certainly hope so.” He laughed a bit too loudly, but Braun let it pass.
“I imagine you’ve been on quite a tear since the Wouters case broke.”
“I can’t complain.”
Braun offered him a cigarette. “You enjoy that kind of work, do you? Murders and the like.” The two men lit up.
“I don’t know if I’d say ‘enjoy,’ but it is interesting.”
“Of course. Interesting in a limited sort of way.” He saw Fichte’s confusion. “I only mean that the cases have fixed parameters.” This didn’t seem to help. Braun spoke more slowly. “You catch the killer and the case is closed. That sort of thing. They don’t really lead anywhere else.”
“Oh, I see what you mean. Well. . yes and no. There are some cases that lead elsewhere.”
“And you like those?”
Fichte tried to find the right words. “Well, I haven’t had the chance yet to work on one that’s led beyond the. . you know, beyond the case. But I’ve certainly read about the ones that have.”
Braun nodded amiably. “Of course.” He took a drag. “Pretty much all we do in the Polpo. Nothing ever seems to find an end up on the fourth floor. Always leading from one thing to the next to the next.” He picked at a piece of stray tobacco on his tongue. He examined it as he said, “From what I’ve seen, you look like you might have a talent for that sort of thing.” He flicked the tobacco away and looked across at Fichte warmly. “We were all very impressed with your work on the Wouters case.”
Fichte tried an awkward pull on his cigarette and began to nod his head quickly. “No. Of course. That’s the sort of thing I do best.”
“Have you ever considered the Polpo?”
The suggestion caught Fichte completely by surprise. “Considered the Polpo?”
Braun was still unnervingly relaxed. “It’s just something I wonder about when I see work of that caliber, that’s all. A bit of healthy competition, you understand. Wanting the best that the Kripo has to offer.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t listen to me, Hans. I’m just a jealous detective who’d like to filch from the boys on the third floor. You’ll be getting quite a bit of that in your career, I imagine.” The waiter arrived. Braun said, “Shall I order two more while we have him here?”
Fichte fumbled with a nod.
Braun waited until they were alone before continuing: “I’ve made you uncomfortable. Forgive me. You’re a Kripo man, through and through.” He raised his glass. “To fine work on whichever floor it happens to be coming from.” The two men drank.
Fichte sat with his glass in hand. He was feeling a bit light-headed, although he was doing his best to keep himself under control. Not that he had ever thought of the Polpo. They were safe in deep water, shoals closer in, or something like that: he could never remember the exact words Hoffner had used. But that seemed so far from the truth, given tonight, more so given his recent encounters with Hermannsohn. Still, Fichte knew to be wary. “I need a bit more under my belt before I start thinking about any of that.” He took a sip.
Braun nodded. “That’s your Kommissar Hoffner speaking now.” Braun corrected himself. “Your Oberkommissar. Pardon me. How can we forget the great promotion ceremony at the Royal Palace? Quite a show they put on.”
The word “show” pricked at Fichte. It reminded him who was sitting across the table. “Yes,” he said. “The Kripo spares no expense.”
Braun seemed surprised by the answer. He smiled. “I’ve offended you again. My apologies.” He took a slow pull on his cigarette. “I’d like to say it’s the whiskey, but we both know it’s that jealousy rearing its ugly head. Ignore it, Hans. I do.”
This time Braun’s mea culpa seemed more contrived. Fichte returned a bland smile and took another sip.
Braun said, “You’re quite devoted to your Herr Hoffner, aren’t you?”
The tone of the conversation had shifted, and Fichte was strangely aware of it. He knew that Braun was hinting at something. Even so, Fichte took his time. He placed his glass on the table and said, “He was my Kriminal-Kommissar, and he remains my partner. I’ve learned a great deal working with him.” He looked across at Braun. “He also happens to be a brilliant detective.”
“Your loyalty is admirable.”
“Thank you.”
“If a bit nave.”
This time the word more than pricked. Fichte was not terribly good at hiding his resentment, especially with a few drinks in him. “I’m not sure what you mean by that, Herr Oberkommissar.”
Braun was more direct. “We don’t like letting the good ones get away, Hans. And we’re very persistent.”
Fichte waited. “Why nave?”
“Herr Hoffner is an excellent detective. No question about that.”
“And yet you don’t let the good ones get away.”
“We don’t. But you have to understand that it’s more than just detective work up on the fourth floor. It’s a man’s character, his past. Herr Hoffner. . well, he comes up a bit short on both counts.”
Fichte was amazed at Braun’s candor. “We’re talking about my partner, Herr Braun.”
“Yes,” said Braun unapologetically. “I know.”
Fichte felt suddenly ashamed for having let it get this far. There was something decidedly petty in Braun’s style. Fichte reached for his glass and downed the whiskey. It was a mistake. He instantly felt the effects. “It’s been a pleasure, Herr Braun. Thank you for the drinks.” He started to get up.
Braun said calmly, “He’s fucking your girl, Hans. Not much character in that.”
Fichte stared across the table. He was certain he had misheard. “Excuse me?”
“Your girl,” said Braun no less directly. “Lina. Herr Hoffner’s been screwing her ever since your little trip to Belgium, or didn’t you know that? There’s your Kripo, Hans. There’s your loyalty.”
Fichte felt his legs begin to slip out from under him; luckily, he was still only a few centimeters above the banquette. It did nothing to help the sudden throbbing in the back of his head. Fichte wanted to answer, make a joke, but he was swimming in booze, drowning under the image of Hoffner with Lina. He felt his neck constrict, his lungs tighten, and he began to gasp for breath. He thought Braun was saying something, reaching out a hand, but he could hardly see him. Fichte fumbled in his pocket for his inhaler. He took in a long, deep suck and his lungs began to open; he could breathe again. He felt himself standing. Not sure what was coming out, he said, “Thank you for the drinks, Herr Oberkommissar.” He tried to regain his focus. “You’ll excuse me.”
Without waiting for a response, Fichte made his way for the front doors. His head was clearing, but his face felt as if it were on fire. He needed cold air, anything to be away from this noise and the crush of bodies. He began to push his way through the crowd, when he saw little Elise, Lina’s roommate, standing alone inside the coat-check room. The sight of her was like another crack to his skull. Fichte barreled his way over.
Her expression soured the instant she saw him. “Ticket, sir,” she said sharply,
Fichte steadied himself on the counter. “Is she fucking someone?” he said loudly.
Elise looked past him, afraid that someone might have heard. “Keep your voice down, Hans.”
Fichte was no less insistent in a whisper. “Is she fucking my partner?”
It was clear that Elise had been waiting weeks to hear the question. She now took her time in answering. “What do you care?” she said in a hushed, nasty tone. “You’ve been screwing everything that walks through that door in the last month. Serves you right.”
Fichte held himself rigidly at the counter. He wanted to reach over and slap her to the ground. With a sudden jab, he thrust his hand into his pocket. He saw her flinch, and he laughed sloppily. He then pulled out his ticket and tossed it on the counter. His words were growing more slurred. “My coat, you fucking bitch.”
Elise had shown all the fight she had. She backed away slowly and turned to the rack. She laid the coat on the counter and again stepped away.
Fichte teetered momentarily. He tasted a dry sourness in his throat. “Bitch,” he said. He then grabbed his coat and headed for the doors.
Sometimes you need a bit of good fortune, and today it was Hoffner’s turn.
A cable had arrived in the morning from Belgium: van Acker had come up with a name for the substitute Wouters. He was a Konrad Urlicher, a German from Bonn. Strangely enough, it was Urlicher’s anatomy that had been the key to his identity. During the autopsy of the body, the doctors had discovered that Urlicher had suffered from a rare bone disease. This discovery might have meant nothing had there not also been indications that Urlicher had been treated for the disease using somewhat innovative if experimental techniques: something to do with marrow extracts. The upshot was that only a handful of clinics in Europe had been using the new techniques. Photographs of the man had been sent out to each of them. Within a week, Urlicher’s name had come back.
What was more startling was that Urlicher had not been insane. He had simply been dying. Who better, then, thought Hoffner, to take the place of a madman? Van Acker had sent along as much information as he could on Urlicher-and his stay at Bonn’s Fritsch Clinic-including background, family, and recent past. He had also included the names of those who had visited Urlicher while he had been hospitalized, and it was there that Hoffner had turned up gold.
