The Murderer in Ruins (31 page)

They reached the end of the Ballindamm, but instead of turning on to the Jungfernstieg and walking further along the Inner Alster, they turned around and went back the way they came. They didn’t discuss it, but they could both see that there were hundreds of people walking along the Jungfernstieg, whereas the Ballindamm, with its abandoned wagons, was less crowded.

The other side of the street was emptier still, so they crossed the Lombardsbrücke Bridge separating the Inner and Outer Alster, which widened to become a lake, the shores lined with reeds. The caster-sugar white of the Atlantic Hotel was reflected in the film of water lying on top of the ice. Most of the houses just beyond the hotel had been bombed but the devastation ended a couple of hundred metres further on. To the north the greenery was sprinkled with villas, smaller than the grand establishments on the Inner Alster, but also more discreet, further back from the water and hidden behind trees and bushes: most of them had been commandeered by the British, who didn’t need to chop down the trees in their own gardens for firewood.

T
hey wander northwards, the sun sinking, its rays warm and golden. Exhausted and somewhat embarrassed, Stave stops. Anna von Veckinhausen now knows everything about him. But he knows next to nothing about her. She’s walked silently at his side, but he feels her silence was well meant.

They stop briefly behind the Atlantic, concealed from the villas and the street by a screen of thin branches, like a ripped curtain. It was getting near the curfew hour, and the few casual strollers who had chosen the same path were disappearing between the houses. The Alster was wide and empty.

‘Sorry for having rattled on like that,’ Stave says. ‘It’s not like me.’

‘Then it’s been my lucky day,’ she replies. ‘I enjoyed listening.’

‘I didn’t know what to say to you.’

‘When a man doesn’t know what to say to a women, he should kiss her.’

Stave thinks he’s misheard. But Anna von Veckinhausen puts both arms round his neck and pulls him towards her.

T
hey ended the day in a flophouse. Somebody had scribbled Hotel Pension Rudolf Prem on a wooden board above the door of the one house still standing between the Atlantic and the villa quarter. They were too hungry for each other’s bodies to make it all the way back to Stave’s apartment. The Nissen hut with internal partitions that were no more than bits of cloth was hardly an option. And they couldn’t afford the Atlantic.

Stave booked a room in the Pension Prem, throwing a few Reichsmarks down on the counter and signing in as Herr and Frau Schmidt, so obviously false that the elderly, half-blind landlord raisesd a sceptical eyebrow, mumbled something incomprehensible, but still handed them the key. The room was on the first floor, small but more or less clean, the interior glowing in the evening sun as if the windows were made of amber. They were in a hurry, slamming the door and locking it. They fell on to the narrow bed, starved of tenderness and intimacy. Only later, when the initial
hunger had been satisfied, did they become calmer, gentler, more inquisitive.

At some stage Stave held Anna in his arms, her body shining like alabaster in the moonlight, feeling her pulse, her breath on his chest, her warmth. We’re alive, he thought to himself. We’re alive again.

Stave ran a fingertip gently down the long curve of her back: ‘I still don’t know anything about you.’

She sighed, not so much exasperation as irony in her voice: ‘Are you still on duty, Chief Inspector?’

‘I’m not asking you as a policeman, but as a lover.’

Anna shook her head. ‘Give me time,’ she said, then kissed him. ‘We’ve both lost so much that we’ve almost nothing left to lose. But we have time, we have time enough.’

Stave reflected on her words. As a detective he had never enough time. He was always too late. That’s what the job was all about at the end of the day: something had to have happened before he was called in. Always pressure to make an arrest before it happened again. But did he have to live his whole life as if it were a case?

‘You’re right,’ he whispered to her, and suddenly felt as if a weight had slipped from his shoulders. ‘We have all the time in the world.’

T
hey crept out of the room after midnight, not wanting to be found together in the morning. The old porter was snoring behind the desk. Stave set the room key down quietly, next to the bell, then pushed open the door and they slipped out into the night.

