The Ghosts of Altona

by Craig Russell

  ‘I know this sounds a weird question to ask, but what colour is her hair?’

  ‘Blonde. A touch lighter than mine. What the hell has that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Obsession. And whether Mortensen has an immunity to a particular strain of it.’

  ‘Jan, you know that I’m not one to be afraid to step on toes, but Professor Mortensen is a very important guy up here. A little international diplomacy would be appreciated.’

  ‘Of course, Karin. Do let me know if you find out which hotel he’ll be staying in.’

  46

  As he drove to Ochsenzoll, in the north of the city, Henk Hermann felt a little aggrieved that he had been doubly lumbered. He was out of the main cases – both the historical Krone inquiry and the current murders that could be related to the cold case. Instead he was stuck with the paperwork of the seniors’ home killing. And he had been saddled with nursemaiding the new guy, Sven Bruns.

  But he didn’t let his annoyance show. Henk Hermann was an easy-going, friendly type and, in any case, the new guy couldn’t help being the new guy. Henk reminded himself that it hadn’t been so very long ago that he’d been the new guy himself and Anna Wolff had been doing the nursemaiding. But it had been different back then: back then, Henk had been filling a dead man’s shoes.

  He had been stationed in Norderstedt, in the north of Hamburg. Because of old borders, Norderstedt, though considered a part of metropolitan Hamburg, didn’t fall under the jurisdiction of the Hamburg police. Therefore Henk had been a uniform commissar in the Polizei Schleswig-Holstein, not the Polizei Hamburg. That hadn’t prevented Fabel from recognizing Henk’s keen instincts and eye for detail, and he had recruited him directly into the Murder Commission. In one fell swoop, Henk’s every ambition had been fulfilled.

  It was only after he had joined the Commission that Henk realized he had been recruited as a replacement for Paul Lindemann, a long-standing member of the Commission team who had been shot and killed while on duty. Anna Wolff, who had been the dead police officer’s partner, had been openly resentful at the speed with which Fabel had replaced him. Henk hadn’t understood why Anna had given him such a hard time until he had seen a photograph of Lindemann and noticed there was a considerable physical similarity between them. For a while Henk had felt as if Anna and the others were all seeing Paul Lindemann’s ghost every time they looked at him. It had caused him to wonder, at the time and since, if his superficial similarity with Lindemann had played a part in Fabel’s decision to recruit him. After all, it was human nature to expect similar personalities in people who looked alike.

  As they made their way to the hospital, Henk made an effort to chat to Sven Bruns, but the lanky Frisian was quiet to the point of dour, and Henk eventually fell into silence too.

  Georg Schmidt was being kept in a secure psychiatric wing of the Klinik Nord in Ochsenzoll and Henk and Sven were kept waiting for some time before the consulting psychiatrist, a short, balding man carrying too much weight for his height, turned up. He introduced himself as Dr Gosau.

  ‘And why, exactly, do you want to interview my patient again?’ Gosau had a high-pitched, thin voice that seemed to emphasize his supercilious tone.

  ‘There’s a couple of things we’d like to clear up . . .’ Henk held up a plastic document folder as if in explanation. ‘A question or two we’d like to ask.’

  ‘Things you’d like to clear up?’ Gosau overdid the incredulity in his tone. ‘You do realize that Herr Schmidt is well beyond being able to clarify anything for himself, far less for you?’

  ‘I understand.’ Henk hid his dislike for the doctor behind a smile. ‘But I was led to believe that he had some periods of lucidity. It’s just that there is an inconsistency I don’t understand. If he could clear it up, then that would be great. If he can’t, then we’ll leave him alone. I do appreciate that Herr Schmidt is very ill, but he did kill a man and I’m trying to understand why.’

  ‘I cannot allow you to take advantage of his condition so that he incriminates himself.’

  ‘There’s no question of that, Herr Doctor,’ said Henk, keeping the smile locked in place. ‘We have more than enough evidence that Herr Schmidt committed the murder – but there’s no question of him ever facing trial for it. That’s not why we’re here.’ Henk held up the evidence bag he was carrying. In it was the notebook journal they had found hidden in Schmidt’s room at the Alte Mühle Seniors’ Home – locked away in a drawer that had been opened with the key they had found on a chain around the old man’s neck. ‘There’s something in here doesn’t make any sense. If there’s any chance of him explaining it, then I’d be grateful. If not, then we’ll have to chalk it up to a mystery.’