Two names appeared on both the Sint-Walburga and clinic sheets: a Joachim Manstein and an Erich Oster. Both men had visited Urlicher one week before his disappearance from the Bonn clinic in October of 1918, and again two days before he had killed himself at Sint-Walburga in January of 1919. Hoffner had also discovered that Manstein had made a solo trip to the asylum in June of 1918, some six months before the suicide, and it was the tracking of that first visit that had brought the picture into focus.
Whatever these men had had in mind, their plan had been initiated as of June 1918. It was at that time, according to the doctors at Sint-Walburga, that the real Wouters had begun to let himself go: no bathing, no cutting of the hair. It was clear now that the purpose of Manstein’s first visit in June had been to prepare Wouters for the switch to come in October. By then Wouters would be unrecognizable, allowing for a reasonable facsimile-long hair, etc.-to take his place. The visit to the Bonn clinic in October had been to alert Urlicher that the switch was coming. And the last visit to Sint-Walburga in January had been to give Urlicher his final orders. That he had wrapped a rope around his neck was proof enough that Urlicher had been willing to follow them to the letter.
The precision of the operation-and it was an operation, in Hoffner’s mind-led him to conclude that the military connection extended beyond the Ascomycete 4. That Manstein and Oster had been able to cross into Belgium on two separate occasions during the war-one to prepare Wouters, the other to make the switch-could have been possible only with military credentials. A single man without papers might have been able to slip across the border. Three men-one of them looking like a raving lunatic-would not.
With the names in hand, Hoffner now knew where to start digging: the Office of the General Staff.
Fichte, of course, had yet to appear this morning. These late arrivals were becoming irritatingly commonplace. Hoffner was about to write him a note when there was a knock at the door. He looked up to see Polpo Direktor Gerhard Weigland standing in the hall.
“Busy, Nikolai?” Hoffner’s mistrust must have registered on his face. “Just to talk,” said Weigland. “If you have a minute?”
Hoffner placed the pages in a drawer and motioned Weigland to take a seat. “Of course, Herr Direktor.”
Weigland glanced around the office and then sat. “As organized as ever.” Hoffner remained silent. “A chief inspector should have a bigger place, don’t you think?”
“This suits me fine, Herr Direktor.”
“Yes,” said Weigland. “I imagine it does.” He shifted tone. “Nice bit of press for you and young Fichte. Quite the heroes, these days.”
“The press believes what it wants to believe, Herr Direktor.”
“Does it?” Weigland nodded knowingly. “So, no heroes, then?”
“You’d do better to ask Fichte about that, Herr Direktor. I’m sure you see more of him than I do.”
Weigland ignored the jab. “The boy has ambition. Not such a bad thing.”
Hoffner cut to it. “What is it that I can do for you, Herr Direktor?”
Weigland nodded knowingly. “No time for chitchat. Of course. All those murders to get to.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver medallion that hung on a ribbon. He placed it on the desk. “I’ve had this for a good many years. It was your father’s.”
Hoffner barely moved as he glanced down at the small pendant. He looked across at Weigland and said coldly, “It’s very nice. Was there anything else, Herr Direktor?”
“It’s meant for you, Nikolai.”
Hoffner nodded to himself. “And is there a reason it’s coming to me now?”
Weigland reached for the pendant and flipped it over. “There’s an inscription.” He read: “‘Third Highest Marks, Political Police Entrance Examination, Martin Hoffner, 1877.’ Your father gave it to me.” Weigland stared a moment longer at the silver finish. “He didn’t want it after all that business.” Weigland set it down and looked across at Hoffner. “It was a long time ago. I thought you might want it.”
There was never any subtlety with Weigland: no doubt someone had been standing by the wire room, Weigland now aware that the lines between Berlin and Bruges were still very much open. It was a further reminder for Hoffner not to step where he wasn’t welcome. “You’ve been waiting for the right moment, is that it, Herr Direktor?”
Weigland looked as if he might reply with equal callousness; instead he said, “I just thought you might want it. A medal for a hero. Silly, I suppose. But then one can’t always be a hero. Best to make the most of it while you can.” Subtlety, thought Hoffner. Always subtlety. Weigland stood. “Well. . please pass on my congratulations to Kriminal-Bezirkssekretr Fichte. When you see him.”
Hoffner stood. The two men exchanged a nod and Weigland moved to the corridor. He was at the door when he turned back and said, “I imagine it’s time for a new map, Nikolai. Keep to what you do best.” Weigland waited a moment and then headed out.
Hoffner listened for the footfalls to recede before he sat and reached across the desk for the medal. It was a cheap little thing, silver plate, something to be won at any school outing. Hoffner read the inscription: the lettering had blackened over the years.
He found himself staring at the date. His father had been a young man then, and ambitious. Hoffner could hardly imagine it. It was not the man he had ever known: Weigland had seen to that. For a moment Hoffner felt his father’s bitterness as his own. He tossed the thing onto the papers and slammed the drawer shut.
Regimental Affairs was a relatively small office on the third floor of the General Staff building. None of its occupants looked up as Hoffner stepped inside: a distinguished-looking major sat at the far end-beyond a waist-high partition that ran the width of the room-his desk piled high with thick volumes; four lieutenants, also at desks and just this side of the partition, were leafing through mysterious reams of paper; and a young clerk-his coat off, his rank another mystery-sat closest to the door and was typing up the pages as they came down the line. The walls were nothing but floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, each filled with tall brown volumes with dates and regiment numbers etched across their spines. It might have been a university reading room-the air had that musty, academic smell to it-if not for the ramrod-straight backs of the men: these were soldiers, not scholars.
Hoffner pulled out his badge and said to the clerk, “I need a word with your Herr Major.”
The boy looked up. “May I ask what business the Herr Chief Inspector has with the Herr Major?”
“Personnel.”
The boy stood and moved briskly through the swinging half-door to the other side of the partition. Hoffner watched as the boy waited for the Herr Major to acknowledge him. The two exchanged a few words, and the clerk returned. “The Herr Major wishes to inform the Herr Chief Inspector that the Personnel Office is located-”
“On the third floor,” Hoffner cut in. “Yes. I’ve just had the pleasure of your Captain Strasser’s assistance. I’m not interested in the personnel of the General Staff. I’m looking for specific regimental members.”
Again the clerk made his way back. This time the Herr Major looked up and gazed out at Hoffner. Half a minute later, Hoffner was seated in front of his desk.
“This is a criminal investigation, yes, Herr Inspector?”
“I’m afraid I can’t say.”
The man showed no reaction. “All investigations of personnel, criminal or not, are handled internally, Herr Inspector. I don’t think we can be of any help to you.”
Hoffner wondered if men like this ever got tired of giving the same answer. “We’re interested in this man after his service, Herr Major. When he was a civilian. We’re simply trying to track him down. We don’t consider this a military affair.”
The Herr Major answered coolly. “Then I fail to see why you are troubling us with your investigation.”
“He’s not your responsibility, Herr Major. This happened after he was discharged.”
“So, again, I fail to see why you are troubling us.”
This, thought Hoffner, was why the war had been lost. “Our dossier is incomplete, Herr Major. Any information would be most helpful. However, I wouldn’t want to tax the General Staff beyond its limits. Perhaps the Polpo might be a better place for me to begin?” Hoffner began to get up. “Thank you for your time, Herr Major.”
This was not the first time the man had played at this game. He said calmly, “Have a seat, Herr Inspector.” He waited until he had Hoffner’s full attention. “The General Staff is, of course, eager to do what it can in the aid of a political case.”
It was remarkable to see the effects of one little word, thought Hoffner. Even the high walls of army insularity buckled at the prospect of the political police. “I didn’t say it was a political case, Herr Major.”
“No, of course not,” the man answered. “You have a regiment number, Herr Inspector?”
“No.” Somewhere behind the eyes, Hoffner saw a look of mild surprise.
“Of course you know a name will be of no help,” said the Herr Major. “We file everything according to regiment number. It would be impossible to wade through over a thousand volumes in search of a particular name.”
Hoffner-of course-did not know this. He nodded anyway and, thinking as he spoke, opted for the only other detail he had. “But you do list discharges by date, isn’t that right, Herr Major?”