Stave’s police ID meant he didn’t have to worry about the curfew. If a British patrol stopped him he could always say he was on a case. But could he offer Anna the same protection? Or would the British military police arrest her? It would be better not to test it. So he led her down the backstreets towards Eilbek. The moon lent the city a silvery sheen. Suddenly the cracked walls and empty windows took on the aura of ancient ruins. The vast expanses of ruins were transformed into a city of temples and forums, amphitheatres and palaces. The air was mild, but the cold stored in the ground still
seeped forth. Stave had draped his overcoat around Anna’s shoulders as they made their way, arms around one another, across narrow footpaths between remains of walls. Stave breathed in her aroma happily.

His son was alive. He had found new love. Winter was over. All of a sudden he felt as if he had been given a new beginning, a colossal, undeserved happiness at having got through it all. A happiness that almost overwhelmed him, that wanted to burst out of his body. He felt like singing and dancing like a lunatic, though in a silent city under curfew that might not be the cleverest thing to do. But the silence on the streets and the sheer exuberance flooding his soul inspired him to do something very different, albeit no less pleasurable. He stopped, pulled Anna towards him, and embraced her in a passionate kiss right there in the middle of the street.

When at last they dragged themselves apart, she smiled at him, surprised, breathless, but didn’t ask him why.

Eventually they reached the Nissen huts, standing there at the crossroads, black like the shells of giant tortoises. They hardly dared breathe as they crossed the last few metres, trying to make no noise. Only a few millimetres of tin separated them from hundreds of eyes and ears. At the door of her hut they kissed farewell. Stave scribbled his address on a page from his notebook and handed it to her.

‘I’ll come round tomorrow,’ Anna whispered. Then she slipped through the door silently and disappeared into the dark interior of the hut. Stave crept away until he was sure he was far enough from the row of barracks that nobody looking out of the windows would pay him any attention. Then he increased his pace and turned into the broad Wandsbek Strasse, almost running. He felt as if he was floating on air. Even his injured leg didn’t hurt any more. Alive, he cried. I’m alive again.

Then, from behind, he felt a thin wire thrown around his neck. And drawn tight.

S
tave choked, tried to scream. Struggled for breath, tried to break free and run. To no avail. He was trapped in a fearsome vice that was squeezing tight on his neck. Scenes from the autopsy table flashed before his eyes: a crushed windpipe, reddish-brown line around the thread. He lashed out blindly in panic, his fists flailing in the air, occasionally making contact at best with some cloth behind his back. He’s wearing a thick overcoat, Stave realised. The gun, in the holster underneath his own overcoat. But he had done it up after leaving the Nissen hut colony. He ripped at the buttons, but none of them came free. The choking sensation worsened by the second, his head was pounding as if it would explode, his legs were giving way. He fell to his knees. Any second now and I’m done for, he knew. He gave up trying to pull at the wire around his throat, began to flail behind him with his fists again. By now his attacker had to be standing above him – the perfect position. Stave’s blind thrashing got weaker, more spasmodic.

He needed something hard. The winter shoes, for his son, in his overcoat. He shoved his hand into the outer pocket, felt the hard soles, yanked the shoes out and whacked them hard behind him.

He heard a dull grunt. He’d hit his attacker’s knees, surprised him. The man stumbled, loosened his grip. Stave jumped up, throwing his weight in front of him. The wire cut into his throat, blood flowed down his collar – but the choking sensation lessened. He squeezed his left hand under the wire, pulled it further away. More blood, his hand was bleeding now. But he caught a breath of air, at long last. His right hand continued to flail behind him.

He tried to cry out, but managed only a squawk.

Breathe in. Lash out. Step backwards.

Then suddenly the attacker gave up. The pressure on his throat vanished. He could hear running footsteps, scattering stones.

A red mist descended over Stave’s eyes as he spun round, the wire still around his throat. He spotted a shape against the remains of a wall, tore at his coat with trembling hands. Damn, damn, damn. Then the cold steel of the gun. He pulled the FN22 from its holster.

The gunshot rang in his ears, echoed far and wide through the ruins. Another and another. Half blind and mad with rage, Stave emptied the magazine, firing in the direction of the figure he had glimpsed.

Silence.

The chief inspector collapsed to the ground in the moonlight, pulled the loop of wire from around his neck, took a deep breath. In, out, in. His heart was pounding, his hands trembling. But his brain was working.

The rubble murderer.