  Despite himself, Gosau looked intrigued.

  ‘And, of course, Herr Doctor,’ said Sven Bruns, ‘if you had the time to sit in on the interview, we’d really appreciate it. It means you can be assured your patient’s rights aren’t being compromised – and we would greatly value your professional insight.’

  While Gosau made a show of thinking over what he had said, Sven looked over to Henk and smiled. Maybe, thought Henk, Bruns was okay after all.

  ‘All right,’ said Gosau, ‘but if I say the interview is to end, it’s to end. Clear?’

  ‘Perfectly, Herr Doctor,’ said Henk, holding his hand out in an ‘after you’ gesture.

  There was a kind of day room at the far end of the ward and Gosau arranged for them not to be disturbed. It was on the third floor and above tree level, so the windows were large sheets of sky and the room was bright.

  Georg Schmidt was smaller than Henk imagined he would be. He had seen old photographs of the seniors’ home killer: one as a tall, athletic-looking youth with a shock of thick blond hair, one of Schmidt dressed in military uniform, another in his mid-sixties, the hair darkened, thinner and flecked with grey but the robustness and vigour of youth still lingering.

  The frail, small figure sitting uncertainly at the table seemed to be the time-eroded ruins of the man; the original architecture only just recognizable. The once-broad shoulders were slumped and bird-boned, the hair had thinned to a white web combed over the dome of his skull, and his skin was mottled with freckles and liver spots. The eyes that watched Henk and Sven guilelessly had retreated into their orbits and the cheeks were sunken. Georg Schmidt was by far the most unlikely murderer Henk had ever dealt with.

  Dr Gosau spoke to Schmidt first. Henk was surprised to see the arrogant veneer and superciliousness evaporate from the psychiatrist. He spoke quietly and soothingly to Schmidt, asking how he was today, if he could remember what he’d had for lunch, what day of the week it was. When he was finished, Gosau introduced Henk and Sven as ‘visitors’ and made no reference to their official capacity. But when he turned back to the policemen, his expression was warningly protective. Henk acknowledged Gosau’s look with a nod.

  ‘Herr Schmidt,’ he said as he and Sven sat down opposite the old man, ‘I’d like to ask you a few questions, if I may.’ Placing the plastic document folder on the table in front of him, Henk took out Schmidt’s diary and laid it on top of the folder. Schmidt looked at the leather-bound journal without any signs of recognition.

  ‘Do you remember when you were younger? Do you remember before the war?’

  Schmidt nodded.

  ‘You knew Helmut Wohlmann back then, didn’t you?’

  ‘Helmut?’ The dull eyes brightened a little. ‘Where is Helmut? We play chequers, you know.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Henk gently. ‘I do know. But can you remember Helmut before the war?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Schmidt. ‘He was my father’s apprentice. He lived with us for a while. He was like a big brother to me.’

  Henk nodded, taking a moment. He laid his hand on the diary. ‘Do you remember when the three of you stopped living together?’

  ‘Helmut moved out . . .’ Schmidt frowned, as if confirming the fact to himself. His expression hardened. ‘Yes, Helmut moved out. My father and I we
re anti-Nazis and Helmut joined the SA. So he had to move out, you see. There were lots of rows, arguments. My father said he couldn’t have him under the same roof.’

  ‘But you played – you play – chequers with Helmut.’

  ‘He is my friend. He was my father’s apprentice, you know. He lived with us. He was really like a big brother to me . . .’

  ‘Yes, you told me,’ said Henk without impatience, but Gosau shook his head in warning.

  ‘Tell me, Herr Schmidt, you were in the Wehrmacht, weren’t you, later in the war?’

  ‘Me? No. Because I was the son of a known communist, I was sent to a camp for a while, for “re-education”. Later I was conscripted into the merchant navy. But I was never a soldier. Never.’

  Henk nodded. ‘Can you remember what happened to your father?’

  ‘My father?’ Again there was a struggle to recall, then the old face set hard. ‘My father was murdered. By the Brownshirts. Or the Polizei Hamburg. Altona Bloody Sunday, nineteen thirty-two.’ Another frown, confused this time. ‘Helmut?’

  ‘Do you remember seeing Helmut Wohlmann that day?’

  ‘He was so proud – of his uniform, of marching with the others.’ Georg Schmidt smiled. ‘They jeered at him. The others in Altona. The Communists. Then, when they were in the heart of the Altonaer Altstadt, Helmut and the others took their belts off, wrapped them around their fists and used the buckles . . .’ Another confused frown.