“Those volumes are kept in a separate office, yes.”
Again Hoffner nodded, so as to give himself time to calculate. Van Acker had placed Urlicher’s arrival at the Bonn clinic in the third week of March 1918. Figuring on time for dismissal, transportation. . “March seventh, 1918.” Hoffner spoke as if he were reading the date from a file. “The name is Urlicher. Konrad Urlicher.”
The information was written down and the clerk called over. The Herr Major then went back to his books, and fifteen minutes later the clerk returned with two large volumes. Hoffner had been spending his time alternating between counting the number of books on various shelves and the number of times the Herr Major blinked in any given minute. The books had won out eight to one.
The clerk handed the first of the volumes to the Herr Major and said, “It was the fifth of March, Herr Major. I checked four days in either direction.”
The boy had marked a page two-thirds of the way through. The Herr Major scanned it as he answered indifferently, “Well done, Corporal.” He found the name, flipped the book around to Hoffner, and pointed to a line on the page. It read:
Urlicher, Konrad. First Lieutenant. Anemia and Osteitis Deformans. Unsuitable for service.
Hoffner, however, was more interested in the further annotation:
14th Bavarian, Liebregiment.
Keeping his eye on the page, Hoffner said, “The Fourteenth Bavarian is recruited out of Munich, yes, Herr Major?” It was a reasonable-enough guess. Hoffner was still recovering from the gambit with the discharge date.
The Herr Major turned to the clerk, but the boy was one step ahead of him. The boy produced the second volume, his finger wedged between two pages. He opened it and handed the book to the Herr Major.
Once again the Herr Major glanced down the page. “Yes, Herr Inspector,” he said without so much as a nod for his clerk. “Munich recruits.” With a twitch of his fingers, he dismissed the boy.
Hoffner said, “May I, Herr Major?”
It was the Division Lists, broken down into regiments, battalions, and units, the last of which were alphabetized. Urlicher had been a member of the Liebregiment, Second Battalion, First Unit. Several lines above his name was an entry for a Second Lieutenant Erich Oster. Joachim Manstein, however, was not to be found. Hoffner casually flipped through to see if Manstein might appear in another unit or even battalion, but a quick scan turned up nothing. He knew anything more than a perfunctory glance would have caught the Herr Major’s attention. Hoffner brought out his pen and wrote down the names in Urlicher’s unit. He then closed the book and handed it back.
“The names you’ve written,” said the Herr Major. “Some of these men remain active members of the regiment, Herr Inspector. I’m correct in thinking that they will not be a part of your investigation?”
Hoffner pocketed his pen. “Of course, Herr Major.”
With a nod, the two men stood. The Herr Major said, “The man is dead by now, Herr Inspector. The disease is crippling and ultimately fatal. The bones become as brittle as paper. As you said, he is no longer our responsibility.”
Hoffner understood. The work of Regimental Affairs was now devoted to toting up the dead like so much excess inventory. Urlicher’s discharge had saved them valuable space; they were not intent on finding a spot for him now. “Then we won’t need to see each other again, will we, Herr Major?”
At the door, Hoffner tipped his hat to the clerk. The boy almost forgot himself with a smile.
Back at his office, Hoffner wrote out a short list of names: Urlicher, Oster, and Manstein, Trger, Schumpert, and Biberkopf-Jogiches had mentioned “Prussian business concerns,” so why not include them? — and for good measure, Braun, Tamshik, and Hermannsohn; Weigland, he knew, was not clever enough to merit inclusion. At the bottom of the page, he wrote the words “Rosa” and “Wouters.” He also jotted down dates next to each of the men’s names, indicating when they might have become involved, or at least when they had shown some connection to Rosa and Wouters. How far back that went was impossible to say.
The first three had conspired to set Wouters loose on Berlin starting in June of last year, but to what end? To get rid of Rosa without a trace of political involvement, by having it appear that she was just one more victim of Wouters’s madness? Why not simply do the killings themselves, if it was all a ploy? Why dredge up Wouters? If Urlicher, Oster, and Manstein had in fact been working in conjunction with any of the last three on the list, why was the Polpo holding on to her body? Why set up Wouters, unleash him, and then keep Rosa hidden? Jogiches’s “obvious” answer made sense only in hindsight. Worse, Hoffner had nothing to say about the three names in the middle. The design of the Rosenthaler station and the missing engineer-Herr Tben/Sazonov-pointed to the construction company of Ganz-Neurath, but Berlin money linked to a Munich regiment not only seemed a stretch, it was completely out of character: there were no heights steep enough from which a Prussian could look down his nose at a Bavarian. The timing there was also troubling: when had Herr Tben/Sazonov made his alterations so as to give Wouters his ideal surroundings?
The only recourse Hoffner had was to track down Oster and Manstein, which only confirmed everything Jogiches had been saying: Munich.
Hoffner reached over to telephone the duty desk for a train schedule and saw little Franz standing in the doorway. It was unclear how long the boy had been there. “Something I can do for you, Franz?”
The boy was oddly hesitant. “A note’s come in for you, Herr Oberkommissar. To the duty desk.”
“Well, give it here.” Franz produced the small, familiar-looking envelope. “Same man with the beard?” Hoffner sliced open the top as Franz nodded.
Odd, thought Hoffner. Jogiches was hardly a man to repeat himself. “Anything on Herr Kvatsch?” He pulled out the card. He had given up hope at this point: Kvatsch was playing it far better than he had anticipated. Still, it was good to ask; keep the boy on his toes.
“A few more times with Herr Kriminal-Bezirkssekretr Groener,” said Franz, “but nothing more, Herr Oberkommissar.”
Groener, thought Hoffner. More dirty work for Jogiches. He made a mental note to sit down with the detective sergeant. Over a whiskey. It was the only substance he could think of strong enough to counteract the stench.
The card was the same quality as before, except this time Jogiches had chosen a typewriter. There was an address, the word “Urgent,” and the signature “K.”
Hoffner looked up. Franz was peering across at him with surprising interest. “Yes?” said Hoffner.
For just a moment the boy looked as if he had been caught out. “Well. .” he said, “I’ve been following Herr Kvatsch around for you, Herr Oberkommissar, and for a couple of weeks now.” Franz let the words linger.
Hoffner understood. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a few pfennigs. He placed the coins on the far side of the desk and said, “Never be afraid to ask for what you’re owed, Franz.”
The boy walked over and took the money. “Yes, Herr Oberkommissar.”
Hoffner knew there was no point in keeping after Kvatsch now. Even so, he said, “Ten pfennigs a week for more information, all right?”
This seemed fair. Franz nodded. He pocketed his wages and headed out the door.
Forty-five minutes later, Hoffner stepped out of a cab and into the overwhelming stench of hacked flesh. Fichte was still nowhere to be found, but the note had been clear: urgent. Hoffner would manage Fichte later.
The address from Jogiches was out in the slaughter-yard district, about as far east as one could go: killing of this kind was too much even for the folks in Prenzlauer Berg; they wanted it out of their backyards, as well. The whole area was little more than a series of slick cobblestone alleys and dirty gray walls topped by barbed wire, although the cows and hogs and whatnot were hardly there long enough to merit the precaution. Someone had once joked that the wires had been set in place to keep the rest of Berlin from sneaking up and stealing a few pieces of meat. Given the state of things now, no one was laughing.
Oddly enough, it was the one place in town that reminded Hoffner of his father’s Berlin, where the smell of manure outpaced the stink of automobile petrol, and where the lazy hoof-fall of an overworked nag replaced the coiled snap of a tram wire from above. This was a world of wagons and pushcarts, the red and yellow spokes of the slaughterhouse two-wheelers as common a sight as a Daimler in the Westend. No amount of snow could cover the grit that was here; a constant plume of locomotive smoke rose from the Belt Line Railway yards-livestock rolling in from East Prussia and Pomerania and Brandenburg-soaking the flakes in soot before they had a chance to make it to the ground. It hardly mattered, though: there was nothing to hide out here. It was killing, pure and simple.
Hoffner found the building, a worn sign for MECK UND SONNE above the door. The shortages had forced some of the smaller houses to consolidate, a nice word for shutting down the works and letting go fifty men. The surrounding buildings had fallen victim, as well. Hard to imagine something more depressing than a row of slaughterhouses, but here it was, a row of abandoned ones.
