“I went to see the kid today. He doesn’t particularly resemble his official father, as far as I can tell from photographs. And Kliensmann has been receiving, for many years, an excessively generous consultant’s salary from the Böllig firm, without having to provide any tangible services.”
“How nice for him.”
Kessler smiled, back in his balloon-man mode.
“This is how I figure it all hangs together: Barbara Böllig cheated on her freshly caught factory owner on that same wedding night, and she did it with Kollek. After the kid was born, it became evident that Friedrich Böllig couldn’t be his father, and it didn’t take Friedrich long to find out whose offspring it really was. So he kicked Kollek out and made the infant disappear, not wanting a daily reminder of his cuckoldry. He must have paid off Kollek. Then he paid, and kept on paying, Kliensmann a lot of money to have the child put away as a retarded person in that loony bin next door. It was just a coincidence that I ran into Kollek on my first visit here, as Henry, the friend of the family. It was only today, after something the business manager said, that I realized that Kollek and Henry had to be one and the same. He and Barbara Böllig had kept up their relationship all these years, and you helped them solve the problem that Friedrich Böllig’s continued existence was to them.”
Kessler raised his eyebrows.
“I helped them?”
I lit my next cigarette.
“Kollek reached the goal he had pursued for seventeen years. He had the lady, he had the factory, he had made it.”
I smiled at Kessler.
“And you thought, all the while, that he had killed Böllig for whatever you or your mysterious friend M. paid him to do it. Or that’s what you thought until I called you this afternoon.”
Kessler pricked up his ears at my mention of M. His eyes were tiny and alert.
“Not to belittle the results of your more or less,” he coughed discreetly, “accurate research—but what does all that have to do with me?”
He got up and strode through the room. He stopped next to Henry’s corpse and raised his index finger.
“All I’m concerned with is the fact that this man,” he touched the corpse with the tip of his shoe, “is the fifth man we were looking for.”
Like some petty criminal protesting his innocence, he spread out his arms. “I received a tip, and I drove here today. However, the suspect wanted to avoid arrest, and in order to prevent his escape I had to use my firearm. Unfortunately,” he clapped his hands above his head in a gesture of regret, “I slipped on that rug, and so the bullet, unfortunately, did not strike him in the leg, but in the chest.”
I looked at the corpse. “Unfortunately indeed. You plugged him right through the heart.”
“Yes, well.” He rubbed his hands and grinned provocatively. “That’s my story.”
Outside, night had fallen. I got up and switched on the light. Then I walked over to him.
“Maybe the magistrate would find your version quite acceptable. But—there is proof that Kollek was your undercover agent, not just some hoodlum you happened to shoot dead. Yesterday morning you were still bragging to me about your finely spun web of informers. Does it no longer exist?”
I stopped in front of him and looked into his eyes. He didn’t flinch this time, and whispered, “That may well be true. But except for you and me, no one knows anything about it, and I am a German Detective Superintendent, and you, Kayankaya, are just a Turkish alcoholic with a private investigator’s license. Don’t you see?”
I whipped out the Beretta and pushed it into his stomach. With my left, I grabbed his collar. “Don’t you see?”
Then I relieved him of his gun and let him go.
“You’re lucky. I really would like to remodel your face, but I still have to take you to the public prosecutor’s office. And La Böllig will come along too.”
I turned. “Where is she, anyway? Her limo is right there in front of the door …”
Kessler sat down and stretched his legs.
“Barbara Böllig has gone to a tea party. There’s a note.” He pointed at a shelf. I picked up the note and read it. “I’m at Scheigel’s for tea. She has smelled a rat. I’ll bring her to her senses. Later, BB.”
I rushed to the phone, whipped out my notebook, and dialed Scheigel’s number. No one answered. At that moment, Slibulsky toddled in and made a cheerful report. “That little guy was lying there, trembling like a fish. Boy, did he make tracks … I’ve never seen anyone so happy …”
“Shut up! Here!”