  ‘Where were you?’ Sven Bruns asked. Schmidt looked at him as if startled by the question.

  ‘I was at home. My father told me to stay at home. So I did.’

  Henk laid his hand on the diary on the desk, thought for a moment, then smiled. ‘Thank you very much, Herr Schmidt. You’ve been very helpful. Dr Gosau, might we have a word with you?’

  Gosau nodded. ‘Let me get Herr Schmidt back to his room and you wait here. I’ll be back in a few moments.’

  Gosau led the bent-backed Schmidt out into the hall and into the care of an orderly.

  ‘What on earth was that all about?’ Gosau’s imperiousness was back in place when he returned to the day room. ‘If there was a point to these questions, it eluded me.’

  Henk nodded, his expression faintly sad. ‘I understand your confusion, Herr Doctor. Trust me, I do.’ He laid his hand flat on Schmidt’s notebook journal, which still sat on the table. ‘We have three narrators to the events and the motive that led up to the murder of Helmut Wohlmann. Unfortunately, all three narrators are unreliable and all three tell a different story. My problem is that all three also happen to be Georg Schmidt.’

  ‘Go on . . .’ Gosau sat down at the table, in the seat vacated by the elderly man.

  ‘We have Herr Schmidt’s current testimony, which is at best unreliable to the point that he can’t be held responsible for his actions in killing Herr Wohlmann. Then we have the diary he kept at the seniors’ home, which tells of the events of Altona Bloody Sunday and describes Schmidt witnessing Wohlmann murdering his father, presumably getting away with it because no Nazis were ultimately held responsible and Communist scapegoats were beheaded a year later for all the deaths that day. That’s the motive for the killing.’

  ‘And the third?’ asked Gosau.

  ‘The third is still unreliable, but less so than the other two.’ Henk opened up the document folder and took out a buff file. ‘This is Georg Schmidt’s personal record, which is full of gaps. But what it does tell us is the opposite story from the one we have just heard. Georg Schmidt’s father was murdered during Altona Bloody Sunday, all right, but not in the way he described and certainly not by Helmut Wohlmann. My guess is that it would most likely have been, like most of the deaths, the result of a carelessly fired police round.’

  ‘How can you be sure it wasn’t Helmut Wohlmann?’ asked Gosau.

  ‘Because I have Helmut Wohlmann’s personal record too. But let’s stick with Herr Schmidt for the moment . . .’ Henk took some photographs out of the buff file and laid them, as if dealing cards, in front of Gosau.

  ‘I don’t understand . . .’ said the doctor, picking up each picture in turn. ‘I thought he said he never fought in the war?’

  ‘He did. But it was Helmut Wohlmann who was sent to the concentration camp, then forced to serve in the merchant marine. It was Helmut Wohlmann who was the life-long anti-Nazi.’

  ‘But Schmidt’s father?’

  ‘Schmidt’s father turned him, not Wohlmann, out of the house for being a Nazi. Wohlmann was Schmidt senior’s apprentice all right, but also shared his political beliefs. Georg Schmidt was a bright kid, and his father had had hopes for him, but then it all went south.’

  Gosau laid the photographs out flat on the table once more: Georg Schmidt as a youth; in an SA uniform; in the last, he stood grinning with a group of friends leaning against a Kübelwagen jeep, an unidentified flat, empty landscape behind them. All of them, including Schmidt, were wearing SS uniforms.

  ‘Do you understand why I wanted to interview Schmidt again? I just can’t make any sense of the killing. And I wanted to see how much he believed the fiction in the diary. And it looks to me like he believes it totally, even if the detail changes all the time.’

  ‘This . . .’ Gosau pointed to the photographs. ‘Tell me about this.’

  ‘Helmut Wohlmann didn’t kill Schmidt’s father, that’s for sure. But it wasn’t Schmidt, either. There is a chance that he took part in the march, but he was only thirteen at the time and, although he was a big lad, he would have been a follower, not a member of the SA. Maybe he did witness his father’s death, I don’t know. The experience didn’t dampen his enthusiasm though. He was a member of the Deutsches Jungvolk, obviously without parental consent, then the Hitler Youth from age fourteen. Full indoctrination. He just segued his way into the SA, then the SS. He fought in Russia and was arrested in Hamburg after the war, suspected of participating in war crimes. Like so many, there were huge gaps in his history and he had to be released without charge. He set up a bookstore after the war and kept his head down.’ Henk held up his hands in a ‘that’s it’ gesture. ‘I think you can understand my confusion.’