The lock on the door had been jimmied. Hoffner wondered if Jogiches had recognized the irony in his choice of lodging; then again, maybe a man as good as dead could tempt the fates?
Hoffner stepped inside and was struck at once by the taste of raw meat in the air. The building was ice cold, but the chill had done nothing to minimize the rancid remnants of Herr Meck’s once thriving business. Hoffner realized he was standing inside an enormous hall, brick wall rising to a ceiling some twenty meters above. A grim light poured in from a series of windows that stretched around the uppermost reaches of the walls, but it did little more than cast odd shadows: at ground level, the space was a collection of amorphous shapes in black and gray. One of them began to move toward him, and Hoffner stepped over to meet it. “Herr Jogiches,” he said. The next thing he knew, Hoffner was feeling the ripping pain of a well-placed boot to his ribs.
He doubled over instantly, his nausea only slightly more acute than his surprise. Hoffner had no time to react to either as a second blow landed on the back of his neck, a gloved hand from somewhere behind making its presence known. Hoffner’s face slammed to the floor, the echo of his own stifled breath ringing in the hall. He tried to reach for his gun, but he had never been terribly good at any of this. The blows came more rapidly now, fists and boots with excruciating precision. Hoffner was doing all he could to curl into himself, but it was all too vicious and determined to permit any kind of retreat. A first taste of blood dripped to his lips as a thick set of fingers ripped into his hair and jerked his head up. Hoffner choked out a cough, only to smell the breath of an unwashed mouth a few centimeters from him.
“No more questions,” whispered the voice. “No more late-night meetings. No more visits to the file rooms at the GS. You understand? Step off, Herr Inspector.”
Hoffner did everything he could to answer: he twitched his head once.
“Good.” The man held him there for several more seconds before releasing. Hoffner’s head fell to the cobblestone with a compressed smack even as the smell of foul breath continued to linger over him. The man was hovering. Hoffner tried to open his eyes, but there was no point.
“No more,” said the voice.
There was a last kick to his kidneys, but Hoffner was too far gone to feel it. He heard the sound of receding steps, sensed a sudden shock of light, but he was out cold by the time the door slammed shut.
Half an hour later, his eyes opened.
The pain was a constant throbbing, though the stiffness in his chest was far more of a problem. He tried not to breathe too deeply: every intake was like a cracking of bone. Swallowing, too, had become impossible, no saliva to be had. It was several minutes before he found the strength to push himself up to his knees, and, at no better than a crawl, he made his way over to the near wall and began to prop himself up. At least they had left him his legs. Hunched over and holding to the wall, Hoffner forced himself to the door and out into the light.
The sudden brightness brought his hand up to his face, the reflex a mistake, and his entire back arched in pain. Stifling a groan, Hoffner spotted a series of water taps sticking out from the wall of the building, and making his way over, tried his luck with the first in line: miraculously, a stream of cold water began to flow. He gingerly placed his lips under the tap and drank. Almost at once the ache in his head lifted; it was clear that the real damage had gone on below his neck. Stretching his arm to the ground, he grabbed for a ball of sooted snow and placed it on the back of his neck. The sense of relief was instantaneous even as a pool of soiled water collected at his collar. Slowly he stood upright. The uncoiling sent a rush of pain through his ribs and lower back while he tried to assess the damage. They had broken nothing; better still, they had left no marks for anyone to see. Save for the small bump just above his temple, where his head had smacked against the stone, the bruising lay hidden below his shirt; his face had gone unscathed. Hoffner had to appreciate the professional quality of the work.
Step off, Herr Inspector. And so polite, he thought. He dropped the snow and reached into his jacket pocket for his flask. The whiskey was wonderfully warm and immediately went to work. Four or five long pulls, and he felt fit enough to push himself up from the wall. It was only then, with his head clearing, that he began to consider the note. Someone had played him, someone who had known about K. More astounding, someone who had seen him at the Office of the General Staff this morning. No more visits to the file rooms. .
He was getting close, and he was still alive. There had to be something in that.
Hoffner found a taxi and told the man to drive. In his condition, he was not that uncommon a fare for this part of town, although four o’clock might have been a bit early for it. Even so, the man showed no surprise when Hoffner went back to the whiskey-his neck had begun to tighten-and by the time they arrived in Kreuzberg, Hoffner could move through the courtyard without drawing too much attention to himself.
Mercifully, the flat was empty. Wednesdays Martha spent with Eva: Herr Doktor Keubel taught at some dental college and gave his staff the afternoon off. Hoffner slowly got undressed and ran a bath. He noticed some nice discoloring under his right arm, which extended to his lower back, where it looked as if a thousand tiny veins had exploded below the skin. He had had worse-always in the company of Knig-but never as a threat. Hoffner recalled the early days when Knig’s quick thinking had helped them run down some of the city’s more unsavory types; or, rather, when Knig had relied on his own unsavoriness to expedite matters. The two had always given as good as they got, or at least Knig had. Hoffner still had trouble with his wrist from one of those encounters. Sitting back in the steaming water, he laughed at the thought of it, and his entire left side cramped.
It was a foolishness he had long since left behind. Why, then, he thought, was he now no less intent on following the case to Munich? Why invite the chance for another beating, or worse? It wasn’t ego. He knew he had nothing to prove to men like Braun; more important, he had nothing to prove to himself on their behalf. Crime had never been a game of one-upmanship for Hoffner. It was why he had never sent in that application to the fourth floor, and why his father had never forgiven him for it. No, there was nothing to prove to those living or dead.
Nor was there anything particularly noble in it. Hoffner readily admitted that he had never gone in for abstractions such as justice. It was simpler than that: action-reaction, choice-consequence. He left the moral scales to men like Jogiches. The only deeper meaning he sought was in seeing something through to its end, and the satisfaction he found when he had moved beyond it: fresh start, new map. The rest of his world had never been as clear-cut or as accommodating, and it was for that reason, and that reason alone, that Munich remained worth pursuing.
A draft of cold air blew in from the corridor, and Hoffner heard the front door closing. The water had grown tepid and he waited for Martha’s voice. “Nicki?” she shouted. “Are you home?” He had left his clothes in a line along the corridor: a direct path. The bathroom door squeaked open and she appeared. “What a lovely life you lead,” she said as she stayed by the door. She noticed the bruising on his chest, and her expression hardened. “What happened?”
Hoffner did his best to prop himself up. “Nothing,” he said. The water had done wonders, but not enough to make the movement less than strained. “I fell on some ice.”
She caught sight of his lower rib cage. “You didn’t fall, Nicki.”
“No,” he said. “I didn’t.”
There was a sudden sadness in her eyes, and Hoffner knew instantly where her mind had gone to: an angry husband or lover and just retribution. It was unclear, however, whether her pity was meant for him or for herself.
She let it go. “I’ve got some ointment,” she said as she started down the corridor. “Dry yourself off. We’ll put you back together.”
She was remarkably deft with the bandages, knowing exactly where to place them, how to press them up and around his ribs for support, and, except for the smell, the ointment was equally soothing. He had forgotten just how good she was with all of this.
“You and Victor gave me lots of practice,” she said as she tied off the last of the cloth. “How’s the wrist?”
He extended his hand to test it and, for just an instant, saw her tense as if she thought he might be reaching for her. He slowly brought his hand back and said vaguely, “Good. It’s good.”
She placed the kit in the drawer. “Are you here for dinner?”
“You were right,” he said. “I shouldn’t have gotten myself involved with them. They’re the kind who like to use their boots.”
Whatever else she was feeling, Martha could never hide her concern. “Weigland’s men did this?”
“Best guess. They’d prefer it if I let the case go.”
She became more insistent. “And you’re going to do what they say, yes, Nicki?”
Hoffner marveled at her capacity to care for him, not for her own sake or for the boys’, but for him alone. He had never understood it. He imagined it made her feel weak, but he knew it was anything but that. Her only weakness was that she lacked the courage to ask him if he loved her, and that was a shame. He had never told her, and that perhaps was worse.
“It’s my case,” he said. “It ends when it ends.”
He saw the tautness in her jaw. “You do what you like,” she said, and then moved out into the hall.
