The Killing of Emma Gross (17 page)

'So he told you he'd killed the Gross woman?' I said.

Frau Stausberg dropped the coffee pot lid. She bent at the hip to pick it up and I went over to help ease her upright.

'Would you like me to do that, Frau Stausberg?'

'It's not easy, young man.'

'No, I imagine not – '

'Don't interrupt me, please,' she snapped. 'It's not easy testifying against one's own son. But if it means he can go to a place where he'll be happier, where the people will understand him and his wants...' She gestured past me to the cracked window, her mind's eye seeing further even than that.

'Those damned children out there. Devils, more like. Of course, it's their parents' fault, really.' She swallowed a sob. 'All he wanted to do was join in their games, you see. But they didn't understand. They laughed, and made a game out of
him
, out of running away from him, teasing him.' The lines in her brow deepened and a single tear squeezed its way to her chin. 'They can be cruel, can't they?'

She left the room and I followed her into the kitchen across the way.

The kitchen was empty. Of people, at least. Of bric-a-brac it was chock full. The small circular table was crammed with spirit bottles, none of them empty but none of them full either. A series of open cupboards against the back wall revealed a stash of silverware, china and dusty glass. A clothes line stretched across the room. Amid the hanging bloomers and brassieres were a half-dozen dented cooking pots of some dull grey metal.

Frau Stausberg lit the stove beside the door. She spooned coffee grounds into the top of the pot. I held the top for her while she filled the bottom with water from the tap at the sink. She screwed the two halves together despite my protests that I could do it for her. She placed the coffee pot on the flame, led me to the table and pushed me onto a stool. She leaned against the table.

She swallowed a couple of times. Light from the tall kitchen window bleached her flesh.

'And now you come here with your questions, your suggestions that my son might be innocent.' A mouse ran along the skirting board on the other side of the room, but Frau Stausberg didn't notice. 'Can you imagine how unbearable it would be to testify against your own flesh and blood? To tell a court of law that he was capable of doing murder?'

I wanted to look away from those eyes but I didn't want to disrespect her so I shook my head instead.

She raised a shaking hand and said, 'And how much more unbearable if the testimony were untrue?' The coffee pot began to bubble and she got up and headed back to the stove. 'Now,' she said, 'do you take sugar?' She spooned sugar into a cup without waiting for my answer.

There was no way of avoiding all the questions I'd gone there to ask. 'During your visits, did Johann tell you who told him what to say in his confessions?'

She put down the sugar spoon with a clatter that cut me short.

'He has told me nothing of any consequence during any of my visits. As he has never said anything of consequence in all of his miserable life. Except for that terrible night two Februaries ago.' She poured coffee and handed me a cup. 'Now drink up, young man. I have to go shopping this afternoon, and I've left it late as it is.'

She didn't want to answer my questions. She probably didn't even want to think about her role in committing her only son to the asylum, and if anyone could understand her unwillingness to dredge up the past it was me. Besides, if I pushed any harder and she made a complaint to headquarters, it wouldn't go well for me. That was how I rationalised my being so eager to leave, anyway. So I just thanked her for the coffee and I drank it, undissolved sugar and all, and then I left her to her guilt.

The dark-haired woman from the downstairs kitchen met me at the foot of the stairs. Her forehead was creased and her eyes darted about, unable to settle.

'Is everything okay?' she said.

I looked back up the way I'd come.

'I don't think so,' I said.

'No, I meant she's not in any trouble, is she?'

'Is there some reason she should be?'

The woman scratched the back of her neck where some hairs had come loose. She moved closer. 'I saw a man. Hanging around, you know?'

'You know who he is?'

She shook her head.

'How long has this man been hanging around?'

'Since you arrived. About five, ten minutes after you. '

I took out my notebook. Seeing that, her shoulders relaxed. She scratched the back of her neck again.

'Tall?' I said. 'Short? Dark hair? Light?'

'Not sure on the height,' she said. 'He was stood across the way there so it's hard to tell.' She pointed at the front door of the apartment building opposite. The door was set into an alcove, further back from the road. 'And he was wearing a hat so I don't know about his hair colour.'

'Eye colour?'

She shook her head.

'Okay,' I said, 'what about the hat. What style?'

'Oh, a fedora. Dark green. Wearing it low, about here.' She touched her brows with her fingers in a kind of loose salute. She plucked her brows. That is, I noticed she was a woman who plucked her eyebrows on a regular basis. Either she wasn't very good at it or she'd done it in a hurry that morning, as there were a couple of beaded scabs in amongst the fine black hairs. The eyes beneath them were the colour of polished rosewood cabinets. She flashed me a smile and I remembered myself.

'Any other remarkable clothing?' I said.

'Well...' She thought about this. 'There is…He's wearing a scarf, you know, quite high up over his chin. I know it's been cold the last few days, but not so's you'd need a scarf, surely?' She chewed on her bottom lip. The lip was plump and deep red without any touch of make up. 'Or is it just me? Especially not with that big thick wool overcoat he was wearing.'

'What colour is this scarf?'

'It's a kind of dark green, to match his hat,' she said.

'What makes you think he's a threat to Frau Stausberg?'

'My daughter was due for her lunch. I came out front here to see if she was back yet and I saw this man just staring up at her window, standing there like a statue, you know? It was kind of unnerving. Then when I went over to ask him what he was doing, he almost ran off he was so quick getting away.' She leaned in. 'I worry about her. Up there on her own, you know? Like this is just what she needs, her son’s problems getting raked over. It's a bit of a coincidence, is what I was thinking, you coming around asking questions and this man coming around and staring up at her window like that. You know what I mean?'