I tossed Kessler’s gun at him. He caught it in surprise.
“Keep an eye on him! If he tries to get away, shoot him in the legs!”
I looked at Kessler pointedly, Slibulsky opened his mouth, shook his head, and watched me go. Halfway down the drive, I had an idea. I ran back into the house, ignored their amazement, and got the phone book. What was her maiden name again? Kasz … Kasz … Kaszmarek. Nina Kaszmarek, Am Südhang number five. I dialed the number. It was busy.
“Kessler, give me your car keys!”
He pursed his lips. “Do I have to?”
I took two long steps and punched him in the jaw, twice. He tumbled to the floor. His keys in hand, I repeated my instructions to Slibulsky and ran to his car. I sped down the drive, across the factory grounds, and down the main street into town. I stopped at a tavern and asked for directions to Südhang. They were given to me with typical South Hessian deliberation, and I jumped back into the car. Südhang was in the outskirts of town, one of the less successful housing developments of the sixties: Tall yellow buildings with one- to three-room apartments, surrounded by narrow strips of lawn and a tidy children’s playground. There was a bicycle path, a picnic area shared by three buildings, an Edeka chain store, an ice-cream bar, a “Dogs Must Be Leashed” sign, and a wastebasket next to every lamp post.
I screeched to a halt in front of building number five, ran to the door, and slapped my palm on the buzzers. A faint voice came over the intercom.
“Who is it, please?”
“Public Emergency Force!”
“Oh my God my God!”
“A reactor at the Biblis nuclear power station is about to go critical in just a few minutes!”
“Oh I see!”
I waited for her to buzz me in. Instead she asked me, “Should I close my windows?”
I roared that she should let me in, first of all, and then I charged up the stairs like a madman, knowing it was too late.
5
“What a surprise.”
Nina Kaszmarek was wearing a black taffeta gown with a black lace collar, black high-heeled shoes, black silk stockings, and long black gloves. Her neck, arms, and ears were adorned with heavy gold jewelry. Her hair was carefully coiffed, her face was elegantly made up. Her eyes were shining; I couldn’t tell whether this was from alcohol or tears. Perhaps both. She opened the door wide.
“Do come in, and don’t mind my getup. This is my last evening here, so … I’m packing my things.”
I nodded and entered. She closed the door behind me and said, “Just come right in. I think I know why you’re here.”
The apartment was silent as a tomb. The small entrance hall was lit only by candlelight emanating from the main room. Two small doors led off the hall, probably to the kitchen and the bathroom. I entered the main room slowly. It was bigger than I had expected. Gigantic, overloaded bookshelves lined all four walls, interspersed only by the two windows. Twenty-odd candles, artfully distributed around the room, provided a warm yellow light. On a low table stood a magnificent steaming samovar, with two cups next to it. One of the cups was empty. The rest of the furnishings consisted of a small record player, records, a rocking chair, two heavy burgundy armchairs, and in the middle of the room, a white divan bed. One of Nina Scheigel’s Russian cigarettes crackled quietly in a marble ashtray. On the bed lay Barbara Böllig her hands folded over her midriff, staring at the ceiling. Candles to her right and left lit her face. I
t was a kind of wake.
“Quite a production.”
I went to Barbara Böllig. Her hand was ice-cold. I turned and asked, with a glance at the samovar, “Arsenic?”
Nina Scheigel retrieved her cigarette and sat down in one of the armchairs.
“Are you always such a Sherlock?”
“No. But I paid a visit to your friend Nikolai this morning, soon after you had left. He must have supplied you with the stuff. But why today? Why not five months ago?”
“I caught Fred last night, with the money. He told me everything before he took off.”
“How much did they pay him?”
“Fifty thousand. For going away forever.”
Not a whole lot, I thought. I surveyed the bookshelves.
“You sure had a lot to read here.”
“How else do you think I could have passed the time?”
I lit a cigarette. “You’re packing? Where are you going?”
“To the police.”