He had promised to be there by eight; it was ten to when the cab dropped him outside the address. Hoffner rarely traveled to this part of the city-Steglitz-which, over time, had become the haven for Berlin’s bohemians. These were the leftists who knew nothing of workers’ marches or revolutionary tactics. They were the artists and writers and foreigners and Jews and homosexuals who had sliced out a sanctuary for themselves, off in the southwestern section of town. Of course, half of Charlottenburg could always be found slumming it at a reading or an opening, or simply at a cafe, watching the cultural animals at play. For the rich, art and intellect were always best observed from behind a glass partition, or at least from the safety of a nearby table. That way they could laugh at the absurdity of the lives around them without stepping in too close and chancing infection. An hour or so inside the menagerie, and then it was back to their grand houses, or perhaps a dice game up north with an even seedier crowd: that was always delicious.
Unlike the rich, Hoffner drew stares. He lit a cigarette and checked the address again. The shabby little building didn’t seem quite right. It was wedged in among far more serious structures, storefronts and the like with well-kept glass windows and high-quality stenciling on the doors. This one boasted none of that, and looked dark all the way up. Still, it was the number she had given him. Hoffner pressed at the bell and waited. It was too late, now, to turn and go.
He noticed that someone had done a halfhearted job of clearing out the snow: a frozen slab of speckled white rose to knee level just to the side of the door. Hoffner put it to use and sat. Three minutes on, he began to think that maybe the choice was being made for him-the cold was seeping through to the seat of his pants-when a figure appeared on the other side of the glass, coming down a set of stairs. The man was dressed in a neat suit and a bow tie, and had a drink in one hand. He opened the door.
Hoffner stood and said, “Good evening, I’m looking for-”
“You must be the policeman,” the man said jovially, too pleased with himself at his discovery. “You can’t be anything else.” He ushered Hoffner in and started up the stairs. “We’re up on the third floor. Not too crowded just yet. I’ll be very interested to hear what you think.”
The man talked nonstop the rest of the way up, confiding in Hoffner that he was less than thrilled with the current showing, but then, she was working in a new medium, and that always took time. Hoffner continued to nod as they came to a small door on the third floor and stepped through into a large studio that was humming with conversation. “Get yourself a drink,” said the man. “Take a look around. Very casual. Enjoy.” And with that, he pressed on into the crowd, having spotted someone far more interesting than Hoffner.
If Hoffner had been out of place on the street, he was now an eyesore up among the artistes. They were all postures and attitudes, geometric shapes in the guise of bodies, long sharp necks peering down at canvases, pencil-thin arms at angles in the service of a cigarette or a drink. There was a distinctly chiseled feel to everything: Hoffner chalked it up to a lack of food. He noticed Lina by one of the sculptures. She, too, was managing a triangular effect of her own, legs apart, arms straight at her sides, standing on the edge of a group intent on a man who was yammering away about one of the pieces. Hoffner quietly drew up to her side and pretended to be listening. It was several seconds before she realized he was standing next to her. Her reaction was not what he had expected.
“Nikolai?” she said uncomfortably. “You came.”
Hoffner saw the welt under her eye. It was fresh, and her powder was doing little to conceal it. “Yes,” he said, trying not to look too closely.
“You didn’t get my note.”
Evidently the day had been filled with notes. “No,” he said. He wanted to ask about the eye, but knew it would be a mistake. “Was it important?”
She answered distractedly, “No. Not really.”
“I can go if you like.”
“No,” she said quickly. “You don’t have to do that.” She seemed to be convincing herself. “I don’t want you to go.”
He tried to lighten things up. “Just wanted to see what your painter has done with you, that’s all.”
Lina did her best with a weak smile; she could always appreciate the attempt. “It’s etchings, Nikolai. Lithographs. She’s not painting now.”
“Oh,” he said, the distinction meaningless.
She moved him over to a less crowded area. There were still bodies everywhere, but she managed to carve out a small circle for them.
Hoffner kept close. He said, “So, which one are you, then?”
She motioned carelessly to the far wall. He expected her to lead him over; instead, she looked directly at him and said, “You didn’t say anything to Hans, did you?” There was almost a hope in her tone, as if knowing it had come from him would have made things all right. Naturally, she knew better. “No, of course you didn’t.”
“Did he do that?”
“Does it matter?”
She was right, of course. He wasn’t likely to teach Fichte a lesson. By the look of things, Fichte had already mastered the tools by himself.
“Lina!” a voice shouted out over the din. Both looked over to see a wide orb of a man heading toward them. A second, smaller ball rested atop his neck, and this was his head.
“Oh God,” said Lina under her breath. She perked up and produced an engaging smile. “Herr Lamprecht,” she said. “What a pleasure.”
Lamprecht plowed on. “There are people who want to gawk at the model, over by the drawings.” He managed to step out of himself for a moment. “Good God, what’s happened there?” He pointed tactlessly at her eye. “Has someone been slapping you about?”
Hoffner cut in. “I’m Nikolai Hoffner.” He extended his hand. It was enough to distract Lamprecht.
“Yes, hello there,” said Lamprecht; he took Hoffner’s hand. “Are you with our Lina?”
“She asked me to come, yes.”
Lamprecht refocused. “So look, dear. They’re the money, and they’re just over by the-”
“By the drawings,” Hoffner cut in again.
Lamprecht seemed confused by the interruption. “Yes,” he said. He was searching for something else to say; when nothing came, he settled for, “Well, all right, then.” He then forced a smile and-clearly outmatched-headed back into the crowd.
Hoffner said, “Is he as unpleasant as he seems?”
“Not always.” And with surprising energy, she added, “All right, I’ll take you for a look. But from a distance. I’m not that keen to be on display tonight.”
The drawings were off on a side wall in a group of three, all of which seemed to be of the same subject in different stages of completion: mourners peering over the body of a dead man. There were variations in the facial details, in the number of mourners, in the angle of a torso or a hand, but the one constant was that of a mother and child gazing down into the dead man’s lifeless face. Hoffner quickly realized that the mother was the only woman in any of the drawings; more fascinating, she and the child were the only ones staring directly into the face. The rest of the gathering either gazed out or looked down into nothingness. It made it impossible not to stare with her.
Hoffner knew the gaze. He had woken to it several times himself, but had said nothing. He never knew why Lina stared at him as he slept. He had never thought to ask.
He said, “You’re right there in the middle in each of them. That must be good. She must like you to put you there.”
Lina was less enthusiastic. “It looks like I haven’t eaten anything in weeks,” she said. “It’s not very flattering.”
Hoffner knew that wasn’t the point. “You look fine. And it’s not supposed to be you.”
Lina seemed ready for a nice sulk, when a voice just behind them said, “He’s right, you know, so stop your complaining.”
They turned. A woman had appeared from behind a small door: by the sounds of the gurgling water beyond, Hoffner was guessing the toilet.
It was a sad face with thin lips and well-manicured eyebrows. Hoffner would have said somewhere in her fifties, but the gray hair might have made her older.
“Don’t move,” said the woman. “If we stay like this, no one can see me here, and then you’ll have made me very happy.”
Hoffner said, “And if someone wants to use the toilet?”
The woman liked the question. “There’s always the window, Herr Inspector.” Before Hoffner could respond, she said to Lina, “I’m assuming this is the older one, because if it’s the younger one”-she raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow-“my God, then you’re in trouble.”
Lina made the unnecessary introductions: even a Kripo detective could visit a museum now and then. Hoffner had recognized Kathe Kollwitz the moment he saw her. Funny how Lina had never mentioned it: “A woman; two marks an hour.” That was all she had said.
“You know who that is, of course,” said Kollwitz, peering past him at her drawings. “You’re probably the only one in here who does.”
Hoffner looked over. He had been so focused on Lina’s figure that he had failed to pay any attention to the dead man. Even so, the face remained unfamiliar.
“They let me see him the morning after he was shot,” Kollwitz continued. “At the morgue. The family brought me in, as if I could add anything more to their tragedy. It’s all rather nauseating, isn’t it?”
Hoffner now recognized him, albeit without his customary beard and spectacles. “Liebknecht,” he said.
