Engel examined the identification. ‘My mother said you might show up. Let’s go outside. I could use a break.’
Rath agreed and stowed his ID. On Dorotheenstrasse they were greeted by a chill wind. They walked alongside one another, hands in pockets. ‘Your mother mentioned my visit?’ he asked.
‘And your story about my father.’
‘What do you think?’
‘Can I imagine my father is still alive, or that he’s a spineless killer?’
‘You’re well briefed.’ Rath took his cigarette case from his coat and held it out. The two men strolled on, smoking as they went.
‘I’m glad I ran into you,’ Rath said. ‘It’s the semester break, isn’t it?’
‘You can study outside of lectures.’
‘But your… studies have little to do with the furniture business…’
‘Because I want nothing to do with it.’
‘Who will carry it into the fourth generation?’
‘My mother has taken care of all that. In times like these it falls to others to safeguard the store’s future.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m half-Jewish, Inspector, even if I’ve never set foot in a synagogue. Though that’s also true of many who count as “full Jews” in the eyes of the anti-Semites.’
‘So?’
‘What kind of future do you suppose a Jewish furniture business has in the new Germany?’
‘Come off it! What use is anti-Semitism to the Nazis now they’re in power? Things aren’t nearly as bad as people make out.’
‘I wish I shared your confidence. My mother certainly doesn’t. Why do you think she reverted to her maiden name? My father could have been baptised a hundred times, but as far as Bonn society’s concerned we’ll always be Jew upstarts.’ He gazed at Rath critically. ‘What is it you want?’
‘Anything you can tell me about your father.’
‘Inspector, I don’t know if I can help you. I was twelve when my mother told me Father wouldn’t be coming home. She never used words like dead or killed in action, but we knew, Edith and I. Like her we still hoped that one day he might return.’
‘And now?’
‘My father is dead. I can feel it.’
Rath took the police sketch from his pocket. ‘This man is almost certainly responsible for the murder of three ex-soldiers from your father’s unit.’
‘You think that’s my father? It looks nothing like him.’
‘It could do, if he survived a serious injury.’
‘Which he didn’t. We’re going around in circles.’
‘I’m a police officer and have to assume anything’s possible. There are some questions I need to ask you.’
‘Fine, but I tell you now, I won’t respond to speculation.’
Rath snapped open his notebook. ‘Do you know Achim von Roddeck?’
‘No.’
Rath made a tick. ‘Your father never mentioned the name?’
‘He never spoke about the war during his visits home. One day the visits stopped.’
‘But you recognise it.’
‘Only since he’s been dragging the Engel name through the mire.’
Rath made a second tick. ‘Did you threaten Roddeck to prevent him from publishing his war memoirs?’
‘As I’ve already said, I won’t respond to speculation. Especially not when it is so patently absurd. Am I a suspect?’
‘I’m afraid I must ask for your alibi.’ Rath said. ‘Where were you last Friday around midday?’
‘At my mother’s house in Bonn. It was her Saint’s day on the Tuesday, and I stayed on a few days.’
Rath made a note. ‘What about the ninth of March?’
‘I don’t know, Inspector. What day was that?’
‘Thursday.’
‘Library, probably.’
‘And the twenty-first and twenty-second of February? A Tuesday and a Wednesday.’
Engel shrugged. ‘I’d need to think about that. I can tell you I didn’t kill any war veterans.’
‘Let me know when you remember.’ Rath put his notepad away. ‘Best to provide details of a few witnesses while you’re at it.’
‘Of course, if there are any.’
‘Did you know any of the victims? Heinrich Wosniak, Linus Meifert, Hermann Wibeau?’
Engel shook his head. ‘They all served with my father, didn’t they? Like I said, my father never discussed the war at home.’
‘What about the names Friedrich Grimberg and Franz Thelen?’
Walther Engel looked surprised. ‘The driver?’
‘I thought your father never discussed the war. How do you know his driver’s name?’
‘His driver? More like one of my mother’s, from the store.’
‘You didn’t know he chauffeured your father during the war?’
Engel shook his head. ‘Mother will have. Maybe that’s why she hired him.’
‘Does Thelen still work for Engel Furniture?’
‘No, and he hasn’t for a long time. Why are you interested in him?’
‘He was there at the end, so to speak. Franz Thelen witnessed the explosion that buried your father.’
Walther Engel drew on his cigarette. After all these years, he was still preoccupied by his father’s fate.
70
It wasn’t so strange that people thought he was a cop, and he certainly did nothing to correct the assumption when it came up. Not that anyone came out with it in so many words, as if the term police were subject to an evil curse, which in these circles perhaps it was.
He didn’t have a photograph, but he was good at describing people. Maybe that was why they thought he was a cop. Then there was the reward, dangled in front of whoever he spoke to.
He’d got a good look at the brat at Bahnhof Zoo, each item of clothing she wore was burned on his brain. And that was how he described her too, never forgetting to add that this Hannah Singer was a dangerous lunatic.
They treated him with respect here, in a dive bar near the Volkspark Friedrichshain. The area was chosen deliberately; the Volkspark was where he and the other Crows had picked up Hannah, years ago, when she’d first tried to escape. The locals let him sip his beer and go about his business in peace. No one asked questions, just told him what they’d heard.
So far it was only rumours. A girl fitting Hannah’s description had been hanging around Kreuzberg and Neukölln. Others had information about her in Friedrichshain, but no one had actually seen her. He’d spent a day prowling the bars of Kreuzberg and Neukölln, but here, by the Volkspark, was where he’d made his base. People had to know where to find him.
Hunched over his beer, he kept his eyes open, which was how he spotted the youth. There was something determined, something excited about him, which set him apart. The youth whispered something to the owner, whom he seemed to know, but kept looking over in his direction. When the owner moved away the youth planted himself in front of him. ‘Heard you’re looking for someone?’
For days now he had been waiting. The youth was having trouble looking him in the eye, but that was normal. In fact it made things easier.
‘A lunatic from the asylum they say?’
Out of the corner of his eye, he realised his silence made the youth nervous.
‘Perhaps I can help you.’