'He left when you tried to speak to him?'

She nodded.

'When was this?'

'About five minutes ago. Ten maybe. A little before you came back down the stairs.'

Funny to think if I'd looked out the window a little longer maybe I'd have spotted him.

'I just thought I should tell you, you know...' She scratched the back of her neck.

'Well, I'm glad you did. May I have your name?'

'Name?' Her eyes widened. I got the feeling she didn't have much time for police officers.

'In case I need to come back for a statement.'

'Oh, it's Frau Wenders.'

Her fingers were devoid of jewellery.

'You don't wear a wedding ring, Frau Wenders?' I tried a smile on her.

'Not when I'm cooking, no. Is that a crime?' She thrust her wrists at me. 'Or are you looking for an excuse to slap on the cuffs?'

She walked away, leaving me feeling stupid and obvious. I glanced at my notes:

Fedora

Scarf

Wool overcoat

Dark green???

Interest in Frau Stausberg?

I toyed with going back upstairs to ask Frau Stausberg if she'd seen this green fedora wearer hanging around, or whether she'd received any threats. Or – I thought of Du Pont – hassle from the press. I could commiserate with her in the latter case, certainly. But I decided against it. I'd bothered her enough. And anyway, wasn't she supposed to be going shopping any minute? Either way, she wouldn't want to see me again and I couldn't face another basting from those washed-out eyes.

When I emerged into the street, the children had gone and, sure enough, there was no sign of any green man. I headed for the bus stop and caught the next omnibus for the train station. The bus had been about to pull away from the stop and I just made it in time. I huffed up to the top deck; I had half a mind to smoke and mull over what I'd discovered during my morning.

I needed to talk to Gennat, that was clear. Kürten had killed several people, but he hadn't killed Emma Gross. And – his mother's testimony notwithstanding – there was no way Johann Stausberg had done it. So Ritter had charged an innocent man with three murders and left Kürten to kill again. But worse than that, if neither Kürten nor Stausberg had killed Emma Gross, that meant her killer was still out there. My biggest problem was that I had nothing solid enough to counter Frau Stausberg's testimony, so how was I going to get Gennat to take me seriously – especially after he was done shitting me out for abandoning him all morning?

The conductor came by and hung on to the back of my seat. I turned and asked for a single ticket. Behind him, a flash of green. I leaned forward to look around the conductor, whose uniform struggled to contain his rotund form. Sure enough, there was a man in a green fedora and scarf, staring straight ahead and giving no sign he'd noticed my interest in him. That was a broad set of shoulders he had under his coat.

The conductor was speaking.

'I'm sorry?' I said.

'Two pfennigs,' the man repeated, rolling his eyes at me.

I rooted in my trousers pocket for change and handed it over. The conductor gave me a ticket and moved on. I faced the front of the bus. This was too strange. Was this green man following me? That would explain his turning up at Frau Stausberg's place around the same time as me. But that wouldn't explain his hanging around there before now. Of course, he could have followed me from the lodging house, picked up my trail there.

There was one way to be sure.

The next stop approached. There were a good few people in the queue. That was ideal. I got up and walked back to the stairs. The bus pulled to the kerb and I jumped off. I walked on for a few metres, then stopped to kneel down, undo my shoe laces and retie them. No green man reflected in the nearest shop window. Autos and carts trundled by and shoppers browsed the windows.

I stood up and gazed all about me. Still no green man.

Maybe I'd imagined it. Clearly brown eyes of a certain type could exert an undue influence on me.

Up ahead was an alley between tall apartment buildings. Maybe the green man had gone that way. I turned into the alley, my footsteps echoing in the narrow space: blank walls with no windows, no lines of drying clothes, no fire escapes. I walked to the other end and stopped where I had a view of the next street. The street was all residential with no shops to speak of, or none that I could see from where I was standing, at any rate. I put a cigar between my teeth and struck a match. Still no sign of any green man. Only thing was, even though I'd stopped walking, my footsteps kept echoing behind me.

I lit the cigar and puffed at it. The footsteps got louder until they were all I could hear.

The door to an apartment building down the street was open. I headed for it and entered the courtyard, clenching that cigar in my teeth so hard that my jaw ached. The footsteps behind me carried on, losing their echo but gaining in speed.

In the courtyard was a padlocked door to some kind of cellar or storage area. The door hung loose on its hinges, and the padlocked latch hung even looser. A good kick would bring it out of the wall, so I kicked it.

Those footsteps quickened to a run.

I kicked the latch again. It popped out of the brickwork and I pulled the door open. I ducked into the cellar. A flight of five concrete steps led down to the darkness. I descended and crouched by the side of the steps.

My pursuer entered the cellar, shuffling blindly one concrete step at a time. I pressed my burning cigar to the back of his ankle. He cried out, hopped on one foot and fell off the edge of the steps to the dusty floor.

I put the cigar back in my mouth. I dragged him up to his knees by his suit collar and pulled his loosened jacket down around his arms to restrict his movement. His scarf had disappeared.

'No, Tom, it's me! It's me!'

As always, it was the voice that did it. That and the beard and the workman's cap that tumbled from his head.

'Du Pont,' I hissed, cigar still clenched between my teeth, 'what the hell are you doing here?'

Du Pont shucked off his jacket, leaving it in my hands as he scrabbled further into the shadows in his shirt sleeves. I stood between him and the door. I could make out his split lip, maybe some bruising on his cheek, but it was too dark to see any other wounds I might've given him.

'I've been following you, Tom, what do you think?'