“I saw him speak,” said Kollwitz. “Very passionate, very rousing. I didn’t much go in for the violence, but they did.” She nodded at the figures in the drawings. “The workers. So I gave him to them. I imagine they’ll be the ones to miss him most.” Her gaze deepened. “It’s all very rough, but I think some of it’s right.”
Hoffner had never put much stock in fate. Lina, on the other hand, saw signs in everything. A girl selling flowers along Friedrichstrasse had no other choice: how else could she imagine a life beyond it? The coin placed in her basket from the year of her birth, the piece of newspaper blowing into her hand with a phrase that she had dreamt of the night before, the color of the coat on a man dashing over to buy a few roses for his wife: these were the markers along the way that told her that she was following the right course, that life had more in store for her than she could possibly know at present. All she needed was a bit of patience to see it through. She had mentioned one or two of her “sightings” to Hoffner and had laughed at them, admitting to their silliness, but with just enough hope in her voice to betray what she needed to be true.
A drawing of Karl Liebknecht inspired nothing so fanciful in Hoffner. Not that he saw it as a random occurrence within a universe lost to chaos: that idea, now all the rage, was equally absurd. Coincidence was born of proximity. Kollwitz was simply the perfect candidate for Liebknecht’s memorial; her drawings and posters of browbeaten Berlin had made her the willing, or unwilling, voice of the working class. That one of their own-a lean, less than beautiful girl with a striking gaze-had drawn Kollwitz’s eye was hardly beyond possibility. It had drawn Hoffner’s as well, albeit for different reasons. Who was to say, then, that artists and detectives were not the ones most likely to see something beyond a stare? It was as much whimsy as Hoffner would concede. Of course, had Kollwitz produced something on Rosa, now that might have been less easy for him to dismiss.
“I wanted to do something on Luxemburg,” said Kollwitz, “but that’s not as clear-cut, is it?” She looked up at Hoffner. “So what do you think, Inspector? Is she off in Russia, or have we seen the last of Red Rosa?”
At least the cosmos had a sense of humor, thought Hoffner. He said, “Are you that keen to have her back?”
It was clear Kollwitz was enjoying this. “It’s not for me that she’d be coming back, now is it, Inspector?”
More than you realize, Frulein, he thought. “Did you know her?” he said.
“Should I have?” she said quizzically. “Yes. We met once, at a concert, two old women enjoying some music. We told each other how much we enjoyed each other’s work. It was very polite.”
He said, “I would have thought the two of you would have been kindred spirits.”
“You would, wouldn’t you?” said Kollwitz dryly. “I’m sure history will have it that way. And Emma Goldman, too. Lump all of us in together. In fact, we might just be the same person. Wouldn’t that be something?” She smiled. “I thought she was a devotee of feminism. I asked her, and she took it as an absurd question. Women, Jews, it didn’t matter to her. Socialism didn’t care about those distinctions, so why should she? Everything would be made right after the great event. I thought it was very. . honest. . though not terribly helpful. But she did do profound things, and for that I’m infinitely jealous. You don’t have a drink, Inspector. Let’s go get you one.”
Hoffner gazed over at Lina and was reminded that, yes, he really was the old one. For all that was behind her stare, Lina looked as if she had just spent the last few minutes lost in a foreign country.
They made it halfway to the drinks before Kollwitz was torn from them. Hoffner’s last image of her was of a small gray rabbit being sucked into a bottomless pit of groping hands. She went bravely and even managed a little smile back to them before she was gone. Hoffner took a whiskey and wondered how much longer they would need to be here.
The answer came far more quickly than he could have imagined. There was a loud conversation outside the door, and a moment later Hans Fichte-a drunken Hans Fichte-stepped into the studio. Hoffner had had his chances not to be here: the look of the building, the ice in the seat of his pants, Lina’s first hesitation; he had taken none of them. This was now his reward for those missed opportunities.
Fichte’s face was red from the climb, his eyes marginally focused, though he spotted Lina at once. A man in front of him tried to ask what he was doing here, but Hans already had Hoffner in his sights: nothing was going to keep him from the drinks table. He pushed through.
Fichte stood there breathing heavily and saying nothing. He took no notice of Lina; his gaze was fixed on Hoffner.
“Hello, Hans.” Hoffner spoke with no emotion. “You’ve had a bit to drink.” Fichte continued to stare in silence. “This isn’t the place for this.”
There was a rage behind the eyes; Fichte was doing all he could to keep it in check. “And where would that place be, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar?” Fichte suddenly spoke in a loud voice. “Where you could throw her over a chair and fuck her?”
Everyone in earshot looked over. Hoffner could feel Lina’s embarrassment, though he felt none for himself. He waited for the conversations to pick up again before saying, “Why don’t we go downstairs?”
Fichte was having none of it. He reached out for Hoffner. “And why don’t you-”
Hoffner caught him by the wrist and twisted. Had Fichte not been drunk, it would have made no difference, but Fichte was drunk, and his reaction was slow. Hoffner twisted tighter and saw the pain run across Fichte’s face, the shoulder now on fire, even as Hoffner felt his own rib cage wrenching at the exertion. Fichte teetered, and Hoffner put out a hand to steady him. They now had a captive audience, and within seconds Hoffner was maneuvering Fichte to the door, then to the staircase, forcing him up against the wall for balance as they sped down. Two floors on, their momentum drove Fichte into the front door, which seemed to stun him for a moment. It was enough time for Hoffner to move him back, pull open the door, and take them both out into the cold air. With what little strength he had left, Hoffner dropped Fichte onto the snow pile and then bent over and gasped for breath. His ribs were in agony as he staggered back to the wall and continued to suck in for air, all the while keeping his eyes on the lump that was Fichte.
It was nearly a minute before either of them could say a word. Hoffner spat. “You all right?” he said, still breathing heavily.
Fichte was having trouble focusing. The door had done more damage than Hoffner had imagined. Fichte was trying to rub his shoulder when Lina raced out onto the street. She was holding her coat, and stood there motionless as the door clicked shut behind her.
Hoffner got himself upright. The bandaging was now useless and only making things worse. “Put on your coat,” he said. “You’ll freeze.”
Without thinking, Lina did as she was told.
Fichte had recovered enough to lift his head. “You always do what he tells you?”
Hoffner said, “Watch yourself, Hans.”
Fichte let go with a cruel laugh. “That’s rich. And what do you need to watch?”
Hoffner’s head was buzzing; he thought he might be sick, and he bent over. Lina was still by the door. She had pulled her coat tight around herself, her arms crossed, her hands tucked up under her chin. She was doing all she could not to cry.
“Feeling sorry for yourself?” said Fichte. “That’s a laugh.”
“Shut up, Hans.” Her face became laced with anger. “Don’t tell me anything. Not a thing. You think I don’t know what’s been going on with you? You think I didn’t know all along? Did you hear anything I said last night?”
Fichte shook his head sloppily. “Since Belgium,” he said. “Since before any of this, which makes you a whore.” He looked over at Hoffner. “Congratulations. You made her a whore.”
Hoffner saw Lina raise her hand to strike Fichte, and he quickly reached over. Her arm was shaking when he caught it; Hoffner tried to pull her into him, but she threw him off, barking out in frustration as she stepped away. Hoffner could feel her loathing as he leaned back against the wall. Fichte had slouched over his open knees, his arms resting on his legs. Lina kept her back to both of them.
Staring down at the ground, Fichte said aimlessly, “You’re a son of a bitch, you know.”
Not much question in that, thought Hoffner. “Yes,” he said. “I know.”
There was a long silence. “I thought I was in love with her,” said Fichte. “I did.”
Lina turned toward him, the rage now in her eyes. She stared at Fichte’s hulking shoulders and his blotchy skin, at his enormous fingers clenched together in one giant fist. “Shut up, Hans,” she said bitterly.
Fichte bobbed his head once. “‘Shut up, Hans,’” he echoed.
Hoffner said quietly, “Maybe he did.”
Lina shot him an icy glance and again turned away.
Hoffner felt a strange sense of relief, not in the discovery or the accusations, but in the simple truth of it all. No one was blameless, least of all himself, and there was something comforting in knowing that they all saw that now. Lina stared away, Hans peered down at his boots, but it was themselves that they could not bear to face. Their own betrayals were writ large by the presence of the other two now here: Hoffner with Fichte, Hoffner with Lina. Hoffner himself had never denied his role in all of this, and so couldn’t share in their shame.