Stave pulled himself up, stumbled towards the spot between two remnants of walls, half his height, where he had last glimpsed the figure. There was a spot of something on the ground. Stave bent down. Blood. I hit him, he gloated. He looked around, but all he could see were two fields of ruins, a mess of rubble, steel beams, tangled cables, shards of glass, nothing resembling a pathway.

But there was another drop of blood.

He’s climbed over the rubble, Stave told himself. He followed the trail of blood, quietly cursing his wounded leg. He put the shoes back in his coat pocket, but kept the gun in his right hand. The magazine was empty, but the gun itself was a weapon, hard enough to smash down on somebody’s head. Two tiles gave way beneath his feet, clattering down the pile of rubble, sending up a cloud of cement dust. His eyes watered.

Behind the two ruined street blocks was the remains of a bombed house which would have housed three or four families, 30 metres high, all the external walls charred, the window openings empty, no
roof, no internal floors remaining. Just heaps of rubble. There was a sign next to the entrance where a door hung at an angle from just the upper hinge. ‘No entry. Liable to collapse.’

But the trail of blood led inside.

I’ve got you, Stave thought, wading carefully through the doorway into the burnt-out building.

Darkness. The moonlight came in only through the gaping windows. Everywhere there were shadows and pitch-black areas. Stave held his breath. Heard nothing.

Or then again? Steps, scraping, as if someone were dragging something along. A wounded leg? A heavy burden? The chief inspector listened out. Somewhere in this ruin, the murderer was on the move. Stave felt in his overcoat pocket for his torch. Not there. Today of all days, he hadn’t brought it with him. Because he didn’t think he would be finding any more bodies in the rubble, because at last it was spring, and the evenings were getting light. Damnably negligent. He looked around him trying to make out details in the darkness. The building had no roof, no internal walls. Where could his attacker hide? Think. What do you know about the rubble murderer? He always hid his victims as deep as possible: a cellar, a bomb crater, the bottom of a lift shaft.

A cellar.

Stave ventured further in. The walls, towering above him, seemed to be trembling. It’s your imagination, he told himself. Don’t let yourself go crazy. He heard a cracking noise, somewhere amidst the piles of stone. Mortar fell to the ground behind his back. He heard a step, a second, then more. Somewhere towards the centre of the ruin. More steps, coming closer this time. He raised the gun.

There. A staircase. Leading down to the cellar. Everything above ground had been bombed to pieces. But the stairs, half hidden under the rubble, led down. The cellar might be undamaged. Now Stave thought he could hear someone breathing heavily, wheezing. Someone in pain, wounded.

Pitch darkness. Stave used his left hand to feel his way forwards,
the FN22 still raised in his right. A corridor. Narrow, but possibly very long. He could feel a draught, could taste cement dust on his lips, splinters of wood. He reached out with his hand and felt: a support pillar, wedged in between the ground and the ceiling, an emergency support from the bombing raids. Slave workers were sent in by the local
Gauleiter
after the ‘All Clear’ was sounded to prop up cellars and walls with wooden beams. The idea was to keep larger ruins from collapsing so that the rubble could be cleared and allow access for the fire service.

He edged forwards a few paces further. The corridor took a turn. He could see light up ahead: a hole in the ceiling where silvery moonlight fell through on to the ground. And on the ground he glimpsed a figure, curled up in pain.

Lothar Maschke/Hans Herthge.

Stave moved towards him, cautiously. The man who had once been his colleague was lying on his side, his right hand pressed against his stomach. Blood was oozing between his fingers, spreading out over the tiled floor like oil. His left hand clenched the dust. His legs trembled.

A shot to the stomach, Stave told himself. He must be suffering like hell. He’ll die. The chief inspector came closer, bent down carefully, still holding his gun in his hand.

Herthge’s face glistened with sweat. His eyes were open wide.

‘Can you hear me?’ Stave asked.

‘You won’t give me any peace, will you?’ Herthge wheezed between his teeth. ‘You want to watch me croak.’

‘It’s not a pretty sight,’ Stave replied. He had no sympathy for the murderer. In fact he was still afraid of him, even now, seeing him lying there in his own blood. Perhaps he hated him too, though Stave tried not to think about that. Professional curiosity came first: find out all he could about the killings, before it’s too late.