I turned to her abruptly and shouted, “Why, goddamn it—why did you do it?”
She gulped. “The story had to have an end. And not just any end, but exactly this one.”
She pointed across the room.
“This woman took Friedrich Böllig away from me. She did not let me come to his funeral. As I found out yesterday, she was an accomplice to his murder. All these years I have had to drown my thoughts and my grief in drink—and I should let her get away with all that scot free? I could not let that happen. This is my farewell party … my farewell to it all! A little dramatic, but I like it that way.”
She coughed.
“You’ll go to prison.”
She got up and walked to the window.
“You think this is better than a prison? It’s a cave filled with bad memories. How many years do I have left? Who will find me?”
“Did you spend a lot of time here?”
“A couple of hours every day. I used to read, write letters to the dead. Whatever old people do to pass the time.”
I brushed off this last with a wave of my hand. “What did Fred Scheigel tell you about the night of the murder?
They had fired him the day before. He was afraid to tell me, so he just went to his hut at the factory as always, but this time only to get drunk. When he heard the shots, he ran outside and found Friedrich. Dead. He must have sat there for a moment, because when he turned around, that Henry was standing behind him. Henry must have gotten rid of the gun. Otherwise, I’m sure, he would have shot Fred too. Then there was that explosion, Henry assured Fred that if he kept his mouth shut he would be given enough money to disappear from here forever. He only had to say that someone had knocked him down. Then Henry took off. A little later Barbara Böllig appeared, and when she too realized that Fred had seen something, she told him the same thing and promised him a lot of money.”
She shrugged, sighed.
“Fred didn’t particularly regret Friedrich Böllig’s death. Besides, he was glad of the chance to get away from her at long last, with the money he was offered. And the detective accepted his story without questioning it.”
“And the detective’s name was Kessler?”
She nodded. I clapped my hands.
“Genius! The guy’s a genius.”
Nina Scheigel looked puzzled. I didn’t go into that, but told her, “It was you, wasn’t it, who killed Otto Böllig back then? With arsenic. You thought that would make everything all right with Friedrich.”
She smiled.
“That’s so long ago. Who cares about it now?”
She was right. Ultimately, I didn’t give a damn. I paced back and forth and tried to clear my head.
“You’ve killed my only remaining witness. Henry’s gone.”
Once again she didn’t understand, and once again I let it ride. I cast a glance at the corpse. “I brought you a bottle of vodka from Nikolai.”
“You are a strange young man.”
“Why did you do it?” I asked, myself more than her. Then I said, a little too loudly, “I have to take you along now.”
She cleared her throat and asked, “May I ask you a favor?”
“Well?”
“Let me pack my suitcase and go to the police by myself. By myself, do you understand? I don’t want to be taken there.”
I nodded and walked to the door.
“You can run away, for all I care. It won’t make any difference.”
She laughed sadly.
“Where would I go? No, no. If you want to be nice to me, send the bottle to jail. There won’t be a whole lot of difference between drinking it there or here.”
I bit my lip.
“Farewell, Mrs. Kaszmarek.”
“ ‘Well’? Don’t poke fun at me, young man.”
In the candlelight, her face was that of a painted old alley cat. Her green eyes were smiling.
I pulled the door shut behind me and walked slowly down the stairs. Halfway down, other ladies living in the building came rushing out to ask me what I knew about the Biblis disaster. I just walked past them. In the street I turned my face up to the rain. The cold droplets felt good.
6
As we stood outside the door of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, I began to feel queasy. Kollek and Barbara Böllig were both dead, and if Kessler stuck to his story that he had had no idea about any of it, his calendar was my only piece of evidence. And that didn’t seem like a whole lot.
Kessler knew this. He gave me a threatening smile.
“Kayankaya—mark my words, you’ll regret beating me up.”
“I only regret that I didn’t snuff you.”
Slibulsky had preferred to stay in the car. He said he had met enough magistrates to last him a lifetime.