He said to Lina, “We need to get you home.”
Both Fichte and Lina looked over. Her powder was streaked. She seemed at the edge of herself, but she managed a nod.
Fichte stared in disbelief. “You must be mad,” he said. “You think I’m going to let you take her home?”
“No one’s taking her home, Hans,” he said. “We’ll find her a cab.”
“So you can get into the next one and follow her out there? You think I’m stupid?”
Lina cut in furiously, “You think I’d let him come? You think I’d let either of you?”
It was too much for Fichte, who was having trouble following. He searched for something else to say, but instead settled for dropping his head to his chest.
Hoffner stepped over and took Lina’s arm; she put up no resistance. “Wait here, Hans.”
They found a taxi stand around the corner. They had walked in silence, although Lina had allowed him to keep his arm in hers. He opened the door and they stood there, staring at each other. It was only then that he felt regret, not for their past but for the pain he saw in her eyes.
“He’ll be fine,” he said, trying to find something to console her.
This only seemed to make things worse. “You think that’s what this is?” she said. Hoffner had no answer. She spoke quietly and without accusation. “He called me a whore and you said nothing.” The word slapped at him. “Is that what you think, that I’m a whore?”
Hoffner stood stunned. She was capable of inflicting pain; he had never known that. “No,” he said. He wanted to believe that the sudden swimming in his head was from the ribs or the whiskey, but he knew better. “No,” he repeated.
It was not nearly enough. Hoffner started to say something else, but she stepped past him and into the cab. Unwilling to look at him, she sat back and stared straight ahead.
Hoffner knew there was nothing to be said now. He watched her a moment longer and then shut the door. He told the driver where to take her and handed the man a few coins, more than enough to get her home.
Fichte was gone by the time he got back. It would be an early night for everyone. Hoffner wondered what Martha would make of that.
He had made the reservations for tomorrow, Thursday morning.
Meanwhile, Hoffner had spent the better part of this morning suffering through a series of hot baths and liniment treatments; there had been no way to fight it. He had barely been able to get out of bed, and Martha had lost no time in getting a doctor to the flat. Something had torn, according to the specialist; breathing would be painful for the next few days. Hoffner could thank Fichte’s considerable size for that. The doctor had recommended a week in bed. Hoffner had agreed to half a day.
Luckily, it had forced him to see just how useful the telephone could be. Everyone seemed to be far more efficient than when in person. Hoffner was guessing that a request from a disembodied voice conveyed an authority attributable to some higher source: “two tickets for Munich” had never sounded so numinous.
The station envelope was waiting on his desk when he arrived back at the Alex. Hoffner penned a short note and placed it, along with one of the tickets, into a separate envelope. He then called upstairs for one of the boys, and three minutes later, little Sascha arrived at his door.
“How’s the Count?” said Hoffner, shuffling through more of van Acker’s files. He was still working on Manstein, who remained nothing more than a name. Hoffner glanced over when there was no reply. “Of Monte Cristo,” he said. “All’s well there?”
Sascha brightened up. “Oh yes, Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar. It’s Treasure Island now.”
Hoffner nodded encouragingly. “Spending your money on books. That’s commendable.” He held out the envelope. The Kremmener Strasse address was written in thick pen. “You know where this is?”
The boy read and nodded. “I don’t buy them, Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar,” he said as he tucked the envelope into his pocket. “Franz gives them to me when he’s finished with them.” Another bit of surprising news, thought Hoffner. “Do you want me to wait for a response, Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar?”
Hoffner knew the answer would be coming soon enough: 9:13 tomorrow morning if the schedule was correct. “Just make sure it gets there. You don’t have to wait.”
Sascha was gone by the time Hoffner had dug out a few coins. Odd little fellow, he thought. He would never make it on the streets. Maybe little Franz knew that, as well.
The Hotel Eden remained the temporary headquarters of the Cavalry Guards Rifle Division, the Schtzen-Division.
Hoffner had made sure to tell the duty sergeant that he was heading over; he wanted anyone taking an interest in his itinerary to know what he was doing this afternoon: a message of his own, as it were, to make it clear that it would take more than a few bruises to derail him. Maybe, then, there was just a hint of ego in all of this.
Unfortunately, Hoffner still had no idea what he intended to do now that he was at the hotel. It was unlikely that Pabst or Runge would have much to say to a Kripo detective; then again, these were not clever men. There was always the chance that they knew more than they should.
Aside from the uniforms, Hoffner was hard-pressed to find anything remotely akin to military precision on the first floor. Soldiers milled about, some armed, others in half-buttoned tunics, most with cigarettes stuck in the corners of their mouths. These, suffice it to say, were not regular troops. What little help Hoffner’s badge had been across town at the GS was here the object of sneers and laughter. It was only when he started up for the second floor that a sergeant shouted over from his game of cards.
“And where do you think you’re going, Herr Kripo?” The man smiled across at his fellow players.
Hoffner stopped and said easily, “It looks like up these stairs, doesn’t it, Herr Sergeant?”
The man was not amused. “No one goes up without our saying so.”
Hoffner nodded to himself. “That’s good to know.” He began to climb again.
The man was up, rifle in hand, before Hoffner had taken two more steps. The sergeant cocked the bolt. Hoffner stopped and the man drew up to the base of the stairs.
“Did you hear me say so, Herr Kripo?” The hall fell silent. Hoffner was now the center of attention.
Hoffner slowly turned around and peered down at the man. He waited and then said, “Are you going to shoot me, Herr Sergeant?”
The man was clearly not used to being challenged; it was wonderful to see a man struggle so publicly with his own arrogance. There were several long moments of indecision before the sergeant said quickly, “Let me see that badge again.”
Hoffner was impressed; the man had shown remarkable restraint. Hoffner slowly walked back down the steps, reached into his coat pocket, and pulled out his badge. He held it there, his gaze unwavering.
Without so much as a glance, the sergeant said, “That’s all right, then.” He nodded his head. “You can go up.”
Hoffner remained where he was and slowly placed the badge in his pocket. “Thank you, Herr Sergeant,” he said. “You’ve been very helpful.” Hoffner then turned and headed up the stairs. Behind him, he heard the first murmurs of conversation reclaim the hall. Hoffner wondered if it would always be this easy to back these men down.
First Staff Captain Pabst was in his office-a converted hotel room overlooking the Gardens-having a smoke with two of his officers when Hoffner appeared at the door. At least here there was a bit more decorum. A young lieutenant was seated in the hallway. He announced Hoffner and then stepped aside.
Pabst was buttoning his tunic when he invited Hoffner in. He was all cheekbones and charm as he motioned to a chair. “Please, Herr Oberkommissar.” He turned to the two other men. “That will be all, gentlemen.”
The officers snapped their heads sharply and then moved past Hoffner. Pabst waited behind his desk.
“I hope I’m not interrupting, Herr Kapitn?” Hoffner began as he sat.
“Not at all. Cigarette, Herr Oberkommissar?” Pabst kept his private cache in a silver holder, which he now pulled from his pocket. Hoffner declined. “A Kripo chief inspector,” said Pabst. “What can possibly be of interest to you here?” He placed the cigarette in his mouth and lit up.
“Routine questions, Herr Kapitn. A formality, really. About the Liebknecht and Luxemburg killings.”
Pabst showed a moment’s recognition before the bland smile returned. He nodded knowingly. “Oh yes, of course,” he answered as if he were talking about a soldier’s missed curfew. “Someone seems to think some of my men were involved, is that right?”
Hoffner found the indifference almost believable. “There was an article, Herr Kapitn. Accusations. We simply have to follow them up, that’s all.”
“Naturally. But, correct me if I’m wrong, Herr Oberkommissar, anything untoward would fall under military jurisdiction? That is right, isn’t it?”
Hoffner wondered if the phrase was printed in some training manual somewhere. He also saw how Pabst had chosen his words carefully: not “wrongdoing” or “criminal activity,” but “anything untoward.” Pabst was setting the tone. “These were very public figures, Herr Kapitn. It’s more about information. How the army deals with its own is not our concern.”
Hoffner was pleased with himself for this turn of phrase, not that he knew what it meant. Luckily, it seemed to be having the same effect on Pabst: mild confusion left him with no real response. “Naturally,” said Pabst, his smile less convincing.