‘Tell me what I need to know,’ he suggested to Herthge. ‘Then I’ll go, leave you here to die on your own. I’ll send a few of my colleagues, but for your sake, I’ll make sure they don’t get here until
after you’re dead. On the other hand, if you don’t talk to me now, I’m going to stay here and watch you die. Even if it takes hours.’

‘Best deal I’ve ever been offered,’ Herthge whispered, making a gruesome grimace.

‘How did you bump into Yvonne Delluc?’

‘I thought she was a streetwalker: young, well dressed, threw French words around,’ the dying man gasped. ‘She wasn’t in my files, so I stopped her and checked her out.’ He gasped for breath, beads of sweat glistening on his brow. ‘In fact she was only going out to deal on the black market, to hack something or other. I didn’t recognise her from Oradour. But she recognised me. Immediately began screaming at me, calling me a murderer and threatened to have me arrested. Happily she was only speaking French and nobody in the street understood.’

‘So you strangled her then and there.’

Herthge pressed his lips together. His face was so pale now that Stave feared he might die before he told him everything. ‘No,’ he groaned. ‘I didn’t know how she got here, and if there might be any others in Hamburg. I denied everything, told her that she was making a mistake. Eventually I managed to persuade her. Then I let her go, but followed her discreetly.’

‘As far as the Eilbek bunker.’

‘Then I knew where she lived and who she lived with. The next day, when I saw her heading out for the black market again, I dragged her into the ruins and strangled her. I stripped her so that nobody could identify her. I burnt her clothes later in my stove at home. You could have raided the black marketeers as often as you liked and still found nothing, Chief Inspector.’ Despite his agony, he grinned scornfully.

‘Then I drove back to the bunker, in the CID Mercedes. I borrowed it quite legitimately. Unfortunately only the other woman and the girl were there. It wasn’t difficult to invent a pretext to get them into the car. Then I tied them up, drove down a side street and silenced them forever. Just as I had with Yvonne Delluc. But
beforehand I had to beat the woman until she told me where the old man was. He’d gone looting in the ruins on the other side of the Alster.’

‘Why didn’t you hide the two bodies in the same place?’

‘I didn’t want them to be found too quickly,’ Herthge gasped. ‘I didn’t want to be disturbed for a couple of hours,’ he managed to say. ‘Then I went looking for the old man. It was getting dark by the time I found him. The rest was easy.’

‘Easy,’ Stave repeated with disgust. He thought for a moment, then asked, ‘Why did you try to kill me? You must have known that it was too late. Whether you killed me or not didn’t matter. They’ve put out a warrant for your arrest. Why didn’t you go into hiding?’

Herthge gave a mirthless laugh. His breath was failing. By now the blood had formed a large pool all around his body and was still oozing from between his fingers.

‘I wasn’t sure,’ he wheezed. ‘Only guessed you had me in your sights. I thought the only one who posed a threat to me was the other witness, that woman who caught a glimpse of me in Lappenbergs Allee.’

‘Anna von Veckinhausen.’

‘It wasn’t exactly hard to find out that it was her who had given you that bit of information. It was in the files. Wasn’t hard either to find out where she lived. I thought that if I got her out of the way, then there would be no more witnesses. I was lying in wait for her.’

‘Today?’

‘Yes. But she was never alone. As you know only too well.’

Stave imagined Herthge following them, to the Kunsthalle, along the Alster, to the flophouse where he had made love to Anna. Imagined him sneaking after them through the rubble. It made him feel sick. He had to make an effort not to kick the dying man.

‘And because you couldn’t get your hands on your real target, you went for me instead.’

‘I was angry that you’d got in the way. I wasn’t thinking straight. Everybody makes a mistake.’

Herthge’s breathing was fading fast. His legs no longer trembled. He was lying in a pool of blood.

‘I’m cold,’ he whispered.

‘Hell’s a cold place,’ Stave said, then got to his feet, turned around and left.

A
few hundred metres away, in an almost undamaged apartment block, lights glimmered behind boarded-up windows – candles, low-wattage light bulbs. Some of the windows were open. There was the sound of voices and gramophone music. Chief Inspector Frank Stave took one last look at the cellar where Herthge lay dying. He stood there for a long time, looking at the ruins, which in the merciful moonlight looked almost majestic. Then, in the shadow of a scarred and fractured wall, he limped away.