It was almost ten o’clock at night. Lübars had been reluctant to come to his office at such a late hour. I knew him well, and he rather liked me, whatever that was worth. He was a public prosecutor, first and foremost. As soon as I mentioned Kessler to him on the phone, he regretted that he had agreed to come.
Finally he arrived, his hair none too well combed, and not wearing a necktie. He was of average height, bloated, and red-faced. He greeted us, briefcase in one hand, a bunch of keys in the other. “Good evening—good evening, Mr. Kessler. Please excuse my getup. But I thought I was done for the day …”
Kessler laughed tolerantly.
“Right, right. I could think of more pleasant ways to spend an evening too, but …”
He cast a withering glance at me. We entered Lübars’s office. A handsome desk, two visitors’ chairs. While I planted myself in one of them, Kessler said, “Tell me, Mr. Lübars, how is your wife? I heard she was ill?”
At the word “ill” he looked at me and showed his teeth.
“Thank you, thank you, she is doing better. Please be seated.”
Kessler sat down in the chair facing me. Lübars slid behind his desk, put on his glasses, and folded his hands.
“I hope we can clear this up as quickly as possible. Both Mr. Kessler and I have had a strenuous day.” They nodded to each other.
I asked myself how much influence Kessler had in the system. Perhaps it was due to his friendship with “M”?
“Now then, Mr. Kayankaya, when you called you said that you would bring in a murder suspect.” He coughed discreetly, glanced at Kessler. “But surely that was some kind of joke?”
Kessler said, with an impassive expression, “Sometimes my young colleague tends to hyperbole. It does get him into a lot of trouble.” When he said “trouble,” he wasn’t looking at me, for a change, but at Lübars, whose smile was pained.
“Please tell me about your suspicions, Mr. Kayankaya.” Then he mustered his courage and said to Kessler, “There’s got to be something to it—otherwise you wouldn’t have volunteered to come, Mr. Kessler.”
The detective superintendent waved his hand in a gesture of magnanimity. He said, in a low, paternal voice, “I thought it would be best to get the matter cleared up o
nce and for all, in the presence of a higher authority. So the young colleague can return to the firm ground of reality.”
Lübars nodded and gave me a questioning look. I cleared my throat and tried to marshal my thoughts. I was in a lousy situation, and it didn’t help that I knew it. Three hours ago I had been sitting pretty, holding a trump card: Kollek. Now I had nothing but trash cards, and it was time to lay them on the table. To stave off defeat, I decided to start out by bluffing. “Kessler, you’ve lost this game, and you know it. And I would like to ask you to kindly keep your mouth shut, and give Mr. Lübars a chance to listen to me in peace and quiet.”
Kessler made an astonished face and looked at Lübars.
“Do I have to—”
“Please, Mr. Kayankaya, let’s hear it!”
Lübars was desperately moving things around on his desktop and avoiding both our eyes. The blotches on his face had turned a deeper red. I started my tale. I told him about Anastas, about the mysterious fifth man, the ice-cold widow, Schmidi, and so on, finishing with my theory of what had happened on the night of the murder.
Kessler sat in his chair looking cool, with a faint smile on his face, his head cocked to one side. Once in a while he scratched the back of his hand. Lübars seemed immersed in thought. Only his eyes kept darting glances at Kessler and me. Now he came to attention. “So you are saying that five people participated in the plot?”
“Six, to be exact. What alerted me at first were the statements given by one of the camping couple, the woman, and by old Mrs. Böllig, who runs the refreshment concession of the plant. Both of them said they had heard shots, and they confirmed that the shots were fired at Böllig before the explosion. Against these statements, we had Barbara Böllig’s claim that her husband left the house only after the explosion. If one assumes that Kollek’s accomplices had no interest in snuffing Böllig, and that it was impossible for Kollek to sprint back to the house just before the explosion in order to take Böllig out into the factory grounds and shoot him there, only one possibility remains: Barbara Böllig herself lured her husband out of the house on some pretext, and shot and killed him in a spot close to that pipe.”
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