Hoffner spoke directly: “Could you then describe the events of January fifteen?”
Pabst lingered with his cigarette. “Of course,” he said. He let out a long stream of smoke and began to recount a story that both of them already knew: the arrest in the Wilmersdorf flat, Liebknecht and Luxemburg brought to the hotel, interrogation, identification. Pabst finished by saying, “I then had them sent to the civilian prison at Moabit. We were directed to bring all the captured leaders of the revolt to Moabit.”
Hoffner had been writing in his notebook. He looked up and said, “There was some question as to the transport, Herr Kapitn.”
“I wouldn’t know about that, Herr Oberkommissar.”
“But they were your men?”
“Yes.”
“So you would have been given a full report on the unit’s activities. That is right, isn’t it?”
Hoffner was hoping for more of a crack in the expression, but Pabst was better at this than the men he commanded. “Liebknecht was shot while trying to escape, if that’s what you mean.”
“And Luxemburg?”
Pabst took his time crushing out his cigarette. “You seem to need it from the horse’s mouth, don’t you, Herr Oberkommissar?” And without waiting for Hoffner to respond, he lifted the receiver of the telephone. “Send in Leutnant Pflugk-Hartung. Thank you.” This was not a name Jogiches had mentioned. Pabst looked across the desk as he hung up. “The man who led the unit, Herr Oberkommissar.” Jogiches had assigned that role to a Lieutenant Vogel, although he had kept the information out of his article: only Pabst and Runge had made it to press. Before Hoffner could answer, Pabst was raising a hand to the door and ushering the man in. “Come in, Leutnant.” It was as if Pflugk-Hartung had been waiting in the wings.
The young lieutenant was the perfect specimen of Teutonic breeding: white-blond hair and piercing blue eyes stood at strict attention by the desk. He was a far cry from the slovenly mess Hoffner had left on the first floor. Looks, however, were deceiving. The moment Pflugk-Hartung opened his mouth, it was clear why he had been relegated to the Schtzen-Division. This was not a bright man.
“Liebknecht showed himself to be the dog that he was,” said Pflugk-Hartung. “It was a pleasure to shoot him when he ran like a coward.”
The fact that Pabst had brought him in as his trump card spoke volumes about the Herr Kapitn, as well.
“And Frau Luxemburg?” said Hoffner.
Hoffner could see the wheels spinning; he also noticed how Pabst was gazing up at the man, like a tutor waiting to hear the recitation they had just gone over. Evidently, Hoffner’s time on the first floor had not been all fun and games; it had given the second floor time to prepare.
Pflugk-Hartung said, “She was taken by a mob. I don’t know what happened after that.”
Hoffner said, “A mob was able to steal her away from a crack unit of the Cavalry Guards? That must have been quite a mob, Herr Leutnant.”
Pabst cut in before Pflugk-Hartung could answer. “It was the revolution, Herr Oberkommissar. The streets were madness. After all, there were only six of my men.”
And there it was, thought Hoffner. The first real detail. Pabst might have been far more self-controlled than his men, but he was no less arrogant, and that arrogance was about to be his undoing. “Six men for two prisoners?” said Hoffner. “That seems a bit sparse, Herr Kapitn.” He gave Pabst no time to respond; instead, he turned to Pflugk-Hartung and said, “Were you surprised that you were given only five men, Herr Leutnant, even for a dog like Liebknecht-and Luxemburg, to boot?” Pabst began to answer, but Hoffner put up a quick hand as he continued to gaze at Pflugk-Hartung. “The horse’s mouth, Herr Kapitn,” he said. Pabst was smart enough to know that any further objection would only make things worse. Pflugk-Hartung stared straight ahead; he was clearly at a loss. Hoffner said, “Was a Leutnant Vogel a member of your unit?”
Pflugk-Hartung looked momentarily surprised; his eyes danced as he struggled to find an answer.
“I ask again,” said Hoffner. “Was a Leutnant Vogel a member of your unit?”
Pflugk-Hartung answered quickly. “Yes.”
“Yes?” said Hoffner with feigned surprise. “Two officers in a unit of six men? Was there a reason for that?” Again Pabst tried to interrupt, and again Hoffner politely held him at bay. “Unless there were two units of six men led by two different lieutenants? Would that have made more sense?” Pflugk-Hartung was now well out of his depth; he continued to stare ahead. “I’ll take that as a yes, Herr Leutnant.” Hoffner turned to Pabst and spoke quickly. “You sent Liebknecht and Luxemburg to Moabit separately, didn’t you, Herr Kapitn? Two prisoners taken from the same flat at the same time, questioned at the same time, identified at the same time, yet transported to the civilian prison one by one. Who gave the orders to separate them?”
Pabst stared coldly across the desk. This was not the way things had been laid out. He was about to answer, when Pflugk-Hartung blurted out, “Herr Leutnant Vogel was delayed by the third prisoner.” The boy truly believed he was helping his Herr Kapitn. “It was therefore decided that my unit should leave at once.”
Hoffner gave Pabst no chance to answer. “A third prisoner?” said Hoffner.
This time, Pabst cut in quickly. “The Herr Leutnant is confusing the informant with a third prisoner. The man was brought in at the same time as Liebknecht and Luxemburg. There was no third prisoner.”
Hoffner watched the young lieutenant’s eyes. The boy had made a mistake, and he knew it. “I see,” said Hoffner. “And what was the delay?”
“What usually happens at those moments,” Pabst said coolly. “The informant was demanding more money. Herr Leutnant Vogel was resolving the situation.” Without looking up, Pabst said, “That will be all, Herr Leutnant.” Much relieved, Pflugk-Hartung clicked his heels and headed for the door. Pabst waited until he and Hoffner were alone before saying, “It was one more night in the revolution, Herr Oberkommissar.” The affable Pabst had returned. “Guns and mobs. What else do you expect with a Jew radical on the loose? I was lucky not to lose a man. Of course, I take full responsibility for any of the mishaps-the separation of the prisoners, the breakdown in discipline with the informant-but, as you said, that would be for a military tribunal to decide.”
Hoffner saw where this was going; there was no reason to press things further. “Of course,” he said.
Pabst stood. “Unfortunately, I have given you as much time as I can this afternoon. You’ll forgive me, Herr Oberkommissar.”
Hoffner stood. “You’ve been most kind, Herr Kapitn.”
Three minutes later, Hoffner was across from the Gardens and stepping up onto a tram. Jogiches had known about the separation of Liebknecht and Luxemburg; he had known about the third prisoner: Hoffner was certain of that. The question was, what was Jogiches protecting?
“What exactly were you doing at the Hotel Eden, interrogating a Captain Pabst?”
Kriminaldirektor Prager was standing by his window, shaking his head in disbelief. “I’ve just had a very nice telephone call from the Office of the General Staff, reminding me that Kripo jurisdiction doesn’t extend that far.” He stared across at Hoffner. “What are you doing, Nikolai?”
It was the most animated Hoffner had seen Prager in months. “Closing out a case, Herr Kriminaldirektor.”
Prager nodded skeptically. “Yes, I’m sure that’s what this is.” He moved back to his desk. “I don’t think you realize how tenuous things are right now. You might not care, but no one knows if this government is going to take, so while they’re deciding, the GS is being rather stingy with its allegiances. You don’t want to get on the wrong end of that, Nikolai.”
“You mean I don’t want this department to get on the wrong end of that.”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I mean.” Prager was making this very plain. “Whether you want to accept it or not, you’re a man with a very high profile at the moment. What you do reflects on all of us. So, next time, think about that before you go poking your nose around where it doesn’t belong.”
“And if it does belong?” Hoffner said it just so as to see a little gnawing on the inside of the cheek.
“Look, Nikolai”-Prager’s tone now far more conciliatory-“I’ve never told you how to run an investigation. I’m not going to start now. Just be aware of these things. There’s more at stake now.”
Hoffner wondered if the KD had been talking with Jogiches. He said nothing.
“By the way,” Prager added, “there’s talk that your young Fichte has been spending his time up on the fourth floor. Anything I should know?”
“I’ll keep an eye on it.”
It was all Prager wanted to hear. He found a few sheets on his desk and got back to work. Hoffner was left to show himself out.