‘All these avenues, a man could get lost. I can’t imagine your commissioner will welcome the digression.’ Achim von Roddeck rose from his chair and stood ramrod straight, every inch the humourless Prussian. ‘I must ask you to leave,’ he said. ‘The gentlemen from the press mustn’t be kept waiting any longer.’
Rath stubbed out his cigarette, and stood up. His attempts to provoke the self-satisfied lieutenant had been an unqualified success.
‘This,’ he said, placing a Berlin Police envelope on the table, ‘is a summons. I would ask that you appear at police headquarters in good time on Friday, so that we can turn today’s chat into something a little more formal.’
60
Using her police identification would only prompt more questions down the line, and as for the name Weinert… no one would link it back to her. Charly posed as a journalist again.
She asked herself why she was flouting the rule book to investigate on Gereon’s behalf, indulging in the very high-handedness she always reproached him for, but thinking of Karin van Almsick, whom she had left moments before on the flimsiest of pretexts, she remembered that it was to avoid the deadly monotony of her job and feel like a police officer again.
Marlene de Graaf was resident at the Hotel Belvedere in Tiergarten, where she had made the acquaintance of Achim von Roddeck’s successor, Handsome Sigismund. Sitting opposite her, it was clear how she had acquired the name ‘Countess’: her whole bearing was aristocratic. Judging by her eyes she must be about forty, but seemed younger. Above all she looked like someone who knew what she wanted and how to go about getting it. Charly couldn’t help but admire her.
‘Achim von Roddeck…’ the Countess said, smoking through a gold-plated cigarette holder. ‘What’s so interesting about him?’
‘Well…’ Charly pulled out her reporter’s pad. ‘…he’s enjoying great success with his debut novel, and our paper would like to shed some light on the man behind the author.’
‘Which paper?’
‘Der Tag.’
‘You want me to help?’
‘I hear you were once… intimately acquainted.’
‘That’s not something I’d care to read in the paper. As for my name… I hope you understand what I’m saying, or perhaps I should get in touch with my lawyer?
‘Don’t worry, nothing we discuss will appear in any paper. This is just for background information. I want to get a picture of Achim von Roddeck the man.’
‘The man?’ Marlene gave a bitter laugh.
Before Charly could probe any further a key turned and a door creaked open. The noises came from the vestibule, as did a high-pitched voice. ‘Darling, I’m home!’ A blond youth poked his head through the door and smiled. Handsome Sigismund was at least twenty years younger than the Countess. Seeing Charly, he interrupted himself. ‘You have a visitor…’
‘This lady is a journalist.’
‘I just wanted to drop off the shopping,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in the lobby if you need me.’ He pulled the door shut.
‘Now it’s just us again…’ Charly said. ‘I get the feeling you’re not on especially good terms with Achim von Roddeck.’
‘You’re not wrong.’
‘Others describe him as being thoroughly charming.’
‘Only when he wants something. Underneath, he’s a depraved character. Don’t be taken in by the glamour and charm.’
‘As you were for two years.’
‘I’m not complaining. I was happy until I realised.’
‘You’re single?’
‘I don’t see what that has to do with your story.’
‘I’m just curious. Occupational hazard.’
‘Oh, where’s the harm? I’ve been a widow since October ’18. The war, just before it ended, saw fit to take my husband.’ She sounded as if she had made peace with her fate. ‘I swore that I would never remarry. I never wanted to feel such pain again and, thanks to my inheritance, there was no need. As for the rest…’ she gestured towards the door. ‘…there are other ways.’
‘Such as Achim von Roddeck. Did you love him?’
‘Probably, or at least I convinced myself that I did. Which amounts to the same thing. I was beyond disappointed when I found out he was using me.’
‘Don’t you always run the risk of being used when you buy men?’
‘As long as my plaything behaves like a plaything, and doesn’t pretend to love me, then both parties know where they stand and no one feels used.’
‘But with Achim von Roddeck you no longer knew…’
‘He claimed he loved me, even spoke of marriage. Until at some point I started dreaming of marriage again myself. Against my better judgement.’
‘But you were hurt again…’
Marlene de Graaf nodded. ‘It was a letter. I’m ashamed to tell you, usually I respect people’s private correspondence, and their privacy in general.’
‘What kind of letter?’
‘It was the letterhead… A communiqué from Krefeld District Court. What can I say? The letter contained details about his past.’
‘He’s from Krefeld?’
‘He certainly lived there for a few years. It seems Achim von Roddeck made a different woman exactly the same promises he was making me. Promises of marriage, which he never kept as it transpired three years and forty-five thousand marks down the line… The wretch!’
‘He’s a convicted marriage swindler? With a police record?’
‘He was never sentenced. The silly goose withdrew her statement when she came face-to-face with him in court. Proceedings were discontinued.’
‘But you had reached your own verdict?’
‘The letter might have confirmed his innocence, but my mind was made up.’
‘You took him to task…’
‘I threw him out. I didn’t want to see him, for him to bring me round. Seduce me, even. As you say, he can be incredibly charming.’
61
The court files arrived from Krefeld on Friday morning, leaving Rath just enough time to glance through them before meeting Roddeck. What Charly had uncovered was true: proceedings had been discontinued when Roddeck’s accuser refused to testify. It was hardly convincing. In the absence of an acquittal, the lieutenant’s reputation was tarnished by implication. A man like Roddeck would struggle to live with such a stain. Was that why he had moved to Berlin, where no one would give a damn? But… what if his past had caught up with him, and someone had tried to blackmail him? How would that fit with the murders?
He had spent almost all of Thursday reading Roddeck’s novel for a second time, comparing its account with the statement made by the demolition expert, Grimberg. The lieutenant left the reader in no doubt that Captain Engel had died at the hands of his own boobytrap, just as he was now equally convinced Engel had survived. Though the events of March 1917 formed the novel’s central episode, the account limped on through another year and a half of conflict.
The story did have a moral, if you could call it that, and Roddeck wasn’t shy in hammering it home: Jewish officers, whether baptised or not, have no place in the German army. Unbaptised Jews were precluded from joining the Prussian officer corps anyway, while Prussian Jews were obliged to enlist with the Bavarian army, as Bernhard Weiss had done.
Achim von Roddeck arrived at the Castle without a lawyer, but in the best of spirits, cracking a joke that made even Christel Temme laugh. Rath wondered how this man, whom he had disliked from the start, could have such an effect on women. Perhaps he should ask Charly.
‘Let’s get started, Inspector,’ Roddeck said. ‘Otherwise your charming stenographer will be bored to tears.’