  Gosau thought for a moment. ‘And Helmut Wohlmann – his history is effectively the opposite.’

  ‘As far as I can see, yes. Working class, vehement anti-Nazi before the war, “inner exile” during, and lifelong SDP supporter after. Became a marine engineer, eventually. So why, in his diary, does Schmidt paint himself into Wohlmann’s picture?’

  ‘It’s not that surprising. Or uncommon. We are all revisionists when it comes to our personal histories, and I would think that Schmidt felt some collective responsibility for his father’s death. Being Wohlmann, and Wohlmann being him, would offer a much more attractive retrospective.’

  ‘But you’ve seen it,’ said Sven Bruns. ‘You’ve heard him yourself. He completely believes it.’

  ‘Again that doesn’t surprise me,’ said Gosau. ‘You clearly want my professional opinion. Well, it’s pretty straightforward: Georg Schmidt has for whatever reason – guilt, shame, desire for acceptance or simply fear of discovery – coveted his childhood friend’s blameless history. Maybe for years, for decades. But of course there was nothing he could do about it. You are who you are. But then they both end up in a seniors’ home together and the details of their previous lives have become loose and intermingled. Dementia condemns you to live in the now – a confusing now that sometimes feels more past tense than present. Our memories play us all false, at times. Georg Schmidt’s memories have become so malleable that he’s twisted them into a new shape.’

  ‘So there’s no truth in any of this?’ Henk held up the diary.

  ‘It’s all true, in its way. But objectively, of course, it’s not . . . Helmut Wohlmann was murdered for a passionately held motive that was true to Georg Schmidt but, sadly, to no one else. He died because of Schmidt’s desire to escape from one life into another.’

  47

  The day was undecided, trying out
different seasons in turn. Between the clouds, it was quite sunny, but fresh. After attending another session of the Club of the Living Dead, Fabel needed the light and the fresh air. Before starting the session, Dr Lorentz had informed them all that Ansgar, the former medical student with the brain tumour, had suffered a major seizure that had effectively shut down all his functions and left him paralyzed, blind, probably deaf and certainly cognitively compromised. In keeping with the instructions Ansgar had given covering such a situation, no heroic measures had been taken; nourishment and hydration had been discontinued.

  ‘He would have drifted away peacefully,’ Lorentz had explained. ‘But it is no less tragic because of it. Such a waste of a young life.’

  The rest of the session had been a subdued experience, with the absence of one of their number filling everyone’s thoughts and a single empty chair dominating the room.

  After the session, Fabel felt the need to take a few minutes for himself. It was something that he had tried to do every day in the two years after the shooting.

  Throughout the months of recuperation that followed Fabel’s near-fatal wounding, he had felt imprisoned by the well-intentioned company of others. There was always someone with him: first it was doctors, nurses, specialists; then therapists of all kinds; then, when he returned home, Susanne had taken compassionate leave to tend to Fabel, and there had been a constant stream of visitors and well-wishers. He had been ashamed of his hidden ingratitude, the fact that he had felt stifled, smothered by their relentless goodwill.

  He had said nothing but, ever since, he set aside a few minutes each day just to be alone.

  When Fabel had moved in with Susanne four years before, he had given up his apartment in Pöseldorf. That too had been a reluctant surrender of solitude, and he had missed the bars and cafés in the area; but, he had to admit, Altona had grown on him. It had a completely different atmosphere and feel, but that somehow had suited him. After the shooting, as soon as he had been free to spend some time alone, he had found this small, unpretentious café near Ottenser Marktplatz. It was the kind of place that served its immediate neighbourhood and not somewhere passers-through or tourists would have call to visit. It was small, bright and clean without being sterile. An older man, whom Fabel guessed was Turkish-German, ran it most days and was friendly and chatty without being inquisitive, which suited Fabel perfectly. He guessed that the owner, and his pretty daughter who sometimes worked with him, would have noticed Fabel to start with, but as he became a more frequent face, they would probably have assumed he lived or worked somewhere in the immediate vicinity. It was exactly what Fabel needed: here, like at the café at the Winterhuder Fährhaus, he was just the anonymous blond middle-aged guy in the English tailoring who drank his coffee by the window, idly watching the people and cars go by on Holländische Reihe.